Fic! Renewal, Part Eight
Keller took out the PDA and activated it to call Rattlelatch. The minibot peered back quizzically. "Sorry, sir, I don't have anything new for you yet."
"That's fine. I have a new job for you. I need you to hack ARROW headquarters and get some doors open."
"ARROW..?" Rattlelatch grimaced. "They've got some nasty stuff in their firewall." When he received a hard stare, he added in a mumble, "Um, I was bored one day..."
"Just do it. Powerglide is in trouble. Simmons!"
Again Reggie and Will traded places on the screen. "Sir?"
"This is the second thing today that looks to be all Sector Seven's fault. I want a list of your personal inventory and anything else you even suspect anyone in that organization was hiding under a rug, mattress, or national monument -- before anything else blows up in our faces!"
Renewal - Part Eight
In Washington there was no speculation on what was going on at Edwards.
There was panic.
Calls were being made, orders were being issued, countermeasures were being planned. They couldn't get through to the base to demand an explanation. It all served to prove Reggie Simmons right. Keller couldn't believe the man had managed to do what entire agencies could not. On the other hand, he was glad to have him on their side with a great deal of the history of Sector Seven at his disposal. It was more than he could say for other former agents.
~*~
Earlier...
"Lady and gentlemen, it's on us to save the world again."
After Simmons had rattled off his list of findings, Keller stared solemnly at the screen. "Are you absolutely certain of this?"
"Absolutely, sir."
"You understand the repercussions if we act on this information?"
"I do, sir. I'd stake my life on it."
Keller exhaled through his nose and glanced to the others. Epps both looked like he had been punched and like he wanted to punch someone, which was understandable given that this all showed that his department had been ineffectual. Maggie seemed to be mentally planning for her role. Glen, again, appeared to be sadly out of place.
"Personally," Simmons offered, "I'm glad no one was able to activate all of the experiments back at the old HQ. Half an army of anti-giant alien robot civvies is bad enough."
"But most of them are civilians, right?" Epps asked. "What do these people plan to do next if they manage to kick the 'Bots and 'Cons off the planet? Go back to their lives and expect us to just let it pass?"
"Most of them are," Reggie answered. "Some are former Sector Seven members. Low-level guys, at least. The remaining Five are still integrated elsewhere."
"I've got another question," Maggie piped up. "What do those people expect to do if more of either faction show up?"
They all traded grim looks. Glen snapped out of his daze. "I'll do you one better: What'll they do if both factions come wanting to get revenge for the guys that got destroyed?"
"We might find out," Keller said darkly. "Epps, Celzer, when we're done here I need you to head upstairs." The two men nodded. "You." He turned to the screen and pointed at Simmons. "You alert me the second you come up with the slightest iota of anything useful."
He was answered with a salute. "Yessir."
"Ms. Madsen--" He turned to the two hackers. "We're going to need your partner."
"About him," Simmons interjected, partially raising a hand to get Maggie's attention. "Prowl wants to know if there's any new data on Bombshell or the other bug. We're on the lookout and waiting to hear if anything has happened to turn up at Autobase."
"We're still working on cracking the second one. There's a lot of kickback on the lines."
"Gotcha. We'll leave it at that. Bigger stuff to do now." He nodded to Keller.
The Secretary of Defense was staring hard at the far wall in thought, trying to decide what further resources they could call on. Everything he could think of was in the hands of the person he had thought he could trust with it. "Blasted Sector Seven secrets," he muttered. He glared at Reggie even though he wasn't the actual target of his ire. "At least tell me there isn't some super weapon gleaned from Megatron that was in mothballs somewhere."
"None. That I know of. But believe me, sir, if there was anything else I could think of, I'd have told you. The Old Man's secrets are mine."
"Then let's hope Banachek doesn't have some of his own." Keller looked around at his latest team. "Let's get to work, people, and stop these turkeys before they hurt someone."
~*~
Currently...
Maggie had not been surprised by how fast a room with Cybertronian access had been set up. Granted, Rattlelatch had needed to drive inside, but there had been enough space in the room itself for him to transform.
Glen had stared at her in consternation. "You never told me your new car was one of them!"
All she could do was shrug. "It was confidential."
"Yeah, whatever. Someone still owes me a phone."
The Autobot was now seated in the middle of the floor, using a keyboard built into his arm while several cables ran out from his personal hardware to the computers on opposite sides where she, Glen, and two official NSA agents were working. Their job was to hack into the Edwards base's system and stop the launch of any major weaponry, as well as try to ground to a halt any operations related to the takeover and intercept communications linked to the group.
At the moment they were attempting to crack base security with Rattlelatch's code leading. He had been the one to set up the advanced protection for the government, but it looked like someone had come along who knew how to modify it even further. This, in turn, irritated the minibot. Maggie couldn't remember if she had ever seen him truly angry. Of course, she could appreciate a hacker who didn't like anyone messing with his code.
"Glen, can you run a bypass over two-five-Q-eight?" Rattlelatch called out.
"Override twenty-six S?"
"You got it."
"On it."
Maggie smiled. Those two were getting along perfectly. When this crazy mess was over she didn't doubt Glen would ask to hang out with her and her car more. Maybe after this he would be inducted into the NSA service, too. She left off that thought as a stream of data scrolled up on her screen. "ISOC? Looks like I've got their intelligence mandate..." Her fingers clicked over keys as she tried to dig further into the files. "No, nevermind. It's turning out to be gibberish, except for these letters. ISOC," she repeated, glancing at the senior analyst.
"Send it to Epps," the older woman replied, looking over from her own station. "It might give him something more to go off of."
"Send it here, too, Mags," Rattlelatch said. "I can see if there's anything under the gibberish." She nodded and did both requests. Rattlelatch's optics moved back and forth as if he was reading something. "What the heck? This isn't like any coding of mine or even Decepticon work. It looks like..." He stopped cold.
Maggie turned in her chair, eying him with trepidation. "What, 'Latch?"
He started typing furiously on his keyboard. "I've seen something like this before, used by a Cybertronian borrowing from another race. I wouldn't expect him to use it twice, but I guess he thought you would never be able to crack it... Almost got confirmation. Yes. Frag. Swindle."
Glen now turned as well. "And that means, what?"
"It's his name. I used to deal with him before -- uh, before I joined the Autobots. He's a tech dealer and is amazingly good at convincing any given being that they need what he's got to sell. But he's more a Decepticon than a Neutral, so I don't know why he would dare to associate with anything involving destruction of high-ranking Decepticons unless he thinks something big will work in his favor, because I doubt he has use for anythi..."
"'Latch?"
