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Melanossus

Hope.

Hope made the Autobots continue their futile resistance in these hours of despair. They had fought valiantly. They always did. It was one of the keys to the riddle Decepticons were still trying to solve. The resolve of the Autobots when driven against a wall had kept their cause alive despite being outnumbered by the Decepticons on many theaters of their never ending war. But here on Nebulos, the Autobot resistance was falling. In the end it did not matter how valiantly one fought, not when opposition was overwhelming. It only delayed the inevitable. The mighty Ironside had been cut down like his famous armor had been made of tinfoil. The clever Rad, known for his intelligence had fared no better. Nor his loyal companion, Lionizer. Even Pointblank, a grizzled veteran of thousands battles had been overwhelmed. One by one the Autobots were falling before the might of the Decepticon war machine.

Some continued to press on. Like Comcast, the communications specialist of this particular Autobot counter infiltration cell. Comcast was relatively inexperienced as a soldier. Out here on the battlefield he was out of his element. But he never gave up either. He knew Pyro was still standing. And that meant they still had Hope. He only had to buy Pyro more time. Pointblank and Rad had managed to pull the attention of the Sweeps, leaving Comcast just enough time to get into a position and create a powerful jamming field over the Nebulan town. Effectively shredding the Decepticon battlefield communications into garbled, distorted mess. The single most important advantage of it? It cut off the link between the numerous Insecticon diaclones and Turmoil who had used the Swarm as means of keeping track of the enemy positions and picking him targets outside his own line of sight.

When the jamming field took effect, Turmoil became a prisoner of his own smokescreen. The powerful Decepticon warlord had been counting on the Swarm's ability of providing him targeting data and with the link lost, he was as blind as Pyro was. The various proximity sensors and vision modes still allowed him good enough short range 'picture' of his surrounding but the ionized smoke effectively cut his long distance sensor range to a small portion of its normal range.

Frustrated but hardly beaten, Turmoil turned off the smoke generators in his legs and began backing off from the cloud of smoke he had let loose to hide his exact position from Pyro. Hopefully the Sweeps with the assistance of Bomb-Burst and Horri-Bull could pin the Autobot down for long enough for the Decepticon warlord to regain his targeting ability. That could hardly be taken for granted though.

Backing down forced him out of the position between Pyro and the Decepticon supply depot, but it had brought Turmoil far enough from the veil of ionized smoke to allow his long range sensors to be of use again, although not through the smoke. It had also brought him in contact with the Swarm again, though only through direct laser communications. It gave him no ability to see inside the cloud of smoke. What it did however, was allowing Turmoil to see around it. And when it came to the Swarm, Comcast had no place to hide from them. The moment the Swarm pinpointed Comcast's position to their commanding officer was removed from the moment Comcast's world exploded only by couple of astroseconds.

Smoke rising from his cannon barrel, Turmoil turned his attention back to Pyro's last known position while the Sweeps set out to find the possible surviving stragglers in the edge of the town. Despite the Autobots' stubborn attempt to fight superior enemy - it was almost over now. Only one Autobot was still resisting and he was resisting hard. The moment the Swarm brought Pyro's real position back to Turmoil's targeting grid, the supply depot they had come to protect exploded violently with power nearly comparable to the atom bomb dropped to Hiroshima.

The shockwaves of the explosion swept across the town, clearing the smoke and Insecticon Swarm off the skies while turning most of the buildings in the town to rubble. Even the massive Turmoil was knocked down by the force of the explosion given his relatively short range to the supply depot. His construction however was far too strong to suffer more than minor damage from the explosion at this range. Seething from rage, the powerful Decepticon commander pulled himself up, only to find Pyro doing the same roughly a block worth of ruined buildings away from his own position. With a furious scowl on his face behind the cracked mask veiling it, Turmoil aimed his cannon arm at Pyro's left thigh and let loose a destructive beam of particles towards the lone resisting Autobot.

Equatorial Desert

"Oooh. The slaglicker speaks, heh heh." Apeface smirked at Scattershot's attempt to agitate him. A pretty common strategy from self-proclaimed toughbots like the Technobot unit leader was. Piss off your captors enough to make them careless and take the advantage to escape. Too bad for Scattershot, such tactics were useless against Apeface. Scattershot could try to bait him for the rest of his sorry existence and the Horrorcon just wouldn't care. In fact, if Scattershot got original enough with his jibes, Apeface might even end up memorizing the insults only to use them later himself. Plagiarism wasn't exactly something the Horrorcon primate was too concerned about.

"Monkey does what monkey does." Apeface chuckled and shoved the butt of his gun against the back of Scattershot's head with enough force to make the Technobot fall again. Activating his communicator, Apeface set in their current coordinates and sent an orbital bounce request back to Tenebrous before turning towards Snapdragon to address the reptile's mocking tone.

