"This is scout ship one-niner," a nasally voice said, "I want to get in touch with Silver Convoy."
"Authorization?" a monochrome voice answered.
The pilot yawned, entering the complicated authorization code.
"Confirmed, patching through to Silver Convoy."
Too many procedures, he thought. If someone really had an emergency for a high-ranking official back on Cybertron, it'd be hell to get through to them. This took too long, he thought, minutes later. Totally ridiculous, especially if he found what he thought he found…
"Silver Convoy here."
"Hello, sir," the pilot said, "I have something rather urgent to report."
"So I've heard," Silver Convoy replied. "Let's hear it."
"Alright, here's what's going on…I was scouting past this planet on the outer fringes, a few days ago, this planet designated N-589, and it was a pretty basic scout patrol. But then," he paused, "I detected a Predacon ship landing there, but the Preds had been doing that all week long, so I figured, 'Hey, pretty normal.' But they stayed down there longer, like they had ship problems, and I scanned the ship, and there ain't no damage.
"So, I figured I'd stick around the planet in safe orbit. Good thing I did, 'cuz the next day, a whole swarm of Pred and Omikron ships arrived, and they all set down in the same place as the other one. Whatever they found, it was big."
"What should I do about it?" Silver Convoy asked. "I can't launch an attack, our forces are still recuperating. Hm…is there any energon there?"
"Only little patches," the pilot replied.
"I'll see what I can find out," Silver Convoy said. "Thank you, stay out of their sight."
"Understood. One-niner, out."
Silver Convoy stood confused. What could have persuaded the Predacons and Omikron to send so many ships to such a barren land? For sure, the answer to this lay in the Stronghold's computer core. He had no way to access it, though, no one that could access it for him…but if you want a job done right…
"You wanted to see me?" A black clad Maximal asked as he walked behind Silver Convoy.
"Jagger, thank you for coming." Jagger had a lean, thin black body, white splotched throughout his body. His forearms, shins, and back had pieces of a rectangular Cybertronian workstation protruding from them, his alternative mode. His face was covered with a black plate, literally masking his emotions.
"I have a job for you, Jagger," Silver Convoy said as he placed his hands behind his back. "I need you to infiltrate Stronghold."
"Difficulty level?" He snapped out, coolly.
"High."
"Good." Jagger smiled underneath the plate. "I'll begin immediately. What's my mission objective?"
***
Bits of scrap glued to him and battle wear-and-tear painted on, Jagger set out for the blood field in front of Stronghold. The bodies had been left there as a reminder of the battle, also because the clean-up crew had not reached there yet. Jagger squatted in one of the most heavily hit areas and transformed into seemingly run down and destroyed small rectangular workstation. A radar extended from the upper right corner of the box, scanning for a breach in the fort. In a matter of minutes, nearly twenty possibilities were found. A few moments later, Jagger decided on which point of entry he'd use.
From within the offset cube, Jagger ejected Esp, a small agile robot that was a mere foot tall. Since the robot's speed and agility was key, he had no armor at all; only a gray skeleton and the espionage equipment attached to it. Esp was a remotely controlled robot of Jagger, that is, while Jagger controlled Esp and lived what he lived, his true mode was open to attack. The miniature robot rushed away from his master unit and towards his entry doorway.
Esp purveyed the city. Thoroughly in shambles. Everyone was so concerned with getting others out of buildings that they wouldn't even notice Esp running by. So many Omikron and Predacons in one place, all ready to shoot first and ask questions later...it all gave Jagger an enormous rush.
Esp hid in a dark corner, acting as a signal amplifier for Jagger's radar. Jagger got a nearly perfect picture of the layout of the city, of where energy stations were located, where digital traffic was in greatest volume. Fools, he thought to himself, they should have never let down their radar jammers. Doing that made tasks like this regretfully easier.
Jagger located the highest concentration point of traffic and decided to pursue that venue. Esp sprinted northward, deeper into the city, for miles. His light structure and powerful leg motors made him a blurry runner with high endurance, indeed. Only ten minutes later, Esp had arrived.
The building that housed the computer core took quite a beating…half the radar domes were destroyed, the building's once heavy armor had been "degraded" to light, doors were broken down…this was too easy, Jagger thought, not worthy of his time. Despite that, his orders were directly from Silver Convoy, and he was bound to follow them. Esp slipped into the building through a small hole in the eastern wall.
Keeping in the shadows, Esp tiptoed through the complex. This place really took a beating, Jagger thought, as he looked around in Esp's body. Finally, after seemingly endless boredom, Esp entered the chamber containing the computer core. So few guards…idiots.
The chamber was, basically, a big cube with a glassed in, shielded cylinder in the center. Must be where all the data was actually stored. The small nodes placed around the room were access points. Simple enough. Esp inconspicuously walked over to one, and transformed into a "spy plug", a small tube that interlocked into most ports. Now it was time for the fun part.
Esp's fake passwords were readily accepted by the system. He could try and dig into the important system files run to use the city, but then his presence would be detected, and his mission a failure. Thus, he broke into his target data cluster: Magnatron's message logs. Maggy really needed a better password system, Jagger laughed. Too bad he was dead and gone now.
Moments later, Esp's search string, "N-589" came up with three positive matches. He read them all, baffled by what "the artifact". Now, searching both personal and message logs, Esp received numerous hits for "the artifact". He sifted through them, from latest to earliest. They were all Magnatron rambling about "the artifact-this" and "the artifact-that". Useless. Esp read through each, one by one, until he reached the last one. Jagger, miles away, had a good feeling about this last message, the earliest message that contained the phrase "the artifact". He opened it, reading it eagerly.
"Oh my God."
What was once eagerness quickly mutated into horror. Jagger ordered Esp to disconnect at once and to return to him as fast as possible. Esp transformed back to robot mode, sprinting out of the city. Whether the Omikron and Predacons sighted Esp was of no concern now. He needed Esp back at once, Silver Convoy needed to be notified of "the artifact's" true nature as soon as possible.
Esp exited Stronghold, returning to his master immediately. A Predacon clean-up worker nearby watched as the small robot ran towards a trash pile, transformed, landing inside the mess of metal and tubing. Slowly, he moved towards the pile, gun drawn.
Jagger transformed, taking the Predacon by surprise. A detached limb in hand, Jagger swiftly delivered a knock out blow. He glanced at the limb that began crumbling in his hands. Predacon. Figured, he thought, cheaply made stuff. His attention turned back to the emergency at hand, bolting off to the capital city.
"I feared that 'the artifact' was something on a grand scale," Silver Convoy said, having reviewed Esp's findings, "But I never imagined that the Omikron and Predacons were searching for that."
"I was surprised as well, Silver," Jagger replied. "What're you going to do about it?"
Silver Convoy reclined in his chair. "The only thing I can do. Take what's left of the strike forces and bring them to N-589."
"And Pax Convoy?" Jagger asked slyly.
"He'll accompany me. I'll see to it that he does, and by his own free will, too."
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