Far beyond violence, war or hate, she span. A vision from the past, a silent jewel, and the brightest planet in a small yellow-star system: the planet Nebulos. Serene, but surrounded, always, by those ominious violet clouds, churning in her atmosphere, sending flashes of lightning to her surface.
Two ships were fast approaching: one, white and smooth, the other, black, and angular. Anyone viewing the spectacle might hazard a guess as to which ship had what kind of mission in mind...
Stormclaw did not waste a moment. As soon as the world was in view, he rose from his seat, and ordered a zoom-in on the screen image of the planet. He took a few steps toward the front of the bridge, pacing as only a tiger can pace, but not letting his awe at the sight show through his masked face. His head suddenly snapped from gazing at the screen to ordering his subordinates. "Nightfall. Give me a surface scan. Lock on to any Decepticon signatures."
"Aye sir!" She called, directing the bulk of their ship's scanning systems towards the planet before them. She focused them on the clouds a moment, getting a quick chemical readout, then sent the probing beams deeper to see what lay below....
Several things popped immediately to scan, all of them unusual.
The results on the clouds were inconclusive. Yes, it was a toxin, but it seemed to be of the mildest type, almost innocuous, and faded, save in certain areas. Overall, it was not the danger that the team had been so worried about. There was energon radiation, yes, but dispersed: only in dangerous quantities on some parts of the planet.
And there were two Decepticon signatures. Or, rather, it seemed like two... They were unidentified. And, then, two more, yes, two more...but they were faded. As if their owners were shut down into stasis.
Lastly, there was something flashing on the console that Nightfall had not noticed a moment ago. It was an incoming transmission...for her.
"Two active readings, sir. Two that might be in stasis!" She transferred thereadings to his console, then opened the transmission onto her personal computer.
"Excellent," Stormclaw said. He leaned over the main console and looked at both of the readings.
Paradox paid close attention to his console. The word "Decepticons" gave him an odd feeling, respect along with... fear. He wondered Cybertron would be like if they had won the war. Well, he probably wouldn't be on this mission for one. He would probably be involved in a universal conquest mission. The thought did please Paradox, but it crossed his mind that Stormclaw, with Paradox's luck, would be his commanding officer. Nightfall had found two Decepticons. Paradox wanted to suggest that they search for Autobots, but he would let the commander do that, being that he would probably get yelled at.
Paradox's musings were instantly disrupted by Stormclaw's reply. "Paradox. Lock onto that active signal, find landing coordinates, then hold position until I give the order. Nightfall."
The commander continued to question, even as the text-only message popped up onto Nightfall's screen. Live text, actually, with a flashing cursor ready for instant response.
Hey, sweetheart. the screen addressed. You got a nano?
But Nightfall apparently didn't have a nano, as already the commander was asking her, "...What are our radiation readings for Paradox's coordinates? Are we safe to land?"
Nightfall started the scans for Stormclaw, then typed. A bit busy, we're in orbit, maybe landing...
Get a hold of me by live text when you can. Got some info to pass onto you, in a bit of the 'fascinating curiosities' department.
Will do... Once the boss decides our next move, I'll try to contact you. "Radiation seems to be within acceptable limits, Sir."
With that, Paradox entered the coordinates. He wondered many things... What if the Decepticons don't like to see us, what is this is a trap, maybe he's guarded, maybe he's Unicron! Paradox shivered at that thought, and decided to take her in at manual.
Terrorpin watched from a distance as Nightfall went about her duties. He was standing motionless on the bridge, his red visor gleaming with mirth as he recalled his earlier rampage through Cerebros Station. The fun he had there was more than he remembered having in a good long time. And it was clean, too, which was so unlike him. Before his exodus from Kull-Tan, Terrorpin would've been very likely to obliterate or toture multiple Maximal guards after his frolic. 'What's wrong with me?' he wonder to himself. From beneath the shadows within the fog of the turtle's brain, incohesive and ominous, an answer lurked. Terrorpin could not see the answer directly, but he could feel parts of it out. Perhaps he was getting soft. Perhaps he was losing sight of the Predacon within him. And maybe, just maybe, he was doing both. As his visor darkened, the Transmetal II wondered silently if that was even a bad thing at all...
