“What are your orders?” the Sharkticons asked.
“My orders are to shut up for just a moment,” Megatron told them. He studied the various readouts in the control center. The screens were all broken now, but enough of the instrument readouts remained to show him how Xeros had been orchestrating the Sharkticons’ movements from this location. It was like being handed a gift from Unicron himself. Megatron used the command override provided to him by the Sharkticon Matrix and proceeded to issue new orders to his fishy legions. He listened over the speakers with satisfaction as the word spread. There was only one being that could stop him now. Megatron worked the controls of the elevator car to bring it adjacent to a wall. A door opened. He turned to his new minions.
“Find the Curator and kill him!”
“As you command, lord!” Sharkticons stumbled over one another in a mad rush to fulfill the wishes of their new ruler. Megatron decided to stay in the inner sanctum so that he could monitor the situation. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if the Curator still had a few tricks left to play. Megatron knew better than to underestimate an enemy who had been planning for this moment for millions of years. Particularly since none of the Sharkticons knew where their former leader was.
The now-deceased Xeros wasn’t any help, either. Megatron hadn’t bothered to torture him because he figured there were more reliable ways to get information. After the Sharkticons’ devouring of every part of the Quintesson except his head, Megatron had personally searched through the circuitry in his skull only to discover that he hadn’t known where the bridge was or that the Curator had wiped that information from his memory banks. The Curator kept his operations very compartmentalized indeed. But the bridge couldn’t be far away. And when the Sharkticons found it, Megatron would be heading there, too. In the meantime, he worked the consoles and gave orders to Sharkticons all across Hydratron, humming as he did so an old song he’d learned as a fighter in the gladiator maze beneath Kaon:
Come out, come out, wherever you are …
KUP COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS EYES. THE SHARKTICON cannons aimed at the Ark were suddenly lowering their trajectory, all of them pointing at a single target. For the briefest of moments he thought that it was Superion—that the giant robot was about to wither under the rain of laser blasts—but then he realized they had in mind something entirely different.
Commander Gnaw.
As the lasers struck him, he and his gigantic sea turtle caught fire. Kup doubted he even knew what had hit him. The Sharkticon subcommander disintegrated entirely; the guns switched off, and Kup realized that all the Sharkticons were making themselves scarce: swimming away, diving beneath the surface, withdrawing from the fight. Victory had been theirs for the taking, and they were throwing it away like they no longer cared.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” Rodimus said.
“Who’s arguing?” Kup said as the Ark fired its retros and floated in.
OPTIMUS SAT ASTRIDE THE SILVER BACK OF THE MASSIVE whale-bot as it dived deep into the sea. Moments before he had thought he was a goner. But at the last moment, the creature had swerved aside, losing all interest in consuming him. Optimus had grabbed onto one of its fins, hoping to hitch a ride back to the island above him.
But instead the creature began talking to him.
“Who are you?” it asked. The voice was deep, reverberating through the vibration in its metal, but it sounded like it was talking in Optimus’s ear anyway. He realized he could communicate back through radio.
“My name is Optimus Prime,” he said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Leviacon.” There was a pause, then: “But I did not know that until you just asked it. I have the strangest feeling that I just woke up.”
“The Quintessons enslaved you.”
“The who?”
“Listen,” Optimus said. “What are you doing down here, anyway?”
“Swimming,” Leviacon said. “It’s what I do best. In fact, I never want to do anything else.”
“I mean, what were your orders?”
“Orders?”
“Someone told you to be here, Leviacon. The same someone who controlled you up until a few minutes ago. I need you to try to remember.”
“I seem to remember … something about defending a place. Somewhere below here.”
Optimus thought about that. “How far down is the lake bed?”
“Two miles.”
It all made sense now. Beneath the lake bed was a far better place for the space bridge infrastructure than in the floating city overhead. It would be much more secure; even if a bomb entirely destroyed the city-island, the space bridge would be safe. And two miles of water meant that creatures like the one he was riding could provide an additional layer of defense. He wondered why these bots weren’t under Megatron’s control now. Perhaps because the Decepticon leader hadn’t known about them, hadn’t given them any orders.
