I had so much fun writing that how-fast-can-I-do-it short story about Grimlock that I decided to do another one for Halloween. Character credits are owed to Beth Bornstein and Mairghread Scott (for Elita-1), Bob Budiansky (for the Seacons), and Greg Johnson (for the villain). (And obviously everything belongs to Hasbro).
[Continuity note: This story involves Elita-1 and other members of the Carcer's crew, before the events described in Combiner Wars.]
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Rampage
Sharkutikhan dropped out of the thin atmosphere of one of
the Carcer’s dorsal hangars and accelerated towards the dark blue marble below
them. Elita’s antennae buzzed from the electromagnetic flux, and she felt the
fuel in her lines bubble slightly as the pressure and gravity changed. Or at
least she imagined she did – Obsidian always insisted their bodies were too
well regulated to experience such perturbations.
“Not the most graceful departure ever,” Elita murmured.
“I’m right here, you know,” Sharkutikhan said, his voice
coming from no particular point of origin, “I heard that.”
“Of course,” Elita said, “if that had been in doubt I would
have shouted.”
In the seats around her the Carcerians in her small away
team dealt with their circumstances in different ways. For Elita it was
fascinating to spend time with her crewmembers like this. There were hundreds
of bots aboard the Carcer, and as the
ship’s First, she typically had to think of them in an aggregate sense, giving
no more consideration to the individual personalities that comprised the crew
than one gives to the individual components that comprise a computer terminal
or a laser rifle. Now, though, she could see them the same way she saw the Carcer’s command crew every day – as
people with novel idiosyncrasies and perspectives.
Blastcharge was a soldier among soldiers. All Carcerians
were trained to fight, and drilled daily, prepared to defend their ship and its
dangerous cargo at any cost, but Blastcharge had been trained by Strika
herself. He wasn’t the most accomplished or remarkable warrior amongst the
crew, but it was notable that here, in the midst of this turbulent descent, he
was resting in power-saving mode. His optics were dim, his body slack in the
harness that buckled him to the wall, and the powerful (if somewhat antiquated)
engine that drove his six monster wheels idled loudly.
Mirage, by comparison, revved nervously every time
Sharkutikhan made a clumsy course correction. The small racer was clearly used
to being free to move about, and the confining harness seemed to be causing as
much anxiety as the potential for some catastrophic error on the part of their
transportation.
Spystreak still seemed more than anything to be sour about
their mission’s destination. Life onboard the Carcer was rough for fliers – Obsidian himself had confided as much
to Elita. The Carcer might have had
some big open interior spaces at one time, but endless revisions,
modifications, and repairs had turned its interior into a crowded three
dimensional labyrinth. The Carcer’s
fliers were capable of amazingly precise maneuvering, but seldom had
opportunities to ‘stretch their wings’, as it were. Spystreak had signed up for
away mission duty because of that, but here he was, on his first mission off
ship, and he was going to spend the entire mission onboard another starship,
and this one was going to be under three kilometers of liquid.
Scavenger, the stout little machine that she was, would be a
hard read to most. Her head was recessed into her boxy, armored torso, leaving
only her eyes exposed above a high collar. Those two eyes, though, were enough
to tell she wasn’t happy with Sharkutikhan’s flippant disregard for protocol; Carcerians
did not generally talk to their First the way he just had.
On the other hand, lying was a capital crime aboard the Carcer, so sycophancy carried its own
perils.
Their vessel lurched again, Mirage and Spystreak both
wincing with the abrupt shift.
“Is there a problem of which we should be aware?” Elita
asked.
“Is it still illegal to lie when we’re not physically aboard
the Carcer?” Sharkutikhan asked.
“When you’re addressing your First, it certainly is.”
“Hm,” Sharkutikhan said simply and otherwise declined to
answer her question. On a ship where tacit discipline was the norm, the bot had
a reputation for being obnoxious. Irreverence aside, though, he’d been fairly
tame so far. Sharkutikhan had been spawned with an aquatic, submersible
alternate mode, which was relatively useless aboard the Carcer. Painful alterations had converted his alternate mode into a
short range spacecraft, to allow him to contribute aboard the ship, but Elita
didn’t have to know Sharkutikhan well to imagine the sort of impact that would
have on a person’s sense of self. And now, ironically, they were headed to a
planet with a thick atmosphere and a vast ocean. In a painful irony, he’d had
to endure very quick modifications to restore some of the functionality that
had been stripped to make him spaceworthy. Elita was certain that the hurried
retrofit had now left Sharkutikhan less than confident about his worthiness in
either medium.
The g-forces in the cabin reoriented again as their
transportation adjusted his angle of descent closer to a dive.
Elita had an excellent sense of time, but no concept of
their speed in the windowless compartment. “How long before we…?” Sharkutikhan
jerked suddenly as his retro thrusters fired to slow their descent, and soon
thereafter there was a jarring shock as he hit the surface of the vast sea of
dihydrogen monoxide that covered most of the small planet.
“Am I leaking?” he asked, “I don’t feel like I’m leaking…”
Spystreak sighed dramatically. They’d passed from hard vacuum
to subsurface in a matter of seconds. He didn’t say anything, but the sigh
effectively voiced his dissatisfaction with missing a rare opportunity to fly
as their creator had intended.
“What do you see?” Elita asked.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” the ship said with an
awestruck tone, “There’s life… I mean, it’s strange – the place was supposed to
be barren, right? But whatever these things are, they’re not made of higher-end
elements. They look…”
“Organic,” Elita said, “That’s the term. Carbon-based.” Most
life in the galaxy was, but the Carcer
deliberately avoided most life in the galaxy, so Sharkutikhan’s naiveté wasn’t
strange. “Do you see the titan?”
“Aye captain,” he said, “we’re right on course.”
“That’s ‘First’” Elita said, correcting his use of titles.
“Maybe in space,” Sharkutikhan said, “but down here it’s
‘Captain.’ That’s what the books say, anyway.”
Scavenger shifted uncomfortably, “Well, maybe you should
forget what the books say, and listen to your First.”
Elita smiled slightly, but decided to humor the stressed
aquabot, “Sharkutikhan is the closest thing we have to an expert on nautical
matters,” she said, “I’m sure it’s best he not forget everything he’s read about such matters.”
“Yes, my first.” Scavenger bowed slightly in her harness.
“You mean ‘aye capt’n’,” the vessel said.
“Don’t push it,” Elita said sternly.
“Yes ma’am. The titan’s in ship mode,” he got back on
mission, “on the precipice of an abyss.”
“What are we qualifying as an abyss?” The titan would be
over three kilometers long in its starship form – about as long as the ocean
was deep – so all but the largest geographic features would look modest when
measured against it.
“The far side looks about seventy kilometers off,” he
answered, “I can’t get a depth reading – the density of the suspension in the
trench is blocking my scans. So, effectively bottomless.”
Obviously it couldn’t be literally bottomless, but his point
was valid nonetheless. If his scans couldn’t find the bottom, the suspension
would be too dense for them to function – and except for Sharkutikhan, they
would all sink like rocks. They might hit bottom, but they’d be crushed into
stasis-lock by the time they did.
Blastcharge stirred from his rest, “We there yet?”
“Just looking for a door,” Sharkutikhan said.
“I can pop an airlock if we need to,” Spystreak held up his
heavy duty claw arm, opening and closing the giant clamp to emphasize his
point.