"Sector Seven tech," he responded grimly. "Banachek has something Swindle wants. It could explain this whole apparent betrayal." He looked pained for a moment. "Could explain where all those people got the nerve to do this, too. But I have no idea what he could possibly want."
"We could ask Simmons," Maggie said. "And we need to tell Secretary Keller now."
~*~
"I want another C-130 on standby. Track down the first one, stat!" Keller gripped the railing of the walkway above the monitoring room as he waited for reports. He was still irritated that Tom Banachek was behind the base takeover. All he had to go on was evidence presented by Simmons because no new information had come out of Edwards yet. The thought that Banachek had enough people on his side to infiltrate and take over a U.S. military base disturbed the Secretary of Defense to no end. Had they even needed to infiltrate it? Had the personnel on base been in agreement with Banachek when he showed up, possibly claiming a matter of national security? ARROW had been given some power in that manner in order to collect foreign artifacts, and if abused, the current situation was an outcome.
"Sir," a uniformed agent presented him with a PDA. "A message from the data extraction team."
Keller activated the screen. "Please tell me you found out how they could take over an entire base without us knowing." His aggravation was clear.
"With help," Rattlelatch replied. He described Swindle and gave his suspicions.
Keller wanted to throw his hands up in exasperation. "I'm getting tired of these robots in disguise popping up everywhere! When this is over I want a device built that can tell me if something has a spark in it or not!"
"If we had one of those, sir, we would have stopped the Decepticons ages ago. You would still have to get around the ones that can mask their spark signature."
Keller scowled, not appreciating the comment regardless of unintended sarcasm. "Tell me how we can counter this Swindle character."
"I need more information first. We're trying to find any indication that he's on the base and somehow I need to confirm if he has any weapons of mass persuasion in use."
"Do it. I'll see about getting your team more eyes." He pocketed the PDA and strode toward one of the exits. He paused long enough to point at a man seated at a switchboard. "Get me the Ark. Route it to room two."
As he walked out, a security agent swift to follow, he debated the plausibility of a potential plan. Given the latest roster information, there was but one Autobot available who might be able to fly in to Edwards to create a diversion long enough for reconnaissance to get in. But only one against so many humans and their assumed to be appropriated weapons would not go well -- either people would be harmed or the Autobot would be destroyed. He needed the shock of the SOCCENT attack without the massacre.
The security agent remained outside as Keller entered the conference room. The screen was already active, with Simmons in place looking thoroughly engaged in something on a screen below the camera, the changing light playing off his features. Keller sat down and waited on confirmation of audio before speaking. "Simmons, put Prowl on and get me Lennox. See if they can patch us through to Autobase, too."
"Already here, John Keller." A smaller window opened inset on the lower left of the screen, displaying Prowl's face. "I will add Autobase to the line, although Chromia's team is still en route."
"Who's in command at the base right now?"
"Tracks."
"Good. He's who I want to talk to."
Prowl gave a nod and another small window opened on the lower right. It was dark for a few seconds, then a looped message began to scroll across it informing of an impending connection.
In the meantime, Simmons moved off screen and Lennox took his place. "Mister Secretary, sir."
"Lennox, can you contact ARROW headquarters? I need you to issue an order in Banachek's stead."
"I can try, sir." He flicked a glance in the direction Simmons had gone. "We haven't been able to get ahold of the agents still in the field, but we're fairly certain that not all of ARROW is involved."
"Affirmative." Keller held out hope that men like Breckstein were still on their side. "See if you can get through to Powerglide and let him know of the situation. If he's willing to help, we'll take it."
Lennox nodded and ducked off screen. Keller could see another Autobot moving in the background, a schematic hologram displayed above his arm as he worked to take some wires and motherboards out of a console. He didn't try to guess what it was for.
Tracks' image appeared in the second small window, but as he was offering a greeting Prowl's face suddenly changed to a look of surprise. For a moment Keller feared an attack of some sort was occurring at the Ark, then he heard a complaint from the Autobot on the main screen. "Aw, I just got all this junk out of here!" Not an attack, but some kind of project.
Prowl seemed to be smiling when he addressed the Secretary of Defense again. "We may have another addition to what I deduce is your plan. We recovered a scout shuttle from within the Ark but were uncertain if it could be made to fly under Earth's gravity. It is not yet confirmed if it can clear the atmosphere, but the test Huffer was conducting has proven that it can fly."
That might create another headache later, Keller realized, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it. "How many of you can it hold?" Size related to the amount of headache.
"Two minibots. Huffer created the modifications so he would be the best one to fly it. Windcharger would be my recommendation for accompanying fighter."
"Prowl," Tracks interrupted, "Data parameter request." In seconds the warrior's expression became one of horror as Prowl transmitted all relevant information on the matter at hand. "But -- why? I thought the humans were on our side..." He looked summarily crushed.
"Not everyone differentiates between good and evil," Keller said solemnly. "All they see are invading aliens. Even if they didn't, they could be seeing this situation as paying the cost of Autobot lives in exchange for stopping the most dangerous threat this planet has ever seen."
"Well, they could have waited until we failed first." An angry noise filled the line from Autobase.
"Easy, Tracks," Prowl warned. "This is not over yet."
"Right," Keller said, taking charge of things again albeit aware that he would now be sending a very angry, big soldier into the field. "Prowl, has Firestar arrived yet?"
"ETA twenty minutes."
"Let me know when she's ready to head out again. Tracks, how fast do you think you can reach the Ark?"
"Assuming you mean fly there, forty minutes if I push it to Mach Two."
"I do. Prowl, how fast is that shuttle?"
"In space about the equivalent of Mach Seven. Again, I cannot confirm the effect of Earth's gravity."
"Fine. Has Lennox gotten through to Powerglide yet?"
Lennox himself moved back into frame again on the main screen. There was that look of wanting to punch someone again. "Sorry, sir. There's another problem. I have ARROW HQ, and I can confirm that these guys aren't with Banachek, but they're locked out of the hangar."
"What's going on inside the hangar?"
Lennox hit a button that brought up another window, this one showing a frazzled Breckstein at the receiver and a view of a set of blast doors behind him, several ARROW agents either trying to hold them closed or get them open. There were dents of varying shapes protruding outward from the doors. "He got us out, but he's locked in with them!" Breckstein cried.
"Which them?" Keller demanded.
"The machines! The machines are revolting!"
"Sonofab--" Reggie swore from off screen. "They did activate them."
"I can't tell you who did," Breckstein said hurriedly, "But we can stop them. The weapons are inside, too, and that's why I don't think it was Powerglide who locked the doors."
Keller took out the PDA and activated it to call Rattlelatch. The minibot peered back quizzically. "Sorry, sir, I don't have anything new for you yet."
