Chapter 14:
Point of No Return
In the dark of the hidden underlevels of his 'secret' base, Todd adjusted his outfit. No sooner had he taken the edge off his hunger, he'd stripped out of his ridiculous human garments and dressed himself in appropriate Wraith attire. It wasn't because of vanity. The Wraith did not have such a concept. It was merely that the clothing was part of his identity. As part of the administrative caste, it helped set him apart from the masked, faceless drones that made up the bulk of the population. Also, it was largely waterproof, and helped him regulate his internal temperature better. To a human, the black, leathery garments were little more than a simple set of pants and boots with a flowing trench coat. To him though, it was home.
Checking the buckles at the waist one more time, he nodded to himself and reached into the hidden cubby-hole under the panic room's floor and retrieved a stunner pistol, along with a knife and a tracking beacon. He holstered the former, then activated the latter before bending back down to press the small button at the edge of the hole to seal the cache. It was likely an empty gesture to be honest. He might never return here after this day. Still, it never hurt to be tidy in his experience. He strode over to a small, slimy flap of flesh stretched between two bony outgrowths on the wall near the entrance. Its surface flashed, displaying readouts in his native language indicating the sensor arrays had detected a ship exiting hyperspace in deep orbit. The arrays were too low on power to provide details on the craft, but the energy signature of the hyperspace window itself was consistent with that of a Hive ship.
Todd smiled a cat's smile, subtle and smug. It appeared his expectations had not been far-fetched after all. When he'd originally set out to the Milky Way several years back, during the mishap that had left him trapped in Atlantis, he'd been careful to ensure that he'd have at least a few resources to call on should things go awry and he found himself prevented from returning for an extended period. Of those options, this Hive was his lynchpin. Out of the dozens he'd commanded, it alone could be depended on to answer when all else was lost. The reason for this was rather complex. Back when he'd been in charge of an alliance of Hives, he'd used a ploy involving the human Teyla to create the persona of a Wraith queen to whom the others would bow. She'd then conveniently 'entered seclusion' shortly afterwards, leaving matters of leadership to Todd himself ensuring he held the penultimate reigns of authority. So it was with all Hives, or unions thereof. If a Wraith blade like himself wanted power, it had to flow from a queen, and queens rarely respected the judgement of anyone but a fellow queen. That was why males could never rise higher than consorts. His scientific and tactical prowess might have earned him many offices and ranks, up to and including Hivemaster, but ultimately all life and all authority flowed from the females. The fact that his deferred power hadn't been enough to dissuade the queen of the Hive that had brought him to Earth from her insane course of action was simply proof of that.
Of course, while most queens were domineering and filled with ambition, a few were more level-headed and open to reason. If Todd's assumptions were correct, the Hive now in orbit was led by one such queen, one with whom he had cultivated a very personal relationship. During his pseudo-reign, he'd given her the pick of the very best feeding grounds, and the strongest, most intelligent warriors, provided they shared in his philosophy that survival was vital above all, and that humility was a necessary trait to this end.
As he levered himself up and out of the panic room, Todd reflected that this mode of thinking was what had lost him the confidence of that other queen, during that unfortunate events following that retrospectively ill-advised inter-galactic pursuit. Perhaps it said something about him and those like him that they could sublimate their hunger enough to better recognize the severity of certain threats, and the benefit of taking specific risks. After all, no other Wraith would've bargained for access to the retrovirus like he had when Sheppard had drafted him into service back on Earth.
Taking a turn in the small passage and continuing to crawl, Todd continued to think on things. Whatever Sheppard might've thought, he'd been honest in his interest regarding the transformative gene therapy, despite the many bad situations it had drawn him into as a result. For all the problems it had caused him, he could still remember those brief few days after he'd tested a prototype version on himself, when for the first time in thousands of years of life, his hunger had fallen silent. There had been nothing quite like it. It was as though he'd spent his existence being eaten alive from the inside out by millions of tiny insects, only to awaken and find that they had died, suddenly and all at once.
