They've escaped, but their ship is crippled, their alliance is uneasy at best, and their pursuers are catching up with them…(third in the Celestial Skies series)
Author's Note: Hasbro owns the Beast Wars, I make no profit, yadda yad ya. Anyway, YES, I know that this fic is…um…ayearandahalfoverdue, but I can work past that! Really!…I just don't know when I'll be FINISHING this fic. Encouragement is always welcome, and death threats are even kind of flattering once I stop running long enough to think about it.
Fleeing From the Moon
by Lady Dementia
dementedangelhotmail.com
Prologue:
The robot sitting at the desk drummed his fingers on the desktop, looking out a viewscreen at the moonbase below. From this magnification the damage wasn't seen as easily; one would have to know what it had looked like before the disaster to locate the empty spots in the space defense grid, in the ground support systems. Even then the damage didn't seem that bad. A couple ships and autoguns were gone: so what? One or two buildings had been blow apart: big deal. They could always build more, right? A dozen or so experiments had gone wrong or had needed to be terminated, but that had happened before. The scientists in charge of the major projects had assured him that most of the lost experiments were replaceable or not really necessary at all. The Maximal High Council and its Predacon allies had understood. The final body count had helped drive the point home that there was nothing that could have been done differently.
It was understood that sacrifices had to be made. Because of the secrecy involved in the operation of the A.L.H. Research Center, his rear didn't have to be saved from the media, which would have blown some of the "inhumane" practices of the experimentation way out of proportion. Of course some of what was done wasn't legal in the most technical sense, but wasn't it legal if the law-making body of Cybertron and the Cybertronian Alliance approved of them? Secrecy made sure that none of the little irregularities in the scientific research leaked out, though, and that was the way everyone liked it, from the A.L.H Research Center to the Maximal High Council. Things had gone wrong, but nobody knew about it besides those involved. Things picked up where they had left off, minus some experiments and the people who had tragically gotten caught in the middle of the bad spots.
There was the issue of the escapees, however.
The fingers stopped in their monotonous tapping long enough to clench into a hard fist. The Cutting Edge had managed to make a Transwarp jump despite a direct hit by one of the defensive platforms in orbit around the moon. That meant that someone had survived on board. Several someones, in order to properly operate a starship that size. Someones who had apparently seen what the A.L.H Research Center was and were now loose in the galaxy, able to tell anyone who they came upon what the Center was. Therefore the Center, in cooperation with the demands of the Maximal High Council and its allies, had to find and exterminate those loose ends. The hunt had to start with a simple beginning, of course: who WERE the escapees?
The robot behind the desk looked away from the viewscreen on his wall and directed his gaze towards the computer screen on the desk. A list of names scrolled down it under his optics: Captain Venara, Optimus Primal, Guns, Cheetor, Blackarachnia...it went on and on, noting down every crew member and passenger on board the Cutting Edge when the starship had arrived in orbit of the moonbase. They were in no particular order and only had one thing in common:
Every one had the word 'DECEASED' behind it.
After a long moment of looking at the results of the Center, he touched a key on the computer and was rewarded with another list, this one much shorter than the first. There were only three names. They all had the word 'ACTIVE' behind them. They were the last surviving passengers from the Cutting Edge and were the top suspects for engineering the successful escape. Only three, though. The scientists and mechanics he had assigned to research the matter had confirmed his thoughts: running a starship the size of the Cutting Edge would be dangerous, if not impossible, with only those three on board. Especially with the predicted damage done on the starship by the blast from the defense grid.
His optics narrowed as he studied the names on his screen, one at a time.
The standard Maximal background file on Rattrap was sketchy at best, but the Maximal High Council's Predacon allies had handed over a file with more information. It went without saying that most of the information had been gained through illegal means. It also went without saying that most of the informants were probably dead, or soon would be. The Tripedicus Council's files were often put together that way, and with the way it and the Maximal High Council were working together on this project it hadn't minded giving out all the information it knew.
