Chapter 5: Chapter 4
Standard disclaimer still applies. I own nothing...ok, not quite true. I do have a box full of Autobots (and one lonely Starscream) next to my bed.
Chapter 4
Outpost: Gallimimus
"Captain's back!" Dean Inoue called from his position as lookout.
There was a flurry of activity within the cramped warehouse. Inoue hopped down from the window sill and commed the guardhouse, where Marge and Gigawatt were still monitoring the mysterious life forms.
When Inoue and Endline had led Sector Sweep 12C to the base while Centurion called Prime, the mysterious signal had retreated to a nearby mesa. It had waited there until they were all inside, but it was starting to circle closer again.
Apollo, one of the Cybertronians, stepped outside with his plasma cannon at the ready. A gold colored car sped in through the gates, raising a cloud of dust as it did. Immediately the laser lines closed over the gate once more and the car transformed into Centurion.
"Apollo," he greeted the shuttle-Transformer warily, "is everything alright here?"
The taciturn explorer nodded once and beckoned the captain inside. Marge had left her post by this time, and no sooner did Centurion sit down on a crate than the girl launched herself at him. He had the presence of mind to catch her before she fell on her face.
"Told you I'd come home safe, didn't I Maggie?" he smiled.
"You did, yeah," Marge sat on his hand and beamed up at him, "Mum would've killed you if you hadn't."
Some of the other team members turned away, whether it was to give them privacy or because they were uncomfortable with Cybertronian/Human families was not clear.
"What's the status of the unidentified life forms?" Centurion asked, a bit more business-like now that he was certain his daughter was safe.
"They retreated to a mesa, but I think they're coming back, sir." The primary data organizer, Zettabyte, spoke crisply and efficiently, as was her nature. "Did you get a message through?" she asked. The captain nodded.
"I spoke with Optimus Prime," he began, and was soon interrupted by varying exclamations of disbelief.
"Mr. High-and-Mighty Prime actually spoke to you?" The speaker was the team's main scout, a woman named Irene Santiago. "I'd have thought he'd be too busy running Eden!"
"Yeah, and we're the backwater group!" her Cybertronian partner, Geist, agreed.
Centurion held up a hand for silence. "It's true, I did speak to Optimus Prime. I told him we were critically low on supplies and unable to properly defend our base. He's sending three soldiers with reserve supplies; they'll be here tomorrow." A chorus of cheers filled the warehouse.
Jack, Arcee, and Springer walked through the groundbridge into a dusty red desert. "Looks like Jasper," the femme commented.
"Jasper? That backwoods place on Earth you all camped out at?" Springer idly twirled a blaster around his servos.
"Would you quit that? You're making me nervous," Jack grumbled.
The green triple-changer shrugged and subspaced the weapon. "Place looks pretty dead."
Arcee reached down and shouldered a crate of energon. "Yeah, well Outpost Gallimimus will look the same if we don't get these supplies to them."
Springer snorted and took the case from her, ignoring her outraged expression.
"Listen, Sweetspark. No offense, but you don't have the stamina to make a haul like this." Springer placed the box on the ground and transformed into his land vehicle mode, an armored car.
"Hey kid, mind loading the crates?" he asked. Jack shrugged as if to say oh, why not and piled the supplies into Springer's interior.
A somewhat indignant Arcee had pulled up coordinates to Outpost Gallimimus in the meantime. Once the location was set, she transformed into her motorcycle mode. As soon as Jack was settled, the trio sped away.
"So. Springer." Jack remarked casually.
"He's a good soldier, Jack," the femme half-heartedly defended him, "just...overconfident. Like others we've known."
The young man smiled, knowing that Arcee was referring to Smokescreen and the days when he used to ramble on about destiny.
"I'd give him a chance before deciding what you think of him," Arcee advised, "he's a good mech to have at your back."
From ahead of them, Springer shouted back, "Come on, slowpokes! While we're young!"
Even in vehicle mode, Arcee twitched. "Overconfident," she repeated, "and disrespectful and rude."
"Hmm. Nice guy," her partner muttered dryly, "Either I'm starting to like him, or I'm going to offline him myself!"
