Maelstrom Chapter 39
The Ties that Bind
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.
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!
The Ties that Bind: PART J
CONTINUED FROM: The Ties that Bind: PART I
Optimus kept an eye on his partner even as he made careful note of everything both the children did. It wasn't a conscious thing, just his normal way of observing those around him.
The junior Prime performed alien chores without pause or concentration. Rodi cleaned up the dishes, changed Alex's diapers, put a bowl of popcorn on the table, and even cut Alex's toe nails, all with the fluid ease of long practice. He spoke to the contestants about their game, he made faces at Alex, but his eyes remained half-lidded and distant. Sometimes he would shake himself and look at them all directly, but shortly that distracted look would return. Once in a while, his right leg would bounce a rapid rhythm on the floor. Alex, sitting in his lap, seemed to appreciate the ride. She giggled furiously but Rodi didn't smile in return.
As much as Rodi enjoyed time with his children, there was somewhere else he'd rather be right now.
It made Optimus wonder if half the inattention that so irked the Senior at meetings was really Rodimus being unprofessional after all. Maybe instead it was split consciousness. How hard must it be to go about daily business, when half of your mind was off fighting for its life? Optimus looked into his mind and found a minor implant at the root of that misunderstanding. He killed it without comment, and noted even the headache wasn't bad. Just...there. Like the implant - barely noticeable. Insidious. In a way, it made him happy. Liking his partner just got that much easier.
"How's it going?" Optimus asked.
"Hmm?" Rodimus answered.
"How's the mission going?" Optimus prompted.
"The building's wrong. The blue-prints and scans show an old Autobot site, but the place is set up for humans. They are using...Jabez style construction," Rodimus said neutrally.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we are dealing with an operation sophisticated enough to fool the Maelstrom ...." Rodimus didn't finish that thought. Lancer's team had just come under attack. Alex fussed in his lap and Rodimus put her down without really noticing her.
Optimus noted Edana looking at her father over the rim of her protective glasses. It was a quick, subtle move - as if she didn't want to get caught doing it. Then she went back to idly playing with the game pieces, looking away from Rodi.
Optimus wondered what she'd seen with those pale, mutant eyes. He saw his partner grimacing with anger, and the rapid twitch of Rodi's pulse through the skin of his neck.
"Your turn Optimus Prime," Edana told him a bit fiercely.
The senior Prime looked at Rodimus' child as she stared at him intensely. For a moment he wondered if she was still too young to realize what was happening, but when he hesitated her pallid stare narrowed.
Intense, even a bit annoyed at him for stalling. This wasn't a request it was an order, and it had nothing to do with playing a game!
Why?
To keep up appearances.
What would happen if they didn't keep up appearances?
Rodimus would know she was worried about him and reading him with quick, furtive glances around the edge of her frames.
And then?
Rodi would move her to her shielded room to protect her but she wanted to stay where she could watch him.
For what seemed like the millionth time that week, Optimus felt a profound paradigm shift. Was this what her life was like? This child of his partner? Born of such parents and possessing more insight into their pain than they would ever willingly show the world? She duplicated Rodi's restless intelligence but was trapped in a shell not only for her own protection but for the safety of all of Cybertron...all of Earth. Her father's obsession with helping was there too, and enough spirit to equal either of them. At six she was sitting before him running a Rodi-style gambit of status-quo, and she was asking Optimus Prime to play along!
Optimus felt his chest clench. What should he do? Rolling the dice meant lying to Rodi. It meant leaving this child exposed to whatever made that leg bounce. On the other hand, Optimus could hardly think of anything more cruel than to lock a being with such fire away. It broke his heart. Her eyes narrowed even further and for once Optimus saw a lot of Lancer in her. Her pale irises didn't glow, but the effect was nearly the same.
Who side was he on? Both of course, but she was in fact, only six. He was about to betray her when Rodimus suddenly stiffened, and went white.
"Edana," he whispered, "Go to your room."
"What?! Why!"
"'Dana go now!" Rodimus growled, slamming one palm flat down on the table.
"I didn't do anything!" she yelled defiantly, stared at him in fury. Rodimus didn't answer and she suddenly gasped and ran from the room.
Optimus followed her with his eyes and then turned back to his partner. Rodimus was sweating, ashen, and clearly nowhere in this room. All implants and hard feelings forgotten, Optimus stood and grabbed Rodimus by the shoulders. He knew asking for updates was futile so he just stood behind his partner and held on.
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"A word to the wise," Cyclonus purred. "It is foolish to make a great deal of noise when one is running a secretive mission, wouldn't you agree?"
