Chapter 6: Face of the Enemy
Throughout much of what came next I felt like a bystander. Kiryk and I simply followed as Undermine and Cobalt returned, dragged Deadfall to her feet and led her away behind Elita, with us close behind. At the edge of the camp, we met up with Bulkhead, who was bearing a number of cables and various instruments on his shoulders, and an Autobot I hadn't met before, an anorexically-thin yellowish Cybertronian named Hardwire. When we were assembled and the situation explained, Elita knelt down and offered me her enormous hand.
"There is considerable distance to cover between here and the ship. I would prefer it if you and your companion rode on my shoulders, Captain, if it's alright with you." she said. I hesitated. Looking at her shoulders, I could see that falling off would not be a problem. There were plenty of extrusions to hold onto. The primary problem was they all looked sharp. But I figured it would be dumb to refuse, given that we would move a lot faster, and that when I got back to Atlantis…someday, I could brag that I had ridden on the shoulder of a giant robot.
"I'd be honored." I said, and did my best to step onto her hand with some grace. Kiryk didn't immediately follow, and I had to glare at him to get him to do so. His continuing mistrust of the Cybertronians was perfectly understandable, given that we had nothing but their word that they wouldn't do us harm. However, I should've probably told him that being standoffish and acting stubborn and slightly xenophobic would do more harm than good.
The enormous Autobot raised us to her shoulders and we each stepped onto them. Kiryk took the right shoulder and I took the left. I couldn't help but picture all the cartoons of my youth where Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny and other Looney Toons had been confronted with their shoulder-angel and shoulder-devil. And here I was, on the shoulders of a giant robotic female alien. Suddenly the idea of bragging didn't seem so enjoyable.
We made quick progress after that, and I held on as best I could. I was happy to discover that Elita wasn't as sharp as she looked from the ground. Like Merry and Pippin on the shoulders of Treebeard, Kiryk and I clung to our metal carrier as we moved at a fast, clanking jog through the forest. Happily none of the trees had branches determined to unseat us, as I didn't fancy ending my career not only dying away from Atlantis, but dying the ridiculous death of being smacked off the shoulders of a giant robot by a tree branch and plummeting to break every bone in my body.
Eventually the trees, which were already thin this close to the crash site, vanished entirely, leaving only the splinters and scorched earth associated with the land surrounding the trench created by a meteor strike. As soon as we left the trees behind, I saw, in all its sundered glory, the wreck of the Decepticon prison ship.
The thing was huge, quite possibly the size of one and a half Wraith Cruisers. Its port side towered above even the Autobots, easily thirty stories tall, perhaps more. It would have to be, I speculated, in order to contain such a race of giants and, if Deadfall was correct, scientific facilities, not to mention a variety of other things. As we closed on the rear and the titanic engines, Deadfall spoke up.
"There's a hatch on the port side, an airlock if I'm right. It leads to an elevator shaft that connects with the internal transport system. If any of that is intact, we can get to the bridge, where you'll be free to siphon to your spark's content." she said. Elita turned and gave her a suspicious look.
"Interesting that you remember the design of this ship so well…" she said. Deadfall shrugged.
"It just came to me. I suppose seeing related images must be helping my memory circuits to restore themselves." Deadfall answered, apparently ignoring the subtle hostility in Elita's voice. Elita simply remained silent and we continued on. Soon we were right alongside the behemoth, which had left a short, but prodigious trail just behind it and broke its skidding travel along the surface by smashing into the cliffs that served as the walls of the valley. It was a marvel that the ship hadn't hit the cliffs on the opposite side on the way in.
The narrowness of the valley made it hard for Wraith Darts to maneuver efficiently and the cliffs that fronted the mountains on either side were honeycombed with caves and possible refuges. The thick forest also served as a defense against culling beams. It was made to provide a number of options for those fleeing the Wraith.
