Maelstrom Chapter 35
The Longest Night
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex. Rated M for adult themes!
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Maelstrom Chapter 35
The Longest Night
Part E
CONTINUED FROM PART D
Optimus' booming voice rang through Med-Lab and caused First Aid to drop his welder.
"First Aid! Do you have your broadcast monitor on?"
"I'm a little busy right now Prime!" First Aid snapped. He was trying to reconnect the tiny, myriad nerve circuits from Steel Jaw's cranial circuits back to the sensors in the cassette's intake chambers.
"Turn it on!" Optimus ordered.
"Now isn't the time!" First Aid argued. Pacifist or no, the medic didn't take crap when it came to his patients.
"That's an order First Aid! The kidnappers have Arcee on camera and they've done something to her!"
Rewind moved first and activated the monitor.
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Arcee's greyish and disfigured form shocked all of them while "Eclipse" went on with his description of the disease she supposedly carried.
First Aid and Ratchet looked at each other.
"Is there really a disease like that?" Rewind asked fearfully.
"Not that I've ever heard of," Ratchet answered grimly. He looked hard at Arcee, trying to diagnose her from the signs she was showing.
"She's over-heated, but that could just be from wanting to kill these creeps," he muttered to himself. "The distorted body armor...now where have I seen something like that before?"
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The camera feed to outside of Central cut off, but Rodimus got a buzz on his personal com-frequency.
Eclipse's voice came to his audios alone. "Really, my wayward son. You didn't really think I'd just let you dispose of me without retaliating. You may have killed me boy, but you won't rescue your little pregnant femme or your machinations for freedom....believe me you won't."
"Sigma," Rodimus snarled in a whisper. "SIGMA!"
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Edana wailed inconsolably. To her, it was as if all of Cybertron was shrieking as one.
Lancer sobbed in fury and desperation. There was nothing she could do.
"Block them out Baby. You can do it! Block them out!"
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"How can it be Sigma?" Magnus shouted at Rodimus. "We cut it off!"
He didn't get a response, just a glazed stare.
"Rodimus? Hey! What's wrong with you?" Magnus demanded.
"Edana's in pain," Rodimus hissed quietly.
"Edana? How'd she get mixed up in this mess?" Magnus asked. Then he froze, answering his own question. He was upset, Rodimus was upset, Prime, Elita, and probably every Autobot on the planet was upset no matter where they stood on Arcee and her offspring.
And Rodimus' daughter was an antenna for all of it.
"By the Matrix! What can we do for her? The Maelstrom left orbit yesterday!" He was suddenly, perversely glad Marissa was on Earth visiting Doc. The old Joe doctor was serving as Marissa's OB and he refused to come to Cybertron. There was no way Magnus could have kept his wife out of trouble if she'd been here.
"We can end this," Rodimus said. His voice was too calm...too flat. The assassin was taking over. "As for Sigma, we did cut it off. I think this is like a Trojan-horse virus. It set this trap long ago and now we've sprung it on ourselves. It had access to our minds as we were setting up our security Magnus. Hell, it set up our MINDS in the first place! How are we gonna out-think this thing when it knows everything we know?"
"You and I have been cut off for a while," Magnus reminded his leader.
"It still knows how we think. It knew I'd go for Steel Jaw. I got him fried by being predictable," Rodimus stated numbly.
"Now you really are letting it manipulate you! Quit the self-deprecation and THINK! We have to stop being predictable! You're good at that! What can we do that we wouldn't usually do?"
"I...I don't know," Rodimus answered. It was hard to think right now. The evacuated halls of Central were quiet, but through his link the junior Prime was deafened by his daughter's screams.
He flashed. Goldbug was screaming.
"Rodimus!" Magnus cried, knowing that flat stare too well. "Not now!"
Rodi flashed again. Nameless, naked captives screamed. Climbed up on him. Died.
"Rodimus, Arcee needs you! Edana needs you!" Magnus pleaded. Sheer, stupid courage over-ran his common sense, and Major General Magnus grabbed Rodimus left shoulder and shook him hard.