After a short stay on the ship, the crew had discovered that Klaw-hammer was not much help on the bridge. So, he received his own seat and was told to sit there.
He tapped at the console, causing a small screen to appear. He clicked "yes" and began a small, Tetris like game featuring different colored Energon Cubes falling.
"Slag, I'm ready to get off this ship... Even if it means going down to that toxic planet..." Klaw-hammer said quietly to himself, directing a few cubes as they fell.
—AF, CB, BB, DW, KCS
The dogbot switched his monitor to visual to look out at the planet. He took a deep shuddering breath, closing off his optics to orient himself. The general downward spiral of both crashing from his High-O and the details of the mission he was on was getting to him. His nerves were attuned to the slightest thing. At the smallest scanner beep or noise of the ship he twitched and grimaced. All the while there was a churning pit of anxiety in his stomach, and the strength of its heat seemed directly related to his sharp nerves—as soon as they were on edge, the discomfort in his gut became that much more severe.
He...was nothing. This was so much more than anything he ever could have imagined. And now they were here, now they were going to bury the dead. Or become the dead themselves. Velocity had a sudden wild urge to run screaming from the room, or throw up his energon, or do both. He quelled it, and instead tried to settle down. Repeating the mantra of how...easy this mission was seemed a lot harder when it was staring him right in the face.
Velocity quickly switched the screen back to its scanning readouts, and looked questioningly to Silverquick to see if there were any special scans that needed to be done.
A message flashed on the main screen, in a subtitle space below the spinning image of the amythest planet.
Private Transimssion. Attention Viracide.
Viracide approached the flashing message warning. He shrugged his shoulders. "Could be anything, I'll take it in my quarters." He then looked at Silverquick and smiled. "Don't worry. I'm not the type to have important secerets."
—LA, AF, BB
Barricade looked out the observation window into the infinite blackness of space, at twenty different thoughts a nanoclick. The new crew he had joined, the Predacons that had tailed them, Nebulos, Jax's hunches, the Magnaboss, and more.They had been traveling a fair bit now and were probably far enough away from Cerebros for his information to be divulged. He slowly turned from the window to see Viracide talk to Silverquick and leave. 'I guess now's as good a time as any,' Barricade thought, as he pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind. "Commander, once your second-in-command returns, I would like to inform the rest of your crew what Jax told me."
Something had been bothering Snarler since the ship had left the Maximal space station, and it was time to do something about it. He waited for Barricade to finish talking to Silverquick, then approached him.
"Hi," said Snarler. "Look, about at the Maximal space station...when you came aboard... I'm sorry. I was a bit hard on you; I was feeling a little down; that's all. So...are we cool?" he asked, as he raised his arm to shake the glyptodon's hand.
"Don't sweat it," replied the soldier, shaking Snarler's hand briskly. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly put you in that mood?"
"I don't know. I guess it was the whole saga with Starscream... sorry, Kitfox, as he is now called. You see, I have this fascination with the events of the Great War, and sort of hoped that he might be able to help me fill in a few gaps," said Snarler. "Anyway, I'm feeling a bit better now. I mean, isn't this exciting? After all, we are visiting an actual planet that was directly involved in the Great War. There's no telling what we might find down there."
He shouldn't have been surprised, but Barricade hesitated upon hearing Starscream's name. First Shockwave, now I find out I was standing next to Starscream himself not too long ago. Now I'm headed for a planet that sounds like it's crawling with more Decepticons. What next, Galvatron? he thought. "Yeah, no telling what..." he said, trailing off while looking at the planet Nebulos. "To be perfectly honest, I was getting bored on that station. I'm just as excited as you are about seeing what happened here. I've been looking for an actual realistic combat situation for a long time, but even the slight proposition of actually seeing our ancestors does intrigue me as well. Still, I can't help but feel a little bit of a bad feeling about that place."