Then the new hunger had arisen, almost as strong as the old, accompanied by fresh pains as tumors had sprouted in his flesh, forcing him to risk life and limb to revert for the sake of his own bodily security. Still the memory of that serenity had been good, and ever since he'd dreamed of getting it back, even if just for a little while. Perhaps one day he would. For now though, his goals were more immediate. He had to get off this planet and back into space, among his own kind. He'd spent enough time helping humans.
The side-passage he'd taken ran parallel to the curve of the reactor chamber for some ways, before turning again and leading away from it, terminating in a circular shaft with handholds and grip-points all around the sides. He squirmed his way into the tight cylindrical space, then began levering himself up, one step at a time. The top of of the tube lit up as he came within reach, and a tap from his fingers caused it to slide aside, revealed a small, uncluttered room above, Clambering out of the manhole-sized shaft, Todd pulled himself upright, the ghostly ache of his recently-regenerated injury causing him to experience a brief spell of dizziness. He was still hungry. Hopefully his 'rescuers' would have the means to fix that. Meanwhile, he'd just have to cope.
The closet-sized space was an offshoot of the central corridor leading to the main control hub, and was host to little more than a few controls for assessing basic functions regarding power conversion, provided you didn't know how to override the control stalk's function and access the central mainframe, which Todd did. After a little squelching and digging around beneath the surface of the sticky, membranous display, he was able to gain access to the base's external sensors. They quickly confirmed for him what his species' psychic senses were already picking up on: the Hive had launched a few darts and a small recovery vessel to investigate his signal. They would be landing in about five minutes. All that remained was for him to be there to greet them. He smiled again, this time in triumph, then abandoned the panel and stepped out in the corridor.
Two minutes later, he was standing under the overhang at the entrance to the base, staring down the muddy slope the surrounding hill had turned into. The torrential rain had ceased for now, though fresh fog and distant rumblings signalled it would likely return soon. It had left the landscape in a mess of puddles and dark gray slush, a vision of dull, colorless misery. Todd didn't care. All that mattered was that the landing struts of the retrieval craft didn't sink into the mire. As if summoned by his thoughts, the high buzzing shriek of Darts in flight echoed across the horizon, followed shortly by the appearance of a great, dark, isosceles shadow in the murky grey skies. The heavy throb of its engines rumbled across the landscape as it settled down at the base of the hill. Todd began his descent before the reverberations had fully faded, not wanting to have any drones explode thanks to the mines and cost him whatever bargaining pull he might have.
He heard his brothers before he saw them; dark figures clustered around the base of the ramp beneath the shadow of the landed retrieval craft. They hissed and turned to face him, hands on their stunners as he sloshed through the muddy fog towards him, before relenting upon sensing his mental presence. There were fifteen of them; twelve drones and three blades, their midnight garments fluttering in the breeze. One of the black-clad, cat-eyed trio stepped forward, brushing the drones aside as they growled and grunted like angry guard dogs.
"So...you have truly returned." he observed, looking Todd up and down with an air of concealed surprise.
"I have. I must say, I am pleased to see my...investment in you and yours has paid off."
"Our queen was annoyed, but she remembers her debts, as do we." the self-appointed group speaker answered. He walked forward and stretched out a hand. Todd noted it was not his feeding hand, and took it with his own empty palm, a sign of trust and unity.
"Welcome back, brother." the speaker stated, releasing Todd's hand. His pronunciation of the word 'brother' was accompanied by the mental use of Todd's actual name. Wraith were similar to Cybertronians in this regard that any term used by a human to identify them was, at best, a gross simplification of their identity. Humans had to limit themselves to their spoken language to speak with one another, but not so with Wraith. When two minds could communicate directly, without needing to entirely rely on speech, there was less need for complex terms and ideas to be watered down into syllables and confined by syntax. As such, Todd's true name was a comprehensive collection of his deeds, his personal view of himself, his rank and his chosen purpose in service to his species. The closest human equivalent to the resulting mish-mash of mental impressions would've probably been 'Guide', but even that fell woefully short.
