For every Insecticon that retreated with wounds, another stepped in to take its place. Brawl and Cylas stood back to back, encircled by the enemy. The Insecticons attacked in an unusual turn-based pattern, entering single combat rather than rushing in all together. Wounded Insecticons retreated to the safety of the swarm rather than fighting to the death. Those Insecticons actively wrestling with Brawl and Cylas seemed less vicious than expected, as if aiming for blows that would cripple but not kill. The surrounding audience clicked or screeched in time with particularly damaging hits.
"They intend to capture us alive," Cylas shouted to Brawl, firing a missile from his shoulder launcher as he spoke. The Insecticon in front of him batted it out of the way. The missile hit the ground behind the Insecticon, kicking up a cloud of dust. Through the haze, Cylas dimly registered massive claws slashing toward his head. He dodged low, light on his borrowed feet thanks to extensive combat training, and went for the Insecticon's knees.
The Insecticon shifted faster than Cylas had expected, and a swift knee smashed him in the faceplates instead of cracking beneath his hammer. Cylas sprawled on the ground. He rolled back to his feet and leapt aside just in time to avoid a devastating punch.
"So what? You want to go with them? I don't," Brawl shouted back, locked in a wrestling match with his own Insecticon. His armor was significantly heavier than Cylas's, and the Insecticon claws that had gouged deep marks in Cylas's shoulders had only scratched Brawl's paint.
Beyond the clamor of the Insecticons and the static interference whiting out all available comm channels, the Nemesis hovered overhead, a dark monolith blotting out the pale blue sky. It was as motionless as the wreckage of the Harbinger just some few hundred meters below, yet its stillness held all the surety of a victor looming over the vanquished.
Brawl was not vanquished. Not yet. Not ever, as long as his spark still burned. Dents and gashes stung across his armor, but nothing vital had been damaged. Brawl glared into the red optical band of his opponent, and his own visor flared brightly in challenge.
The Insecticon screeched at him, mandibles shivering with the shrill cry. The rest of the swarm encircling them echoed the sound. The chorus of shrieks was loud enough to make Brawl's head ring. Behind Brawl, Cylas groaned in annoyance.
"Switch off your audials," Brawl roared, doing exactly this.
The moment of distraction cost Brawl. His feet slid through the canyon rock, carving deep troughs as he strained against his opponent. The Insecticon gave a particularly hard shove, and the rock beneath Brawl's feet crumbled into dust. He shifted his weight in a lurch, forcing the Insecticon back two steps—progress, but not enough.
Brawl slammed his head into the Insecticon's own. The thick cranial ridges of his helm shattered its optical band and caved in its faceplates. Glass shards rained down. The Insecticon staggered back, disoriented. Brawl helped it along with a kick to the midsection, then spun to deal with the next Insecticon that lunged in to attack.
He was a moment too slow. Claws struck him across the shoulder, catching on armor edges and knocking him off balance. He stumbled, hastily raising his fists to ward off the next blow.
Laserfire shot down from the side, cutting precise gashes along the Insecticon's transformation seams and joints. Brawl regained his balance as the Insecticon looked up, tracking the source of the incoming shots. Vortex flew out from the top deck of the Harbinger, integrated lasers flashing as he targeted the swarm surrounding Brawl and Cylas.
Three Insecticons broke away from the encirclement, transforming and launching into the sky to attack. Vortex saw them coming and veered away, retreating back toward the Harbinger. Blasterfire nipped at his fuselage as he led the Insecticons in a wobbly chase. Just over the breached segment of the Harbinger, Vortex dropped into a stationary hover and rolled sideways. The three Insecticons had not expected a sudden change to zero speed. They overshot Vortex, flying past him by a large margin.
A pair of missiles spiraled up from mid-decks on the Harbinger, blowing two Insecticons out of the sky. Vortex took advantage of his new position to the rear of the third Insecticon and targeted its undefended rear. Onboard lasers fired rapid pulses. The Insecticon cried out and spiraled to the ground in an emergency landing. Smoke trailed from narrow but deep perforations in all four wings.
