With this chapter, you are officially caught up to my DA account.
This chapter is based off the events in 'Operation Breakdown' (s1e16).
Warning: MECH agents are killed. Nothing gory but there are human casualties.
"Ratchet! Bulkhead needs a ground bridge." Miko waved her open phone at the orange and white medic.
"Very well." Ratchet went over to the bridge controls and punched in Bulkhead's coordinates.
The wrecker came hobbling thru the open portal sporting quite a few dents and some cracked armor.
"Bulkhead, what happened to you?" asked Ratchet.
"I kinda had a run in with Breakdown."
"Again?" Miko was not happy.
"Over to the medbay, Bulkhead," Ratchet ordered "Liliy, would you call Optimus back to base?"
"Sure thing, Ratchet." Liliy pulled out her phone.
Optimus returned while Ratchet was welding Bulkhead's armor back together. Liliy had told him the gist of what happened. He went straight over to the medbay with Arcee and Bumblebee in tow.
"Engaging the enemy on your own was foolish, Bulkhead." Optimus was stern.
"Breakdown jumped me," Bulkhead defended. "I knew I could take him. Ugh." He jerked his arm slightly under Ratchet's welder.
"Stay still," Ratchet ordered gently.
"But we should see the other guy. Right, Bulk?" Miko asked enthusiastically. She stood on the first tier next to the medbay.
"Uh, yeah. About that," Bulkhead hedged.
"You didn't torch him?" She sounded disappointed.
"Not exactly. I figured you all did." He gestured to the other bots.
"Oh." Miko was definitely disappointed.
"When I came to, Breakdown was just gone," continued Bulkhead. "I remember hearing a copter. Maybe it was Agent Fowler."
"Not me," said the named agent as he stepped out of the elevator. "But I have an idea who."
"Let me guess. It was probably MECH, right?" asked Liliy as he walked past her.
"Possibly," the agent replied. To the Autobots, "Show me where this Con-napping occurred."
"Liliy, would you mind? I need to finish up Bulkhead's repairs." Ratchet didn't even look up from his welding.
"Certainly, Ratchet."
Agent Fowler followed Liliy over to the computers. Optimus moved over there too.
"This," Liliy pulled up a map on the big monitor so that the Bots could see as well, "is where we picked up Bulkhead."
"The Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia," confirmed Fowler. "Much of it was abandoned 20 years ago when its volcano first erupted. And, as you guess," he looked at Liliy, "my intel reported MECH activity there earlier today."
"MECH? You mean those techy guys?" asked Miko. She had followed them from the medbay.
"The very ones who know of our existence on your planet," said Optimus.
"As I recall, the CRC intervened last time you met MECH and the Autobots' identities at least were saved," corrected Liliy. "So by 'your existence', you mean Cybertronians in general."
Optimus just stared at her. Bulkhead and Ratchet joined them since the medic was finished with the wrecker's repairs.
"They must've tracked one of us there somehow," said Bulkhead.
"But what would they want with Breakdown?" inquired Miko.
"What's it matter? They can have him," Arcee pointed out.
Bumblebee buzzed in agreement.
"Ha, yeah. Dragged off by humans. Guess I softened him up for 'em huh?" Bulkhead punched his palm and looked at Miko.
The Asian girl looked away and shook her head. "Nyah."
"Ratchet, reactivate the previous ground bridge coordinates," ordered Optimus. "We will rescue Breakdown."
"What?!" Ratchet demanded.
"Optimus," Liliy interjected before the others could say anything. "I think if you want to continue hiding from MECH, you should consider asking the CRC to rescue him since the Cons are most likely not going to do it."
"And why would the CRC bother with rescuing Breakdown?" Arcee wanted to know, but her tone suggested she thought Liliy's idea was foolish.
"The same reason Optimus wants to," Liliy shot back with a glare. "To keep Cybertronian tech out MECH's hands. Do you have any idea what kind of chaos your weaponry or even just your basic biology could cause in the hands of a warmongering human like Silas?" She knew that they did, in fact, know but she wanted to remind them.
"How do we even know the CRC can do it?" It was Agent Fowler this time.
"Why not ask?" Liliy walked over to the computer and brought up the message from the CRC. Hitting reply, she typed a short message.
