Burnt Bridges: Part 2: Lost Treasure (Side 1)
Burnt Bridges: A Five-part saga from the planet Cybertron
Part 2: Lost Treasure

This is Jolt, you’re eye-in-the-sky roving reporter and have I got a story for you!

Newsflash: Decepticons have slag for brains.

Well, alright, that’s not exactly new news but now we have absolute official proof. My mini-cam is even now traversing the dank depths of the Stormbringer’s service ducts and absolutely no one has noticed.

Is this because the crew are mindless heaps of out dated junk, I hear you ask. Or is it because I really am that good at my job?

Think we’ll go with both on this one.

But, more importantly, what is said cam’ showing? Only the bridge! And at the moment, it’s occupied by none other than the ship’s second in command, the oh-so dreaded Nightscream.

And he’d not a happy petrorabbit.

He’s leaning over the nav-comp, typing away like mad and wearing the kind of expression you usually get after glugging down several tank-fulls of badly refined energon. Every so often, he glowers at the panoramic screen that fills one end of the room, checking the numbers scrolling endless over it.

Could be me, but it looks like someone has really trodden on old semi-materialised’s rudders.

No sooner has this thought crossed my top-of-the-line think box than the entrance hatch hisses open and Starscream himself prances in, looking like a cat who’s just landed in an aviary.

“Well?” he demands excitedly, “Have you made progress?”
Nightscream ignores him and carries on typing for about ten ‘seconds then turns slowly round.
“I would like it placed on record again,” he says darkly, “that I do not believe this is a good idea.”
“Believe what you like, just do what I tell you to.”
“Oh yes. What a brilliantly bolted together, well considered outlook. Your chief lieutenant raises an objection and you ignore him.”
“When you spout something of the vaguest importance, that might change.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.”
“I don’t need your lectures.”
“Nevertheless, as a sensible option, trusting that monotonic madmech ranks at about the same level as breaking down the walls of reality and kidnapping an alternate version of yourself. Oh, but I forgot…you actually thought that was a good idea as well.”

Screamer flops down into the command throne.
“If it is not too much trouble, would you mind answering my question?”
“And if you were looking for a flunky, you picked the wrong unive –”
“Shut up and report!”

Nightscream looks at him quizzically. SS snarls back.
“I meant, has it worked.”
“No idea. The computer is still going through the program.”

Meoowww.

If the world-conquering business ever becomes unprofitable, these two could make a fortune on prime time TV.

Unfortunately, the show stops here. With another hiss, the door swings open again.

The newcomer is not one of the good guys. Tall and tapering, the indigo mech’s all hard edges and fierce angles, topped off by a pair of massive wings that make him look like particularly evil demon. A triangular head sits above a broad golden chest plate, bent horns flanking a familiar crest and mask get-up. The thin slit of purple that slashes across the face is the final touch, a cold window into a cold spark.

If that’s the new and improved Soundwave, you can consider even me impressed.

He moves into the bridge with a strangely graceful stride, stopping at Starscream’s shoulder, optics fixed on the screen.
“Suggestion.”
Ok, that does it. Nobody else has a voice like that.

Starscream gives an imperious little wave.
“Go on, Soundwave.”
“Integrating artefact 57 into the sensor array may hasten the process. There is an affinity between this item and the Spatial Key.”
“Hmm…yes, very interesting. Do you by any chance know something about that little disc that I don’t?”
“Affirmative.”
Without explaining, Soundwave touches a control on his belt.

Panels in the roof slide back and a manipulator arm reaches down, its pincers clamped around a disc of some clear material. The object is edged in silvery metal and embossed with a slightly wrongly designed Deceptibrand.

Nightscream recoils. Hmm. Not often you see big bad Decepticons afraid of their own equipment.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Starscream explains for the communicator’s benefit, “He doesn’t enjoy being around the device that brought him here. I think he’s afraid it might send him back.”
The other jet-former sniffs loudly and rubs at some of the exposed circuitry that deforms one side of his chest.
“I won’t have minded your ‘rescue’ so much if you’d been competent enough to actually been able to bring me through in one piece.”

Ignoring them both, tall, dark and blue presses another button. Cables spring from the main computer and wrap around the disc. It begins to emit a steadily pulsing golden glow. I tense – I don’t have good memories of the last time the ‘cons started messing about with things they’d stolen from the ancient temples.

