Black Voids
Part 3
By: Hacker
Rhinox stared at the screen. He’d lost connection with Rattrap two mega cycles ago, just after he’d
detected the two Pred energy signatures.
Optimus was also a little worried, it was unlike Rattrap to not call in and complain about something.
Rhinox turned to the commander of the Maximals, “Optimus, you don’t think he was...?”
Optimus shook his head, “Let’s hope not. I know the odds were stacked against him, but he’s gotten out of
worse before.”
Rhinox nodded, but turned sadly back to the screen, “It’s just too quiet without him...”
“It’s not my fault that you get airsick!” A new voice suddenly yelled from the entrance.
“Well, if ya didn’t go so fast in da first place!” Rattrap’s voice answered back.
Rhinox and Optimus glanced at each other and wondered what the heck was going on, “How the heck didn’t we
detect them?”
“Well, it’s not my fault you suck at rescue missions!” The girl’s voice yelled again.
This time a couple more of the Maximal crew had gathered in the bridge, listening to the two voices.
Rattrap suddenly stormed into the room followed by the owner of the second voice, “It wasn’t a rescue
mission!”
A human girl!
Long, brown hair pulled back, blue jean pants, and a loose sweater gave her weird looks from the entire
crew, “Well then, whatever it was you sucked at it. You couldn’t save your breath if you tried!”
Optimus looked down at the fuming Rattrap, who’d decided not to answer the last remark, “Is she what
came out of the stasis pod?”
Rattrap shook his head, “Well, it wasn’t a stasis pod, it was a weird ship. One that is now in a
million pieces.” Rattrap walked over to the CR chamber, his shoulder was pretty torn up and would need a couple
mega cycles to be repaired correctly.
Rachel looked around the crew, but it was Optimus who caught her attention, “You,” She said with a hint of
hate in her voice.
Optimus looked surprised as she jumped on her hover board and levitated up to where she was eye level with
him, “Do I know you?”
“You should,” Rachel answered, still frowning at him, “I was the one who spotted the Predacon ship that had
stolen the Golden Disk. I believe I had ordered someone to tell your ship to stop them.”
Optimus nodded, remembering the order, “You’re Hacker, aren’t you?”
Hacker clapped her hands together, “Very good Optimus. Now tell me this, what have you done with Protoform
X?”
Silverbolt and Blackarachnia involuntarily flinched down on the floor, the command room fell deadly
silent.
Cheetor looked up at the girl with admiration, she knew what she wanted. A straightforward girl.
“Your silence is very reassuring. He’s one the planet, isn’t he?” Rachel asked narrowing her eyes and
she proceeded to glare at the entire crew.
Optimus nodded in silence.
“You were supposed to take care of him!” Rachel breathed in deeply in an attempt to calm her nerves,
“Where is he now?”
Optimus studied the look of the newcomer, “You can’t kill him alone, not to mention you’d have to deal with
Megatron.”
“That’s right you’re in some kind of war,” Rachel observed, she went silent as she thought for a
moment, “Alright, if I help you with these wars, you
must fill me in on what has happened so far in the situation with X. I will find a way to kill him...”
She was cut off by Cheetor’s voice, “But why do you want to kill him so badly?”
Rachel looked down at his curious face, “He killed friends, family, and destroyed my star base.”
“Oh...”
“Yeah, “Oh”,” She gave her attention back to Optimus, “Do we have a deal?”
“Let me get this straight. You’ll help us with the war and in return I tell you what I can about
Rampage?” Optimus asked.
Rachel nodded, “I guess, Rampage, is the name he was dubbed on this planet. Yeah, that’s the deal.”
Optimus nodded in agreement, “Fine, Cheetor can show you to your quarters.”
Rachel nodded and lowered her altitude before stepping off her board, “Which one of you is Cheetor?”
The cat stepped forward and proceeded to lead the way to her room, “I’m sorry to say, you’ll be by Ratface.”
“Yay,” Rachel was going into one of her moods known as “I’m going to answer you with one word”. To put it
simply, she didn’t want to talk.
