Chapter Text
41
“His enemy will never stop fighting so we will never stop fighting. This endless pointless dance between them will burn us all in the end.”
- attributed to High Commander StarScream of Voss, shortly before his seventeenth exile.
The remains of an old warrior dreamed. It wasn’t something he had often done, the brain modules of Cybertronians varied vastly and the majority of them simply replayed memories while in the sleep like charging state.
He dreamed of Cybertron, not the dead world that had been lost at the height of the War or the tyrannical failure that had condemned him from forging to a life of slavery and conflict but instead of the world that he would someday find and rebuild. Of his subjects secure, safe and with their needs supplied. His allies standing at his side, fulfilling their place in the great Decepticon machine perfectly as they bring peace to the universe.
He dreamt of Orion… of him at his side, of his corpse, of him begging forgiveness, of him giving forgiveness, of his head on a spike above Kaon, or tearing the Matrix from his chest.
With a groan and a curse He awoke, his recharge and defragmentation cycle completed. Being reduced to little more than a head and a spark being studied by Organics was among the more degrading situations He had been put through in his life but at least he was getting more regular rest cycles than he ever allowed himself during his reign as Lord Protector of Cybertron, Emperor of Destruction, Supreme Lord of Kaon and the dozen other titles He’d torn from unfit false rulers over the years.
Sumdac and Malto were gone. Nobody but a handful of Sparkless drones and mindless technicians watching him. They were worried about something. A handful of seconds of careful listening with audio sensors which were in far better state then he let them think told him all he thought he needed to know. A hidden connection to the station’s systems he had long been slowly but surely strengthening told him everything else.
War had come to Asticassia and in a typically ironic twist of fate, his most loyal warriors were fighting along side the Autobots so close that he felt he could almost reach out and touch them.
A falsified alarm drove away the technicians. The Drones were not networked and even if they were, the systems He needed access to required an Organic to use so even his carefully gathered and recorded log of Croft, Malto and Sumdac’s passwords was useless.
Fortunately, something as small as that had never stopped him before.
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“What do you mean they aren’t allowed in the Bunker!” yelled Miorine, grabbing the Benerit Security guard by the vest and bringing their face concealing helmet down to her face in order to make her already very loud yelling even more effective.
Nika was pretty sure anyone but Miorine would have gotten shot for that but it seemed that being the daughter of the Benerit Group President had it’s perks… aside from the obvious one of being the only member of Earth House that stood a chance of getting into one of the bunkers.
“Standard procedure.” said the guard wondering what the standard procedure for dealing with a princess who seemed one piece of bad news away from trying to throttle you “House members are assigned to bunkers paid for by their corporate sponsor and well, they don’t have any.”
“I’ve seen inside that Bunker! There’s room for a hundred people in there!” yelled Miorine.
“The inner airlock doesn’t open with unauthorised people inside.” said one of the guards before lowering his voice “if it was, we’d all be in there nice and safe instead of out here with nothing but kevlar Normal Suits and fucking low calibre rifles to fight Spirits damned Decepticons.”
“May I suggest something?” said a voice, far too calm for the on going situation. The woman with brown hair and a face obscured by a mask that covered half her head turned to the Earth House kids “Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier, I am Prospera Mercury, Suletta’s mother.”
“Please do.” said the guard, managing to use the distraction escape Miorine’s grip.
“My company owns a maintenance store room that was retrofitted from one of the station’s original bunkers. Seeing an opportunity, I had it’s life support systems restored.” said Prospera “It is not as comfortable as these structures but it’s armour is as thick and it’s supplies will be able to keep us all alive even if Asticassia’s defences fail. I was planning to take myself and my…”
Prospera trailed off as she looked at a blonde girl in an outfit about a decade out of fashion and a boy in a red suit who was standing like he was expecting things to explode into violence at any moment.
“Associates to it. I am sure there would be plenty of room for my daughter’s friends.” continued Prospera.
“Thank you but If you’ve got a bunker, why aren’t you already running to it?” asked Nika stepping out of the Earth House crowd to face Prospera.
“We asked to borrow a transport and got that they weren’t going to give up one of their vehicles just to move three people.” said the boy in a red suit interrupting Prospera “Names Orga by the way and this is Kudelia.”
“We can do introductions as we drive.” said Miorine “Who do I have to talk to get a transport?”
