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Escape from Cybertron	By : mancer Category: S through Z > Transformers (Movie Only) > Transformers (Movie Only) Views: 1172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, nor do I make any profit from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Escape from Cybertron
- 2-Deception
- 1
- 2
Author's note:
Just to give you all a head's up, I'm not quite where this story is headed (the characters never seemt o tell me these things until they're ready for me) and it takes place on well... the other side of the latest Transformers movie. It'll be spoilertastic, if you haven't seen Dark of the Moon yet.
Anyhow, enjoy!

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Jirou clenched her first and held tight against the wall as another wave of patrols swept past.
One. Two. Three. Four... GO!
She dashed to the next hide, glancing all ways before taking the slag-filled alleyway down several turns. Another patrol. Damn!
Something had the Decepticons up in a buzz, their engines droning overhead like a hive of parasites just waiting for a young 'bot to step on and swarm. Jirou rubbed at the Decepticon symbol on her shoulder a moment before she realized what she was doing. The etched emblem had years of skuffs from the nervous tick. She'd made sure to rub similar marks elsewhere, but couldn't help worrying someone would notice her. See her. Know what she was.
GO!
Her internal clock flicked, reminding her to dash in the miniscule break between groupings.
She reached into the crack of some bombed rubble. Damn, it's moved.
Her fingers swam about under the shifted metal sheets.
One.
It was right here! A new hatch?
Two.
Had someone moved the entrance?
Three.
No, this one was still secure, it-
Four.
AHA!
Lightening fast, she compressed the lock code. The latch gave.
She lifted the hidden door only high enough to swing her legs in. The hydraulics silently closed overheat, locking again as she fell into the pit below. The woven cording cradled her with a familiar groan of metal on metal. She held even her eye servos still as the drone of the passing flyers throbbed louder, pausing overhead, before slowly moving on their way.
Jirou climbed up and out of the pit carefully. They'd tested that cording. The heavy flyers would get mired in it, fall to their deaths below after the metal wires fouled everything. Most of the terrestrial robots would simply fall down as well. Only the lighter models, and those who knew where the proper handholds were, could escape intact.
She ran, lights off, going more by familiarity than visual. Occasionally she's stop, listen, before going on.
A quiet buzz egged her on, drawing her through twisting, maze-like tunnels until finally the sound of shouting washed over her in a sudden wave, just as the stark, artificial lights of the secret meeting room temporarily blinded her.
She adjusted her optic apertures and wove her way through the arguing robots. A few glared at her, but kept their peace.
She rubbed again at the etching on her shoulder, eying the blazing Autobot mark over chest, shoulder, hip, and forehead on all those around her.
“Scout!”
Jirou flinched, but at least they hadn't said-
“Gearo. Good, come front and report.”
She sighed, straightened her shoulders and made use of the suddenly clear path the Autobots made for her.
“Hera,” Jirou saluted, her fist over her breastplate, over the hidden Autobot symbol that Buffer had welded a protective plate down to disguise.
“Gearo,” she repeated. Jirou's fist tightened, but it was a correction she'd become tired of making. “There are reports of increased Decepticon activity across the board.”
Hera's eyes scanned the crowd, doubtless looking for a spy with better connections, better qualifications. Jirou looked too, worried for her comrades.
Discovery, death in the pits, torture, accident... the Autobot spies have no expectation of long life and comfortable retirement, only the hope for a swift death, when it did come.
The knowledge that the spies brought in, the routines of the Decepticons, when they'd planned a raid, sneak back resources, without those few Autobots who were willing to take the mark of the enemy, there would be no more Autobots on Cybertron. No more Autobots in the whole, blighted universe.
“They are tight-lipped,” Jirou said, once Hera's glowing blue eyes returned to her. “Something is going on at high-command level. Foot soldiers, flyers, mechanics, even the battle masters and red-command level 'bots are in the dark.” Jirou shuddered to think the favors she'd traded today, for nothing. Nothing but nervous, anxious energy. That, and grins.
“They're excited, and they're happy. They don't know what'd going on, but they know they're going to benefit.”
“And what's good for the Decepticons, isn't good for Cybertron,” groused one of the elder 'bots.
Hera didn't correct him. No one wanted to admit that the Decepticons practically were Cybertron now.
“Has there been any word from the others?”
“No,” Hera turned her back on the sullen, quiet crowd. “That is what we were discussing, whether to send up search parties.”
Desperate indeed. The order had been given, by the de facto leader before her, to not send any search parties, no rescue parties, for Autobots lost in the above world. With only thirty or so members in this cell, sending off a handful for a single unit meant sending the lot to their destruction.
Occasionally Jirou caught rumor of other cells of renegade Autobots in hiding, but usually by the time she had the means to follow through to get to their location, all she found was a smoking crater where they had been.
Thirty, against all of Cybertron. Terrible odds.
And now? Perhaps missing the twelve who had acted as their lifeline.
The same thought seemed to cycle through everyone's processors at the same time.
“We need to save them!”
“At least send the scout!”
“Only have one left-”
“Turn the radios on-”
“We'll be found out-”
“Move the shelter-”
“But if we move, they won't be able to find us!”
