Ch. 186
Things were starting to get very interesting. Knockout was struggling to keep a smile from overtaking his faceplates too readily. They were still in dangerous territory, they still had two young human children to watch out for. They still had a mission to complete.
'But to require a power source closer to the outside like that must mean it generates too much excess heat', Knockout thought as the group maneuvered down into the small valley to investigate the cave mouth, 'Whatever it's powering must need at least two, maybe three other generators to help maximize productivity and if this one is struggling as much as it is then they'll definitely have some problems with whatever their feeding the energy to...'
Bumblebee hummed quietly to the red mech, asking what he was thinking about.
Knockout shrugged, "Oh, just wondering about the generator. It's outside for a reason. And that means good things for us, but not so much for them."
"Why? Cause it's leading us right to them?" Jack inquired.
The medic shook his helm, "Oh no, that's just a bonus. The generator was running hot so that means they're not receiving enough power. They need more generators, ergo-"
"We could have the advantage if the power should just 'cut out'," Raf smiled, keeping his eyes on his tablet.
Knockout smirked, "Should we need to. I think it would be best not to scramble them up just yet. Right, 'Bee?"
The yellow mech nodded in agreement and buzzed, saying they would use that as an alternate escape route if necessary. He went on to bubble that this mission needed to be as covert as possible: they couldn't be seen.
"Right, got it, ninja mode," the medic chuckled, "Let's all channel our inner Arcee and be the shadows that will surround us..."
Jack smiled, "I'm telling her you said that."
Knockout glanced at him playfully, "No you won't."
Bumblebee beeped at the pair and picked Raf up so the boy could focus more on his device; he asked if his friend had anymore details on the location they were investigating.
Raf shook his head in disappointment, "Soundwave just got back to me. He says that because it has nothing to do with the original coordinates his files are drawing a blank. This is something entirely new."
"New," Knockout chuckled, "and very clearly thrown together."
Jack looked to the red mech again, "More to do with that generator?"
The medic nodded, hushing his voice as they drew closer to the side of the cave mouth, "Precisely. Inadequate power source coupled with new coordinates near an old set means this was just manufactured. Won't it be nice to mess with something they just made?"
Bumblebee nodded back but cautioned his group with a few focused hums: this was to be a covert mission, intelligence gathering only, but if they could render the location useless to the Decepticons then it was to be done so 'accidentally'.
Jack stared in confusion but Knockout gently translated for him, "Relax, no biggie. We won't get caught, we'll find out their plans and we'll be sure to put this place in the scrap heap without fuss. It'll be like we were never here."
The yellow mech buzzed, detailing one more thing: they had to stick together.
Knockout watched the scout peek into the cave first then enter, blaster charged and loaded, "Right behind you, 'Bee. This expedition is just getting started."
Knockout couldn't remember the last time that he smelled such familiar smells. Dark, worked cave, the scent of metals and the hint of energon in the air, it took him back to just before the 'mess', as Starscream had put it. Back before the seeker had begun to act strangely. Before he knew some of what was coming. He inhaled deeply, holding onto that intake the further they drew into the warm cave. It was near to stifling.
Raf was the first to make note of it, "Is it hot in here or is it just me?"
Jack panted from somewhere down between Bumblebee's and Knockout's peds, "It's not just you, Raf. Is this another reason for the generator being where it was?"
Knockout glanced down to make sure the boy wasn't going to find himself under ped and hummed quietly, "I think we can safely assume so. They may have another generator closer to the equipment they need to power, with the outer one placed so that their combined heat generation wouldn't short them both. Nothing worse than a generator burn," he shuddered, "and given this dwelling's location, this cave may have already been warm to begin with. It would have been better situated somewhere colder."
Bumblebee frowned as they came to an intersection in the cave and halted, buzzing; to him, it sounded like this area had been neither a first or second choice.
Knockout held onto the comment, equally intrigued by the mention, but let it go in favor of looking to Raf, the boy still cupped carefully in the yellow mech's servo, "Still have a connection on your tablet, Raf?"
The boy nodded then sighed, "For now. Soundwave is using it to map out the cave for us but he says he may lose our signal. ... He says it's already getting harder to triangulate us. In a few minutes, we'll probably be on our own."
Jack shrugged, "That's not a bad thing. I think we've been relying on too much help lately. I mean, Starscream did an amazing job getting us through a lot of stuff, but I feel like he just made us lazy."
Knockout gasped at the statement, smiling wide, "Holy Primus, you too?! I mean, no complaints to the guy, but I felt like I was cheering from the sidelines half the time while he got all the glory! Even when he didn't know what was going on-"
Bumblebee hissed harshly, everyone going silent, and pointed nearby to a deep crevice in the cave walls. The sound of heavy, marching pedfalls were drawing closer to the group from further ahead. The yellow mech moved quickly to guide them all into the crevice before they could be seen, the team moving as far back as they could while the mechs crouched low. What marched passed didn't give them much confidence.
Knockout and Bumblebee exchanged glances as they counted four Vehicons and two Insecticons. The enemy soldiers weren't the problem, it was the sound of many other Vehicons and Insecticons deeper in that made the two mechs nervous. And in one glance each was telling the other that they may have truly landed in it.
Raf was also quietly being angry at his tablet, which had lost signal. Jack caught sight the boy's frustration as Bumblebee glanced down at the tablet's error screen. Now they were cut off from Soundwave and the rest of their faction. Things weren't going the way they were supposed to at the start of this mission.
Knockout frowned as the last of the troops made it passed and whispered quietly, "Alright, so we're clearly deep in the spark of a bigger operation. No sense in having Insecticons watch something insignificant."
Raf nodded, "And those troops weren't prepped for energon harvesting, so it isn't a mine."
Jack crossed his arms, "A big operation that isn't a mine. So what could this be?"
Bumblebee beeped softly that he wasn't sure as he shook his helm. He opted that was translation enough for Jack.
Knockout went to speak again when new pedfalls echoed into the hallway. His optics widened. It was heavy, clearly leaning to the left due to injury or weight, most likely extra weight, on that particular side. There was slow gait, indicating a larger frame. A larger frame could mean a few things... The red mech didn't dare peek out. He gestured lightly for Jack to look for them, and the boy eased his head out slowly, his eyes widening when he observed what he needed to then slipped back beside Knockout's ped.
Raf blinked, "Well?" he whispered, "Who was it?"
Jack shook his head, "You're not gonna believe this," he murmured, "But Shockwave is here."
A big operation indeed.
Knockout waited for Bumblebee to nod lightly and the pair stood, the red mech picking up Jack as the two mechs left the safety of the crevice to move deeper into the next chamber. They dared to investigate, with no back up, no communications, and the added caution of human lives in their servos.
As they came to the end of the tunnel and scuttled carefully behind a collapse of boulders, Bumblebee was the first to look out, his door wings flicking high in surprise before falling as flat as they could. Knockout had to intake deeply after seeing his companion's reaction. The red mech shuttered his optics for a moment then glared as he looked out, his mouth agape at what he saw.
Equipment was strewn everywhere. Wires and cables littered the floor and scaled the cave walls. Energon was being thrown into a machine to be processed then pumped into two towering gestation tanks. It was clear there was something in each tank, but Knockout was too far away to see. Vehicons and Insecticons were crawling, some very literally in this sense, everywhere. And there, in the center of this makeshift lab, overseeing the whole of it, stood Shockwave, his mind and digits hard at work creating destruction.