Centurion and Apollo stood at the gates of the compound, one watching the mesas and one watching the flatlands. Shading his optics with one hand, Apollo leaned forward and pointed to a cloud of dust on the eastern horizon.
"I see it," his captain acknowledged, "here's hoping its the supplies, eh?"
The transport mech nodded solemnly and returned to scrutinizing the surrounding bluffs.
"Gigawatt," Centurion commed the guardhouse, "Incoming from the east. What've you got?"
"Three signals, all Autobot," the crabby femme replied.
"Wait until they've reached the gate and identified themselves, then release the laser gates." Centurion instructed. He watched the cloud of dust grow larger and solidify into a blue motorcycle with a human passenger and a green armored car. The gold mech waved a friendly greeting as they approached the gate.
"Sector Sweep 12C, I presume?" Jack swung off of Arcee and offered a polite salute to a fellow captain.
"That's right. You three bringing a shipment?" the other cheerfully asked. In answer, Arcee removed an energon cube from Springer's interior and held it up to the fence.
"See for yourself."
Within moments, the gates were open and Springer had driven through to be unloaded by the humans in the base. Before Arcee could enter the grounds, however, something strange happened. A sound of roaring engines filled the air, and three aircraft flew dangerously low over the ground.
One of them transformed into a scrawny grey and white mech, who snatched the cube from Arcee's hand and flew off again, cackling obnoxiously.
"What the?!" Arcee called forth a blaster and aimed it at the retreating figures as Gigawatt belatedly announced three Kaonian spark signatures.
"Well?" One of the humans, a large man with green hair, marched out of the base scowling, "Let's go get those punks!"
Arcee shook her helm. "It was just one cube. It's not worth starting a fight over."
The human stared up at her incredulously. "You don't get out much, do you?" he asked.
"Petrovych!" Santiago hissed from inside the base, chagrined, "That's Arcee! You don't talk to her like that!"
Arcee was not impressed. "Why do you say I don't get out much?" she asked calmly.
Petrovych pointed at the six crates of energon cubes being moved into the warehouse. "Those crates? That's all we have. We used our last reserves last night to power door locks. Every cube is important, as we cannot count on anyone bringing supplies."
Springer transformed out of vehicle mode and stretched. "Alright, so we get it back, then what? Come on, maybe those guys don't have any energon either."
Petrovych looked uncomfortable. "I suppose that could be the case," he admitted, "but the manner in which they took it suggests that they were merely thieves."
"Fair enough," Jack allowed, "that laugh didn't sound like a starving Seeker to me."
Centurion grumbled under his breath and ushered his team members back into the compound. "Standing around debating isn't going to bring them back, and I'm not going to risk my team over something stupid like this."
He pointed up at the cliffs. "We've got unidentified, possibly hostile life forms up in the mesas watching the outpost, and I don't need anyone getting killed on my watch!"
Arcee looked up at the bluffs and remembered Optimus's warning. If the perpetrators of the Kaon attacks were in this sector, then the thieves were in as much danger as any of them.
"Springer, Jack, let's go." she said firmly, "Those three need shelter too."
Endline stepped up, with Inoue perched on her shoulder. "Captain, may we go as well?" the Vehicon asked. Centurion was suspicious, as Endline made no secret of her disdain for most Kaonians.
Reluctantly, he agreed, warning the pair that any hostile actions would be severely dealt with. Arcee and Springer each had a blaster at the ready, aimed in the general direction of the cliffs, while Jack scanned the area for the three Seekers. An odd chill seemed to float about the clifftops of the asteroid, occasionally manifesting as a pale blue fog near their feet. Nearly an hour later, the three were located in a box canyon some miles away.
Arcee made a show of lowering her weapon before addressing the three young Kaonians, barely even old enough to fly. "Hi there. My name is Arcee, and you've got something that belongs to Outpost Gallimimus."
The grey and white Seeker squeaked in dismay and hid the half-empty cube behind his back. "No we don't!" he lied.
"Liar!" Endline snorted, "it's behind your wings!"
The biggest of the three stepped in front of the lying mech. "Don't call my brother a liar, Ahtzobaht!" she snarled.
"Well in that case, I can't call him a Kaonian, can I?" Endline retorted.
