The difficulty with this particular route, was, as always, the massive city that carved through the only traversable valley between the mountains. It was heavily guarded, with the Quintesson guards patrolling day-and-night, a densely populated area with eyes everywhere. If Orion had had a choice, he'd never go through it as part of the routes.
But Maccadam had asked, in the way that he had—curt, bitten out, as if he would rather do anything but ask—not caring if it was difficult, only whether it could be done. It was always out of care of his patients, he'd do nothing less than his absolute best for them. And then Logos had chipped in with his 'reasonable interest' and whatnot, and the idea got shoved around some more, and now Orion was driving—miserable from the wet and the cold that were endemic to the region—along the worst possible route for a smuggling operation this size.
They'd tried various methods in the past, to get the goods from the Quintesson's labs to an at least semi-reliable cargo hub. With as large as the stuff was, there was no way a dead drop would work. Several routes had been proposed, ranging from never-used paths, underground tunnels, or even hopping a ride on a Quintesson cargo ship. The first were non-existent with the towering nature of the mountains, the underground tunnels were so closely watched here that one would need to be invisible to get through them—and it was true that Maximo was in fact able to turn invisible, but he did not have an alt capable of supporting heavy loads, and his ability took enough out of him that he'd never be able to take such an alt either—so what was left was the transport-hopping. They'd tried it, several times even. The majority survived, at least. Their cargo never had, and they'd lost too many at this point to consider it a valid option.
In the end, it was Onyx who came up with the idea. To disguise himself as a common non-sentient vehicle, use a holo-image—using one of the handful of holo-emitters they had been able to steal and hack; the technology was still new, invented barely a decavorn ago and closely guarded by the Quintessons—to pretend to be a Quintesson and sneak into the city through the official gates. The holo-emitters weren't very reliable, prone to shorting out, especially if used for longer than a breem. He was to use it only if absolutely necessary, because it wouldn't last for more than two or three charges, and he needed two to get in and out of the city.
It was the only feasible route between the Quintesson's scientific labs—centred in the middle of the city—and the safety of one of their bases. Nevermind that it was a miserable experience no matter how often you'd ran it before.
He inched forwards along a narrow ledge, maintaining his balance while trying to minimise the noise he made. Lean too far forward, and he'd be visible to their more advanced detection systems, and there was a wall at his back that prevented him from moving out of sight.
The Quintessons had recently stepped up security, likely due to the recent increase in thefts. Not that any of them had been caught, not this vorn.
He listened carefully for the footsteps he was waiting for. Logos had updated the patrol schedule just a few hours ago, but he couldn't rely on it. You could never tell if this was the one time the guards would deviate from it. They rarely did so, but rarely did not mean never, and it'd be just the thing that would end up killing him. Megatronus would call him overly cautious in that teasing tone of his, but then again, his armour could take any kind of beating and come out none the worse for it, the slagger.
They did have eyes outside the city, cameras that had been hacked ages ago, but the inside was on a closed loop, one they'd never had the opportunity to infiltrate. As densely patrolled and inhabited as the labs were—which was coincidentally also where the footage was wired through—it left no margin for error, and the potential losses outweighed any benefits that they could gain.
As a rule, they didn't do suicide missions, not for anything less than potential catastrophic loss of life. They lost too many of their best at the start of their rebellion to desperate stands, for what would end up being minor scuffles, and that alone had set back their progress by decavorns. In one case, it had resulted in the collapse of the entirety of their network in the largest city south of the Rust Sea. The city had been given a rather unpronounceable name by the Quintessons and the original name had been lost so the rebellion had given it a new name, Polyhex, inspired by the hexagonal shapes the city streets were divided into.
The patrol was on time, their rhythmic steps making their path clear to his audials, despite his lack of a visual confirmation. Hidden on the ledge, out of sight, they passed his position without noticing him. The moment they moved out of earshot, he clambered down the side of the building, using the various pipes that supplied it to support his weight. He hurried to the building, and found the back-door they'd used to get out. It was locked, but he had a little tool that could take care of that particular obstacle, that could get him into the system so that he could program the lock to respond to his credentials.
With a gentle whoosh, the door slid open. The hard part was done and over with, at least for this particular section of the trip. Despite their horrendous treatment of their slaves, they were happy to take good care of themselves. There was nothing besides an imminent threat that could force a Quintesson to work outside their intended shift. Luckily for him, the labs were forbidden for Cybertronians to enter, and that meant that apart from the guard patrols, the most recent of which he'd just snuck past, there would be no one to see him.
