TRANSFORMERS 1942
Issue 2
The Dark Of Death
It could take thousands of vorns, but Mother had time to wait.
Four million revolutions of the local star passed. Four million years. A long time, even for a Cybertronian. Ice came and went. Islands were formed. Continents and mountain ranges were shaped. Animal life grew, flourished, declined, and grew again.
Four million years.
And then, life.
A huge mushroom cloud of dust and rock and plasma exploded into the atmosphere, radioactive particles dancing briefly before being sucked up by the inrush of material to replace the air blasted out by the detonation. An early atomic device, a low-yield British impactor bomb, had been tested on the face of the volcano, now named Mount St Helens, that was furtherest from the closest human township. People living nearby thought the volcano had erupted, and moments after the initial explosion, they were right, as the mountain, angry at being outdone after millions of years of reasonably peaceful slumber, awoke in an extremely violent manner.
After the initial eruption of magma into the upper atmosphere, and ash settled across the region, covering the gound everywhere in an off-white blanket akin to a thick snow, the ground settled. Few had noticed the high altitude Army Air Force bomber drop the bomb, none had seen the bomb hit bang on target - a slight depression in the side of the volcano - and with the debris from the eruption and the explosion, no one saw that the rock face had been partially vaporised. Certainly, no one saw the pitted metal of the giant conical engine exhausts of Ark Secondus, nor the broad expanse once clean and flat, now tattered and torn, where the shuttlebay hatches resided. No one saw the huge plates of metal flung backwards out from the giant cave, nor the occasional glimpse of a scattered limb or torso of a giant metal warrior.
But the ship registered daylight on a rear-mounted sensor. Acting in accordance with survival programming, a small sensor subroutine of Mother's was fed power, and additional readings were sought from multiple other sensors surrounding the ship. Many refused to reply; others replied in gibberish, but a further three crash-hardened sensors reported daylight or free oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur... all in gaseous form. Pressure sensors in the hull were booted up next, and those that reported into the subroutine suggested that while the front half of the ship remained buried, and a large section of the bottom appeared to be missing, the rear half of the ship was free of its prison. Mother cautiously brought several more systems online, and detected the main vent of the volcano - molten magma had forced its way up in the eruption, passed to either side around the ship, and had continued upwards along a single fault crack - almost straight up from Ark Secondus' dorsal fin.
Laser readings suggested an unobstructed path, and with a final decision, Mother activated and launched a single Auntie probe.
Firing straight up into the ash plume above the volcano, Auntie protected herself with a magnetic shield that repelled the debris, while also protecting herself from observation by any natives that had arisen in the time Mother had been dormant. No one noticed her, and within minutes, she was in a low orbit, trailing a series of small comm relays behind her to allow for a communication downlink with Mother when Auntie was out of line of sight. Mother also launched a small mobile comm relay to climb the chimney-like vent of the volcano, to perch on the lip of the crater and transmit signals from Auntie back down to the ship below.
From orbit, Auntie circled the globe. An array of sensors were trained on the surface below, soaking in terrain information and scanning for lifeforms. She made several sweeps of the ground with variable sensors - magnetic, electromagnetic, optical, and atmospheric to recreate the sounds of the indiginous lifeforms - if any.
And she found lifeforms. Near Ark Secondus was what appeared to be a major near-coastal city, teaming with mechanoid life. It mostly seemed to be limited to what appeared to be mostly-straight road surfaces and constructions made of obviously artificial materials. Strangely, the surface was limited to organic and natural-state carbon forms instead of being built or rebuilt with metals, and Aunty wondered at this, but higher thoughts than this were beyond her programming. She simply downloaded the information to Mother via the chain of comm relays, and continued to scan for dominant life forms.
There were many. It surprised her just how much life the planet teemed with. And yet, she detected no advanced neural systems, no feedback systems. It seemed the life of this world was just beginning, in a low form. Internal combustion engines were plentiful, with some slightly more advanced engines in several locations around the world. These places were sites of intense clustering of armoured buildings in the main part, but a few were under thin woven materials that Aunty decided had to be some kind of camoflage from aerial observation.
Thankfully, her systems were a bit more advanced than the ones on this planet.
She continued to gather bodyforms for Mother's crew, large armoured vehicles, aerial vessels with woefully short ranges and pitiful armour and armaments, ocean-going vessels (Aunty wasn't so surprised to see fresh water on this planet - the initial scans on the planet before the crash had shown large amounts of water and organic compounds), and many smaller vehicles woefully adapted to wild terrain, but well-suited for the straight-lined roads. Fortunately for the crew of Ark Secondus, Aunty was only interested in the exterior form of the machine - internal appearances could be sparse or for display purposes only, while internal systems could be fully Cybertronian in manufacture - simply reshaping the alternate form of the Cybertronian, which would require some work on limb placement and external shell armour, would in most cases be enough. But again, this wasn't something that Aunty was worried about.
