Maelstrom Chapter 34
Dusk
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes!
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Maelstrom 34 Dusk
Part D
Continued from Part C
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Optimus roared. He blew his horn nearly non-stop, and yet Transformers of all shapes and sizes kept deciding to cross the street right in front of him and Elita. Then they would stop to TALK to each other right in the road. It was as if they didn't see or hear him.
It didn't take much thought to work out they probably couldn't.
He and Elita were nearly to the tunnel entrance, but they were forced to transform and work their way slowly through the crowd. At a few points Optimus needed to just pick those interfering up and set them aside.
None of this did anything to improve his mood. The people he moved stared blankly, as if drugged, and it made Optimus feel...violated.
Over his com-line his partner was signaling him madly.
"OPTIMUS! You can wait a few more hours!" Rodimus cried.
"Don't interfere Rodi!" Optimus growled. "It tried to influence me. It tried to influence Elita! It is toying with our people!"
More Transformers were converging on the area. They were lining up, forming a living wall between the Prime couple and the tunnel access. Optimus roared, venting frustration and rage.
Hearing this over the com-line did bad things to Rodimus. He didn't have to think further than Lancer's possession to know how Optimus felt, multiplied by the violation of Op's mate, and now, obviously the people under his care.
Rodimus didn't blame Optimus at all. He quite shared the same reaction. He just wanted it delayed for a bit longer.
Why, oh why did the Maelstrom's telepath need to be such a ritualistic, anal sort of guy? Rodimus knew Kain would call the whole thing off and start over if so much as a dust mite contaminated his purification supplies. The young Prime briefly wondered how hair scraped out of the inner ear of an animal found only in the swamps on Pagan's home-world could be considered to purify anything.
Unlike his partner, Rodimus was finding the streets totally clear, with lots of helpful by-standers pointing the way unasked. Like he needed directions anyway. Vector Sigma might have been better off not reminding Rodimus of why he hated it so much.
Rodimus could only try to control his own rage, passing blank-faced, pointing Autobots, and hearing his partner cursing over the com-lines. He hoped Kain's waxy ear-hair incense burned beautifully...and fast.
Ultra Magnus pulled in behind Rodi's back bumper from a side-street and they plowed forward through the remarkably clear streets of Iacon.
Up ahead of them they saw the crowd parting ways, revealing Optimus and Elita trying to force their way through one staring Cybertronian after another.
Rodimus continued to yell frantically to his partner and Vector Sigma released its control over some of the crowd. They began milling around in confusion, which was no surprise to Vector Sigma...it didn't care what they thought.
It should have.
A lot of the crowd was Paradronian, but there were a few enlisted Autobots, and even the Paradronians were coming to truly respect Optimus and his leadership. Those actually guarding the tunnel were still under control, but the rest of the crowd was suddenly aware that their leader was shouting orders to an unresponsive group of citizens.
Some of them started pulling their friends out of the way.
"What are you doing?"
"Let him through!"
"Hey! That's OPTIMUS! You don't want to get in trouble do you?"
Realizing its mistake, Vector Sigma tried to re-establish control. It worked, but only marginally. Some of the crowd fell right back under, but some...some just ignored the call. Not listening to Optimus Prime was just too...out of character for them. They weren't actively resisting. They just did what they wanted to do.
Controlling a mass crowd was a strain for Vector Sigma, even when they were responding as one, unaware of their surroundings, but to control so many who were actually having contrary notions was too much. It let those who resisted go because it had no choice, and they thinned the crowd even further by arguing with those that were still under. Some helped Optimus pull others out of the way.
Even as Rodimus and Magnus came into view, Optimus and Elita carved their way into the tunnel access. The crowd suddenly cleared out, giving Magnus and Rodimus all the room in the world.
"Why are we trying to stop Optimus?" Magnus asked. His nonchalant tone didn't fool Rodi for a minute.
"Because if we don't figure out exactly what it had influence on over the years we'll all go nuts!" Rodimus snapped. He made sure to broadcast that to his partner and Elita.
The noise he got back from Optimus over the com-line reminded Rodi violently of the fight they'd had the first time the Quints had revived, or rather half-revived, the elder Prime. An incoherent, visceral bellow of fury. Maybe it was already too late. Optimus sounded pretty nuts right now.
Once in the tunnels Optimus and Elita transformed and took off again, but Rodimus and Magnus had mostly closed the gap, and the tunnel banked sharply left and down. It was enough to slow Optimus down to where Rodimus could catch up.
