Chapter 6 : Dead End's Suggestion

Drag Strip froze, his optics fixed on the burning car. He wasn't afraid of fire or accidents, but half of his mind was shrieking at him to keep going, to continue the race. The other half yelled, just as loudly, that this was an Autobot ambush. Wildrider simply wouldn't have been caught by anything less.

The flames had nearly reached the Ferrari's gas tank. Drag Strip hated the fossil fuels humans used and preferred to run on pure energon, but Wildrider wasn't so discriminating – he would drink anything. Did he fill up on gas before we started out? Whether he did or not, he's going to be badly damaged soon. No, he is badly damaged. He'd have transformed or sent out a distress call otherwise.

Drag Strip stared around, but there was no sign of any Autobots lying in wait. The flames crackled and trailed black smoke, but their light didn't pick out any robot prints or tank-treads on the ground below.

Just keep going. Radio Dead End with the coordinates and let him deal with it. Win the race.

No, wait, if Wildrider's in stasis lock I've won by default. Walk away, then? I'd never have anyone praising him to me again, and only the best survive, anyway. If Wildrider can't take care of himself, it's not my problem, and he deserves it for trying to shove me off the road anyway.

But he's a Stunticon too. We're part of the same team. And…

"…and I'm not Swindle," Drag Strip said aloud, then plunged down the slope. Pebbles and dry earth poured away under his feet and he slipped and slid, gyro stabilizers struggling to keep him upright. He hit the bottom of the slope in a cloud of dust and activated his radio.

"Dead End, Wildrider's been hurt!" he said as he ran to the Ferrari's side. "Bad. Someone's ambushed him and set him on fire. Looks like he didn't even have time to transform first."

"Inevitable, really," Dead End said. "Suicide to attack a Stunticon head-on, so they waylay him instead--"

"Shut up and do a scan!" Drag Strip scooped up a double handful of earth and flung it on the flames, not knowing what else to do. The air was thick with burning rubber, gasoline – gasoline? The fire can't have reached his gas tank already! – and a faint sharp smell that he couldn't identify.

"I suppose you'll be next, Drag Strip." Dead End actually sounded unhappy about that possibility, but then again, Dead End sounded unhappy about everything. "I thought the Stunticons would die together, for some reason, but apparently we'll succumb one by one, alone as well as doomed--"

"Do. A. Scan. Now." Drag Strip decided that he and Megatron had another thing in common – they both had morons on their teams. He doused the fires closest to the gas tank and started to work on the rest. "Whoever did this has to be close, and you have the combat radar. Do a fragging scan!"

"Hmm," Dead End said after a moment. "There's no one, Autobots or Decepticons, near you except for Vortex. Extending the sweep north, there's Breakdown keeping an eye out for trouble. Checking the south…" There was a moment's pause. "…Wildrider is heading south on the freeway."

"What?"

"Drag Strip," Dead End said, and for the first time that night he sounded neither depressed nor bored. "I suggest you get out of there. Now."

The Ferrari exploded.