Black Voids
PART TWO
The gentle hum of the computer had lulled Rachel to sleep, but now that she had enough sleep, the hum
tapped her awake.
It was at least two thirty in the morning. She uncurled herself and eased herself to a standing
position to stretch her muscles, they were sore from
being in one place for too long.
It had been 4 and a half stellar cycles, 4 and a half years since the incident with Protoform X and Star
Base Rugbee. 4 years and the event was still fresh in her mind. The day after the terrible date with colony
Oberon happened, Rachel recalled passed rather glumly...
Rachel had been awakened by the computer’s alarm clock beeping.
It was two in the morning.
Rachel stretched as she stood up to explore this ship.
She walked through the behind her door to find a room a little large for a human, but too big for an
Autobot, “Maximal ship,” She muttered, her voice had the tone of sleep in it.
Rachel looked over the whole room. A metal bed over in the corner, a desk with a built in computer sat in the
middle of the room and a bathroom was in the back.
All the same dull gray...well, except for the floor.
That was almost black.
She started walking back to the bathroom, when something different caught her eyes. It wasn’t the
dull gray that the ship was made of.
In fact it wasn’t even part of the ship. It was a human hover board!
Rachel made her way over to it, wishing she had her pink, fuzzy slippers to keep her feet away from the
cold floor.
The hover board was a 2200 model, made with a titanium alloy.
It was broken, but nothing she couldn’t repair. All it needed were a few repairs and at least two bottles
of liquid energon to get it going. It was work, but it would give her something to keep her mind on other
than what had happened not twenty-four mega cycles ago.
The board was surprising close to her size, not to mention lightweight. About two inches thick and two
feet wide, it was perfect.
After she did a morning routine, Rachel had gotten herself a bit of freeze-dried breakfast, moved the
hover board to the control room, and sat her self down at the consol and tried her luck with the
com-channels, “Computer, locate Star Base Rugbee transporter’s radio waves.”
The computer hummed for a few moments, and Rachel busied herself with eating her spacey eggs, “Needs
salsa..,” She muttered, tasting a small bit of it.
“No such frequencies found,” The computer’s monotone voice said after a cycle.
Rachel nearly spit out the eggs, “What!? That can’t be right! There had to be more survivors! Try again!”
Again the computer said there was no such finds,
“Figures X would kill everyone, everyone except me perished. Even Depth Charge.”
Two tears from each eye slide down her face, dropping onto the cold, metal floor. She sniffed and wiped her
eyes dry, “What would Depth Charge say if he saw me crying?”
She glared at the screen, fire seemed to dance in her eyes, “I will have my revenge.”
‘But how can you get revenge on someone who is dead?’
Her thoughts nagged her until another thought hit her,
“He’s not dead.”
Rachel, after doing some research, plotted a course to the nearest planet she could think of.
Cybertron.
Not Earth because she discovered earlier that she didn’t have enough fuel to get herself to Earth.
With nothing to do for the longest time, Rachel was relieved when she finally saw the planet Cybertron on
the screen,
“What a sight for sore eyes,” She muttered as she gathered her things, which wasn’t very much.
She prepared to land...
Rachel now worked as a security surveillance for Cybertron now. She would orbit the planet, searching
out anyone who wasn’t supposed to be here, or anyone who was up to no good. Rachel owned her own small
ship, which she christened, SRBE. Or Star Base Rugbee Experiment. Which ever you like.
And that day seemed to be the day for trouble, “SRBE, be on the lookout for a Predacon ship leaving the
planet.” A voice came on over the com links.
Rachel sat up straight in her seat and opened all ship frequency waves orbiting the planet. The Predacon
ship wasn’t hard to find, it was the only ship in a hurry to leave the atmosphere. Rachel locked on the
ship’s coordinates and pressed on the com link, “Who is on that ship?”
The answer came back faster than she thought,
“Megatron and a bunch of renegade Predacons. They stole the Golden Disk.”
“Coordinates are 6, 4, 5. The Axalon is closest, get them to chase those Preds,” Rachel said before
switching to the Preds com link. It beeped for a few seconds before an annoying voice came over the link,
“What can I do for you, Maximal scum?”
“My name is Hacker and you are under arrest and required to stand down.” Rachel said leaning against
her console watching the ship go faster to leave the planet’s area. She also spotted the Maximal ship that
was behind them.
