Scattered hope chapter two.
Rocky mountains, Idaho
As day broke over the mountains the forest began to fill with life as birds started to chirp and fly around early in the morning. The smallish campfire that had lit up the surrounding area that previous night had now gone out and all that was left was the smoldering embers in the pits were it had once been a raging fire only hours ago. Around the camp fire was two cars and one human in the one of the cars. He was dosing off in the more expensive of the two cars, which was a McLaren 675LT. He had been in there for the past few hours after he had woken Bulkhead up from recharge to have the mech take over from him on lookout duty. Once he had woken the bot he woke his daughter who had locked her doors to her alt, she mumbled a bit and was a bit cranky once she gained her senses but opened her door's anyway to let her dad in, Miko had soon returned to recharge only minutes afterwards. Bulkhead decided to stay in his alt mode instead of transforming into his bi-pedal mode encase he woke the pair up, he would thought transform and attack if there was any sign of a Decepticon in the area or any Cybertronian for that matter.
As the hours passed nothing had happened. The green mech was hoping that Wheeljack was still online and making his way towards the co-ordinates the pair had set only weeks ago. He had hoped that it would be Jackie to find the trio first and not the cons. Bulkhead spent the next few hours pondering about the situation before he heard the revving of an engine just an hour or two after day break. He couldn't tell if it was a friendly at the distance apart they were but he could tell that it was getting closer. The mech transformed and called over to the hybrid and the pretender that were currently recharging,
"Miko, Springer get up. We have company." He said as he nudged Miko's alt.
Miko opened her sided door and let her dad out before asking, "Wha, what's wrong." She mumbled as she transformed. Springer transformed and stood beside his daughter, he pulled out his path blaster with one servo and steadied his sleepy daughter with the other as Miko rubbed the recharge from her optics and slowly gained her senses and balance. Bulkhead pulled out his maces as the revving got closer while Miko pulled out her swords and activated her rocket launchers.
The tension in the group grew as the engine grew closer, the three were ready to strike but once they saw who it was they instantly refrained and re-subspaced there weapons. A white Lamborghini Gallardo, with green and red accents pulled into the clearing and transformed into the bot that the trio had been waiting for.
"Jackie!" Bulkhead said out of joy as he ran up to the mech and hugged him.
"Heh, good to see you're all right too Bulk." Wheeljack said as he returned the hug.
"Dude, where's the ship?" Miko asked a bit disappointed that he had drove to the camp and hadn't arrived via his ship.
"Gone." Wheeljack growled,
"How? What happened to it?" Springer asked as he and miko walked over to the white mech.
"Starscream shot me down." Wheeljack sighed in anger, "He took out one of the engines and blew a hole in the rear of the ship, taking out the main power core completely."
"Meaning what exactly?" Miko asked,
"The Jackhammer has had her last flight, even if I could fix her up, there's no way to replace the parts or build a new power core unless…" Wheeljack stopped before he realised something he had completely overlooked.
"Unless what Jackie?" Miko asked as she watched the inventor face palmed.
"Miko if you find the time think you could make a generator for me if I make the parts needed to rebuild the Jackhammer." Wheeljack asked the young hybrid.
"Only if you teach me to fly it." Miko said stubbornly folding her servos across her chest, her dad could only laugh at his daughter, and she had the same spontaneity that her mother had.
"Fine, but your cleaning it for a breem (a fortnight) if you crash it and repairing the damage that you do to it." Wheeljack said, only to continue. "Well now that that's out of the way anybot want to hear how I broke out of Megatron's new fortress." Wheeljack asked as he scratched a very uncomfortable piece of armour, as he scratched the quartet notice a small tracking device fall out from his armour. The group looked at each other and it was as if they all had the same idea, and knew who the responsible party for planting it on Wheeljack were. They continued to act as normal encase there had been a wire paced on the tracker as they went and scaled a small cliff overlooking the clearing, all they needed to do now was play the waiting game.
Darkmount, Nevada.
Once the alarms had stopped blaring through the fortress, to say that the hulking brute that was Megatron was angry was pretty much an understatement. The Mech was currently pacing around in his throne room trying to get the story from his drones about the escape only hours ago. Interrogating the drones was proving to be fruitless at this point as none of their stories matched up as they blamed each other to try and avoid there masters usual habit of terminating a few of them after a failure. It wasn't until his failure of a second in command came stumbling into the throne room did he truly find out what was going on.
