TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 2
                                 and
                     ROBOTECH: THE NEW GENERATION

                               STRANDED

                      Part Eight: Into the Hive

                      By Christopher E. Meadows


    Lunk dropped the last two protoculture four-packs into
Turbofire's cargo bay.  "How many's that?"
    "Forty," Turbofire said.  "A hundred sixty cells in all.
Enough?"
    Lunk looked at the remaining cells.  "I'd like to clean them out,
but we don't have time for that.  It'll have to do."
    "Right."  Turbofire closed the cargo bay hatch that covered the
left half of his truck bed, then transformed to stand upright.
    Meanwhile, Lunk pulled a small device out of his haversack,
pressed a switch, and tossed it behind a row of the remaining
protoculture canisters.  "Bomb's set, let's go!"
    "Right!"  Skram hefted his engine cannon.  "Let's do it."
    Nightracer stood, blaster rifle in each hand, gunning down the
Invid as they came.  It was fortunate that there were not many of
them, and those that were here were mostly the exosuited Enforcers as
opposed to the larger Scout and Trooper mecha.  Human slaves were not
judged to pose much of a threat, Nightracer imagined.  Which was fine
with her.  Between the relatively light garrison in this area, and the
diversionary action of the other group that was drawing away the
heavier opposition, Nightracer was able to hold her own quite easily,
and was piling up an impressive number of defunct Invid mecha around
her.  
    It was not all fun and games, however.  Some of the Enforcers had
made it behind crumbling buildings and were firing back at her from
cover.  And as good as she was, dodging several beams at once could be
too tricky even for her, as the lines of carbon scoring on her armor
plate could attest. 
    Nightracer switched to thermoscan, then to structural scan.  No
humans in any of these buildings...which meant she would not catch
flak from the Autobots for collapsing them.  Her scanners had
pinpointed the precise structural members she would need to hit, and
the composition of the outer walls would hardly even slow down
blaster-shot.  Nightracer switched to maximum penetration and fired
four times from each blaster.  Three of the buildings across the
street collapsed on the Invid within.  That _seemed_ to be the last
immediate opposition...
    An explosion almost directly overhead startled Nightracer, and
she tucked and rolled to the side, coming up with blasters trained as
Invid Trooper parts rained down on the space where she had been.
Skram stepped out into the open, cannon muzzle smoking.  "Not bad
shooting, huh?"
    "Don't get _too_ cocky, kid.  Our mission's just beginning."
    "Hey, I _did_ save your life, you know.  Least you could do is be
a little grateful."
    "Gratitude comes later.  Right now we've got a job to do.  Or had
you forgotten?"
    Skram opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again.  She was
right.  "Then let's do it."

    Corg had flown a good way north from the Hive, becoming more and
more suspicious the farther he went with no smoke cloud in sight,
before the trouble began.  As the pain of a dozen Invid dying at once
came through his link to the Hivemind, he gasped in realization, then
growled, "The Decepticon betrayed us!  Return!  Return to the Hive and
defend it!"

    Nightracer and Skram made their way out into the open track
between the rows of buildings, moving from corner to corner, covering
each other.  There were probably still some Invid in the area--make
that _certainly_, Skram reflected, as a Scout popped out from behind a
building, plasma frisbees streaming out its gun ports.  "Gah!  Look
out!"  Skram dived and rolled out of the way, coming up blasting. 
    Nightracer, however, simply turned her side so the energy discs
passed to either side of her, then swiftly and efficiently holed the
Scout through the optic with a single rifle blast.  "You go on ahead.
I'll cover you."
    Skram looked at Nightracer, then nodded and ran, cannon at the
ready.  As Nightracer expected, more Enforcers started coming out--but
as soon as they popped up, they dropped, sans heads.  Skram got off a
few shots, but mostly did no harm save to the masonry.  He was doing
an excellent job of drawing enemy fire for Nightracer to eliminate,
however.
    Meanwhile, Turbofire kept to the shadows further back, blocky
engine gun ready in his hand.  Lunk was following along behind,
placing charges on all the buildings as they passed.  Turbofire had
to admire his courage, especially in light of the fact that the body
armor he was wearing would do almost nothing against an Invid energy
blast.
    "We getting close to the pen yet?" Lunk asked.
    Turbofire's scan visor slid down over his optics for a moment.
"About a hundred meters."
    "Invid?"
    "Nightracer and Skram seem to be handling them."
    Lunk nodded.  "Right.  When it's clear, we go."
    "In that case, you better get up on my shoulder."  Turbofire
offered Lunk a hand.  "I can cover more ground than you can."
    Lunk climbed into place.  "Right...okay, let's go!"

