Chapter Ten – The Search For Energy
Wheeljack and Huffer continue to work on Telatran One back inside the
Autobot ship called The Ark, finally they finish up and prepare to
restart the computer again. As Huffer rises up from the console
he just finished repaired, he looks over to the far side of the room
and sees Wheeljack closing his massive console panel as well.
"Well that’s it...Telatran One is back online and running smooth
again.” Wheeljack proclaims, "Now...time to wake this computer up and
figure out where everyone is."
Huffer rubs his forehead and sighs relief, "Thank goodness, I was about
to go haywire from all this hard work. I hope you fixed
everything correctly Wheeljack."
Wheeljack laughs, "We'll soon find out lil' buddy. Hit the
restart will ya?"
Huffer walks over to the main controls and presses the large square
button Wheeljack was talking about. As soon as he hit it, a
massive power surge within the computer itself forcefully ejected
Ravage who was still lodged inside. The minidisk spy whimpered
from the blast Telatran One gave to the Decepticon and quickly
transformed beyond Huffer's head as he went flying out. Huffer
was caught off guard by the Decepticon cat's appearance, he stood there
speechless as Ravage leaped across and began running out the bridge
door behind him. Wheeljack saw everything happen and quickly
shouted to Huffer.
"Ravage!! Huffer! Just don't stand there like a lummox! Go after
him!!"
Huffer snapped out of his stupor transforming quickly into his orange
truck cab mode, he was smaller in design to Optimus Prime and had a few
minor differences in the way his truck form looked. Still he one
advantage to being smaller, he was faster and without a back trailer
lumbering behind him, he could easily catch up to the fleeing
Decepticon. Still Ravage sprinted fast down the long ship
corridor and looked back every now and then to see how far he was being
followed. The flashing red lights and the blaring alarms filled
the ship in every corridor and room, booming in the background was
Telatran One's voice alerting all throughout the vessel there was a
Decepticon intruder. As Ravage went rushing by, a door opened on
the sidewall and out stepped Trailbreaker, the bulky looking black and
chromed robot caught a quick glimpse of the intruder and looked
confused as to what was happening. Huffer saw Trailbreaker
standing there and shouted out to him as he was trying to stop the fast
black cat.
"Don't let him get away Trailbreaker! It's Ravage!!"
The large black Autobot didn't even have to think twice, he ran down
the hall and saw the Decepticon almost reaching the open bay door
leading outside.
"Oh no you don't...time to block your only way out!"
The minute he finished saying that, his shoulder mounted chrome-looking
device shot out a massive energy pulse that streaked over to the large
doorway and covered the whole thing in it's electric plasma green
glow. Ravage hit this strange pulsating energy and bounced off of
it like a rubber wall. Trailbreaker laughed at the bouncing kitty
as he watched it repeatedly trying to break through it, his running
became a slow walk as he approached the frantic Decepticon.
Huffer finally reached them both and quickly transformed into his robot
mode again, he took out his gun from a panel opening behind his back
and pointed it at the intruder.
"Don't you move a muscle Ravage...I got my blaster aimed straight at
your head! Just give me a reason to blow it clean off!"
The black cat stopped in its tracks and stood there growling at the two
Autobots, Trailbreaker used his arm cannon to launch a energon cage and
trap the Decepticon in its place. Most transformers have arms
that are built in cannons, often they come in handy when there's no
hand weapon to be found, instead of having a regular arm and hand they
have a large blaster arm that channels from their power directly.
Trailbreaker manages to use it for mainly making force fields or a last
resort when no other weapon is available; a master at creating them,
force fields are his specialty. Now that Ravage is caught, his
energy force field surrounding the large main door dissipates as the
time collapses of its use.
"There we go...one black cat, never to trouble our path again.
Good thing I stayed behind."
Huffer looks up at him confused, "Hey ya...where the heck were
you? I could have joined the others if I'd known you were still
here. Weren't you in the line up? "
"Nope...I asked Optimus to let me finish making repairs to the sick bay
incase they need it. I'm more wondering where Mirage is...haven't
seen him for a long time either."
Huffer lets out a snicker, "I'll bet he's looking for a new place to
live. I don't trust that guy...on one hand he wants to stop
Megatron and the Decepticons, but on the other, he doesn't want to
fight anymore. Sounds like a pure coward if you ask me."
"Yeah...” the big bulky black robot sighs, "Although he's a good guy,
saved my hide a few times during the war...just not much of a fighter I
think. I've heard him ramble on about the good ol' days of
Cybertron, when he was just a courier racing back and forth between
cities. Remember Huffer, not all of us were born warriors you
know. Just give the guy a break and he'll prove his worth to the
team..."
"Whatever Trailbreaker.... I’ll believe it when I see it."