'To Leecher: Kamchatka peninsula, MECH, Rescue Breakdown.'
She hit send. The message became a scrambled mess of letters, numbers, and Cybertronian glyphs and disappeared. One minute later, they received an un-encrypted message.
'Roger that. Will contact when mission is complete.'
"There you go. They'll do it. Leave it to the CRC. Alright, Optimus?" She looked up at the mech.
"As you wish," Optimus relented. "But if we don't hear back from them in two hours, we will go ourselves."
Liliy nodded. Under her cloak, she texted Echo about the time limit. She stood up.
"Well, I think I'll take a nap while we wait."
She went up to her corner and set up a hologram of herself sleeping. Then she hyper sped down the wall and into the hall where she called up an emergency ground bridge back to the CRC base.
Everyone was gathered in the Comm center when Liliy arrived. Leecher was already briefing them.
"Hey, Liliy. We didn't think you were going to show," said Leecher when they saw her.
"With only a two hour window, I had no choice." She turned to Echo. "Do we have SAT feed yet?"
"Coming right up, Madam." The comm officer typed away at the keys and some live satellite feed popped up on the huge monitors. There was movement in the supposedly abandoned area. Echo zoomed in on the movement.
"Yep. Definitely MECH," said Leecher. "So what do we do, Lil'?"
"First of all, what is Breakdown's location?"
"Here." A blue Decepticon symbol appeared on the screen. Echo explained, "We believe he is being kept in an underground train station that was used to ship materials to and from the local factory. The best entrance for us is here." He pointed at where the twin railroad beds disappeared into the concrete tunnel entrance. "But it is likely that there will be some sort of door or gate somewhere in the tunnel to keep out trespassers. MECH will probably be using it."
Liliy stared at the monitor for a long moment. "Whiskey." The gold and brown mech stood at attention. "I want you to do a flyover. I want a body count. The whole compound if possible but if you can only get the humans outside, that's fine." The mech nodded. "Also, see if you could figure out where they're drawing power from. Coordinate with X-ray and take it out if you can." She clicked a button that zoomed in even closer on one of MECH's green cars. "Romeo, Tango."
"Undercover. Got it." The dark red mech and the orange one stood together.
"You two will cover the tunnel entrance. If there is a door, I'll take care of it. Leecher will escort me. The rest of you, stand by as backup. We may need some cover when we get Breakdown out."
Silas' men stopped working on Breakdown when a loud bang shook the tunnel. The man at the computer activated to the security feed of the tunnel door. The door had been cut clean from the frame and pushed inward. It had fallen on the tracks and crushed at least one guard, whose arm could be seen sticking out from under it. Stepping out of the darkness from beyond the doorway was the mech that shot down their helicopter the day they tried to steal the DNGS. The remaining guards opened fire but their bullets simply bounced off the mech's thick armor. Their left servo transformed into a blaster and a second later the nearest human was charcoal. The other humans scattered, firing sporadically as they ran. Then the power went out.
Leecher watched the humans running around in the dark. They must have had night vision goggles because they were still shooting at them occasionally. They fired their blaster a couple more times at the humans as they walked down the tunnel. A back-up generator must have kicked in because red emergency lights started flashing. MECH was gone when Leecher made it to the place where they were working on Breakdown. The Decepticon lay strapped to a slab with several giant sized surgical tools looming over him. Breakdown craned his neck to look at them as they approached.
"Who are you?" Breakdown couldn't help but ask suspiciously.
"A friend," Leecher replied, pushing aside the tools. "For now."
In the dim flashing light, the strange mech could almost be mistaken for a vehicon. But, the longer Breakdown stared at them, the more he noticed was out of place. The visor in the mask was too wide and it was orange. Their paint job seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. The glass was missing from their chassis design and he realized that there was no Decepticon insignia.
The metal straps on the Con's wrists came off quite easily but the large one around his middle proved to be more difficult. Finally, after a couple of hard tugs one side, the bolts snapped. Leecher bent the strap back and out of Breakdown's way. They offered the Con their servo.
Breakdown glanced at the five digited servo, the final confirmation that this was not a vehicon as he first assumed. He grasped it anyway and the mech pulled him upright.
