Retribution

by David J. Williams

  “NOW YOU ARE MINE,” he said, but that was when the charges Tyrannicon had been placing along his route all detonated simultaneously. This time the gambit worked perfectly as several skyscrapers collapsed on Devastator, burying him beneath thousands of tons of metal. Tyrannicon breathed a sigh of relief as he scanned the rubble, and then he clambered down. But as he reached the ground—

  “Congratulations,” said a voice.

  Tyrannicon looked down to see a bot with batlike wings, very sharp teeth, and a devious smile on his face.

  “I’m Ratbat,” he said. “Commander of the city garrison.”

  “What garrison?” Tyrannicon said. He raised his trident—

  “Wait,” said Ratbat.

  “Better talk fast.”

  “To continue your massacre would merely deprive you of valuable slaves.” Tyrannicon frowned. “You are going to need slaves, aren’t you?”

  “Some,” the Sharkticon leader replied. “Are you volunteering?”

  “I’m volunteering to order the garrison to surrender.”

  “And what else?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “Not really.”

  “What if I could tell you where Shockwave is?”

  “What about the bot they call Alpha Trion?”

  “Him, too.” Ratbat hesitated, thinking fast. “There’s two places left that matter. All you have to do is check them both.”

  Tyrannicon grinned. “Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

  WHEELJACK FELT ILL. THE ARCHIVES CONTAINED ALL the information ever compiled across the long history of Cybertron: every scrap of data, every particle of knowledge. Regardless of their differences, all Cybertronians had the same history—the history that was held in these rooms.

  Now Alpha Trion was proposing to erase it all forever.

  But Ultra Magnus and Maccadam had both agreed to his proposal immediately. The team of Wreckers had gotten rapidly to work, rigging charges throughout the labyrinth. When they detonated, they weren’t just going to destroy the Hall of Records; they would take half of Iacon with them.

  Not that there would be much left of Iacon by now, anyway. They could hear the rumble of the Sharkticon juggernauts above them, drawing ever closer. Alpha Trion had declared that he would sooner forswear Primus than allow the Quintessons to capture the knowledge of the Cybertronian people. No one had disagreed. All of them knew it was their own deaths they were undertaking. They would perish in the explosion; there was no doubt about that. And Wheeljack had to admit that at this point he wouldn’t have it any other way. Better to die cleanly than live under Quintesson slavery or, even worse, be given to the Sharkticons as playthings. Wheeljack attached one final charge, then went back to join the others in the main hall. On the way, he met Springer.

  “Looks like this is it,” he said to his old comrade.

  Springer grinned wanly. “You always knew we weren’t going to die of natural causes.”

  “Didn’t expect it to be under these circumstances, though.”

  “Hey, if we’re going to go out, we may as well do it with a bang.”

  “You got that right, friend. It’s been an honor.”

  “Maybe there’ll be an afterlife where we can kick Decepticon tail forever.”

  But Wheeljack wasn’t really in the mood for jokes. They reached the main hall to find the others waiting.

  “Everything ready?” Ultra Magnus asked.

  Everybody nodded. Ultra Magnus picked up the detonator, but Alpha Trion shook his head.

  “The responsibility is mine,” he said. Ultra Magnus handed him the detonator. Alpha Trion took it and looked at all those gathered.

  “I want to thank all of you,” he said quietly. “And seek your pardon that it’s come to this.”

  “There’s no need to say that,” Ultra Magnus told him.

  “I disagree,” Alpha Trion said. He flipped the fail-safe off the detonator. But just as he was about to hit the button, the doors to the Hall of Records flew open.

  Shockwave stood there, several bodyguards crowding behind him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled.

  “Blowing this place sky high,” Ultra Magnus replied.

  “You’re going to destroy our sacred Hall of Records?”

  “Like you hold anything sacred,” Rack n’ Ruin snarled.

  For once Shockwave had no quick rejoinder. Instead he seemed to be genuinely upset. He entered the room and looked around, his gaze flickering from database to database. When he spoke next, his voice approached the desperate.

