*Preparing For A Fight*

*

In Colorado, the General had ordered Captain Fairborn to see him after he had briefed the new team members that would be working with the base at Adam Drake's request to assist with the mecha units and the pilots being trained for them, before he sent her on her way.
Unknown to him however, was that these visiting scientists were actually members of a team called the Roughnecks, specifically Flashdance and Freeway on this base, while Tempest and Landslide were with Adam elsewhere, they keeping an eye or two on things until Adam would arrive. The General's chief of staff had gone over their credentials and found them in order, so there was nothing to make them suspicious of their undercover aliases.
Captain Fairborn was assigned to travel out to the Port Angeles base to accompany the final transport of items and equipment from that base to this one. Not all of the units and other things had been transported as yet and the Alliance delegates had gotten wind of it and wanted to see the Port Angeles base as well as the University campus that was now the talk of the country.

The General was sure that Adam had persuaded the President to allow the visit to the Port Angeles base so he could show off his project to the ones who probably organised Adam building the mecha units to begin with. He had decided to have Captain Fairborn sent as she was used to dealing with Alien Delegates, having done so for the Military for years.

*

The Delegates in question were the same ones that were currently visiting with Optimus Prime and his soldiers on the Autobot City base. The talks had finished and the group were being transported to the Port Angeles base where they would tour around before being shown out to Colorado by Captain Fairborn and her transportation.

After the Delegates had left Optimus Prime had turned his attention to Dragon Valley base and sent a team to assist with the Earth's recent hidden alien invaders. Ella and her team had assisted him and his Autobots in the past and he felt it necessary to return the favour, particularly since many of his soldiers spent a fair amount of recreational time at Ella's base on their days off.

*

Ella was in the control room of Dragon Valley base. She had allowed the team that Optimus Prime had sent to assist in running the communication equipment to link the base to her teams that were in the Caucasus Mountains, spying on the Dominion and the Decepticon entourage.

The group leaders had not yet engaged anyone in battle as they were gaining as much information as they could by staying hidden and gathering intelligence as to why the aliens were here on Earth.

The Autobot team were somewhat peeved they had not been allowed by Ella to go and assist directly, but Ella didn't want a battle for now and had relayed this to Sound Track. Optimus had given them orders to take heed of any directions they were given by Ella, and so they waited.

Her choice for not wanting a fight was due to the fact she wanted as many personnel to protect the base if need be and also have her teams return to the base at a moments notice if they were needed to. So right now observation and intelligence gathering was paramount.

She sat and thought about the defences of the base, and let her mind wash over every section, thinking about each area in turn, some more than others. She knew that when Decellion had decided she'd had enough of the area she was in now, she would take her attack to what she was really after, Ella's base, and she would come in hard and fast and get what she to came to Earth for.

The Dragon Valley base had its own entrances to the hidden structure, but those were all hard to get to from the outside, Ella knew this, thinking about its defences.

The entire underground base was connected to both large and small areas incorporating secret passages and causeways between each individual area and level that intertwined in every little hidden area of the base inside the big mountain.

It was a virtual maze for those who used any of the escape shafts, but everything essentially led up, making it easy for anyone to get out if they knew how but near impossible to get back in again without proper knowledge.

Ella knew the deep underground areas were covered. The lower part of the base was deep underground and led down for about five miles to an area that was occupied by alien individuals that Ella knew was there, down past the biodome and through all the caves beyond.

There was something hidden deep within the caves of that area that they were protecting, it was the reason they were allowed to stay there. The Cybredeon were originally transported here to Earth millions of years ago with the ship they came in, but that ship, was now part of Dragon Mountain and was now the base Ella commanded. What they were protecting was Ella's secret as well as that of the high counsel of the Alliance.

Up in the higher parts of the base, was what she was worried about, specifically the aerial part of the base. It was where Soundwave had gotten out from and on occasion Starscream had gotten out of also and so was the weak point she wanted to focus on. It was where she had stationed the Dinosaurers, in and around the aerial transport bay which was situated high above the base around the peak of the mountain.