Todd felt himself relax as he 'heard' the 'name'. After being subjected to the almost derogatory human moniker Colonel Sheppard has saddled him with for so long, it was refreshing and comforting. It was just one more indicator that he was home at long last.
"It is good to be back." he replied, nodding, before looking to the horizon as a fresh roll of thunder echoed across the landscape. "We should depart. I would request an audience with your queen once we are rid of this place. I must know the state of things."
"What of this place?" the blade asked, gesturing up the hill to the silent base atop it. Guide looked back over his shoulder at the structure. For a moment, he felt that twinge of remorse from earlier. By faking his death, he had severed himself from Sheppard's path yet again. It wasn't the first time they had both parted expecting to never see one another again...but this time, somehow Guide knew there would be consequences.
"Destroy it. It is of no further use." he said, turning back to the awaiting ramp. Sensing his desires, the drones obediently parted to admit his passage. As he ascended into the cool, damp interior, Guide steeled himself. What lay ahead, he would need to face without Sheppard, or Atlantis. His ultimate goal was the survival of his race, and Sheppard was no longer in any position to assure that. Besides, his help had always been conditional, and had been incurred at cost to Guide himself. Now, he would have to tread his path alone.
-O-
As he followed behind the rolling bulk of Shockwave's vehicle form, Ratchet did his best to take note of his surroundings. The corridors of the massive ship seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning with no apparent end in sight. He knew if he was to escape, then he'd need at least some idea of how the place was laid out, but the sheer scale of the monstrous vessel seemed to defy all his efforts to create some kind of floor plan. Then he remembered; he wasn't plotting to escape. He'd offered his help, and despite the fact that the individual he'd given it to was about as worthy of his trust as a rabid steeljaw, if he went back on his word now, he'd be no better than his host. Still, he kept up his observations. It was the only thing to distract him now that he was forced to walk everywhere.
As the long journey continued, amidst his architectural observations and efforts to construct a mental map, Ratchet began to notice something else about the ship besides its size, which was that, apart from Blitzwing and Shockwave himself, he had yet to see any real crew besides more drones. Finally his curiosity got the better of him, and he raised his voice in inquiry.
"Exactly how many Decepticons are there on this ship?" he asked, trying his best to make the question sound nonchalant. It wouldn't do to make it seem like he was trying to figure out the odds he might be up against, especially since he was here to heal, not to kill. He couldn't help but notice that even when confined to the privacy of his own head, the notion sounded like a lie. And if he couldn't believe it, why should Shockwave? Nevertheless, the rolling purple giant responded, his monotonous intonation giving no clue as to whether or not the query had raised his suspicions.
"The Atropox is capable of functioning with a skeleton crew of less than five-hundred. The current crew count is two-thousand. The maximum estimated capacity is eight-thousand. The drone complement is approximately five times that." Shockwave declared. The statement, like everything he said, was delivered in a flat, untextured fashion. It said nothing of whether the speaker was boasting, or even if he was bored. He was simply stating a fact, objectively and without bias. To do otherwise would be against logic. Regardless of the heartless fashion in which the information was conveyed, Ratchet still found himself stunned by the scale of it. The only possible comparisons were the Ark and the Nemesis, both of which had long ago ceased to be ships of war (in the latter's case because it was now so much wreckage on the surface of Charr). Yet even those two behemoths couldn't possibly compare to this gigantic spacecraft. It was bigger than anything he'd ever heard of made by their species.
"And...how many ships in the fleet outside?" he asked, unable to stop some of his awe from leaking into his voice.
