Part Two: Luck of the Draw

On the bridge of his flagship, Clench stood in front of a large, deck-to-ceiling observation window. The Decepticon commander watched calmly as dozens of starfighters launched from the Nightshade and swept down towards Cameron's vast wasteland of a moon. Thin lines of red light lanced out from the small vessels, slamming into a series of domelike structures on the moon's surface. The domes burst, allowing the precious atmosphere of the newly-settled lunar colony to escape. The fragile organic bodies of the civilian scientists who had established a camp on VsQs were sucked out along with the air. It was the second time in less than a decade that an attempt to survey the moon had ended in disaster.

Clench was blind to any such concerns, though. The Liege Centuro saw the small chunk of rock as a means to an end, no more.

Another world fallen under the sway of the Empire, such as it is. Useless on its' own, but a vital cog in Overlord's plans nonetheless.

Jetstorm's approach interrupted the commander's introspection. "My lord," the coordinator said, "Fearswoop reports that all of the fleshling encampments have been opened to vacuum."

"Excellent," the commander nodded. "I'm sure Windrazor will be proud to hear his underling performed so well in his stead."

Clench's tone was clearly irritated. The fleet's air commander had appointed minions to handle the aerospace segment of the assault in his stead, opting to remain behind at the staging area around Grand Central space station. He wasn't alone; Rage had likewise remained behind. They had both claimed that they needed the station's facilities to properly prepare their men for the pending operation in this system, but he suspected that they were more interested in trying to curry favour with Overlord in his absence.

Not that he thought the supreme commander was foolish enough to fall for such transparent one-upmanship. After all, he had chosen Clench as Jhiaxus' replacement for a reason. Not, as he knew Rage suspected, because his spawn-brother Colossus served as Overlord's advisor. No...he had chosen Clench because he was the only one of the candidates who had any vision beyond merely securing his position in the pecking order. Or so Clench told himself, anyway.

"Aye, sir," Jetstorm said with irritating neutrality. "As well, we have received reports from our field agents on Cameron, Pequod, Pz-zazz and Cheyne. I've taken the liberty of forwarding them to your private terminal for review."

"Good, good," Clench waved his hand dismissively. "That will be all."

The coordinator nodded and headed off, but Clench and only a few seconds of peace before another subordinate approached him. "My lord, may I have a moment?"

Clench turned to Deluge, nodding his assent.

"Sir," the science officer spoke mincingly, as was his habit. To his commander, it seemed like he was constantly terrified that someone would realize that a warship didn't really need a scientist and decide to kill him out of hand. "It occurs to me, sir, that the surveying work that the fleshlings have been doing on this moon may be of some use to us. If it pleases you, I would like permission to take a team down and extract all the data I can from their buffers for further study."

Clench's face was impassive. "Because it might be useful in the future," he said feelingly, obviously unconvinced by the scientist's reasoning.

"Uh...yes, sir." Deluge's expression became even more nervous.

"Deluge," the Decepticon leader's voice took on a cloying tone that he thought ingratiating. "You don't need to make up excuses to indulge your intellectual curiosity. If you're interested in studying the moon, then simply ask to study the moon. I'm not Lord Jhiaxus...I won't obliterate my subordinates for using resources on non-military expeditions."

The scientific advisor seemed perplexed, but after a moment he smiled. "Very well, sir. I'd like to take a team down to the moon's surface. We've detected some unique energy readings that I would like to investigate further."

"Feel free," Clench said. "As soon as Staxx and his assault teams have certified the place clear of fleshlings, I'll charter a shuttle for you. If you find anything of note, please let me know."

Deluge gave him a grateful look. "Thank you, Lord Clench."

As the scientist scampered off, the commander harrumphed, then turned and headed towards his ready room. It was time to see what his field agents on this system's three inhabited worlds had reported.

Jackpot sat on a rocky outcropping idly playing with an old 50-shanix credcoin, half-listening to Beachcomber and Hound as they tried to figure out which direction their little expedition should be heading.

Me, I'm still trying to figure out how I got here to begin with.

The black and orange Autobot hadn't originally been slated to take part in this insane trek up to the frozen northern regions of Earth. He'd been doing a groundside rotation at Autobase, monitoring the long-abandoned former Decepticon installation while Grapple and Chromedome gave a dozen hand-picked Blackrock Enterprises engineers a crash course in Cybertronian hazmat technology.

