Nothing You Plan, the final installment of Astrotrain's Anything You Like
Title: Nothing You Plan
Universe: loosely G1 cartoon. Sequel to Anything You Like, Something About You, and Everything For You, running parallel to the last chapter of The Faction That Sparked Him. Spans the episode Triple Takeover.
Rated: PG - I don’t think this even rises to the level of PG-13.
Pairing: Astrotrain/Cobweb.
Author's Notes: Only Cobweb (nicknamed 'Enny') and Starrunner are mine, all else belong to corporations. 10570 words.
-:-Radio Communication-:-
Astrotrain and Enny kept the plan simple: recruit Blitzwing, break away to a place on the other side of the world that had all the resources they needed, and lay ambush for any Decepticon who came looking. A mutiny in the garrison would have no chance, but a mutiny that started with desertion could succeed. Megatron was too erratic to plan for him specifically, they reasoned, but he would never let anyone go without coming after them himself. From a place rich in resources easy to convert to energon, with communication and monitoring systems easy to hijack, defended only by natives who were easy to scare away, they would let the hard part come looking for them on ground of their choosing.
"It would be best if it could be just us two," Enny lamented, "we need Blitzwing because I cannot fly to cover you."
Recruiting Blitzwing to mutiny did not feel like a recruiting effort: Blitzwing clearly thought the whole thing was his idea. Astrotrain ran with it. Enny’s optics were bright in protest or fear - justifiably anxious, Astrotrain decided.
Blitzwing created a problem when he insisted they needed both Scrapper and Starscream.
Astrotrain agreed with Enny: five was too many conspirators. He was unable to dissuade Blitzwing.
Blitzwing explained, "They cannot be left out. Starscream commands his Trine. He can be the face of our effort with Megatron, and we trap them together. Scrapper commands his Gestalt. We draw him close and dispatch him, then take out the rest."
"We double-cross all of them?" Astrotain asked, impressed.
"Yes." Blitwing answered. “We have to do it before the new Seeker Trine arrives.”
The three of them were in violent agreement about timing.
According to Blitzwing, recruiting Starscream to mutiny was easy: Blitzwing chatted him up while flying back from an energon raid the next morning. The hard part had been getting the Air Commander alone to broach the subject. Astrotrain's role in that had been distracting Thundercracker and Skywarp. Astrotrain wished he could have heard what Blitzwing said to Starscream.
They had to take Blitzwing's word for that one.
Recruiting Scrapper to mutiny was not easy. Scrapper would agree to nothing so drastic without the support of his brothers. They wasted precious days trying to bring him around. He demanded Blitzwing bring Astrotrain along to a ledge on the side of a mountain called Terichmir. It sounded disconcertingly close to a Cyberyronian word for siege.
“This feels like a trap,” Astrotrain said to Blitzwing as they approached the coordinates selected by Scrapper.
The Constructicons emerged from hiding and entered their gestalt mode, adding credence to his assessment. Both were surprised when Devastator did not take a fighting stance at all, but sat straight down. The mountain shook.
“We will negotiate as Devastator,” the unaccustomed voice grated. A few boulders crashed behind them.
Devastator did not have to be recruited: they were eager to have what they felt was their rightful place as Supreme Leader. “We will crush Megatron ourselves,” they said, demonstrating the motion with their right hand, “then we can finish the Autobots for entertainment,” as they forcefully punched their right fist into their left for emphasis.
The battle lust in Devastator’s voice impressed even Blitzwing. Astrotrain caught the moment his optics brightened minutely in fear. It was too late to back out.
Surprising Devastator and taking them out on that mountainside was not an option, so the Triple Changers cut them in on the plan.
Devastator provided the idea for a Cybertronian-entombing trap, as if they had already been planning something themselves. They approved of the location Astrotrain and Blitzwing told them about, “Lake Ontario is far enough from the Nemesis to provide a buffer, close enough to every resource to make supplies essentially unlimited,” they said, “and within easy reach of both Autobot bases. You have chosen well. We will build our trap under the city of Hamilton. Starscream will bring Megatron. You will seal them in.”
Devastator had no qualms about double-crossing Starscream. That realization convinced Astrotrain that Team Devastator was no one’s ally. He said so to Blitzwing on their way back to base.