He floored the accelerator, transformed with all of that momentum behind him, and launched himself straight for the roof of Optimus' trailer. He cleared the low ceiling by mere inches, but managed to land without crunching himself or his friend. He squirmed forward, caught the front end of the trailer (Optimus showed no sign of slowing down) and with a sigh of resignation lifted one of his feet to drag along the ceiling.
Sparks flew, and the sound did bad things to everyone's audio receptors.
Optimus, enraged though he was, noticed the drag, and noticed the unvoiced pain in Rodi's fingers on the roof of his trailer. He hit the brakes, leaving long smoking skids.
"You are an insufferable pain in the diodes Rodimus! Why are you interfering?"
"Because you are muscling in on my act as the reckless one around here!"
Rodimus said. "I'm going to sue you for copy-right infringement!"
His cheerful voice did a lot to cut into Optimus' anger.
"Get off my roof," Optimus said.
Rodimus pulled himself forward, put his hands on the top of Op's cab, and somersaulted smoothly to stand in front of his partner...on one foot.
Elita, angry as her mate, but ever practical, transformed. "Oh...you moron! Let me see that!" she scolded.
"It's fine. Just smarts a bit," Rodimus told her, putting his foot down. "Messed up my paint job though."
"I should mess up way more than your paint job," Optimus growled.
Rodimus' optics lost that self-satisfied little twinkle. "Am I going to have to fight you again Optimus?" he asked quietly.
That did it. Optimus transformed.
"No. I won't let it bring us to that again," Optimus said sadly.
"What set you guys off?" Rodimus wanted to know.
"It was trying to influence us," Elita told him.
"To do what?" Magnus asked.
"To go down and move it...so it would be safe from any of you going ballistic and killing it tonight. It probably thought that once we moved it for its own protection tonight, that it could keep convincing us to protect it indefinitely."
Rodimus chuckled. "Obviously that backfired a bit. Lancer has sworn to me for years that we are out-evolving its control. I guess it didn't realize."
"Yes, but it still holds sway on many people," Elita said grimly.
"Well, I bet it is sorry it didn't tell one of them to move it instead of you two," Magnus grinned.
The four of them looked at each other.
This was the only open access to Vector Sigma. Rodimus had insisted all the others be collapsed and hidden...but Vector Sigma knew where they were. If enough people working together under its direction started digging....
The four of them transformed as if THEY were controlled by one mind and started down the tunnel again as fast as they could go. They'd only gone about two-hundred yards when an enormous clawed hand punched down from the surface in front of them. It retracted - leaving a pit that extended down several levels in front of them. Above them was a gaping hole to the sky.
A multitude of voices shouting triumph as one voice came down from the surface. To those in the tunnels who were seeing star-light from below it was as if the stars were screaming. Then the enormous shape of an angry Guardian eclipsed the heavens and punched down at them again, widening the gap before them.
Omega Supreme.
He actually didn't punch that deep...just a level or so, but the floor he pushed down with such force crushed the floor under that, and then the floor under that.
It was a while before the booming and echoing of destruction stopped below them. Above them, a multitude of glowing optics made a ring around the hole, and they saw Omega's big hand drawing back.
"Oh...not good," Rodimus said to no one in particular.
"What?" Optimus shouted over the noise. "No sneaky assassin's tricks?"
"Only if I want to kill someone!" Rodimus said. "Which I don't!"
"But I will if I have to" went unspoken, but they all heard it anyway.
This time Omega Supreme's hand came for them instead of before them.
"Constructicons enemies!" Omega intoned.
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Jazz fumed.
Blaster, Outback, and Blurr were mystified.
First Optimus and Elita come in, acting angry, leave, acting angrier and send in Jazz...angry.
None of them could ever recall Jazz being so angry.
Unlike Prime and Elita however, instead of politely retreating to the command station and keeping his anger to himself, Jazz stayed down in the control room with them. Sharing with friends wasn't always such a good thing after all.
"I could play some cool new tunes I picked up on..." Blaster tried. Music was always a sure bet with Jazz.
"Shove it, Man! I ain't in the mood!"
"Jazz? What's wrong? First Optimus...now you...? Don't tell me this is all about Rodimus declining a vacation!" Outback asked seriously.
Jazz opted for glaring.
Outback and Blaster exchanged looks and Blurr seemed afraid to move.
The Specialist didn't miss the glances they kept throwing him, especially Blaster, but he wasn't able to do anything about it. Blaster he knew, would be especially hurt since they had been fellow addicts in Earth's music and culture since it was introduced to them. They in turn had won over many of the others one way or another, not the least of which had been the newly activated Hot Rod who seemed to step foot on Earthen soil and into love of that music in the same instant. Others confessed it had to grow on them, like rust spots.
