TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 2 and ROBOTECH: THE NEW GENERATION STRANDED Part Nine: At the Heart of the Hive By Christopher E. Meadows The three Transformers drove rapidly through the gigantic corridor that looped around the Hive perimeter, looking for a way in. Several times they spotted what seemed to be entryways higher up on the interior wall, but as none of them could fly and it would take extra time to rig for climbing, they kept on driving, hoping to find a more accessible passage in. As it turned out, their hopes were not in vain; a ground-level tunnel branched off and turned inward just ahead. "There!" Skram said. "I see it," Rapido replied. "We move in, but cautiously. Transform at the first sign of trouble." "Got it," Nightracer said. "Sure thing, boss." The three cars moved into the smaller passageway. This area was darker, more confined, but still lit by the same weird, sourceless glow as the rest of the place. Between that glow and their headlights, the Transformers had little trouble seeing where they were going. Suddenly Skram transformed and raised his hand, calling for a halt. "Movement," he whispered. "From the intersection up ahead." Rapido and Nightracer switched forms as well, moving back into the shadows of the passage sides; Rapido on the left, Nightracer and Skram on the right. Their guns were held ready, in case of possible discovery. A pair of Invid Enforcers walked from the left side of the intersection ahead of them, and paused, turning to look around. Then Skram raised his gun and fired, and one of them went down, lacking a head. The other one immediately dived for cover through the passage to the right. "Fool!" Nightracer hissed, hooking one of Skram's legs with her own and yanking it out from under him. "Now they know we're here!" "Ow!" Skram protested, starting to get up. "He was coming this way--he woulda seen us!" "There's no way to know that now," Rapido said, running forward to the corridor where the Enforcer had disappeared. "He's gone. No doubt he'll be back soon, with reinforcements. We'd better hurry and do our job." "We should abort!" Nightracer protested. "They'll know we're coming now." "True, but I'm betting that enough of this Hive's forces are involved in the furball outside that they won't be able to offer more than a token resistance. Come on, we're wasting time." "Yes _sir_," Nightracer growled caustically, yanking Skram to his feet. "Come on, bright boy. We've got some charges to set." "Ow, hey, watch the shoulder!" Skram protested. Nightracer paid him very little heed. In the skies above the hive, Corg's green and orange Royal Command Battloid was trading weapon barrages with Scott's blue Alpha. Neither of them was managing to get the upper hand, and Corg was starting to become highly irritated at his lack of success. The irritation was tempered with a tiny amount of respect for Bernard's skill, but that only served to goad him on all the more. Suddenly a voice cried in his mind, "Corg, your Hive has been breached! Return immediately and defend the core center!" Corg reeled with the force of the mental command. "I...hear and obey, my Regis." "What the devil...? He's pulling back!" Scott realized a few moments later. "And most of the Invid are going with him." "Uh-oh," Rook said. "Something tells me that our friends just got found out." "I'm picking up an Invid group going after the POWs, too," Lancer put in. "Looks like it's time for a change in battle strategy," Scott decided. "Rand, you and Rook go and protect the POW rafts. Lancer and I will mop up here, then go into the Hive." "You got it, Scott!" Rand put a final volley of cannon shots through a pair of Invid Troopers, then lifted off for the river. Rook followed, covering the rear. Metal feet pounded on pavement or whatever it was the floors of the Hive were made from as the three-bot strike team dashed for the center of the Hive. Judging from the diameter of the thing on the outside and how far they had travelled, they _should_ have been approaching it by now, Nightracer thought, hoping they would not meet any resistance. But even as the thought crossed her neural receptors, the dark silhouettes in the hallway up ahead told her that her hopes were premature. "Invid! Scatter!" Skram yelled, diving aside as a stream of plasma frisbees stitched holes in the floor where he had just been. "Tell us something we don't know," Nightracer hissed, putting a hole through the first Armored Scout and firing wrist-rockets at the second. "We can't let them delay us!" Rapido said, matching the Invid fire with blasts from his own dual cannons. "Slag this," Skram muttered, standing up. Rapido glanced over his shoulder. "What are you--" he began, but did not have time to complete the sentence. Skram fired a series of blasts from his cannon pod, then transformed and raced at the Invid at top speed, dodging cannon blasts. "He's insane!" Nightracer said. "You learn to live with it," Rapido replied, sighing. "Covering fire!" "Right." Nightracer opened up with dual blaster rifles, balancing accuracy and cover. Rapido also kept up a steady stream of covering fire, doing just as much damage to Hive walls as to the Invid. Skram broke through the depleted Invid lines, then skidded around and transformed again, opening up on the Invid from behind. The crossfire proved lethal, and the last of the Invid guards soon fell. "Come on! There's something glowing up ahead, and I think that's what we're here