Passing over a large landmass three quarters of the way around the planet from her start point, she detected something interesting: what appeared to be some kind of major ideological difference. From the assumed safety of orbit, Aunty watched intently as a variety of armed and armoured forms lumbered across deserts, mudflats, over hills, through thick forests, urban environments, sailed across oceans and flew with early grace in the skies. They spat death at one another, exploded into bright white fireballs and their carcases lay strewn around the terrain. Passing over one area, Aunty took a fright - what appeared to be some kind of ground-based orbital strike weapon pointed towards her, but a quick scan showed she was in no danger; indeed, while the visuals suggested some kind of chemical rocket, the shell was just that - a shell with little inside.
Certainly no weapons payload. Thus, no threat. But it gave her concern to recheck her avoidance systems - just to be on the safe side. Aunty hadn't expected life similar to a number of Decepticons listed in her memory to have engineered naturally on this world. The slumbering warriors back at Ark Secondus would not have complete information on their new home if she became inactive before her time.
With her first orbit complete, Aunty dumped all the data she'd gathered into a single transmission, and pumped it towards Mother. Whereas in the messages to trailing satellites she had squirted back information of interest, now she transferred everything she'd scanned and thought while observing. She'd follow this pattern until Mother communicated otherwise, and for that she was happy; this looked to be an interesting world and she was looking forward to more study.
Mother received the download, and began considering her next move. Certainly, many Autobots lay fallen and deactivated within her halls, and repairing them would deplete her reserves long before she made a dent. Her crew numbered approximately five thousand, and she knew many must have been lost in the crash. And the Decepticon attack that led to it. She also had no means of scanning the fallen to determine whether they were Autobot and Decepticon - or even neutral civilians, a number of whom had been travelling on Ark Secondus for her exploratory mission. Sure, some might wear insignia, but the sides were not fully understood by Mother - some, like Megatron, had worn badges as a sign of honour, while others had chosen not to for one reason or another. She had heard from the other Arks at the Kanex Shipyards that there existed an elite cadre of Decepticons who blended in with Autobots and civilians, taking on their insignia and ways until such time as a strike was needed... also, certain Autobots had started off in territories that had been comprised mostly of Decepticons, and still wore faded Decepticon insignias.
So, there was the question of whom to revive...
While Aunty continued scanning the planet from orbit, Mother activated what few automated agents she found operational. Most of her internal work units had been destroyed or buried in the crash, others had been jarred from recharging points. The few she found active, mostly responding to instructions, and still plugged into their recharge points she fully energised and released on the damaged Cybertronians scattered throughout the ship.
The systemic regeneration tanks trundled over rubble, through blocked corridors by reconfiguring their forms to a smaller profile, and retreived what remains they could as they found it to be deposited at collection points, where transport trundlers gathered the fragments and shifted them into areas that had been designated as emergency refuge shelters. Mother knew, from what remained of inventory checklists, that certain supplies that might be beneficial for repairwork were contained in some of them, and that they had been crash-hardened against situations just like this. The early reports from the trundlers started flowing through the network in spurts, suggesting various sections of the network were damaged beyond Mother's ability to repair with her limited resources, were stating that the routes to many of the forward shelters were blocked. This was expected, and the trundlers were redirected to areas further aft. Once the fragments were dropped, they were scanned with wide-ranging quantum resolution sensors, and piled according to the ID that was tagged from that information. Unfortunately, crew tagging routines were locked in a section of the network unavailable to Mother, so another means of identification of remains was ruled out.
All Mother could do was prioritise based on lack of needed repairs and hope for the best.
Repair subsystems slaved to Mother's central processors moved into work on the remains. Neural frames were packed and repacked, shuffling in replacement cores and structures, before releasing restored personality matrices into the latticework while manipulator arms began molecular bonding processes on damaged components.
Mother's estimates of the energy consumption suggested she would be able to reconfigure and reactivate maybe a dozen Transformers, and retain enough energon stores to both run her own systems on a minimal level for occupancy while emergency repairs were made and new fuel sources sought, so she limited the mobile tanks to locate those mostly complete bodies for transfer, with anything in the area that might be scanned to be from their systems.
Crawling feeder lines snaked across the decking, swarming into position on bodyparts to unleash a mere trickle of energon, to slowly bring internal operating systems online, for the Transformers themselves to awake from their long dark slumber. The automated systems reconfigured limb arrangement and construction for suitable camouflage changeforms, colour-bonded armour materials and provided the ability to utilise the advanced Cybertronian systems through a series of concealed hatches or exterior camouflaged hardpoints.