A high-pitched comm signal crackled over the public airwaves. Though distorted by static interference from the Nemesis overhead, the transmission source was close enough to get the message through.
"Brawl, Cylas. Fall back to the ship," Onslaught ordered.
"Yes, sir!" Brawl and Vortex both received the retreat command. Cylas heard the transmission but did not understand due to an unfortunate lack of familiarity with the Cybertronian comm equipment in his new frame.
Vortex looped around, firing wide volleys at the Insecticons still surrounding Brawl and Cylas. Though not terribly effective at properly damaging the targets, the short moments bought by the Insecticons' flinches and angry glares were enough to shift the balance.
Brawl punted away his latest opponent and grabbed Cylas by the arm. Cylas whirled upon him, one hand transformed into a hammer and raised in warning.
"FALL BACK," Brawl shouted, though speech was useless if Cylas had switched off his auditory receptors as Brawl had. For clarity, Brawl made the universal hand signal for "retreat" and pointed. Cylas nodded once.
Together, they charged toward the Harbinger. Brawl body-slammed Insecticons out of the way left and right. Cylas followed close behind, firing at will from his shoulder launcher. The Insecticons lumbered after them in slow pursuit, but Insecticon frames were not designed for speed. Brawl and Cylas made it to the base of the cliff and started climbing.
Onslaught was a blue smudge at the cusp of the breached hull, crouched on one knee as he simultaneously targeted Insecticons with his integrated missile system and fired plasma bolts from the rifle tucked under one arm. Starscream stood next to him, similarly firing a plasma rifle down at the Insecticons.
The shadow of the Nemesis shifted overhead.
"Brawl, down!" Vortex sent over comms.
Brawl looked up and saw the disruptor cannon pointed at him. He shoved Cylas sideways and dove in the opposite direction just as the cannon fired. The disruptor pulse struck the ground close enough to make his circuits tingle numbly. He was up again before the charge fully dissipated, crawling back to his feet. To the side, Cylas was still sprawled out on the slope, looking up at the cannon with astonishment. Brawl hauled Cylas upright.
"MOVE." Brawl pointed at the open holo-sim deck some twenty meters above them. Inside, the thick hull of the Harbinger would shield them from the disruptor cannon.
Cylas's left arm hung limp after a near brush with the disruptor blast. His mouth flapped silently. Brawl reactivated his auditory receptors, but Cylas stopped talking at that moment and mobilized. Brawl ran as well.
The Nemesis disruptor cannon realigned and fired again. Brawl felt the whoosh of incoming charge and anticipated the blast trajectory, leaping aside just in time. The ground in front of him acquired a new crater. He jumped over it and caught the edge of the Harbinger deck, pulling himself up with both arms. Cylas was already inside, sniper rifle in his arms and aimed toward their pursuers. From within the shelter of the breached holo-sim room, Brawl no longer had a direct line of sight to the Nemesis or its disruptor cannon. They were safe from that threat, although the Insecticons were still coming quickly.
Two decks up, Onslaught and Starscream continued to shoot at the Insecticons rushing up the slope toward the open hull. Meanwhile, Vortex led a swarm of flying Insecticons in wide arcs in front of the Harbinger, occasionally flying backward or looping upside down to bring his forward lasers into action. A thin line of smoke trailed from his side where an Insecticon shot had strayed too close, but he remained as agile as ever in the air.
"We're clear. Vortex, get out of there," Brawl sent. He transformed to tank mode and perched on the edge of the broken deck, targeting the nearest flying Insecticon. The recoil rocked him back on his treads, and the Insecticon went down in flames.
"Right." Vortex rapidly reversed course and switched to root-mode midair. He kicked off the nearest Insecticon carapace and leapt sideways, using it as a springboard to redirect him toward the Harbinger. He spun freely in root-mode for a moment, visor glittering with fascination as the kicked Insecticon spiraled toward the ground with a crumpled wing. All of its limbs flailed as it fell in slow motion, unable to maintain lift with the remaining three wings.
Vortex returned to helicopter mode and flew vaguely toward Brawl, sensors still tracking the Insecticon's panicked descent from above.