Suddenly Optimus Prime's voice is heard over their built in radio
receivers, they all hold up their hands to their heads to activate
their transceivers.
"Optimus to base! Optimus to base! "
Trailbreaker responds to the leader by talking back with his built in
microphone inside his head, "Base to Prime...this is Trailbreaker,
we're receiving you Optimus Prime, over."
"Trailbreaker...prepare that sick bay and get ready for human
casualties. Tell Huffer and Wheeljack to finish fixing Telatran
One as soon as possible!"
Huffer opens a comm-link to the Autobot leader, "This is Huffer
Prime.... we’ve finished repairs and T-1 is A-OK again!"
"Good work Huffer, as soon as we arrive I want all personnel to
assemble in the bridge. It's time we figure out what our next
plan of attack will be."
Huffer grins and joyfully confirms back to him, "You got it
Prime! Huffer out!"
Outside, down in the valley heading towards the mountain where the ship
lays, Optimus Prime and the other race up the road heading for
it. The human army follows closely behind as they bring their
wounded back to Autobot headquarters, some of the trucks pull off and
stay down near the campsite already set up from last time. The
larger trucks head up with the Autobots as they all begin to move into
the ship. As Prowl and Cliffjumper pass in their car forms,
Trailbreaker uses his force field cannon arm to move the trapped
Decepticon aside. Still not able to get out of it, Ravage
continually claws at the energon mesh cage in a hopeless attempt to
break free. As the others continue to head deeper into the ship,
Cliffjumper and Prowl transform and walk over to Trailbreaker and his
catch of the day.
"Well, well, well...", Cliffjumper states, "Looks like our main man
here bagged himself a kitty cat."
Prowl laughs, "Yeah...funny I don't remember seeing you out there
fighting them though?"
Trailbreaker scoffs at Prowls stupid remark, "That’s funny, I could
have sworn you were supposed to be the security chief of this
place. This spy got in here without us knowing about it."
Prowl seemed taken back by that remark, he knew that if Kup had seen
that happen he'd be in trouble big time. Indeed he did fail on
carefully searching Bumblebee and the others when they came back,
something that he's not proud of and something that Kup would look down
on him about. Without even saying anymore, Prowl turned around
and walked down the corridor to the bridge like a grumpy kid. It
was a blow to his professional ego, a small spy getting past all of
them was a major security breach, in his mind, he could hear Kup
scolding him out for such a lackluster performance. It was time
for him to get serious about improving security around the ship, it was
time for him to prove that he could be as good as Kup ever was and it
was time for him to get to work.
The General and his wounded soldiers drove into the Autobot sick bay
and began to set up a makeshift hospital for themselves. Ratchet
drove in and stopped near one of the metallic beds the Autobots usually
rest upon when injured themselves. He opened the top of his roof
and raised the critical injured army men onto the cold hard surface of
the bed. Like a large crane, his inner robotic hoist placed them
up onto the bed as gently as he could. Once they were placed
there, he quickly transformed and examined their wounds. Ratchet
by no means a human medical expert, with very little time to study
human anatomy he resorted to asking Telatran One for assistance.
"Telatran One are you online?"
"Affirmative", the computerized voice spoke out of nowhere.
"Scan the humans for damage and recall any treatment information.", the
worried robotic doctor instructed.
"Scanning...", the computer quickly responded.
A large blue light beamed out over head the humans lying there, it was
a fine light source almost like a soft laser beam, and it passed over
the humans both horizontally and vertically. As quick as the beam
appeared it soon turned off and the computer gave it's analysis.
"Humans are suffering multiple factures of various bone structures,
vital organs are on the brink of failure and blood loss is occurring
rapidly. Recommend immediate surgical reconstruction based on
human practices."
Ratchet sighed and soon realized the men were dying, he'd have to learn
how to operate on these humans and quick. The General walked over
to the large medical Autobot and saw that it was struggling to figure
out how to proceed.
"Ratchet...do you need help? I could always call for one of our
doctors to come.", the General says to him.
Ratchet shakes his head, "No, that's ok General. These men need
treatment fast...but thanks for your concern. Telatran One...this
is a medical priority, I need the information on human surgical repairs
and all knowledge of human anatomy..."
The computer grants his request, "Affirmative, voice priority
recognized. Downloading all information on Earth human surgeries
and procedures."
The blue beam of light re-appears and aims itself directly at the
medical robot's head. Ratchet stands there downloading all the
information as the beam sends it directly into his brain; the glow in
his blue eyes flutters as the General stands there watching this robot
learn everything about human medical operations. It seemed
incredible to him that this robot could become a master human surgeon
in the matter of seconds. The light source turned off again and Ratchet
snapped out of his downloading stupor. He looked down at the
human patients and began prepping them for surgery. Looking down
at the General he smiled and gave him a nod of reassurance.
