Run.

"Run my baby run my baby run

Run from the noise of the street and the loaded gun

Too late for solutions to solve in the setting sun

So run my baby run my baby run"– Garbage "Run".

Warnings: Violence, explicit language, maybe some sex (but I'm not sure) – you know, the usual.

Timing: Post season 2 finale, in my very own Beauty of the Beast Prime timeline.

Rating: T to M (and possibly even MA).

Pairings: multiple.

Disclaimer: Transformers Prime © Hasbro. Story's plot and OC's © me. There may be some OC's that aren't mine – they belong to their respective creators.

Warning.

"This is a public service announcement, this is only a test

Emergency evacuation protest

May impair your ability to operate machinery

Can't quite tell just what it means to me

Keep out of reach of children, don't you talk to strangers

Get your philosophy from a bumper sticker

Warning. Live without warning

Say warning. Live without warning

Without. Alright." – Green Day „Warning"

oOo

Groundbridge control room. Nemesis.

Airachnid jumped into the control room with such a hurry that she almost collided with a Vehicon who was spending his shift serving there. The Vehicon jumped back and transformed his servo into blaster buy Airachnid was faster, three well aimed shots of her spider webs glued him to a wall and fourth one successfully gagged him.

"Be silent Genericon 1), you may consider yourself lucky that I am in so much hurry." She said with clear irritation in her voice while she transformed back to her bipedal form and turned to 'bridge console. "Otherwise we would have so much fun... or rather I would have so much fun with you."

"Mmmffff!" The Vehicon seemed to protest, but the femme ignored him in favour of the control device.

Airachnid tapped on the console and brought up schematics of the Spacebridge, opened a dialog box and began typing the coordinates for the location she wanted to go. The computer bleeped and compared the coordinates with its star charts for confirmation. The she-spider smirked and hit the OK button. The progress bar for establishing connection reached 99% and stopped for a moment. Then an error message popped out.

"What? What in the Pit does 'Error 503 2)' mean?" She growled angrily. "I need a Spacebridge. Now!"

She tapped on the keyboard and brought the newest status report of the Spacebridge to see what happened. She quickly read it and cursed. It was in the broadcast that she overheard, it was only operable manually. She just wasted precious moments to try to connect to the device that was out of range. It seemed that the broadcast was entirely authentic after all.

oOo

Flashback – the previous day.

Soundwave opened the admin account in the Nemesis operating system and pulled the Spacebridge settings to disconnect the device from the ships control system. The operation was easy and quick. The next thing the TIC did was to switch Groundbridge to operate only from the console in Groundbridge control room.

"Good, Soundwave." Megatron allowed himself satisfied smirk. "It is just temporary; soon you will regain full control."

Soundwave nodded one, but it was clear that he didn't felt all that happy about the situation. It was unpleasant necessity to him.

"Why do we even bother with all this guile and games?" Tesarus asked while looking around, clearly bored and impatient.

"So Airachnid couldn't just enter and use the first console she'll see to get out of here." Kaon explained patiently. "She will have to get to the control room leaving us opportunity to catch her en route."

"Yeah, then why sent us to those blasted mines? Why not just say we're out there but stay here and set traps?" Tesarus didn't give in.

"Because she may not buy our ruse. We may be lucky and find her down there in one of the mines and we do not know how many of them we will be able to collapse before she will take the bait, if she will." Kaon sighed, he admired patience that Tarn had for the team, he really did. "And because just in case she'd manage to stay free and on this planet, we need to lessen the number of her possible bolt holes."

"But how will we get back in time, if the Groundbridge will be operated from the control room and not by Soundwave?" Tesarus was still full of doubts. "The Vehicon technicians don't have administrator's access codes and can only access pre-programed 'bridge coils in chosen corridors."

"There's the beauty of the plan." Tarn's eyes shone brightly. "They won't have to... "

oOo

Nemesis. Groundbridge control room. Present.

Airachnid smirked triumphantly. She was always resourceful and no minor disadvantage could ever hold her back. She turned slowly as the familiar blue-green swirl of light appeared behind her. One of the accessible Groundbridge coils was located in the control room and could serve as a solution to her problem.

The femme approached the vortex when the doors to the control room were force opened by Helex and the D.J.D. poured in. She hissed and jumped into the wormhole but before she took off she turned back and shot the console. She could not afford them to follow her.

The Groundbridge flashed and whined; it had just few seconds before it would collapse without console feeding the coils with power. It was just enough for Airachnid to get through and be ejected on the other side.

Before any of the D.J.D. members could catch her, the Groundbridge closed.

Tarn calmly approached the console and examined it. It was fried, but not entirely. The keyboard and screen were beyond hope.

"Soundwave? Could you have a look at this?" The leader of the D.J.D. asked the Spymaster who silently joined the group.

Soundwave walked closer and stared at the console for a split second, then released his tentacles; one of them had a set of lighter, slightly blue-ish spots: a bruising forming after the fight with Insecticon. Both tentacles latched to the console and began flashing their bio-lights.

"I don't get it. Why not use the spare console?" Tesarus asked and pointed at the other console in the room.

"It is not operational. It had to be connected to the network." Kaon said in a tone of a teacher talking to extremely slow student. "And even if we could set it on-line, the last 'bridge coordinates are in the buffer of console that was used to open the Groundbridge. You won't find them in the off-line one."

"Ahh, I see." Tesarus scratched his helm in thought. He wasn't stupid, but his attention span was short and he was easy to bore.

"If you like to be of use, you could help that Vehicon." Kaon pointed out. "Maybe he can tell us something useful."

"Good call." Tesarus smiled.

However before the easily bored mech could release the Vehicon, Soundwave unlatched from the console and turned to Tarn.

"Do you have something?" The D.J.D. leader asked and carefully observed the display. "This looks like something Megatron should be informed about." He decided and tapped his . "Lord Megatron, this is Tarn, this is urgent."

oOo

Megatron took a sharp turn and almost tripped over a dead Insecticon when his chimed.

"This is Megatron." He answered and stopped in his tracks only to turn on his heel and ran in opposite direction. "Impossible, we're out of reach for Earth at the moment." He listened for a moment. "That sneaky glitch!" He roared. "I'm on it. Tell Soundwave to restore normal control of the 'bridges."

The warmonger ran as fast as he could in an enclosed space. He wanted to transform and fly, but he knew that it was a bad idea inside of Nemesis; he didn't want to collide with anyone.

"Starscream!" He yelled when he saw familiar frame creeping in the corridor before him. "With me!" He ordered grabbing the Seeker by upper arm and dragging behind him.

"Uhh, Master, where to?" The Air Commander asked while doing his best to match Megatron's pace. The Tyrant could run really fast when he wanted to.

"Airachnid!" Came the reply and Starscream didn't need anything else.

"At your side, Master." Starscream optics narrowed and his lips widened in smile.

TBC

Well, my darlings, two more chapters to go for this story. The next one will reveal Airachnid's plan and few details of the operation against Airachnid.

And the last chapter will be epilogue, we will learn about June, plans of the D.J.D. and will contain – wait for it – a guest star!

1) Genericon is a slur word for some nondescript, meaningless Cybertronian, you know, cannon fodder.

2) I am so evil, no? OK, for all those who do not know the HTTP codes (not that I know them all, I only know few, which includes the 418 "I'm a teapot" and the ever hated 404 "file not found"), error 503 is "service unavailable" which usually means that the server is out for some reason (like maintenance for example, or it just got overloaded) but in some time should be available again soon.