Firestormers (Retcon): Derelict

By Trixter

On the bridge of a small Autobot cruiser, the four members of Firestormer team designate Beta-5 watched raptly as a massive space-battle unfolded on their main viewscreen, a battle that would affect the fate of the galaxy. Rebel X-wings streaked through a canyon in the surface of the Empire's massive space station, the Death Star, followed closely by the Empire's own TIE Fighters. All optics were glued to the screen as Luke Skywalker, leader of the Red Team of X-wings and the young man destined to become a Jedi Knight and cause the downfall of the evil Empire, took aim at the Death Star's one weak spot. As, from out of nowhere, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke's now-dead mentor, whispered, "Use the Force, Luke," Trixter, the team's pilot, heard a beeping noise coming from her communications console, signaling an incoming S.O.S. Suddenly alert, the young Autobot swung her feet down off the control board and patched the message through to the main screen as Air Raid, her co-pilot, looked over from the chair beside her to see what was happening.

"Hey!" Upstart and Slapdash, seated between them on the floor, shouted in unison as the picture suddenly turned to static. "We were watching that!"

"Sorry, guys, but we're getting an S.O.S. from another Autobot ship," Trixter informed them as she worked on fine-tuning the signal. "And anyway, it's not like you don't know how it ends," she added with a smile. "Prepare to lock on as soon as I get it, A.R.," she said to her co-pilot. "I don't know how long we'll have to find the source. It's pretty weak. Our course must have just brushed the edge of the signal's range."

"But...but it's the Special Edition," argued Slapdash ineffectually. "We haven't seen the Special Edition yet..."

For a moment as Trixter tweaked the controls the screen was filled only with static, then it resolved into the face of a battered Autobot, a black and orange jet with a distinctive flame pattern and a look of sheer terror on his face. The scene behind him was the smoke filled bridge of another small Autobot cruiser, similar to their own ship. His mouth moved silently, imploringly as he shouted to the camera. The team fell silent as the pale blue Autobot tried to find words in the static to focus on. Upstart stood slowly and moved behind her, mouth open slightly as he gazed up in disbelief at the face on the screen. Finally words started to come through. The sound quality of the message was poor, but they could just make out, "...please respond...killed everyone...please help..." before the signal was lost and the screen and sound faded back to pure static.

The rest of the team looked on as Trixter tried to get the signal back. After a moment she gave a frustrated sigh and turned to Upstart. "Well? Should we go back?"

"That was Fury, wasn't it?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure. But for all we know, that message could have been on auto-send. It could be months old."

"Wait now, you two know that guy?" Air Raid interrupted.

"Yep," Upstart said. "He's a friend from way back in the Resistance. A few months ago the ship he was on was on a scouting mission out past Rigel when it just...disappeared. Everyone figured they had just found their way a little to close to a Cybertronian fleet and been destroyed."

"Well, friend or not, we are obligated to answer distress calls from any Autobot or Decepticon ships we run across," piped up Lube, Slapdash's Nebulan Powermaster partner, as he stood leaning against Air Raid's chair.

"A good point as always," Trixter said. She turned to Upstart. "Well, 'commander'?", she asked, for once too solemn to grin at his title but still using it out of habit.

"Okay, turn this thing around and we'll check it out. Slapdash, radio ahead to Earth and let them know we'll be a little late."

* * *

Trixter sighed. "All right," she said, turning to Air Raid, "I've got the nav controls locked on to the source of the SOS. It shouldn't be too long before it's close enough to call up on the viewscreen." She looked down. "I...I'm gonna go up to the observation deck. See if I can make out anything from up there. Let me know when we're almost there, all right?"

"No problem," Air Raid said. He cocked his head to the side. "You gonna be okay?" he asked, lowering his voice a little.

"I'll be fine," she answered, waving her hand dismissively. She turned and rose, then made her way discreetly to the small lift at the back of the bridge. From his command chair in the center of the small bridge, Upstart watched as the lift doors closed behind her, then, frowning, turned forward again, bit his lip, and suddenly stood and announced, "I'll be back in a minute."