"Don't worry General...I know what I'm supposed to do now. If
you'd like, you can be my nurse...I'll need some help and some blood."
"I'm on it.", the man smiles back.
*
* *
* * *
As the Decepticons prepare to move out to the various energy locations,
Megatron stares at the human/alien hybrid vehicle. He reaches
down and yanks the double-barreled cannon off of the transport back;
Starscream wanders over and looks at it with his evil leader.
"This weapon managed to take out a Decepticon...", Megatron thought out
loud, "Such primitive beings...and yet...such advanced and almost
familiar technology."
Starscream stared at it as his leader clutched it in his grasp, "It
does seems strangely recognizable...I'm almost certain I've seen that
design somewhere before. Where did they acquire it I wonder?"
"I'd ask one of our prisoners...but something in my internal power
source that they wouldn't have a clue. Hmm...No, there's someone
else building these things, someone that is meddling with technology
they know nothing about.” Megatron says to the curious air commander.
Looking at it one more time, he simply grimaces and chucks it back onto
the ground. The weapons smacks back on top of the transport
vehicle and crushes it even more. Soundwave casually approaches
Megatron and salutes him.
"We are ready to proceed Megatron!” the blue robot says in his monotone
voice.
"Very good Soundwave, We'll start with a few oil refineries and work
our way over to Sherman Dam. Tell the Constructicons to keep
working and monitor the human prisoners, I don't want our...guests
fleeing our sights before the ship is built!"
Soundwave salutes him again and walks over to the Constructicons still
working on the ship. They are very swift and diligent workers,
already using the surrounding metal left over from the human machines
and weapons, they've managed to build the ship's lower framework and
some of its engines. As the evil leader is about to step away
from the transport debris, Starscream voices his concern.
"Wait! What about this weapon? Surely we must investigate this
matter further, what if they build another one just like it?"
Megatron shakes his head and snickers, "Ah Starscream...you worry too
much about such minor things. By the time we've built this ship
and taken all the energy back with us, the matter will be moot.
If you fear the humans so much...then please go and surrender yourself
and be done of this spineless whimpering!"
"I'm not spineless Megatron...” the Decepticon scowls at him.
The leader laughs, "Of course not.... that’s why you hid behind me when
they attacked you."
Starscream clenched his fist and snarled at the evil leader, "I did no
such thing.... I...I was just making sure I wasn't hogging all the
glory away from you."
"Naturally." Megatron smiled as if he knew the lie to be as stupid as
his air commander.
The leader then stood out in the open and looked at all of his
warriors, he raised his arms in the air and shouted out to them all.
"Decepticons! Let us begin our hunt for Energon!!"
All of the various Decepticon soldiers cheered and watched their leader
fly up into the sky. They too launched upward with him and made
their way to the locations Soundwave had suggested. Starscream
took one last look at the human/alien weapon lying there and gave a
look of doubt. Humans had managed to bruise him and that
concerned him a lot. But since Megatron wasn't too concerned
about it, then it probably wasn't a big a deal as he had thought.
He lifted himself off the ground and flew upwards to catch up with the
rest of the group; he transformed into his super sonic F-19 jet mode
and let his thrusters kick in.
*
* *
* * *
The Autobots stood all around the bridge of The Ark, Optimus Prime
paced back and forth as they all looked on and watched him do so.
Carly, Spike and Sparkplug all stood off to the side where the Autobot
leader was walking and also watched him as he mulled over their next
plan of action.
"Megatron won't stay put in that area for long. He'll need
energon in order to leave this planet, so that begs the question, where
will he strike?"
Sparkplug rubs his back neck, "Anywhere he wants it seems...man, I
think he's got his choice around the world. There all sorts of
places to go...there's oil fields, gas depots, hydroelectric plants..."
Prime stops in his tracks and sighs, "Yes...this world is a feeding
frenzy for his appetite. Hmm...Still, he'd want to stay near the
area, I know him too well. His ship under construction is close
by and he won't want to stray too far incase we try to attack the site
again. He'll undoubtedly try to attack anything near by that can
produce large quantities of energy."
Hound taps his head in thought, "Well that might be the oil
refineries...those are close by. But from what I've studied on
them briefly, they don't seem to be enough for his ship, his men and
Cybertron."
Jazz folds his arms and shakes his head, "Man, we're wasting our time
trying predict his next move. If we so much as even try to stop
him he'll give the order to kill those human hostages, face it
guys...he's got our sorry butts in a noose."
Cliffjumper stands up out of his chair, he was sitting in the command
chair Prime would sit in during flight of the ship, but he leaps up and
shakes his fists at them all.
