Plays of Shadow

By: Amber Dawn

Chapter 12: Hidden Agendas

PG-13
Language

Disclaimer: I don’t own Beast Wars, yada yada….

“Slag!”

Blackarachnia slammed the drawer shut and narrowed her optics, claws on hips. The transport she was working on lay a few feet away, almost ready for flight. Except for one huge detail.

“I could have sworn there was a graviton generator around here somewhere,” she snarled, frustrated with herself. “So where did I put it?”

After another half megacycle of tearing the bunker apart searching, the generator still hadn’t turned up. Exhausted and feeling utterly defeated, Blackarachnia had to fight the urge to cry.

It had been three days since the battle in the valley. Blackarachnia had awoken afterwards in the CR tank with a splitting headache and a sense of realization.

When she heard that Dinobot had died in the battle, she’d been shell-shocked. She’d never had any particular liking for the gruff ‘bot, but she had to admit he had style. What better way to die than fighting to defend the future of an entire race? What glory, what fame!

But that didn’t change the fact that he was dead. A lot of pain for no benefits, Blackarachnia had decided. Even so, the Maximal traitor’s death had spurred her into taking action of her own by opening her optics to a truth she should have seen earlier.

Megatron was insane.

She’d had an idea that the Predacon leader had a few screws loose, but this whole mess just proved it. He’d gone to all the trouble of stealing the Golden Disc from the Maximals – twice. But rather than put the thing to its real purpose, Megatron had decided on a whim to destroy the human race, an idea so ludicrous that it was almost funny. Even if he’d succeeded, who was to say that it would accomplish what he seemed to think it could? Would eliminating the humans from the Great War ensure a Decepticon victory? Possibly. But maybe the Autobots would have had help of another kind, and would have won anyway. And a whole race would never have existed, for no reason other than the insane ambitions of a madbot.

And that’s when it had hit her: the access codes for the Ark. That’s what the Golden Disc had really had been about. And just like that, the pieces had finally fallen into place. Now that his previous schemes had failed, the Ark would be Megatron’s next target. Right then and there, she had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to let him get his hands on that old ship. Silverbolt’s words had again come echoing back to her: “You were originally a Maximal protoform.” If Megatron attempted to change history, if he destroyed the Autobot warriors inside the Ark, not only would he wipe out the Maximals but Blackarachnia would be a goner as well! And there was no way she was sacrificing her own hide for Megatron’s crazed ideals.

And from that moment of epiphany, her goal had been clear. Before the valley, the access codes she possessed had been of mild interest; a convenient piece of information to blackmail Megatron with. Once the tyrant had retrieved the Disc from Dinobot, they had been even less that that. She wasn’t stupid enough to have any ambitions of her own for the Ark: even she knew that messing with the future was dangerous business. Any sane ‘bot knew that!

But now the Golden Disc was gone, destroyed. Dinobot, that self-sacrificing saurian, had put Blackarachnia directly in the line of fire. Megatron may be crazy, she knew, but that didn’t make him stupid. He must know by now that she had stolen the access codes, and now he’d be after her for them. She knew he’d stop at nothing to get them, and that had been the final push. Blackarachnia had to get to the Ark before Megatron – or Tarantulas – got to her.

Blackarachnia had found this cargo bay a few weeks ago, and it seemed Megatron had forgotten about it. So, using the spare parts collected from Fleetshade’s ship and an expired stasis pod found shortly after the transwarp wave, she’s set about creating a transport that could get her to the Ark. She’d been working on it in every spare cycle she had, not sleeping at all, pushing herself to the limit. She was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. Why else would she be ready to burst into tears?

And now it was almost done; it just needed that graviton generator!

Finally deciding that the blasted thing was nowhere to be found, Blackarachnia sat down on an old crate with her head in her claws. She was so close, and yet so far from completing the thing! That graviton generator had been the last of the ones the Darkside had carried. The Predacon base was originally a deep-space cruiser after all, and didn’t have a lot of spare equipment.

Just then, the she-spider’s head popped up. Of course! The Predacon’s ship may have been a cruiser, but the Axalon was an exploration ship! It was bound to have a whole ton of graviton generators lying around!

Now, she just had to devise a way to get her claws on one. She was halfway through an elaborate plan to sneak into the Maximal base when she thunked her head against the wall.

“Duh, B,” she told herself. “You’ve got an ally right inside the Maximal base!”

