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wyntir_knightTitle: The Devil You Know
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Well, the month is over, but the story certainly isn't. So I'll continue to post this until the rough is done.
Chapter 23
Circuit turned off the message with a shaking hand. Silence descended over the amphitheatre for a long time; all three bots staring numbly at the platform.
“We need to get the communicator working so we can get out a message,” Updraft said finally, his vocalizer rough with emotion.
“No, we need to get out of here and warn the others,” Circuit replied as he turned from the console and headed to the door.
“I agree,” Discourse replied as she got up from the floor. “They need to know what we’re dealing with here.”
“And what are we dealing with?” Updraft asked. “We have a holographic message from nine thousand vorns ago. Whatever happened then was terrible but it doesn’t apply to us.”
“Doesn’t apply to us?!” Circuit cried, spinning back to face the pilot. “How in the name of the primordial program do you figure this doesn’t apply to us?”
“And how do you figure it does? That message was intended for whoever came to look into the colony. It wasn’t intended for us, it was intended for someone in the Golden Age!” Updraft argued.
“It was intended for whoever landed here,” Circuit retorted. “It was intended as a warning to everyone, not just the Golden Age rescuers.”
Updraft snorted derisively and crossed his arms over his chest.
“And how do you explain whatever happened in the woods?” Circuit asked. “The forest took people!”
“That’s absurd! We don’t know what happened out there, but it wasn’t killer trees! That’s totally illogical. I was right in the middle of it and even I don’t know what happened out there! But I know it wasn’t trees,” Updraft retorted.
He passed his hand over his optics in frustration as the sound of static started to fill his audios again.
“He said that plants turned against them,” Circuit argued. “That is exactly what happened to us! The. Trees. Attacked. Us!”
“No!” Updraft yelled as the static grew. “We were attacked by living beings. Maybe they were survivors of this virus. Maybe they were the remnants of the original inhabitants. I don’t know. What I do know is that we are not done here!”
“Yes we are!” Circuit shot back. “We don’t know what’s out there but we do know that we can’t ignore what was we were told! We need to tell the others what we know!”
“Fine!” Updraft said, throwing his hands into the air. “Fine. So let’s say that we do go back. Let’s even say that Windsaber believes us. What then? How does this information even begin to help us?”
“It’ll help us if we know what we’re up against!” Circuit argued. “It’ll help for them to know that there’s something going on here!”
“And then what?” Updraft snapped. “What? We still won’t have a way out of here! We still won’t have gotten a message out! No one knows we’re here! They’re not looking for us and they won’t if we don’t get a message out!”
“Yeah but--,” Circuit began.
“No!” Updraft interrupted with a slashing motion. “There is no but! This isn’t a binary concept and it isn’t up for debate! Now get that system working!”
“No!” Circuit yelled defiantly. “I won’t! We need to get out of here and we need to tell the others!”
Updraft closed the space between them in a single bound and bowled him to the ground, pinning the programmer beneath him.
“You will not question me!” he growled, his face nearly touching Circuit’s. “You will do what you are told!”
“No! I won’t!” Circuit yelled as he struggled in Updraft’s grasp. “You can’t make me!”
“I will kill you if you don’t!” Updraft yelled, shaking the programmer violently and slamming him against the floor, cracking the stone with the force of his assault.
Circuit let out a short bark of bitter laughter.
“No you won’t! If you do that then you won’t have anyone to work the communicator!”
Updraft pushed away from Circuit with a cry of outrage. He stood and stalked to the other side of the chamber. He cradled his head in his hands as the noise became more insistent. After a moment it passed and he spun back to the programmer.
“So what do you suggest? That we go back to Windsaber and tell him ‘Oops, sorry, we never got around to doing what you ordered’?” Updraft asked bitterly. “How well do you think that’s going to go over?”
“It’s got to be better than not letting them know what the situation is!” Circuit shot back, gingerly getting back to his feet.
“No! It isn’t! If we’re lucky he’ll kill us all and then send someone else to get the job done!” Updraft retorted. “That’s if we’re lucky. Trust me, I’ve been a Decepticon long enough to know what happens when you go against a Lieutenant! And Windsaber’s a Seeker on top of it all! They’re a model that isn’t known for a forgiving nature!”