She figured putting the heavy hitters in and around that area would help to slow down Decellion, but she knew it wouldn't for long.

The other entrances to the base, the main entrance from the roads outside, were giant transport elevators, four in total, large enough to lower, two rows of six heavily laden semi-trucks, abreast, into and out of that main entrance, taking a full ten minutes from either the entrance or the main entry foyer of the base of the base. The shafts of the elevators could also be a weak point so she kept them fresh in her mind for a strategy.

She noted as she scanned her mind over that area that Optimus Prime had arrived with the rest of his team to assist.

He had contacted her previously that he would come down and help after being apprised of the situation. Optimus thought that an inside installation to draw the enemy into and defend from would be a better area to fight in as it was away from the general public and so less humans would inevitably be hurt.

As Optimus arrived, he had forgotten just how big the entrance area of this old alien ship turned outpost base was. The entry area of the base was where all ground transport and cargo was unloaded and sorted. The area was immense; the size of three football fields could easily fit into it. There were two areas the same size off to both the left and right of the main entry.
To the left side, were three units, all roughly the size of one football field each; The Art Studio, Engineering and the Medical Centre.
To the other side were the Garage and storage units that stored all the catalogued cargo unloaded from the trucks. All storage that came in by plane or rail was also moved to here.
He was met by Prowl and his entourage. They had been asked to return to the base due to what was happening. Ella's talk with Obliterator had involved organising his team to stay and guard the Ark while this was all going on so Prowl and his team could return to the valley base and help defend it. The old war machine and his team weren't terribly happy with being left out of the battle that they knew would be coming but they understood the logic of it. If the Dragon Valley base fell, at least his team was still active and could provide outside help if required, and so they had stayed down south in Oregon.

Ella had also given an order for all civilians to evacuate the base. No civilians actually lived in her base, except family members of her own teams. Others did secretly come through here quite often from offworld for supplies, refuelling and recreational purposes. She had officially labelled the place off limits for all civilians until it was safe to open the doors again.

The only ones who had objected vehemently to being asked to leave were the families of the soldiers who actually lived and worked from the Dragon Valley base.

She had also shut down the freight train line that ran through the base. The rail line ran right through the middle of the entry foyer of the base. A private steam train line extended out from Port Angeles and ran all the way to the Drake Manor Estate above, a loop line that then returned to Port Angeles. This was a line that separated off of the main one to the south of the Port Angeles train line, which ran through the base to load and unload.

She let her mind follow Optimus and Prowl from the end of the foyer to the halls that led to the control room. At the end of the foyer were driveways on other side of a round room, the rec room as it was commonly known. The driveways on the outside were large enough to have two trucks abreast on each, these extended to the upper and lower levels of the base. And around these driveways, were walkways allowing passage to the back part of the base behind the rec room. They in turn led to the control room beyond it.

At the back of the rec room was a training amphitheatre that they had to walk past to get to the control centre. At the back of the rec room was an overhanging balcony that extended over the top of the hallway at the back of the rec room that they were now passing through. Some of prime's group paused to look at the arena as they had not yet seen this part of the base or hadn't been here at all. The arena was surrounded by seating, much like an outdoor theatre from ancient human times, but with seating space for large and small creatures, mechanoid or organoid.

The control room was located beyond. It was housed above the arena which was in itself immense and so most opted to use the elevators to reach the control centre rather than traverse the stairs to get to it.

Part of the control centre housed the controls for hard light holograms for the training area below and had a viewing screen also. The console controlled the pit below, and could change the area using high range nanotechnology, from a combat training arena, to a grass covered sports field, to a gymnasium or even to an ice rink. This arena was roughly the same size as the entry foyer, and was mainly used by the transformer residents for combat training with holographic simulators in operation.