It didn't matter. Jazz and Blaster made it their personal mission to be one step ahead of everyone else, and their teamwork had produced an unbroken record of "we heard it first"...although Hot Rod and Tracks had kept them on their toes.
The night-long, secretly arranged "jam sessions" which had made them undisputed champions of "what's hot and what's not" had been all but eradicated in the last five years or so. Jazz wondered if Blaster wanted an explanation for that too.
Jazz's hand clenched the chair he was slouching in. For some reason, of all the meeting's revelations, Jazz had focused on the list on the wall. He had hardly heard the video. The bright marker colors on the wall had caught his attention and held it. He read it. He read it again. Shellshock came in and sat down next to Malice. Jazz read the list again.
For the first time in years, Jazz had thought about Bumblebee, not even Goldbug. Bumblebee. Everyone's little brother. Hero-worshiping, happy, over-eager little Bumblebee. What a tight little group they had been. Just a handful of Autobots living in the Ark - calling them an army was a joke. More like a boy-scout troop. Spike had fit right in - certainly there was room for him and Sparkplug to find an emotional space within this tiny, lonely band.
And they had been lonely. For all they knew at first they were the last of their kind and Cybertron was a dead ball of corpses drifting like scrap somewhere in the icy vacuum.
But no one had made friends quite like Spike and Bumblebee. Jazz remembered how he and the others had commented on that friendship so often. Optimus had always encouraged it, saying that it was wonderful that two beings so different in construction could be so alike in spirit. The rest of the team had just found the two of them fun to be around, Jazz included.
And here was Spike, thin, withered, and bitter, sitting in the same room with a man he didn't even know had once been his friend.
Jazz read the list.
He watched Spike. He watched Shellshock. He knew why Spike was so full of hate. He wondered why Shellshock decided not to tell Spike who he was. Why? Why did Shellshock hate the Autobots...or at least, why was he spurning Spike?
Jazz read the list. He watched Shellshock and mourned.
Then the twins on the tape had revealed that Vector Sigma could influence its "children" directly. That some of the things they felt and believed were actually implanted ideas to control them.
Jazz saw Shellshock jerk as though pricked. Nothing changed in the man's demeanor. It was just a little twitch.
Jazz read the list. He read about the young people Rodimus and Goldbug had seen Converted.
He thought about Bumblebee. Bumblebee had revered Optimus. He revered Optimus so much that when everyone else questioned both Prime and the Matrix for choosing a twenty-year old goof-ball to succeed Optimus, Bumblebee had defended Rodimus from the start. Had it really been faith in Rodi? Jazz didn't think so. It had been unflinching assurance that neither Optimus nor the Matrix would EVER steer them wrong.
Obviously not the case with slave runners infesting Cybertron like so many energon ticks.
Disillusionment. What a bitch.
Jazz was suddenly very clear on why Shellshock had no plans to come home.
What if the blindness wasn't Optimus' fault though? What if Vector Sigma had put the blinders on? What if the commanders weren't ALLOWED to notice what was going on? What if the complacency that had led to the list on the wall had been forced into the minds of the leaders and anyone else who might have discovered the slave trade?
The video had gone on to show Rodimus trying to work up that horrible list, essentially putting himself back into the torture chamber. There was a more subtle message there. Definitely not Peter Pan. The man on the screen looked so tired. So old and frightened. There was nothing of innocence in his eyes. It was horrible to see the alternate Hot Rod looking on. The boy was furious. His hands clenched and unclenched with that desperate need to do something. Hot Rod always wanted to do something. He didn't really get it.
The need to do something was a kind of innocence in and of itself. Rodimus understood. Hot Rod didn't.
Sometimes there was nothing you could do.
Sometimes you just had to lay there and take it.
Jazz thought about Vector Sigma. He thought about Bumblebee. He read the list...and he was siding with Hot Rod. He wanted to do something. Something painful. Something off the list, to Vector Sigma, right now.
It took every ounce of self control to just sit here.
Why couldn't he follow the stellar example of his leaders and go get a piece of that glowing disco ball while supplies lasted?
Because he had to sit here and baby-sit the command center.
Blaster wondered what could possibly cause Jazz to so unmusically grind the tips of his fingers into the metal of his chair.
The three Autobots on duty would usually talk to each other while keeping an eye on things during their shifts. Not this time. They tip-toed around when they needed to move and used hand gestures and signals to communicate as much as possible. The few times they needed to answer the com-lines or speak to each other didn't move Jazz in the slightest, but they didn't want to talk just in case.
