Part Three: Shock and Awe

Prologue: VsQs

Deluge moved carefully over the barren plains that covered most of the moon's equatorial region. As the scientist advanced, brittle stone was crushed to pebbles under his feet. The crunching rock made no noise, though; VsQs' atmosphere was too thin for sounds to transmit more than a few millimetres.

"We can drive, you know," Hydradread followed behind him, moving with far more confidence. "It would be faster."

Deluge jumped, surprised by his partner's comment. Not being able to hear even his own movements, he'd almost forgotten he wasn't alone.

Hydradread's self-satisfied laugh carried over their comm link. "Scared ya, did I?"

"My mind was elsewhere," Deluge scowled. "Some of us have better things to do than sneaking around going 'boo' when our superiors are thinking."

"Oh, really," the junior science officer shot back. "Looks to me like we've got nothing to do at all. We're in the middle of a wasteland. There's nothing here! Whatever the energy readings you detected from orbit might be, they're not going to be anything useful to the Empire. Let's get out of here, and maybe we'll be able to find a berth on one of the assault teams before they leave."

"No," Deluge told him. "We're scientists. We don't abandon a survey just because we don't think it's going to have military applications. You want to shoot people? I'm sure Rage has openings in his stormtrooper unit. Put in for a transfer."

Hydradread only scowled.

How did this psychopath end up in the sciences in the first place? Deluge wondered, not for the first time.

Before they could continue their not-so-friendly banter, Deluge's internal sensor arrays started to scream at him. "Ah," was all he said.

"'Ah'? Ah what, you mincing pedant?"

"Ah, I found what we're looking for," Deluge said. "Ten miles due west." The chief scientist transformed into his vehicle mode. "And now we can drive."

The humans called it 'The Land of the Midnight Sun', and it was easy to see why.

His fellow Aerialbots, including new addition Blades, were busily scanning the area for Transformer lifesigns. Fireflight was too enthralled by the local scenery to follow suit, even though he knew he should. Although it was very late in the day, the sun was still well above the horizon and the landscape was still plainly visible. The frozen tundra and ice-covered lakes were a beautiful sight, one that the surveillance expert had never seen before.

He still had enough sense to realize that a blackened, smoking hole in the ground wasn't a part of the normal Arctic landscape, though.

"Hey guys, I've got something. Location, uh..." Fireflight checked his scopes, a bit embarrassed that he didn't know where he was. "68 north by 128 west."

"What is it?" Air Raid's voice was guarded; Fireflight knew his teammate didn't think highly of his scouting skills.

"A giant hole in the ground," he replied as professionally as he could manage. "A fresh one, by the looks of it. Still smoking."

"Good work," Silverbolt told him. "Skydive, take Air Raid and Blades out to join him. I'll meet up with you guys as soon as I've picked up the rest of the team."

Skydive gaped at the fissure, which was half-filled with a crumbled pile of rocks. Forcing himself to focus, the Aerialbot looked down at the multiscanner in his hands. He shook his head.

"I've got five Transformer life readings down there," he said. "Two of them read as stasis-locked, and one of those looks like he's on the edge of permanent shutdown. But there's too much interference to get an ID on any of them."

Fireflight looked down at the pile, then up at Skydive. "Then what do we do?"

Before he could answer, Blades cut in. "We dig," he said. The Protectobot then set to work doing just that. Air Raid glanced at Skydive, then shrugged and joined Blades.

Skydive's expression turned sour. He wasn't fond of Slingshot's replacement at the best of times, and this attitude of Blades' wasn't helping matters. Admittedly, he hadn't actually liked Slingshot either, but at least the other Aerialbot had respected the chain of command. "Help them out, I suppose," he told Fireflight. "I'll join you in a minute."

"You've got something better to do?" Air Raid asked half-seriously.

"Yeah," Skydive told him. "I'm going to call Steelhaven and see if their sensors can tell us anything."

"Nope," Hubcap said apologetically. "We're not getting anything more than you are. Sorry."

"Thanks anyway," Skydive's voice came from the comm speaker. "If you guys pick up anything interesting out here, let us know."

"Will do. Steelhaven out." As soon as he cut the comm channel, the Minibot turned back to his monitor and put the conversation out of mind.

"You've really made an art out of being useless, haven't you?"

"You've got optics and a vocorder, Pointblank." Hubcap shrugged. "You're just as capable of monitoring as I am. I'm busy."

"Doing what?" the dour Targetmaster demanded.

"I'm crunching some of the numbers on the recovery effort that Magnus sent up," Hubcap retorted. That was mostly true; he was certainly going through the numbers, but he wasn't doing it for Magnus' sake. In the month or so that Earthforce had been there, he had spent most of his free time absorbing the reconstruction data that Steelhaven had gathered. He'd used the insider information to secretly dabble in Earth's commodities market, and he had managed to made a tidy profit for himself. He knew his fellow Autobots (especially the dreary Pointblank) would probably get upset if they found out he'd been profiteering and hoarding, though, so he'd taken great care to cover his tracks.

Pointblank grumbled, but got up and went to monitor the sensor station.

