Chapter 15: Time is on my Side

*****

Decepticon Base
Gulf of Aden
April 13, 2015


“Looks like they know we are here,” someone muttered over the com.

Marissa nodded. Just over the horizon, where Thundercracker’s coordinates put the Decepticon base they needed to reach, she could see dozens of shapes rising into the sky, all of them having the familiar silhouette of Decepticon Seekers.

“We’re 60 seconds to firing range,” she checked her sensors. “Thundercracker, you’re up!”

The blue Seeker merely grunted in reply and pulled sligthly ahead of the squadron before activating his com system on an open channel.

“Fellow Decepticons, this is Thundercracker. I urge you all to deactivate your weapons and stand down. Shockwave has gone mad and is playing with forces that could easily destroy us all. You know me and you know I am loyal to the Decepticon cause. I went to the Autobots because I saw no other alternatives. Shockwave is preparing to temper with time. Even if he succeeds, it will mean that all of us as we exist today will perish as history is rewritten. The worst case could see the universe itself destroyed. So I implore you, think for yourself! Don’t blindly follow orders! We need to stop Shockwave before he kills us all!”

Thundercracker had barely finished speaking when his signal was hijacked and a familiar dispassionate voice broke over the com.

“Thundercracker has betrayed the Decepticons,” Shockwave broadcast. “Destroy him and destroy all intruders!”

The combined EDC / Autobot squadron had not slowed down and they were almost in firing range now. Marissa could see the formation of the defending fighters in disarray, as many of them seemed confused as to what they should do.

“Fairborn to all forces,” Marissa sent out on their encrypted channel. “Keep your heading and make for the Decepticon base. Ignore all Decepticon forces unless they fire upon us first! Everyone who opens up is fair game, but our main priority is to reach the base as quickly as possible.”

“Thundercracker, what are you doing?” a new voice broke over the open channel and Marissa recognized it as belonging to Starscream.

“Doing what’s right, Screamer,” Thundercracker replied. “Shockwave is a psycho, you know that. Do you really trust him to tamper with cosmic forces for the good of us all? You know him, Starscream! Every single Decepticon alive today could perish and it wouldn’t bother him in the slightest. Not even Megatron at his worst was like that.”

The distance shrunk and then they were in firing range. Marissa held her breath, but nothing happened. The EDC and Autobot fighters streaked on, the Decepticon Seekers still coming toward them. No one fired. Marissa found herself sweating, her virtual trigger finger itching to press down. Modern dogfights were usually fought – or at least begun – at distances too great to even see the enemy fighters properly, but right now they were getting close enough to count the rivets on the Decepticons’ armor plating.

“Decepticons,” Starscream’s voice suddenly shattered the silence. She just managed to keep her trigger finger from pressing down. “This is Air Commander Starscream.” There was a long pause and the two forces were almost close enough to touch now. “Stand down and divert to Base 4!”

Marissa exhaled as the two squadrons passed each other and not a single shot was fired. At the speeds they were travelling it all went down in a matter of seconds before she lost sight of them. Scanners showed the Decepticons pulling away and heading north, probably to another hidden base they had yet to find. A problem for another day, though.

“Starscream, you are relieved of command,” Shockwave’s voice came over the coms, sounding almost emotional. “Subcommander Thrust, you are to...”

“Shut up, you walking calculator,” Starscream sneered back. “No Decepticon is going to die for your insane plans today. The Decepticons need a true leader, not an automation like you.”

Marissa quickly checked that no Decepticons seemed eager to break away from Starscream’s retreat. Well, this had gone a lot better than she had expected.

“Good work, Thundercracker,” she said. “Quite a few lives saved today already.”

“There are still automated defences to deal with,” Thundercracker said, taking up position on her wing once again. “And some hardliners will still be in the base, too. This is far from done.”

Marissa nodded. She knew that.

*****

Shockwave was as furious as he was capable of being. Curse that idiot Starscream for disobeying his orders. And curse that traitor Thundercracker, who was on the verge of destroying the last chance for success the Decepticon cause had.

Absentmindedly activating all automated defences the base had, Shockwave returned to his work station. The Time Bridge wasn’t fully charged yet. The calibration was not finished. He would have to conclude his work with all possible haste, even if that meant foregoing some prudent safety requirements.

As illogical as it was, he was out of options. He would have to do as much as he could in whatever time remained and then...

Shockwave didn’t believe in higher powers or things like luck, but was well aware that the extremely complex pattern of interconnected forces that made the universe could not be wholly predicted even by one such as him. So he would just have to trust that whatever factors of chaos or random chance were in play today would fall in his favor.

*****

“Approaching the target,” Marissa said. “Take out those flak batteries!”

The sky around her was filled with explosions as automatic cannons tried their very best to shoot down the incoming intruders. They had to take them out before the more ponderous transport shuttles arrived. Thankfully her people weren’t novices and had taken out numerous Decepticon bases before. Autobot and EDC fighters paired up and spread out, each wing targeting a single battery. Two minutes later most of them were gone. Marissa registered that her friend / foe display registered two EDC fighters less than before, but she couldn’t allow herself time to grieve. Not now.

“Thundercracker, where do we go?”

The blue and grey Seeker fired a laser burst at one remaining flak battery, then went into a steep dive.

“Follow me, we’re taking the shortest route I know.”

