Chapter 11: Fire them before they fire you
"What was that?" Twofist panted. He clung to a nearby girder, in case anything else tore in through the walls and tried to suck him out into space.
By then, he and Artemia had managed to re-enter the main complex through the airlock which had not been damaged when the connecting corridor had been torn apart by the massive decompression earlier. But when a great tremor suddenly struck the station, bits of piping began to rattle loose, and a small section of ceiling came down. Fortunately, Artemia had punched him out of the way, much to Twofist's relief and dismay.
"That was me saving your pointless life!" Artemia spat at him. "Now get down from there before you fall on your skid, you idiot!"
Reluctantly, Twofist released his girder one hand at a time, and gently set one foot and then the other onto the floor, which hadn't been all that far away the whole time.
"Sorry, self preserving protocol there," he coughed self-consciously, as he stood back up again. "For some reason I don't mind you hitting me, even though I don't know why. But I was talking about that earthquake there, or moonquake, whatever. I think something big must've gone down at the refinery. Maybe they blew it up."
"Maybe," Artemia muttered, her optics narrowing. "We're gonna head down to the launch pad, grab a transport, and then we're getting the Pit out of here. Now get up and move, or I'm leaving you behind, wench."
"But those guys will be all over- wait, did you just call me a wench?" Twofist retorted, as Artemia stalked off down the corridor. Twofist jogged along after her with a skeptical look on his face. "Do you... even know what that means?"
"Yes. It means you're an idiot," Artemia huffed. She had lost both weapons now, but wasn't daunted yet. All she needed to do was to find another unsuspecting goon - one of Turbogear's goons, she reminded herself - and then she'd simply murder him and take his gun. In fact, that was what Accounting had been like, except instead of killing people for firearms, she merely destroyed her opponents' egoes and stole their jobs.
"Actually, a wench is... a female, of the swill-serving persuasion," Twofist tried to explain, as he continued pacing to catch up with Artemia's longer stride. "Y'know. A bar slut."
"Yes, and that's exactly what you are," Artemia replied dryly. "You're a lower lifeform. Also, a slut."
"I'm not a- look, the word doesn't mean what you think it means," Twofist insisted, emphasizing with his hands. "And-and I'm not a slut! Why are you calling me a slut?"
"Because YOU and Turbogear have been COLLUDING with- pirates," Artemia spat, treating the word like offal. "The only reason why you're still alive is because I'm going to use you as a hostage to get off this damn rock."
Twofist stopped in his tracks and just stared at Artemia's backside. As much as he liked watching her leave...
"Are you serious?" he said, optics boggling in disbelief. "Me? And Pervogear? That's not me, Arty! I... we weren't colluding! I was selling Syk down at the refinery, and next thing I know there are armed goons running the planks, so Bugbear and Airbuzz and me ran back to the admin building to find out what was going on!"
"Right, and you were looting your office mates because you were so concerned," Artemia growled. She continued striding ahead without him.
Twofist eventually had to run to catch up to her again. "I don't collude! I sell enhancers!" he insisted again. "If I had anything to do with this, you think I'd be shot at by, by... Seekers? That guy was a Seeker jet! You really think I'd have anything to do with-"
Suddenly, Artemia's heel was in his gut, and shoving him back down the red-lit hall. Such was the force of her sudden mule kick that Twofist tumbled skid-over-teakettle backwards, and by the time he had stopped rolling, the air smelt of burnt steel again.
In a panic, Twofist scrambled back up to his feet again, prepared to transform and bolt, when he saw Artemia standing in the distance. There was a bright pink flash, and a splash of glowing purple on the floor under Artemia's foot. Beneath her heel was a body that flopped with the impact of the laser burst.
Twofist dragged a hand down his face. Okay, then. Artemia was a relentless, murdering ex-soldier who was probably going to kill him or abandon him the second he outlived his use. Yep.
"You scare me!" he shouted after her, as he dusted off his arms and knees. "Just wanted you to know that!"
"Shut up and grab his knife," Artemia sighed, as she kicked the pleading hand off her ankle. She then continued walking, now armed with a laser rifle under her remaining arm.
The dead mech was not a Seeker this time, but some land-bound APC mech with... a hole in his face, Twofist noticed, as he slouched on over for a look. He waved the sizzling smoke away and coughed. A knife, what knife? It took his roving optics a moment to find the vicious-looking hunting knife strapped to the mech's torso. With a few tugs, Twofist got the knife out of its casing, only to discover that the blade was the length of his forearm. He grimaced at his reflection in the well-polished blade.
"Artemia? You know I don't know how to use this either, right?" he called down the hall. "Arty?"
But Artemia had already turned the corner. Twofist debated running off without her, since she seemed intent on... killing anything in her way. But what if he accidentally ran into her, and she mistook him for one of the pirates? And how did she know Turbogear was behind all this?
Twofist continued to look indecisive until something, a strange sound, drifted down the tunnel. It was a long, drawn-out howl of some tortured animal, lost in the maze. Or so Twofist thought. The sound of it froze the fuel in his veins, and he shivered.
"Wha... what was that?" Twofist whispered, gripping his knife with both hands. "Arty... Arty, wait for me!"
And with that, Twofist took off after her, trailed by the spooky cry in the distance.
Meanwhile, the rest of Octane's rogue crew were roving about the station, wrecking and looting as space pirates were wont to do. But as Whetstone and Pylon were finding out, there wasn't much to loot besides office stationery.