You'd think he'd be a bit more distrustful, Hubcap thought, after all he's supposedly been through.

Not giving his Targetmaster crewmate any further thought, Hubcap went back to his 'work'.

Standing on a deserted tarmac in the equally-deserted San Jose International Airport, Tracks could just make out the near edge of San Francisco Bay off to the north.

This used to be a nice city too, the fashionable Autobot mused.

Although it had once been a bustling metropolis, San Jose had become a ghost town over the past few months. Although Jhiaxus' bomb had detonated a fair distance away, the nuclear fallout had been a threat to any settlement within a hundred miles. The government had evacuated the entire population of San Jose, as well as the inhabitants of Santa Clara, Palo Alto and a dozen other nearby towns and cities. Favourable winds had carried most of the immediate fallout west into the Pacific Ocean instead of inland towards more population centres, but many of the city's former inhabitants had decided to take up residence somewhere where they didn't have to worry about sprouting extra limbs. Even though the mandatory evacuation had been rescinded four months ago, less than a hundred thousand people had returned to live in the city. Out of those nearly half were military personnel, drawn from all branches of the US Armed Forces. The large multi-service taskforce bore the responsibility of cordoning off the San Francisco Radiation Zone, preventing anyone from getting in...and making sure nothing got out. Much to Tracks' surprise, the whole unit had been placed under the command of one recently-unretired Brigadier General Walter J. Barnett.

Despite Barnett's former ties to the now-defunct Intelligence and Information Institute, the Autobots had decided to take him into their confidence. Several of the Autobots who had been on Earth during Triple-I's ill-considered campaign against the Transformers had been wary of him, but both Bumblebee and General Hawk had insisted he was trustworthy. So far, at least, it seemed that they had been correct.

The dark-skinned human officer stood a few feet away from Tracks, watching with stony features as several of his most trusted technicians carefully loaded the injured Streetwise onto a large military helicopter. Nearby, the two COBRA Rad-Vipers that Tracks had pulled out of the HISS tank the Protectobot had disabled were being loaded into a military police car.

After several minutes spent watching in silence, the general asked, "Is he...dead?"

"Not yet," Tracks turned and looked down at the human. "Those HISS tanks did a number on him, but he went into system shutdown before the lost fluids could do any serious damage to his brain module. First Aid should be able to patch him up..."

The Autobot trailed off as he heard a loud clunk coming from the loading crew.

"Assuming your cronies don't finish him off first, anyway!" Tracks snapped, just loud enough for the humans to hear.

Barnett cast a scolding look towards the ground crew, who started to work even more carefully. "Sorry about that," he said.

"I'm not the one to apologize to," Tracks said. "Do you humans treat your own wounded this roughly?"

"Not if we can help it," the general admitted. "Of course, it usually doesn't take two forklifts and twenty strong men to load a wounded soldier into a medivac chopper."

Tracks grumbled something, then turned away. "You think your men can handle it from here?"

"We'll have him to your base in an hour," Barnett promised.

"In that case..." Tracks transformed to vehicle mode, deploying his flight wings, rocket launchers and blacklight gun at the same time, "I'll be off. My comrades are still trying to find your terrorists, but I'm sure they're practically lost without me. Ta."

As the Autobot took off, he enjoyed the stares of the ground crew as they marvelled at the shiny (if slightly banged-up) flying Corvette. Even one of the ultrahigh-tech tanks that ringed the base focused its' sensor array on him for a moment. Tracks was pleased by the attention, but a bit disturbed that the tank's driver could be so easily distracted from his guard duties.

If he had taken a moment to scan the tank in return, he would have realized that it had no driver.

Air Raid grabbed a big chunk of rock off the pile and tossed it up onto the lip of the fissure. He turned back to the heap of debris, but before he could continue digging, a glint of light off of a piece of orange metal caught his attention.

"Got something!"

Digging more carefully around the piece of metal, he quickly revealed a familiar-looking leg.

"Looks like Jackpot, guys!"

All of a sudden there was movement in the pile a few feet away. Air Raid took a step back and drew his torque rifle, but only had it half-raised when he saw Jackpot's hand shoot out of the mound. He subspaced the rifle, took his fellow Autobot's hand and pulled him out of the debris.

Jackpot shook his head and groaned, then dusted a coating of gravel and rock chips off of his chassis. Finally he looked up at the Aerialbot and grinned.

"What took you so long?"

Not long after, Skydive and Blades unearthed Jazz and Bumblebee, both of whom where in significantly worse condition than Jackpot. The inexplicably lucky Autobot was covered head to foot with dents, but was otherwise uninjured. The two Pretenders, however, looked like they had been through another Unicron War. Luckily, Silverbolt had arrived in the interim with Camshaft and First Aid in tow. The doctor had patched up the two as best he could and ordered them to stay inside their Pretender shells until they were in serviceable condition again.

With help from the new arrivals (and limited assistance from Bumblebee and Jazz), it hadn't taken long to reach the bottom of the crevasse. Once they'd dug all the way to the bottom, they'd found Hound and Beachcomber. The scout's torso had been crushed by a particularly large chunk of falling rock, and the geologist had been flattened when a stalactite had landed on his head. First Aid was hovering over both of them taking readings, but his face was grim.

