Chapter 15
On the surface of Cybertron, Predacon turrets are being destroyed in rapid succession.
Inside the cockpit of one of the Maximal Fighters, the comlink activates, and Ultra Magnus' voice is heard "All Maximal fighters, seize your attacks and rendezvous back to the co-ordinates on your screen.
The remaining Maximal Fighters attempt to re-cloak as streams of plasma fire streaks through the sky near them. One of the fighters gets hit in the back, causing an explosion.
"I've been hit!" the pilot inside calls out as the aircraft can be seen descending with a trail of smoke and fire.
"Prowl!" One of the pilots watches as the craft falls. One of the Maximal Fighters dives sharply down to chase.
"Negative Sunstreaker!" Ultra Magnus commands. "We can't risk loosing any more."
"It's Prowl! I must see of I can get to him before the Predacon Drones can!" Sunstreaker pleaded.
"This is a direct order Sunstreaker. You are to return at once. Prowl is as good as dead where he is. Return at once!" Magnus stated again in a commanding tone.
Sunstreaker punched the communication console. He sees part of the cockpit fly off as Prowl stands on the seat. He then jumps out of the rapidly descending aircraft and lands hard on a rooftop.
Sunstreaker pilots his fighter down to the rooftop, avoiding the incoming streams of plasma fire from some of the remaining turrets. He looks on his screen and detects dozens of Predacon Drone signatures heading straight for Prowl.
Prowl transformers into vehicle mode and drives as fast as he can, using jump-jets to jump from one roof to another. Sunstreaker pilots his fighter in between 2 buildings. Prowl uses his jump jets to launch himself from the roof, transform to his robot mode in mid-air and land on the cockpit of Sunstreaker's fighter.
As soon as Prowl lands, Sunstreaker's fighter begins to ascend above the tall Cybertronian towers. "Computer, cloak now!" Sunstreaker commands.
"Unable to comply. Obstruction detected on roof. Cloaking system can not activate with an obstruction."
"Shit.." Sunstreaker says under his breath as he taps some controls. His fighter begins to move forward over the city, but with dozens of flying Predcon drones and the odd turret tower firing. The fighter rotates back and forth rapidly, as well as making sharp turns from side to side to avoid the shots.
A turret from below takes aim at the Maximal fighter and finally hits the aircraft's wing, completely destroying it. The fighter immediately takes a spinning nosedive. Quickly thinking, Prowl rips off the cockpit opening and rips Sunstreaker from the seat, and they both fall to the ground hard. The fighter collides with one of the communication towers, causing a huge explosion. The tower immediately crumbles.
"Magnus, Prowl and Sunstreaker are down. Both fighters destroyed." Ultra Magnus hears over the com link as he sees the fighters return and de-cloak under the protective barrier of the Protoss Arbiter's cloak field.
"First ground wave in place sir. Second wave of Starfighters are prepped and ready." Rodimus says to Ultra Magnus.
Ultra Magnus looks towards the view screen and ponders for a while. "May Primus help us." He mutters. He looks to Rodimus "Begin the attack."
Rodimus calls over to Goldbug "You heard Magnus. Send the message out to engage the Predacons."
On the battlefield, the front line of soldiers activates energy barriers to keep enemy fire from reaching the others. They begin to walk forward slowly and crossing the edge of the Protoss Arbiter's cloak field.
The Predacon ground troops immediately begin to open fire, hitting nothing but the energy barriers. The Maximal troops follow and begin to fire at the Predacons through their own energy barriers while the barriers protect the army.
From the Predacon command center, Rumble watches as more and more Maximals and their allies pour out of the cloaking field, causing the Predacons to step back. He taps at the communication console "Air Commander Starscream, send in the Predacon Seekers, now!"
Starscream flies overtop of the Predacon command center, leading countless of Predacon seekers.
"Scourge, send in the Predacon Sweeps, now!" Rumble commands over the comlink.
A few moments pass by when Scourge is followed by seven of them, and then followed by hundreds more.
Inside the Maximal Flagship, Ultra Magnus nods his head. Rodimus says to Goldbug
"Send in the Carriers."
On the battlefield, the Predacon Seekers and Sweeps converge on the Maximal army. Their weapons reveal themselves from the hulls when suddenly they see emerging from the Arbiter's cloaking field, multiple Protoss Carriers. Swarms of Protoss Interceptors stream from each of the Carriers, causing the Seekers and Sweeps to break off their attack on the Maximal ground troops to focus on the interceptors.
In the Predacon Command Center, Cyclonus and Rumble watch the holographic display of the battle.