Nothing happens. The disc just keeps pulsing. Nightscream looks at the main screen where there’s been no obvious change to the scrolling symbols.
“How effective.”
The computer ‘pings’. A second screen lowers over the first, a map of Earth outlined in bright green. Lines flash across it, curving, intersecting.

Triangulation grid. Oh, this is too good! Not only do I now have proof that the ‘cons are after the Key, but if I stay here, they’ll tell me where it is! Not sure how they’re able to find it when our sensors are turning up zap – must have something to do with –

Which is when I notice two things in the ‘cam’s view that I hadn’t before.

In the corner of the bridge stands a squat red mech with a huge cannon draped over his right shoulder. His face, such as it is, is made up of a tiny fanged jaw and two massive, bulging optics. He doesn’t react to what’s going on in the room – just keeps looking left to right, right to left, turning his head backwards and forwards like some kind of CC camera. It’s a really strange sight – the rest of his body is perfectly still. If it weren’t for the head, I’d have assumed someone had just propped up a corpse.

Slightly more importantly, I notice the evil looking mechanical bird that’s hurtling towards the camera, talons wide open.

Time to go.

I detach myself from the flagship’s hull. In seconds, the idiots inside will be firing up the defence net, scanning for the spy in their midst. Anyone with half a processor would see how short range the mini-cam is.

Which might buy me a bit of time…

Funny thing: human vehicles are really un-adaptable. They have to build different machines to go through the air or through the water or into space. They don’t have cars that can seal themselves against vacuum or jets that can go underwater as well as fly over it.

Oh well. They can’t help it if they’re backward.

I zoom upwards, rotors folded against my body, turbines shooting me through the water. The pressure down here makes things a little uncomfortable but it’s nothing I can’t handle. My camo coating automatically kicked in when I arrived, leaving me with a black and dark blue colour scheme. It’s a relief to break through the surface, just to see it fade back to my usual vibrant reds and cool aquamarine.

Time elapsed – three hours, four minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Data recorded – fifty-six tracks. Probes lost – one. Injuries sustained – none.

Another resounding success for the Autobot’s premier surveillance operative, if I do say so myself.

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“So you made it back, did you?”
Is that the way you expect to be greeted having just come back from doing the impossible? Again. Yeah well, with a meeting party like this, what can you expect?

Sixspeed waves from the entrance into the main base. I like Sixspeed. He’s an easy going guy, open to other’s ideas, gets on well with most people by not arguing with them much. Can be a bit, um, lateral in the way he thinks but basically a nice ‘bot.

The stumpy blue slagger standing on the helipad however…

“You expected anything less from me?”
I transform and land. Reverb sneers.
“Yep. I’m always surprised they don’t see your bubble head peering in through the porthole.”
“Please.” I walk past, trying to ignore him.
“And that your thick frame doesn’t set off every scanner they’ve got.”

I catch myself self-consciously patting my torso plate. Well, if it’s going to be like that…
“Better than having a face like the back end of a truck. Oh, wait…”
Sixspeed says something. It sounds like ‘love-fifteen’. I don’t pay much attention, focusing instead on charging into the base.

“At least I know which is the back end of a truck.”
The cobalt-plated moron sticks to me like a magnet.
“Fifteen-fifteen.”
“That’s rich from someone who can’t count up to ten thousand without a calculator.”
“Fifteen-thirty.”
“Yeah, well, only you’d waste time counting a Decep’ battalion when you should be shooting ‘em.”

I round on him.
“Look, lugnut, I’ve had it up to here with you insulting my fighting skills.”
He smirks.
“Oh, pardon me. I forgot: you haven’t got any.”
“Deuce.”
“Hah! And you’re the ultimate warrior, I suppose?”
He’s always like this! Jealousy. That’s what it is. Pure jealousy of what I can do and he can’t.
“I pull my weight!”
“Are you saying I don’t?”
“Well you always seem to be flying the other why when the slag hits the fan…”
“Forty-thirty.”

I point an angry finger at Reverb’s chest.
“Listen, tough guy, if it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have a clue what the Deceps get up to half the time! We don’t all have to be lunks who get revved on biting their ankles!”
“Deuce.”
“Shove it up your exhaust, bottleneck!”
“Slag you, motor-mouth!”