    Rapido hunched down behind a rock outcrop along with Windbreaker,
swinging around the side of it from time to time to fire a volley of
blasts toward the the Invid defenders of the Hive.  There were quite
a few of them here on the ground, though most of them were drawn off
by the aerial battle overhead.
    "Primus's name, there's a lot of them!" Windbreaker commented,
firing a burst from his cannon and downing a Shock Trooper.
    "Just don't let any of them get behind us, or we'll _really_ be
in trouble," Rapido said.  "Don't know how much longer we can keep
this up."  He opened the comlink on his arm.  "Rapido to Nightracer.
Status report?"
    "Going well," Nightracer reported, after a burst of static.
"Turbofire's heading into the camp...opposition minimal."
    "Good.  Get done and get out of there fast.  Rapido out."  Rapido
closed the commpanel and fired a few more blasts at the Invid.
    "Hey, look, they're thinning out!"  Windbreaker pointed.
    "Taking off, more like," Rapido noted.  He glanced up at the four
Valkyrie fighters dogfighting overhead.  "I hope they can handle it."
    "I wouldn't be surprised if they could.  Damn, those things are
fast.  Almost as maneuverable as the Aerialbots, in the sky..."
    Rapido ducked as a plasma disc blew splinters off the rock in
front of him, then returned fire.  "Envious?  You could take jetpack
training, like Sideswipe..."
    "Nah..." Windbreaker shook his head.  "Just idle thought.  With
my luck, I'd be scared of heights or something."
    "Hey, it's not the heights that kill you, it's the depths."
    "Gee, thanks a lot.  Nah, I'm content to be the fastest thing on
the ground.  I don't need to have to worry about the air, too."
    Rapido grinned behind his faceplate, then turned his attention
back to the battle. 

    The enclosure was surrounded by chain-link fencing, which was
topped with barbed wire and undoubtedly electrified.  Turbofire's
vibroblade sliced cleanly through it, and he tore it aside and stepped
in. 
    From closer up, the camp looked even worse than it had from
farther away.  Gaunt, emaciated men and women in ragged clothes were
sprawled haphazardly on the ground and under the scant wooden shelters
that could at best barely keep off the nonexistant rain.  Flies buzzed
around troughs that seemed to hold the leavings of rancid food, and
the buckets of water looked brackish and foul. 
    "Ugh," Lunk said, shaking his head.  He simply could not find any
words that were appropriate to this...this...this _place_.
    Turbofire felt it too.  "Primus..."
    "How far to the river?" Lunk asked.
    Turbofire looked beyond the other fence, to where the ground
sloped down to the river that ran beneath the Hive.  "Looks like about
a hundred meters."
    "Good.  You tear down the fencing between here and there, then get
out the rafts.  I'll get the people organized."  Or try to, Lunk
thought, looking around again.  The majority of the prisoners were
just standing there, staring, zombie-like.  Lunk once again mentally
damned the Invid, then shook his head and got to work.

    Scott Bernard banked and dodged the Alpha fighter amid and among
treacherous streams of plasma discs, pausing only to deliver bursts of
depleted-uranium death where it was most merited.  "I think we're just
about done here, what about you guys?" he asked in his usual
cheerful-even-in-the-heart-of-battle demeanor. 
    "Just about time to administer the coup-de-grace," Lancer agreed,
slamming his Alpha through transformation to Battloid mode and
applying retrothrust, then sending missiles after the quartet of
Shock Troopers who had overflown him.  "Look!  There's the signal!"
    "Where?" Rand asked.  "I don't see it."
    Lancer glanced over at the Beta fighter and made a quick estimate
of its heading.  "On your three o'clock."
    Rand looked to his right at the bright red signal flare rising
into the air over the hive.  "I see it!  And there're the rafts
moving out...looks like it's in we go--uh-oh.  Multiple bogeys coming
in hard and fast from the north!"
    "It must be the scout party coming back!" Rook realized.  "We
can't go in now--we have to keep them busy long enough for the
prisoners to get clear!"
    "Sounds like this calls for a change in plans," Rapido cut in.
"You guys hold off the returning Invid.  Windbreaker will rendezvous
with Turbofire and protect the prisoners, and I'll go with Nightracer
and Skram to knock out the Hive's power core.  Let's do it!"
    "We'll give you as long as we can, but if we start taking a
beating, we'll fall back," Scott warned.
    "Understood.  Give us some covering fire to cross to the river,
and we'll see you when we're done."  Rapido gestured to Windbreaker
to be ready to move.  Windbreaker nodded his understanding.
    "I'm on it, Scott."  Rand shifted the Beta into Battloid and
swooped in, raining death from the blaster cannons in the blocky
robofighter's arms.  Invid Troopers and Scouts exploded left and
right, then, as the Beta launched away, Rapido and Windbreaker ran
for it.