for!" Skram called. "One of these days, Skram, you're gonna pull a stunt like that and we won't be here to pull your nuts and bolts out of the fire," Rapido admonished. And when you do, I just hope I'm on the other side of the gun, Nightracer thought, though she did not say anything. The thought soon vanished from her mind, however, when she and the others stood at the end of the corridor, looking out into the Hive's hollow core. "Wow...this reminds me of back home on Cybertron," Skram gasped. The room was easily five hundred feet in diameter, and the same distance high. At the center was a smaller sphere, perhaps a hundred feet wide, supported by a column that ran from the bottom of the room to the top. From the way it heated up almost every sensor Nightracer had, the sphere had to be the power generator for the entire Hive. The problem was, this corridor led into empty space, halfway up the side of the room. Nightracer looked around. "Is there some way to extend a bridge across?" Skram shook his head. "Wouldn't be, according to Lunk. Far's they know, every Invid can fly, so they wouldn't need it." "Terrific," Nightracer muttered. "So, we just need to sprout wings, then." "Or grappling-line launchers," Rapido said, sheathing his cannon pod and producing a smaller weapon. "I think I can just about make the shot, what about you?" Nightracer smirked, stowing her own weapons and producing a similar launcher. "In my sleep, Autobot." "Then let's do it. Skram, you keep a lookout for--" Skram's lookout task was pre-empted by the appearance of the very thing he was supposed to be looking out for. Four Invid Shock Troopers zoomed out from behind the sphere where they had been hiding, cannons blazing. As three plasma discs hit home, the ledge on which the Transformers were standing crumbled. Rapido managed to grab onto the edge in time to keep from falling, but, taken by surprise, Skram and Nightracer tumbled out the into empty air. Windbreaker and Turbofire put their weapons on full-auto and stood their ground as the Invid bore down on them. The barrage of weapons fire knocked out three or four Invid right away, but then the rest began returning the favor, and the two Autobots found themselves severely outgunned. "Look out!" Windbreaker tackled Turbofire out of the way of a barrage of discs, then put a burst through the sensor eye of an onrushing Armored Scout. "Urgh...thanks." Turbofire scrambled back to his feet. "How many left?" "_Too_ many!" Windbreaker replied, as a plasma disc hit close enough to sear his paint. "We're doing some damage, but at this rate they'll overrun us in no time!" "No time like the present, I always say!" Rand proclaimed cheerfully, smashing through the Invid lines in his Beta, then turning to release a barrage of missiles that took out three of the enemy ships. "We were just in the neighborhood and thought you looked like you could use a hand," Rook said, putting her red Alpha fighter through the change to battloid form and opening adding her gun pod's fire to the fight. "All right! It's the cavalry!" Lunk cheered from aboard one of the life rafts. "If there was ever a sight for sore optics, you're it," Windbreaker said, grinning. "You came right in the nick of time." "That's our specialty!" Rand replied, perforating another pair of Invid. "Don't get _too_ cocky, Country Boy," Rook smirked, turning and firing betwen the Beta's arm and torso to tag a Trooper about to strike him from behind. "Hey, thanks, Rook, looks like I owe you one." "You owe me a couple of dozen by now, but who's counting?" Seeing their comrades fall, the remaining three Armored Scouts in the battle group decided that discretion was the better part of staying alive, and broke off the pursuit. Rand and Rook touched down next to the two Transformers and watched them go. "Looks like we're safe now," Turbofire observed. "Yeah," Windbreaker replied. "I just wonder how the others are doing." The Hive floor was rushing up at them far too rapidly for Nightracer's enjoyment. Given how much of a beating her suspension had taken already, hitting _that would simply be the last straw. She glanced up, then fired the grappling-line gun still clutched in her hand. The carbide-steel grapnel snaked upward through the air and punched right through the torso of one of the Shock Troopers flying overhead. Nightracer reached out and barely managed to grab Skram with the other arm before the gun's brake kicked in, pulling the line taut and slowing the two of them to enough of a stop to drop the remaining twenty feet or so to the floor with no damage. A second later, the Shock Trooper exploded, and bits of debris rained down all around them. Skram gasped. "Gah--I thought I was junked for sure!" "Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in." That I should be reduced to saving an Autobot's life, Nightracer thought darkly. "Do your job and let's get out of here." Skram looked up at the sphere as Nightracer rewound the cable. "Right...I've got the demolition charges we need, just have to put them in place somehow." Nightracer fired the grapnel again, then handed the gun to Skram before it even hit home. "Fine. You do it. I'll keep you covered." "Geez, you don't have to get all snippy about it." Skram looked up at the sphere for a moment. "Hmm. Radio detonation won't be much good, and that EMP might interfere with electronic timers...have to go with mechanical." "Whatever floats your boat, just get _on_ with it!" Nightracer fired up at