Part 2

The cargo plane had stayed very still for almost an hour, sitting on the runway like a black tiger, waiting in the pouring rain. A waterfall of droplets cascaded down from the back of the wings, the dark shadows cast beneath its bulk growing thicker as the misty, rainy Scottish day quickly gave way to twilight. Nothing ventured near the silent beast.

In the growing gloom, the humans on the airbase would have normally begun preparing to shut down an return to their homes. But today, no one left. The gates were locked, with three heavily armed guards posted both in front of and behind the large metal grates. All movement on the base had been suspended, and all the windows that faced the runway had been covered, their blinds closed.

Something big was happening.

Quad sat at the top of the rise at the end of one of the smaller side runways, overlooking the entire base from her only vantage point. She had decided this was the best spot, as it gave her the greatest field of vision, but it also allowed her to tap into the human's communications array by receiving the signals from the nearby masts.

Disguised as a farmers all terrain vehicle, her name seemed aptly appropriate. It had in fact been a large factor in the choice of her vehicle form. When she discovered a vehicle existed with her name, she couldn't help herself. It was a quirk that others on the team saw as a little bit pointless. If it did the job, it was good enough for them. But Quad enjoyed a bit of style.

"It's getting dark, Quad," a familiar, deep voice whispered across the team channel. Jaknife was checking in. "Sitrep?"

"Still nothing, Jak," she replied patiently. "All quiet."

"Has everyone checked in?"

"I've got eyes on you and on Tumbler."

"Where's Ripchord?"

"You know him, he'll be around."

"Roger that. Keep me posted."

As the team's communications specialist, she had found that a smaller vehicle mode was overlooked by the humans, and it also allowed her to get closer to where she needed to be. From her vantage point, she could see almost every inch of the base, and she could pick up all signals from a ten mile radius. If something moved, she'd know about it.

She cast her scanners across the far side of the base, watching the distant horizon while the soft crackling of the radios hissed in her ear. Every now and then she could hear the humans comment something, before falling silent once more, their voices replaced by the drone of white noise.

"How's it looking, 'Bug-eyes'," a voice grumbled, cutting across the static. Quad swept her scanner across to the eastern side of the base, and up to the forest edge. A blue box appeared around a shadow hidden inside the trees, a vague figure shuffling just beyond the swaying tree trunks. She recognised the voice, and pushed back a surge of irritation at hearing the nickname he insisted on calling her.

"Better before you chimed in, Tumbler," she hissed. "Shouldn't you be in vehicle mode?" she asked, the scanners tracking him as he paced back and forth, before leaning against one of the larger trees.

"I was getting cramp," he replied, a pained groan seeping through his voice. "All this rain is playing havoc with my joints."

"Don't you ever stop complaining?" she sighed. "Thought you were tougher than this? All you've done since we got here is moan about the weather. What about all those battles you were in, and all those times you had to fight your way out?"

"Those were tough jobs," Tumbler's voice grumbled. "And it wasn't raining."

Quad giggled to herself at the thought of the tough war veteran sneering up at the grey clouds as they slowly washed across the valley. She knew he did not think much of her - being the youngest in the unit was always a tricky position to occupy – but she knew that without her, they were blind.

The rain grew heavier as the night rolled in, the dark grey clouds succumbing to the thick darkness of night. Lights flared into life all across the base, dousing everything in a soft orange glow that flickered as the drops of rain fell through the beams. The cargo plane still sat silently on the runway, the lights around it shining up from the floor and illuminating the underside of the wings. Zooming in quickly on the side of the fuselage, Quad logged the planes ident, just in case.

Sitting patiently on the rise looking down over the airbase, with no cover, the rain was almost impossible to stand. It hammered against her, and even though she could take a lot, she could not see the point in getting soaked. Revving her engine, she reversed up the hill and into the old abandoned barn that was part of the small cluster of buildings that made up Windbreak Hill, a long since silenced farm. Slipping into the relative shelter of the barn, and making sure she was covered by the shadows within, she transformed from her vehicle state, the various panels slipping aside, and her limbs unfolding to stand tall. She had to agree with Tumbler, it felt better to be standing on her own feet than curled up in vehicle mode. Of course, she would never admit that to his face.

More human voices crackled across the radio frequencies that she was monitoring. She turned towards the source of the transmissions, flicking her head down and dropping her scanner goggles down into place. An orange box appeared in front of her eyes over the small flat building near the edge of the base, and speaker lines pulsed from it, indicating where the voices were broadcasting from. A hundred meters away, a blue box appeared, showing the garage where Jaknife was still waiting.

"...We will have to wait until dawn before we begin to unload," the voice said patiently, but with a hint of uncertainty. "That's when the specialist team will arrive to transport it to a safe holding facility. Until then, I want that plane locked down. No one enters of leaves that thing until the morning." Quad sighed. Clicking the channels over, she switched to the team frequency.