    Lunk watched as Turbofire pushed the last inflatable raft into the
river.  There were about ten of them, each capable of carrying about
twenty people, and several last passes through the camp assured nobody
had been forgotten.  Three or four of the stronger survivors were in
charge of steering each raft, and since there were no rapids
downstream for as far as Windbreaker had been given sufficient time to
scout, they were not particularly worried about navigational
hazards--of the non-Invid kind, at least.
    "Ready to go?" Turbofire asked, transforming back into pickup
form. 
    "I was ready before I even _saw_ this place," Lunk said, climbing
into the cab.  "Let's move!"
    "I guess that means we move, too," Skram said.  "Won't be too
soon for me."
    Nightracer nodded.  "For once, Autobot, I can agree with you."
    Rapido skidded to a halt next to them, and transformed into robot
form.  "You're probably not going to like this too much, but there's
been a change in plans."

    Nightracer looked out at the stretch of land between the prison
camp and the Hive.  Where before it had been a smooth meadow, of the
kind usually bordering a riverbank, now it showed all the benchmarks
of its recent use as a battlefield.  The landscape was pockmarked with
blast holes and craters, and defunct Invid mecha were strewn all
across it, along with the nondefunct units that were still looking for
targets to fire upon.  A new cloud of alien aggressor mecha were
darkening the skies to the north.
    "Let's move!" Nightracer decided.  "Rapido, cover us to the Hive,
then we'll cover you in return."
    "Hey, wait a minute!" Skram protested.  "Rapido's the boss--"
    "No time for arguing about it!" Rapido cut in.  "It's a good plan,
let's do it!"
    Nightracer did not quite smirk as she shifted to sports-car form
and took off across the blasted terrain.  Skram hesitated for just a
moment, then followed suit.  Rapido ratcheted back the action on his
double-barrelled engine cannon and opened fire, laying down a heavy
barrage of covering blasts to protect the others as they dodged their
way around and through the obstacles in their path.  At last,
Nightracer and Skram stood up as robots again, having reached the
safety of the Hive entrance, and began to provide covering fire of
their own. 
    "Looks like it's my turn," Rapido muttered, shifting form and
peeling out on the cracked tarmac of the camp enclosure.  

    In Turbofire's cab, racing alongside the river, Lunk was looking
back through binoculars as the three Transformers broke for the Hive.
"They're all clear..."
    "Do it," Turbofire said.
    "You got it."  Lunk picked up the small transmitter that was
lying on the seat beside him and pressed a button.  The prison camp
complex went up in a conflagration of heat and light.

    In the entryway to the Hive, the three Cybertron warriors
paused and regrouped, getting their bearings.  As Nightracer reloaded
her weapons and Rapido stood guard, Skram checked his sensor
readings.  "You getting anything?" Rapido asked.
    "So far, it matches up to the notes Lunk gave me," Skram said.
"Can't say I like the decor, but at least there's plenty of space for
us to move around."
    The Hive interior was dark and gloomy, but wide-open, with a
yellowish-green sheen to the exposed surfaces.  There were no
hard edges, but a kind of organic curvature to everything that
enforced the idea that they were inside some sort of insect hive.
Or, Skram thought darkly, some sort of living being.
    "Slag the decor," Nightracer snapped.  "What about the power
source?"
    "Reading dead-center of the Hive, or close enough for orienteering
anyway."  Skram's scan visor slid back up into his head.  "If you're
so eager to go, let's get a move on."
    "Sounds good.  Which way?" Rapido asked.
    Skram shrugged.  "Beats me.  Every one of these things is
different on the inside.  We just have to go 'til we find a passage
that looks like it leads inside."
    "Terrific," Nightracer growled.  "Well, the sooner we go, the
sooner we find it."
    Rapido nodded.  "And the sooner we can get out of here.  Let's
transform and roll out!"
    "Sounds good to me, boss!"  Suiting words to action, Skram
shifted into automotive form and headed further into the hive.
Rapido and Nightracer followed suit, though not without a little
muttering on Nightracer's part.

