An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

MilIntel Office, Main Base, Cybertron

Unlike the "Office of Military Intelligence" that most soldiers saw when they dealt with this arm of the Decepticon Military, the real office was not set up for contact with the rank and file. In fact, most of the rank and file didn't even know where it was. Where it was, happened to be deep beneath an already-secure weapons depot, and the presence of the weapons gave the perfect cover for the high number of guards always there, as well as the reinforced steel structure of the visible building.

Down in the MilIntel part, 100 feet below the munitions building, an even thicker layer of steel formed the walls. Shock absorbers and thick insulation not only further protected it from bunker-busting attacks, but also served to greatly dampen any sounds - such as those of talking - that were generated inside the intelligence center. Several layers of security also stood between the outside world and this secret location.

Here, for a long time, there were no sounds except for the reports coming in from the target planet. General Soundwave meticulously entered them all into the MilIntel Supercomputer, using a direct connection created by a cable running from one of his fingertips to a port on a large console. Finally, he began to speak, his voice instantly standing out over the soft sounds of the incoming reports.

"They are already looking for aid in case of war against us. This is a negative development. In the best case scenario, they expect an attack, but at least don't know how much of an attack that'll be. However, they fancy themselves an 'empire.' This means that it's more likely that they intend to attack US, with the intention of not only regaining Mining World #758, but finding out where we came from and attacking that, too. Of course, where we came from is Cybertron."

"Fortunately, spies listening in at the various party headquarters are reporting that all these 'people' are getting so far is the finger, or pincer, or tentacle...whichever applies for the species they are asking. They seem to have many enemies." Soundwave put a command through to the MilIntel Supercomputer, swiveled his chair to face the door, and waited.

In just a few minutes, a team of five soldiers were admitted to the bunker. They appeared to be just normal recruits, but the simple fact that they had been allowed inside showed that they were actually more than that.

Soundwave stood up and gave them a quick briefing of what he had just told the others. Then, he gave them their orders: "You are to make secret, intel-diplomatic contact with all of the nations that we have determined are hostile to the Xamarchis Empire but are NOT hostile to us, or who don't even know who we are. Work deals to get as much intelligence out of them about the Xamarchis Empire as you can, while not giving away any intel about ourselves, of course. Remember that we aren't asking them for data about themselves, so they have no legitimate expectation to get it about us. Instead, if they want information instead of money, offer it about some planet that we have no real interest in and that won't be of interest to the raiders in the foreseeable future."

The group nodded officially, and then went into another part of the bunker. There, they could begin radioing planets of interest without the rest of the operations leaking through as background noise.

Now, Soundwave turned his attention to the political landscape. His eyes dimmed when he realized that there were no leftists of note in the Xamarchis Empire. While it would be possible to foment dissent about this, likely by claiming that the rightists thought their positions were "too weak" to withstand dissent, it would take a long time to corrode their culture through such tactics. It would also require the apparent sacrifice of many agents, who would surely be arrested for treason (and likely executed) once they began to agitate against the status quo. Clearly, something different would need to be done.

It was looking likely that the Decepticons would actually just have to deal with Xamarchis politics as they were, even though that meant that both of the parties would be fully supporting the idea of war. That, however, didn't mean that no lesser measures could be taken in order to weaken the Xamarchan war machine.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, the spies currently embedded on the main planet (including Marketeer) got a specific directive from MilIntel: They were to listen up and try to find out whether the Xamarchis Empire's military made its own guns and ammo, or if it used materiel that was produced by private "defense" contractors. They were also ordered to try to figure out the full capabilities of the Xamarchan military, rather than just what they could see around the main planet.

[Vallermoore]

Marketeer soon got his first piece of useful intelligence. Although officers of major-general and above were pretty remote from the men they commanded, colonels and below shared the mess halls with the men. A colonel and lieutenant colonel were talking to each other. One said "It's a good thing we make 90% of our own weaponry in reasonably secure factories." Other bits of information were coming in from different areas and were picked up by other spies, beamed on secure military coded channels to Cybertron and put together into a useable format.


"We called more then a hundred planets to help. Twenty three said we deserved what was coming to us, five said we must be crazy, and the rest except one said they were staying firmly out of it. The only one, Orbis V, that agreed to give us help in exchange for gold and plenty of consumer goods, said that we were facing giant sentient robots whose original planet is made of metal. Surely robots can't be alive!! We must be facing humans or sapient ponies or changelings or beings like ourselves who just pilot those war machines."


"Orbis V gave us Cybertron's location. Let's launch a large city-killer asteroid into it in two days from now. We'll see how solid that planet of metal is then."

"Let's send a few probes in first to see what we are facing, and maybe a spy or two pretending to be a tourist."

"When we take over the place, we'll send everyone into slavery."

"It'll be a hard fight, but it should be over within six months."


"We asked some changelings we know to help us, but the changelings panicked and fled when we mentioned Cybertron."


"What is it with this Metal Planet that the other planets fear so much? Even Vallermoore fears them. Our Vallermoorian diplomat spoke with Clever One and he replied he'd rather have his horn broken off then help us, and shut or Embassy down, making all our diplomats persona non grata."


"Well, Vallermoore will be our next victim, once we take and loot the Metal Planet."

It was clear that the Xamarchanians were overconfident, didn't beleave that robots could be alive, and had no real idea of what they were facing. They were known to be making jammers, but not to be working on things like computer viruses, or if they were even Forintel had not picked up on it.

Cybertron got a message from Vallermoore's Foreign Ministry reporting on how it reacted to the request from the Xamarchanians .

The spies found that the Xamarchanians had 130 Star Destroyers and 1 Super Star Destroyer in their fleet-and they got that from a local library. When it came to smaller craft, proper spying was needed, and they found they had around 20,000 fighters capable of doing harm to Decepticons, as well as thousands of tanks, AA guns and the like, and several million blaster-armed troops. There was also a single ceremonial cannon battery, that could be a PITA until it was blown up. They were developing rudimentary jammers with help from techs on Orbis V, who were likely themselves to soon get a visit from the Decepticon Military. Various planets had much smaller garrisons that were there mainly to stop slave revolts.

[Victorious Decepticons]

MilIntel Operations Center

All of the snippets coming in were of note, but it was hard to tell which ones the enemy intended to act on, and which ones were just idle chatter between their officers. For example, if they sent a "city killer asteroid," they would hit the spies that someone else had mentioned sending in. Therefore, it was unlikely that both plans would be acted on, though there was the possibility that they would target one city with the asteroid and another one - far from the planned impact zone - with the spies.

Next, Soundwave turned his attention to the discovered orbat of the enemy military. They had many large ships, and plenty of smaller ones - for a biological force, that is. Other biologicals would surely find it impressive and even intimidating. However, it would be nothing against an entire population made up of war machines. It would be even less than nothing if the ploy that was coming to his mind was authorized and worked as planned.

The spymaster's engine growled at the very idea that the Xamarchan Empire believed that Decepticons were merely bio-driven mechs, but he also knew that this meant that the enemy would never expect something like a deployment of a full billion at once. Hardly any biological species could afford to build that many military vehicles, nor would they want to risk so many of their people to staff them. The Decepticons, on the other hand, could easily field 5 times that as a raider front if Megatron gave the right motivation. Still, Soundwave figured that this would not be done. Megatron would want to run a more efficient, and lower-casualty, operation.

~~~~~~~~~~

After Soundwave sifted through the information, he informed Megatron that he had a sufficient amount to offer advice. Soon, a light came on, indicating that someone was in the secret personnel shaft and coming down. A look at a camera showed Megatron, using his foot jets to control his descent.

Despite being the Leader, even Megatron did not get directly to the doors of MilIntel Operations just by jumping down the access shaft. He landed at the furthest doors, and after his identity was verified, the guards allowed him through. This was repeated at each checkpoint until he finally was able to enter the operations room.

Once there, Megatron went over all of the data, making sure to take in all of Soundwave's notes and commentary. It wasn't long before he was grinning in anticipation of the enemy being totally trounced.

"Let them send their stupid rock!" Leader Megatron said gloatingly, surprising Soundwave a bit. "I'll blast it out of the air with my fusion cannon, and let the enemy see what power really is! They obviously don't know anything about me, so they'll likely think that all Decepticons have that kind of power right on their arms. This should spread some true terror among their high command. Just make sure that we notice it before it's right at the border!"

"As for these spies and probes, if they're going to act on that, they obviously aren't ready to attack right now. It will take time for fake tourists and such to get here, attempt to infiltrate, and send back data. This is doubly true if they try to use bodies that won't be obvious to us. The 'tourists' may not even try camo bodies. That's good - for us. Our normal civilian response to foreigners should take care of them just fine, and not only that, net some of our Fine Businesspeople some exotic foreign currency in the process."

At this point, Soundwave told Megatron his attack idea. The leader's eyes lit up bright and clear. "Yes. That's a great idea. Sending out the Orion to their main planet as if that one ship is our biggest and only serious asset will surely cause this 131-capital-ship nation to get ultra cocky and make stupid mistakes. You are right that they will probably think that we haven't sent anything else, except perhaps for a few cargo-bots done up to look like big fighter escorts. The fact that it will actually be in the midst of a swarm of 100,000,000 fully-cloaked Decepticon Military fighters won't be visible to them until they've completely taken the bait and come out for what they think will be an easy battle." Megatron laughed evilly. Usually, he would be tempted to tweak a plan from another general, or even ignore it in favor of his own, but this was too good to pass up.

"We must make sure that any probes they've gotten within range don't see us preparing this grand surprise. I will activate the holographs over our bases. These will project highly-realistic movies of normal activity to anyone trying to observe from space or from a distance on the ground. Meanwhile, we'll be getting the Orion - and everyone else - ready." Megatron grinned in anticipation of the fighting, which he was sure would easily go in the Decepticons' favor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the Edge of Cybertron's Zone of Control

About 100 camera-outfitted round probes slowed to a halt, and then began to spread out as if to surround Cybertron. Some immediately began beaming images back to the Xamarchanians, who were amazed to see thousands of "planes" flying to and from the Metal Planet. It was clearly very busy in terms of interplanetary traffic, though the visuals gave no indication of where they were going or why. They did notice that those coming in from space seemed to be heavier laden than those going out, which caused some to surmise that Cybertron was a large importer of goods. What they didn't know was that the "importing" was not being done with the permission of the "exporting" planets.

As the cam-drones spread out more, one picked up the sight of the very large Main Refinery. Even though it was daytime and the glow was dim compared to the light of the sun's reflection off of the metal ground, it was obviously a very big installation. Its industrial look also let them know that it was probably very important, as well.

A drone operator spotted this, and used his controls to have the drone's camera zoom in until it could see the entire place in HD as if it was only 100 feet up (despite actually still being in space). Now, it was easy to read the giant MEGATRON ENERGON sign out front, and see the large amount of troops stationed there. It was also easy to see that it was a refinery - an essential asset for running all of those machines, whether they were really self-directed or controlled by some other beings.

"We will send our city-killer there!" A commander said, clacking his pincers eagerly. "Without that, maybe they will all just turn off!"

Other drones began to get into position, and they began to send back general images of Cybertron's surface. The once-eager commander looked closely, and saw that in almost any location, there were thousands of giant robots walking around. There were also thousands of planes flying. Then, to his shock, one of the planes he'd been looking at came in low, transformed, and landed on its newly-exposed feet as a robot! The bot then went into some building, and came out a few minutes later with a bag of merchandise. He then put the bag into a side panel, worked himself up to a run, jumped in the air, and then turned back into a plane and flew away!

All of this was amazing to this commander and the other Xamarchanian spy-drone operators. Transforming robots! And, to all of their surprise, they realized that they didn't see a single biological on the entire planet. Maybe Orbis V had been right...

As this was going on, Cybertron's automatic defense systems began to notice the unusual number of apparently-directed metal bits flying around. It determined that they were likely spy drones, and initiated an automatically-generated order for their destruction. Suddenly, the Xamarchanians started to get views of bright flashes, followed by dark screens. Just before one camera went offline, its watcher got to see a Decepticon fighter jet coming at it with its blasters trained on the probe.

Since so many probes had been sent, the enemy had the fortune of not losing them all within the flurry of removal activity. Two cameras remained online when all was said and done, but they were far away from the area of activity. Now, the Xamarchanian spy commander would have to decide whether or not to try to get any more footage.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Border of the Zone of Control

The small "civilian" spacecraft didn't get much notice from the Military border guards once it identified itself as a tourist ship, but its use of an open frequency to do this did draw the attention of every raider within easy range. As it passed into Cybertron's space territory, its driver realized that it was now being followed not only by four somewhat scorched-looking robots, but approached by five others who were coming from the side. These belonged to two separate raid gangs, but the spies inside didn't know this...at least, not yet.

Soon, the gang of four sped up and surrounded the craft, one on each of its four sides in a single plane. It was obvious that they were trying to box it in, and the pilot quickly began to move upward to avoid the maneuver. For several miles, the group tried to capture the ship, but since there were only four of them, there were always two open sides the Xamarchanian spies were able to dodge to.

Finally, the first gang gave up in exasperation, but just as the pilot was about to relax, he found his craft being strafed by blaster fire from the second group.

"Welcome to Cybertron!" Came a nasty-sounding Binary greeting over the radio. "We thank you for your donation of your ship and your labor! Surrender to us, and we might let you live - try to escape, and we'll deactivate your ship and maybe you along with it!!"

~~~~~~~~~

In the MilIntel Operations Center, the Supercomputer flagged the radio chatter for live attention. Megatron listened in and laughed.

"We don't call it 'the Ultimate in Danger Tourism' for nothing," he said, still chuckling.

Soon enough, the Supercomputer reported that the 'tourist' craft had been deactivated, and all of its atmosphere lost to space. A look through one of Cybertron's security cameras showed that the raid gang was now hooking up their tow ropes, and that there were two apparently-dead lobster creatures slightly visible through a gash in the craft's side. Whether they were actually dead now or not didn't matter - thanks to the gash destroying the ship's heat shielding ability, re-entry heat caused by it being towed down to Cybertron would not only cook the bodies, but incinerate them.

