Hammerhead.
Warnings: Violence, bad language, gore and possibly some sex.
"Through this doorway what's on the other side, never knowing exactly what I'll find, locked and loaded, voices screaming: let's go, come on do it, here we go!" – Hammerhead, the Offspring.
Timing: Post season 2 finale, set few weeks after Beauty of the Beast in my very own BotB Prime Timeline (due to the fact that season 3 – The Beast Hunters is about to be aired at the end of March).
Rating: M (alternative – if there will be any – or extended chapters will go MA and will be available on my Tumblr account, the address is available on my profile page).
Pairings: Megatron and June, Bumblebee and Miko, maybe some Shockwave and Arcee.
Disclaimer: Transformers Prime © Hasbro. Story's plot and OC's © me. There may be some OC's that aren't mine – they belong to their respective creators.
Searching, Seek and Destroy.
A slightly beaten puck-up car parked on a parking lot of some mall. It was still early and there weren't many cars parked around just yet, mostly similar looking ones. The driver remained inside, clearly waiting for someone to arrive.
He didn't have to wait very long. Maybe ten minutes after him a woman came. She didn't draw attention when she hurried across the area. Her light blonde, wavy hair were pulled back in tight bun, she was dressed casual in light grey blouse and indigo jeans with pair of ordinary looking sneakers. Anyone who saw her would think that she was just another busy mother who just drove her kid to the school and was about to go shopping for groceries.
She looked around and got into the non-descript pick-up. Some random observer could think that this "busy mum" had simply a romance with whoever was driving the pick-up. That wasn't planned but neither the woman nor the man would complain about that.
The woman took a minute to settle inside and too a tablet that the man offered her. She was scrolling through some documents for few minutes. There was a moment of silence after she done.
"It looks decent enough." The woman finally spoke. "Just as you said, the results aren't perfect but they're satisfactory. Quite well for a prototype and following versions will get us closer to perfection."
"The size is still an issue. We couldn't get anything smaller than what we got at this point." The man answered casually sounding as he would speak of dinner preparations. "The power source is still too large and we don't have anything smaller that would be sufficient enough to power the device."
"Yes. Also the barrel, or should I say projector, is quite long."
"Yes. It is necessary, we need enough amount of coil to generate the impulse and set the charge that will be strong enough. It also helps to send the charge in desired direction." The man cleared his throat. "At this point it can be installed on a vehicle. Future, smaller versions should resemble fire throwers and have similar size. We believe that it would be most sufficient design with battery in a form of a back pack and projector held in operator's hands. The energy would be transferred through a cable."
"Hmm. Sound reasonable." The woman smiled. "But this is not why you wanted to see me, Ripley?"
"No Silia. We managed to get pictures of Decepticon tower outside of Jasper. We used various spectrums and make analysis of what we saw there. The photographs are in the 'Pictures' folder."
The woman gave the man named Ripley fish eye and then opened 'Pictures' folder that contained several images: pictures of the tower in various spectrums: visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, X-rays, there was an image of magnetic fields and energy radiation. The observation took place in extended period of time; there were several shots of every kind.
"What am I looking at?" The woman named Silia asked.
"We were observing the Decepticon Tower for two weeks. They are communicating in, what we presume is their native language, it is composed of clicks, buzzes, whirrs, whizzes, blips and various other electronic-like sounds, including the sound of digital dialling. But we were able to make photos of the Tower. The most interesting ones are infrared and energy radiation."
The woman took her time contemplating infrared and radiations pictures. "Fine. What do those pictures tell us?"
"Let's start with infrared." Ripley touched icon of the most recent infrared picture. "As you can see the tower is cooler than the desert, this picture was taken during the day. It absorbed the heat but still is a lot cooler. Now, the night view…" The man chose different picture. "It shows us that the tower is a lot warmer than desert at night."
"What is so unusual about that? It is natural."
"Yes, but notice how certain parts of the Tower change their temperature. You can see that the lowest area is affected less than higher parts. In fact it holds almost the same temperature during the day and night while other areas are warmer at the day. Of course by 'warmer' I mean they're slightly warmer than during the night but the fact of temperature differences allows us to guess that the lowest areas are most probably living quarters."
"Why do you think so?"
Ripley grinned. "We know that they don't like too high nor too low temperatures. Also they hate when the temperature changes too abruptly. It won't harm them, at least not by much, but they won't feel well. It would be reasonable that the areas where they rest, regenerate and refuel would be as comfortable as possible. They need to rest just like we do."