Updraft shook his head then walked back to the control panel slowly.
“Besides,” he said smugly, “while we were here arguing you could have fixed the system, gotten a message off, and started back to the others. As it is it’s already getting dark and we won’t be able to head back until first light.”
Circuit glared at the Updraft angrily. He opened his mouth to argue then snapped it shut with an audible click of his mandible. With a dark look and tightly pressed lips he spun on his heel and turned back to the communications console. Without another word he began to work on getting the machine ready to transmit.
Updraft leaned against the wall and shuttered his optics in exhaustion. The static was still there but it was lessening as his anger began to leave him. He turned his back to the wall and slid down it until he was sitting, his head cradled in his hands. He opened his optics and looked over at Circuit, his back bent as he hunched over his work.
“Thank you,” Updraft whispered as he dropped his head to his knees and closed his optics in exhaustion.
x-x-x
Discourse had been watching the argument intently, but now that it seemed to be over she quickly lost interest in the two mechs. While they were fighting there was a palpable energy in the room that thrummed and pulsed with anticipation. She found herself caught up in the field, revelling in seductive anticipation until it came to a head as Updraft tackled Circuit to the ground. She felt like she could have overloaded right there as she watched the two mechs prepare to kill each other. But now that the two had separated, and a tense peace had been reached, the energy levels had dropped until she could barely feel them. With nothing to keep her attention, and feeling strangely drained and despondent, Discourse turned her attention back to the room. While the others only saw the amphitheatre, she saw so much more. What looked like elaborate art to the untrained optic, leapt out to her as intricate messages from the Golden Age and beyond.
She slowly moved along the walls taking in each picture, examining each motif and pattern carefully. The designs on the walls were ancient, but the more she studied them the more obvious it became that parts of the murals were far older than the Golden Age. The top-most images were clearly Cybertronian in origin; mathematically perfect, they represented parts of Cybertronian history and culture in an angular and stylized manner. But these pictures were imposed over something far older and far more organic. There was an inherent chaos about the underlying art that would never be seen in something designed by a Cybertronian. She looked around the amphitheatre, taking it in as if for the first time.
The lines here, as with the rest of the colony, were far more organic than anything that would ever be found on Cybertron. It was almost as if the colonists had built everything out of the bones of the previous civilization. As she followed the line of art she started to see that this was only part of the picture. The original art moved up through the space in a perfect logarithmic spiral toward the ceiling, belying the apparent chaos she had seen earlier.
“What is this?” she asked softly as placed her hand against the wall as if by touching it she could gain insight.
Then it was as if someone had pulled a film from her optics and she could see the art for what it was. It was a story, a historical account of the original inhabitants. But the new art was obscuring the old, and it was like listening to two separate conversations at the same time. It was obvious from the message that the ancients had no idea of what they were actually dealing with, otherwise the never would have redesigned this space; would never have over spoken the original story. Discourse moved to the center of the room and studied the murals from a distance. She turned in a lazy circle, optics looking out, searching for the beginning of the original story buried under the Cybertronian art. After a full revolution she came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be interpreted down here, but from here she could see what she missed before. High above was a narrow catwalk and there the Cybertronian art had not obscured the original designs.
She took a quick look at her companions and found Circuit still bent over the communications console and Updraft still sitting against the wall. His optics were shuttered and she would have thought him deep in recharge had it not been for the drawn, pained look on his face. It was obvious that neither of them were noticing her, or the art, or even the space at all. They certainly wouldn’t notice if she moved up to the catwalk. After a short search she found the remains of a ladder hidden behind bend in the wall. Carefully, she pulled herself up the ladder and to the catwalk. The area up here was shadowed but there was enough light to make out the art and the tale it was telling.
The story was simple, classic, and eternal. The original inhabitants were a proud race of organic space farers and this world was at the edge of their vast empire. These people, The People, colonized this world successfully and controlled it for generations. But then their god turned his back on them. That was when the fire-rain fell. At first there was death and devastation. But those who survived were better than before. Their culture thrived, becoming a beacon to the rest of the empire. But then there came a plague that was more deadly than any other their people had faced. Soon there were only a handful of colonists left to tell the story as they hid in this place, once a temple to their forgotten god.