The Nemesis disruptor cannon fired again. This time, it struck.
Fifty meters from the entrance, Vortex stalled and dropped like a stone. Momentum carried him forward as he fell, but he was too low to reach the refuge of the holo-sim deck. Gravity slammed him into the rocky slope just below Brawl's ledge. Vortex rolled all the way down in alt-mode, kicking up plumes of dust. A pained burst of static carried over comms. The Insecticons on the slope converged on his motionless frame.
"Vortex is down. Cover me." Onslaught plunged down from two decks overhead, landing on the slope in a cloud of dust. He slid over loose rocks in a partly controlled skid, shooting or pummeling any Insecticon in his way as he charged toward Vortex. With the advantage of high ground, Onslaught swiftly cut through the Insecticon ranks.
Brawl wanted to help, but his main gun could not fire at a downward angle. Onslaught was already far enough away that chasing after would only give the Nemesis another easy target to pick off. Brawl settled for shooting at the flying Insecticons who were now swarming toward the lone figure of Starscream on the upper deck.
"Agh! We have to get out of here. Full retreat, bridge out. It's our only chance," Starscream shrieked over comms, dodging blaster fire from Insecticons left and right. He brandished his plasma rifle wildly, but the Insecticons closed in faster than he could shoot them down.
On the ground, Onslaught pounded an Insecticon into scrap metal and flung it aside. He drove the butt of his plasma rifle into the head of another Insecticon, knocking it back several steps. Vortex laid at his feet in chopper mode, bulky and motionless.
"Vortex, transform," Onslaught ordered. Vortex did not move. Onslaught made a sound of wordless frustration and shifted his plasma rifle to one arm. He grasped Vortex's tail boom with the other hand and retreated, shooting backward as he dragged Vortex up the slope.
At the top of the slope, Onslaught lifted Vortex up to the waiting hands of Brawl and Cylas. Insecticon blaster shots struck the armor of his back during these few stationary moments, but Onslaught held steady until Vortex was safely inside. Burden thus transferred, Onslaught spun and crouched, shooting another pair of missiles at the offending Insecticons. Under cover of the ensuing explosions, he hopped inside the shelter of the Harbinger.
"Full retreat," Onslaught said over general comms and aloud for Cylas's benefit.
"It's about time!" Two levels above them, Starscream bolted the moment retreat was called. His locator beacon rushed into the depths of the Harbinger.
"You two, get Vortex inside," Onslaught ordered aloud.
An Insecticon landed behind Onslaught, crouching to duck through the torn edges of the Harbinger hull. Onslaught roundhouse kicked it right back out through the opening, and it went tumbling down the hill.
Once Brawl and Cylas dragged Vortex through the interior doors, Onslaught abandoned the defense and charged inside as well. Another Insecticon followed close behind him. Brawl heaved the sliding doors shut just before the Insecticon arrived. It slammed into the closed door hard enough to make a massive dent. An angry screech echoed through the corridor, and Cylas grunted in discomfort. Metal scraped, quiet and deliberate. One door panel started to slide sideways.
"Look out!" Brawl threw his weight against the door, pinning the sliding panels shut as the Insecticon on the other side tried to claw it open. Onslaught held the other door segment in place. Cylas stepped between them to help.
Between the three of them, the gap between the doors slowly closed off. The metal panels deformed where they bent around the Insecticon's faintly twitching claws. A furious screech echoed from the other side of the door.
Brawl glanced down at Cylas.
"Switch places. Give me that laser." Brawl snatched the upgraded sniper rifle from Cylas and fiddled with the focus settings. He aimed it at the seam of the door.
Metal heated rapidly under the focused laser beam, liquifying and reflowing to weld the sliding panels shut. The Insecticon's claws melted alongside the rest of the door panels, adding to the strength of the weld. Within moments, the door was sealed. Onslaught and Cylas cautiously stepped away from the freshly welded surface, ready to leap back into place at the first sign of movement.
Metal thudded outside. Cylas made an aborted lunge, but the door held strong. Onslaught straightened fractionally, fists unclenching.