the Invid, which seemed to have forgotten them for the moment in concentrating on attacking Rapido. It pained her to have to save yet _another_ Autobot's life, but she had thrown in with them for this mission and was honor-bound to provide support. Besides, she knew getting out of the Hive would be easier with his covering fire. "...ghtracer! You...ll right?" Rapido's voice said over the staticky comlink. Nightracer took out another Invid, then flipped open the commpanel on her arm and punched for a tightbeam, maximum power transmission. "Yeah, we're just peachy down here. Skram's setting charges. Lower a line and we'll climb back up it soon as we're done." Rapido's response was clearer; he must have boosted his own comlink power. "Understood." Corg was livid as he swept into the Hive, much of his remaining Invid accompanying him. How _dare_ Nightracer betray him?! He would choke the life out of her with his battloid's own hands; his resolve strengthened with each Invid death he sensed as he approached. This resolve became tinged with just a bit of anxiety, however, as he approached the Hive's core. If they had penetrated this far, they could well destroy the entire Hive. Fortunately, they had not done so yet; best, then, to see to it that they would not have that opportunity. Skram pulled himself the last few feet up to the underside of the sphere, trying to ignore the twinges the powerful electromagnetic field was giving him. "Have to make this quick," he muttered, grabbing one of the charge packs he had magnaclamped to his waist. "Set the timer for five minutes, give us enough time to get clear..." As Skram placed the last charge, a plasma blast slammed into his side. It was just a glancing blow and did little damage, but it knocked him loose from the sphere and sent him falling to the ground. "Yaaaaa!" He managed to grab the cable and partly break his fall, but the force of the impact nonetheless crumpled his automotive-mode roof, shattering windshield glass and knocking him off-line. Nightracer turned. "What the slag...?" And then she saw the green and orange battloid sweep in for a landing, accompanied by a dozen Invid. Nightracer swore under her breath. Corg had arrived. "Prepare to die!" Corg yelled, charging his cannon. Nightracer thought fast. If Corg was in here, that meant either he had vanquished the humans--not likely, if their past performance was any indicator--or else he had fled the melee to defend the Hive. If the former were true, they were doomed anyway. However, if it were instead the latter, buying a little time for reinforcements to arrive could not hurt. Nightracer raised her arm, a rocket tip emerging from the junction between her wrist and forearm, pointing it at the sphere overhead. She smiled coldly behind her faceplate. "Go ahead and shoot me, but I shoot your power core at the same time and we all go up together." Corg was all but ready to fire anyway...and then her words penetrated. Seething, fists clenched until the knuckles were white, Corg lowered his gun. "What...do you want," he growled. "A challenge. You and me, one on one," Nightracer replied coolly. "If I win, you let us go and you keep your Hive. If you win..." She shrugged. "We're probably dead anyway." Corg considered this for a moment, then grinned ferally. "Very well. Let us begin." He turned to the Shock Troopers. "You will stay out of this." "All right, then," Nightracer said, drawing her guns. "One shall stand, one shall fall!" Corg rocketed toward Nightracer, cannon blazing. "Then the one to fall shall be you!" Nightracer leaped out of the way, tumbling into a handspring that brought her back to her feet and able to fire on Corg's battloid's side with her blaster rifle. The mecha deflected her shots with its armored forearm, however, before zooming around to try again. Nightracer kept in motion, dodging blasts from Corg's battloid's giant arm-mounted plasma cannon while she considered her options. She could not disarm it, as its weapon was built-in. It was too heavily-armored for the direct approach, and it did not seem to have the sensor-eye vulnerability of the other units. Furthermore, it could fly, and she could not. On the other hand, it had very little maneuverability or versatility, and had to deal with the interface between a creature of flesh and a machine. It was almost a pity, Nightracer thought, that she was more interested in playing for time than in winning; it would have been an interesting experiment. Perhaps she could bring the idea up with Megatron when they returned home, as a possible way for Decepticons to hone their battle-edge without fear of injuring another Decepticon. Corg leaped into the air, thrusters flaring, then dived toward Nightracer, missiles streaking out of the battloid's rear-shoulder-mounted launch pods. Nightracer fired a wrist-rocket to detonate the missiles, then leaped up to grab onto the Royal Command Battloid's leg, throwing its balance off. As it fired thrusters to compensate, Nightracer let go, spinning around as she dropped to fire her submachine cannon up at Corg's thruster pack. The armor-piercing shells stitched a line of stars across the armor plating, and the thrusters faltered. The Invid battloid touched down heavily, stumbling and nearly falling. Corg, enraged, turned and raised his gun once more. "Now you die!" "Yeah, right," Nightracer smirked, dodging aside. She was not quite fast enough this time, however, and Corg's blast clipped her right shoulder. Nightracer