Hangar Bay Blaster managed one brief incredulous glance at
Prowl before being forced to dive to the side to avoid the first of Soundwave’s concussion blasts. He wasn’t afraid to take on Soundwave, actually it was a fight he’d been itching for, but his ‘con mirror had managed to call up 3 of his casseticons while Blaster only had Eject on the ground. Odds were pretty slim that he’d get chance to call any of the others with Soundwave in his face.
>>”I’ll sick Eject on the cassettes, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to keep them off your back.<< Blaster transmitted as he ran, barely staying ahead of Soundwave’s fire.” >>”You’d better make a run for the CIC anyway and see if you can get that jammer shut down. I’m reading vibration from the mountain itself – I think we might have to bounce out of here sooner than later.”<<
Blaster snapped the channel closed and continued his run, just ahead of Soundwave’s continuing barrage. The blasts from the concussion rifle tore the ground up at his feet, looking like the results of a strafing run, only slower. He knew he’d never keep clear of the blasts for long though, and he was running out of space to run anyway, so it was time to try something impressive - impressive and maybe a little crazy. It was amazing the things he’d do just to live up to his rep.
Blaster ran at the wall took two steps up the vertical surface, and flipped, twisting as he went to fire back at
Soundwave. Or at least that’s what he was trying to do. Just as he was kicking off the wall one of the concussion blasts hit it, destroying the surface he was pushing off of. His graceful flip turned to awkward tumble. He ended up crashing unceremoniously to the floor, and was only barely able to keep from losing his gun. He rolled to the side, firing as he went, hoping to avoid any more of Soundwave’s blasts, and maybe if he was lucky score a hit or two of his own.
Eject caught Blaster’s transmission to Prowl, and took his instructions from that. He’d worked with Blaster for so many vorns that even when they weren’t linked, he could almost read the coach’s mind. It was time to pick a fight to give Prowl a head start.
“Hey
Rumble,
Frenzy – long time no see, you dirty piles of scrap!” he yelled, popping up from behind the crate he was using for cover and firing off a few shots from his Overload gun at the pair.
Bounce Chamber The thing that most of his opponents tended to forget because of his massive frame was that Optimus Prime was fast! The blast that dropped Wildrider had no more than left his gun before he was moving again. The Autobot leader saw Snowcap moving, raising his weapons to fire, and reacted with lightning reflexes. He rolled forward, allowing both blasts from the freon cannons to pass harmlessly over his head, and sprang to his feet inside Snowcap’s reach with his rifle butt leading
Prime slammed the stock of the weapon into
Snowcap’s chin with the full weight of his momentum behind the blow. The impact resounded like a clap of thunder and with so much force that it sent the heavily armored seeker flying twenty feet through the air and out the gap in the wall.
As Prime surveyed the room, his comm. howled to life with a burst of static and garbled communications from two sources. One was so distorted he couldn’t make out any of it, and could barely tell it had come from
Prowl, the other however, though static-filled, was discernable:
- Code: Select all
>>”Hot Spot to Optimus Prime, or any Autobot. Can anyone read me? We are trapped inside the Decepticon base but we are trying to get out. Please respond.”<<
>>”I read you
Hot Spot. We’re within the Decepticon Headquarters as well, in the remnants of the bounce chamber. What is your location from there?”<<
Motormaster struggled against the molecular adhesive that effectively cocooned him and sealed him to the floor of the bounce chamber. To say he was enraged would be an understatement of epic proportions. He was so angry that his fuel lines were near to bursting from pressure, and, damn it all, he couldn’t even move! After Hot Spot’s lucky shot had taken his mobility, he’d bounced them all back here only to pull the Autobots with him, and to add insult to injury, or perhaps the other way around, he’d taken a shot to the face that had put him on his back, allowed Hot Spot and his cronies to escape, and had now led to his inglorious position stuck to the Primus-damned floor!
Still, despite the still throbbing agony from the ruin of his face, Motormaster could think. He might have the reputation of a bully and, well, a psycho, but he’d seen plenty of battle, so he did have some tactical sense. What that tactical sense told him, wasn’t looking very good for the home team.
The fact that the Autobots were this deep into the base, and virtually unopposed from what he could tell, suggested that there was a pretty good chance that this base was slag. Even if Megatron was somehow able to turn the tide, the wounded might leak out before anyone had a chance to do any repairs, if there was anyone still standing who could do them, and the repair bays hadn’t been destroyed. It was, as grating as it was to do it twice, time to get out of here.
Motormaster activated his link to the Ultrax still in orbit, and activated its bounce system. It took some careful tweaking of the beams to get them to penetrate the rock that surrounded them, but he had the passcodes to the defensive screens, so that, at least, wasn’t a hindrance. Through his link, he locked on to Wildrider,
Drag Strip, and
Dead End, then focused the beam so it would grab him and not the glue he was coated in, and activated. Silvery light permeated the chamber, and the wounded Stunticons were gone.
Outside Sideswipe caromed down the rugged dirt road at nearly 200 miles per hour. Only his superior reflexes kept him on the road, but unfortunately however fast he was, the Cyberjets were flying, and so they were faster. He wasn’t sure why they had stopped shooting at him and were coming in low, but he wasn’t about to question his luck.
A panel slid away on his trunk, allowing his rocket launcher to rise into position. He fired a blast into the trees lining the road, and though his firepower was quite weak when compared to other Transformers, it was more than sufficient to bring several of the massive trees crashing down in his wake. He hoped the
Cyberjets flew right into the falling timber as they pursued him.
>>Orders received
Starscream,”<< Ramjet replied, pulling out of his climb and angling towards the far side of the mountain. He’d used this particular entrance many times to sneak in and out of the base, in fact he’d been gone the last time the Autobots had come calling. Even considering the danger of sneaking off without orders, he’d never been as uncomfortable entering the base as he was right now.
The smoke from the mountaintop was ominous, and considering that the base itself was built inside the very mountain that was smoking, it felt like voluntarily climbing into a smelter. Maybe it was nothing, maybe the mountain would smoke and rumble and then calm right back down, and maybe the whole thing would go up. It was impossible to tell which, but Ramjet for one wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being confined inside if the volcano did blow its’ top.