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Blue sand clouds blew over Outpost 9. Grains of soft sand pebbled his hands. There was little to see outside, other than the horizon line which finely cut the orange sky from the blue sand. Muttering to himself, he shut the bay doors to keep the dust out. The cobalt sandstorms were blowing three times a day now. Sooner or later they would be blown over, or worse, the sand would find its way into their tubes and one day he and the five others would just simply stop functioning, victims not of the planet, but of being forgotten.
Once the bay doors were secure, he sat in his side of the bunker, popping open another metal crate and another canister. He popped his canister of energon and refueled. The crate held several tools including the filament-ended brushes which he was supposed to use every day to keep the dust out of his joints. He hadn't used any on his body for 3 cycles. He had stopped wasting time delicately lubricating his body. He had realized the truth before the others. The crates and canisters were going to empty in five hecacycles, and who knows if Charr Command would send a shipment to restock. Who cares about securing Outpost 9, anyway? He'll just let himself rust then. It didn't matter. He had found a better use for the filament brushes. They were great at cleaning the buildup of gunk and dust in his pistol's bullet chambers. His own body may get sloppy, but his arms never would. The one who makes that mistake, would find himself dead.
Kreb found him hunched over the crate. "Phew! You take care of that pistol more than yourself, Horri-Bull." He waved his hand in front of his olfactory sensor to brush the stench away.
Horri-Bull didn't bother to turn around and pretended not hear him. He snorted black, noxious clouds.
"Ahem," Kreb said, kicking the crate. "If ya don't want to use the showers, it's fine," he tossed Horri-Bull a breath mint. "But it's your turn to scrub the GI shower. On top of that, you left a grease trail all over the entertainment deck. I can't even watch Sultry Sisters without getting a slick back."
Horri-Bull cast a weary glare at Kreb. He scoffed and blew more black smoke.
Their four teammates inside the base, Brisko and Fangry, Lokos and Squeezeplay, along with Slugfest, sat listening to eighties rock on Slugfest's transceiver. Brisko lazily slapped the drinking bird toy on the console to get it to do its dunk routine again. Simple Mind's "Forget about Me," buzzed to a halt when a blipping sound was heard coming from Slugfest.
"It's a transmission!" Slugfest shouted.
Squeezeplay looked at the small green stegosaurus-shaped Decepticon. "A what?"
"A transmission!" Slugfest padded his paws on the cold floor giddily.
"Bah. The only thing that comes out of you is an e-mission."
"Grrr. You making fun of me?" The little stegosaurus frowned as frightening as his cute reptilian features allowed him to. He reared up as though he were about to pounce.
"Alls I'm sayin' is the last time the whole place stank worse than Horri-Bull's chassis nodules."
Slugfest growled. "Just listen to it!"
The electric hall lights flipped on. Horri-Bull swaggered into the room, slipping his pistol to his side like a revolver into its holster. He grumbled. Soundwave should've loaned him one of the more reliable cassettes. He lifted the wobbly lizard onto the console, plugging him into the monitor.
It had been years since Megatron or any of the high rank officers had checked on them. And these Decepticon warriors were running low on energon, filaments and fuses, but more so on patience with the Decepticon cause.
Brisko analyzed the signal, spinning his pen. "It's a Nebulon distress signal. It comes from the Bowie system." He pointed to display map and set his digit on a planet named Magnon.
A journey to investigate the disturbance would burn fuel, but to find Nebulon tech could prove useful. Even possibly giving them power enough to rise higher in the ranks.
Lokos rubbed his duranium chin. He recognized the Nebulon message. "Could be lots of loot. Could be friendly. Don't know yet. Signal's getting warped."
Horri-Bull prodded Slugfest. "Can't you do some-thing 'bout that?"
Slugfest unplugged from the monitor. "This isn't my fault! Stop accusing me!" The lizard charged at Horri-Bull, headbutting his shin. "Terri-ble Tan-trum," is what Horri-Bull called it and he kicked the lizard aside. The three small Decepticons frowned at Horri-Bull. He took notice of their displeasure. "What are you child-ren look-ing at?" He looked from the green cassette, to the little Nebulons. He snorted a dark cloud. "Whelps."
