The Devil You Know, Chapter 28

[wyntir_knight]

Title: 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: No comment


Chapter 28


Turbine came online slowly, painfully clawing his way back to consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was a painful feeling in his wrists. It was as if they had been rubbed raw. A cold chill moved across them, like a breeze over exposed wires and cables. He groaned as he activated his optics; or tried to activate them. His vision swam in and out of focus as error messages scrolled by, broken by binary gibberish.

“What -,” he began, but his vocalizer shorted out in a scream of static.

“Oh look, Breakfast is awake,” Strobe said as he stepped into Turbine’s line of site.

“Let me go,” Turbine tried to say, but again, his voice shorted out painfully.

“What was that?” Cobalt asked with mocking sympathy. “You’ll have to speak up if you expect us to understand you.”

Turbine shut off his optics and turned his focus toward his systems. He felt weak and disoriented, his internal repair systems barely keeping up with the damage that Strobe and Cobalt had caused. After a long time he was finally able to make sense of the error messages scrolling through his mind. His wrists were raw from rubbing against shackles holding him to a flat surface. The armour on his back and chest was buckled and cracked. And he was getting no signals at all from his legs, only a dull, static-filled pain.

“Are you done?” Strobe asked as he stroked Turbine’s face in a twisted mockery of concern. “Because you’re really going to want to be awake for this part.”

Turbine opened his optics again and looked at Strobe with hatred and anger. He focused all his energy on his vocalizer, trying to force it to work through the damage.

“Let me go,” he said, his voice sounding like a harsh burr of static. “I’m not who you want. Let me go …”

“Now why would we would ever let you go, Breakfast?” Cobalt asked, coming up to run a finger down Turbine’s chest, tracing over the cracks and dents in his armour. “After all, how are we supposed to get lunch and dinner without appropriate … bait.”

Turbine’s optics widened in shock and fear. He tried to pull away from Cobalt and Strobe’s hands, but his bonds were too tight and his energy too depleted.

“Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s been a while since I’ve eaten, and I think it’s about time we got you … seasoned,” Strobe hissed.

With that he grabbed hold of the sides of Turbine’s head. The second he made contact, data filaments slipped out of his finger tips and embedded themselves into the gaps between Turbine’s helm and neck. Turbine tried to jerk his head away but Strobe’s grip was too tight, and soon the engineer’s systems were flooded with an overwhelming array of contradictory sensory data. A scream was ripped from his vocalizer as his body arched and writhed in agony. Pain shot through every node and sensor while horrible visions swam past his optics.

Beyond the pain, he could hear Strobe and Cobalt laughing viciously.

x-x-x

Arclight froze as a scream ripped through the air.

“That was Turbine!” she cried as she ran down the corridor. “We have to find him! Help him!”

“Wait! Stop!” Updraft grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. “We can’t just go rushing around trying to find him. It’s obviously a trap.”

“What?! How do you figure?!” Arclight demanded. “Look, never mind. We have to help him.”

“Think about it,” Updraft begged, not letting her go. “We’ve seen what they can do. Why are they letting him scream like that if they didn’t want us to go after him.”

“But we can’t just leave him! They’re killing him!” she protested as she tried to pull away from him.

“And that means that they don’t know where we are,” Updraft replied calmly. “We obviously have something that they want and we need to use that to our advantage.”

Arclight stopped and looked at him defiantly, trying desperately to come up with an argument. Finally, she was forced to admit defeat, dropping her gaze and wilting into Updraft’s grasp.

“Fine,” she said softly. “Fine, so what do we do?”

“We go after Turbine, but we do it carefully,” Updraft said. “I think that between the two of us we can track his location. Once we know that, we can work out a better plan.”

“You know,” Arclight replied with a rueful look, “that is a really bad plan.”

“I know,” Updraft said with a shrug. “But it’s all we’ve got right now.”

They carefully made their way down the corridor, following the sounds of Turbine’s screams and Cobalt’s harsh laughter. Neither Updraft nor Arclight were programmed or trained as trackers, but the search was simple enough. As they moved through the halls, following the obvious trail that Cobalt and Strobe had left, a seed of doubt began to form in the back of Arclight’s mind.

“Is it just me, or is this a bit too easy?” Arclight asked as she examined a drop of energon smeared on a corner, pointing them down a darkened corridor.