    As the liberated human prisoners floated down the river in their
rafts, Turbofire and Windbreaker raced along on either side of the
rushing stream.  From time to time they had to wade in to free a raft
that got stuck on a snag or a sandbar, but all in all, they were
making fairly good time.  Whenever he could afford to, Windbreaker
stopped for a few moments to tune his sensors back toward the battle
raging in the air over the Invid Hive, and he constantly monitored
the humans' comlink frequencies.
    "You think they'll be okay?" Windbreaker asked Turbofire, on a
separate frequency.
    "Yeah, they'll be all right," Turbofire replied.  "The human
freedom fighters are pretty good, and Decep or no, Nightracer's no
slacker either.  Besides, the enemy divided their forces.  You do
that, you give the other guy a big advantage."
    "Speaking of dividing your forces, I think we're in for trouble!"
Lunk said, pointing out Turbofire's rear window.  "Looks like they
finally noticed us sneaking away."  Four Invid Shock Troopers and
four Armored Scouts were closing in, weapon muzzles glowing hot.
    "We can't let them stop us--or hurt the humans!" Turbofire said.
    Lunk pulled a laser rifle out of his knapsack.  "You don't need
to tell me twice."
    "When I stop, you jump out and make for one of the rafts.  Shoot
anything that gets too close."
    Lunk nodded, gripping the rifle tightly.  "Got it.  Let's really
give those Invid what for!"
    The two Autobots skidded to a halt, transforming as soon as they
could, and turned to face the oncoming enemy.  "What do you think, is
it a good day to die?" Windbreaker quipped.
    "Old Autobots never die, they just get a little rusty!" Turbofire
replied.  "Let's do it!"

                           TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Notes:

    I've been asked about the continuity into which "Stranded" is
intended to fit--whether it is the TV show, the comics, et cetera.  My
answer is: All of the above.  None of the above.  Somewhere
in-between. :) I feel that one of the best things about Transformers
is that each fan is free to create his own universe, to make the
history his own in certain ways.  Perhaps Larry DiTillio & Bob Forward
said it best, when they compared the Transformers sagas to the tales
of King Arthur, in which many of the same events occur from tale to
tale but they do so in different ways. 
    In case it's not clear from the story, though, I'll say this much.
At least _some_ of the events of the first two seasons of the TV
series and movie happened--though not necessarily the way they
happened in the show and movie itself.  Some of the events from the US
G1 & 2 comics may have taken place, too.  Furthermore, the
_Decepticons_ currently control Cybertron, save for a flourishing
Autobot underground, both in the planet's great cities and on its
various (remaining) moons.  The purpose of the spacebridge in the
first episode was to move supplies and troops from that underground to
Earth, where the Autobots are currently managing to hold the
Decepticons at bay, though both sides do have several bases on the
planet. 
    Hope you like the story, and I hope you'll give me some feedback
on this, the latest segment...


"Stranded" is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows.  Permission
granted for free electronic distribution via Usenet and associated
archival, as long as no fee is charged and this notice remains intact.
For further permissions, such as inclusion in "Con-Quest" or on an
archival webpage, please contact the author, he would likely be more
than happy to oblige. :)

The Transformers, Rapido, Windbreaker, Turbofire, and Skram are
registered trademarks of Hasbro and Takara, and Nightracer is a
trademark of Raksha and Plumed Serpent Productions.  Their
unauthorized use here is not for profit, and not meant to infringe
upon those trademarks.  This is _not_ an official Hasbro-endorsed
story, please don't think I'm trying to pass it off as one.  (There,
that should make the Hasbro lawyers happy. :)

Robotech, the Invid, Prince Corg, Scott Bernard, Rand, Rook, Lancer,
Lunk, Annie LaBelle, Marlene, and other associated characters and
mecha are trademarks of Harmony Gold, Inc.  Their unauthorized use
here is not for profit, and not meant to infringe upon those
trademarks.  This is _not_ an official Harmony Gold-endorsed story,
please don't think I'm trying to pass it off as one.  (And that should
make the Harmony Gold lawyers happy too! :)