returned fire, more accurately, blasting chips off of the plexiglass canopy that protected the Invid pilot. Her submachine cannon clicked on empty, and she dropped it and drew the other one. "Last clip...better make it count." Corg abruptly switched tactics, lifting a foot or two off the ground and closing the distance between them by rocket power. His mechasuit's arms were held protectively in front of the canopy and he was building up speed; he obviously intended to try a ramming attack. Nightracer waited until the very last moment, then leaped high. She planted both feet on the Royal Command Battloid's shoulders in a mechajitsu leap kick, then jumped past, somersaulting in mid-air to land on her feet. Unbalanced, the battloid fell over onto its back, and the momentum from its thruster charge kept it sliding across the floor. As she touched down, Nightracer spun and fired, but Corg rolled out of the way just in time and returned his mecha to its feet, snap-firing a cannon blast that took her in the chest and knocked her to the ground. She rolled with the impact, firing back as she returned to her feet. She had taken no serious damage, but it _hurt_. "Score one for the fleshling," Nightracer muttered, firing again. Scott Bernard streaked vertical in his Alpha fighter, two Armored Scout mecha on his tail, then transformed to the half-plane, half-robot Guardian mode and flipped over, letting gravity do the work for him, before holing both Scouts with blasts from his fighter's cannon pod. "That's the last of them," he reported. "Time to head into the Hive." "Sound good to me," Lancer replied, banking his green Alpha toward the Invid structure. Scott dropped in to accompany them and in they went, heading for the mecha exit at the top of the Hive. By this point, enough Invid had been destroyed or scattered that the Invid resistance they met was minimal. It took only seconds for them to reach the Hive core. "Looks like it's still in one piece," Scott noted. "Scott, look down there!" Lancer pointed out. "Two o'clock low." "Huh?" Scott glanced to the right and down, to where Lancer had indicated, and saw the blue Transformer down, and the black one facing off against the large Invid battlesuit, a five-foot-long tongue of flame licking out in spurts from something in her hand. A dozen or so other Invid mecha were waiting, looking on. "Aha. Looks like they could use some help, doesn't it?" "You take the big one, and I'll handle the others?" Lancer suggested. "Sounds good to me." Scott shoved the stick forward and dropped toward his quarry. Nightracer's second submachine cannon had just clicked dry when the missiles streaked down from above to rattle the Invid battloid. "You can pull back, Nightracer," Scott called over the comlink. "We'll take it from here." "No!" Corg growled, launching skyward. "You will not deprive me of my victory!" As much as it rankled to be ordered back a human, Nightracer knew they were right. Now was the time to retreat, while Corg and his remaining Invid were distracted by the human fighters, and before the Core explo-- At that moment, the timers ticked down to zero, and the explosives Skram had planted on the Invid power core detonated. TO BE CONCLUDED Author's Notes: Here it is...the second to the last (planned) segment of "Stranded"...and already I've got a possible sequel in mind. I thought I should say a little more about my goals in writing "Stranded" here. I've already mentioned that I wanted to give the little-seen G2 characters a little more characterization than they would otherwise have gotten, but I had another goal in mind, too. I wanted to write a story that would, while focussing largely on the Autobots, nonetheless present at least one Decepticon in a favorable, if not wholly sympathetic (at least to Autobot fanciers), light. I wanted this particular Decepticon to be Nightracer, partly because I like the figure and character concept, but mainly because her creator, Raksha, is one of the main defenders of the Decepticon cause on alt.toys.transformers. While I am still firmly on the side of the Autobots as the "good guys," I _can_ appreciate Raksha's side of it. I can't help but admire her firm, uncompromising dedication to her views, even if I don't agree with the specifics of what she says sometimes. I wanted to show that a Decepticon _could_ be a "good guy," even to an Autobot fancier, while still not compromising her principles (more than is necessary under situational duress, at least) or her dedication to the Decepticon cause. It seemed somehow appropriate that Raksha's Nightracer should be that Decepticon. I hope I've succeeded in that goal; many of the comments I've gotten on the story seem to suggest that, at least to some people, I have. As an aside, I was not aware when I started writing this story that others before me have also taken an interest in Nightracer. There are two other Nightracer stories that I am aware of so far. M. Sipher's "Nightracer's Nightmare," an unfinished chapter in "The Phoenyx War," saddles Nightracer with a squadron of misfit subordinates to shape up. Rob Jung's "Absolution," from his own Transformers fanfic continuity, tells the story of a five-million-year vendetta between Nightracer and an Autobot. Both are very much worthwhile reads, though their take on Nightracer may be a bit different than my own. Just one more part to go. As always, I look forward to any feedback! "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! :)