"That's fine. I have a new job for you. I need you to hack ARROW headquarters and get some doors open."
"ARROW..?" Rattlelatch grimaced. "They've got some nasty stuff in their firewall." When he received a hard stare, he added in a mumble, "Um, I was bored one day..."
"Just do it. Powerglide is in trouble. Simmons!"
Again Reggie and Will traded places on the screen. "Sir?"
"This is the second thing today that looks to be all Sector Seven's fault. I want a list of your personal inventory and anything else you even suspect anyone in that organization was hiding under a rug, mattress, or national monument -- before anything else blows up in our faces!"
~*~
Twenty minutes later at the Ark, Firestar landed and there was a rush to get Broadcast and Rhythm to the med bay. Huffer temporarily abandoned the scout shuttle to help, checking the calibration of the equipment on the two repair tables and hooking Rhythm up to a recharge feed while Moonracer had her attention on Broadcast. His spark was clearly online but his body was completely fried so she had no idea what exact condition his spark was in. When she was able to remove the dead metal and attach a monitor to his spark chamber, she could only stare at the readings. "This is off the scale! Arcee, what did he do?"
The other femme had stayed to see if she could help. "I didn't see, and Ratchet didn't have time to assess anything himself. I just acted, after Thundercracker blew up the main console connected to Megatron and they were thrown from it."
"My spark," croaked Rhythm from the other table, the gravelly voice of Jazz evident through the previously unused vocalizer. He put a hand to his throat, aware of the calibration problem, but kept trying to talk. "Our spark." He held up two fingers together, then separated them. "Gotta be."
Moonracer followed what he was saying. "He did something so that the spark ended up joined again, then when it split he ended up with a bigger share of it instead of it being equally separated. But...I cannot relieve any of the pressure. It might kill him." She walked around the table, activating various autonomous tools from the overhead medical array and getting them connected to Broadcast. "I am putting him on life support for now, it will give us time to find an option or contact Ratchet for advice, whichever comes first."
"I hope we can speak to Ratchet soon," Arcee said with apprehension. "The status of the Edwards base when we flew in was not what I would call encouraging."
Moonracer turned to a small monitor on the edge of the table and pulled up another list of readings. "Then we do our work, they do theirs. I hope Huffer's plan works." Her optics dimmed as she scrolled through the list. "His processors are intact, currently in shut down mode but I think I can bring them to stand by mode to protect the data, and so he will know he is on support and with us." After a few minutes of work she stepped back, optics dimmed again. "That's it for now. The best solution would be a whole new spark chamber, but..." She left off, glancing pointedly around the med bay at the distinct lack of completed spark chambers laying around. "Huffer could whip one up I'm sure. There is just no time right now..."
"He would understand." Arcee put a hand on her arm.
Moonracer nodded. "So we will do what we can." She turned to Rhythm-become-Jazz. "Let us start with your vocalizer and go from there."
He punched a fist into the air. "Right on."
She was sure he had plenty more to say.
Later, after Arcee had left to be debriefed by Prowl and Moonracer was gathering the needed supplies, Jazz was sitting on Broadcast's table as close as he could get without being in the way of any life support connections. It felt somewhat strange. He had been fine with being the smallest Autobot on Prime's team, yet now he was smaller than some human children.
But he was alive. His spark wasn't what it used to be, and he could feel the difference as well as feel the strain from Broadcast's uneven half. He began to wonder if they could try to join the spark again and get it to split evenly. But he knew that it could be risky, and Broadcast would have to be conscious for such an attempt.
"Y'know, bro, it kinda loses the point if you die tryin' to save me."
~*~
"Locks released at ARROW headquarters!" Rattlelatch announced to the room at large. He also used his internal connection to project his own image to Breckstein's console. "Get that mech out of there!"
The beleaguered agent had already turned, drawn by the opening blast doors. Through the continuing camera feed Rattlelatch and Keller could see the shadow of Powerglide near the entrance, deformed by the addition of numerous small, multi-legged shapes. The microphone picked up the shouts from the ARROW agents as they came to his aid.
Unlike the Secretary of Defense, Rattlelatch could refine the images and use shadows and reflections to get a better account of what was going on, and so he saw the effectiveness of the hither-to unknown "anti-cyb" guns on the small, Allspark-spawned human tech mechanoids. While he didn't know what the humans were calling the weapon, the concept left an unsettled feeling in him. He filed the data away and pulled out of ARROW's security system, leaving a digital trap behind to deter another hacking attempt. He kept one connection open so he could check on Powerglide's condition later.
He jumped right back into the Edwards mission, now armed with an idea that he put into effect as he picked up the data threads from the other stations. "Hold on, guys."
Glen lifted his hands from the keys as his work was snatched away. "Hey, don't mess with my zen like that!"
"Sorry," the Autobot apologized, "But I need to do this a while it's hot."
Glen pushed up his glasses as he tried to keep up with the coding scrolling on his screen. "Ohh. Nice!" He clappd his hands and pointed at Rattlelatch. "Crashed the party at ARROW and turned the trick on them. Dude, I love the way you think."
"Thanks. This will give us a little more time, at least. If we can't stop them right away we can jam things up to delay them, and no matter who they have helping them they won't be able to untangle this code for a while. Missile silos locked down, and...go. If we can get a bird to Tidal Wave we might get the 'Bots out before those bombers can sink the ship. Mister Secretary," he called out loud and through the personal PDA connection, "If you've got someone willing to fly it under that chance, please get the extraction underway. I'll try to stop the Lancers." He didn't mention that he would need to hack even further into the military network than he was supposedly allowed, but they wouldn't know and didn't need to be told yet. No one had seen fit to share ARROW's new weapon information, after all. Rattlelatch was of the opinion that the humans had too many subdivisions and none of them had the right security programming.
Before he could move to the next thing, a data packet slipped through from the Edwards network. He probed it for bugs, erected a firewall around it to contain it just in case, then triggered it to open. It was a file with audio and internal video. When he saw who it was from he prepared to translate it to be projected to the humans' monitors in case it was relevant.
"Heeey, 'Latch, long time no talk. I knew if you were around you would crack this. Of course, that's why I used this code. I seem to have made a miscalculation and...ah...I need your help. And the help of your friends. And any friends they have." He watched the rest of the message, made sure there were no bugs to set off at the end, then hailed Keller again.
This time he cut in on the conference screen itself to address the Ark and Autobase as well. "I have news. I... don't know how you want to take this." He replayed the video of an all-red mech with a single large lense for a head and a television monitor visible in its chest, which was playing an image of an attractive human male in a pin-striped suit -- and his lips moved in time with the words. Watching it in the room with Rattlelatch, Maggie was struck with an impression of a suave car salesman.