"Hey!" Jack shouted, catching the combatants' attention, "We are not enemies! We didn't come here to start a fight," he glared sternly at Endline, who backed down after a tense moment.
"We came to make sure you have shelter," Arcee picked up where her partner left off, "There are some suspicious life signs stalking the base from the cliffs, and we don't want anyone getting caught out here unprepared."
"Psh!" The third Seeker made a dismissive sound and waved his hand. "We don't need protecting, we're Kaon Province Seekers! Nothing can catch us!"
"Except three Cybertronians and two humans on foot, just now," Springer chuckled.
Arcee sighed and addressed the Trine. "Alright, your choice. If you change your mind, you know where to go." Beckoning her team, Arcee turned away and began to leave.
"Yeah, run back home, Ahtzobaht Blue-Optics!" The femme Seeker taunted.
Endline froze.
"Scrap." Inoue muttered.
The Kaonians grinned, pleased to have struck a nerve. Endline smiled back. And promptly punched the Seeker femme in the faceplate. The younger Cybertronian reeled backwards in shock, clutching her face.
"Sunstorm! Ramjet! She hit me!" she wailed piteously.
Her brothers responded with "righteous" indignation, launching themselves at the Autobots. "Autobot brutality! Autobot brutality!"
Ramjet fired short laser bursts at them from a wrist-mounted gun. They weren't particularly powerful lasers, but he was persistent. The Autobots and humans ducked the stinging rounds and dodged Sunstorm's wild punches.
Jack radioed the base in the fracas. "Outpost Gallimimus, we need a ground bridge," he declared grimly.
Arcee pulled Endline away from the fight and pushed her down behind a boulder until the bridge appeared. Once through, the group turned as one to glare at the Vehicon femme.
"Alright, soldier," Arcee said coldly, "This is the part where you tell me what you thought you were doing."
"I accept responsibility for my actions." Endline's voice betrayed no emotion.
"By which you mean you're not sorry," the superior officer moved to stand in front of the offender, hands on hips. "I'm not asking you if you're sorry, I want to know what you were thinking!"
Endline's jaw tightened. "Ahtzobaht. It sounds like 'Autobot', but that's not what they were saying. It's a Decepticon insult. It means "one who is weak.""
Arcee's voice remained serious, but softened just a little bit. "I know what it means. I've had it directed at me often enough, after all."
Her voice hardened again. "But that was during the war! This is a time of truce. You just started a fight in a neutral space!"
Centurion, who had come into the room as soon as they bridged back, staggered back in shock. "She did what?!"
Jack folded his hands behind his back. "I don't know what your history with Kaonians is, but I suggest you learn to control your temper so that next time someone insults you, we don't end up with an international incident."
Centurion groaned. "Endline, you're confined to base until further notice," he ordered. The accused snapped a crisp salute, and wordlessly marched out of the room-scarlet optics still blazing with fury.
"I apologize," Centurion said, shifting uncomfortably. "Out here, we're more of a family than a military group, and sometimes I've let things slide where perhaps I ought to have cracked down."
"Don't worry, we know the feeling," Arcee sighed, but gave the mortified commander a weary smile. "I suggest talking to her about her biases though. Take it from someone who knows. It's just going to get worse if it's not dealt with soon."
On the far side of the warehouse, where the rest of the group had been studiously pretending to be invisible, an alarm sounded. Zettabyte tapped the screen, then pounded it.
"Aahhhh! Zhè jiàn shìqíng dàodǐ shì zěnme huí shì?!"* she growled, "There's nothing out there! Stop freaking out!"
Springer wandered over and examined the faulty equipment. "You sure it's malfunctioning?" he asked, "Let me see it."
On the battered screen, one untagged blip was disappearing and reappearing. Each time it got a little closer to the perimeter. "Ah great. Just great." Springer turned to shout, "Folks, we're going to have company!"
Then the lights went out.
* Translation: "Ah! What's the matter with this thing?"
Cliffhanger (sort of) because I felt like the chapter was getting too long. If later on, you decide you like one of the oc's, or hate them with a burning passion, let me know! It's early yet, but it may well effect which characters survive the story and which ones do not. But don't worry, if you like a character, I won't kill it. I'm not Joss Whedon after all.