“That's the idea-”
“Stop!” Hera shouted over the din. They quieted to angry whispers. “Stop. We can't go after them. We'll have to trust them to not reveal our secrets. The patrols are coming too frequently to move.”
Jirou nodded confirmation. “Five milicycles. No more.”
The whispers turned angry again.
“They know we're here.”
“They're hunting us.”
“They're-”
“No,” Jirou said, surprised when they all quieted at the single word. Hera, everyone dealt with constantly, always battling to be heard. Jirou usually had no use for the arguments, other than to throw more fuel onto the fire when she had it. “They're not searching for Autobots. They're setting up lookout stations, which I've been mapping, but they're looking to space, not to the ground.”
That caused the stir to build up again. Even Hera grumbled to the elder to her right.
“What do you-”
A great shudder stopped everyone again. The Autobots stilled, eyeing each other.
“Planetquake?” asked Buffer.
“But the core-”
Iron and steel groaned. Distant twangs and snaps reverberated through support structures, amplifying within the surrounding tunnels.
Jirou turned on her radio.
The Autobots didn't have them anymore; disabled and removed to keep the Decepticons from tracking them down. Forbidden after... after the leader before Hera nearly brought the end to them all.
Silence echoed around her as her radio scanned for the closest functional frequency.
Deadly dangerous to activate her Decepticon communication units so close to the others, but-
“-Repeat, all beta-upsilon-upsilon units to battle formations at the following positions. Delta-two-seven. Zeta-four-two. Theta-five-one. Kappa-four-seven....”
Jirou ran records of the new lookout stations against where the commander was calling out. Identical. Damn.
“We need to leave. Now.”
Elder and younger eyes turned to her. She resisted the urge to scrape at her markings.
“Beta-upsilon-upsilon is battle tank formations. They're getting the heavies ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I don't know,” Jirou answered honestly. “But we can't stay here. There's a unit directly above this chamber. I thought they were looking skyward, but I could be wrong. We could have been wrong. We've got to go. Now.”
More arguing. Buffer moved to stand behind her. Others moved to stand with Hera.
“If we move, with those tanks over us, we will be blasted before we can even get our heads in starlight.”
Another quake shook the chamber, tumbling a couple of their own heavies to their knees. Loose metal dislodged, dropped, and bounded off of armor that'd seen better days... better centuries.
Jirou rocked with the movement, her smaller, nimble body taking the shake easily.
“And if we stay in here any longer, the scaffolding will come down around us and end 'that pesky Autobot problem' once and for-”
The blast knocked her off of her feet before she could cycle the end of the sentence.
Searing pain fired up her neurons.
She blinked up at the rifle muzzle. Inches from her optics. Still glowing deep from within, the energon leaking from the poorly maintained model.
Hera had a foot planted on her chassis, keeping the smaller spy pinned.
The muzzle swung a cubit to the left before another mighty blast blinded and deafened her. Only for a moment, then molten pain registered.
Shouting, a fist.
Hera knocked off of her feet.
Gearshift, a hulking elder shoving at her, challenging her. Ripping the defective rifle from her loose fingers and tossing it to a mechanic.
The echo of the shot reverberated through her audiobuffers. She knew from experience that she wasn't truly deaf, nor was the world really washed out in whiteblue sparks, but it would feel that way until she could get internal diagnostics running.
She'd never had a shot fired so close to her head.
Never had...
Buffer's sweet face loomed over, an extinguisher in his hand, blowing cooling liquid nitrogen over the slag.
He worked quickly while the world shook. Scrap metal rained down over her. At first, Jirou couldn't even lift her right arm to shield her malfunctioning optics.
“What were you thinking?” the muffled shouts worked their way down the echoing tunnel to her CPU.
“A trap. She's been with them too long, been-”
“I've got you, I've got you.”
Buffer.
A gentle touch fired off through her entire being. Oh crap.
“She exposed your spark, but I've got you. You've just got to stay with me. Stay with me Jirou.”
Stay. Stay. Stay. It echoed over and over, cycling through the buffer eternally.
Click.
A certain spinning she hadn't been aware of suddenly stopped, pulling her firmly back into her shockingly painful chassis.
“Easy,” came another voice overhead. Firm hands caught her. One around her head, another over the right shoulder. Immobile.
“Tenner.”
“Hey, she's talking.”
“Good,” Buffer grumbled. “Just keep her still.”
Self-diagnostics flared as Buffer worked, screaming at her to preform a visual check, motion checks. She lifted her right arm, gripped onto Tenner.
“What... what happened.”
“Hera shot you.”
“Burned the Decepticon etching right off. Whole arm and shoulder too.”
Tenner's grip tightened, keeping her from looking.
“Energon-wielding psychopath,” Jirou said, no caring if said bitch were in hearing range.
The mumbled agreements told her that their temporary leader had been shuttled off.
“They've gone,” Jirou said. A gaping pit of isolation opened up in her core. With such a public attempt at execution, there was no way Hera would welcome the 'bot back into the fold.
