The Harvest

Polyhex was the playground, the stage of the harvest.

Though night had fallen, the streets remained warm. Countless feeder pipes within the substrata of the city carried molten slag from the Smelting Pool to the Forge. Vents and flues perforated the ground, arranged in a calculated patchwork. The heat that escaped them created a false sense of security.

Ravage walked alone with too much confidence. Polyhex was home. The warmth under his paws was comfortable. The thick brumes of smoke that choked the sky were familiar. Through the gaps, Cybertron’s two moons waxed and waned.

With his sensor-nets peeled and processing, Ravage scanned all frequencies. He was searching for what Soundwave wondered might be an Autobot trespass team: spies that would confirm the Nemesis rumour. Ravage shouldn’t have been chosen. His job was to spy, not to hunt for spies. Laserbeak should have accepted the mission. He was the interrogation expert, not Ravage. But that laserbeam butterfly, that coward, ducked out of the assignment. Ravage was above all this. Nevertheless, the shadows beckoned and welcomed him. It was always a case of light or shade, and the choice was always shade.

Ravage padded forwards. His steps were cautious and carefully planned. Alarm sensors and trap triggers were all over the place. One false move would result in death. He didn’t really need to worry, after all. Along with Spyglass, Ravage was responsible for most of the security nets that had been spun across most of the Decepticon-controlled areas of the planet. If he did get caught now, he would only have himself to blame.

Optic sensors in the end of his tail made sure he kept his own back covered. He pivoted his head from left to right, scanning what lay ahead. As he continued his search, he registered nothing. Perhaps Soundwave was getting too paranoid. So what if the Autobots found out about the Nemesis? Why should the Decepticons be scared of them? The Decepticons ruled the world. They were unstoppable. Untouchable.

An arm suddenly reached out from one of the vents and grabbed Ravage’s right hind leg. Ravage swung round with a sharp twist of his waist. His leg was trapped in the grip of a scarred hand with knotted claws. Ravage shook his leg, but the grasp was too strong.

The Decepticon spy snarled, revealing his razor sharp teeth. Stretching his neck towards his back, he tried to bite at the hand. It was out of reach. His hip-mounted missiles were no good. Ravage struggled but the hand pulled. He was being dragged backwards into the vent. His claws flicked out from his paws and he tried to pierce the smooth street floor. Sparks flew from the strained contact between the two metals.

Ravage struggled and twisted and flicked his body, trying to break free of the consuming grip. A thought flashed across his mind and he activated his communicator. A plasma shot lanced through the smoke from above and obliterated his radio. Where did that come from?

A professional to the core, Ravage refused to panic. But the wave of fear that emanated from behind threatened to consume him. It was all wrong. Polyhex was the playground. There should be no menace, no sticks and stones. The grip of the hand strengthened. It had finished playing now. Ravage’s body lurched backwards into the vent. The sharp edges of the opening scraped at his black armour. Ravage kicked violently with his free leg. His paw connected with a face. He kicked again, connecting with an optic visor. The fear turned to determination and he kicked harder. The optic visor gave way and Ravage heard a cracking sound and an angered grunt of pain. The grip of the hand loosened slightly and Ravage kicked again. The hand relaxed and fell away. Ravage was free.

Without looking back, Ravage darted forwards. But each time his right hind leg hit the ground, he recoiled in pain. A systems diagnostic told him that a secondary, though crucial, piston had been crushed. Determined, he carried on.

The smoke snatched itself away from the vent as something burst out. The sensor in his tail fed Ravage the information he needed to know. It was beast-like as he was, with four legs, but much larger. Its armour was gold and its tail was silver, with a serrated edge. And it had caught up with Ravage in a matter of seconds.

This time the creature decided to go for Ravage’s healthy back leg. It wasn’t stupid. Its spring-trap jaws shut tightly on Ravage’s thigh. Fear took over and Ravage let out a mechanical yelp. The creature kept its grip and ripped Ravage’s leg away from his hips. Ravage collapsed momentarily on the ground, his three remaining legs sliding on the spilled oil and discharged energon. Onboard computers warned of massive energy loss.

Ravage ran for his life.

The trail of vital fluids pointed to Ravage like a black and glowing-blue GPS. He had never felt so exposed, so obvious. He had run barely ten metres before the golden creature had caught up with him again. Ravage turned and launched a missile. It missed by some way and left him with half of the energy he had before. He slipped again and fell on his back.