“We will deal with Devastator when it is over,” Blitzwing said. “Let Devastator end Megatron, then we strike Constructicons one at a time.”
Astrotrain saw no other way to proceed.
When the appointed day arrived, the first part of the plan went perfectly. The Triple Changers followed Starscream and Megatron to their chosen city on the other side of the world. Team Devastator had been working in the vicinity, ostensibly to set a trap for some Autobots known to patrol the eastern part of the continent. Scrapper’s ability to weave a lie into truth to get Soundwave to approve the use of resources for the build impressed Astrotrain.
None of them knew what Starscream told Megatron to get him into the subterranean trap, but it worked. Blitzwing and Astrotrain arrived just in time to hear Megatron tear into Starscream as he realized whatever the Air Commander had promised him was not down there.
Blitzwing sprung the trap, sealing the final hatch on the concrete prison, while Astrotrain installed the special freezer he and Enny had built. Concrete alone could not contain a determined Cybertronian, but none of them could function near absolute zero.
-X-X-X-
The second part of the plan went well, too. While the others were busy trapping Megatron, Cobweb took over the shipping hub for which they'd chosen the site. It took next to no effort: the security force and train operators scattered as soon as she transformed in the middle of the station and fired a blaster to get their attention. She didn't even have to waste energon chasing them.
"They don't pay us enough for this!" one of them shouted to the others as they fled up a stairwell.
A few of the office staff fainted when she tore the door open. The rest screamed and repeated what the other humans had done, scrambling over furniture to get to the fire escape and away from her.
Cobweb set to work, hacking the shipping hub’s systems.
Astrotrain flew in through the largest tunnel and transformed to stand bipedal among the now abandoned trains.
"Where's Blitzwing?" Astrotrain called to her after he realized it was only him and Cobweb at the rendezvous.
Cobweb flashed her optics at him while she worked to implant the viral code in the human trains' control systems. The firewalls were primitive but non-trivial.
"No idea,” she said, and “The trains are ours.” She stepped away from the tiny computer terminal and broke through a pointless glass partition back out into the underground station.
"Keep commands simple," she said, "two or three words. They do not have processing power for complex ideas."
Astrotrain called to his not-quite-self-aware soldiers. "Report!" he ordered.
They obediently blew their air horns, the only sound-making devices they owned.
"They hear me!" he said to Cobweb, beaming.
They waited for Blitzwing for a full day. Astrotrain tried hailing him on radio but received no reply. While Cobweb improved their minions’ programming within their limitations, Astrotrain went out to look for Blitzwing. He found him, -:-He says he’s ‘Playing Football’,-:- he relayed back to Cobweb. -:-I do not understand.-:-
“I think we’ve lost Blitzwing,” Astrotrain told her when he returned, “and he may have lost his mind.”
Cobweb shrugged that off. “He served his purpose,” she said. Cobweb used the existing native system to reach all trains in the region and call them in from their usual routes. Working out where to have each engine drop its other cars and a route to make its way to the hub was a puzzle she enjoyed.
Several dozen engines trickled into the station over the next few days. Astrotrain drilled each of his new recruits until they were all running low on fuel. His dream of having minions was coming true.
Somewhere out in the city, a series of explosions went off. “That must be Devastator crushing Megatron’s tomb,” Astrotrain said. “Time to move.”
Cobweb was distracted by a new sound: there was water moving underground since the explosions.
“Wait!” Cobweb said. She engaged a security console, scanning camera views, trying to see what was going on in the radiating tunnels. One section of cameras seemed to be fritzing, all fuzzy and out of focus. Cobweb tried to reboot that sector.
She thought she saw a familiar silhouette moving in one of the views.
“We need energon for our soldiers,” Astrotrain said. To the newly autonomous locomotives, he shouted, "Breach fuel lines!" gesturing toward the utility lines running along one wall.
Finesse and discernment were not in the trains' reach. Confusion was. All but one waited for more clear direction. The most eager engine plowed forward, breaking every pipe and conduit between itself and the concrete wall.
It did breach a fuel line or two. It also tore through high tension electrical cable, several dozen telecom lines, and fresh water supply lines.
The mess it made was immediate, but not disastrous. Water pooled on the floor of the station. Sparking electrical lines ignited floating fires in the fuel on the water surface.