The crew came walking into the control room where Ella stopped her mind scan of the base and went to greet them.
For the most part, Ella had advised Optimus to send his team down to wait in the rec room until they were ready to be utilised or assigned an area. Not all the Autobots that Optimus had sent here to Dragon Valley were in the rec room, some were around the control room making use of their skills and learning how to operate her base from this control room.

Ella had assured Optimus that the newly refurbished Ark and also Autobot City would not be a target right now as Decellion would not be interested in Cybertronians unless she confronted them directly here on this base as this would be her target. What she was after was here. He knew she had a team in place protecting the Ark and he had left Ultra Magnus and his team, the Wreckers, as well as well as the Protectobots at Autobot City just in case they were needed.

He had left Elita One in command back on Cybertron and brought along some of his old Earth team as well as the Aerialbots when he came to Earth to talk to the Delegates and had also brought the same team along now.
Down in the rec room was where all the noise was. Some of the Autobots were relaxing and talking.
The lower area of the rec room was split into four areas, of a roughly octagonal shape. The entry from the foyer of this room was the general area, for all sized individuals, facing the entry foyer of the base. Off to either side of the main entry from the foyer, there were two separate areas for those who didn't want to associate with each other or for those who wanted some privacy. The back quarter was for the storage of the bar supplies, while the bar itself was situated in the centre of the room and went all the way around except for where it connected to the storage area.

Most of the 'bots here were in the main area all talking amongst themselves waiting for the word to go out and fight, knowing it was only a matter of time now since they had noticed that their leader, Optimus Prime had arrived on the base by request.

*

It had taken several hours for the journey from the Colorado Military installation to the base in Port Angeles for Captain Fairborn and her entourage to arrive at their destination.
Captain Fairborn had taken part of her team straight to the command centre of the base in order to meet the Delegates and get it over with. While the rest of them went straight to the storage areas to start loading the supplies they came for.

The General of the base, Alexander Price, was fully aware of what was now going on at his base. As he was one of the ones who had organised to have the mecha units moved to another base under orders from Washington DC. He had welcomed the orders to have everything moved, as he was a family man and wanted to protect all that he had left, his daughter. But then the news of the training centre at the University had come to light and having that so close disturbed him.

He knew his daughter would be eligible for that. Even though she wasn't old enough, her intelligence and scientific studies would certainly have her considered.

He however did not know that his daughter had made friends with a group of teenagers that were associated with the Dragon Valley base and its mecha residents and were on a short list of young people that were going to be considered for the civilian mecha piloting group regardless of their age in the long run.

It was a reason why all these youngsters had been brought together at the high school in the first place, as it was a long term plan of Adam Drake's to do so.

*

Out in the Caucasus Mountains of Eastern Europe, Sound Track, Heatwave and their respective teams were still watching the enemy.

One member of the group who was monitoring their activity from their mobile command post was Joyride. She was thinking about the occasion when Ella had her go down and visit the Cybredeon, hidden deep underneath the Dragon Mountain base.

Joyride was quite often used to being asked by Ella to undertake missions like this one alone. She was a communications specialist but also a purveyor of fine arts, having studied Earth's history for over 10,000 years and also knew about what had led to them being there, even though she didn't like going to visit them, they were very intimidating to her even if they were big and gentle except when aggravated, she still didn't feel at ease. Being that this pack of Cybredeon, their existence was unknown to just about everyone on the planet and the aliens preferred it that way.

Ella had asked her to go down to the Queen's cave and have her pack prepare just in case of invaders wanting to come into their territory. It was a bonus to Ella that they happened to be there as their presence protected something that Ella's enemies would most likely go after if they knew it was there.

Only one of her enemies knew what could be there and that was Decellion.

The Cybredeons were protecting a kind of temple that housed a device capable of projecting a beam of energy into space that was capable of destroying not only planets but also suns. This device was the same as one that was once operational on Cybertron.