Elsewhere, Vallermoore's diplomatic report was noted and catalogued. Cybertron thanked the Ministry for its information, gave a few preliminary boasts about how hard the enemy's ass was about to get kicked, and asked the diplomats to keep their eyes out for any enemy ships that might go cruising by on their way to Cybertron. "Oh, and there may be some kind of asteroid coming through, too. Be sure to let us know if you happen to spot it."

[Vallermoore]

MilIntel Operations Center/Cybertron Airspace


General Soundwave, like all Decepticons, hated it that the scorpian-people thought that Decepticons were just lifeless mechs and it was enough to make his engine growl. Still, it would at least help in the destruction of the foe. They didn't know it, but the Raider Front alone was much bigger then their forces. Soon enough, Megatron showed up, after identifying himself to the guards first. Even He had to go through the security protocols, in case someone was trying to pretend to be him. Once he looked over the infomation he vwas grinning at the thought of destroying the forces of those insolent biologicals, his eyes glowing warmly. If they sent a rock, He would just blast it with His fusion cannon, and shatter it into small bits that would just burn up harmlessly in the Cybertronian atomosphere with a pretty meteor display. As for their spies, they would be very lucky to even get to land on the Metal Planet-something that applied even to genuine tourists. Cybertron was the ultimate in Danger Tourism and made no bones about it, publically letting this be known. Those few tourists who did survive and return safely, would have amazing tales to tell about the gigantic robots and their metal world.


It was decided to fit blasters to the Orion, the former Vallermoore tanker, and set it and a few cargo-bots out-with a huge swarm of camoflaged fighter squadrons of the Military, who could get into point blank range before decloaking to avoid friendly fire and taking the fleet apart. They could then go to their planet and well and truely kick ass. Soon enough the survivors if there were any would just be slaves in Decepticon mines, toiling away in exchange for not being stood on. In a lower level hanger the Orion was made ready and painted in Decepticon colours, and one of the Decepticon High Generals went to the cargo bots to hire a few of them. Grumpy and unpredictable at times they might be, but the cargo-bots knew their fate should they try and blast or step on a High General.

*****
At the Edge of Cybertron's Zone of Control


About 100 probe droids showed up and got some images of Cybertron including the Main Refinery, which they decided to send their asteroid to in the hope of destroying this important Decepticon landmark.They got images of Cybertron and of a transforming bot (who in fact happened to be buying some games from an offical games store and had already gone through his first conscription stint.) This was amazing-that and there were no biologicals. Perhaps these bots really were alive. Cybertron's automatic defense systems noticed the spy drones and military bots flew up and blasted them. Spies were very much not welcome. The spy commander decided pull the other two droids back since they had no heat sheilds to fly in close. The spies were blasted and killed by a raid gang and their ship taken.

Later Vallermoore would report a large asteroid being towed past them, giving Megatron the time he needed. Soon enough the asteroid was launched with the intention of destroying the Main Foundary where Leader Megatron now stood, his fusion cannon at the ready.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The Main Refinery, Cybertron

Leader Megatron quickly realized that blasting from the ground here, with enough power to destroy an asteroid, would almost surely ignite the millions of Cubes' worth of Energon within the giant installation. He quickly used his divine power to fly into space, and took up a position there instead.

Then, he activated his divine fusion fire, which was far more powerful than any normal fusion cannon's output, and waited. Once the rock came into easy range, Megatron gave it one huge blast. In an instant, it became millions of uselessly-tiny meteorites, which would annoy nearby raiders until they were pulled down by Cybertron's gravity and burned up in a nice meteor shower display. Leader Megatron didn't know if the enemy still had a way to see what had happened to their asteroid, but he hoped so. It would surely make them eject bricks for exhaust if they did!

MilIntel Operations Center

With the Decepticon assault on the Xamarchanian Empire about to begin, it was clear that it would be best to get most of the Decepticon spies out of the way first. The order was given for the majority of them, including Marketeer, to sneak away from their posts if possible so they could be returned to Cybertron. If sneaking away was impossible, they were to blast their way out as a last resort so that they could cause extra damage to the enemy. Those who ended up fighting were to do their best to kill the highest-ranking officers within range, in order to help nerf the enemy's command abilities.

Some highly-experienced spies would remain behind, fully embedded in the enemy military. A few of them had managed to replace key personnel on some of the capital ships, while another was in position to exterminate the crew of one of the planet's biggest artillery batteries. Once the war started, these were to wait for the most devastating moment and then use their hidden blasters to slaughter as many enemy troops as possible. Even if they were eventually overwhelmed by the defenders, the combination of the surprise attacks, hardened metal bodies, and Decepticon blasters would make them extremely lethal beforehand.

Military Bases All Over Cybertron

Soldiers at Cybertron's various military bases were surprised when they found out that a full 1/10 of the Forces would be being deployed - and not only that, they would all be leaving together! Usually, large deployments were broken down into divisions and battalions, but this time, they were all to meet far out into space and travel to some other planet in a giant swarm.

When they got even more specifics of the operation, excitement began to build. They would all be going in under full cloaking, rendering them invisible to naked eyes as well as all but the most sophisticated instruments. It was believed that their targets would not have such instruments, so when the battle began, their presence would be a complete surprise to the defenders. Once the military opposition was removed, there was a simple order: Destroy them to the bare sand. No one who dared to try to take a Decepticon world, much less attempt to send an asteroid into the Main Refinery, could be shown any mercy. If any of these aliens managed to live long enough (and stay intact enough) to be enslaved, they would find themselves in Mine #1.

Soon, the assigned soldiers were fueled up and ready to go. They flew into space, with most of their cloaking activated, and began to mass into a giant swarm at the assigned point. The only cloaking left off allowed for other Decepticons in VERY close range to ping them with their radars - it was just enough to avoid collisions. If any enemy was spotted getting remotely close, they would activate full cloaking and just remain stationary to avoid bumping into each other. The cloaking could be reverted to the close-range-radar-only version once the threat of discovery had passed.

Not until the swarm was almost fully formed did the troops see the comparatively massive Orion approach, surrounded by a team of what they all knew had to be cargo-bots "dressed up" to look like giant fighters. It turned out that these were active-duty military ones. The civilians who had been picked up would just be doing deliveries to the troops once the planets of the Xamarchanian Empire began to fall.

Around each of the cargo-bot "fighters," teams of seven regular-sized, actual fighters were flying as escorts. The overall effect was of a big ship, escorted by smaller ones, who in turn were escorted by even smaller ones. It was a decent rendition of a standard battle group, and would likely work well at fooling the enemy into thinking that it was all that the Decepticons had sent.

Once everyone was in position, it was go time. They used one of the standard Massive Swarm formations they'd learned in military training and drills, and everyone knew where everyone else was supposed to be based on that experience. Thanks to the training, they could fly under full cloaking without hitting each other. To each individual, space seemed empty except for the non-hidden battlegroup, but they all knew that there were 100,000,000 others there with them.

These cloaked troops would stay cloaked until battle actually began, and even then, they would NOT fully decloak. Instead, they would expose themselves only to a single, instrument-based, means of detection. The hope, of course, was that the enemy wouldn't have the same instrument capabilities that they did.

Slowly, the battlegroup and its invisible escorts began to move towards the main planet of the enemy empire. It took quite a bit of power to get the Orion up to speed compared to a relatively little Decepticon in plane mode, and the swarm was silently impatient about it. However, this made it easy for Leader Megatron to catch up, maneuver his way through the swarm using his divine powers to detect everyone's position, and take his place at the head of the visible battlegroup. Many of the other High Generals then came out from inside the Orion itself, vastly preferring not to ride inside of what they figured would soon be a giant target.

Once up to speed, travel was much faster. FTL was engaged, and before long, they dropped back out of it very close to Xamarchan's outer line of defense.

"Surrender now, and I might let you live!!" Megatron's voice roared over the radio on all frequencies. All of the troops, especially those in the visible battlegroup, got ready. They knew the protocol: The enemy would have five seconds to get its total and unconditional surrender in, and when that didn't happen, the war would be on. No one remotely expected there to actually be a surrender. The "offer" was little more than trash talk meant to establish psychological dominance over a foe, or failing that, get them so riled up that they'd make a mistake.

[Vallermoore]

The Main Refinery, Cybertron


Not wanting to accidently explode the Main Refinery, Leader Megatron ignited his foot-jets and flew up into the sky, then used his holy fusion fire to blast the unwanted asteroid into small pieces that would provide a meteor display-harmless celestial fireworks that would do no damage.


MilIntel Operations Center

All was ready for the attack that would bring the Xamarchanian Empire crashing down and most spies were evacuated. Bodies like the ones they were using were expensive. The spies were to fight their way out if they had to and as a very last resort, activate the body's self-destruct mode and go back to Cybertron as data packets if there were too many scorpion-people to escape from, except for the best who stayed in place as sleeper agents.

Military Bases All Over Cybertron


As it turned out, a full one tenth of the Decepticon Military was to take part. Any world that invaded a Decepticon-owned world, and compounded it even more with an asteroid aimed at the Main Refinery of all places, needed to be genocided and raided to the bare sand as a warning to the other worlds that the Decepticons were the raiders and not the raided. The Orion had been fitted with blasters and painted in Decepticon colours to make it into a warship, and cargobots who were undergoing Military Stints acted as fighters, but there was a very large hidden element of cloaked and well trained Decepticon fighters, ready to swarm the fleet when it got too close, destroy it's fighter screen and break into the larger craft, letting the air out into space as they did so, since provided they used the right fuel for space they didn't need air to breath. With the fleet of their foes destroyed, they could then take out the worlds one by one finishing up with the homeworld. At the right time for it, the Genocide Battalion would be brought into play to wipe out every man, woman, child and baby of the scorpian people. The fighters kept their close radar on to avoid any crashes, and were ready to turn it off and stay still if enamy scouts got close. The Orion was quite slow to get up to speed even though the Decepticons knew it's controls perfectly. Soon enough they went into FTL and reached their foes. "Surrender now, and I might let you live!!" Megatron's voice roared over the radio on all frequencies. The answer was a shot at the Orion. "Decepticons, Attack!"

When the fighters got close to what they thought was a much smaller battlegroup, they were blasted by the Decepticon swarm (whose blasts did to a point give away their positions, as no way had yet been found to cloak a blast.) Here and there individual Decepticons did get blasted and smash into bits, doing minor damage to nearby bots with shrapnel, but the outnumbered fighters were defeated very quickly. They then took a few more losses from the capital ships before landing on them and pulling open hatches or just cutting their way in. With the fleet defeated in an hour or so, they could then go in on the outer, weaker, less defended moons and planets, whose slaves revolted as the battle carried on. For now, it was decided to put the slaves into cages so that afterwards they could be checked for any true Megatronists who didn't deserve to be re-enslaved. They were not at all to blame for the attack on the Decepticons and were humans or ponies, along with a few scorpian people jailed for criminal or political offences. The politicals would later be doomed to the rendering pits, but the criminals might have a chance of freedom.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Xamarchan Space

When the Archaeon was informed that a battlegroup was approaching, and that it bore the same seals as the planet they'd taken and then been chased off of, he thought it'd be an easy win. He personally ordered the capital ship fired upon after Megatron's demand for surrender, figuring that this would give his side the psychological advantage.

Once it was clear that the Decepticon battlegroup was still coming, he ordered a full-on attack. "Destroy them all and let their debris serve as a warning against attacking us!" The Archaeon said haughtily, and his army - not realizing what they were in for - eagerly obeyed.

Just a few minutes later, the defending soldiers realized they'd made a huge mistake. Millions of energy blasts came from seemingly nowhere, easily annihilating the entire front line. Next, the remaining defenders found their radio frequencies overloaded with Decepticon cheers, taunts, and other chatter, rendering their side incommunicado. It wasn't clear whether this was intentional (it was) or just a side-effect of the chaotic nature of the robots, but to the Xamarchanians' horror, it was obvious that these voices were indeed robotic - and that there were millions upon millions of them.

Soon enough, the initial defense force was wiped out, with only a few bits of Decepticon debris floating among the countless tons of Xamarchanian garbage that once constituted their spacecraft. To the defenders' horror, this was the exact time that the Decepticon sleeper agents considered themselves activated, and many of their capital ships found themselves not only being attacked piranha-style from the outside, but blasted by robotic "scorpion" people inside! In some cases, the spies were even able to gain control of the ships' systems and open all of the doors. This not only let the air out, but let thousands of Decepticons in, allowing short work to be made of these once-impressive capital ships.

Once that was done, Leader Megatron used the one frequency dedicated to operations communication - which was kept free of chatter - to order the big swarm to split up into 10 smaller groups. Nine of these groups had 9,000,000 troops each, while the lead group kept 19,000,000. Of course, Leader Megatron stayed directly in charge of the lead group.

Once the groups were split up, Megatron ordered each division to take one of the planets of the Xamarchis Empire. They would all attack at the same time, making it so that the defenders didn't have a chance to pile their military onto just one or two of them in a bid to keep them.

Not long later, the Decepticons had taken out the military defense of each targeted planet. Some were tougher than others, and the main one was the most challenging, but even that one fell relatively quickly. Far from the six months the Archaeon had figured that it'd take to beat Cybertron, it had been mostly beaten by the Metal Planet within a day. Overall, the effect was the same as if a head of cattle were attacked by millions of piranhas. Beating one fish would be easy, but the speed and totality of the destruction brought about by a giant school of them was terrifying to behold.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Once all of the organized resistance was eliminated, it was finally time for the Decepticons to land. Any Xamarchans who had been skeptical of the Decepticons' self-directed nature, and were still alive to see them, had their skepticism put to rest as millions of bots transformed and began stomping around their planets. Alas, they didn't have time to say much about it, because that's when the next order came through: Kill them all! Now, the scorpion people could see the eyes either light up brightly or darken balefully, depending on each Decepticon's opinion of the order, and watch as the bots began to very purposefully target the biologicals one after another - and summarily blast them into vapor.

