Transformers: Retribution (34 page)

“I tend to the creatures down here,” he said. “The Piranhacons, the Eelcons, and anything else used for the pit and the trials. But very occasionally, some of the innocent escape their punishment, forcing me to become involved more … directly. And you have special distinction, since you are the last of the Cybertronians.”

“What do you mean, the last?” Optimus’s heart sank. “Our men on the surface have been executed?”

The Gamekeeper chuckled, a horrible burbling noise. “Dear me, no. At least, not yet. I think they’re still holding out, actually. Putting up quite a fight from what I hear.”

“So what are you talking about?”

Now the Gamekeeper was laughing openly. Saliva dangled down onto the rocks. “You mean you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” Megatron demanded.

“Your planet. The Quintessons are invading it even as we speak.”

And in one terrible instant Optimus understood.
This
was why they had been lured to Aquatron.
This
was why the Quintessons had played such games with him and Megatron. This was why they’d woven a web of such sick manipulation, why they’d been so eager to manipulate the Matrix and toy with his mind. Because it wasn’t about him. It was about something much, much larger.

“You lie,” Megatron said slowly. “Your kind always lies.”

“No,” Optimus said, “he speaks the truth.”

“There is a space bridge far beneath this city,” said the Gamekeeper. “The Curator opened up a door; Tyrannicon and his legions went through. Your planet will have no chance against their might. The Quintessons have sought retribution against your kind for eons, and today they will have it at last. Soon Tyrannicon will begin sending the first batches of captured Cybertronian slaves back through the bridge. Some will be fodder for the pits. Some will be food. Some will be experiments. But all will be doomed. Because this time there will be no liberation.”

“We’ll see about that,” Megatron snarled as he aimed his fusion cannon. But a giant claw swung out, knocking
him against the wall. Suddenly it was all too clear that the painstaking way the creature had hauled its bulk from the pool had been just for show; a second giant claw snatched up Optimus and hurled him into the ceiling with no little force. A third claw sliced through the air to finish off Megatron, but he’d already rolled out of the way.

Optimus wasn’t so fortunate. As he landed with a thud, the creature held him down with his fourth claw and went for the kill; Optimus looked up to see the monster’s toothy mouth descending toward him; long sinewy tendrils slid out of that mouth and reached for him. Thinking fast, he kicked up his legs and braced them against the sides of the mandibles, managing to hold the beast’s snapping jaws a few feet from his head. But the lobster-bot was exceptionally strong; Optimus knew he couldn’t hold out for long. And he knew, too, what would happen when he lost. From his position right beneath the creature, he could see a gelatinous sack filled with what looked like the half-digested remains of its previous meal. And past that he could see—

Megatron.

Charging in at the underground fiend, yelling a gladiator’s battle cry. The thing swung its great bulk to meet Megatron head-on; four claws lashed out, a virtual buzz saw of death as they sought out the Decepticon leader, but Megatron anticipated the claws’ movements, vaulting onto one of them and leaping from there onto the lobster’s back. The creature reacted instantly, arching its huge spiky tail like a scorpion in an attempt to sweep away the nuisance, but as it did so Optimus grabbed on to that tail, pinning it against the lobster’s body. The creature thrashed frantically, trying to reach the two Cybertronians with its claws. Optimus felt himself losing his grip on the tail; as soon as he did, he knew he
was going to be battered against the floor with a force that almost certainly would be lethal.

“Can’t hold much longer.” He grimaced.

“You don’t need to,” said Megatron, who reached forward and plucked off both eye stalks as if he were picking a couple of flowers. The creature howled; Megatron jumped from its back, ripped a stalagmite from the floor, and drove it straight into the monster’s heart. The lobster convulsed and emitted a horrendous death rattle. Optimus let go of the still-quivering tail.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said to Megatron. “We do make a pretty good team.”

But Megatron didn’t answer. At first Optimus thought he was injured, but then he realized that the Decepticon leader’s attention had been caught by something on the far wall: one of the more striking carvings. It was a particularly bizarre one, to say the least. A giant bot stood there, covered in shark fins, its arms raised in triumph, hapless opponents at its feet. Optimus thought there was something familiar about that bot, and as he studied it more closely, it occurred to him that it bore more than a passing resemblance to—

“
Me
,” said Megatron. “That’s me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would it be you?”

