Grapple's Choice
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Chapter 1: Found
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"Interesting. Definitely an Autobot shuttle, or perhaps even an Autobot shuttle-former in there," Optimus Prime rumbled in appraisal of the ice-bound spacecraft.
Prowl ran again through the file of pictures Cosmos had sent, the Autobots in the room all staring in curiosity. A red Autobot brand was clearly visible on the grey-blue plating of the unknown craft.
"And those guys in the pictures are the same ones that made me the offer," continued Cosmos, referring to the aliens visible in some of the shots.
"How much to purchase the coordinates from them?"
"They want ten thousand credits for just the location. Fifteen if I want them to take me there, and twenty-five if we want them to dig it out for us."
"Do it," said Prime unhesitatingly. "Give them fifteen, but let me send Jetfire and a team out to you first, and then pay them the additional ten thousand to remove the jet if it looks worthwhile for either parts or reconditioning."
"All right. I'll wait then for Jetfire's team to arrive before I transfer the funds, but I'll make sure they know we're ready to pay their price." Cosmos looked about nervously as if someone might be watching. "There are reports of Decepticon activity in this region, though none are more recent than ten vorns. I'd just hate for them to make the same offer to Megatron."
"Understood. If you have to pay them some of the amount to assure our interest, do so."
"I shall. Cosmos out."
Ironhide approached the screen, leaned over Prowl's shoulder, and taking the controls he flipped through the pictures yet again. His mouth twisted into an expression that the prime recognized easily. "What is it, Ironhide?"
"That's a terast in there. It looks like a terast in his alt-mode."
"A terast?" Optimus looked again. "Are you sure?"
"What's a terast?" Bumblebee asked.
"I've never heard of a terast," said Bluestreak.
Ironhide nudged Prowl out of his seat at the monitor and the old warrior zoomed in on an area of the shuttle's fuselage. "An early form of combiner technology... used in the first days of the war," he supplied.
"I think you're right," said Optimus as Ironhide scrolled to another picture that showed more of the craft entrapped in the ice asteroid.
"A combiner? Really? So we might have five or six 'Bots in there?"
"Probably just two, the terast and his pilot," Ironhide explained. "A terast was a large warrior mech attached to three smaller mechs: a pilot, a mechanic, and a fueler. The terast was a big ol' flying, gunslinging frontliner. His pilot managed the team and pretty much controlled him in battle, and sat inside of the terast and was in constant interface with him, so it was more like having two separate minds running one body. Binary-bonding at it's finest. Though if anything the pilot was the dominant one when they merged. And then the others were support crew to look after the terast and kept him fit for battle."
"So not a combiner as we know today, like Superion or Defensor."
"Exactly."
Trailbreaker was now leaning in closer to the pictures given to Cosmos by the mining crew. "I'm sure it's a terast. Look at the shape of the fuselage, and that could be a terast's logo there."
Ironhide zoomed in on the indicated area. "I think you're right. Teletraan, switch to a negative image of the magnified area. Remove all parts of the image that could be interpreted as the ice surrounding a shuttle or a mech in alt mode."
Teletraan's screen switched for a moment to a bumper pattern before switching back to display Ironhide's request. The few odd lines of white had been replaced by an obvious if broken logo in black, but it was recognizable enough for Ironhide and Trailbreaker let out a whoop and high-five each other.
"You were right," smiled Optimus. "No mistaking that symbol for anything else."
"I knew it was a terast," beamed Trailbreaker.
The symbol consisted of three four-pointed stars in a horizontal line, their thin points just touching as if holding hands. The slightly larger central star was the focus of a halo which intersected the two side stars, enclosing the design into a tidy unit.
"Interesting. Why were they only used at the beginning of the war?" Bluestreak asked.
"The early days were rather different when it came to military tactics and technology. We were trying everything to gain the upper hand," Optimus offered. "The terast program was successful, but when resources began to run low, they were phased out in favor of smaller, more efficient and sustainable weapons and frames."
"Well just how big is a terast?" asked Bumblebee.
"Jetfire and a half," laughed Ironhide. "But not as big as the Omega Guardians."
"They must have been formidable on the battlefield," Bumblebee thought aloud.
"They were," Optimus said, a touch of nostalgia in his voice. "If we're lucky this one still has a spark in him. With this planet's resources, we could easily maintain one, provided we have his pilot as well."
"What about the other team members?" Prowl asked, his processors already computing the possibilities of adding such a warrior to their forces on Earth. He'd heard of the terasts and knew their reputation as formidable warriors but had never actually seen one.
"We'd have to make do, perhaps even reformat and retrain some of our force here into those positions. But this would only be if the terast and his pilot survived."
"We could put a new spark into the terast frame," Trailbreaker said matter-of-factly. "Couldn't we? If the frame and the weapons are salvageable. The pictures didn't show or even hint at any damage."
"We could..." Optimus said, his voice suddenly sounding rather far-away. "I guess we should really just wait to see what we've got until we make plans."