“No need,” Sharkutikhan said, “he’s still got power.”
That was hard to imagine; how long had he been down here? “Is he conscious?” Elita asked.
“No captain; I think the power source is artificial. I think
someone’s hooked up something to animate his peripheral systems.”
Looters had beaten them to the titan’s remains and selectively
reanimated parts of him while they tore apart his corpse from the inside. That
was gruesome. It also meant they might have a hostile reception waiting.
“Weapons live?” Blastcharge asked as he began checking the
triple-barreled launcher built into his chest.
The classic response, of course, would be ‘don’t fire unless
fired upon’, but Elita always felt that put her troops at an unacceptable
degree of risk, and she wasn’t feeling much sympathy for whatever maggots were
crawling around inside this titan. True, they’d come here to scavenge vital
components as well, but there was a difference between taking what was
necessary to sustain their own titan, and ghoulishly ripping the dead behemoth
apart piece by piece.
“Respond to any indication of hostility with a definitive
show of force,” she ordered. Blastcharge’s armored faceplate couldn’t smile,
but the guns in his chest cocked loudly and confidently.
Sharkutikhan managed to access the titan’s unconscious
network and open a large airlock on the port nacelle, near what would be the
giant’s wrist would be if it were in robot mode. He came to rest inside the
flooded hangar, and with a fair bit of effort, the larger ship pumped the
saline solution from the compartment.
When Sharkutikhan dropped his forward loading ramp, the
claustrophobic Mirage bolted eagerly for the opening, but Blastcharge silently grabbed
him by the arm to stop him. With a twist and a heavy thud, the slow, awkwardly
built mech dropped onto his massive wheels, and rolled smoothly down the ramp,
his turret scanning for threats. Elita followed on foot, rifle at the ready.
The hangar was small – too small for Sharkutikhan to
maneuver. The bot’s transformation to robot mode mass-shifted him down
considerably, but given that the change in size only kicked in half way
through, there wasn’t enough room for him to initiate the sequence; for now, he
was stuck as he was.
The Carcer was a
dark ship, there was no doubt about that. Avoiding interaction with the outside
galaxy meant that his crew had to be minimalists, and with each bot having some
degree of low-light vision, and there being a general lack of stunning vistas
within the tight corridors of the ship, lighting was an aesthetic indulgence.
That being the case, the darkness here would not have
bothered Elita too much, but the lighting that was functional flickered
erratically, making it impossible for her optics to adjust to the darkness.
Fluid dripped from the ceiling into the puddles on the deck, the sound echoing
in the metal box. The dissonant sound of multiple drips combined with the
random lighting changes was disorienting.
“So this is what a drowned titan looks like on the inside?”
Mirage asked, “I think we were better off onboard Sharkutikhan.”
“I’ll take that as a complement,” their conveyance said.
“Spystreak,” Elita said, “Give us directions.”
The Carcer had
been modified so much over their millennia of travel that fulltime residency
aboard him would have ill-prepared them to navigate a strange titan, even if
they weren’t all unique. Spystreak, though, had a better chance than most,
being among the few of their kind with an innate connection to the beings.
“Given there’s only one set of doors leading in,” Spystreak
pointed out the obvious, “I would guess that way.”
Scavenger grumbled, once again annoyed by her teammates’
disregard for propriety. Again though, Spystreak’s answer was honest.
“I meant in the more general sense, ensign,” Elita said.
“This hangar should connect to a large corridor that runs
the length of the port nacelle, First. There might be a little confusion where
the titan’s elbow joint is, but beyond that, a right turn at the port weapon’s
battery should lead us through his shoulder into the main hull, and the bridge
will be easy to reach from there.”
“Let’s go then,” Elita said, “Scavenger, get the door,
please.”
The stout bot tromped over to the control panel, tapped out
some commands with her claws, and with a pop and a hiss the big doors unsealed.
They opened less than a meter before grinding to a halt. Plenty of room for
most of the galaxy’s races, but few of their kind could fit through such a
small gap.
“Probably because of the erratic power,” she explained as
she sank her claws into the breech and forced the doors apart manually with her
augmented arms. With a clumsy drop, she shifted to her halftrack mode and
waited for Blastcharge to rumble past. Elita followed in her own armored truck
mode, with Mirage close behind her in his armored racecar form. Spystreak
hopped into the air, the ungainly little bot shifting into a sleek jet. He
wasn’t really intended for VTOL, so his hovering thrusters caused him to wobble
awkwardly at this low speed.
The corridor was fairly roomy, though, and it was easily
half mile to the elbow, “Spystreak, why don’t you scout ahead a ways; make sure
you know where we’re going.” There was no ‘yes First’ or ‘aye captain’,
Spystreak simply opened up his main engines and flew over their heads with a
deafening roar.
Elita’s hearing recovered in time to hear Blastcharge say
something like, “Sure makes a lot of noise for a little guy,” but she couldn’t
tell if that was a complement or a complaint.
“Found something,” Spystreak said, “At the elbow. Hurry
please.” They picked up the pace and caught up to the small bot within a few
moments. He was back in robot mode, the double missile launcher on his right
arm readied for combat.
“Did you find one of the looters?” Elita asked.
“Maybe,” he said, “but if so they weren’t your standard fare
opportunists.”
There was corpse caught in part of the massive elbow joint,
its left half ground into scrap metal by the joint’s action. There were many
inorganic, mechanical races in the galaxy, but this one clearly shared their
physiology – if nothing else, the grey death pallor of the de-energized
cybermatter in the dermis was a dead giveaway.
Scavenger rolled up and illuminated the body with
floodlights on her excavator arm, “Part of the original crew?”
“Would the body look this fresh?” Mirage asked. Even inside
this titan, there was some evidence of rust from the surrounding seawater
leaking in. This fellow, however, showed little corrosion.
“How did he get in there?” Mirage wondered.
“Maintenance accident maybe?” Blastcharge suggested.
Scavenger studied the giant seams around them, “My guess? He
was trying to squeeze through this space, and triggered some sort of post
mortem reflex. The titan’s arm spasmed a little and the gears dragged him in.”
“What would he have been trying to get to?” Elita asked.
“Maybe he needed a little elbow grease?” Spystreak
suggested.
Elita shifted into robot mode and studied the corpse by the
light of Scavenger’s lamps. A splash of purple on one shoulder had caught her
eye, a badge that hadn’t faded like the rest of the corpse, and scraping away
some dried energon, she found her concerns validated, “Decepticon.”
“Slag,” Mirage swore. The Decepticons were trouble; they
were an aggressive, expansionistic faction of racial supremacists from their
home planet of Cybertron. Fortunately, they knew nothing of the Carcer’s existence, the Primes’ titans
having left Cybertron well before the Decepticons emerged, but ensuring that
they never discovered the Carcer’s
existence was among their highest priorities. The Decepticons hunted for any of
the ancient titans they could find, plundering their minds for vital historic
and scientific data, and doubtlessly hoping to one day reanimate one of the
titans to serve their cause.
“He was trying to hide, wasn’t he?” Mirage said nervously,
“What does a Decepticon hide from?”
The Decepticons’ reputation as ruthless and effective
warriors was well known, but Elita was certain it was at least somewhat
exaggerated. “Not every Decepticon is an elite super soldier,” she said, “this
poor spark could have been a technician or a researcher.” She added, “And it’s
entirely possible he was lost. He could have been crawling in there because he
thought it was a storage closet.”