"THE WRECKER ESCAPED!" Megatron yelled at the top of his voice, his screech was so loud it could be heard all the way down to the lowest floors in the basement. All the drones working on the lower floors stopped working for a minute and just simply looked up at the ceiling, before getting on with their work.
"No master, please listen." Starscream pleaded, "I let him escape…"
"AND WHY WOULD YOU LET HIM ESCAPE." The warlord screamed at his second in command.
"I have placed a small tracker on him, he will lead us to the others Autobots." Starscream replied, cowering beneath the silver brute. Megatron looked up for a moment and thought this new development over, 'why throw just one bot to the smelter, when I could throw multiple, as these pathetic fleshing's say 'the more the merrier'' the silver warlord looked down at his petrified second in command, a large sadistic grin spread over his face plates and matched the same sadistic glee that one could see in his penetrating purple optics.
"Very well Starscream, send a squadron to their location and have them open fire on any Autobot onsite but only maim them so they cannot escape, then have the drones drag there chassis back and throw them into the smelter all at once." The brute finished instructing his S.I.C,
"Yes My Liege." Starscream replied, taking a small bow before walking off to his post on two floor below. As the silver and red seeker left, Megatron walked over to his throne and placed in a few calls, one to agent fowler and another to a long thought dead Cyclops working in solitude on the dead planet that they once called home, before he started a war and all.
Down at Starscream's post, two floors below Megatron's throne room and personal quarters.
The moment the seeker second in command walked into the war room he was met by the silent but ever helpful Soundwave, the spy though ignored the fact that the seeker even entered the room too busy listening to the communications satellites for any Autobot communication from either the bots or the children they were so eager to protect. Although when they kidnapped the children Soundwave seemed to be the only one to notice that one was missing when they kidnapped the kids. The human femme, Miko… come to think of it she had been missing from a lot of recent battles they had between the Autobots. Soundwave's thoughts then turned to the new Autobot femme that joined the team, he had noted that she had seemingly, and suddenly arrived on earth nine weeks, ten even. That wretched femme was very strange, she appeared to be a youngling, and younglings don't usually have very good shots with their weapons, but she had managed to shoot his precious lazerbeak out of the sky as she and another bot tried to protect the former Autobot base. So he was nursing his injured bird and at the same time scour the communications systems of this pathetic dust ball of a planet they had set up a base on. He didn't care, he would only care when he got his servos on that cursed black and pink femme.
Starscream noted that he wouldn't be getting the attention of the spy anytime soon so he turned to the console and pulled up the drone team that was currently making heading towards the co-ordinates were the tracker was at. The seeker was happy when the tracker picked up three other Autobot signals in the area around it. He then opened a linked comm from the computer to each of the seven drones currently closing in on the unaware bots in the area.
"Command to Omega Squad, are you closing on the source of the signal, be cautious there a three signals in the area." The seeker smirked as he informed the team. The leader of the team, who the drones called Steve was currently in command and responded to their seeker commander
"Rodger commander Starscream approaching source of the signal now." Steve replied to the commander. As the group neared the sight they transformed in mid-flight and skidded to an abrupt halt, the drones took a quick scan of the area. All they found was a burnt out camp fire and the blinking tracker which had been on the escaped Autobot only twenty-four hours ago.
"Commander Starscream, the Autobots are no were in sight but there appears to be a small campfire and a tracking device in close proximity." Steve reported to the commander back in Darkmount.
"What? Are you sure that there are no Autobots in the vicinity." Starscream stuttered into the com link, oh Megatron was going to be pissed.
The drones kept looking for around the area, they were suddenly hit by a large rock fall which came from the cliff just a few trees away. The drones looked up to the top of the cliff were they saw four Autobots standing with their weapons out,
Back in darkmount Starscream noted that two of the drones had been terminated and the other five were hurt. He instantly got back up on the comm's,
"Omega squad what's happening!?" The screaming seeker asked, he heard gun shots and clashing metal before he received his answer,
"Commander, it was an ambush… four Autobots, three wreckers and a black femme." Steve shouted into his comm, but before he could say anything else to the commander one of the Autobots came onto the line… two which Starscream wished he didn't hear.
"Thanks for the target practise screamer. Although I'm a little ticked about the tracker." Wheeljack said as his voice filled the comm line.
