Tipping Point Chapter 6, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

Predacons on Earth. Optimus Prime didn't know whether he could classify this as 'worst case' or 'expected trouble'. Predacons were Decepticons by wide affiliation. Unlike many of Megatron's troops they hadn't joined him right away. The Predacons were a group of vicious but highly intelligent mercenaries for hire. They worked for whoever paid them enough. They weren't swayed to another side by ethics alone, or empty promises. Those who had tried that were either dead or alive minus a few limbs. There had always been rumors that they were able to combine into a massive fighting machine, but no one had ever witnessed it. With the combiner experiments so close to failure when it came to the fusion of five to six individuals into one mind, there had been only a few who had believed into the rumors.

Even today nothing had been proven.

Now the Predacons had been on Earth, apparently for months, and had worked for the Decepticons. Prowl, Sideswipe and Jolt had gone back into the mine and had reported back that the mining operation hadn't been recent. The uranium collected would amount to a lot.

For what purpose?

Optimus drummed his fingers against his thigh, then caught himself.

Jolt and Sideswipe would stay at the mine together with their allies, while Prowl was on his way back to base, accompanying Rodimus and a banged up Iron Man.

Making a decision he recalled Ironhide and Will.

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Tony didn't know what disturbed him more, the fact that Rodimus Prime hadn't yelled at him or that Pepper had. He knew he deserved it, though he would never say it out loud, and he had expected a dressing down, some harsh words and a few dark looks, but Rodimus had been downright pleasant. Controlled and civil.

It was creepy.

The mech who usually told Tony in no uncertain terms that what he was doing, wanted to do or had done was idiotic hadn't said a word about his stunt.

"Okay, stop it!"

Tony stared at the Audi with a mix of anger, annoyance and exasperation.

"Stop what?" Rodimus asked calmly.

"Stop with the silent treatment! I know you want to rant, so do it!"

"Why would I want to rant?"

"Because of what I did. You want to yell at me, tell me I'm an idiot, and you better do it before you have pump failure."

Rodimus smiled. The drive back had been spent in complete silence on his side. Tony had moaned and bitched over his armor.

"Don't worry. My energon pumps are just fine."

Tony glared murderously at him.

"You were the one always complaining about my 'mothering', I quote. You're all grown up and it was your decision," Rodimus continued, a fine smile of amusement in his voice.

"Guy turns out to be a Prime and suddenly he gets all high and mighty!" Tony snorted. "I think I liked you better when you mother-henned me."

Rodimus chuckled. "I'll memorize that for the rest of my existence, Tony."

"Memorize all you want! But at least you cared!"

"I still care. Don't doubt that. But you handled yourself commendably."

Tony smirked. "Yep. I did. Pretty cool, huh? I knew the new missiles would work."

"You so did not, show-off."

"Did, too!"

"Not."

"Too!"

And they were back to their old, very familiar banter. Rodimus smiled, feeling good. From the sparkle in Tony's eyes, so did he.

"Prime, sir?"

Rodimus turned and looked down at the man in the Australian Defense Force uniform, Lieutenant Cary Monash. He had come over and was now nodding respectfully at Stark.

"We received word from General Morshower. He requests an update. One I couldn't fully give him, sir."

Rodimus nodded. "I'll talk to him," he replied evenly.

Monash looked almost relieved, but he hid it well.

"Military politics," Tony commented. "I'm off. I hear a shower calling my name."

He waved and stalked over to his private jet.

Rodimus walked back into the hangar, which was still very much in the process of becoming a true base, and toward the raised com center. One of the techs nodded and activated the secure link to Morshower. The call was immediately branched out and routed through the Ark's command center and relayed to Nevada where Optimus was listening in as well.

"Rodimus Prime," the general greeted him. "What's the situation?"

"The Predacons have left Earth. The mine has been secured," the young Prime answered. "I have Sideswipe and Jolt there as guards. The uranium mined can only be estimated, but it amounts to several times the amount mined on this planet – by all countries. They dug deeper than humans ever could, unearthing the uranium deep down in the crust of your planet."

Morshower's lips were a thin line. "Any idea what for?"

"Not really. At least so far."

"Why Earth?" Morshower insisted. "There are more planets in this solar system with raw materials. Not to mention asteroids."

"I might be able to answer that," Perceptor spoke up. "We don't know the composition of the asteroids or the objects in what your scientists call the Oort comet cloud or the Kuiper belt in great detail. One theory of solar system formation is that there are more metals in the inner solar system. That would mean most of the uranium is on Mars, Mercury, Earth Venus and the asteroid belt. There is an estimated forty trillion tons of uranium and one hundred twenty trillion tons of thorium in the Earth's crust. Most of that uranium is concentrated in the continental crust. The mantel has lower concentration of uranium, but there is a lot of mantel."

Rodimus felt his systems already go into stall mode. Once Perceptor was let loose, things just… went wild in scientific terms.