The robot touched a button again, highlighting Rattrap's name and pulling up the short brief on him. It told him that Rattrap was a Maximal, of the male gender, and had adopted an alternative mode of an organic rat and a vehicular mode besides that. His specialty for the Axalon mission was listed as 'Demolition and Computer Programming'. That was computer jargon code for 'He blows things up and hacks into files'.
The rat could be tough, or even downright nasty to track down if the information the Predacon allies had supplied was proof of his abilities. Nothing had ever been proven, even by the Predacons. Small incidents that could never REALLY be traced back to Rattrap made him familiar with the Cybertronian underworld, but he had never been drawn far enough into it to be brought down by it. Nothing life-threatening or big enough to draw major attention, but enough that the Predacons' informants had been able to piece together bits of his lifestyle and money-spending habits and trace them to sources of money that couldn't have been from his legitimate jobs. Nothing had ever been proven, though, and Rattrap had left Cybertron on yet another legal jaunt through space paid for by the Maximal exploration funds, blurring the credit trail even further. Rattrap, above all, knew how to take care of himself.
His finger moved on the computer keyboard and another, recently familiar file came up onto the screen. He had studied it carefully before deciding to trust Depth Charge and make him a Security Chief. Apparently that trust had been misplaced. The obsessive, fanatical hate of a common enemy hadn't been as all-consuming as he had been sure it was, and the manta ray had escaped. Somehow he and the rat had constructed an entire plan of attack on the A.L.H. Research Center and pulled it off. The technicians who tore apart the Center's computer core had found only traces of the original computer virus left, but it was enough to give them a starting point. They traced each tendril of the virus, tracking down what it hit and in what order. Security monitors that hadn't completely scrambled their recordings had been salvaged, showing only part of where and what Depth Charge had been doing but giving the technicians more things to check. The virus trail showed that much of the time the manta ray had been "cooperating" with the Center Security Teams he had actually been studying power relays and computer access consoles in preparation for the sabotage needed to get the maximum amount of chaos necessary to get the Cutting Edge out of orbit. The partially trashed files had shown something that struck everyone's interest, though. In a fit of conscience Depth Charge had dragged one special experiment along with him, too, and the evidence dug up so far showed that the rat and ray had needed to rework parts of their plan in order to make it work. They hadn't planned on having him along, but they had worked quickly and it HAD worked. They were loose.
Optics narrowed with hate, lighting up inside into red furnaces of fury.
X was loose.
A quiet knock on the door cut off the spiral into thoughtless anger he had gotten to know so well, and he keyed it open. It slid away to show another robot, who walked in with what seemed like placid calm. The robot behind the desk indicated a chair without trying to make a pretense of being glad to see his visitor. The calm robot sat, only his burning red optics betraying his share of the hatred they both felt.
"The reward being offered is high enough to catch the attention of most of the amateur and some of the professional bounty hunters," the calm robot told the other behind the desk without preamble. "Not really enough to catch much media attention. The criminal profiles are being doctored as we speak so that they justify the amount of credits being offered. The bounty notices will be posted with a group of similar cases so that if any media attention is called to the offers there will be an even chance of one of the others catching the spotlight."
Used to the terse but smooth flow of information, the robot behind the desk touched another key on the computer and called up the doctored criminal files and the offered rewards. "Caught while hacking into secured computer files? An interesting crime for Depth Charge, perhaps." He tapped a finger against the desk thoughtfully. "Have their psychological profiles been altered enough to make their reactions to being discovered believable? We don't want them being wanted on murder charges if no one believes that they would have killed a security team to avoid being caught."
The calm robot nodded. "It has been taken care of."
A frown creased his face slightly as he looked at the computer screen again. "The reward..." He thought for a moment, trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle of the Maximal High Council's reasoning together. "Why not set it higher?" he conceded finally, admitting that he couldn't find the logic.
