Chapter 9
On board the Maximal flag ship, the crew types frantically at the consoles. Rodimus reads updates from the other vessels on holographic screens that are around him. A female Maximal with the beast form of a bird looks around quickly, and taps a very short command on the keyboard before resuming her regular duties The red lights suddenly flash as an alarm begins to blare through out the vessel.
"A Predacon has been detected four floors beneath us Rodimus!" GoldBug called out as he turned to face Rodimus.
Rodimus stands up. "Everyone, power up your weapons and head…"
"Hold on Rodimus," GoldBug interrupted him. "Every other Maximal vessel has also reported detecting Predacon signatures as well!"
"Tell the entire fleet to stop, and tell the commanders of the other Maximal vessels to use all available personnel to hunt and kill the Predacon intruders. Also tell our allies why we stopped."
GoldBug taps quickly at the console, sending the message.
"Power up your weapons, everyone. We're going Predacon hunting. GoldBug, Featherglide, you stay here. As soon as the intruders are killed, activate the transwarp engines again."
The rest of the crew exits the bridge while readying their weapons.
Inside of the Predacon Shield Array, the Predacon drones finish their scan sweep of the building. One of the drones looks to the others "No Maximals detected here, move onto the next stop." The drones then quickly move out of the building.
"We were lucky there." SilverBlade states as he walks towards the exit.
"I have programmed a remote command into the shield system, which is undetectable. Once I activate it the planetary shields will 'fail' and lock anyone out of the system. The only way to reactivate the shields would to be hot wire each shield transmitter across the planet. And there are dozens of them. " Perceptor responds back to Silver.
"Nice work. Activate your cloak and join us. We need to head into the catacombs, underneath the Predacon Citadel."
Perceptor activates his cloaking device.
Inside of the transwarp vessel, Optimus Primal, SilverBolt, Air Razor, and Powerglide are at their respective consoles, guiding the vessel in transwarp space. Suddenly the vessel stops with a jolt. Primal turns his head over to Air Razor. "Did we reach our destination?"
"The computer indicates that we did, Primal." Air Razor responds.
SilverBolt looks out of the window. "Primal, look..." he says as his jaw drops and his eyes widen.
"What is it?" Primal asks as he walks to the window. He doesn't see the rocky terrain of Char, but a literal army of hundreds of Predacon soldiers, tanks, and hovering drones, all aiming their weapons at the vessel.
A holographic projection of Megatron's head appears on the vessel's console "If you want to continue to live your pathetic and worthless lives, I suggest you follow Terrorsaur."
"And if we don't?" Optimus Primal said defiantly.
Another holographic cube appears, showing thousands of humanoid slaves locked in a cage surrounded by Predacon soldiers pointing their weapons down at them. The bodies of the slaves show various degrees of punishment including black eyes, bruises, tattered clothing and sometimes no clothing at all. They also look severely undernourished. Young children hugging their parents, and the adults hugging each other, not knowing what will happen. Each slave shows immense pain, suffering and fear through their eyes, but the Predacons look on with heartless stares. The Maximals watch this scene with their eyes wide open with sadness. Optimus Primal remembers that this is what they wanted to stop. But any wrong move can end the lives of thousands of people.
"Refuse me even once, Primal, and these pathetic germs you call allies will be mass executed. Their blood will be on your hands." Megatron says coldly.
"We will never surrender to you, Megatron!" SilverBolt angrily looks at Megatron's face.
Megatron coldly stares back, as the holo-image shows the Predacons firing on some of the slaves, killing about one hundred and fifty of them in cold blood. "You better control your pet, Primal. I would have for another 'accident' to happen."
"SilverBolt, you thick headed hound! Control yourself!" Primal yells at SilverBolt.
"But, Primal!" SilverBolt started but Primal put his hand up. "Not another word." He turns to Megatron. "You win this round, Megatron."
The holographic cubes fade away. Optimus Primal turns to his fellow Maximals "We have no choice… We have to surrender." The Maximal group exits the transwarp vessel.
Terrorsaur greets them as the Maximals walk off the boarding ramp "Maximal scum, put your arms in front of you!"
The Maximal group does as they are told, they put their arms in front of them and Predacon soldiers attach energon bindings to their wrists and their feet.
SilverBolt turns his head to Terrorsaur. "Is a full battalion necessary to capture four Maximals?" Terrorsaur ignored him as one of the soldiers slugged SilverBolt across the jaw and in the stomach, causing SilverBolt to double over.