"They manage to dissect you without spilling much of your energon." Leecher scanned him from helm to heel strut. "Impressive. Think you can walk?"
Breakdown sheepishly pushed the panels of his chest cavity closed. "Uh, yeah. I think so."
"Then let's get out of here." They led the way back down the tunnel.
There was a group of humans waiting for them before they reached the end of the tunnel. Leecher plowed through them as if they weren't even there. Outside was chaos. MECH was in a firefight with Romeo, Tango, and X-ray. The sports cars held position on either side of the tunnel entrance while the utility truck was perched on top. They fired at anything that moved. The humans were doing a lot of moving and firing back. And Whiskey was taking his time playing with the helicopters. Leecher activated their blasters and started shooting, keeping themself between the humans and Breakdown.
{Time's up.} Their comm crackled. {Autobots incoming.}
"Ground units, code red! Scatter!" Leecher yelled.
The visors of the three other grounders flicked and turned from orange to red before they disappeared. The some of the humans actually stopped firing for a moment. Beings that large should not be able to vanish in the blink of an eye.
"Sir, five bogies incoming on the ground," the pilot told Silas. They were keeping their distance and watching the fight from a helicopter.
Silas picked up his radio and spoke into it. "All units, disengage and initiate Omega protocols." Then, to the pilot, he said, "Hold position. I want to see what the newcomers look like."
"Sir! Aren't those the vehicles from the DNGS convoy?" the pilot asked suddenly. He pulled a magnified picture of the approaching vehicles up on the copter's computer. The said vehicles stopped at the edge of the carnage that MECH left behind and transformed.
"It would seem that Special Agent Fowler has been keeping some big secrets." Silas grabbed a pair of binoculars to get a closer look at the tall red and blue mech who appeared to be the leader.
The new mech seemed to be arguing with the black one. The black one put a servo to their helm and looked up at the helicopter. The rest of them looked up as well. A line of distortion passed through the humans' field of vision, so faint they weren't sure if it had been real until the air in front of their helicopter distorted again and they were nose to nose with a strange aircraft twice their size. The pilot was so surprised, he jerked back on the controls and sent the helicopter spiraling. He quickly corrected course and fled. The strange aircraft disappeared into thin air again.
"Thank you, Whiskey." Leecher lowered their servo and looked back at Optimus. "Now that MECH is gone, we will escort Breakdown away from this place. As we said before, you were not needed. Farewell."
Leecher transformed and Breakdown followed suit. They left the Autobots standing there. Several miles down the road they came upon the other CRC grounders. Leecher transformed and walked forward to meet them. Breakdown hung back in his alt-mode and listened.
"All that effort we put into protecting the Autobots' identities from MECH and then they had to go and show their faceplates," complained Romeo.
"We had this mission," agreed Tango who was sitting on a boulder next to the road. "They should have just stayed home and trusted us."
Like a vehicon, the black mech had sharper edges to their frame, Breakdown observed. But the dark red one and the orange one were smoother and more curvy, like Knock Out. Those three were about the red doctor's height too. The four mech was taller than his companions and his blue frame was mix of smooth lines and sharp edges. They all had vehicon masks atop their helms and energon blue optics, with the exception of the black one who was still wearing thier mask.
"Well, they did give us a two hour window," Leecher said. "Prime just wanted to make sure the job was done."
Tango huffed and crossed his arms.
Breakdown finally transformed. "Uh, sorry to interrupt but, who are you guys?"
They all looked at him and Romeo winced at his missing optic.
It was Leecher who answered. "We're Neutrals."
"We're rebels," corrected a new voice behind Breakdown.
The Con turned to see a fifth mech coming toward them. This one was gold and brown and appeared to be a flyer. He pushed his mask up and gazed at Breakdown.
"We used to be Decepticons," he said, tapping his mask.
Breakdown looked shocked. "You used to be…" He looked back at the others.
Leecher moved toward him. "Mind keeping your rescue between us, Breakdown?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure," the Con replied still somewhat shocked.
"Good. Now then."
A ground bridge opened nearby. All the grounders disappeared thru it.
"Keep up the good work," Whiskey commented before he too disappeared thru the ground bridge, leaving Breakdown to wonder what he meant.