"The solar heavy-metal abundances are typically measured both using spectroscopy of the Sun's photosphere and by measuring abundances in meteorites that have never been heated to melting temperatures. These meteorites are thought to retain the composition of the protostellar Sun and thus not affected by settling of heavy elements. The two methods generally agree well. Meteors tend to only have 0.008 parts per million in uranium. The Sun is 332,830 earth masses. So if the Sun was eight parts per billion uranium, then there are point two-seven percent of an earth mass of uranium in the Sun. There is an estimate by Earth institutes that
point zero one eight atoms of uranium out of every thirty billion atoms in the solar system…"

"What the Autobot is trying to say," Hook interrupted, sounding annoyed to the nth degree, "is that it's easier for the Preds to get what they want or need on Earth. Humans have already opened mines and prepared the way. All they had to do is either steal or use drones to scavenge."

Morshower looked relieved that someone had interrupted Perceptor and Rodimus hid a smile.

"There definitely is a lot of metal-like iron and platinum in the asteroids," Scrapper continued, "and we could acquire it, but uranium is another matter. Since the Predacons were only focused on that element of your planet, they probably had specific orders to get uranium. As Hook said, they made it easy for themselves and raided pre-existing mines."

"And it's possible they went after something else, too," Morshower concluded.

Rodimus nodded. "Yes, though what is hard to determine. It might be in Australia, it might be somewhere else. We don't know how long they have been on Earth and we don't know if their forms changed. Lieutenant Monash and Captain Burns have been looking into more folkloristic tales, sightings of any kind, strange noises and so on, but so far it was a relatively isolated occurrence in this corner of Australia."

"A big corner," Morshower commented.

Rodimus nodded. For humans, the square miles that added up to the radius of operation for the Predacons was huge. For a mech it was only to be expected.

"So we think we know what they came for, but not why. And we have no idea how long the Predacons were on Earth or what else they carted off to God knows where," Morshower concluded, looking decidedly unhappy.

Rodimus understood the frustration. "For now," he said. "Blaster has his spies on the shuttle. It's a short distance transport ship. Wherever it is heading, we will know soon."

"I hope so. There are a lot of people who aren't happy with the situation."

The younger Prime smiled tightly. "You can bet on that."

"You think there are more on Earth?"

Rodimus was silent for a moment. "We don't know," he finally answered slowly. "Since we do not know why they mined uranium I can't foretell if there might be more, but considering the risk they took, how openly they worked, we could be looking at more Decepticons. Something is happening, General, but we don't know what."

"I was afraid of that," Morshower muttered. "You said Predacons work for others, for the highest bidder? Who's the one pulling their strings?"

The mech considered the question for a moment. "It has to be a powerful Decepticon with access to either refined energon or valuable metals as payment. There are several among Megatron's forces."

"Soundwave," Scrapper said quietly.

Rodimus nodded. "Possible."

Because they had yet to make certain that the communications specialist had truly given up. Knowing Soundwave, he wouldn't just turn and leave Earth alone. Not if there was a chance that he might get to Will and with him he could ascertain his rule over the scattered Decepticon forces.

Morshower didn't look happy, but news like that weren't reason to be happy anyway.

"Keep me informed."

"Of course, general."

And then communication was terminated. Rodimus turned to Monash, who almost stood to attention. The mech had noticed the humans' tendency to do that in his presence and only those who had been with the core team right from the start or had worked with the Autobots for a while lost that ingrained behavior.

"Until we get word back from Blaster there is nothing we can do," he told the lieutenant.

"Except help secure the mine, sir?"

Rodimus smiled and nodded. "Beats twiddling your thumbs?"

Monash smiled before he caught himself. He made an aborted move as if to salute, shooting Rodimus a semi-sheepish look. Yes, he was military and he was getting a handle on the whole 'alien mechanoid life forms' thing, but not on his trained responses. The Autobot hid a smile and simply walked outside.

It was on the second day of their vacation that a message from Optimus interrupted the privacy. Lennox frowned. If Prime called, it was important. It might even be more than important and more along the lines of urgent. The way Ironhide's optics flared and the curse following the brief message were indication enough.

"What happened?" Lennox asked, voice clipped and very military.

"Sideswipe and Jolt encountered five Predacons in Australia. They fled in a ship, which they apparently used to mine and then shuttle uranium to an unknown location. Blaster has sent two of his symbiotes after the ship."

Lennox nodded briskly and went back into the cabin to retrieve his things. He didn't need to be told what that meant. He knew it.

The black Topkick shot along the deserted snowy roads at a speed unwise for any Earth vehicle. Will simply hung on, not the least bit worried about his safety.

Fifteen hours after the shuttle's flight from Earth Blaster alerted the Autobot base to incoming transmissions. Both Eject and Rewind had remained undetected and Blaster had sent Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Noise and Graphy out to function as relay stations for their fellow symbiotes, as well as be close enough just in case something happened.

The image wasn't the best resolution, but even at this level it was clear that whatever was going on, it was massive. At a distance of several hundred kilometers huge, round dishes had been constructed in space. Their dull gray and black metal was riddled with small holes and there were spikes protruding from the rims. There were at least a dozen of the dishes, all aligned to form a rough circle the size of a small planet. In the middle of each was a pillar that ended in a crystalline knob.

Ironhide bit back a curse as he looked at the grainy but still coherent image transmitted by the symbiotes. He and Will had arrived not much earlier, and Lennox had immediately gone to Epps for an update on the situation.

"A space bridge," Ratchet managed. "That's… impossible!"

tbc...