* * *

As the lift door opened on the room dubbed the observation deck, Upstart could just make out Trixter's form as a darker shape shillouetted against the starlit darkness of the void outside the massive curved window that formed three of the room's four walls as well as most of its ceiling. She leaned hunched over on the railing that stood a meter or so from the window itself, chin on her folded arms as she gazed outside. The railing came almost halfway up her chest, though as Upstart approached it only rose just above his waist. "C'mon, now, what's wrong?" he asked softly. "Are you just upset about Fury?"

Trixter sighed. "I dunno. A little. I mean, we're just gonna find him dead, and...I already accepted months ago that he was gone," she answered, not looking up. "Mostly I just miss Jazz. I was all excited about getting to see him again, and now we're getting delayed just to answer an automatic SOS from some derelict ship... It's just so hard, with him being assigned to Earth and me hardly ever getting to see him." She sighed loudly. "I miss him so much..."

Upstart gazed out the window himself. "See now, that's what you get for caring about someone," he said, shaking his head. "You won't see me making a mistake like that."

Trixter wrinkled her nose at him. "Hmpf. Lot of good you are. You can't lead a very fulfilling life by never caring about anyone."

"But you can live a much easier one. None of this gazing out windows pining your heart away business," he grinned. Trixter let out a pathetic sigh and he put a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, now, you'll get to see him soon enough. And we get to stay on Earth for a good couple weeks, at least."

"Yeah, I know..."

"There you go, chin up," he said, smiling down at her. "It'll work out."

The intercom speaker by the lift crackled to life. "Hey, guys?" came Slapdash's voice over the tinny speaker. "You two might wanna get back down here. We have the ship in visual range, and it's not a pretty sight."

Upstart strided over to the intercom panel and pushed down a faintly glowing red button. "We'll be right there." He turned to Trixter. "Well? You okay enough to go back down?"

"Yeah. Let's get this unpleasantness over with."

* * *

Trixter gasped despite herself as the lift doors opened and she caught sight of the rent, torn remains of the other Autobot cruiser on the viewscreen. "Ouch," Upstart whispered behind her, wincing.

"It's actually not quite as bad as it looks, according to the sensors," Lube told them from the scanner controls on the right wall of the bridge as the pair took their respective places. "The propulsion system's ripped to shreds and a good eighty percent of the ship's been reduced to scrap metal, but somehow the bridge and a good deal of the electrical system managed to stay intact. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone did manage to survive, considering the heat and gravity to the bridge still appear to be running. Though I'll be astounded if the life support's been running for months without a recharging."

"And fortunately," added Air Raid as Trixter sat down beside him, "the path between their air lock and bridge is still pretty much intact, so we can just do a straight boarding. You just have to pull us up right here." He pointed on the screen to a door in the hull that Trixter could just barely make out.

"I think I can manage that," she responded. She turned off the autopilot and took over the close-range controls, concentrating on easing her own ship next to the derelict as carefully as possibly. Silence fell over the bridge. As they drew closer she could clearly see the interior of the ship through the massive gashes in the hull and she struggled against a morbid urge to try to find the bodies of the dead crew members inside the wreckage. The time for that would come later.

"All right, get ready to release the magnetic grapples," she said to Air Raid without taking her optics from the viewscreen as they drew up directly beside the other ship, their hulls almost flush. With the tap of a button the grapple launchers around the air lock door were automatically loaded and on standby. "Ready?" The co-pilot nodded. "Three...two...one...now!" There was an audible whoosh and thump and the ship shuddered slightly as the four grapples fired and latched into place around the other ship's air lock hatch, stopping their own inertia. "Okay, now deploy the boarding chute," Trixter instructed. There was a loud hum from their own air lock as a long tube extended itself from the hull and sealed itself to the side of the other ship. With a sigh she let go of the controls and relaxed. "And that's that, guys. You gonna stay with the ship on this one, A.R.?"

"Guess I might as well," Air Raid responded.

Trixter turned around in her chair as Air Raid keyed up some music to listen to while waiting for them to return. Upstart and Slapdash stood waiting in the doorway of the bridge, each holding their own weapon from the ship's small armory. As Trixter stood and approached she noticed Lube had already turned into Slapdash's Powermaster engine. Upstart held out her own pistol and she whispered a quick thanks as they proceeded down the hall to the air lock and the by-now-pressurized boarding tunnel.