The hatch in question soon became apparent. There was a large hexagonal door on the ribbed belly of the vessel. It was more or less even with the ground and sealed tight. Elita turned once again to Deadfall and crossed her arms, indicating that she should open it and forcing Kiryk and I to move or be dislodged.
Deadfall simply raised her bound hands in supplication. Elita couldn't roll her eyes, but I got the feeling that if she could, she would have. She raised one arm and changed it. Her forearm extended a long thin blade. She then walked over and grabbed the ex-Decepticon's bonds and with a *shling*, sliced them in two. Then she held the blade up to Deadfall's mask.
"One false move..." she warned her, then retracted the blade and stepped back. Under the mask, I imagined Deadfall having a reproachful look as she stepped forward and began to manipulate the surface of the hexagonal door.
"Should we get down?" I asked Elita casually. She waved one hand.
"I would prefer you stay where you are, Captain. We still have a ways to go." she answered. There was a click, and then a clank as Deadfall finished whatever she was doing. The hexagonal aperture slid open with the grinding groan of enormous bunker doors everywhere. It split into six parts whose triangular sections folded themselves into thinner triangles twice, then folded inwards to line the sides of the newly revealed corridor which was pitch black save for red emergency lighting.
"Power is at a minimum, it appears. I have a suspicion the crash damaged the energy distribution grid." Deadfall said. As Captain of a highly advanced spaceship, I had had to learn some technobabble myself to get by. It had served me well when Elizabeth was trying to explain why we couldn't blow up a crippled Hive Ship that had apparently done very little damage to us in return.
"It doesn't matter. So long as the doors to the bridge still work we won't need much power." Bulkhead grunted, and clomped on in. I leaned behind Elita's head and gave Kiryk a glance behind her back. He looked pretty unperturbed, despite riding on the shoulders of a giant robot. He did check his arm-mounted teleporter though, which showed he was trying to be prepared.
Elita was the first to follow Bulkhead, with Hardwire close behind her. Cobalt came next along with Deadfall and Undermine, the ex-Decepticon once more standing between them. As we were borne deeper into the reddish gloom, Elita drew level with Bulkhead and turned her head a little in my general direction.
"Captain, up until now, I must admit I have not told you everything about what happened on this ship. It may have been to allay your suspicions and to tell the truth, my own as well, but now I can no longer deny that something is wrong." she said to me.
"What the hell does that mean?" I asked, caught off guard by that sudden admission.
"This ship, ", Elita said, gesturing to our surroundings, ", is far more advanced than it should be. When we first attacked, it tried to protect itself with an energy barrier similar to the ones your ship's A.I. told us your Ancestors used on their own vessels, a technology we do possess, but have never applied on such a large scale. Furthermore, the weapons of this ship were more advanced and destructive than anything our own vessel possessed."
After a pause in which I tried to figure out what this might mean, Elita continued.
"I do not know what this means, save that it cost me my ship and many of my crew, but it seems to me there is more going on here than meets the eye." she finished. I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything except: "Well I suppose things will make more sense when we find the logs."
Elita's face took on concerned look.
"I sincerely hope you are right, Captain." she muttered.
We continued along the corridor, which, while mostly hexagonal, seemed skewed, and not just because of the angle of the ship in relation the ground. Perhaps the superstructure had been torqued out of shape by the impact or something. It didn't stop us from making our way to the maintenance shaft though.
The structure in question was a cylindrical shaft like a big pipe running from the floor to the ceiling, with an opening on one side for occupants. An idea popped into my head.
"Tell me," I asked in my best polite tone, ", the big guy, Omega Supreme. How did he get on this ship, I can see it's built to accommodate most of your people, but I really don't see him squeezing through here…"
"Omega Supreme is the last of the true giants among our kind. His elder brother, Fortress Maximus, fell in the Battle of Metroplex on Cybertron. Being as large as he is, he subsisted on the hull of our vessel until we transferred to this one." Elita said, before stepping into the elevator shaft first, followed by Bulkhead, who began to manipulate what I assumed was the control panel.