"How did you find it?" Starscream growled through the comm,
"It was too easy breaking out of that castle of yours, so I decided to do some hoking around under my hood and it simply fell off." Wheeljack laughed, "But I think there's someone else you would like to hear from too, his is a little ticked at the situation you've put us in."
"What are you on about, you auto scum." The seeker asked, he was processing all this info which he had just been given, like there was four Autobots, Not three. Secondly he hadn't hid the tracker too well, thirdly… Megatron was going to have his helm. Once he heard the next voice come over the comm he froze practically, not even Megatron could make the seeker freeze up as he did, even Soundwave noticed and came over to listen to the conversation.
"As Wheeljack said screamer, thanks for the target practice. I haven't had this much fun since blowing up your orbital station" the voice filled the comm, laughter was evident in his also serious tone.
"Springer… How is this possible? We tracked no ship entering earth's atmosphere other than Wheeljack's piece of scrap." Starscream stuttered in anger through the comm, as Soundwave listened on beside the silver seeker. "And where is the rest of Menasor?" the seeker casually asked, knowing that there was a slight possibility that the rest of the stunticon squad was still online and ready for a fight.
"Ha, those amateurs. There were they belong in the pits." Springer laughed.
"But how?" Starscream growled into the comm, he was just as shocked as Soundwave. Maybe that's the reason why they found breakdown on earth before they even arrived.
"About twenty, twenty-0ne years ago now, we all landed on earth. They kidnapped my wife to get at me, so I did what I always do, blow stuff up and level the playing field, but of course with help from my wife. Starscream felt a light bulb go over his head, he would get more info out of the mech and kidnap his wife and any children they had, but before he could go asking anymore questions springer's voice filled the comm's once again.
"And before you think about kidnapping her, just a heads up she passed away recently and me and my pissed of daughter were in the middle of her funeral when we had to be called back to our now destroyed base, and if you lay a hand on my sparkling well I let her tell you what she will do." Springer said as he passed the comm to Miko,
"What can a sparkling do to a full grown Cybertronian, there weapons systems don't come on until there at least fifteen vorns old, I hardly should be afraid of a sparkling." The ignorant seeker snorted in amusement, but once he heard the next voice he froze again, and this time so did Soundwave.
"Oh I can do a lot to you screamer, besides I terminated Hardshell in the best possible fashion, so I would watch were you fly you never know I could easily shoot a missile through your spark chamber. Shame I missed Wave's pet, he should be thankful, lazerbeak nearly got a hit on me before I shot her down. She's a beautiful bird I must say, shame she's owned by a con." The femme's voice came in over the comm. "Thanks for the target practice though I believe it is time for us to take our leave. Oh dude by the way, you might want to send a clean-up crew." Miko laughed down the comm line before they cut it off.
Starscream and Soundwave could only stare at each other and the computer screen for the next five minutes. What a revelation, not only was the one responsible for blowing up Screamers orbital station on earth, but he had wiped out the majority of the stunticon combiner squad and had a sparkling who happened to be the human responsible for terminating Hardshell, but also the bot responsible for shooting down Soundwave's most prized possession, Lazerbeak. Starscream wondered if he had recorded the transmission, but he looked down to the computer to find that he didn't, the seeker then turned to the Decepticon spy master to see if he had recorded the conversation.
"Soundwave have you recorded the conversation that we have both just heard with our own two audios." Starscream asked, looking over to the purple-blue mech beside him.
"Soundwave: Negative, Reason: too much shock, at recent development." The usually silent mech growled out, he was visibly angry that he hadn't recorded the message
"Well then, Megatron is really going to have my helm now." Starscream sighed as he slowly trudged his way up to the throne room where he would have to explain this recent failure to his angry commander. Soundwave just looked on at the computer long after the seeker had left the room, he quickly pulled up video footage to his room and did a quick check on his precious lazerbeak before turning the computer off and heading up to the throne room where he was met with a surprise, Shockwave and his latest creation, a huge hulking brute of an animal once thought myth was standing in the throne room being petted by Megatron, who was dwarfed by the sheer size of the brute, the beasts head was actually larger than Megatron. Soundwave was only in the room for a few minutes before Megatron gave the beast something to smell before it took off into the skies. What it was after only they knew.
Idaho State.
They had just finished taking care of their followers, and given the con's something to think about when they decided to move out before any more Decepticons are sent to their previous location where they had just wiped out that squadron of drone.