He'd been lazing around in the base's control room when the message came in from Pointblank, letting him know that the Steelhaven had picked up some strange readings in the Arctic that might be related to the new Earthforce's secondary objective: locating and securing three still-missing victims of the Ark crash a few years back. Of course, Jackpot had immediately called up the group of Autobots assigned to follow up on all crash-related leads.

But before they left, First Aid had insisted on doing a complete checkup on all six of the team members. Something had come up in one of Groove's scans and the ever-cautious doctor had held him back for further testing.

So they call me up, and I get to go trudging around in knee-deep snow looking for five year old corpses. Not exactly how I'd imagined my first field assignment going...

The young Autobot's thoughts were interrupted when one of his team-mates dropped down on the rock beside him.

"Not much for excitement, is it?"

Jackpot chuckled. "Not really, Camshaft."

"Such is the life of a scout," The matte grey Autobot shrugged. "Long hours of boredom punctuated by brief moments of pure terror."

"They say that about all kinds of military service," the younger soldier said.

"I suppose they do," Camshaft acknowledged. "But the difference is that I'm telling the truth, and everyone else you heard it from was lying." Jackpot barked a laugh, but the scout went right on talking. "I'm serious. You don't have time to be scared when you're in the middle of a firefight, or when you're busy welding a wounded soldier back together. You're too busy worrying about what you're doing to be afraid...if you're not, you end up getting killed pretty quick. But on scout duty, fear has time to set in. You don't get into firefights with the enemy. You hide from them, and when you're squeezed into a tiny crack of rock with enemies standing ten metres away...that's when the fear has time to set in."

To Jackpot, it sounded like the dull-coloured Autobot had spent far too much time contemplating such things. "Doesn't exactly sound like my tank of fuel," he said. "I'm more of an action sort of guy."

"We all were when we were your age," Camshaft told him. He sounded almost wistful.

From behind the pair of Autobots, Hound called out. "We've got a bearing, guys."

"We think," Beachcomber added.

"You're not sure?" This from Bumblebee. The small yellow Autobot didn't seem to be enjoying the arctic trek any more than Jackpot was, and his typical good humour was in short supply.

"All the crash debris around here is messing with our sensors," Beachcomber said. "It's hard to tell what's from a Transformer and what's our sensor beams bouncing off of little bits of the Ark's hull. But there's some promising readings coming from about twenty miles due east of here. Uh...we think, anyway."

Jackpot piped up, impatience clearly showing in his voice despite the Autobot's best efforts. "And if it's just another false alarm?"

"Then we'll keep looking," the laid-back Autobot said with a shrug. "We've got all the time in the world, after all."

That's what I'm afraid of, Jackpot grumbled silently.

Jazz, the last member of the team, hoisted himself to his feet theatrically. "Lets get going, guys."

"You're sure about this?"

Cosmos shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Yeah, Prowl. Pretty sure. I can't say for certain until Jetfire's gone over my sensor logs, of course. But it looks like at least one bunch of 'Con ships have moved on."

From his seat on the other side of the desk, Prowl answered with a frown. "You didn't detect any ion trails, though?"

"Not a one," the small, awkward Autobot said. "Wherever they've gone, they left at least a couple days before my last trip through the system."

The provisional leader's optics narrowed for a moment, and Cosmos suspected his was doing a calculation in his head. The recon specialist couldn't blame him; he'd gone over the numbers himself a half-dozen times on the trip back from Grand Central. Not that he needed to double- and triple-check his math, but it was a long trip back to Cybertron and he'd needed something to keep himself amused.

"They could be anywhere fifty light-years in any direction from the station," Prowl declared a moment later. Cosmos nodded; he had figured the same thing. "How many?" the strategist asked.

"About a dozen," Cosmos said. "Including the big warship. Not that...moon thing, though."

"Assuming they hadn't had any new arrivals since your previous visit."

"Yeah," Cosmos agreed. "And Primus only knows how many might have left in the four days it took me to get back here."

Prowl nodded mutely. After a few seconds, he asked, "How long until you're ready for another run?"