"Shuddup you waste lubricant loving sewage goo hoarding slob." Apeface taunted his partner back and socked Snapdragon in the back of his head with a balled fist as he walked over the battered form of Scattershot and past his partner in crime. "Mind your own pile of trash unless you were going to leave it here to dry instead of securing its lubricants for one of your grease baths."

Melanossus

Pyro flipped end over end and buried his left foot deep into the crumbled cobbles as the limpet charge tumbled over the futile defenses of the Decepticon horde. His blaster was drawn at the ready and already leveled at two insecticlones as they attempted to intercept the live bomb as it headed to its date with destiny.

The Ranger pulled the trigger of his cannon and sent two short bursts of quick hardening foam straight into the two clones. One was hit in the head and the torso, keeping his weapon at a lowered position before the foam dropped down to its legs locking it in place. The second burst pounded the larger clone as it attempted to transform into the form of an insect. Caught in mid-transformation, the internal gears snapped and the daiclone fell to the other side of the wall in a smoldering ruin.

His sensors were accurate to a fault. He had anticipated the levels of stored energon within the warehouse. The energy readings his sensors had picked up were of a small deposit of cubes hidden deeper within the structure.

To Pyro's horror, his scans were woefully inaccurate. The limpet charge detonated as soon as it breached the weakened roof of the building. Initially it was expected to be a small localized explosion to destroy the building and perhaps in a worse case scenario damage its neighboring structures. The detonation of the charge sent off a chain reaction hidden deep within the structure and the first shock wave punched the ranger right across the chest causing him to tumble over into an abandoned cargo truck. The second shock wave as the small mushroom cloud began to rise over the now irradiated crater forced Pyro to cover his body with his arms.

An intense almost blinding pain exploded through his optics and all of his internal sensors erupted with damage reports. His entire side felt as if it had been cleaved from his torso as a large power surge crashed against his exposed flank. The force of the shot caused the already battered Pyro to take flight and crash into the ruins of a local convenience store and bar and brewery. He came to rest in a burning heap of broken steel and bricks.

Through the sparks and the surges through his fractured optics, Pyro slowly turned his head to stare down the source of the shot that had caused his flank so much damage. "Tur... moi..l" his voice failed him as the power levels began to dip to their lowest sustainable levels. Soon his optics faded and he fell into stasis. Everything was dark, a dreamless slumber with nothing but pain and thoughts of failure.

Ocean Depths

The familiar grey twilight of the ocean greeted Snaptrap and the rest of his team as they descended down into the depths of the ocean. Landing on a soft patch of sand, Snaptrap turned to address his team as they looked to him for orders.

>>”Our mission is to locate any crashed Autobot escape capsules. Capture the Autobots if you can, terminate them if you cannot. Overbite, Seawing, you will do reconaissance. Mention anything out of place. Skalor, Tentakil, Nautilator, you will be conducting a search of the ocean floor as will I. Spread out but keep in radio contact. Dismissed.”<<

Seawing and Overbite shot off into the deep blue of the horizon to search for signs of Autobot life at top speed. Skalor, Tentakil, and Nautilator spread off in different directions. Snaptrap moved toward the north. Hopefully, the reconaissance would go swiftly, otherwise Nautilator would begin to rust. Snaptrap considered – not for the first time – about leaving him to rust, but decided against it as he always would. He had his uses. The Seacon commander swept his optics across the blue horizon as he floated onward at a moderate pace, searching for signs of Autobot activity.

Melanossus

The sight of the particle stream from his arm cannon puncturing through an enemy chassis never ceased to fashinate Turmoil. Being able to wield such of an amount of destructive energies and channel it as you pleased to destroy your enemy was impressive even by Transformer standards. Yet in the end it was nothing more than a tool of war and the Decepticons had plenty of them. Some were even more impressive than Turmoil's chosen weapon. But in his weight class, such weapons were rare.

This battle had cost the Decepticons plenty. Nothing irreplaceable but plenty nevertheless. Yet, Turmoil considered this victory worth the sacrifices. The Insecticon diaclones were relatively simple to fabricate. They would be replaced in few days. Production of new drones to refill the ranks of the Sweeps would take somewhat longer but even it could be considered as a minor setback. The same could be said about the destruction of the supply depot. It was one of many and even now there were plenty of new ones being constructed all over the larger power production sites of Nebulos. The Autobot resistance on Nebulos however, would not be able to rebound from this defeat.