“Do you mind taking me down there?” he asked.
“No problem,” said the Leviacon, and plunged into the depths.
Chapter Forty-two
CYBERTRON
WHEELJACK BRACED HIMSELF AS ALPHA TRION HIT THE detonation button. It’s been real, he thought to himself …
And realized he was still thinking.
Alpha Trion hit the button again. But once again nothing happened.
Tyrannicon laughed and held up a second device. “Ever heard of a wireless jammer?” he asked.
“How did you hack our frequencies?” Shockwave muttered.
“Same way I hacked everything else, Shockwave—thanks to you. My masters have been studying this planet’s datanet by looking over your shoulder. Surely you’ve realized that by now.”
“You’re lying,” Shockwave said. “Ratbat gave you the codes.”
“You want to blame all this on me?” Ratbat asked.
“I can certainly try.”
“You’re in denial,” Springer said.
“I know traitors when I see them.”
Tyrannicon smiled mirthlessly. “Ratbat may have given me the keys to the city, but you gave us the keys to the planet, Shockwave.”
Ultra Magnus turned to Shockwave. “Don’t you get it? You’ve destroyed us all.”
“And here I was thinking Alpha Trion was the one trying to blow us up.”
“He was trying to make sure our precious data didn’t fall into enemy hands,” said Maccadam. “Which he wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t let these monsters in.”
“And I suppose that’s the other reason you’ve lost,” Tyrannicon said. “You Cybertronians just can’t stop bickering among yourselves, can you? A bunch of children is what you are.”
“Go slag yourself,” Rack n’ Ruin retorted eloquently.
“Funny you should say that,” said Tyrannicon. “Because that’s what I’ve been turning your planet into. Now are you going to surrender, or would you rather go down in a blaze of glory?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Ultra Magnus said. The Wreckers brought their guns up—
But as they did so, the Sharkticons around Tyrannicon suddenly went haywire.
Two of them leaped at Tyrannicon, who easily countered their blows before finishing them off with his fists. Some of the others started attacking one another. Others just ran in all directions. As the Wreckers shot down the ones dashing forward into the Hall of Records, Tyrannicon and Ratbat took to their heels, sprinting back up the stairs. Strategic retreats were an option of last resort, but having one’s forces lose it so completely certainly qualified. The Wreckers got off a couple rounds in Tyrannicon’s direction, but he was gone too fast for anything to strike home decisively.
Then the Hall of Records was silent once more.
“Will someone tell me what just happened?” Springer asked.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Wheeljack replied.
“Well,” said Rack n’ Ruin, “whatever it is, it’s still going on upstairs.”
He was right. The combat in th
e city above them had started back up, but the only audible weapons were Sharkticon ones. It sounded like a total free-for-all.
“Primus has intervened to save us,” Alpha Trion said slowly.
Wheeljack looked skeptical. “What, you mean he’s risen up out of the core?”
“Nothing so direct. We can’t pretend to understand how he works, save that it is as mysterious as it is miraculous. But I sense long chains of events that stretch across this galaxy and back.”
“So in other words, you have no idea,” Rack n’ Ruin said.
“You don’t talk like that to a Prime,” Ultra Magnus warned.
“He can say whatever he wants to,” said Alpha Trion. “He’s earned that right.”
“Hey,” Springer said, “where’s Shockwave?”
They looked around. There was no sign of him.
Maccadam sighed. “He must have fled deeper into the archives.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Wheeljack asked. “Let’s go after him.”
They did just that, fanning out as they went, but Alpha Trion already knew they were just going through the motions. They weren’t going to find Shockwave. This place was riddled with secret passages, and Shockwave probably knew at least half of them. No, the scientist had gotten away again, had once more managed to salvage the thing that mattered most to him: his own hide. But as to whether he was going to salvage the overall situation on Cybertron, not if the Wreckers had anything to say about it. Fittingly, it was Ultra Magnus who called the search off.