"Uh...about a day," Cosmos said. "I've got some maintenance scheduled with Hoist in the morning." Of course, he could have gotten his appointment pushed up if he'd asked. But he had a get-together scheduled with his fellow Minibots Warpath and Seaspray later in the day. After spending most of the last month in hyperspace, the spacefaring Autobot was starting to feel more than a little isolated, and he'd be damned if he was heading back on duty without at least saying 'hi' to his friends first.

"You want me to head back out there?"

The larger Autobot's frown grew slightly deeper, but he nodded. "As soon as you can," he said. "We need to know if there have been any more deployments in the interim. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Cosmos said, before gratefully retreating from the larger Autobot's presence.

As the door slid shut, Prowl slumped in his chair.

"It really never gets any easier, does it?"

But, of course, there was no one around who could answer that question.

Tracks drove down a pitted, cracked stretch of roadway that had once been known as the Embarcadero, one of his favourite cruising spots during his tour of duty on Earth. He was grumbling to himself, and much to the annoyance of his fellow Autobots he had decided to broadcast his gripes over their comlink frequency. "This road is murder on my shocks," he griped. "And all this ash is going to ruin my paintjob."

"Just be glad it's not stormy out right now," Overdrive's voice crackled over the comm. "The acid rain would peel your paint right off."

"Oh, that's just great," Tracks shot back before tuning his radio to a weather station in the hopes of getting today's forecast. He got nothing but static, though; the radioactive isotopes that still blanketed the ruined city were more than enough to squelch conventional human transmissions. "Thank you so much for dragging me out here, guys."

"You said you liked it here," Overdrive reminded him.

"No, I said I used to like it here," Tracks corrected him. "San Francisco was a beautiful city before Jhiaxus decided to atomize it. On a hot summer's day you could drive down this road and see dozens of ships sailing through the Bay and thousands of humans walking along Broadway Pier. Everyone would stop and admire my paintjob, and I'd have a grand old time." The Autobot made a very uncharacteristic snarling noise. "Now the Bay is some sick green colour, the sailboats and piers are in pieces at the bottom of the sea and all that's left of the admiring humans is this nasty ash that seems to stick everywhere. So forgive me if I'm less than happy to be here!"

A new voice came over the channel before Overdrive could respond. "Put a clamp on it, both of you," Streetwise said sharply. "If I wanted to hear petty bickering, I would have stayed on the Steelhaven with Pointblank and Hubcap." The two Autobots, who were the only crew permanently assigned to shipboard duty now that Earthforce had secured a base of operations on Earth, had been fighting like an old human couple since day one. Everyone else seemed to find it highly amusing, especially Chromedome.

"You're the sheriff," Overdrive replied. Tracks knew that the thinly-veiled sarcasm in the arrogant Autobot's voice wouldn't escape Streetwise's notice, but Earthforce's security chief wisely decided not to rise to the bait.

"I take it you haven't seen what we're looking for," the Protectobot asked instead.

"Nope," Tracks told him. "All clear here. Well, as clear as this place ever gets nowadays."

Overdrive, as was his wont when reporting failure, simply remained silent.

Downshift, the last member of their squad, was a bit less reticent. "Nothing yet," the security agent said. "But they're here. I can feel it."

"Keep looking," Streetwise told them.

Jackpot sighed heavily. The sextet of Autobots had been following the readings that Beachcomber and Hound had detected for the better part of a day with no success. Twenty miles had turned into over two hundred, trudged over at a snail's pace so that Hound and Beachcomber could continually refine their sensor readings. They were now drawing close to the large body of water that the locals called Great Bear Lake, and they were still no closer to finding what they'd come for.

"Admit it," he said to the military-green scout. "You don't know where we're going."

Hound shook his head. "Actually, I know exactly where we're going. I just don't know how to get there."

"Huh?"

"Take a look." Hound's hologram gun swivelled around and projected a 3-D topographical display of the area in the other Autobot's direction. On the lower segment of the map, a fair distance below the surface, two red dots glowed. "We've got to get down there."

"Do we, now?" Jackpot frowned at the display for a while longer, then shrugged. Taking a moment to scan the horizon, he said, "Beautiful place, this."

"It is," Hound admitted, a slight smile curving his mouth. He gestured towards the lake. "Especially the water." The scout sighed. "I don't get up here often enough."

"I like it too," Jackpot smiled. "Not looking forward to the swim, though."

