Part Four
Chapter 7
Rattrap was dozing peacefully at the scanners, feet propped up on the console and hands behind his head, when he was jolted awake by the muted sound of the roof hatch opening. With lightning reflexes born from a lawless youth on Thesba's first colony moon and honed by three stellar-cycles of near-constant battle, he drew his blaster and trained it on the figure dropping lightly to the deck.
Dierdre froze in a half-crouch, caught off guard. Her mind was scrambling to devise a plan of defense when the rodent's Transmetal finger relaxed off the trigger. "Oh, it's ya."
The woman straightened cautiously as Rattrap snorted and subspaced his weapon. "Didn't Cheetor tell you I was outside?"
"Da kiddo might 'ave mentioned somethin' about it." He settled himself comfortably back into his seat. "Didn't pay much attention."
Shaking her head in wry amusement, she muttered, "Wonderful."
"Eh… fleshie, jest what were ya doin' up dere?"
An unreadable emotion crossed her features. "Reaching a decision," was her only reply. She walked to the center corridor, only to stop at the entrance and look over her shoulder at Rattrap. When she spoke again her voice was calm, measured, but nevertheless held an edge of warning. "And my name's Dierdre, not 'fleshie.' You would do well to remember that."
She left without another word, feeling Rattrap's probing gaze bore into her back.
Finished.
Dierdre sighed in satisfaction and wiped her brow. It had taken the remainder of the night and most of the next morning, but she had finally completed all of the repairs to her Tech-Suit.
Setting her tool-kit aside, she ordered the armor into rest mode. She hefted the newly formed length of metal and, with a bit of careful maneuvering, reattached it to her TS-Connector. With the Falchonite2 plate now forming a familiar and comforting weight against her back, she advanced to the center of the room and spread her arms wide, the overhead lights casting her distorted shadow against the gunmetal gray walls. At her silent command, the metal lost its solidity and began to flow in mercurial rivulets over her shoulders and down her back, encasing her arms, legs and torso in its cool grip. Once the transformation was complete and the armor solidified, she performed a series of careful stretches, noting with professional pride how the suit expanded and contracted with her every movement, like a second skin.
Standing still once more, she concentrated for a moment and part of the metal band that encircled her brow dissolved into its component atoms. The metal slid down over her right eye and almost immediately solidified, looking for all the world like the eye patch of an ancient Earth pirate. She ran a self-diagnostic, ivory numbers and Anglic lettering running with brisk efficiency across the tiny screen just millimeters from her pupil. Satisfied, Dierdre sent it a final mental nudge and the metal crawled back up the woman's face, where it again merged with the circlet. Everything checked out at optimum capacity, but she had to be certain.
Time for a test.
At the bridge, Optimus looked up from his consultation with Rhinox at the faint sound of footsteps emanating from the central passage. The Maximal commander had long since learned to identify each bot under his command just from the sound they made as they walked. These footfalls were much too light to have been made by any of his crew, which meant…
"Good morning, Dierdre."
The human came to a halt beside the central console and grinned tiredly at him. "Nearly afternoon."
Rhinox swiveled around in his seat and eyed the human. Even to his inexperienced eye the exhaustion that had darkened the skin around her eyes was noticeable, yet her grin was genuine and slightly triumphant. It was easy to understand the reason behind her smile, for even in the relatively dim lighting of the bridge her suit gleamed; its silver surface smooth and unmarred. "You finished the repairs," he stated.
Her grin widened further and she nodded, pirouetting for the technician's benefit, who watched with scientific interest as her armor shifted and stretched to accommodate her every movement. Rhinox's optics narrowed thoughtfully. This Falchonite2 metal really was fascinating. If he could convince Dierdre to become a proverbial guinea pig one more time, there was a whole new slew of tests he wished to try.
Unaware of his thoughts, Dierdre stopped her playful spin and once again grew serious. "My diagnostics check out normal," she said to Primal, "but I still need to perform a field test on my flight systems. Could I borrow Silverbolt or Cheetor for an hour or two?"
Optimus nodded. "Silverbolt's working in the hold at the moment, but Cheetor's available." He turned to the console long enough to summon the aforementioned cat before continuing, "While you're out there Cheetor can show you the borders of our territory and the location of our jamming towers. You'll be able to get a better idea of the layout than you would just by looking at the grid maps."
Dierdre nodded in agreement just as Cheetor bounded in with his usual exuberance. He tossed her a quick grin before focusing on Optimus. "Hey, Big Bot. What'd you want me for?"
As Optimus explained to Cheetor his assignment, the human moved to the console. At the touch of a button the roof hatch slid back with a familiar hiss, flooding the room with light. A slight breeze wafted in, bringing with it the scent of some exotic flower, and Dierdre inhaled deeply, her weariness fading away. It had been too long since she had flown unhindered through the blue skies of her homeworld.