“Captain Lennox, He’s over by, well. You can probably guess.” said the guard, gesturing towards the groups of Makos, Bloodhound Hovertrucks and about two dozen different types of buses and other civilian vehicles that were trying to move as many of those able to afford bunkers into them “Guardsman Diaz, escort them.”
“Sir…” said the guard, not looking forward to having his neck anywhere near Miorine’s hands for any longer than necessary.
“Come on. We can’t leave Delling’s daughter unprotected. Think of it as… an opportunity for glory.” the other guard paused as he tried to think of an actual good reason beyond “I told you to do this” for Diaz “And you got a family relying on you right? Glory means promotions means more money and a nice safe desk job.”
Diaz sighed “Alright kids… and Prospera. Guess I’m your driver for today. Let’s go before things completely fall apart.”
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There were four things Noah Diaz was immensely grateful for. One, that they got an actual Mako instead of a school bus or even worse, having to figure out how to fit around a dozen kids in a Bloodhound APC. It might be in pretty bad shape with cracked screens and more dents on the armour than he was happy with but it moved fast and could probably take a hit or two.
Two, that these kids were pretty sensible. He had brief visions of this being the absolute mess of shouting and arguing that school buses had been when he was a kid. Instead there was every sitting fairly quietly with only occasional brief arguments due to the cramped seating.
Three, that the kid in the suit apparently knew how to use a Mako’s turret or at least, weapon systems similar to it. Took him a few seconds to convince Noah of that fact and took them about a minute to get settled into the gunner’s seat.
And finally, that they hadn’t had to use the Mako’s main gun yet. They had seen plenty of signs of combat and had a few close calls with stray shots spotting fights in the distant but the heavy machine gun atop their vehicle remained unfired.
Burning buildings surrounded the streets, dead Mobile Suits and vehicles with the tell tale signs of being trodden on by Mobile Suits or Cybertronians blocked their path, forcing detours, at one point they even saw a Mobile Suit still standing perfectly but with everything above the pelvis reduced to burning wreckage.
“Hey, I think I connected the Mako’s sensor suite to my tablet.” said one of the kids. Little guy… Raf? Noah was pretty sure they were called that or something similar enough he could use the rumble of the engines to mask any mistake.
“I wouldn’t mess with that. We shouldn’t play with this thing’s systems.” said Martin, Earth House’s nominal leader by virtue of… Noah didn’t actually know. Maybe he was good at something outside running from a Decepticon invasion.
Noah couldn’t take his attention away from the road (or what was left of it under the rubble and scrap) but he could hear the occasional yelling and muttered curses of the kids moving about.
“Hey, be careful back there.” yelled Noah “The Mako’s got a reputation and I don’t want you to find out about it while not strapped in.”
“Don’t worry.” said Nika, the kid who actually seemed to be in charge “We’re all back in. Just wanted to get a better look at these… Get us under cover, Now!”
Noah didn’t need telling twice even if it was from a kid as he pulled a harsh turn into what he thinks used to be one of the hangars used for the engineering student’s projects and shut down the engine.
“Nika, what did you spot?” asked Prospera as the roar of engines flew overhead.
“Heat signatures. Proximity warnings didn’t read them with all the smoke but their using Sabrefish as Alt-modes and… I... like planes so I recognised the shape of the heat coming off their engines.” said Nika.
“Good spot, you two keep staring at radar. I think my screen for it’s broken.” said Noah restarting the engine “Orga, watch the skies and yell if you see anything.”
“Got it. Not like this thing’s going to be much use against Mobile Suits.” said Orga “Even Mobile Workers have better weapons than this thing. It doesn’t even have HEAT rounds.”
“Well, if we meet anything that needs HEAT rounds we’re probably dead anyway.” said Noah checking his map. It was hard to read with the cracks and with Minovsky particles making the update system worse than useless, it wasn’t the easiest thing to use.
“Okay, maps busted and this place is probably crawling with Cons so we’re heading down into the tunnels.” said Noah “Route’s longer but should be mostly free of trouble.”
“And if it isn’t?” said Orga “Your not the only one with a radio headset, I know the enemy’s landed infantry and that there’s plenty of Cons that can fit in any tunnel this thing can.”
“Then it will be our job to handle them.” said Noah as he accelerated towards one of the tunnel entranceways, one of the only ones that wasn’t covered in rubble according to the map. Shame it was about three kilometres away… if they could fly. It was going to be about four times that with all the rubble blocking the roads.