"Megatron needs to be put out for good! I'm sorry to be the one
to say this...but those humans shouldn't have gotten in the way!
I say we take our chances and take those Decepticons down!!"
Trailbreaker stands over him and gives him a small jolt on the top of
the screaming Autobot's head, "Aw, hush up you big hot head!
We're not going to kill those humans just to satisfy your itch to kill
Megatron, so pipe down."
Cliffjumper turns to the big black robot and takes a few swings at him,
but since Trailbreaker is taller and bigger then him, he holds the
small minibot's head in his hand while the little hot head tries to hit
him.
"Oh yeah?! You want a piece of me too? Come on big
boy...let's dance!!"
Optimus becomes furious at Cliffjumper and shouts at him,
"Cliffjumper!! Enough!! Settle down or I'll have you in the lower
regions of this ship scraping off the rock with nothing more then a
thin pair of tweezers!!"
The mini red Autobot silenced immediately and sat back down into the
chair like a scolded child would. Optimus regained his composure
and looked around at the others, they all knew he was ticked off and
didn't want to say anything else that might set him off again.
Carly was too busy thinking of where the Decepticons would strike next
to notice the small Autobot's ranting and suddenly realized of one
location the evil leader might go.
"Dams...” She said quietly.
Spike standing right next to her looked over and realized she spoke, "I
beg your pardon?"
She smiled at the young fair-haired boy and said it again, "
Dams! Think about it Spike...Dams produce a lot of energy."
"But not the amount they're thinking of Carly. It wouldn't make
any sense, why would he go for Dams when there are perfectly good
nuclear plants all around."
Suddenly across the room, Wheeljack heard the two of them talking and
shouted out to them both, "Nuclear plants have too much radiation..."
They both looked surprised that he could hear them from so far away,
but as he walked into the middle of the room near where Prime was
standing, he continued to talk about it.
"They'd have to do a lot of work to create a safe energy field in order
to keep their own circuits from frying. But I like the idea you
had about dams Carly, if they could some how increase the water flow
and increase the pressure...the generators would be able to produce
instant electrical jolt that would give them the energy needed."
Optimus Prime and the others listened to Wheeljack's theory, stood
there thinking about the possibility and stroked his manifold chin.
"Hmmm...Sounds like Megatron's kind of angle. But how would he
collect the energy surge? I'd doubt he'd ask his men to carry it
all in their energy absorbers all that time."
Wheeljack thinks for a second and snaps his fingers as an idea pops in
his head, "I've got it! During the war, there was talk of taking
energon and compacting them into storage fields, sort of like taking
the energy and crushing it down into tight wads of power. And
since only Soundwave was the leader in that field of science...I'll bet
he designed a way to store the energy into some sort of compact shell
that would make it easier to put on their ship."
Huffer snickers, "Yeah right Wheeljack, I think that crash has struck
your processors too much. Thats a load of cyberjunk if I ever heard it!"
Carly runs over to Wheeljack and starts to realize what he's talking
about, "No...Wheeljack is right Huffer! It's kind of like
dehydrating liquid into powdered crystal form and filling it into a
container. It may not look like much in the powered form, but
once it's re-hydrated it becomes twice the size of the container's
volume. Compacted energy into lightweight containers..."
"Or...” Wheeljack adds in, "A stable force field that could contain it
all. Making it very lightweight, but extremely unstable. If
it gets dropped or the field collapses.... boom!"
Optimus Prime nods to them both for the helpful ideas, "Now we have a
theory on how they'll collect it. Thank you. But if this is
indeed how they will proceed, which dam will they target to do this?"
Prime walks over to the computer and taps on the oddly constructed
keyboard in front of him.
"Telatran One...give me the location of any known dam in the area that
is big enough to withstand a major flood or even a increase in water
pressure. Specifically one that is within the distance to this
ship and the Decepticon site."
The massive computer screen flickers and sifts though a various images
of local dams, "Beginning search.... searching...."
As Telatran One scans for near by dams, Sparkplug turns around to see
the General walking in through the bridge doors, he's using a blood
spattered cloth to wipe his hands and shows some signs of
fatigue. No longer wearing the green military suit jacket, he
took it off to aid Ratchet as he operated on his men, now the clean
white long sleeved shirt he wore underneath is smeared with blood as
well. His sleeves rolled up and his black tie loosened gives him
a more relaxed look, but after being in surgery for a while, he looks
anything but relaxed. Sparkplug walks over and pats the man
casually on the right arm.
"How's it going in there?", Sparkplug asks.
The General sighs as he continues to rub the blood off of his hands,
"Its looking better then it was...Ratchet is doing a fine job, but he's
unconfident about his skills as a surgeon...well...on humans
anyway. Nevertheless I'm impressed with what he's done so far,
his hands were moving faster then I could see, its incredible what
these machines can do."