She focused inward, her lids at half-mast, and the metal that spanned her shoulder blades began to writhe. It spread outward on either side of her body, solidifying in less than two spans of a human heartbeat into two stubby wings, each end tipped with a small bulge that marked the location of an engine turbine.
"Are you ready to leave, Cheetor?" At the other's nod, Dierdre continued, "Then let's see if a human can out-fly a cat."
Her engines flared to life and the air in the bridge vibrated with a sound reminiscent of the roar of a distant lion. A sudden gust of wind whipped around the room… and then she was gone, darting through the roof hatch and into the late morning sky with the swiftness of an arrow.
"Hey, no fair!" Cheetor laughingly declared. He raced to the lift and activated it, leaping off before it had descended even halfway. There was a brief sound of running feet, and when Rhinox looked up a moment later two flashes of silver and gold could be seen chasing each other across the sky.
Optimus closed the hatch, once again shutting the bridge away from the outside world, his mouth curved into a slightly pensive frown. The expression was not lost to Rhinox, who said, "They'll look out for each other, Optimus. Don't worry."
"That's not my concern."
Rhinox raised an eye ridge. "Then what?"
"Two solar-cycles ago, Dierdre gave me her word that she would not leave the base until the repairs on her body armor were complete. She kept her promise, but now there is nothing binding her here. Unless we can convince her to let us assist in her hunt for the data disk," Optimus crossed his arms with a low exhale, "I fear she might try something foolish."
"Waspinator! Cease with that incessant buzzing, you imbecilic waste of cerebral-circuitry, or I shall use you for target practice! Oh, yes..."
To say Megatron was annoyed was not saying much. The Predacon leader had spent the better part of two solar-cycles bent over a computer terminal, forgoing rest and recharge in an attempt to decipher the code imbedded into the human's data disk. Yet, despite this intensity of concentration, he had made far less progress than he had initially postulated. The code had proven to be infuriatingly complex; as intricate and multilayered as a DNA strand, and fraught with dead-ends, pitfalls, useless copy ciphers and decoy binaries. The creators of this code had obviously gone to great pains to protect the disk's contents, and Megatron's desire to know its secrets had grown from mere opportunistic curiosity to borderline obsession.
Oh, yes, Megatron was an unhappy tyrant. And the fact that Waspinator had spent nearly half a mega-cycle circling overhead, his irregular wing beats creating strange echoes against the battle bridge's high metal dome, was nothelping matters.
The buzzing stopped abruptly, and moments later a giant wasp-shaped robot touched down on a platform stretching over the bubbling lava pool. "Wazzpinator zorry," he quavered.
"As well you should be. Now… GET OUT!"
Transforming to beast mode with a startled yelp, he hurriedly shot through one of the many corridors that led away from the battle bridge. As the erratic echo of his wings faded, his plaintive question, "Why doez everybot hate Wazzpinator?" wafted forlornly back to his leader's indifferent audio sensors.
Unable to control his anger, Megatron brought his fist down hard against the side of the computer console and glared at the screen, as if he could force the code to untangle itself by sheer strength of fury. Over a cycle passed before his optics narrowed further, as his agile mind observed something it had not noticed before. All anger forgotten, he leaned forward and began to type rapidly, manipulating the lines of code in an elaborate dance that few would be able to comprehend.
A few moments later, the screen flickered and the lines of code began to distort. His mouth curved upwards with the beginnings of smug satisfaction. This had not happened before; he must have deciphered it!
Megatron was silently congratulating himself on his brilliance when the screen flickered fitfully and went suddenly dark. "What in the Pit..?"
As if in answer, a mocking human voice, speaking in a language he had heard only once before, emanated from the console's speakers: "Dai, dai, na dai! Septicum weat, Predico!"
Before he could do anything of consequence every light on the Darksidebegan to power down with a high descending whine; a sound as ominous and unstoppable as the passage of time. Soon not even the emergency lights were working.
Megatron's bellow of outrage could be heard halfway to the Axalon.
Dierdre's laughter wafted up to Cheetor's audio sensors as he cavorted just under the bellies of the clouds, twisting and turning in a wild dance with the wind. Encouraged by the sound, he increased his speed, performing a quick series of summersaults that left his internal gyroscope protesting feebly and ending with a dramatic vertical climb; arching upward through a gap in the cumulous, his mouth open as if to catch the sun in his teeth. He was rewarded for this latest trick by another peal of mirth from the figure beneath him.
Feeling dizzy but more than a little pleased with himself, he drifted lazily down to fly alongside her. The human, who had continued to fly sedately when Cheetor began his impromptu aerial performance, smothered a spreading grin behind her hand. He tossed a smile in her direction before glancing down at the terrain passing slowly beneath them. It was good to hear her laugh; especially after the deep depression that had seemed dangerously close to smothering her last night.