“It’s not just you,” Updraft replied as he followed the trail. “And before you say it, I don’t like it either, but we’re sort of out of options.”

After far less time than either had expected they arrived at a large room similar in design to the communications room. At the center of the room was a dais upon which a table had been set, and on the table was a brown and teal lump. Cobalt stood at the side of the table, occasionally poking at the lump and drawing spark-wrenching screams from it.

“What do we do?” Arclight asked across a private communications channel.

“I think the first thing we need to do is draw Cobalt away from there. Get Turbine out,” Updraft replied. “After we’ve got him somewhere safe we can come back and see if we do … something for Cobalt. I don’t want to abandon him.”

“Neither do I,” Arclight said sombrely. “So what do you suggest we do?”

Updraft paused and considered the scene before them. Strobe was nowhere to be seen, But Cobalt was still poking and prodding at Turbine. The little engineer was no longer screaming, instead he was letting out agonized little moans and whimpers at every touch.

“I … I think it would be best if I get around to the other side of the room,” Updraft said, indicating a door on the far side of the room. “I’ll get Cobalt’s attention, draw him off. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a hiding place small enough for my alt-mode. And then I’ll double back and meet you … We need a meeting place. Maybe our best bet is to head back to the communications room. Do you think you can find it again?”

“Yes, but are you sure that this would be the best id….” Arclight trailed off and he looked at Cobalt intently. The Autobot had stopped prodding at Turbine and had cocked his head to the side, as if listening.

“Is he listening to us?” she asked.

“He can’t be,” Updraft said dismissively. “This is a secure channel.”

“I … I guess so,” Arclight said as Cobalt went back to work on Turbine.

“Okay, good.” Updraft turned his attention back to the far door. “I think I can get over there in just a couple of breem. I’ll make enough of a ruckus that you’ll know when to move. Get in there as quiet as you can and get him out as quick as possible.”

“Right,” Arclight replied. “… just so you know, I really hate this plan.”

“I know. But it’s all I can think of,” Updraft replied ruefully.

He turned and began to walk away then stopped and turned back to Arclight.

“Just be careful,” he said, taking her hand in his. “And keep your optics peeled for Strobe. He’s probably out looking for us, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t be back.”

“You be careful too,” Arclight replied, squeezing his hand gently.

Updraft moved to leave, but Arclight increased the pressure on his hand, pulling him back to her and kissing him soundly.

“I’m serious,” she whispered out loud when she pulled away. “Be careful. Please.”

“I will,” Updraft replied quietly as he disengaged from her.

Without another word or glance he walked away and disappeared around the corner. Arclight crouched in the shadows of the doorway and waited for her cue to move. Turbine’s screams had decreased to a pitiful whimpering and Cobalt seemed to be losing interest. In the ensuing silence, while she counted down the clicks until Updraft made his move, a portion of her processor began to run over the entire situation. In the last few orns since they had crashed on this Primus-forsaken world, in the solar since she had left Cybertron on what she had thought was a mission of mercy, her life had turned completely upside down. Back on Cybertron she had a mate who loved her, she had a life that made sense. When the Decepticons had attacked she had lost everything, and now she was praying for the safety of one of those Decepticons. None of it made any sense.

She shuttered her optics for a moment and cleared her intakes in a silent sigh. It was all too much when she took it as a whole. In the end, she’d have to take it one moment at a time until they escaped this world. Once she was safely on her way back to Cybertron she would allow herself the luxury of worrying about the particulars.

x-x-x

Updraft crept down the hall toward the far door of the room. He still didn’t know what he was going to do once he got there, but he was willing to figure it out on the fly. All it would really take was for him to get Cobalt’s attention and then avoid getting grabbed. It was simple. Sparkling play.

“Yeah. Right,” Updraft murmured to himself.

The theory was good, but there were far too many things that could go wrong. When it came down to it, when he weighed the gains against the losses, he couldn’t come up with a good reason for doing this. By all logic, he should just run, leave Arclight and Turbine to their fates. After all, they weren’t Decepticons. He owed them no loyalty at all. And had he been Strobe, he would be heading straight to the shuttle pads. But Windsaber wouldn’t have. He was a Decepticon who still believed in honour, who still believed that the Decepticon Empire had a higher calling that required they be caretakers of weaker beings. Or at least he had been before he had given his life to defend a group of neutrals who hated and feared him.