"All right," Upstart announced as he pushed a button on the panel by the door, "everyone inside!" The three Autobots entered the short, near-cylindrical room and Upstart closed the door behind him with a heavy electromagnetic thump. As soon as the first door sealed Trixter began opening the identical one on the other end. It swung slowly out into the boarding chute and the three of them stood hesitantly for a moment looking at the battle-scarred but still intact hatch of the other ship. "Well, come on," Upstart said finally. He pushed past the other two and stepped into the chute.

* * *

As he stepped out of the air lock Upstart found the hallway of the derelict lit only by the sputtering flames of a handful of electrical fires burning in the blown-out holes where control panels used to be set into the walls. He pulled his torch out of a hip panel as Trixter and Slapdash boarded the ship behind him. The broad beam cut through the stale, dusty air and illuminated the laser-scarred walls of the hallway. Against the wall to their left slumped what remained of one of the crew members, a sleek white Autobot whose head had apparently been ripped from his body and thrown further down the hall. With a shudder Upstart turned to the right, where he knew the bridge doors would be. Another Autobot had fallen against the sealed door, his chest apparently torn open by laser fire and his left arm and leg several meters from the rest of him.

Trixter groaned as she saw the wreckage of the crew members. "I hate dead bodies," she whispered.

"Too late now," Slapdash said. He crouched by the decapitated Autobot and took out his own torch. "I don't wanna run into whatever took out these guys," he commented as he shone the light over the body.

Trixter stood behind him, torn between revulsion and morbid curiosity. "I think this one's the commander," she whispered. "Fury mentioned him when he was telling me about his assignment to this team."

"Hey, look!" Slapdash touched a streak of the dark mech fluid that had run down the dead robot's chest. The fluid smeared and came off on his fingers.

Trixter clutched her gun even tighter and looked around nervously. "Y'mean...?"

"This guy can't have been dead more than a few hours."

"Hey, Trixie," Upstart hissed from the other end of the hall by the door to the bridge. "Come give me a hand. The wiring's all shot up."

Hesitantly the pair got to their feet and joined Upstart by the bridge door. "Don't call me that," Trixter chided, handing him her gun and peering into the charred hole in the wall where the door controls had been. "It sounds silly. Here, shine the light in here," she asked, gesturing to the hole. She reached in delicately with both hands and gently pulled out two severed wires. As she touched their ends together there was a bright sparking and the bridge door slowly slid open. Smoke drifted out into the hall as the body lying against the door fell in loudly.

Trixter grabbed Upstart by the arm as he moved toward the doorway. "Wait!" she hissed urgently. "Be careful! Whatever killed the crew may still be around!"

"What?"

"We noticed while you were messing with the door that these guys can't have been dead more than a few hours," Slapdash explained.

Upstart's optics widened. "Bloody hell... Well then, if Fury is alive, we've gotta get him and get out of here. C'mon."

Together they crept quietly to the open door. The room was smokey and dark except for a small fire smouldering in one control panel. "Fury?" Trixter called quietly. "Are...are you in here?" She was answered with a low moan from behind the command chair. Trixter's jaw dropped. She looked up at Upstart. "He's alive," she mouthed silently, her face hopeful. He grinned and nodded. She began to make her way over to the chair, stepping lightly over fallen ceiling panels and bits of broken furniture. "It's okay now, Fury," she said comfortingly. "We're gonna get you out of here. It'll be okay." As she came around the side of the chair she gasped as she saw his broken body lying among the rubble. He was just barely clinging to consciousness despite a massive gash in his right side and a head wound that had covered the left side of his face in mech fluid.

The battered Autobot looked up incredulously. "Trixter?" he whispered weakly. "Upstart?" He began to turn his head and grimaced with the effort.

"Shhh. Don't move," she told him calmly. She knelt by him and took his hand, hoping to comfort him.