"So he lived on the outside of your ship? Sounds kind of dangerous…" I said. Elita smiled.
"Not for him." she said. Then she turned her head a little to get me in her field of view.
"I can see there is much you wish to know about our people. While I am happy to explain, I must tell you I am not the best qualified to answer them. In fact, much of our scientific knowledge, planetary history and cultural identity have been lost in the quest to find the Allspark." she said, as the rest of the crew joined us in the elevator. There was a clank as Hardwire stepped in last and Bulkhead stepped back from the panel, his equipment clattering around him. The door slid closed we stood together in the dim red light as the elevator rose with a nasty clanking. It went on like that for five minutes and before I could think of a sympathetic response to Elita's revelation, the elevator stopped and opened.
Outside was a very large hallway that seemed to stretch on a long way. It was only slightly better lit, as it had a sort of sporadic fluorescent illumination lining it sides. Most of the units that were giving off the light were broken and dead, leaving large portions of the hall in darkness. The hallway itself was made up of three stepped levels on each side. We were on the second level of the port side, and the roof of the corridor was ribbed, like standing in the belly of an enormous ribcage. In front of us, directly opposite the elevator, the walkway had a trapezoidal extrusion which allowed access to a tram, a large, coffin-shaped platform with rails, supported by one mechanical arm which fastened it to a rail that was part of the rib structure on the ceiling.
"Let me guess," I said, looking at it, "Internal Transportation?" Elita nodded and I had to grab one of her magenta shoulder spikes to keep from falling off.
"A bit different from Autobot design, but basically the same. If my guess is right, this is the Primary Access Corridor. It runs the length of the vessel and can take us straight to the Bridge." she answered. She glanced over at Deadfall, who said nothing in response.
We boarded the tram one by one, with Kiryk and me still sitting on the shoulders of the Autobot Admiral. I took a tighter hold on her body structure in preparation for the tram's motion. It was a good move. As soon as Cobalt, Undermine and their charge were onboard, Bulkhead manipulated some extremely large controls at the front of the vehicle, causing it to judder into motion. As the transport whined along its supporting rail, it also began to pick up speed. We hurtled past meter after meter of identical stretches of corridor. Well, identical except for the blast damage…and the bodies.
Large robotic corpses and severed limbs, mostly humanoid, lay scattered throughout the chamber. Their eyes were all dark and dead, preventing me from using my red-eye/blue-eye method of distinguishing them as Autobot or Decepticon. I made sure to add that to the list of questions I planned to ask Elita at some point. Why would both sides be distinguished by eye-color?
Eventually, we began to slow, our transport screeching like a subway car as we did. It stopped with a hiss at the end of the hallway, which was simply a blank wall with doors for each of the three levels of walkway on either side of the hall. We disembarked in silence and approached the door on our level. It was complex and reminded me of a wooden Chinese puzzle, sliding apart in six sections diagonally. Beyond was another corridor filled with the same dim red lighting of the maintenance shaft.
Suddenly, Bulkhead held up a hand for everyone to stop, which they did. He fumbled with the equipment and wires he had draped all over himself and pulled out a mysterious device which was flashing a light green.
"What is it?" I asked. Bulkhead grunted.
"The power output of the primary core just increased. Not by much, but enough to set off my detectors. ", he explained after a few more seconds with the device.
"I thought we were on minimal power." Elita said.
"We were. We're the only ones on this ship according to my sensors, so I can only suspect that it's an automated system or a malfunction. I can correct it from the bridge." he answered.
"Very well…let's keep moving." Elita said, giving Deadfall a suspicious look. We pressed on, moving faster now. Inside the hall, a ramp to our right led up to another ramp leading forward to a chamber with more neutral lighting, the kind I had once seen on the Prometheus on Earth. This led to a small chamber that served as an intersection for several hallways. Only two had an open door and only one of those doors was large enough to merit being the entrance to the bridge. The chamber beyond it certainly looked like it was the bridge too.