“I don’t know, but you have to admit the similarities are rather striking.”

“So are the differences. Notice the fins? Notice how you don’t have them?”

Megatron shrugged. Optimus knew that the Decepticon leader was such a narcissist, he was fully capable of seeing his own reflection in virtually any image that was put before him. Though it did occur to Optimus that the carving might have been added at the eleventh hour by the Quintessons as still more psyops warfare. After all, they’d used the Matrix to mess with
his
head; why shouldn’t they have come up with some way to mess with Megatron’s?
He became aware of a burbling voice that was half whisper, half gasp.

“Sharkticon superstition,” the dying Gamekeeper muttered. Optimus was surprised he wasn’t dead yet. There must have been more of his blood in the tidal pool than there was left in his body. Optimus stepped past a weakly grasping claw and placed his boot on the creature’s head.

“Care to tell us what you mean?” he asked.

“The Sharkticons … they were conquered long ago by … Quintessons …”

“We figured that out already,” Megatron said.

“They were brainwashed … conditioned. But some of them once told stories … of the one who would come to free them …”

“And that’s the guy on the wall?” Optimus asked.

“The Sharkticons who drew that were killed long ago. I … consumed them personally. There has been no talk of freedom since. But … but …”

“But what?” Megatron demanded.

“They tasted sweet,” said the lobster—and died.

“I still think that looks like me,” Megatron said.

“Never mind that,” Optimus said. “We’ve got to somehow find this bridge, defeat the Quintessons, and save Cybertron.”

“It may already be too late,” Megatron said.

“It’s never too late. Are you with me or not?”

Megatron raised his fusion cannon in the old gladiator salute.

CYBERTRON

I
ACON WAS IN A STATE OF NEAR PANDEMONIUM
. T
HERE
had been no official announcement, but by now everyone was aware the planet had been invaded. Scarcely anyone outside Shockwave’s high command knew the identity of the invaders, but that didn’t really matter. Rumors were sweeping through the city like wildfire. Megatron was back and had turned against Shockwave! Optimus had returned with the AllSpark and was thrashing the Decepticons once and for all! But anyone who got past the surface level of the rumor mill knew that something far worse was afoot. Something alien had landed on Cybertron, something no one had seen for many millions of years.

“Those slagging
Quints
,” Maccadam said.

Ultra Magnus nodded as if he understood what that meant. Wheeljack and Springer refrained from asking the obvious question, waiting to hear more. But Rack n’ Ruin had no such patience.

“Who are the Quints?” he asked.

It was Alpha Trion who answered. He’d been sitting in the corner of Maccadam’s ever since they’d got here. Coming back to the bar was the last thing Wheeljack would have expected them to do, but all the tunnels that led out of the city were being rapidly sealed or blown up
by Iacon’s defenders. Alpha Trion’s eyes were scarcely focusing, as if he were still having trouble processing events.

Or else was way ahead of them.

“The Quintessons are an ancient evil who once enslaved us,” he said slowly. “They’ve returned to finish what they started.”

“Okay,” said Wheeljack. “In that case, why is all the radio chatter talking about
sharks
?”

“Not sharks,” Springer said. “Land sharks. There’s a difference.”

“Sharkticons,”
Alpha Trion said. “They are the servants of the Quintessons, who have sent them across the bridge.”

“So when do we see the Quintessons?”

“You don’t,” Alpha Trion said. “That’s the point. They always work through proxies.” He drew a deep breath. “I am to blame for all of this.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ultra Magnus said. “Shockwave used you.”

“I should have self-destructed rather than fall into his hands.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Maccadam said. “And frankly, we could use your advice.”

“Advice?”

“What do we
do
?”

The room shook with a deep rumbling. For a moment, Wheeljack thought that Maccadam’s was under attack once more, a suspicion that seemed to be confirmed when the camera feeds showed Decepticon battle tanks on the street outside. But they weren’t stopping. They were trundling past, rolling toward the city walls.

“Shockwave’s moving up his reserves,” Springer said.