Internal systems booted slowly, until the Transformers' own system checks were completed and awareness returned. Vision blurred and de-rezed before pattern recognition software rebuilt itself and gave translatable images. Sound was magnified until buffers switched on, filtering out the background sounds to focus on the intelligence's direction. Movement returned sluggishly, as the reconstructed motor control links sent and resent commands to have the internal engines and hydraulics respond, noting what worked and what didn't. Fingers moved, then fists flexed, elbows helped push the mechanoids to their feet where they swayed unsteadily for a few moments before regaining their balance.
Megatron, the first of the reactivated, stared down at his hands in surprise. "I... I still function!" he announced, more to himself than anyone else. His last memories had been a wall of superheated plasma bearing down on him, then a gigantic tremor, before a scant millisecond of blackness that preceeded his survival mode shutdown.
"Yes," a voice from behind him replied. Megatron turned; it was Starscream, larger, more powerful-looking than before. His null-ray cannons seemed to be shorter, more compact, with ventilation holes along the barrels, and his form was now a silvery white in colour, with his customary deep red and midnight blue colours showing on what was obviously his changeform's internal components. "We do," Starscream continued a moment later.
Megatron took this opportunity to glance down at himself. His fusion cannon was still mounted on his right arm, but the design looked far more basic than before, and wasn't partially internally contained - it was fully mounted on his forearm. He too was coloured a silvery white, but of a different composition to Starscream's shell. His armour looked far more robust, and was mixed in with various darker components.
"Commander," a feminine voice from behind Megatron spoke. He recognised the voice, but still turned. Skywarp, like Starscream displaying signs of an aerial changeform, a glossy black in colour with purple stripes. Thundercracker, a mottled blue and grey in colour, stood slightly behind her, staring at his hands, flipping them over and over. Behind them, what appeared to be Brawl was in the final stages of reconstruction and activation, the focussing ring of lights behind his optic visor coming online. His body seemed slightly larger than everyone's except for Starscream, with a heavy backpack that seemed to consist mostly of a large gun turret.
Megatron acknowledged his troops with a nod, while wondering if this was it, was this really all of his boarding party that had survived? No, it wasn't possible. The Autobots were made in general more flimsy than the Decepticons, his troops should mostly be fine. They had to be. Otherwise, he'd just lost several hundred under his command...
A noise from the doorway to the emergency shelter broke his dark thoughts. Looking over, he saw Soundwave, also displaying a new body. He was shorter than Megatron remembered, but not by much, and showed a curious-looking band with black lines and internal light across his waist. "Megatron," Soundwave broke the silence, "I have found the Autobots. They too are being rebuilt, in a nearby shelter."
"What are we waiting for?" Starscream stepped forward. Megatron held up a hand after a moment's thought.
"We will reconnoitre."
The other working shelter was a floor up and two rooms over, and in slightly better shape than the one the Decepticons had woken in. However, whereas the displays around the walls in their shelter had displayed aircraft and wheeled and tracked ground forms, this shelter the Autobots were being rebuilt in only displayed wheeled forms of what were presumably the dominant species of this world.
And in the centre of the room, Optimus Major stood unsteadily. His new body showed a wire grill in his chest, with thick wheels built for traction in muddy environments. Wheel covers were angular, even on his powerful legs. From his shoulders, a canvas cape hung, moving slightly in the slow air currents through the room.
Behind him, other Autobots also stood. Prowl's body was still shorter than Optimus', and a different kind of alternate mode. A long section of his changeform hung down from his shoulders to his hips, and wheels showed body at his shoulders and his ankles. What appeared to be some kind of door also extended from each shoulder, just offside frmo his twin shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. Ironhide's tracked body was connected to his battle rig, using the internal manipulator arms to pull Bumblebee to his feet. The smaller yellow and black striped Autobot shook his head, no expression showing through his blackened vision slit in his helmet. Hound, coloured green and grey, stood between Optimus and Megatron, his optics moving between each of the changeforms shown on the wall displays.
"This world has advanced much since we crashed," Hound mused, before a sound in the doorway caused the Autobots to look up and see the Decepticons. For a moment, there was no movement.
Starscream broke the shocked silence by raising his arms, preparing to fire his null-rays. However, Megatron blocked his line of fire with an arm. "Hold your fire," he growled, before taking a quick look at the Autobots. Major was similarly holding his troops in line.
Indeed, Major rumbled, "We do not have the energon at present to engaged in hostilities."
Brawn stepped in front of Optimus. "We don't need much energon to punch them in their processors!"
"They are weak and unco-ordinated!" Starscream echoed Brawn's sentiment. "We should strike now, before they have a chance to retaliate!"