"So were to now?" Miko asked,
"Well, when I was out exploring I found an active energon mine just a few hours' drive north of here, we could go there and blow the crystals up." Wheeljack started, springer then continued with what the mech had started with,
"Yes, if we blow up the energon crystals we would be able to attract the attention of the others and we can plan our next move from that." Springer said, the others looked at him and nodded in agreement. "Miko transform back into human mode and travel in Bulkhead, Wheeljack mind if I ride in you to the mine?" the black and orange mech asked,
"Aww, why can't I drive to the mine?" Miko complained, as she looked down to her dad who had just transformed down to his human mode.
"Miko we can't start a convoy, the cons would notice and get suspicious and attack us." Springer told his daughter,
"Fine, but if we have to do any more driving after we storm this mine, I'm getting time on my wheels." Miko sighed as she transformed down into her human mode. Bulkhead and Wheeljack could only laugh at the junior wrecker.
"Come on Miko, you can drive later." Bulkhead told his femmefriend. He then transformed down into his s.u.v mode and opened his passenger side door. Miko walked over to him and jumped into his passenger seat,
"Heh, sparkling." Wheeljack mumbled in laughter as he transformed down and opened his driver's side door and aloud springer to enter.
"Hey, at least mine age's one vorn every few solar cycles, if you and Arcee ever have you have to put up with their wining for at least twenty-one vorns before they are able to go out into the world. Heck that would be the day we get Cybertron back though, mind you I don't see you and Arcee becoming creators just yet." Springer joked as, Wheeljack started his engine and started to lead him and bulkhead to the co-ordinates of the energon mine.
"Yeah… can the army of mini Jackie's and Cee's wait a few vorns sir. I don't think I want to settle down and start a family just so soon, I mean I still want to be a bit of a loose cannon." Wheeljack said, "Plus we only just got together a few weeks ago
"Yes Jackie, but I'll still want to see a new generation of Wreckers in my life cycle, and I'll be happy if Magnus doesn't show his faceplates anytime soon. He's the reason why I got into this mess with the stunticon squad in the first place." Springer reminisced.
"Yeah but think of it this way, had you still been in command on Cybertron, you never would have gotten married, had Miko, me and Bulkhead would have joined the well at this stage and the others would most likely have been captured and terminated as well, and the Decepticons would have won the war." Wheeljack reminded him, "Eh you don't really need to think about commander shoulder pads any more, half of us left the squad after he told us that there would be no rescue mission to save you, heck after you were captured Pyro was caught in a cloud of toxic energon and was terminated, and Twin Twist and Topspin were shot down and off lined just in that one mission. You were the better commander you made sure we all came out of our scrapes still online while shoulder pads just looked out for himself. A few breems later the squad was disbanded completely and Magnus was placed in charge of protecting Optimus's spark mate Elita-one and her sisters. I was never told though who her sisters were though"
"Well I suppose your right in that since Jackie, and it's great to see you mechs all cared so much for me when I was in command. Well lets head on over to this mine, I think the sooner the better." Springer said, to the mech, "And i think you would be surprised who close you and one of Elita's sisters were and probably still are. But like i said, lets head on over to the mine now and the sooner the better."
"Hey cut me some slack, I drove all night to get here. I haven't had any recharge since the early hours of yesterday morning." Wheeljack complained as he drove down the pebbled path.
"Eh quit your complaining, I lost two whole years of recharge when Miko was born and the past three and a half to caring for Mika…" Springer replied angrily before stopping all together,
"Sorry Springer, just been on edge after those brutes shot my baby down and tortured me." Wheeljack said,
"It's alright Jackie. It's alright." Springer said, the human then looked out of the window at the passing surroundings.
The rest of the drive between the two cars was very silent. The pair stayed close together though, not allowing them to be more than two hundred meters apart, encase of an ambush by the cons. All the while they were obnoxious to the looming beast that was following them. It would take them an hour and a half to get to the mine, but they hoped that they would get to the mine before any cons pick up their trail and before nightfall.
Thank goodness I got this done, please note that I might not have another chapter uploaded for a few weeks until after Monday the twentieth as I have triple award science coming up, biology on the tenth, chemistry on the fifteenth and physics on the twentieth. Although please look out for the next chapter after those dates. I should pick up the pace on my writing after that, so I will upload more chapters closer together. Thanks and keep reading.