Cheetor stopped at a doorway and opened it, “So what did Rampage really do?”
Rachel glared at him as she passed him into her own room, “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Cheetor seemed to take the hint and left her alone.
She glanced around her room, it looked exactly like her room on her own ship, “Wow, what a change,” Rachel
dropped her bag of stuff by the bed and headed out again. There was a door right across from hers, “That
must be the Rat’s nest.”
Rachel looked around the hallway to make sure no one was coming and quickly open the door and stepped
through, “Not bad, but still pretty messy.”
The bed was covered in encyclopedias, spy stuff and bombs yet to be used. Over in a corner, there was a
whole bunch of junk from what looked like different bots. The parts were mostly green though. The
computer on his desk was open and on for all the world to see.
A grin over came Rachel’s face and she decided to put back some more truth into her nickname. She settled
down on the chair and put her hover board down on the floor, “It’s a good thing that board is light,
otherwise my arms would fall off.”
Rachel proceeded to pull out her small computer disk, it was a special program she invented to open all
files on any computer it was inserted into.
Which just happened to be Rattrap’s at the moment. After some digging around, she found file that was
labeled “Journal”. “Very boring, almost every other word is “die!”
After a bit more digging she found the profiles of everyone who was or had been a part of the Maximal
crew, not to mention Rattrap’s thoughts on all of them, “Wonder if he’ll put my profile up...”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching the room, “Slag.”
Thinking quickly, Rachel created a link between the profile page and her disk. That would allow her
access to the page later from her own room.
The footsteps were louder, almost to the door. Rachel yanked her disk from the computer and returned it to
her pocket. She scooped up her hover board and looked around for a place to hide.
But suddenly the footsteps stopped and voices were heard, “Hey Pussycat, I need to ask ya somethin.”
Rattrap’s voice and footsteps became distant as he chased after the cat-bot.
Rachel knew an opening when she saw one and bolted out of the rat’s room and back into her own without a
second thought.
She set her hover board by the door and went to the computer and slid in the disk, “It’s only going to get
interesting from here...”
“We have a mission for you,” Rhinox said casually to Rachel, “I’ve detected a stasis pod near Grid Trion.
Find it and bring the new Maximal back here before the Preds get to it.”
Rachel shifted her weight to the other foot. She had been pulled from her room, literally pulled from her
room by Rattrap, because they said they wanted her to at least do some fieldwork.
She now stood on her hover board, wearing a mechanic’s belt on her waist. It would be needed in the likely
event that the pod would be damaged and needed to be fixed, “So, will I be doing this alone?”
Rhinox nodded, “Optimus didn’t say to have anyone assist you. He wanted to se how well you worked
alone.”
Rachel held back a laugh, working alone was her specialty, “Then I’ll get to it.”
Rhinox stopped her, “But just in case you do have a run-in with some Preds, contact the base at once.”
Rachel saluted him in a skeptical wave, “Will do.”
*Predacon Base*
“What do you mean “It got away”?!” Megatron bellowed at the two Predacons before him.
Repaired, Waspinator and Tarantulas now stood before their leader, “Fleshy-bot had advantage...”
“Against two Predacons?!” Megatron yelled, loosing his temper when something dawned on him, “What do you
mean? It was a human?”
“A female human with a plasma gun,” Tarantulas informed, “She appears to be on the Maximal’s side.”
“A female human that has knowledge of Maximal ships and weapons. Perhaps she is from Cybertron,” Megatron
thought for a moment, “A very valuable human indeed, yess.”
His thoughts were interrupted by the computer’s alarms went off, “One stasis pod detected in Grid Trion.” The
computer said.
Tarantulas stared in disbelief, “I thought all the stasis pods had been found!”
“Obviously not,” Megatron concluded, “I’ll spare you two a trip to the Pit if you bring me that pod, and if
you spot that human, bring her to me as well.”
