"Unfortunately, our air cover decided not to show up today," Megatron said bitterly. "But we must not concern ourselves with traitors to the cause, and instead focus our energy on the successful completion of this mission. However, because of our now limited sight range, the danger of being caught is higher than ever. So I am giving you one final chance to back out." Megatron's intense stare fanned over his troops, just daring one of them to try and back out. After a moment of silence he said, "Good. Now let us free these slaves from their masters!"
The crowd gave a rallying cry, raising their fists or weapons high in the air. Megatron let them quiet down in their own time. He needed them to be enthusiastic if they had any hope of seeing this mission through.
"Unit 1, follow me," Megatron said with a wave of his servo. "Unit 2 and 3, move into position and await my command."
The unit leaders nodded at him in turn as he made optic contact. Megatron nodded back, then lead his team out of the decrepit and crumbling warehouse they were using as their temporary base of operations.
"The main cavern is about three kliks ahead and a klik below ground." Survey ran up beside her leader, pushing her legs as hard as she could to keep up with the bigger bots. She uploaded the map she had made in the last few solar cycles after a careful survey of the land. "The entrance you'll be using," she highlighted a tunnel off to one side, "is right here."
Megatron's HUD marked the entrance on the terrain. They still had a ways to go. "And you're sure you can infiltrate their security office?"
"I think so. From what I can tell, they don't consider this mine to be top priority for security." Her visor dimmed as she inspected the map. "Which also means there won't be a lot of miners to liberate."
"That's not important. And I just need you to focus on your task. You completing your mission could mean the difference between success and failure."
"No pressure right?" She laughed before splitting off from the group, vaulting over a piece of rubble and out of sight.
"Are you sure she doesn't need cover?" a mech on his other side asked.
"Survey works well on her own. And it will be easier for her to slip through their defenses undetected if she doesn't have some bumbling bot on her heels."
"Y-yes..." The mech fell to the back of the group, mumbling incoherently.
The entrance was visible on the horizon now. It was nothing more than a raised slab with support beams holding it open. A bot leaned lazily on one of the support beams, his gun on the ground leaned against his calf.
"Alright, Kaon. Neutralize him," Megatron ordered.
The wiry bot grinned from audial to audial and began to slink through the rubble towards the unsuspecting guard. Megatron occasionally saw flashes of his frame as he darted through the wreckage. He only hoped the guard wasn't paying enough attention so that he wouldn't alert anyone else of their presence.
It was almost comical watching Kaon take him down. He went from being completely relaxed to twitching on the ground in a couple nanokliks. Megatron could see the Kaon's smile even at this distance as he waved them all over.
Once he had crossed the distance and squinted into the dark cavern for a cycle or so, Megatron said, "I think he was the only guard stationed here."
"Than what are we waiting for?" Electricity jumped between the coils on Kaon's shoulders.
A mech nudged one of those shoulders. "Maybe we're waiting for you to turn out the lights." He crossed his arms and faced Megatron. "Is he really the best choice for our stealth mission?"
Megatron's frame was already being swallowed up in the darkness. "Feel free to apprehend the guards on your own."
Soft pedesteps followed him as they went deeper below ground. It was so dark that Megatron wished Kaon had kept the electricity flowing. At least the group would have had more than just their biolights to see by. He cycled up his fusion cannon. He wanted to be ready to fire at a moment's notice, and it did shed a little light on the terrain. Unfortunately, it was not enough light for Megatron to see the wall that seemed to suddenly spring up in front of him when he walked right into it.
He heard a snicker and whipped around, but in the darkness it was impossible to tell whose vocalizer had mocked him. Turning back to the wall, he said, "The tunnel must turn here." He felt around the side he was closest to, but found a corner. "One of you: check the other side!"
One of his troops tripped and fell, pulling another down with him. Kaon gave an exasperated sigh and checked, using quick sparks off of his frame to highlight the other corner for his leader. "The tunnel just ends," he concluded.
"It can't just end!" Megatron fumbled in the gloom, searching for a switch or lever or something. "Well, don't just stand there! Look for a way in!"