Upstart slowly made his way over, with Slapdash following at a respectful distance. He winced when he saw his friend's injuries. "Ouch. Y'look like slag, kid."

Trixter shot him a warning glance. "Come on, guys, we have to get him back to our ship, and fast."

* * *

Outside the door of the small med-bay, Trixter stood pensively against the wall as Fury, hooked up to a small, portable life support machine, rested inside. He had finally fallen into a merciful unconsciousness as they were bringing him on board their own ship and, only an hour from their destination at the newly-built hospital base on Earth, he still hadn't woken up. Trixter for one was grateful. Better unconsciousness than pain, after all. She knew she'd be needed back on the bridge soon enough for the landing- autopilot could only do so much, after all- but for the moment she felt better near Fury, where she could be there if he woke up and needed anything. She knew she was really too empathetic, but it wasn't the sort of thing she could help. She had briefly considered a career as a medic when she had started in the Autobot army back on Cybertron so she could do something to help others, but had quickly realized that she was too squeamish for the job. And she had always found herself more interested in the workings of non-living machines- starships, for instance- anyway.

As she mused Trixter noticed the lift door at the end of the hall opening. Slapdash stepped out, looking akward. She noticed Lube wasn't with him. "Hi," she said as she looked up, smiling weakly.

"Erm, hi." Slapdash smiled a little himself. "I just wanted to, y'know, to see how he was doing."

"That's all right, we can look in on him." She moved to open the door to the tiny med-bay as Slapdash joined her. "Last I looked he was still out cold, but stable, at least." She pressed a button on the control panel and the door slid quietly open. Fury was lying still on the room's small repair table, his wounds sealed up but still covered in mech fluid. Tubes led from his arm and chest to a small row of monitors on the wall that were beeping quietly to themselves. As they watched the readouts on two of the monitors sped up. "Oh no..." Trixter muttered to herself.

"What's wrong?" Slapdash asked worriedly. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Trixter said, "but it doesn't look like anything good."

Suddenly Fury sat bolt upright with a deafening scream, tearing the life support tube from his chest. Trixter rushed forward to help and found herself flung against the wall by his free arm. She slumped to the floor, stunned. Slapdash watched in shock as Fury tore the tube from his other arm and opened a hip compartment. He pulled out a small pistol and swung it in Slapdash's direction, his face contorted with pain.

"W-w-waitaminutenow," Slapdash stuttered as the injured Autobot held the pistol on him. Then, with a shout, he pulled the trigger and a laser blast cut through Slapdash's shoulder. The blue and yellow robot howled with pain and disbelief.

"Fury! No!" Trixter shouted helplessly as she got to her feet. "What are you doing?!"

"I...ahhhh!" He clutched his head in agony as he turned the gun on her.

"Oh Primus... Your ship wasn't boarded at all, was it? You killed them, you killed the crew..."

"I didn't want to!" he cried. "I couldn't control it!" With a cry he turned the gun to his own head.

Trixter lunged and grabbed his arm. "No!" She struggled to wrench the gun away, turning to where Slapdash was leaning against the wall, clutching his shoulder. "Grab one of the sedation disks from over there," she hissed, nodding to a row of supply drawers set into the wall. "Look, we're almost to Earth. They're just finishing construction on the most extensive hospital facility the Alliance has there. If anyone can help you, they can."

"There is no help for me any more..." he moaned. "Not after what I've done..." Slapdash found one of the disks and quickly stuck it to the side of Fury's head. His pistol clattered to the floor and the injured Autobot slumped against Trixter, unconscious.

She laid him back down gently. "I...I don't know what happened," she sighed. "Something during those few months when they were missing must have done this to him. Poor Fury..."

"Maybe we'll find out what happened eventually," Slapdash said. "I...I'm sorry about your friend, but, erm..."

"Oh, geez, yeah, I'm sorry," she said, looking up. "Let's get your shoulder patched up."

As she moved for the bandage drawer the intercom on the wall buzzed to life. "Hey, Trix, we need you back up here. We're in visual range of Earth."

She pushed the button to respond. "I'll be up in a minute. Oh, and A.R.? Tell Ups I've, well, I've got some bad news for him."

Next: Sanctuary