Robotech vs Transformers: Revenge Road
"How badly damaged are the Stuntacons?" Megatron demanded grimly as he strode into the 'sick bay' in the caverns beneath the mine.
The two worst damaged were laying on technologically advanced beds, monitoring their condition as Scrapper and the other Constructicons filled in for the presumed dead Medic from their ship. Motormaster, the leading Stuntacon, was the worst hurt, his chest plate cracked open and still faintly smoking.
"Bad enough that they'll be out of action awhile," Scrapper admitted. "Ramming a jet into him did enough internal damage, I'm surprised he even made it back."
"Or that they'd want to save him," Hook added dryly as he worked on the second most injured Stuntacon nearby.
Megatron growled softly. He was well aware of how all the Stuntacons loathed each other. That was a normal leadership style among their kind: terrorizing the weaker into obedience. Apparently, though, applying it to a combiner was a bad idea.
"He should be repaired in a few days," Scrapper added quickly, ignoring a burst of sparks from the exposed chest.
Megatron nodded, "Do your best to hurry that along." With that he left the cave, his expression grim as he walked away.
"Sir, I..." Runabout hurried to catch up with Megatron in the corridor, the smaller transformer looking nervous about reporting in.
"Yes?" Megatron coldly gazed down at him.
Runabout cringed a bit under his look. Quickly he said, "We successfully intercepted the parts convoy, but the humans had a new mecha, a kind of transforming tank. We were driven off, thankfully with no losses."
Megatron wanted to shout at him, but held back. The scouting missions had been undermanned, and he knew it. "Upload the data to our tactical computer," he ordered him instead, "I'll want to study them in detail."
"Yes, Megatron," he said gratefully as he hurried off.
Megatron strode past the Energon storage vault, glad to see some building up. They had also managed to covertly tap into a dam not far from the caverns, and were processing energon from that too. It would be more efficient to simply seize the dam, but he was reluctantly keeping a low profile.
The new computer center was a rebuilt chunk of earther machines, put together by Scrapper in his spare time. Remarkably it was reasonably good by their standards, and could process directly imput data from a transformer. Annoyingly, Darkshadow was already there, reviewing the data.
"I see you are as busy as ever," Megatron noted dryly.
Darkshadow stood at attention, "I was merely organizing the data for you, sir."
"Of course," Megatron drawled.
Looking a bit flustered Darkshadow quickly brought up the data. "While the energy cannon is not as good as ours," she pointed out the tank's cannon, "it is powerful, and in numbers will be quite devastating."
Megatron grunted as he read the data file. The human's hadn't replicated the full powered fusion canon they used, but the weapon they has was strong enough. ESPECIALLY since they were attacking in large groups.
"Our team was lucky to escape alive," Megatron conceded.
"They were successful in destroying the convoy," Darkshadow added, "and a second team were able to bomb the manufacturing plants."
"And do a great deal of damage to the city," Megatron smiled, "that may be ore important to our victory than striking the plants."
"Sir...?" Darkshadow looked confused.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Admiral Gloval braced himself, but Captain Grant looked more annoyed than anything else. "Sir, this is exactly what the Decepticons want us to do," she said grimly.
"We're facing immense political pressure after these attacks," Gloval sighed, the former Russian looking annoyed at his superiors, "the people want the protection their tax dollars paid for."
"Which will disperse the combat force we only just managed to build up," Claudia said.
Gloval sighed, "I know, I know. But the Decepticons were very clever, hitting soft targets in scattered locations around the world."
Claudia nodded grimly. A few days ago the Decepticons had used their speed and flight advantage to hit targets across the planet, blowing holes in cities and other, lightly defended targets. It had been a gamble, because to hit so many targets they had been forced to send out tiny forces to each, but the results had been worth it. Now every government thought they were under threat, and were demanding security forces.
"Do we know how bad this will hit us?" Claudia asked.
"Badly, but not as bad as it could be," Gloval admitted. "The first production run of the Tanks and Cyclones will go to city defence, now. That's non-debatable. But I have prioritized the Super-Veritechs to go to our top pilots on the Fortresses, with the older models put to defence"
"That's something at least," Claudia admitted.
"Not that the picket forces we'll be putting at each city will really be enough to guard them," Gloval admitted, "but it'll make the politicians shut up."
"Heh," Claudia smiled faintly. "Your accent gets thicker when you get annoyed," she noted to her old friend.
"Lisa is kind enough not to point that out," Gloval grumped.
Claudia just chuckled softly.
Gloval looked thoughtful, "Where is Lisa, anyway? I expected her to barge into my office as soon as she heard about the cuts."
"That's actually kind of my fault," Claudia admitted, "After she did so much helping cover for me when Roy was injured, I decided to make her take some time off."
"It's about time," Gloval agreed,
"And it gives Izzy a chance to ask her out without either of them being called away," Claudia winked impishly.
This time Gloval chuckled softly.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"After listening to me rant for five minutes over the decision to yank those mecha away from us, you must think I'm nuts," Lisa admitted ruefully as they are in the swank restaurant together.
"No, just passionate," Izzy teased, making Lisa blush a bit. "Besides, I agree with you. It's stupid, but we're stuck with it."
"Well, let's drop it for now," Lisa offered with a smile.
"Fair enough," Izzy agreed. "But if we can't talk about work, what can we talk about?" she gently teased.
Lisa laughed, "You mean I can't talk about Claudia and Roy getting caught in the conference room having a quickie?"
Izzy snickered, "No, besides I think everyone has heard about it by now."
"I THINK I've kept it from Gloval, so far," Lisa corrected.
Izzy smirked, "Hope so, or the meeting they had today was REALLY uncomfortable."
Both laughed at that mental image.
Lisa smiled as they finished up dinner, the waitress soon arriving to ask if they'd like desert. "What do you think?" she asked Izzy.
"I'd say you're sweet enough for me," Izzy batted her eyes.
"If you are sucking up for a promotion, it's working," Lisa laughed. She looked at the waitress, "How about just a refill, please?"
"Thank god I'm no longer in your direct chain of command," Izzy added with a smile.
"Fraternization rules," Lisa agreed, "now, you're Roy's problem and I can safely ask you out."
"Your drinks," the waitress returned with a bottle of chilled champagne.
"We didn't order that," Izzy blinked.
"Roy Fokker had it sent over, actually," she explained, then added with a smirk, "there's a note for you, too."
Lisa looked at the paper, laughed and handed it to Izzy. "What?" Izzy asked as she looked at it.
"Hope you get lucky!" it read.
"Roy, you jackass," Izzy laughed, shaking her head.
To be continued...