Finally, the sounds of blaster fire ceased, and some troops went into the places where slaves were either working or hiding. Many slaves were already deactivated due to being collateral damage in the fast, but all-consuming, war that had just taken place. However, some had managed to avoid getting hurt, and to the Decepticons' delight, many of these were deep in mines. That meant that they were already trained in mining, so they would be able to be immediately useful.

As the slaves were led out and put into big cages, they looked around with wide eyes and blinks. The buildings that they had remembered were gone, and the smell of cooked and burnt scorpion-person flesh hung in the air. A black haze covered all of the worlds due to the burning of the buildings, trees, and other flammable materials. Through the smoke, they could see the red eyes of the giant soldiers. It was all very surreal and apocalyptic.

After quite a while, large holivisions were erected where the captives could see them. Leader Megatron appeared and announced that the Xamarchis Empire was no more, and that all of its worlds now belonged to the Decepticon Empire instead. Then, the camera panned down and over to the side.

There, with its limbs curled inward like a dead bug, was the charred - but quite recognizable - jeweled body of the former leader. While Leader Megatron would have preferred to execute him himself, the Archaeon had been killed when his mansion was blasted by a few random soldiers. Heavy burning debris had fallen on him, both crushing and charring his hapless self. He was cold again by the time Megatron kicked his way into the mansion.

As Megatron's broadcast ended, the captured slaves saw that some Decepticons had formed up and were now flying behind a rich-yellow and red robot who was obviously their leader. Reflective skulls-and-wrenches could occasionally be seen through the clouds of black smoke, and this added to the already-apocalyptic feel of the scene.

"Do not worry about them," some soldiers told the slaves. "Once they're through, you'll never have to worry about seeing a scorpion again, much less working for them..."

The slaves who were scorpion people shrank back, but those of all of the other species were relieved, and some even cheered. None of them realized yet that they would still be working, just for the Decepticons now. The Decepticons were never there to bring freedom to random biologicals, but to eliminate a threat while expanding their own empire, and this would be obvious to the livestock soon enough.

As the captives on each planet watched the Genociders fly past and start to divide up into small squads, they found that a few of the robots landed at each batch of cages. They opened up the ones with scorpion people, and gave a simple order.

"Regular criminals to the left, political prisoners to the right..."

[Vallermoore]

Xamarchan Space

With the main fleet destroyed, and the planets and moons attacked all at once, they put up a better fight then the fleet, and the Decepticon Military were grateful for their Main Save Vault, but within two days time the last planet, the main one, was subdued enough for the bots to land to crush the last tanks, cannons and RPGs with enough ammunition to fight. Once the fighting was over, pretty much every free scorpion person and most eggs (a few of the eggs were taken by Biological Research), man, woman and child, were to be killed. Some scorpion women made their exoskeletons gleam and put on their best jewellery and dresses in the hope of ending up in a hareem, but Decepticons had no use for sex, and killed them anyway. Pesticide was in his element as part of the Genocide Battalion. Five ambassadors from neutral nations and their staffs that were found there were allowed to go free, as it was good politics, as were three terrified Vallermoorians who had gone there on holiday before the war started and had their passports with them. Twelve genuine Megatronists were found by the Priests of Megatron, who had maintained their faith in secret as it had been forbidden there. When it came to the slaves, they had a chance of at least not being killed outright. About 30% turned out to be criminals, of which 5% of the criminals were sex criminals, and the rest were political prisoners of some sort or another who expected they would soon be freed as they were against the Archaeon.

When it came to those sent there for being biological Decepticons-in-spirit, some of which were known to inhabit the most unlikely bodies imaginable, Megatron would decide what would happen to them. They did have, unlike the other groups, at least a chance of freedom, as Megatron had a less hard spot for those of their kind. For now, both politicals and criminals were put into different lines of slave cages awaiting their final fate (the 12 Megatronists had their own cage) whilst the planets were looted and reduced to lifeless sandy deserts (at least on land, as it was too hard to go after the sea life.) A large part of the main planet had in fact always been a desert and didn't need that much work done to it outside cities, towns and villages. Oases were poisoned or flooded on purpose or both. Any oil was stolen, along with anything lootable. Then the bots put on their changeling detectors to ferret out and kill any free changelings, and an obelisk saying what happened was put on each planet or moon. The Vice-Archaeon was found alive and brought before Megatron shuddering in terror like most enemy leaders, but he was a little less scared then most, although not as brave as the Popa who long ago when his planet was taken had accepted his fate and just asked to be spared from torture.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The New Decepticon Territories

On the main planet of what had, just a few hours ago, been the Xamarchis Empire, all of the prisoners had been sorted and put into separate cages. As might be expected, they had actually sorted themselves according to which type of prisoner they expected the Decepticons to favor. Those who thought they'd appreciate "regular" criminals the most said they were that, while those who expected them to side with the political prisoners said that they were of that type. A few were actually honest, though, and went into the cages they were supposed to.

When General Carjack arrived, with his skull-and-wrenches seals fully showing along with the Decepticon ones, a few of these captives realized that one side or the other had likely made a big mistake. While they hadn't seen Carjack genociding, nor had heard of him, they did remember that after that battalion had flown overhead, their jailers had said that they wouldn't be seeing any more scorpion creatures. That was sort of a big clue of what this military detachment was about.

Carjack stopped and turned toward the political side. Without even making commentary, he raised his blaster and aimed at the far end of the row of cages. After all, what was the point of talking to the doomed? He activated his blaster's constant-run feature and swept it along the entire bank of cages, wiping out all who had designated themselves as politicals. A few at the near end had a chance to scream before he got to them, but it was over in mere seconds.

Next, he turned toward the regular-prisoner side, but this time he kept his blaster lowered. A bit of smoke caused by the barrel heat wafted up as he did so. "You have all claimed to be 'regular criminals.' None of us were built yesterday - we know that some of you are actually politicals who recognized another military dictatorship when you saw it, and realized that saying you oppose such a regime is a Very Bad Idea. However, by using that bit of sense, you have a chance at staying alive. We will be watching you all closely - don't blow that chance by trying to become burrs in our joints."

"None of you are getting summarily freed. You will be working for us now. Those of you who are actual criminals, though, have a higher-than-normal chance of an opportunity for citizenship later on. You'll have to prove that you are truly masters of the Decepticon Way, and that you have the proper mindset to practice it effectively. The fact that you were obviously busted and convicted at some point, though, is a strike against you. A proper Decepticon does not get busted, and if he does manage to have that happen, he knows how to work the law to secure his acquittal or is able to hire someone with the needed skill to secure it for him."

Now, Carjack addressed the other slaves, who were enslaved simply for being of the wrong species. "You are our property now, too, but you have far less of a chance of a citizenship opportunity. We do not import the Weak into our citizen body. Your work placements will likely change unless you were already miners, and if you were, you'll have to be trained in new techniques. Other than that...you'll never have to look for a job. If you were one of those 'jobs are good things' kinds, you should be fine with that."

"All of you will be getting immunity updates so that you neither catch foreign diseases from our work sites nor spread your own. If you're human, equine, or Joackian, we already have upgrade 'vaccines' in stock and you will all get one. You scorpions, though, you'll be working under quarantine until Biological Research comes up with upgrades that work on you. The same goes for all you other unknowns that I see here."

One of the random slaves was finally brave enough to speak up, and asked why the political prisoners were all summarily executed.

"It's because we have found that those who are rebellious, will continue to be rebellious no matter which regime is in power or what it stands for. They get their thrills out of 'opposing The Man' just for the sake of it. On top of that, if the new regime has similarities to the old one, the rebellion will go on with more vigor than it otherwise would, because they already have hatred for that particular type of government built up."

"Your old regime was militaristic and set in its ways - much like ours. It ran an empire. So do we. It liked to invade things and annex them. So do we! Needless to say, under these conditions, the politicals here definitely would have opposed us, just like they opposed the government that we just ejected. This makes it best to just delete them. Still, we do delete political activists and prisoners as a matter of course anyway, because like I said, that type usually aren't really interested in improving anything, but instead rebel for rebellion's sake."

Carjack avoided using the term "right wing," because that was specific to Earth, having arisen from the arrangement of the French Parliament way back when. "Fascist" was similarly planet-specific, with the Earthian version typically being hung up on race, whereas interstellar peoples had long since moved onto planetary origins and species as points of distinction between groups.

He wanted to make sure that they understood exactly what type of government he was talking about, and just as importantly, what was similar and NOT similar between the old boss and the new one. Though under good circumstances, the Decepticons and the Xamarchans might have gotten along, it was just as possible that the Archaeon had a bunch of other beliefs that the robots would have considered to be coded out of glitches.

~~~~~~~~~

This basic scene was played out on all of the planets, though there, the assigned Genociders simply wiped out the political prisoners and then left. Then, the local slave-jailers were left to explain what would happen next. Many of them did not have the patience to explain why the dissidents were wiped out, and some of them didn't even brook any questions in the first place. "We don't talk to cattle" was the soldiers' general opinion. Maybe later, after a big auction, whoever bought these livestock would be more willing to discuss things.

Finally, convoys of life-support-enabled cargo bots began to arrive, and the slaves were herded on board. They were given much more room than the African slaves of old on Earth, since the Decepticons were not into losing their stock due to overcrowding. Unlike humans, they saw such waste as needlessly wasted money; and though transit conditions were far from comfy, just getting from one planet to another was unlikely to be deadly for the new forced laborers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Leader Megatron looked down at the Vice-Archaeon with a disgusted expression. He had been deprived of the chance to blast the Archaeon himself, and he wasn't really interested in this second-stringer who seemed to have no charisma. "As the next-in-command of the defeated government, it is your fate to die," Megatron said, and dispatched the Vice-Archaeon with a low-powered fusion cannon blast.

Within a few days, it was all over. Everything lootable was looted, with a speed only possible thanks to the efforts of millions and millions of soldiers, and most of the slaves were brought to one of the Decepticons' otherwise-primitive organic worlds and held for auction.

The exception was 100 scorpion people, who - after being tested and found to be able to live in Earth's atmosphere unaided - were sent to the main Biological Research Facility. There, some would be used as subjects to develop the immunity patch for their species, and others would be tested to determine their maximum work capacity, ability to handle adverse conditions, and suchlike. Some were sent to Mine #1 right away, not only to test their abilities in real-world mine-slavery conditions, but also to see if Overseer's zombification powder would be effective on this species.

~~~~~~~~~

Main Military Base
Later

Marketeer and the rest of his group were pleased to be ordered to the Main Military Base for their induction into Soundwave's Espionage Battalion. Their live-action deployment took the place of their last bit of testing, and the fact that they hadn't been discovered - as well as the quality of data they sent back - ensured their passage. Now, when not undercover, Marketeer would be able to wear the Espionage Battalion seal, which was a line drawing of a Decepticon's head with a human-face mask being held in front of it.

