[ SECURE CHANNEL: SCALPEL ]
[ T-22. THE UPLINK CHANNEL IS SECURED. INITIATE ANCHOR DEPLOYMENT IMMEDIATELY. ]
Nathan received the confirmation just as he finished his survey of the beach. Scalpel had likely spent the last few minutes bypassing the base's outbound internal sensors to give Soundwave a clear window.
[ UNDERSTOOD, DOCTOR. DEPLOYING NOW. ]
He looked at the expansive stretch of white sand. It provided a clear line-of-sight to the upper atmosphere—optimal for a high-bandwidth spatial injection.
He reached into his chest and retrieved the metallic sphere. With a series of precise taps based on the instructions from the Tentacle-Bot, the smooth surface of the device fractured. Gears whined and plates shifted as the sphere expanded, reconfiguring into a multi-stage signal transceiver nearly half his own height.
Nathan placed the tower in the sand and stepped back, watching as its internal power-cell began to pulse with a low, rhythmic blue light.
Now, we wait for the breach, Nathan thought.
Suddenly, his long-range auditory sensors picked up a frequency that didn't belong to the ocean. He snapped his head toward the horizon. A black speck was growing rapidly, carving a path through the atmospheric haze.
[ AERIAL SIGNATURE DETECTED: CYBERTRONIAN INTERCEPTOR ]
[ DESIGNATION: T-24 ]
Nathan's cooling fans spiked. A surge of irritation and wariness flooded his processors. T-24? Why is he outside his designated search grid?
The interceptor banked over the island, its engines screaming before it performed a vertical transition. With a heavy thud that cratered the sand, T-24 landed only meters away.
"T-22? What is your status in this sector?" T-24 asked, his optics scanning the beach before locking onto the pulsing transceiver tower. "Is this a tactical asset? I don't recall this being part of the standard deployment kit."
Nathan subtly shifted his weight, keeping his right arm—and the integrated heavy machine gun—angled behind his torso. "A signal-repeater for Lord Starscream's clandestine search," Nathan lied, his voice a smooth, calculated baritone. "I am operating under a restricted directive. Why have you abandoned your sector, T-24?"
T-24's optics flickered with suspicion. He had followed Nathan from the Nevada fortress, tracking his thermal signature across half the continent. He was convinced Nathan had a lead on Megatron that he wasn't sharing.
"The Northern grid was... unproductive," T-24 replied, stepping closer to the transceiver. "I calculated a high probability that your 'calibration time' in the lab yielded a specific set of coordinates. Is this the beacon for the High Protector?"
"Search-parameters are confidential," Nathan said, moving to flank him. "Did Lord Starscream authorize your assistance in this mission?"
"Negative. I took the initiative to ensure our batch's success—"
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The conversation ended in a burst of high-velocity kinetic fire. Nathan's tri-barrel repeater roared, spitting a stream of 12.6mm armor-piercing rounds into T-24's back at point-blank range.
"GAHH!"
T-24 shrieked as the rounds shredded his rear plating, the impact force driving him face-first into the sand. He hadn't expected a "brother" to fire without a formal challenge.
"T-22! Traitor! You dare fire on a squad leader?!" T-24 roared, rolling onto his side. His cooling system was leaking fluid, and sparks showered from his mangled spinal struts.
Nathan's expression remained a mask of cold alloy. He didn't feel guilt; he felt a clinical necessity. T-24 had seen the Space Bridge anchor. If he reported this to Starscream, Nathan would be recycled for scrap within the hour. In a zero-sum game, there was no room for witnesses.
"Don't blame me, T-24," Nathan rumbled, stepping over the fallen drone. "Blame your own curiosity. You should have stayed in your cage."
T-24, fueled by a surge of desperate energy, deployed his arm-mounted fusion-cannon and fired a blind shot.
BOOM.
The shell slammed into Nathan's chest-plates, the explosion throwing him backward. Nathan grunted as his sensors shrieked warnings about structural integrity, but Scalpel's titanium reinforcement held. The armor was scorched, but the core was intact.
"Stubborn piece of junk," Nathan hissed.
He deployed his shoulder-mounted multi-launchers. Four micro-missiles ignited, their tracking sensors locking onto T-24's heat signature.
WHOOSH. BOOM.
The beach erupted in fire. Two missiles slammed into T-24's torso; the other two detonated against his cranial housing. The secondary explosion tore through T-24's vocalizer, reducing his screams to a pathetic gargle of static.
Nathan approached the wreckage. T-24 was still online, his optics flickering a dim, dying pink. His left arm was gone, and his chest-plates were a jagged ruin of exposed circuitry.
"You... betrayer..." T-24's voice was a stuttering mess of binary. "Starscream... will... hunt you..."
Nathan didn't hesitate. He reached down, seizing T-24's head-casing in both hands. With a brutal application of hydraulic pressure, he twisted.
CRUNCH.
The light in T-24's optics vanished. Nathan tossed the severed head aside and reached into the neck-socket, retrieving a small, crystalline shard—the Memory Core.
He slotted the crystal into a diagnostic port on his forearm. A blue light-scatter projected into the air, playing back T-24's final minutes. Nathan watched at 100x speed, searching for a specific outbound signal.
There. No transmission.
T-24 had been so focused on "stealing the glory" of the find that he hadn't reported his departure or his discovery to the base. He had wanted to present Megatron as a personal trophy.
"Cognitive Hubris," Nathan noted, crushing the memory crystal into dust. "You thought you were the protagonist, T-24. You forgot that in this world, protagonists are the first to die."
He looked at the headless chassis on the sand, then back at the pulsing Space Bridge anchor. The beach was stained with Energon, but the sky was clear. The bridge was almost open.