Spystreak led them through the twisting elbow joint to the
port weapons assembly. Not surprisingly, there were signs that someone had been
doing research here – crates, data pads, portable terminals, and more bodies,
looking about as horribly mutilated as the first one they’d encountered but
without an apparent cause. Their metal frames were bent, twisted, snapped,
sheared – there were shell casings, scorch marks, and other signs that the
Decepticons had fired on their attacker, but none of them showed any evidence
of having been shot with a ranged weapon. Something had disassembled them
manually.
She thought about their transport, sitting alone,
undefended, and unable to transform in the tight hangar. She radioed
Sharkutikhan quickly and told him to back out into the open ocean – stay close,
but stay safe. He was their only means of escape.
They reached the bridge and found more evidence of combat;
more corpses, more collateral damage. Scavenger fiddled with some interface and
the erratic flicker of the white lights was replaced with a steady red glow.
Moments later, monitors and holographic displays came to life all around them,
and the heavy blast shields at the front of the bridge withdrew, revealing
large windows that looked out on the titan’s flight deck.
“This is odd,” Scavenger said, “The most direct access to
the titan’s neural network has been destroyed.”
“A lot of things have been destroyed,” Mirage commented.
“This was shot at pointblank range,” Scavenger explained,
“It had to be done deliberately.”
“Can you bypass it for me?” Elita asked. As the Carcer’s
commander, Elita would have nearly all the security protocols they needed to
access the system, provided they could physically do so, and the antennae on
her head weren’t for show – once connected she’d have nearly as much access as
a cityspeaker.
“I might be able to patch you in at the titan’s lasercore,” Scavenger
answered, “But all I can do here is get you into the Decepticons’ local network.
They were using the titan’s peripheral nervous system to connect their
computers, and it looks like they were a bit lax about data security.”
“Maybe they figured three kilometers of ocean was enough to
hide whatever they were doing,” Spystreak commented.
“Take Scavenger and Blastcharge up to the lasercore,” she
ordered the small flyer, “The Decepticons will be back, and I want to know if
there’s anything in this titan’s memories that could lead them to the Carcer.”
Mirage replaced Scavenger at the unlocked terminal while
Elita checked her rifle, trying not to look somewhat anxious about their
situation. She walked over to the windows and looked down – there was the
flight deck, hanging out over the abyss, and for the briefest of moments she
thought she saw something moving at the edge of the deck, but it was gone in an
instant. She knew there was nothing strange or nefarious about that. The
exterior of the ship was covered in growth and sediment, becoming the locus of
its own, tiny ecosystem on the ocean floor – it should be swarming with moving
things.
On the other hand, despite all of the sedentary life
thriving on the deck below, there was a notable absence of autonomous creatures
swimming through the waters above. It seemed as if anything capable of vacating
the area had done so. Perhaps the blast shields opening had startled them.
“Find anything yet?” Elita asked.
“Maybe…” Mirage answered, “The Decepticons thought this
titan belonged to someone who’d served under Nexus Prime and Onyx Prime during
the war of the primes.”
That was bad news. The two of them had been involved in some
questionable research after the death of Solus Prime. Many of their kind
thought of the ancient Primes as gods, and if they were, then Onyx Prime was
the god of all things wild and feral. He was the only Prime to deviate from the
two arms, two legs pattern, and all of the bestial mechs among them were
supposed to be modeled after him in some fashion. But Onyx hadn’t been
satisfied with the creatures Primus spawned, and had attempted to augment,
enhance, and alter their forms to make them more powerful, and more savage,
effectively attempting to engineer predacons built for war. Similarly, Nexus
Prime was supposed to be the progenitor of the now lost secret of combination,
a process by which multiple individuals could merge into one entity, with its
own individual mind, and with access to power second only to the titans. Elita
had encountered very few Decepticons, but the appeal of either line of research
was obvious, and in the context of the ripped apart bodies, very disturbing.
“Anything else?” Elita asked.
“From what I’ve heard of Decepticons, nothing too
surprising,” Mirage said, “Experimenting on themselves, and upon each other.
All fun and games until some of the crew members started experiencing
dissociative episodes.”
“Dissociative episodes?”
“You know,” Mirage said, “Missing time, the sense that their
actions weren’t their own, things like that. I’m locked out of the security
systems, but it looks like large portions of the ship are partially or entirely
flooded.”
“Spystreak,” Elita radioed, “Have you reached the lasercore?
What have you found?”
“Slag,” Spystreak answered.
Elita sighed, “Thusfar I have been relatively indulgent on
this mission, and permitted the lot of you to speak as you please, but that’s
not an appropriate way to answer a direct question from your First.”
“Respectfully, First,” Spystreak responded, “My answer is slag. Someone scrapped the lasercore.
This titan is lobotomized. Basic systems are intact, but anything that would
form the basis of consciousness has literally been melted down with thermal
charges. If there’s a spark of life left in this titan, it wouldn’t matter,
because he’d be permanently comatose.”
Scavenger cut in over her radio, “It’s a safe bet that any
memories of the Carcer or her cargo aren’t
just irretrievable, they’re gone.”
Elita turned to Mirage, “Make sure the other records are
sanitized,” she said, “erase any information about other titans they might have
retrieved before permanently disabling this one, and then wipe out their
research records.”
“First…” Mirage spoke hesitantly, “respectfully… I thought
we weren’t supposed to get involved in the war for Cybertron.”
“I’m considering this an extension of our mandate to deal
with the consequences of the Primes’ mistakes.”
“Yes ma’am,” Mirage nodded, and set about his work.
Elita was now completely on edge. Despite ages as the
highest ranked warrior on a ship filled with warriors, no amount of discipline
or experience could entirely counteract the effects of subconscious emergency
protocols adjusting false-positive/false-negative ratios in her sensation
routines. When a heavy metal clang sounded against the bridge door, she jumped
inside her armor, and raised her rifle to fire without thinking. If she looked
overly nervous, Mirage didn’t notice – the smaller bot had dived behind a comm
station and had both of his wrist rockets armed.
There were two more clangs, and then a voice, “Please,
please help us.”
The source of the voice had been one of a pair of Decepticon
survivors. They were odd fellows. They were each slightly larger than Elita,
and both of them had a number of appendages hanging off of their backs. One was
the same green as shallow sea water, with fin-shaped armor plates on his knees.
With the many-jointed appendages on his back, he looked rather like a very
large, seaworthy insecticon.
“I’m Nautilator,” he explained, holding all of his
appendages in the air as the door slid shut behind him, “This is my brother,
Xanus. Though I call him X, because it sounds cool. But never 'Doctor X' or anything, because he gets mad. Are you here to rescue us?”
“No,” Elita said flatly. Honesty being a moral imperative
for Carcerians meant that tact was often burdensomely difficult, “Why are you
here?”
“I-I’m a Decepticon subaquatic recovery specialist,” he
explained, “I was the one who initially scouted this wreck, and was in charge
of excavating much of it.”
“And your brother?” Elita looked at the red, orange, and
purple bot warily.
“Personnel resources,” the mech said, “You know, duty
assignments, workplace efficiency, psychological evaluations. We can’t all be elite super soldiers.”
The choice of words left Elita wondering how long the two had been watching
them.
“What happened here?” she asked as she pointed to the
remains on the floor, “Who killed these bots?”