Surrounding it were connection units where the Matrices could be attached and utilised as the power behind the weapons beam. Ella knew if Decellion got her hands on the blueprints or saw enough of it to enable her to make her own; it would be trouble for the Alliance.

So far during all the millions of years that the Alliance had been at war with the Dominion, not one of them had been able to get close enough to one of these devices in order to copy its make, something always happening before then.

It was also a device of the same make that Ella herself had been put into and used as a weapon when Sigma was still pre-eminent during the wars of the past in the Alliance, but Sigmas weapon was no longer operational, still deeply hidden under the planets surface on what was now Cybertron.

There had once been an entire city on the spot where the mountain now was, but in days long past, about one million Earth years ago, a fight with the Dominion on the planet had destroyed that city.

The temple was also the entrance to this planets core computer and Ella couldn't afford to have Decellion get access to that either.

The ship that was now the base had crashed on Earth before that, directly above the secret underground temple built by the Angellion and had eventually been absorbed into the landscape over time. The base was later found again after that particular war and a presence re-established by Ella and her team.

The Cybredeon Queen hadn't taken kindly to be called upon for a fight, but was glad of the warning. Generally the entire pack of these aliens were metamorphic telepaths, but they had no interest in the world around them and so shut all but the thoughts of their own out and kept to themselves, which meant Ella had to send someone with a message to them or go along herself.

Joyride was called out of her stray thinking when the camouflaged plane that the Spyhunters had arrived in blew up. Only she and one other from the Spyhunters team were presently in the jet and so it would take some time for everyone else to get to the plane, especially if they got cut off.

The jet they were using was a large cargo plane from the base with reinforced Deltronian armour plating and also a cloak device. It could take the weapons fire and was still holding its cloak very well, for now.

The Spyhunters own plane had been discovered first. When a group of Decepticons came across its cloak visage while on patrol, they wasted no time in getting rid of it using Dominion tech to do so, without even waiting on any orders from anyone then moved swiftly to see if any more were in the area.

The three teams had no choice but to bail. They had been discovered. But they had managed to gather quite a fair bit of intelligence regarding their enemy at least.

Freefall's team had been on standby watching in case they were needed and then quickly joined in, picking off stray soldiers that came their way.

Despite her orders from Ella, Freefall had refused to allow Starscream control of her team for such a delicate situation and this had irritated him not having the control he felt he deserved. In the end Freefall had cut off his vocaliser so he couldn't make a noise. And when the fighting broke out they took off and joined in the fight in the air.

Heatwave gathered up his own team and had them make for the jet also. The one thing that he had going for him despite his arrogance and egotistical demeanour was the fact he was a brilliant fighter and spy and valued each member of his team as if it were he himself, he never left anyone behind. And so he was the last into the jet when his team arrived at the hiding place with the Decepticons and Dominion soldiers not far behind.

The remaining Roughnecks however had been on the other side of the alien built compound when the Spyhunter jet had exploded. When Sound Track had issued orders for them to return to the jet, they had gotten cut off. They had arrived after the Spyhunters team and so, were on the other side of the fighting line.

Vanguard did her best to expand her shield to protect the group, while Burnout did the most damage, and helped to clear a line to the jet, while Sound Track, Sunstar and Ranger brought up the rear with cover fire.

And when they were all inside the jet and ready to go, Sound Track got into the cockpit and prepped for flight. Sunstar tended to the wounded as best she could while take off was initiated. They quickly took off for home as fast as the jet would allow them.

Not long after take off they were discovered and their cloak was disabled due to several barrages from the Dominion structure down below that found the jet on its scanners.

Freefall took the opportunity to utilise her flying team and orchestrated an attack pattern that ended in the gun turrets of the weapons below being destroyed.

It was some time before the back cargo doors of the jet could be opened to let in Freefall's team. They had to remain outside to shoot down all the attackers that followed and deflect all the weapons blasts that were fired upon the jet until they were out of range or left alone.