"Starscream, check your systems. We have been supplied with a small amount of energon. We cannot power our main weaponry. If we fight now, we may very well triumph, but at what cost? What does a pyrric victory matter? No." Megatron shook his head decisively. "We need to seek new sources of fuel before we can continue this fight."
Optimus had stayed silent until this point, uncertain. But upon hearing that they were not to fight immediately, he added for the benefit of his own troops, "What Megatron said is truth. We are all underpowered and uncertain of our present situation." He gestured at Megatron as the Decepticon leader herded his troops from the large shelter, directing Skywarp to keep an eye on their retreat. "Before we make any move, we need to be certain of our own circumstances. Only with knowledge can we hope to win over the Decepticons and return some sense of normalcy to this mission."
"But Major!" Brawn complained, "we had them right there! Right in the doorway! We could have -"
"Brawn." Optimus' voice brooked no argument, and Brawn subsided. "I sympathise. Honestly, I do. I am by nature a desk clerk. This... combat thing is not something I have experience with, and I trust in those I have with me to help me make those decisions. But one thing I did learn from my desk job is, an unprepared force is usually a defeated force. Of all the missions I had to log in the Knowledge Dome, those I learned from the most where those where few survived, usually because a commander refused to investigate their surroundings before leading forth, and with the obvious damage done to Ark Secondus, I would prefer to know the... lay of the land before I make any decisions. And also, fighting within Ark Secondus is not something I wish to encourage. Not after the battle that forced my hand in this way."
Prowl spoke up in support of Optimus. "He's right. As a Judicator, our greatest strength was knowing the region we operated in. We knew the place we were stationed in, because we lived there, we knew the natives and what would and wouldn't cause us trouble. Major wanting to do this here is only good sense."
Hound also gave his agreement with a distracted grunt, still entranced by the lifeforms displayed on the walls.
Optimus addressed his next words to the ceiling. "Mother! How long did we sleep after the crash?"
There was an almost audible pause while Mother re-routed power to long-disused vocal systems. "Approximately 48193 vorns have passed since the course correction that resulted in the crash that entombed this unit."
"Is there any information from Aunty on what has changed with this planet?" Hound asked.
"Aunty has been transmitting data on a series of primitive races engaged in tribal warfare across the surface of this planet. Transferring this data to the main viewer."
The Autobots turned towards the far wall, which blinked out and was replaced by images of bright colours, showing orbital views of the world outside. For the next few hours, the Autobots absorbed everything they could from the screens in silence. Even Brawn had to admit he was impressed by the varieties of terrain on offer, as well as some of the close looks at the natives.
"Those look like Decepticons," he finally spoke.
"Where?" Optimus asked.
"There," Brawn replied, pointing at a location on the screen. "Mother, hold. Replay shard 127 as main, index 31.7 to 41.2." Obligingly, Mother replayed the appropriate section, expanded to the full wall. "Optimus, take a look at this."
Heavy tracked machines trundled across the wall from a top-down perspective. Coated in mud and muck, painted in similar colours to the Autobots and ground-based Decepticons the better to blend into the terrain, they crawled around at comparitively slow speeds and spat fire at each other. Optimus picked out multiple different types of the same machine - different breeds, engineered for different purposes, he wondered? - as well as numerous lighter life forms, similar in appearance to Hound's changeform. Other items swarmed on the screen around them, and Optimus thought of them similar to the base carbon life the initial survey had detected and decided were of no consequence.
Although, strangely, they were moving almost as if directed by the machines. Perhaps they had been domesticated...?
"Mother, what is going on in this part of the world?"
Mother's response came back as twin aeroforms strafed ground targets and dropped some kind of heavy explosive device, blowing mud and metal to the sky. "The societies have progressed to a point where tribal wars for resources have broken out across the planet."
"Are there too few resources for the societies to share?" Optimus queried.
"More to the point," Hound added, "are there enough resources for us to trade?"
"Aunty's scans suggest that resources are not yet unplentiful. Ratios of depletion and reclaimation of materials are far lower than when resource raids began on Cybertron."
"These look like Decepticons," Ironhide mused quietly. "Have they conquered this world while we have been asleep?"
Optimus shook his head. "This is not the way Decepticons work. I know this... well, not from direct experience, but from my previous data entry work. And consider: some Autobots have aerial forms as well as the Decepticons do. It is likely these life forms have engineered under different environmental pressures than our forebears had on Cybertron. But to prove this, we would need to open a dialogue."
"I vote that I do that!" Bumblebee announced.
"This is a world... of great diversity of organic materials and mechanical life, and that dichtomy might have launched a completely different subset of alternate forms, or indeed, non-Cybernoid bodyforms. They may just be exactly as they appear to have engineered.
"Optimus," Prowl sounded loathe to interject, but was watching the screens with interest, "there's one problem with that hypothesis..."