Two dozen Autobots and EDC Transectors transformed into robot mode and hit the ground running. Directly in front of them two massive gates were closing rapidly. Marissa could make out numerous shapes behind them, probably getting into position to welcome the intruders with deadly firepower. Before they could open up, though, Thundercracker released a thunderous sonic boom directly toward the closing gap. Channeled through the narrow space, the shockwave took everyone behind the gates off their feet, buying them precious time.

Swoop and Powerglide spread out to the sides and aimed precision shoots into the upper and lower guide rails of the closing gates, bringing them to a grinding halt. Moments later Thundercracker was the first through the gap, followed by Marissa and a dozen EDC Transectors. Marissa expected him to give the stunned Decepticons in front of them a chance to surrender, but he immediately began firing on them.

Well, when in Rome...

“These were Shockwave’s most loyal followers,” Thundercracker said a moment later when the surviving defenders had retreated deeper into the base. “Little better than drones. They would never have surrendered.”

She just nodded, accepting his judgement. While she still harbored some minute suspicion about Thundercracker’s motives, she was leaning toward trusting him by now. She didn’t know if she, had the situations been reversed, would have had the moral fortitude to take a stand against her own people like this.

The next few minutes passed in a dizzying spectacle of indoor fighting. The remaining defenders made use of every corner in the labyrinthian base and the attackers did not manage to progress without casualties. Laser bursts passed Marissa by so close she could practically taste the ionized air. The booming noise of explosions channeled through narrow corridors almost deafened her on more than one occasion. This, she reminded herself, was why she was far happier fighting in the skies than on the ground. Being boxed in like this while fighting for your life was not a pleasant experience.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but turned out to be less than ten minutes, they reached a vast open area where something that looked very much like a space bridge had been set up. Marissa was more than familiar with the tuning-fork-like structures by now, having gone through the transwarp portals they created more times than she could count. There were some noticeable differences here, though. Not to mention the enormous stacks of empty Energon cubes that filled the rear end of the giant hall to the rafters. The entire assembly before her was throbbing with power.

Marissa quickly took in the situation. Shockwave stood right next to the giant apparatus, surrounded by half a dozen remaining Decepticon defenders. He turned his head to look in their direction, but returned to working on whatever it was he was doing a split second later. Clearly he was trying to finish his work. Clearly they couldn’t allow that.

“Shockwave must be stopped,” she ordered. “No matter the cost!”

They opened fire, even as the defenders returned the favor. With more open space to manouver Marissa felt instantly better, though it didn’t take anything away from the deadly conflict she found herself in. Shockwave’s defenders clearly weren’t interested in taking prisoners and neither could they afford to. Not with Shockwave possibly just seconds away from wreaking havoc on the fabric of space and time itself.

Taking aim at the big Decepticon himself, she found herself crying out in frustration when her shot simply exploded ineffectively against a force field of some kind.

“Concentrate fire on Shockwave,” she yelled. “We need to overload that force field!”

With the defenders’ numbers decreasing rapidly, her troops did just that. All the while Shockwave just continued working calmly, which made her hate him even more than before. Here she was, just a few steps away from the monster that had haunted her nightmares for years, and she couldn’t touch him. The force field around the purple monster began to glow ever more fiercly, but it still held.

“You will not succeed in time,” Shockwave calmly said without pausing in his work, barely audible over the noise of the barrage and the whine of an overtaxed force field. “My force field will hold against your firepower for another 341 nanoclicks. By that time I will no longer be here. And neither will you.”

“Don’t bet on it, bastard,” she hissed before turning to the unlikely ally beside her. “Thundercracker! If we can hear him through that field...”

The blue Seeker needed a moment, but then he understood. Taking a step back, he unleashed another of the destructive sonic booms that were the source of his name. The shockwave penetrated the field and threw a surprised Shockwave against his control panel with thunderous force. The console broke, sparks flew, and a ruptured Energon line spilled volatile purple fluid over the exposed innards of the burst control panel.

And the giant tuning fork that was Shockwave’s time machine sprang to life.

“Fools,” Shockwave yelled, uncharacteristically emotional, as he got back to his feet. “I didn’t finish the calculations. The Time Bridge is...”

Marissa suspected he was about to say something like “out of control”, but he didn’t get to finish the sentence. A brilliant flash of light emerged from the giant machine and for a moment Marissa was both blind and deaf.

When she regained her sight a moment later, she couldn’t quite keep herself from cursing. Everything was exactly as before with but one noticeable difference:

Shockwave was gone.

End Chapter 15

 

i hate shockwave at this point

 

Okay, we're almost at the end of Book II and approaching the big finale.


Chapter 16: Let’s Do the Time Warp

*****

Decepticon Base
Gulf of Aden
April 13, 2015


Pacing back and forth in a giant robot body just wasn’t the same as doing it on your own two feet, Marissa mused, artificial as they may be. Thrymir was doing its very best to wear a groove into the metal floor of Shockwave’s laboratory. All the while Wheeljack, Brainstorm, and Perceptor – arguably the smartest bots in the galaxy – were going over Shockwave’s Time Bridge. The giant machine was still happily humming along, as no one quite dared to try and shut it off before they knew what that might cause.

“Well,” Wheeljack finally said, “one thing is for certain.”

Stopping, Marissa turned to look at him. “Please tell me that this ‘one thing’ is Shockwave having blown himself to smithereens with his atoms scattered across all of time and space.”