Now it was Hound's turn to frown. "What makes you think we're going swimming?"

"Oh, just a feeling," he said. "We've been headed straight for the lake for almost a day...only makes sense that's were we're going, right?"

The other Autobot was sceptical. "How do you figure that?"

Jackpot wasn't quite sure about that himself. All he knew what that he had a hunch about it...and his hunches were invariably accurate. The young Autobot found it a little creepy, and he didn't like to talk about it. It had served him well in the past, though, and he'd always been able to pass it off as simple good luck...so far, anyway.

He didn't say any of that to Hound, though. He just gave him a cocky grin. "Trust me."

Drench sat quietly at a table in Grand Central's newly-refurbished mess hall, slowly nursing a glass of energon. A casual observer would think he was lost in thought, but a closer look would tell them that he was actually watching the room's bar closely.

The coordinator was the only member of Clench's personal staff who had remained behind when the Nightshade had gone on to VsQs. Nominally, he had stayed back to coordinate with Overlord in his master's place. But he was really here to keep an optic sensor on the pair of Decepticons who were seated at one end of the bar, far from any other troops.

Like usual, the mess hall was filled with hundreds of Transformers, both green-and-white front-line troopers and more unique-looking officers and support staff. Their collective noise made it an act of futility to try and listen in on a conversation ten metres away, let alone a couple hundred.

That wasn't a problem for Drench, though. He'd quietly bribed the room's maintenance staff to place a listening device under the bar close to the pair's favourite spot, and even now it was streaming the conversation's audio straight to his comlink.

"I don't understand why you have such a problem with Clench." Skyjack's voice, as professionally noncommittal as usual. "He's a bit...oily, sure. But he seems competent enough."

"Have you ever read his service record?" Rage this time, his voice tinged with his namesake as always. There was a pause, just long enough for the spy to shake his head. "It's fascinating reading. Especially the part about how he's never logged one single confirmed kill in combat."

"That's interesting," Skyjack replied impassively.

"It is, isn't it?" Rage's voice grew colder. "He's been with the Empire since its founding. He's served on countless assault missions to hundreds of far-flung worlds. But he's never had to raise his hand against an enemy. He might be a good manager, but he's no warrior."

"And yet Overlord chose him over you," Skyjack noted with his trademark opaqueness.

"So he did," Rage admitted. "And not just me, either. There are dozens of officers in the fleet qualified to lead us. Clench, however, is not one of them. There's a reason why Jhiaxus never promoted him past captaincy of the Nightshade, why he wouldn't..."

The ground assault commander stopped suddenly, at a gesture from Skyjack. "What?"

Skyjack held a small device up in his clawed right hand. "This."

Drench's fuel pump froze as he realized the spy was holding his listening device.

The coordinator rose from his seat and headed for the door with as much poise as he could muster. As he walked, he reflected on the difficulty of this assignment; spying on a spy was a task fraught with danger, but a necessary one. When your most talented espionage agent is consorting with your commander's sworn rival, you can't simply ignore things and hope they turn out for the best. That would be hopelessly inept, and the Empire didn't promote inept officers...no matter what Rage might have thought.

He was almost to the door when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder like a vice.

"Going somewhere?"

Drench didn't need to look back to know who had accosted him. The fury boiling just under the surface of the words was more than enough identification.

The coordinator managed to free himself and turn around anyway. "Yes. Some of us have duties to attend to."

"Oh, by all means," Rage said sarcastically. "Scamper back to your master and tell him all you heard. It's nothing he doesn't know already."

"I don't know what-" Drench's denial was cut short when the stormtrooper leader punched him in the face. He fell to the ground, then crawled backwards for a few seconds before realizing how undignified he looked. Grabbing onto the edge of a table, he pulled himself up.

"That was a very bad idea, Rage. Assaulting a superior officer is-" This time the fist slammed into his midriff, doubling the coordinator over.

"You are not my superior," Rage said, the directionless wrath in his voice having congealed into an icy tempest that promised doom to anyone who got in its way. "The majestic and exalted Clench might outrank me, but you are just his errand boy. Now scurry along...unless you want to leave here flat on your back?"