“I-I don’t know,” Nautilator said, “We were having some
trouble maintaining consistent pressure throughout the ship after we got in.
Lots of bots were having trouble with it – confusion, memory loss, blackouts.
And then people started turning up scrapped. Snaptrap and his security team
tried to hunt down the culprit, but there was just… so much chaos.”
“Why has access to the titan’s central network been sabotaged?”
she pointed to the burned out access point next to Mirage.
Nautilator hesitated, clearly trying to fabricate a lie.
Xanus answered quickly, though, “Commander Seaclamp was concerned there might
be a viral infection aboard the ship, and feared what would happen if it
reached the titan’s central nervous system. We’d declared the ship deceased,
but for titans the boundary between life and death is a bit more ambiguous than
for the rest of us.”
It might not have been the whole truth, but it sounded like
a plausible answer.
“I don’t see what it matters, though,” Xanus said, “we could
never access his central systems anyway. None of us knew the proper protocols
for authenticating ourselves as titan commanders…” Xanus looked at her
suspiciously; Elita could tell he was fishing for information, and she didn’t
satisfy his curiosity.
Right now, the prospect of a virus was first and foremost on
her mind, “If it’s a virus, how do we know you aren’t infected?”
“Y-you don’t,” Nautilator said, “W-we don’t. We’ve had the
blackouts and memory loss. If those are symptoms, w-we’re definitely infected.”
“How is it passed?” Elita asked.
“No idea,” Nautilator said without any hint of deception.
So, comprehensive quarantine it would be. That would be a nuisance, but the
inconvenience would be nothing compared to what the infection might do to them
if they actually caught it.
“Please, you’ll get us off this planet, won’t you? You’ll
take us with you?”
“No,” Elita said flatly, “I’m not taking you aboard my
ship.”
“The surface then, at least?” Nautilator begged, “We’re
fitted for underwater operations, but we’re designed to crawl along the
seafloor – we can’t swim all the way to the surface. Just get us to the
surface, where a rescue party can easily find us when it does come.”
She wasn’t about to let them aboard Sharkutikhan, but it
wouldn’t be difficult for him to tow one of the escape pods to the surface. If
a Decepticon rescue team never showed up, and they eventually ran out of power
waiting, then that was just fate. If a rescue team did show up, and carried a
treacherous, team-killing plague back to their galaxy-conquering army, well…
Elita wouldn’t spill any wiper fluid over it.
“We’ll tow you up in an escape pod,” she answered, “on one
condition – you help us permanently scuttle this ship.”
“Deal,” Xanus said, “Plunge it into the abyss?”
“Exactly,” Elita nodded, “Assuming the descent doesn’t
destroy the titan, it’ll at least put it well out of reach of anyone else who
comes along. Mirage?”
“Enough power from the secondary drive engines could push
him over,” Mirage said, “or maybe some demolition charges under the bow? It
might take both.”
“Are there any other survivors?” Elita asked.
“We haven’t seen anyone since our last blackout,” Nautilator
shrugged, “p-please, I want out of this place.”
The others returned from their excursion to the lasercore,
reporting the distinct feeling that they’d been followed, but having no
evidence that was the case. It was an unnerving thought, but they now had a
large number of tasks to attend to. Mirage was almost certainly right – given
the buildup of sediment and coral, the weakened engines wouldn’t be able to
propel the ship into the abyss with what little fuel was left. Charges placed
along the edge of the abyss, though, might shorten the trip, though, if they
could start a landslide. That was two jobs, right there, and then there was the
original reason they came – to scavenge essential parts for the Carcer’s maintenance. Elita didn’t like
the idea of splitting up, but after a power fluctuation on the bridge prompted
Mirage to re-evaluate the reserve power on the ship, time became a precious commodity.
Spystreak and Scavenger would make their way to what parts
of the ship were accessible to retrieve as many parts on their list as
possible. Rather than haul heavy components back out the way they came, they’d
take them to the nearest exterior access point and leave them for Sharkutikhan
to collect. Meanwhile, Mirage and Blastcharge would head to the engine room and
try to get enough power for the push they’d need. The most dangerous task would
be strolling out onto the seafloor to plant charges, so Elita insisted the two
Decepticons take on that responsibility, but also insisted she accompany them –
lest they be planning to blow the charges early and send the Carcerians to the
bottom of the abyss.
Elita and the Decepticons went straight out onto the flight
deck, Nautilator feeling that traveling out in the open was likely safer than navigating
the flooded bowels of the ship. She made sure her seals were good,
over-pressured her internal frame, and slid her battlemask into place to cover
her intakes as the airlock flooded with the corrosive fluid – what Nautilator
kept calling ‘water’.
Despite this being the ‘safer’ alternative, Nautilator was
still clearly nervous. He pulled out a heavy three-barreled launcher, and Xanus
did the same. Elita’s laser rifle would be useless in this environment, so she
unfolded the long pike-weapon she kept with her for emergencies. She certainly
preferred firearms, but the energon blade on the pike’s tip could do plenty of
damage if need be.
Even in the dim light provided by the titan’s exterior
illumination, the stony formations and colorful plants and creatures that had
inhabited its surface were beautiful in their own, strange way. It would be a
shame to destroy them, but allowing someone else to plunder this ancient
machine wasn’t an option. She briefly wondered what the ship might land on when
it went over the edge.
They reached the point where the deck overhung the ledge,
and looked down into the abyss. The word ‘bottomless’ echoed in Elita’s head.
It really looked that way. In space, one never truly looked into a void. There
were always some stars out there, visible in the distance. This, however, was
absolute darkness, swallowing the light from their lamps.
Elita affixed a cable to a rail on the titan’s deck and
tested her weight. Most bots or ships would have corroded away entirely long
ago in these conditions, but titans were exceptional – they could survive
conditions her people hadn’t even discovered yet, and their exteriors were
especially rugged. Satisfied the railing wouldn’t disintegrate on her, Elita
repelled off the deck down to the precipice as Nautilator and Xanus crawled
down in their strange alternate modes.
Elita felt uncomfortable with her back to the open ocean,
but Nautilator’s sudden startle was adequate warning for her to turn and brace
herself against the hull, pike in hand. A dark shape glided through the edge of
the headlights on her shoulders.
Nautilator shouted, his voice distorted by the water,
“Seawing? Is that you? Overbite? Skalor?” he transformed to robot mode,
muttering, “To be that quiet it has to be Seawing.”
When the shape came back, the inspiration for its name was
clear – the bot looked more like a broad-winged aircraft than any sea-creature
Elita had imagined, but it moved through the water propelled by its flexible
wings. Its eyes glowed dimly green above a set of long toothy jaws.
“I thought you were dead, mech,” Nautilator said, “Why haven’t
you made for the surface? You’re not stuck here like we are.”
Seawing moved about restlessly, and soon another shape, this
one missile-like, moved in and began circling.
“Can’t leave,” Seawing said in slightly stilted speech,
“can’t leave the hunting ground…”
The other shape moved in, “Can’t leave until I’m whole,” it
said.
“Overbite?” Nautilator addressed it, “What are you talking
about? You look fine.”
“Not Overbite,” the shape said. In eerie unison with
Seawing, it added, “I am Piranacon.”
Nautilator laughed nervously, “Well, if you want to change
your name, that’s fair, but it’ll be more than a bit confusing if you both
choose the same name.”