While the rest of the assembled Autobots waited anxiously to find out their comrades' status, Silverbolt had pulled Jackpot aside.

"What the Pit happened here?" the Aerialbot leader asked in a worried tone.

"Shockwave," Jackpot shook his head. The young rookie was badly shaken after seeing how badly hurt the others were, and Silverbolt couldn't blame him. This had been his first mission, and it looked to be an unmitigated disaster. "By the time I got here, he'd already beaten up on Jazz and the others pretty badly. I saw him transform into a giant gun, and I thought he was going to vape me. But I guess I wasn't worth the trouble...he just pointed up, blasted a big hole in the cave ceiling and flew up through it. He must have taken a couple parting shots at the ground, though, 'cause about fifteen seconds later the whole place came down on us."

Silverbolt allowed some compassion and understanding to enter his features...after all, it wasn't all that long ago that he had been a raw recruit. "There was nothing you could have done," he said. "Shockwave is one of the most dangerous Decepticons alive. We're just lucky that so many of you survived in one piece."

Jackpot made a disgusted noise. "Yeah. Lucky. Right."

Before Silverbolt could say any more, First Aid left his spot at the sides of the wounded Autobots and approached. The Aerialbot leader gave the younger Autobot a supportive pat on the shoulder, then moved over to confer with the doctor. The two of them walked until they were out of earshot of the rest of the team before Silverbolt quietly asked, "How are they?"

"Hound is in pretty bad shape," First Aid said. "The sort of damage he took should have killed him, but he got lucky. Well, after a fashion, anyway. It looks like he got beaten into stasis lock before getting crushed, so the serious trauma he suffered later didn't have any effect on his brain module. Most of his superstructure is crushed, and it'll take a long time to repair him up to functional standards, but he's going to make it."

Silverbolt noticed the medic's hesitation. "And Beachcomber?"

"Dead," First Aid said sadly. "Five tonnes of rock landed right on top of him. What's left of his head is less than twelve microns thick." The doctor shook his head. "If it's any comfort, he was dead before he knew he'd been hit."

"That's no consolation to Beachcomber," Silverbolt said distantly. Setting his jaw, he walked back towards the main group of Autobots.

First Aid's optics widened in alarm at the tone in his voice. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find Shockwave," the Aerialbot leader said. "And then I'm going to kill him."

The sign at the edge of the town said Fort Good Hope, but no one there had much hope that their town would see another day.

The small, remote community had never been what you would call exciting. Most of the five hundred and fifty people who lived there made their living hunting and trapping local wildlife, and so the town was usually a calm, sedate place. That wasn't the case today, though. Fires burned all along the main street, devouring crushed shops and homes. The chaos was centred around the town's only gas station, where a giant, one-eyed purple menace had taken up residence.

Most of the townsfolk didn't bother with the TV news, since the goings-on in the south didn't effect them one way or another. For better or worse, remote northern towns like this were usually left to their own devices. However, one or two of the younger locals recognized the robot as a Transformer, one of the giant machines that had scourged America and most of the other major countries of the world a few months ago. No one had any idea what it had wanted in their little town, though.

However, the creature seemed to know exactly what it wanted. It headed straight to the gas station, ripped the pumps away, and sunk its hand into the underground storage tank. It seemed to be in the process of absorbing the fuel through its skin somehow.

Old Jacob Riley, a tough Métis trapper who had lost an eye in the Korean War, had organized a small band of brave men who had gone out and tried to drive the thing off. The bullets from their hunting rifles and shotguns had bounced off its metal skin like pebbles, and it hadn't even bothered to look up at them. It simply raised its weird, gun-capped left arm. A bright white light had flashed, lighting up the sky for less than a second. Jacob and the eight men who'd gone out with him were now a rapidly-spreading smear of black ash on Main Street.

That was when the panic had started in earnest. Loading up what they could in cars, on snowmobiles and into motorboats, the people of Fort Good Hope began their exodus.

"Hubcap!"

The comms officer jolted and turned to scowl at Pointblank. "You don't need to shout, you know!"

"If you answered me the first three times I called you," the Targetmaster said, "I wouldn't have. Now get over here. I need your help."

Pointblank asking for help...that's not something you hear often.

Hubcap grinned wickedly, then shrugged and moved over to the sensor board. "What's up?"

"I've picked up some odd happenings a few hundred klicks east of Shockwave's last known location," he said.

"What type of odd?"

"That's the problem," Pointblank said. "We're too far off to get a clear reading, and I can't alter our orbit without risking detection by the humans."

"Then hijack one of their satellites," Hubcap scoffed. "Even you should be able to manage that."

"Normally, yes. But something's interfering with our only EM transmitter that transmits on their frequencies...I can't get a signal through."

"What?" Hubcap's voice was baffled. Stepping back to the comms board, he ran a quick diagnostic. "System says everything's fine," he shrugged. The Minibot tried to set up a satellite link himself, but he couldn't do it either.