“Hope Mika and Eugene and the rest are having a better time than I am.” muttered Orga as he put his eye to the turret’s scope and begun his watch.
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“Three down, More to go!” yelled Eugene as the Isharibi rammed through another rebel ship, armour designed to survive Reapers long enough to launch Mobile Suits being more than enough to simply punch through the enemy’s scrapyard carriers.
“Barriers dropped to sixty seven percent thanks to that stunt.” called out Biscuit “Flak batteries are starting to run low on ammo and our Shidens need us to slow down to dock and resupply… We can’t keep pushing like this.”
Eugene frowned as he stared at the battle map “We’re diving back towards Asticassia, there’s a Musai class in our path that needs taking out. I want harpoons ready to rip it’s nacelles off and flak batteries ready to tear apart it’s bridge.”
The chorus of yeses, rogers and general affirmations from the bridge crew was less than he hoped for. Holo-vids always made this captaining thing seem so much easier.
“Then let do…” Eugene’s declaration was cut off as the Isharibi was rocked by impacts, a trio of dark blue arrow shaped vehicles flying past the bridge window moments later.
“We’ve got Cons inbound, three groups of three.” said Biscuit “Flak’s struggling to track them and the Shidens have been lured out of position.”
“Fuck.” muttered Eugene “I’m taking us towards that group of Turian frigates, hopefully they can cover us.”
“Eugene!” yelled Yamagi, a comms line opening up from engineering “Those Energon blasts fried our Starboard heat sinks, I can fix them but if you keep pushing the engines like a maniac, their going to fail! I can get you… about ten seconds of full burn before things break permanently and fix things in about half an hour with them offline.”
Eugene’s eyes went towards the Lost Light. Five seconds full burn to push them towards and five seconds to stop would get them there easily and they would have plenty of cover from it to cool and repair. Better than having to spend thirty seconds travelling in a straight line to reach the Turians and getting hit by every sniper in a thousand kilometres or blowing themselves up by taxing the engines.
Then space split open and a massive blade of dark metal, shaped like one of those bronze age swords if it was designed by someone with an excessive fondness for spikes. four times as wide and tall as the Lost Light was long and over a dozen times as long.
“Fuck…” muttered Eugene. The Lost Light was in flames, drifting away with a massive gaping wound in it’s hull, Energon feeding the fire pouring out of it as fast as vacuum could extinguish it. The tell tale flashes of blue, orange and purple of weapons fire showed someone was still alive and still fighting in that burning mess.
They were low on ammo, their engines were barely working and their Mobile Suit escort only had nine suits out of twelve still flying and they were facing two Musai classes, five Salamis Classes, three Turian Raptor frigates and a dozen scrapyard carriers within a hundred kilometres of them.
Their only support was the dying Lost Light, Asticassia’s increasingly few guns and the handful of Corporate ships still flying… unless they ran. There was a decent number of warships and gun batteries on the other side of the station where the fighting was lighter. They could abandon the Lost Light and stay nice and safe, flanked by the surviving Dreadnoughts until help arrived.
What would Orga do… Eugene wasn’t exactly sure but he knew he sure as hell wouldn’t do that last option.
“Eugene, Chivvay class off our bow. IFF reads friendly… and that it’s got Mobile Weapon escort. Three Suits and a really big Armour.” said Biscuit.
“Open a channel.” said Eugene, one of the screens flicking to the grainy image of a woman wearing some weird mask and helmet. Eugene didn’t get Zeek fashion but this woman still had a mostly undamaged battleship and a good number of Mobile Suits.
“We’re going to go take on that Decepticon battleship. Fancy coming along?” said Eugene, straight to the point. The woman’s eyes moved in a way which might mean she was frowning under the mask that covered almost all her face before chuckling.
“Your as bold as my intel suggested.” said Kyrcillia Zabi “But I want to survive this day. Challia and his Braw Bro will support you but I am taking my ship and attempting to retake the system’s Mass Relay.”
“Better than nothing.” muttered Eugene as the Mobile Armour joined the Isharibi in formation. It was big, to the point of skirting the line between very big Mobile Armour and extremely small warship.
Less that a dozen Mobile Suits, a barely flying Assault ship and a single Mobile Armour that had to get past a small fleet and fight a gigantic warship at the end of it.
Tekkadan had been in worse spots… although Eugene really, really wished they had Orga and Mikazuki like they did during those times.