"Alright. It's logical." Silia studied the infrared photography. "Anything else?"
"Not from this photo. But the energy radiation reveals a lot more." Ripley chose another image.
It was almost black image filled with venomous green spots and lines that were shaped into something that looked like a Tower. It was beautiful sight, most dainty combination of lines and knots wrapped up together like some odd webbing.
"They have some powerful energy sources. There seems to be some powerful device on the roof" Silia noticed how bright and numerous those knots and lines were and how there was this gigantic flash on the top of everything. "But it looks like middle area is almost blank."
"Yes. That's the most interesting thing." Ripley enlarged the middle part of the Tower. "It is not powered at all. Only few lines go there, we think those are elevators and other transport devices, maybe some minor systems. Other than that it is dead."
"Do we know why it is so?"
"We suspect that it may be something that consume a lot of energy but is not crucial for their survival. It is underpowered but there was activity there, they are preparing those few levels, just they don't use them yet." The man chose another picture showing slightly elevated radiation but not nearly as high as in other parts of the Tower. "We do know that Decepticons tend to steal out technology in order to use it for their own needs. We guess that soon they will try to get them powerful generator to use it on this blank area. They did that twice or trice before and they may try to do it yet again."
"Hmm. That would be perfect opportunity to use our new weapon on them." Silia closed all folders and turned the tablet off. "But do we know where they may strike?"
"As a matter of fact, we do. They did stolen generators before and they always took certain type."
Silia stared at Ripley for a long moment before she smiled widely. "Do they? And where do you think they will look for this generator?"
"We know of two locations in the USA and three other outside the country: two in Europe and one in Japan. The European and Japanese generators are unlike targets as they are hard to reach. One of the American generators in located in Area 51 and Decepticons won't risk attacking it."
"Care to tell me why?"
"This is secret research facility. Government builds various secret weapons and aircrafts there – hence the UFO rumours. Decepticons have no way of learning just what the can be hit with if they will attack Area 51."
"That leaves us with just one localisation." Silia's lips changed into thin line. This was it. "Are we ready?"
"We are. And there is more. The facility has two generators, we can not only test our weapon and maybe even get ourselves some examples of mechanical aliens but we can also claim those generators for ourselves."
"I like your way of thinking. Can you drive me to my motel? I would pick up my stuff and we can go to the base."
The pick-up's engine rumbled and the car drove out of the parking lot.
Starscream crossed his optics, he already felt tired and annoyed. All those details and specifications that Shockwave was pouring over his head were slowly working on causing him a migraine.
Migraine. It was an Earth term for splitting, persistent and intense cranium ache. Starscream hated everything that had anything common with this accursed mud-ball, but he found that the term was more than accurate when it came to what he felt when he had to deal with Shockwave. The mech could just state that he wants very powerful generator but instead Starscream received litany of parameters. The only thing that Shockwave didn't mentioned (yet) was the colour of the device. But it would probably be some fetching shade of dark purple.
"Starscream, are even listening to me? Are you able to find such a device?" Starscream snapped back to reality when Shockwave called his name.
"Yes, in fact I was thinking of places where we could find something like that." Starscream lied with mach 3 speed. "Japanese device is hard to get to; it is in heavily populated area. European devices are underground, connected to some accelerator that they use to collide hadrons with. We did that before the war, very interesting but we're not after that. We have two places on this continent. I wouldn't suggest Area 51 even though it is the closest one…"
"Why not?"
"They only have one generator and the place is filled with experimental weapons. Primus only knows what we could accidentally detonate there."
"Yes, indeed." Shockwave shrugged remembering the Electromagnet Incident. "That would be undesirable."
"Then there is just one place, and luckily, they have two generators. My sources state that one is running and one is just being finished, they are yet to use it." Starscream tapped his chin with one long claw. "It is the same facility we attacked before. It shouldn't be hard…"
"Good. We may begin preparations. I will inform Lord Megatron."
Starscream watched as Shockwave marched out from the control room of New Kaon. The migraine started to pass the same moment when the doors closed behind the Cyclops. The jet begun to wonder if Shockwave installed himself some Seeker repelling device or the mech just had this effect on Decepticon SIC just by himself.
TBC.
OH, the last week was awful! It was snowy, it was cold and it was just tiresome. I can't even look at the snow anymore! If I will never see it again it will be too soon. And I know it will be here for some time before it'll melt and that in some months it will return. I imagine Optimus and Arcee felt the same after "Scrapheap" episode. And I do join Starscream in his disgust for Antarctic.