The assassin exploded out of his flashback with the same deadly fury he always did, but Magnus knew exactly which blow was coming and where it would land. He wasn't fast enough to get completely out of the way, but he was able to turn his shoulder into the strike before it reached peak force. It dented his heavy shoulder strut painfully deep, but at least it didn't go through his face.
Rodimus' optics dimmed and flared with surprise.
Neither said anything.
"Let's go," Rodimus finally got out.
Magnus contacted Optimus Prime and gave him an update on Vector Sigma's involvement.
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Deep in Central, in one of the huge complex's many multi-use offices, Eclipse applied more solvent to Arcee's armor.
He knew the Autobots would evacuate all the civilian workers from this area down to the lobby. He knew they would search methodically floor by floor. He knew he and his little pawns would be found eventually... and he knew it would be too late.
Eclipse used a simple metal rod to dip into the mixture and smear up to Arcee's face from the defect on her shoulder, making it appear as though the "disease" had spread from there. The chemicals he was using were common on Cybertron - one was used for removing encrusted dirt from their body armor and was as common among the Autobots as soap among humans. The other was a medic's chemical - not something a civilian Cybertronian would have laying around their quarters, but not unusual either. It was a powerful fuel line cleaner that dissolved deposits in a Transformer's fuel pump and energon lines. Medics used it on patients mostly for their annual visits or when their fuel efficiency was down.
What was unusual and largely unknown was the compound these two chemicals made when combined. They served such different functions there was not much opportunity for them to come in contact with each other, even by accident. Vector Sigma knew however, and therefore so did Eclipse.
Combined they formed a sticky gel that made a Cybertronian's paint bubble up and eventually softened the metal underneath. The effect was dramatic but slow acting and in the unlikely event any Transformer was exposed to the gel accidentally a quick wipe down or rinse would have been enough to stop the damage.
Arcee was not being exposed accidentally and she was powerless to wipe herself off. The gel was slowly and tortuously eating its way through her paint, her armor, and into her internal systems. The pain increased slowly, minute by agonizing minute. She felt her repair systems straining futilely to keep ahead of the poison and her internal temperature rose with the effort.
She watched in a delirious haze as the first areas Eclipse had applied the gel to a few hours ago started falling through. Melted bits of her body armor traced the gel's path and fell down into the internal works of her arm. These were their own kind of contamination, but worst they carried the gel down to her fuel lines. A chemical meant to heal one's fuel systems was now eating it's way into hers. The holes it caused were almost microscopic, but they were growing...and draining. She felt a more overall burning as well. Tiny amounts of the gel were now going to start circulating through her entire fuel distribution network.
Arcee began shutting down major but technically peripheral systems. If her unborn spark was going to have a chance, she would need to conserve as much energon as she could. She heard Springer calling to her around his gag, but she decided she couldn't spare the power to talk to him.
Springer watched his mate's head fall to her chest and redoubled his trashing against his bonds. When one of the masked kidnappers came close to him, he lunged viciously at them. They jumped and yelped in shock.
"You cowards!" he roared. "You are lower than those yellow-bellied Decepticons!" Of course, with the metal gag around his mouth and jaw all they heard was incoherent gurgling.
Eclipse suddenly stood over him and pushed him back into the wall with one foot. He spoke low into Springers audio receptor.
"You were always a feisty construct Wrecker. I designed you that way. Not too smart though...not bright enough to see the inevitable. I will use your mate and you to discredit your precious Primes. I will use rumors of your unborn to cause a new civil war between the Paradronians and the Autobots. My old form is gone, but this one will serve for the moment. I'm sure the Decepticons would like to be part of things around here again, but this time I will make sure they destroy Earth from the outset. Time for you to get sick Wrecker. Time for you to be my agent of fear. Transformers are always so easy to control when they're afraid."
He grabbed Springer's head and tilted it back. Then he dribbled gel around Springer's mouth and up the side of his face to his right optic.
Springer felt the burning begin and roared again for his mate who had been exposed for so much longer already.
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"It BURNS!" Edana shrieked. "It burns! Arcee is burning! She's burning! Mommy make it stop!"