"The bounty hunters will just be used to drive them out of hiding," the calm robot said, examining one of his blue arms as if it held the answers to his companion's questions. "Once they've made their presence known somewhere, the Alliance will send in retrieval groups. Things will stay out of the media better if the targets just disappear from their attention and back to here."
"Ah." Now he saw the reasons. But one thing still stood out. "X isn't mentioned at all in this. There's no bounty for him."
An almost gleeful, if hard, glint entered the optics of the seemingly calm robot. "The public doesn't need to know about him. He's the Center's secret, and the Council and its allies want to keep it that way."
"Yes, I can see that." Fingers tapped again. "It's not likely that Depth Charge will let him escape again, after all. In fact, the predictions coming from our search teams indicate that they plan on the ray pretty much staying in the background guarding that freak while Rattrap keeps them hidden. They're all studying up on the rodent's REAL psychological file and looking for his usual contacts and hiding spots."
"Rattrap does appear to be in charge. It was his virus in the computers." The calm robot didn't seem that dismayed by talking about the robot who had sabotaged his experiment.
The robot behind the desk watched him carefully, then smiled thinly. "So they've approved your plans, I see. You have all of the original plans and observations, I assume, and they want you to try the entire experiment again. Is it likely that it will work the second time?"
A slight shake of the calm robot's head answered him. "At least, not soon. The original spark was found only after going through many test subjects. Although the Council and its sources will soon be transporting subjects here to be used, it is doubtful that we will find one with the unique requirements we found in that one's spark. I will try, but bringing X back to the Center is the only sure way of getting results quickly." He sighed. "A pity many of the most recent observational files were destroyed by those two. I had hoped to see the end of the last experiment with energon deprivement."
"And so you shall." With those words the robot behind the desk waved Dr. Kilju a dismissal that the placid robot took no offense at and returned to drumming his fingers on the desk, gazing at the viewscreen's display. He touched a key, and it switched to a view of deep space from another part of the starship his office was in. He looked at the stars, almost close enough to reach out and touch, and let his anger and hatred simmer. His enemy was out there somewhere.
The Maximal High Council and its allies wanted X back and the two who had gotten him out silenced. He was perfectly willing to do that. Depth Charge had tricked him, Rattrap had sabotaged the base he was supposed to be protecting, and X...well, people like Depth Charge might insist that he was a sentient deserving of a name, even a name like Rampage, but he and Dr. Kilju knew better. X was an experiment, nothing more, except for the fact that the robot behind the desk had a rather large grudge against his continued existence. He would settle for returning him to what amounted to torture, however.
The bounties for the other two escapees didn't specify Dead or Alive. Dead was preferable, but it could always be done after they were captured. The way the analysts were studying Rattrap's profile, the robot behind the desk was confident the rodent would lead his companions straight into a retrieval team's arms. All they had to do was build a better mousetrap, after all, for such a smart mouse.
X was no mouse, though. And the People In Charge wanted him alive. VERY alive. He was important to them in ways that an experiment like him couldn't possibly understand. Having lived it his whole life so far, X had probably never even thought of it in terms of affecting others beside himself.
But the People In Charge had. Maximal High Council, the mysterious Tripedicus Council, select allies from the Cybertronian Alliance--they all knew why the A.L.H. Research Facility and Dr. Kilju were so important. They were the key to unlocking and then, later, sharing X's secret. It had been the original reason the Maximal High Council had approved the Protoform X project, and it still wanted that secret for its very own so desperately that it was willing to search the galaxy for the escaped experiment. The robot behind the desk didn't know if any thought had actually been given to applying the final results of the study to the general populace, but he doubted it. Only important players got the rewards of the game in the end. He himself was an important piece in this puzzle, and the pain the research needed to put it together caused was only an added benefit.
Admiral Jirex leaned back in his chair, a wide smile stretching across his face as he imagined the three robots fleeing from the moon his ships orbited. They would run, but they would be found. And then the precious secret would be discovered and unlocked.