Lake water flooding the lower tunnels reached the depot. A solid mass of water surged up out of one tunnel and spread out quickly, lapping at Cobweb’s knees. It covered all the tracks. Electricity crackled through it.
“Devastator or Blitzwing must have hit something big!” she shouted to be heard over the rushing water. A second surge from farther underground lifted the lighter locomotive engines and pushed them toward the exit tunnels to the street above. One struck Cobweb and bowled her out into the sunlight.
“Enny!” Astrotrain shouted, reaching for her from too far away.
She thought she saw Megatron wading in with the deluge but could not be sure.
Cobweb was desperate to stay with Astrotrain. She knew he was still below ground, in the train station. She fought the current that was carrying her away. Digging her hands and feet into the pavement, she tried to claw her way back to him.
Cobweb saw unfamiliar Seekers overfly the city. Their Cybertronian forms stood out starkly against the blue sky of Earth. Expecting they were looking for Megatron and for mutineers, she transformed into her Mini Cooper alt mode and wedged herself between two native vehicles. She powered down everything she could, to avoid notice on as many scans as possible.
The Seekers flew on, missing Cobweb.
Before she could transform and resume her fight back to Astrotrain, a wall of water came down on her and lifted both of the mundane vehicles she had used for cover. The wave rolled them over Cobweb, raking her up off the pavement, too. Several other vehicles were carried in that wave front, and Cobweb and her cover were swept up in it, as if they were tiny pebbles tumbling over each other.
She dared not transform to save herself: better to take the beating than draw attention.
The wave crashed out toward the lake, sweeping up more cars, trash cans, and general debris with it. Cobweb was pummeled from all sides. Glass broke. Plating dented and scraped. She was tossed and dragged over the pavement and sidewalks. Water ran into every seam and joint, every rip and tear.
By the time she came to rest on a berm at the edge of the lake, her processors were flooded. Cobweb was offline.
-X-X-X-
Once subdued, the would-be mutineers grudgingly returned with Megatron to the Nemesis.
Soundwave had not gone out to search for his missing leader. This did not please Megatron. By the time the unhappy convoy arrived, Megatron’s focus had drifted from the actual desertion, intended mutiny, and general treason, to Soundwave’s failure to go out looking for him, then to Soundwave’s imagined earlier failure to warn him about it. Upon landing, Megatron unleashed his fury on his one truly loyal lieutenant. His tirade caught Soundwave unprepared. Megatron lifted the smaller mech bodily from the deck and pinned him against the tower, screaming in his face.
Soundwave’s optics above the battle mask were bright with fear and surprise. Under other circumstances, it would have been funny.
As the others watched in variations of stunned silence, Astrotrain had an epiphany: he had a chance now to defuse the situation and maybe make an ally out of Soundwave.
Deciding matter-of-fact was the only tone to take - groveling subservience would invite abuse and bravado would invite punishment for insubordination - Astrotrain ignored Megatron for the moment and stepped forward to speak to Soundwave as if he were not dangling precariously up against a wall. “Your plan has been executed, Soundwave. Our agent has been taken in by the Autobots.” It was an assumption on Astrotrain’s part, and he hoped for Enny’s sake he was right, but he had not seen her since the flooding of the rail station washed her out into the city, so he ran with it.
All optics on the deck turned to him. Work with me, Astrotrain projected as hard as he could at Soundwave, hoping he was quick enough to seize the opportunity.
Megatron looked from Astrotrain to Soundwave, “Agent? What agent?” he demanded.
Astrotrain felt the surface scan from Soundwave, tried to give him Enny- Cobweb the minibot clone by Shockwave.
Soundwave got at least part of it, “Shockwave’s minibot clone,” he answered Megatron.
“Ah, yes! I remember. We did requisition that from Shockwave.” Megatron’s demeanor completely changed. He absently lowered Soundwave to the deck. “This was a charade designed to get our new infiltrator into position?”
“Yes, Megatron,” Soundwave said levelly.
It was over. Megatron was pleased. Team Devastator and Blitzwing wisely kept their thoughts to themselves. Starscream sputtered a bit but said nothing intelligible. The recently-arrived Seekers looked thoroughly confused.
The lift was big enough to hold six largish mechs in one trip, so Megatron’s lieutenants boarded it with him. Once Soundwave, Starscream, Scrapper, and the leader of the new additions, Ramjet, were inside, Megatron motioned for Astrotrain to join them.