The two swimming Decepticons then fell into a loop, “I am
Piranacon, I can’t leave the hunting ground until I am whole.” Nautilator
gripped his head, energon beginning to faintly leak from some of his sensory
ports. Xanus showed no indication of
distress.
“I think you two should get those charges planted,” Elita
said.
“I think you’re right,” Nautilator returned to his alternate
mode and crawled under the bow of the ship with Xanus.
Elita positioned herself behind her allies as they worked,
keeping an eye on the two circling Decepticons. She whispered into her radio,
“I have contact with two survivors exhibiting dissociative symptoms,” she said.
“Report.”
“Nothing here, First,” Scavenger said over the radio, “but…”
“But what?”
“Just still feeling like something’s following us.”
“Same here,” Mirage said, “We’re almost done in the engine
room, but I’d swear we’re not alone. Blastcharge felt the same way. He’s been
hunting for whatever it is for a while now.”
“Wait…?” Elita’s piston’s almost froze, “Where is he? Do you
have optics on him.”
“No, First,” Mirage said, “He’s been rolling through the
adjacent compartments and hallways patrolling, but… actually, I don’t remember
when I saw him last.”
“You’re alone?” Elita asked.
“When you put it that way…” Mirage’s voice got anxious.
“Permission to abort current operation and head to Mirage’s
location?” Spystreak radioed anxiously.
“Captain,” Sharkutikhan’s voice finally broke in at a
whisper, “I’ve got optics on your two new friends, but I’m also tracking
something else moving towards you across the titan’s flight deck. It’s slow,
camouflaged, and big.”
“Spystreak, Scavenger, Mirage,” she optimistically added,
“and Blastcharge, if you can hear this, abort current operations and RZ at the
bridge ASAP.”
“SCRAP!” Mirage shouted over the comms, “I’ve got company!
Make it faster than ASAP, please!”
“We’re coming!” Spystreak shouted.
“You’re faster without me,” Scavenger said, “GO!”
Elita wanted to countermand that decision, but the
missile-shaped Decepticon Nautilator had called ‘Overbite’ suddenly burst into
action, darting at Elita, with a pair of wide jaws filled with serrated, moving
teeth. The water churned as the chainsaws lining his mouth sped up, and Elita
realized that the mindless attack would carry enough momentum to hit her
despite the pike weapon and its deadly blade. She rolled right, careful not to
become entangled in her line, and took a swipe at Overbite. She inflicted a
deep cut along his port side that filled the water with fluid energon and sent
the Decepticon racing off in a thrashing storm of movement.
Whether it was a difference in their mentality or their
insanity, Seawing didn’t charge at her, but instead opened fire with his
weapons – some sort of lasers tuned for use under water. Elita let her line go
slack and dropped below the shots, hoping that none of them would happen to hit
the thin cable. She turned off her headlights and stopped below the hull of the
ship, right below the edge of the abyss, hoping that Seawing might lose her in
the dark. Unfortunately, as hard as the Decepticon had been to see before, he
was now completely invisible in the dark.
“Captain,” Sharkutikhan said over the radio, “He’s cloaked
from my sonar somehow. In three seconds, give me light – lots of it.”
Elita trusted her crewman to know what he was doing, and
counted quietly into the comm. At ‘three’ she turned on the headlights on her
shoulders and chest, putting them at full brightness and activating her
floodlights too. Seawing had been rushing straight towards her, but his dull
green optics now went black as they shut down. He darted sideways, and was
promptly hit by one of a pair of torpedoes Sharkutikhan had launched.
Elita was jarred by the blast wave from the explosion, but
relieved to see Seawing drift to the ocean floor in stasis lock.
“That big one’s still out here somewhere,” Sharkutikhan
said, “Better round up your crawly friends and go.”
Elita twisted around to look for the two friendly
Decepticons. Their charges read as planted, but she’d heard nothing from either
of them. Her headlights panned through the black depths, and then fell on
Nautilator. He’d been right behind Elita, gripping the underside of the titan’s
hull. She’d thought of the Decepticon as relatively weak despite his size –
perhaps not physically, but in every other regard. His sudden appearance out of
the shadows, though, gave her a good fright, and now there was something about
the way he was looking at her that felt… off.
“Nautilator?” She asked, “Are you ready to go? Where’s your
brother.”
“Not Nautilator,” he answered. “I’m Piranacon, and I can’t
leave the hunting grounds until I’m whole.” With a quick and efficient snap of
one of his oversized forward appendages, he snipped her cable and dropped her
into the abyss.
The water slowed her motions, but Elita’s reaction was quick
nonetheless. She stabbed her pike into the cliff face above the abyss, the
energon blade melting into the rock, effectively fusing the pole to it. The weapon
flexed with her inertia, and Elita twisted as she bounce back up, driving both
feet into Nautilator’s beast mode face. The impact hammered the antennae arrays
that were mounted in front of his optics. Her antennae were always fairly
sensitive, and she imagined that wasn’t a unique trait. Indeed, the impact
sufficiently stunned him to loosen his grip for an instant, and an instant was
all it took – he thrashed about swinging his claws wildly to catch something,
but he fell too quickly. His yellow eyes disappeared into the darkness below.
Elita got her feet onto her pike, hopped on it, and sprung up
to the cut cable. She grabbed onto it and began scaling back up to the deck.
She came over the edge just in time to see a large maw launch at her. The mouth
was rimmed with a blade like beak and filled with long pointed teeth. It was
nearly large enough to swallow her whole, and would certainly be sufficient to
cut her in half. Elita kicked back and to the right, hoping it would be enough
sideways momentum to land her on the seafloor rather than drop her into the
abyss.
Her attacker lumbered to the edge and roared, a pair of
cannons locking into position on the back of his dense armored shell.
Nautilator had been big, but this guy was easily twice his size.
Elita hit the soft sand of the sea floor and heard Sharkutikhan
on the comms, “Taking the shot.” She grabbed onto an outcropping as her
crewman’s remaining torpedoes hit her attacker’s topside. The beast turned and
glared angrily at his attacker, his shell apparently absorbing the impacts. He
fired the duel cannons on his back rapidly, one after the other. The barrels
slammed backwards with each shot, firing what looked like the underwater
equivalent of flak shells. Sharkutikhan grunted and shouted unintelligibly as
he pulled away from the explosions.
The beast set its sights on Elita once again, and slid off
the deck of the titan, transforming into a towering robot mode as it fell. The
mech drew a massive rifle from his back and took some quick shots at Elita.
They were haphazard – almost playful.
“Let me guess,” Elita said as she tumbled and dodged through
the seaweed. You’re Piranacon, this is your hunting ground, and you can’t leave
until you’re whole.
“Something like that,” the beast said, “This body is… was?
Snaptrap. He’s probably the most like me.”
“You’re a combiner aren’t you?” Elita realized, “A bunch of
bots merging their minds into one entity.”
“Something’s missing,” the beast said, “I’m not whole. But
maybe you have what I need.”
He began firing again, but Elita shifted into her truck form
and took off. Clearly she wasn’t designed for underwater operations, or to
drive along the see floor, but her wheels were still faster than his lumbering
gate, and kicked up a dense cloud of sand and seaweed, disrupting his aim.
