*PART 34: Discovery
When the group returned, all attention turned to them. Cheetor had arrived slightly before Tobias, Rachel and Dinobot. He had been explaining sullenly to Optimus what had happened.
Optimus' face was stern as his arms had been crossed as he listened. He was tired of Cheetor getting trying stupid stunts. It nearly always placed him in danger, and this time he had placed someone else in danger.
Jake approached Rachel as soon as she had demorphed.
"What did you think you were doing, Rachel?" Jake asked. "Going off on your own like that? And putting Cheetor in danger like that because you had to be Xena!"
Jake's temper was rising, and Cassie could tell. She put a hand on Jake's shoulder and quietly asked Rachel, "What's wrong, Rachel? Ever since we got here, you haven't been yourself."
"You sure about that?" Marco muttered.
"How can you not know what's wrong?" Rachel said. "You should all be feeling the same thing. While we're standing around, those other robots are getting closer to figuring out the Time Machine. And if they do then we'll…"
When Rachel broke off, Cassie finally understood. "You're afraid if we don't act now….we won't get home."
Jake sighed. He should have known that was the problem. Rachel was worried about her sisters and her parents. Jake was pretty sure everyone was worried about that, but they were trying to think about other things otherwise they would be tense like Rachel.
The only one this wouldn't seemingly affect would be Tobias and Ax. Ax was millions of miles away from home on a regular basis; so a little time travel didn't change much. He was with his friends anyway. It was the same with Tobias, he was with his friends. He didn't have much to miss from their normal time.
*******
Meanwhile, in another location, Visser Three and the remaining Controllers were making plans of their own. Their numbers were too few to lead any attacks against either the robots or the bandits. Especially since the bandits had teamed up with one of the robot factions.
We must get that machine back, Visser Three was saying. It would do much for the future of the Yeerk Empire.
"But how do we get it back, Visser?" asked a human controller.
Before Visser Three could answer, one of the other human controllers had glimpsed something shining out of the ground. "Visser! More of those purple crystals! This must be where the one from the machine came from."
Gather some! The Visser exclaimed. When we return to our own time we can use them like the other one.
While the other controllers scrambled to do what the Visser had commanded, Visser Three fell into thought. They would need that modified crystal back soon; they were running out of time. Within another day and a half, the Yeerks that remained to him here would be on the verge of death.
***
In the lab, Tarantulas was finally making a breakthrough with the locked files. He had come across something that required a password to access it. At first, Tarantulas had tried possibilities off the top of his head. When none of those worked, he had a code breaker program on his computer run through more possibilities. The list was nearly endless so Tarantulas knew that it would not be a speedy process. While he waited, he helped Black Arachnia study the crystal.
The substance that had been fused into the energon crystal was indeed an alien substance. But somehow, the two were compatible. The energon was holding it well and somehow still functioned as it should. But why go through the trouble of fusing something else into the energon? What was the point?
The computer interrupted the examination of the crystal with two simple words. "Access granted."
In a flash Tarantulas was at his computer as the files opened up. Something had worked, one of the passwords the program generated worked. It had taken nearly three hours, what had the password turned out to be?
"What?!" Tarantulas sputtered. "That's…that's impossible!"
"What?" Black Arachnia asked, a little calmer than Tarantulas.
"The password that unlocked the files was Starscream!"