—GD, DT
"Very good," Stormclaw responded. So...there were Decepticons...only a few, but, still, real Decepticons, still alive on this world. Good news. If Stormclaw had any mixed feeling about his next order, they did not reflect in his strangely calm voice. "One last scan. Autobot signatures."
"Aye sir." Nightfall started scanning again for the autobots.
At first, the board seemed to sparkle with signatures, giving the Predacons on board a reason to startle...but, just as soon as the initial flare-up, the red glitter across the board subsided. False alarm? There were several signatures, blurry and indistinct, but the location of their concentration was vastly different from the Decepticon concentration. The Autobot signals matched up, instead, with a single area of the most devistating and concentrated atmospheric pollution: a poisonous choke so heavy no living creature, Cybertronian or not, could possibly survive. *Perhaps they are still registering, but they are all dead?* The thought occurs to Stormclaw, but he does not indulge it for long. Ordinarily, the response of any wise Predacon conqueror would be to destroy that entire sector from orbit. But...what more damage could they possibly do? A puzzlement Stormclaw decided to save for later.
However, seeing so many possible allies for the Maximals was indeed troublesome. It caused Stormclaw to rethink his plans...only slightly.
"Very well," the Transmetal tiger proclaimed. "Take us into a high orbit. When we come upon the Maximal ship, target and fire."
From across the bridge, Terrorpin's visor widened. We're just going to slag 'em? Like that? That's pointless! But there was nothing he could do... Well, not without the entire crew accusing him of sympathizing with the Maximals and beating the nuts and bolts outta him.
Terrorpin abandoned his place against the wall and walked back off the bridge toward another part of the ship. This is pointless... he thought bitterly. And at the same time, a voice continued nagging at him from within his mind. Yet the Maximals are your enemies... And besides, Bubba, since when do you care?
The Transmetal II couldn't answer himself.
Paradox turned in his seat, expecting Stormclaw to slag good old Terrorpin for questioning his orders or something. But it semmed he was too busy. Paradox was disappionted; he would probably still be Stormclaw's punching bag. True, Paradox didn't want the Maximals destroyed, but Stormclaw knew what he was doing, although with him at the pilot seat the Maximals were no threat.
Klaw-hammer watched Terrorpin leave the bridge, but shrugged it off. Maybe he's a little squeamish, doesn't wanna see the fireworks.
"Now this is what I came to see! We're finally going to get some action!" He was on the edge of his seat, excited about the possibility of a real battle soon.
"I can't wait to crack some Maxie skull!"
Aspis, bored out of his mind, decided to make a little arguement. He turned around in his chair, and said, "Come on, Gigantor, it doesn't take a genius to see that you're doing NONE of the cracking here."
From his shadow-shrouded vantage point at the back of the bridge, Alpengeist said, "With respect, Commander, there's no honor in shooting them down. Their vessel is clearly inferior, and it denies us and them the chance to meet Primus in personal combat. The odds are meaningless; we are Predacon, and we will triumph!!"
Not his intended subject, but Aspis has never been picky about the gauntlets he's picked up anyways. "Yes, but you see, from here, it's so much simpler. None of that messy spurting and screaming, seeing as how the vacuum of space swallows that up nicely." Not that a good scream and spurt isn't NICE from time to time... he wanted to continue. Still, that sounded sick in more ways than he was used to talking about, so he kept his mouth shut.
Nightfall nodded, turning back to her scans. It was certainly odd, to get that kind of reading... The sensors should be fine, but perhaps the atmosphere was interfering somehow...
—AF, DW, KCS, CB, KH, LB
Viracide walked along the hull of the ship, found his quarters, and entered them. The only reason he had his own quarters was because he was the odd man out. He expected Barricade would be assigned to bunk with him, but no quarter assignmet was given, yet. All that was there was a tub of some type that Viracide intended to fill with water but hadn't yet, a bed, and one table with a type of voice-recorder headset set on it. And all the wall, a standard issue monitor. Viracide activated the monitor and routed the private message.
