Author's Notes: Ladies, Gentlemechs behold Chapter Four of Army of Metal... I hope you people will enjoy further glimpses into Decepticon personalities. Wait until you see what I've got planned for the next few chapters, we'll be time jumping all over the place.
Starscream's notorious plan is at last spelled out for all and I'm fairly certain the Decepticons are going to have loads of fun, Decepticons do have fun don't they? Er anyway I hope you'll enjoy everything and please review I need to know what if anything I might be doing wrong.
This Chapter is titled...
Chapter Four: Area Fifty-One
The convoy leaving the oil field was something to behold, led by three SUVs the ground based Decepticons made a mixed and matched sight if ever there was one. Pickup truck, armored personnel carrier, sportscar, dune buggy, armored car, buffalo MPCV, Saleen cruiser and a few Sector Seven trucks. Flying in near perfect formation above them was the MIG-29, two F-22 Raptors and an Osprey, their destination unknown to all save the newcomer who went by the name Stockade.
It was a gross parody to the similar convoy that had traveled to Mission City in an attempt to save the Allspark, and as it reached the more widely used freeway many motorists watched it pass in confusion or curiosity. Cars and trucks were forced to swerve out of the way of the armored personnel carrier or risk being smashed by its tires, the convoy was breaking every speed limit and yet none of the state patrol bothered to break it up, most likely because of the fake order Agent Simmons had presented over the radio.
"How can you maintain control of so many varying minds Stockade?" Shockwave wondered as he at last joined the group in his helicopter form, his scientific mind fascinated by this new development.
"It isn't easy, the cerebro shells have been carefully modified however it took several attempts to find the proper communications frequency." Stockade replied. "There were several messy deaths when the initial subjects killed themselves due to perceived mental stability issues." He elaborated.
"How many?" Starscream interrupted impatiently.
"Five." Stockade replied.
"They must have been part of a pod." Starscream mused thoughtfully. "They are secure I trust." He remarked in a cautionary tone.
"Of course; they may be pathetic, but these fleshlings have perfected capabilities of neutralizing and containing Cybertronians. As Wreckage can attest to if the files I've been privy to are any indication." Stockade admitted in a grudging yet sly tone.
"Erase those files." Wreckage warned angrily.
"So you've captured some of our kind." Shockwave commented ignoring the banter. "Autobots I take it."
"Naturally." Starscream laughed. "All part of the plan."
"Which you still aren't sharing with us." Dreadwing pointedly reminded, Starscream literally sighed at that.
"You'll find out when I'm ready to tell. And not before." He stated banking left to follow the ground units as they turned onto another road.
"Secrets are like Energon mines, deadly with to much exposure." Swindle muttered, but he opted to keep his opinion to himself as they continued to their unknown destination.
Memories are like windows to the past, we can recall with vivid clarity our favorite taste, the first time we succeeded in achieving a coveted goal and even a great feeling of disappointment when we've failed. For a member of a robotic alien race memories become nothing more then internal data stored and collected by uniquely programmed processors, Dreadwing was lost in the past grieving for his home planet and secretly hoping this plan could bring about its restoration.
He remembered with bitter animosity the day everything fell apart, the day the Autobots launched the Allspark into space. The Autobots had set up false leads and vague rumors that the Allspark had been secreted in Simfur and so Megatron had ordered Soundwave to take the bulk of his forces there and make the Autobots believed they'd succeeded, a carefully orchestrated ruse, Megatron possessed a strange link to the Allspark and sensed its true location. Somewhere in Tyger Pax. The secondary forces swarmed the decimated city and its small group of Autobot defenders, Dreadwing still recalled the cries of the dieing with glee, back in those days Dreadwing existed as more then a singular entity.
Much like Swindle, Payload, Dropkick, Scrapper, Mixmaster and Longarm some of whom served the Autobots in limited quantities. He had been the head of an army of duplicate constructs all called Dreadwing, an army of clones guided by his interlinked spark. A process which used up considerable resources and proved no longer sustainable with the loss of the Allspark, his hands had killed many an Autobot that day.
He recalled the cries of one particular Autobot torn apart quite vividly and with delicious, sadistic pleasure. And yet it was a pleasure all to fleeting and made bitter by the impossible sacrifice by the Autobots, Dreadwing hated the end of that day with a passion for it had truly turned the tide of the war in the favor of neither faction.
Still, it had been a glorious campaign while it lasted; now here they were on an insignificant speck of a planet following Starscream on some fools errand of a mission he knew nothing about. True the Allspark may yet be restored, but even with their numbers it would prove almost impossible to escape the Autobots without heavy casualties. Considering their heavy hitters were limited to Bonecrusher and Wreckage, Shockwave rarely deigned to fight and the rest of them weren't much of a match for the likes of Ironhide or Optimus Prime.