He was mostly oblivious to them anyway.
Which was why, when all three suddenly stood silently and turned on him, he almost didn't notice in time.
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Springer and Arcee were tooling around the streets of Iacon when they felt the need to turn. The meeting had disturbed them both, and they both needed to blow off some steam, but it was also a rare moment for them to be off duty together. Even better, they weren't on Earth, so even if Silverbolt (who was covering Metroplex) ran into trouble they were off the hook.
As upset as they were, as worried and angry as they were, they decided to make the most of the moment. Racing around Iacon together seemed a perfect way to clear their heads and enjoy each other's company.
The decision to head for the tunnels to Vector Sigma never got discussed. They were just going this way and that anyway. Turning that direction...well...it seemed like a good idea at the moment.
The traffic increased, which usually would have made them head for less crowded areas, but they stayed on course. Apparently going this way seemed like a good idea to lots of robots tonight.
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Lancer paced, trying to keep her emotions under control...not easy when her mate was reacting to Optimus and Elita's flight, Vector Sigma's obvious invasion of a lot of minds, and now the attack on her mate and his friends.
Her feet were silent, but Edana tossed in her bed as if hearing noises in her sleep. Lancer didn't want to disturb Pagan because she felt guilty about always yelling for help and also because she was afraid she might mess up Kain's ritual at a critical moment.
Obviously more was riding on his incense and ritual blood bath (only three drops of blood but still, literally, a blood bath) than they had previously realized.
Lancer was just making up her mind to move her children to the Maelstrom when the first hollow thud hit the door to Rodi's quarters. Rocket fire. These quarters were under attack! The mutant's eyes glowed and she fanged.
Her reluctance to contact Pagan vanished in a flash.
Seconds later, a worried looking Drazi retrieved her kids and asked, "Do you require more assistance?"
"Not yet, but keep the channels open. Vector Sigma just pissed me off. I intend to make it regret that."
There was another hollow boom at her door.
"It must be going after anyone who was at the meeting," she growled. Then her eyes widened.
"Oh shit! Marissa! And Spike!"
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Marissa heard the dull thud of a missile launched from close range at the door to Magnus' quarters.
She should have been frightened.
Instead she was just pissed.
Seven and a half months pregnant with Magnus' twin sons and she was the size of a house. Uncomfortable and hormonal to say the least, her response to being attacked at home was nothing like rational.
A rational person would have been afraid of huge mind-controlled robots hurting her or her unborn children.
Marissa was indignant that these uppity Transformers would DARE.
She went looking for the biggest gun in the house and headed for the entrance.
Lancer and Pagan showed up just as she was opening the door. They grabbed Marissa and blinked out just as Grapple's hand rockets soared into her livingroom. They arrived on the bridge of the Maelstrom with her spitting like an enraged feline.
"My furniture!" she shrieked, squeezing off a blast. Luckily for her and the ship, Malice was regaining her old reflexes and had plenty of experience with surprise blasts from Lancer. The bolt didn't do any damage.
Lancer grinned. "Take care of her will ya?"
"Hey! Where are you going?" Marissa shrieked.
"To save our boys!" Lancer told her.
"I'm going too!" Marissa insisted irrationally.
Lancer thought about laughing at that very notion, but stopped herself. She didn't like to be coddled when pregnant either. She tried a different tactic.
"I need you here to look out for Spike. He's not going to be happy when we dump him here," Lancer said.
Marissa looked dubious.
"You're the only one here he really knows, except for Shellshock," Lancer said.
"We must hurry," Pagan said. Robert showed her the location of Spike's quarters on the main screen. Pagan memorized, then jumped with Lancer.
x
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Spike was standing in his quarters. He always carried a side-arm, but he hadn't drawn it, even though the doors to his home were starting, finally, to cave in. They had actually stood a lot longer than he thought they should. Watching them bend slowly inward, taking one blast after another from the mob outside, made him finally realize how many security upgrades his home had been given behind his back.
When had that happened?
While he and Carly were away on diplomatic missions and Daniel was at school. Duh.
Hadn't they remarked more than once that it seemed like things had been moved when they got home? Never enough to really worry about though. Never enough to report a break in. Nothing ever turned up missing, but the old place sure had gotten quieter over the years. Like the walls were thicker.
Much thicker apparently.
Rodimus.
Underhanded bastard.
Why in the hell hadn't he been up-front about anything?
Maybe the truth wouldn't have saved Daniel's life. Not without putting the boy in a box. Fat chance with a kid who's ultimate dream was to be one of the elite fighter pilots who guarded Earth's governments and historic sites.