Drench did his best to straighten, but could only manage to get half-way. "How dare you? I-"

Rage snarled, then grabbed the coordinator by the neck and hoisted him into the air. When their faces were millimetres apart, the ill-tempered Cybertronian whispered, "Tell your master he can come settle his problems with me personally next time. That's how real Decepticons do things. The next time he sends a pawn out to harass me, I'll return him in a thousand small pieces. Got that?"

Raising Drench up higher, he bellowed, "Now get out!"

Before the coordinator could respond, Rage hurled him through the (thankfully) open door. He landed roughly on his back in the corridor outside. Inside the mess, he could hear more than a few Cybertronians breaking out in applause.

You'll pay for this indignity, Drench thought as he collected himself and stalked off down the hall. You'll pay dearly for it. Both of you.

Jackpot plodded along the bottom of the lake with a scowl on his face, following Bumblebee's lead.

Why do I always have to be right about things like this?

The other Autobots had been sceptical when Jackpot had told them that they might be able to get to their goal via an underwater entrance, but the small yellow Autobot had volunteered to go for a swim and check things out. He'd found out in short order that Jackpot's guess was spot on, as usual. At the very least, there was an impressive tunnel system that could be accessed from the lakebed. Whether it met up with the tunnels that the two Transformer signals could be found in was still up for debate, but just finding the caverns had been enough to win a 50-shanix wager the younger Autobot had placed with Jazz while they had been waiting.

Seeing the baffled look on the special ops whiz's face as he rifled through his subspace pocket for spare change had almost been enough to make the entire icy trek worthwhile. That was before the entire team had been forced to go into the ice-cold lake, though. After that, he'd decided that no amount of money was compensation enough for this madness. (Not that that had stopped him from laying a bet with Camshaft that one of the two signals they'd picked up was their missing Autobot, Ratchet.)

I'm stuck here anyway...might as well make some cash off of it...

After fifteen minutes of half-walking, half-swimming along the lakebed, the six Autobots finally made their way to the small crevasse that provided entry into the caverns that Bumblebee had discovered. The chain of tunnels had a slight upward slope to it, and after a hundred metres or so the Autobots gladly left the icy water behind them.

Now that the crash debris was above rather than between the Autobots and the signals they had detected, Hound and Beachcomber were able to track the two signals with surprising ease. They guided the party through a labyrinth of frozen grottos, fissures and caverns for nearly an hour before they encountered their first problem.

Standing at a fork in the path they'd been following, Beachcomber shook his head. "No doubt about it, dudes. One of the signals is coming from down the left-hand path, not too far off. The other is down the right tunnel, a bit farther down."

"Let's split up, then," Bumblebee said.

"I'm not sure that's a great idea," Camshaft countered with his customary wariness.

"There's nothing down here we can't handle," the smaller Autobot said. "Whoever or whatever these signals are going to lead us to, they're not going to be in any shape to cause us trouble. Not after so many years."

Jackpot, who didn't want to spend any more time down here than he had to, nodded in agreement. "Makes sense to me," he said, scowling as ice-cold water started to drip from the ceiling and land on his optic band.

Camshaft sighed, but shook his head. "Let's get this over with, then."

Heading down the left-hand tunnel, Beachcomber led Jazz and Bumblebee towards the nearby signal.

"There's a fairly big cavern off to the left about fifteen metres down," he said softly. "Whatever we're after should be right there."

A few seconds later, the Minibot turned...and slammed dead-on into a wall of ice crystals and gravel. He stumbled back, leaving a Beachcomber-shaped impression in the wall. Jazz deftly caught the smaller Autobot before he could hit the ground and helped him regain his balance.

"You alright, little buddy?"

"Yeah, I think I'm—"

"Ah, hell!" This surprising outburst came from Bumblebee, who had gone to investigate the unexpected snowbank that his teammate had crashed into.

Beachcomber took a few steps forward, trying to see what had startled the usually upbeat Autobot. It wasn't hard to see. In the section of snowbank that he'd dented, the edge of an angular purple body plate poked out. Bumblebee carefully brushed the ice away with his hands, quickly revealing a pointed audio sensor and a featureless face with a single centrally-placed optic scanner.

"Calm down," Beachcomber told him, a nervous smile on his face. "He's not going anywhere. He might not even be alive, for all we..."

The geologist's voice trailed off as the snow-covered optic flickered and came to life.