The creature gnashed its teeth together and swiftly took a bite out of Ravage’s abdomen. The Decepticon’s vision flickered and the last thing he saw, he was sure, was a smile on his attacker’s wolf-like face.

Soundwave remained silent, his concerns left unuttered.

He stood, legs slightly apart, index finger to forehead. He scanned all known frequencies. There was no trace of Ravage’s attackers.

Ravage’s body lay at Soundwave’s feet, but the Decepticon officer did not kneel. A cursory scan revealed the macabre details of the attack. Ravage’s optics had been gouged away from their housing brackets. Vital components had been torn loose and snatched away. The circuit web across Soundwave’s visor flared.

Laserbeak circled above. He scanned for trails of burned energon, a breadcrumb trail of invisible footprints that might hint at the whereabouts of those audacious enough to infringe on Decepticon territory. There was nothing. He closed his wings and dove to the ground, landing by Soundwave’s side. He swung his long, thin neck up to catch Soundwave’s gaze.

Soundwave glared down at Laserbeak, allowing his optics to flare again. But before any hint of emotion could be caught, he snapped his head away. A faint voice laughed inside his head. It was excited, fractious. Soundwave retuned the carrier frequencies of his mind scanner and the voice became louder. No matter what the shielding, or precautions, or preparations, nothing escaped his notice.

Soundwave activated his communication console on his chest and beamed a pre-arranged signal to Starscream. He looked down again at Ravage’s body, then at Laserbeak and then walked away.

Thundercracker and Skywarp shot across Polyhex’s industrial zone, over the Smelting Pool and past the harvesting district.

They honed in on the agreed co-ordinates, transformed to robot mode and landed. Skywarp brought his flat hand up to his head as if saluting and peered across the horizon. Thundercracker nudged him and pointed. The two Decepticons dashed towards Ravage’s body and knelt down. Their actions were rushed and eager.

Carefully, as if defusing a proton warhead, the pair gathered up what was left of Ravage and placed the remains in a life support capsule. Thundercracker tapped his chest-mounted communicator and called for Astrotrain.

Skywarp rose to his feet, glanced around, and side-stepped nervously. Ignoring his partner’s somewhat embarrassing behaviour, Thundercracker applied a polymer seal to the capsule. Skywarp shook his head. Thundercracker signalled Astrotrain again.

The two Decepticons waited. They both stood with their backs to each other and the capsule between them. Thundercracker raised his arms to the horizontal and a quick mental command primed his incendiary guns. Skywarp was preparing to warp, just in case.

Thundercracker snapped his head to the direction of a loud and sudden noise. He assumed it was Astrotrain. A stream of white-hot radiation screamed across the street, coming directly from the source of the noise. Thundercracker dodged the blast and it hit Skywarp square in the back. He screamed and keeled forwards in agony. Thundercracker turned to his partner, now slumped face down on the ground. Thundercracker fired his arm-mounted weapons into the source of the blast. The sounds of the explosions echoed down the streets and into the distance.

Thundercracker prepared to emit a sonic boom but quickly realised he might not have time. He panicked. He kicked Ravage’s capsule out of the way and prepared to transform. He could hear two sets of footsteps running towards him from the shadows. Skywarp moaned quietly and grabbed Thundercracker’s ankle, begging not to be left alone. Thundercracker kicked at Skywarp shaking him loose. The footsteps grew louder and Thundercracker could hear the accelerating sound of weapons being charged. He took five steps and jumped into the air, arms stretched upwards. He transformed into jet mode and launched himself into the smoke-choked sky, leaving Skywarp to suffer the same eviscerating fate as Ravage.

Thundercracker plotted a course straight back to headquarters. He then noticed an unidentified jet on his tail. Before he could take any evasive manoeuvres, shots were fired at his afterburners. His primary fuel line erupted. He spun out of control and forty seconds later slammed into the metal ground, twisting and tearing his wings from his fuselage.

Unable to transform or fire his thrusters, Thundercracker lay helplessly in jet mode.

Minutes passed until he heard footsteps again. He tried again to transform but most of his systems had now drifted offline. He felt something kick him gently. He stifled a reaction. He tried to transform again.

A high-pitched spinning noise suddenly tore into the still air. Thundercracker then felt the hot-cold sensation of raw pain in the centre of his back. As he tried to transform again, he realised that his armour was being cut away with a tooth-edged circular saw. The noise grated and sliced into his very core.

Chip flashes erupted across the exposed circuitry in his back.