We’re face-to-face, nose-to-nose. Great. Arguing with this grease-spot as if he’s someone important. I spin on my heel.
“I don’t have time for this. I’ve a report to make. You know, like I was ordered to? You remember what orders are, don’t you? Those things you never listen to?”
“Match point.”

“WILL YOU SHUT UP?”
We bellow at Sixspeed simultaneously. He gives a sheepish grin and holds up his hands in surrender.

“Have you three finished?”
Tagline appears out of nowhere, towering over us with a dark look on his face.
“Uh…” I gulp. “Yes sir! Sorry sir! I was bringing my report to the control room and got…distracted by Reverb…I have vital information to pass on, sir!”
He shakes his head tiredly. I cringe with embarrassment.
“Well then, we had better proceed.”

Without another word, he starts down the corridor to main control. I follow as fast I my legs will carry me, fuming at my ‘fellow’ Minicon for getting me into this. A black mark from Tagline is not something to take lightly!

Behind me, I distinctly hear Reverb’s pathetic parting shot.

“Crawler.”

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My marvellous audios pick up the voices coming from the control room long before we reach it. I sort through them, picking out the individual sounds.

“Will you stop squirming!”
Ah. Misha. Very bright for a human and usually the soul of serenity. Doesn’t sound very happy at the moment.

“Sorry. It’s just those things are damn cold!”
Oh. Kicker. Now he certainly isn’t happy to be back here. I keep getting twitchy around him, waiting for him to start pounding the hull plates in frustration like he always used to. He says he’s grown out of that but I’m still going to go careful.

“I can turn up the ambient heat if you like…”

And speaking of going careful…Wheeljack is in the building. Lock up the armoury; triple-shield the inner hull; get the fire crews on standby. He hasn’t come racing through the ship chased by a plume of smoke and flame for at least a week now. It’s starting to get worrying. I just hope it’s finding these Keys that’s got him thinking and not which part he left out of the regulator for a distronic cannon or something like that.

“Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s just being attention seeking as usual.”
Sally Jones. Need I say more?

We reach the door.

Most of the room is taken up by the banks of computers that constantly monitor the human race. Every signal they emit, every TV channel, every radio station, every website: everything can be accessed from here. There is not one form of media we are not able to intercept and search. And that’s without mentioning the hundreds of probes deployed at strategic positions over the globe.

We’re watching out for you, mankind. You’re not going to become a Decepticon refuelling post while we can help it.

What’s usually a clear space in front of the main viewer is now a weird tangle of cables and equipment. Stacks of metal boxes have been heaped around a human sized couch connected to a normal sized computer console, where Wheeljack is making some final adjustments, sonic-spanner in one hand, laser-cutter in the other. On the couch, stripped to the waist and covered in small circular patches is Kicker. Misha and Sally are standing by some kind of earthen machine that’s been linked into the main jumble – an ECG or something like that.
“You keep making doe eyes at him and he’ll never be focused enough for this to work,” the yellow-haired girl mutters to the darker woman. Misha ignores her.

Kicker sighs and leans back.
“Will you give it a rest? We know you don’t like us, please just shut up about it!"
I’ve been around these squishies long enough to know that that is not the sort of thing you say to Miss Jones when you want her to shut up. Luckily, Crosswise pops his head out from the duty-officer’s cabin before Sally can open her mouth.
“Look alive, troops! Commander on deck!”

I can say more good things about Evac than I can say bad things about Reverb. If that doesn’t put him in perspective, nothing will. Kind, dedicated, intelligent, loyal, dependable, modest – the giant gold heli-bot is all this and much more. Who cares that he usually has as much sense of humour as a bulkhead? When, as some mechs would say, ‘the slag hits the fan’, there is no one better to have in charge. And I can confidently say that most of the Autobot army – especially those posted to Earth – would agree.

Which makes it all the more strange that not only is the Arc 7 Evac’s first main-line command, despite vorns of being a Lt Cdr, but Optimus Prime had to virtually blackmail him into putting himself forward for it. No idea why. He’s just as good a spaceship captain as he is a field commander.