  “There must be something in here that can save us.”

  “All the history in the world cannot give us a future,” Alpha Trion said.

  Shockwave looked like he wanted to rip the Prime’s head from his shoulders. “I should have guessed, Alpha Trion. Our people are being wiped out, and all you’ve got to dispense are more of your stupid aphorisms.”

  “You say that as though you think I’m the one who set all this in motion,” Alpha Trion said calmly.

  “You did, you senile idiot.”

  “Because I failed to persuade you to listen to me?”

  “Because you emptied out the vault!” Shockwave turned to Ultra Magnus. “Where I’ve just come from! Do you realize what was in there? Artifacts of the Primes that might have allowed us to defeat the invasion!”

  Ultra Magnus was impassive. “And how do you know Alpha Trion—”

  “Because the records of the vault show it,” Alpha Trion said. Everyone looked at him in astonishment. “It is true. I cast the artifacts in the vault into space long ago. Back when the Autobots left the planet and the Decepticons took over. Because I could not allow such a precious cargo to fall into the hands of a maniac like Shockwave.”

  The scientist could do little more than splutter furiously. “And now you have consigned this planet to maniacs like—”

  “Me,” said a voice.

  Tyrannicon stood in the doorway, scores of Sharkticons crowding behind him. The invasion leader was battered and covered with the oil of those he’d killed. He looked every inch the conqueror of Cybertron. The fact that the diminutive Ratbat was standing beside him did not diminish that image in the slightest.

  “I suggest you surrender now,” Tyrannicon said.

  Ultra Magnus shook his head. “We will fight you to the last—”

  “You are the last,” Tyrannicon told him. He gestured at Ratbat. “This bot has already been kind enough to surrender the city to me.”

  “You traitor,” Shockwave shrieked.

  “On the contrary,” said Ratbat, “you are the traitor. Tyrannicon has made me temporary governor of all Cybertron.”

  “The key word in that sentence is temporary,” Ultra Magnus muttered.

  “Wait a second,” said Ratbat. “Let’s not be too hasty.”

  Alpha Trion held up the detonator. “Long live Cybertron,” he said.

  And pressed the button.

  Chapter Forty-one

  AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS WERE HUDDLED IN THE crippled Nemesis, firing from open hatches and portholes. The ship was floating right now but slowly taking on water through the holes it had sustained during the crash. It wasn’t going to stay above the surface for long. Nor was what remained of the city, for that matter. The tops of a few buildings still protruded above the surface; Sharkticon heavy guns had been set up there and were blasting down at the Cybertronians. Superion stood next to the spaceship, up to his waist in water, firing wildly as Sharkticons crawled all over him in an effort to bring him down by sheer force of numbers. Gnaw’s battle turtle was making a beeline for him. On top of the Nemesis, Kup, Rodimus, and Bumblebee were blazing away at it.

  “Looks like this is it,” Kup said.

  “Never say die,” said Rodimus.

  Bumblebee chirped and beeped and pointed. Rodimus and Kup looked up to see—

  “The Ark,” Rodimus said.

  Like a gigantic bird of prey, it ro
ared down from the sky, evading the missiles that streaked in toward it. Though he should have been jubilant, Rodimus watched its approach with a sinking heart. He knew what Sideswipe was trying to do: get them off the planet with or without Optimus. But it was a suicide run: The Ark was far less maneuverable than the Aerialbots. Already the guns on the city towers were tracking it, lining up their target. At this range they couldn’t miss.

  MEGATRON CONVULSED.

  As soon as he slotted the device inside his chest, it began to consume him. It was as if his whole torso was on fire; heat radiated out along his arms and down his legs, rising up into his head, setting his brain alight.

  He fell to the ground gasping, struggling to maintain his sanity.

  “Megatron!” Optimus yelled.