"We have arrived." Deadfall said grimly.
It turned to Elita's head and tapped it.
"Can you put me down now?" I asked as politely as I could. She craned her neck to look at me and held up one huge hand. I stepped into her palm and allowed her to lower me to the ground. Then she did the same for Kiryk. Then together, we entered the ship's nerve center.
The bridge was a colossal room, scaled to fit the enormous proportions of the beings who had built it. It was a long chamber, a sort of corridor stretching forward with trenches on either side, lined with consoles and what looked like seats for enormous operators. The chamber terminated in a hexagonal cul-de-sac, a station with trapezoidal windows all around, affording an excellent view of the mountain side. The clear material obviously wasn't glass. It wasn't even scratched by the impact the ship had taken.
I whistled and heard an echo, then cursed myself for doing so. This whole ship had felt like tomb, or perhaps a torture chamber, long unused, but its instruments agony still coated with the reddish-brown stains of past victims. Together, Elita, Bulkhead, Kiryk, Deadfall and I advanced down the long walkway that bisected the room.
"You know, I get the feeling we're not wanted here. It's like the ship hates us." I said quietly. Kiryk grunted in agreement. We came to the hexagonal cul-de-sac sooner than I had expected. There was an enormous chair in the center of the structure. Both armrests were equipped with spiny-looking protrusions whose tips were glowing with a grey light. In the chair lay an enormous Decepticon, quite clearly dead. A huge hole had been blasted in his chest and something had bashed his head in with, it looked like, his own arm. Bulkhead simply stepped around him, loops of cable under one arm. Hardwire followed closely.
At that moment, Deadfall shivered briefly, and I saw her stance change. Without warning, she lunged forward for one of the large consoles. Cobalt and Undermine tried to follow her, but by the time they caught up with her, she had already reached one of the glowing controls and was manipulating. Cobalt grabbed her by her upper body and dragger her back while she scrabbled at the controls, trying to hang on. It wasn't enough of course. When Cobalt had her in something like a nelson, Undermine seized her wrist in a grip that was clearly painful. She cringed back and tried to remove the Autobot's hand.
"What do you think you are doing, Decepticon?" the big blue bot growled.
"Shut off the communication! Shut it off!" she whimpered. Undermine looked at Elita, who shook her head. This seemed to be enough authorization for the two Autobot guards to seize Deadfall and drag her back to where Elita stood.
"We'll have the data in no time." Bulkhead said professionally as if nothing had happened.
I stepped up to the dead 'Con while Deadfall continued to wriggle in the very secure custody of her guards and Hardwire and Bulkhead busied themselves with the mostly shattered control panels nearby.
"Well, at least there's nothing here to stop us." I said with a false joviality.
"Nothing alive, at least." Kiryk muttered in reply.
What happened next would haunt me forever. Long after all the things that came later were over, I would still think back to what happened in that control room and shudder in horror. Until then, I had fought many foes, chiefly the Wraith, and I thought I knew something about evil. What happened next showed me how wrong I was.
The bridge's speakers, or whatever it was Cybertronians used instead, began to moan. There was a crackling noise like static, all sorts of electronic noise that began to coalesce. In it I could hear voices, thousands of voices, tens of thousands, maybe even millions, all whispering, speaking. Some were laughing, others were babbling. The sound had a profound effect on Deadfall. She shrieked in what was clearly terror and tried to cover herself with her arms, which were being held by Undermine.
The countless voices coalesced further and some even seemed to speak in sequence, or all together in groups. From the chaotic noise and gibbering, one voice seemed to grow, one syllable in one heavily distorted voice, held there and increasing in volume until it spoke.