"Lord Megatron, sir!" Cyclonus calls out to Megatron. "The Protoss have sent their carriers."
The captain's chair turns around, and Megatron looks at the holographic display. "We have thousands of Seekers and Sweeps at that location. They can't defend against that."
"Maybe in the past, but that simply isn't the case now. Look here." Cyclonus says as he uses his hands to manipulate the camera angle of the display, zooming in to see the Interceptors. "Once one Protoss Interceptor is destroyed, two more materialize. They self-replicate as well as multiply. We'll be outnumbered if this keeps up."
"Activate the holo drones. Keep all holo emitters at their maximum output." Megatron commands.
Cyclonus does a quick salute and heads over to one of the consoles.
Megatron turns to Rumble and says, "Call in reinforcements."
"From which planet?"
"All of them."
Near Washington D.C, a massive city-sized pyramid shaped structure overlooks the U.S Capitol buildings. This pyramid has Cybertronian hieroglyphics and a very prominent Predacon insignia on it, indicating this is the primary Predacon Headquarters on earth. On a balcony, Tarantulas looks over to the city-sized spaceport in the distance. Looking up he sees that the structure of the spaceport continues above the clouds. He hears a buzzing from the computers and he heads inside.
The oceans have been completely drained of every last drop of water. What remains of the once vast oceans are now replaced with multiple, incredibly deep and vast mining pits – some of them reach near the upper mantle while some have had to be completely abandoned because the upper mantle was accidently breached.
Throughout the former ocean floor, humanoid bodies lay in waste to varying degree of decomposition.
In one of the mining pits, a human male collapses and drops his energon pic. The sound of it deactivating alerts one of the guards to come over to the group.
"Get up and continue your work." The Predacon says very emotionlessly.
"I'm really exhausted.." the human says while breathing heavily, attempting to get up but failing.
"You have one more warning, slave. Failure to comply will result in dire consequences." The Predacon overseer warned.
The human once again tries to get to his feet, but completely collapses onto the ground again. The Predacon nods to another, and they roughly grab the collapsed human from the ground and slide a metallic collar around his neck and detach his feet from the energon chains that connect to the group of slaves. The Predacon guards turn the human to the group as the overseer's wrist lights up in a holographic control display.
"No, wait! Stop! I'm sorry!" the slave pleaded.
"Too late human worm." The overseer says coldly as he taps a few icons on the display and every human is slightly electrocuted.
"All of you stand up!" The overseer ordered as he watches the hundreds of slaves belonging to this one particular group rises to their feet.
The guards hold the male slave as the overseer walks slowly along the line of slaves. He stops at one, another male, only in his mid 30's. "Step forward."
The slave steps forward. The overseer walks some more and calls more random slaves to step forward, about 20 in total. He positions these slaves to be in a straight line. The overseer walks to the other Predacon guards and the male that collapsed earlier.
"Hold him." The overseer orders the guards, as his arm-mounted plasma blaster charges up.
"No! PLEASE!" the human male pleads until his voice become raw.
"Remember, germ, these deaths are on your hands." He says as he aims the blaster at the first slave and fires. The slave's head explodes in all directions and the body collapses.
The collapsed slave struggles against the guards that are holding him. "I'm begging, please stop!" he says with tears pouring down his face.
As his weapon charges up again and takes aim, he stops for a minute, lowering his arm and tapping some icons. A video message is played on the holoscreen.
He turns to the guards and speaks in Cybertronian. "Commander Tarantulas has informed us that Lord Megatron has recalled us. We are to take the slaves to confined quarters." He then looks at the collapsed human. He opens a compartment in his wrist and injects something into the human's arm.
Hundreds of Predacon transport vessels land on the ground and the Predacon overseers and guards rally the slaves into the transports.
In New York City, a Predacon patrol vessel flies past a partially destroyed Statue of Liberty, it's head on the ground smashed to pieces.
The buildings of the city rot in decay and have long been abandoned. The streets themselves are littered with overturned and destroyed cars; bodies in decay and skeletal pieces are all that remain of the citizens of New York City.
A small battalion of Predacon drones marches through the streets on patrol, crushing the skulls of humans that once lived.
Suddenly, some blaster shots are fired at the battalion and three Predacon troops are destroyed. The rest fan out as they search the area. A few more shots are fired from within the fallen concrete and metal at the Predacon troops. They begin to fire at the source of the shots.
A woman ducks more behind the debris and turns to her older comrade with gray hair. "Megatron's forces are too strong. We're being over run!"
The comrade turns slightly to look at the woman with his cybernetic eye. "We're not retreating! It's either victory or death!"