“Okay…” said Eugene, laying in a course and formation for his ship and it’s escort “Let’s do this.”
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“How on earth did this thing manage to get it’s wheel stuck that badly.” muttered Jack Darby staring at the rubble the Mako had gotten itself lodged in. sensors and cameras had been scrambled by some poor Mobile Suit getting hit in the reactor and they hadn’t seen the rubble until the wheels were already jammed up and of course, the thrusters usually used to make the Mako jump out of any situation it got stuck in were out of fuel. Crack in the fuel tank that had gone unnoticed due to the aforementioned barely functional systems.
“Maybe we can get a lever and pry it out.” suggested Aliya, one of Earth House engineering students sent out to try and fix this.
“This thing weights like fifty tonnes.” pointed out Nuno “We’re a bunch of kids and two adults, one of them doesn’t even have a real arm. Do you really think we can move something that big while breathing in all this smoke?”
“We could use the tow cable… but that needs another vehicle.” said Ojelo “Maybe we could call for a tow?”
“Oh yeah, let’s just call out our location in the middle of a war zone.” said Nuno, the screech of a trio of jets punctuating his statement.
“Maybe if we find a wreck and scrap together a motor…” said Nika “No… not enough time...”
“Kids! Get in!” yelled Orga, leaning out the Mako’s doors “We’ve got footsteps on seismic sensors. Looks like we’re about to be in the middle of a Mobile Suit fight!”
“Shouldn’t we be getting out and hiding?” suggested Nika as she and the other engineering students piled in “We’re a sitting duck and a target in this thing.”
“Yeah but I’m not seeing a better hiding place that isn’t on fire.” said Noah “We’re playing dead until those things out there pass us by. Hopefully they will assume that the crew bailed and got caught in the fire bombs.”
Every electronic was shut down, the only light and only way to see outside was through the forward windows. It was dark, it was hot and it stank of the fires burning outside.
“Mobile Suits, four of them.” said Noah, whispering as if that would help “Looks like Man Rodi frames under all that junk.”
“Markings are Krogan, Blood Pack.” muttered Orga.
“What a wonderful sounding group of people.” muttered Miorine, gripping that ugly little toy Suletta gave her and really, really wishing she was beside her.
“Their worse than the name implies.” said Kudelia “Pirates who lure in kids with big talk about being the toughest and richest in the universe then implant them with the Alaya-Vijana and send them out to die as fodder.”
“Y… You know about them.” said Martin, stuttering as the Man Rodis got closer and closer.
“I do my research.” said Kudelia “Jeturk likes to use them as union busters on my home world and the other border worlds.”
One of the Man Rodis, a grey and red machine scorched almost black turned it’s head to stare at them. It even turned it’s head to a move that seemed oddly Organic to those who didn’t know what Kudelia had been talking about when she told them about what the Blood Pact did to it’s pilots.
Noah clenched his fist “Orga, the gun’s got battery charge. If that thing raises it’s foot…”
“Camera and foot thrusters. I’ll keep shooting, you just keep Kudelia and the rest safe.” said Orga.
Prospera stared at him “Your not seriously saying you’d…”
whatever she was about to say next was cut off as one of the Man Rodi’s went down, a bright yellow school bus buried in it’s torse.
“That’s… a new trick.” muttered Orga as a blood red Desultor charged in, one arm gone and tears across it’s torso. It surviving arm didn’t even have a weapon in it’s hand, just it’s extendable wrist blade.
A blade that with the red machine’s momentum, entered the Man Rodi that was staring at the Mako’s main camera and tore it’s head off, trailing wires and spilling hydraulic fluid across the street.
“You want to fight!” yelled the Red Mobile Suit flinging the decapitated head off it’s blade and charging “Let me show you how a real Krogan fights!”
It was not a graceful fight or one that appeared particularly skilled to an untrained eye. The Krogan charged in, hitting hard and never letting up like a rookie who thought that their Mobile Suit made them invincible.
To the two trained pair of eyes on the Mako, it was one of the most skilled brawlers they had seen. What appeared to be crude charges were attacks and dodges all in one. Their attacks, which could be misinterpreted as needlessly brutal were in fact ruthlessly efficient, turning what had been three heavily armed and armoured Mobile Suits into fallen scrap, their pilots reduced to broken, bleed wrecks at best and red paste at worst.
One of them, the most heavily marked of them cut and ran only to have it’s knees shot out with a shotgun liberated from one of it’s defeated teammates.