It sure would have made things easier to understand though.
Spike stood in front of his door, watching it bow towards him a millimeter at a time, brooding over things.
When Rodi's mate and her over-grown reptilian friend suddenly appeared in his livingroom, he was too distracted to resist.
Lancer didn't take any chances anyway. She wrapped both arms and her tail firmly around him and held on tight while Pagan 'ported them both to the Maelstrom.
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Kup felt an idea come into his head.
The idea involved moving to the surface, so he knew instantly it wasn't his own.
It wanted him to go to the Sigma access tunnel. Like that was going to happen.
The next thought was more like a question.
"Where are you?"
Kup wasn't a fool. If Vector Sigma couldn't use him, then he guessed it would try to kill him. To avoid it, he would have to keep his location from it.
Easy enough. Currently he was trying to get himself lost down in the tunnels and succeeding nicely. He wanted to be alone, to work out how much of his fight with Lancer and Rodimus he could blame on himself, on them, and on Vector Sigma. He didn't want the answers handed to him after Kain went through Vector Sigma. It felt like cheating.
Maybe Rodi and Lancer could forgive him, but he felt he had to earn it to forgive himself.
Not wanting to be disturbed before he was finished, he had headed for the labyrinth outside of Iacon. Flourishing though the city was, these old tunnels were still mostly uninhabitable. Refurbishing them was slow and dangerous work, and now Kup knew that many of their resources had been given to other priorities. Now he was lost, which was just what he wanted.
He felt Vector Sigma probe him again, and spat curses into the stale air. The presence withdrew. How could he have missed such an intrusion before? He didn't know, but it wasn't going to find him from his own thoughts, that was for sure.
Kup didn't even want to think about how he got down to where he was. The super computer might glean clues from his memories that even Kup wouldn't recognize. So he stubbornly began what he set out to do. He thought about Hot Rod, he thought about Galvatron ripping Hot Rod's circuits out because Kup hadn't taken Rodi's call for help seriously. He thought about guilt, and Lancer, and the list of horrors on the wall. He thought about Vector Sigma and how it might have played into that mix.
He thought really hard that he hoped Rodimus found some healing in Vector Sigma's demise. Kup was no telepath, but he made a sincere attempt to broadcast that last part very clearly.
x
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Perceptor saw the mob coming for his lab with plenty of warning. He was concerned about those under sway, but not too much for himself or his work in spite of their numbers.
The incident with Astrotrain that destroyed his old lab and nearly killed him had taught Perceptor well.
Be prepared.
Tell no one.
Don't ask permission.
Go for overkill.
He pushed a button. The walls around his lab moved and contracted around it until it became a smooth armored ball that retracted slowly down into another armored chamber underneath. This closed around the lab and locked blast-proof doors over the top.
Perceptor had made his own personal cyclone shelter. It had power and supplies to hold out for a month and a force-field around it to keep anyone from even getting to test the armor. Not even the Primes knew about all of this, but in a war where your enemies could pluck thoughts from your head, a few well kept secrets were healthy.
Outside the mob pounded fists, missiles, and lasers futilely on his force-field.
x
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First Aid was in heaven.
Alone in med-lab, he was playing with his new toy.
The "hand-book" the other dimension's Ratchet had prepared for him was really a Matrix style crystal with a projection device. When First Aid first tried it, he didn't even know how to turn it on.
After several minutes of looking for an obvious switch or someplace to begin, he began muttering to himself in frustration.
"What do I have to do to get this thing to work?" he asked the empty air.
"You ask questions of course!" came the answer.
First Aid had yelped in surprise and nearly fallen out of his seat.
"Hey! Don't drop me!"
"Ratchet!" First Aid cried, setting the device down on the table. "It's really you!"
"Well, no. Not really me, but I suppose I will do in a pinch," the projection told him.
"You...you can hear me!" First Aid said. "You can talk to me!"
The little hologram, which stood about a yard high on his desk, folded its arms and looked at him reproachfully. It mimicked Ratchet's form and body language perfectly, if a bit transparently.
"What good would I be if I couldn't see and hear you?" it asked.
"I was happy with just a sort of reference book," First Aid explained. "I didn't expect you to respond...like you."
"Well, this WAS supposed to be a sort of reference book, but I...I mean Ratchet tried to put as much of himself into the crystal as he could. He was afraid he'd miss something otherwise. I guess it worked a little too well...I'm fairly certain I'm sentient."
"By the Matrix..." First Aid said.
"Or very nearly," Ratchet responded with a smile.
Continued in Part E