“If anyone’s in the control room, I need maintenance hatch
ZZ28 open, NOW.” She raced towards the sealed door, and could feel the rifle shots
getting closer with every meter. She slid to a stop just as the door blinked
green and started to slide open. Klaxons inside the airlock were flashing with
a sweeping red light that would inevitably provide her pursuer a target in the
murk. She jumped through the gap and rolled flush against the wall just as more
shots from the beast’s weapon streaked into the airlock, hitting the interior
door. The level was already flooded, so she was entirely unconcerned by the
damage, but she pounded on the controls for the outer door, trying to stop its
opening sequence and get it to close again. As soon as the outer door started
to hiss shut she rolled over to the inner door and yanked the emergency
release. Bracing her foot against one side she forced it open.
The three-pronged tip of a massive two handed sword thrust
into the airlock from outside, blocking the outer doors from closing, but Elita
rolled through the inner doors, landed on her wheels, and took off through the
dark passageway. Cranking her headlights up again she dodged debris as best she
could, trying to manage the best speed possible while fighting against the
water’s drag.
Her headlights illuminated a freight elevator ahead of her.
Going full speed, she’d struggle to stop before hitting the doors, and she
wasn’t certain she had too much time to wait for the elevator to come. She
deployed a rack of small rockets from her truck bed – she’d had to forgo her
normal loadout of smart missiles for something she could effectively use
underwater, and while she was sure she’d hit her target, she wasn’t sure how
effective the smaller warheads would be. She fired every shot she had before
hitting her emergency brake and sliding sideways. The rockets slammed into the
door, the rapid thudding against the metal vibrating down the hallway as they
hit. Alone, they might not have breached the door, but evidently the elevator
shaft hadn’t been flooded – it had, until now, remained air tight.
The doors burst inwards, and a rush of current pulled Elita
through as she returned to robot mode. Fatigue briefly struck her – she wasn’t
low on Energon, yet, but she was pushing the limit of how fast her body could
metabolize the fuel. The need to rest faded when she saw her pursuer, back in
his massive beast mode, plowing through the hallway, towards her. She grabbed
the top of the elevator door’s frame, and pulled herself up, then grabbed a
service ladder and started climbing. The water rose faster than she could
climb, but the beast behind her couldn’t make use of the little service ladder,
and had to follow the hard way – driving his claws into the walls of the shaft
to pull himself up.
Elita looked up and saw a rapidly approaching, flashing
yellow light in the dark – the elevator was coming down. An ordinary elevator
would likely have floated, or drifted down in a water filled shafted, but
without consistent gravity, most spacecraft elevators were powered going up and going down. This one was approaching
like a fully loaded freight vessel. Elita stopped at the floor she was on, pried
the doors open, and ducked aside just as the elevator scraped past her. She
felt the deep rolling vibration of the elevator crashing into her pursuer
below, but didn’t stay to gawk. She rolled as quickly down the hallway as
possible until she found a small maintenance access hatch in one wall. If it
was a tight fit for her, it’d be impossible for Piranacon or Snaptrap – whoever
he was.
Elita squeezed her way through the crawlspace, trying to
imagine where she was and where she wanted to be. If someone had opened the outer
airlock for her and activated that elevator, it probably meant she still had a
friend on the bridge. It was probably Spystreak, he’d know his way around the
titan well enough to orchestrate that. She tried various routes there, but
found most of them sealed to hold back the water. Anxiety gripped her spark as
she heard the thudding sound of her pursuer walking up and down the hallway
hunting her, just on the other side of the wall.
Elita finally came to a sealed door in the maintenance tunnels
that connected to an airlock. Cycling the chamber allowed her to pass through,
and once again she was not only making upward progress, she was finally clear
of the seawater. The route lead straight through the titan’s spark chamber, but
that wouldn’t be a problem – as commander of the Carcer, she had all the protocols she needed to unlock the doors
and pass through.
It was a sad sight. The titan had held up very well
considering how long it had been at the bottom of the ocean, but there was
still substantial damage throughout the ship, and corrosion in some of his more
sensitive areas. The massive sparkchamber of a titan was supposed to be a
practically spiritual place, closely connected to the titan’s spacebridge and
spawning pools. This one was filled with debris, and water dripped from the
ceiling in different places. Most tragic however, was the glowing ball of light
at the center of the chamber.
Against all odds, the titan’s spark had survived.
Technically, the mighty being was still alive, but here the seat of his soul
was rusting and falling apart. It wasn’t irreversible damage, and perhaps if
the Decepticons had tried they could have reactivated him, but instead they’d
sabotaged his lasercore, rendering the massive and ancient being functionally
brain dead.
She had little time to pay her respects, though. They’d blow
the edge of the abyss, fire the engines, and let the depths put the titan out
of his misery. She headed onto the bridge, expecting to find her teammates
there. Instead, Mirage’s corpse lay face down in the doorway Elita came
through, his head blown out by a large caliber shell from behind. Spystreak had
come through the opposite doorway, and by the looks of it, he had been shot
straight in the chest by whoever had been operating the terminal.
Elita activated her radio, “Mirage and Spystreak are down,”
she said, “Sound off.”
Before anyone could respond, there was a sharp screeching
whistle as another broadcaster jammed the spectrum.
“I’ll do you all one last favor as a mortal,” it was Xanus’s
voice, “if you want to live, don’t broadcast your position on a frequency
Tentakil can pick up. Bait one of the Seacons and you’ll have the whole lot
hunting for you. They are somewhat single-minded now.”
“You don’t seem to be worried about it,” Elita observed.
“Of course not,” he said, “I’m fishing.”
“It was you on the bridge, though, wasn’t it?” Elita asked,
“Why murder Mirage and Spystreak, and then save me?”
“I wasn’t saving you my dear,” he said, “I’m a psychologist.
I gave you a puzzle to solve and motivation to do so.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“Because in solving my puzzle you accomplished something I’d
been unable to do for myself since my plans went awry,” he answered, “it
unlocked the security protocols around the titan’s spark chamber.”
Elita scrambled to one of the terminals and brought up an
internal camera feed. Xanus was down there, preparing for something.
“Don’t think I’m not grateful for your fortuitous arrival
and effective intervention,” Xanus said,
“That’s why I’m talking to you now –
it only seems fair that I should give you time to run.”
“Run?” Elita grabbed one of Mirage’s laser pistol, and
headed back to the sparkchamber, “What are you planning? To blow the ship?
Dropping it into the abyss isn’t enough?”
Xanus laughed over the comm, “The ship is of no concern to
me – soon I’ll have everything I need.”
Elita dropped onto an upper gantry in the large
sparkchamber. Xanus stood below her, next to the titan’s suspended spark. The
beast that had chased her was standing across from him, flanked by two smaller
bots on each side. Overbite and Seawing were damaged, but had recovered. Some
hideous monstrosity that had to be ‘Tentakil’ was playing with Blastcharge’s
chest-mounted cannon – now removed from his chest, with parts of his spinal
column still attached – and some other creature like them had Scavenger pinned.
Scavenger was alive, but the fat slimy metal creature was salivating over her
like a tender morsel.
“I am Piranacon,” the five said in unison, “I am not whole.
Restore me!” they demanded.
“Of course, of course my friend,” Xanus said holding up some
strange components, “If you’ll recall, I collected everyone’s power rectifier
chips as part of the experiment. That’s why you’ve only been able to merge
mentally, and not physically. Congratulations, on that, by the way. Out of two
hundred Decepticons on this venture, only six were compatible with one another.
I do hope you intend to retrieve my brother somehow, though. Nautilator could use
some friends.