While on route Sound Track made a call back to Dragon Valley, and both she and Freefall made a report to Ella of the situation. Heatwave, being who he was just had to give Ella all the information his team had gathered before they got to Dragon Valley, even thought Ella said it could wait.

*

In the rec room, the bored Autobots who were waiting were entertaining themselves with a movie on the projection screen that someone had found.

That had been Sideswipe. In becoming bored he had started searching every nook and cranny in the rec room to see what he could find to try and entertain himself. But while he had watched the start of the movie he had moved off when he found some video gaming units next door so he and Sunstreaker had become engrossed in that for the time being.

When the current movie had finished Jazz moved to put another in the disc reader to try and pass the time.

When he had sat back down and the others waiting had settled to watch another movie, Cliffjumper walked in with Prowl. They had both been in the control room, mainly because Prowl couldn't sit still for long enough to watch a movie and he wanted to know how the teams in Europe were doing.

Jazz noticed them come in and went to chat with them.

"So, any news?" He asks.

Prowl answers, "We have just received word that the teams are returning due to the fact they had been discovered."

"Yeah they got shot up so now they're coming back." Comments Cliffjumper.

Jazz noticed Prowl had his attention on a data pad in his hands. "Wha's s'at Prowler?" He asks.

Prowl looks up from his reading as though distracted, "Oh this is just the information that the Spyhunters managed to gather from the Decepticons and Dominion in Europe. I'm going through it to see if a viable battle plan can be formulated to fight them should they show up here as per Ella's expectation of Decellion's supposed intentions."

"Cool!" Comment Jazz. "Good luck with that buddy."

While Cliffjumper goes to sit down, Blaster saunters over and asks, "Did I hear right? Is the team returnin'?"

"Relax Blaster ol' buddy, Flash' ain't with 'em!" Jazz replies coolly. "She's workin' somewhere undercover I was told."

"Aww, Oh well!" He remarked, "Guess I better go see what the twin terrors are up to?"

"Try not to get yourself beaten up by Sunstreaker again eh!" Snickers Cliffjumper who was sitting next to Mirage and Trailbreaker on the nearest booth seats.

"Kiss my aft short stuff!" Blaster says snidely before walking off to find the twins.

One thing Blaster didn't like was people reminding him of the fact that he and Sunstreaker didn't like each other much but tolerated each others presence due to Blaster and Sideswipe being friends. But one time he had gone too far with a verbal tease and found himself alone with no Sideswipe around to help smooth things out, and he regretted ever activating his vocalisers that day.

Sunstreaker had not hesitated to vent his annoyance and anger upon him then, and now Cliffjumper delighted in reminding him about it on a regular basis, despite the fact he didn't like Sunstreaker either.

It was lucky for him that Sunstreaker walked out of the side room just as Blaster walked in. There was a short moment where their optics locked and then Sunstreaker said, "He's in there." And thumbed behind him, and then walked off himself, finding a spot to sit alone and watch the movie.

Blaster looked back at Jazz, puzzled.

Jazz shrugged and then went over to join Sunstreaker to watch the movie with him.

"What's up Sunshine?" Jazz said quietly so the others couldn't hear the name Sunstreaker was called.

Sunstreaker didn't react to Jazz's soft name calling as he knew it was being done quietly so no others couldn't hear him, not liking being called anything but his full name, "I'm bored." The yellow Reventon huffed.

"Well in case you didn't know, the femmes are on their way back."

This perked him up, "Really?"

"Yeah, really!" Answered Jazz. He quietly smiles to himself and thinks, 'Per'aps there's more ta him an' Sunstar than I thought, after all, it ain't the first time I've caught 'is faceplate lightin' up like that at the mere mention of that femme being close by!'
Sunstreaker however was aware of how intelligent Jazz was and would have suspected straight away seeing his faceplate in regards to knowing that the femmes were returning and it would have made him click as to who it was he wanted to see returning to the base. They looked at each for a bit before optics moved away from each other.