Through the pain, through his own howling, the last thing Thundercracker heard, he was sure, was laughter.

Soundwave was not at all familiar with the district of MK2A.

While Polyhex itself gorged on the fruits of Decepticon high technology, this sub-orbital territory had been left to rot. Buildings had warped and slumped as if built from the slag that had been skimmed from the surface of the Smelting Pool. The landscape had stewed in the heat of eternal battle.

As he crossed the uneven terrain, Soundwave knew full well that this lightless domain could house an entire army of the assassins he was tracking. But still there was no empirical trace of those that attacked Ravage, Thundercracker, and Skywarp. There were no radio transmissions, encrypted or otherwise. There were no energy discharge signatures. There was nothing tangible except the voice in his mind.

The elemental heat of the Smelting Pool faded away as Soundwave ventured deeper into MK2A. Internal heat regulators increased their burn to compensate. Soundwave calculated that he could continue walking for ten-point-eight more breems before having to turn back on himself. He feared an empty energon tank more than anything.

Soundwave’s mind was clear, save for that one voice that goaded him inside his head. It was only complete faith in his own abilities that convinced him that the voice was even real. Sometimes there was laughter, sometimes muttering, sometimes intense anger. He couldn’t decipher any meaning, only sense the emotion.

He checked his radiation sensors again. Nothing. There was nothing he could detect, nothing he could flag as read or pin to a datafile. There was nothing that could be catalogued or cross-referenced. All Soundwave had to go on was blind faith. He was away from his playground now and, in more ways than one, away from familiar territory.

The voice grew stronger. It screamed with fervour and severity. Soundwave pushed deeper into the secret underworld of Polyhex, following that voice. He began to wonder if he could make out cogent form and language amongst the emotion.

Soundwave had read the minds of thousands of Decepticons at Megatron’s request. It was a sure-fire way to vet the growing ranks of the Decepticons and make sure none had insurrection in mind. It was to protect Megatron’s position of power. Any Decepticons that had the slightest trace of insubordination in the backs of their minds were summarily despatched into the Smelting Pool. Curious, however, that Soundwave allowed Starscream to pass the test with flying colours.

There were always two layers to a mind scan: form and feeling. The language of the words was the easiest to process, but it was the underlying emotion that proved difficult to translate. This voice in Soundwave’s mind had more feeling than form. The words had yet to take shape, but the raw emotion was there.

Soundwave stopped walking for a moment. He shut down his optics and audio receptors and concentrated on the voice, the key to the whereabouts of his target. The voice didn’t stop. It was endless—foaming—chatter. There was a sudden spike of emotion again, and this time Soundwave managed to tune into it. Frustration and jealousy; he could sense frustration and jealousy.

Reactivating his external senses, Soundwave began to run. He ran towards the voice in his head. The voice became ever louder as Soundwave grew closer. Soundwave ran until the servos in his legs began to throb and pulse. He was rare in that he didn’t possess a vehicular transformation. And right now it was acutely inconvenient. The voice beckoned him further into MK2A, further into obscurity. His pace quickened and his fuel pumps stepped up gears to keep up.

The frustration and jealousy in the voice reached new peaks and Soundwave broke into a sprint. This was not a demon to run away from, but a curiosity to dash towards and embrace.

And all of a sudden the voice disappeared. Soundwave stopped in his tracks and twisted his body from left to right, looking to see where his apocryphal prey had fled. Then he realised: he had overshot his target, ran too fast and missed his quarry.

Soundwave retraced his steps. He checked his mapping systems. He was still in the heart of MK2A. He looked around, across the torn surface of the ground and up at the buckled buildings. He checked his radio again. There were still no signals, no traces of activity.

There was nothing around but white noise against a black background.

The voice returned. Soundwave jolted. He realised there and then that the voice was coming from directly underneath his feet. His optics dilated and he dropped down to the ground. He supported his balance with flat palms against the charred surface. He leaned forwards, head to the floor. The voice took form, clearing a path through the tormented emotion. Soundwave pressed the side of his head into the ground. He could make out words. At last he could make sense of the voice, sense of why Ravage was attacked, why Thundercracker and Skywarp were gutted.

Soundwave pushed his mind to its limits and clutched at a fully formed sentence from the fervid fog: “What do you mean, their circuits are rejecting the grafts?”

Through the confusion and then eventual realisation, the voice that Soundwave recognised, he was sure, was Scorponok’s.

The end.