Elita took aim with Mirage’s pistol, she was likely to only
get one shot off, and she had three targets – Xanus and those chips, the
creature holding Scavenger hostage, and the titan’s spark. Not knowing what
Xanus actually had in mind for the spark, preventing the Decepticons from
creating a combiner was top priority, and right now that was well enough served
by blowing the lasercore out of the one drooling over Scavenger.
She lined up the shot, steadied herself, and fired the small
pistol. The shot landed straight between the slimy creature’s eyes, scorching
the broad, shield-shaped metal scales that covered its body. It stumbled
backwards, and Scavenger launched forward onto her treads, racing up one of the
ramps that wound up the walls of the chamber. Overbite and Seawing started
firing at them, and the big one – Snaptrap – readied his cannons to do the
same.
“Not in here you fool!” Xanus shouted, “You’ll bring the
whole room down on top of us!”
“What did you call me?!”
“Do you want your chips destroyed in the chaos?!”
Snaptrap backed down and grabbed the chips, he turned his
back to Elita and blocked her retaliation with his broad shell while the others
replaced their chips – including the one Elita had shot. Apparently, thanks to
his transformation, his lasercore was somewhere under the base of his tail,
rather than his head, as he ended up with nothing worse than a severe burn
across his shins.
“What now?!” Scavenger shouted as she rolled up.
“The titan’s spark!” Elita shouted, “A dead shot will send
it critical.” Elita wasn’t certain if Xanus heard her, or just guessed what she
would do, but he threw himself in front of the delicate sphere of energy. With
remarkable resolve, he held his ground as Scavenger’s minigun raked his back.
“Piranacon!” Snaptrap shouted has his voice merged with the
others’, “Merge and destroy!”
Desperate, Elita played her last card, and broadcast the
command for the explosive charges under the bow of the ship to detonate. The
distant booming rolled through the passages of the ship, and the whole titan
lurched forward. Scavenger spun her treads to stay on the gantry and finally
shifted to robot mode and grabbed a strut with one of her claws.
Piranacon wobbled, his components nearly coming apart as the
room shifted in the middle of his combination sequence.
Xanus staggered forward, but grabbed the titan’s spark,
laughing maniacally. His chest plates slid apart, but he turned his back to
Elita again before she could put a shot into his delicate internals. Piranacon was
now mostly assembled, but there was a whining sound like a motor dying. He
gripped the walls of the chamber to steady himself, but parts at his shoulders
and knees clicked off on and on like they weren’t engaging properly. Most
notably, he wasn’t growing the way combiners supposedly did – he looked like
five cybertronian acrobats trying to pull off a bizarre stunt. Piranacon roared
in frustration as Elita noticed the trail of energy being drawn from
Piranacon’s core into Xanus.
“What have you done to us?!” the five voices roared in
unison.
“Combination grants you access to a deep well of
extradimensional power,” Xanus explained, “I modified your power rectifier
chips to channel that energy into myself.”
“WHY?!”
“I need the unique energy of your transformation to
reconfigure my own body, of course! Otherwise this titan’s spark would burn me
out in a matter of hours!” he laughed as the panels on his chest slid together
with an audible snap.
“TRAITOR!”
“I assure you it’s nothing personal,” Xanus said, “I only needed
a onetime donation from you my friend; in the future you’ll be able to combine
just fine. If you survive.”
Piranacon fell apart, but Snaptrap landed on his feet, and
came at Xanus swinging. Unfortunately for him, Xanus had been growing as he
siphoned off the energy, converting the power directly into cybermatter. He was
now as tall as Snaptrap, and slightly better armored. He grabbed the blade of
Snaptrap’s sword and stopped it dead.
Xanus looked back at Elita and laughed, “Watch this, my
dear, and see what you’ve had a hand in creating!” Xanus twisted the sword from
Snaptrap’s grip, and belted him across the jaw with his free hand. He tossed
the sword into the air, grabbed its hilt, and threw it straight into Tentakil,
pinning the Decepticon to the wall. In a flash he hopped backward and
transformed into a hulking, armored beast – similar to the alternate mode he’d
had before, but much larger. His now enormous purple claws grabbed Overbite and
Seawing, squeezed them with a crunch, and then tossed them aside as his claws
folded back over his legs. He transformed into some sort of bizarre tank, his
monstrous head still visible above his three-barreled cannon, and fired
pointblank into Snaptrap. Finally, he turned and rolled right over the fifth
Seacon.
And he did all of it while laughing like a giddy maniac.
Scavenger fired the three rockets mounted on her frame, but
the small missiles detonated harmlessly on Xanus’s carapace.
“Shall I continue my rampage with you, my dears?!” He
shifted back to his beast form and began crawling up the ramps towards them.
“Bridge! Now!” Elita ordered Scavenger as she transformed.
They raced to the shaft that connected to the next floor, and scrambled up in
robot mode, Xanus hot on their heels.
“Can you fire the engines?” Elita asked.
“Of course, but you’re faster, First!” Scavenger said.
“I could get there faster,” Elita said, “But it’d take me a
lot longer to figure out Mirage’s boot up sequence. Go, and don’t look back,
okay?”
Elita hit her emergency brake and spun around. Xanus was in
the hallway behind them, laughing. He transformed back into his tank mode, the
armored plows on his front spreading out to scrape the walls of the wide
passageway. He revved his engine, and Elita revved hers.
“Every second we spend posturing is another second your
little friend has to get to the bridge and send us tumbling to our doom, is
that it?” Xanus asked.
“Pretty much.”
“You know I could just roll right over you, my sweet,” the tank
shouted over the sound of his engine, “Or disintegrate you with a single shot.”
“And yet, we’re still talking.”
“Yes... but then, what’s the point of power if one can’t enjoy
it, and these are the moments one savors,” the monster chuckled, “Please, tell
me, are you afraid?”
Elita hesitated – she was First among the crew of the Carcer, embodying their values no matter
the circumstance was as important as any other responsibility she had, even
when no one was there to see it.
“Yes,” she said honestly.
The monster laughed heartily, “Of course you are! But it’s
fascinating that you would choose to tell the truth in this situation. Who else
would? In a way it’s unfortunate – your emotions would taste better if you
repressed them more, but then… perhaps it’s good to allow them to breathe? Hm?”
Without warning, he launched forward, his treads propelling him along
surprisingly quickly as his plows threw up sparks on either side, and made
swerving to avoid him an impossibility.
Elita stuck to her plan, and accelerated towards him. At the
last moment she flashed her headlights on at full power, straight into his
optics, and then vaulted over him in robot mode, firing Mirage’s laser pistol
into the vents on his back end. Xanus stopped and tried to turn in the hall
way, but even pulling in his plows it was too narrow. He tried to transform to
robot mode, but the cramped quarters blocked the sideways action of his
shoulders – he was stuck.
He roared in frustration – he could have simply rumbled on
ahead and smashed his way onto the bridge where he’d have more room to
transform, but he was perturbed at being outwitted, and instead drove full
speed in reverse. Elita stood her ground, waited to the last moment, and then
vaulted over him again, this time grabbing one of his antennae and yanking it
free – the appendages had been a soft spot for his brother, hopefully they
still were for him.
Xanus roared angrily, then laughed, “PAIN! RAGE!” he cried,
“YES! I feel them so much more intensely now! Like my body and my senses, the
depth of my spark has also grown! Make me feel MORE!” He initiated his
transformation again, but this time he powered through the obstacles, his claws
ripping open one of the interior bulkheads and flinging sheets of metal down
the hallway.