Sparkplug nods in agreement, "No argument here. These Autobots
are truly something, they could have come in and taken over the entire
world like the Decepticons, but instead choose to honor life wherever
they find it. Such noble beings.... it really humbles our kind
greatly."
"They've certainly humbled this stubborn old fool.", the General says
in a somber tone, "I send men in to die and never give it a second
thought, but Optimus Prime sends his in to save ours and deeply cares
what happens to both kind. Rather then risk so many lives, he'll
do what's honorable...how many of us can say the same?"
Sparkplug looks kindly onto him, "Don't beat yourself up too much
General, we know you were only looking out for best interest.
Sometimes it takes a defeat to humble a man and realize that he's only
human, we all make mistakes, but we learn from them as well."
The old commander stares up at him and nods, "Yeah...we certainly
do. And Sparkplug? You can call me Hank ok? But
uhm...Don't tell the others I said you could."
The construction worker looked at him and started to smile, the brash
military man gave him a wink and started to smile. Sparkplug
slowly chuckled and so too did the General, the rare time anyone has
seen a hard nosed man like that have any sort of genuine
laughter. The two men shook hands and continued to giggle
lightly. Suddenly, while the two men shared a friendly moment behind,
Telatran One finally spoke out loud to Optimus Prime as it held an
image of a dam on its monitor.
"Location found.", the computer said to Optimus who was sitting there
patiently, "Sherman Dam is the closest water reserve within the
specified parameters. It is a large water reserve capable of
generating large amounts of electricity and well constructed to sustain
any major flooding events."
Optimus Prime leaned in to have a closer look at the image on the
screen; Telatran One scrolled all the vital information of its energy
production, size and blueprints.
"Telatran One, theorize for me.... if the dam was modified to produce
double or triple the amount of water pressure and produced a pure
source of energy, would it be possible to store vast amounts into
compressed sized energon modules?"
The computer thinks for a second and quickly responds with diagrams
showing the possibility, "Affirmative, energy could be stored into
compact force field energon modules, compressed energy would be stable
for transport, but easily damaged if mishandled or fired at with an
energy weapon."
Ironhide sitting there listening to it all jumped up from his spot and
threw his arms out with clenched fists, "It's confirmed!
Wheeljack was right; Megatron is planning to take enough energy to
refuel the war back home! We've got to stop him right now Prime,
not just for our sake but for the humans as well."
The Autobot leader turned around to face his men, "Yes Ironhide...I
know. But with the human hostages in his grip...we dare not
act. But.... I do have a plan..."
Sparkplug and General Hank walk over to hear it, as do Carly, Spike and
the rest of the Autobot soldiers. They all encircle the leader as
he tells them of his idea of what to do next.
"First off...we're going to that dam, we'll catch him in the act of
surprise as they try to fill up on energon. But before we can
move in...I'm going to send someone in to rescue the hostages at the
same time. Hmm...Where’s Mirage?"
Huffer laughs, "Mirage? He's probably driving clear across the
planet by now...anything to get away from being a soldier."
Suddenly, a disembodied voice booms out from directly behind him,
"That's what your think you orange hard head!"
As Huffer turns around the voice of the Autobot materializes in front
of his eyes. A soft green hue of light outlines his whole body
frame and then quickly turns into the blue and white robot that stands
there smiling at him. Everyone is shocked to see him there, as
far as anyone knew; Mirage wasn't even in the ship at all.
Optimus Prime walked over and folded his arms as he stood in front of
him, "Welcome back, Mirage. I trust you carried out the mission I
sent you on?"
The blue and white robot saluted the slightly taller Autobot leader,
"Absolutely Prime. I did what you asked. I followed the
human agents helicopters and located the base they went too. Not
one of them spotted me...guess being invisible helps."
Prowl didn't seem to understand, "Prime? What's going on
here? I thought for sure that Mirage ran out on us."
Mirage gave a chuckle at that comment, "No way! I'd never do that
to you guys, besides I'm a better spy then a fighter...Kup told me that
once."
"Indeed...” Optimus Prime said in a calm manner, "Now then, give me a
report Mirage...what did you find out."
"I followed them as far as I could...out to some big long road that led
into desert-mountain region, but before I could get close to where they
set down, I detected some image scanners that would have shown me on
thermals. Prime...some of those scanners were really advanced for
this species, I mean...it's like they stole some of our level of
technology cause I swear I've seen that type of imager before."
Prime nods at Mirage's discovery and pats him on the shoulder, "Good
work. We'll have to deal with that issue at another time.
Right now, I've got a new task for you."
Mirage straightens up, "Where to next Prime, I'm ready!"