Updraft paused as he approached the far door to the room. By all logic he shouldn’t be here, but he still believed in Windsaber’s Decepticons, still believed that he had a duty to the people of Cybertron. Besides, there was something about Arclight that brought the best out in him.

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m completely out of my processor to be doing this,” Updraft muttered to himself as he gathered up his courage and walked up to the door and made himself visible to Cobalt.

“Leave him alone!” Updraft ordered as he fired into the ceiling.

Cobalt looked up and a huge grin split his face, far larger than his faceplate should have allowed.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to get here,” he asked. “Where’s the medic?”

“That’s none of your business,” Updraft growled. “Now get away from him! I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“Yes, well, we can’t always get what we want,” Cobalt replied. With the grin never leaving his face, he jammed his hand into Turbine’s side, wrenching another agonized scream from the engineer.

Updraft stepped further into the room and aimed his rifle directly at Cobalt.

“I won’t ask again,” he said.

“What is this? Are you threatening me?” Cobalt asked. “Do you really think that I’m going to take you in any way seriously?”

Updraft steeled his resolve and fired on the Autobot. With a swift dexterity he had never before possessed, Cobalt stepped out of the way laughing darkly.

“We’ve been through this already,” he said, sounding bored. “You couldn’t stop me before without nearly taking yourself out as well. What makes you think you’ll do any better while you’re still you and I’m in this fantastic new body?”

“You’ll find that I’m full of surprises,” Updraft growled, trying to hide his confusion at this revelation.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Cobalt said patronizingly. “I’m sure that you have a masterful plan designed to draw me away from here so that your friend can sneak in here and free my little playmate.”

Updraft bunched his jaw and fired again at Cobalt, continuing to follow him as he jumped out of the way again and again.

“You won’t hit me unless I want you too!” Cobalt crowed. “Don’t you get it little robot? You’ve lost!”

A cry of surprise and pain came from the other door, jarring Updraft’s attention just long enough for Cobalt to step in close. With a single fluid motion, Cobalt had Updraft in a headlock, bending him forward and pinning him to the floor. Roughly, he grabbed Updraft’s head and turned him to face the door, forcing him to watch as Strobe walked in, carrying the struggling form of Arclight.

“Let me go!” Arclight cried as she tried to kick out at her captor.

“No!” Updraft bellowed, trying desperately to free himself from Cobalt’s grip.

“I don’t think so,” Strobe said in a bored voice. “You’ve tried to lead us on a merry chase, but, honestly, we’re bored of it. Now stay still and be good little meals.”

With that he released data filaments from his hands and began to insert them into the gaps between Arclight’s armour plating. She froze at the touch before suddenly arching away from him, a scream of anguished static ripping itself free of her vocalizer.

“Leave her alone!” Updraft shrieked, pushing up against Cobalt’s bulk pressing against his back.

“You know, Cobalt said thoughtfully, “you might just want to do what he says.”

“What?” Strobe growled. “What do you mean? I’m tired of chasing these metallic idiots and I’m hungry!”

“Just hear me out, love,” Cobalt replied. “If you were to take her body, and I remain in this one, then we could leave this planet. Move onto richer hunting grounds. As it is, the body you’re in now would cause too many questions, but I would think that with that body and this one,” he said pointing to his own, “we could go anywhere we liked.”

“That’s a good point,” Strobe replied as he began to withdraw his data filaments. “But what about food? I’m still hungry and we’d need to eat before a trip like that. That one,” he said pointing to Turbine’s weakly twitching body, “is almost dry.”

“True,” Cobalt said. He roughly dragged Updraft off the ground and looked at him thoughtfully. “But we already know that this one has feelings for that one. Imagine the horror and pain we could drag out of him if she was the one doing the feeding!”

Updraft’s optics widened in horror at the sight of Strobe’s eager look.

“Well, it has been a long time since I’ve been female,” Strobe said, ignoring Updraft’s choked cry and Arclight’s weak attempt at escape. “Yes, I do believe that that is a good plan.”

He withdrew his data cables completely and was preparing to press them into one of Arclight's audio nodes when a flash of red laser fire struck him in the shoulder, sending him to the floor.

“It is a very bad plan,” said a voice from the doorway, a voice as cold as frozen steel. “And it ends right now.”

Updraft twisted his head just far enough to allow him to see the shape of a green seeker in the doorway.