"Is this it?" Dropkick wondered with obvious disgust as they at last reached their destination, a seemingly insignificant speck of land in the middle of the Central American wasteland known as Nevada ironically not far from Tranquility as the Decepticon flies.
"To put it so crudely, yes." Stockade replied using one of his human pawns to leave its vehicle and approach the ramshackle construct seated at the end of the dust road almost looking ready to collapse at a moments notice.
"Agent Chase requesting access, recognition code Gamma One, Five, Twelve." It spoke in its inferior language.
"Please place optical nerve ending in visual range for retinal scan." A grating male voice commanded; the Human Male knelt forward partially exposing his face to a hidden scanning device. "Retinal identification and access code confirmed; proceed." The bodiless voice stated, a portion of the desert floor shifted and fell exposing an access way leading down to what appeared to be a parking garage of some sort.
"What is this place?" Starscream wondered as he and the rest of the airborne troops converted to their true form, Stockade proceeded to lead them down into the ground.
"At one point this was planned to be a secondary bunker to hold Megatron, but when they realized how impractical it was they decided to mothball it." He explained. "As you can see I've had my little puppets re-commission it for our use, Decepticons welcome to Area Fifty-One… Or at least the outskirts of it." Stockade pronounced with a false tone of good cheer. Shockwave walked off immediately examining the design of the place with obvious fascination.
"It astounds me the level of understanding these primates managed in reverse engineering Megatrons' stasis locked form." He murmured thoughtfully, Dreadwing silently agreed; for a race of barbaric animals their ability to grasp Cybertronian technologies and alter its functionality for their baser desires was quite astounding.
"You can tour the place at your leisure later." Starscream snapped impatiently. "Take us to the Autobots." He growled, Stockade transformed after dumping off his passengers and proceeded to lead the way deeper into the complex.
Incinerator was impressed despite himself; the facility had been constructed to accommodate their kind and despite the inferiority of the building materials on this planet compared to those of Cybertron. Stockades' mind controlled puppets had modified it recently with a few Decepticon touches, including the defensive measures imbedded in the walls.
The place almost felt like home, every last one of the Human accoutrements had been stripped away and advanced sensor equipment, Energon storage containers, spare ammunition for a few of the more exotic arsenals the Decepticons and Shockwaves' lab had been transplanted here from the Nemesis. The room Stockade led them to was filled with five modified containment units, standing frozen within them were five Autobots, most of them unrecognized by Incinerator.
"They achieved planet fall the day of the battle." Stockade revealed. "I had to act fast in order to ensnare them before Prime or the others detected them, we destroyed their beacons."
"Are they aware of our presence?" Barricade asked moving to glare at the black unit who appeared to have adopted a truck form somewhat similar to Primes, he was much shorter however. "Armorhide." He whispered to himself smirking darkly.
"No, if we're going to use them in our plan we had to… Keep them in the dark."
"Yes, that mysterious plan everyone seems to know." Dreadwing remarked testily turning from Stockade to Starscream.
"A plan that will involve the most devious of snares." The former Air Commander revealed sharing a smarmy look with Stockade. "It will not be a simple one and will require great sacrifice on all our parts; for one thing there will be no further engagements against the Autobots until I say so." He glared at the others standing around him.
"What?" Bonecrusher demanded angrily.
"You've lost your mind." Dropkick accused surprising many of the others, he wasn't known for his violent streak.
"I would have to agree with our usually depressed colleague." Shockwave noted insincere in his feelings, he was in fact intrigued by the boldness of Starscreams' choice.
"We will not engage." Starscream growled cutting off any further questions or arguments. "This is vital; my intention is to make the humans believe that the Autobots are really the enemy intending an invasion of sorts. Which is why I had Stockade capture these five, Shockwave can you implant subliminal orders to make them attack Human settlements?"
"Yes, but it will take time. Especially if I am correct in assuming that I'll need to rely on Stockades' puppets in order to maintain our part in this façade a secret." He replied Starscream frowned.
"How long?"
"Judging by their crude natures at least sixteen or seventeen Earth years." Shockwave estimated.
"To long, but serviceable." Starscream relented.
"And what are we supposed to do while Shockwave plays Doctor?" Payload wondered darkly.
"Dropkick, Barricade, Frenzy, Hardtop, Swindle and yourself shall monitor the Autobots in shifts. We must discover where they'll build their base not to mention which human familial units they choose to hide with." Starscream stated smugly. "As for the rest of us, that's where phase two comes into play. We must keep the United States military preoccupied, in order to do this we shall pose as US attack forces and ensure the geopolitical climate remains as it is." He revealed with what amounted to a sly smile.
