After a moment, Driveby switched off her comm. "Let's move out." the group transformed, and Bullet transformed, planting himself in Tracker, the Jeep's front seat in gun mode. "Uh, where am I supposed to go... just hang onto the back of you?" Jade looked down at the (smaller?) jeep. "If you want, though I'm sure there is room for you to sit." The vehicle responded. The jet nodded, climbing in. It was kind of a tight fit, but she was glad he had those... what were they called? rollbar things? between the front seats and the back for her to hold onto. And away they went, quietly driving down the dark alleyway towards the tower. Jade shivered involutarily. "What a scary place to live." she thought, wondering if this planet ever saw daylight, or if it was allways in perpetual darkness like this. She didn't really like the dark. there was no telling what could jump out at you without warning. She shook the thought out of her head.

"Okay, we're here." the jeep stopped. Bullet started to transform, but Jade grabbed him "Wait, could you... stay in gun mode?" she asked. Bullet chuckled slightly. "Why Jade, you're not nervous, are you?" "ha ha." the jetfemme deapanned. After aiming the gun to the left then the right, she held it up and tiptoed forward, audios straining against the silence to hear something, anything.

"Not to startle you or anything," Bullet's voice sounded right next to Jade's ear. "...but you could take the safety switch off." she jumped, nearly dropping the sniper rifle. "Thanks, Bullet." she ground out between gritted denta. Her finger hit the switch, and she had to force herself not to jab it forcefully. Bullet would know she was mad at him for startling her like that if she did.

The group padded silently around the side of a darkened building, down and alley, and around a second building. Jade glanced around. The Marauder teams seemed to be paying acute attention to their surroundings.

Bullet's voice sounded inches from her ear again. "Are we there yet?" Jade started and dropped the gun with a clatter. Cable whirled around as he transformed, giving both a dark-looking glare before moving off again to follow the rest of the group. Jade gave Bullet a look. "Yeah, we arrived twenty minutes ago and we've been waiting in the foyae till shockwave can call us into his office." she snarked, but then shot him a smirk so he wouldn't know she wasn't happy about beings tartled like that. Twice, in one night. She shook her head and moved forward.

Up ahead, Driveby held up a hand for everyone to stop and be quiet, and squatted down behind a large peice of rubble. She turned on her comm. "Our teammates inside the tower have reported there are ten drones between us and the spacebridge. There are security measures in place, but Cable is working on hacking them." she radioed. Bullet and Jade both nodded silently. Cable joined in the conversation with "Got it boss. the sensors are down."

"Sre you sure?"

"positive."

"Allright then. Marauders, move in." Driveby silently radioed, and started forward again. Bullet glanced around, and Jade noticed his unease when they started through the door. "what is it? what's wrong?" Jade whispered. Scythe had allways told them that if they got a bad feeling, they should pay attention to it, andthat it usually was right. "I don't know." Bullet flicked a glance left, then back at Jade.

"I something... does something feel wrong?" the seeker questioned. "no, I don't feel anything just yet." The silver Megatron mimic tiptoed in behind the rest of the group, and glanced around as they walked into the control room. Three droes lay in the middle of the floor, their chests still smoking. Gunlock, Backdraft, and another mech stood over themselves, and Gunlock looked very amused with himself. Driveby, however, did not. "i thought I told you to stay in the air with the others." driveby commented, eyeing the drones. "Of course. I apologise. I just thought I'd..." Driveby cut him off, tone sharp. "You just thought you could disobey my orders. We have others here to help us get inside, we need you to be our lookout, now go." She spoke so fast, Jade almost couldn't make out the words. Gunlock simply bowed his head slightly, as though bowing and flew up towards the top of the spacebridge shute. "and do not ever presume to question me again, Gunlock." the meaningful glare she sent him as he exited meant the unspoken words of "or you will end up like these drones."