Tocsin, who had the muzzle of Cyclonus' gun rammed all the way into the back of his mouth, nodded awkwardly.
The femme engineer next to Rivet stiffened. Her optics were not on the Decepticons or Tocsin - they were fused to the creche. Viper remained in snake form, winding her way through the legs of all the prisoners - a writhing living shackle. They were unbound, but Viper's lightning entrance proved to them they might as well be.
"You are lucky we found you first," Cyclonus went on. "The way you were shouting the next patrol would have found you for sure. Don't worry. We dispatched them and shoved them up into your landing gear."
" We can dump their bodies when we reach orbit. I'm sure the Junkions won't mind finding a bit of extra trash," Viper laughed.
"Of course, that also would apply to any of you who, shall we say, don't learn from your mistakes," Cyclonus purred even lower, tilting his head and smiling savagely at Tocsin.
Tocsin made some attempt to speak and then simply nodded again.
"Very good," Cyclonus approved. "Now, as there seems to be some dispute among you sissies, is the creche functional?"
Tocsin's optics widened and after a moment he shrugged.
One of the mech engineers spoke up. "We think so Decepticon, but it hasn't been tested."
The femme next to Rivet shifted, and Rivet turned to look at her. Viper turned her head slightly their direction but remained focused on the Cyclonus and Tocsin.
"So...is that why you're still here? To test it? To see if you missed any parts?" Cyclonus laughed derisively. "Well, you are in luck again you Paradronian sissies! We are leaving, and you are coming along as insurance. If something is missing, we will just have to find parts on Char. When are you scheduled to take off?" He took his gun out of Tocsin's mouth and rested it under his chin instead.
"About ten minutes," Tocsin spat, "And I'm not a sissy!"
The femme next to Rivet rushed towards the creche with her arms raised into fists. She made it two steps.
Viper's head seemed to disappear and there was the cracking sound of a whip as the air collapsed behind her motion. Nothing else on her body even moved as she lashed out and sunk her fangs into the neck of the defiant femme. This time, instead of a quick strike and release, Viper held on, her jaws working slightly as she pumped more and more venom in. The dead femme's partner screamed and cried as the motionless victim's head and torso began softening and collapsing in on themselves almost at once.
"Better a live sissy than a dead hero, Autobot," Cyclonus said grimly. "But just to show you how much I like your...bravado...I will let you pilot the ship."
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The Maelstrom team was not having much fun.
They never took on forces of this size. They never took on more than they could scan in advance and chew. It was their unstated mission to be the proverbial thorn in the paw of the Jabez lion, pricking here, hampering there, hoping somehow to fester and render the beast lame.
This was different. This was an army assembled in the heart of Iacon. Right in the shadow of Central.
Two thousand Converts was a bit much for four of them, even if they did have two class ones on their side.
Floating over the neatly ranked rows of Converts in Malice's little bubble, they scanned their opponents as quickly as they could and waited for the whole thing to come at them at once.
It didn't...but a squad of eight, all dressed in teal jump-suits did. It moved in synch, stepping out of the gaudy rectangular formation beneath them. The small group stopped below them, waiting.
"Talon?" Malice asked. He had the scanner.
"They're all telekinetics, but none're past class five," Talon muttered.
The team looked at each other, or rather everyone but Lancer did. She fixated below them, growling. Malice and Talon shrugged at each other, and Kain had nothing better to add, so Malice lowered their bubble to the floor.
They waited nervously for something to come for them, but the only movement was Lancer. As soon as her feet hit the floor she pounced at the motionless teal squad and slammed herself into the wall of Malice's shield.
"Will you just hold her?" Talon complained as Lancer flipped herself over and crouched. "She's gonna do that till there's tweety birds going round her head."
"Right. Sorry," Malice said, adjusting her powers to hold Lancer by the tail. "Why are they just standing there?"
"Dunno," Talon answered.
"OK. Why are we just standing here?"
"Pagan says we destroyed her next jump point," Kain informed her grimly. "We must cross this room to be extracted."
"Oh. That fucking sucks," Talon said. "So do we just walk all casual-like and see if they cream us? Maybe I could toss a few grenades as we stroll by."
Kain's slitted eyes narrowed to slits. "There is another consciousness observing. I can't pin-point it, but it too is waiting to see what we will do. It is...curious." Suddenly his scales stood out from his body and his fins flared. "It is Jabez!"
"Oh shit! We are rats in a maze!" Talon cried.