She wasn’t going to examine why she had just called herself by that nickname. She was more worried about how she would contact Fleetshade and let the girl know what she needed her to do.

There was only one thing for it, she decided. She transformed to beast mode and scuttled out of the abandoned storage bunker, intent on her task.

Megatron lounged in his evening energon bath, watching his secret security monitors with mounting satisfaction.

He watched Blackarachnia scurry from the ‘abandoned’ cargo bay and wondered where the she-spider was headed to. The cameras didn’t have audio feed, but he could see the semi-lighted cargo bay as if in bright daylight thanks to the infrared lenses.

Megatron had been watching her build that transport for days now, biding his time. He had decided not to go after her directly, but to allow her to lead him right to the Ark: he’d even give her a head start so she could dig the cavern open for him.

Megatron already knew the Ark’s whereabouts, of course. He was not arrogant enough to leave it a mystery, and had journeyed to the coordinates given on the disc as soon as he’d decoded it. Sure enough, he had found the Ark in all its primitive Autobot glory.

But he had hesitated. His plan was a dangerous one, and he had been loath to put it into motion without trying all of his other options first.

Now his other options had been exhausted. The Disc was destroyed, thanks to Dinobot’s worthless sacrifice. And time was running out. His scanners told him that the transwarp wave would be reaching Cybertronian space within two days, and no doubt a ship would be sent out to rescue the Maximals – and to recapture him.

Megatron was not deluded – he knew he didn’t have the firepower or the troops to withstand a fully functional Maximal guard vessel. If the Maximals reached Earth before he destroyed the Ark, his mission, his dream, perhaps his life - was over.

He’d give Blackarachnia two days. After that he’d have to go dig it out himself. With a heavy sigh, Megatron switched off the security cameras and lowered himself deeper into the energon liquid. His gaze wandered for a moment before falling on the small rubber duck he had grown rather fond of the past few weeks. He had found the thing a few days after crashing on Earth, apparently abandoned by the Darkside’s previous owners. Well, its current owners, Megatron amended. He had stolen the ship, after all.

Megatron snatched the duck, causing it to squeak indignantly, and held it up to his optic level.

“What are you staring at?” he asked it.

The duck did not reply, merely fixed the Predacon with its beady black gaze and dim smile.

“That’s what I thought,” Megatron said smugly, replacing the toy in the energon liquid while continuing to voice his thoughts aloud.

“There is one more loose end to tie up, yes,” he told the duck, “and that is the matter of Tarantulas. The spider has been quiet for far too long; he must have something up his sleeve.”

Megatron lapsed into a thoughtful silence after that, the only sounds being the gentle swoosh of the circulating energon fluid and the various humming and ticking of his computers and instruments.

The time was indeed at hand. The time to act, before he longer had the chance.

Tarantulas typed furiously, head bent over his computer console, trying to keep himself busy with mindless encrypting of data. He could most likely do this dull work while in stasis lock, but he had been so jittery lately that any task was better than being left alone with his thoughts.

Even now, his worries rose unbidden to the forefront of his processor. Frustrated and dismayed, he swung around in his chair and launched himself into a standing position, pacing before he even hit the floor. The Predacon spider had been pacing a lot lately, and as he traced the usual path back and forth across his cavernous lair he finally allowed himself to ponder over the predicament he had worked himself into.

Previously since landing here on Earth, his allegiance to the Predacon Secret Police had lain dormant among the more basic need to survive. His mission had originally been to infiltrate Megatron’s organization prior to the theft of the Golden Disc, but he had become so interwoven in the rebel’s schemes that to back out right before the theft would have meant certain death. Tarantulas had had no choice but to follow through with Megatron’s deranged plan and hope something would go wrong.

But to his surprise, Megatron had actually pulled off the heist and made a getaway before the Maximal authorities had responded. Trapped on the Darkside and unable to admit his affiliation with the Council, Tarantulas had been forced to wait until the opportunity arose to make his escape. Upon crashing on Earth, Tarantulas knew they were sitting ducks for whichever faction found them first. Add to that the threat of the aliens and this planet was a deathtrap. He had tried many a time to escape, but to no avail. It seemed fate was not on his side in this whole ordeal.

The most recent alien attack had provided an excuse to declare his independence of Megatron, and so far Tarantulas was fairly confident that the madbot had chosen to forget about him.