"You are correct. The Cyber-form is dead, in-sect." stated the one, comprehensible voice amidst the multitude. There was a crash in the direction of Bulkhead and Hardwire, who had dropped what they were doing in shock. Elita whirled, her right arm reaching back over her shoulder to seize the handle of a massive rifle which she quickly grasped and pulled free, sweeping it around the room for targets even as it assembled in her hands. Cobalt and Undermine released the Decepticon, who collapsed in a swoon, and reached for their own weapons.
"Are you a-fraid?" asked the cold, intermittent monotone. Now the countless others were mostly shivering and stuttering into silence. The primary remained though, now beginning to distort even further like a text-to-speech program dealing with someone with bad spelling and grammar along with a broken record and a cassette tape left out in the sun too long.
"Come out!" Elita shouted, pointing the rifle at shadows and possible hiding places.
"What is it you fear?" the voice asked, ignoring her, "The end of your triViAL EXISsstance?" It was becoming clearer and clearer that whatever was producing the speech was dealing with some very corrupt programming. The thing echoed and reverberated at different pitches and was interspersed with distorted monotones repeating syllables and even other words, layered with a variety of electronic tones and rhythms.
"W-w-w-wh-whe-wwhen the history of my glory is written, your SPEcieS shall only be a footnote to my MaGNNiFICenCe." The hideous voice crackled. Somewhere in the seething mass of shock and terror my mind had become, a question arose and forced its way out before I could stop it.
"Who are you!?" I shouted. My own weapon was in my hand, though I had no memory of drawing it. The panic was clear in my tone and I could feel the fear mixed with shock run through my veins like ice water. There was a pause while the gibbering beeps, repeated/distorted phrases and sporadic monosyllables continued. Then the voice came back, rising as if from the deep of some splintered sub-processor, an echo in reverse, growing louder and more coherent until it became speech.
"KNEEL." It said flatly.
"What-", I started to say. Then my head exploded with pain. There was a ringing, shifting vibration, sliding up and down the distortion scale, a single word howled in a set of frequencies that stuck red-hot rivets in my ears.
"KNNNNNNEEEEEeEEEeEEEEEeeeeeEeEEeeeEeEEEEELLLLLLLLlLlLlLLLlLllllL!" shrieked the voice. As I fell to the ground, my hands over my ears, I saw the Autobots doing the same. Whatever this thing was, it was designed to cause agony even to them. Elita, as she sank, Took aim and fired on the Decepticon corpse in the chair while Cobalt and Undermine sprayed the shadows of the bridge with gunfire. The voice exploded into disjointed laughter. It was the most awful sound I had ever heard, like a trillion malevolent, corrupt A.I.s laughing in male and female voices in ways no living throat could hope to duplicate, a cacophony of maniacal amusement. As it faded, the voice took shape again. It rose in volume, a hundred disjointed tones lining up to form three words that rumbled throughout the room and echoed in the speakers. As it spoke, every screen in the bridge began to flicker to life, at first displaying only blackness mixed with grey static. Then the darkness changed, welling up to reveal an enormous head, a Cybertronian visage locked at the center of a vast network of pipes and wires and cables, face that looked only remotely human, with a collection of mandibles for a mouth and one red, cyclopean and terrible eye.
"I Am SHOCkWAvE." it stated coldly.
I've never been one for the idea of evil you can feel. I mean sure the Wraith can make you uncomfortable with their psychic powers, but that was nothing like this. Under that red, merciless gaze that never blinked and never flickered, I felt as though I was being scrutinized by an insane and calculating intellect. It was pure malevolence, that stare. It said that you were a nothing, superfluous, meaningless, less than the lowest form of life, incapable of even beginning to conceive of the vast plots and schemes being contemplated by the mind behind that eye. It said three simple words: YOU ARE INFERIOR.
