Out of the corner of his optic sensor, Optimus noticed Saber-Fang quietly slinking away as she almost always did in the base during a discussion of importance.
"Just a moment, Saber-Fang," Primal called to her. He still had questions about Sonar but he was interrupted by Rattrap. Of course, that didn't mean she was dismissed.
"I might have got somethin' 'ere Optimus..." "There's not much on the log output, but someone definitely got into da system, I'm pullin' up the video feed for the terminals in the lower decks to see if i can see the culprit."
The Maximal leader peered over Rattrap's shoulder and watched him play with the footage until Cheetor spoke up. He turned his head to the younger crew member.
"Well, a little bit before you radioed in, a Predacon signature showed up on our scanners. I got nervous, but I thought it might have been a mess up, because there was a Maximal signal too- and everyone besides Sky and I was out in the field. And then the Maximal signal just... disappeared. So I checked the video surveillance of where the Pred signal was, but the cameras didn't show anything bad. So I went to the back of the ship to check things out for myself. I couldn't see anything outside for myself either. I radioed Sky to tell her I couldn't see anything, and then she said she had heard me say there was trouble in the engine room and she had already left the bridge. So I realized we were getting false messages- the Preds had to be here. And I wanted to make sure they weren't leading us into some place in the ship to get ambushed so I had Sky wait for me to come to her for both our sakes. Well, I found her, then we both ran to the bridge, but there wasn't anything wrong in it. So we knew they had to have been here, but we never had any visual contact to even prove they had gone inside the base. I guess 'funny' was the first word I could think of to fit the whole thing."
"Glowstick certainly has quite a few tricks up his sleeves," said Optimus, stealing a well-known phrase from humans.
"He must be an expert in communications if he can jam our individual radio frequencies and disguise his voice as one of our own." Definitely something the Maximals would have to keep in mind.
"Were you able to conclude that the ship was destroyed, and it's occupant was a Predacon before you engaged the enemy?"
Primal turned his head toward the velociraptor. As far as he was concerned, that mission was over and they could discuss details about it later. What happened more recently with the Predacons infultrating their base was higher priority to the returned Maximal in charge.
"Well... we weren't in any trouble when we found out the ship was a scrap heap, but the Glowstick took a potshot at Valkyrie and we got in a fight, and then we figured out there was a new Pred."
"And this," "is when you and the rest of your comrades received your wounds?"
"No. We stuck around, I guess."
"You... 'stuck around'?"
Optimus could see Cheetor was growing nervous. What was this? An interrogation?
"Dinobot," Primal said firmly to deliberately grab his attention and stop questioning Cheetor as if the "failed" mission was his fault. It wasn't. Valkyire was in charge and so it had been her responsibility.
"During the battle, Valkyrie ordered us to retreat, we went to the broken ship to investigate it. We assumed they wouldn't of come considering StarShadow was injured.. They found us again and began the attack, Valkyrie ordered a retreat again and Cheetor was pinned down and injured by the Snipers. After taking care of StarShadow again by impaling her to a tree, I went through with a insane plan that Valkyrie came up with earlier of using Raw energon as a weapon, firing it at the snipers to force them into beast mode. During that time Valkyrie made an attack on them, I got Cheetor out of there, then tried to find her. Last we saw was a bright flash of light and gunfire, with her going down. I assume while she was coming to our point, Glowstick came out of hiding to take her down. After that we met up with Wintersong and fled to the base."
Looking at Icebreaker, Optimus hoped his explanation satisfied Dinobot's curiosity. The commander understood. After all, Val's team could've taken the opportunity to salvage anything they could have if she thought it safe enough to do so. The assumption that the Predacons would retreat with their wounded was an honest mistake. It was a shame that the whole thing was literally blown out of proportion when the Preds decided to return and open fire.
" What the.. wait a second.." "What the heck is that?!"
Immediately, Primal turned his head to the monitor and narrowed his optics.
"It almost... likes like a device Tarantulas would use. An arachnoid of some sort. Is it still inside the base?" And were there more? The gizmos were like little spies, crawling in small spaces and all over the walls. Who knew how many Tarantulas actually had, and if this one was stolen from him by Glowstick.
))
))