Laurentian Channel

Cabot Strait, Canada

It took Windracer twenty cycles to gather her team, brief them on their mission, and be on their way. They made a brief detour before racing to their intended destination, following the Laurentian Channel, the quickest route down to Abyss. They dove to around four hundred meters under the surface, the maximum depth they could maintain indefinitely and reduce their chances of being detected any Decepticon aerial squads that might be scouring the area. Traveling underwater would hopefully obscure their presence, but Windracer was concerned about the possibility of running into a Decepticon submarine patrol.

Her team was an eclectic mix of characters, most of whom had not really been designed for undersea warfare. Half the group were in their robotic forms while the others were in their alternate forms. Windracer herself had converted to her dragon form before their dive as it was considerably more streamlined than her robotic form, especially when she folded her wings against her body. She might not be able to match the speed the others could travel, but at least she could keep up by clinging onto one of her teammates like a remora.

Trailing behind her and to the right was the Autobot Phasewing, a mostly aqua-green colored femme bot whose colors made her seem to disappear into the background. She was a little taller than Windracer was and was well known for being as cool as a cucumber even in the midst of the most serious crises. Windracer had worked with Phasewing before, knew she could be solid and dependable in a crunch. If she had any personal quirks, it was her fascination with the local bird population. She would spend megacycles on Anticosti watching the birds that inhabited the island in her free time. But Windracer wouldn't necessarily call it a weakness; once a battle got going, Phasewing's mind was on the fight.

Behind Phasewing and to her left was WarTrack, a large, light brown colored Autobot mech, more commonly known as "Wart". He was probably the least suited for this mission and it wasn't just because he transformed into a battle tank. He possessed the mind and personality equivalent to that of a five-year-old human child and though considered a tough warrior, he was usually regarded as more of a liability than an asset. If it had been up to Windracer, she'd have left him behind, but she knew that would only result in her being "tattled" on, so she had no choice but to include him in the mission. He was the slowest of the group so she'd placed him in the center of the line so he wouldn't be left behind.

Behind Wart was Subsonika, another Autobot mech whose deep red color made him appear black in the murky water. He was a heftily built Autobot, though he himself thought he looked as slim as rocket and it would be a mistake to say otherwise. Windracer had worked with him as well and though he was dependable, he possessed an exaggerated view of his own abilities. He transformed into a hypersonic jet, which did more to exacerbate his ego than it improved his performance.

Phasewing, WarTrack and Subsonika were the units Vector Maximus had assigned to Windracer's team; the final two were not. In spite of her orders, Windracer had still been hesitant about commanding a mission in the middle of the ocean without support from more seaworthy units. Without authorization or a second thought, she contacted Alcatraz and Deepdive just before she left and arranged for them to rendezvous with her team off Cape North. When she met up with them, she'd learned that they had notified Blazer Prime of their plans and to request replacements. She had no doubt Blazer would notify Vector of their assistance and she would catch the Pit for ignoring his orders when they got back. Well, frag it, she'd rather be chewed out for covering her bases than end up a decoration on the ocean floor.

In the rear of the line was Deepdive, a sea-blue femme-bot who had spent most of her life in the waters of the planet of Animatros. Swimming in her shark form, she was proficient in undersea combat and possessed probably the most sophisticated underwater sensors of any of them. It was for that reason Windracer had placed her in the rear; if the Decepticons attempted to sneak up on them from behind, hopefully Deepdive would detect them before they got within weapons range.

Leading the group was Alcatraz, the largest Autobot on the team; his head alone was nearly as long as Windracer's entire body. Cruising easily in his deep blue colored sea serpent form, his imposing figure alone could intimidate all but the largest of creatures, and if that wasn't enough, a glare from his yellow eye would certainly do the trick. Windracer knew him well, had fought him once, even earned his respect; what he thought of the others he kept to himself. His undersea scanners were nearly as good as Deepdive's, but he'd been place up front for another reason entirely. If there were Decepticons lurking in front of them, seeing Alcatraz emerge from the murky blue would hopefully unnerve them long enough for the Autobots to take a few out. It was Alcatraz that Windracer was clinging onto in her attempt to stay with the others.

"How are you holding up, 'traz?" Windracer inquired, aware that having her claws digging into his hide was probably not all that comfortable.

"Fairly well, considering," Alcatraz responded. "Not what I'd planned to do today, but it beats pacing back and forth in the same place."

Behind them, WarTrack was signing softly, "'He lives in a pineapple under the sea…"

"Oh, Primus, no," Subsonika moaned. "Wart, if you don't stop singing that stupid song, I'm going to shove my blaster up your tail pipe and pull the trigger!"

"Knock it off, both of you!" Windracer shouted behind her. "Phasewing, what's our ETA?"