"What's the plan?" Cylas asked no one in particular. Brawl looked at Onslaught. Metal clanged again as at least two different Insecticons pounded against the sealed door. Onslaught's head dipped.
"We must—"
"There you are!" Starscream popped out from the other end of the corridor and dashed toward them. A plasma rifle bounced in his grasp, clutched loosely between his arms. "What are you standing around for? Quick, we have to abandon ship."
"Come again?" Onslaught's visor brightened.
Starscream flung a hand toward the sealed door. "Do you think those vermin were a full assault force? They were barely a welcoming committee. The moment Meg—ehh, our enemy grows tired of toying with you, he'll deploy the nucleon shock cannon and melt this fine ship into a puddle. Do you want to be inside when that happens?"
Cylas frowned and said, "Meg... atron?"
Nobody paid Cylas much attention. He looked between Onslaught and the door. Borrowed faceplates took on the haunted look of someone who had made an irreversible mistake, tried desperately to convince himself otherwise, and now could no longer deny that he was far beyond the point of no return. Swindle would have called this the no-refunds expression, but Swindle was not here right now.
"Nucleon shock cannon." Onslaught spoke just a fraction quieter than usual. That class of weapon could melt a hole through a Cybertronian mountain. It would make short work of the Harbinger hull, and anyone inside who managed to survive a direct hit would sustain severe heat damage. His processor raced through dozens of tactical scenarios in the space of a single moment.
A heavy object slammed against the sealed door. The center bowed inward by a few centimeters. Cylas stepped backward, nearly bumping into Onslaught in his haste. The motion in close proximity jolted Onslaught out of simulations.
"Abandon ship. Starscream, Cylas, grab anything of value. Brawl, get some explosives. Meet at the groundbridge control room in three minutes. We'll bridge out to meet Blast Off and Swindle in the Arabian desert. Move out."
"Sir." Brawl sprinted off. Cylas went in the opposite direction.
"Wise choice." Starscream gave Onslaught a long look before running after Brawl.
Onslaught opened a comm channel to Blast Off and Swindle. The line sounded fuzzy with static interference, but it was notoriously difficult to completely jam a subspace comm signal without physical access to a networked chip.
"Blast Off, be at these coordinates in two minutes." Onslaught transmitted a set of coordinates.
"Acknowledged," Blast Off replied a moment later. On the other side of the planet, his and Swindle's location beacons shifted.
The door caved in almost half a meter with the screech of tortured metal. Brawl's quick welding job would not hold forever, and time was running out.
Onslaught closed the comm line and picked up Vortex. As a helicopter, he was rather unwieldy to carry in alt-mode, especially with four long rotors splayed in every which direction. Onslaught prodded at the rotor mast until he found the locking mechanism. With that disabled, the rotors could fold into a parallel stack that would not catch on every corner and door frame. Onslaught shuffled them into some semblance of order and hauled Vortex over a shoulder.
Vortex groaned as he was lifted. "Ow, my head. What's going on, boss?"
"You're online. Good. Status report."
Vortex ran a system diagnostic and sent over the result. "Not so bad for a stun blast. I can transform." Vortex transformed to root-mode before Onslaught could set him down. He ended up with two arms and a leg draped over an unamused Onslaught. Visor flickering in a soft reset, Vortex hopped to the ground and looked at the caved-in door. "We're running? No way."
"Tactical retreat. Take this." Onslaught shoved his plasma rifle at Vortex. Transforming to alt-mode, he rolled forward to present the truck bed. "Get on."
"I'm just saying—we can take a bunch of bugs, easy." Vortex climbed on board, wrapping his free arm around the base of the missile turret for stability.
The strained door finally buckled under the Insecticon assault. Claws poked between the warped edges of the sliding panels, and the door peeled open. One Insecticon squeezed through the gap. It screeched and lumbered toward Onslaught, covering great distance with each stride of its long legs.
"Hold on." Onslaught hit the accelerator, launching down the corridor at maximum speed. His engine roared as the gears engaged in ascending order, but the Insecticon closed the distance quickly.
Vortex twisted around atop the truck bed, firing both the plasma rifle and one set of built-in lasers. Knee joints buckled under the barrage. The Insecticon collapsed forward with an enraged roar.