"I need you to head out to the Decepticon site and rescue the
humans. I'll have Prowl fill you in on the details and the
location later, but you can't do this alone...I need another volunteer
to help you."
Sparkplug raises his hand, "I'll do it Prime."
Prime shakes his head, "No Sparkplug...I need you and the General with
us to help get the men out and put them within a safe distance.
That goes for you too Spike...we might need you and your father to shut
down the dam if the Autobots and I become too busy with the
Decepticons. We'll distract them long enough for you to shut it
all down."
Spike nods and Carly suddenly steps out at the massive robot leader,
"How bout me then? I'll go with Mirage..."
Hound leans down at her, "It's dangerous Carly. I'll be the one
to go with him."
Carly starts to get mad, "But the Autobots will need your help as well
Hound. Let me go Optimus.... you need me too!"
Prime shakes his head, "I can't endanger your life too Carly...I think
you'd help us more by staying behind and helping the soldiers recover."
Mad as hell, she stomps her foot and points at him while she shouts,
"Listen Prime, I'm sick of being treated as just some weak lil'
woman...every male I've encountered has treated me that way and I'm
tired of it. I'm going to help Mirage, I'm going to free those
hostages and there's nothing you can say that will stop me from
going. Case Closed!!"
All the Autobots flinched as she stood there ripping into the leader,
some were wide-eyed and in shock that she screamed at him. Prime
didn't move a muscle as he looked at her, his eyes dimmed as she
finished and raised his head over at Mirage. The blue and white
Autobot simply shrugged his shoulders at the leader and laughed a bit.
"Wow...uhm...well...I guess that settled."
Suddenly, Telatran One beings to sound the alarms and flashes a red
light on and off in the room. The sound and the light fill the
entire place and the computer voice can be heard warning them.
"Alert! Alert! Decepticon activity detected!!"
Bluestreak runs over to the computer and looks on the monitor, "They're
in one of the oil refineries Prime, diverting crude oil into energon. "
Prime looks over to him, "How many and how long?"
The Sliver/blue-ish robot taps on the Cybertronian keyboard and enters
the results, "Looks like nearly all of them, at the rate they're
draining that place...we've got like an hour or less till they move to
the next target."
The Autobot leader's eyes flash a bright blue, "Sherman Dam will be
next...we can't reach the refinery in time, but the dam will be the
place we'll be waiting for him. Autobots! Prepare to move
out!"
*
* *
* * *
Out in the plains of an oil refinery depot, humans scramble to flee the
area; some jump into their cars and trucks and bolt off like
lightening. As they all randomly look back, they see the group of
Decepticons firing their energy weapons at them. Blasting away,
they scare them off like cattle; even the ones that try to stand their
ground. Megatron swoops in and fires his black arm cannon at one
of the buildings, the explosion sends debris everywhere and even causes
a slight tremor from the impact. With the last group of humans
fleeing for their lives the rest of the evil robot group land on the
ground and help the others work. The Decepticons swarm the oil
depot as they fill up the energon cubes that Soundwave provides for
them. The energon cubes are produced out of the Minidisk
transformer's chest, pinkish red in hue and looking more like empty
outlined boxes. They continually pop out of Soundwave's chest
mini disk loader window as each Decepticon grabs one and fills it
up. Those that were filled instantly convert the matter into
energon and cause the cube to glow with raw power. Megatron
stands there watching it all with a great greedy pride; the beaming
smile from his face shows his pleasure and chuckles to himself at the
overwhelming spoils they're reaping from this planet. Starscream
feels like wiping his brow from all the hard labor, he's not use to
doing things himself, normally he assigns one of his own troops to do
the dirty work for him, But now he's forced to do it because there
isn't enough of them to pass it off to someone else. Skywarp
walks up and places his cubes down on the ground next to Starscream's
load, as Starscream mutters on about their leader.
"Look at him Skywarp...he doesn't even lift a finger to help us.
Hmpft! I tell you...when we get back to Cybertron...I'm going to
kill him and become the new ruler."
Skywarp whispers to Starscream carefully, "You'd better not talk like
that Starscream, if Megatron hears that from you again he'll definitely
rip out your guts just like he did to Jetplague."
The grey colored air commander laughs softly, "Jetplague was a
weakling. I'm much more stronger and faster then he ever
was...and I'm definitely smarter then Megatron over there. Stick
with me my friend...I'll be made leader yet."
The black and purple Decepticon scoffs at him, "Yeah right...that's why
you tremble in your booties every time he threatens you, eh Starscream?"
Rumble comes huffing and puffing over to them, he drops his load of
energon cubes down and bends over like he's overdone his share of the
workload. Catching his breath, he talks to the two Decepticon
jets after eaves dropping on their conversation.
