Chương 43: LOG-040.

The moods of the guards around me were... complex, from what I could decipher. On the one servo, I had seemingly made it back in one piece. A cause for celebration, I supposed. On the other, they had been instructed by Dreadwing and Ultra Magnus to, under no uncertain terms, blast and then dogpile me if I showed even a hint of Chaos induced madness. Personally, I found the notion quite sensible, and my agreement to the constant armed escort had likely helped assuage a few fears.

I had intended to try and make my way back to the fighting directly. I'd wanted to witness the Reliquary being used to contain Unicron in person, but the rest of the command staff had given a collectively stern 'no' to that plan. Instead, I continued making my way through the central spinal structure of the Nemesis, answering a certain spymaster's summons. Coming up on the door to Soundwave's control room, I turned my helm to glance at the large squad of Zakus surrounding me.

"Wait outside." I wasn't sure whether it was a good or bad thing that they didn't hesitate to follow my order, filing up along the walls and adopting attentive stances. Shrugging to myself, I used my good servo to key in the code to the chamber and strode inside, the door swishing shut behind me. Soundwave himself was posted up in front of a trio of large screens. One displayed what seemed to be troop movements outside the Breach point, while the other two just contained seemingly miscellaneous data.

Turning away from the glowing terminals, I nodded to the silent mech as he turned to stare at me.

"Soundwave, you called for me. Is there an issue?" A short nod, before one of my words were looped back to me.

"Issue." A spindly arm extended, swiping across one of the screens and bringing up a blurry image.... Son of a bitch. The picture in question inspired a bout of annoyance more than anything else, one which I allowed to pass through the renewed Shadowplay protocol in the form of an irritated sigh.

"Airachnid." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. A silent stare, even as the image swapped to several more 'sightings' of the eight limbed femme, then to our Autobot allies. How the fuck had she-wait. Old memories flashed through my processor, separate to my life as a Cybertronian. She'd been locked in stasis in the Autobot base, and likely hadn't been let out since... well we'd never taken said base. How could she have escaped the pod?...

The tremors. They'd been getting worse the longer we'd allowed Unicron to shift in place. Hell, they were practically worldwide. I knew Ultra Magnus had mentioned having to explain just what the fuck was going on to an irate agent Fowler, so that the man could, in turn, explain to his government that no, the world wasn't ending. Just maybe ending if we didn't pull off our little 'gank Unicron while he's sleeping' manoeuvere.

The stasis pod Airachnid had been trapped in was one I was familiar with, considering I'd issued them to Insecticon shock troopers back on Cybertron, during the colder periods of the war. They were durable, and more importantly, they'd been designed with a hair trigger in mind. If a loose tremor had hit the currently unoccupied Autobot outpost... I continued to stare at the arachnicon for a moment, crossing my arm over my cannon and thinking. Soundwave just continued to watch me, as he tended to do.

"... Problematic. Her presence wasn't factored into our plans, and she could cause friction between us and the Autobots if visibly returned to the fold. Assuming she even wants to come back and doesn't pull a Starscream instead." Another nod, even as I stepped closer to the screen and considered things for a moment. Glancing to Soundwave, I posed a question.

"Are the Vanguard force still within Unicron's depths?" The silent mech dipped his helm in an affirmative.

"Problematic."

Optimus stared in mild incomprehension as his old friend's creation continued to shove the Reliquary towards the glowing purple light emanating (and seemingly recoiling from the artifact's very presence) from Unicron's core, golden optics blazing with rage and yelling loudly.

"GET BACK HERE YOU PIECE OF SCRAP! THIS IS FOR BLASTING MY DAD! GET IN THE FRAGGING BOX!" As a few more Predacons let out similar warcries while herding the remaining Terrorcons into various killzones, the Prime pretended not to notice some of his fellow Autobots choking at the sight from behind him. Instead, he just fired a few shots at a detached, rusted torso that had been crawling towards him, crossed his arms and proceeded to watch the curious turn containing the Destroyer had taken continue to unfold.

Pausing for a moment, I slowly shook my helm.

"No, it's probably for the best. I have no doubt that they're actively pulling Unicron's essence into the Reliquary as we speak. With luck, it will give us time to deal with this issue." Turning to glance at the screen depicting our problem spider, I gestured to it with a servo.

"I presume you've been keeping track of her through co-opted human infrastructure. She wouldn't leave her comm signature opened unless she wanted to be found. Do you have her current general location?" Soundwave nodded. Again. Nodding back, I began to make my way to the door.

"Activate the groundbridge. As I can't assist with our efforts at the breach, I'll deploy alongside a hunter unit and nip this problem in the bud personally. Before it turns into something less manageable." I stood at the door for a moment as our resident spymaster seemingly considered the notion, before slowly nodding. The door opening up right afterwards.

"Nip this problem in the bud. Before it turns into something unmanageable." Muttering an affirmative, I waved my Zaku protection detail forward, even as we left the silent mech behind and I began to explain the squad's new objective.