"Not so fast without kneecaps, are you?" Vortex cackled.
A moment later, two more Insecticons crawled over the crippled frame of the first one. Vortex focused on shooting while Onslaught raced through the corridors.
The Insecticons were slower on foot than Onslaught's top speed in vehicle mode, and Vortex poked enough holes in their wings to dissuade them from aerial pursuit. They dropped out of sight about halfway to the groundbridge control room. Onslaught maintained speed the rest of the way, pinging access codes at doors several seconds in advance to ensure an open, driveable path. He skidded to a halt mere meters in front of the inactive groundbridge generator itself.
Vortex somersaulted off the truck bed, rolling with the excess momentum. He came up in a crouch with the plasma rifle and both lasers pointed toward the entrance. All three weapons glowed with heat from recent use. Through the open door, the corridor they had just driven down was empty and quiet. Vortex straightened.
"All clear."
"Watch the door." Onslaught went to the control panel and keyed in the very same set of coordinates that he had sent to Blast Off just minutes before. Once the activation sequence was set up, he glanced toward the open door and waited.
Vortex leaned against the wall just within the threshold, gray paint nearly blending into the gray of the Harbinger interior. His visor and the muzzle of the plasma rifle peeked around the corner to watch the outside corridor. The rest of him was concealed from enemy fire and observation behind the door frame.
Brawl came driving down the corridor at exactly the three-minute mark. He transformed at the entrance and dumped a heap of incendiary charges out of subspace.
"As requested, sir," Brawl said, arms full of explosives piled higher than he was tall.
"Good. That's plenty. Chain the charges along the groundbridge, the control console, and through the outside corridor." Onslaught pointed at each location as he spoke. "Vortex, give him a hand."
Both sprang into action. They laid out the explosives, sticking them to the sides of the console and the interior of the groundbridge activation mechanisms with instant-stick adhesive patches. Brawl started to link them together with electrical wires for remote detonation, but Onslaught stopped him.
"No time for that. I'll detonate them the old fashioned way." The missile rig on Onslaught's back realigned as he spoke.
Brawl nodded. "Got it."
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Starscream dashed toward the control room, moving somewhat clumsily due to the energon condenser held in his arms. It was bigger than his torso, just slightly too large to fit in an otherwise partly filled subspace compartment. He took one look at the inactive groundbridge and yelped.
"You haven't even opened the bridge? What were you doing all this time? They're right on my tail. Quick, turn it on!" Starscream's arms may have been trapped by holding the energon condenser, but his wings flapped expressively as he spoke.
Three of four was almost acceptable. Onslaught activated the groundbridge. As soon as that bright portal flashed into existence, Starscream vanished through it.
"Brawl, Vortex, move out." Onslaught risked a general-area comm. Without subspace encryption, any nearby Decepticons would certainly detect it, but Cylas did not have a compatible subspace comm receiver yet. "Cylas, report to the groundbridge room. You have thirty seconds."
Vortex started toward the portal, but he hesitated on the threshold and turned back, visor dimming. "Boss?"
"Go, go, go!" Brawl shoved Vortex through and leapt in afterward. Both disappeared as they crossed the event horizon.
Onslaught went back to the computer and started deleting the comm signatures for active comm chips. Five Combaticons and one Starscream subspace transponder—all had to go, or else the Decepticons would be able to use the Harbinger computers to track their new location. Onslaught deleted them all from the system. Their subspace comm chips were now invisible to the main Harbinger array. From now on, each would be detectable only to the other five currently in the network.
Seven seconds from the time limit, Cylas drove in at top speed and transformed. Three Insecticons followed close on his tail. He had a struggling Miko clutched in one hand, out of her cube and shouting at top volume. Onslaught wordlessly pointed at the open groundbridge. Between the three Insecticons and the groundbridge to the unknown, Cylas made his choice. He leapt into the portal. Miko's screams abruptly cut off to silence.
