Disclaimer: Transformers and all other characters related to the 2007 movie are owned by their respective owners, not me.
Chapter 5: Touchdown
Despite the capacity of crew needed to man the Exodus it was easy for the two recon Autobots to reach the escape pods unnoticed. Blurr had stopped off at the tech room in order to retrieve the long distance radio that was kept stored there. The Exodus had been scanning the planet below ever since it had emerged from the wormhole and the piece of technology could easily span the distance from ship to planet. Blurr reached into a side pocket in his utility belt and pulled out two microchips fashioned in the shape of the Autobot's symbol. He threw one to Hot Shot, who caught it in one hand and he affixed the other to his breastplate. This was their coded homing beacon. Often, when entering a new planets atmosphere, it wasn't uncommon for the two members of the recon team to become separated, meaning that the two would have to try and locate each other. At least, that was the theory. Usually, his cohort forgot to turn his beacon on, ending up in Blurr having to traverse many unnatural and often dangerous terrains in order to locate his luckless partner. This time however, Hot Shot placed the beacon on his arm and pressed it, turning it on. The beacon sounded like a monotonous blip in Blurr's head that grew louder whenever he moved closer to Hot Shot. Blurr touched his beacon to activate it, raised a hand to Hot Shot in farewell and entered the escape pod bay, heading for his own personal pod. Hot Shot headed to the other side of the bay to his own pod. Blurr slid into the pod and pressed the initiation switch. The feeling of the pod transforming and locking itself into his skin was disturbing and always a little creepy. When preparing for atmospheric entry, you always ran the risk that this time, one tiny component could fail and the entire Autobot would disintegrate in entry with the pod. But, Blurr had performed hundreds of entries throughout his life, and after the first few, he had learned to just stop thinking about potential hazards and focus on the mission in hand. With the preparations complete and Blurr and his escape pod now combined as one entity, the launch sequence engaged. Now, with nothing to do until he hit the planet, Blurr relaxed and tried to catch up on the sleep he was dearly missing.
Starscream was currently hovering at the very edge of space. He was currently in robot form, allowing the twin jet thrusters on his back to keep him airborne as he tried to probe the military networks. Hacking was harder than he thought it was. He was an accomplished hacker, but his style was very different from the Decepticons professional hacker, Frenzy. Starscream preferred to destroy files at random whilst searching for the information he required. He tried to disrupt his enemies network as much as possible while taking the information he wanted by force. But, at this moment stealth was required. If the humans detected his hacking now, then Starscream would have to deal with the human military. And if the humans found out that a Decepticon was alive, then there was little doubt that the Autobots would get involved like the troublemakers that they were. No, for now Starscream had to be subtle. He had stored Frenzy's distress signal in his memory banks and had pondered it at length. If Frenzy was alive and sending a distress signal then that meant that there were likely to be more Decepticons alive at the moment and that introduced…complications. He needed to remain hidden, a ghost of the past right up until the point that he struck without hesitation or remorse and crushed both Optimus Prime and the idiotic Megatron loyalists in one swift blow. But first, he needed his craft back. With the Nemesis back in his possession, he could radio back to Cybertron and gather his allies that had no doubt managed to overthrow the worthless honour guard that Megatron had left behind. But, the humans had picked up the craft. With all of its crew battling over the Allspark on the planet, the ship had been a sitting duck for Human spacecraft. And now, it was hidden. No doubt a remnant of Sector 7 had managed to get the craft taken to a secret hangar, a transaction done in secret, with all but the tiniest electronic trace to show that it had been done at all. That tiny trace was the very thing that Starscream was looking for. It was well hidden indeed and looking for it was driving him crazy. Then his radar blipped at him. Two unknown objects heading towards the planet at critical velocity. Silhouettes matched to Autobot entry pods.
Damn, damn, damn! The Autobots had managed to radio for help. Starscream hadn't expected them to call for reinforcements. The war was over. The two craft were separating in their uncontrollable flight. One was heading away, towards Europe. The other was going to land only a few hundred miles south of his position right in the middle of some sort of famous human sporting event. Starscream had never bothered learning the customs of the humans or their recreational activities. The only thing about the humans that Starscream was concerned about was their capability to reduce him to slag. But, once an Autobot had landed, its protoform was vulnerable up until the point where it managed to scan an alternate form. That, was a perfect time to strike. Starscream smiled, transformed into his jet form and rocketed away.