Later, Marketeer would find that going around with this symbol showing would cause people to treat him like he was part of DomIntel even though his battalion was actually completely separate from the fearsome agency, and while this had some benefits, it also had the drawback of everybody acting all stiff, businesslike, and "absolutely as prescribed by the Decepticon Way," - rather than behaving in a more natural manner - which made them unfun. He learned to avoid showing that symbol when he wanted people to just be normal around him, but also figured out that showing it was an easy way to get discounts from stores.

~~~~~~~~~~

After the fall of the Xamarchis Empire, some of the planets around it breathed sighs of relief. Others, however, were worried that the Decepticons would decide to put a base on one or more of the now land-barren worlds, and expand further in that area.

Only one actually had reason to fear: Orbis V. It had provided the Archaeon with intelligence, which made it an ally of the enemy of the Decepticons. It would just be a matter of time before Leader Megatron did something to punish them for this mistake. While the punishment most likely would not involve a bare-sand military invasion, it would surely be enough to make any other nations think very carefully before deciding to provide material aid to an obvious opponent of the Decepticon Empire.

[Vallermoore]

The New Decepticon Territories

The political prisoners, along with any criminals who had made the mistake of pretending to be political prisoners, were slaughtered very quickly by being blasted by High General Carjack, but for the criminals, of which many might be Decepticons in spirit, had a different fate. "You have all claimed to be 'regular criminals.' None of us were built yesterday - we know that some of you are actually politicals who recognized another military dictatorship when you saw it, and realized that saying you oppose such a regime is a Very Bad Idea. However, by using that bit of sense, you have a chance at staying alive. We will be watching you all closely - don't blow that chance by trying to become burrs in our joints. None of you are getting summarily freed. You will be working for us now. Those of you who are actual criminals, though, have a higher-than-normal chance of an opportunity for citizenship later on. You'll have to prove that you are truly masters of the Decepticon Way, and that you have the proper mindset to practice it effectively. The fact that you were obviously busted and convicted at some point, though, is a strike against you. A proper Decepticon does not get busted, and if he does manage to have that happen, he knows how to work the law to secure his acquittal or is able to hire someone with the needed skill to secure it for him."

It had been decided that the criminals-as well as the twelve Megatronists who had risked a lot in a world in which their religion was banned until now-would not be chipped or otherwise forever prevented from escaping. A few might be able to indeed do so, and those who escaped recapture and made it to Cybertron somehow, would be offered a chance to immigrate if they could prove themselves and when mind checked were loyal to the Decepticon Way. For the Megatronists, they would have a weak but still useful blessing, in effect, a +2 modifier in game terms when trying to escape from the mine they were sent to, making their escape chances a little higher. The other slaves were far more likely to be body-chipped to make escape impossible and to be sent to places like the dreaded Mine #1.


Later, the criminals would be told that if they could escape from their mines and remain free for a few days, the search for them would in effect be called off. However, failed escapees would be whipped the first two times and body-chipped for a third failed escape, meaning that further escape would be impossible.
"Normally we either body chip our new slaves or just make it far too hard for them to escape, if they are working on complex tasks that chipping would make harder or impossible. But you are Decepticons in Spirit so we want to give you a chance so the most wily of you can escape, and the most determined to join us have a chance if you can get to Cybertron and pass the tests, physical and mental, and a one-off mind reading. You Megatronists who risked so much on a planet where it was banned, have a weak blessing to make a successful escape much more likely. For now, it's time to take up your picks and get to work."

Main Military Base
Later


Marketeer was accepted into the Espinage Battalion of General Soundwave and found that wearing it openly caused Decepticons to behave around him the way biologicals behaved around police officers-very stiff and for want of a better term "law-abiding." He got a few 10% discounts in stores the way some stores in biological worlds gave discounted doughnuts, but knew better then to actively impersonate a Domintel officer, which not only was most likely the melting down type of treason but was a very un-Decepticon thing to do and certainly frowned on by an otherwise pro-conning society.
*****
Orbis V started evacuating some of it's people, the richer ones, to other planets, increasing the size of it's military forces, and wondering when they would be the next target of the Decepticons.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Slave Market
Earth

The new slaves all arrived hot and tired, as might be expected after having been taken through space in cargo-bots that had air aboard, but no water. Soon, the market personnel had separated them according to species and apparent strength, and put them into large pens for the buyers to peruse. To the biologicals' relief, there were big water containers present. They all crowded around and relieved their thirst, and were pleasantly surprised to find that the water was crystal clear and even cool (though not fridge-cold).

"These masters are much different from the Xamarchans," one remarked. "They seem to care if we stay healthy!"

A market worker overheard this and looked over. "Can't get a good price for sick junk!" He remarked. The slaves looked a bit worried now. These wouldn't be their masters after all - they were just market workers! That meant that the actual masters might be much worse. While it didn't necessarily mean that, their future wasn't guaranteed to be nice, either...

Soon enough, buyers began to file in. Many went straight to the thousands of clones waiting for their new placements, and their transactions were quick and efficient. The aliens could see that these buyers were from different companies by the logos on their wings, but they couldn't understand a byte of what was being said or read the Binary of the company names.

Eventually, some buyers came over to the alien cages, stopping first at the ones with the scorpion people. Most, however, looked just long enough to assuage their curiosity over the strange beasts, and then went on to the cages with more familiar stock. Notably, these buyers seemed to have cheaper bodies than those who bought clones, though all of the Decepticons were well-painted and well-waxed. The aliens soon realized that they were going for cheaper prices than the ones that all looked like copies of each other.

Market workers appeared when they saw interested buyers, and haggling began in quick Binary. To the aliens, it sounded like long tones with occasional chops thanks to the high bitrate being used. Still, the end result was clear. The cage was opened, and market workers began to point at specific individuals and beckon them to come out. These had been purchased, and would be on their way to their new work sites.

Suddenly, a change in the feeling of the room became obvious. The aliens were especially attuned to it thanks to already being on edge, while the clones were more surprised at the condition of the bot who had just come in. After looking around, the aliens realized who was drawing the attention: it was a large, but somewhat rusty, Decepticon with dull eyes.

The rustbucket went straight over to the cages with the strangest aliens, and now, his markings were plain to see. He had somewhat-worn Decepticon Seals, but right next to them, each wing had a fresh and plainly visible "1" painted on it. Below that, some Binary words were also present, and they were done in a corporate-looking, trademark-style font.

"I'll take them all except for the scorpions. All of these types we have never seen before," he ordered in Binary. Soon, all of the strangest aliens, ranging from land-octopus like beings to ones that looked like serpents who had two upper arms and no other limbs, were herded outside to a small transport plane. There was an air of foreboding around the bot and the entire transaction, and everyone could see by the expression on the seller's face that he didn't expect these slaves to be alive for long.

At the very end of the day, only a few scorpion people were left. All of the humans, ponies, and unidentified types had been sold. Still, the market stayed open, seemingly past its normal closing time now. Then, about 10 minutes after all of the other buyers had left, the scorpions heard a familiar sound of jets. They shrank back, remembering well whose engines had that particular strong growl.

Sure enough, General Carjack soon strode in, walking straight to the scorpion people. "Looks like nobody knows what kind of work they can put you to," he said, using a Xamarchan Language Pack he'd picked up from ForIntel in order to speak their language. "But I do! Those claws of yours will be great for shelling black walnuts! Those nuts are too tough for humans to crack, and using non-sapient machines ends up causing the nut meats to be broken up into too small of chips. But you should have the sensitivity and strength needed to open those suckers up without a problem."

With that, he told the market guy to sell him the remaining alien slaves - all scorpion people - and the cage door was opened. Once outside, they were herded onto a large flying cart with safety railings on the sides. Carjack held up a little remote control, and in an instant, they were on their way to one of Carjack Agriculture's remote farms.

Once they arrived in the dim evening light, they could see that they were over a grove of massively-oversized nut trees. Here, however, would not be where they'd be working. The nuts were so big that one could fall on a biological's head and bash it in if it came from high up enough, so they were harvested by drones instead. The slaves' work area would be in a huge warehouse, where the harvested nuts were stored for the next processing stage: shelling. Outside this oversized pole barn, a big Decepticon flag flew just above one showing a healthy seed sprout coming from fertile ground. The seed flag also said CARJACK AGRICULTURE, but this was in Binary, so the new arrivals weren't able to read it.

Inside the barn, the slaves were wowed by the size of the nuts. Each one was as big as a softball! Still, one of them would indeed fit fairly perfectly within a pincer, leaving enough room for the pincer to achieve the proper strength needed to crack its notoriously hard shell.

"No need to bother doin' any work yet," Carjack said. "You've had a long trip, and you were stuck in the market all day while I was defragging. For now, come back here..." He led the way into another part of the barn. This area was climate-controlled to the temperature and humidity level normally found on the main planet of the recently-conquered empire. Several bunks were already set up.

"You sleep here. The waste area is over there. At MY company, you get real toilets instead of trenches in the ground like you'd see at the mines. Mine operators know little about how to keep a 'wild' biological alive. They're used to ones who come out of the Cloning Centers, who are specifically coded for harsh conditions." Carjack's disdain for that ignorance was audible.

"I've been told that some of you are Megatronists, but not all. And, some of the Megatronists ended up at some other work site. The rest of you told me that you were criminals, but since I was in the middle of an operation, I didn't have the chance to ask the specifics. I will ask them now. What crimes were you convicted of, to end up as slaves of your former government?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Main Military Base

The prior war had just ended, but even as the soldiers were telling their stories to those who hadn't been deployed, rumors were already starting. These rumors concerned the big event that the Military did every year: The Annual Military Raid.

According to the talk, the target this year would be Orbis V. As usual, just 1,000,000 troops would be selected, by lottery, to partake. The new thing was that the target was expected to be able to pose at least somewhat of a challenge. There would also be a larger contingent of cargo-bots, so they would be able to score more loot than usual - assuming that most of the transports avoided being shot down, of course.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis V.

The human ruler of Orbis V, one of five moons orbiting a gas giant, ordered that important defensive orders would be delivered by hand for now, to make it harder for the Decepticon spies to find out what exactly was going on. That would of course have to change once battle was joined. Certain people left the planet so that there would be some people left alive if the whole planet was genocided, and only three people were permitted to know all the planet's defense plans. Whilst the scorpion-people might well have found Cybertron anyway, the ruler of Orbis V had made it easier by narking on the Decepticons, and he was pretty sure that they would want their revenge. He had a few plans of his own for when they showed up-deceptive and conniving plans.

Slave Market
Earth


The scorpian-people who had been brought by Carjack considered their fate better then toiling in mines for eternity, and were greatful that he hadn't chipped them, killed them, or cut off their tails, and that he let them rest and drink water. When he asked them what they did to end up as slaves of their own government, it turned out that many of them were robbers, muggers and the like-what on Cybertron were known as domestic raiders, and they had either done so many raids that they got busted, or tangled with the wrong people. After a little hesitation, some admitted to being full members of a large organized crime gang known as the Vory, whose full members were "made" in prisons and slave quarters, and who saw prison and temporay enslavement as an occupational hazard of being a Vory. Most of them had inwardly decided that life as Carjack's slaves was slightly better then their previous existance and didn't mind cracking nuts all day, but there were a few who had secret thoughts of escaping some day, the Megatronists most of all. However, these would wait until they had a good chance of getting away, or at least until there was less survalence of them. At first at least, all of them would be hard working slaves and High General Carjack's nut-cracking problem was solved.


Those slaves in the hands of Overseer on the other hand would have a very unpleasent time of it, and would be enslaved zombies within a matter of days, whilst those in the hands of Biological Reserch would undergo various fates, most of them unpleasent.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Military Base
Strategy Room

Normally, there wouldn't be many strategy meetings for a mere raid. However, Foreign Intelligence had informed the Military that their agents on Orbis V had detected that defensive measures were going into place, and fast. This meant that they were expecting a Decepticon attack, and worse, that every moment of delay gave them a chance to get more ready.

Megatron had called in all of the High Generals, which was another unusual step for a raid. However, he figured that the best chance for absolute success was to have highly-skilled commanders in charge of all of the divisions instead of just some of them. He also decided to take the rare step of doubling the number of troops to be deployed, bringing it up to 2,000,000 lucky troops (or not-so-lucky, if the enemy was ready enough). This would help to counter any sudden conscription effort by Orbis V as well as improving the chances of simply overpowering its defenses with force of numbers.

"They are clearly getting ready for us." Megatron announced. "This means that we can't wait until the usual time for the Raid. We must raid them as soon as possible! I have ordered the factories to step up production of the needed arms, and changed the Raid's troop selection criteria to exclude first-termers. It's a shame for those who are on their very first stint - I know that the Annual Raid is excellent for increasing the confidence of the novices, as well as their enthusiasm - but this enemy will be more prepared than our usual targets. Soldiers with some experience will have a much better chance of coming back in plane mode." The alternative, coming back as data packets, was left unsaid.

"I have also ordered 1,000 of our troops to take on the roles of cargo-bots, and they are being mind-transferred to the appropriate bodies as we speak. This will allow us to be far quicker with the raiding. They will deliver the loot to Megatron Metals Asteroid #59 and Megatron Energon Asteroid #10 for processing, and immediately go back to pick up more loot. We shall raid until both asteroids' storage capacities are completely filled, and any other place we can put things near the usual warehouses are filled as well. Then, the cargo-bots will make one final trip to Orbis V, this time, to be filled with slaves. The slaves will be delivered to the asteroids as well, where they will be made to help us process the materials we gained from their own planet. After that, they'll be sent to Megatron Metals mines on our remotest, barely-hospitable, bio-compatible planets."

"Of course, the point of taking slaves isn't because we need laborers. We have plenty of workers thanks to the destruction of the Xamarchis Empire. Instead, the point is to damage the society of Orbis V by ripping thousands of their members right from their midst. This will make everyone else aware that we could descend from the skies and take more at any time."

After a pause, General Shockwave spoke. "What if they decide that such a threat means that they should invade us to eliminate that risk?"

Megatron grinned menacingly. "If they try that, they'll just have to be beaten to the point that they can no longer wage war, after which we can do whatever we want with the planet..."

With the order given to get ready ASAP, the entire Decepticon Military went to work making it happen. Thousands of new parts, spare bodies, spare armor pieces, fresh new weapons, and other such things were produced in the high-speed factories within days. They were distributed to the military bases just as fast.

Meanwhile, the selection process for the Military Raid was adjusted as ordered, and soon, the winning soldiers were informed of their status. They went to their bases' mechanics and got any needed new parts from the fresh stock, and began to do quick drills to prepare them for the expected conditions. Many were surprised to see their wider divisions' High Generals there drilling with them so that they could work seamlessly with their hordes.

Despite the usual excitement about the Annual Military Raid, some of the troops were a bit nervous. They realized two things: That the Raid had been moved forward by several months, and that none of the n00bs were among this year's selections. "This isn't a regular Raid," they began to warn the ones who won the selection process. "This is going to be more like a real war..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Metals Mine #1

It wasn't long before the aliens realized why their new owner hadn't chosen any scorpion people. A full 100 of those people were delivered to the mine, already body-chipped, and were received by the rusty operator of the installation.

"It will be great to see how these perform as zombies vs. how they do while they are alive," he said, as he walked past the new slaves with a powder-spreader and blew zombie dust over them all. Once they were done coughing, they were horrified as he went to the center of the lineup and began to walk to one side, systematically shooting dead each one that he passed. He made sure to use just enough blaster power to kill them - not causing any other damage to the bodies. To even more scorpionnish horror, the dead rose again almost immediately and returned to their prior positions in the line. None could say anything or even move aside; their body chips held them all firmly in control. Overseer smiled with satisfaction at the scene. Now he was ready to start his living scorpion-people vs. dead-ones study.

"Inside," Overseer ordered emotionlessly, and the new herd of slaves trudged down to where they would be worked under the close monitoring of sub-overseers who would record their productivity throughout their time as functional slaves, whether they were alive or not. Of course, the currently-living ones would become zombies once the work load killed them, but by then, they would be quite damaged and worn out. Overseer wanted to know how they'd compare to zombies that were made while the bodies were still healthy.

The other aliens didn't realize that half of the scorpion-person batch was actually zombified, but they had already seen enough of the other workers to know that they were not all alive. In fact, many were very obviously dead, with rotting, reeking flesh, and others were quite dubious. Some of the smarter species began to realize for themselves that rust was the equivalent of rot, and that perhaps their new owner was a zombie himself - but they weren't able to say, much less do, anything about that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture

Upon looking at an Educational Data Pack and finding out that Vory got most of their members in prison, he wrinkled his lip a bit.

"A proper Decepticon doesn't go to prison, or if he does have unavoidable unfortunate results in the legal department, he doesn't make that mistake twice," Carjack explained to the gangsters. "Therefore, your membership in that particular group is likely to actually count against you if you manage to make it off of my property and to Immigration. We have plenty of syndicates, yes, but we pride ourselves on being able to properly get away with what we do while we're operating in places that legislate against our activities."

"I know that all of you were busted at some point, or else you wouldn't have been in slavery for criminal convictions. But you definitely won't want to make a habit of it any more." Carjack made sure to address all of his new 'workers' now, and not just the Vory.

"Speaking of getting busted, if you are lucky enough to find your way to freedom here, be careful not to let anyone else catch you. Here, slavery is not meant to be temporary, and if you are captured as a 'wild specimen,' you'll disappear into some mine never to be seen again!"