"Approximately six-hundred and fifty-eight vessels of varying tonnage. The average crew-to-drone ratio is two-to-nine." Shockwave responded. The words rolled through Ratchet's aural sensors, making a mess of his thoughts. And why shouldn't they? According to his host, he was standing on the biggest ship ever made by Cybertronians, in the middle of a fleet four times the size of the one that had rained fire on Iacon itself.
"How did you get so many ships? For that matter, where did you get the drones to crew them?" The words came out of Ratchet's mouth before he could stop himself. Despite the apparent indifference with which Shockwave was treating his questions, he couldn't help but feel a little like he was putting himself at risk asking them.
The answer was delayed in coming as they turned the corner of another passage and entered onto a large pentagonal corridor. Suspended from the ceiling was a series of massive pipes, which to Ratchet's sensitive aurals had the faint resonance of gaseous contents under high pressure, and moving at even higher speed. He briefly recalled the gas giant they were in orbit above, and for a moment the inkling of an idea formed in his mind regarding how Shockwave was meeting the power requirements for this beast of a machine. It vanished when the violet colossus spoke again though, disappearing like a wisp in the swirling clouds beneath them.
"All will be explained shortly." the Decepticon commander replied. As if on cue, a large aperture opened in the far wall of the tunnel, exposing an enormous circular domed chamber whose dominating feature was a screw-shaped circular platform in the center, accessed by a spiralling walkway mounted on its side. As he passed the threshold, Shockwave transformed again, resuming his equally-massive humanoid form, turning his red optic on the old medic.
"Enter." he commanded. Ratchet did as he was told, and was surprised when the commander held up one hand to dissuade the drones behind him. "Not you." he added, "Return to your previous duties." The automated warriors gracefully turned and left without the slightest hesitation, marching off in lockstep down both ends of the tunnel. Ratchet felt a momentary shock of surprise, but then remembered that as things stood, apart from his medical tools, he was utterly unarmed, and unable to transform. More than that, he was lost in unfamiliar territory with a joke of a map and enemies, seen and unseen, on all sides. He was, as the humans said, in the belly of the beast; a disgusting metaphor made all the worse by the fact that it fit his current situation so well.
Paying his former guards a final backwards glance, Ratchet stepped over the threshold and into the chamber, the door sealing behind him with the hiss of pneumatic motors. Turning his gaze back to his captor, the medic saw that Shockwave had wasted no time after delivering his command, and was ascending the spiral ramp to the central platform. As he did, lights began to come on all around the room's circumference, revealing it as almost entirely empty.
"This chamber is a personal addition to this vessel." Shockwave explained as he reached the peak of the platform, "The original design had no requirement for scientific apparatus, given its function, but since I have claimed it as my current flagship, I have thoroughly customized it for my own purposes."
As he spoke number of control panels and instrument racks folded up from the edges to greet the massive Decepticon. He manipulated one or two with casual disinterest, and with a heavy clank, the panelled floor around the main platform began to move, sections sliding aside as tables,, computers and displays to rose into place. It wasn't long before the apparently chaotic dance of reconfiguration revealed what the room really was: a laboratory, fully equipped for virtually any line of study. Stepping carefully to avoid the moving machinery, Ratchet crossed the distance to the center of the room and ascended the spiral walkway until he stood beside Shockwave, watching as the chamber completed its transformation.
"Impressive…" the medic admitted, turning to face his host, "But I doubt you brought me here to show off your craftsmanship."
"That would be illogical." Shockwave agreed, before tapping some more controls. Instantly, a series of lasers in the ceiling activated, converging from various angles above the central platform to generate a holographic image that made Ratchet's Spark ache.
"Cybertron." he muttered impulsively, the sight of his broken homeworld triggering a flood of memories, not all of them good.
"Just as I left it." Shockwave confirmed. Ratchet knew it had to be his imagination, but for just a second, he thought he heard the tiniest twinge of regret enter the Decepticon's tone. It was utter lunacy of course, but for a moment Ratchet couldn't help but feel a measure of kinship with the purple colossus. They were both refugees, exiles from a planet that had died because of them and their endless war.