Tarantulas, however, had not forgotten about Megatron. Using his arachnoids, the spider had set up a surveillance system in the Predacon base that even Megatron’s thorough scourge had been able to uncover. From the safety of his lair he’d heard the tyrant detailing his plans to himself and members of his ‘loyal’ following. It was this spying that had allowed Tarantulas to overhear a conversation between Megatron and his rubber duck about the Golden Disc and its real purpose – the instructions from the Decepticon Megatron pertaining to the Ark.

Tarantulas paced up to his monitor and pushed a button. The screen switched to a visual representation of the transwarp wave created by his escape pod weeks earlier. The wave, his computer told him, would reach Cybertron within forty-eight megacycles.

“Damn!” Tarantulas burst out. “Too soon, too soon! I have no time!”

Whirling around on his heel, the secret agent resumed his pacing, muttering lowly to himself. “The Maximals on Cybertron are bound to intercept that wave. And when they do, a search party will no doubt be sent to our whereabouts, most likely consisting solely of Maximals. And I doubt that I’d be granted amnesty for my connections to the Secret Police. No, if the Maximals get here I’m doomed. As are all the Predacons on this planet. There’s no time to escape, no time to do anything. No time, no time….”

Frustrated, Tarantulas took out his blaster and blew a nice-sized dent in one wall. “What am I going to do?” he screamed at his empty lair.

The only response was his echo, bouncing off the walls of the cavern. “To do…to do…to do.…”

Tired of pacing, Tarantulas put up his blaster and threw himself down into a chair. He was full of nervous energy, but what could he possibly do to save himself at this point? Everything had failed. He had no edge, no leverage.

Or didn’t he?

“Computer,” Tarantulas ordered, “Switch to arachnoid spy visual.”

“Complying.”

Tarantulas waited while the computer contacted his little pets, praying that he’d find what he wanted.

“Visual attained.”

The screen before him faded into what he could easily identify as infrared vision. The leafy accents in the foreground suggested that his arachnoid had taken cover behind some ferns near the Maximal base.

Nothing stirred.

Tarantulas sighed, impatient with this waiting. If Blackarachnia thought she’d deterred him from keeping an eye on that small neutral femme, she had another think coming. The female was far too fascinating to be forgotten, and could now prove very useful as a bargaining tool if he could only get his claws on her. His arachnoids had been spying on the Maximal base day and night, but Tarantulas hadn’t seen her since last night, when she had been speaking to that vermin Rattrap. He didn’t dare allow his pets into the Axalon itself, so he’d had to make do with exterior spying. But throughout the day and the ordeal with the Transmutate, he had detected neither hide nor hair of the deer female anywhere. She must be keeping to the base, which didn’t help him at all.

Just then, something moved out of the corner of the arachnoid’s field of vision. Tarantulas tensed and leaned forward slightly, unable at first to believe what he saw.

“Now what is that witch doing right outside the Maximal base?” he mused, zooming in a bit closer. He watched as Blackarachnia, in beast mode, approached the Axalon from the cover of the cliff behind it and transformed.

“Foolish female,” he whispered. “You’ll be caught by their scanners.”

But once again Blackarachnia surprised him, for she pulled something out of her subspace compartment and checked to make sure it was working.

“My energy signature cloaking device!” Tarantulas gasped. “I was wondering where that went! You clever little thief!”

As the agent watched, Blackarachnia replaced the device in her subspace pocket and activated her communicator. Tarantulas typed in a few commands and the arachnoid crept closer in order to better hear what was being said.

“…can you hear me? Fleetshade, this is Bla-this is B.”

There was a short silence, then the she-spider’s comlink buzzed.

“Woah, B! You’re lucky I’m alone, or we’d both be in deep slag!”

Blackarachnia made a face.

“Sorry, Fleetshade, but this is really important. I need you to meet me outside behind the cliffs as soon as possible. I need to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t explain right now. Just – just trust me, okay?”

Another silence, then, “Okay. I’ll be out in a few cycles. Stay hidden.”

Blackarachnia began to say something, but Tarantulas didn’t hear any more of the females’ conversation. He was already in vehicle mode and tearing out the entrance to his lair, speeding away in the direction of the Maximal base. This may be his only chance to nab that neutral female, and if her energon power didn’t give him the edge he needed to survive Maximal capture, nothing did. And if he managed to somehow get the drop on Blackarachnia as well, then all the better.

“You’d better watch out, witch,” Tarantulas whispered eerily as he roared over the meadow terrain, “or those codes are as good as mine.”