"But it's not working," Pointblank sighed.

"Yeah, I see that," Hubcap said. "If the diagnostics say the transmitter's working fine, then it must be a software problem. I'll have to start combing through all the threads running on our comms subprocessor," he grumbled. "One of them must be interfering with the commands you're sending."

"How long will that take?"

"Too long," Hubcap said. "A day, maybe more."

"Get on it anyway," Poinkblank said firmly. "Priority one."

The Targetmaster opened a comm channel to the surface, ignoring Hubcap's grumbling. "Silverbolt, I might have something for you. It's not clear, but it's a lead..."

Tracks flew low over the crumbling skyscrapers that had once been downtown San Francisco, scanning for any sign of the two HISS tanks that were still at large.

"Got something," he announced in a chipper voice.

"What do you mean, 'got something'?" Overdrive's incredulous reply crackled over his comlink. "We've been combing the city for ten hours. You show up and five minutes later you've got something?"

"Your search grid was obviously too predictable," Tracks told him. "My brilliantly irregular aerial search, on the other hand, obviously baffled the humans. Just another sign of my eminent superiority, I sup-"

He broke off in horror as a projectile shot up from street level and gouged a nasty scar into his right door.

"Why those ungrateful biologicals! I grace them with my magnificent presence and this is how they repay me?" The flying Corvette dove towards the ground. "Oh, it is on now, humans!"

"Be careful," Downshift's calm voice instructed. "Remember what Streetwise said."

"Yeah, yeah," Tracks said as he dove. "No exploding them. Don't worry...I intend to capture them alive. That way I can drag them out and make them see what sort of damage they've done to my glorious bodywork!"

The Autobot fired his black-beam gun down at the tanks' weapon turrets, trying to blind their gunners so they couldn't fight back. He was less than successful, though; another round from the lead tank's rail gun shot up and pierced his underside. The hypervelocity projectile tore through his engine before coming out through his hood, ruining the meticulously painted pattern of flames that adorned it. His engine died and his wing turbines stopped running.

"Oh, that one's really going to cost you!" he shouted. "You just wait!"

Trying to glide down into a landing, the Autobot found himself caught up in a crosswind. He was shoved violently to the left, slamming into the side of a crumbling building. His port flight wing was sheared off by the impact and he started to wobble in the air as he approached the street.

The Autobot managed to fold his mangled flight gear back into his body and land heavily on the ground in his regular Corvette mode. He bounced once, then landed on his left-side tires. For a moment it looked like he was going to roll onto his roof, but he managed to bring his other tires down to the pavement...just in time to smash through a glass-windowed storefront. Slamming on his brakes, the conceited warrior tore through several rows of high-priced, skimpy women's clothing before coming to a stop against a cashier's counter.

"Oh, my aching struts..."

Footsteps outside alerted him that one of his comrades was approaching, but he couldn't tell whether Overdrive or Downshift had come to his (rather belated) rescue.

"Tracks...what the hell?"

Definitely Overdrive...

"Don't worry," he said weakly. "I'll be OK. I'm afraid my paintjob is a total loss, though."

"Who cares about your paint job?" The cocky Autobot scoffed. "Where the Pit are the terrorists?"

Tracks transformed to robot mode, wincing as his painfully damaged parts reconfigured. "It's always about the terrorists with you people, isn't it?" he sighed.

Half-crawling, half-walking out of the damaged shop, he gestured to his left.

"They went that way," he said. "Have fun."

Overdrive transformed and eagerly drove off in the indicated direction. Tracks waited until he was out of sight, then started jogging the other way.

Sorry, Overdrive, but they went and made it personal. This is one fight I've got to scrape through myself.

Interlude: Blackrock

"Excuse me, Mr. Blackrock. Mr. Hayes is here to see you."

"Thank you Cheryl." G.B. Blackrock straightened in his seat with a sigh. "Please send him in. Then head home for the night. I'll be leaving as soon as we're through."

A few seconds later, the door to his inner sanctum swung open. Rising, Blackrock moved to greet his visitor.

"Darius," he said, extending his hand to shake. "It's good to see you."

"Thank you, sir," Hayes shifted his briefcase into his left hand, shook hands with Blackrock and moved deeper into the room. "If I may...?"

"Of course," G.B. told him, moving back behind his desk. "Have a seat."

Hayes sat, then popped open his briefcase and started rifling through a stack of documents inside. "Thank you for seeing me at such an ungodly hour," he said. "I know you'd much rather be at home-"

"Nonsense. If you thought you had to call at this time of day, I'm sure you have a good reason." Blackrock's tone suggested that he had a good idea what that reason was.

"Of course." Darius Hayes was a middle-aged black man who'd spent the first thirty-five years of his adult life toiling as an NCO in the US Marine Corps. He'd retired after the Decepticon invasion last year, and for the last six months he had been in the employ of Blackrock Enterprises as a special 'security consultant'. Tall and well-muscled, with a shaved head and a dark goatee, Hayes had spent most of his time intimidating and scaring off anyone who tried to steal from the relief supplies that Blackrock was donating to the rebuilding effort. Recently, though, he'd run into a case that he hadn't been able to solve; a series of late-night break-ins at Blackrock warehouses. The criminals were blasting through a wall, grabbing bits of technology seemingly at random and escaping before the police could arrive.