Wearily, Ratchet's optics roved over the surface of his former home. In some respects, it resembled any other planet, with rocky stretches created by generations of meteors and asteroids that had formed a natural landscape of sorts over the artificial one beneath. The majority of it was metal though, not that you could really tell. Vast soot-blackened expanses of waste hid the shine of the world's former splendor, and the planet's sole true liquid body, the Sea of Rust, now stretched as big as all the Great Lakes of Northern America combined, a ruby wound visible from space. The layers of interlocking geometrical framework that was Polyhex; the crumbled towers of Kalis; the great crystalline and metal 'trees' of Tyger Pax; all had gone, now barely a shadow of their former selves. No lights shone on the planet's dark side, apart from the occasional fire, though those were brief and over in a flash, with the planet's laughable remains of an atmosphere too clogged by devastation to support them for long. The medic could've stood there forever, just soaking in the horror and the homesickness, but Shockwave was quick to draw him back.
"When the Energon wells dried up, holding the planet became untenable. Energon exists in nature, as you know, but in comparatively miniscule quantities. Without the wells, maintaining the occupation soon grew to be impossible."
"So you left?" Ratchet asked, moving around the spinning globe as red dots marking major wells appeared above its surface. Shockwave nodded, holding his position while reaching off to his side to adjust the controls further. Now a number of amber lights appeared, marking both surviving and destroyed metropolitan areas. At the same time, blue lights began to appear as well, but unlike their amber cousins, they did not adhere to the planet's surface, and were concentrated above the remains of the city-state of Kaon, Megatron's home-ground.
"Before our departure, I conducted a final sweep of the planet, seeking anything of value we might be able to take with us. During my command of the residual Decepticon forces, I drove off several invasions of would-be grave robbers, seeking to plunder our planet in the absence of the majority of our race. Once it became clear that staying was impossible, I wanted to make sure that at least once we left, there would be nothing to encourage such raiders in the future."
Several of the amber lights turned green, and Ratchet noticed that one of them was situated over the remains of Iacon. His Spark, still heavy with the sight of his home, grew inflamed at the thought of Decepticons picking through the remains of the Great Academy. Before he could disparage Shockwave for imitating the unscrupulous species he claimed to oppose, the giant scientist spoke again.
"Many of our efforts proved successful, in large part thanks to the efforts of Commander Skyfire, one of our few remaining archaeologists. Because of him, we were able to save a variety of relics that might've otherwise been lost...including the key to our salvation as a species." The fiery anger in Ratchet's Spark suddenly went out, extinguished by a gust of surprise.
"Commander Skyfire?" he blurted out, "Starscream's mentor?"
"The very same. While his performance in the field of battle had always been...questionable, his scientific prowess and talents as an explorer proved crucial to the operation." Shockwave confirmed.
"Is he here?" Ratchet found himself asking, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at his own enthusiasm. To be honest it was largely justified. The name of Skyfire was one that many Autobots owed their lives to. Among the massed ranks of butchers and lunatics that made up so much of the Decepticons, he was almost unique in his reputation for honoring his word. It was ironic since it was well-known that he had personally trained Starscream, by general consensus one of the most untrustworthy, petty and deceitful Cybertronians to have ever lived.
The request, as innocent as it might've been, seemed to trigger something in Shockwave, who turned his red, glaring optic on the medic in a silent stare. As ever, there was no visible emotion in his gaze, but Ratchet didn't need to have brains of a human to work out that something unpleasant must've happened between the towering Decepticon standing next to him and the legendary explorer. Ratchet held his vocalizer rather than ask what it was, because firstly, there would be time for that later, and secondly, Shockwave's statement about the salvation of the species was of more importance right now.