~~~~~~~~~~

After this quick set of warnings, Carjack went into another part of the operation, and it wasn't long before the slaves could see the lights go in a greenhouse visible through the window. Even though they were allowed to work during the day, it was clear that the General wanted none of that for himself. They soon got used to the fact that he'd be up all night, while they were typically sleeping; and just after he set them to work, he'd go away to defrag.

This made things difficult for those planning escape. Typically, a prisoner or slave would try to escape in the dead of night, but if one managed to jimmy the lock on the barracks-like building and open the door, he found himself blinded by the light of giant floodlights and his ears assaulted by the sounds of massive farm equipment - which Carjack was personally driving. So far, no one was brave enough to try to make his way through the active, brighter-than-day, outside environment during these times

Meanwhile, escape attempts made during the day were hard to even do. The locks on the work area were much stronger because Carjack knew that they'd figure out his defragging schedule and make attempts while they figured he was oblivious, and so far, no one figured out how to pick them.

One day at 9AM, a Megatronist thought of cutting his way through one of the windows. To the slaves' delight, his Blessing kicked in, and the window alarm did not go off when he used his makeshift cutter - created from part of a work table - to make a suitable opening. He and another slave quietly sneaked through, followed by about 10 more who figured that the security problem would be quickly fixed and that they'd better go before that happened.

All seemed fine as the slaves quickly made their way across a field of lawn and through an acre of flowers, but their hearts were pounding with excitement and fear until they saw the big fields of 30-foot-tall corn stalks. They raced for them, figuring that they'd never be found in there...and that's when they were met with a chorus of loud, excited, yappy barking! To their amazement, a large pack of cute Llhasa apsos bounded up to them, all yapping as their tails wagged.

As the slaves looked at the dogs with wonder, they realized that all of this racket was going to give them away! Some tried to grab the dogs to shut them up, but the animals dodged with easy, but non-graceful, agility and made even more noise.

That's when they heard the sound of several Decepticons running over, some crashing through the cornstalks, with their engines revving with battle readiness. The Asset Protection Force had heard the alarm barks, which usually meant that someone was trying to interfere with the Biofuel Production Fields, and they were ready to destroy whatever Megatron Energon saboteur had dared to come on the property! By the sounds of it, there were a lot of intruders, so a lot of Asset Protectioners had responded to do battle.

The slaves knew they'd stand no chance now, not with those dogs there to follow them and keep giving away their position by constantly barking...

[Vallermoore]

Orbis V

The ruler of Orbis V meanwhile, using orders on paper instead of electronically or by phone, was ordering some oil to be triggered to explode when the Decepticons tried to steal it, whilst other oil was filled with silicon dioxide so that when the Decepticons tried to run it in engines, it would turn the engines into useless bricks. Missile silos were hidden so when the Decepticons got close enough to land, they would launch at point blank range. Various other traps like trip ropes of hard to see wire, and pits full of oil that would ignite when the Decepticons used their jets to avoid falling in, were made ready, and although only a few changelings were there, they wondered where Decepticon love was stored-and just as important, tried to come up with magical ways to beat the anti-changeling antivirus to try and get at that love.


Carjack Agriculture

General Carjack warned them that if any of them *did* manage to escape, and then got to Cybertron's Immigration Ministry, getting caught by the authorities earlier would be a strike against them (although it would not be outright disqualifying by itself.) He also warned them they would be in much worse conditions if they escaped and other Decepticons caught them. Most of them became very good workers and decided it was too risky to escape-except the Megatronists, who really feared for the state of their souls in the afterlife if they died in a state of slavery. One of these decided to try and escape if it killed him, and as a Megatronist who had risked his life when he was practicing it on a planet where it was banned, he had Megatron's blessing-which was what made the window alarm run out of power instead of going off. He and 11 slaves sneaked out, grinning. They made their way to the corn, only to have yappy dogs give them away, and Decepticon Asset Protectioners rounding them up. What was worse for them was that all the noise had woken up High General Carjack from his defragging. A furious General Carjack rushed over to the source of the racket.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Before long, the soldiers were prepared for the Annual Military Raid. However, prior to giving the "go" order, Megatron made a little speech. In it, he basically confirmed the rumors that this target would be more challenging than usual. The goal of this raid wasn't just to get some free loot, but to actively punish an ally of Cybertron's most recent active enemies.

"Spies are reporting that many preparations are being made for us, and they are of the very unwelcoming variety. So far, we know that there are tripwires to watch out for, that oil has been transferred to deep pits for unclear reasons, and that certain refinery tanks have somehow been tampered with. All of this should pose no difficulty now that you know to be on the lookout for it, but we are aware that some other - perhaps more serious - traps have been set. Unfortunately ForIntel has been unable to penetrate certain areas to get more details. They have also gone to radio silence for military orders. Of course, that hasn't always helped them, given ForIntel's ability to infiltrate offices and such..."

"That said, I believe we have enough information to figure out many of the dangerous areas." Megatron listed several locations, many of which corresponded to some, but not all, of the hidden silo sites. "Nations continue to fail to realize that the mere presence of extreme security makes a location stand out." He gave a rolling, engine-like laugh. "Still, everyone be more careful than you would for a typical Military Raid. There are still places we don't know the location of, and we also don't have the details on the most-secure points. It will be best to just avoid the ones I've mentioned. Then, any efforts they spent there might go to waste."

With that, Leader Megatron gave his well-known order: "DECEPTICONS, ATTACK!" Immediately, the two million troops began peeling out of their ground formations and taking to the air from all of the various bases. They gathered into a giant formation in space, along with the 1,000 cargo-bots from the Main Base's own cargo zone, and would travel this way until they arrived near Orbis V. Then, they would split off into divisions and descend all over the planet to raid as much valuable loot as they could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Orbis V

The politicians and generals here figured they were well-prepared, but they expected a standard-style military attack - perhaps with the goal of invasion - not what amounted to a giant, organized crew of robotic Vikings who would likely become a disorganized mob of looting hooligans about 10 seconds after they started finding stuff worth taking.

The deterioration of discipline in a Military Raid could (and likely would) increase Decepticon casualties since they would be facing a real army this time, but it would also make it hard for Orbis V to guess where the raiders would go next - and the latter always posed difficulties for the commanders of professional armies who expected clear (and therefore, predictable) battle plans from their enemies. It also would mean that the Raiders would be far more likely to choose civilian targets like refineries unless they had contrary orders or were overly annoyed by missiles and such coming from the military bases.

Orbis V wouldn't have long to think about it. A few hours after the Decepticons took off from Cybertron, Orbis V's highest general got notification: Their space administration had detected a huge swarm of "objects" coming right at the planet. "It looks like there's at least a million of them!" Read a note scrawled at the bottom of the report.

Now, they realized that if they stuck to their pen-and-paper communications system, they wouldn't even be able to get a single order out to the masses of their soldiers. They realized that they would need electronic methods to be able to convey messages fast enough to be effective. Alas, when they tried to use their secret military frequency, they found it jammed with the shouts, yahoos, and trash-talk the Decepticons loved to use as comms-blocking chatter.

The time had come.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture
Front Biofuel Field

When Carjack heard the commotion, but didn't hear the sounds of blaster fire afterward, he was furious. Not only had he been woken up, it was apparently for nothing!

The recaptured slaves were amazed when they saw Carjack come through the fields with care and grace, not stepping on even one desirable leaf, despite the fact that his engine was revving with rage. Meanwhile, the General himself was barely conscious of his plant-dodging - he'd done it all his life, so it was nothing special for him to look down and be sure of where he was stepping as he went.

Immediately, the little dogs ran over to him with tails wagging, but he was in no mood to give them pets now. His eyes were now focused on the source of the noise, which was clearly the 10 scorpion-people who were now standing in a tight group with Asset Protectioners pointing their blasters at them.

"Bring them to the lawn outside the head house," Carjack grumbled. "Make them wait there until a more reasonable hour. Then I will decide their punishment!"

The General left the field carefully, and then passed through the flowers with even more care. Once he was out onto the grass, though, his real mood was obvious once again. He took off with a deafening roar, his jets leaving large burnt patches in what he considered to be "all-but-useless ground cover" before he transformed into plane mode to go back home.

As Carjack flopped back down to continue defragging - running a "calm down" patch so he could get back to sleep ASAP - one thought ran through his mind. Scorpions have hard shells. How can I flog them so they'll feel it, yet won't have their shells crack and their guts spill out? He wanted the punishment to be physical, so they would literally feel the lesson, and remember it better. Just feeding them worse food, or some other mild punishment, would not be a deterrent!

While he thought about it, his patch did its job, and soon, he was out cold. The recaptured slaves, however, would gain no luck from this. They were marched to the ordered location - being told not to step on any flowers, lest their owner be even more furious - and made to wait in the heat of what was once Florida, with no water or shade. There they would remain until Carjack was good and ready to get up, drink some Energon, and finally come out to deal with them.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis V


The ruler of Orbis V sent orders over an open channel for his forces to fight back as soon as they got close except for those in certain ambush positions. First came five space fighter squadrons and a single capital ship, that were blasted quickly, but took a few dozen Decepticons down, sending then back to Cybertron as data packets. Entering the atmosphere, things seemed quiet, too quiet. As soon as they landed, hidden SAMs and bazookas and tank shells were fired at them, and open pans of oil ignited from hidden bombs. Other oil, much to Decepticon disgust when they set of stills to refine it to gulp some down as newly made Energon, turned out to be poisoned with silicon dioxide, bricking the stills of a couple of thousand bots who had decided to leave extra space for looting in their panels by leaving behind military rations of Energon-and starving them until they went to battery power and back to the Main Save Vault after that. Luckily, most bots avoided this temptation, otherwise it might have been much worse, but it did mean that for now, all oil should be treated as contaminated until proved otherwise. Only a handful of bots fell victim to tripwires-most had common sense and were careful to watch out carefully for them. Falling over could open up the head and neck to being fired on with bazooka, cannons or worse. A changeling disguised as a pony cast a spell on a bot in the hope of piercing the antivirus protecting the small amount of love within it, then looked for it in the form of patriotism and love of country, hoping to syphon it out. The resistance by now existed only in small pockets, but although small compared to the total number of bots engaged in the Raid, they had taken a surprising number of casualties, many by poisoning.

Carjack Agriculture
Front Biofuel Field


High General Carjack's anger had cooled a little by the time he got within blasting range of the slaves who had tried to escape, but he was still highly angry, and wondered how to hurt them without causing them to die at once as their exoskelitons were broken and their guts spilled out. With a bot or two watching them to stop them escaping, they had to wait in the heat until evening when Carjack came back. Most biologicals would have suffered badly, but the scorpians could take the heat on their armoured shells although they still got thirsty.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Orbis V

The Decepticons were amazed to find that most of the resistance was not of the blatantly military sort, but instead, was made of tricks. Apparently, many people here were Decepticons-in-Spirit in a way, though the biologicals likely saw themselves as the opposite. Even the way they had tried to screw the Decepticons - by pointing Cybertron out to would-be raider-imperialists, rather than to law-types - was along the lines of something ForIntel would try to pull.

Despite this, Orbis V was the target, and no Decepticon felt any mercy for them since they had sided with an enemy planet. Still, the Decepticons had to wonder what had caused this world to be against them instead of on their side. Perhaps, in the past, there had been a "visit" by the IOPC or another large group of Cybertron's "fine businessmen" that had soured Orbis V's opinion of the robotic race, or some similar event had done it.

In any case, once all of the traps were sprung one way or another, the raiding was able to run unopposed. The troops were glad when this was confirmed by the High Generals in their areas, because now, they didn't have to worry about what they'd walk or fly into as they went after likely targets they had seen. It didn't take long to fill up all of the oil-hauling cargo-bots, and soon after, they took all of the refined metal they could before switching over to ores that had been mined but still awaited processing.

Finally, all of the inanimate loot that the Decepticons' asteroid-based refineries could process was secured. Then, the residents of Orbis V realized with horror that many other cargo-bots were arriving. These, however, had empty cages in their holds. As the biologicals suspected, the next thing they saw was countless Decepticons chasing down individuals who seemed healthy and well-capable of work. Some of these biologicals got away due to being relatively agile, but many did foolish things like run in big groups, which made it all but impossible for any particular individual to dodge the big metal hands reaching down for them.

Since there were still almost 2,000,000 Decepticons on the attack, it didn't take long to collect the 10,000 Orbis V citizens that were part of the mission objective. These captives were put into the cages by the soldiers, and once each cargo-bot was full, he closed his side doors and took off into space. Unlike the inanimate loot, the slaves would not be going to the refining asteroids. Instead, they were taken to a variety of bio-compatible outworlds, where they would be assessed and assigned to whatever work those worlds needed and that the slaves seemed capable of doing.

In one remote part of Orbis V, a Decepticon suddenly detected a probing feeling around his mind-boards. Unfortunately for the changeling responsible, he actually had no love at all. He was pissed at the Decepticon government for sticking him with a conscription stint, pissed to have had his Military Raid call end up being something like a real war, and pissed at all of the other Decepticons for not supporting his idea to get rid of conscription.