"I don't get it," Pylon sighed, as he rifled through the drawers of a desk. "I mean, tipping a bank, sure, okay. Robbing a cruise ship, even better. But this dump? What's this place got that Octane wants so badly?"
Whetstone was looking through a pile of datapads, just looking for the sake of looking. "Beats me," the jetmech sighed, dully. "I mean, besides this scraggy ersatz energon, this place has got no strategic use as far as I can throw it."
"Huh?" Pylon glanced up and over at his cohort. "What's ersatz mean?"
"Fake energon, stupid," Whetstone said boredly. He threw one of his datapads at Pylon, which bounced off Pylon's head.
"Ow, hey!" Pylon protested. "Quit that! Why would they make fake stuff?"
"It's fuel, but it's not energon," Whetstone explained, as he slid one datapad out from his pile and hurled it at Pylon again. "It doesn't make ammo, it doesn't run equipment. But Transformers can process it for fuel, so I guess it's worth that much."
"Ow. Ow, Primus, will you stop that?" Pylon fended off the next few datapad projectiles with his forearm. "So we're here just to pillage second-rate fuel?"
"Seems like it. I think Octane's got something personal with the boss around here, too," Whetstone went on. He flicked a pen at Pylon this time. "Or he's doing something secret for Megatron, obtaining encryption codes or whatever."
"Now that sounds more like it." Pylon successfully deflected the pen, at least. "Y'know, more official, and stuff. And what's with his pet spy running around with that other guy, what's his name, Rushhour?"
"Yeah, dunno. I think Turbogear gave him up to the medics to torture or something. What a sick a bastard," Whetstone sighed, as he tossed the rest of his datapads over his shoulder. "Also sounds like something personal."
"Oh Primus, that little speech he gave?" Pylon chortled. "Like he was some kind of movie villain? What a jerkoff."
"Yeah, until the little guy bit you," Whetstone pointed out.
"Yeah, the little scragger," Pylon muttered darkly. He absently rubbed his arm, where Rush had left marks on the paint. "Anyway. What a waste of time," he complained. "I wish this place had, like... money, or something. Currency. Heck, even weapons would be pretty good. I'd even settle for for some por-"
And that was when the sound came. Like the howl of some strangled beast, it moaned and shrieked up from the corridor just outside of the open office door.
Instantly, Whetstone's wings hitched up in alarm and Pylon leapt back up to his feet, his doorwings flicking up in terror.
"Wh-what was that?" stammered Pylon, throwing his glance towards the door.
Whetstone had drawn his weapon, and was listening intently. "Probably those losers we passed down the hallway," he grunted, optics narrowing. "Goofing around like idiots."
Nonetheless, both of them remained silent, listening intently. And then it came again, closer.
"It sounds like..." Pylon breathed, his face slack with awe. "Like...!"
The sound of laser fire could be heard now, followed by screaming. "Get him, get him!" voices shouted in the distance. "Open fire!"
"YOU CAN'T FIRE ME!" something howled, "I QUIIIT!"
More voices screamed to a high-pitched cacophony of grinding metal and the revving roar of some high-powered machine weapon.
Pylon shuddered, and even stoic Whetstone withdrew warily.
"Pylon, go shut the door," Whetstone whispered.
"No, you go shut it!" Pylon hissed. "I'll cover you!"
But neither of them moved to approach the doorway as the horrible creature could be heard still slashing its way down the corridor with its screaming chainsaw.
"WHERE ARE YOUR ACQUISITION FORMS, SOLDIER?" the monster bellowed. Laserfire burst in bright flashes against the walls out in the hallway.
A flurry of footsteps suddenly pounded past the open doorway. Someone tripped and fell, but no one stopped to retrieve him. The revving song of a chainsaw grew louder and louder.
"Holy scrap, he's crazy! Run away!" someone was yelling as they fled.
All Whetstone and Pylon could do was stare in mute horror as some fuel-covered creature suddenly flared into view, wielding what looked like a two-handed, heavy-duty medical saw with spinning teeth on its rotating blades.
"THIS ISN'T STAMPED PROPERLY!" the creature roared as it swung its weapon down upon the hapless pirate on the floor. The unfortunate pirate with poor footing had only a second to scream before the saw smashed into his face. The saw ground into his optics and tore them out into a tornado of shattered glass and wires. The body of the pirate mech jerked and thrashed awkwardly as the monster bore the blades further down and down until it had cut into the chest, splitting open the breast plate and exploding all of its contents in an oily spray of fuel and coolant and glistening shrapnel.
Pylon opened his mouth and was about to yell something when Whetstone came up behind him and slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him. Whetstone however kept his own mouth shut too, but the both of them stood and watched.
The monster, by now covered in a greasy coat of spilled fuel and bits and pieces, then ripped its grinding chainsaw out of its victim with a splatter of fluid, and roared at the ceiling.
"NOBODY DEALS ME A PINK SLIP!" it screamed, before taking off down the corridor at a dead run.
It was a long time before Whetstone peeled his fingers off Pylon's face. It was an even longer moment before Pylon even dared to draw breath again.
"Was that-" he began, but Whetstone was already replying to him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I saw it too," he breathed.
Without a word, both pirates suddenly made a dash for the open doorway and frantically slammed on the button until the door swished shut. Then there were faint scraping, squealing sounds as heavy furniture was dragged across the floor and pushed up against it.