Sheique went over to the nearest console and started typing. A light on the right side flashed and the console beeped. She smirked. She pressed a couple more buttons, then glanced at the group. The computer required a vocal authorisation code, tuned to Shockwave's voice codec. But, what the two earth-bots didn't know was the femme's "special skill". The ability to perfectly imitate the Decepticon's voice. "Authorization code shockwave, cybertron, four four zed alpha primary. Console activate." Jade and Bullet both whirled upon hearing Shockwave's voice, but found Sheique leaning against the console, smirking at them.

The console beeped, and the femme turned back to it, typing away. Driveby walked up, apparently listening to her comm radio. Tracker, the Jeep, and Mucker, the tanklike vehicle from the second marauder team walked back in. Jade eyed the drones. "Are those..." she trailed off, not sure how to ask. "They are drones." Driveby looked at the three scorched shells. "They have no life force or sparks." she looked at the seekerfemme, then tilted her head slightly. "They are not... how do you say it, alive?" Jade nodded. The computer beeped again, and Sheique turned to them. "All ready to go, all we need are a set of coordinates." she looked immensely pleased with herself.

"Driveby nodded and took a step forward, but her comm stopped her dead in her tracks. Cable's voice came through, almost loudly enough for everyone around the white carfemme to hear also "Shockwave's headed back to his tower! he's dispatched a troup of drones to arrive before he does." he half-yelled. "Calm down, Cable." driveby eyed the two earth-bots. The door swished open and Backdraft strode through. Thinking it might be more drones, Tracker and Mucker whirled and aimed their weapons at him, but then put them down once they realised who he was. "Hm. So nice to know there's a warm reception waiting for me." the black seeker groused, giving the two a mild glare, but then walked over to the spacebridge. Driveby turned away from where he stood next to Bullet and Jade, and listened to Cable. "what do we do, boss?" the car asked over the comm. Driveby singaled Stopstreet, who answered his comm.

"Stopstreet, we need you to distract Shockwave's enmvoy, they are returning to base sooner than anticipated. We only need a few minutes longer. If shockwave's convoy gets within seven cliks of this base, launch a suprise attack, and make sure the seekere get the drop on him first. Use the ground troups to distract him for approximately one hundred and two millicycles then get out of there. And make sure you can elude all of his drones."

"Yes, sir." the silver care replied and hung up the line. "Cable, keep on communications. Try to get into the communications signals between Shockwave and his drones and interrupt the command signals, send the drones in different directions if you can, do whatever you can to confuse them."

"Yes sir." cable left the conversation, and driveby turned to Sheique. "We are running low on time, sheique."

The seekerfemme types a little faster, and the door to the spacebridge slid open. Bullet looked at driveby before following Jade and Backdraft. "What about you?" Driveby smiled slightly behind her vocoder mask. "Don't worrry about us." and explosion rocked the outside of the building, but he femme's demeanor never changed. "We can take care of ourselves. May you return to your home planet safely." she bowed her head slightly.

Sheique tapped in the final sequence, and turned to the group. "just concentrate on Earth, and you'll get there just fine." she called. The door slid shut and Jade could be heard muttering "I never did like matter transporter machines!"

The tower rose from the top of the command tower and the top unfolded like a metal-petaled flower. A beam of light shot out, and the group felt themselves being sucked into the vortex of light and howling wind.

Driveby waited till the lighjt had faded and the door to the transporter slid open again. "I hope they made it." she muttered under her vocoder. Then she turned and switched on her comm. "All right, out mission objective has been achieved. All troups pull back." she looked to the two vehicles present. "Split up, and regroup at staging point one. Driveby out." she turned off her comm and transformed, zooming out of the complex followed closely by Sheique who took to the air to swoop down then dissapear with the other seekers. Driveby quickly evaded the drones except one who followed her and had to swerve so it's weaponfire didn't hit her tiore. "Cable!" she commed. "I'm working on it boss!"

"Working on it is not good enough."

"hang on... got it!" the drone dropped like a rock, flailed for a moment, then went still. The other drones dropped out of the air of fell where they stood. The white and pink car gave a sound of relief. She made a right-angle turn and went around a building, heading for the building where they had extablished a base before heading to Shockwave's tower, hoping the other Marauder teams had made it there as well.