"Computer open message, code Viracide Sigma Alpha one Sigma four."
The screen of the monitor blinked on to the image of a familiar feline face.
"Darling!" Persia exclaimed, from the monitor. "It's good to see you again!"
Viracide looked at the screen and blinked, but after a moment he responded. "Persia! Heh, how are things?" He shook his head. "I'm sure we're not here to talk about you." He wanted to talk so much that a part of him even wanted to be back home. Viracide had an idea of what she wanted however. "What is it, you want a report on me or something?"
"Well, partially," the femme admitted. "How are you doing, functioning at normal rates? Are you keeping energized? Staying wet?" She asked as if she was either reciting off a checklist, or simply being mothering.
Then Viracide looked at his dinky sink. "Well, I splash water over myself from time to time. I was going to try and make a bath tub. And I always go to bed, usually, earlier then evryone else." Viracide then remebered his powers. She would no doubt want to hear about how those were. "I used my pyrokenetics on St..." Then, he remebered Magnaboss's reaction when he said the name to the guards, "...Kitfox. And Spark Force works well in combat, maybe a little too well." He said remembering the time the bowled the pirate over causeing Didgit to get slagged. But while pondering about that, he realized he may have been talking too much already. "Partially?" he asked.
Persia laughed. "Partially officially, parrrtially, not. It's a matter of curiosity, of course, to be checking on my number one prospect." And now, her tone is more conversational. "It's a...terribly secret mission, isn't it? How are you getting along?"
"Secret, you mean, you don't know what's going on. Well it makes sense, with Scanner and all." Viracide came even closer to the screen. "Getting along? I honestly don't know. There's something about our destination, I can't say. Well, I'm scared. Scared of the unknown." Viracide wanted to tell her everything, but it was the nature of the mission, and he expected one of Magnabosses cameras to be hanging from somewhere. he hung his head then remember another factor, "I'm worried about Kitfox, he's now with Magnaboss." Viracide covered his mouth, "Oops...Like I told Silverquick, I'm not much for secrets."
Persia gave a small gasp. "Oh: is that where you had to take him? Well, maybe... maybe it was work-related?" Persia shuddered a bit. She didn't think she'd like to meet the Magnaboss in person, and wouldn't want to think of anyone else having to, either. "You met the Magnaboss, did you?" She shook her head. "Well, not the kind of question I should be asking. If you aren't reporting any problems, I guess my work is done. Odd, though. No one asked for Goldstreak's supervisor to give him a check up. I suppose he is completely off the hook." She laughed. "I guess I'm not much for secrets, either, darling. But you know where to call if you have any trouble."
"Yeah...off the hook," Viracide mumbled, knowing the cold fact about his situation. But the conversation was coming to an end. He smiled at the screen. "Well, I'll call if anything is out of the ordinary with me..." he remebered about the radiation filled atmosphere, "...if I can." He thought for a moment, but nothing else came to his mind except but a simple, "Goodbye."
"Goodbye. I hope to hear from you again, soon! Don't be afraid, Viracide. I'm sure everything will be fine." The cat blinked. She almost said, 'I miss you...' she came very close to 'I miss you...' "Just...stay safe." The transmission ended.
At that precise moment, the first shot hit the Renegade.
—BB, AF
Krunch was monitoring the Predacon ship as often as he could. He was in the middle of another simulation when the attack came.
"Slag it!! This is what I get for trying too hard!!" exclaimed the sargeant as he hung on to his Tactical console.
Velocity squealed and yelped as the ship shuddered under the impact. Squealing and yelping at the same time made a very odd sound, but now was not the time to contemplate that. His shivering hands clenched the scanning console in a vice-like grip.