Even with six pairs of servos on the task, none of them ended up finding anything. Frustrated, Megatron pounded his fists into the wall, but it yielded. It felt as thick and solid as the other walls, and by all indications the tunnel did, indeed, just end.
Then Survey's voice sounded in his audial. "I made it in, and, not to brag, in record time. Did you make it to the main cavern?"
Megatron sighed loudly. "No, Survey."
"Really? You're not far from it. Did you have trouble with the guards?"
"We took care of the guard at the entrance. There's a wall in this tunnel that we can't get past." Megatron punched at it once more for good measure.
"What about his partner?" Survey asked.
"Partner?" And just as he was about to ask what she meant, the wall slid down and revealed another guard.
Megatron could just see the look of surprise on the guard's faceplate beside the blinding light on his shoulder. Before he could activate his voicebox to comm for help, a round from Megatron's fusion cannon ripped through him, followed by one more when he tried to get up. He never got up again.
"Go!" he ordered, pointing down the tunnel, even though they couldn't see his servo.
"What was that?" Survey shouted. "Did you just shoot someone?"
Megatron just ran. The sound would alert other guards and send them rushing to where they were, and he had to make sure his team was well clear of this tunnel before that happened.
"I need you to take out everyone who isn't a miner," Megatron said to Kaon.
"Do you mean take out or take out take out?" The excited fizzles of charge from his frame illuminated his grinning faceplate.
His words were dark. "Do what you need to do."
"This wasn't part of the plan!" one of Megatron's troops said, a petrified look in his optics. "We're gonna die. We're gonna die!"
Megatron gave him a quick smack with the back of his servo. "No one's going to die! As long as you shut up and do what you were told!"
"B-but you just killed that guard!" The mech stumbled, falling behind.
"I did what was necessary."
The darkness around them lessened and Megatron could see the walls around him now. Ahead he saw the tunnel opening up into a large, and lit, cavern. He glanced behind to see if the whole group had made it, counting six helms, including himself.
"You all know what you need to do?" he asked once more.
All but one nodded, albeit one unsurely. Kaon just laughed as even more electricity jumped about his plating, accenting the hollows where his optics should have been. The vorns of working as an executioner had certainly twisted his perception.
The group burst from the tunnel, just barely missing a miner pushing a cart of energon as they fanned out in all directions. There were far more levels to this mine than they had estimated, but there were far fewer guards stationed here than they had assumed. Their entrance had caused a pause in the miners' work, but some were so jaded that they just kept on working. That, or they feared what might happen if they dared stop.
Megatron leapt down each level until he reached the bottom, dashing to the middle and kicking an empty cart away from one of the workers. It took him a moment to realize he wasn't pushing anything anymore. He stared at his servos, confused, then his weary optics looked up at the gladiator.
"You're free," Megatron told him. Then, addressing the bots that had gathered around the scene, "You're all free! No longer will the Senate be able to keep you below ground!"
"Free?" The mech looked like a sparkling trying to comprehend the meaning of a new word.
"I can assure you all will have better lives if you come with me. There's more out there than just mining energon all day."
The few workers around him just stared at him. Then one asked in a quiet voice, "Is the sun up?"
Megatron raised an optic ridge. "Is that important?"
Another piped up answering for him, "I haven't seen the sun in lunar cycles."
"I saw it a few solar cycles ago," another miner added. "They've been cutting my energon rations since then for being late. But it was worth it."
"If you follow my lead, I will ensure that you will see the sun every day," Megatron promised. And that seemed to be enough to win them over, until a corpse fell from a higher floor.
It hit the ground with a thud, the mech's back plating splintering upon impact. At first Megatron hoped he was an abnormally coloured guard, but he knew in his spark that it was one of his troops. He didn't have to check his frame for a pulse; the expanding pool of energon and black optics were obvious from where he was standing.
A guard called down from above, "Unless you want to end up like him, I suggest you get back to work."