“Not all gone,” Cricket, their only remaining flyer pipped up. She couldn't see him for Tenner's securing mass. A few other voices mumbled agreement.
Jirou closed her optics, taking a moment to be thankful before she felt the heat of Buffer's arc welder securing something sensitive deep within her torso.
“We need to leave.”
“Why don't we head back to that last base, eh?” Suggested Gearshift. “Marksman herded us out before the Decepticons actually discovered us there. I know its still secure.”
“Kept your energon stash there?” Tenner's deep speakers rumbled through her with his chuckle.
“You might say that.”
“We need to leave,” Jirou repeated. Another rumble deep from below accentuated her point. “We need to find out what they're doing. We need to surface.”
A long silence stretched out.
“How bad is it?” she asked the unseen Buffer.
“You're stable,” he replied, “but it will take time to repair all the damage. I can't save your arm.”
“Seal it up,” Jirou said. A niggle in her spark building to a worried whine. “I feel coolant leaking.”
Someone retrieved buckets from their dwindling supply for her. Buffer's hand shook as he quickened his pace. Jirou spared a glance up; worried faces hovered in the middle distance. She cursed quietly that she couldn't focus them properly.
“That'll have to do,” Buffer stated sadly, after he pored in what coolant he could.
“Get me up,” she said to Tenner.
Between the two big mechanics, Jirou felt like a sparkling, but Buffer and Tenner, their chassis nearly identical, she felt secure enough.
Her diagnostics flared red until she shut them off. Didn't even glance down to check the damage. No time.
She looked around, picking out individuals by silhouette and color, more than identifying markers.
“Where's Gearshift?”
“He's going to meet us surface-side.”
She nodded.
“Let's go.”
The seven Autobots hurried through the tunnels. Cricket's droning buzz as he dashed forward, checked, and popped back reverberated uncomfortably in the dark.
The old heavy was at the net by the time they got there. Guilt tugged at her circuits; she'd slowed them too much.
Gearshift and Tenner pushed a few girders into the gaping chasm, just enough to support the larger 'bot's weight. Cricket clung to the ledge, upside down, while deactivating the locks. His small head peeked out through the crack, before opening the sheet of metal wide.
Gearshift tossed up a couple wrapped packages, something from his “stash” Jirou guessed, before heaving up himself. Tenner and Buffer handed her up next.
“Two,” Cricket chirped.
Another couple small 'bots were tossed up after her, before the latched slammed shut again. Jirou led the way to a small hiding place. The patrol passed over so fast she doubted they would have seen them even with the open latch.
The others quickly crammed up the small hide.
“Where to now?”
Eager optics watched her, looking for leadership. Another de facto leader. Another stepping into the shoes if the long-gone Prime. A huff of exhaust passed through her converters.
So be it.
“Cricket, get a bead on where they're heading.”
“You got it,” he turned to Gearshift. “Give me a boost?”
They waited a beat for the patrol to pass, before Gearshift grabbed Cricket by the struts and tossed him high into the air.
Jirou watched the swing, the gentle spin he took, and stilled herself while they waited for Gearshift to catch the small flyer on the return. If radios were dangerous, letting him fly under his own power would be more so. Only his small frame, his efficient energon use, had kept him off of the sensors so far.
Gearshift caught the free-falling Autobot with practiced ease, wrapped him up in bulky arms, and rolled back under the scant cover just as the next patrol pulled over.
“The... there's a glow,” he stammered.
“A glow?”
He nodded. “They're disintegrating Cybertron.”
“They've lost their minds!”
“What are we going to do?”
“We have to go back for the others-”
“What, so we can die together?”
Jirou closed her optics again, thinking. Intentionally destroying their world made no sense... but some of the high command seemed to make it their business to make no sense at times.
Damn.
“Stay here, stay quiet.”
She stepped away from Tenner's support and made a dash for the next hide.
One of the locations they'd mentioned earlier was close. If she could just make it up this....
With only one arm, off balance and unable to climb well, it took her longer than she'd like to make it to high ground. But, there.
Not a turret, or a lookout post. A refueling station, perhaps... with a ship sitting on top, getting loaded up. Escape pods. They were sending their military might off of the planet.
As devious as they were, she couldn't fathom the Decepticons disintegrating the planet, but being prepared incase they did? That, she could comprehend.
She slid down the rough terrain and carefully made her way back to the Autobots.
“Escape ships,” she confirmed. “We've got to get on one of them.”
“But, they'll kill us.”
“We're going to bluff them,” Jirou decided on the spot. She'd certainly been doing a good enough job of it, of late. If the commander of the ship was one she'd made contact with, or she could convince them that-
“I think I've got something to help,” Gearshift grinned. He plucked up his rather large packages and snapped the cording with one of his multitools. Flexible metal mesh fell away, revealing the worst, cobbled together armor and weapons she'd ever seen. The other packages he also opened, revealing more of the same.
“Well that's a good hunk of junk you've brought up,” Buffer groused, kicking one particularly rusted pinnacle of metal.
Jirou bent, plucking up a section with a grin.
“No, this is just the thing.”
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Escape from Cybertron