The two nodded, not wanting to get scrapped anymore than they had too. They turned to leave when
Megatron’s voice stopped them once more, “Don’t fail me again, lest you have a death wish.”
Rachel looked around the grid again, still not spotting the pod. Only a really suspicious looking
mound of dirt. Besides that, nothing worth looking
into. Still that mound of dirt...
“Perhaps if I go up,” She reasoned and stepped on her hover board and went to a higher elevation. Sure
enough she spotted the pod behind the dirt pill. Large rocks stopped its path and it was spewing smoke
or what looked like steam. Something weird.
Rachel gave the entire area a scan for danger before going over to the pod and landed, “Well, it could have
been buried...”
She walked over to the pod, set down her hover board, and took a look at the pod.
Everything seemed to be in order with the pod, nothing looked to be broken. Rachel typed a command into the
computer that started the scanning and replication process, which for some reason hadn’t taken place.
And she soon found out why. As soon as it found a life form, a dragonfly, it stopped, “Protoform does
not have sufficient amount of mech fluid in system. If none is found in 10.5 cycles, spark will be lost
permanently.”
“Slag!” Since Rachel did not have any mech fluid on her, she’d have to do a transfusion. But she didn’t
have a donor either.
Oh, and to make the situation worse, her Predacon locater was going off, “More good news,” Rachel
muttered, she pulled out yet another disk from one of her many pockets and inserted it into the pod’s
computer. It would protect the stasis pod, and allow her to fight the Predacon.
Rachel pulled out her communicator and pushed a button, but before she could say anything in to it, a
loud, evil laughter filled the air and shot the device to pieces.
She pulled her gun and turned to face Tarantulas, who already had his gun aimed at her, “Careful! Shoot and
miss, lose the pod!”
Tarantulas only laughed, “I have no intention of missing.”
Suddenly Rachel’s gun was knocked from her hand and her arms were twisted behind her back. Keeping her
from moving, “Waspinator to Megatron. Waspinator have female fleshy-bot!”
“Good,” Megatron sounded rather annoyed, “But if you forget to bring me that pod, and I will personally rip
your gears apart. Megatron out.”
Rachel noted Waspinator’s flinch in fear of Megatron’s threat and stored it to memory for later use.
Tarantulas chuckled and shoved past the two and strolled over to the pod and prepared to change the
protoform to a Predacon.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Rachel said casually to the spider.
Tarantulas snorted, “And just what is stopping me?”
“Nothing,” Rachel said as she watched him touch the keyboard with a single claw, “Yet. Computer, activate
virus!”
Almost instantly his body was infected with a sickly, pink glow. Right before he was zapped away from the
computer and into the air. He landed on the ground a few feet away, offline.
Waspinator let go in shock and just stared at the body of his fallen comrade, “What fleshy-bot do to
spider-bot?”
Rachel stepped away from him and picked up her gun, “Anti-Pred virus, created it myself.”
“Warning, protoform’s spark will exterminate within five cycles.”
Rachel looked at the pod and then at Waspinator, “I need your help.”
He snapped out of his shock and turned to the dieing pod, “Why should Waspinator help fleshy-bot?”
Rachel opened her mouth to answer that question, but was interrupted by Megatron’s irritated and rather
mad-sounding voice, “Waspinator! Tarantulas is offline! There’s no way on this infested little mud
ball of a planet you can win now! You failed yet another mission! Collect what you can of the spider
and get back to base so I can slag...”
Megatron was cut off by Rachel speaking, “Why do you take slag from that loser? You’re better than what he
says.”
Waspinator seemed to consider what she was saying, not listening to Megatron’s ramblings. Just as Megatron
was getting into the details of how he was going to slag the spider and the wasp, when Waspinator just
shut off his com-link.
He looked up at Rachel, “What Waspinator do to help fleshy-bot?”
*Five cycles later*
Rachel was watching the last of the mech meter fill up on the pod. Waspinator was also watching as his own
mech fluid flow from his arm into the pod. For once he wasn’t speaking, or buzzing in his case.