Noah could just make out the shape of a Krogan climbing out and attempting to run only for a foot to come down hard in front of them.
“Crawl home and tell Garm and Weyrloc that if they want our race to be slaughtered again, to come to me rather than provoking the Corps into doing it.” snarled the Desultor pilot “My name is Urdnot Wrex and I will remember this idiocy when I return home.”
the Mobile Suit moved, letting the defeated pilot scramble away.
“The hell are you doing?” said Noah as he spotted Orga flicking on the Mako’s external speakers.
“Hey, Wrex.” called out Orga over the speakers “Fancy giving us a hand?”
“Orga!” said Wrex his laugh made even more intimidating than usual by his Mobile Suit’s damaged speakers “Thought you’d be out in the void, making a name for yourself.”
“Got kind of caught up in something. Then got stuck in another thing.” said Orga “Mind giving us a hand getting unstick?”
“Makos...” muttered Wrex, grabbing onto the back of the Mako and pulling, quickly removing the wheel out from the rubble “Where are you kids heading anyway?”
“Trying to make our way to the maintenance tunnels to get to a bunker on the other side of the station.” said Orga “Got any directions to get us down there faster?”
“Yeah, there’s an entrance just a few hundred metres away that’s mark closed.” said Wrex “Tossed half of the GM that took this thing’s arm into the barricade so it’s pretty open now.”
“Maps says those tunnels are abandoned since the Calamity War.” said Noah “Which means that if we don’t get lost in them, we should have a safe run right to the bunkers.”
“I’ve got to keep moving. Got the forces of at least three Krogan Warlords out here who I’ve pissed off over the years and I don’t exactly hide well.” said Wrex “Get under cover and keep moving. I’ll make you a distraction.”
“Roger that, good luck out there.” said Orga.
“You too, kid.” said Wrex “Now get going before more of these idiots show up.”
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“Talk about creepy.” muttered Miorine as she looked out at the long abandoned Asticassia tunnels. They looked like the design of someone who’d spent far too long looking at medieval castles and who then acquired some sort of paranoid disorder and an unlimited budget.
They were filled with support pillars, buttresses and long decayed gargoyles and house crests, almost all of them had some sort of trap or security feature in them that the Mako’s sensors only detected when they were practically right on top of them. Fortunately centuries without a single moment of maintenance had rendered them as useless as you could expect.
“Asticassia was a fortress before it was a school and a prison before that.” said Prospera “Rumours say it was where Agnika kept any captured Reaper technology during the Calamity War.”
“And it just got three times more creepy.” muttered Sari who not for the first time, really wished she got to go on the piloting track instead of management. At least that way she’d get away from here and into something she could defend herself with… or at least she would have if they had let first year students into combat.
“At least we aren’t driving blind.” said Noah. Minovsky particle density was the lowest He’d seen all day and while he was picking up a bit of Ahab interference form some where down here, the Mako’s sensors were actually able to handle it.
“We’re going pretty far off course thought. For somewhere so deep, there’s an awful lot of pressure doors sealed.” said Nika “It’s… almost like we’re being herded somewhere.”
“Don’t say that.” muttered Noah, checking his sensors again. The map was clear and the exit was just a bit further. Nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing…
Aside from the Minovsky signatures that just popped up on radar. Either something really big, a couple of Mobile Suits or a group of vehicles like the Mako. either way they were between them and their exit.
Either way, things just got complicated.
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the Old Warrior smiled as the Mako approached his prison. Four modified Mobile Workers, little ball things with legs and recoilless rifles strapped to them. It was entertaining seeing the long history of strapping guns to things was alive and well in modern rebellions.
It had taken him centuries to worm his way into these systems but the rewards were about to be well worth the wait and effort.
The first of the skittering Mobile Workers went down the moment it entered line of sight of the Mako, a barrage of Autocannon fire cracking it’s hull and it’s glass viewport, the machine collapsing only for it’s comrades to rush past it without a care.
A few ancients traps were tripped, doors slamming down and explosives detonated to push the Mako and it’s pursuers deep and deeper towards the Old Warrior’s prison.
One of the Mobile Worker's got a volley off, the first two rounds sliding off the flickering orange hexagons of the Mako’s kinetic barriers but the third and final got through, tearing a gouge in it’s increasingly compromised armour. That wouldn’t do.
