Cosmos was a grotesque site.  He had become implanted with spores, and
 now the bulbous embryos of these strange creatures were straining to escape
 his form.  His body had been drained of energon, running now only on auxiliary
 power. His head and chest rusted by the contact with the acid in the blood of
 the aliens.  Suspended in what seemed to be a mucousy web of breathing life,
 he hung from the wall, a frightening husk haunting the optics of Soundwave.
        Soundwave was speechless, and found himself instinctively moving
 backwards.  Ravage was backing out quickly, growling all the while.
 Soundwave looked up to see the breathing wall start to collapse towards him.
        Rarely had the Decepticon communicator moved with such speed, but he
 had successfully dodged the incoming rain of alien spores that poured on the
 spot where he had been standing moments before.
        The husks split, and creatures similar to the one he had blasted on
 the surface now began streaming forth.  These creatures, however, were only
 about four feet in length, in contrast to the thirty foot monster above, but
 these were much faster, and there more of them than Soundwave's brain cog
 could comprhehend.
        From behind the walls, more poured out, hissing and spitting, immense
 black heads shaped like sicles with visible eyes no where to be seen.
 Tentacles flailing along slippery bodies they hissed, exposing rows of teeth
 and snapping tails.  Their skin was slippery and black, like that of an
 Earthen eel.
        Soundwave deduced that these were not mechanical life forms, but carbon
 based flesh, and therefore his survival would depend on shooting enough of
 them to make frighten them back into their cocoons.
        Still, hundreds of these creatures seemed to pounce on him at once,
 excitedly, Soundwave squeezed the trigger of his pulse cannon as the shrapnel
 launcher mounted on his shoulder simultaneously proceeded to spew forth a
 barrage of fragmentation that would have torn holes in plate metal..
        The black demons, shrieked, splattered and died, but there were too
 many.  The first wave fell dead, but the second wave was twice as numerous,
 and twice as far, when Soundwave swerved to meet them.
        But it was too late.
        The creatures dug into Soundave's skin and tore into him with
 thousands of teeth sharper than razors and harder than anything Soundwave had
 ever encountered.
        In a rage, dizzy with terror, Soundwave turned around and attemtped to
 lift his gun arm directly into the face of a creature above his head.
        It hissed and opened its mouth, releasing a tentacle with a row of
 teeth and a mouth of its own that shattered the beam on the floodlight on
 Soundave's forehead.
        Soundwave placed the pulse cannon to the creature's neck, and what
 seemed to be an eternity, he pulled the trigger, severing the head.  In his
 panic and fear Soundwave had made a mortal mistake.
        The creatures' blood was acid!  Soundwave, already rolling with the
 pain of the teeth sticking in his skin felt his faceplate burning off.  He was
 blind.
        Soundwave lost all semblence of Decepticon military discipline and
 opened every channel on every frequency and began sending a hysterical
 distress signal.
        "Decepticon...Soundwave....LIFE....creatures........teeth...too many...
..SKA system...."
        Ravage, who had been carefully backing away all this time was now
 detected by the creatures who began a rush for him as well.  Instinctively,
 Ravage fired both side-mounted missiles at the moving swarm, blowing them
 backwards.  Wasting no time, he turned and fled at full run for the cave
 entrance.
        Soundwave was now desperate.  Flailing his limbs, blinded, and
 punctured in a hundred places, he made a gamble and transformed.  The
 creatures were still locking onto him, and he could feel their spores being
 planted intside his body.  He could feel them attempting to drain his energon.
        Realizing that his only chance for survival would be rescue, he
 decided to conserve energy by closing all channels except for the decepticon
 distress channel, playing his signal in a loop.  His frustration and pain so
 intense, he attempted to play his last card and searched his audio files and
 began blasting Earthen music at 97% maximum volume.
        The caverns now echoed with the sounds of Pantera, loud enough to
 visibly vibrate solid rock.  This worked to some extent, shocking the
 creatures to slowing down their assault.
        "Now," Soundwave thought to himself, "I have to bide my time, before my
 energon runs out."

        ****************************************************

        Above the entrance to the cave, the constructicons had manufactured a
 500 foot long  boom crane that hung over the entrance, by scavenging metal and
 carbon from the planet's surface.
        Astrotrain manned the crane, as eighty stories below the constructicons
 were digging about in the interior of the cave entrance.
        Already, per Starscreams orders, they had extracted a tiny amount of
 adamantum that Mixmaster was forging into ingots, but it was far too little
 and Starscream was becoming nervous.
        The sleek, white and red visage of Starscream approached the edge of
the cliff and peered over the horizon at the enormous sun that was glowing
white hot over the surface of the fifth planet in the Ska system.
        "If the autobots are not on their way, " the sun itself surely poses
 an immense, problem, Astrotrain."
        Astrotrain peered from the levers of the crane at the sun, furrowing
 his mettalic brow, he saw nothing that he understood and merely nodded in dumb
 agreement with Starscream.
        "The sun," Astrotrain, Starscream hissed, "my scientific background is
 enough to tell me that sun is about to supernova, destroying our supply of
 adamantum for good."
        Starscream peered below at the lime-green vehicles, who appeared to be
 the size of insects.
        "And us along with it, if we don't hurry," he growled.
        Starscream increased the volume of his vocal unit and screamed down
at the constructicons,
        "YOU HAD BETTER INCREASE THE PACE OF YOUR WORK, YOU CRETINS, OR YOU
 WILL BECOME PERMANENT RESIDENTS OF THIS ROCK!"
        Bonecrusher, who stood below, gave a gesture with his middle finger he
 had learned on Earth, confident that Starscream could not see that far.
 Scrapper shouted back,
        "STARSCREAM, THE DEPOSITS SEEM TO INCREASE GRADUALLY THE FURTHER INTO
 THE CAVE, IF WE WERE TO GO FARTHER AND DIG DEEPER,..."
        Just then  the distress signal from Soundwave was plastered all over
 every piece of communication equipment.
        Starscream was visibly enraged.  "The fool!  Every Autobot in the
 galaxy will know we're here!"
        Then the vocal warning came over, and continued to play in a loop on
 the decepticon distress frequency.
        "Of course!  Those creatures that are killing Soundwave must have
 disabled the Autobot as well.  And if the autobot was searching for
 adamantum as well, then it MUST be heavier deeper in the cave."  Starscream
 smiled to himself at his genius, and leapt off the cliff, transforming and
 landing before the constructicons below.
        Reverting back to his humanoid form, he pointed to the cave entrance
 and directed the constructicons.  "Go, deeper into the cave, we must extract
 as much as we can!  Quickly!"
        "Er, what about Soundwave," Scrapper asked.
        "Forget him," Starscream barked, "the fool should have been more
 careful!"
        **************************************************