Hayes let out a disgusted sigh before he said anything more, all but confirming Blackrock's suspicions. "There's been another," he said at last.

"I figured," G.B. frowned. "But you wouldn't have called me if there wasn't something special about this one."

Darius nodded, acknowledging the truth in what Blackrock said; for better or worse, these break-ins weren't much of a surprise anymore. "There is." He tossed Blackrock a file folder. "This time, our security cameras got a picture of the culprit."

Blackrock opened the folder, stared at its contents for a few seconds and dropped it to the desk in disgust.

I should have known...

The industrialist punched the intercom. "Cheryl, are you still there?"

"Of course I am," she said with a smug tone in her voice.

"Good," Blackrock was too angry to banter with her like he usually did. "I want you to put in a call to our mountain property in Oregon. Tell the tenants that I'll be there tomorrow at noon to talk to them."

"Is everything alright?"

"No, Cheryl," G.B. said. "Something is very wrong."

First Aid followed Camshaft and a shelled (albeit still hobbling) Jazz deeper into the tunnels, a little unsure of himself. He had a patient sitting back in the main cavern, and a big part of him wanted to be there with him. Bumblebee and Jackpot might have been willing to monitor Hound's condition, but there really wasn't anything they could do if the scout suffered a turn for the worse while his doctor was out spelunking. But Ratchet was a fellow Autobot as well, and First Aid couldn't bring himself to let his colleague lie for a single minute longer than he had to...even if he didn't have much hope of finding him alive.

"Here we are," Camshaft said, leading the way into another little grotto. Despite his attempt to maintain professional dignity, First Aid found himself dashing over towards Ratchet's side at a dead run. Dropping down to one knee at the wounded Autobot's side, he started to run a bevy of scans on him.

"Well, I'll be slagged..."

"What's up, Doc?" Jazz asked.

First Aid seemingly missed the joke, but answered the question anyway. "He's actually still alive," he said, seemingly awestruck. "The condition he's in...I don't know how, but his brain module is still functional. Barely, anyway."

"That's great news," Jazz said. But seeing First Aid's expression, his shell's face folded into a frown. "Isn't it?"

"I...don't know," First Aid admitted. "In the state he's been in, for so long, he could have sustained serious neural damage. I can patch his physical injuries easily enough once we get him up to Steelhaven...but until he wakes up, we won't know if his personality or memory components are intact."

"Oh," was all Jazz could say.

"Yeah," First Aid sighed. "I know. But first thing's first...Jazz, you and I are going to have to carry him back to the blown-open cavern. Camshaft, how long will it take for you to get back to your shuttle?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe," the Omnibot estimated.

"Good," First Aid said. "Go there, warm up the engines and park her on top of the crevasse. I need to rig up an energon infusion for the good doctor here, and the shuttle's medpacks should have what I need. Get going."

Camshaft nodded, then took off at a dead run.

Skydive looped through the air above Fort Good Hope, then sent a comm message to his wingman.

"Yeah, Fireflight. I think we can safely say Shockwave's been here."

"Unless there's another giant evil Transformer running around that we don't know about," Fireflight's voice was distant, and Skydive suspected the recon specialist was engrossed by the wanton destruction that had been wreaked on the small town.

"There's a cheery thought," he replied. The air combat tactician panned his sensors across the town. "I don't see him anywhere, though. Do you?"

"Uh...nothing here," Fireflight said. "Sorry."

"We'll keep looking, then. He can't have gotten far. This damage all looks pretty fresh, I-" Skydive broke off quickly and sideslipped to the right. A beam of coherent light tore through the position he'd occupied only milliseconds before.

"Fireflight, go evasive!" Skydive followed his own advice, falling into an insanely unpredictable pattern of corkscrews, fishtailing and random altitude oscillation. Fireflight followed suit a few seconds later, although his manoeuvres were far more elementary.

"Silverbolt, this is Skydive. We've got him! Bring in the cavalry!"

Fact: three more aerial Autobots on approach. Hypothesis: engaging them in the air will increase my chances of victory sevenfold.

Igniting his foot-mounted thrusters, Shockwave blasted up into the air. Once he was clear of the buildings he reconfigured into his space gun mode. Drawing a bead on the nearest Autobot (Skydive, according to his memory tracks) he fired an intense X-ray blast at him. The Autobot adroitly danced out of the line of fire, though. Before Shockwave could refocus his aim, the Autobot fired a spray of explosive bullets at him and followed up with a pair of air-to-air missiles. The Decepticon wasn't particularly agile in the air, so he didn't waste energy trying to avoid the incoming fire. The ammunition hit his armour, leaving a stippled pattern of burns and dents where it had impacted.

Fact: the Autobot's firepower poses a moderate threat to me. He and his comrades are vastly more manoeuvrable in the air. Conclusion: they must be destroyed before they can cause serious accumulated damage to my superstructure.