Two cultures destroyed by an apparently unstoppable disaster. Two cultures that ended here in this place. It had to be more than coincidence, but there was still something she was missing, and without that last piece of the puzzle she couldn’t be sure. She turned and tried to take in the whole room and the whole picture from this vantage, but every time she thought she might be getting close to the center of the truth, it slipped though her fingers like so much water. And the more the struggled to understand the more elusive the answer became, until all she had to show for her efforts was a dull ache in her processor.
She lowered her head into her hands, closing her optics, trying to arrange herself for another attempt when Circuit’s voice interrupted the silence of the room.
“Okay,” he called out, “it should work now.”
“Good,” Updraft said as he stood and approached the console. “So what do we do?”
“We don’t do anything,” Circuit sneered. “I will plug into the system and send up a distress call. Then we can finally get back to what we should be doing.”
Updraft seemed about to respond when suddenly his hand moved up to his temple and he began to sway as if suddenly dizzy.
“Fine. Just do what you need to do,” he muttered weakly.
Circuit turned away from the scene but her gaze was drawn away from the picture she’d been studying and toward a dark corner at the far side of the catwalk. She lit her hand-lights and approached the wall slowly. And felt the fuel freeze in her lines.
There, written in the brownish pink of dried mech fluid was a note scrawled in a shaky hand.
“Communicator infected!” it screamed out.
Discourse mouthed the words slowly, their meaning not penetrating her fog choked processor.
“Circuit!” she screamed. “Stop! It’s not safe!”
“What are you on about?” Circuit demanded. “What’s not sssssssssuuuuuuugh....”
Circuit’s question broke off in a deep, pained moan that seemed to come from the depths of the Pit itself.
“Circuit!” Updraft cried as he rushed forward, all exhaustion brushed aside by fear and panic.
He reached out a hand to the programmer but pulled back suddenly as Circuit looked up at him. His optics, once a brilliant blue were now black with death, but the smile that pulled at his lips was very much alive and promised nothing but pain.
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Well, the month is over, but the story certainly isn't. So I'll continue to post this until the rough is done.
Circuit turned off the message with a shaking hand. Silence descended over the amphitheatre for a long time; all three bots staring numbly at the platform.
“We need to get the communicator working so we can get out a message,” Updraft said finally, his vocalizer rough with emotion.
“No, we need to get out of here and warn the others,” Circuit replied as he turned from the console and headed to the door.
“I agree,” Discourse replied as she got up from the floor. “They need to know what we’re dealing with here.”
“And what are we dealing with?” Updraft asked. “We have a holographic message from nine thousand vorns ago. Whatever happened then was terrible but it doesn’t apply to us.”
“Doesn’t apply to us?!” Circuit cried, spinning back to face the pilot. “How in the name of the primordial program do you figure this doesn’t apply to us?”
“And how do you figure it does? That message was intended for whoever came to look into the colony. It wasn’t intended for us, it was intended for someone in the Golden Age!” Updraft argued.
“It was intended for whoever landed here,” Circuit retorted. “It was intended as a warning to everyone, not just the Golden Age rescuers.”
Updraft snorted derisively and crossed his arms over his chest.
“And how do you explain whatever happened in the woods?” Circuit asked. “The forest took people!”
“That’s absurd! We don’t know what happened out there, but it wasn’t killer trees! That’s totally illogical. I was right in the middle of it and even I don’t know what happened out there! But I know it wasn’t trees,” Updraft retorted.
He passed his hand over his optics in frustration as the sound of static started to fill his audios again.
“He said that plants turned against them,” Circuit argued. “That is exactly what happened to us! The. Trees. Attacked. Us!”
“No!” Updraft yelled as the static grew. “We were attacked by living beings. Maybe they were survivors of this virus. Maybe they were the remnants of the original inhabitants. I don’t know. What I do know is that we are not done here!”
“Yes we are!” Circuit shot back. “We don’t know what’s out there but we do know that we can’t ignore what was we were told! We need to tell the others what we know!”