A tripped trap sent a column toppling on to it. The little machine burst forward with it’s thrusters, narrowly dodging it. There was a good mind in that machine, shame it took a volley of Autocannon rounds directly to the hull seconds later.
The Mako rushed right where the Old warrior wanted it and in a stroke of luck, the one of the two surviving Mobile Worker fired off a hull mounted missile, missing the Mako and slammed right into the hidden wall that the Old Warrior wanted open, exposing his prison to the outside world. If he had faith he would almost think it an act of Primus.
The following fight was brief, the Mako circled around the dead end they had found themselves in, keeping moving with it’s less damaged side to the enemy while it’s Autocannon fired at them. The Mobile Workers were good but they were still ultimately just cheaply made civilian machines with weapons crudely attached and against an actual war machine, they fell apart quickly.
Too quickly in fact. The Old Warrier gave them a small help along with detonating one of the floor mines, taking out the Mako’s right side wheels right as it ended the last Mobile Worker.
Now, he just had to lure it’s passengers into a meeting.
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“Shit…” muttered Noah staring at the soldering pile of shredded rubber (or some polymer with a stupidly long name which everyone called rubber anyway) that used to be the Mako’s right tires.
“It seems we will have to walk the rest of the way to my bunker.” said Prospera.
“I wouldn’t recommend that.” said Nika “Those Mobile Workers were retrofitted RB-79 Balls, the fumes coming off their burning fuel tanks will kill us long before we get past them.”
“Then we will have go that way.” said Miorine, pointing towards the hole in the wall leading to some sort of room, as in an area designed for people not vehicles and Mobile Suits. Nobody particularly wanted to separate from the group and look inside but it seemed to be empty.
Noah sighed “Seems so. I’ll grab torches and masks. Anyone here aside from Orga know how to handle a gun?”
it was something of a surprise that both Nika and Prospera raised their hands somewhat timidly.
“A lady has to protect herself.” said Prospera.
“My Dad said the same thing.” said Nika as if trying to play down her skills.
“My mother showed me how to use one once.” said Robby Malto, stepping forward out of the crowd that had formed together around the younger members such as his sister.
“Okay, I’m keeping my rifle and Omni-tool. Orga, you can have my sidearm. You three can have the spare handguns from the Mako… remember to keep your fingers off the trigger” said Noah.
“You ever killed anyone with that?” asked Orga.
“With this?” said Noah “Nope but I was an Alliance Marine before I got discharged and wound up being part of the galaxy’s best armed baby sitters. You?”
“I’ve done my fair share.” said Orga before turning to the girls “You?”
“I am a business woman not a soldier and these children have been far luckier than you.” said Prospera.
Orga stared at her for a moment before nodding “Then let’s ro… let’s head out.”
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“This doesn’t look very three hundred years old.” said Sari as they wandered through the rooms. Most of it was normal office stuff, desks, tables, computers and the like but occasionally they stumbled upon rooms filled with half disassembled limbs and mechanisms.
They were strange, more than big enough to belong to Mobile Suits but their designs were inefficient in ways that didn’t make much sense. The joints bent in strange ways, there were far too many hollow spaces in them and there was seemingly random pieces of technology ranging from anti-grav engines to wheels almost identical to the Mako’s sticking out from their armours.
The engineering students were more than a little embarrassed that it took Jack leaning on a console and folding a dismembered leg into a tank tread for them to realise that they were looking at attempts to replicate Cybertronian biology.
“Aesthetics come and go and come back all the time.” said Raf “Computers like this might have been all the rage back then.”
“Really?” said Sari, picking up one of the keyboards and pointing to the Sumdac Systems logo on it “Did they have my Dad’s company’s logo on them too?”
“Some of those parts did look awfully similar to what Anaheim uses.” said Nika.
“If this place isn’t abandoned…” Noah trailed off “Let’s all never speak of this. I don’t want to have to deal with lawyers accusing me or any of you of industrial espionage after all this mess.”
one of the wall mounted screens flickered online, displaying a map of the facility in flickering green light.
“Oh great.” muttered one of the Earth House kids “the place is haunted.”
“Haunted and with what looks like a Mobile Suit hangar.” said Miorine gesturing at a large room at the centre of the facility “We get in there and we can get back into Asticassia’s tunnels and get out of this mess.”
“Should be right down the corridor.” said Orga gesturing out the door “Noah, you and me take the lead while Prospera and Nika guard the rear?”
