Retribution

by David J. Williams

  “They’re running away,” he said. “A wise decision.”

  “So we do nothing?” Xeros asked.

  “Not right now. We’ll hunt them down and destroy them later.”

  “By which point they’ll be the last survivors of their race,” Xeros said.

  The Curator slowly nodded.

  “LORD STARSCREAM,” SOUNDWAVE SAID.

  “Yes, what is it?” Starscream said impatiently.

  “We are picking up more energy spikes from the city.”

  “You already told me that.”

  “These are the most intense yet. There seems to be a generator of the first magnitude somewhere beneath the city itself.”

  “Does this have anything to do with whatever’s going on in that building?”

  “I’m not sure, lord,” Soundwave answered. There was a certain edge to his voice, and Starscream could guess what it was: Soundwave was getting tired of Starscream’s constant requests to keep studying the situation. Perhaps he was even starting to realize that Starscream was just trying to delay things so long that no rescue of Megatron would be required because they’d get proof that he was dead. Starscream would far rather get a lavishly detailed report on the death of the Decepticon leader than launch the mother of all last-ditch rescue operations.

  The doors to the bridge slid open. Headstrong, Rampage, and Tantrum stood in the doorway. Behind them were several more Decepticons. All looked more than a little annoyed.

  “Why the slag are we still here?” Rampage asked.

  “You want to leave?” Starscream asked him. “I suppose that could be an option.”

  “We want to go rescue Megatron,” Tantrum rumbled. “And we’re tired of your telling us you’re ‘assessing the situation.’ ”

  “One might almost think you didn’t want to rescue Megatron,” Headstrong said. The Decepticons crowded into the room, and Starscream had to think fast. He had a mutiny on his hands, and history showed that if one of those got out of hand, it could be a very quick route from command chair to air lock. But if you couldn’t beat ’em, it was better to just get on out in front.

  “On the contrary,” he said. “I was just about to give orders to—”

  “Lord Starscream,” Soundwave shouted. “The Autobots’ Ark has left orbit!”

  “What are its coordinates?”

  “It’s heading past the pole, out toward deep space.” A rumble of contempt rolled through the Decepticons.

  “Fleeing for their lives,” said Headstrong. “Typical Autobots. Cowards, each and every one.” He looked at Starscream. “What was that you were about to order?”

  “That it’s time to free our glorious leader!”

  Everyone cheered. Soundwave prepped the controls while Starscream smiled outwardly and inwardly mulled his options on how to avoid being Megatron’s savior. He wasn’t done yet. Friendly fire happened all the time. Especially in chaotic rescue missions.

  MEGATRON’S POWERFUL WHEEL KICK SENT OPTIMUS skidding toward the edge of the gladiator pit with a huge dent in the side of his head. Through his blurred optics, Optimus caught sight of Megatron bearing down on him, dragging the ax behind him, sending sparks flying in all directions.

  “Say good night, librarian!”

  But Optimus leaped backward and out of the way as the ax smashed down into the floor, sending sparks everywhere. Optimus brought both swords down on the haft of the ax, slicing straight through it. The blade spun through the air; Megatron ducked inside Optimus’s guard and grabbed his arms, twisting, forcing the Autobot leader to drop both swords. It was hand to hand now. Optimus slammed his shoulder into Megatron’s already wounded chest, but Megatron grabbed his neck and got him in a headlock.

  “Did you really think you could beat me, librarian? This is where it ends.”

  Optimus suddenly realized that Megatron was almost certainly right. Now that the weapons were gone, Megatron’s natural brute force was giving him an advantage that was steadily increasing as he tightened his grip on the Autobot leader. Optimus felt like his head was about to come off his shoulders. He struggled to free himself but couldn’t. His optics were flickering, on the point of going out.

  He did the only thing he could.

  The Matrix of Leadership: He’d sworn to never use it again, at least not until he could defeat the Quintessons and purge the Matrix of the corruption they’d inflicted on it. But right now he didn’t need to ask it any questions. He didn’t need to listen to it. He just needed to defeat Megatron. With the last of his strength, he switched it back on—and felt a blast of energy surge inside him. Everything around him seemed to glow. He grabbed Megatron’s arm, shifted his great weight, and flipped Megatron over his shoulder and onto the floor with such force that the whole room shook. Waves of energy pulsed across that floor.