"So, yeah, didn't mean for a real mess to come outta this, sorry about that. Wasn't my intention. Trust me, I'm paying for it. I shoulda known better than to get too involved with a group calling themselves the Indigenous Species Only Coalition. But, hey, helping the indigenous is what I'm all about! Nevermind, you know better than that. But I am seriously in trouble and I can help you if you help me. As a show of my faith, here's some more coding to get through the defenses. Just hurry,' cause they're draining my spark. And if anyone asks, the Pearl of Bahoudin is a lie."
Rattlelatch let the humans make of that what they would. He was busy inspecting the included codes. "These codes will kill the power to the entire base," he said with satisfaction. "As long as they aren't using Swindle as a back up generator we just have to worry about the vehicles on the runway."
In the conference room Keller was still coping with Swindle's message. It gave a name to the acronym Maggie had turned up earlier, ISOC. He was most worried about what device Banachek had that could drain a Cybertronian's spark. If the rest of ISOC was in on it, genocide could be the next step if their plan was to incapacitate all those aboard Tidal Wave and use the spark drain on them. So there was a super weapon, after all. "Rattlelatch, be ready to cut the power in five minutes." He had received a communication from an authorized agent that a Company of soldiers were ready to move in on Edwards and -- hopefully -- retake it without casualties. Human or Cybertronian. "Prowl, have Firestar and Tracks move out, but hold back until deemed absolutely necessary."
"Yessir."
"Affirmative." Prowl also sent a private message to the minibot. "And Rattlelatch, please stop cutting in to the communication lines without notice. It is disconcerting."
"Sorry, sir. I considered it to be emergency data." He resented the reprimand. The humans remembered that he had programmed half the system, didn't they? He couldn't wait to go back to working on the outside with Maggie. Having to adhere to official protocols was too limiting.
That was assuming things would go back to normal after this.
An alert sounded throughout the building and a new message came up on Keller's end. "Mister Secretary! This -- jet -- just appeared out of nowhere right outside! No noise, no evidence of a landing -- one minute there was nothing, the next, there it was!" The Autobots still on the line made it their business to non-obtrusively pick up the video feed of a black F-16 with purple detailing sitting on the street. It began to transform.
In the hacking team's room, Rattlelatch went deathly still, seeming to stare at thin air while his gaze was affixed to the image on his HUD, chilled to his superstructure. He managed to open another frequency. "Trailbreaker--"
"I know, 'Latch. I'm on my way out. You keep up with what you're doing, and maybe think of a way to aid in your way after."
"B-But I'm still the only back up if you can't--"
"Focus on the task you were given."
"'Latch?" Maggie called. His frozen stare was worrying her. He lowered his head to look at her and she saw that he was scared.
Upstairs, Epps had responded to the alert by yanking off his tie. "Can I go kick some giant robot butt now?"
Another official pointed him in the direction of the defense coordinators. "Yes."
"THANK you!" He took off down the hall, itching to trade his monkey suit for real combat gear. "By the way -- I quit!"
~*~
A minute later Rattlelatch cut the power at Edwards. All systems on the base were shut down, including a particular alien device and all the back up generators. Within one building a relieved cry of, "Thank The Vok!" came from one particular P.O.W.. Meanwhile, almost everyone operating the base looked around in a daze, having trouble remembering what they had been doing a second ago. Their confusion was quickly added to when they collectively found themselves at gunpoint and being told to stand down. Logic dictated that they each surrender until someone could explain things.
Only one man wasn't effected, and he watched from a secure room in the captive's building as his plan was undone. He wasn't entirely disappointed, he had expected some resistance. He calmly walked into the hangar where Swindle was secured and released the bonds holding the Cybertronian to the wall.
Swindle rubbed his wrists, his chest screen displaying one of his human facades. "Banachek, baby, let's talk, all right? We're both men of shrewd intellect, I'm sure we can come to a reasonable agreement--"
"You're not a man. Transform now."
The Cybertronian was compelled to obey. Oh, how he hated Sector Seven. He took the form of a red sports car and although he opened his passenger side door, Tom stood by the driver's side. "I'm driving." The one door closed and Banachek opened the other for himself.
Another screen was built into the dashboard and also displayed a charming human face. "Since you've got me in this deal anyway, why don't you fill me in on how this all works -- not your crazy plan of betrayal, but how you got into manipulating Cybertron-based tech. It's not like I can tell anybody, right?"
"It isn't betrayal."
"Pardon my observation, then. I mean, I give you a means to mind control, you trick me -- me, that was good, that's why I respect you -- and you have designs on destroying a unit of Autobots, who last I checked were your allies and were counting on you to get them out of a sticky situation. That all kind of adds up to what we in the business call betrayal."
"I don't have to explain anything to you. Drive."
"There are armed troops out there."
"You're armored. Go."
Swindle didn't know why Banachek bothered with the order, he had full control of the steering and acceleration. As they pulled out of the hangar, he mused, "You remind me of someone. Yes...I think I've got it. You sound just like that guy Starscream. If you weren't human, I would think you were a Decepticon!"
Banachek spun the steering wheel to the side, causing Swindle to scrape up against a wall. The mech protested with a digitized cry, the image on his screen reacting in accord, but Banachek didn't let up. He was perfectly safe where he was, but Swindle's outer shell could only hold up so long. While it wasn't likely to cause major damage, it would eventually become painful. Fortunately for him Banachek ran out of wall and straightened the car out. He was heading off the base, and did have one option to get past the incoming soldiers. Swindle had his own stealth shield. In retrospect the mech saw that he had made himself into the perfect vehicle of retribution for a wild card from a secret organization that played with aliens. Of course, he had never thought he would get caught like this. He admired the humans' cleverness and hated it at the same time.
He prepared another data packet for Rattlelatch. It would be difficult to get it through without being connected into a convenient network, but maybe wherever they were going there would be another computer system. He knew there had to be some technology of considerate power since Banachek had left all of the spark draining equipment behind. Yes, there had to be another set up somewhere, since the man was so calm about leaving the other behind. Swindle was half expecting an explosion behind them, knowing that such technology wouldn't be left out for just anyone to find. Unless Banachek was going to use it as an intimidation technique. Hey, look what I have! I can suck out your spark and take control of your shell! Swindle might even have approved, if he hadn't ended up as the full-scale test subject.
But that was what he got for getting caught up in picturing how the Decepticons would pay anything for hundreds of the devices, and he had no trouble with how effectively it would annihilate the Autobots. Good thing he hadn't shared that idea so the word wouldn't get out, because now the only ones he could count on to help him were the Autobots.