Cheetor had grown quite fond of the human over the past few solar-cycles. She was interesting --a human! An actual living, breathing entity, not just a badly digitized holo projection like the ones made during the Great War-- and, most importantly, she had been kind to him. It was refreshing to talk with someone who knew nothing about his past exploits and, therefore, didn't treat him as if he were a slightly dimwitted child. She had listened intently to him when he had taken her on a tour of the base, and had seemed to find the information he imparted about the Predacons and their ship instructive. He hadn't felt so… usefulin quite some time.
She had struck him as a fundamentally good-natured and cheerful person, which was why last night had come as something of a shock. She had seemed so incredibly sad just before she made her escape to the roof of the Axalon, and her shoulders had been uncharacteristically stooped, as if the weight of the world rested squarely between her shoulder blades. Her eyes had seemed a thousand years old.
What could have happened to her to make her eyes like that?
He firmly suppressed the curiosity those disturbing thoughts aroused and cast a sidelong glance at Dierdre. She was flying easily beside him; her eyes narrowed against the wind that lashed at her red braid, her mouth curved into a slight frown. Her attention seemed to be focused inward.
His optics narrowed in a way that had nothing to do with the wind. Oh, no, she doesn't! He had worked hard this morning to chase the sadness from her eyes, and he wasn't about to let her ruin her burgeoning good mood with pensive musings.
"Hey, Red!" he called, his voice raised to be heard over the combined whine of their engines. "The next jamming tower is only a few klicks away; I'll race you! I might even let you win this time." He winked at her as best as his beast-mode was capable.
Dierdre automatically opened her mouth to decline, when something stopped the words in her throat. She was supposed to be scouting out the terrain, true, but between here and the next tower there wasn't really much to see. They were well within Maximal territory and a recent scanner sweep had revealed no Predacons within a seven kilometer radius.
She sighed. It was tempting, but…
A glance in Cheetor's direction quickly melted the last of her resistance. He looked eager, and so hopeful that it was nearly impossible to refuse him. It would be like kicking a puppy. Besides, an internal voice suddenly declared, she deserved a little fun, didn't she? It would probably be a very long time before she had a chance to enjoy herself like this again.
"You're on, Cheetor!" she cried, a silent command causing her engines to roar and flare with renewed life. She shot forward, moving so quickly that she failed to notice Cheetor's triumphant grin as he increased his speed to catch up.
"Optimus."
The Maximal commander looked up from his computer console with a grunt of enquiry at the unexpected sound of Rhinox's voice. A moment later he spoke to the empty air, "What is it, Rhinox?"
Static crackled over the intercom in a short staccato burst. "Something's happening over at the Pred base. You'd better get down here."
Somewhat grateful for the interruption, he turned his attention away from the latest worrying Energon consumption analysis and stood up. "I'm on my way."
Optimus peered over his science officer's broad shoulder as information scrolled across the console, data interspersed with grainy photos of the downed Predacon ship made even less distinct by the utter lack of lighting anywhere on the base. "How did this happen?"
Big hands moved with blurring speed as Rhinox fought to pull up more data from the uncooperative perimeter scanners. "I'm not sure," he admitted, "but it seems like the Darkside'smain computer suffered a massive power surge right before it shut down."
"Hrm… Natural systems degradation?"
"Possible, but unlikely. If they have any sense at all, they'd have all pertinent systems backed up on a secondary computer for just such an eventuality." Rhinox highlighted a strand of data. "And it seems that alltheir ship's systems are down, not just the main computer. For the moment, it's a dead base."
"Can you postulate how long this power outage will last?" Optimus muttered lowly, a dozen possible ways to capitalize on this advantage flickering behind his optics.
After a short pause and a busy moment of typing, Rhinox shook his head. "Negative. I can't even begin to guess until I know what caused it in the first place."
"Prime," he sighed, straightening and crossing his arms. Fingers drumming absently against his left forearm, he seemed in deep thought. The rhythmic tapping stopped as he abruptly extended an arm and pressed a button on the console, activating the Axalon'scommunication system. After a brief moment of fiddling with the frequency dial, he leaned forward and spoke, "Dierdre, this is Optimus Primal. Do you read me?"
Response came quickly. "I copy, Optimus," Dierdre said over her communicator, sounding a bit out of breath, but cheerful.
"Is your scanner powerful enough to perform a quick sweep of the Predacon base from your location?" At her affirmative, he continued before she could give voice to any questions, "Then do so now, please. There is something I'd like for you to see."
The background hum of her suit's engines dropped several decibels as she complied, halting her forward momentum to hover like a hummingbird. There was a mechanical chattering as she activated her scanner followed by a long pause, which was abruptly shattered by a sharp gasp and a vehement "Haave!".
Suspicions confirmed by her reaction, Optimus stated, "This power outage is the result of one of those 'safeguards' that protect your data disk."
"Yes," the human grimly confirmed, all traces of former levity leeching from her voice as though they had never been. "Cheetor and I are coming in now. ETA; twelve cycles."
"Acknowledged," he replied. "See you soon. Optimus out."