But no one listened to him. They were all still focused on Alpha Trion, wondering whether he had an answer,
whether he could give them any hope at all, no matter how slender. He took a deep breath.

“We need to get to the Hall of Records,” he said.

N
O DOUBT ABOUT IT
;
THIS HAD BEEN THE WORST DAY
of Ratbat’s life.

Mere hours ago, it had looked like he was going to capture the leader of the Wreckers. But then Omega Supreme and his long-range cannon had intervened, and things had been going downhill ever since. Faced with the prospect of telling Shockwave that not only had he let the Wreckers get away but the forces he’d sent after Omega Supreme had been ambushed and destroyed by that giant robot … Well, Ratbat had been worried about more than just his career. And now a remorseless enemy was closing on Iacon, and he was in charge of stopping it. Shockwave had made it very clear that if the invaders got past the walls, he’d personally perform a very special experiment on Ratbat aimed at discovering just how long a bot could survive when it was sliced into several thousand pieces.

Ratbat was thus doing his utmost to bring some order to the city’s defenses. So far he was failing. He’d set up his command post at the city gates, which were still in a state approaching anarchy. The defenders weren’t even bothering to try to stem the tide of refugees flooding into the city. Once the enemy came into sight, the gates would have to be shut, of course, but right now Ratbat doubted that he could get his soldiers to fire on the refugees. They’d be just as likely to shoot him, and they’d probably enjoy it a whole lot more. A vid-screen on the wall started buzzing. Ratbat picked it up.

“Yes?”

“Report,” said Shockwave.

“Everything’s under control,” Ratbat said automatically.

“That’s not what I’m hearing.”

Then why are you asking me?
Ratbat wanted to say. But a lifetime of deference had trained him in the art of not uttering the first thing that popped into his head. “Lord Shockwave, I just arrived at my command post. I assure you the defenses will be at peak performance momentarily.”

“For your sake,” Shockwave said, “they had better be.”

I
N HIS TOWER
, S
HOCKWAVE SWITCHED OFF THE SCREEN
and went back to studying the map of Iacon and the surrounding area. He knew that Ratbat’s assurances were worthless. Frankly, Shockwave had never expected that Ratbat would have to contend with a situation this grim. If he had, he would have picked someone more capable. But skill in battle meant a potential rival, and Shockwave’s whole regime was based on the principle of divide and conquer, making sure that no one bot ever attained enough power or prestige to challenge him. That had worked well enough for dealing with sporadic guerrilla warfare, but the current threat was a different story altogether.

Then again, even if he’d had the right officers in place—and Megatron had taken all the best ones with him anyway—Shockwave doubted it would have made much difference. The last thing anyone had been expecting was a full-scale invasion fleet to roar out of the dormant space bridge. Shockwave stared at the flames darkening the sky around Iacon and mulled over his fast-dwindling options. Most of his bots had been ground to powder already. All his remaining reserves had been moved to the walls and were waiting for what was probably going to be a fairly quick demise. Shockwave studied video imagery of the
invaders: their manta ray crafts, their finned troops. They all looked like they’d been run off the same assembly line.

Except for one.

The leader wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile. Obviously, his approach was very different from that of Shockwave, who preferred to stay in the most fortified place possible while others did the fighting. The Sharkticon leader stood resplendent on the exterior part of the bridge of his flagship, at the very front of his onrushing forces, his scaled cape streaming in the wind. Shockwave stared for long moments. An old aphorism came to mind:

Kill the head and the body will die
.

Shockwave had in mind just the bot to do it, too. Even if that bot wasn’t loyal to him, he knew its general location, in the vicinity of Iacon.

And Tyrannicon was heading right for it.

“T
HE CITY IS SURROUNDED
,
LORD
.”

Tyrannicon nodded. His armada had spread out, extending its flanks on precise vectors so that it enclosed the entire area around Iacon. Now it only remained to tighten the noose. He gave the order to advance; his flagship rumbled forward through the jungle of metal that constituted the polar badlands. Far ahead, he caught a glimpse of a tower protruding from the far horizon. Presumably that was the Tower of Shockwave: the highest point of Iacon’s skyline. Tyrannicon smiled to himself. There was nothing that could stop him now.