The secret of IMMORTALITY.
Author's Note: Hasbro owns the Beast Wars, I make no profit, yadda yad ya. Anyway, YES, I know that this fic is…um…ayearandahalfoverdue, but I can work past that! Really!…I just don't know when I'll be FINISHING this fic. Encouragement is always welcome, and death threats are even kind of flattering once I stop running long enough to think about it.
Fleeing From the Moon
by Lady Dementia
dementedangelhotmail.com
Prologue:
The robot sitting at the desk drummed his fingers on the desktop, looking out a viewscreen at the moonbase below. From this magnification the damage wasn't seen as easily; one would have to know what it had looked like before the disaster to locate the empty spots in the space defense grid, in the ground support systems. Even then the damage didn't seem that bad. A couple ships and autoguns were gone: so what? One or two buildings had been blow apart: big deal. They could always build more, right? A dozen or so experiments had gone wrong or had needed to be terminated, but that had happened before. The scientists in charge of the major projects had assured him that most of the lost experiments were replaceable or not really necessary at all. The Maximal High Council and its Predacon allies had understood. The final body count had helped drive the point home that there was nothing that could have been done differently.
It was understood that sacrifices had to be made. Because of the secrecy involved in the operation of the A.L.H. Research Center, his rear didn't have to be saved from the media, which would have blown some of the "inhumane" practices of the experimentation way out of proportion. Of course some of what was done wasn't legal in the most technical sense, but wasn't it legal if the law-making body of Cybertron and the Cybertronian Alliance approved of them? Secrecy made sure that none of the little irregularities in the scientific research leaked out, though, and that was the way everyone liked it, from the A.L.H Research Center to the Maximal High Council. Things had gone wrong, but nobody knew about it besides those involved. Things picked up where they had left off, minus some experiments and the people who had tragically gotten caught in the middle of the bad spots.
There was the issue of the escapees, however.
The fingers stopped in their monotonous tapping long enough to clench into a hard fist. The Cutting Edge had managed to make a Transwarp jump despite a direct hit by one of the defensive platforms in orbit around the moon. That meant that someone had survived on board. Several someones, in order to properly operate a starship that size. Someones who had apparently seen what the A.L.H Research Center was and were now loose in the galaxy, able to tell anyone who they came upon what the Center was. Therefore the Center, in cooperation with the demands of the Maximal High Council and its allies, had to find and exterminate those loose ends. The hunt had to start with a simple beginning, of course: who WERE the escapees?
The robot behind the desk looked away from the viewscreen on his wall and directed his gaze towards the computer screen on the desk. A list of names scrolled down it under his optics: Captain Venara, Optimus Primal, Guns, Cheetor, Blackarachnia...it went on and on, noting down every crew member and passenger on board the Cutting Edge when the starship had arrived in orbit of the moonbase. They were in no particular order and only had one thing in common:
Every one had the word 'DECEASED' behind it.
After a long moment of looking at the results of the Center, he touched a key on the computer and was rewarded with another list, this one much shorter than the first. There were only three names. They all had the word 'ACTIVE' behind them. They were the last surviving passengers from the Cutting Edge and were the top suspects for engineering the successful escape. Only three, though. The scientists and mechanics he had assigned to research the matter had confirmed his thoughts: running a starship the size of the Cutting Edge would be dangerous, if not impossible, with only those three on board. Especially with the predicted damage done on the starship by the blast from the defense grid.
His optics narrowed as he studied the names on his screen, one at a time.
The standard Maximal background file on Rattrap was sketchy at best, but the Maximal High Council's Predacon allies had handed over a file with more information. It went without saying that most of the information had been gained through illegal means. It also went without saying that most of the informants were probably dead, or soon would be. The Tripedicus Council's files were often put together that way, and with the way it and the Maximal High Council were working together on this project it hadn't minded giving out all the information it knew.