The group around Megatron scattered as he levelled his fusion cannon. He couldn't see much above the second floor, but he aimed where he thought he'd heard the voice originate. He fired and missed, but the startled yelp the guard made told him that he had been close.
He growled frustratedly and yelled into his comm, "Survey! Did you lower the defenses on the other mine shafts?"
"Unit 3 is clear to move in, but the main entrance computer has thicker firewalls than I anticipated. I'm not sure I can get past them at all."
"Unit 3: mobilize!" Megatron barked into a different frequency, then switched back to Survey. "Forget the other mine shaft. Feed directions to Unit 2 and send them down the same shaft as Unit 3. We need more firepower now."
"I'm on it."
The floor Megatron was on had cleared, so he sprinted to the elevator to finish off the guard who had dared to kill one of his mechs. The fires of revenge burned like an out of control blaze inside of him, threatening to consume him. As he exited the lift, a scared guard ran into him, taking a frightened step back when he laid optics on the much bigger bot. In the moment it took him to turn around and try to flee, Megatron unsheathed his blade and sliced a clean line down his middle. When the fire didn't subside, he found another guard and disposed of him as well. They fell so easily that Megatron wondered if his fallen comrade was a blessing in disguise. The Decepticons couldn't afford weakness.
A miner skidded to a stop in front of Megatron, took one look at his energon slicked blade, and ran the other way. Unfortunately for him, that was right into another guard.
Normally, Megatron would see the miner's short stature as an unfortunate evolutionary trait that kept them under the heel of those higher in the caste, but today it ensured the worker kept his helm while the guard didn't. The gladiator sheathed his blade as the helmless frame of the guard toppled over and fell down to the next level, where it ceased to move.
The miner shivered in Megatron's shadow, frozen to the spot. His helm whipped around when a horde of guards burst from a nearby tunnel.
"Go," Megatron said to him. "Find somewhere safe to hide until this dies down."
He wouldn't know if the miner would listen to him, but he bolted down another tunnel and was at least out of harm's way for the time being.
The reinforcements split down the middle as they emerged into the cavern, half of them bearing down on Megatron. He took an offensive stance and fired as many plasma rounds at them as he could. Once they were within arm's reach he deployed his sword again and began hacking through the group. They fell easily. It felt like he was cutting through wires rather than alloy.
"They're too strong! Retreat!" one of the guards called. They left as quickly as they had come, streaming back into the tunnel they had come from, leaving a glowing blue trail behind them.
"Cowards!" Kaon came up beside Megatron, who had to sidestep to stay out of his electrical field.
"The fight is not important, Kaon. We have to round up the miners and get them out of here." Megatron turned on his comm. "Survey, can you direct the miners to the tunnel we originally came in through?"
"Right away, sir!" Megatron could imagine Survey doing a semi-mocking salute with a huge grin on her faceplate at their accomplishment of Phase 1.
A war cry came from the tunnel on the other side of the cavern from where Megatron and Kaon were standing. They both took a defensive position; Kaon formed a ball of electricity in his servo and Megatron raised his fusion cannon. He lowered it and put a servo to Kaon's chest when more Decepticons emerged from it, stopping with confused looks when they saw only their own standing.
Then Survey's voice rang out over the speakers, "All miners proceed to rear entrance in an orderly manner. You will be given further orders once you arrive."
When her transmission ended, Megatron called over to his troops, "We have won! Follow me out of here and greet your new comrades!"
Some of them looked disappointed at missing the action, but most of them cheered and slapped each other on the back. Megatron let them have their moment of joy, for some of them would be grieving later.
The rest of Megatron's unit gathered around him, bedraggled and leaking. "We need to move out," he told them.
"But what about..." A mech gestured to the corpses of their brethren.
"There's nothing we can do for them now. And to carry them out would be too dangerous."
The mech stared a moment longer, grief flickering in his tired optics, then he tore his gaze away and started towards the rear entrance. Megatron took up the rear, glancing back once more to ensure all of his remaining troops had made it out alive. Some part of him hoped he would see their arm twitch or the dust would swirl around their vents; anything to prove that they still functioned. But he knew. They were the first casualties of war.