"Good job, everyone," Liliy said once all her 'boys' had returned to base.
"Except we didn't finish before the time limit," grumbled Romeo.
"It couldn't be helped," X-ray chimed in. "We'll just have to deal with the consequences as they come."
"Well said, X-ray." Liliy smiled up at him. "Now, as much as I would really love to stay, I have to get back. They think I'm napping."
"When are you going to tell them that you are the head of the CRC?" Tango asked.
"Eventually. Probably at some point when they are in dire need of assistance and they have no time to question me about it."
"Ha. That will be great. I can almost imagine their surprised looks too." Romeo chuckled.
"Hmh. Yeah. Well, I should go. Call me if you need anything. Even if you just want to chat." Liliy nodded at Alfa.
The tall mech typed in the coordinates and opened the ground bridge.
"Bye, Madam," most of the mechs chorused together as she waved to them before stepping thru the portal.
Back at the Autobot base, she sped back up to her corner and turned off her hologram. She pretended to yawn and stretch before looking down at those gathered below.
"Did they win?" she asked in her best sleepy voice.
"Breakdown was successfully rescued. Congratulations," said Ratchet.
"Thanks," Liliy muttered with a knowing smile after he went back to watching the monitors. She turned her head and noticed that Prime was staring at her again. She frowned. He looked like he was trying to remember something, but then his attention was turned when Miko asked him a question.
Upon getting a bridge back to the Nemesis, Breakdown tried to hurry out of the receiving room.
"Commander Breakdown, what happened?"
Breakdown flinched and slowly turned to face the eradicon who addressed him. He suspected the concern in his voice was reflected on the faceplates behind his mask.
"I'd rather not discuss it, ZZ-05."
"Yes, sir." The mech nodded. "Would you like me to accompany you to the medbay, then?"
Breakdown thought about for a moment. "Yes."
Ucon turned to the other eradicon. "Think you can handle the fort without me for a while, Four?"
"Yeah. You go ahead. The commander is important."
Breakdown gave ZZ-04 a small smile and followed Ucon into the hall. "ZZ-05, you were stationed on Earth before you were assigned to the Nemesis, right?"
"Yes. I was." Ucon wondered why Breakdown would bring that up.
"Did you ever hear about a group of Neutrals stationed on this planet?"
Ucon checked the hallway to make sure that no one was nearby before he whirled on Breakdown and pushed the bigger mech against the wall. "It is in your best interest to forget about them. Those mechs are dangerous."
Breakdown stared at him in surprise. "But they saved me from the humans."
The eradicon pulled back. "From MECH?"
"Yes." It didn't occur to Breakdown to ask how he knew about MECH.
"Of course they did," Ucon said, mostly to himself. He turned down the hall again. "But those Neutrals… did they tell you anything?"
"They said they used to be Decepticons." Breakdown followed again, keeping a wary optic on him. He hadn't expected a servant class to get violent with an officer, especially one as easygoing as ZZ-05. "Did you know them?"
"Not before they turned Neutral."
"So you have met them?"
"Every time we met them, some of our numbers disappeared. My entire squad one night, while I was on a scouting mission." Ucon wasn't lying to Breakdown. He was just leaving out some major details. He wasn't going tell him that his squad was actually wiped out by Autobots and the CRC just came in to clean up the mess as they always did. That the only other member from his squad to survive was one of the Neutrals. He just wanted them to sound dangerous.
Before Breakdown could question him further and much to Ucon's relief, Knock Out rounded the nearest corner and almost walked into them because he was reading a datapad.
He looked up. "Ah, there you are, Break-" He cut short as he took in the blue mech's battered state. "Primus! Breakdown, what happened to you? Come with me to the medbay. Quickly!" The smaller red mech grabbed his assistant's servo and pulled him along.
Breakdown followed obediently. And Ucon could have swore he saw some of the tension leave the poor mech's frame as he listened to the medic fuss over him before they disappeared around the corner.
For a moment, Ucon just stood alone in the hallway, wondering what his old squad mate was doing at that moment. Then, with a sigh, he turned and headed back to his workstation.
From here on, regular updates will depend on my motivation.
Thanks for reading (and reviewing). See you all next chapter. :)