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The mining team guided Jetfire, Cosmos, Ironhide, Beachcomber, and Huffer through the excavated tunnel to where their find waited, entombed in ice. This section of space, the foreboding Erebus Nebula, was full of asteroids encased in ice. Other objects were occasionally and equally entombed—spacecraft, drones, radio beacons, science stations—hapless victims of the unusual conditions of the nebula. And now the evidence had shown that even Cybertronians had experienced the frozen fate so many others had. The miners had made a living out of braving the difficult conditions to salvage or extract what they could find at the heart of the spacebergs.
And the find was everything the pictures had suggested and more as they would soon discover. An Autobot jet, somewhat larger than Jetfire, sat in the ice slightly exposed by the explorations of the miners. The Autobot symbol that had been seen in the pictures was clearly visible, and it had been this symbol that had led to the contacting of the faction. With a bit of work they were able to expose a hatchway, and Huffer and Beachcomber went inside.
::Well, it's definitely a terast,:: was Huffer's evaluation.
::Did you find the pilot?:: Ironhide asked.
::Possibly. There are three bodies in here, all with the same bluish-grey plating as the hull of the terast.::
Ironhide felt a rush of excitement. The full team perhaps? ::Do they all have the same symbol on them, the white stars in the ring? There are always four mechs on a terast team—three small and one large.::
::Well they're all painted the same. Let me look for the symbols.:: Huffer sent out a video feed from his optical intake, revealing three bodies lying in stasis-lock against the control panel, looking as if they had been waiting for their fate. Hands were clasped together. Heads were touching. He began pulling them away from each other, brushing the frost off of their chests in search of identifying markings. ::Looks like two mechs and a femme.::
Beachcomber crouched beside one of them and turned a frost-rimed faceplate toward himself. Something of a sad expression lingered on the features. "Poor things," he sighed. "They knew what was happening but apparently couldn't do anything about it."
::Terast symbols on all three:: was Huffer's report.
::It must be the full team. Perhaps they were being sent somewhere when they became trapped,:: suggested Jetfire, a bit of giddiness in his voice. His own experience on Earth was uncomfortably similiar. The hope of rescuing others who'd suffered the same fate had become foremost in his mind once word of the find had reached him.
::Quite possibly.::
::Think we can get them out of here?::
::We'll get the miners to do it. They've got better equipment for this job than we do, and there's a lot of ice to break them out of.::
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Cosmos left the spaceberg and returned to Earth first. In his hold along with Huffer were the three bodies that had been pulled out of the terast. On landing, the ancient Autobots were taken into the Ark and down to the medbay, where the process of reviving the pilot and mechanic began with near immediacy, their sparks having survived the long, long sleep. The fueler had not been as fortunate, and Ratchet confirmed Huffer's original evaluation. The mech had not made it. But the fact that three of the four members had survived was impressive. Not all of the Autobots Optimus Prime had taken with him on the search for a new source of energy had survived the six octads after crashing on Earth.
The pilot and mechanic were found to be in a near perfect state despite their stasis in the ice. And on searching the available records of the terasts, the team was actually identified and their fate fully learned. The terast, an adult-build rather than a reformat, had been designated Hyperion. The pilot was a valorous mech named Apex—a popular and distinguished Autobot. The mechanic was a medically-trained femme that went by the name of Sundog. The unfortunate fueler appeared in the records as Stoker. Some eight and a half million years ago the team was being transferred to the now defunct colony of Pax Sabulon when they disappeared en route. Never arriving, they were listed as lost either due to a navigational error or an unknown Decepticon ambush.
As Ratchet worked, currently giving both frames an infusion of cybertonium, other mechs gathered in the observation gallery above the medbay to watch. Grapple and Huffer had some months before opened a window between the storage room above the medbay and the main area itself so that injured friends could be observed without disturbing the work of the medics. "I can't figure out what the pilot's alt-mode is," declared Bluestreak to the others in the crowded gallery, all curious about the ancient mech and femme.
"He's a core-former, explained Trailbreaker. "He folds down into a box full of computers and a set of armored nerve-cables. I guess they pre-date you."
"Nerve cables?" Cliffjumper queried. "I thought they'd just been pulling him apart. He's meant to be all... tentacly?"
"Yep. That's all part of his normal form."
Ironhide jumped in, the faces of the other younger mechs present all looking on with much curiosity. "Okay... lesson time again. This basically how a terast worked. The terast is a big guy like Jetfire, except with a smaller mech—a core-former—sitting inside of him like a shuttle pilot. In battle that pilot transforms to his core mode and assumes a hard-line connection to the terast. Those nerve-cables run out and connect directly to the weapons, ambulatory, and flight systems, so the pilot has almost complete command of the terast's body, but suddenly the terast's much smarter and much more aware because it has two consciousnesses and more processing power controlling it. Plus the pilot is sheltered so the whole system is more impervious to crippling damage or energy attacks.
"So, sort of a two-man combiner team. But then what about the mechanic and the fueler?"
"Support staff, though the bond between them and the terast can be just as strong as the bond with the pilot. They're a family unto themselves."
"But their fueler's dead, right?"
"Yeah. Sadly. But we should be able to find some way to get around it."
"It shouldn't be too hard to find someone to pump gas into him, right?" Bumblebee grinned.
