Chapter 10

Waitstate passed Deadlift on his way to the bridge. “How’s Artifice?” he asked.

“Not good at all” Waitstate said passing Deadlift almost as if he didn’t see him.

“Jeeze Twitch, we scored big against Spectral Death and he still seems a little down. I suppose I’d be the same way though if I lost such a close friend,” Deadlift said to his little companion.

On his way up to the bridge, Waitstate stopped to look at what seemed to be an oddity on the wall. It was a plain and simply LONAC symbol. “I don’t recall that being there before.”

Waitstate started to look a little closer at it, but was interrupted by the ship’s red alert.

“What’s going on?” Waitstate asked the bridge via his internal communicator. There was no response. “Hello? Damn comm must have been damaged in the battle.”

Waitstate walked to a near by console. He activated it, and Cuff’s visage appeared on the screen.

“Seems my internal comm is busted. What’s going on Cuffs?” Waitstate asked.

“We left the station so fast and went to man our stations without doing a security sweep,” Cuffs reported.

“And?” Waitstate asked.

“Well, along with our security fields being down, it seems we’ve got two intruders on the ship” Cuffs replied.

Unbeknownst to Waitstate, the seemingly harmless LONAC symbol he passed began to move, stretching the wall with it. Slowly but surely, a figure started to take shape.

“What is their location?” Waitstate asked.

Cuffs pushed a few buttons on his console. “Actually, one of them is--”

A blast to the comm unit’s screen cut off the transmision. Waitstate turned around as quickly as he could.

“Toom!” Waitstate shouted as he quickly dodged another blast from Toom’s cannon.

“Aaaaaah!” Toom shouted as he moved towards Waitstate.

Toom clenched his fist together and tried to pound Waitstate. However, the smaller and more agile LONAC bot was much too fast.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that!” Waitstate shouted back as he activated his beamsabre.

Waitstate slashed at Toom, cutting the side of Toom’s left leg. Angered, Toom swung at him. Waitstate ducked, causing Toom to hit the wall, placing a rather large dent in it.

“A little too slow again!” Waitstate shouted has he slashed at Toom’s gut.

Toom yelled and swung at Waitstate again. This time, his punch hit Waitstate cleanly, sending him to the wall. Waitstate’s beamsabre was out of reach, but Waitstate was in too much pain as it were.

“Heh, don’t suppose you want to just give up and turn yourself in” Waitstate replied sarcastically. Toom picked him up and slammed him against a wall. “All brawn and no brains, a winning combination. You must be one of Xaraxus’ favorite toys. He probably keeps you in a cage and throws energon cubes through the bars at feeding time.”

Toom looked very confused. “Aaaah!”

Before Waitstate could make another remark, a missile hit Toom in the side. Waitstate and Toom both went flying against the corridor’s door.

“Looks like I got here none too soon” Recoil replied as he transformed into his robot mode.

Waitstate opened up the door and waved for Recoil to follow him. “Thanks. We’d better get out of here before he wakes up.”

Recoil followed Waitstate. Toom woke up and tried to grab the two, but the door shut before they could even noticed him.

Recoil spoke into his comm. “I need all corridors closed off, I want to make this as hard for the intruders as possible.”

“Tell them to slow down pursuit of the Doom Gaze. I’m not going to let these intruders fester on our ship while we try to engage in battle” Waitstate told Recoil. “I’m not going to have them divide our attention.”

“Slipstream tells me that you’re playing into their hands” Recoil told Waitstate.

“Perhaps, but I’ve got a trick or two myself” Waitstate replied.