"If we keep our current speed and course," Phasewing replied, "about thirty cycles."

"Good. 'Traz, you got anything in front of us?"

"Nada. They could be rigged for silent running, though. Or there could be nothing at and this is little more than a cyber-goose chase."

"Maybe. Deepdive, got anything on your scanners?"

"Just a lot of fish," the shark replied. "I'm picking up few sonar signals, but they're fairly weak; I can't identify the source."

"Let's hope that it's just a local submarine," Windracer said, more for her own benefit than for theirs. "What about above the surface? Anything up there?"

"Nothing I can detect," Deepdive replied.

Windracer frowned. That should have alleviated her worries a bit, but it didn't. She didn't know what, but something felt… wrong.

"So what do you think we'll find when we reach the Abyss?" Subsonika asked.

"Snorks!" WarTrack explained gleefully. "Snorks live on the bottom of the ocean!"

Alcatraz glanced back. "Cute," he said, having no idea what a Snork was. He brought his attention forward again, saying, "Personally, I'm hoping for a debris field. There's no way on Cybertron anything that's not adapted to the conditions found at those depths could survive for very long down there."

"Probably why they needed our submersible," Phasewing said. "I personally hope and our sub are waiting at those coordinates, right where we can get at them. Maybe we could even reclaim our property."

"We'll worry about all that when we get there," Windracer said. "Until then, best speed and keep close. The Pit itself could break loose once we pass the continental shelf."

"Aye, aye," all replied. They continued on to their destination, every vigilant, looking nervously into the deep veil of blue and green around them.

They should have been more worried about what was lurking above the water's surface.

'Too easy,' Novacula thought. 'They're making this way too easy. I hate easy.'

Novacula had been trailing the Autobots for awhile now, using his RAH-66 Comanche helicopter form to follow them, being careful to keep a respectable distance. His helicopter form was slightly faster and considerably more stealthy than his robot form. It had been designed to be nearly undetectable, with a shape that deflected sensor signals, materials that absorbed them and hid anything that could give off a return, and a shrouded tail rotor to reduce noise. All of these features had been enhanced with Decepticon technology, but he had still rigged himself for a silent flight as a precaution.

He had discovered the Autobots nearly by accident. He'd been deploying a net of sonobuoys across his assigned patrol area, concentrating on a submarine trench known locally as the Laurentian Channel, which the Decepticons had code named "Abyss Route One." He had just finished setting up his latest buoy when it detected something pass by. At first, he thought it was an error or a false reading; the devices were a new invention from Scavendrill and had a sad tendency to malfunction, die completely, or report a school of mackerel as an Autobot patrol. But other buoys soon began reporting similar readings and it was enough to warrant investigation. It didn't take him long to find the cause: Autobots traveling down the center of Abyss Route One.

Novacula tracked them cautiously; judging by noise they were making as they traveled, they hadn't noticed him yet. His onboard sonar had identified five units with a possible sixth, though he couldn't be sure; the possible was too close to the largest contact on his screens to be positively identified. If he'd been directly above them, he might have been able to confirm their numbers, but it also raised the risked he could be detected; all they would have needed was his silhouette. Following behind them meant that he had to angle the beams, making sure to lead the targets to compensate for their movements and sensor refraction; it was like trying to read them through water that was two or three times the actual depth.

Complicating his job was that he also had to keep his sensors tuned to the rest of his surroundings. He was still responsible for his this zone and there was always the possibility the Autobots would send reinforcements. Target fixation had killed many a mech on both sides and he was determined not to let that fate befall him. He also remembered Northclaw's warning: "I want no surprise guests." Northclaw was a good commander, possibly better than anyone Novacula had served with before, and wasn't know to be particularly violent to his subordinates, but that still didn't mean he wanted to find out what might happen to him if he screwed up. This pragmatism proved sage; he was tracking another object along with the Autobots, almost directly below him, hugging the undersea terrain. Novacula couldn't tell who or what was it was, the clutter of the ocean floor effectively hiding the contacts, but he had his suspicions. He kept a scanner locked on the object in the off chance he was in error.

It would have been so easy for Novacula to send a torpedo right up the tailpipe of the rearmost Autobot and he was extremely tempted to do so. But he thought better of it, knowing that even if he managed to take down even one Autobot, there would still be five more to content with. He loved a challenges but even he didn't want to stir up this was a nest of scraplets. Besides, Northclaw's orders had been specific; detect, track, and report any enemy unit that intruded into the perimeter. Well, he'd detected intruders and if they kept on their current course and speed, they'd be right on top of the recovery site in under twenty cycles. Novacula knew that there was a communications buoy near the site, deployed there to provide a sort of direct line to the salvage team should the need arise. He figured that the need had arisen and it was time to raise the alarm.