To Be Continued
"That's fine. I have a new job for you. I need you to hack ARROW headquarters and get some doors open."
"ARROW..?" Rattlelatch grimaced. "They've got some nasty stuff in their firewall." When he received a hard stare, he added in a mumble, "Um, I was bored one day..."
"Just do it. Powerglide is in trouble. Simmons!"
Again Reggie and Will traded places on the screen. "Sir?"
"This is the second thing today that looks to be all Sector Seven's fault. I want a list of your personal inventory and anything else you even suspect anyone in that organization was hiding under a rug, mattress, or national monument -- before anything else blows up in our faces!"
Renewal - Part Eight
In Washington there was no speculation on what was going on at Edwards.
There was panic.
Calls were being made, orders were being issued, countermeasures were being planned. They couldn't get through to the base to demand an explanation. It all served to prove Reggie Simmons right. Keller couldn't believe the man had managed to do what entire agencies could not. On the other hand, he was glad to have him on their side with a great deal of the history of Sector Seven at his disposal. It was more than he could say for other former agents.
~*~
Earlier...
"Lady and gentlemen, it's on us to save the world again."
After Simmons had rattled off his list of findings, Keller stared solemnly at the screen. "Are you absolutely certain of this?"
"Absolutely, sir."
"You understand the repercussions if we act on this information?"
"I do, sir. I'd stake my life on it."
Keller exhaled through his nose and glanced to the others. Epps both looked like he had been punched and like he wanted to punch someone, which was understandable given that this all showed that his department had been ineffectual. Maggie seemed to be mentally planning for her role. Glen, again, appeared to be sadly out of place.
"Personally," Simmons offered, "I'm glad no one was able to activate all of the experiments back at the old HQ. Half an army of anti-giant alien robot civvies is bad enough."
"But most of them are civilians, right?" Epps asked. "What do these people plan to do next if they manage to kick the 'Bots and 'Cons off the planet? Go back to their lives and expect us to just let it pass?"
"Most of them are," Reggie answered. "Some are former Sector Seven members. Low-level guys, at least. The remaining Five are still integrated elsewhere."
"I've got another question," Maggie piped up. "What do those people expect to do if more of either faction show up?"
They all traded grim looks. Glen snapped out of his daze. "I'll do you one better: What'll they do if both factions come wanting to get revenge for the guys that got destroyed?"
"We might find out," Keller said darkly. "Epps, Celzer, when we're done here I need you to head upstairs." The two men nodded. "You." He turned to the screen and pointed at Simmons. "You alert me the second you come up with the slightest iota of anything useful."
He was answered with a salute. "Yessir."
"Ms. Madsen--" He turned to the two hackers. "We're going to need your partner."
"About him," Simmons interjected, partially raising a hand to get Maggie's attention. "Prowl wants to know if there's any new data on Bombshell or the other bug. We're on the lookout and waiting to hear if anything has happened to turn up at Autobase."
"We're still working on cracking the second one. There's a lot of kickback on the lines."
"Gotcha. We'll leave it at that. Bigger stuff to do now." He nodded to Keller.
The Secretary of Defense was staring hard at the far wall in thought, trying to decide what further resources they could call on. Everything he could think of was in the hands of the person he had thought he could trust with it. "Blasted Sector Seven secrets," he muttered. He glared at Reggie even though he wasn't the actual target of his ire. "At least tell me there isn't some super weapon gleaned from Megatron that was in mothballs somewhere."
"None. That I know of. But believe me, sir, if there was anything else I could think of, I'd have told you. The Old Man's secrets are mine."
"Then let's hope Banachek doesn't have some of his own." Keller looked around at his latest team. "Let's get to work, people, and stop these turkeys before they hurt someone."
~*~
Currently...
Maggie had not been surprised by how fast a room with Cybertronian access had been set up. Granted, Rattlelatch had needed to drive inside, but there had been enough space in the room itself for him to transform.
Glen had stared at her in consternation. "You never told me your new car was one of them!"
All she could do was shrug. "It was confidential."
"Yeah, whatever. Someone still owes me a phone."
The Autobot was now seated in the middle of the floor, using a keyboard built into his arm while several cables ran out from his personal hardware to the computers on opposite sides where she, Glen, and two official NSA agents were working. Their job was to hack into the Edwards base's system and stop the launch of any major weaponry, as well as try to ground to a halt any operations related to the takeover and intercept communications linked to the group.
At the moment they were attempting to crack base security with Rattlelatch's code leading. He had been the one to set up the advanced protection for the government, but it looked like someone had come along who knew how to modify it even further. This, in turn, irritated the minibot. Maggie couldn't remember if she had ever seen him truly angry. Of course, she could appreciate a hacker who didn't like anyone messing with his code.
"Glen, can you run a bypass over two-five-Q-eight?" Rattlelatch called out.
"Override twenty-six S?"
"You got it."
"On it."
Maggie smiled. Those two were getting along perfectly. When this crazy mess was over she didn't doubt Glen would ask to hang out with her and her car more. Maybe after this he would be inducted into the NSA service, too. She left off that thought as a stream of data scrolled up on her screen. "ISOC? Looks like I've got their intelligence mandate..." Her fingers clicked over keys as she tried to dig further into the files. "No, nevermind. It's turning out to be gibberish, except for these letters. ISOC," she repeated, glancing at the senior analyst.
"Send it to Epps," the older woman replied, looking over from her own station. "It might give him something more to go off of."
"Send it here, too, Mags," Rattlelatch said. "I can see if there's anything under the gibberish." She nodded and did both requests. Rattlelatch's optics moved back and forth as if he was reading something. "What the heck? This isn't like any coding of mine or even Decepticon work. It looks like..." He stopped cold.
Maggie turned in her chair, eying him with trepidation. "What, 'Latch?"
He started typing furiously on his keyboard. "I've seen something like this before, used by a Cybertronian borrowing from another race. I wouldn't expect him to use it twice, but I guess he thought you would never be able to crack it... Almost got confirmation. Yes. Frag. Swindle."
Glen now turned as well. "And that means, what?"
"It's his name. I used to deal with him before -- uh, before I joined the Autobots. He's a tech dealer and is amazingly good at convincing any given being that they need what he's got to sell. But he's more a Decepticon than a Neutral, so I don't know why he would dare to associate with anything involving destruction of high-ranking Decepticons unless he thinks something big will work in his favor, because I doubt he has use for anythi..."
"'Latch?"
"Sector Seven tech," he responded grimly. "Banachek has something Swindle wants. It could explain this whole apparent betrayal." He looked pained for a moment. "Could explain where all those people got the nerve to do this, too. But I have no idea what he could possibly want."