“Well Miss Hacker, I don’t think you are in any position to attack us, yess.”
“I’m not, but they are.” Rachel watched as the Maximal ship fired at Megatron.
The com link went blank and Rachel laughed, “This is too much fun.”
Rachel decided to hack into the two ships computers for later study. She was able to download the Maximal
ship, but that was all. The two ships disappeared into the dark abyss of space. Oh well, Rachel shrugged
and stored the ship’s records to memory.
Earlier that day...
Depth Charge stood before the Maximal elders, Protoform X in a pod beside him, “This is the piece of
slag that destroyed colony Oberon and the star base Rugbee.”
One of the elders nodded, “Very good Depth Charge, we will deal with this one, it will be given to Optimus
Primal to dispose of.”
“But he should be destroyed immediately!” He shouted.
“Commander Depth Charge, you have done your part now let us do ours.” The voice said sternly.
Later that night...
Rachel was up late again, she knew she should try for some sleep, but it would never come. All she was
blessed with were the nightmares of the Star Base.
Something she’d tried to forget for four years. Every single night she had bad dreams, and they would never
stop.
As for the night, Rachel occupied herself with going through the Axalon’s records.
It was an exploration ship, headed out to search for new stuff. The leader of the expedition was named
Optimus Primal, a well known name around Cybertron.
The others were small and Rachel had never heard of most of them, she thought she recognized one that was
called Rhinox. Mostly because of his expert ability to repair things better than anyone.
Most of it was just junk and Rachel was preparing to delete it from her computer files when her eyes saw
something that made her blood run cold.
X. Protoform X, he was on their ship! He’d passed right by her and she missed him!
Quick as lightening, Rachel booted the engine and tried to locate the Axalon’s trail.
Earth.
“They took that...that monster, to Earth. The fools!”
Rachel plotted a course for her home planet after making sure she had enough fuel to make the trip. She
would be able to make it, but not as fast as she’d like to.
She had bought one of the slower models, but it would do to suit her purposes well, “About time.”
Rachel took off in a blast of light, into something she wouldn’t forget for a long time.
*sometime soon after Optimal Situations*
Rachel’s computer had spotted Earth a couple of planets before she reached it. Being bored, she
decided to try something fun when she saw her chance.
She sat in the captain’s seat, maneuvering dangerously fast through the asteroid belt between Jupiter and
Mars. Rachel thought of it as a video game and easily went through it with not so much as a scratch...
Well maybe there were one or two, but only because she wanted to play with fate by getting as close as she
could to a hunk of space rock and side swipe it at the last second, ‘What’s the point in dieing if you can’t
enjoy it?’
She smirked as the thought came to her. Didn’t know where it came from but it fit.
WHAM!!
“What the slagging...!” She yelled.
Rachel had been careless and hit a small asteroid,
“Unable to stabilize, prepare for crash landing on planet Earth.”
A nervous laugh passed through her lips, “Well, I’m getting where I wanted to go. It’s a plus...on the
downside...I’m going down...fast...”
She was so close to the planet, it seemed to suck her into the atmosphere. The hull started to heat up with
all of the friction against it, the whole thing started to glow red, “That’s not a good thing.”
Rachel tried her luck with that forward stabilizers, hoping to slow the ship down a bit.
The ground was coming into view, so were the trees surrounded by water.
Her landing spot, a swamp, “Great, of all places!”
With luck, she slowed the ship down, but only a little, she was going to hit the ground...hard.
“Seatbelts everyone.”
BOOM!!
The explosion seemed to shake the entire ground.
It wasn’t big enough to shake the entire world of course, but the shock wave did happen to reach the two
bases on the planet...
“Rhinox to Rattrap. Do you copy?” The voice came over the com link.
“Eh yea Big Green,” Rattrap answered, standing up.
The blast had knocked him over and he was now covered
in a fine layer of dust, “Please tell me what that was.”
“It was a small craft of unknown type,” He informed his rat friend, “We were hoping you could identify it
for us before the Preds do.”
“Great!” Rattrap said in a sarcastic tone while brushing himself off, “I just hope it’s not one of
Crab-Cake's friends.”
He pulled out his gun and armed it, as he was doing so his com-link buzzed to life again, “Oh, and by the
way. The Preds have probably picked up this.”
“I kinda figured that,” He growled as he headed off to face whatever that big explosion was, “Of all places,
why did it have to be a swamp!”