“Let’s get back up to the surface,” he said. “No sense in staying here.”
* * *
THE SURFACE WAS THE LAST PLACE TYRANNICON WANTED to be.
“Take me to Shockwave’s tower,” he told Ratbat.
“I think we might stand a better chance of survival in the undercity,” that bot replied.
“There is no we,” Tyrannicon said. “But you’ll stand a better chance of survival if you do exactly what I say. Now, where’s the best route to the tower?”
Ratbat showed him. It wasn’t that far, particularly since Ratbat had the necessary security clearances to take shortcuts and avoid setting off the automatic defenses. He led Tyrannicon through some maintenance ducts that once had serviced the Energon pools and then headed beneath the vaults whose contents—or lack thereof—had caused Shockwave so much anguish. In short order they were in the basements below the tower. All the guards had fled. The Sharkticons hadn’t reached the place yet. Tyrannicon was trying to raise his officers on the com-link, but he hadn’t had any success. His mind was working overtime trying to figure out what was going on.
“Shockwave’s elevator,” he said. “Where is it?”
“Right here,” said Ratbat. Tyrannicon stepped in and then stopped Ratbat from following him.
“I’ll take it from here,” he said.
“Are you going to kill Shockwave?” Ratbat asked.
Tyrannicon looked puzzled for a moment but then started to laugh. “I’m not interested in him. Wherever he’s gone, he’s nowhere near his tower. He’ll have made himself scarce. And I suggest you do the same.”
Ratbat nodded agreement as the elevator door slid shut. As the elevator carried Tyrannicon upward, he wondered why he hadn’t killed the slimy little bot. Was he starting to go soft? More likely, he had too many other things to worry about. He needed more data. That his Sharkticons would mutiny … it was unthinkable. But then again, it couldn’t be mutiny. It was something far worse. They’d gone absolutely berserk. The elevator doors opened, and he emerged onto the roof of the tower, the city stretching below him. What he saw confirmed his worst suspicions. His once-great fleet was a complete shambles. Manta rays were on fire everywhere, and the ones that weren’t were busy turning their guns against one another, ramming one another, running down Sharkticon platoons as though they weren’t all on the same side. They were on no one’s side now. Someone had messed with their programming.
But there was no one on this planet capable of doing that.
That meant that someone had sent an override across the space bridge. Perhaps the Curator had been overthrown by Xeros. It seemed unlikely, but even if it was so, why would it have changed the basic strategy? An override transmitted over the space-time distortion of a space bridge was incredibly dangerous. Even if someone back on Aquatron was attempting to assert control over the Sharkticons here, he ought to have known better than to try it from halfway across the galaxy. It could lead to exactly the pandemonium that he was witnessing. As far as Tyrannicon could tell, he was the only member of his army who was not affected.
That didn’t surprise him, because the truth of the matter was that he wasn’t conditioned: his leading of military campaigns depended on his maintaining complete tactical initiative. He would have been useless to the Quintessons as a mindless slave. Instead, he was their finest creation. Whereas the Sharkticons had been a race forced into servitude, Tyrannicon was the product of Quintesson science, engineered to be the leader of a captive race. Xeros might have doubted his reliability, but that was his fear talking, for the Curator never had. No, at least until now Tyrannicon had been utterly reliable, literally built to lead Sharkticon armies wherever the Quintessons might deem. That didn’t mean he liked the Quintessons, of course. He didn’t have to like them. He just recognized strength when he saw it.
But right now he saw chaos all around him.
Tyrannicon knew where his duty lay. Cybertron was no longer the priority. As he suspected, the roof of the tower contained Shockwave’s personal ship, loaded with enough fuel to reach anywhere on the planet. And Tyrannicon knew exactly where he needed to go.
ULTRA MAGNUS AND HIS TEAM SAW SHOCKWAVE’S SHIP roar overhead and speed off toward the south. They had a clear view of Tyrannicon at the controls.
