ASPECTS OF REBELLION

By Charles Ellis

Sandstorm crept through the shadowed streets of Neo-Vos, his sensors locked onto any activity in the surrounding area. A dart of predatory intents flashed across the sky and he froze, hoping to Primus that the shadows would conceal him. Up above a Transmetal 2 owl swooped around, looking for anyone breaking the curfew. Sandstorm resisted the urge to transform and shoot it down. 

He switched to communications; a great feature Apelinq of the Maximals had developed, which allowed rebels to communicate through low-frequency radio waves, negating the need for verbal communication which would betray their position.

"This is Sandstorm. I'm ten metres from the security outpost. Where is everyone else?"

"Widow: I'm above them-"

"WHAT?! There's a flier up there; you'll be spotted-"

"Nope; I'm keeping to the shadows, and my sensors are good enough to warn me if I'm noticed... sir," she finished sardonically.

Sandstorm resisted the urge to bite off the insolent fembot's head. "Dead End, Cohrada."

"This is Dead End; I'm 50 metres behind the target. Ready to move on your signal."

"Cohrada; also 10 metres away. Ready to attack."

The owl could be seen overhead, searching, its glowing yellow optics boring through shadow. It abruptly changed direction; it'd noticed something...

It flew into the shadow of a building. It didn't fly out.

"GAH! This is Widow; I've just disabled the flier. He's webbed down and I tore his throat out, he can't warn the others."
 
Sandstorm muttered some vague praise and risked a visual look. He could see two guards outside the squatting, wart-like shape of the security outpost. They seemed distracted; it was now or nev-

"Attack."

Sandstorm transformed, his scorpion form expanding and buckling outwards, a stern and commanding face appearing at the top of a chunky Predacon body. Without pausing, he fired a missile from his right claw and sent one of the guards flying backward into the building with a scream. The other guard whipped round, his machine-gun blazing, and screamed as acid seared through his hand, reducing it to slag.

Cohrada emerged from the shadows like a ghost. He was black-scaled, becoming light blue at the tip of his tail, a copper belly and gaunt white at the edges of his cobra head. Without a sound he spewed acid again and the guard dropped down with a scream, clutching at his bubbling face. 

Cohrada transformed and slipped back into the shadows. The other Hand troopers would be emerging from their building, and he didn't want to be at risk.

Sandstorm stayed out as Hand troops came storming out, guns blazing. He fired his electric-sting blast; he had to keep moving to avoid being hit, he couldn't lock on with his missiles. The Hand managed to hit him a few times, glancing blows that cracked his armour, but by the time they realized Cohrada was sniping at them, two had already fallen due to head shots.

And then, high above, a garish Transmetal 2 spider came screaming downwards on a webline. This was Widow; a mix of black and dark green, with pure white legs and copper fangs. In mid-air she transformed and came down, gluing Hand troopers down with balls of web, which she called "impact webbing", and from subspace she pulled out a giant bazooka, and came down firing. 

She landed on her feet, and struck a dynamic pose. Sandstorm groaned out loud.

 "Stop grandstanding and retreat!"

The three of them transformed to beast mode and ran. The Hand troopers prepared to open fire, when Archadis swooped down. He was a pterosaur, a deep purple, gold and brown, and he dropped a static bomb in their midst. It went off, turning all their sensors- optical, chemical, motion -, to... well, static. 

By the time it cleared, the rebels were long gone. A quick check showed only three of them were dead, and six others badly damaged, but they had driven off the attackers.

Then the bombs went off.

While the others had gone in, guns blazing, Dead End had sneaked up and planted EMP-bombs on the outpost, blowing out its communications equipment and knocking out the power. 

Victory!

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

Like all guerillas since the dawn of warfare, the Predacons went underground. They had tunnels in three cities, allowing them to emerge and attack, and then retreat to their base, 2 kilometres below the surface of Cybertron. If any of Shokaract's forces tried the same trick, specially-rigged bombs would go off, killing the intruder and collapsing the tunnel. Sandstorm did not believe in risks.

The base was set in a large network of tunnels, where the Mutants had lived back during the Great War. The tunnels had been given walls of  rubble and scrap, and squat devices that leeched power from the factories, power stations and military bases in the city, and used it to power the base. It was dirty, the walls and furniture old, the lighting dim, the space sparse, and it still smelt like the Mutants were living there.

But there was personality stamped on it. The Predacon ensign was proudly painted on random walls, there were bits of junk welded into toys and board games for the rebels to use; there were rebels always walking about, all who knew each other and fought alongside each other. It was Bohemian, to some. Cohrada affectionately called the place "the Scraplet's nest". 

The medical room was fairly large, but the large array of medical equipment & computers, most of it out-of-date, made it FEEL cramped. Jaguar, the doctor, a light blue-&-white Transmetal with a cat's head, always tried to make his patients feel at ease though.