"Maybe I should state some rules." Terrorsaur looked at the group. "You are not to speak unless spoken to. Failure to do so will result in being punished. Now, Maximal scum, walk." The Maximals begin to walk down the Cybertronian streets, with Predacons leading them, and Predacons following.
On the Maximal flagship, they continue to search for the Predacon that appeared on their scanners. Featherglide and GoldBug stayed on the bridge waiting for orders from Rodimus.
Featherglide stood up from her chair and walks over to GoldBug seductively, and puts her hand on his shoulder. "GoldBug.." She says with a sultry voice. "Would you show me where the data discs are located? I should make a back-up of the system while the others are searching for that Predacon"
GoldBug rises from his chair "Sure, I'll show you where they are." He walked over to a small storage compartment and opened the door. Featherglide stands behind him. She attaches a small circular device to GoldBug's forehead and he drops to the ground
"Idiot, never trust an attractive female, especially one that shows any interest in you." She said as she grabs a few discs and walks over to her console and quickly begins to type commands on the keyboard and data begins to copy onto the discs.
Featherglide takes the disc out as soon as it ejects, and rushes towards the air lock.
Within the lower decks, Rodimus and his group of Maximals have split up, searching for the invisible Predacon. Right in front of Rodimus, a target-practice drone de-cloaks, hovering in the hallway. "Lower your weapons. It was just a practice drone." He taps his com-link on his wrist. "GoldBug, alert the fleet that the Predacon signatures were being emitted by practice drones."
No response.
"GoldBug? Respond!" No response again. "Senior staff, head to the bridge, everyone else back to your stations."
Back at the bridge, Rodimus removes the device from GoldBug's head and he wakes up. "A temporary shut down disc…causes your circuits to shut down for a short time. Who used this on you?"
"It was Featherglide. She came up behind me." GoldBug responds to Rodimus.
The computer then blares over the intercom system "Air lock sequence activated."
"Oh shit." Rodimus says as he speeds towards the air lock.
Cliffjumper exited from the elevator. "I got this one." He begins to fire at the air lock door, while running towards it as it closed completely. Rodimus approached from a perpendicular hallway "Computer, deactivate the air lock and open the internal door!"
"Unable to comply, external door is opening. Opening the internal door during this time is not permitted."
"Damn It!" Rodimus says as he punches the wall. He and Cliffjumper watch out the window. Featherglide floats beside the Maximal flagship. She looks back towards the window, taps a button on her wrist, and a smaller, once-person Predacon Fighter appears around her, and the Fighter quickly enters transwarp space, and disappears from censors.
"How could we not have detected a Predacon spy? They will know everything now." Rodimus said in frustration. "Order the fleet to resume course to Cybertron. Let's hope SilverBlade and Primal are having more luck then we are."
The Maximal fleets, along with their allies, resume their transwarp journey towards Cybertron. Rodimus sits back on the captain's chair with frustration as Ultra Magnus sits to his right. "How can we not have seen this? Once Featherglide delivers the data to Megatron, the chance of any of us surviving is too small to calculate."
"Not all hope is lost," Ultra Magnus begins. "That data has evolving encryption on it. The encryption changes one thousand times a minute. Only very few people have the master key to stop it: Primal, SilverBlade, You, and myself."
Rodimus looks over to Magnus. "They will still find a way, even if it means killing every organic that they enslaved."
Beneath the Predacon Citadel, SilverBlade, Perceptor, Wheeljack, Rhinox and a small group of Maximal soldiers are caught in a firefight against a group of Predacon drones.
"How can they know we're here?" Rhinox asks
"Motion sensors, they detect how the air moves, obviously I didn't know about this upgrade." SilverBlade answers back, while firing on the troops, his body becoming visible for the duration of the shots.
"We have to get past them!" Wheeljack says in a panic.
The Maximal soldiers run in front of the science officers and began to fire on the Predacon soldiers, mowing them down quickly.
"This was supposed to be about stealth!" SilverBlade yells at the soldiers.
The commanding soldier looks over to SilverBlade. "Time is not on our side, commander. And how do we know that you didn't lead them here in the first place?" He asks, not trusting SilverBlade
"Never mind that now, we must get to Megatron's Spark Chamber!" Rhinox looks sternly at the other Maximals. "Which way do we go, SilverBlade?"
"We go down this corridor." SilverBlade walks towards another entrance.
"Leading us into more traps, Predacon?" The soldier asks SilverBlade.
SilverBlade grew angry and turns to the commanding soldier "One more outburst and you will be relieved of command and another will take your place!" He continues to walk towards the entrance.