"And now, there's a damn pony down there staring hard at me like he's some kind of a psycho," he grumbled as he thought about those other things. Without any delay, he raised his blaster and vaporized the thing. Only after he did this, and the probing stopped, did he realize that he might have actually been looking at a changeling. He peered down, but there was just a spot of ash on the ground now, with not enough detail left to figure out what it might have been.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture

After several hours, General Carjack meandered over to the waiting place, carrying a giant mug of coffee in one hand and a strange, but relatively tiny, implement in the other. It was only when he got over to the recaptured slaves and leaned down that they realized what it was: A white-hot brand.

"Punishments for gross misbehavior as slaves are physical," he said, now notably calmer than before, but also showing steely determination to do the deed. "However, flogging you would likely cut your exoskeletons open. I have determined that the best substitution will be branding. It affects a much smaller area, and it doesn't have to be done so long as to penetrate your housings. It will, however, get the point across in a way that you won't be forgetting."

Carjack then ordered that the captives be tied up, and his guards quickly assembled wooden frames and bound the captives to them. Then, carefully, Carjack applied the brand - an interlinked "CA" - to the area corresponding to the right upper-limb shoulder blade of each captive. As expected, they all screamed out while being branded. It was a very alien shriek, and it echoed across the land in an otherworldy way. Any biologicals who heard it would surely think of it as nightmare fuel, especially if they hadn't seen what had brought it on.

To the captives' dismay, Carjack didn't have to stop to reheat his brand between each one. His iron ran on a powerful battery, and contained a strong heater throughout its business end. This gave the slaves little time to mentally prepare for the specific nature of this punishment.

"I know that over time, you will molt and lose the image of this brand. But you will never forget its lesson: If you're going to try to get away, you had better succeed, or you will greatly regret it." Carjack said once the last one was marked. "You have one more chance to try to get away without facing death, but if you fail, you will get another brand - and two, if you've already molted off this one. After that, if you try again and fail, you'll go there."

Carjack pointed, and their eyes followed his finger to a large processing facility. "It says 'Biofuel Rendering,'" Carjack translated the Binary. "You'll be ground up alive, and then your body will be left until it rots enough to process it into fuel. Then the fuel is condensed enough to serve as Energon, and the Cubes you turn into will serve me one last time - in my engine."

After this, the slaves, still in great pain, were marched back to the working area and told to get to it by the guards, lest they be branded again right then for shirking their labor. As they walked along, a few of the little dogs yapped out from amongst the flowers, and it seemed like the furry little muffins could have been deliberately taunting the captives. As it turned out, they were - Llhasa apsos often had a bit of a smartass streak.

Inside the work area, the other slaves first thought that nothing had happened to the captives. Then, however, said captives were ordered to turn around, and everyone saw the fresh, weeping brands on their backs. After an uncomfortably long moment, they were allowed to sit back in their usual places, with the warning that their production would be closely monitored. "Don't slack off unless you want another decoration," the guards warned again before leaving.

Of course, the demand for full production rates was part of the punishment. They all knew that biologicals would want to slow down and divert their bodily resources to fixing the damage, so having to work at full speed would be grueling for them at least until the pain stopped. It would also hurt longer and heal more slowly since the slaves had to use their energy for work instead of repairs.

Carjack hadn't actually ordered this extra - it was the guards' idea. They wanted little or nothing to do with slavedriving, so they were irked that they had been called out to catch some rambling tiny livestock instead of to blast actual enemy Decepticons out to raid the place. This made the guards want to try their best to keep the slaves from getting out - and causing the guards to have to run around after them - again. It also made put the guards in rotten moods and gave them a desire to punish those slaves more. Giving this order was the perfect way to do it - the General was unlikely to even find out about it, and if he did, they figured he probably wouldn't mind that much.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis V


The Decepticons were rather surprised that this planet had tipped off not law and order purists but raiders of a similar mindset to themselves, and also by the tricks they faced, such as hidden missile silos that opened up at point blank range, pans of oil that went on fire, and poisoned oil that caused the more loot happy bots that had left their rations behind to starve their way into the Military Save Vault. Whilst they weren't entitled to feel merciful-narking to non-cops was still a form of narking-
they didn't quite have that bitter hatred for the foe that they often had, and the Genocide Battalion was left in the barracks. Some bots inwardly wondered why they had turned against the Decepticons in the first place. Quite a large number of humans , and about 1000 sapient ponies, were captured, but when just when everyone on Orbis V was thinking their entire planet would be taken over or destroyed, the bots left. As it turned out, the changeling who was killed had found a way in-but it was his bad luck that he picked a bot who at that moment had no love at all. Most Decepticons had a small amount of love in them, but this one had anger instead. Instead of raiding the rare love of a Decepticon, the changeling got cremated alive within seconds by being blasted. Megatron decided that before dismissing the bots, he would need to give them a warning not to leave their military rations behind in the future, as starvation could otherwise be a real threat if the oil was poisoned.


Carjack Agriculture


High General Carjack knew that plain whipping would just turn the captives into mush as their exoskeletons were smashed, and on top of that, for some reason these captives were allowed a couple of escape attempts before they could be killed. So he came up with a very effective punishment-a CA brand that would really hurt but not be fatal. They screamed in pain as the brand went in, but felt lucky not to be killed or to have their tails torn off. Luckily for them, Carjack wasn't into ripping limbs off his captives, who could hardly work well if he did that to them. Besides, their stings were useless against Decepticons anyway. "I know that over time, you will molt and lose the image of this brand. But you will never forget its lesson: If you're going to try to get away, you had better succeed, or you will greatly regret it." Carjack said once the last one was marked. "You have one more chance to try to get away without facing death, but if you fail, you will get another brand - and two, if you've already molted off this one. After that, if you try again and fail, you'll go there." He showed them the Biofuel Rendering plant. "It says 'Biofuel Rendering. You'll be ground up alive, and then your body will be left until it rots enough to process it into fuel. Then the fuel is condensed enough to serve as Energon, and the Cubes you turn into will serve me one last time - in my engine."

Only two or three of the slaves still wanted to risk another escape attempt-and this was because if they spent their lives as slaves, their afterlives in the Megatronist afterlife were not likely to be pleasant. They would wait so if the place was ever attacked, by Decepticons or others, they would have a better chance with fights breaking out all around them and the guards fending the attack off. The grumpy guards put the wounded scorpian-people to hard labour for the rest of the day, because they were annoyed at having to drive the slaves.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Orbis V

While everyone was glad the Decepticons left, they also put on a big display of "mourning" the 10,000 who were taken. Of course, most of the people didn't know these captives from a hill of beans and really couldn't have cared less except on a superficial level, but they played up the poor-pitiful-us angle in order to score political points or to con aid out of their neighboring nations. Those who actually did lose family members, on the other hand, kept to themselves about it, as most people who are genuinely in mourning are prone to do.

At the upper government level, the mood was extremely nervous. What if the Decepticons came back? Did they only capture some citizens to save them in some sort of zoo, while intending to nuke the entire rest of the population? These questions and more swirled, and then, thanks to the "helpful" efforts of an embedded Decepticon spy at the Presidential Offices, tapes of the leaders sharing their concerns with each other were leaked to the media. Needless to say, this spread further panic throughout most of the population, resulting in big demonstrations and other economically-harmful upheavals that interfered with actually making money. As might be expected, the opposition media used the tapes as an excuse to argue for voting out, impeaching, or otherwise deposing the president, vice-president, and leader of the legislature - though this had no immediate effect since elections were a few years away, and there were no impeachable offenses to use in the meantime.

Back on Cybertron, Megatron grinned as hidden-camera footage of the aftermath of the leak was beamed back to him from ForIntel. His spies would show them exactly how, when, and to whom to release compromising information...the hard way!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Mining World #55

When the cargo-bots arrived at this mining world carrying some weird, new "scorpion-people," they were just glad to be able to offload the cargo and get out of there. The cargo, on the other hand, were quite scared when the doors opened to reveal a night scene of a barren-looking planet with nothing around other than a few strong-looking humans and a slightly dirty dark-blue Decepticon. Their first fear was that the planet wasn't really bio-compatible, but when they finally couldn't hold their breath anymore, they were relieved to find the atmosphere was breathable.

The Decepticon slowly walked over, and gestured at them lazily to get out and stand in a particular spot. Once they did, the cargo-bot took off with a deafening roar, and in what seemed like an instant, they were alone - stranded on the alien planet.

As their eyes adjusted to the light, they realized that the few biologicals on the surface were busy moving heavy slabs of some material into position for future pick-up. The amount in question wasn't huge, indicating that this was either a low-producing planet or that there just wasn't much demand for whatever it was. When they looked around, they also noticed that, off in the distance, there appeared to be a farm. This farm was huge, and produced far more than the few humans they saw would ever need.

Before they could look more, the Decepticon gave a grunt and gestured for them to march in the direction he was pointing. There, they saw a big cart, with enough space in the driver's area to hold this robot and enough cargo space for them to fit - if they crammed on board like sardines. It took them 1/2 hour to walk the distance, and they noticed that the robot allowed them to get very far ahead of them. However, when they began to think that they could get far enough away to run off, he caught up with a single step. By the time they arrived at the cart, this had been repeated enough times that they knew they wouldn't be able to escape that way. He was only hanging back because his stride length was so much longer than theirs.

Soon enough, everyone was aboard the cart, which turned out to be a tracked vehicle. Before they got on, they saw a company logo, which showed, amazingly enough, a fancy countertop. After about 10 miles, they arrived at an area where humans were laboriously loading giant slabs of quartz onto smaller carts, which were all hitched to ponies with cutie marks. All of the laborers looked strong from such hard physical work, but this was actually a good sign - they were obviously getting enough food for the amount of energy expenditure required. The scorpion-people did not yet notice, however, that all of these beings looked the same. Even the ponies had no uniqueness, with each and every one bearing a shovel and pickaxe as a cutie mark.

The blue Decepticon gestured towards a doorway that was built right into the ground, and made a little "walking" gesture with his other hand. Then, he opened the door. The captives got the message, and went down five flights of dimly-lit stairs that were only wide enough to be used single file. Then, they finally arrived in a big, dug-out room with a mean-looking Decepticon who seemed to be covered in tiny, shiny, bits of quartz dust that had been expertly attached with clear adhesive.