"What was...?!" he blurted out, before his green optics turned to the scanner readings on the viewscreen in front of him. It was the only thing he was able to do in this current situation.
Viracide was jolted like heck in his quarters, being slamed against the screen, "What the Frax?" He gritted his teeth as he fell to the floor, "I'll be slagged if I die in this ship!" He got up and rushed outside, red lights flashed on the sides of the corridors. It didn't take long for Viracide to enter the bridge. "We're in trouble..."
Krunch looked up at Viracide in amazement.
"Oh, THAT'S a surprise! I think I'm going to have a Spark Attack and die from that surprise!" yelled the dino-bot as he tried to charge up the torpedo launcher.
Snarler was thrown forward into a nearby wall, leaving a nice dent in it courtesy of several of his plates.
"Ahhh, slag," said Snarler. "I thought we'd at least get into low orbit before the fighting started. I really do hate this part." And with that, he headed into his chair on the bridge.
"What in the pit was that?" he said, aiming the question at anyone with even remote skills in using the sensors.
"The Pred ship's in scanner range!" Velocity yelped, ears pulled back against his head.
"That was your stupid 'Con buddies trying to blow us out of the sky! Why don't you negotiate a peace treaty with them? Better yet, why not paint a target on our hull??" yelled Krunch over the ship's alarms.
Silverquick gripped his chair and managed to avoid being thrown to the deck. He heard Snarler slam into a bulkhead and curse, and winced for the sake of the bulkhead.
"Shields up!" he barked. "Evasive maneuvers: take us into the upper atmosphere. Maybe the clouds will scramble their sensors enough to let us get away."
"Shields are up!" reported Krunch.
As the Maximal ship dove, the Predacons followed suit, quickly launching another release of fire at the Renegade's engines. Just before the Maximal ship managed to touch the surface of the clouds, the shots found their marks...
"No, they're not!" reported Krunch.
Picking himself up from the jolt, Barricade swore silently. "Looks like they've found out our real reason for being here," he said to himself. Without warning, the ship lurched and dived toward the planet, leaving Barricade doing his best to hang on for dear life.
Viracide barely managed to keep balance, "We can't take too much of this!" Viracide yelled out. He wished he could think of something, but he wasn't much for strategy. Then, he had one idea... "Maybe we can head toward the planet at ramming speed, and if we jump at the last minute..." All that time spend with scientists should have taught him something about gravity, then he remembered. "Oh ya, nevermind."
Barricade was irritated to say the least. Here they were, on a crash course to this weird planet, with a handful of triggerhappy Preds having a field day. Barricade knew he was known for playing defensively, but running was ridiculous. He decided to voice his thoughts aloud; "Isn't this wreck armed?" he shouted, hoping he would say someone say yes.
"If you want to call it that! We've got one torpedo launcher! Correction, we HAD one torpedo launcher!" stated Krunch as the Renegade continued to be pounded by the Predacon vessel.
Velocity slammed into his console, his chest aching from the blow. If he were any taller, his head would have slammed into the screen. As it was, his head felt like it had been beaten by a lot more than a pane of glass.
Having no skills that would help, he concentrated on not screaming. He wouldn't want to interrupt the people who were actually competent. A moan escaped his lips briefly, but he clamped it in. The dogbot's eyes quickly went to Krunch. He'd know about...guns and stuff, wouldn't he? His green optics then went to Silverquick and Viracide. Maybe they'd know, too...?
After the sudden dive in altitude the ship made from diving into the atmoshphere, Jynx had stopped prowling around the ship, wallowing in his solitude out of frustration for being 'caged', and went to the bridge to check out the sutuation, only to find out them being shot at by those 'trustworthy' Predacons with their 'similar goals' for this mission. "Right, that's it! Where are the escape pods! I don't really care much for bein' shot down before this here suicide mission even started!!" "Oh, and another thing... have you tried hailing them already? Preds stop shooting if ya give 'em a reason, like more gain from not killing us?"