"My analysis of VAriouS situAtioNal circumsTANces, behavioral recordsss and other variables, suggests a ninety-seven point three-four percent pr-p-pro- prob-probability that you are aware of my b-b-birth of my b-b-birth of my birth on Cybertron and flight i-into exile, bu-but also that you are equally UNaware of my REbirth i-in-to majesty on V-V-Vec-tor Sig-ma." the red eyes said in unison. The mouth-like mandibles beneath them did not move with the voice. The countless identical visages were frozen, yetthe wires and various extensions around them pulsed and arced. Lights flowed along some of them in unison, like a heartbeat. I pulled my hands away from my ears. They had blood on them. That was not good. I glanced over at Elita. She was struggling back to her feet, using her rifle as a crutch. The thousands of red eyes shifted just a little to hold her in their gaze.
"I will a-admit that your arriv-al here was u-u-unexpected, Elita One. B-by coming he-here you have introduced a new e-element to my tO MY eQuaTIons. Thi-this is most unfortunate...but eeeeeasily BuT EaSiLY rectified" The voice said coldly, seeming to focus its attention on the Autobot Admiral briefly before shifting its calculating intellect and attention to me.
"This galaxy is a-about to become the sta-stage for two incre-di-ble e-eventsss: the formation of a new e-empire…and the the r-r-rebirth of the Cy-ber-tron-ni-an race. I have labor-ed for over three-thousand of your short, pitifully brief yeeeearrs, insect, a se a se-cret in the silence of this galaxy ruled by verminnn, thinking, preparing…EvOLVinG, all to make m-m-myself ready for what is to come." hissed the mutating voice of Shockwave.
It was at this point that I realized that the lights on the consoles around me, in fact all the consoles in the bridge, were beginning to glow, brighter and brighter. A couple exploded in sparks. The images on the holographic screens began to waver. Like an image reflected in an infinity of mirrors that was moving towards reality, I heard a laugh slowly growing from the speakers.
"If you think me a fool, you are wrong. In truth it is a-aa-aa-a sha-shame…a shame, Elita that you must perish in ignorance of the future that awaits us, and in the company of such a pathetic form of life, no less. You came seeking knowledge…but you will receive only death." they cackled in unison. There was a clang which caused me to whirl around. The entrance to the bridge had just sealed and sealed further with the clanking of what sounded like heavy internal locks. The laugh was now growing, and it was degenerating, breaking up into a dozen laughs in different voices. Elita now brought her rifle to bear and opened fire on the door. The enormous tracers it must've fired simple dented the thing, doing nothing to penetrate the enormous barrier. Now a dozen more consoles exploded into sparks. A couple belched flame as they burned out.
"Rest assured that I do not commit violence without purpose. My plan is manifold. C-consider your d-d-destrRuCtion as simply a pre-precaution, to ensure itssss su-success." the voice said. It was breaking up again. The laughter was now an unpleasant overlay. I began to feel a thrumming beneath my feet, not great but enough to cause a certain sense of unease in the bowels.
"If, b-by some unaccounted vvvv-vvariable, you both survive and find a way to oppose me, I-I-I will provide one, a-and only one warning." The voice of Shockwave stated," The odds are stacked against you. If you think to ssstop me, then you deluuuude yourself. There is no beauty in that MEAT you ca-call a body…but, iffff yoouuuu valuuueee thaaat meeeeat…you will do as I tell you…and stay ouuttt of m-m-my way."
There was an electronic hissing sound, a burst of static, and the last traces of the hideous noise were gone. One by one the screens all went dark, dissipating as the laughter rose and filled the air, the sound of millions of evil voices raised in triumphant amusement. Then they too went silent, leaving the bridge as silent as a tomb.
Slowly, unsurely, I looked around shivering. Kiryk was wearing a look I had never seen on him before: dread. Fear in the face of an evil too big to shoot or punch into submission. He was out of his depth…hell, I was out of my depth.
"By the Ancestors…" he said, his breath coming out in a wheeze of shock, "What was that?"
Deadfall unsteadily rose to her feet, having remained to a crouching position, hands over her face as the speech had been going on.
"That," said Deadfall, fear present in her every move, "was Shockwave."