The darkness fell upon his hunching shoulders, as if it carried a hidden weight. He wished he had a light like one of the guards, something that the miners were not privileged with, as he found out. They too had to grope their way through the darkness.
Megatron made his way up through his troops and through the throng of miners, who parted their ranks to allow him passage. He felt their fear and confusion as he passed through their fields, and when he turned to address them, he saw it in their optics.
"Before we go any further, I have some things I would like to say," Megatron began. "First, I would like to honour our fallen warriors, who gave their lives in the name of freedom." A grief-stricken bot let out something between a scream and a whimper. "But looking upon the faceplates of these bots before me," a miner flinched when Megatron's servo came close to him as he flourished, "I know that their sacrifices were not in vain." He looked at the miner closest to him. "I know personally what it is like to be treated like I am worth nothing more than my weight in scrap metal. So I know how you must feel to be seen as useful so long as your shape serves its purpose. But I know that you are all worth so much more than what you do.
"If you follow me, fight for me, I can give you a life. A life where you get to choose who and what you are. A life where you will not have to live in the shadows. A life where your t-cog is not your most vital organ, but a tool which you can use when you choose to. Follow me, and I will give you freedom."
One of the miner's stepped forward. He had his chest puffed out, trying to seem taller, but he barely came up to Megatron's waist, and when he spoke his voice shook. "Who are you?"
"You can call me 'Megatron.' I lead my Decepticons in an effort to overthrow the Senate and bring equality and justice to the masses."
"How do we know we can trust you?"
Megatron blinked calmly at him. "You don't. But, returning to the mines will mean enslavement for the rest of your life. If your masters do not punish you for disobeying."
The miners whispered among themselves, until one spoke up, trembling. "He s-saved my life. I would have been scrapped if it weren't for Megatron."
Megatron nodded at him and turned to lead them, old Decepticons and new, out of the mine. The passage had been resealed, and this time he blasted through it. With the blockade gone, Megatron could feel wisps of fresh air pass through his intakes, much cleaner than the air in the mines.
The tunnel started to get light around them as they pressed on, and Megatron could feel the excitement tingling through the fields of everyone around him. He found himself smiling too. They had done it. They had completed the first mission of many to free Cybertron's lower caste from their enslavement. Miners started to break from their rank and run ahead of their new leader.
And just when Megatron thought that their mission had been executed a little too easily, he saw them. Their black frames glistened, nigh undetectable, in the low light. He could only see the first row or so, but in his spark, he knew there were dozens more behind them, ready to take their comrades' place when the first wave fell. They were ready to fire the moment the group came into range, and Megatron had been so shocked to see them that that moment came before he had a chance to warn anyone of the danger.
The screams erupting from their voiceboxes pierced the still air, some cut short as a round passed through their helm or torso. Megatron felt one hit his shoulder and another singed the side of his helm as he turned around and shouted the order, "Retreat, retreat!"
His command brought more chaos than good. Some of the miners and Decepticons ran straight into the bots that were trying to kill them. Even Megatron grew confused at which way was the right way. The bright flashes from their guns burned optics that had only just gotten adjusted to the pitch of the tunnels. He ran the with his back to the source of light, turning as many of his bots around as he could, but there were so many falling around him, their freedom taken from them before it could even be properly granted.
"Run! Go! Get out of here!" Megatron's cries grew more desperate as the tunnel cleared up, because he knew it was not because they escaped.
"Megatron, why are you turning around?" Survey shouted into his audial. "You were almost at the exit!"
Megatron ignored her questions until they were back in the main cavern again. Then, huffing, he said, "We need a new route."
"What happened? I heard-"
"Just do it, Survey!" Megatron roared.
The group around him was pitiful in comparison, and they all looked up to him for a solution. He tried not to let the terrified looks in their optics get to him. He had to stay calm, for their sake.
He walked over to a couple of slain guards and picked up their weapons, than handed them to a couple of miners. "Shoot first, ask questions later," he instructed."