  “Stay back,” Megatron gasped. He felt like he was fighting for his very life now, as if he was going to explode any second and scatter pieces of himself all over the room. Was this how Optimus had felt when he received his Matrix? No, Optimus had had it easy. Optimus always had it easy. Then again, Optimus had been given a real Matrix. Perhaps this really was a fake. For the first time it occurred to Megatron that he might have made a mistake, that he might be in his death throes even now. All of existence was shrinking to a single point, all his past and future bound up in a single present moment—but in that point was clarity. This wasn’t the Decepticon Matrix of Leadership.

  It was something else entirely.

  Suddenly it all made sense. All the runes, all the cave drawings, everything that had happened up till now; all of it clicked into place like the turning of a great key. This was his moment. He was on this planet for a reason. The Quintessons had tampered with Matrix technology, but in so doing they had created a device whose purpose even they didn’t fully understand, a device whose repercussions would shake the universe. Insight blasted through Megatron’s head, practically frying his circuitry, as he took it all in: The cosmos spun around him, the eons spread out before him, the epic struggle between Primus and Unicron that had spawned the Thirteen, that had given rise to the Cybertronians themselves.

  As well as the Sharkticons.

  For Aquatron was one of the lost Cybertronian colonies, after all.

  Only it had never shaken off its Quintesson rule and thus had been lost to history. The knowledge was as clear to Megatron as if Unicron himself had spoken in his ear. Or Primus—he no longer cared who was saying what, because the heat in him was intensifying further. He was melting from deep within. His steel was turning molten. From somewhere far away he heard Optimus yelling at him to remove the abomination from his chest, and he dimly wondered what Optimus was referring to. He saw Xeros frantically punching buttons on the console and laughed to see such flailing impotence. He saw the roof fall in, saw the Sharkticons dropping into the room.

  Then he couldn’t see a thing—the object in his chest was glowing so brightly that it was blinding him. Or maybe his optics were gone. Maybe he would never see again. Something was building up inside him, wreaking havoc on his circuits, rewiring his alt-modes, playing hell with his mind, building up until he couldn’t take it anymore, until he was ready to—

  Energy poured out of him with a clap of thunder that shattered every screen in the room, hurling the Sharkticons, Optimus, and Xeros back into the walls. For a moment all was still.

  Then Megatron slowly got to his feet and laughed.

  For now he was reconstructed.

  Vibrant blue and red had become the blue-purple of this planet’s people. His chest plate now resembled the head of a giant open-mouthed Sharkticon, frozen in an open snarl, showing row after row of teeth. His armor had been augmented by razor-sharp scales that glittered even in the dim light of this chamber. Huge fins protruded from his forearms, and his eyes glowed a horrifying deep sea green.

  It was Optimus who broke the stunned silence.

  “Megatron …? Is that you?”

  “Yes, librarian. It is I.” Megatron crossed the room and took Optimus by the shoulders. Optimus looked at his old nemesis with a mixture of awe and fear, but as Megatron made contact with him, something happened: Optimus’s Matrix stopped broadcasting gibberish. The Quintesson influence that had corrupted it dissolved like shadow before sunlight. Whatever steps the Curator was taking to control Optimus had failed, just as he had failed to anticipate Megatron’s sudden mutation—a mutation driven by Megatron’s own impulsiveness and arrogance. Optimus was about to thank Megatron when his old adversary reached out and placed his finger on his lips as though to hush him.

  “I told you the power would be mine,” he said. “Our conflict is at an end, Prime. Good-bye, my brother.”

  Before Optimus could react, Megatron hefted Optimus over his head and hurled him straight through the wall of the command center, sending him plunging to his doom down the endless shaft. Then he turned to Xeros, who backed away, a terrified expression on his face. Xeros had been ready to face death. But this was something far worse.

  “Who … who are you?” the stunned scientist asked.

  Megatron thought about it. He wasn’t sure yet. All he was sure of was the new power coursing through his circuitry. He felt as if he were one with all the life on Aquatron. Perhaps that was what bots meant when they said until we are all one. Perhaps they’d been talking about him all along. He saw another wave of Sharkticons pour into the room through the ripped-up ceiling, heard Xeros ordering them to kill him.