He navigated through the laboratory, avoiding the cameras and the alarms. The storage areas were where he needed to go, and experience had told him it would be near the back of the building, easy access for the ones transporting all they needed. The doors aren't even locked here, and it's child's play to find the things he needs. Medical tools, the non-portable kind, large and unwieldy and crucial to have in case of emergency; crates of medications and specialised types of coolant and a variety of additives; rare chemicals, carefully labelled; metals, the kind that required complex mining operations to find, something they couldn't get on their own as things stood. He loaded up the goods, checking off each item on the list as he found them, and once he'd gotten through all of their requests, filling up the empty space with items of lesser importance. A heist as large as this couldn't be hidden, so he might as well get more out of the trip.
A group of Quintesson city guards show up when he's halfway out of the city. He heard them coming, just in time to slip out of sight as he rounded a corner. All around him is open space. He needs to get out of there, but there's very little in the way of nice dark corners or anything vertical. Around the edge of the road is a steep drop. Orion has to hurry across an open street, where anyone could spot him if he was unlucky. He's far less mobile in his alt, especially when so heavily laden. He makes it across without issue, gunning for the next corner in the hope of keeping ahead. They haven't spotted him yet or they'd have called out.
Further along the road he could see a split, a larger road that followed a right curve around the corner, as well as a smaller road that led straight forward, walled in by tall buildings on either side. He was just about to turn into the large curving road when he heard a rather strange sound coming from the alley. A sort of… clicking noise, high pitched and almost inaudible. He hesitated. He could take a look, figure out what was causing it. On the other hand, the guards were fast on his heels, and though they hadn't yet spotted him, standing around in plain sight would certainly mean they would. He could just go, resume his pace and get out of here. That would be the more strategic decision, but there was something strangely familiar about the clicks.
He was curious though, and if he was unlucky enough to need it there was a fairly decent chance the holo-emitter could hold up for an extra use if he was careful with it.
He crept closer, looking at the various piles of debris that tended to form on the lesser used roads of this rather haggard section of the city. Was there something among the trash that was causing the clicking?
To his surprise, among the trash laid a familiar figure. A small flier, one wing crumpled up and folded beneath him, injured beyond the ability to fly. This was one of Logos' symbionts, Hell Buzzsaw.
"Hell Buzzsaw? Are you alright?" Orion asked quietly, transforming and gathering the flier into his hands, lifting them to his face. His subspace was severely limited, and the trailer wouldn't fit no matter what he tried, but it was easy enough to uncouple it.
"Orion?" Hell buzzed weakly. "You found me."
"Is Logos here too?" He asked, hoping that he wasn't going to have to break out his friend from Quintesson custody.
He looked too relaxed for something really bad to have happened to Logos, but that meant little when neither the symbiont nor Orion himself had any eyes on him. Logos was slippery, and had a tendency to rush into situations heedless of the risk it posed to himself.
Hell's vocaliser spit out a brief burst of static. After another attempt, he gave up and shook his head.
"That's good," Orion said, "I'm afraid my own route out of the city hasn't been secured yet, but I hope you are willing to come with me anyway. There's no telling when they'll find out that I stole their supplies, and when they do they'll comb through the city piece by piece until there's nowhere left to hide." He grimaced. "I know you don't like to hide, but I think it's for the better in this case."
Hell shrugged, weakly flapping his one still-mostly-functioning wing, then let his wings rest in Orion's palm, his field a wash of annoyed resignation.
Orion dug around in his subspace for something a bit softer than metal crates for the small flier to rest on, coming across a large variety of junk that had accumulated there before grabbing a few tarps. He transformed slowly, making sure to deposit the symbiont in his cab rather than the trailer. If worst came to worst, it was better to run and leave their cargo behind than to let one of them be caught.
He listened for the presence of more guards past the lip of the alleyway, and was unhappy to notice that there were quite a few guards, more than the patrols that he'd avoided before. It was getting lighter too, with a slight orange sheen already falling over the highest spires of the city. The sun was rising, and with it the alert-level of the Quintessons—who were organics, and had a certain 'biological' rhythm, or so Quintus had told him.
He felt his spark stutter in its rhythm as he misjudged the clearance his trailer had around the piles of garbage and with a ominous bok bok bok, a piece of trash tipped over from the top of a pile, seemingly hitting every possible object on its way down, coming to rest on the ground with the sharp thump of metal hitting metal.
He flattened himself against the wall, but there was no hiding his trailer, nor were the crates and trash enough to hide him. He could fight his way out, but there was no telling how many reinforcements were nearby, ready to jump into the fight at any moment.
He listened, their footsteps getting closer to the mouth of the alley. As fate would have it though, there was a far-off roar, like a plane's engine. The Quintessons, whose volume had been mostly quiet, burst out in aggressive yelling as the plane soared overhead, the vortex pushing around the litter surrounding him and blasting them off of their feet.
The Quintessons followed the unknown jet in a rapid pursuit, the gunfire loud in his audials, leaving the two of them unharmed and unseen in the alleyway.