He sighed as he welded bits of Sandstorm's armour back onto his chest. "You know Sandstorm, you should try a new practice that's really sweeping the rebellion. It's called DODGING THE ENEMY FIRE."

 Sandstorm smiled. "Ah, but where would be the challenge in that?" He stood up, the welding complete, and nodded. "You do a good welding job, Jaguar."
  

"Lucky for you, isn't it?"

Sandstorm left the room, passing Cohrada as he went. The sniper waved at him cheerfully.

"Hey, Sandstorm! Ya wanna play a round of Battlecruiser?"

"No thanks."

 "Suit yerself. By the way, Widow's acting rather peeved; she seems to think we did kill enough Hand-"

"Tell her that if we'd stayed to press the advantage, one of us would have been killed. Probably HER." He strode off, muttering "I have better things to do with my time than deal with an uppity little backstabber."

Cohrada laughed. "Blobs under rocks have better things to do than listen to Widow! See ya, Sandy."

"Yes."

SANDSTORM

Widow aggravates me. I need utmost loyalty from my troops if we're to have any chance of succeeding. I've got about a hundred Predacons under my command; that's too few for us to waste time arguing amongst ourselves!

Did the old Decepticon leaders have this trouble? Dead End harps on about how Megatron and Starscream would snipe each other a lot, but he says Starscream was still loyal to the cause. Well, Widow's loyal to our cause; I just wish she'd be more loyal to me! 

But it's not just her, is it? If it was, I wouldn't give a damn. But Primus, there are about ten or so Predacons who think she should be in charge! And that's it, isn't it? I don't want another in charge. 

And why not? Being the commander is stressful, risky, lonely. I try to walk among the others like an equal, but they are always slightly... distant. I'm their commander, and this means I can't be one of the Cons... I hate that. The only people I can truly talk to are Swinehund and Cohrada... So why don't I let others share some of the command? Why do I want total control-

Oh, to the Pit with these psycho-babble! I KNOW why. It's because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that otherwise they'll all be killed. Just like on Gaia, when we ran into that True Path freak who thought he was Galvatron. I listened to those under my command and... 

...

No, unless I command them utterly, we'll be crushed. Just like the Free Cybertronians, when they listened to Cataclysm. And I can't let that happen. I have to be in command, or Shokaract will crush us.

Widow will learn better, one day. Or she'll die. No, she can't die; I can't face another death in our number, even if it is Widow... 

That is why I command.

WIDOW

I brush past Sandstorm, and he doesn't notice. He's too deep in though to notice ME. DAMN YOU, I want to scream. You're driving us into a rut! We'll be fighting until we RUST because of you, you Unicron spawn! 

And it's true. I've been under Sandstorm's command for 50 stellercycles, and where has it gotten us? We're still in the same damn position we were back then; no, not the same position. Seventeen of us have died since then; three defected to Shokaract and had to assassinated; and six joined other groups. Thank you, Sandstorm! 

It doesn't have to be this way. I know I could do better, damn it, I HAVE done better. Several times, I've planned and led very successful attacks. Yes, they're risky. But they're effective. And we'll need to take risks if we want to have any chance of freeing Cybertron-

Free Cybertron? HA! That's Sandstorm's Primus beliefs talking. We can't beat Shokaract. We can't even come CLOSE. I saw a vid-feed, once, of some rebels who tried to assassinate him. He was in public and they jumped him, blasting him dead-centre with shatter grenades; he should have been blown apart! He shouldn't have just STOOD THERE, laughing! 

They were torn apart in seconds.

No, we can't overthrow him. What we CAN do is weaken him, make it safe for us. But not with Sandstorm in charge. He holds us down. He holds ME down; I know why I'm still a mere grunt after all these vorns. It's not because I have no talent or intelligence, it's because he's afraid that if I have higher rank, I'll be able to usurp him! Well, to the Pit with him. He can't hold me down forever, because he knows he will need my ideas at some point.

And then I'll push him out.

COHRADA

I played with Swinehund instead. He's quite good for a guy who transforms into a pig. I mean, A PIG?! Cobras sneak up on ya and pump you full of toxins; pigs go "oink" and eat scrap! 

Ah, he's alright. Most of the people around here are OK; well, except for Widow, but she's a whole other story. She don't like me; fine, coz I hate her circuits!

I never could work out why she's more popular than me. Is it my humour, my way of talking? Yeah, probably, but what would they rather have? The cool and murderous bastard I am on the battlefield? I act like that then because, well, it's a battlefield and if ya show off & crack jokes, you'll get shot at. Nah, give me the quiet sniping job any day. But why should I act like that outside of battle? That's Archadis' territory, and he never has any fun. He doesn't have ANY friends. He just broods like it was gonna be banned.

That's not for me. I'm a rebel. I'm a murderer, I admit it. But I'm don't wanna be that all the time, OK? Because I've known guys who ARE like that and they scare me. I'm not gonna kill my Spark like that. Not ever.