"Yes, Prowl?"
"There was no sign of life on this planet when we carried out our survey. Life this complex..." Prowl's voice trailed off as Aunty's displays showed an interesting grasp of primitive aerial tactics befoer continuing. "Life this complex could not have engingeered in the time we were deactivated."
Before Optimus could respond, Bumblebee interjected. The view from Aunty had moved on to real-time footage again, and was displaying a vast ocean of liquid water. "There's an awful lot of water on this planet. This is the second major ocean Aunty has crossed. I'm going to enjoy this place!"
Optimus chuckled, a little nervously. "I'm glad you don't need to worry abut rust infections, unlike the rest of us. But I too wonder... this world is so diverse compared to Cybertron. So much life and energy... it makes me feel..."
"Homesick?" Hound enquired, but Optimus remained silent.
The world outside, on a tree-covered hill a dozen kilometres away from the ship's crash site, was covered in fine falling ash. In the distance, Mount St Helens' plume of dust and ash was already slowing in speed and ferocity, and the fallout was now washing across the vegetation nearby. The dull roar of the eruption was fading, now really only the echoing retort of the few massive boulders ejected from the crater smashing down the mountainside disturbed the silence.
Here, among the ash-covered pine trees, the Decepticons gathered after their flight from Ark Secondus. Once on the ground, Starscream stalked towards Megatron, his feet sinking into the slightly soggy ground. "Why?" he growled, "why did we flee? We had them! We could have taken them then and there!"
"I'll explain again, Starscream," Megatron replied patiently. "We are low on fuel. We have no reserves. Ark Secondus is an Autobot ship, and had we won, the program core could easily dispose of anything remaining before Soundwave would have been able to stop it. In addition, the Autobots, while seeming as weak as we, are augmented by the presence of the Major. Their strength is often almost legendary."
Behind the two Decepticons, Skywarp followed quietly, ever at her flightpack leader's side and ready to cover him if anything went wrong. Further back, Soundwave extended an antenna, and began scanning the surrounding electromagnetic landscape for signals from any intelligent life on the planet. Brawl and Thundercracker made up the last party, kicking at the trees to make the ash fall on the ground and laughing.
"But -"
"However," Megatron interupted, "there must be sources of energon or some other fuel we can adapt. The Autobot vessel detected intelligent life here, and has camouflaged our bodies to be able to blend in here, so some form of useable energy will exist. Before we can continue our... fight with the Autobots, we need to have a fuel source we can rely on before we make any rash moves. Hurrying into a fight before we are ready could be disastrous."
Soundwave broke in from his side of the spaced-out group. "Megatron! I have located what appears to be a source of energon, separate to the Autobot supply. It is a polluted form, weak, but in quantity and would still power our systems."
"This is nearby?" Megatron asked.
"That is correct. From a facility I am detecting a higher amount of unsecured transmissions - made mostly via copper hardlines rather than any form of non-contact transmission - than the surrounding area." Soundwave pointed towards the west of their position. "It is in that direction."
"Excellent!" Megatron announced. "Decepticons, gather yourselves! We take this facility, refine the fuels involved, and then we shall have the power to push the remaining Autobots to the brink!"
Starscream grimaced at Soundwave, but transformed into a large flying wing bomber. Megatron, shrinking as he transformed into a handgun, leapt into Starscream's waiting cockpit. Soundwave, transforming into a metal backpack covered in dials, switches and antennae, leapt aboard Thundercracker's sleaker and smaller jet form. Brawl, too large for Skywarp to carry, shrugged at the black Decepticon, and transformed into his heavy tracker vehicle mode, while Skywarp leapt for the sky to catch up with her comrades.
They flew for the undefended facility...
The Autobots stood still in the emergency shelter, absorbing everything they could about the world outside, when Mother coughed, then blared an alarm. The Autobots started, Optimus instinctively ducking and looking around at the door - but no Decepticons stood there.
"Mother!" he yelled, a little spooked by the loud jarring sound after the silence, "what is the problem?"
"Alert!" Mother announced. "Aunty reports Decepticon movement towards a local population centre."
"What?"
"Aunty also reports the possibility of an energon storage facility at a particular locality on the outskirts of the centre."
Optimus took a step back. Energon? In a natural form? It was possible, he supposed, although while Ark Secondus' initial surveys of the planet showed extensive supplies of petrochemicals, none showed the unique radioactive properties of energon. "Is Aunty able to confirm the scans? Is this natural or engineered energon?"
"Aunty reports the purity may be in question but is unable to make a full scan from current orbital height and angle," Mother replied. "Aunty is unsure if the occurance is natural or engineered, but is contained in storage tanks at a facility. No other energon has been detected, although Decepticon-like life forms are present at the facility, and more may therefore be shielded from orbital scans around the planet, or out of Aunty's sensor range."