  Which then shattered.

  THE CURATOR SPARED OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON BARELY a glance as they tumbled into the pit. His focus was on his systems as they at last attained full power. The Matrix replica’s normal reddish glow changed to a bright white light that filled the entire inner sanctum. Xeros cried out as he covered his face to ward off the intense and burning light.

  “We’ve done it!” the Curator yelled. “Now channel all power on my command!”

  “At once!” Xeros said, recovering and rushing to the consoles. The Curator brought Tyrannicon up on another screen.

  “GENERAL TYRANNICON! INITIATE LAUNCH SEQUENCE!”

  “Forward for glory!” Tyrannicon yelled. He released the brakes, and the flagship thundered into motion, followed by the entire armada, all of them making straight for the vast hoop of fire that was the now-activated space bridge. Tyrannicon howled a battle cry as the fire filled the screens, engulfing his vision. He braced himself.

  And then they plunged through.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  CYBERTRON

  SHOCKWAVE FROWNED.

  A moment ago he thought that he’d at long last attained what he’d been seeking, that he’d successfully broken through to the core of Vector Sigma. But now the energy readings were going haywire. Lightning crackled over Alpha Trion’s prone form. For one brief crazy moment, Shockwave considered bringing Alpha Trion back to consciousness and asking him for advice on what to do. But he knew that that old relic would subject him to another stupid lecture, one that probably would contain the words I told you so.

  Shockwave didn’t need that. What he needed to do was ride it out. He furiously made adjustments to the consoles around him and ordered his servitor drones forward into the glowing furnace that Vector Sigma was rapidly becoming. Shockwave wondered if it was actually possible for Vector Sigma to experience meltdown. If so, the incandescent mainframe might burn straight through the core of Cybertron, all the way down to the Well of All Sparks. Would it release Primus from his eon-long slumber? Would there be anything left of the planet? Shockwave had no idea. He didn’t want to find out, either. He brought up a screen showing the overload patterns and began to initiate fail-safes, trying to damp down the overflow. But what he was seeing on the screen just didn’t make sense. This room wasn’t the source of the energy.

  Somewhere else on Cybertron was.

  “Impossible,” he breathed.

  His fingers flew over a keyboard; a schematic of the entire planet appeared on the screen. It was a simple enough matter to map things out from there, to track the source precisely: a burning line that cut through the equator of Cybertron, a line that could represent only one thing … something that was no longer functional … something that couldn’t be functional.

  And yet it was.

  “The space bridge,” he whispered.

  An explosion shook the room. The vault doors at the far end of the chamber blasted open. Shockwave looked up to see a figure standing in that doorway.

  It was Ultra Magnus.

  “This ends now,” he said.

  “With your death!” Shockwave yelled. He waved a hand; Insecticons and drones swarmed from the wall
s, moving straight in at Ultra Magnus. But as they did so, four other Wreckers appeared in the doorway behind Ultra Magnus: Wheeljack, Jetfire, Springer, and some misbegotten dual-bot Shockwave vaguely remembered from one of his less successful experiments. As all of them opened fire, Shockwave ducked behind Alpha Trion; that was the only place in the room that was comparatively safe. But only for a moment, because Shockwave was under no illusions about the outcome of the firefight now raging through the chamber. His guards didn’t stand a chance. He had no idea how these interlopers had managed to get in there. This bunker was supposed to be impregnable. But Shockwave hadn’t lasted this long by believing the hype of defense contractors. That was why he’d insisted on a final addition during the construction, and then had taken the liberty of destroying the bots who’d built it for him, wiping the data off every grid. Because what was a command bunker without a secret escape route?

  Shockwave slid open a hidden hatch in the floor and dived through.