"We could ask Simmons," Maggie said. "And we need to tell Secretary Keller now."
~*~
"I want another C-130 on standby. Track down the first one, stat!" Keller gripped the railing of the walkway above the monitoring room as he waited for reports. He was still irritated that Tom Banachek was behind the base takeover. All he had to go on was evidence presented by Simmons because no new information had come out of Edwards yet. The thought that Banachek had enough people on his side to infiltrate and take over a U.S. military base disturbed the Secretary of Defense to no end. Had they even needed to infiltrate it? Had the personnel on base been in agreement with Banachek when he showed up, possibly claiming a matter of national security? ARROW had been given some power in that manner in order to collect foreign artifacts, and if abused, the current situation was an outcome.
"Sir," a uniformed agent presented him with a PDA. "A message from the data extraction team."
Keller activated the screen. "Please tell me you found out how they could take over an entire base without us knowing." His aggravation was clear.
"With help," Rattlelatch replied. He described Swindle and gave his suspicions.
Keller wanted to throw his hands up in exasperation. "I'm getting tired of these robots in disguise popping up everywhere! When this is over I want a device built that can tell me if something has a spark in it or not!"
"If we had one of those, sir, we would have stopped the Decepticons ages ago. You would still have to get around the ones that can mask their spark signature."
Keller scowled, not appreciating the comment regardless of unintended sarcasm. "Tell me how we can counter this Swindle character."
"I need more information first. We're trying to find any indication that he's on the base and somehow I need to confirm if he has any weapons of mass persuasion in use."
"Do it. I'll see about getting your team more eyes." He pocketed the PDA and strode toward one of the exits. He paused long enough to point at a man seated at a switchboard. "Get me the Ark. Route it to room two."
As he walked out, a security agent swift to follow, he debated the plausibility of a potential plan. Given the latest roster information, there was but one Autobot available who might be able to fly in to Edwards to create a diversion long enough for reconnaissance to get in. But only one against so many humans and their assumed to be appropriated weapons would not go well -- either people would be harmed or the Autobot would be destroyed. He needed the shock of the SOCCENT attack without the massacre.
The security agent remained outside as Keller entered the conference room. The screen was already active, with Simmons in place looking thoroughly engaged in something on a screen below the camera, the changing light playing off his features. Keller sat down and waited on confirmation of audio before speaking. "Simmons, put Prowl on and get me Lennox. See if they can patch us through to Autobase, too."
"Already here, John Keller." A smaller window opened inset on the lower left of the screen, displaying Prowl's face. "I will add Autobase to the line, although Chromia's team is still en route."
"Who's in command at the base right now?"
"Tracks."
"Good. He's who I want to talk to."
Prowl gave a nod and another small window opened on the lower right. It was dark for a few seconds, then a looped message began to scroll across it informing of an impending connection.
In the meantime, Simmons moved off screen and Lennox took his place. "Mister Secretary, sir."
"Lennox, can you contact ARROW headquarters? I need you to issue an order in Banachek's stead."
"I can try, sir." He flicked a glance in the direction Simmons had gone. "We haven't been able to get ahold of the agents still in the field, but we're fairly certain that not all of ARROW is involved."
"Affirmative." Keller held out hope that men like Breckstein were still on their side. "See if you can get through to Powerglide and let him know of the situation. If he's willing to help, we'll take it."
Lennox nodded and ducked off screen. Keller could see another Autobot moving in the background, a schematic hologram displayed above his arm as he worked to take some wires and motherboards out of a console. He didn't try to guess what it was for.
Tracks' image appeared in the second small window, but as he was offering a greeting Prowl's face suddenly changed to a look of surprise. For a moment Keller feared an attack of some sort was occurring at the Ark, then he heard a complaint from the Autobot on the main screen. "Aw, I just got all this junk out of here!" Not an attack, but some kind of project.
Prowl seemed to be smiling when he addressed the Secretary of Defense again. "We may have another addition to what I deduce is your plan. We recovered a scout shuttle from within the Ark but were uncertain if it could be made to fly under Earth's gravity. It is not yet confirmed if it can clear the atmosphere, but the test Huffer was conducting has proven that it can fly."
That might create another headache later, Keller realized, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it. "How many of you can it hold?" Size related to the amount of headache.
"Two minibots. Huffer created the modifications so he would be the best one to fly it. Windcharger would be my recommendation for accompanying fighter."
"Prowl," Tracks interrupted, "Data parameter request." In seconds the warrior's expression became one of horror as Prowl transmitted all relevant information on the matter at hand. "But -- why? I thought the humans were on our side..." He looked summarily crushed.
"Not everyone differentiates between good and evil," Keller said solemnly. "All they see are invading aliens. Even if they didn't, they could be seeing this situation as paying the cost of Autobot lives in exchange for stopping the most dangerous threat this planet has ever seen."
"Well, they could have waited until we failed first." An angry noise filled the line from Autobase.
"Easy, Tracks," Prowl warned. "This is not over yet."
"Right," Keller said, taking charge of things again albeit aware that he would now be sending a very angry, big soldier into the field. "Prowl, has Firestar arrived yet?"
"ETA twenty minutes."
"Let me know when she's ready to head out again. Tracks, how fast do you think you can reach the Ark?"
"Assuming you mean fly there, forty minutes if I push it to Mach Two."
"I do. Prowl, how fast is that shuttle?"
"In space about the equivalent of Mach Seven. Again, I cannot confirm the effect of Earth's gravity."
"Fine. Has Lennox gotten through to Powerglide yet?"
Lennox himself moved back into frame again on the main screen. There was that look of wanting to punch someone again. "Sorry, sir. There's another problem. I have ARROW HQ, and I can confirm that these guys aren't with Banachek, but they're locked out of the hangar."
"What's going on inside the hangar?"
Lennox hit a button that brought up another window, this one showing a frazzled Breckstein at the receiver and a view of a set of blast doors behind him, several ARROW agents either trying to hold them closed or get them open. There were dents of varying shapes protruding outward from the doors. "He got us out, but he's locked in with them!" Breckstein cried.
"Which them?" Keller demanded.
"The machines! The machines are revolting!"
"Sonofab--" Reggie swore from off screen. "They did activate them."
"I can't tell you who did," Breckstein said hurriedly, "But we can stop them. The weapons are inside, too, and that's why I don't think it was Powerglide who locked the doors."
Keller took out the PDA and activated it to call Rattlelatch. The minibot peered back quizzically. "Sorry, sir, I don't have anything new for you yet."