Lancer's growls grew more guttural...and then the teal team moved, not with their hands, but with their powers. In spite of the fact they were all expecting something, anything, to happen, Malice was over-powered almost instantly. Her bubble shield shredded and she lost control over Lancer too. The TK squad was focused on Malice as their primary threat, but when Lancer reached them and started blasting and shredding she cut down two of their team.
This prompted the CV's to erect their own bubble shield that left her pounding uselessly on thin air.
"I don't understand!" Malice cried, as Talon desperately lobbed grenades as far into the rest of the silent army as he could throw. "No class five should be able to touch my shield!"
Kain strained to reach into the minds of their enemies. Converts' brains did still function to a degree...the memory and life support systems always remained intact, but the higher consciousness was always destroyed by Conversion. He couldn't touch the chips, they weren't alive, but he could reach into the living brains around them to read what was being demanded by the control chip. It was like translating foreign writing during a fire-fight but he got lots of practice.
"They are a unit!" he cried. "They are multiple minds networked on a master Conversion chip! Malice you are fighting a team!"
"Great," she spat as though cussing. She changed tactics. Picking up multiple chunks of wreckage from her grand entrance, Malice swirled them into an air-borne blender and whirled them in a controlled tornado against the enemy team's shield. She watched while some of the teal-unit turned towards her whirlwind and the rest remained focused on Lancer, who was now pounding them with power she was draining from the rest of the army.
It was hard for them to ever know how much the energy-shaper was actually thinking during these fights, she often couldn't remember herself, but no one was going to complain if she reduced the numbers of the rest of the forces to take on the one unit that faced them!
Nevertheless, their combined assault worked to a degree. The split attention of the teal team inside their shield, caused their shield to weaken. Malice forced her powers into the weakening bubble and burst it from within. Her shrapnel tornado ate up another teal TK, but they focused on the demon with the laser bolts. Malice gasped in horror and dropped her debris as they picked Lancer up off the ground and attempted to pull her apart.
Lancer screamed and writhed - suspended in mid air. This time though she was the fragile rope in an invisible tug-of-war. Neither her assassin's skills nor her powers made an iota of difference. She could only snarl and wait, paralyzed and enduring tidal forces of unseen power while Malice stood stock still, sweating and grimacing with strain.
Talon ran out of grenades and tried not to count the carnage he'd caused, or the vast numbers of un-activated converts who were unharmed. Kain said nothing. Did nothing.
Talon pulled out his laser rifle and set it on wide beam. He started sweeping the room, and toyed with swinging the gun just a wee bit too far to the right to take Kain down too. He found he couldn't look left - afraid he would see Lancer pulled apart like string cheese.
Minutes passed...Lancer started turning purple from lack of air. Suddenly Kain grunted, and one of the teal CV's just dropped dead. Malice shrieked in surprise and almost killed Lancer herself when the other side suddenly stopped resisting. The assassin gasped and flew backwards, landing in a heap at Malice's feet. She wheezed and coughed.
"What happened?" Talon cried.
"I found the CV with the control chip and killed it," Kain stated simply.
"Oh," Talon said. "Good idea."
Lancer grimaced and stood. "Malice..." she rasped, cutting her lips on her fangs to speak. "Raise me up!"
Malice didn't argue, and Lancer lifted up off the ground once more. Another team of CV's was activating and approaching, but Lancer wasn't looking for motion.
"Kain!" Lancer hissed, "Show me one of the hubs so I can find their wavelength!"
Kain was already scanning the next closest team, so it only took him a moment to comply. Lancer studied the web of that team and got the gist of their system. Once she understood what to look for reaching out with her powers she found the frequency of the control chips for every CV team in the room was easy. Here and there were smoldering craters of meat where Talon had tossed his grenades, but where there was life she saw energy connecting each unit like the heart of a flower connects to the petals. She started lancing, starting with any teams wearing teal!
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Rodimus gasped and fell forward onto the table.
"Rodimus...?!" Optimus asked tentatively.
"Almost..." Rodimus answered. "Almost."
"We can mobilize...!"
"No! We can't! It's an army Optimus! Right here in Iacon! If they suspect we are involved with the Maelstrom they are clearly in a position to deal with us! I don't understand how we misjudged the place so badly but the Autobots can't help right now!"
"Rodimus! That's your mate in trouble there!"
"Doing what she has to do! Don't Optimus! Don't make it worse!"
"What's happening now?"
"They're running for their lives," Rodimus told him.