Wedged in the lift a bit too tight for comfort, Astrotrain was careful not to think of it as a field promotion while in range of Soundwave.
-X-X-X-
Cobweb didn't know how much time she lost. Her first thought when she started to come back to her senses was for Astrotrain: Megatron will kill him!
Her second thought was for Starrunner: her spark was sure he was very close. Did Starrunner rescue me?
The ache in her spark was ignorable, so it could not have been more than a day since she’d fueled with Astrotrain in their train station.
Cobweb registered sounds as her processors and sensor suite came back online. Someone was complaining in a human language about being in the care of a Dinobot. I must be dreaming, she thought. She struggled to wake.
A new voice answered the complaint. "Ratchet will work himself to stasis before he will leave you in hands that might harm you," the new one said wearily, "You know that, Tracks."
Do I know a Ratchet? Or a Tracks? she thought. Who uses that language?
She became convinced someone was standing near her, footsteps registering after the presence.
She powered up her optics to see a very large, crested mech that might have been a Dinobot tinkering with the table on which she rested. Surreal.
"This keep you in root-mode," he said, making optic contact with her, as if he cared to be sure she understood.
Cobweb scowled at him. Am I still dreaming? She looked around the room. It was a repair bay, she decided, unlike any she had seen in her current lifetime. There were several Cybertronians laid out on tables like the one she was on, in varying stages of disrepair. A couple undamaged were standing around looking solemn. All bore Autobot markings: Cobweb was at an Autobot base. She was alive, groggy but online, and mostly intact. Self-assessment said she was assimilating four completely new tires and some cosmetic plating, but all her vital systems were working nominally. Self-repair was underway. She was mostly dry.
Her energon levels registered at over eighty percent. They refueled me?!? That threw off her assessment of the time since her last intake of fuel and catalyst. She was trying to sort it out when a familiar voice got her attention.
"Hey there," Number Four breathed in that earth language, stepping closer to her and smiling. "Is Swoop treating you all right now, Cobweb?" he asked in the modern informal Cybertronian.
Number Four meant to put her at ease, she could tell. Cobweb focused on him, and found that moving even her head was difficult: her systems were still scrubbing the water-born micro-debris from her motivators and joints. She had Earth-gunk everywhere.
Cobweb thought Swoop must be the name of the maybe-Dinobot still standing near her. She dimmed her optics once, the Cybertronian equivalent of a nod.
Number Four went on, explaining Swoop and someone named Ratchet were caring for her. "I'm Jazz," he offered as he stretched a hand to Cobweb in greeting. When she accepted, he said, "We met once, if you remember?"
Cobweb thought that must be for their audience's benefit: of course she remembered when he brought Starrunner into the Nemesis! She did not dignify that with a response.
Number Four - Jazz, she would have to remember - continued, introducing the others. Cobweb was not able to keep up with the names that went by.
Then Jazz gestured toward a table that appeared to be a staging area for other projects and said with affection, "That pile of scrap there, is Starrunner."
Cobweb stopped cycling air a moment. Starrunner's spark had felt at peace ever since he left her at the Nemesis the day Number Four snuck him in. She had assumed he was intact among them, and just staying off Starscream's radar. She saw now that he was actually in stasis, and there appeared to be a shiny new airframe taking shape on that table, alongside the power supply and regulator that maintained his spark core and processors.
She gripped Jazz's hand and turned to look him squarely in the optics.
Jazz seemed to understand she wanted to know more. "Starscream meant to finish him off, but Sunny rolled off him, trying not to crush him, and I got a few good shots in," he said, as if it would make sense to Cobweb.
Starrunner helped you in that battle against Starscream, she took from Jazz's story. He would do that. She said nothing, contemplating the evidence of a rebuild in progress on that table. And you are building a new frame for him.
She felt Jazz's gentle grip on her hand shift from a simple greeting to holding her hand like a lover. He perched on a stool beside her repair table. "I bet Starscream exaggerated his success."
The whole scenario was unreal to Cobweb. Starrunner’s spark felt more at ease to her than it ever had before. She could have laughed in relief, if she were not sitting in an Autobot base, surrounded by enemies, with the one who inspired her offspring to turn away from the cause sitting beside her, treating her like an old friend. Cobweb was not sure she was processing stimuli correctly.