Lancer fought with herself. She had never been so close to full-berserker rage for so long without tipping over. She held on to her sanity by sheer will for the sake of her child. She bit her lip, completely piercing it. She wouldn't notice until two days later when the wound got infected.
"Edana! I can't make it stop! You have to do what Aunt Claudia taught you! You have to shield yourself!"
"I can't! There's too many voices! Everyone's so afraid and mad!" Edana sobbed. She was crying so hard it was all Lancer could do to understand her. The little mutant's pale eyes were so blood-shot that the irises were lighter than the whites and they darted erratically.
Lancer felt her heart grow cold. Edana had never looked so much like her father - except that she looked like he did when he was flashing. Pale, except for the dark circles around haunted, jerking eyes. Madness surely.
No! Lancer thought. Not my daughter too!
"Tell Daddy to make it stop! Tell him to stop the burning..." Edana whispered. She didn't mean to whisper but she was losing her voice. "Uncle Springer wants him to make it stop."
Lancer was so upset at the pain on Edana's face she almost missed the implications of what Edana was saying. Almost, but not quite.
"'Dana? Baby look at me," Lancer said. She gingerly arched her fingers as far back as she could and turned Edana's cold face to meet her eyes.
Edana's eyes kept jerking a bit randomly, but she looked at her mother. Suddenly on a mission, Lancer's motherly concern took a back-seat to her assassin's training. She didn't stop being afraid, but what she was thinking took the driver's seat away from her emotions. That in itself helped her daughter focus too. She felt Lancer's emotions take a step down and did her best to emulate what Lancer did.
"Edana...can you feel Uncle Springer? Can you tell where he is?"
"Daddy's moving away from him Mommy. Why is he doing that? It's going dark! Please tell him to make it stop! Hurry!"
"Sweetie, Daddy doesn't know where Uncle Springer is. He can't stop it until he finds him," Lancer whispered.
Edana stared at Lancer. At six she held the unshakable faith that her parents, especially her shape-changing, hand-standing, back-flipping, hilarious father could do absolutely anything.
"Why can't he find him? It's just like hide and seek...." Edana rasped. She was hide and seek champion of the Maelstrom. No one could hide from her. She didn't realize not everyone shared her ability to just feel a person's emotions...and Uncle Springer was screaming so loud. He was louder than anyone of all the roaring "voices" on Cybertron. That his location should be a mystery mystified her.
"Daddy can't feel hearts like you do Baby-girl...." Lancer voice trailed off.
She and Rodimus were both stunned, both scared, and both extremely reluctant to bring their child into their world of fear and violence at six. Never would have been fine, especially for Rodimus.
Clearly though, it was already too late. She was in it already.
Stop the burning.
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Magnus threw his gun down in disgust when Rodimus suddenly turned tail, transformed, and sped back up to the restricted wing without explanation. The Major General ground his fists at his sides for a moment, then transformed and followed his errant leader.
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Eclipse put on another broadcast. "The disease is progressing...it won't be much longer now I'm afraid...."
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Optimus and Elita doggedly kept up their search pattern.
Kup, Boa, and Cosmos kept all the personnel trapped in Central when the lock-down started corralled in huge domed lobby on the ground floor. Cobalt, Python, and Inferno helped round up stragglers.
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Jazz coordinated the fliers and ground patrols around Central. He hoped Arcee was found quickly. The enlisted Autobots were losing their tempers, especially with anyone carrying a protest sign or a press pass.
Crowds were gathering around Central, calling the Primes heretics or dictators, saying Arcee deserved plague for "defying Vector Sigma", and threatening to destroy Central to keep the plague from spreading.
Jazz called in Omega Supreme and the guardian's presence was enough to push the gathering mob away from Central's doors. For the moment. A ragged line of furious Autobot warriors flanked Omega feet, growing more restless with each new sign and slur aimed at their leaders, or Springer, or worst Arcee.
Jazz knew he couldn't keep a lid on this pressure cooker for long and was afraid. The Paradronians were rude, but they were armed only with rudeness. Their armor was thin and their weapons were signs. If the Autobots cracked and started firing it would be a massacre. The Specialist feared by the time he saw Optimus Prime again, he would presiding over a full-scale civil war.