Brainstorm shook his head. “As much as we would all like that, I’m afraid that is not the case. As best as we can tell anyway.”

Marissa sighed deeply as Jazz walked up beside her. “So he succeeded? He travelled back in time?”

Perceptor looked up from his data pad. “He travelled, that much we can tell. Whether it was ‘back in time’... that’s another matter. Apparently he was in the middle of putting in the space-time coordinates he wanted to travel to when Thundercracker’s sonic shockwave interrupted him and prematurely activated the Bridge.”

“Where did he intend to go?” Jazz asked.

“Best guess? Cybertron, roughly 50,000 Vorns ago.”

“We think,” Wheeljack added, “that he probably intended to assassinate Optimus Prime or do something equally devastating at a point when Autobot resistance to the Decepticon Blitzkrieg was just beginning to form.”

“Interesting, but not really that important right now,” Marissa interrupted them. “Far more important: where and when did he actually go?”

Wheeljack looked down. “I’m afraid we can’t be certain. As I said, no final coordinates were put in. The exit point of the Bridge might literally be anywhere and anywhen.”

Another bad thing about being binary bonded to a giant hunk of metal, Marissa mused, was that she couldn’t use her hands to massage her temples right now. She was really beginning to get the mother of all headaches here.

“Okay, so... what now? Do we simply scrap this machine and hope Shockwave teleported himself into the heart of a star or something? I mean... if he had ended up in a place from where he could change history... we wouldn’t be here anymore. Right?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know nearly enough about the nature of time travel to answer that question,” Perceptor said. “We don’t even know whether time is actually mutable. The machine is still active, so there is also the chance that any changes to history Shockwave might have caused won’t be felt in the present until the Time Bridge is closed. There simply isn’t enough data.”

Jazz nodded. “So it comes down to one thing, doesn’t it? Someone needs to go after him and make sure that he doesn’t mess with existence.”

Brainstorm agreed. “The risk is great, of course, as any additional time traveller might unintentionally damage the time stream even further, but... yes, the risk of letting Shockwave run loose in time is far, far greater in my opinion.”

“Can we go after him?” Marissa asked. “I mean, you just said we don’t know where or when.”

“The Time Bridge remains open, so – in theory – if we simply fire it up again it should deposit anyone entering at the same time and place as Shockwave.”

“I’ll assemble a team and...” Jazz began.

“That won’t work,” Thundercracker said, stepping up to them.

“How so?”

The blue and grey Seeker wrung his hands. “Look, I’m no scientist or anything, okay? But I was here for quite a few of the talks Shockwave had with Soundwave. The Time Bridge is even more unstable and hazardous to use than Shockwave’s receiverless Space Bridge. Apparently he did a lot of analysis on why Skywarp,” he sent a chilling glare at Marissa, “was the only one of his initial test subjects to successfully navigate his experimental Space Bridge and it all comes down to something he called ‘transwarp affinity’. I’m not sure what that is, but he did say that only by replicating that could anyone use the Time Bridge succesfully.”

Marissa was at a loss. “Anyone care to explain that to me?”

Brainstorm rubbed his chin. “I think I can take an educated guess. We know that some Cybertronians have a protoformed talent for navigating transwarp conduits. When Space Bridge technology was in its infancy, only a handful of bots were capable of using them without suffering grieveous harm or complete discorporation. And we know that Skywarp was one of very few Cybertronians in existence capable of short-range teleportation, given enough Energon.”

“Teleportation?” Marissa asked, flabbergasted. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about that?”

“I tried making it work when I repaired Skywarp’s shell,” Wheeljack said, shrugging. “Didn’t work, so I saw no point in bringing it up.”

Yet another reminder, Marissa calmed herself, that there were still so many fundamental differences between their races. Cybertronians took so many of their technological marvels for granted...

“So we need someone with this ‘transwarp affinity’ to follow Shockwave?” she asked. “Okay, do we have someone like that here?”

If Jazz had been human, she was sure he’d have sighed deeply right now. “No. I know of no Autobot currently on the roster with that capability.”

“It’s extremely rare,” Perceptor added. “I doubt there are more than ten Cybertronians currently online who have it.”

“But Shockwave apparently replicated it,” Marissa gestured. “Can’t we?”

“Sure, if we have a Vorn or two to spare.” Brainstorm looked at her. “Or we could simply use the one Cybertronian present here who was better at it than anyone else we know.”

Marissa was clueless for a moment, but then understanding dawned. “Oh, you mean... but Wheeljack said... I thought it doesn’t work.”

“I couldn’t get Skywarp’s teleportation ability to work,” the engineer said. “But the affinity is part of Skywarp’s protomatter, imbued when his spark pattern first generated his body. But no, that won’t be enough. This isn’t a simple Space Bridge ride. Shockwave clearly never intended this machine to be universally accessible. From what I have gathered from this equipment it will require a great deal of neural processing power on the part of the traveller himself to – for lack of a better word – stay on course. The number of calculations required per nanoclick is far greater - no offence intended, Marissa - than an organic brain can possibly handle.”

Marissa’s shoulders slumped. “So you need to have this affinity thing AND be a genius to use it? Then we’re shit outta luck, because I sure am no genius.”

Brainstorm stepped forward. “No, but I am.”

Everyone stared at him, then Wheeljack quickly began shaking his head. “Oh no! No, no, no! You can’t be thinking... oh, you are, aren’t you?”

