Kup sat in the captain's chair as he looked out at his crew. They were doing their jobs correctly. Probably a first in a long while. But it was important that they did considering their current mission. They were responding to a distress signal from a dead Autobot ship. Dead usually meant either the ship was dead or the bots on board were. Considering the distress signal, he assumes ship.
"Coming up on the ship now boss." Sprocket began bringing in their ship for a landing.
"Good, bring her in nice and slow." Kup stood up to lookout out the viewport. The ship was in pieces. There were bits of asteroid debris as well as ship debris floating by. They'd been caught in a meteor shower of sorts. Tore part of the ship to bits. Bodies floated by among the debris. All were clearly dead.
The newby, Hubcap was trying to make contact with the ship. "Autobot Ship I.D. number 119846, do you copy? I repeat, do you copy?" He was messing with a dial, trying to change the radio frequency. He turned in his chair, placing his headset down. "Nothing coming back to us boss!"
Kup nodded to the young bot. He was focusing in on a small portion of debris. He swore he saw something move. Old optics playing tricks on me I suppose. He thought to himself as he took his seat once more. "Place us in the hangar and let's see what's happening." They were only a small scout ship whereas this dead ship was for sure a war ship. The size and weapons said it all. Sprawled along one side were some Earth English letters. Thariz. The rest of the letters seemed to have been scraped off by the debris or pieces had broken off into space.
Rollout peered through the viewport as he looked up from his radar station. "Looks like the bridges is in shambles. But there's a faint light coming from it, meaning the crew up there might've survived whatever happened." He looked back down at the radar, making sure nothing would surprise their tiny ship.
Offshoot adjusted himself in his seat as they made their approach into the hangar. "Something here don't feel right. Anyone know the name of this ship?"
Signal Flare nodded to his brother. "Yeah, the side said Thariz. Odd name for a ship if you ask me. But probably not the full name."
"Quit the banter! We're docking now!" Kup yelled to his men as the ship was secured in place. "Let's go." He got up from his seat, grabbing his signature shotgun from beside his chair and placed a cy-gar in his mouth. "Let's see what's happening on this vessel." As he walked out of the command center his men followed, weapons in their hands.
They made their way off the ship and Kup stopped them. He turned and pointed to Sprocket. "Sprocket, I want you here. Incase we need to make a quick escape, we'll need our best man piloting."
"You can count on me. Don't blame me if I go stir crazy though." The black and orange bot ran back inside the scout ship as the others began walking off into the dead ship.
"Everyone stay close, we have no idea what could be on here." Kup cocked his shotgun as he turned a corner, everyone borderline huddled together. "Let's make our way to the bridge." They all stuck close together as they looked around for survivors.
"Anyone else have a sudden feeling of pure fear?" Signal Flare gripped his standard blast tightly. He was just a mere medic, this was not something he wanted to do.
"Yeah, I don't like any of this." Hubcap noticed an energon splatter on the wall and kept walking. He didn't want to be around incase whatever caused it came back.
"Bridge is just up ahead." Camshaft took point as he began looking for any signs of survivors. His tracking skills usually weren't much help in space, but they were perfect for this situation.
Kup tried to grab the Omnibot before he got out of reach, but just missed him. "Camshaft, watch out for any Cons. This could all be a trap."
"You worry too much Kup." Override tagged along with Camshaft, prompting many of the others to also run ahead.
"Damn it." Kup shook his head as he walked on behind them. He wasn't in the mood to run. He heard something and turned around, shotgun at the ready. "Hm?" He took a few steps back the way they had come. Looking around he noticed something peculiar. A ventilation shaft hung open, as if someone had crawled up there to hide. But to hide from what, was the question. He shut the shaft and began walking back towards the bridge.
The door to the bridge was on the floor when he got there. He walked inside to see his team standing about. There was energon all along the walls and offline Autobots everywhere. Some of them Kup even recognized. Flung over the command console was a torn in half Ironhide. The two had known each other since the beginning of the war. He didn't deserve whatever had caused him to end up like this. Especially after all he'd done to help the galaxy.
The bridge was surrounded in a stasis field of sorts which kept the air pressure from changing due to the front portion of the bridge being in pieces. It looked as if something almost sliced it completely in half. It wasn't neat, but it wasn't jagged enough to just be asteroids.
"Sir, you might wanna see this." Rollout called Kup over as he looked down at a console. The old warrior walked over and eyed what Rollout had called him over for.
"Distress beacon. Still going." On a broken console was a flashing red light. Kup pressed a nearby button and the light stopped flashing. "Not anymore. Anyone get the full name of this ship yet?" He looked around the bridge once more, trying to put together what had happened. Maybe an asteroid had hit, causing weapons malfunctions. Would explain some of the damage, but not the damage to the bots scattered about.
Camshaft turned around from a console, datapad in his hand. "The name of the ship is Tharizdun. Heading for a colony somewhere. Data is corrupted. That's all I could get." He tossed the datapad aside, allowing it to hit the floor with a slight clang. It seemed to be hit back by something, but no one noticed.
"T-Tharizdun?" Hubcap seemed spooked. He backed himself up against a wall and everyone looked at him. "P-please tell me you guys also know about this ship."
Kup looked at Hubcap a little confused. "Been trapped out here awhile. Not up to date on ghost stories. What's this ship's story?"
Hubcap shook his head, almost violently. He grasped his gun with shaking hands. "This is a prison ship...Carrying Skyquake and his men…"
"No way! The Predators were destroyed stellar-cycles ago! Right?" Now even Override seemed worried.
Kup placed the barrel of his shotgun in his hand so he could hold it in firing position if need be. "They were. But Skyquake formed a new team. Different cons, some from other teams, some without teams. Rumor has it that after the Predacons were disbanded, he took Razorclaw under his wing. If that's true, these boys weren't killed by some asteroid. The Cons killed 'em." He looked at his men who were now frozen in fear.
Signal Flare's optics widened under his visor. "Sprocket! We left him alone at the ship!"
"You mean that ship?" Camshaft pointed out the shattered bridge at their ship fleeing into space. It appeared to be damaged and was barely functioning.
Kup almost seemed to smile. "Kid is probably going for backup, so let's survive until he gets back." There was a sudden explosion. It was their ship Sprocket had taken. There was nothing left where it had been. "Damn. Well, we just gotta survive in general until we can find a way off this hunk of junk. You all think you can do that?" Each of Kup's men nodded slowly, one by one. "Good. Let's move." They all filed out of the bridge, heading back towards the hangar to see if there was an extra ship.
Hubcap swore he saw something move inside the bridge before they left. But he was too scared to fully notice it so he kept moving.
A black, clawed hand grasped the door frame of the bridge. A single piercing red glow came from the darkness inside of it. Whatever it was seemed to be watching the Autobots leave. "They're heading for the hangar." Whatever was watching them stalked back off into the darkness. It was clear at this point that leaving wasn't going to be easy. But the Autobots didn't know that yet.
Author Notes: This is my second major Transformers Fanfic I wanna write a full story for! My first one is on TFW2005 and I'm still writing it, but I'm gonna write new ones on here for now. This isn't my first fanfic, so I have some idea of what I'm doing. Review with any thoughts, I somewhat enjoy hearing people's criticism. Helps me to become a better writer. So until next chapter, see ya guys next time!
