The communications expert felt satisfaction race through his systems as he looked at the result of all the work.
Cybertron.
His home.
Brought here by ancient technology that so far few had ever understood. Around him the Decepticons were struck speechless that the plan had actually worked. His symbiotes had regrouped close to him, radiating the same amazement.
This close to the sun of this solar system he would have no trouble using another ancient technology to harvest energon from the star. None at all.
Cybertron would live, even without the Allspark, and if he could get his hands on the human Lennox, he would even have something that insured his continued reign.
Something crackled through the thin atmosphere surrounding the planet. Like a web of lightning bolts.
Soundwave frowned.
One of the Seekers closest to the planet suddenly screamed and Soundwave witnessed as the web of bolts touched him. The hapless jet was flung away, colliding hard with space debris from the Kuiper belt, and crashed on a larger asteroid with a gurgle. The strange bubble quivered, then calmed down and the energy bolts crackled over it again as if nothing had happened.
"What the slag?!" Rumble exclaimed.
Soundwave hissed softly and activated his finely tuned sensory devices, immediately hit by sound so painful, he almost went down to his knees. It overwhelmed his circuits, threatened to tear into his processor, and his spark stuttered once. He immediately shut down all sensory equipment and felt calmness spread through him once more.
"What's going on?" Rumble repeated, agitated. "That's not normal, right?"
Ravage crept to the edge of their asteroid, making nervous little sounds. They were so close to Cybertron, they could see the spires. The war-ravaged surface looked pock-marked and molten in places. The spires had partially collapsed. There was no movement on the planet's surface or within its atmosphere. It was barren and dead.
"Transfer: unsuccessful," Soundwave said monotonously.
"I can see that," Rumble muttered insolently. "But why?"
The red visor band fixed him emotionlessly. "Unknown."
"So now what?"
The communications specialist turned back to the sight of their home world, silent, apparently undecided. Then he carefully opened a line into Cyberspace, a place he felt comfortable touching, unlike many other mechs, who were afraid of the vastness of this world, of the limitless possibilities. Cyberspace was a second home to Soundwave, a dimension where everything was possible, where nothing was as in the outside world. Distance meant nothing, mass and size and origin meant nothing. There was only the mind and the space.
Looking at Cybertron through Cyberspace Soundwave reeled back. It was like facing a murky, gray and very sickening wound in the middle of space. It was painful and loud and distorting everything around it. A milky halo surrounded the murkiness, pulsing, crackling… dangerous.
He immediately left Cyberspace and collected himself.
"Soundwave?" Rumble asked, sounding unsure.
"Retreat," he only ordered.
"But Soundwave…"
The red visor met the optics of the much smaller symbiote and Rumble shifted nervously. He finally transformed and returned to Soundwave, connecting to his host. The other symbiotes radiated the same confusion and worry, but Soundwave kept them logged out of his inner systems. All they could do was reload and wait.
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Not far from where the current Decepticon leader was contemplating what had happened, Jazz was doing the same. Readings came in from the three shuttles and those mechs closest to the metal world, and all looked far from good. He wasn't a scientist, but he didn't need to be one to understand that something had gone horrendously wrong in the transfer.
"Cybertron seems to be surrounded by an energy shield," Prowl could be heard over the comm lines. "Whether it was intentional on Soundwave's side remains to be seen."
"Doubt it," Jazz replied.
He was joined by Barricade, who, like all of them, looked a bit worse for wear. Jazz briefly scanned his bonded and found numerous metal splinters embedded in the battle armor, some deeper than he would have preferred them to be located, but Barricade only shot him a warning look. He was functional, which was more than what could be said about his last opponent. The Seeker was floating among the space debris, off-lined and missing a few limbs.
"Regroup," Prowl ordered. "We fall back to a safe distance."
Jazz had to agree that right now they shouldn't be too close to Cybertron, especially since the strange force field seemed to pulse.
He launched himself toward the Ghost-3's now opening loading bay, followed by Barricade. They waited for the hatch to close and pressure to equalize, then Bowman opened the forward blast doors so they had access to the bridge. While neither mech could walk into the human-sized compartment, it allowed personal communication.
Jazz pulled a jagged shard out of his bonded's shoulder and let it fall onto the floor plating. He knew he didn't look much better and the dried energon on his left leg wasn't just spatter. Ratchet would have fun with them all.
Bowman was maneuvering the Ghost-3 to a safer place. "Now what?" he asked.
It was a good question, none he had an answer for. "Establish a link to Nevada," Jazz ordered.
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Perceptor's fingers flew over the control of the Ark's long-distance scanners and he shook his head again and again.
"No, no, no," he murmured.
Next to him, Hook was recalibrating several of the defense satellites, a pinched expression on his face. His optics flared deep red all of a sudden and he gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Has he lost his last processor?!" he hissed.