“You have a better idea, Wheeljack?”

Marissa looked back and forth between them. “What are you two talking about?”

*****

Marissa, now detached and in her Headmaster suit, looked on as Brainstorm and Wheeljack worked on Thrymir – or maybe she should really start calling him Skywarp – to install the necessary equipment for their insane plan. They’d worked on it for nearly an hour now and soon they’d be ready. Which left her more than ample time to work herself into a nervous breakdown.

This might well be a suicide mission, she knew. If Shockwave really had ended up somewhere hostile – like the aformentioned heart of a star – then she would die. And even if she did end up somewhere viable, there was simply no way to predict whether or not the Time Bridge worked in the other direction. So she might well end up stuck at some distant point in space and time.

She briefly played with the thought of calling her parents. Or Ian. Or both. No, she quickly decided. She would not say goodbye. She would not go into this mission with the expectation of not coming back. Years ago she had told Optimus Prime that she fully intended to return home and die of old age. That hadn’t changed. She could do this. They could do this.

Looking up, she was somewhat surprised to see Thundercracker towering over her much smaller form.

“Anything you need?” she asked. She was briefly aware that he could simply step on her now and none of the Autobots in the room would be in time to stop him.

“Just wanted to wish you luck, fleshling,” he grumbled. “Make sure Shockwave is stopped! And come home, because you and I still have a score to settle afterwards.”

“You do realize that Skywarp died thousands of years before I was even born, right?” she asked him. “I had nothing to do with his death.”

“But you keep prancing around in his shell. I get that you had no other choice in the beginning, but by now you could easily have switched to another one. You humans even build your own now. Skywarp could have been laid to rest.”

She opened her mouth, but had no immediate answer ready. He was right, she realized. She could easily have switched to another Transector by now, either one built by Wheeljack and Brainstorm or one of the Valkyries built here on Earth. Why hadn’t she?

“I thought you Cybertronians didn’t have much of a connection to the shells of your departed once their sparks have left?” she asked him instead.

“That is the general view,” Thundercracker simply said. “Doesn’t mean everyone sees it that way.”

He started walking away, leaving Marissa somewhat furloin. Maybe she should lay Thrymir... Skywarp to rest once this mission was over. It was a good thing she hadn’t done it so far, she reminded herself, otherwise this insane plan would never even have gotten off the ground, but still...

Remembering something else, she called after Thundercracker. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What?” he grumbled, turning around.

“You said you were present for many of Shockwave’s planning and stuff. Do you... do you know how he found the coordinates for Earth?”

It was the one question that had plagued her ever since her return home. How had she messed up? How had she endangered her world? How had that bastard tricked her?

“Sure,” Thundercracker simply said. “Surprised you don’t know, actually. It was Soundwave.”

“Soundwave?” she asked, not getting it.

“Yeah, Soundwave. Big blue guy, mouth plate, shoulder cannon...”

“I know who Soundwave is, but how did he...?”

“He can read minds.”

Marissa just stared at him, her brain refusing to compute. Apparently Thundercracker saw her cluelessness and elaborated.

“When you and Shockwave clashed in the Tagan Heights during that Plasma Storm. Shockers talked you into thinking of the night skies of your homeworld and Soundwave, who was stuck on the other side of the building, simply plucked the images of the star constellations from your mind. He’d rather have captured you, of course. They needed nearly a Vorn to calculate spacial coordinates from those few images, but it worked.”

He walked away, leaving Marissa standing there. That was it? She had agonized over how she had messed up for God knows how long and... and the answer was that someone had simply read her mind?

Seeing Jazz looking worriedly at her, she stalked over to him and slammed her tiny gauntleted fist against his shin.

“How come nobody ever told me that Soundwave could read minds?” she yelled.

*****

“Everything ready?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Marissa muttered, having once again joined with Skywarp.

“Remember,” Perceptor said. “If it works you’ll arrive at the same space-time coordinates as Shockwave. Meaning that, despite over an hour having passed here for us, you’ll be arriving at the exact same moment as he does. You’ll have to be ready for battle at a moment’s notice.”

“Noted,” Marissa replied, once again checking the readiness of her blasters.

“Brainstorm, you ready?”

The Autobot scientist had already disengaged from his larger shell and was now standing beside Marissa, not even coming up to Skywarp’s knee.

“I’ve been ready for this for ages, Wheeljack, you were just too...”

“Enough,” Jazz interrupted what could easily have become another argument. “Okay, we’ll give this a try before you go through. Link up, but be ready to disengage the moment something goes wrong!”

“Okay, Brainstorm,” Marissa looked down at him. “Hit me!”

Brainstorm transformed into his engine form and flew up to position himself in the socket he and Wheeljack had quickly installed on the back of Skywarp’s body. With a hiss and snap sound the engine found its place and suddenly Marissa’s world shifted.

She had heard many stories about the Gestalt protocol that allowed Cybertronians to combine their bodies and minds into a greater – or at least more powerful – whole. The process had a few spectacular successes, but a far, far greater number of truly devastating failures, too. In Cybertronians it usually boiled down to the gestalt mind consisting of however much the individual components could agree on, the cut-set of their individual characters. Brainstorm had theorized, though, that a human and Cybertronian mind were so different from one another, that a different, more complementary fusion could be undertaken.