"S'ok Sunny, I won't say a word about your little crush!" He mused.

"Hmph." Sunstreaker grunted in a friendly manner, "You just did!"

"Yeah!" Laughed the Porsche, "So I did!"

Jazz was still laughing when more of his companions from the control room upstairs turned up. Most of them present looked up when Prime walked in with some others behind him, as well as Ella not too far behind. Ella went straight over to the movie screen and turned off.

She looked around at the Autobots for a moment and then looked up at Optimus, "Feel free to use one of the meeting rooms or even next door to talk to your soldiers." She stated.

Optimus walked to the area next door that was usually full of pub patrons so to speak and was followed by Prowl and some others. The others still sitting looked around at each other expectantly and then quickly followed with a belated arrival from Blaster and Sideswipe who came in last.

Ella then left to meet her teams coming back from their flight.

*

Days later.

Ella had gotten a complete overview of the Spyhunters activities again from Heatwave when the teams arrived that day. She had quickly sent him and his whole team down to the medical bay to be checked over by the medics.

Even though Heartia was a civilian mecha, she had stayed behind for medical reasons knowing she would be needed, while Raymond and Sunstar went and assisted with checking over the wounded and also treating the Spyhunters.

Optimus had addressed his group also and made some decisions based on information that Prowl had calculated for him, glad that his old 2IC had decided to help for now.

Prowl had decided to join his own team with the Autobots for the time being, their memories of working together in the past would be advantageous to the upcoming situation. Each of the mecha on the base who were able bodied, were put into smaller groups according who they were used to dealing with.

Each one of Prowl's team, Julio, Henry, William, Jackson, and Bryan, were put with a smaller group of Autobots as these individuals knew the base while not all the Autobots knew every area or were familiar with it as some of them were. Smaller groups would be patrolling different areas of the base and would report in any suspicious activities as they arose.

Ella knew that Decellion would be thinking about descending upon the base now that her position had been found out in Europe. She was also grateful that Optimus had decided to remain till the immanent attack was over.

*

Out in space above Earth, a cloaked ship had come out of hyperspace and stationed itself in a stable orbit above the planet under a cloak.

It was Galvetron's ship. He was tired of waiting for Decellion to come good on her promise of delivering the powerful artefacts she had said could be retrieved easily from somewhere on Earth. So he had come to Earth in his battleship to check on her activities. As well as take care of some other matters.

His spies on Cybertron were very well hidden and adept at getting information for him. He had left them behind from a previous battle and was proud of the fact they had still managed to stay hidden and were able to report on most of the Autobots activities for him.

As soon as he had been informed that Optimus was on Earth, it had given him another reason to leave Charr with most of his remaining soldiers and descend upon the hapless planet he loathed.

It was an opportunity that he wasn't going to pass up. Getting a chance to take care of his old foe again.

While leaving his ship in orbit under control of some troops he had decided to leave in reserve if they were needed for a battle, he warped down to the planet using an orbital teleportation unit he had use of and found Decellion without any trouble still in Europe collecting raw energy and also in the midst of planning an assault on a base somewhere north of the old Ark base that the Autobots had.

He remembered that this was the base that Soundwave had reported to him about and so took a slight interest in this planning, allowing Decellion to do most of the thinking, and only interjecting when he didn't agree with her plan.

If what he heard about who was on this particular base he would be able to take care of more than one problem today and this made him grin. Starscream, the bane of his existence, was also reputed to be on this base. As were the others he considered to be traitors. He would be able to take care of Starscream and the others who had abandoned the Decepticons for measly lives amongst the pathetic people of this planet and Primus only knew who else. If they couldn't be convinced to return to his side then he would terminate them.

Starscream however he would destroy on site. He couldn't believe that he was still alive and functional and this irritated him. How many times was he going to have to terminate him? He just would not stay terminated.

*