The other nearby Autobot – Fireflight, Shockwave noted dispassionately – approached from behind and fired another projectile at him. The missile flew past him before detonating, filling the air in front of Shockwave with a flaming mist. The large Decepticon flew through it, ignoring the pain as his armour was charred. Once the flame cloud stood between him and his foes, he looped around and fired another volley of energy at the enemies. He never got to see if it hit, though. Another pair of projectiles slammed into his rear segment, igniting one of his thrusters pods.

As he fell from the sky, one thought passed through his mind. Hypothesis: the other Autobots have arrived.

Sitting in the control pod of HISS-3, Rad-Viper #453-E stared down at his security monitor. Behind his specially-treated visor, his eyes bugged out.

He turned to his partner. "Uh, Manny..."

"Don't use my real name, you idiot! We're on duty!"

"Fine. 453-B. We've got a thirty foot tall robot running after us. And he looks pissed."

"Idiot! Why didn't you say so?" Manny punched the comm button. "HISS-3 to HISS-1! We've got pursuit!"

"Acknowledged," HISS-1's pilot replied. "Deal with it. We'll continue on to the auxiliary escape vehicle."

453-E glared at his partner. "You just had to tell him, didn't you Manny?"

"Zip it and get in the turret, Frank!"

"Don't you mean 453-E?" he asked innocently.

"Shut up!"

In front of him, Tracks saw one of the enemy tanks breaking off in a new direction. The nearer one continued straight ahead, and he continued to run after it. The tank's turret swivelled to face him, but Tracks fired a beam from his blacklight gun right into the gunner's window, turning it opaque. The turret swung wildly, firing shots from its' rail gun into the street, nearby buildings, abandoned cars...pretty much anything and everything but the Autobot who was chasing them.

Within a few seconds, Tracks was close enough to get his hands on the tank. He did just that, grabbing hold of the gun barrel and squeezing it shut. Using the barrel for leverage, he sunk his heels into the crumbling pavement and pulled the tank to a stop. After spinning its' tracks ineffectually for a few seconds, the tank's two-man crew leaped out and tried to make a run for it. They made it about ten steps before Tracks scooped them up off the ground.

"You two are under arrest," he said haughtily, "for desecrating a unique piece of fine art." The two criminals stared at him, their body language suggesting confusion. "Oh, and that whole terrorism thing, too. Don't worry, the Army guys will give you the whole list when we get to San Jose..."

Downshift cut hard left, barely avoiding the last HISS tank's shot.

"I read you, Tracks. Good work. Run 'em in...I've got this one handled."

"Gotcha. See you back at base."

As Tracks signed off, Overdrive's voice crackled over the comm line. "Downshift, where are you?"

"About a mile west of where Tracks drove into that lingerie shop," the security officer said.

"West? That idiot pointed me in the wrong direction!"

"Yeah," Downshift said. "I don't think he likes you very much."

"Well hold up," Overdrive demanded. "I'll be there in two minutes."

"Don't bother. I'll have this one in three."

"Suuure you will. See you in two."

"Suit yourself," Downshift said.

Two minutes later Downshift was still in hot pursuit of the tank, but getting closer every second. Overdrive cut through the air above him, laser cannons strafing the ground in front of the HISS.

"Let the real professional handle things!" he shouted.

Two seconds later, a volley from the tank's rail gun tore off the strategist's left wing. He spiralled down towards the ground and crashed into the side of a building. Downshift put that out of his mind and continued on the pursuit.

Steady...steady...now!

The Omnibot's energy-net launcher popped out from his roof and drew a bead on the tank. Firing with amazing precision, it sent a net out directly at the fleeing vehicle. It expanded in the air and fell on top of the tank, then constricted until it conformed tightly to the vehicle's shape. Two seconds after that, it delivered a 50,000 volt electrical charge into the vehicle's frame.

"Oh," Downshift's voice carried more than a hint of chagrin. "That...probably didn't do any favours to the humans inside..."

Transforming to robot mode, he peeled the net away and peered inside the tank's cabin. He looked away just as quickly.

A waste, he thought. We could have interrogated them, learned what they were planning to do with the isotopes they were gathering.

Turning, he walked back towards the building that Overdrive had rammed into. There was an Overdrive-shaped hole in the wall, and Downshift used it to duck inside. He followed a trail of crushed and broken crates into the warehouse until he found his teammate...who had managed to bury himself under hundreds and hundreds of neon-coloured wigs.

"You alright?" Downshift asked. Only the memory of the two human casualties allowed him to keep from bursting out laughing at his friend's ludicrous appearance.

"What do you think?" Overdrive snapped. "And if you tell anyone about this, I'll—"

"Sounds like that's a yes," Downshift cut him off. "Come on...let's get you back to base. I'm sure Tracks will be so jealous of your new look..."

"Gotcha!" Blades whooped as his rockets slammed into Shockwave's thrusters, knocking the large Decepticon out of the sky and sending him crashing down into the tundra just outside the ruined town. His exultation was short-lived, though; the Decepticon transformed and landed on his feet, then fired an energy beam straight at the Autobot helicopter. Blades dodged the blast, but it passed close enough to leave carbon scoring on his left skid. "Oh, so you're a tough guy, eh?"