Onslaught remained in the control room with three Insecticons charging at him. He transformed, driving backward until his back wheels were just barely outside the groundbridge event horizon. Timing was everything here. He waited, watching the Insecticons grow closer: past the first row of charges laid in the outside corridor, past the doors on the far side of the control room, past the console with claws extended as they prepared to lunge at him—
He launched two missiles and reversed hard, wheels burning dark streaks of rubber on the floor. The first missile caught the lead Insecticon full in the torso, slamming it backward. Onslaught rode the edge of that concussive blast, letting it propel him backward through the groundbridge event horizon.
Onslaught tumbled out into a dark Arabian desert. He immediately transformed, lunged sideways, and dove to the ground behind the portal—the safest place to be where one-sided portals were concerned. Vortex, Brawl, and Cylas were gathered there. Starscream was about a hundred meters away from them, watching the groundbridge with great suspicion. He held the energon condenser in front of himself like a shield.
Back in the Harbinger, the second missile spiraled sideways in a tight corkscrew that missed all three Insecticons. It struck the cluster of charges planted underneath the console, exploding on contact. The control room ignited. That blast triggered the next set of charges, and the next, and the next, and so forth. The chain of explosions continued long after the groundbridge assembly was no more.
In the desert, a magnificent gout of flames spewed out from the groundbridge portal. Once the portal fully closed, several pieces of red-hot shrapnel and one severed Insecticon head littered the ground, glowing with heat in the otherwise absolute darkness. The sand directly in front of the portal had liquefied and reflowed into a glass river that now carved through the desert dunes. The distant gleam of starlight reflected weakly upon the glazed surface.
Spaceworthy engines whined overhead, and all five mechs present looked up to the night sky. Biolights, visors, and optics flared in various expressions of relief. The sleek outline of a shuttle detached from the blackness above, blotting out the stars. Blast Off descended on anti-gravs to just above ground level and transformed, depositing Swindle neatly on the ground. He crouched down and disgorged a stack of oil drums almost as tall as Swindle.
"There were more, but we left partway through loading," Swindle said, patting the nearest drum lightly. It gave the dull thunk of a container full of viscous liquid. "My contact will hold the rest until we're ready for pickup, but we shouldn't keep him waiting too long. He had the look of a fellow who'd disappear after a couple weeks without pay."
Cylas made a coughing noise. Blast Off glanced down at him.
"I see you brought the human." Blast Off's visor blazed in the darkness.
Cylas jumped slightly, shifting his hands from where he had them cupped together in front of his chest. A cubeless Miko was curled up there, shivering from the sudden temperature change between the Harbinger interior and the Arabian desert night.
"Indeed. She was more portable than the other—"
"Two humans. Splendid." Blast Off turned away to address Onslaught. "It's final, then. You lost the Harbinger."
"A calculated loss." Onslaught's voice was level and confident.
"Calculated. Which part? Losing our base? Losing the Autobot hostage? Starscream running off to save himself, not caring in the slightest whether you would follow?" As Blast Off spoke, his refined accent slipped into something coarser.
"Slander! I did no such thing," Starscream insisted.
Nobody paid Starscream much attention. He might have gone through the portal first, and perhaps sprinted away from the portal as quickly as possible just in case any Insecticons made it through, but he came back once he realized that Onslaught had successfully blocked the exit behind them. It was the end result that counted—and in the end, Starscream was still with the Combaticons.
Onslaught glowered at Blast Off, visor bright. His engine rumbled, loud in the silence of the desert, and his fists curled at his sides. Blast Off glared right back, meeting his gaze with equal authority. Onslaught's head jerked up fractionally.
"If you had faced the same decision," Onslaught began.
Blue-green light washed over them from the side as a groundbridge portal opened. Onslaught and Blast Off turned as one, integrated weapon systems arming as proximity sensors detected and reacted to the same stimulus. Onslaught lunged sideways, while Blast Off's thrusters ignited for an assisted vertical leap. The blaster shot aimed at them struck the ground instead.
Blast Off returned fire with both ion cannons, and violet light speared through the darkness. The Insecticon that had just emerged from the portal turned into a molten heap of scrap metal. Blast Off landed by Onslaught's right side, cannons glowing with power.