It took special effort to make her vocalizer work. "Starrunner-my-child is in stable-stasis while you-enemy-Autobots work to re-embody him?" she asked in a burst. She defaulted to the old formal style of their language.
Cobweb fought a wince as her spark gave a twinge of pain. She was at enough disadvantage without putting that additional weakness on display.
"That was just too fast for my audios today," Jazz said in the local language, laughing in a self-deprecating way. He resumed the informal Cybertronian he had been using for her, "I'm out of practice in our language, anyway," as if time between uses mattered when accessing one’s databanks. Jazz switched back to the local human speech, "We left Cybertron thousands of vorns ago. Say again, please?"
Cobweb was reluctant to give up the formal Cybertronian that allowed her to convey her understanding of her position of disadvantage in their camp. She squeezed his hand. "You are rebuilding Starrunner?" she rephrased.
"Yeah, we are," Jazz answered, gently squeezing her hand in return, "he's a good spark to have around."
Cobweb smiled. Starrunner has found his place, she thought as she settled back onto the repair table.
She found she was beyond exhausted. They have been only kind to me, she thought, Starrunner trusts them. I might as well rest. Cobweb let her systems cycle into their deepest repair and recharge state.
-X-X-X-
The routine aboard the Nemesis mostly returned. Astrotrain bided his time, eager to go out on a procurement run to try to contact Enny. He had to make it look good, though, because Megatron completely believed the story about Cobweb-as-Infiltrator, and Soundwave was obviously suspicious. Megatron decided he was too far out of the planning loop, so he started joining Soundwave’s daily leadership meeting. That was a new reason for Soundwave to dislike Astrotrain.
Megatron nearly derailed it all by assuming Cobweb would report to Soundwave and his Cassetticons.
Again, Astrotrain had to think fast and school his surface thoughts. “They will expect that,” he said, “because they have gotten wise to the Cassetticons’ use of their ventilation system. Cobweb works with me, let me slip in under their radar to handle the data transfer.”
Megatron agreed. It was one more reason for Soundwave to dislike Astrotrain.
Astrotrain realized a stray thought could get him killed. Whenever he was with Soundwave, and whenever he thought there might be a Cassetticon nearby, he projected, The Autobots have taken Cobweb in, like a mantra prayer to Primus. It is their way, and they have taken Cobweb in.
-X-X-X-
Cobweb watched and learned the routine at the Ark. It wasn’t so different from the routine aboard the Nemesis. There was a definite start to normal daily activity. In the repair bay - “medical bay” Ratchet called it - that start was in the early morning hours when Ratchet came in. He would check on all the in-patients, retreat to his office to do office things, and then any maintenance or checkup appointments would start. When she heard him curse a “fragging software glitch,” she volunteered her expertise, and Ratchet took her up on the offer: “there’s plenty here to keep you busy,” he said. He entertained visitors who had ideas for projects, included her in some of the conversations with the one named Wheeljack, and spent time mentoring Swoop in building the new form for Starrunner. Ratchet was not as businesslike as Astrotrain, nor as efficient, but he took as much care to do a good job.
Cobweb thought often of Astrotrain.
She decided she liked the routine. I can make a place here, too,she thought. They seem inclined to be as trusting of me as they are of Starrunner. If she was being closely watched, she could not discern how. There was no sense of surveillance here: that was different from the Nemesis. Ratchet came and went without openly tracking her. Cobweb found it a comfortable arrangement: no one tried to scavenge from her, no one tried to limit or even track her energon intake, no one threatened her in any way. Energon seemed to be unlimited. She marveled at the improvement in her systems from being able to keep her energon levels high - Astrotrain had definitely been onto something there.
Cobweb missed Astrotrain.
She didn't think she was restricted in any way. That was also different from the Nemesis. She had seen very little of the interior of the Ark: that was the same as the Nemesis. She wanted to reach out to Astrotrain but - as on the Nemesis - could not get a satellite connection to the human internet from inside the base to check in with him.
Cobweb worried about Astrotrain.
She found thinking about him to be a spark-ache of a different kind than the physical ache since Starrunner’s creation.
I must find a way to access the human internet, she resolved. I wonder if it could be as simple as asking Ratchet?
-X-X-X-
(continues in part 2, because of limits on post size)