"Ah, hell," Beachcomber said.

"Got something," Tracks' sophisticated voice crackled over the comlink.

"Try to be more specific, please," Streetwise told him, drawing on his deep well of patience to keep from snapping at the irritating Autobot.

"A hovercraft," Tracks came back. "A big one. It looks abandoned."

"Probably what our friends used to get here," Streetwise deduced. "Where are you?"

"Down by Pier 39," the prissy Autobot told him. "Right by the Aquarium. Well...the giant bowl of ash where the Aquarium used to be, I should say."

"Stay there," the Protectobot said. "I'm about four and an half minutes away."

Without needing to consult a map, Streetwise knew to turn left onto Columbus Avenue. Ignoring the shattered, potholed, acid-eaten pavement, he floored his accelerator. He almost activated his sirens, then laughed at the idea. After all, the only living beings in this city were the four Autobots and the humans they were trying to track down.

They weren't sure exactly who it was they were looking for, truth be told. All he knew was that someone had tripped several of the motion sensors that had been scattered throughout the ruined city. When they'd first arrived on Earth a month or so ago, Skydive had made contact with General Hawk. The human officer, one of the few people who had been made aware of Earthforce's presence, had briefed them on over a hundred incidents of people rifling through the ruins of the Bay Area. Several terrorist groups had tried to collect the deadly cobalt isotopes that blanketed the city for their own deadly purposes, most notably the COBRA organization that had been responsible for the death of his old friend Hot Spot.

However, most of the intruders had been simple scavengers, foolish profiteers who thought that twenty year old black market hazmat suits would be enough to protect them from the radiation that had been released when Jhiaxus' fifty megaton cobalt bomb had detonated right in the middle of Golden Gate Park. But cobalt bombs were among the nastiest nuclear weapons in existence, and it would be over twenty years before an unprotected human could walk through downtown San Francisco and live to tell the tale. Even top of the line government-issue protection equipment wasn't good enough to completely block the damaging radiation that could ravage the poorly-designed human body, something that Hawk's men had found out the hard way. Nearly half of the General's G.I. Joe team was being treated for some level of radiation sickness, one of many reasons that he had surreptitiously handed the task of investigating this latest batch of trespassers over to the Autobots.

Turning right onto Stockton Street, the Protectobot caught sight of movement in the intersection up ahead. Although he tried to make out he was looking at, Streetwise found his efforts foiled by the very same nasty organic ash that Tracks had complained about before. He was so intent on that task that he almost didn't see a large tracked vehicle pull onto the street behind him until it was too late. Slamming on his brakes, he swerved wildly to the left just as a projectile shot from the obviously-hostile vehicle and drilled itself into the patch of pavement he had just occupied.

Rail guns! Looks like they mean business.

Activating his comm circuit, he called out to his team. "I've got two bogeys," the interceptor said calmly. While he spoke, his trunk popped open and his compressed air cannon swung into place. "Looks like HISS tanks," he mused. "Modified, though...they've got rail guns added on, and some sort of...collector arrays on the front end."

"Terrorists! They're harvesting the isotopes," Overdrive called out.

"That's what I figure," Streetwise said as he pulled back onto the street. "We can't let them get away. But we've got to be careful...start blowing stuff up and we might send a wave of radioactive cobalt up into the atmosphere."

"Who cares?" Overdrive again. "It's not like we could mess this place up any worse if we tried."

"It's not San Fran I'm worried about," the Protectobot said. "It's whatever's downwind of it."

Checking his aft sensors, Streetwise saw that he'd left the HISS tanks almost a block behind...and that there were three of them, now. He power-turned and headed back at them, his compressed air cannon firing bursts of the city's contaminated atmosphere towards his foes. The blasts slammed dead-on into the lead enemy, flipping it over onto its roof and sending it into a spin.

Before he could refocus on another target, the second tank fired its rail gun at him. Streetwise dodged, but not quickly enough; the projectile shredded through his right rear tire. At the speed he was moving, the Protectobot didn't have time to adjust for the injury. He started to fishtail and the second HISS rammed him from behind. He tried to regain control, but the third HISS slammed into him as well, driving right over his rear end.

Streetwise couldn't hold back an agonized scream, but he somehow managed to transform and fire several blasts from his photon pistol at the escaping tanks. His vision was fading, though, and he was lying awkwardly on the ground, so his shots went wide.