The robot touched a button again, highlighting Rattrap's name and pulling up the short brief on him. It told him that Rattrap was a Maximal, of the male gender, and had adopted an alternative mode of an organic rat and a vehicular mode besides that. His specialty for the Axalon mission was listed as 'Demolition and Computer Programming'. That was computer jargon code for 'He blows things up and hacks into files'.
The rat could be tough, or even downright nasty to track down if the information the Predacon allies had supplied was proof of his abilities. Nothing had ever been proven, even by the Predacons. Small incidents that could never REALLY be traced back to Rattrap made him familiar with the Cybertronian underworld, but he had never been drawn far enough into it to be brought down by it. Nothing life-threatening or big enough to draw major attention, but enough that the Predacons' informants had been able to piece together bits of his lifestyle and money-spending habits and trace them to sources of money that couldn't have been from his legitimate jobs. Nothing had ever been proven, though, and Rattrap had left Cybertron on yet another legal jaunt through space paid for by the Maximal exploration funds, blurring the credit trail even further. Rattrap, above all, knew how to take care of himself.
His finger moved on the computer keyboard and another, recently familiar file came up onto the screen. He had studied it carefully before deciding to trust Depth Charge and make him a Security Chief. Apparently that trust had been misplaced. The obsessive, fanatical hate of a common enemy hadn't been as all-consuming as he had been sure it was, and the manta ray had escaped. Somehow he and the rat had constructed an entire plan of attack on the A.L.H. Research Center and pulled it off. The technicians who tore apart the Center's computer core had found only traces of the original computer virus left, but it was enough to give them a starting point. They traced each tendril of the virus, tracking down what it hit and in what order. Security monitors that hadn't completely scrambled their recordings had been salvaged, showing only part of where and what Depth Charge had been doing but giving the technicians more things to check. The virus trail showed that much of the time the manta ray had been "cooperating" with the Center Security Teams he had actually been studying power relays and computer access consoles in preparation for the sabotage needed to get the maximum amount of chaos necessary to get the Cutting Edge out of orbit. The partially trashed files had shown something that struck everyone's interest, though. In a fit of conscience Depth Charge had dragged one special experiment along with him, too, and the evidence dug up so far showed that the rat and ray had needed to rework parts of their plan in order to make it work. They hadn't planned on having him along, but they had worked quickly and it HAD worked. They were loose.
Optics narrowed with hate, lighting up inside into red furnaces of fury.
X was loose.
A quiet knock on the door cut off the spiral into thoughtless anger he had gotten to know so well, and he keyed it open. It slid away to show another robot, who walked in with what seemed like placid calm. The robot behind the desk indicated a chair without trying to make a pretense of being glad to see his visitor. The calm robot sat, only his burning red optics betraying his share of the hatred they both felt.
"The reward being offered is high enough to catch the attention of most of the amateur and some of the professional bounty hunters," the calm robot told the other behind the desk without preamble. "Not really enough to catch much media attention. The criminal profiles are being doctored as we speak so that they justify the amount of credits being offered. The bounty notices will be posted with a group of similar cases so that if any media attention is called to the offers there will be an even chance of one of the others catching the spotlight."
Used to the terse but smooth flow of information, the robot behind the desk touched another key on the computer and called up the doctored criminal files and the offered rewards. "Caught while hacking into secured computer files? An interesting crime for Depth Charge, perhaps." He tapped a finger against the desk thoughtfully. "Have their psychological profiles been altered enough to make their reactions to being discovered believable? We don't want them being wanted on murder charges if no one believes that they would have killed a security team to avoid being caught."
The calm robot nodded. "It has been taken care of."
A frown creased his face slightly as he looked at the computer screen again. "The reward..." He thought for a moment, trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle of the Maximal High Council's reasoning together. "Why not set it higher?" he conceded finally, admitting that he couldn't find the logic.