"The only reason I can think of is surrender!" Viracide tried to move about the bridge, but slight rumbling still infected the ship. "Krunch: torpedeo launcher, and prepare to fire." Viracide would give the order to fire himself, but he at least knew that that was Silverquick's job. "Digit, see if you can open a channel with the Predacons, but don't waist too much effort."
"Hailng frequencies are open, sir..." The little Maximal shook her head... "No response!"
"I doubt our weapons will be effective against their shielding or armor," Silverquick said through gritted teeth, "but prepare a torpedo spread anyway. Maybe we can use an explosion other than our own to blind their sensors..."
"Sorry, chief! No can do! We lost the torpedo launcher with that last hit! I'm open for suggestions!" said Krunch.
That comment by Silverquick had just given Snarler an idea. "Sir. What if we were to detonate an empty stasis pod or escape pod behind us? It would look as if we had blown up for a few moments, and in that time we could possibly get to the surface. Also if we can draw them in close enough and pack enough explosives in it, the explosion might cause them some slightly more serious damage."
"Very well. Sergeant; have Viracide assist you. And with haste, gentlebots?"
"All right let's do it, to the cargo bay." Viracide headed out the door, "I'll ready the pod, you gather the explosives, no need to get a detonator." He exited and led the way.
"Sounds better than rolling down a window and throwing stuff at those stupid 'Cons!" said Krunch as he followed Viracide out the bridge. The sargeant ran to the now smoking torpedo bay and retrieved the warheads from the unfired torpedos. He then made his way to the cargo bay and gave the explosives to Viracide.
"I hope this works!" he says to Viracide.
Viracide stacked the explosives inside the pod and closed her up. "Works? It better." Viracide locked it down and activated the stasus pod ejection tube. "Krunch, open the cargo bay door, I need to keep the pod in sight."
"Oh, that's reassuring!" said Krunch.
Viracide locked it down and activated the stasus pod ejection tube.
"Ok, hold on to something!" replied the sargeant, wondering what Viracide had planned. The Cargo bay door slowly opened, as what ever atmosphere the ship contained was sucked out into space. Viracide grabbed on to a console nearby, and was pleased to see that the cargo hold's magnetic latches were working. Viracide then entered the final sequence and launched the pod out into ship, heading right for the Predacon base. "Keep her open, Krunch!" Viracide then focused his mind and readied himself...
I hope he knows what he's doing, or this is going to be one short trip! thought Krunch.
—JA, LA, DT, GD, MdJ, BB, AF
On the agressor ship, Aspis decided to take a moment to speak up. "Commander..." he began, "The gas in the atmosphere...is it explosive?" Then, without skipping a beat, realizing what the answer would be even before it was said, he spoke again. "No, you wouldn't know, of course. Someone, whoever's got that part of the ship, think you can run a scan on the clouds?"
"The atmosphere hasn't exploded yet," Paradox thought, but still, the thought of exploding under their own firepower would be a horrible death indeed. He decided to run the scan. A pilot did have sensors on his console, but with only enough range to cover his flight path. But then, he noticed that the Maximal ship actually fire...something. He reported to Stromclaw, "Sir Sir Sir the maximals have fired a stasis pod at us, filled with torpedo explosives." He then took a closer look at it, "Ha Ha Ha the oldest trick in the book! They're trying to scare us off; there's no detonator. That bomb's a dud dud dud."
"Very well," Stormclaw said, set in his gaze ahead. He's more than irritated at Aspis for his outburst, but now is not the time. "Their shields are already down. MAINTAIN course and ignore the pod. Set the ship down at our prepared coordinates, on my signal."
And, suddenly, just as the Predacons were confident their landing was secured...
BLAM!!
The explosion from Viracide's detonating pod buffeted against the back starboard quarter of the ship. "WHAT WAS THAT?" Stormclaw shouted. "YOU SAID IT COULDN'T DETONATE!" he bellowed at Paradox, the loudest he'd ever lost his temper before.
—KH, BB, AF