"Overdrive, Downshift, they're heading west on Union. S...stop them."

"Are you alright, boss?" For once, Tracks' voice was filled with concern for someone other than himself. "You don't sound very good."

Streetwise looked down at his crushed, ruined legs. "I...I'm fine, Tracks. Disable their hover...craft if you can, then..." He shook his head, trying to clear it. "Then go help the others. We can't let...can't let them get away..."

Whatever else he would have said went unspoken, though. The Autobot's optics went dark as his systems went into stasis.

Autobots.

Shockwave wasn't surprised that they were the first thing he saw upon awakening. That's not to say that he had been expecting them, per se. But it took a lot more than this to surprise the ever-logical Decepticon.

With a simple flexing of his servos, Shockwave managed to break free of the ice and rock that had buried him. His internal chronometers hadn't been able to track the length of his deactivation, but he could tell by his power cells that he had been buried for quite some time. They were at just over 2% of full charge, indicating that he had been in stasis for approximately five years.

It would be logical to assume that Megatron and Galvatron have likewise survived, he thought. It is fortunate that I was found by Autobots rather than them.

All of these facts were dealt with in a nanosecond by Shockwave's advanced processors. His accidental rescuers were still in the process of gasping at his revival when he raised his left arm and fired an X-ray blast into Bumblebee's gut. He expected the blast to slice through the weak Autobot's body, perhaps slaying him. However, it merely left a shallow crater in the smaller Transformer's armour and tossed him backwards into a pile of rocks. For the moment, though, the Autobot seemed to be content to lay there in a daze.

Low energy levels must be negatively effecting my firepower output, Shockwave surmised as he activated his internal fusion generator. Almost immediately he felt his old strength returning to him.

Taking stock of the next-nearest Autobot, Beachcomber, he decided it would be logical to eliminate the enemy quickly. Not trifling with him, the former Decepticon leader simply fired a blast into the rock ceiling above the geologist's head. A resounding crack filled the room, and a multi-tonne stalagmite fell directly onto the hapless Autobot. Giving him no further thought, the monocular Decepticon strode past his crushed form and advanced on Jazz.

Hound glared over his shoulder at Jackpot and Camshaft. The latter was in the process of handing over a large pile of coins to the endlessly lucky Autobot, who was raking his fingers through the loot avariciously.

"Have some respect for the dead, guys," the scout said, before turning back to the mangled Autobot they had found. Ratchet had been dreadfully damaged, but even to Hound's untrained optic it was obvious that not all of his wounds were the result of the Ark crash. Even years worth of corrosion couldn't hide the surgically-precise edges on some of the wounds.

Someone was cannibalizing him, he thought with a shiver. Ripping parts out of him and using them to repair something – or someone – else.

Since they had picked up another set of Transformer-like sensor readings down the second corridor, Hound strongly suspected that he knew where to find the culprit. His fuel started to boil as he thought of someone ripping vital circuits out of his old friend. Looking away from his mangled friend, the scout glanced around the beautiful underground grotto that they had found him in. As always, the Earth's natural beauty was like a tranquilizer to him, and his rage melted away. It left a hollow sense of sadness in its wake.

Feeling a hand dropping down on his shoulder, Hound looked back. Jackpot was standing there, looking down at him. "He's your friend?"

"Yeah," Hound said quietly. "Yeah. He was a good friend."

"Don't talk like that," Jackpot told him. "I'm sure First Aid will be able to patch him back together again."

Hound didn't share his younger comrade's optimism, but he couldn't bring himself to say so. All that he could get out was a single, quiet, "Yeah."

Jackpot saw through that, though. "Look, I-" The lucky Autobot broke off and cocked his head. "What was that?"

"Gunfire," Hound said clinically. He hadn't heard that distinctive energy discharge for a long time, but he'd never forget it. Not after all the trouble it had heralded in the Autobots' first few years on Earth. He felt his servos tighten with fear for his friends in the other corridor.

Shockwave.

Rising to his feet, the scout headed back down the rocky corridor.

"Where are you going?"

Hound could hear Jackpot calling after him, but he didn't turn around.

"Where do you think?"

Jackpot stared at Hound's disappearing silhouette for a few seconds before turning back to Camshaft.