  “No,” Megatron said, turning to them.

  The Sharkticons stopped, stared, and then knelt, row after row.

  Xeros could not believe what he was seeing. The programming he and the Curator had created to control the Aquatronians had collapsed. The law of unintended consequences had played the cruelest joke of all. No longer would Sharkticons or any of the other people of this planet worship faraway Quintesson gods.

  Because now their god was far closer.

  “You can’t,” he heard himself say. “It’s not possible! You’re not supposed to—”

  “Don’t talk to me of possible,” Megatron said. “Instead talk to me of last words.”

  “What?”

  “And here I was expecting something more eloquent.” Megatron stepped out of the way and let his Sharkticons rush forward and eat their fill.

  OPTIMUS PLUMMETED DOWN THE SHAFT. HE WAS TOO far from either side to grab hold of anything; all he could see was blackness beneath him, and all he could hear was the whistle of the wind as he fell. So this is it, he thought. After all this time, Megatron had been right and he had been wrong. Though he hated to think of what Megatron would do with his newfound power. The only solace Optimus could take was that the Matrix was at last free of Quintesson manipulation. In his last moments, he let his mind go, basked in the Matrix, gave himself over to it completely …

  And all at once his mind filled with light.

  He was back on Iacon in the Chamber of the High Council, only it was the way the chamber had looked millions of years ago, before the Golden Age. It was as if he was gazing at one of the pictures he’d seen in the ancient tomes of the archives, but now he was inside that image, a part of it. Thirteen shadowy figures were seated in thrones around the room. Optimus decided they were there to show his Spark the way. All his fear was swept aside in the consolation that at least his experience would be added to the ancient collection, his advice would inform future leaders, future Primes …

  It is not your time, Optimus Prime.

  The voice came from all around. Optimus saw that the thirteen figures had vanished. All that was visible was a glowing light, and out of that light came a voice he had heard only once before, back at the core of Cybertron …

  You have yet to fulfill your destiny. It is not yet time for you to pass on this burden. You are exactly where you should be.

  “But—”

  Now go. Until all are one.

  Optimus opened his eyes to find that he was still tumbling down the shaft. He’d hoped that he’d be miraculously transported els
ewhere, but there were no miracles to be found here. Just the strength to live or die as required. Now the bottom of the shaft was dimly visible, rushing up toward him. At the last moment, Optimus realized it wasn’t solid at all.

  It was water.

  Even so, the impact would have shattered a lesser bot. He plunged into it, sinking downward, away from a metal hull that stretched out in all directions—and he realized in that moment that the island that he’d been in and that housed the capital city of Hydratron was actually nothing of the kind; it was a huge machine that floated on the surface of the lake. But topographical niceties didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that he was continuing to sink fast. As he struggled to get his bearings, he turned to see an enormous pair of jaws closing in on him.

  THE SHARKTICONS THAT HAD SURVIVED THE FALL AND chewed their way into the command center fell to their knees in front of their new god-king. They chanted that they had been delivered, that their liberator had come down from the stars and set them free of the yoke of Quintesson oppression. But most of all they chanted a single name:

  “MEGATRON! MEGATRON! MEGATRON!”

  Megatron basked in the adulation for a few moments. It was even better than it was with the Decepticons, because their loyalty was so total. There was no Starscream among these subjects. None of them were plotting against him. They were ready to do whatever he ordered without question.

  “Rise,” he said. They rose as one. “You owe your freedom to me and me alone. And now you will serve me and me alone.”

  “As you command!” they replied in unison. Megatron smiled. With both Sharkticons and Decepticons at his back and Optimus no longer a factor, he would lead an army that could subjugate entire galaxies. A new force for a new age, ruled by Megatron and Megatron alone. But first things first; he had to subjugate Aquatron, and then he would complete the invasion of Cybertron under his own rule. With the space bridge open, he wouldn’t need to rely on overambitious lieutenants like Shockwave anymore.