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The fight dissolved into something the Maelstrom team was a lot more comfortable with. Utter chaos, running melees, lots of bodies hitting the ground. Much better than an entire army of breathing statues doing nothing but scare the crap out of you. Talon put more milage on his blaster, Lancer bounced around like a rabid weasel, Malice splattered dozens of bodies against the walls, floors, and ceilings, and even Kain was inspired to run in the long, loping strides of his species. A CV leapt at him from a pile of twitching corpses and he whirled, clubbing the Convert with his tail. The CV flew backwards and hit the wall, crushed through the abdomen.
Their opponents were still clad in team colors, but attacked now as individuals rather than units. Their assaults covered the kaleidoscope of human potential but the Maelstrom team had no intention of fighting them all. They were just trying to get their tails put of there.
Three pyros came at them from the left. Malice blocked. Lancer blasted. If the 6 telepaths had hit as a unit they might have all been goners, but Kain shielded his ship-mates easily and Talon did the rest. The floors started melting...Malice picked them all up again and flew them towards the jump point until Kain could ID the CV responsible.
It took them 15 minutes of bloody carnage to move the length of a football field and reach the doors at the far end. As they did a cold voice speaking English with an alien accent came over loud-speakers they didn't know were there.
"I suppose I should thank you," it said emotionlessly, over the repeated sound of a regular beep. "This demonstration is aborted, but you have found a weakness I might have otherwise missed. Very well then, adapting the control chips won't take long, and perhaps you will be so kind as to test those for me too."
"Jabez!" Lancer roared. "Jabez!"
"Forget it! You know he's out of here!" Talon told her. "Keep moving!"
Lancer fueled by her mate's traumatic memories and blood-lust at having even a faint shot at one of the Jabez, ignored him. If she could catch the alien he might have information that could end the war. If not, she had some scores to settle. The doors in front of her blew away with an over-zealous eruption of power and her claws scrambled over the wreckage, up the stairs, and down the hall she hoped led to the observation room overseeing the CV army. If there was ever a chance she might lay eyes on the Jabez, it was probably there. Her friends kept up, more to protect her than out of any hope of finding their foe still there. Pagan teleported in front of Lancer and nearly got a fatal blast for her trouble, but Lancer pulled the bolt back just before it turned Pagan into another fine example of Lancer's barbequed lizard flambe`.
"TK!" Pagan said.
"You should know better you idiot!" Lancer snarled. The aborted bolt surged up Lancer's arm and out her eyes instead, leveling the blast proof doors at the end of the hall.
"TK!" Pagan insisted, and followed Lancer's head strong sprint.
Skidding into the control room brought Lancer to a screeching halt. The Jabez stood there, over-long arms folded casually about its elbows. He was old, old, old if the wrinkles meant anything. Two other aliens of different species stood beside it, flanked by two impassive CV's each. One was green and slug-like, with a cruel, ravenous smile on it's swollen face. The other was skeletal, and reminded Lancer of a walking stick. The room boasted an impressive array of shiny buttons and screens, with Jabez pressure sensitive hexagons worked in.
It was the Jabez that froze Lancer though. Its inky eyes stared into hers and it might as well have had a telekinetic hold on her. Pinioned by Rodimus' memories, she paused for just a heartbeat, but it was long enough. By the time the massive blast she let out crossed the room all of them were gone.
"Fucking teleporters," Talon said. "Not you Scales," he amended hastily. Pagan glared at him.
Lancer stood at the center of the room, glowing and growling. Her hands clenched into fists that left her palms bleeding.
Talon tried to make light of things for her. "Girl, when you bring down the house you do a right number on things, but you musta missed something cause I still hear at least one gizmo beeping away!"
They all looked at each other.
"Self destruct?"
"It's been that kinda day."
"The jump point's down the hall!" Pagan roared. Turning and running back the way they'd come would have seemed like deja vu except the remnants of the abandoned CV army had caught up to them. Malice put up a floor to ceiling barrier and just pushed with all her remaining strength. It worked but cost them critical seconds. The beeping sped up and they all tackled Pagan when she yelled "HERE!"
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The shuttle rocked and they all yelped in terror - all except Cyclonus and Viper anyway. Tocsin's optics widened in disbelief as a column of flame and smoke towered up into the skyline towards Iacon. Although some 50 miles away from Helix, Central was tall enough to be seen on the horizon. The explosion was taller, rising up into Cybertron's eternal twilight and spreading against the ceiling of the atmosphere. He'd seen it before the sound, but it wasn't until the boom rocked the shuttle that he understood what it was.