"The bounty hunters will just be used to drive them out of hiding," the calm robot said, examining one of his blue arms as if it held the answers to his companion's questions. "Once they've made their presence known somewhere, the Alliance will send in retrieval groups. Things will stay out of the media better if the targets just disappear from their attention and back to here."
"Ah." Now he saw the reasons. But one thing still stood out. "X isn't mentioned at all in this. There's no bounty for him."
An almost gleeful, if hard, glint entered the optics of the seemingly calm robot. "The public doesn't need to know about him. He's the Center's secret, and the Council and its allies want to keep it that way."
"Yes, I can see that." Fingers tapped again. "It's not likely that Depth Charge will let him escape again, after all. In fact, the predictions coming from our search teams indicate that they plan on the ray pretty much staying in the background guarding that freak while Rattrap keeps them hidden. They're all studying up on the rodent's REAL psychological file and looking for his usual contacts and hiding spots."
"Rattrap does appear to be in charge. It was his virus in the computers." The calm robot didn't seem that dismayed by talking about the robot who had sabotaged his experiment.
The robot behind the desk watched him carefully, then smiled thinly. "So they've approved your plans, I see. You have all of the original plans and observations, I assume, and they want you to try the entire experiment again. Is it likely that it will work the second time?"
A slight shake of the calm robot's head answered him. "At least, not soon. The original spark was found only after going through many test subjects. Although the Council and its sources will soon be transporting subjects here to be used, it is doubtful that we will find one with the unique requirements we found in that one's spark. I will try, but bringing X back to the Center is the only sure way of getting results quickly." He sighed. "A pity many of the most recent observational files were destroyed by those two. I had hoped to see the end of the last experiment with energon deprivement."
"And so you shall." With those words the robot behind the desk waved Dr. Kilju a dismissal that the placid robot took no offense at and returned to drumming his fingers on the desk, gazing at the viewscreen's display. He touched a key, and it switched to a view of deep space from another part of the starship his office was in. He looked at the stars, almost close enough to reach out and touch, and let his anger and hatred simmer. His enemy was out there somewhere.
The Maximal High Council and its allies wanted X back and the two who had gotten him out silenced. He was perfectly willing to do that. Depth Charge had tricked him, Rattrap had sabotaged the base he was supposed to be protecting, and X...well, people like Depth Charge might insist that he was a sentient deserving of a name, even a name like Rampage, but he and Dr. Kilju knew better. X was an experiment, nothing more, except for the fact that the robot behind the desk had a rather large grudge against his continued existence. He would settle for returning him to what amounted to torture, however.
The bounties for the other two escapees didn't specify Dead or Alive. Dead was preferable, but it could always be done after they were captured. The way the analysts were studying Rattrap's profile, the robot behind the desk was confident the rodent would lead his companions straight into a retrieval team's arms. All they had to do was build a better mousetrap, after all, for such a smart mouse.
X was no mouse, though. And the People In Charge wanted him alive. VERY alive. He was important to them in ways that an experiment like him couldn't possibly understand. Having lived it his whole life so far, X had probably never even thought of it in terms of affecting others beside himself.
But the People In Charge had. Maximal High Council, the mysterious Tripedicus Council, select allies from the Cybertronian Alliance--they all knew why the A.L.H. Research Facility and Dr. Kilju were so important. They were the key to unlocking and then, later, sharing X's secret. It had been the original reason the Maximal High Council had approved the Protoform X project, and it still wanted that secret for its very own so desperately that it was willing to search the galaxy for the escaped experiment. The robot behind the desk didn't know if any thought had actually been given to applying the final results of the study to the general populace, but he doubted it. Only important players got the rewards of the game in the end. He himself was an important piece in this puzzle, and the pain the research needed to put it together caused was only an added benefit.
Admiral Jirex leaned back in his chair, a wide smile stretching across his face as he imagined the three robots fleeing from the moon his ships orbited. They would run, but they would be found. And then the precious secret would be discovered and unlocked.
The secret of IMMORTALITY.