“At ease gentlemechs. Ahem. At ease Jolt.”
Being the only lower rank in a room stuffed with comms-controllers, chief engineers, tactical officers and alien civilians can have its disadvantages.
“Sir!”
“We’d better have your report first. Upload, pulse-code seven.”
“Uploading, pulse-code seven.”
Everyone’s optics go out of focus for a ‘second or two as everything I saw is transferred into their databanks.

Evac rubs his chin thoughtfully.
“So not only does Soundwave have everything we know about these Keys, he also has information of his own. And he’s working for Starscream.”
“Working with,” Crosswise points out, “is not working for.”
“It does seem odd that Megatron’s confidante would chose to ally himself with someone with Starscream’s record,” adds Tagline.

“Excuse me.”
Kicker waves his hands in the air.
“People down here not in your cosy little network. I got the bit about Soundwave not being dead and working with Screamer but what’s this about more info?”
“The Decepticons seem to have a way of tracking down the Spatial Key,” I summarise, “They’ve hooked that disc thing they used in Antarctica into a computer program of some kind. When I left, they looked like they were on the verge of homing in on the Key.”
“Oh. Great.”

Wheeljack straightens up – having spent the past few minutes ignoring just about everything he wasn’t sticking his tools into.
“That’s it! Got it! Everything’s ready, EV.”
“Thank you Wheeljack.” Our leader steps over to the captain’s console and powers up the interface. “The Decepticons have the advantages here. Optimus was right when he said this is a race against time.”

“And we’re always at the back.” Kicker swings himself on the couch. “About time we did something about it.” He starts to lie back then hesitates. “Just so I’m clear, Jack, what exactly are you about to do to me?”

“Weelll.”
Uh oh. Techno-babble translators on max.
“We all know by now that our sensors are next to useless in this search. Actually, it’s more of a complete overload. Vector Prime’s given us a vague scan-outline for the material these things are supposed to be made of – nice of him but a little hopeless as his scales and references are not just ancient but positively arcane. Anyway, we fed it into the computer and got whiteout. This whole squeaking planet is swamped in faint emissions matching that profile. Like someone threw a bunch of linked energy strings into the air – no way of tracing the source on our own.”
“Which means you need us primitive humans.”
“Which means we need you.” Wheeljack’s ears flash a merry rhythm. “Your genetic potential makes you vastly more accurate than our systems. Using a modified version of the boosting equipment we used to locate Screamer’s infiltration cells and your natural instincts for this kind of thing, we should be able to get at least a rough fix.”

“Right.”
The young human reaches behind himself and picks up the crown of electrodes. Grimacing, he puts it on and lies back, face screwed up further.
“Keep that up and you’ll get stuck,” Sally growls, “I thought you agreed to go ahead with this?”
“I have. I’m just remembering how much it hurts.”
“If you don’t want to carry on…” Evac continues to look even more concerned than usual.
“Don’t be stupid.”

Wheeljack reaches for the on switch.
“Brace yourself my boy.”
“Get on with it.”
The switch is switched.

Kicker howls.

His body arches as if electricity has just replaced his blood. The vid-screens come to life, filled with wire-frame globes. The boy’s hair stands on end, his eyes roll back into his head, his limbs spasm.

Misha starts forward. Sally puts a hand on her shoulder. They exchange a look I don’t understand and stay still.

Suddenly, Kicker gasps and his body goes rigid.
“Kicker?” Crosswise leans down. “Kicker, can you hear me?”
“Uh…o…of course I can…” He blinks once, slowly. “I…can…see…like before…dots…all over the globe…looks different…”
“The satellites have been realigned. You should be able to see the energy profile of the Key.”
“Yeah…yeah, I think I…uh…see it.”

The monitors flicker, converting his mental images into visuals. The Earth, surrounded by lines of twisting colour.
“It’s…like a web…a pattern…threads twisting in the wind…I…know it…I’ve seen it before…weaker, like background radiation…just…there…never really…looked at it before…my God, it’s beautiful…ah!”
The screens judder. Wheeljack frowns, concerned.
“Can you see any kind of source…I know it hurts to focus but –”
“But…you need…to know…duh…no…can’t…wait…it’s shifting…all the time…threads dying…threads growing…yeah, that’s it…threads growing out…being made…”
The globes turn randomly this way and that, stopping, starting.
“Argh!”
His face contorts as he concentrates, trying to lock only what must only be a whisper, a single smell in a massive field, a tiny sound in a huge hall. I can’t imagine what it must be like to see the universe as he’s seeing it now. He can instinctively home in on things that it would take our computers vorns to find. His body reacts to even the hint of energon and right now his biology is linked into thousands of quantum-flux satellites. At the moment there are about thirty hundred copies of Kicker’s genetics orbiting above us, doing on a global scale what he does every time he comes near one of us – but they can only work so long as he’s linked directly into them all.