“As good a plan as we’re going to get.” muttered Noah, his eyes briefly glancing at the randomly activated screen. He’d been his squad’s engineer back in the marines and while Asticassia had left his skill set unused, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew screens didn’t just conveniently turn on and what sort of idiot would waste money on a whole screen when you could just paint a map onto a wall.
Someone else was down here with them.
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It was not a Mobile Suit hangar they walked into. It was similar in size to one, albeit one designed for a singular suit and with a vast array of machinery surrounding it and mechanical arms to place different parts on it’s frame.
The machine at the centre however was no Mobile Suit. Despite being nothing but metal and polymer, there was something about how it had been torn apart that made everyone who saw it cringe. It’s outer layers had been ripped away, it’s head torn away and pulled towards the ceiling, trailing wires and a glowing metal sphere after it. It was as if it had been torn apart then pinned so it’s corpse could be poked and prodded to satisfy the curiosity of those who butchered it.
“That… that’s a Cybertronian.” muttered Orga.
“What’s one of those doing he…” Noah was cut off when Orga lunged at Prospera, pinning her against a wall and keeping his gun pointed at her head.
“Is this you?” yelled Orga “Is this what your Celestial Being crap you wanted me to lure Shepard and Rodimus into is all about?”
“Of… of course not.” said Prospera, keeping her voice remarkably calm in the circumstances “This… Whatever this is, you’d be better asking Miss Rembran and Sumdac.”
“Orga, what the hell are you talking about?” yelled Miorine, stepping forward regardless of the fact she was dealing someone who was both armed and angry.
“Prospera took me outside during the Incubation party. Wanted to recruit me, Tekkadan and Commander Shepard into some group called Celestial Being.” said Orga “Gave me a real good pitch about saving the galaxy with advanced Gundams, invisible warships and transforming Mobile Suits.”
“Do you really think, if we had a place like this in the heart of Asticassia, we would need soldiers to fight for peace?” said Prospera “If we had the influence to do this, we would be able to make a better world with words not violence. There’s only two groups that could and would want to build something like this lab and keep it hidden from your robotic friends.”
“Gjallarhorn.” muttered Orga stepping back.
“Why do you care so much about a dead robot anyway.” said Miorine.
“Because it’s not dead.” said Orga pointing up at the ball of metal with a soft blue light leaking from it’s small window and the cracks in it’s casing “I won’t pretend to know much about them but that’s the Spark, that what makes them live and look at their armour, it’s red where it hasn’t been stripped off. That’s Autobot colours.”
“Do you think we can… fix them.” said Sari “There’s arms and stuff holding them apart, maybe there’s a button to put them back together.”
Before anyone could agree or disagree, a voice echoed through the hangar. One as dry as a desert and deep as an oceanic trench. More akin to the creaking of a hull under too much pressure than a human voice.
“I… I still function.” muttered the dismembered head held above Earth House by wires running out of it’s optics. “I know those voices… Sari? Maltos?”
“How do you know our names?” said Mo Malto, the youngest member of Earth House stepping forward.
“Children of my guards and my healer.” said the Autobot “The creations of the ones who made this existence almost bearable.”
“My father thinks machines like you are abominations. Why would he keep you here?” said Miorine as other members of Earth house began to start looking around the hangar, trying to figure out just how all this functioned.
“Fa… Rambran. Your Father is Delling, I was here long before him.” said the Autobot “He is… among my better enslavers. Viewed me as a prisoner to hide his predecessor’s crimes rather than a slave or an animal to vivisect.”
“Your not vivisected?” said Noah staring up at the torn apart Cybertronian.
“No… Isaac… he wanted to help me, restore me but Gjallarhorn forbid him from assembling his creation. Delling...” the Autobot chuckled, a sound between a car backfiring and a brick being tossed in a washing machine “Delling allowed him to put the places in place in case… in case it became necessary for me to take the field.”
The room shook as Asticassia took another heavy impact. Whatever hit, it was big and it was fast enough to be felt even this deep in the station.
“I suspect the mechanism for it may have been damaged.” said the Autobot “A secondary system has been activated. a password, S A R one, must be inputted in the terminal next to be right hand then a series of three switches, marked in red scattered around the room that must be switched in tandem.”
“We’ll get on that.” said Orga.
“Hold on.” said Miorine “Are we sure we can trust this guy?”