Again.
Except this time the Autobots would be the ones with the guns.
"We gotta keep our cool!" Jazz shouted over the com.
He saw a sign branding Arcee a diseased whore.... Keep cool. Right. Frosty. No problem.
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Magnus caught up with Rodimus at Rodi's quarters. The young Prime had told him what was up on the way and relayed what he was planning to Optimus and Elita as well.
They absorbed this plan with a mix of hope and grief.
Too young.
Edana didn't deserve to be used this way.
The sight of her when Lancer brought her out from the back rooms did nothing to ease Magnus' conscience.
Rodimus morphed human and she stumbled into his arms to receive the hug her mother couldn't give her. She was pale and sweaty and obviously about to drop.
"I'm sorry Edana," Rodimus whispered. "I'm sorry honey."
"If we're really going to do this, then you should get moving," Lancer growled, her tail lashing the floor.
Rodimus kissed Edana's cold forehead and brushed her damp bangs out of her eyes. He put her special "sunglasses" on gently and then took his daughter's face in his hands.
"We have to hurry Daddy," she told him listlessly.
"I know. We are going to play a game. Hide and seek. You will tell me which way to turn and I'll do whatever you say, alright?"
She sighed, too tired to sob, and nodded.
Rodimus took two steps back and morphed, staring at Edana the whole time. Then he transformed and opened the door to his cab. She got in and put on her seat-belt. Somehow she knew it was really a hug when it cinched up too tight around her. She sagged against the restraints and let them hold her up.
"Say bye to Mom," he told her.
Mom had points coming out of every angle, so she and Edana just pressed their foreheads together for a minute. Lancer stepped back and the door swung closed and locked. The Rodimus cloaked and pulled slowly out into the hall. He made an open channel to Magnus so the warrior could follow them.
"That way," Edana said. Rodimus went right and Magnus walked behind him.
Back in Rodimus' quarters Lancer went in back to check on Alex. She sighed at what she saw.
"Well little lady, whatever you are you sure aren't an empath," Lancer said.
Alex was having a great time chewing up her toys and babbling to herself.
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"Show time," Eclipse told Springer and Blitzwing. The former Decepticon had come to a short time ago, but his struggles did no more good than Springer's had. The deranged medic mixed more gel (it became inert fairly quickly) and applied more to Arcee first.
The femme didn't even move.
Springer got his next "treatment" across the bridge of his nose and into his other optic. The first had gone dark about an hour after the first gel had been drizzled into it. Springer looked forward to the left optic going down too - it hurt considerably less after the neural circuits ate away. Blitzwing, the next "patient" got his gel rubbed into the split armor by his temple.
The Decepticon deserter didn't flinch. The Quints had done far worse to him, but his defiance only made Eclipse smile.
"So fierce," the medic gloated quietly. "When the Primes fall your people will no longer be befuddled by Rodimus' cage of lies. They will return to a world weakened by war and establish order. The Paradronians will welcome them as saviors from the chaos, and my cycle of peace and war will renew itself. You will not be there to see it though my defiant offspring. Rodimus might be though. I think I will have his head brought to me. I will keep him alive, helpless to move as I have been, so that he can watch as his plans come down and those he loves die. Those fleshling abominations he dotes on will go first of course, and the unnatural mate that spawned them will watch with him before she dies."
"Eclipse," one of the masked Paradronians called. "This femme isn't doing well. We should stop the reaction before the next broadcast."
"Fool! Her life is immaterial! She needs to die to stop this unholy cycle of breeding! It is Vector Sigma's right to give life...and take it!" Eclipse sneered.
"I didn't agree to kill anyone!" the Paradronian protested. "Scare them sure, but not kill anyone! Violence is wrong!"
"Be quiet you simpleton," Eclipse ordered. "We are faced with desperate times."
"That's it," the civilian snapped, throwing down his mask. "I wasn't comfortable with this whole thing from the start, but you convinced me a little violence was necessary to preserve our civilization, but this! This undermines everything I believe in. We can't kill this femme!"
