Hard Road to Freedom

Hard Road to Freedom

Taking Responsibility

Wasp's crimson optics met Wheeljack's, in them he saw the only glimmer of hope that the straggling bunch of renegade Autobots had. "Wheeljack, I've locked in a warp coordinate pattern in this shuttle, you must make sure to let the autopilot do its job."

Putting a hand solidly on one of his door panels, she continued. "When you hear any other shuttles carrying POWs, you must send them these files in the sequence they are in." Quickly, she leaned over him, pointing to a list of 15 different programs. "These will give each shuttle's autopilot a different warp coordinate pattern program; they must let the shuttles' go with the programming."

He nodded his understanding, putting a hand on top of hers.

Leaning down, she looked deep into his blue optics, her expression one of deadly seriousness. "Do not let anyone deviate, for only those that follow the plan will end up at our final location. It will take many astrocycles, but they must be patient, they must wait." She scanned the POWs in the shuttle. "You are the strongest one here, Wheeljack. Everyone else is too damaged, too weakened – you must get them to the final location. You must explain this to each of the other shuttles, then everyone goes to complete radio silence for the duration."

Again he nodded, for he knew his friends had suffered extensive damage during the years of torture, and the long distance they walked to get to the shuttle had taken what little strength most of them had still had. He was no leader, but he would willingly take on the responsibility of carrying out the Mercs' plans – if it meant freedom for them all. "Thank you Merc," he said quietly.

She smiled sarcastically, her warm optics growing cold. "Don't thank us, until it's over - Soldier." Turning swiftly away from him, she strode up to Yellow Jacket, nodding to Springer and Swoop. "Time to go."

As they opened the hatch, transformed and leaped out, with the two weakened Autobot flyers barely grabbing hold of them, Yellow Jacket's last joking comment floated back into the shuttle. "Bet ya ya paycheck – I'll down more sat's than ya!"

Chaos

Wasp and Jacket dived nose-first toward the surface, Springer and Swoop barely keeping a hold on them.

"When ya boys get groups to the shuttles, the sat's 'il be taken out. So ya can only talk via short wave. Contact the first shuttle; we gave 'em warp programs for all of ya." Jacket told them, her radioed voice chiming musically in their heads.

Jacket could feel Swoop bobbing his against her cockpit as he nodded. "Me Swoop get many Autobots to shuttles."

"So just how are we going to get them out of the prison?" Springer asked.

A roar of explosions from the surface of Cybertron answered his question. With Wasp initiating the radio sequence, every micro-explosive the Mercs had planted in the last few weeks, blew in glorious white spheres of light. Mushroom clouds ballooned over the small nuclear blasts. Almost every major energy relay station had been targeted.

He whistled, impressed! "Sloggers, wish we'd have thought about doing that!"

Then they were over the prison, with the planet-wide blackout, the chaos was swiftly filling the streets. Chaos, which would help serve to cover the Autobots' escape. Patting the Mercs' fuselage, the two Autobots leaped off, flying the rest of the way by themselves.

As soon as the Autobots were clear, the two Seekers flipped their stabilizers, going into verticals, seemingly standing on end in the sky. Then afterburners exploded into life, propelling the two straight back up into space at supersonic speeds. They flew by the POW's slower shuttle, their combined engine blasts causing the shuttle to rattle in their wake.

Past the uppermost atmosphere, the two split off from each other, each one having a different set of satellite targets to destroy. Shutting off afterburners, they used inertia to keep their incredible speed, only using small side thrusters to modify their individual courses. Throwing power onto their NITE Hawk FLIR's they quickly located targeted and laser marked the primary communications satellites. Bright lights filled the darkness of space as multiple AIM-160 AMRAAM experimental missiles were launched, navigational arrays locked onto their defenseless targets, heading off alone to bring them down.

Banking off, the wing rejoined, and headed back to the chaotic planet, both Seekers snickering in satisfaction as the night sky became daylight – with the beautiful nuclear explosions of all the targeted satellites. Then they dove, heading back toward the surface, knowing that the Decepticons were now in total disarray, and counting on the fact that they themselves would not be looked at with suspicion – yet.

Coming down hard and fast, the two sisters fell in near a Decepticon clone squadron. Wiggling their wings they opened a short wave link. "What's happening? What's happening?" Wasp yelled to them, in apparent confusion.

"This is Squadron Gamma, communications are out, power grids down, we're trying to secure sector from possible attack," an anxious male voice replied.

"Gamma, we'll cover edge between this sector and the next, out." Wasp replied, and then she and her twin banked off.

Transforming and landing VTOL, the twins approached one of many energon-storage complexes. As they entered, they noticed the entire place was in mass confusion. One guard stopped them. "Communications are out, grids down. We've been ordered to transport to security troops." Wasp told them, her voice calm and firm.

The guard let them through, remembering Yellow Jacket from her security sweeps accompanying Onslaught. The two femmes swiftly filled their cargo and cockpits with as much as they could hold, then flew off. Teleporting after they were out of sight.

Coming out of a long teleport, the swift winds of the barren planet of Rectos 5 assailed their wings. Landing at the dilapidated shuttle port, that they had previously scoped out, they quickly unloaded their energon and stored it in one of the rusted hangars. Each of them gulped down some energon to refill their port cores, knowing they'd need all three cores filled to the max, to do the amount of teleporting they were going to attempt.

Then they winked out, returning to the chaos that was Cybertron, and made over a dozen similar missions and teleports within the next astrohour.

Hunters

After their store of energon reached the level they had wanted, the twins returned to Cybertron on a different mission. Both of them had converted their laser cannons into null rays, like their sire's. For the next few missions, they'd be hunting clones.

The chaos was still full force, for just an hour had passed since the grid initially went down. Every clone Seeker squadron had been scrambled and was now out patrolling their sectors, just knowing that an Autobot attack must be coming.

The Merc wing locked onto a squadron of four clones, flying towards them, they radioed via short-wave that they'd been ordered to join the squadron as backup. The squadron leader signaled his acknowledgment and ordered them to fall in at the rear tips of the V-formation. Banking in, the twins seamlessly fell into formation, and then swiftly hit all four clones in front of them with null rays.

The clones transformed and tumbled helplessly to the surface, their systems completely disrupted. Transforming, the sisters easily caught a hand of each of the helpless clones, and with each sister carrying two, they teleported back to their 'base' at Rectos 5.

Landing in the rusted hangar, Wasp and Jacket swiftly opened up an access port on each of the clones, plugging in a USB connection kept within their fingertips; they downloaded a virus into the clones. This virus immediately began erasing all programs and files from the Meta processors and battle CPUs of the clones. The femmes waited an astrominute, refilling their two secondary cores with energon. As the virus finished its work, the sisters then opened the power systems of the clone's cores, effectively draining the core's to zero, thus releasing the clone's spark. Leaving only an empty shell lying on the floor.

They did this mission two more times, ending up with a collection of twelve unanimated Seeker clones in their hangar.

Looking at each other in satisfaction, the sisters finally rested, knowing that in just seven astrodays; they'd have to not only have six of these clones ready to accept the hybrid sparks growing within them – but they'd also have an unknown number of damaged guests to take care of.

Jacket snickered as they basked in the lonely star's radiation, the slightly radioactive breeze on this decimated planet, teasing her fuselage with its gentle touch. "So ya think that Onslaught and Blast Off have any idea that we're carrying their get?"

Wasp looked at her sideways, her optics glimmering. "No, and I don't think anyone but us needs to know who the sire's were – do you?"

"Well, considering who we're fixin' to ask to help raise 'em – nope," Jacket winked.

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