  ULTRA MAGNUS WADED INTO THE FRAY, SMASHING INSECTICONS together and hurling the broken parts as lethal projectiles to bring down still more. Springer and Wheeljack double-teamed their opponents; Springer fired away while Wheeljack spun like a whirling dervish, cutting down Insecticons with his blades before they could bring their own weapons to bear. Jetfire buzzed around near the ceiling, raining shots down on drones and Insecticons alike.

  Rack n’ Ruin was a force of nature. He charged in swinging both hammers in a blur, crunching through metal and sending Insecticon heads flying across the room. Two Insecticons ducked in under his weapons, but he shoulder-butted them onto the floor before bringing both hammers down with a sickening crunch. In short order, it was all over. Shockwave had ascertained the odds quite correctly.

  “Where’d he go?” Rack n’ Ruin snarled.

  “He escaped,” Wheeljack told him. “That bot’s always got a bolt-hole.”

  “Never mind Shockwave,” Ultra Magnus said. His eyes went from Vector Sigma’s glowing maw to the bot that lay prone in front of the huge computer, connected to it with several cables that rumbled and shook along with much of the room.

  “Alpha Trion,” Springer said. Everyone gathered around.

  “He still functions,” Jetfire said.

  Ultra Magnus looked at Wheeljack. “Detach him from Vector Sigma.”

  “First I think I need to figure out what’s happening to Vector Sigma.”

  Wheeljack had a point. Vector Sigma seemed to be overheating. Cooling turbines were cranked up to maximum, but the temperature gauges were still climbing. Wheeljack stepped to the same consoles Shockwave had studied moments earlier. His eyes went wide.

  “This is crazy,” he said.

  “Talk to me,” Ultra Magnus said.

  “Shockwave has somehow—I don’t know why, but he’s set up linkages with the space bridge; that’s where all this energy is coming from. It’s venting off the—”

  “The space bridge?” Ultra Magnus was incredulous. “That hasn’t worked since the beginning of the war.”

  “Well, it’s working now.”

  “Can you route the overflow elsewhere?”

  “I’m trying.” Wheeljack worked the keyboard like a maestro playing an instrument. “I’m sending it through the plasma energy chamber, which is out of commission anyway, so I figure it can take a little heat.”

  “It’s going to have to take a lot,” Jetfire breathed. But whatever Wheeljack was doing was paying off, because the temperature readouts on Vector Sigma slowed their rise and then hovered in place before starting to drop. The rumbling that had been shaking the room grew softer, though it didn’t entirely subside.

  “Good work,” Ultra Magnus said.

  “I’m not done yet,” Wheeljack said. “Still need to rewire a few more fail-safes. Give me a moment.”

  “We don’t have a moment,” Ultra Magnus told him. “Shockwave will be back with reinforcements. Wake Alpha Trion up and let’s get out of here.”

  Wheeljack set to work, reversing the locks Shockwave had placed on Alpha Trion’s mind. The others stood there and waited.

  “Why would the space bridge be operational?” Jetfire asked.

  “Maybe Shockwave was trying to contact Megatron,” Springer said.

  “Maybe Megatron’s come back.”

  “Everybody shut up and let Wheeljack do his stuff,” Ultra Magnus said, and Wheeljack most certainly was. It intimidated him more than a little to be working on a Prime, but he was too proud to admit that. Because really it was the greatest honor he could possibly have, the ultimate test of his skills. Wheeljack expertly removed the circuit clamps from the conduits that linked Vector Sigma to Alpha Trion, letting the parts of the Prime’s brain that controlled consciousness rev up, reboot—

  Alpha Trion’s eyes opened.

  “Ultra Magnus,” he said.

  “Alpha Trion,” Ultra Magnus said. “It’s okay; you’re safe now.”

  “Where is Shockwave?”

  “He won’t be troubling you anymore.”

  Alpha Trion shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “It’s all right,” Ultra Magnus said, his tone almost soothing. “We’re here to rescue you.”

  “It’s not me that needs the rescuing.”

  “What?”