Which means Kicker’s mind is being spread over the entire Earth.

“It…feels weird…like…music…no, just one note…really…” He’s gasping now, the word coming between shudders. “I…think…I…can…see…something…a light…a point…somethingrrrrrraaaggggghhhhhhh!”

The pictures plunge towards the surface, towards the sea in fact and then…

BLAM!

I leap several feet in the air. Some of Wheeljack’s machines blow up, others just burst into flame. Without thinking, I dive for Kicker, trying to shield him. Sparks and smoke engulf us both. Something comes crashing down on my back, catching my rotor.
“Youch!”
I reach the human’s side and yank the crown off. He jerks.
“What the –”

WHHHOOOSSSHHH

A blast of freezing air hits us as jets of powder smoother the flames. Evac steps through the wreckage, extinguisher nozzles retracting back into his weapons blocks.
“Are the two of you all right?”
I straighten up, feeling for dents. Nope, only a few in my pride.
“I’m fine commander.”
Kicker nods, wrapping his arms around his torso and shivering.
“Oh yeah. Brilliant. What the hell happened?”

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“An overload. A massive backlash through the satellite network. It’s lucky it didn’t do more damage.”

Tagline’s optics take in the blackened mess that’s been swept to the side of the room and the charred deck plates.
“I see. Tell me Wheeljack, how much more damage could it have done?”
“Um. Well, fried Kicker’s brain for a start.”

Sally, leaning against the command console, snorts. Kicker himself rolls his eyes.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Nevertheless,” continues our resident scientific maniac, “we now have a fairly accurate fix on where we should be going.”
“‘Fairly accurate’?” I raise an optic ridge.
“Yes. On a global scale, it’s fairly accurate.”
The main holo-projector springs into life, showing ever-enlarging views of the American continents. Gradually, the view focuses in on a small island in an area of ocean to the east of the city known as Miami.
“There it is. That atoll is where we’ll find the Spatial Key.” Wheeljack flicks a speck of dust off that horrendous green armour of his. “Told you I’d find it.”
“As if we ever doubted,” Crosswise begins.

Misha’s fit of hysterical giggling stops us all in our tracks.
“Sorry,” she manages to get out, “It’s just…” She tries to pull herself together.
“Just what?” Evac asks, “Misha, what is it?”
The giggles give way to embarrassed coughing

“I’m sorry. It’s just that that island looks like it’s…well…in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

“You’re joking?” is the gist of the Jones’ response.
“No I’m not. I’ve read enough about it to know the map off by heart. This effect, this Key is sitting at the heart of one of the biggest sources of alien myth and speculation on Earth!”
“You mean that the TFs are behind the Triangle?” Sally looks at the rest of us. “Is that possible? Could this Key make airplanes disappear and sink ships?”
Wheeljack shrugs helplessly.
“Not a clue. Maybe we’ll find out.”

“Right.” Evac draws himself up. “Crosswise, assemble a battle squad. There’s no sign of Decepticon activity around that island yet but we need to be ready for anything. Tagline, get your Recon team together. We’ll need their sensors and experience with unknown territory. Wheeljack, prep Shuttle 2. Full weapons and scientific compliment. Kicker, Misha, Sally –”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No Kicker, you –”
“Have to. Look, you’ve said it yourself; your sensors can’t detect the Key. We’ve no idea how big or how small it could be, if it’s hidden, if it’s locked up somewhere. I know what to look for. You could be searching for hours without me, more than enough time for Starscream to get there. With me, you’ll be able to get it quickly.”
They stare at each other, neither willing to shift.
“Please. I’m the last one to want to jump in front of the guns but the sooner you get that Key, the sooner we can all get on with our lives.”

Just like old times, really. If half a vorn ago can be considered old times.