“He’s an Autobot. Their the only government I’ve seen that actually lives up to what it preaches.” said Orga “I’m sure Rodimus will be glad to have another hand in the fight and once he’s repaired and he links up with Soundwave’s battle-net.”
“other Autobots are here? And working with Soundwave?” said the Autobot, emotion creeping into their half dead vocal processors.
“Hundreds of them along with about a dozen Decepticons… and a whole bunch of renegades that are using a bunch of…” Orga paused “It’s a whole thing. Got Autobots and Decepticons on one side helping us and traitor Cons and a bunch of idiots they conned into fighting for them on the other.”
“Some Con warlord named Galvatron was leading it last I heard.” said Noah.
“Galvatron?!” said the Autobot, the small amount of emotion turning into red hot mechanical rage “Please, release me from this prison. There is a battle I must win.”
Miorine chuckled as she stepped towards one of the levers “I don’t know much about robot politics or my Father’s crappy actions but that’s rage and I know that very well. Go teach the bastard who ruined my Fiance’s first dance a lesson for us.”
“Rodimus and the Autobots helped me and the rest of Tekkadan out of a rough spot. I’m more than happy to return the favour.” said Orga stepping towards another.
“If my dad trusts you. I do too.” said Sari who could not actually reach her rather awkwardly placed lever thanks to her age and general poor luck in the height department. Instead it was Jack Darby who grabbed it for her.
“Not entirely sold on this but fine. On my mark.” said Noah, inputting the password “Three, two, one…”
Machinery swirled. Mechanical muscle was repaired and rewoven as plates were welded and bolted onto the frame of the Old Warrior as their spark and their head was slowly and carefully lowered and reseated in their body.
“Hey… not to sound paranoid but doesn’t he… look kind of familiar.” said Rob Malto as the final pieces were put into place. Massive rotary blades, folded down into a cape attached to his back, a helm to cover his exposed brain module, the connector covering his chest and it’s long battered purple insignia falling away.
“I should hope so.” said the Old Warrior “It has been many centuries but I would hope the galaxy hadn’t forgotten who I am.”
“Oh… shit.” muttered Miorine.
The Old Warrior smiled as the hangar above opened above him. Sumdac really had done a fantastic job, all things considered. He had never considered the addition of an Element Zero based flight system but it would work brilliant in an enclosed space such as this.
“Wait, what’s wrong?” called out Sari
“Nothing. I simply… deceived you and your parents slightly.” said the Old Warrior as he began to rise in the air “You really should have asked my name.”
“For I Am Megatron!”
__________________________________
Soundwave refreshed his communications system.
He did so again.
The signal was still there. Distantly, he could hear the sounds of the Autobot Skids yelling for more damage control teams to fight the rapidly spreading Energon fire that was consuming the ship but that didn’t matter.
Only one thing mattered.
He had returned.
__________________________________
Blood trailed down Shepard’s face. From her nose, her eyes, probably from her ears and everywhere else with capillaries close enough to the skin that Permet Score Six was making them burst as her bones burned and her mind raced at a thousand times it's normal speed. she dodged and weaved between Energon blasts as if she saw them coming miles off, she moved her Gundam as smoothly as she moved her body. she was less a combatant and more a fast moving blur of grey metal and red death.
yet she still couldn't kill Decepticons as fast as they poured off Galvatron's ship.
“Ed… Garma, Char, Lalah.” said Shepard, her voice ragged as she tore apart what must have been her twelfth Decepticon of this battle. They were strange. Faceless, purple armoured machines, identical to every other one who fought identical. Fought poorly.
“Yes, Commander?” said Garma as he dodged between Energon blasts in his Gouf custom’s tiny ejection fighter, the actual Mobile Suit long since turned to scrap “Little busy at the moment.”
“Get… the hell out of here.” said Shepard, a barrage of fire from Rodimus briefly granting her respite “Your Zeon’s heir. Only thing stopping Gihran... from getting worse… Go! Get Away!”
“Respectfully Commander, you can take that order an...” began Garma only to have his fighter grabbed by Char and pulled away.
“The Commander makes a fine point, Garma.” said Char as he and Lalah used their Zakus enhanced mobility to get away as fast as possible.
“Sure you wanted to send them away?” said Rodimus, standing side to side with Shepard as more of Galvatron’s troops leaped off their ship onto the Lost Light.
“Yeah…” said Shepard “Tell you why if we survive. It’s… long story. Kind of funny.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” said Rodimus, as the two charged into the approaching army.