"Shoot more and taunt less, please," Air Raid quipped as he streaked down and shot a heat-seeking missile towards the Decepticon. Shockwave raised his gun arm and shot it out of the sky so smoothly that it almost seemed like an act of contempt.

"Increasing your rate of fire will only squander your ammunition faster, Autobot," Shockwave said flatly. "It would be logical to leave now, while you still can."

"Logical?" Blades scoffed. "You wanna know what I think of your logic?"

Transforming to robot mode, the warrior unhooked his rotor blades from his back and launched himself at the Decepticon. He took several swipes at the larger Transformer's legs and chipped off more than a few chunks of purple armour before Shockwave batted him away with one arm.

"No. I do not."

"Well too bad," Blades said as he clambered to his feet. "Because I'm going to drum it into your head the hard way, 'Con scum!"

"No, you will not." Shockwave raised his cannon arm and aimed it at the rising Autobot. "As a matter of fact, you will die."

"No he won't," a voice called from above. "You're going to, though."

Shockwave looked up to see who was addressing him. He seemed to recognize Silverbolt, but before he could do anything about it, the Aerialbot leader fired his excessively large wing-mounted rockets directly into the ground beneath the Decepticon's feet. Shockwave toppled backwards into a ravine.

"Nice shooting, Silverbolt," Air Raid crowed. "He's down!"

"Yeah, but not out," Skydive said warily. "All the missiles we've got aren't going to stop him."

"Then I'll chop what's left into little pieces," Blades said. "Where's the problem?"

"That's not going to work and you know it," Skydive said with a note of exasperation. "It won't turn out any better than it did this time."

"Then what do we do?" Blades was obviously annoyed with the intellectual Aerialbot. "Run away?"

"No," Skydive countered. "We need..."

He trailed off, but everyone knew what he was going to say.

"We need Superion," Silverbolt finished the sentence for him. "Come on, guys...let's get this over with."

Blades felt a rising unease, and he suspected that the other four Aerialbots did, too. They'd only combined twice since he'd replaced Slingshot on the team, under First Aid's close supervision in the Steelhaven's holodeck. Neither attempt had turned out very well, and they'd put off any future field tests until Grapple had time to repair the giant hole they'd torn in the holodeck floor the last time around.

"Uh...not sure this is the best idea, guys..." Fireflight said, obviously remembering the same incidents that Blades was.

Out of the corner of his optic, Blades saw Shockwave starting to climb to his feet. "Not sure we've got a choice," he said tensely.

Silverbolt pulled up in the air and started to transform. "Aerialbots, unite!"

Air Raid and Skydive folded into leg modules and connected to Silverbolt's shins, while Fireflight connected to the team leader's right shoulder. A second or so later, Blades converted and connected to form the 80-foot tall gestalt's left arm.

Shockwave and Superion simply stared at each other for a few moments, seemingly sizing up their opponents. The Aerialbot gestalt was first to move, charging forward and throwing a savage right cross at the Decepticon's head. Shockwave dodged the punch, then drove his knee forward into the taller Autobot's gut. As Superion took a step backwards, Shockwave followed up his attack by firing a gamma ray burst at the gestalt's legs. One of Skydive's wings fell to the ground, its connectors burnt away by the blast.

If Superion even felt the wound, he gave no sign. The Aerialbot combiner remained as silent as the grave, even as he straightened and belted Shockwave across the face with the back of his left fist. The blow threw the Decepticon backwards, and when he hit the ground he tumbled downhill for several hundred metres before coming to a stop.

Superion stalked forward like the Grim Reaper, advancing on the slowly rising Decepticon. As he did so, the rotor blades on his left arm started to spin like a buzzsaw. Shockwave managed to get to his feet, but he was moving with much less self-assurance than usual. Had Superion been thinking he would have realized that his foe was badly hurt, but he only had one thing on his mind: killing Shockwave.

The Decepticon seemed to deduce that. Raising his arm cannon, he fired a pulse of ultraviolet light at Superion's chest. The massive Autobot didn't even stagger as he stepped forward, swung his left arm around and neatly sliced off Shockwave's gun arm at the elbow.

Time seemed to stand still for several seconds as Shockwave glanced down at the truncated stump that was all that remained of his left arm. After seeming to ponder it for a moment, the large Decepticon swung a right hook at Superion's face. It connected with the Autobot combiner's jaw, twisting him half-way around and knocking him to the ground.

Superion grunted as he hit the ground, but as soon as he'd made contact he lashed out with his left leg. His foot made contact with the inside of Shockwave's knee and the joint was forced to bend in an unnatural direction by the force behind the blow.

Although the pain had to be excruciating, Shockwave didn't scream. The logical Decepticon managed to stay on his feet, although most of his weight was now resting on his good leg. His one good fist swung at the Autobot again, but Superion caught his enemy's hand in one of his own.