“Very well.” There’s extreme reluctance in Evac’s voice. “You’ll need an exo-suit.”
“Heh. Could be difficult. I’ve grown a bit since I got the last one.”
Wheeljack glances across.
“You might fit into the one I prepared for Doctor Jones. He didn’t take it with him when he left for Project C.”
Kicker’s lip curls.
“Oh, great. Dad’s exo-suit. Probably covered in microscopes and notebooks.”
“Actually it’s just an up-scaling of yours. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“I’m coming too.” Misha plants herself in front of the commander.
“And me,” Sally agrees.
“No.”
“But –”
“We –”

The bang of Evac’s fist against the control panel is as loud as it is unexpected.
“No! Placing one human in danger because it is necessary is bad enough. Allowing two more to walk into the firing line is unacceptable. You can remain here and monitor us but you are not coming. Wheeljack, get Kicker suited up. Tagline, check communications feeds and appraise Oval of the situation. I’m placing the Arc 7 on red alert. He may want Arc 1 to go into the same state.”
He catches sight of me.
“Jolt, go and get Reverb and Sixspeed. Move!”

It’s times like these when I realise just exactly why those in command are in command. They can think. They can fight. They can inspire. And they can shout very loudly.

I move.

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“There it is.”
The grubby pile of rock and sand sits in the ocean like a rust spot. Sandwiched between Sixspeed and a bulkhead, I peer at the view screen, unimpressed.
“Is that it?” Reverb grunts.

“Yep.”
Kicker is sitting nearby, helmet in hand, eyes squeezed shut.
“It is. And it’s giving me the mother of all headaches. I suppose that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It’s still down there.”
“Nothing on the sensor screens,” Tagline reports, “Either the Decepticons haven’t found this place yet…or they’re down there and have a way of hiding.”

“Now there’s a cheery thought…”
“It is, Six!” Reverb rubs his hands with feral glee. “A scrap might make that little dot interesting!”
“How pathetic,” I note, “The resting place of one of the most powerful devices ever to leave Cybertron and all he’s hoping for is to be flattened by a Decep.”

Before he can come back with something crude, the shuttle dips and we go into a hover spiral. As we circle closer and closer to the ground, Evac gets out of his seat.
“I’ll go first, followed by Crosswise, Tagline. Once we’ve secured the area, the Recon Team will come down and then Landslide will bring Kicker.”
A grin tugs at the corners of Landslide’s mouth and the smokestacks on the yellow mech’s shoulders twitch.
“Baby sitting you again, eh kid?”
He lays a gentle hand on the human’s shoulder. Kicker manages a faint smile back.

“Wheeljack and Longrack will remain on the shuttle as back up.”
“On station, commander.”

He nods to Wheeljack.
“Thank you. Open the hatch. Autobots – move out.”

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Good grief. Five seconds flat and I’m coated in enough fine sand to give a cleaning drone fits. It doesn’t help that Evac is overhead, the downdraft from his massive rotors throwing clouds of the stuff around, buffeting me about and generally being so loud I CAN’T HEAR MYSELF THINK!

Still, on the plus side, the island is a bit more interesting closer too. It’s a roughly cone-shaped volcanic mound, with a curiously even slope. The only place this is broken is at the end of the beach we’ve landed on, where a set of fairly massive cliffs block our path. And the plant life is…odd. Nothing looks quite right, nothing looks like it belongs.

Kicker, sitting on Sixspeed and squinting up at the tree line at the top of the cliffs, is the first to comment.
“Y’know…I don’t think I’ve ever see a tree quite that shade of purple before.” He taps the side of his helmet. “Or flowers that square.”
“The foliage is certainly strange,” Tagline agrees, “And I am getting some very unusual chemical readings. Unusual for Earth, anyway.”

Our leader, having completed a cursory sweep of the immediate area transforms and drops onto his feet.
“No sign of hostiles. Kicker, can you tell which direction we need to be going?”

The boy’s head turns this way and that before fixing on a grouping of holes and crevasses at the cliff-base.
“That way. Straight on. Urgh. I wish my ears’d stop ringing.”
“Straight on it is.” Crosswise throws his crossbow jauntily over his shoulder and starts forward. We follow at a variety of speeds.

We get about half way there.

There’s no such thing as ghosts. Not really. The dead are dead and dead they stay. But there are things that act like ghosts are supposed to act.

This is something you tend to forget in favour of jumping out of your exoskeleton when a semi-transparent mech rises through the sand in front of you.