"So you get to blow stuff up while we play babysitter with the Autobots." Swindle complained arms crossed.
"Oh but you get to do so much more." Starscream began with the equivalent of what humans might term a sickly sweet smile. "You get to kill the witnesses of our battles with the Autobots, at least as many as Stockade can find. The plan won't work otherwise." The rest of them shared looks with one another and Frenzy chuckled wildly.
"When do we start?" The smallest Decepticon asked eagerly.
The slow soft sounds of helicopter blades could be heard in the darkness of the night, the markings could barely be made out and the individuals looking up at the sound questioningly were better off not knowing what was to come. They shouted expletives in their native language and fired into the dark, with a sinister laugh Incinerator let loose a cluster of missiles that tore into the base.
Over three months of hit and fade attacks and he still wasn't tired of sowing the seeds of chaos, Decepticons were bred for warfare and this kind of warfare was right up his alley. Swooping down on the insignificant beings Incinerator switched to his recently mounted machine guns and let fly, or as the humans termed it, brought the rain. They fought back with little success and in a matter of seconds the methodical assault leveled the base and wiped out the infestation of flesh creatures.
"Incinerator to Starscream objective accomplished." He reported pulling away from the still smoking ruins in the cover of darkness.
"Excellent, report to navel vessel Dark Fleet for instructions." The Decepticon leader ordered, banking further then any human pilot craft could fly comfortably Incinerator chuckled; next time he would designate the call sign for the stolen aircraft carrier.
Nicole Monarch had changed her last name and gone into hiding because of strange things she'd been witness to, she'd noticed a slowly encroaching viciousness in her fellow Sector Seven agents three and a half months ago before the N.B.E.s became a major presence on Earth. The thirty-one year old brunette was no fool; she'd long suspected something like this might happen. When dealing with hostile unknown aliens of a purely mechanically oriented nature who knows what could happen, like that Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie.
Now she kept looking over her shoulder expecting to find looming shadows where once everyday vehicles had been, she also made sure she knew everybody in her building complex so that if former Sector Seven agents appeared she'd know to run. So she wasn't really paying attention when she found the stereo in a box shipped to her, she was nervous and jumpy, but she didn't worry about what the stereo was, but more where it came form. A card inside said it was from her friends at work, a welcome to the team sort of gesture, so she put it on the coffee table and ignored it for the time being as she went to get ready for a party at the neighbors.
While she was in the bedroom changing the stereo split apart on numerous invisible seams and quickly transformed into a four limbed metal monster with glowing red optics roughly the size of a lanky six or seven year old, it wasn't Nicole's fault she didn't react with more care in this instance. She didn't think they could be so small, exiting the bedroom in a slip she started looking for her misplaced earrings when she froze, the stereo was gone.
"Oh God." She exclaimed turning to run for her gun, the four-limbed monster stood in the bedrooms doorway holding the weapon casually in one hand. "Please no." She begged trembling as her life began to flash before her eyes.
"You should have known you couldn't hide for ever." A mans voice spoke up from behind her, Agent Simmons walked into view his eyes glassy and indifferent, Nicole tried to scream only to gasp and gurgle as her former boss slit her throat.
"Another rape victim." She heard an alien voice comment with a cold laugh as he twisted the gun breaking it in two, Nicoles' lifeblood spilled on the floor as she lay dieing a black haze creeping into her vision, she was dieing.
"You were told to leave no evidence." Simmons chastised, the former stereo shrugged.
"I hate firearms." He commented glibly, Simmons stuck his hand out for the destroyed pieces. The little robot handed them over, Nicole tried to staunch the flow of blood despite the futility of it all; a second pair of legs entered her dwindling field of vision. Her killer; she felt her slip being torn, gloved hands marking her body and then she saw the little robot transform back into the stereo and Simmons pick it up.
"You have the semen?" He asked dispassionately.
"Yeah, the beggar was more then willing." Her killer commented almost thoughtfully. "Next time I'll have to cut a little deeper." Oh God how morbid they've become. Nicole thought as she felt herself growing even weaker, she was about to die and she was no longer afraid. Bastards are going to pay for this; the robots won't need them indefinitely. Her final thoughts fell on the ear of perhaps only God and then she died, the Agents left kicking Nicole Monarchs' door in to make it appear as though the killer had broken in; leaving yet another potential unsolved Homicide for the local police. Outside they climbed into Stockades' vehicle mode and the Decepticon drove off, one down countless others to go.
To Be Continued
Oh dear, silent assassins and Decepticons posing as Americans furthering the war on terror... Not good. What do you think is going to happen next? Well you'll just have to wait to find out please R&R people and yeah the murder of Nicole was a little cold, but hey technically Stockade was the one killing her not the humans.