Brisko hissed. "I can't decode the rest of the transmission… because the tantrum destroyed the information."
"No matter," Fangry said. "We'll go to the planet. Prepare the ship."
Kreb nodded. It would be good to get everyone out of here, before they wrecked the base with their squabbling. He wished he could have seen what went missing from the transmission. He couldn't have guessed, but if he had managed to read the remainder, it could have saved many lives.
The three left Outpost 9 to investigate. The three Decepticons had few allies to aid them. They were unpopular among their own kind, which is difficult when you're a Decepticon. Frankly, Horri-Bull was unpopular among his two partners. He would find their soap bars in his energon canisters. Their transformations gave them bodies designed better for fighting fauna on alien worlds just like the Horrorcons or Weirdwolf's team. In a physical fight, they could gain an advantage against bipedal robot forms easily. It was the only reason they hadn't been discarded years ago, but because they lacked the invaluable firepower of, say, Tidalwave, or the reconnaissance of Scourge, they were seen as unwanted.
Lokos was particularly unnerved by Horri-Bull. He had been known among his kind as a valuable plunderer. He had joined the Outpost 9 team because it seemed gainful at the time. He had made bots weep while they begged him for their lives. The words Horri-Bull used to describe him had not left. They circled over his memory components like a hungry buzzard. Both a whelp and a child.
A red planet descended behind a titanium moon. It leered like a hovering eye, the silvery-metallic moon, its eyelid. It was impossible to see the features of the planet's surface which were obscured by crimson clouds. On their graphs, a blinking green dot appeared beyond some topographic canyons. There were no haling signals—no safety frequencies or attempts at communication—only the droning beep of the green dot, the source of the transmission. They punched its atmosphere, with the clouds rattling the hull of their starship. Through the goldenrod and emerald gasses, planet Magnon revealed several features beyond the haze. There lay a small city with roads creeping like roots over vermillion canyons.
They descended on a landing field set on a shelf of sedimentary stone near the outskirts of the city.
When they left the perimeter of their landing platform, they came upon a startling sight. Slain transformers were strewn about the city streets. They found a ruin of villages. Gunfire smolder marks scorched energon rigs. A crater at the military base had the telltale signs of atomization.
Fangry stared into the empty sockets of the bodies. As a soldier, he was not squeamish when it came to dead bodies. He had seen plenty in his lifetime. The remains of many Cybertronians had fallen prey to his fire-arm… or his fangs. These corpses, however, unnerved him. A decapitated head had been tossed out on the dirt path like a broken boulder, a marker for the entrance to the town. The head's open jaws were locked in an expression of agony. The hollow black recesses where the optics should be made Fangry's circuits run cold.
A huge attack had come to Magnon. But what was it? And were there any survivors? The signal, they soon discovered, came from a research facility antenna which had been locked in a transmission cycle for every twenty-five Earth orbits. The original transmission had broadcast twenty thousand years ago.
"Strange," Brisko said, viewing the data scripts.
Fangry wrinkled his snout. Brisko never got used to that. Fangry was like a burn victim, charred but would lash out at the slightest registry of pain. "The entries were encrypted in gigatron code."
Fangry growled. It meant Brisko needed to explain before Fangry lost his temper and would start tearing at things. "Gigatron code is an encryption language used by Nebulons."
Brisko, Kreb and Lokos received strange stares from the three larger, hulking, Decepticons.
"Can you translate it?" Squeezeplay asked. His itchy claws rattled.
"It will take some time," Brisko said. "Could take hours."
This didn't sit well with the larger bots. It sounded suspicious. Squeezeplay waved a claw. "Forget it. Just take the data. We'll sort it out later. Meantime, look for survivors."
Horri-Bull took Kreb with him. Kreb had gotten quiet now. It made Horri-Bull sweat crude oil. He knew what to take his ease off. He shot a rusted hanging sign with a bolt from his pistol. The sign collapsed and shattered, making Horri-Bull chortle. Horri-Bull wished he had been stranded with Slugslinger and Triggerhappy instead. He didn't trust Kreb. Kreb was too smart for his own good.