‘Nonchalant’ is the word that springs to mind. Nightscream appears utterly relaxed, sabre hanging loosely in his right hand, left fist gently resting on his hip, head listing to one side, eyes narrowed as if against the sunlight.

And yet there’s something unpleasantly unnerving about him. Something about the way he’s just…gliding up, not paying any attention to the sand and rock and dirt he’s sharing space with, like it’s no big deal.

Creepy.

“Dear me.” He straightens up a little, speaking softly, almost pleasantly. “We arrive here to play hunt the sparkplug on this little rock and five ‘seconds later a bunch of ever-so-subtle Autobots turn up. Can we help you at all or are you just here for the view?”
“Stand down, Decepticon, and leave this place.”
Evac speaks with equal calm. I edge a little bit closer to Tagline.

“Really.”
I expect Nightscream to howl with laughter or something equally villainous. Instead he just lifts his chin to the sky.

A triangular blur explodes from the trees, rockets over our heads, does a back loop and suddenly Starscream is standing above us, sneer firmly in place, null-ray levelled.
“Welcome to this charming little piece of the galaxy, Evac!”
Figures emerge from behind him. The twin coneheads, Thrust with his favourite carbine, Sunstorm already summoning up a pair of plasma-balls. The bulky, brutish shape of Dreadwind, Smokejumper perched on his shoulder. And a thin grey and blue mech with an oversized cannon in place of his left forearm.

“They’ve fixed up Raidrone,” Landslide mutters, easing his rifle into a firing position.
“That explains why we couldn’t detect them,” Tagline murmurs back.

“I think the appropriate phase,” says the Decepticon commander with a smirk, “is ‘surrender and we may be merciful’.”
Fat chance of that. Evac doesn’t even flinch.

“I’d suggest that you surrender. We’re far more likely to actually show mercy. If you don’t make trouble, that is.” He gives a tiny hand signal. We all tense. “Besides which, we have you at a disadvantage.”
“Hmm?” Starscream’s gaze shifts. “Oh, that shuttle of yours. I wouldn’t worry about that.” The tips of his gun barrels start to glow. “I’d be far more worried about –”

Nightscream’s wings snap up and round, ethereal hardware unfolding. Before anyone can react, he’s gone solid and two missiles streak away.

“Fracture rockets!” someone yells and the air is filled with shrapnel.

Billions of razor sharp fragments hurtle towards us, glinting murderously. Landslide spins, bringing his hands together, the bucket-halves on his arms rotating.

A field of shimmering gold covers us. The blades shatter harmlessly against it.

I wish I could be relived but this is the point where the Decepticons open fire properly. Howling whines and fizzing screeches mix with the crackle of Landslide’s shield. Pink and purple beams strafe across the yellow dome.

Very pretty. Very deadly.

“Kicker, Tagline, have you got any kind of accurate fix on the Key?” Evac’s attention is split between our yellow protector and the little human.
“I…that way.” Kicker points at the openings behind Nightscream.
“I’m picking up subterranean spaces beyond that, commander. I can’t be certain but I suspect a cave network.”
For a tiny amount of time, Evac considers.
“Recons, take Kicker and get into those tunnels. Find out what’s inside and retrieve anything that looks important. The rest of us will deal with Starscream’s forces. Wheeljack, can you deal with Nightscream?”

The engineer has already reduced one of his rifles to spare parts and is rapidly building something that looks like the mutant offspring of a radar dish and a microwave. His head flashes cheerfully.
“Oh yes. Give me a couple o’ seconds more…”
“Not too long…” Landslide grimaces as the firepower distorts his shield. “I can’t keep this up forever, y’know!”
“Ready!” Wheeljack hefts the weapon.
“Set.” Kicker magnetises his suit, lying flat against Sixspeed’s canopy. I leap onto Reverb.
“Hey! Watch the paint, fish-bowl!”
“Can it, big foot!”

“Go!”

The shield fades. Everyone leaps back. Evac’s back-mounted launchers bellow. Wheeljack’s improvised cannon explodes into life. Engines roar as the four of us race up the beach. Twin flares burst a hundred metres up, flooding everywhere in brilliant, sensor scrambling glare.

We hurtle into the caves, praying there isn’t going to be a wall in our path.

There isn’t. There’s not much floor either.

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr –

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