There was uncomfortable muttering all around the room and sounds of agreement. Springer raised his head off the ground and looked up hopefully with his one remaining optic. The other was nothing but an oozing, sparking hole that drained energon like tears down his face.
"You are right," Eclipse said, spreading his arms. "Forgive me brother. My zeal has overrun my better nature. We will take her for treatment at once."
The Paradronian smiled and stepped forward in Eclipse's embrace.
The medic wrapped his arms around the civilian and then grabbed the pacifist around the throat with one hand. The Paradronian's mouth gaped in surprise and horror as Eclipse poured an entire canister of his deadly mix right down the dissenter's throat.
The Paradronian gurgled and thrashed on the floor. What was a slow-acting mixture on the outer hull of a robot's body was not so sluggish on delicate internal circuitry. It ate into his fuel pump and was pushed around his body in a matter of seconds. He died almost immediately but continued to dissolve over the course of the night.
Eclipse turned on the other kidnappers. None of them would meet his optics. He smiled.
Springer's head fell back to the floor with a thunk.
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"Someone died," Edana whispered.
Rodimus couldn't find words to ask her who.
"I don't know who it was," the child said, as if hearing his need to know. "Go down again Daddy."
They were making tortuously slow progress through Central. Edana had narrowed their search down to the south-eastern quadrant of Central but the depth stymied her.
Optimus and Elita followed behind Rodimus on foot. They held hands. Magnus followed behind them. He held his gun.
"Uncle Blitzwing is awake now too. He is very angry too....and he's burning," Edana said. Her voice was little stronger now. Somehow playing this game had helped her get her mental "feet" under her and she was now able to shield out most of the thunderous emotional voices all around her to focus on the ones she wanted.
Arcee, Springer, and now, Blitzwing.
Arcee was almost comatose, and all of her efforts were geared towards keeping her new spark glowing. Blitzwing was angry, but nothing topped Springer. His other optic burned and then went dark. Going blind somehow made him more focused, more obsessed and furious over the state of his mate and the child he might never get to meet.
To Edana, it was as if a flare went off.
"Down!" she ordered her father, and he sensed she meant more than a level. He ramped up the speed and took them lower.
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Outside the crowds were pushing at the Autobot line. Jazz screamed desperately for calm on all sides.
In the main lobby Kup's small group also had a restless, frightened crowd on their hands, although these people were more afraid of contamination that anything else.
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First Aid sat back. The repairs on Steel Jaw weren't done by a long-shot, but the rest was purely cosmetic.
Ratchet was watching the latest broadcast of Arcee's melting, bubbling image with horrified concentration.
"Where have I seen that? Where...WHEELJACK!" he cried.
"What?" Blaster asked. Now that his cassette was out of danger, the communications officer was much more alert to his surroundings.
"Wheeljack! The idiot was fooling around in his lab after a bad fight with Starscream and the other goons. 'Jack had some lovely scorch marks on his keister. So he decided to up the usual cleaner with some of the stuff I use for fuel lines and he bubbled up like one of Spike's sodas!" Ratchet cried. He might have laughed at the memory except that Arcee's ruined face was still all over the air waves.
He remembered Wheeljack complaining how much even a few seconds of exposure hurt.
Arcee had been exposed for hours. Ratchet was pretty sure her child's spark would already be aborted. She wouldn't have enough energy to sustain them both at this point.
"How did you stop the reaction?" First Aid asked.
"I didn't," Ratchet mused. "Spike did. He grabbed a fire-extinguisher from Sparkplug's work-area and let it rip. Neutralized everything. That kid was a genius sometimes. We can stop it First Aid...if only we can get to them in time."
"That's super cool Ratchet," Blaster said with some of his usual electricity. "Now, do you mind telling me how you ended up as a light-show? Talk about a blast from the past!"
"Er..." First Aid said. "Um...he's classified."
"Classified," Blaster said.
"Uh,,,yeah," Ratchet said.
"First scary looking lady demons and now holographic dead guys..." Blaster said. "You dudes sure know how to throw a party."
CONTINUED IN PART F