  “It’s our world,” said Alpha Trion.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON BOTH CAME TO THEIR SENSES at the same time. Their predicament was about as bad as it could get. They were at the bottom of the Piranhacon pit, up to their waists in water and all too close to the myriad holes through which the Piranhacons would come. Far above, they could hear the roaring of the crowd.

  “There’s got to be a way out of here,” said Optimus.

  “Logic would dictate that we go back up,” Megatron said.

  “I don’t think that’s possible.” As he spoke, Optimus saw the glowing eyes of the Piranhacons approaching. Megatron grinned.

  “I hope you have some fight left in you, librarian,” he said. The next moment, Piranhacons surged into the room from all sides. Megatron met them head-on, plucking them from the water and hurling them against the walls and against one another, sometimes tearing them in half. Optimus opted for an alternative approach, moving straight into the mass of fish and lashing out on all sides, metal crunching under his feet. But sooner or later the sheer numbers of robotic fish would overwhelm them. Probably sooner …

  “We can’t keep this up!” Optimus said.

  “Speak for yourself, librarian!” Megatron was in his element; if he had to die, there was no better way to go out than to do so while killing. But that was when Optimus grabbed him by one of the power couplings on his back.

  “By Unicron, this is no time to continue our fight.” Then Megatron felt it: a sudden surge of power ripping through him. The blast of energy was so intense that he barely heard Optimus’s voice.

  “Fire your cannon! NOW!” A minute earlier it wouldn’t have been possible. But now he had the necessary power, and he used it. The noise was deafening inside the cramped pit; the point-blank shot tore a hole straight through the wall. The water started to drain from the chamber.

  “What in the name of all the galaxies did you just do to me?” Megatron asked him.

  “I transferred some of the Matrix’s energy directly into your system.”

  “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “Neither did I. I played a hunch.”

  “Extreme risk taking,” Megatron said as he shifted back to robot mode. “I can still feel the energy. It’s like I’m fully charged again. We make a great team, librarian.”

  “Don’t push your luck.” Optimus looked through the smoking hole to see an underground passage, half filled with water, in which floated hundreds of scorched Piranhacons.

  “Where do you think that goes?” Megatron asked.

  “I don’t know.” Optimus glanced up at the top of the pit hundreds of meters above, where Sharkticons already were sta
rting to peer down. “But I do know this: Anyplace is better than here.”

  SIDESWIPE LET THE ARK THUNDER OUT TOWARD DEEP space. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to just keep going, to get this accursed planet behind him. But he wasn’t listening to instinct right now. He had a plan, and he was going to stick to that plan. What mattered was the planetary ring they were about to roar past, the one that housed the weaponry that had crippled the ship earlier. Right now that ring was crackling with energy that seemed to be linked to whatever was going on down on the planet.

  Not for much longer, though.

  Sideswipe keyed the intercom. “All hands, prepare for action,” he said.

  “Ready when you are,” said Sunstreaker’s voice over the speakers.

  Sideswipe opened fire. Heavy lasers ripped against the ring, and then a bracket of torpedoes hit home. The ring lit up with thunderous explosions.

  THE POWER READINGS IN THE CURATOR’S INNER SANCTUM began fluctuating wildly. The Curator looked from screen to screen in near panic. Had he made a miscalculation regarding the power matrix? Had the circuitry overloaded? Had one of the batteries blown?

  The truth was far worse.

  “Lord Curator, we are under attack!” Xeros yelled.

  “What? Impossible!”

  But the cameras showed otherwise. The first and most powerful of the planetary rings had just sustained fatal blows from the Ark. Even as the Curator and Xeros stared, the ring began to crumble into its component pieces. Very soon the planet of Aquatron would be the proud owner of a brand new asteroid belt.

  “Those treacherous dogs!” the Curator snarled. But he took heart from knowing that the Autobot attack had come too late. Tyrannicon and his legions already had crossed through the space bridge. The invasion of Cybertron was under way, and there were now more than enough Sharkticon forces there to conquer the entire planet, ravaged and divided as it was by civil war. That meant the Curator could focus on problems closer to home.

  “Target all gunnery on the Ark,” he hissed.

  “Yes, lord!” Xeros began reeling off the necessary orders.