"You know Starscream.... *Huff! *Huff! *...If you did less chattin' and
more work, we'd be done by now.", the mini robot says to him.
"I don't remember asking your opinion Rumble...so shut your trap!",
Starscream says angrily.
Reflector, the tri-robot group, all walk over to the Decepticon leader
and talk in unison.
"We're just about finished Megatron. "
Megatron nods, "Good. Any sign of the Autobots or the human
military?"
"None that we can detect mighty leader. It appears they've kept
their word. "
Megatron laughs, "Prime always does. That's what makes him such a
pathetic fool, now that we have the humans as hostages, he'll do
whatever I tell him to do."
As he looks out across the oil refinery, he sees his men are just
finishing up filling the cubes and all walk over to the brightly
glowing pile. Megatron also walks over to them all and picks up a
cube to examine it closer.
"Success Decepticons! They look absolutely flawless, raw energon
at its finest...now we must take them back to our temporary base and
proceed to the next target."
Looking over at Thundercracker, Skywarp and Starscream, Megatron chucks
one of the energon cubes at Thundercracker chuckles at him trying to
catch it before it drops near them all. The light pale blue
transformer grabs it and lets out a sigh of relief from not letting it
fall at his feet.
"Nice catch Thundercracker...", Megatron snickers, "Now fill up your
cargo hold and take those cubes back to the Constructicons. The
rest of us will continue on to Sherman Dam and fill up more of these
precious energon cubes."
Thundercracker nods and quickly transforms into his blue F-18 jet mode
and opens up the top section of his body. Like a pair of cargo
doors opening on the space shuttle, they swing open and reveal the
large space that looks just about enough to hold all those cubes.
Each Decepticon picks up a stack of glowing pinkish red cubes and place
it inside of him. As they continue to fill his space up,
Soundwave, who looks concerned about something, approaches
Megatron. Megatron looks over to see the blue-silver robot
staring up at the sky.
"What is it Soundwave?"
"We are being observed by a strange object in orbit of the planet.", he
says to him in his monotone resonating voice.
Megatron looks up and squints with his eyes, "Yes.... I’ve noticed that
before. We're being watched Soundwave, no doubt the humans are
very curious beings. It is a dangerous quality I've discovered
about them."
"It is of strange construction...I cannot identify most of its
technology.", the yellow-eyed cycloptic robot says to the leader.
"Indeed...it must be almost like that vehicle they used.
Technology they have no understanding of.... but yet...someone seems to
know how to incorporate it into their own."
Soundwave nods in agreement and adds more information; "It has followed
us since the battle and seems to remain focused on our every movement."
Megatron continues too look up at the small faint dot in the sky and
glares at it, "I don't like being spied upon Soundwave, not even by
creatures as dumb as these ones. They must be taught yet another
lesson by us."
High above the Earth, the hybrid human-alien satellite gazes down at
them, the half round black eye of the craft shimmers in the Earth's
bright reflection. Elsewhere, deep within the bowls of Area 51,
the mysterious shadowed figure monitors them as he sits in his large
command chair. All that can be seen of him is his hands pressed
together in a prayer like fashion; the large view screen in front of
him shows Megatron staring directly at him.
"So...you see me do you?", the shadow covered human says, as if
Megatron could hear him, "Interesting."
As he watches Megatron, he notices the robot transforming into his
handgun mode and being placed into the hands of Soundwave who was
standing next to him at the time. The shadowy man sits up in his
chair as he witnesses the robot aim the hand weapon directly at the
satellite. At the oil depot, Soundwave holds Megatron steady in
his hand, the long shaft of the leader's black silencer barrel glistens
in the sunlight as it takes aim. With one firm twitch of his
finger, the Minidisk transformer fires the weapon and a large red
streak of energy cannons out of it. As fast as lightening, the
energy blast reaches the spy satellite and causes it to explode in a
massive fireball. Some parts vaporize on impact and the rest
ejects sporadically into pieces. What was once in space is no
more. After the deed was done, Megatron re-transformed into his
robotic mode again and gave an evil smirk as he stared up at the
falling debris. The mysterious man stood in front of his many
monitors, all hissing and showing nothing but static. Not one
image was left on any of them; with his hybrid spy craft gone...there
was nothing to view. Another man entered the room; Agent West
once again walks over to him and pauses beside the shadowy man known
only as N Leader.
"I take it...he discovered our presence?"
The N Leader nodded, "So it would seem. But not to worry
West...we can always launch another one."
"Sir...” The Agent adds, "Drakemore is back and requesting his next
mission."
The dark figure sighs, "Tell him to be on hold for now. I want to
see how this will play itself out."
"I beg your pardon sir?” West asks astonished.