"There's a special team coming to relieve them of the artefact at dawn,' she stated. "Until then, they are locking the place down. We're in for a long night, Jak."

"Roger that," Jaknife's voice replied calmly. "Stay alert, and stay out of sight."

"Yeah, Tumbler," Quad bit jokingly. Tumbler huffed.

Sitting herself down in the opening of the barn, Quad leaned back against the doorframe and settled herself in for a long and wet evening.

Midnight came and went, the rain unending, turning the runway into a glistening river of water that shined in the bright glow of the landing lights and the spots that had all been turned towards the silent, statue-like cargo plane. In the complete darkness, the only movement was the clouds as they rolled silently by, heading north.

The wind howled outside the rolling shutter-style doors of the garage, the rain lashing hard against the grimy, green skylight above Jaknife. In the echoing space, nothing moved. The only sounds that Jaknife could hear were the hammering of the raindrops on the roof, and soft hiss of the television in the crew room that had been left on. As the storm had moved in, the satellite signal had been blocked by the weather, much to the annoyance of the two men who had apparently drawn the short straw and had been assigned with the night watch. Not that there was anything much to do when the whole base had been put on lockdown.

Both humans were currently asleep in the crew room - one sprawled out face down across the sofa, his face half buried in the pillow and his arm hanging down to the floor, and the other was dozing in the arm chair, his feet resting on the coffee table in the middle of the room. As night had rolled in, the temperature had begun to drop rapidly, especially in the draughty, cavernous garage. The humans had rolled out an electric heater that glowed orange in the crew room, a puddle of warmth fighting against the cold.

Jaknife felt the cold as well, but not in the same way as the humans did. His metallic body was not as susceptible to the extreme temperature changes that plagued these fragile human creatures, but it did stir memories that had been buried deep within his mind for almost fifty years.

Images of Cybertron flashed in before him, the tall, sky-piercing towers that had once gleamed in the glow of Alpha Centari. The wide plains of the silicon desert stretching out towards the distant horizon had once been a sight to behold as the morning broke across the metallic city of Iacon. He had known the streets better than he ever cared to tell. In his youth, he had been a sculptor, a creator of all things beautiful and meaningful. His works had sat in the squares and on the plinths around the main data retrieval centre.

But then the Decepticons came. He had tried to stay out of the fighting, hoping that diplomacy would reign and stop the war before it began. He had even sat and listened as Orion Pax had Megatron had sought to change their society with words. But that was before Megatron had revealed his true nature. He turned on Orion Pax, declaring civil war on all who opposed them, and with that, they brought the carnage of war, and the destruction that burned through Iacon. Towers crumbled. Walls fell. And all that had been beautiful was torn asunder, smashed under the solid feet of Megatron and his followers.

Jaknife had nothing left, and in order to defend the Cybertron he had loved, he took up the call to arms, and joined the Autobots.

But by the end, there was hardly anything left to defend. Iacon had all but been razed to the ground. His home was gone, and so were all the other homes in the city. Towers lay broken and torn, hollow shells that had once held the living people of Cybertron. The last day that he had seen Iacon, had been the day he had boarded his ship with the rest of his unit. The sun had not risen that morning, hidden behind the dark billowing columns of smoke that rose through the frozen air. As he had looked down from the broken tower into what had once been a beautiful plaza, he could see the remains of one of his statues. It lay on the floor, the limbs twisted and half melted by the intensity of the battle that had claimed the western walls. And the head had been brutally severed.

The heartbreaking thing was, that he did not know which side had dealt the final blow to his creation. He guessed it did not really matter any more. That was no longer his life.

A soft crackling in his ear dragged him away from his thoughts, and he let them recede back into the darkened corners of his memories.

"What's going on, Quad?" he asked sharply, a little more harshly than he had intended. It took her a few moments to reply, and when she did, her voice sounded flustered beneath the hissing of the radio. The signal was breaking up.

"Uncertain," she replied simply. "Something is trying to block our transmissions."

"Something, or someone?" Jaknife asked quickly.

"Unclear," Quad said. "It could be the storm, but it hasn't seemed to suddenly get any worse."

Checking to see that the two mechanics were still passed out in the crew room, Jaknife gingerly edged his way forwards towards the roller doors, and looked out through the small windows that were set into the shutters about half way up. Through them he could see most of the runway, and was just about able to see the plane at the far end, still sitting like a swan on her eggs.

It was all so quiet.

A sudden rush of noise, like a jet engine, seemed to sweep over the base. The rain fell hard against the windows, but beyond, something was moving.

Jaknife felt a pulse wash over him, like a jolt of electricity pulsing through the ground. The hissing of the radio died, as did the white noise of the tv in the crew room. He could see the lights along the runway flicker. They strained, and stuttered, then extinguished completely.

"EMP," he whispered to himself.

The base plunged into darkness.