Optimus turned to his companions, while trying to assess the situation. The other Autobots looked back expectantly, waiting for some kind of wisdom, and although he was surrounded by Autobots, Optimus felt very alone and very uncertain. But something in him said he couldn't show that to the others. So he took a final glance at the screen, now updated showing the Decepticon position rapidly approaching the facility, as well as various pictures of what appeared to be an outpost of some kind at the target lcoation, then turned firmly back to the door, and led the way to the shuttlebay.
The rear doors enclosing the bay had been splintered in the crash, and some chunks lay around the inside of the bay; others remained outside only now exposed by the force of the bomb and the eruption. Optimus looked at the shuttles scattered about like a newly-engineered mech's edutainment devices with dismay; the Decepticons would arrive well before the Autobots could. A quick glance exchanged with Brawn showed the same thoughts echoing across his normally gruff face.
"Autobots..." Optimus began, intending on giving a speech. But again, inexperience showed, and rather than giving a rousing motivational lecture before ordering the transit, he stumbled verbally. "Autobots, transform and roll out!"
One by one, the Autobots changed. Optimus folded over, closing doors and having his transport truck form around him. Bumblebee collapsed into a small, rounded yellow car with black stripes. Hound transformed into a light 4-wheel form the Autobots had seen on the transmissions from Aunty. Brawn changed into a similar vehicle, but with a covered back section, while Ironhide formed a bulky civilian vehicle that looked to Brawn like a brick on wheels, and Prowl transformed into a similar form to Bumblebee, but green and a longer chassis than the smaller Autobot.
On Optimus' cue, the Autobots drove from the shuttlebay, onto the volcanic ash and debris from the recent eruption. They avoided fumeroles, crevasses and obvious dust pits and thinly-covered holes, before making it into the forest beyond the range of the immediate devastation, and after a short time, they found a sealed road, and headed in the direction Mother had plotted from Aunty's orbital observations.
Privately, Optimus was very worried. While he was trying to project the image that he felt his companions needed, that of the wise, knowing, brave and experienced leader, he was very unsure. And what was compounding the problem at the moment, was the thought that they would not be in time...
"I only hope we are not too late for the peaceful inhabitants of this city," he thought to himself, "because if I know the Decepticons, these Decepticons, all of the energon on this world will not save them."
Sergeant Charles Glover glowered at his group of new recruits. Most glowered back, and all were too smart to say anything as he barked at them from time to time as he marched up and down the line on the parade ground. All were green troops, newly shipped in for training here at Fort Hamilton in Portland, Oregon, from the interior states. Farm kids. At least that meant most knew how to use a gun, even if it was a rifle better used to scare dogs and trespassers over shooting someone dead in cold blood. Sadly for a soldier, even a farmboy soldier, shooting someone in cold blood was a lot more difficult than scaring animals and people. That was one of the good things about the basic training these recruits would be going through. It would break them down and make them men. Men worth standing beside, even if they didn't want you to.
He inspected his new charges, barking at the occasional farmboy who was standing the wrong way or had scuffs on his shoes, several others for no discernable reason other than to keep them on their toes. Mostly bark, but with a good, hard bite. He'd been in Pearl when the Japs had attacked, been strafed by those foreign planes and those damnable new devices the infernal animals had been creating, and that made him a bit of a legend. A lot of good men had died that day, a lot of them friends, and a lot more were far too young to die. A Naval or Army-Air Force posting to the Pacific, Pearl was supposed to be a good place to spend time. And it had. But there were a lot of people who would never grow up lying there now.
Still, Glover reminded himself, that wasn't something for the here and now; that was something for after these boys knew their work and could strut their stuff.
He stalked back to his central position in front of the recruits, and opened his mouth to speak, when he became aware of a roar in the distance that was rapidly approaching.
"There!" Megatron shouted from inside Starscream's cockpit to his loyal Decepticons. "The location of the facility! Decepticons, a surgical strike. Take what we need! Energon and intelligence."
With growing awareness of an impending attack, Glover watched trained men run from barracks to mounted ack-ack guns. Ammo was fed into the barrels, and spat into the sky at the approaching planes. They made noises Glover had never heard before from an American plane
It was a sound he remembered from Pearl. The untouchable ones, the planes that had spat death and destruction and hadn't been able to be touched by incoming AA fire.
"Men! This is it!" he yelled above the growing din. "If you've fired a rifle before, grab one from the Armoury and meet me behind the barracks! If you haven't, get to a shelter and help the corpsmen with any injured! Go! GO!" The last word was roared, and the group of recruits scattered according to their assigned dierctions.