"I want to see how much damage the Autobots and Decepticons cause
before I make my offer to the rest of the world. Once we have a
public display of their destructive behavior...the world governments
will increase their demand for the technology. Increased demands
mean increased profits, once that has been established...we can
terminate them completely and salvage the goods."
Agent West, rubs his right hand up into his dark hair and finally rests
it on the back of his neck, "But...how will we achieve this sir?
The only satellite we had in orbit is now...well...gone."
The N Leader giggles at the stupid question and paces in the room,
"News crews have been dispatched to the oil depots after learning of a
massive attack on them. It was only a matter of time before the
media caught wind of this, so I'll let them. It will surly cause
a panic amongst the people and show the other countries the technology
they'll be getting. All my life I've waited for this moment,
since my first days on the project till now..."
The shadowy figure stops for a second as he finishes his thought, "All
my designs and brilliant breakthroughs in science have finally paid
off. They thought I was mad for trying to blend all of these
alien technologies together, that it wouldn't all function as well as
it has been.... but I showed them. Nothing can stop me now,
these...Transformers... are increasing my skills by leaps and
bounds. One day we will have the total knowledge of their secrets
and become gods among men! Baahahaha!!!"
The other man shakes his head at the insane plan and grabs hold of the
pacing man; he brings him out of the darkened area of the room and into
one of the spotlights shining down. The mysterious man now is
fully visible to see, a Caucasian man wearing a dark blue suit and a
white, open collared shirt. His head is balding with a crest of
thick messy grey hair around the sides, his face is that of a man worn
in years and his skin is as pale as his shirt. As he's brought
into on of the lights, the Agent looks at him with great concern.
"Doctor Archeville! We can't allow these things to roam
freely! You saw what it did to our weapon and the
satellite? We must make a new strike at them now and then clean
up this whole mess before we're totally exposed!"
Archeville forces the man's hands off, "Never! This is how it
will be Agent West! Don't dare to presume you are in charge of
this operation ever again, do you hear me!!"
The doctor's yell causes the man to recoil in fear, the glare from the
old man's eyes shows his anger in full force and continues to shake his
finger at the doubting agent.
"Now stop your sniveling and get back to work! I will not
tolerate anymore of this nonsense...not from you, the President or
anyone else! Get out of my sight.... I said...Leave!", Archeville
screams at the top of his voice.
The agent bows gracefully and rushes out of the room. The pale
doctor sits back in his command chair and activates the monitor ahead
of him. A slight hiss from the screen activating soon produces a
live image of a man not paying attention to the fact he's on
screen. Doctor Archeville clears his throat to catch the person's
attention and it works, the man's face now stares up at the doctor
looking right at him. The man on the other side is young looking
and wearing a pair of average sized gold-rimmed glasses. His hair
is cut short on the sides, but looks styled enough on top to show the
rest of his golden brown highlights.
"What do you want now Doc? I'm rather busy..."
Archeville stares at him very seriously, "Project N needs to increase
dramatically. How soon till you complete your work?"
The young man sighs and rubs his forehead, "Look, I told you this
wasn't going to be easy when you showed me.... now...God I don't
know..."
The pale man leans forward at the monitor, "That's not good
enough. I want it up and running as soon as possible! These
bits and pieces you're sending me is worthless, I need more damnit!"
The irritated voice of the doctor soon shows faint hints of his latent
European accent, an almost German-Austrian twang in it's inflection,
but still enough to make the young boy on the monitor gulp at it's
rough tone. The young man sighs again and taps the side of his
head while he thinks.
"Alright, hmmm...Give me...I dunno...give me another week."
Archeville pounds his fist on the console holding all the monitors,
"No! No more weeks, months or even years! I want it in days
or even hours! I've given you far too much time on this project
already boy, I could easily make you disappear again, but this
time...it will be your real body in that shallow grave out in the
desert!"
The doctor notices the fear building in the young kid's eyes as the
threat makes him sweat a bit on his brow, leaning back into his chair
calmly, Archeville once again clasps his hands and taps his fingers.
"I'm sure by now...they've discovered the brilliant computer whiz Chip
Chase is no longer among the living. Shall I let the CIA know
you're not dead? Hm? That the virus you planted is still
taking money out of many accounts across the globe? Not to
mention the various government leaks, spy emails and even several
countries you've managed to tick off. Yes, Yes, there's quite the
international bounty on your head, certainly no place to hide outside
of here if I let you go. Maybe I should kill you and spare your
miserable life, because I'm most certain that nothing will come of
it...what do you think, Chip?"
The boy gulps again and lowers his eyes; "Give me a few days then."
The old man nods at him, " Thank you my boy. Work quickly and
I'll make it all those troubles go away...Archeville out."
The image switches off and the old man grins as he continues to relax
proudly in his chair.
.