"Never mind." the old medic quickly declared, backtracking verbally and physically to put the hologram between himself and Shockwave again, "What exactly did he-...did you find?" Shockwave tapped the controls again, and the image of the blackened metal world dissolved, replaced by a new image, this one of a roughly rectangular device just big enough to fit in Ratchet's hand. The segmented interior was contained by a cage-like housing of curved struts, between which lense-like protuberances stuck out along the central axis.
"This," Shockwave stated, gesturing to the device, "is a data-scroll; one of many we located in a cache hidden beneath the deepest levels of the remains of the Great Academy. The nature of the vault containing them suggested they date back to before the collapse of the Dynasty of Primes. Of the one-hundred and eight we were able to save, eighty-six had been rendered fragmentary or otherwise unreadable. The remainder contained a wide variety of information of varying levels of usefulness...but it was this scroll that proved the most crucial."
Ratchet reached out to the spinning cylinder, examining its exterior with a careful eye. Once, long ago, he had studied the mysteries of the long-vanished Dynasty of Primes alongside Optimus. The dark ages and numerous wars of unification that had preceded the establishment of antebellum Cybertron had robbed most of the remains of that golden era from those who would come after. The search for them was never-ending, and just as he had then, Ratchet felt a tiny surge of unease at being in the presence of such antiquity and power, even if it was just a hologram.
"So what exactly did you find on this?" Ratchet pressed, hastily withdrawing his hand and gesturing to the spinning device. Shockwave tapped a second control, and the curved struts flexed, causing the circular nodes on the front, back and both vertical ends of the object to iris open. Instantly, a set of bluish rays shot out, then curved back in on themselves to form a sort of donut of light around the data-scroll. As it rotated, Ratchet quickly revised his initial observation, the odd way the axes of the object curved and bulged as it spun revealing that it was not a donut, but a three-dimensional representation of a hypersphere.
Furthermore, the various lines of light were not solid either. Adjusting his optics, Ratchet was astonished to discover they were actually hextuple helices, made of characters from ancient Cybertronian. He tried to read some of them as they whirled past, only for his awe to be tempered by disappointment at the realization that despite the initial outward solidity of the latticework of light, there were minute gaps in many of the chains, disrupting what he quickly discovered were enormously complex chemical and physical equations. Struggling to translate and understand on the fly, he tried to find a chain that wasn't afflicted with blanks, succeeding after around three minutes of silent searching. He recognized a thread describing the behavior of transuranic elements under conditions of extremely high energy, then traced it back to another dealing in stellar dynamics and the behavior of sunspots. As he continued, Ratchet was struck by the feeling that he'd seen this somewhere before. Eventually though, he again hit a dead-end in the form of a fresh gap.
"Alright," he admitted, "I'm at a loss. What exactly is it?" The question prompted Shockwave to tap the controls again, causing the complex framework to shrink and condense around the data-scroll until it was an almost solid ball of light
"Your confusion is understandable." he admitted, "I myself took some time to realize that the arrangement and representation of the equations was as crucial as their connectivity." Another tap of the controls, followed by the hypersphere exploding outwards into a sunburst of lines, the strands of math and formulae unravelling like yarn as Shockwave continued to speak.
"In the long-form, it is a blueprint for the creation of an incredibly complex substance, with properties making it unlikely to be found anywhere in nature. It can exist as a gas, a liquid, a crystalline solid, or become pure energy as easily as it switches between those states. Of course, its most interesting feature is the applications it has in the creation of synthetic and techno-organic organisms, given it seems tailored to polymorphic cyber-biologies like our own."
Ratchet's optic felt like they were going to bug out of their sockets. There was no possible way he could be suggestion what he had to be suggesting. And yet…
"Energon?" he said in a hushed whisper of awe.
"Synthetic Energon;" Shockwave confirmed, "buried since the collapse of the Dynasty, and now, at last, rediscovered in our greatest hour of need."