"You want us to kill bots?" One of them dropped his weapon, terrified.
Megatron put it back in his servos. "It's your life or theirs. Those bots that are after us? They won't hesitate to terminate you and everyone else here."
The miner trembled but he held onto the gun, which Megatron supposed was enough. "If you find a discarded weapon pick it up," he ordered his troops. "We need all of the firepower we can get."
"Are we just going to stand here while they hunt us down?" Kaon shrieked. "I say we lay a trap and exterminate them." 'Cons moved away from Kaon as his plating sparked.
"We're waiting for Survey's instructions!" Megatron yelled at him.
"Uh, I think the tunnel on the third level will take you outside," Survey said unsurely.
"That's good enough for me." Megatron grabbed the arm of a miner and basically flung him down a level. He helped the next few down more gently, and his troops followed suit until only they remained, jumping down after everyone. "We're going to head down that tunnel." Megatron pointed with two digits. Then, to Survey, he said, "You need to get out of there and back to base."
"I haven't finished checking if that tunnel is safe, or even if it leads outside. You could run into trouble if I don't check thoroughly."
"We'll be fine. Just get yourself out of there." Megatron disconnected from her before she could argue.
"Get moving, Megatron!" someone called for him.
"You go. I'll be right behind you." Megatron aimed above the tunnel they came in from and shot multiple times, bring down chunks of metal to seal off the entrance. Then, he followed his Decepticons into the darkness.
Their trek was slow going, and then slightly less slow going once their optics adjusted to the pitch. The idea of getting lost below ground and being trapped forever crossed Megatron's processor more times than he cared to count. He placed one servo on the wall as he walked.
"Are we almost at the end?" a femme asked.
"I don't know," another troop answered. "It seems like this tunnel goes on forever."
"Survey wouldn't lead us astray," Megatron assured them. He was glad they couldn't see the uncertainty on his faceplate.
A plasma round skimmed Megatron's upper arm and sailed over the helms of the Decepticons. He spun around as another lit the tunnel with its bright blue light and washed over the frames of their adversaries. He started firing back, yelling behind him, "Get out of here!"
Red shots opposed the black bots' as his Decepticons stood with him. But even with the extra firepower, it seemed as if two fresh bots replaced every one they took down.
"Megatron! Throw me!" Kaon hissed from behind him.
He didn't have time to ponder whether his daft plan would work or not, so he grabbed the executioner by his waist and flung him over the helms of their enemies. He came down on them, basically a ball of energy, and sent them all toppling, their own frames tingling with leftover charge.
One of the bots fired off one last shot as he fell, hitting Megatron in the chest. He roared with pain and fell to one knee, holding the gaping hole that only just missed his spark. Energon leaked through his digits, spilling out onto the ground.
"Megatron!" someone fretted over him.
"I'll be fine," he said through grit denta.
"Well, that took care of them," Kaon said, wiping his servos.
"Let's get out of here," Megatron said, ventilating heavily as he stood.
Everyone aside from Kaon leaked from somewhere, one mech leaned heavily on another, seeming just moments from joining the Allspark. They travelled silently and the first sound anyone made was a sigh of relief when they saw the exit. Survey was waiting for them outside.
"Thank Primus," she said, relieved. She gasped when her optics fell upon Megatron. "You're hurt."
"We're all wounded," Megatron growled. "I got off easy."
"What now?" a miner asked.
"Now, we head back to base," Megatron said tiredly. "Survey, please show them the way. I want to make sure we weren't followed."
"But your wound-"
"I'll be fine!" Megatron bared his fangs.
Survey seemed to consider disobeying, then nodded and saluted, rounding up the new troops. Her small frame became completely hidden from Megatron's view as more bots surrounded her and she started the journey back.
Once they were out of audial range, Megatron curled his lip up angrily. "Starscream." He dragged his name out, rage building in his frame. "He should have been keeping watch!" He punched a piece of rubble and focused on the throbbing in his fist. Then, a smile starting to grow on his faceplate, he whispered, "I will see you soon, my dear."
