Part Three.
The shots continued to rain down.
Uncle Whiskey Breath dodged and weaved as best he could, but without a
targetlock, he was literally operating blind. He radioed Windchill, still up
in orbit:
Uncle Whiskey Breath: "Ey, gimme a little cover-fire, and tell me where dis
idiot is, okay?"
Windchill acknowledged, scanning the skies until he found the source of
Uncle's problem: a M.A.R.B. unit, operated by an unknown assailant, firing
weapons on his partner. Still in orbit, Windchill relayed the coordinates to
Uncle, who took aim and fired upwards with his blizzard gun. At the same
time, Windchill fired his wingtip lasers straight downward. The target,
sensing the incoming shots but unable to dodge in-time, took the hit from
both ends. Crippled, the MARB floated to the ground near where Uncle was
standing. Landing roughly, the passenger, wounded, tumbled out. Uncle
pointed his Blizzard Shotgun directly at the assailant's head.
Uncle Whiskey Breath: "Eh, now that yer shootin' gallery is on ice, hows
about you tellin' me what's goin' on?"
Bailjumper: "I got nuthin to say. You don't scare me."
Uncle: "Really? What if I did this?"
Uncle placed his foot on Bailjumper's leg, and began to step down. Being
quite a bit larger than the small Decepticon, and thus more massive, Uncle
was able to activate Bailjumper's pain receptors with little effort. Though
obviously discomfited, Uncle continued to step down, feling the metal in
Bailjumper's leg begin to rend and buckle. Alarms lit up in Bailjumper's hud
as the pain worsened and damage reports scrolled forward. Finally, not
wanting to risk further damage to his exostructure, Bailjumper capitulated.
He'd never come across an Autobot that could be so ruthless. He supposed
that being the last one of his kind on the planet mightupset the old wanker a
little, but to this degree...
Bailjumper: "Allright, allright, I'll talk! Geez, you have to make it so
personal."
Uncle: "My friends are missing, and since dat somehow ties into youse..."
Bailjumper: "Yea yea, I get the picture. Look, I'm just the cleanup crew. I
got nothing to do with your friends disappearin'. I'm just here to get you."
(pulls a small device from his hip compartment)
Uncle: "And what's dat little toy you got dere?"
Bailjumper: "What, this? (hits button) This is a little something they
cooked up in another reality. The slang name is, 'Megatron's Virus'(points
it at Uncle Whiskey Breath...but nothing happens).
Uncle: "Oh ya.(knocks box out of Bailjumper's hands). Heard about it. Dat
litle gizmo s'posed to modelock me, eh? Pull de utter one. I'm protected
against dat."
Bailjumper: (incredulous)"But...but how? You should be falling over as we
speak!"
Uncle: "Yea, and if I'd evera let 'em tinker wit my innerds, it mighta
worked. But I'm old school. Nothing new here. My lasercore's still running
DOS, fer pete's sake. You could fit my entire brain on a floppy disk."
Bailjumper: "That's...but...you...ugh!"
Uncle: "Ehehe. Don' worry 'bout it, junior. It's lights out now."(punches
the top of Bailjumper's head; Bailjumper falls unconscious. Uncle Whiskey
Breath looks around and, spying a ditch about twenty meters away from the
roadside, drags Bailjumper there. Seeing that the drainage pipe is just
large enough to fit him, Uncle shoves the unconscious Decepticon into it,
then crimps the end closed.
That duty having been completed, Uncle approached the m.a.r.b. The unit,
though damaged, still bore familiar markings. Bailjumper was using a piece
of equipment that was originally part of Milwaukee Base. How a Decepticon
had gotten ahold of it was still a mystery, but one that could hopefully be
traced to its source("For that matter," Uncle thought, "that Decepticon kinda looked
familiar, too. Or at least, his shape did. I seen him somewheres before, but where?").
Uncle accesed the flight record of the marb.
Scrolling, he traced the unit's path backwards, from where it was
currently...to where it started from. Adding the coordinates to his
database, he radioed Windchill: "Eh, I got a lead on where dis clown came
from. I'm gonna trace it back to da source. Keep an eye on me, eh?" Winchill
beeped in the affirative. Uncle transformed, and headed down the highway, to
the source-location of the stolen property. With any luck, he might find a
clue to his friends' wherabouts...or even better, the friends themselves.
Back in the drainage ditch, in a crumpled pipe, a dented but conscious
Bailjumper sent out a coded communique: "He fell for it. He's on his way."
Closing the comm channel, Bailjumper decided to rest for a bit. No sense
trying to get out of the pipe now. Better to wait until the hard work was
done, and that big lunk of an Autobot was captured. He'd done his part
already.
On the other end of the comm channel, a sinister face grinned at nothing in
particular. He spoke to the person next to him: "Bailjumper has reported in.
Soon, very soon, the Last Autobot will be in my clutches. My victory will be
complete. How does that make you feel?"
Stepping out of the shadows, Washout didn't reply. He saw no point; Autobot,
Decepticon, Maximal, Predacon, none of it really mattered anymore. The members
of Milwaukee Base, and Flatfoot in-particular, had turned their back on him. He
saw no reason to help them - and said as much. "You're the boss. You
hired me to do a job, and I'm doing it. The rest is not my concern. Hardly
matters to me which side wins. Just fill my beaker with energon."
The Leader: "And so it shall be. You were wise to choose the winning side.
You have useful skills; it's the only reason we are talking here now.
Otherwise, you would be with the rest of your friends, shut down and in
cold storage on the ship."
Washout: "Speaking of which, why are we in this warehouse, and not on the ship?
It hardly seems like a wise tactical move to be out on the open like
this."
The Leader: "Ah, but we'll not be long. Only one more pickup, and then we'll
be leaving for Cybertron."
Washout: "Good." Turning, he walked away from the Leader, back to the ship.
SunBeam, in-charge of the egress ramp, allowed admittance. Without a word,
Washout clanked by. SunBeam kept his own counsel, but he wondered; what
would make a 'bot turn so fully on his comrades like this? Even Sunbeam
didn't think it was right, what happened to the Dairycons and all, but
Washout...he was one of them. And it didn't seem to bother him at all.
How...strange. Did he not care at all that his comrades were stuck in
cold-storage, on this very ship? He'd had free access for a week now;
SunBeam had closely (yet unobtrusively) monitored him, bt Washout hadn't
ventured even near the lift to the storage deck. And the Leader certainly
put enough trust in him, giving him free access. What *was* going on here?
It made no sense. It....nnnnh.
Sunbeam abandoned his train of thought; if he
contined, he would only start to think about his role in the entire charade,
and that was unsettling enough as it is. No sense in him wasting any more
processor time on someone else's motivations. He should be concerned only
with himself. It must be a glitch in his software that he kept thinking like
this. A proper Decepticon woudn't give this any thought at all. Must be the
weather in this particular region of earth. Stupid mudball. Closing the lift
door, he activated the cloaking device. The ship wavered, then disappeared. The
Leader chose to stay farther out, in the warehouse several hundred meters
away. Apparently, the goal was to meet this Uncle hiskey Breath in-person,
and...and what, he didn't know. Perhaps rend him limb from limb. Perhaps the
Leader grew tired of just letting others do all the work. Perhaps he wanted
to stretch his talons a bit. Perhaps he saw the Last Autobot as a
challenge...or perhaps, no challenge at all. Either way, SunBeam figured,
the answer would be known shortly. Sensors picked up a vehicle of
Cybertronian design heading toward the leader's positon.
Let the games begin.
To Be Continued.