Instantly, sirens began wailing and voices began screeching over the com-lines.
"Emergency lock-down! Emergency lock-down! Seal the ports! No air traffic except authorized responders. Emergency lock-down! Emergency lock-down!"
"Was this part of your plan?" Cyclonus asked, unfazed.
"NO! Not mine!" Tocsin cried.
"Ah. A shame really. They will probably blame you for it," Cyclonus mused.
"It would be terribly tragic if they were to stop or search us now," Viper said. She wound her body around the pilot's chair and his legs. To make her point unnecessarily clear, she opened her jaws and bit him, briefly, at the groin. Then she slid down his legs and merely held his right foot in her mouth.
Shaking with terror, Tocsin gripped the controls and watched the sky. The instant he was sure all the flyers he could see were tearing off for Iacon, he launched the shuttle in a steep climb.
The tower squawked at him. "Shuttle Vermilion! Abort launch! Abort or you will be shot down! Acknowledge Vermilion! Abort or be shot down!"
Tocsin was no air jockey, but it was amazing what venom coated fangs against your foot could inspire. He dodged and jinked with erratic panic, causing the prisoners to squeal in fright, and Cyclonus to laugh that low, condescending chuckle. None of the bolts from Helix's defense systems hit them. Tocsin saw the con-trails of some of the flyers turning back towards Helix against the artificial sunset of the explosion. They were far though, and he started to think he might make a clean getaway.
Then one of the new watch-planes from Nightbeat's patrol units cut across their path. It was a buzz-by, meant to threaten, and Tocsin met optics with the pilot. It was Dynex - a mech he'd served with since Paradron.
Dynex's voice came over the com, "Tocsin! We are under security alert! There's been an attack in Iacon! All of us are supposed to be at stations!"
Tocsin frowned to himself. Did Dynex think him so incompetent as to have MISSED an explosion of that size? Viper's jaws worked against his foot, but he barely needed the threat to arm the weapons. Dynex's voice continued to cajole him into returning to port, even as Tocsin fired.
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Rodimus blasted to his feet so suddenly it almost knocked his partner over. "Jabez!" he roared. "Jabez!"
Alex, who had been playing quite happily by herself, began screaming at the noise. Optimus got one look at Rodi's face and ran to pick her up. The young Prime looked quite ready to kill anything that moved. Rodimus panted as if from exertion, and sweat saturated his clothes.
Optimus couldn't stand it anymore, "Rodimus! What's going on?!"
Then the building rocked, sirens shrieked, and Rodimus Prime morphed as he fled the room.
Optimus took two steps after him and then stopped. He looked at Alex who continued to cry with her tiny hands shoved in her ears. He couldn't help. Whatever it was, he was in no place to do anything about it, but Rodi's kids...Rodi's kids couldn't be left alone.
The house com-line kicked on. "Will you be OK with the girls for a while?!" Rodimus asked, clearly in a panic.
"Only if you tell me what is happening!" Optimus snapped.
"The target blew and our side didn't do it! There was one of them there!" Rodimus ground out - there was so much rage in his voice it sounded like static.
"You aren't on duty!" Optimus reminded him.
There was a long pause. "Now I know you are just programed to argue with everything I do! Optimus! Do you really think we can have an explosion within view of Central without one of us showing our face? Do you really think I can let ANY explosion go un-investigated, let alone one with such... importance?"
Optimus paused. Now that was just plain, stupid truth. Change subject. "How's L?"
"Singed, safe, pissed off. Look...if you run into trouble call... Primus I don't have anyone for you to call...call Marissa! I'll be back just as soon as PR and security will allow! Maybe two hours!"
"Don't worry! I'm sure nothing I do will be fatal in two hours," Optimus said.
Rodimus snorted and didn't answer. Optimus could hear him shouting orders before the line went dead.
Edana's little, tear stained voice floated to him from her doorway. "C..can I come out now?"
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Tocsin checked behind them one more time before easing off the throttle. He'd made the second jump gate with no pursuit, so they'd be much harder to track.
Cyclonus looked...satisfied, but it was Viper who transformed and rested her elbows sarcastically on Tocsin's knees. "My, my," she whispered with a sibilant turn of her head, "Such... enthusiasm. We only expected you to evade them, foolish Autobot. You will not receive any reward for killing your own."
"Traitor!"
Cyclonus turned on the seething mech who shouted. "You are all traitors now," he said. "No one will believe you didn't have a hand in that explosion."
Rivet cowered. She was certain Cyclonus was right.
CONTINUED in: The Ties that Bind: PART K