Chapter 17
On board the U.S.S Enterprise, the crewmembers of the bridge are busy at their respective consoles, as Picard looks at the view screen at a view of the planet.
"All humanoids are in attack position awaiting orders from within the Arbiter's cloaking field." Commander Data calls out coldly.
Riker looks towards Picard. "We could lose a lot of lives, even with the Maximal's new armor, the Predacons may still have the advantage in pure numbers, plus they can create more drones faster than us."
"That may be true number one, but the human race has been fearing them for far too long. We need to end it." Picard responds. "Commander Data, send a message to all humanoid races. Begin."
Commander Data types on the console then begins to speak. "All humanoid races. Begin the ground attack."
On board the Maximal flagship, GoldBug watches the information on his holographic screen "Rodimus, Sir. The Federation Starship U.S.S Enterprise just sent a message out to the organic races to begin the ground attack."
"Thank you Bug." Rodimus says as he turns to Ultra Magnus. "Now we get to see how the armor interacts with an organic." He turns to GoldBug again. "Tell our flyers to cover the organics."
On the surface of Cybertron, the sky is filled with ariel dogfights between the Predacon forces, and the Maximals/allies forces. The Predacon flying drones continue to be destroyed as more and more flying drones appear in the sky, having been teleported there.
Protoss Interceptors consistently fly out of the hangars from the Protoss Carriers. When one Interceptor gets destroyed, 2 more come out of a carrier.
As the organic races emerge from the Arbiter's cloaking field, they are immediately fired upon by Predacon ground troops. The armor covers each soldier head to toe, and specific sections like the elbows, knees, wrists, and neck, are fully bendable, allowing the soldiers completely free movement.
The personal shield of each soldier stops the energy blasts from the Predacons.
Within the Predacon Command center, the command crew rush around the room and relay orders to the front line Predacon soldiers. Soundwave taps some controls to contact Megatron, whose head appears over the holographic table.
"We've detected the regenerative armor being used by organics. Our weapons are not effective." Soundwave speaks in his famous monotone voice.
"Send in every possible ground drone, even if the replicators need to produce faster then they are designed for. We must not allow them to gain more ground." Megatron orders sharply.
"Yes my lord" Soundwave responds back as he taps on the console and observes the holographic image of the battle. He turns his head to Rumble and Frenzy and says nothing. They know what to do, as they begin to type in commands on the console.
"Warning." The computer starts "Increasing drone replication speed by two-hundred percent may damage hardware."
Both of them say in unison "Override!"
"Override confirmed. Lifting restrictions." The computer says coldly.
SilverBlade enters a solid pitch-black room and he cannot see a thing. He reaches for the light switch and reveals a very big and very large room, with rows and rows of insect-inspired Predacon drones, each 12 feet tall and massive in size. They are all in stasis-lock.
"Computer" he whispers. "Cloaking unit status."
"The cloaking unit is partially damaged. It will only be active for a maximum of 10 minutes. I do not recommend cloaking if you are planning on fighting Megatron." The computer responds.
"What about flying?"
"Not recommended. Insecticon drones would be alerted and re-activate."
SilverBlade folds two of his wings down, and he begins his trek through the rows and rows of insecticon drones by walking in the larger spots between the drones.
Deep within Cybertron, Rhinox, Wheeljack, Perceptor and Ratchet continue to type on the consoles in an attempt to reprogram the Predacon Holodrones.
A flash of a screen caught Rhinox's optics, as he looks over at the screen. "..Slag.."
"What's the problem?" Wheeljack says to Rhinox as he continues to type.
"The Predacon's reinforcements have arrived. The first group has been connected to the servers. 10,000."
"We can't delay." Perceptor states, and the others return to their task.
"Who programmed this? This is the most difficult encryption I've had to deal with!" Rhinox exclaims in frustration.
"How are you going to tackle multiple groups, Perceptor?" Wheeljack asks.
"If we re-program each drone individually, the other drones would just destroy it and Megatron would quickly figure out what is happening. However, if we do entire battalions at once, Megatron would have less time to react." Perceptor responds back.
Above the planet, onboard the Klingon Negh'Var-class flagship, one of the Klingons at the console speaks up.
"Chancellor Gowron, censors are detecting multiple transwarp signatures. The exits are forming now."
"Put it on screen" Gowron commands. He looks at the screen to see multiple areas in space becoming very distorted.
"Open a channel to the Maximals." He says, before hearing the computer beep to indicate that the channel is open. "Are you seeing this, Rodimus?"
"Affirmative Chancellor Gowron. Have your entire fleet aim at the nearest transwarp exits. We've identified the ships travelling. They are Predacon transports, most likely delivering troops." Rodimus says.
"You heard Rodimus. Send out a message to the fleet to aim at the nearest transwarp exit and to fire when they come through." Gowron orders.
The Maximal fleet, along with their allies, proceeds to get into position and aim at the distorting areas of space. The distorted areas then rip open and multiple Predacon vessels emerge. The fleet begins to fire immediately on the vessels. The Predacon vessels fire back on the fleet, but there's many more shots being fired at the Predacon ships, than the Predaon ships are firing at the Maximals.
The Predacon transport vessels continue to head towards the planet while it is being bombarded with plasma cannons.
"The plasma cannons are not doing as much damage as we had hoped, Chancellor." the Klingon tactical officer states.
"These were not built for battle. These were built to withstand more impacts then regular vessels. Fire some photon torpedoes. Maybe that will do some damage." Gowron says.
"Torpedo loaded, ready to launch." the Klingon tactical officer says.
"Fire"
Five bright spheres are shot out of the Klingon flagship and hits squarely on the closest Predacon vessel.
"All torpedoes hit. The hull has been breached. Minimal damage to internal systems." The tactical officer says.
"Scan internally for Predacons." Gowron commands.
"Scanning for Cybertronian metals commonly used for Cybertronians. " A few seconds pass. "I found them. Aiming for that area with the torpedoes." The tactical officer says.
"Fire when ready." Gowron responds.
"Wait!" calls out the Chief engineer, looking at the screen. "An energy surge was detected from the ship. Its energy signature matches a Cybertronian teleporter."
Onboard the Maximal flagship, Goldbug looks over his monitor. "The Predacon transport vessels just teleported troops to the ground."
"How many troops?" Rodimus asks.
"Twenty Thousand, or more." Goldbug replied.
"Slag!" Rodimus slams his fists on the console. "Our guys might be overwhelmed."
"We have to trust that the regenerative armor is fast enough, or the galaxy will forever be in the grip of the Predacons." Magnus speaks up.