The moment of dizziness passed and s/he looked at the world from an entirely new perspective. He was Marissa Fairborn, she was Brainstorm. The incredibly long life the Cybertronian part of her/him was every bit as real as the frighteningly short human life s/he had led on Earth. Piloting fighter jets in the skies of Afghanistan was cojoined with memories of developing weapons in a laboratory on another planet. There was no seam, no visible distinction. A single existence that had, up to this point, simply been divided among two separate physical forms.

S/he looked at Wheeljack, who watched her/him with a mixture of anticipation at dread. S/he felt annoyance and professional envy in equal amounts with friendship and near-family-like devotion. S/he flexed her/his hands and at the same time s/he compared it with frail human hands and went over the design specs s/he had developed for the newest generation of Transectors. Before them the Time Bridge gleamed and s/he had no problem understanding the underlying science behind it, even as s/he was still annoyed that no one had thought to mention such amazings things as telepathy and teleportation to her/him.

“Marissa? Brainstorm? How are you doing?” Wheeljack asked.

“I told you it would work,” s/he said. “A joining as smooth as Tyrisian polymer.”

“And you’re both still... there?” Jazz added, looking worried.

“Want me to tell Grimlock all the details of the prank you pulled on him last Vorn, Jazz?” s/he asked in return, mechanical features widening into a grin. “You do realize he’s still looking for the one who dunked him in that grease tank, right?”

Jazz grinned in return. “Sounds like Marissa to me. How about the big brain? Ready to bend time and space to your will?”

“Hardly the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” s/he replied. “Making that Warworld above Velocitron explode with nothing more to work with than a wrench and some wiring, now that...”

“Yeah, that’s Brainstorm,” Wheeljack confirmed. “Okay, it looks like you’re ready.”

S/he stepped in front of the humming Time Bridge and Wheeljack activated the jury-rigged control panel they had pieced together. The humming that had filled the room this entire time grew louder, making all parts of her/his body vibrate. Arcs of pure energy danced between the forks of the giant apparatus, ready to rip open the fabric of time and space to send her/him hurtling through.

“Primus protect you two,” Jazz said from behind her/him. “And give Shockwave a whoopin’ from all of us, okay?”

S/he nodded. Then the world around her disappeared in a flash of light and the entire universe went mad.


End Chapter 16

 

Chapter 17: Destiny Sets

*****

Place: unknown
Time: unknown


The Marissa part of her/him remembered the first time (s)he had travelled across Shockwave’s receiver-less Space Bridge. The most vivid memory was that of a shining line of light stretching out before her/him, with frightening darkness on either side. Without really knowing what (s)he was doing, (s)he had concentrated on that line, stayed on it, because (s)he had instinctively known that falling into the darkness would be the end. Had (s)he unconsciously used Skywarp’s transwarp affinity even then?

This time around, though, there was no single shining line of light. Instead there was a vast chaos, churning and shifting, and the Marissa part of her/him was hopelessly overwhelmed. Thankfully the Brainstorm part immediately went to work and endless calculations flittered through their shared mindscape far to fast for her/his human half to comprehend. Shining paths of light appeared and disappeared, darkness threatened on all sides, but (s)he kept pushing forward (or was that backward?) with unerring focus.

Eventually – time being utterly without meaning during a journey through time – the chaos around her/him suddenly ceased and solid spacetime came into focus once more. (S)he was happy to notice that (s)he was not, in fact materializing inside a star or empty space, but rather on solid ground. Mostly solid, considering that a thick layer of snow was covering everything in sight.

(S)he barely had solid ground back under her/his feet when sophisticated scanners began making sense of the surroundings. It was night and a quick scan of the star constellations overhead allowed the Brainstorm part of her to calculate her/his position in spacetime. They were still on Earth and taking stellar drift into account (s)he estimated they were roughly 2,500 Vorns in the past – the human part of her/him translated that to 20,000 years. Meaning right in the middle of the last ice age. No wonder everything was covered in snow.

Moments later a threat alert rang through her/his shared consciousness. Another object of Cybertronian origin was in the immediate vicinity. While the Brainstorm part of the gestalt mind was still busy analyzing, the instincts of the human part immediately instigated evasive maneuvers. Which was a good thing, as a searing beam of energy impacted in the spot where (s)he had been standing about a nanoclick ago.

“It was logical of you to follow me,” Shockwave’s infuriatingly neutral voice rang out. “But certainly you do not think that you alone can defeat me, alien. Our last encounter should be ample proof of that.”

“Things have changed since then,” (s)he replied, taking aim and firing half a dozen shots that impacted around Shockwave’s position and threw up ice and snow to confuse his sensors.

“Your voice pattern has changed,” Shockwave remarked, moving from his position and returning fire. “It seems you have undergone some modifications.”

“You could say that,” (s)he replied. The Marissa part of the gestalt was a consumate warrior and had been in hundreds of battles since their last encounter in the Tagan Heights. The Brainstorm part hadn’t been on the front much, but he was the Autobots’ chief weapons designer and had created lethal contraptions for longer than the human race had existed. That mix, coupled with Brainstorm’s vast processing power and Marissa’s human instincts, made for a far better fighter than Shockwave had faced during that electron storm on Cybertron all these years ago.