He was sitting down on the rock, he couldn’t stand because the loss of mech fluid had left him in a
weakened state.
Waspinator watched her work, but kind of regretted it when he saw her pull the needle out of his arm. Well,
at least he wasn’t falling apart this time, “You might want to go into your repair mode to rest up a bit,
you’ve earned it.”
Waspinator shook his head and ignored the suggestion, “What new Maximal look like?”
Rachel looked up, surprised by the question, “Well, it’s got the beast mode of a dragonfly, but I don’t
know how it’ll look exactly.”
“Waspinator would like to see.”
She nodded, “It’s only fair, you technically saved its life,” Rachel went to the keypad and typed in one
last command to finish up the replication process.
As soon as her finger hit the enter key, a blast of energy shot pass her ear, missing her and the pod by
millimeters.
She whirled around to face the recovered spider aiming his blaster at the two, but looking at the wasp in
disgust, “You side with the Maximals!? You’ve betrayed everything that is Predacon for them!”
With great effort, Waspinator stood, “Predacons no good to Waspinator! Waspinator is sick of Predacons,
sick of Megatron!”
Tarantulas aimed his gun fully at the weakened insect, “Then you will be good to no one! Once I finish you
two off, that protoform is mine!”
“Protoform,” A new, female voice called out, “I believe that I’m a full Maximal already, too bad for
you!”
A whip that came from directly above the spider, curled around his legs and tripped him up. He lost
his gun and the one who had control of the whip showed herself.
Her figure was a mix between Blackarachnia and Airrazor, but she was nothing to scoff at. Her skin
was that of a silvery color, think Terrorsaur, and her armor was swirling green and blue. On her face was a
mask that covered only the top half, but like all masks it allowed her bright, blue eyes to peer out at
the world. On her head was straight, red hair pulled back towards her four wings that were currently on
hold for the moment.
She cracked her whip again and it curled around his legs, and in one swift movement she sent him flying.
With her free hand she pulled out what looked like a blaster. She aimed it at the stunned spider and
fired, sending him even farther away from the clearing and in a couple of pieces. A smile played on her lips
as she watched the pieces starting to fall, “The name’s Draconia and don’t forget it!” She called after
him as she landed.
Draconia laughed a little as she turned and put away her weapons, “Hi!”
Rachel and Waspinator gave a stunned little wave before Waspinator dangerously swayed on his feet,
“Waspinator...not feel too good...”
Rachel stepped over to him and put a hand on his arm to steady him. Draconia’s eye widened a little and
she walked over to the two. She stopped in front of Waspinator, “You helped save me?”
He glanced up, “Waspinator think so. Fleshy-bot did the most part though.”
Draconia nodded and walked over to stand beside him. She took his limp arm and put it around her shoulders
to support him, “Then I shall save you.”
Rachel let go of Waspinator’s arm, “We need to get him back to base quickly, just let me get my stuff and
I’ll lead the way back,” She was reaching down for her hover board and bag when a streak of energy hit
her wrist dead on.
The force knocked her back onto her rear, she clutched her bleeding wrist, “Oww! Slag!! That hurts!!” She
screamed at the top of her lungs. Her head shot up to see who’d fired at her, “You must be Megatron.”
“That is correct, Miss Hacker,” Megatron answered, “Very nice shot, wouldn’t you say? Especially since I
wasn’t even aiming for you in the first place, yess. I was aiming for that no account traitor!”
Draconia was glaring daggers at him, and Waspinator would have been trembling in fear, but he had gone
into stasis lock.
She never took her eyes off of Megatron as she placed Waspinator on the ground in front of the stasis pod.
Rachel was busy wrapping her scorched and bleeding wrist. It was bleeding really bad and starting to go
numb.
She stood up next to Draconia, “We have no time for petty revenge and slag like that.”
Megatron smirked and charged his weapon again, “Well, you may not, but I certainly do. Scrapping the two of
you will take no time at all...”
“That’s what you think,” Rachel’s voice spat out, “We shall see.”