AA fire spattered from Starscream's hull, raising a line of sparks and a puff of lead and metal, but Starscream's fuselage was unharmed. He snorted, and with the briefest of thoughts, directed a missile to strike the nearest of the AA guns. Megatron reminded Starscream, "They are pitiful. Static machines with only rudimentary defence mechanisms. They post no threat to our bodyforms."
With a grunt, Starscream transformed into his robot mode, his feet smashing into the parade ground and digging up furrows of dirt and grass. Four men fired at Starscream with rifles, but again the bullets did nothing except raise a few sparks with the riccochets. Starscream opened his cockpit and removed Megatron gingerly with two fingers, then flung him aside. Megatron transformed into his robot form, while Thundercracker - similarly now standing transformed next to his commander - also tossed Soundwave aside to allow him to transform and expand to full size.
"Even this planet's organic components have engineered basic defences," Soundwave commented, using his far larger legs to crush several of the troops running towards him with their rifles pointed at him. "Or the life on this world has developed an organic component as an assist for mobility," he theorised after a few moments.
More troops poured into the parade ground, armed with a variety of weapons. Several were desperately trying to load man-portable mortars and bazookas with their shells before hurriedly launching them at the assembled Decepticons. One of the shells landed on Megatron's left shoulder, peppering his face with shrapnel and smoke. No damage was done, but the act was more than enough. "This is becoming annoying. They're more basic a lifeform than a minicon, yet they continue to harrass us, and try our patience."
"Can we terminate them?" Starscream asked with a smirk.
For the moment, Megatron ignored Starscream's request. His lieutenant's thirst for the fuels pumping in the lives of the aliens was a little disturbing, but it was something Megatron had come to live with since he had recovered Starscream from a Judicator ambush in Praxis. Starscream had moments of brilliance, and was a great commander and able to motivate his troops, but the occasional bout of sadism he displayed suggested there were perhaps deeper problems with Starscream than Megatron had suspected. But his train of thought was re-directed as an anti-aircraft cannon was turned, and the barrels depressed enough to be able to catch Megatron in it's line of fire. Bullets spanged and sparked off Megatron's chest, jerking him about like a puppet with cut strings until he got over his surprise, and shifted his weight against the explosive shells. "Pathetic," he growled, while liftnig his fusion cannon, and dialling back the pwoer output, letting loose a burst of energy that caused the static gun to explode, flinging shrapnel through nearby soldiers.
Sergeant Glover tossed a quick glance over at the ruined AA gun. There wasn't anything recognisable left of the weapon, even less remained of the crew that had only moments ago been people he knew and worked and lived with. But for the moment, he didn't have time to worry about the lack of remains. Now, Glover had others to worry about. With a quick practised hand and eye, he directed his armed green recruits into various positions behind cover. Once he was sure his men were doing as he did, and not trying to rush headlong into the strange bright weapons fire the machines were throwing out at everyone that were firing from exposed positions, did Glover pop his head up to take a good look at the attackers.
His blood ran cold. "Oh God no, no, not -" His words were muffled as a building nearby turned into splinters and smoke.
Glover quickly returned his attention to his men. "Stay in cover!" he howled above the din, "These Japanese things have better guns than us! Heavy artillery is on the way!"
As if by magic, there was a heavy roar from a hundred metres away, and a tank smashed through a wooden fence, the soldiers sheltering near the fence bolting for their lives as others also smashed through. Although they hesitated for a scant moment, the gunners in the tanks knew their jobs, and spat large-calibre death at the stationary Decepticons.
Thundercracker took three hits at once, twice in his left leg with the third shot striking just above, on his hip. He staggered back with the force of the shot, and when the smoke cleared, he had several clear dents. Skywarp reacted a little faster to the shot directed at her face, and deflected it with her foerarm. She too fell backwards from the shot, but other than a circular dent on her forearm, she sustained no physical damage - just to her ego.
"Perhaps these locals aren't all as weak as minicons," Starscream suggested to Megatron.
A scant moment later, Megatron also stumbled from two shells slamming into him, but his armour was stronger than the fliers, and for the moment held without issue. Starscream took the attack on his leader as a signal, and returned fire. Two of the tanks erupted moments after being peppered with stutterlaser fier, a third took a missile strike and cratered the ground around it with the force of the explosion. The organic components, Starscream noted, seemed to be moving away from the fire, possibly under their own volition...
"Regroup and return fire!" Megatron bellowed, as his troops had started to break up into singular entities. Yes, Megatron didn't think these locals posed much of a threat to his forces, but likewise he wasn't going to risk losing anyone else, and having his forces split and unable to help each other was a good way for that to happen fast.