During the past several breems Turmoil had received number of new reports from his troops capturing Autobot stragglers. Cyclonus, Scourge, the Horrorcons and that insuffarable Deadlock had taken several Autobot survivors from the Farstar to custody. The bounty hunter Lockdown had delivered as usual. Even Black Shadow had rised on the occasion and captured the Spartanbots with Blue Bacchus. And it was only a matter of time Snaptrap would update his report. Through the intelligence secured so far Turmoil could fairly accurately estimate that no more than ten Aubots were still on the loose. And what could ten Autobots do against over one thousand Decepticons whom would soon have the populace of the planet on their side. The result of Pyro's actions here on this small town of Melanossos would ensure it.

As Turmoil approached Pyro's prone form, his gun barrel was still smoking from the excess heat caused by the blast that had removed the Optimus Prime wannabe from the fray. The Autobot ranger had certainly tried his best but in the end his heroism had only resulted in turning his own body to a smoking wreck and bringing the contempt of countless Nebulans over him and his kind.

The quick scan Turmoil spared for Pyro indicated a system-wide stasis-lock. The ranger would live at least if treated quickly enough. Nevertheless, he would no longer pose a treat to Turmoil or any other Decepticon in his vicinity. True to his nature, Turmoil wasted no time gloating over Pyro's defeat in his hands, instead - he opened up a comm-link to Reflector.

>>"Reflector. Compile an anti-Autobot propaganda broadcast from the video feed acquired from the battle and eventual destruction of town of Melanossus through Pyro's actions and leak it to the Nebulan media through intermediaries. Also prepare medical units to take in dozens of injured. Both our own and our prisoners. Captured hostiles will require no more attention than is demanded by The Code of Interplanetary Conflict. Life threatening injuries are to be stabilized. Weapon systems are to be confiscated and a transformation inhibitor is to be installed to every functioning Autobot prisoner."<<

Having finished the transmission to Reflector, Turmoil turned to stare straight at the direction of Cyclonus and Scourge whose presence he was perfectly aware of. >>"I may have ignored your inactivity through this battle but if you continue to avoid your duties - being branded as deserters by the High Commander will be the least of your worries."<<

Ocean Depths

"What the frag died!?"

These were the only words Overbite could say when swimming up to Snaptrap for orders. He hated the putrid smell that was always seeping into his scent processors. He didn't notice the slow-moving Skalor approach him from behind.

"He who smelt it dealt it, Jawbreaker." Skalor said as he swam around Overbite slowly, letting his putrid liquid seep from his body and onto the shark.

Overbite scowled, then decided that biting him would only spew more noxious oil onto Overbite. He felt a chill go down his spine. He would not want that oil in his mouth. Ever.

Skalor received his orders and followed closely behind Nautilator, letting his "essence" travel around him. He looked about the seafloor, occasionally snapping sea creatures that were not scared off by his odor in two.

Overbite sped around the seafloor, smelling about for any Autobot. He would never forget that stench. Hope. They were all driven by it, and it reeked from them. It was almost as foul as Skalor.

Almost.

Korajan Forest--Cave

With diaclones swarming around the cave structure, not only was it inevitable that they were going to break through, but they were inevitably going to notice and attempt to break out of some other area.

With the boulder that had been put in their way finally cracking and crumbling in front of their combined onslaught, Bombshell and his own detachment of clones began to spill in to the caves, crawling alongside its edges in every which way in search of the Autobots that were attempting to elude them.

It was one of Kickback's, however, that had caught sight of the attempted breakout from another portion of the terrestrial structure. Immediately, another portion of them took to the air, just as Kickback did, immediately in pursuit.

"Still they flee. It does them no good now!" Kickback chuckled gleefully as he soared through the air before landing on a patch of ground. Ahead of him, the diaclones were quickly gaining on the Autobots. There appeared to be some sort of small patch of Nebulan civilization ahead.

Excellent. Dinner.

The Perdition--Bridge

>>"Turmoil will be most pleased,"<< Reflector responded to Soul Siren. >>"I suspect you'll have a good deal of company soon."<<

When Turmoil's latest transmission came through, Reflector heaved a large sigh of internal relief. This was a task that was directly suited to his function. Between Turmoil and Cyclonus' frustration regarding how some of the orbital operations had been conducted and the fact that there was still an Autobot vessel quietly hiding somewhere had lead to an increasing sense of doubt as to whether Reflector's own position of authority--limited though it was--might be in jeopardy. Granted, he was a Decepticon, and it was far more than one's rank that was in jeopardy when it came to failure. Each of those realities served to motivate the surveillance specialist that much more. This counter-campaign would be accomplished quickly.

>>"With all haste, mighty Turmoil,"<< Reflector quickly responded back to the large and imposing Decepticon. Even though he was technically far away, he could be within arm's reach again just as quickly as he had left in the first place. Because of that, Reflector was only too willing to share the progress that Soul Siren had made, even if it would only serve to placate the large Decepticon for a while longer.

