Chapter 14
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers in any way, shape or form. I only own Nightshade.
Eh, some political jargon…and an actual plot appears!
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Optimus sat at his desk, unable to compute what it was that he was looking at. A human satellite had picked up some rather interesting thermal activity going on in the northern states and monitored for a few hours. The satellite had transmitted four terraquads of pictures and videostream files before it was forcibly jammed. The human's attempts to fix that satellite were going nowhere fast. Optimus rebooted his software to make sure that he wasn't seeing things.
The first picture was slightly blurred. There wasn't much to it except a glint of metal.
The second picture was clearer after the satellite had rebooted and used higher resolution optical software. The glint of metal was now discernable from the rock and scrub surrounding it. There were glints of metal all around the clearing, which was full of metal itself. The satellite had switched over to thermal scans then, to complete the third picture.
The third picture was what had his computing center on the fritz. There, in the middle of a clearing in northern Washington, was a caravan of transformers. He didn't get it. How could Starscream have reached recruits, convinced them to fight for him, and smuggle them back under the potent military surveillance without a single blip on any radar, world wide? And, speaking of surveillance, how had they gotten past the Autobot grid?
Starscream was standing to one edge, his arms crossed. In front of him stood his posse of seekers: Thundercracker, Skywarp, Thrust, and Dirge. Ravage was sitting off to one side, his nose in the air. Soundwave was sitting beside his casseticon, one hand resting on its head. The other casseticons were nowhere to be seen or detected. Astrotrain took up an entire side of the clearing, leaving little room for Cyclonus. The five mechs that made up Bruticus were scattered across the clearing. What made the energon freeze in his lines was the last transformer, almost hidden completely behind the tree line. He stared at the shadow until he realize what he was looking at.
Shockwave, one of the deadliest mechs on Cybertron. Shockwave alone had taken out two entire sqaudrons of autobots by himself. It had taken Optimus, Ironhide, and Ultra Magnus half an hour just to drive him away from the battlefield. Even then, Optimus and Ironhide had been seriously injured, nearly sending Ratchet into a stress-induced fritz.
And all around the clearing, were gathering mechs. Some he had never seen, some of them he had met in battle. He sighed and rubbed at his cranial units. These mechs were some of Megatron's best men. How the slag they were going to take care of this was beyond him. There were other pictures, but they too, were too blurry to discern separate mechs.
Optimus turned on his personal communications line and sighed softly. He had no way of explaining this to the secretary of defense. He dialed the SecDef's personal line and waited patiently. The soft beeping of the phone seemed to be mocking him.
"Artie Smith speaking. How may I direct your call?"
"I need to speak with Mr. Keller, please"
"Yes, sir. May I ask who is speaking? He's in a meeting right now…"
"Optimus Prime."
Exactly 2.5 seconds passed before Artie spoke.
"…He's on his way now, sir."
"Thank you."
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"What's going on, Optimus?"
"I think you know, Mr. Keller."
Here the man sighed heavily into the mouthpiece.
"I was hoping that it was a fluke."
"I as well, Mr. Keller. However, this is no longer just a national security issue. They are in Washington, quite close to the Canadian border. You need to inform the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Keller."
"I would, Optimus, but President Smith is not cooperating. He wants to keep you guys secret for as long as possible. Or until elections, which he probably will lose."
"I understand, Mr. Keller. Please do what you can."
"I will."
"I will update you later."
"Thank you."
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Optimus stood in front of the meeting room, waiting for the murmuring to stop. He made a noise similar to a human clearing their throat and waited patiently. Silence fell heavily across the room full of his trusted advisors – Prowl, Jazz, Hound, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Red Alert. They were the only mechs on this base that Optimus would trust with his spark (except for his mate, but she didn't count at the moment).
"I won't waste any time getting started. We have received rather disturbing images from human satellites concerning decepticon activity." The screen went from the autobot decal to the the pictures of the decepticons gathering in the clearing. There were a few hushed gasps and quiet muttering. Optics across the room widened in surprise and shock.
"Prowl and I have monitored the security grid that was set up around the globe and we found a breach over the northern part of Ireland. I've sent the aerialbots to investigate and there are no landbound mechs in Ireland or England. Prime Minister Anderson from England has been informed of us and the status of the war. We are still monitoring Scotland and Greenland. The president has commisioned two ships to help monitor the oceans. Europe and Asian countries have not reported any strange activities." He paused for a second.
"You mean to tell us, sir, that Starscream managed to get over 50 mechs back to Earth, under our security grid, without us or humans noticing?" Ironhide was incredulous. He had personally helped build the grid. He made no mistakes when it came to defense, especially now that they had femmes on the base. The fifteen or so femmes on base were the future of the entire race.
"Yes, I mean exactly that. The breach in the grid was no bigger than 50 feet across and lasted no more than three Earth hours. As you may remember, we specifically programmed the grid to monitor for any Cybertronian signals or alloys entering or leaving the atmosphere, as well as any foreign radio signals and high levels of radiation. The sensors we deployed were transmitting looping signals, replaying the same signal. Since Teletraan 1 has not been finished, we could not differentiate between a looped signal or a real signal. We can only tell if the grid has been breached or not." Ratchet bowed his head. He and Wheel Jack had been working on Teletraan 1 as hard as they possibly could and they still failed. Optimus shot him a strange look and sent a quick message.
Don't you dare blame yourself for this, Ratchet, so help me Primus I will kick your aft.
"Who'd do somethin' like that?" It was Hound that had spoken. Ratchet shot Optimus a sad smile. He definitely blamed himself.
"We are not sure. The President and Prime minister are discussing it as we speak. There are very few countries with the technology capable of hacking our signal. Several ships and their cargo has gone missing, along with a submarine. It was carrying an undetermined number of nuclear warheads. We are not sure if it was active or not. They have set up base somewhere and we cannot triangulate any locations. We cannot trace the warheads, either. The satelites have not picked up any kind of strange activity. We can only assume that the decepticons know our satellite pattern, as well as NASA's satellites."
There was a low, soft whistle.
"The satelites move in pairs, so that there are two eyes, so to speak, at one location at a certain time. There are gaps of mere minutes before the next satellites cross that threshold. How fifty-odd decepticons managed to move so quickly and efficiently is beyond me. There is also one more thing."
Optimus paused, trying to gather his thoughts. Optimus felt nauseated and he could only imagine the reactions to what he was about to say.
"Our grid signal was in Cybertronian. Barricade, Frenzy, and Scorponok are not capable of hacking past our firewalls. Their com signals were taken off line long before we built the grid, and any messages that the three have sent have been monitored completely. The grid signal was also encoded with an adaptive rotating frequency. Not even Frenzy has that type of knowledge. Megatron, Blackout, and Bonecrusher are dead. Their remains have been confiscated and melted down. That can mean only one thing."
Prowl felt a sickeningly cold sensation settle in his tanks. He hoped that his logic chips were wrong. But even as he stood, he knew that his chips were right and that they were royally screwed.
"What does that mean, sir?"
"Someone on this base helped them hack the grid."
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Hehehehe, now how's that for a plot turn?