It didn’t change the fact, though, that Shockwave was a far more powerful Cybertronian. Bigger, more heavily armed, more heavily armored. Marissa/Brainstorm scored half a dozen hits on the big Decepticons’ body, but they did little more than superficial damage. Shockwave hadn’t managed to hit her/him yet, but the gestalt mind was fully aware that one hit might be all it took.

“You do realize the very fact that we could follow you here proves that your attempt to change the future will not work, right?” (s)he yelled, hoping to distract Shockwave somehow.

“That is one possible explanation for your presence here. Another possibility is that the Time Bridge remained active and prevented history from resetting. We shall simply have to find out the hard way.”

“Whatever the case, you are stranded on primitive Earth with no access to a Space Bridge, no way to manufacture Energon, and no possible way to influence events on Cybertron. Your mission is a failure.”

“You overlook the possibility of influencing events from here. If your primitive race was to never exist, for example, that would – at the very least – remove one element from the events of the Cybertronian war that has influenced the course of the conflict in unexpected ways.”

A flood of rage briefly distracted the gestalt mind - nearly fatally so as a shot impacted close by - as Shockwave casually spoke about destroying humanity’s ancestors. He could do it, (s)he realized. He might run out of energy here on Earth eventually, but the amount of damage he could do before that...

“We must stop him!” the gestalt mind resolved. There simply was no other alternative.

*****

Shockwave carefully scanned his surroundings. The environment was not in his favor, as he had only very little experience in fighting in non-Cybertronian terrain. An oversight, he noted, but probably not a fatal one. He still had a massive advantage in terms of firepower and armour. It was only a matter of time until he managed to defeat his smaller, weaker opponent.

The alien Fairborn was fighting surprisingly well, given everything he knew about her and the shell she was using. No matter the upgrades Wheeljack had installed, she should not be able to move so fast. The change in speech pattern was also confusing, as the alien spoke in a manner more befitting a scientist rather than a warrior. He was obviously missing some information here, but again: it would not matter. Sooner or later he would achieve victory here.

His course afterwards was less clear. Wiping out the ancestors of the alien Fairborn was an option to consider, but it was far from an ideal one. At best he would remove her from history, which would in all probability restore the status quo on Cybertron, a stalemate between Decepticons and Autobots. Looking back, he had greatly underestimated the impact the alien’s presence would have on Autobot morale and fighting spirit. But his goal was not to restore the stalemate, his goal was to bring victory to the Decepticons.

Starting from a point roughly 2,500 Vorns in the past was not what he had aimed for, but it still left him with quite a few opportunities, given his knowledge of the future. Assuming he found a way back to Cybertron, he would need to calculate the best time and place to intervene, because the moment he did all his knowledge of things to come would be rendered mere fiction and there was also the possibility to consider that he, hailing from a future which would cease to exist at that moment, would simply be erased from the timeline as well.

A plasma burst exploded close to his head and temporarily blinded his scanners. He immediately took evasive action in a random pattern until his vision and other senses rebooted. Scanning, he momentarily did not achieve a target lock. Where was the alien hiding?

There! His sensors locked onto the familiar silhouette of Skywarp. For the briefest of moments he was distracted as his scanners picked up the familiar radiation pattern of transwarp activity. Had the alien managed to unlock Skywarp’s short-range teleportation ability? No matter.

His opponent stumbled, apparently having slipped on the ice. Perfect. Shockwave wasted no time and fired off a shot with maximum intensity. The brilliant purple energy beam found its mark and incinerated half of Skywarp’s head. A screech of overloading systems followed, then the robotic shell toppled over and came to rest in the snow, belching smoke.

Keeping his gun arm trained on the immobile target, Shockwave approached. Given that the human pilots operated their shells from the head module, he calculated a 98 percent certainty that the alien Fairborn was dead. Given his situation, though, it was better to make sure.

He came close enough to visually verify his victory, but froze. Logic circuits crashed as he beheld the impossible sight before him. No, this could not be happening! It was completely illogical! It could not possibly be...

Shockwave never noticed the shape directly behind him.

*****

An almost orgasmic burst of satisfaction nearly shattered the gestalt mind as (s)he managed to land a devastating full salvo directly into Shockwave’s back. For some reason the Decepticon had turned away from her/him to shoot at something else and (s)he was not about to waste that opportunity.

Shockwave stumbled, the direct hit threatening to overwhelm even his thick armor. (S)he did not let up and continued shooting. Two more blasts disintegrated whatever was left of Shockwave’s back armor and the next blast speared right through him. The giant purple robot screamed in obvious pain and went to his knees, but (s)he didn’t let up. Two more shots hit and devastated his shoulder, a third shot tore it apart and his gun arm dropped to the snowy ground.

Shockwave toppled forward, Energon leaking everywhere, sparks erupting from ruptured power lines, and finally remained motionless on the ground. (S)he kept her/his weapons ready and waited, but there was no further movement. A scan finally showed that Shockwave’s spark was still active, but his body had gone into emergency stasis lock due to the catastrophic damage.

The fight was over. (S)he had won.

A moment later the world shifted as the gestalt mind decided to split up for the moment and Brainstorm disengaged from Marissa. They both needed a moment to reorient themselves. Marissa felt a gaping emptiness in her head where – but seconds earlier – the seemingly endless knowledge and experience of a near-immortal life form had resided. Her own mind felt much too small for her head.

“Are you okay, Marissa?” Brainstorm asked, looking up at her. “Any lingering after effects?”