"I have been expecting you~" he said, using their language haltingly. "You will learn three things right away: Never disobey. Always work hard. And English. English is the language of slaves. If you cannot understand all of your orders in English within two months you will be deactivated or resold!" Unlike most Decepticons, this one's speech was 'robotic' in the old-fashioned sense of the word, but this was just because he had only learned enough Xamarchian to say that single paragraph. He also hadn't forked up for an Educational Data Pack on the language, so he'd learned it the hard way - by reading it off of a sheet provided by his employer.

~~~~~~~~~

As they were shown to their current work area, they were shocked to pass by hundreds of humans and about 20 ponies, all hard at work. Several Decepticon overseers stood watch. There was even a couple of Decepticons working hard like the slaves, and they were able to cut and pull out truly giant blocks. One of these robots was in decent condition, but the other one had joints that made a whining, metal-on-metal sound. The latter one had odd-colored wing lights as well as an armband. They would later learn that these markings meant that he was a slave being operated like a drone, while the other one was an employee.

Unlike the slaves at Carjack Agriculture, who were actually the first batch of "drafted" laborers on that site, this mine's workers were the latest of many, many batches. Here, the overseers were harsh and unforgiving, and considered each head of livestock no more than a temporary presence, even with the provision of nutritious food and clean water.

As time went on, the new arrivals learned enough English to be able to talk to the others, but speech was only allowed during the single, short food break of the day. Then, they asked the question that had been on their minds since they finally noticed it: "Why do you all look the same?" They were shocked to be told that everyone there was a clone, including the ponies. The clones very proudly bragged about their genetic engineering and how they were Human 5.3, far above the mere Beta Version of the wild ones, and how they were essential assets to the Decepticon Empire! The clone ponies told much the same story, and were equally proud of their cloneness and the fact that they were Pony 2.5. "You non-engineered types never last here," one of the ponies said. "You're just the Beta Version of your species. Soon, the wonderful Biological Research Division will develop Version 2.0 of you, and you here will be obsolete!"

This immediately started a brawl as several hotheaded scorpion-people took exception to being called beta and obsolete, and decided to show it by trying to use their claws to chop the neck of this hoofed little runt! However, the pony was good at both ducking and kicking, so the fight was on.

~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, one of the scorpion-people, who was a Megatronist but had never said so here, decided that this distraction was as good as any for sneaking up the many flights of stairs to the outside. All he would need to do was get past the big mean guy in the main intake room, and he'd be out of there. What he'd do after that, on a planet that was all but barren except for the farm field that produced the food the slaves ate, he would figure out after he was on the surface.

In the distance, the employee-bot saw the conniving look on the Megatronist biological's face, but he said nothing and made no move to give it away. This creature was clearly a Decepticon-in-Spirit, he realized, and it'd be foul play to give away his game. However, he wondered if the strange biological would actually be able to outdo the Decepticons at any kind of deception, and secretly kept a close watch to see what would come of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture

Most of the slaves were too afraid to try to escape again after they saw the brands on the captured ones, but for the Megatronists, remaining in bondage was not considered an option. Not only did slavery suck just because it was slavery, it was un-Megatronist to allow oneself to be in that position. Under Megatronism, they had to either escape or die trying, or failing that, kill themselves rather than stay slaves. Needless to say, they did not want to use the suicide option, finding life very exciting and wanting to keep it going!

"We must try again, and succeed!" They whispered to each other. "Otherwise we will be condemned to 1,000 years of slavery in the Realm of Punishment, and the job will be far worse than here!"

"Yes! Leader Megatron himself must have ordered it so that we were not just executed outright before. We cannot disappoint him!"

Another Megatronist, who had been nearby but said nothing, had other plans. However, he would not tell the others about them, lest they get jealous and kill him. Still, he knew that he had 10,000,000 NSD hidden on another planet far from the Xamarchis Empire, in the secret accounts of a rather shady nation. Perhaps this General Carjack would live down up to what Orbis V had said about the Decepticons and government corruption, and accept some bribe money in exchange for allowing him to 'slip away'...

[Vallermoore]

Orbis V


The people and small number of ponies and concealed changelings of Orbis V mourned the dead, but were relieved that the fierce robots from space had not slaughtered or captured every last one of them and taken their planet over completely. The population was mainly terrified by now.

Mining World #55


A number of the scorpion people ended up at a mining world full of upgraded pony and human slaves. Pony 2.5 still had cutie marks-they were too useful to be bred out-but each mark was the same, a crossed shovel and pickaxe. There were heavily upgraded humans too. An overseer bot told them in their own tongue, since they didn't know English yet "I have been expecting you. You will learn three things right away: Never disobey. Always work hard. And English. English is the language of slaves. If you cannot understand all of your orders in English within two months you will be deactivated or resold!" As well as their work in those early days they would be given English classes to understand their orders, as it would be unfair to resell or deactivate them otherwise. Two Decepticons were at work. One, the free employee, wore what was in effect a mask not to protect his face, but to prevent other bots from shaming him later after his work had been fully done. According to Decepticon culture, mining work in particular was supposed to be shunned by all free Decepticons. The other had no mask, an armband and strange wing lights of green, and his joints were whining and groaning. He was a virus controlled slave, either tricked into it over overpowered by the Rust To Wealth slaver gang. Overseers watched the slaves-even upgraded slaves could rarely be fully trusted not to escape if not watched, or at least not to slack off.


Later on at mealtime the scorpion people and the humans and ponies got in a fight after one of the ponies said that they were beta versions. The overseers didn't at once break it up-and then many of the scorpion people started using their deadly tails, stinging and killing human and pony slaves, leaving dozens of them dead.


*****

A Megatronist scorpion person decided to try and get out of there, not wanting an afterlife of slavery or worse. He was seen by an employee-bot who rather then being an overseer did admin work, and the bot could sense a Decepticon-in-Spirit, which turned up in the strangest biological bodies. He sneaked along in the shadows, past the employee-bot-and past a gate guard who should have seen him but was playing Conquer the Universe when he should have been at work. He made his way into the crops and hid amongst them, and had an idea. What if he was able to hide in a crate of ore that was put into a cargo bot? He could get a free ride off that planet and end up somewhere else, hopefully somewhere where he could breath.

Carjack Agriculture

Most slaves were far too scared to try and escape, but for the Megatronists escape was a must to avoid the Realm of Punishment in the afterlife. Most waited for a battle or something like that before trying to escape again but one had been wealthy before his capture and wanted to ransom his way to freedom. One day when High General Carjack happened to visit the building, he used a claw and his knowledge to speak Binary-slowly compared to the bots but clearly. "C-o-u-l-d I b-u-y m-y f-r-e-e-d-o-m f-r-o-m-y-o-u-p-l-e-a-s-e-?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Military Communications Office

After several days, the Military Communications Office sent an official message to Orbis V. In it, it was explained that the action taken was a punitive Military Raid, done in retribution for Orbis V's aid of the enemies of the Decepticons. Then, it promised that if Orbis V was connected to any more active enemies of the Decepticons, or provided aid for any other anti-Decepticon actions in any amount and for any reason, the Decepticons' next response would be to take over Orbis V entirely and enslave or simply eradicate its population.

The message was signed by Leader Megatron himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mining World #55

As soon as the overseers saw that the scorpion-people were not only winning, but were quite deadly about it, they rushed in and broke up the brawl. Before, they had wanted to see who would be the stronger, but they hadn't expected this! Soon, they had the combatants separated, with the scorpions getting a table of their own - and several guards to make sure they stayed at it. Similarly, the other biologicals were put in their own area and guarded to make sure that they didn't restart the fighting.

"We will be reporting this to the Head Office," one of the overseers told the scorpions, "and punishment will be delivered once they give their directive."

~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't long before the Head Office, located on Cybertron, got the report and obtained all of the necessary details. Their response came back quickly: "Cut the tails off of all those beasts, and then double their quotas so they don't have so much energy for troublemaking."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Outside, the escaped slave made his way to where he expected ore to be, but to his dismay, there were none of the loose rocks associated with regular mining. Instead, the shipping area only had big slabs of rock, destined to be cut into massive fancy countertops. There was also a pile of small, human-scale countertops, already cut, clearly meant for export.

As he considered this, another thought came to his mind, and it was a chilling one: There was atmosphere on this planet, and the temperature was acceptable - but it wouldn't be that way inside of a cargo-bot. The bots who actually transported cargo, rather than livestock, had no oxygenation in their holds. There also would be no climate control for what was intended to be just a load of nonliving material. If he managed to stow away without being properly prepared for these things, he would surely either suffocate or freeze once the cargo-bot got into space. This would be true no matter what form the mine's output took, so trying to find ore of a finer consistency wouldn't help.


Biological Research Division
Earth

Here, 50 of the 100 test subjects had already been worked to death, giving the scientists a good idea of the capabilities of the beta generation of the species. During this testing, they had also learned that in most cases, cracking the exoskeleton would either be immediately fatal or result in a deadly infection.

To their horror, they found one subject who was infested with giant worms - parasites - that ran from their heads all the way down their legs. This subject, weirdly enough, had seemed oblivious to the nature of his own condition; he simply moved more slowly and weakly than the others. The whipping that cut through his exoskeleton had revealed his infestation, but by then, he was already dead. Now, though, the parasites had been captured and were under close study themselves, with the results of DNA samples having been sent to the Military in case there was some use that could be found for it there.

Fifty more scorpion-people still lived, and were held in cages of 10 each for studies they would be involved in. Now, 40 of them would be tested for susceptibility to diseases that were common within the Decepticon Empire as well as to see if they had brought any in from their home world. Once that was done, DNA immunity patches would be developed.

The final 10 had it the easiest - for now, at least. Eventually, they would serve as the test subjects for the immunity patches.

Months later, all of the accumulated data would be used to develop an un-numbered beta version of the species, which instead of being cloned en masse, would be produced in small batches with a variety of genetic changes made - including the addition of custom genes and those from other species.

Then, the results of these batches would be tested, not only for their ability to work, but general health, longevity, durability, and other such things. Finally, after about two years, Scorpianos 2.0 would come to market. To be market-ready, it would have to have loyalty and the desire for hard work coded in, and rebelliousness coded firmly out. From there, improvements would be made to increase durability, food efficiency, recovery rates from resting, strength, and more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture

At first, Carjack couldn't understand a thing that this biological was trying to say. Only after a couple of repeats did he recognize that it was supposed to be Binary. Then, the general made an internal recording of the message, sped it up about 1,000 times, and played it back to himself. With it now at a far more appropriate bitrate, he finally got the message.

Carjack's response was fast, but instead of using Binary at what seemed like 1 bit per hour, he accessed his Xamarchan Language Data Pack. "100,000 barrels of Sweet Light Crude," he announced somewhat flatly.

He had no qualms at all in offering the deal. The only orders for this batch were to keep them until the Megatronists either found a way out of the predicament or gave up trying. Buying freedom was not at all forbidden by the secret directive. Of course, neither was taking the money and laughing in the slave's face, if he chose to do so, but that was a risk a person offering an advance payment to a Decepticon always had to take.

To the slave's surprise, Carjack opened up a storage panel and pulled out a bag of tiny items. He began to fish through it until he found a human-scale cell phone, and then tossed it down. "Arrange the payment if you can - otherwise, get back to work."

[Vallermoore]

Mining World #55


Once the overseers saw that the scorpian-people were killing their fully trained, upgraded and expensive slaves, they intervened at blaster point and broke it up, and guarded the groups, then reported to the Head Office about it. Slaves had no rights or privilges so it was fine to nark on them. Soon enough the reply came back "Cut the tails off of all those beasts, and then double their quotas so they don't have so much energy for troublemaking." The scorpian-people wept and wailed with pain and shame when their prized tails were cut off and corturized, and one of them, a Megatronist who was convinced that he would never escape a life of slavery and not wanting to lose his tail, grabbed one of the twitching tails that had been cut off and rammed it through his exoskeliton into his sausage-shaped heart, ending his life, deciding that he was better off taking his chances with the afterlife then living on as a mutilated slave with nothing to live for. Perhaps, he hoped, he might get to be in one of the better levels of the Neautral Zone.


The other Megatronist decided his only way out was-somehow-getting onto a cargo-bot that was delivering slaves here, without getting seen by the camara-eyes on long metal stalks or having the bot feel his legs as he entered it, something that would alert camara-eyes and internal blasters to his location within seconds. For now he looked for an edible crop field to hide in, determined never to be recaptured, ever.

Carjack Agriculture

To his surprise, High General Carjack gave him a phone to arrange his own ransom, and a few hours later whilst his fellow slaves were sleeping he decided he might as well try and do that, and hope he was indeed let free. It was a big risk, but less risky then an entire afterlife of torment if he died as a slave. If he did get his freedom and get out of there safely, he would rest, relax for a few days and then decide what to do with the rest of his life. The rest of the slaves worked hard and waited for the right time-if the place was ever attacked, to try and gain their freedom.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Mining World #55

One of the overseers looked down at the glassy eyes of the now-dead slave with wonder. He knew that as a biological, this slave had no spares or saves, and was therefore permanently dead. While he was aware of the concept of choosing death over dishonor, the idea of doing so with NO chance of restoration was beyond anything he'd actually imagined.

His thoughts were soon interrupted. "Throw all of that dead biomass outside and let the renderers pick it up!" A superior ordered. Immediately, the human slaves began obeying, and before long, all of the bodies and tails were in mine carts pulled by ponies. The carts were then dragged to the surface, where they were tipped into what seemed to be a giant dumpster. This dumpster also held plenty of fecal material as well as a few deactivated slaves that had been there for quite some time. With this load, it was now almost full, so it wouldn't be long before a bot from the local biological rendering facility would be along to pick it up.

The ponies looked at each other with some sadness as they did this work, recognizing a few of their own in the mix. Still, they didn't know of anything else that could be done with the dead, having been taught nothing of any alternatives by the Biological Education Facility they grew up in, and never having met any outsiders. They did know of Megatronism, though, and said a short Megatronist prayer over the deceased.

~~~~~~~~~

Outside, the escaped slave lived for many days on the food that was growing, and by carefully positioning himself to catch the falling water in his mouth when the irrigation system came on. It ran twice a day, bringing life to a world that would normally be dry and barren. The aquifer it pulled from was deep underground, and missed by many exploration-age space agencies, but it was actually vast and its water clean. It had been easy to adapt Decepticon deep oil-drilling and pumping technology to handle water instead.

Finally, a cargo-bot did arrive with a new load of slaves. In it, there were about 50 humans and 10 ponies - enough to replace those killed in the brawl, plus a few who had terminated just by attrition. Now, it would be up to the scorpion-person to try to get on board without triggering any sensors. Normally, this would actually be impossible unless he had something to hide in. His best chance was to hope that this cargo-bot was actually a slave himself, because then, the slave virus would prevent him from being able to blast what the program would assume was desirable livestock.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture
Earth

Here, the Megatronist slave waited until the others were asleep, perhaps to avoid jealousy-driven hostility from the others. Then, he easily arranged the payment through his connections. Being a Megatronist, he had a fairly large network of shady folks that he did business with prior to the invasion of the former empire he had come from.

Soon, everything was settled. The oil company wasn't willing to bring a load anywhere near Decepticon territory, saying that they didn't want to lead a bunch of raiders back to their front door, but would set it up on a moon closer to their planet (but not belonging directly to their planet - that was thought of as TOO close). The next day, the slave informed Carjack of what he had arranged.

Carjack grumbled about the distance, saying that he should charge an extra 100 barrels as a retrieval fee, but ended up accepting the offer. "I'll make sure the oil is there and real, and that it isn't a trap," he said. "Assuming everything is legit, you'll get your freedom once I return. But it is dangerous out there, and if some other slaver gets you, you're pretty much done. You'll also have to watch out for wild animals. Around here, we have gators, boars, and bears that can damage you. Oh, and fire ants. I'm not sure if they can find a gap in your exoskeleton, but if they can't, they'll try to swarm up your nose, in your ears...anything that isn't armored. Be careful of the tiny little gits, because they sometimes attack at a million strong."

Now, the Megatronist saw that High Generals also have privileges. Carjack radioed the Main Base and ordered one of his scouts to check out the situation on the pick-up moon. A few hours later, the report came in: everything seemed fine in terms of being free of traps. However, there was an ICC scouting party just a few planets away, so if he wanted that oil, Carjack had to get over there fast to secure it,and THEN call in the cargo-bots.

General Carjack took off with a roar, racing at FTL to beat the ICC to the spot so that it wouldn't be all cleared out before he could get there. Fortunately for him, he knew the exact destination, whereas they could only discover it if they stumbled upon it. Soon enough, he was sitting on top of one of several giant storage containers, and looking into it through an opening he had unscrewed the lid from. He tested it with a tool from his field kit, and sure enough: sweet light crude.

Finally, he summoned some military cargo-bots from his division, and together, they took the haul to the biggest Megatron Energon Raid Dropoff Point. There, the transaction was quickly processed, and the Energon Cubes brought to one of Carjack's vaults.