Hundreds of thousands of racing fans had gathered for the Mexican leg of the World Rally championship. The racers were rocketing around the track at almost 80 miles an hour. The various racing commentators who were covering the event all yelled excitedly into their microphones, and hundreds of cameras were stationed along the track, watching the progress of every single participant. Despite the mass of humans watching the race, very few of them saw the glowing ball of fire rocket across the track. The few that did nudged their friends and pointed upwards, but, by the time that their friends had looked upwards the ball of fire was gone. The news later that evening would report a very rare daytime meteor shower but the incident was just chalked up to an atmospheric fluctuation.
The meteor smashed to earth 20 miles away from the rally track. As soon as it had rolled to a stop, it disgorged its occupant. Hot Shot coughed with a rattling shake and stood up. His scanners were kicking in and relaying data. His pods internal scanners had managed to track any large mechanical objects that had entered scan range on his descent and now Hot Shot uplinked to his pod and consulted the scan results. His eyes fell on one result in particular, one particular car that had been taking part in the rally that day. His preliminary scans into the local information network managed to fit a name to the car. Toyota GT-One. It certainly looked impressive. But the colour was a bit off Hot Shot decided. The car in his scan results was bright scarlet, it would look a lot better in say, silver with maybe a dash of yellow. Mentally Hot Shot changed the colour scheme and initiated the initial transformation protocol. His body moved, limbs being twisted into new, yet not uncomfortable positions. Silver plating sprouted on his arms, legs and back. Yellow strips also appeared, circling his wrists and ankles. Two vertical strips ran along his back and, as his body twisted, these decorations integrated together, forming seamless panels and doors. Once the Transformation was completed, Hot Shot smirked internally, revved his tyres and squealed away on the bumpy ground.
Which promptly exploded beneath him.
Sam sat in the driver's seat in his rampant Camaro, glaring at the steering wheel. Mikaela sat in the passenger's seat smiling kindly at him. The day was almost over now, and Bumblebee was tearing it down the freeway in order to reach the beach before it shut for the evening. Jazz had been far more inquisitive about what he had missed during his inactivity than Sam had dared to hope and Mikaela, wonderful, kind Mikaela, had sat patiently and answered his every question in the utmost detail. Now, Sam was dangerously close to losing both his deposit, the hut, and his patience.
Sam was startled out of his stupor when Bumblebee's radio turned itself on. Sam was seriously considering leaning over and turning it off when a voice, not music emitted through the speakers.
"Can anyone hear me? This is Ironhide. Please respond." The voice was strained, Ironhide was obviously in pain. Sam immediately started groping around the dash, trying to find Bumblebee's radio.
"C'mon Bee, where'd you keep your radio?" Sam yelled slapping the dashboard. Bumblebee shook slightly and the radio clicked, indicating a changed channel. Sam leant towards the speaker, feeling like an idiot.
"Sam? That you? Oh, thank the spark." Ironhide's voice was pained but filled with relief. "Listen, you gotta get a message to Optimus. Barricade's alive." Sam mouth opened and closed silently as he tried to formulate a reply, thinking of the psychotic police car that he had met over two years ago. He was about to ask a question. Something along the lines of "Why?" or "How?" but Ironhide began talking again.
"There was a message from a Decepticon. It was heading to check it out. Got ambushed. Barricade got me badly. Get Optimus to help." A long string of co-ordinates followed which Bumblebee displayed on the radio screen. Sam pulled out his radio and hit 6 as Bumblebee spun the wheel himself, rocketing towards the co-ordinates on his own. For once, Sam didn't stop him, he was too busy talking to Optimus. Mikaela had pulled out her own radio and had punched in Ratchet's number. She too was relaying Ironhide's message and the Autobot medic promised that he would be there as soon as possible. But for now, with Ironhide laying wounded on a beach, Bumblebee raced at top speed to his friend, knowing that he was the only thing that stood between Ironhide and a second attack.
In the French city of Le Mans, Blurr managed to pick up the co-ordinates transmitted by Ironhide as he sat leaning against a tree. Also, as he had predicted, Hot Shot and he had become separated on entry and he was concerned for his younger Autobot companion. Where once Blurr had been the purest silvery-grey of an Autobot protoform, now his body was streaked with panels of blue and white indicating his alternate form colours. Assuring himself that the other Autobots already on the planet would attend to Ironhide and that he should go after Hot Shot was easy. No one knew about Hot Shot yet, and the young recon bot might be lost or injured from the entry. Convincing himself of his priorities, Blurr transformed and the Ferrari Formula One car burst out of the forest onto the main road, homing in on the Autobots tracking beacon.
(There we go. Thank you everyone for your continued support. This chapter makes this story the most successful that I've ever written. So rejoice, but don't relax, because we're nowhere near done yet. Please continue to review as well. They make me greatly happy.)