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Sundog was brought to consciousness first, and the femme was delighted to find herself rescued by fellow Autobots, but the discovery that her team been trapped in space for so long shocked her to the core. "Thirteen octads... Such a long time..."
She was soon up and moving around, and was at Apex's side when he was woken and the pilot was immediately embracing his teammate, the two sobbing their eyewash reservoirs dry in happiness at being rescued, and also in sorrow over the loss of the fueler. As suspected, their impending doom had been met fully aware, and they had prepared themselves for the possibility that some or all of them might not survive the entombment. But despite knowing the possibility both were gravely saddened that Stoker had not survived the long period of stasis-lock.
Introductions and a formal briefing followed, Optimus catching up the newly woken mechs on the present state of the war and Cybertron. Afterward Jetfire took them out to the Aerialbots' hangar to a large room that had been designated as theirs, kindly given over by the flying gestalt. Three days later Jetfire and Omega Supreme brought in the terast himself, still partially frozen in Erebussian ice. They placed his huge frame outside of the hangar, where for a few more days Hyperion lay in the hot high desert sun, meltwater dripping out of him—much of it collecting into buckets for study by and the sating of Perceptor's curiosity.
"The ice broke a lot of his outer transfluid lines, so we'll need to do extensive repairs before we can revive him," explained Ratchet to Apex and Sundog. "But he'll be just fine once we've gotten that and a few of these other damages taken care of. He's been well looked after," he said with a nod and a smile to the mechanic.
"Thank you most kindly, Ratchet," she said gratefully. In the sunshine their bluish-grey plating was revealed to have a greenish undertone and a distinctive golden cast where the light reflected off it at a certain angle. The color was a complicated one.
"We know that you will do your best," said Apex trustingly, reaching up and placing his hand on Ratchet's shoulder, evoking another smile from the frequently gruff medic. This Apex was a charmer.
"And until then, let us know what we can do to make you comfortable and tell us if there's anything you require," said Optimus. "We know what it's like to wake up in the distant future and to find yourself displaced from everything you knew."
"They'll take care of you. They did for me," Jetfire added. He'd given his story to the pair already, having been assigned to ease their transition to Earth, given the similar fate he had suffered.
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Ratchet, Sundog, and First Aid spent the next few days repairing the damage to Hyperion's frame and restoring his cybertonium levels, and on one blindingly hot afternoon they brought him back online. He transformed with a shout of joy and seized his comparatively tiny pilot and mechanic in his arms and held them closely, pressing his forehead to theirs and gushing excited words at the rescue of their team. Naturally it was but little time before the missing presence was noted. "Where is he? Is he still in stasis-lock?" He set down his two teammates and looked about frantically.
The other two looked at him sadly. "Peery... he is gone. Stoker did not make it."
"Stoker...? Gone...?" he gasped.
"His spark failed to survive the stasis. We were in stasis-lock for nearly thirteen octads."
"He was gone when we were found," said Apex soberly, reaching up to pat the terast's hip.
At this the large mech gasped and began to shake. "Thirteen octads?"
"Peery, I am so sorry," sighed Sundog, wrapping her arms about Hyperion's lower leg. Height-wise she and Apex barely reached his knees when the three were standing.
"Gone..."
The huge mech sat down heavily onto the tarmac outside the hangar and stared at his teammates.
"We were lucky to survive that long in stasis ourselves."
"Gone... No spark..." Hyperion choked.
"It... happened," Apex sighed regretfully.
"Stoker..." And then Hyperion lay down on the tarmac on his back and switched off his optics. Heavy tears began to spill down the sides of his head.
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"Grapple's Choice" continues in Chapter 2: Resurrection
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Thank you for reading. Six chapters to follow! If you liked any of it, please comment or review. Feedback is appreciated by most authors, myself especially.
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Author Notes
Terast – Greek for 'monster.' They're big, dangerous, and not the sort of thing you want to face on the battlefield. However their size makes them much like great danes... they're gentle and quiet when not needing to be active, conserving energy by moving slowly and keeping movement itself to a minimum.
Erebus Nebula – Inspired by a short story in SpaceWreck: Ghost Ships and Derelicts of Space (US ISBN 0896730220) by Stewart Cowley. As a kid, reading this book and poring of the pictures brought such a sense of wonder and sometimes horror. The two pictures of different spacecraft encased in ice stick with me even today, and the concept of being entombed in ice is truly frightening.
I gave the nebula the name of Erebus for two reasons. First, Erebus: was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogeny identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos... In Greek literature the name Erebus is also used of a region of the Greek underworld where the dead pass immediately after dying, and is sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus. (Wikipedia)
Also, the HMS Erebus was one of the two ships of the ill-fated Frankin expedition. For those of you unfamiliar with this fascinating bit of history, the Frankin expedition set sail in 1845 to seek the elusive Northwest Passage. The expedition was lost, the ships having become repeatedly trapped in the ice. All 129 members of the expedition died over the course of their arctic ordeal. The wreck of the Erebus was found in September 2014 at the bottom of Queen Maud Gulf.
The Terast Symbol – More than just a simple logo as you'll learn when the story progresses.
Six Octads – 4 million years
Thirteen Octads – 8.5 million years.