All of Ratchet's mental processes came crashing to a halt, ending up in a tangled wreck amidst the ruins of his mental landscape. He realized he had stepped backwards and was leaning against the control boards behind him. There was no word in any human language to describe the shock and awe he was feeling, nor to encapsulate the gravitas of Shockwave's statement. Energon was, and always had been, the key to Cybertronian civilization. Without it, their entire species could not survive, much less reproduce and thrive. For eons, the flow of it had been crucial to sustaining...everything. Yet despite all the need there was for it, no one, not even the Primes evidently, had ever devised an easy means of mass-producing the stuff, apart from the Fallen's dreaded Solar Harvester, now a smoking wreck and under constant guard at Giza.
"You're...sure?" Ratchet finally managed to get out, "I mean...the equation seems incomplete!"
"My translation of the iconography was aided by Glyph, an accomplished xeno- and archaeo-linguist, and a former compatriot of Skyfire's during his pre-war exploratory voyages. The core equations are accurate and provable with a point-two percent margin for error. What few meaningful studies there have been into the structure of Energon also confirm the presence of the compounds being described." Shockwave answered, with no apparent sympathy for his prisoner's rattled sensibilities.
"And you want me to...what? Help you solve the missing parts?" Ratchet suggested, fighting the urge to laugh. He could feel the cold claws of hysteria raking at him. His world had been turned upside down so many times in the past few hours he wasn't sure this was real anymore. Cybertron was dead, and the Decepticons had a fleet bigger than he could've ever imagined, but now they wanted peace, as well as his help with saving their entire species!? It was a lot to swallow, another nasty human phrase that seemed all too fitting.
"I have solved parts of it myself, but I require your assistance." Shockwave answered. Ratchet opened his vocalizer to respond, but the purple giant simply held up a hand for silence. "Before you inquire further, allow me to impress upon you the dire urgency of our situation."
More switches were flipped, and the glorious glowing latticework abruptly dissolved, replaced by a string of Cybertronian numbers, with the special Kaonic touches characteristic of Decepticon vernacular. For a moment, Ratchet stared baffled at them, before realizing that it was a timer, a readout displaying the equivalent of roughly five Cybertronian years, which came out to about twelve years in Earth-time.
"This is a rough estimate of how long our species has left, if the war continues. I generated it once I had confirmed the final well at Simfur had run dry." the cyclopean scientist explained, his tone dispassionate and sorely at odds with the nature of his subject, "Our population is at an all-time low, lower than it has been even since the dark times after the collapse of the Dynasty, if history is to be believed. More of us die with every passing day, and if peace is not made, and this equation goes unsolved, then our civilization will be effectively moribund."
If the revelation about synthetic Energon had been an avalanche in Ratchet's mind, then this was a global cataclysm, comparable to the meteor that had extinguished Earth's early sauropods. The numbers, initially innocent in appearance (or as innocent as any countdown could be), took on the mental sound of an executioner sharpening his axe for the elderly Autobot, each tick of the clock moving his people collectively closer to the chopping block.
And the worst part was that when the axe fell, it wouldn't be merciful and simply slice off their proverbial heads. No, it would be worse. Ratchet was still enough of a scholar to understand the hidden message in Shockwave's statement, which was that when their time ran out, their race would have condemned itself to a slow death. After that point, even if peace was made, and all of them worked together without quarrel to produce this new, vital resource, it still would not be enough. They would wither away, too few in number to ever be what they had once been, consigned to the dustbin of history, until finally, maybe a hundred vorns from now, the last of the once-proud children of Primus collapsed into rust and junk, their only legacy being a scorched planet and eons of violence across the cosmos.
Ratchet stared at the numbers as they flicked past, counting down the days his people had left. It was as though his Spark had become a black hole, the roaring fusion within suddenly collapsing into a bottomless void of despair, within which flickered the desperate light of hope, fighting to escape the inevitable. Shockwave's next words cut through the darkness like a knife of sunlight, drawing Ratchet out of the terrible abyss.