"That's fine. I have a new job for you. I need you to hack ARROW headquarters and get some doors open."
"ARROW..?" Rattlelatch grimaced. "They've got some nasty stuff in their firewall." When he received a hard stare, he added in a mumble, "Um, I was bored one day..."
"Just do it. Powerglide is in trouble. Simmons!"
Again Reggie and Will traded places on the screen. "Sir?"
"This is the second thing today that looks to be all Sector Seven's fault. I want a list of your personal inventory and anything else you even suspect anyone in that organization was hiding under a rug, mattress, or national monument -- before anything else blows up in our faces!"
~*~
Twenty minutes later at the Ark, Firestar landed and there was a rush to get Broadcast and Rhythm to the med bay. Huffer temporarily abandoned the scout shuttle to help, checking the calibration of the equipment on the two repair tables and hooking Rhythm up to a recharge feed while Moonracer had her attention on Broadcast. His spark was clearly online but his body was completely fried so she had no idea what exact condition his spark was in. When she was able to remove the dead metal and attach a monitor to his spark chamber, she could only stare at the readings. "This is off the scale! Arcee, what did he do?"
The other femme had stayed to see if she could help. "I didn't see, and Ratchet didn't have time to assess anything himself. I just acted, after Thundercracker blew up the main console connected to Megatron and they were thrown from it."
"My spark," croaked Rhythm from the other table, the gravelly voice of Jazz evident through the previously unused vocalizer. He put a hand to his throat, aware of the calibration problem, but kept trying to talk. "Our spark." He held up two fingers together, then separated them. "Gotta be."
Moonracer followed what he was saying. "He did something so that the spark ended up joined again, then when it split he ended up with a bigger share of it instead of it being equally separated. But...I cannot relieve any of the pressure. It might kill him." She walked around the table, activating various autonomous tools from the overhead medical array and getting them connected to Broadcast. "I am putting him on life support for now, it will give us time to find an option or contact Ratchet for advice, whichever comes first."
"I hope we can speak to Ratchet soon," Arcee said with apprehension. "The status of the Edwards base when we flew in was not what I would call encouraging."
Moonracer turned to a small monitor on the edge of the table and pulled up another list of readings. "Then we do our work, they do theirs. I hope Huffer's plan works." Her optics dimmed as she scrolled through the list. "His processors are intact, currently in shut down mode but I think I can bring them to stand by mode to protect the data, and so he will know he is on support and with us." After a few minutes of work she stepped back, optics dimmed again. "That's it for now. The best solution would be a whole new spark chamber, but..." She left off, glancing pointedly around the med bay at the distinct lack of completed spark chambers laying around. "Huffer could whip one up I'm sure. There is just no time right now..."
"He would understand." Arcee put a hand on her arm.
Moonracer nodded. "So we will do what we can." She turned to Rhythm-become-Jazz. "Let us start with your vocalizer and go from there."
He punched a fist into the air. "Right on."
She was sure he had plenty more to say.
Later, after Arcee had left to be debriefed by Prowl and Moonracer was gathering the needed supplies, Jazz was sitting on Broadcast's table as close as he could get without being in the way of any life support connections. It felt somewhat strange. He had been fine with being the smallest Autobot on Prime's team, yet now he was smaller than some human children.
But he was alive. His spark wasn't what it used to be, and he could feel the difference as well as feel the strain from Broadcast's uneven half. He began to wonder if they could try to join the spark again and get it to split evenly. But he knew that it could be risky, and Broadcast would have to be conscious for such an attempt.
"Y'know, bro, it kinda loses the point if you die tryin' to save me."
~*~
"Locks released at ARROW headquarters!" Rattlelatch announced to the room at large. He also used his internal connection to project his own image to Breckstein's console. "Get that mech out of there!"
The beleaguered agent had already turned, drawn by the opening blast doors. Through the continuing camera feed Rattlelatch and Keller could see the shadow of Powerglide near the entrance, deformed by the addition of numerous small, multi-legged shapes. The microphone picked up the shouts from the ARROW agents as they came to his aid.
Unlike the Secretary of Defense, Rattlelatch could refine the images and use shadows and reflections to get a better account of what was going on, and so he saw the effectiveness of the hither-to unknown "anti-cyb" guns on the small, Allspark-spawned human tech mechanoids. While he didn't know what the humans were calling the weapon, the concept left an unsettled feeling in him. He filed the data away and pulled out of ARROW's security system, leaving a digital trap behind to deter another hacking attempt. He kept one connection open so he could check on Powerglide's condition later.
He jumped right back into the Edwards mission, now armed with an idea that he put into effect as he picked up the data threads from the other stations. "Hold on, guys."
Glen lifted his hands from the keys as his work was snatched away. "Hey, don't mess with my zen like that!"
"Sorry," the Autobot apologized, "But I need to do this a while it's hot."
Glen pushed up his glasses as he tried to keep up with the coding scrolling on his screen. "Ohh. Nice!" He clappd his hands and pointed at Rattlelatch. "Crashed the party at ARROW and turned the trick on them. Dude, I love the way you think."
"Thanks. This will give us a little more time, at least. If we can't stop them right away we can jam things up to delay them, and no matter who they have helping them they won't be able to untangle this code for a while. Missile silos locked down, and...go. If we can get a bird to Tidal Wave we might get the 'Bots out before those bombers can sink the ship. Mister Secretary," he called out loud and through the personal PDA connection, "If you've got someone willing to fly it under that chance, please get the extraction underway. I'll try to stop the Lancers." He didn't mention that he would need to hack even further into the military network than he was supposedly allowed, but they wouldn't know and didn't need to be told yet. No one had seen fit to share ARROW's new weapon information, after all. Rattlelatch was of the opinion that the humans had too many subdivisions and none of them had the right security programming.
Before he could move to the next thing, a data packet slipped through from the Edwards network. He probed it for bugs, erected a firewall around it to contain it just in case, then triggered it to open. It was a file with audio and internal video. When he saw who it was from he prepared to translate it to be projected to the humans' monitors in case it was relevant.
"Heeey, 'Latch, long time no talk. I knew if you were around you would crack this. Of course, that's why I used this code. I seem to have made a miscalculation and...ah...I need your help. And the help of your friends. And any friends they have." He watched the rest of the message, made sure there were no bugs to set off at the end, then hailed Keller again.
This time he cut in on the conference screen itself to address the Ark and Autobase as well. "I have news. I... don't know how you want to take this." He replayed the video of an all-red mech with a single large lense for a head and a television monitor visible in its chest, which was playing an image of an attractive human male in a pin-striped suit -- and his lips moved in time with the words. Watching it in the room with Rattlelatch, Maggie was struck with an impression of a suave car salesman.