“I feel pretty stupid right now,” she admitted. “I’m sure I’ll get over it, though.”

Brainstorm laughed. “I must admit, I never thought I’d find the heat of battle... exhilarating. And I think your instincts did more to help in this fight than anything I could contribute.”

“Okay, enough patting ourselves on the back. You check on whatever it was Shockwave fired on, I’ll keep an eye on the mean purple machine.”

Brainstorm nodded and walked over to where something had collapsed into the snow after being hit by Shockwave’s blast. Which left Marissa ample time to look at the wreck before her. Shockwave was clearly no longer in any shape to fight back. One arm was missing, his torso was riddled with holes, and a large puddle of Energon showed that he could not have much in the way of power reserves left. His spark still burned, though, and she could detect miniscule activity in his brain module.

Marissa needed but a second to make up her mind.

*****

Brainstorm heard the screech of laser blasts behind him and swiveled around, fearing that Shockwave had somehow managed to get up again. That was not the case, though. Quickly scanning the smoldering remains of what had once been Shockwave’s brain module and spark chamber, he simply shrugged a moment later. He was certain some people would have argued with Marissa’s decision, but he was not one of them. The universe was certainly a safer place now. Besides, he was far more interested in what was in front of him.

The gestalt mind had been completely focused on the battle, but he had still caught that brief spike in transwarp radiation. And now he knew where it had come from.

“Marissa, you should probably look at this,” he said, his brain threatening to overload.

Heavy footsteps heralded her arrival and she stood beside him, gazing at the impossible sight. For a long time neither of them talked, the only sound being the howling of the icy wind around them. Then Marissa gave a short laugh.

“Well, I always did wonder how he ended up like this.”

Before them on the ground, his head half-gone and still sizzling from Shockwave’s high-intensity energy blast, was none other than Skywarp, all decked out in his original black and purple colours and with the crest of the Decepticons on both wings.

“And so history is made,” Marissa added in a whisper.


TO BE CONCLUDED

 

Okay, that's it. Book II is done. I have a very faint outline for a book III, but it's little more than a basic idea right now. Not sure anyone is really reading this, considering that there was barely any feedback, but still... I hope you all enjoyed it.


Chapter 18: Aftermath

*****

Journal of Lt. Colonel Marissa Fairborn, Earth Defence Command
April 17, 2015

Silly me, thinking that travelling endless light years across space and being marooned on an alien world for over eight years would turn out to be the strangest experience of my life. Travelling back in time to the last Ice Age for a showdown with the Decepticon who crippled me and setting up history as I remember it in the process, now that was definitely stranger. As a matter of fact I do hope that this will remain the strangest experience of my life, period, as I really don’t need anything that’s stranger still. I’ll happily live out the rest of my life without exploring any further levels of strangeness.

We had barely returned, naturally, when Brainstorm, Wheeljack, and Perceptor started discussing temporal mechanics and putting out theory after theory of how exactly this Skywarp paradox (as I’ve started thinking of it) could come about. Predestination? Were Shockwave and I always going to travel back in time in order to leave Skywarp there for humans to find 20,000 years later, give or take? Substitution? Was Skywarp always going to wind up damaged and braindead and we merely ended up replacing another event that would have had the same outcome? Or maybe we did change history and simply didn’t notice because our memories adjusted? But then again, wouldn’t that mean that the Marissa who travelled back in the first place came from an entirely different set of circumstances than I remember? Why would she have travelled back in time to begin with?

I think the big brains will end up discussing this for a long, long time. If fate is kind, though, it will remain a purely theoretical discussion, because Jazz decided (and Optimus Prime fully supported that decision after he was briefed) that the Time Bridge was far, far too dangerous to remain intact. We pulverized it, destroyed every computer that might possibly contain any design specs for it, and leveled the entire base as we left. There might still be backups somewhere, but hopefully the enormous energy requirements of actually travelling through time, not to mention the need for having transwarp affinity, will keep anyone else from messing with history.

Personally I feel as if I’ve come full circle in some way. Not too long ago I told Ian that I have a hard time remembering anything of my life before I was assigned to Project Utgard and first encountered Skywarp. It was such a monumental change of my life that everything before that seems trivial and unimportant. For nearly a decade Skywarp has been my near-constant companion, a part of me, practically a second skin. Ever since I first climbed into that giant metal shell I’ve seen so much, been through so much, have changed so much, that I barely feel like the same person I was before.

Now, though, I think it’s finally time for me and Skywarp to part ways.

*****

City of Iacon
Planet Cybertron
Earth Date April 18, 2015 AD


Marissa was sitting in a chair, half of her attention focused on Wheeljack and Ratchet working on the far side of the lab, the other half on the data pad in front of her. It seemed that the war for Earth was finally winding down. The death of Shockwave had put an end to the near-constant resource raids and while there was still a sizeable Decepticon force out there somewhere, the general consensus seemed to be that Starscream was taking time to consolidate his leadership and figure out where to go from here. Prowl estimated a 42 percent chance that the Seeker commander might present them with a peace offering of some kind. Whatever the case, though, it was quiet for now.

Earth could definitely use the breathing room. So much had changed in less than two years. Countries had collapsed, world views had shifted, and for the first time ever the human race actually had a sense of unity. In a way it was sad that it had taken an “us vs. them” situation to actually create an “us” in the first place, but sometimes bad things had to happen in order for good things to follow. From everything she had read and been told by Ian, the United Earth Government was a thing that would definitely happen.