"I said before that I wished for a return to symbiosis." the purple giant stated, flicking a switch that caused the timer to disperse just like the previous images. "Our people have been enemies for too long for the notion of friendship to ever arise. However, with this greatest of all enemies before us, I ask you, as someone once asked me, to consider that in the end we will be judged, not by what we have destroyed...but by what we have created."
For a long time, silence reigned in the lab, the two former enemies staring at one another across the gap between them, like it was a battlefield. In his circuits, Ratchet felt Shockwave's words echoing through halls and palaces of his mind he'd long neglected, the parts of himself dedicated to discovery and ingenuity. He'd been one of the most distinguished medical specialists on Cybertron before the war had made him a battlefield medic. The giant's statement made the old Autobot's core supports ache, as if begging him for a return to that simpler life of study and experimentation for the benefit of all his people.
"This substitute...what assurances do I have that you will not abuse it?" Ratchet asked finally, "After all, there's nothing to prevent you from taking the finished product and hoarding it until the Autobots surrender for lack of supplies." The question, while important, was also somehow cursory. Ratchet had known the moment he'd activated his vocalizer that he would agree. How could he not, with that doomsday clock still hanging between them? Extinction was the ultimate enemy. It respected no ideals, and didn't care about who was right. If it wasn't fought and stopped, here and now, it would claim them.
"It would be illogical to withhold the substance. The various factors at play mean that any attempt by either side to use the substance for tactical gain would only accelerate the approach of this event horizon." Shockwave countered, gesturing at the countdown. Ratchet nodded. He couldn't really argue against that. If Shockwave was anything, he was loyal to logic.
"Alright," he finally answered, "tell me everything I need to know."
"As you wish." the violet titan acknowledged. Then he tapped a single control, causing the timer to dissipate, dissolving into individual lasers that shut off one by one. As the last beam faded, Ratchet's Spark felt momentarily heavy for some reason, as if part of him felt like he'd just surrendered something he shouldn't have. He shrugged it off, focusing on the task at hand. The greatest job he'd never asked for was about to begin. He thought of Optimus and Elita One, separated by time and space for centuries now; of Chromia and Ironhide, divided by duty, but still one of Spark; he even thought of Bumblebee and Arcee, still full of youth despite their scars. For their sake, and the sake of those who would come after, he had to succeed. Briefly, one of the humans' favorite catchphrases flashed across his mind, making him roll his optics.
"No pressure." he muttered.
o
Omake featuring Sam and Eli meeting?
A/N: Whew, so this chapter is actually pretty short I realize, but it was difficult to write, mostly because A) my productivity has been in the toilet for quite a while now what with so many real-life worries and demands starting to weigh more heavily on me lately, and B) I was sort of writing off the edge of my map. We passed my general idea of where to take this first part of this story last chapter and now I'm sort of inventing on the fly. One of these days I'll need to sit my ass down and do some proper brainstorming/outlining. Also, on that note, I know I said this chapter would mostly be about Todd, but I just didn't have enough material to make it work. Hopefully his next appearance won't be so brief. He's got a role to play, but I just haven't thought out how his end of things should go in much detail yet.
On the bright side I have managed to work out the background/lore of this combined universe I've created enough to the point that my cognitive dissonance can handle whatever minute plot holes remain. I won't spoil anything, but suffice to say, the origins of this Synthetic Energon went through a number of iterations before I settled on something I liked. Also, I realize I'm ignoring a bunch of expanded universe material from both franchises, but let's be honest: the movie-comics were downright nonsensical most of the time, and as for the SG books, well...I've tried reading a few. They didn't really interest enough to convince me to consider them canon.
Also, I'm still brainstorming for more original, non-fanfic projects. Nothing concrete yet, though I am considering adding elements of Lovecraft's dreamlands setting (minus the silly racist undertones) and a certain amount of conspiracy-genre content to the mix. Hopefully something might start coming of that near the end of August. We'll see. For now though, back to Sheppard and Co, and possibly someone else, whose name begins with 'L'!