There was not much left of the space bridge to salvage, but Dr. Arkeville tried. At least his motorized chair had a newer gear than before, and he didn't have to worry about mobility. His left arm was still at half-capacity, however. Once his immediate needs were satisfied, there was nothing left to use for his plan, unfortunately. And no one to turn to for assistance, either. The Decepticons built their tools far away from humanity, and humanity tended to avoid them whenever possible. He was in the middle of nowhere with no sense of direction and no guarantee he would make it out alive. Those two...THINGS...would be back.

But...

There had been a THIRD Decepticon wandering around here, hadn't there? The one who had retrieved him. Some kind of robot wolf, or something like that. All he had to do was find it.

Easier said than done. It took two days for that blasted wolf to find him, and the only way Dr. Arkeville could short-circuit the damn thing was to pull his own faltering mechanical arm off and beat it against the cat's (it looked like a cat, up close) head until sparks flew.

Now his time on this planet was REALLY short. The cat had an owner, one who would come looking for his pet at any moment. Dr. Arkeville reattached his sandy, faltering arm. At least the tool selection option still operated in his mechanical hand, or all would be lost.

"Warning! Warning! Decepticon activity in progress!"

Teletraan-1 had been on the fritz lately, thanks to Wheeljack, his ever-conflagrating "cappuccino maker," and an incident where it decided to misbehave. Perceptor still opined that the voice sounded off-kilter.

"I'm just sayin', I know who might have somethin' to do with that, bro," Blaster advised. "Somebody who wanted T-1 to sound like Snoop Dogg." Blaster inched away, shrugging defensively. "I'm just sayin'. "

Just saying. Sure he was.

Several Autobots joined them, including Carly, Spike and Bumblebee. Teletraan-1 was smoothly reporting that the Decepticons were attacking a human. Optimus Prime, running in at the last minute, announced that they were to transform and roll out...and what was with Teletraan-1's voice? He thought Perceptor had fixed that.

All Autobots turned to look at him, some more malicious than others. Perceptor was more than slightly embarrassed.

"I shall investigate upon our return," he replied. Only Optimus looked away from him.

Starscream had to abandon his fight with Blitzwing when Buzzsaw reported back - hysterical - that a HUMAN had dismantled parts of Ravage and was looking at him funny, and that he couldn't fire without further damaging his comrade. Blitzwing told Buzzsaw to call someone who cared, and if they had the ability to blink THAT would have been the span of time it took Soundwave to tell Megatron what was going on.

Their leader had no patience for idiots. So he said. He made them all go back and rescue Soundwave's toys.

"The Autobots have more than likely discovered this inconvenience and will try to help the human and salvage the spacebridge, that's why!" he snarled to Starscream's barely complete whine. "I'm holding YOU responsible."

That wasn't new. Soundwave had flown out the door the moment he could.

The human did not want their assistance.

He sat amidst the wreckage and snarled to Bumblebee and Spike that ONE MORE STEP would be their last, and followed through with clumps of energon-soaked sand, which melted instantly into liquid glass that stung Bumblebee's exostructure and were a bitch to remove. Spike didn't want to know what they'd do to him.

"What are your demands?" Optimus Prime called, from a safe 500 meters. Hound and Prowl were formulating a way to bring the human in safely. He needed medical attention, from the looks of things.

"I have no demands YOU can fulfill," the human retorted. Spike scowled at him.

"That's Dr. Arkeville, all right." He mumbled other things, not as pleasant. "Dunno how he got HERE."

Prime had been avoiding Perceptor for so long that the sound of the know-it-all's voice made him jump a little. "I believe he annexed the space bridge. We can recycle a great deal of it for our own devices. I could recalibrate the dilithium vortex modulator-"

"DECEPTICONS!" Cliffjumper yelled, sounding suspiciously...relieved?

"The human!" Prime cried in horror, breaking into a sprint. He had to save him!

They were later than he'd expected, but who could complain? Starscream was in the front, in jet mode, prepared to gun down any and everything in his way.

"Excellent," Dr. Arkeville purred, activating his device. It shook, it shuddered, it glowed. Starscream halted midair, transforming and landing with a crash. Sand flew into Dr. Arkeville's eye, temporarily disorienting him. Starscream took that moment to yank away what was left of Ravage and toss it to Soundwave, tossing a 'let ME take care of this' to him in the process.

"DIE, HUMAN!" he screeched, null rays igniting.

"NO!" Optimus cried, tackling Starscream and pitching both of them right on top of the device, which exploded.