While using military personnel for private business was often looked poorly upon in other nations, here, it was considered pretty standard for a High General or the Leader to do such things. Leader Megatron even had an entire battalion to guard his private business - Megatron Energon - and they were only brought off of that job to fight wars in the most dire of circumstances. That said, too many random personnel diversions would lead to an investigation over whether it was really necessary, and if so, a permanent arrangement would be devised in order to avoid confusion.

~~~~~~~~~~

Military Intelligence
Main Base, Cybertron

As a matter of course, all communications from military officers were monitored unless they were going over one of the Military's highly-encrypted frequencies. On other planets, there was often a saying such as "trust, but verify." Here, it was upgraded all the way to "trust no one!" While nobody was likely to say, "because we're all a bunch of Decepticons," it was actually the assumption that in order to become an officer, especially a high one, the person had to be quite a conniver. Because of this, they were always monitored to make sure they weren't selling out the nation, planning coups, selling state secrets, or otherwise capitalizing on their positions in ways that would actually be dangerous to the State.

Of course, this threat worked both ways, and today, that was about to become apparent. A MilIntel officer calmly walked by the Office of the High Commander - that is, Megatron's office - and slipped a little note through a hidden slot.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Energon
Office of the Market Share Protection Commander

This office, normally not all that busy, was abuzz with excitement. It had just received word that the Company's biggest competition - Carjack Biofuels - was currently without its deadly leader on the premises. Even better, he was away on non-military business. Megatron had forbidden attacks on the Biofuels installation during military exercises or wars, not wanting his High General to be busy worrying about that instead of the matters at hand. However, when he left for a NON-military reason, it was open season.

"He's gone off to pick up a load of oil somewhere. You can bet that he'll have the gall to sell it to US, too - his facilities aren't set up to handle the real thing. Today, we're going to make sure they're not set up for anything." Said the Commander. "Gather the entire Force. We're going to level that place. Oh, and bring a few bio-enabled cargo-bots, too. My informant says there are some slaves there, for the first time ever. I say we can always use some more workers." His eyes shown with obvious glee as his engine revved with anticipation. Finally, he thought, he would be able to take Carjack Biofuels out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Biofuels
Asset Protection Force Headquarters

As might be expected in such a Machiavellian nation, General Carjack himself had his own deals going with MilIntel and others. It took a bit longer, mostly since Megatron had outbid for the best leakers, but the message finally arrived courtesy of a mole in Megatron Energon.

--Entirety of ME MSPF on the way. Ready up! Don't forget my 10,951 Cubes of Supreme.--

The strange figure mentioned wasn't just a price, but also, the identifier for the mole who had sent the message. This let them know instantly that it was one of their people who actually worked IN the ME MSPF - the Megatron Energon Market Share Protection Force. That meant that they were literally on the way, right now.

All over the Carjack corporate lands, alarms began to sound at full blast. Giant spotlights came on everywhere, except for in the buildings, which were left dark to help hide whether or not there were any threats inside. The slaves jumped up, hearts pounding, and now they could hear roaring jets coming in from all over. This noise was followed by massive clangs and a huge amount of revving. They didn't even have to look out the window to figure out that one hell of a war was imminent.

The remaining Megatronists looked at each other. Now's our chance, their expressions communicated. They waited near a window eagerly, hoping that soon, there would be enough chaos for them to make a break for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as the last cargo-bot was filled with oil, General Carjack got the message of the impending attack. His eyes turned like hot coals. They clearly didn't expect him to be able to get back in time to do anything about it!

"SURPRISE," the General growled as he put through the command to mind-transfer to his Spare back at the headhouse of the farming operation.

Just as the Market Share Protection Force began to arrive, there was an angry rev from the main greenhouse. With both blasters firing, Carjack announced his return, and the battle was on.

[Vallermoore]

Mining World #55


The dead slave would end up somewhere in the middle of the Neutral Realm, that was neither heavenly nor eternal punishment. Suicide was normally a major in in Megatronism, but he had done it to avoid humiliating and painful mutilation, a life of slavery, and worse in the afterlife and had no way of escape otherwise. One of the overseers was very surprised that a biological would kill himself with no chance of restoration.


******
The escaped slave decided to risk his life on the cargo-bot being a slave-if not, he would be blasted very quickly. Luckily for him, the cargo-bot was enslaved, and whilst he could send eye-camaras to see him, he could not blast or otherwise kill him unless he tried to damage the bot. He hated the feeling of the legs in his hold, but couldn't do anything as the virus mistook the escapee for property being sent to an owner. He had got enslaved after he installed one too many counterfeit games to save Energon.

Carjack Agriculture
Earth


Soon enough the Megatronist took a chance and arranged his own ransom money with the phone given to him by Carjack. Within days, Carjack assured him that if it were genuine and not a trap he would indeed free the Megatronist. If one didn't free someone in those circumstances sooner or later the news would get out and no more ransoms would be possible, ever. Soon enough he picked it up and it was indeed sweet light crude. However, someone snitched on where Carjack was to Megatron's Office. Megatron Energon and Carjack Biofuels were enemies and in peacetime often attacked each other, although it was not personal.

Carjack Biofuels

When the attack happened and the doglets fled in fear, the Megatronists made their move and escaped again, making their way into the crops past the fighting, blasting bots, their blessing kickiing in to help them even though they were escaping from the Decepticons themselves. Megatron had a less hard spot for the truely loyal. Meanwhile Carjack himself showed up in one of his regiment of spares with a furious rev of rage.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Carjack Biofuels

Normally, of course, narking would be treason and punished with death. However, according to law, none of the events that led to this battle were "narking" in the legal sense. Instead, they were instances of corporate espionage - and that was an entirely unregulated field as long as none of the spies were working for foreigners.

At this point, both parties involved had leaders who could legally call down their regiments to help them, but both also refrained from doing so. Having the actual military fight itself in a serious battle, rather than training, would obviously be very bad for unity and overall cohesion. Megatron and Carjack had agreed early on that the strength of the Nation must not be compromised to further their monopolistic goals for the Energon market.

~~~~~~~~~~

When General Carjack came out blasting, the opposing Market Share Protection Force figured they would still win. While the General had double-strength Mil-Spec Blasters on both arms, he was still just one guy - and unlike General Shockwave, he didn't have any form of artillery as his alt-mode. In fact, he even had big wings of the standard format, which they immediately took to trying to blow off, while many of the other generals had robot modes that did away with such giant targets.

Despite taking several blasts to the wings and one right to the chest, Carjack's armor held; and thanks to his general-class blasters, he was able to do devastating damage in return. However, it was clear that his Asset Protection Force was taking a lot of damage, and he didn't like how things were looking.

Suddenly, he hollered out what sounded like a gibberish string of Binary. The enemy side was confused, but instantly, all of the defenders ducked down. Behind them, large turrets shot up from hidden places in the ground. Barrels then stuck out from the upward-facing pillars, and in an instant, began firing energy beams at tremendous force. Anyone caught in the way of one of these artillery-level blasts was instantly deactivated, with the body being vaporized at the point of contact and severely scorched elsewhere.

In the background, the little dogs could still be heard yapping away from deep in the fields. They had backed off, but were not cowards who would fully cut and run. Instead, this breed was ridiculously brave, often even to its own detriment. However, even they had not noticed the few biologicals outside since they were looking at the giant battle instead.

"Did you really think there was any chance that I wouldn't have this place fortified like a base?!" Carjack taunted. A tone of being a bit irked was present, and he was indeed irked that his opponents apparently hadn't thought of that.

Just as the ME MSPF's remaining members were learning the pattern of the energy turrets, Carjack yelled out, "Florida's gonna Flor!" At this point, his Asset Protectioners all jumped up and ran backwards while continuing to fire at their foes. The MSPF considered doing the same, but in order to do that, they'd have to run AT this fusillade of blaster fire. They hesitated, sure that something very bad was about to come, yet not wanting to get their heads blown off in the process of trying to evacuate.

During this short pause, a quick sliding sound was heard. Immediately after, a giant sinkhole appeared. In the distance, another noise - very carefully situated giant fans - began to sound.

Just as the ones affected by the sinkhole fired their jets and flew out, an artificial hurricane arrived at Cat 4 force. Finally, the irrigation system kicked in to provide the accompanying water, but unlike a real hurricane, this blasted up from below. As the MSPF was trying to figure out how to deal with this, and getting blown back into the sinkhole in the process, the Asset Protection Force came back in for the attack with full gusto. Thanks to all of the chaos, wind, and the damage it had caused to the unprepared, the odds were now very firmly in Carjack Biofuels' favor.

It took several more minutes to completely wrap it up, but once the battle was done, Carjack yelled out another command and the artificial hurricane dissipated into a light breeze as the irrigation system shut down. Once the bodies of the deactivated were removed from the pre-dug "sinkhole," it would also close. Then, it'd just be a matter of shoveling more dirt over the trap and waiting until the next bunch of idiots tried to win.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After everything was cleared, it was time to assess the damages. A few of the biofuel stacks had been successfully blasted, lowering production capability. About 10 Asset Protection bodies lay deactivated. The entire opposing MSPF was down, but many of them were so damaged that the scrap value wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. "Not bad for such a huge attack," Carjack said.

Only later, after all of the obvious damage had been assessed and crews called in to work on the most critical items, did Carjack notice the open window in the slave barracks. He was both amused and irked at the same time - they at least had the gumption to go, but if too many had gone, he'd have trouble getting the current crop of black walnuts finished without having to do it himself like he usually did. While he could run a program to operate his body while mentally playing games just like the peasants on Cybertron would, he strongly preferred avoiding such menial work. He also didn't want to pay the exorbitant rates demanded by Decepticons to hire them, or even the 100,000-Cube cost of an enslaved one. As he thought of this, his mood got a little more sour about the situation.

After a quick check, he determined that several slaves were now missing. Still, he decided to look for them later. For now, he had left a body on a far-off planet, and he figured he'd better get back to it before someone decided to make it a trophy in their elite thief den, or even worse, sell it to a foundry like it was just junk!

Once he got his current body back into its storage location, he mind-transferred to the other body just as some ICC scouts were walking up to it. Their laughs and jokes turned to fearful bows once the Genocider's seemingly-deactivated body sprang to life! After confirming that his oil was safe by radioing his cargo-bots, though, the General just took off with only a nod. He clearly had more important matters to attend to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wholesale Raid Dropoff Point
Main Refinery Section, Cargo Zone

Just as the Commander of the Market Share Protection Force had predicted, Carjack's convoy of cargo-bots appeared at this location to sell the loot. However, due to the circumstances on Earth, these bots didn't advertise whose orders they were following. Instead, they came in unmarked except for their usual Decepticon Seals, and did the trade as if it was just some random syndicate's business. They also waited for each other so that the company employees wouldn't guess who they were connected with. This not only ensured that the rival company would be willing to trade, but helped to keep the prices more honest.

Once the last Cube was obtained, they all flew off in the direction of the Main Military Base. The Megatron Energon employees there, unaware of the hostilities their company had just been engaged in, wondered about the reason for the stealth, but didn't think much of it.

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At the base, Leader Megatron looked out his window at the returning group of cargo-bots, who all started showing their Genocider Seals as soon as they crossed the red line into military territory. "He DID have the gall to sell it to my company," he reasoned with a grunt. "Speaking of that, I wonder if I still have any competition?"

Megatron contacted DomIntel this time, and asked what they'd seen over at "that biofuel company." He was treated to a blandly-read, emotionless report of the recent events. "Total elimination of attackers; minor damage to defenders; 5 escaped slaves, scattered. One Military Asset, class 'General Body Version CA-1,' recovered and secure. Military Asset, class 'General Body Version CA-2,' also secure. No knowledge of current retaliatory plans." A more-detailed version, which included the artificial hurricane and sinkhole, was transmitted a bit later.

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Mining World #55

Since transporting cargo through space was far from cheap, the mine made sure to load up this bot with something before he left. The slave had to hide behind a pile of random boxes, there for a reason he did not know, but he managed to stay hidden as cartons upon cartons of countertop-sized marble slabs were loaded up around him. He could hear the grunting of the human workers, and in one case, even feel the breath of one - but none of them noticed his presence. Soon enough, the hold doors closed.

The enslavement virus, still mistaking him for livestock, automatically set the O2 tanks and heater going as the bot took off into space. This bot was really furious about the situation - not only could he not eject this biological or blast him, he was being shanghaied to fly him to freedom while the bot himself would remain a slave! Still, there was nothing he could do about it, and they were soon out of the pull of World #55's gravity.

Soon enough, the scorpion-person felt the massive increase in Gs as his unwilling transport's FTL kicked in. Only an hour later, he felt the reverse as they dropped back out of FTL and came into the gravitational field of another planet. The scorpion-person quickly looked for a better place to hide, and to his delight, found that the countertops in the boxes included small, vanity-sized ones at human scale. He quickly unloaded a box and jumped in, hiding the vanity tops behind some other box so the receivers wouldn't know which one they had come from.

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Domina Fascista
Loading/Unloading Docks

Non-sapient robotic arms, attached to tracked bases, automatically came up to the cargo-bot as he opened his hold doors. They mindlessly unloaded each box, including the few that had originally been present, and then picked up the unboxed vanity tops. All was silent except for the whirs of their servos and track motors. When the unloading was finished, the cargo-bot took off into the sky, but now, his engine sounded almost...happy?

The escapee wondered if the bot was happy that he was free, but this was actually wishful thinking. In reality, the cargo-bot had recognized where he was as he flew to the space port's warehouse area, and thought it would be a fitting end for this stowaway! He knew that here in Domina Fascista, the fact that the marble was mined by slaves was not a deterrent, but instead, a selling point. The Fascistas always preferred to support another regime that believed so firmly in the domination of 'lesser' beings, and owning a countertop made at one of the Decepticon mines was seen as a strong endorsement of their own nation's philosophy. Of course, they normally would only buy Domina Fascista products at all, but this nation owned no marble or quartz mines. The only way for them to get any upscale stone was to import it, so when they did, they made sure they weren't supporting any democratic or otherwise incompatible nations.

As the dock robots returned to their resting places, the escapee cautiously opened the lid of his box and looked around. He saw nothing but bright lights, endless rows of cargo boxes, and the five-pronged black-sun-like flag of Domina Fascista. Of course, he had no idea which nation or ideology the flag stood for, but the black printing of the main symbol, silvery-gray small rectangular background behind the symbol, and midnight-blue main background did not give the idea that country thought of itself as a place of peace and sunshine.