She didn’t doubt it would be an imperfect institution to begin with. No doubt there would be problems ahead, both between humans and also in the alliance with Cybertron and the Autobots. You couldn’t completely restructure an entire world basically overnight and expect things to just work fine from here on out. A common enemy had united humanity, yes, but that didn’t mean that centuries of grudges and hatred were simply gone and forgotten. They had been put aside for the moment, but Marissa was sure at least some of them would resurface quickly as soon as the outside threat was gone, or at least mitigated.

To her everlasting relief these things would be handled by people who were not her. Ian kept her in the loop, naturally, and took great pleasure in describing how powerful a symbol she and the EDC were for humankind, how much of a hero she was to young girls and boys across the world. She was certain that he just loved to make her blush. As long as she didn’t have to stand in any political arena or give more TV interviews, that was fine with her, though. After a decade of near constant fighting, she was very much looking forward to a long, long period of rest and boredom.

As for the recent events, only a handful of people would ever know what had really happened. Optimus Prime, Jazz, and some other high-ranking members of the Autobots knew. General Abernathy and the members of the United Nations Security Council had been briefed. But that would be it. As far as everyone else was concerned, the combined EDC and Autobot forces had successfully assaulted a Decepticon base, which led to the death of Decepticon commander Shockwave. Reports to that regard were already being filed in triplicate. None of them would include the detour to the Ice Age. No one needed to know that it was possible to muck with time (if it actually was), lest someone might try and repeat it.

Her thoughts briefly returned to Shockwave and how he had lain before her, disabled and helpless. The situation had been somewhat similar to the battle of Nova Cronum where Optimus Prime had faced a disabled Megatron, who had practically dared him to land that one final shot. Prime hadn’t done it; instead he had arrested Megatron and his trial would begin soon. For a brief moment Marissa had considered doing the same thing, but had then decided against it.

The fact that Shockwave was far more dangerous than Megatron had ever been had factored into it, yes. Plus the matter that they had been far from certain they could return to their proper time at all, not to mention take prisoners along. But in the end the decision had been made because Marissa wanted... needed Shockwave to be gone. He had done too much. To her, to her world, to his own people. He had been willing to risk destroying the entire universe just to get his way. Someone like that had no place among the living. And yes, the need for revenge had been part of it, too.

Did that make her a bad person? Maybe. Maybe Optimus Prime would have handled the matter differently. She wasn’t Optimus Prime, though. And she could live with what she had done. And despite having gotten the distinct impression that Optimus Prime didn’t fully agree with her decision, the Autobot leader hadn’t pressed the point in any way. Neither had General Abernathy, for that matter, apart from a heart-felt “good riddance!”. She doubted there was anyone who would miss the purple Cyclops, not even on the Decepticon side.

And then there was Skywarp, of course. And the decision she had made regarding him.

“We’re ready,” Wheeljack said, tearing her from her thoughts.

Getting up, she walked over to the two Autobots who were busy putting away their tools. She didn’t doubt that they’d done their usual bang-up job.

“You sure about this, Marissa?” Wheeljack asked for probably the tenth time.

“Quite. I’ve been using this shell for a long time, but it’s never really been mine. About time I return it to its rightful owner. Besides, I have little doubt you and Brainstorm can build me a new one, right?”

Wheeljack just nodded and pulled the lever. Energy surged through the power lines attached to the prone form in front of them where he had just finished installing Marissa’s little souvenir from her trip through time. A moment later he was done and Ratchet stepped up next to the newly energized body, running his medial scanners over it.

“Everything looks just fine. The data tracks download Brainstorm took is incomplete, naturally, due to the damage, but everything else is in working order. The spark has taken. We can bring him online.”

*****

The last thing he remembered was the spectacle of the Space Bridge transit, followed by finding himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He’d had about a nano-click to take in the new environment (white, cold, untouched by technology, and with treacherous footing) before a blinding flash, followed by terrible pain, had eradicated his consciousness. Someone had shot him, he realized. And not just a scratch.

His optics flickered to life and showed him a metal ceiling. A moment later a familiar face came into view.

“How are you feeling, buddy?” Thundercracker asked.

Skywarp pondered this question. “I... I’m not sure. What happened? I feel like... my body feels off and I... did the experiment succeed? Where am I? How long was I offline?”

Thundercracker smiled and grabbed his hand in both of his own.

“You missed quite a bit, buddy. I thought we’d lost you for good. You were gone for over 2,500 Vorns… well, from my perspective. But a... friend... brought you home. You’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do, though. A lot has changed.”

Skywarp smiled. Home. That sounded good. Whatever else had happened, he was sure he could deal. This was Cybertron after all. How much could really have changed in a mere 2,500 Vorns?


THE END


The adventures of Marissa Fairborn conclude in Book III: Peace in Our Time
The Cybertronian Civil War is over. Planet Earth is finally united. The remaining Decepticons are willing to negotiate for peace. All that is left to do is for the warriors on all sides to overcome ages of suspicion and mistrust and put down their arms for good. Easy, right?

 

that was a good book. can't wait for the third one. i really liked the ending. which reminds me to finish my own soon. anway, thank you for the the writing, i'll say your time was worth it.

Clarior Hince Honos!

-Will Buchanan A.K.A The Mazerunner.

 

Great!