With Megatron leading the order of battle, directing his Decepticons to attack certain points or locations, the fight ended quickly in a loss for the local machines. None had attempted surrender, Megatron reflected, they had all fought to and beyond the brink of termination. His sensors picked up tell-tale signs of other life forms starting up from slumber modes, and he decided this had to end before they expended too much fuel. "Soundwave, locate the energon tanks and bring them back to me."
"Yes, Megatron," Soundwave nodded before striding to a nearby building. It was large, and relatively untouched by weaponsfire from the Decepticons, and even the locals had tried to move the fight away from it. With a single punch, Soundwave penetrated the exterior shell, then proceeded inside.
The building was dark. While Soundwave detected several lighting elements that were warm, and presumably recently engaged and active, they were now switched off. Electromagnetic fields in the building suggested there was a good deal of wiring and machinery in these rooms, but for the moment all Soundwave was interested in was the radioactive petrochemical in a nearby series of tanks. He judged the material in them - it was polluted, a fuel that wouldn't have the same effect on the Cybertronians and would also create some internal damage which could be alleviated with regular maintenance, but it was energon and it was usable. He grabbed the nearest tank, and moving gently so as not to damage the integrity of the storage unit he broke the connection between the floor and tank, and carefully hoisted the tank onto his back before retracing his steps through the building to the exit.
Before he could step through the hole to the outside, noises alerted him to something behind him. Mechanical noises. Almost like a Cybertronian... had the Autobots arrived? Before he could confirm those suspicions, he saw a number of the local machines with organic components, making the sounds of ammunition being loaded into firing chambers. With a tank full of energon on his back, he couldn't turn to face the suspected Cybertronian behind him, and instead faced the locals. Whomever the Cybertronian was, they hadn't fired on him yet, so they were no immediate threat.
"All right, you girls, let him have it!" Sergeant Glover yelled. The machine carrying the fuel tank on its back loomed over him, then glanced at the big whitish-silver machine and gave a weird buzzing sound that lasted approximately five seconds.
"Interesting, Megatron. I believe the life on this world has developed in symbiosis with an organic life form. It is something I have never come across be-"
Megatron cut through the discussion. "There will be time to discuss and conduct research later. For now, our goal is the energon supply. Once we have that safe, we can then look forward at our next point of strategy."
"Understood, Megatron," Soundwave replied, sounding slightly crushed. Megatron would make it up to the scientist later, but for now, the storage tank on his back was more important, and additionally, they were still in a firefight, even if only in a lull. Soundwave brought internal weapons to bear, and began methodically picking off the troops before him with the highest threat indicators.
Glover scattered his men, and although half of those who had survived the initial blasts were killed, Glover's remaining troops holed up out of sight behind a nearby administration block. For the moment, the machines were only standing still, holding their position in the parade ground, but that could change. And indeed, Glover could hear the sounds of more tanks approaching.
A lot more tanks.
But then, there was something else. The fence opposite Glover and the machines was knocked over, but this time not by tanks, but by a motley collection of civilian and military vehicles. Interestingly, one of the vehicles, a yellow and black striped Volkswagon, was very obviously a German car. Even more interestingly, none of the vehicles had drivers, but did not look to be out of control.
Indeed, the already-present machines were turning and reacting, with what appeared to be surprise.
"Megatron!" Optimus Major declared, a slight waver in his voice. "Return that fuel to whom it belongs!"
"Optimus Major!" Megatron replied, "I thought you would not have the courage to face me again, after our last battle!"
Neither did I, thought Optimus. But aloud, he continued. "This planet shall not fall prey to Decepticon rapaciousness. Return that energon to its storage facility, and return to Ark Secondus where you shall be held under arrest until such time as we can return to Cybertron."
Silence on the battlefield. The Decepticons looked at each other, first uncertainly, then disbelievingly, and then began laughing. The Autobots behind Optimus transformed into their main configurations. Brawn clapped a hand over his face.
"Please please tell me he didn't just say what I thought he said," Brawn moaned quietly.
"He'll learn," Prowl replied, "all Majors do."
"Now ain't the time to be learnin'," Brawn grumbled. "This is the time to be doin'"
"Surely, you aren't serious," Megatron said, the ghost of a smile around his lips. After a few moments, his smile stalled. "You are serious. Nnnngh, you have so much to learn." Megatron took in the troops behind Optimus, now in their robot forms. "I do not see Grimlock at all." Megatron paused for a moment. "I respected him as a warrior. He could have taught you much about being a leader. For now, I suppose, that duty falls more to me now than before."
"Then we have no choice," Optimus answered after a moment's hestitation. He transformed, and looked behind him at his troops. "Autobots tr- oh." For a moment he was dumbfounded to find his troops already in their standard modes.
However, Megatron saw the opening, and decided to take it. "Decepticons! Attack!" And he leapt into the fray.
TO BE CONTINUED...