The gestalt squeezed tightly, constricting his fist around the Decepticon's hand until he heard a crunch of breaking metal. Letting go, the massive Autobot sprung to his feet. Shockwave tried to backpedal, but was slowed down by his ruined knee. Superion took one step forward, cocked his fist back and punched his foe square in the optic.

Shockwave fell backwards and lay there, unmoving. Superion planted his foot on the Decepticon's chest and pinned him in place. He raised his arm in preparation for another blow, but it never fell. It didn't need to.

Shockwave wasn't getting up.

Superion stood there for a long time, staring down at Shockwave. A part of the gestalt's mind understood that the fight was over, but he didn't want to accept that. He was in a rage, and wanted nothing more than for the Decepticon to get back up so he could knock him down again.

After what seemed like an eternity, one of the parts that made up his mind forced a disconnection. The titanic Aerialbot split into his five component parts.

While Fireflight settled down beside the wounded Skydive, Blades and Air Raid started preparing the fallen Shockwave for transport. Silverbolt watched it all with a thoughtful expression on his face.

A part of him was revolted by how their combined form had revelled in the violence it had inflicted on Shockwave, but Silverbolt knew that there was another part of him that shared in the thrill. He had been fighting against it since Galvatron had revealed it to him aboard the Ark, and he had thought that he had been making progress...until the first time they had combined with Blades to form the new Superion. When Slingshot had still been with them it had been difficult to control the combiner's rage. Now it bordered on the impossible.

At least we didn't kill him when he was down, the Aerialbot leader thought. That's something, anyway.

It was cold comfort, though. Unless things changed, he knew that Superion was too dangerous to let loose again. The way he acted, it was only a matter of time before his violent urges consumed the very humans he was supposed to protect...or worse yet, one of his fellow Autobots.

Something needs to be done, Silverbolt knew. But I have no idea what.

Hubcap sat in his quarters aboard the Steelhaven, staring at his visitor with an intense look on his face.

In the seat beside him, Downshift's face was showing the same expression.

"Is this what I think it is?"

The communications officer shrugged. "I guess it depends on what you think it is."

"I think it's a carefully hidden program that's been recording and re-transmitting all of our comms traffic."

"In that case, yeah," Hubcap told him. "It's exactly what you think it is. And whoever put it on the system...they're good. Maybe even better than me. The damned thing's been running since we made orbit, and the only reason I noticed it at all is 'cause it happened to be using the transceiver when Pointblank tried to link up with that human satellite. Whoever our spy is, they know exactly what they're doing."

Downshift's expression darkened. "That's one thing I don't understand," he said. "Why transmit with the radio antenna and not the subspace array?"

"Stealth. We almost never use the radio transmitters. I don't know how long it takes for that program to send off its log, but odds are it's only active for a few minutes a day. It's only pure luck that we caught it at all."

"I get that," Downshift said with a touch of impatience. "But isn't a radio wave a few billion times slower than a subspace transmission?"

"It is." Hubcap sighed; he'd been over that himself, and he didn't like the answers he'd come up with. "There's two possibilities," he said. "It could be that whoever's sending the data has set up a repeater satellite close by to gather the radio signals and retransmit them over subspace. I don't think so, though...that'd be pretty easy to spot now that we know what we're looking for. But if it's not that, then whoever's using this info...they've got to be close enough that the time lag on a radio broadcast isn't an issue."

The Minibot got up and moved to stand beside the large window that made up one wall of his suite. For a moment, he gazed at the fragile blue planet below them.

"And that means Earth."

Epilogue: VsQs

The two Decepticon scientists roared up the gravel dune. Catching sight of the large orange object visible a few dozen metres away, Deluge slowly throttled down, coming to a gentle stop beside it. Hydradread, predictably, roared up to it, slammed on his brakes and sprayed the general vicinity with gravel.

Transforming, Deluge shook his head. "Couldn't you act like a professional just this once?"

"Why the blazes for?" Hydradread gestured at the object. "What are you expecting to find here? This is a cargo module, probably jettisoned from a passing transport ship. We aren't going to find anything useful here!"

"Patience, my sociopathic apprentice," Deluge said. Calmly stepping up to the orange module, he started to carefully sweep away years worth of dirt and gravel with a brush he had produced from subspace. "This is no mere cargo pod. Don't you recognize the design? This is a Cybertronian funeral barge. An early war vintage design, but my rad-dating scanners tell me it's quite a bit newer."

"So what? Some Transformer with a retro fetish got himself slagged. Big deal. Still not useful."

"You're still not thinking," was the lead scientist's mild response. "Who do we know of who was around for the first stages of the war, but wasn't around to see newer trends develop? Who do we know of who has a habit of dying every other week, leaving bits and pieces of corpses scattered throughout the known galaxy?"

A few seconds more of brushing, and Deluge had exposed part of a blue, horned helm. Shortly thereafter, a silver faceplate was revealed.

Hydradread practically gaped at him. "That's...that's..."

Deluge nodded. "Optimus Prime," he confirmed.

For a few moments, the elder scientist brushed in silence.

"OK," his junior partner admitted. "That's useful."

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