Rattrap picked his way through the mushy, smelly ground. It was like the one Rhinox had led him though
when he was blind.
It was late in the afternoon and the fog in this swamp had lifted making it somewhat easier to see.
Well, it would have been, had it not been replaced by a few tons of dust. Rattrap could tell he was getting
closer when the dust thickened, problem was he couldn’t see a darn thing.
Snap.
A twig was broken behind him. The sound was very small, but he still heard it. He whirled around to
face and empty void of swirling dust, “What the slag?”
“Oh...is the poor Maximal lost?” A jeering voice came now from the side of him
Rattrap whirled to face that sound, but another stopped him, “Aw, poor Rat-bot lozt! Waspinator can
help!”
“I hate insects,” Rattrap muttered under his breath,
“And spiders.”
The two Predacons emerged from the dust, weapons aimed
at him, “No fair! I got here first, this craft is Maximal property!”
Tarantulas laughed, “Well, it’s Predacon property now, because we are taking it! Now drop your weapon
and don’t make any moves.”
Rattrap scowled at the two, but knew he could do nothing and did as Tarantulas ordered.
“You keep watch on him and I’ll check out that craft,”
Tarantulas barked.
Waspinator muttered about something being not fair but complied.
Tarantulas walked over the now visible craft, some of the dust had cleared, and surveyed the thing.
Surprisingly, he found that the door to the ship was wide open and he let himself in. After a moment of
silence his voice cut through the air, “This thing is empty!”
He stormed out, obviously ticked, “Whatever stupid, Maximal trick this is we will find out, and we will
have whatever was inside that thing too. Whatever it was!”
“Alright!” A new voice suddenly yelled, it sounded annoyed, “First things first! I am not an it! Second,
none of ya’ll are going to have me!”
Two plasma shots came out of nowhere and hit the spider square in the back. He was down and out. The
one who dished out the shots came from behind the ship and took aim at Waspinator, “Let the rat go or I’ll
blast ya.”
“Waspinator thinkzz not!” He had his gun right against Rattrap’s back.
“Have it your way,” She answered and shot him down, but not before he fired his own gun. The wasp was
blasted into a million some on pieces. Rattrap had twisted at the last second and the blast had hit his
shoulder, tearing it up pretty badly.
The strange girl frowned and kicked one of the pieces
away and knelt down to Rattrap who was now sitting on his butt, “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
Rattrap growled at the new comer, “Listen here Earth-Girl, I had the whole situation under control!”
She smirked at him before tapping on his busted shoulder, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
He let out a hiss of pain when she did that, which only made her laugh, “Anyway, I do have a name ya
know.”
“Oh?” He said with clear distaste in his voice, “And what would that be?”
“Ra...Hacker,” She said, “My name is Hacker.”
Rattrap rolled his eyes, “I’ll stick with Earth-Girl.”
Rachel nodded, “You do that,” She said as she walked off behind her ship.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!?” Rattrap yelled, alarmed she was leaving.
She reappeared carrying a few items, a bag and a hover board, “Well, the Earth-Girl, did come with
accessories.”
Rachel set the hover board on the ground and slid the pack onto her shoulder, “Can you transform?”
“If you think you’re going to get me on that thing, you’ve got another thing coming...” Rattrap warned.
Rachel shrugged, “Fine, you can stay here...”
“Whoa, wait, wait!” Rattrap said in a hurry and tried to stand up, but fell right back over.
She rolled her eyes at the sight of him and offered a hand, which he took without too much complaining,
“Beast mode.”
Transformed, he walked on to the board, “Let’s make this quick.”
Rachel stepped onto the board herself, “A rat, huh?
What do they call you? Cheese-eater?”
Another growl, “The name’s Rattrap!”
Rachel rolled her eyes, “Geez, don’t have a cow, Rat face.”
“Let’s just go!”
“You mean you’d like to go fast?” Rachel asked while pushing a button with the toe of her sneaker.
“No!” He protested very quickly, “Just go!”
“Fast?” Rachel smiled as the hover board started to hover, causing Rattrap to panic a bit, “Alright,
alright. which way to base?”
Rattrap used his good arm to point in a direction.
“Alright, West it is,” She reached into her bag and pulled out a small hand grenade, pulled the pin, threw
it towards her crashed ship,
“Let’s vamoose!”