"They followed us!" Starscream shot at the portal with his plasma rifle.
"Watch the oil," Swindle shouted, already gathering what few oil drums could fit into his own limited subspace capacity. If a stray shot hit those drums, their fuel supply would go up in flames.
Blast Off rushed over to Swindle. He transformed around the stack of oil drums and Swindle both, kicking up a plume of displaced sand as his shuttle mode unfolded. The rear door opened, revealing the oil drums. Swindle sat in the cargo hold, hastily strapping the drums into storage nets for stability during transport.
Two more Insecticons flew out through the portal. Starscream and Vortex returned fire with their plasma rifles. Brawl wielded the upgraded Project Damocles sniper rifle. Cylas's hands were occupied with Miko. He fired a few potshots from his shoulder-mounted launcher, but they missed the Insecticons by several meters. Onslaught did not need to calculate the odds of victory to know how slim they were. With wide open terrain and few ranged weapons available between them, a battle would not be favorable.
"All aboard Blast Off." For the second time that day, Onslaught called a retreat.
They piled in. The first one on was Starscream, who could move remarkably fast when he set his mind to it. He sprawled in a corner next to Swindle, one arm wrapped around the plasma rifle and the other cradling the precious energon condenser. Brawl hustled Cylas aboard rather more carefully now that Cylas was carrying Miko. Vortex waited until Onslaught was nearly inside before retreating.
Once everyone was in, Blast Off shut the cargo hold door and launched. Inertial dampeners softened most of the shock from their rapid takeoff, but a bit of sliding was inevitable.
Several seconds after takeoff, Cylas fell over for no discernible reason. Miko dropped out of his limp hands with a shriek. Brawl caught her just before she splattered against the floor, to the great relief of both Miko and Blast Off. She clung to Brawl's hand with all of her limbs.
They leveled out somewhere in the lower reaches of the stratosphere. A few sparse clouds skimmed by the viewports, wispy shadows amid the night sky. Inside, the passengers settled after the sudden jolt of takeoff. Cables untensed and locked servos eased. Brawl loosened his grasp on Miko, allowing her to fit more comfortably in his palm. Cylas sat up again, optics flickering rapidly. He brought a hand to his head and groaned.
"It's been too long since I last flew," Cylas muttered. He glanced at his hands and found them empty. A concerned expression came over his faceplates.
Light flashed through the cockpit windows. A new groundbridge portal appeared some tens of meters in front of Blast Off's flight path.
"Hold on," Blast Off warned. He engaged z-thrusters and veered upward sharply, engines whining with strain as they fought to avoid the new obstacle with mere milliseconds to spare.
Subsonic vibrations shuddered through the floor as Blast Off's hull skimmed the outermost edge of the portal. Five mechs braced themselves against the nearest sturdy object. One unprepared Cylas went tumbling across the cargo hold.
A moment later, the groundbridge was a small green dot dwindling into the distance. Blast Off's sensors remained on high alert, searching for any sign of another surprise portal. Periodic scan results scrolled across the front dashboard. The night sky was clear again. The few Vehicon fliers that had emerged from that portal were far in the distance, unable to keep up with Blast Off's speed.
As they stabilized in flight, Onslaught climbed over to the cockpit and braced himself against the back of the pilot seat, watching Blast Off's displays refresh with each sensor sweep.
"They followed us. How?"
Uncertain glances were traded across the cargo hold.
"Can't be me or Blast Off," Swindle said, crossing his arms. "We've been around these parts for almost an hour without trouble. The Insecticons only came after you arrived."
"Tracker?" Vortex suggested. "They could've planted something on Brawl or Cylas when fighting."
Cylas frowned.
"Hmm." Starscream idly tapped a rhythm against his energon condenser.
Brawl's engine growled. "Nobody planted anything, except my fist in those bugs' circuits."
In his grasp, Miko squeaked and pushed against metal fingers that had begun to squeeze uncomfortably hard. Swindle glanced over and clicked in disapproval.
"Easy on the goods, Brawl. Allow me." Swindle held out a hand. His holographic driver appeared, smiling.