>>"You will be pleased to know that operative Soul Siren has made progress on the interrogation front. The captives admit to no recognizable Autobot organization on this planet in the aftermath of our initial assault. It would seem that Scattershot and his Technobot comrades could have functioned as a rally point for the remnant, but with word of their capture coming from the equatorial desert, it would seem that the path to beginning the real work that brought us here has been cleared and can begin in earnest, mighty one."<<

Reflector was none too keen about applying the same superlative flattery to Turmoil that he did to Scorponok, but he had little choice. Scorponok was gone and Reflector had no desire to find himself in the crosshairs of a vengeful vice-commander.

The Spectro component began the process of compiling visual data that had been captured planetside thus far while the other Spyglass and Viewfinder units remained focused on operations within the ship itself and within Tenebrous, respectively, responding to Apeface's request for an orbital bounce and setting up the procedure by locking on to the energy signatures and tech specs of each of the mechanoids that would be taking part, willingly or not.

>>"Commencing in 3...2...1..."<< Spyglass transmitted planetside to the Horrorcons before activating the jump technology that would carry them and their captives from one part of the planet to the other.

Fortress Tenebrous

Scattershot scowled as a pair of Decepticon guards dragged in yet another survivor of what the Technobot Commander could only describe as an epic cluster frack. The mission had been fairly simple. Jump in, make contact with Sky Hammer or at least one of the science team that had been sent to this primus forsaken rock then jump back out and report to Fortress Maximus. Once that was completed Scattershot had antisipated redeployment either to a more volitile front of this war or perhaps have Far Star and her over taxed crew get some down time back at Station Liberty.

Of course the Technobot Commander wanted to be deployed to the action rather than getting his torso buffed in some fancy new CR Chamber. Stil he knew the value of downtime and knew well that his team had been on the front for quite some time. If his memory banks were correct, his team had been on constant deployment for nearly an eon. And while Far Star was his first ship command, his team had been used often in strike operations and at times the more mundain research projects. Even with those looming pieces of evidence before him, he refused to make excuses for his team's performance.

The Technobots ran up against five Decepticon bruisers and were handedly beaten. Beaten and tossed into this stinking filth trap in the heart of a covert incursion that he nor his superiors had any inkling with regards to its very existance. Add to that was the humiliation that he had to utter those damnable words in order to keep his command team from being totally obliterated.

Little by little the survivors that had been spread across the planet following the destruction of the Frigate Far Star, were drawn around the bend and thrown unceremoniously into the large holding tank that Scattershot now inhabited. He was the least damaged, he really didn't care to know the reason why. All he knew was that they were stuck, destined to spend a portion of this war inside a cell until the endless balancer of time swang back into their fortune.

The forcefield flickered off as two guards approached the cell. They deactivated the automated weapon systems that were aimed practically at Scattershot's head and chest. They gave some snide comment about how they were superior over the Autobot cause, Scattershot ignored it. Soon after they took up positions a medic drone rolled on six pairs of treads to the gap in the cell field. It pivoted on its central axis and then tilted its service bed dumping Lightspeed, Strafe and Afterburner into a heap inside the cell.

The forcefield flashed on then began its steady hum as deadly energy coursed through the magnetic field. Scattershot remained motionless as his three Technobot subordinates began to reactivate from their trauma.

Melanossus

The outcome of this battle was reaching its nigh-inevitable conclusion. Cyclonus rather limited faith in the efficacy of this supposed Vice-Commander was maintained, at least for the present. His attention on the battle was taken away momentarily as Soul Siren's transmission came through.

>>"This is Soul Siren with a preliminary report on the interrogation of the Autobot prisoners. Information taken from them and with Reflector's help point to Scattershot as the leader of the Autobot resistance on this planet."<<

Interesting...

>>"Understood. Has your interrogation revealed anything as to his whereabouts?"<< Cyclonus transmitted back in response. The question was a formality only. That nugget of information would be enough for Scourge and his Sweeps to begin a new hunt. Scattershot would not elude them for long. None of them could.

It was then that Cyclonus realized his presence had garnered Turmoil's direct attention. Indeed, the battlefield had grown significantly quieter and there were few other directions. Cyclonus did not look away. Instead he began to walk forward, getting close enough so that transmitted communication would no longer be necessary.

"Desertion? Preposterous in the utmost. Scorponok will determine whether or not my duties have been fulfilled, not you," Cyclonus said evenly. "I have received information which will bring this resistance to its inevitable end. You are doing your part. I am doing mine. Implications of anything further are ill-advised."