        The autobots had been observing the decepticons from behind a ridge,
 picking over the carcass of a strange and smoldering creature.
        "Be careful," the geologist Beachcomber said, "the blood of this thing
 appears to be acidic."
        Roadbuster raised a hand for silence, and then lowered it.  He jumped
 down from the ridge, and walked towards the other autobots.
        "The deceps have gone inside the cave, now.  I've got an idea."
        Beachcomber was kneeling over the carcass, holding a backbone in his
 hand.  "Hold on, Sergeant Roadbuster, there's more to these creatures.  It
 appears there is a large amount of adamantum lacing their bones.  It makes
 sense, however these creatures have evolved on this planet, they apparently
 thrive over adamantum deposits, incorporating them in their skeletons, making
 their bones almost industructible."
        He held up a tooth almost two inches long.  "This" he said, "is pure
 adamantum."
        Roadbuster looked at the tooth slowly, turning it in his hand.  His
 face seemed to hang as if bursting with emotion.
        "Whoever holds a metal like this, friends," he choked, "will rule the
 galaxy."

**********************************************************

        Optimus Prime was worried.  He stood in the docking bay looking out at
 the scape of the second moon of the fifth planet of the Ska system.  The
 transmission that they had intercepted had almost assured that Cosmos was
 beyond help and the autobots below were in great danger.
        "Wheeljack," Prime commanded over the intercom.  Pull us into position
 from behind the moon, over the planet's surface.
        Wheeljack, who was residing on the bridge, was cybernetically
 connected to the ship's controls.  Without a twitch in physical frame, he
 brought the great thrusters to life and pulled the drifting craft to cruising
 speed.
        Once around the moon and staring below at the orange, gaseous
 atmosphere of the turbulent world, a great gleam of steal became visible on
 the starboard side of the craft.
        Perceptor, peering through the periscope, shouted a warning,
 "DECEPTICON MOTHER SHIP IN SIGHT!"
        Optimus walked up to the control bridge just as a signal beamed to the
 autobot ship and appeared on a view screen before him.  A grinning, brutish
 face with firey, yellow eyes appeared.
        "Megatron!"
        "Good tomorrow, Optimus Prime.  It seems that you have attempted to
 sneak an autobot strike team by me, somehow assuming I wouldn't know."
        Optimus Prime's silence was the confirmation of this most lucky guess
 on behalf of the Decepticon leader.
        "You see, Prime, we intercepted the autobot distress signal as well as
 you, and placed the decoy to draw you out.  I give you credit, however, such
 a clever trap could never be expected to be discovered, of course."
        Prime's fists clenched, and still, he remained silent.
        Outside the craft, a door opened on the Decepticon ship and Blitzwing,
 Skywarp, Dirge, Thrust, and Slugslinger emerged and and began streaking
 towards the surface.
        "Wheeljack!  Arm our blasters, blow them out of the sky!" shouted
 Prime.
        "Alas, Optimus," was Megatron's sad sounding response, "unfortunately
 I can't let you do that, it seems that I will just have to persuade your
 molecules to leave you for better things."
        The main guns on the Decepticon hulk turned towards the Autobot ship
 and fired two pulse blasts.
        Wheeljack banked, but the second shot was able to clip the far
 starboard side and nearly sever the hull in half.
        
        Optimus Prime and everyone inside were thrown from their feet.
 "Wheeljack," Prime ordered, "return fire and cover our withdraw!"
        Perceptor looked at Optimus Prime puzzled, it was never him to walk
 away from a fight, had he become a coward?
        But no, even as the Autobot ship withdrew, Prime made his way to a
 weapons locker, and removed the largest gun he could find.  It was a beauty,
 based on an Earthen Gatling gun, but this one was more than half the size of
 Prime himself.  He threw it over his shoulder as well as a clip of detonation
 grenades.
        At the door, he was met by Jetfire.  Not a word was said.  Not a word
 needed to be, Jetfire knew what had to be done.
        The cargo bay opened, now that Wheeljack was keeping Megatron occupied
 with fire of his own, Jetfire was able to transform, and with Prime riding his
 back, streak for the surface.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | reddit | newsvine | furl | google | yahoo | technorati