"Apparently," Perceptor commented wryly as he read over more data, but there was a tremor in his voice.
"Perceptor, Hook, report," Prime's deep voice commanded.
"It seems like Soundwave disregarded all the Laws of Modus and moved Cybertron from its original position to this solar system," Perceptor replied immediately. "While moving an object from one system to the next is theoretically possible, even the size of a planet, sanity precludes such attempts due to the massive backwash in energy expended, which in turn would influence the object moved. Since he didn't take into account the effect such a massive move has on objects, and because space bridge technology is a fickle thing to master, something not even our ancestors did to perfection…"
"Soundwave messed up," Long Haul rumbled.
Perceptor huffed at being interrupted and shot the Constructicon an annoyed look. "Well, yes."
"In what way?" Prime demanded, sounding tense.
"Space bridge technology is barely understood by our generation," Hook said, cutting off Perceptor before he could get a word in. "What we do know is that it requires a tremendous amount of precision and energy. To move a mech from point A to point B he has to have bridge technology in his own circuits. The humans would call it teleportation. Space bridges as independent stations were tried, but never successful. To move a whole planet someone has to be out of his mind." Hook's tone clearly indicated that was what he thought Soundwave had to be. "The power requirements alone are beyond calculation. To move the planet across galaxies, it's impossible to know the outcome."
"The outcome," Scrapper intervened before Prime could ask for another clarification, "is that the place where the planet was is a hole in the universe, whereas the place it now is never had a planet. It's a reality shift. Cybertron doesn't belong in this solar system, so it pulls away, but the space bridge forced it to remain here. The hole where it was still has echoes, for lack of a better word, of Cybertron. Both together create a so-called reality bubble."
"Reality bubble?" Prime echoed, clearly unable to understand.
"A reality bubble is a completely theoretical construct," Perceptor explained. "Scientists have filled books on reality bubbles, but their creation has never been successfully documented, mainly because space bridge technology was never sanctioned. The Ancients had trouble with it, so past scientists weren't allowed to dabble in that technology. There were so little notes that most didn't even want to try it. So theoretical models were used and the reality bubble was one outcome."
"What were the others?"
"Complete destruction of the object transported arose as a possibility," Perceptor answered. "The bigger the object, the more dangerous. Or that the object transported might become stuck between realities or dimensions. The reality bubble is like a best and worst case scenario."
"In what way?" Prime wanted to know.
"It's neither here nor there," Scrapper translated. "We see Cybertron, but we can't physically go there. The reality bubble keeps us from entering the vicinity of the planet."
"Like a giant shield that no one can easily breach," Hook added before Perceptor could say something.
"Imagine the energy necessary to pull the planet to this system as a wrapping around Cybertron," Perceptor finally spoke up, shooting Hook a look that dared the Constructicon to interrupt. "The energy blocks us from setting foot on the planet, or even get close to the outer layers. It also would block anyone on the planet from realizing what happened."
Prime was silent for a very long minute. "What will it do to Cybertron?" he finally asked.
Perceptor exchanged glances with the Constructicons, then shrugged. "We don't know, Prime. For now we can only theorize. Nothing can get in, nothing gets out. I'm not sure how long anyone on our planet will take to realize what happened, if at all. We don't know how many have gone into hiding underground."
"Reality is frozen," Hook said, voice even. "They can't see us, we can't talk to them. From what we can see, nothing has moved either. So it's possible that time has stopped."
"Can we breach the bubble?"
"Inadvisable," Hook objected immediately. "Right now it's a very delicate balance. Soundwave already upset the balance of the universe."
As melodramatic as it sounded, it was partially true.
"Any further manipulation could lead to catastrophic results," Scavenger agreed. "Piercing the bubble might collapse it. All that energy has to go somewhere, and I doubt it would just leave without a path of destruction in its wake. Worst case scenario… Cybertron will be torn to pieces."
Optimus' optics were a dark blue, deep and thoughtful, his face giving nothing away. "What can we do?"
Another exchange of looks. "I'm afraid we can't give you an answer right now, Prime," Perceptor said solemnly. "But we're working on it."
It got him a long look, then a nod. "Keep me informed."
"Of course."
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At Nevada, Prime turned to his second-in-command. Jazz's rather scratched looking face looked expectantly at him.
"Ghost-2 and 3 return to the Ark," Prime ordered. "Prowl, Sideswipe and Jolt, I want you to remain and monitor. Fall back to maximum distance. Additional SI satellites are currently heading your way to function as your video and audio surveillance. The Ark is standing by. Should any of you need repairs, head for the Ark."
Prowl, on a second screen, nodded. "Understood."
Jazz nodded his understanding as well.
tbc...