Hell trilled, and Orion couldn't find it in himself to protest, despite the risk it brought to them. He dared to take a peek around the corner, finding the street deserted.
They crossed the street slowly, carefully, and with Hell's hissed directions, they managed to get to the outer limits of the city without being spotted.
The city walls were tall enough that there was no way he could get over them, not with the trailer, but the final checkpoint was well-guarded. The holo-emitter only had one or two more uses before it would need to be recharged, but that was more than enough for him to slip through the security, nothing more than a slave carrying his master.
—
Orion slipped into the base with a relieved sigh. With these kind of shipments, it was best not to assume it went well until it was completely done. Through the underground passageway and past the watch—always ready to defend their central stronghold—then to the left, where the quartermaster had set up shop, and who took the cargo with thoroughly happy look on his face.
Transforming into his root mode, he carried Hell Buzzsaw to the makeshift medbay Maccadam had set up. The mech took a single look at the symbiont's mangled wing, cursed violently and all but ripped him from Orion's hands, shooing him out of the medbay in the same movement.
Before Orion knew it, he was outside again, the door spiralling shut behind him. Orion could hear protesting whines coming from beyond the door, with Hell Buzzsaw being about as unhappy to get medical attention as anyone could be.
Despite Maccadam's abrupt entrance and exit, Orion knew Hell Buzzsaw would be okay. Had the injuries been life-threatening, he would've told Orion to get the symbiont's host. Since he hadn't, there was no need for him to worry.
He got to the command room, greeting the various mecha at work there. The room was hushed with a tension that was common when any of them fought. He saw Megatronus at the main console, and next to him, Logos, arguing over something. Neither was angry, per se, but they were both of a habit to shout to get their words heard. They weren't exactly quiet by nature either, and the combination tended to cause rather explosive arguments that were forgiven soon after.
Megatronus was seated with his back to Orion, and he could hear their argument now.
"You can't be serious! That's suicide without a distraction, and we're not in the business of giving up our own." Megatronus said, gesturing wildly.
"But we can get a distraction. There's undoubtedly someone out there willing to take the chance, and think of what we would gain in exchange." Logos said.
"And gain… what exactly? More death, sure, but do you know how little we can afford to expand our operations right now? We're operating on the ragged edge, and reckless plans won't do anything but waste those precious resources."
"Taking Tarn will be a way to generate more resources."
"And we can't do it with the current state of our forces," Megatronus sighed. "You know that as well as I do. What brought this on?"
"Vector brought in the entire Third Spire." Logos grinned.
"When?" Megatronus gaped. "That area was firmly under Quintesson control last I knew."
"We got the news a few hours ago. I've sent Maximo out to help secure the area, shore up our own defences after we destroyed theirs." Logos looked up, spotting Orion.
"Your plan makes more sense with that in mind," Megatronus said. "Who would do the distraction though? They would need to be a flier, certainly, given the difficulty of escaping the place on foot."
"Orion." Logos greeted, looking past Megatronus to Orion, a sly smirk on his lips.
"What about Orion? Do you want him to take over coordinating this plan or are we actually going to get somewhere today?" Megatronus hissed. "Stop testing me, for Primus's sake. Orion is very good at what he does, and I'm sure he could do it, but you know that's a suicide mission still."
Orion smiles. "Megatronus."
Megatronus whirls around at the sound of Orion's voice. "Orion? You're back." Relief is clear in his voice.
"So I am." Orion agrees, moving to sit next to him.
"Good," Megatronus said. "Did the distraction we sent come in handy?" The frown on his face faded away into a teasing smile. "Wouldn't want the cargo to be found, now would we? Fragile stuff like that, it won't take well to a hasty escape."
Orion chuckled. "It did, though I know not how you knew to send it."
"Hell Buzzsaw sent me a message. We had someone in the area, close enough that they'd get there on time," Logos said. "If you hadn't shown up, they would have been the one to scoop him up."
That did explain that particular little bit of fortune. "I'm happy you did. It was a close-call there, and that little display got us all the way to the outskirts."
"What was your little symbiont doing there anyway?" Megatronus asked Logos.
"Remember that patrol schedule? They changed it yesterday, so we had to get a newer version. Hell Buzzsaw got caught on the way out of the city, though he avoided capture," Logos said turning to Orion. "Where is he, anyway?"
"I delivered him to the medbay. His wing was crumpled something bad, but he'll be alright."
"Good," Logos said. "I think you two will be able to figure out this plan by yourselves, and I have a symbiont to deal with." He stood and left.
Despite the cold way Logos spoke about Hell Buzzsaw, Orion knew from experience that the host would be hovering over his symbiont for weeks to come.
Slowly, the tension in the room abated.
Orion smiled at Megatronus and they got to work.
At some point, their fingers became entwined, Orion leaning against Megatronus as exhaustion crept up from the long cycle he'd had.