Brawl grudgingly passed Miko over to Swindle. She did not look any happier in Swindle's grasp than she had been in Brawl's, but at least she was in slightly less danger of getting squashed in a moment of distraction.
In the corner, Starscream stiffened. "That's it. They're tracking Breakdown's comm signal. Cylas must still have an old Decepticon transponder."
"What?" Cylas shuffled back a meter, but there was not much space to retreat inside the cramped cargo hold.
"Explain," Onslaught said.
"When we brought Cylas aboard the Harbinger, the hull concealed his signal beacon from their scanners. They couldn't find him until he went outside with Brawl. Without the shielding effect of the ship, they detected his signal again—and realized that he could not have jumped locations without the help of a groundbridge. Without our help." A triumphant light blazed in Starscream's optics. He pointed a clawed finger. "Cylas led the enemy straight to us."
Onslaught's visor flashed. "Seize him."
Brawl and Vortex lunged in from either side, grabbing Cylas's arms before he could react. Cylas thrashed, but the strength of his borrowed frame was no match for Brawl and Vortex. They slammed him flat on the floor, twisting his arms up behind his back.
"Wait, this isn't—" Cylas's voice cut to static as Vortex plunged claws into a neural cable cluster at the back of his neck. His frame fell limp, optics flashing brightly with panic.
"Perfect. Toss Cylas out into the open sky. He, too, shall know the pain of being flightless. A fitting end for the one who deprived me of my wings," Starscream said.
"Boss?" Vortex glanced up at Onslaught. One of his hands was buried in Cylas's neck cables. The other pinned a bulky arm.
"Extract the transponder."
Rotors drooped a little in disappointment, but Vortex handed over Cylas's arm to Brawl and released his hold on Cylas's neural cluster. Cylas squirmed a bit as Vortex searched his frame for the comm transponder. Both of the conventional dataports at Cylas's wrists were empty. The heavy duty data linkages on either side of his frame were also clear. Vortex poked at a priority access dataport at the base of Cylas's head. Sharp claws pried aside protective panels, closing around the chip lodged there. Vortex tapped on one edge.
"Turn it off or I'll pull it out active. Your choice," Vortex said.
Cylas grunted. "How?"
"Right, option two." Vortex yanked out the chip, and Cylas made a sharp wheezing noise.
The comm transponder was unremarkable: a small data chip, identical in size and design to those of the Harbinger. The connector was a bit charred from being pulled out of an active circuit, but it was otherwise functional. Without the active power source of Cylas's dataport, the transponder should have stopped transmitting to whoever was tracking them.
Brawl released Cylas, who looked over at the transponder in Vortex's grasp and frowned. The Decepticon logo was clearly marked on the side of the chip.
"That tracking chip was in my head?" Cylas raised a hand to the open dataport, feeling at the cover panels that had been displaced. He gingerly prodded them back into place.
"Not anymore." Vortex squashed the comm chip to be certain that the tracker was disabled.
"I had no knowledge of this," Cylas said, sounding almost apologetic. He looked between Vortex and Onslaught.
Brawl clapped Cylas on the shoulder. The force nearly sent Cylas toppling over onto his faceplates. "Of course you didn't. Could've happened to anyone. No hard feelings, yeah?"
Hearing this from someone who had overpowered him just moments before was a bit jarring. Cylas moved away, but that brought him closer to Vortex instead. A few crushed remnants of the comm transponder littered the floor. Cylas picked one up, examining the wiring.
"Want the rest of it?" Vortex offered a handful of twisted metal and circuit fragments. Cylas took the pieces and deposited them in his subspace.
In the pilot seat, Onslaught watched the clouds slip through the darkness beyond the viewports. "Blast Off, get us out of here."
Engines hummed in response, and Blast Off adjusted course to the northwest.
Notes:
Big thanks to my usual editor for beta reading and helpful suggestions in this part (you know who you are). We're about 2-3 chapters from the end, depending on the outline expansion factor when made into actual words. Aiming for an end-of-March wrap-up, but we'll see how that turns out. Not everything goes according to plan. Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, etc throughout the course of writing this story - your support is greatly appreciated.