Elita turned and tried to transform, but the monster caught
her foot in one of his massive claws and drug her towards his segmented jaws.
They moved bizarrely as he spoke, “I want to keep you.” He said, “You fascinate
me. Maybe as a research subject? A pet? A herald? A partner? Or something more…
intimate?”
“You’re disgusting,” Elita grunted as he pinned her down.
“Probably,” the monster nodded, “But that’s not what I want
to hear you say.”
“What do you
want?”
“Lie to me,” the monster said simply, “tell me how brilliant
I am for orchestrating this plot. Tell me I was a brave soul for enduring the
torments of that research facility on Maxima VII, and that I’m a hero for turning
the tables. Tell me you’re in awe of my newfound power,” he said, “lie to me, my sweet, and I will let you
go free, unscathed.”
His claw tightened, and Elita could feel part of her chassis
buckling. If there was even a chance he was telling the truth, shouldn’t she
take it? One little lie; that was all he was asking for. And he even knew it
was a lie, so it wasn’t really a lie, was it? The only reason he really wanted
it from her was because he knew it was important to her.
But what would a vow of absolute honesty really mean if she
sacrificed it as a matter of convenience? Maybe it would be saving her life
today, but what would she lie to save next? And how could she resume her duties
aboard Carcer knowing that she’d betrayed her oath?
“The truth is…” Elita winced. The monster turned its head to
look at her with one of its unblinking, bulbous green eyes. “The truth is your
only novelty is in your outward repulsiveness. Your narcissism and sadism are
entirely ordinary,” she thought of the Carcer’s
prisoner, the deceitful being they’d all sworn on their lives to keep
imprisoned, “your strategies and manipulations are second rate. What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up? Were
you going to get your brother to pick the lock to the sparkchamber? Or were you
just going to pound on the door with your little claws and hope the titan felt
sorry for you?”
Xanus growled and squeezed, forcing her to shudder in pain.
“You are a
horrendous monster on the outside,” she spat at him, “but it’s a thin layer of
armor over a tepid pool of mediocre villainy.”
Xanus glared at her and then began chuckling, “I like you; I
really, really like you. But I said
I’d only let you go unscathed if you said something nice, and I know you’d disapprove if I didn’t keep to my word.” He
lowered his head and spread open his mandibles, the sharp teeth tracing the
edges of her face as hot exhaust from his engines choked her senses. He laughed
again as she squirmed, and then bit down hard on her right antenna. His teeth
sank into the helmet she wore to protect them, and with a twist, he ripped the
side of the helmet free, and pulled the antenna clear out of her head. Elita
screamed as the world spun; the pain was unimaginable and all of her senses
were now thrown off balance. To add insult to injury, the monster’s mandibles
crushed the whole assembly and fed it down his fuel intake.
At first, Elita was too disoriented to tell, but as she
regained her equilibrium, she realized the titan was starting to move.
“Well look at that!” Xanus laughed, “You did it – you distracted
me long enough for your friend to send us into the abyss. I think it would be a
shame for our fun to end that way, don’t you?” Xanus dropped her and stepped
backward, “Yes, I think you and I have many games still to play, but our first
game is, ‘who can get off the ship alive?’ I’ll give you a head start,” he
laughed.
Elita staggered to her feet, shifted to truck mode, and
accelerated towards the bridge as fast as she was able. “Scavenger,” she
broadcast, “where are you? Are you still on the bridge?”
“Yes, First, waiting here for you, please hurry.”
“Alright, meet me at…”
“With all due respect ma’am, our exit’s already arranged –
just hurry.”
Elita didn’t argue, she just did her best to stay on her
tires as the floor slanted below her. It had managed a forty five degree angle
by the time she reached the door to the bridge. Scavenger was braced behind a
comm post.
“What’s our egress point?!” Elita shouted.
“THERE!” Scavenger hooked a claw at the massive windows and
made a thumbs up gesture. Elita looked out and saw Sharkutikhan floating
outside. With a sudden burst of power he rammed the bridge of the falling
titan, and smashed through it. This time, the pressure change definitely made Elita’s fuel lines fizz.
Water sprayed in around Sharkutikhan at high speed, flooding
the bridge as he opened his bow loading ramp, “Don’t wait for me to say
something clever!” he shouted.
Scavenger leaped over the comm post she’d sheltered behind,
and half fell, half slid into their transport. Elita jumped from the door way
and dropped straight in, hitting one of Sharkutikhan’s inner walls and finally
coming to a stop at the back of the passenger compartment.
“GO!” she shouted.
“My loading ramp is stuck!” he shouted, “I can’t raise it
the whole way!”
“Can’t get it up when it really counts,” Scavenger
commented, “Typical.”
“NOW? NOW IS WHEN YOU HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR?” Sharkutikhan
shouted.
The titan’s engines had stopped, and it was now gravity
pulling them into the abyss. The vessel would accelerate as it fell, and once
it reached a certain speed, Sharkutikhan wouldn’t be able to reverse hard
enough to pull free.
Elita looked up and saw Xanus scuttle onto the bridge, his
toothy mandibles shaped in a smile. “Slag it!” she shouted as she scrambled to
the weapons locker Blastcharge had stocked, “Slag the door! Pull out anyway!
NOW!”
“Aye Captain!” Sharkutikhan threw himself into full reverse,
struggling against the twisted and buckled metal of the bridge. His hull
groaned under the strain. Scavenger popped open an interior panel and began
frantically looking for a means to override the door.
Elita pulled herself up the nearly vertical interior by the
harnesses and kicked open Blastcharge’s locker. She scanned it quickly and
found what she was looking for – one of Strika’s favorite weapons, a Z6 Requiem
model “Targetmaster”. The targeting was less important right now than the
obscenely large size of its ammunition. She unfolded it one handed, braced it
against her shoulder and pointed it out of the door as Xanus closed in, his
mandibles spread in an expression of glee.
“Smile you son of a glitch,” she fired the weapon straight
out the door into the monster’s face. The blinding blast blew apart the bridge
around Sharkutikhan and launched them backwards. Seawater flooded the passenger
compartment. Scavenger was nearly washed outside but Elita grabbed her minigun
barrel and held it long enough for the stout bot to clamp onto her.
Elita adjusted her eyes for the water that had filled the compartment.
They were below the falling titan, pointed straight up and looking at the
bridge. Xanus was still inside it, laughing gleefully, and for a brief moment,
Elita was afraid he might catch up to them yet, but with a deft roll, Sharkutikhan
dodged the bridge, and with a few more maneuvers he wove past the shoulder and
head of the sinking titan. His engines groaned and sputtered.
“Talk to me soldier,” Elita said over the radio.
“I’m not meant to be full of water!” he answered, “and the
displacement of the titan is sucking us down.”
“Don’t go straight up!” Scavenger broadcast, “Nose down and
aim for the sea floor above the abyss.”
Sharkutikhan dropped his bow; they began to fall much more
quickly, but he redlined his engines pushing forward, and escaped the pull of
the dark trench. They came to rest amidst the seaweed and rocks where Elita had
first contended with Snaptrap. They’d barely begun assessing the damage when a
familiar shape scuttled up to the foot of Sharkutikhan’s boarding ramp.
“Can I still get a ride to the surface?” Nautilator asked.