“Fine!” Updraft said, throwing his hands into the air. “Fine. So let’s say that we do go back. Let’s even say that Windsaber believes us. What then? How does this information even begin to help us?”
“It’ll help us if we know what we’re up against!” Circuit argued. “It’ll help for them to know that there’s something going on here!”
“And then what?” Updraft snapped. “What? We still won’t have a way out of here! We still won’t have gotten a message out! No one knows we’re here! They’re not looking for us and they won’t if we don’t get a message out!”
“Yeah but--,” Circuit began.
“No!” Updraft interrupted with a slashing motion. “There is no but! This isn’t a binary concept and it isn’t up for debate! Now get that system working!”
“No!” Circuit yelled defiantly. “I won’t! We need to get out of here and we need to tell the others!”
Updraft closed the space between them in a single bound and bowled him to the ground, pinning the programmer beneath him.
“You will not question me!” he growled, his face nearly touching Circuit’s. “You will do what you are told!”
“No! I won’t!” Circuit yelled as he struggled in Updraft’s grasp. “You can’t make me!”
“I will kill you if you don’t!” Updraft yelled, shaking the programmer violently and slamming him against the floor, cracking the stone with the force of his assault.
Circuit let out a short bark of bitter laughter.
“No you won’t! If you do that then you won’t have anyone to work the communicator!”
Updraft pushed away from Circuit with a cry of outrage. He stood and stalked to the other side of the chamber. He cradled his head in his hands as the noise became more insistent. After a moment it passed and he spun back to the programmer.
“So what do you suggest? That we go back to Windsaber and tell him ‘Oops, sorry, we never got around to doing what you ordered’?” Updraft asked bitterly. “How well do you think that’s going to go over?”
“It’s got to be better than not letting them know what the situation is!” Circuit shot back, gingerly getting back to his feet.
“No! It isn’t! If we’re lucky he’ll kill us all and then send someone else to get the job done!” Updraft retorted. “That’s if we’re lucky. Trust me, I’ve been a Decepticon long enough to know what happens when you go against a Lieutenant! And Windsaber’s a Seeker on top of it all! They’re a model that isn’t known for a forgiving nature!”
Updraft shook his head then walked back to the control panel slowly.
“Besides,” he said smugly, “while we were here arguing you could have fixed the system, gotten a message off, and started back to the others. As it is it’s already getting dark and we won’t be able to head back until first light.”
Circuit glared at the Updraft angrily. He opened his mouth to argue then snapped it shut with an audible click of his mandible. With a dark look and tightly pressed lips he spun on his heel and turned back to the communications console. Without another word he began to work on getting the machine ready to transmit.
Updraft leaned against the wall and shuttered his optics in exhaustion. The static was still there but it was lessening as his anger began to leave him. He turned his back to the wall and slid down it until he was sitting, his head cradled in his hands. He opened his optics and looked over at Circuit, his back bent as he hunched over his work.
“Thank you,” Updraft whispered as he dropped his head to his knees and closed his optics in exhaustion.
Discourse had been watching the argument intently, but now that it seemed to be over she quickly lost interest in the two mechs. While they were fighting there was a palpable energy in the room that thrummed and pulsed with anticipation. She found herself caught up in the field, revelling in seductive anticipation until it came to a head as Updraft tackled Circuit to the ground. She felt like she could have overloaded right there as she watched the two mechs prepare to kill each other. But now that the two had separated, and a tense peace had been reached, the energy levels had dropped until she could barely feel them. With nothing to keep her attention, and feeling strangely drained and despondent, Discourse turned her attention back to the room. While the others only saw the amphitheatre, she saw so much more. What looked like elaborate art to the untrained optic, leapt out to her as intricate messages from the Golden Age and beyond.
She slowly moved along the walls taking in each picture, examining each motif and pattern carefully. The designs on the walls were ancient, but the more she studied them the more obvious it became that parts of the murals were far older than the Golden Age. The top-most images were clearly Cybertronian in origin; mathematically perfect, they represented parts of Cybertronian history and culture in an angular and stylized manner. But these pictures were imposed over something far older and far more organic. There was an inherent chaos about the underlying art that would never be seen in something designed by a Cybertronian. She looked around the amphitheatre, taking it in as if for the first time.