The sign had been hanging off what looked like an old energon diner. Kreb gulped. Was Horri-Bull trying to intimidate him? There must have been some energy left at the diner. A circuit still functioned. The collapse of the sign turned on a series of glowing screens inside.
"How about it? Still feeling tough?" Kreb asked Horri-Bull. The larger Decepticon snorted. He pushed aside the broken door and held his blaster close. On the ground were footprints—some sort of space rats… but no bot traces. Horri-Bull sniffed. His nose knew. The stench of greasy joint oil was coming from below the floorboards. Horri-Bull punched the floor, ripping it from the ground. A set of stairs had hidden under the diner. Horri-Bull lead the way and Kreb kept a safe distance behind him.
At the bottom of the stairs was an iron door. Horri-Bull transformed. He became the powerful beast that Kreb hid from. Horri-Bull pawed his split hooves on the ground and charged both horns against the iron door. It buckled under his weight, slamming aside.
Kreb choked back a frightened cry. Behind the door was an immense dusty cavern. A giant robotic hand was held outstretched; the palm was the size of a space ship. Horri-Bull whistled from excitement. Kreb analyzed the limb. The arm belonged to a massive Cybertronian, one on the same scale as the planet eater, he thought.
The hand had been hollowed out, a cavity was visible in the palm running up the wrist, creating a cavern within a cavern. Horri-Bull and Kreb peered inside.
Kreb stayed close to Horri-Bull. "Eh, not to sound like a joykill, but perhaps it'd be better to get the others before checking it out. Better them than us, am I right?" He chuckled nervously.
Horri-Bull grunted. "We'll be all-right." He grabbed Kreb and set him down on the fingers. Compared to Kreb who was so small, the large hand could have held a million Krebs and easily have closed its grip. Kreb wondered if the life-spark was completely extinguished inside the giant.
The cavern wound up to the arm joint and traveled into the chest. A found series of semi-responding lamps flickering on and off when they detected their presence. The system was designed to illuminate their path as they traversed the innards of the Cybertronian, though the broken pipes—the fractured gears—indicated the giant had perished years ago. Rusted carbon build-up and bleached vapor residue had built up a patina on the delicate arterial tubing. They had just passed what would be the neck of the giant, when they felt the splintering prick of frost.
Temperatures had suddenly dropped in the surroundings and a vault lay ahead, sealed with a turning valve. Horri-Bull wasted no time to turn the wheel, which broke off, rusted in his hand. He pulled the massive door aside and the metal screeched from loosening. He pried it open just enough to let the two of them through. The room was chilled, at below 18 Celsius. Horri-Bull moved his horned head side to side. A life support machine, a gurney of monitors and wires, was plugged into the wall. In the center of the room was a container, like a tube, a restoration module. Someone or something lay inside.
The two looked at one another. Horri-Bull wiped the frost accumulated on the glass window away. Inside the tube, lay a prostrate figure.
"The readout is still active. He's alive," Kreb said. He brushed the ice aside to stare at the face under the glass. "Though he'd look more at home in a supermarket freezer."
"Then let's wake them up." Horri-Bull said.
"We don't know if they're damaged."
"We'll know soon e-nough." Horri-Bull ripped the plug from the wall. An emergency light flickered on the panel of the module, then the soft click of the window door unlocked. The frozen carbon dioxide gas vapor escaped from the cracked open tube. A small body lay on the slab. It was a purple Cybertronian, the size of Kreb. The height of Horri-Bull's shin. It was a Nebulon.
"Friend of yours?" Horri-Bull asked.
Kreb paused, his optics analyzed the body of the comatose robot. An awful long time was spent examining. Horri-Bull shuffled, it felt eerie.
"You, my fish-stick friend, are preserved well. Functions, adequate. Neuro wave-states are… in deep stasis."
The two shared a look until Kreb got anxious and gestured they should get the body out. And in his mind he envisioned the icy capsule as a stolen relic, it was the heart of the giant whose interiors would collapse if he were to draw breath.
It was by fortune that they made it back to their comrades without some superstitious malady. Fangry and Squeezeplay were surprised when the two returned with a body dangling under Horri-Bull's left arm. Just like Ricky Ricardo on Earth's broadcasted entertainment network, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.