"Do you think you can make it back up to the surface on your own?"

"Uh..." Camshaft looked nervous. "I should be able to. Why?"

"Because if the look on Hound's face was any indication, we're going to need a lot of backup."

Jackpot dashed off after Hound. A few seconds later, he heard Camshaft's footsteps heading in the other direction.

Jazz took a few steps back, putting some distance between himself and Shockwave as the much-larger Decepticon advanced.

"Fleeing is illogical," the imposing Decepticon told him. "In the confines of the main tunnel I would be able to destroy you with ease."

"Who said anything about fleeing?" Jazz raised his photon rifle and fired a blast at Shockwave's chest. "Running ain't my style, 'Con."

Shockwave seemed to be staggered by the blow, which was more than the Autobot had expected, all things considered.

Looks like he's not quite shipshape. I might have a shot at this yet.

It took all of a few seconds for Shockwave to recover from the blast. He seemed to consider Jazz for a moment, then said, "Your 'style' is of no concern to me. And in short order it will be of no concern to anyone else."

At that, the Decepticon raised his cannon arm and fired. Jazz managed to roll adroitly to the side, avoiding the blast. A three-foot-deep smoking crater now stood where the Autobot had been mere moments ago. Shockwave might not be at full capacity, but he still had a sizable firepower advantage over the Autobot.

Time to make an advantage of my own, then.

The slick Autobot's flamethrower actuated downward and fired, scorching his enemy's feet. Shockwave looked at him with what seemed to be contempt, then raised his arm again. Jazz rolled forward this time, the blast sizzling through the air over his head. Jumping to his feet less than a metre away from his adversary, he slew-footed the large Decepticon. Normally he wouldn't have been able to make his foe so much as budge, but the flame burst moments ago had melted the thin coat of frost that had covered the ground beneath Shockwave's feet. The suddenly off-balance Decepticon fell sideways, landing heavily on the ground.

Shockwave may have been down, but he certainly wasn't out of the fight. Even as he fell, he discharged an X-ray blast into the Autobot's thigh. Jazz had no time to avoid the attack, and hissed painfully as the energy beam tore through his leg. The Autobot spun backwards several metres before falling himself.

Hound charged into the room at a dead run and found that his worst fears had been confirmed. Shockwave was awake and had taken up arms against the three Autobots who had awakened him. Bumblebee was lying against the cavern wall, out cold. Jazz was flat on his back with a smoking hole in his leg. Beachcomber was nowhere to be seen. The Decepticon, meanwhile, was already clambering to his feet. The situation didn't look very good for his fellow Autobots.

Guess I'll just have to change the situation, he thought with a noted lack of enthusiasm.

Aiming his rocket launcher at the purple Decepticon, Hound fired point-blank into the larger Transformer's back. The underhanded attack sparked a moment of guilt, but the memory of what had been done to Ratchet was more than enough to wash away his remorse. He charged the Decepticon, loading another rocket as he ran.

Unfortunately for the Autobot, Jazz's antics and Hound's rocket hadn't done much more than stun Shockwave. The Decepticon spun around quickly and grabbed onto the charging Autobot with his right hand. With no appreciable effort he hoisted Hound into the air and slammed him into the cavern wall.

Hound's vision went grey as his several of his circuits overloaded from the impact. The Decepticon slammed him into the wall again and he felt consciousness start to drain away. His audio modules could barely hear Jazz when the Autobot shouted something at Shockwave.

By the time the Decepticon raised him over his head and threw him at Jazz, Hound had already gone into stasis.

Jackpot dashed around the corner just in time to see an obviously-wounded Jazz force himself up to one knee and train his rifle on Shockwave.

"Put him down!" the damaged Autobot shouted.

"As you wish." Shockwave lifted Hound even higher in the air, then pitched him at the other Autobot. Hampered by his disabled leg, Jazz had absolutely no chance to get out of the way. The two Autobots were hurled into the cave wall in a tangle of limbs. There they lay, stunned, unconscious or worse.

Jackpot didn't have more than a second to absorb that, though, before the former Decepticon leader leapt into the air and transformed into his space gun mode.

The Autobot sighed. "This is gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better."

"Indeed," Shockwave told him.

Then he opened fire.

← Part One | Index | Part Three →