The lines here, as with the rest of the colony, were far more organic than anything that would ever be found on Cybertron. It was almost as if the colonists had built everything out of the bones of the previous civilization. As she followed the line of art she started to see that this was only part of the picture. The original art moved up through the space in a perfect logarithmic spiral toward the ceiling, belying the apparent chaos she had seen earlier.
“What is this?” she asked softly as placed her hand against the wall as if by touching it she could gain insight.
Then it was as if someone had pulled a film from her optics and she could see the art for what it was. It was a story, a historical account of the original inhabitants. But the new art was obscuring the old, and it was like listening to two separate conversations at the same time. It was obvious from the message that the ancients had no idea of what they were actually dealing with, otherwise the never would have redesigned this space; would never have over spoken the original story. Discourse moved to the center of the room and studied the murals from a distance. She turned in a lazy circle, optics looking out, searching for the beginning of the original story buried under the Cybertronian art. After a full revolution she came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be interpreted down here, but from here she could see what she missed before. High above was a narrow catwalk and there the Cybertronian art had not obscured the original designs.
She took a quick look at her companions and found Circuit still bent over the communications console and Updraft still sitting against the wall. His optics were shuttered and she would have thought him deep in recharge had it not been for the drawn, pained look on his face. It was obvious that neither of them were noticing her, or the art, or even the space at all. They certainly wouldn’t notice if she moved up to the catwalk. After a short search she found the remains of a ladder hidden behind bend in the wall. Carefully, she pulled herself up the ladder and to the catwalk. The area up here was shadowed but there was enough light to make out the art and the tale it was telling.
The story was simple, classic, and eternal. The original inhabitants were a proud race of organic space farers and this world was at the edge of their vast empire. These people, The People, colonized this world successfully and controlled it for generations. But then their god turned his back on them. That was when the fire-rain fell. At first there was death and devastation. But those who survived were better than before. Their culture thrived, becoming a beacon to the rest of the empire. But then there came a plague that was more deadly than any other their people had faced. Soon there were only a handful of colonists left to tell the story as they hid in this place, once a temple to their forgotten god.
Two cultures destroyed by an apparently unstoppable disaster. Two cultures that ended here in this place. It had to be more than coincidence, but there was still something she was missing, and without that last piece of the puzzle she couldn’t be sure. She turned and tried to take in the whole room and the whole picture from this vantage, but every time she thought she might be getting close to the center of the truth, it slipped though her fingers like so much water. And the more the struggled to understand the more elusive the answer became, until all she had to show for her efforts was a dull ache in her processor.
She lowered her head into her hands, closing her optics, trying to arrange herself for another attempt when Circuit’s voice interrupted the silence of the room.
“Okay,” he called out, “it should work now.”
“Good,” Updraft said as he stood and approached the console. “So what do we do?”
“We don’t do anything,” Circuit sneered. “I will plug into the system and send up a distress call. Then we can finally get back to what we should be doing.”
Updraft seemed about to respond when suddenly his hand moved up to his temple and he began to sway as if suddenly dizzy.
“Fine. Just do what you need to do,” he muttered weakly.
Circuit turned away from the scene but her gaze was drawn away from the picture she’d been studying and toward a dark corner at the far side of the catwalk. She lit her hand-lights and approached the wall slowly. And felt the fuel freeze in her lines.
There, written in the brownish pink of dried mech fluid was a note scrawled in a shaky hand.
“Communicator infected!” it screamed out.
Discourse mouthed the words slowly, their meaning not penetrating her fog choked processor.
“Circuit!” she screamed. “Stop! It’s not safe!”
“What are you on about?” Circuit demanded. “What’s not sssssssssuuuuuuugh....”
Circuit’s question broke off in a deep, pained moan that seemed to come from the depths of the Pit itself.
“Circuit!” Updraft cried as he rushed forward, all exhaustion brushed aside by fear and panic.
He reached out a hand to the programmer but pulled back suddenly as Circuit looked up at him. His optics, once a brilliant blue were now black with death, but the smile that pulled at his lips was very much alive and promised nothing but pain.