"So, yeah, didn't mean for a real mess to come outta this, sorry about that. Wasn't my intention. Trust me, I'm paying for it. I shoulda known better than to get too involved with a group calling themselves the Indigenous Species Only Coalition. But, hey, helping the indigenous is what I'm all about! Nevermind, you know better than that. But I am seriously in trouble and I can help you if you help me. As a show of my faith, here's some more coding to get through the defenses. Just hurry,' cause they're draining my spark. And if anyone asks, the Pearl of Bahoudin is a lie."
Rattlelatch let the humans make of that what they would. He was busy inspecting the included codes. "These codes will kill the power to the entire base," he said with satisfaction. "As long as they aren't using Swindle as a back up generator we just have to worry about the vehicles on the runway."
In the conference room Keller was still coping with Swindle's message. It gave a name to the acronym Maggie had turned up earlier, ISOC. He was most worried about what device Banachek had that could drain a Cybertronian's spark. If the rest of ISOC was in on it, genocide could be the next step if their plan was to incapacitate all those aboard Tidal Wave and use the spark drain on them. So there was a super weapon, after all. "Rattlelatch, be ready to cut the power in five minutes." He had received a communication from an authorized agent that a Company of soldiers were ready to move in on Edwards and -- hopefully -- retake it without casualties. Human or Cybertronian. "Prowl, have Firestar and Tracks move out, but hold back until deemed absolutely necessary."
"Yessir."
"Affirmative." Prowl also sent a private message to the minibot. "And Rattlelatch, please stop cutting in to the communication lines without notice. It is disconcerting."
"Sorry, sir. I considered it to be emergency data." He resented the reprimand. The humans remembered that he had programmed half the system, didn't they? He couldn't wait to go back to working on the outside with Maggie. Having to adhere to official protocols was too limiting.
That was assuming things would go back to normal after this.
An alert sounded throughout the building and a new message came up on Keller's end. "Mister Secretary! This -- jet -- just appeared out of nowhere right outside! No noise, no evidence of a landing -- one minute there was nothing, the next, there it was!" The Autobots still on the line made it their business to non-obtrusively pick up the video feed of a black F-16 with purple detailing sitting on the street. It began to transform.
In the hacking team's room, Rattlelatch went deathly still, seeming to stare at thin air while his gaze was affixed to the image on his HUD, chilled to his superstructure. He managed to open another frequency. "Trailbreaker--"
"I know, 'Latch. I'm on my way out. You keep up with what you're doing, and maybe think of a way to aid in your way after."
"B-But I'm still the only back up if you can't--"
"Focus on the task you were given."
"'Latch?" Maggie called. His frozen stare was worrying her. He lowered his head to look at her and she saw that he was scared.
Upstairs, Epps had responded to the alert by yanking off his tie. "Can I go kick some giant robot butt now?"
Another official pointed him in the direction of the defense coordinators. "Yes."
"THANK you!" He took off down the hall, itching to trade his monkey suit for real combat gear. "By the way -- I quit!"
~*~
A minute later Rattlelatch cut the power at Edwards. All systems on the base were shut down, including a particular alien device and all the back up generators. Within one building a relieved cry of, "Thank The Vok!" came from one particular P.O.W.. Meanwhile, almost everyone operating the base looked around in a daze, having trouble remembering what they had been doing a second ago. Their confusion was quickly added to when they collectively found themselves at gunpoint and being told to stand down. Logic dictated that they each surrender until someone could explain things.
Only one man wasn't effected, and he watched from a secure room in the captive's building as his plan was undone. He wasn't entirely disappointed, he had expected some resistance. He calmly walked into the hangar where Swindle was secured and released the bonds holding the Cybertronian to the wall.
Swindle rubbed his wrists, his chest screen displaying one of his human facades. "Banachek, baby, let's talk, all right? We're both men of shrewd intellect, I'm sure we can come to a reasonable agreement--"
"You're not a man. Transform now."
The Cybertronian was compelled to obey. Oh, how he hated Sector Seven. He took the form of a red sports car and although he opened his passenger side door, Tom stood by the driver's side. "I'm driving." The one door closed and Banachek opened the other for himself.
Another screen was built into the dashboard and also displayed a charming human face. "Since you've got me in this deal anyway, why don't you fill me in on how this all works -- not your crazy plan of betrayal, but how you got into manipulating Cybertron-based tech. It's not like I can tell anybody, right?"
"It isn't betrayal."
"Pardon my observation, then. I mean, I give you a means to mind control, you trick me -- me, that was good, that's why I respect you -- and you have designs on destroying a unit of Autobots, who last I checked were your allies and were counting on you to get them out of a sticky situation. That all kind of adds up to what we in the business call betrayal."
"I don't have to explain anything to you. Drive."
"There are armed troops out there."
"You're armored. Go."
Swindle didn't know why Banachek bothered with the order, he had full control of the steering and acceleration. As they pulled out of the hangar, he mused, "You remind me of someone. Yes...I think I've got it. You sound just like that guy Starscream. If you weren't human, I would think you were a Decepticon!"
Banachek spun the steering wheel to the side, causing Swindle to scrape up against a wall. The mech protested with a digitized cry, the image on his screen reacting in accord, but Banachek didn't let up. He was perfectly safe where he was, but Swindle's outer shell could only hold up so long. While it wasn't likely to cause major damage, it would eventually become painful. Fortunately for him Banachek ran out of wall and straightened the car out. He was heading off the base, and did have one option to get past the incoming soldiers. Swindle had his own stealth shield. In retrospect the mech saw that he had made himself into the perfect vehicle of retribution for a wild card from a secret organization that played with aliens. Of course, he had never thought he would get caught like this. He admired the humans' cleverness and hated it at the same time.
He prepared another data packet for Rattlelatch. It would be difficult to get it through without being connected into a convenient network, but maybe wherever they were going there would be another computer system. He knew there had to be some technology of considerate power since Banachek had left all of the spark draining equipment behind. Yes, there had to be another set up somewhere, since the man was so calm about leaving the other behind. Swindle was half expecting an explosion behind them, knowing that such technology wouldn't be left out for just anyone to find. Unless Banachek was going to use it as an intimidation technique. Hey, look what I have! I can suck out your spark and take control of your shell! Swindle might even have approved, if he hadn't ended up as the full-scale test subject.
But that was what he got for getting caught up in picturing how the Decepticons would pay anything for hundreds of the devices, and he had no trouble with how effectively it would annihilate the Autobots. Good thing he hadn't shared that idea so the word wouldn't get out, because now the only ones he could count on to help him were the Autobots.
To Be Continued