“Maybe he killed Shockwave,” Wheeljack said.
“I doubt it,” said Ultra Magnus. “I suspect he’s got other things on his mind.”
The Wreckers had made it back to the surface of Iacon fairly easily. It was straightforward enough to keep a low profile while they snuck out, since everyone was more than a little preoccupied. Crazed Sharkticons continued to fight Decepticons and one another, but their numbers were thinning rapidly. Most of the city was burning. The only structure that didn’t seem to have sustained much damage was Shockwave’s tower. The Wreckers watched from the now-deserted southern wall as the stolen ship vanished over the horizon.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Springer asked. Wheeljack pulled a piece of a Sharkticon mace out of his armor while he mulled it over. Truth be told, he was just as confused as everybody else.
“It doesn’t make any sense. They had us all dead to rights.”
For the first time that day Alpha Trion actually smiled. “Their plan to make our world theirs failed. That’s all we need to know for now. The rest will surely reveal itself in due time.”
“Speaking of time,” Springer said, “right now we’ve got to get out of here before the Deceptigoons regroup and come looking for a fight.”
Ultra Magnus’s arms transformed into two laser cannons as he prepared to take point. “Exactly,” he said. “We can’t stay here much longer. Let’s roll.”
That was when Springer noticed something.
“Hey,” he asked, “has anybody seen Rack n’ Ruin?”
SHOCKWAVE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN LUCK, BUT HE HAD TO admit that he’d been more than a little fortunate to stay alive so far. He had no idea what had happened to the invasion, but it was obviously falling apart all over the place. Something had gone badly wrong with the Quintesson plan; his relief at that fact was mitigated only by the knowledge that they’d played him like a fiddle. He was too much a scientist to remain in denial about that; obviously, his attempt to plumb the secrets of Vector Sigma had been an overreach. The worst of it was that Vector Sigma was mobile … He had spent long years tracking the computer down and finding a way to freeze it in place, but he was under no illusions that th
e catastrophe that had shaken Cybertron almost certainly would have allowed Vector Sigma to retreat farther into the depths of the planet.
Still, all wasn’t lost. The Sharkticons were beaten, and he hoped there were still enough Decepticons for him to pick up where he’d left off before the invasion: in control of the planet. As he approached his tower, he contemplated his next steps. First he’d order a search and destroy mission on Ultra Magnus before he could get too far from the city. Maybe he could even recapture Alpha Trion and resume his experiments, albeit along more straightforward lines. This time he would focus purely on that Prime. He wouldn’t try to hook him up to anything. Nothing fancy; he’d just take him apart and find out what made him tick. As he rounded a corner and walked toward his tower, he saw that it was virtually undamaged. The shells had left scars on the walls, but undoubtedly all the laboratories inside were still intact. Shockwave practically rubbed his hands together with glee; as long as he had his research, life was going to be all right. He headed in toward his tower.
Which suddenly lit up like a flaring star.
RACK N’ RUIN HAD BEEN BUSY. WHILE HE AND THE Wreckers had been searching the vaults for Shockwave, he’d taken the liberty of collecting the explosives with which they’d rigged the place. And then on the way out, while everybody had been preoccupied with rogue Sharkticons, he had managed to split off from the group and head someplace else entirely. After all, it would be a shame to let good bombs go to waste when there were still Decepticons that needed destroying.
One Decepticon in particular.
Of course he knew that the honorable Ultra Magnus would never have given him this chance at revenge if he had just come out and asked for it. Assassination just wasn’t the Autobot way. Sure, killing a Decepticon in a fair fight was smiled upon and even encouraged, but at their core they eschewed trickery and low blows. Funny how a little time in Shockwave’s lab could change a robot’s perspective on the world. He didn’t expect anyone else to understand. No doubt about it, this was one of those cases where it was better to do it and ask forgiveness later. He hummed to himself as he thumbed the detonator’s safety off and hit the button.
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