Chapter 8

Xaraxus chuckled. "War Waitstate? You're just as bad as the Decepticons!"

"Your mind games won't work on me anymore!" Waitstate reached into subspace and pulled out a small handgun. He blasted Xaraxus in the side causing both to fall to the ground. Waitstate rubbed his neck and picked up his beamsabre. When he got up, Xaraxus was gone. "Coward!"

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The ship's alerts had been blaring for what seemed like hours. "It's not my fight anymore," Artifice thought to himself.

Artifice continued feverishly packing up his belongings. He knew he was acting rather brashly, but the way he saw it neither he nor Waitstate would ever change.

Artifice exited his quarters and eventually made his way back onto the spaceport looking for a shuttle. However, the station was in a bit of an uproar. He realized that the dealers would be doing their best to scalp their junked shuttles to desperate station goers.

"It's time for 'Plan B' I suppose." Artifice turned to walk back to the shuttle. Even though he had not covered much distance there was a big crowd between him and the air lock. "Not enough room to transform without risking hitting someone."

Artifice began forcing his way through the crowd. When he made it back to the air lock, he promptly closed it behind him.

"That'll make it easier for me!" Xaraxus shouted not wasting any time. He leapt at Artifice.

Artifice had no time to react. He fell to the ground helpless.

Xaraxus was no longer hiding his anger behind a sadistic smile. "Waitstate may have bested me this time, but he has no idea of my true power!"

Artifice tried to move, but Xaraxus was too strong. He felt a sharp unexplainable pain in his chest, and then lost consciousness.

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Drill Master drilled into Spectral Death's air lock and transformed into a missile platform as he exited. "Sorry Zrakkor, I've not been known to miss a target!" Scamp, Ruse, Amethyst, and Diamond Fire jumped out behind him and greatly increased the cannon fodder bombarding Zrakkor.

"Shall we Drill Master?" Diamond Fire asked as he readied her cannon.

"Yeah. Start the countdown Ruse" Drill Master replied.

Ruse smiled. "Five…four…three…two…one!"

While the count down completed, Drill Master unleashed all of his firepower on the badly beaten Zrakkor. He was forced to dis-engage.

"Spectral Death, retreat!" Cyron shouted. At his order, the badly battered bots did their best to re-enter the Doom Gaze. Rust, Hail, and Dominion provided the cover fire.

"We can't let them escape, this ends now!" Waitstate shouted as he jumped out of the ship.

Xaraxus came flying into the air lock in his jet mode. "Sorry to disappoint, but we're leaving."

While Xaraxus provided a distraction, Zip Zap was able to recover the Spectral Death members too injured to save themselves. The Doom Gaze backed out of the air lock without unlocking itself, causing the air lock to start falling apart.

"We've gotta get out of here, we'll follow them later!" Admiral Lilwall shouted.

"Slag! We had them, we so had them!" Shadowpaw yelled as he tried to make it to the air lock.

The energy field that prevented them from flying out into space was vastly weakened. Small objects began flying out of the portal.

Zip Zap and Xaraxus flew off after the Doom Gaze. Waitstate looked at them with deep thoughts. "They're scared, they may not show it, but they're scared."

Deadlift transformed into his forklift mode. "I'll get this door open, no problem!" He lifted the door open as effortlessly as he claimed. The LONAC bots quickly ran to safety.

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The space station was full of commotion. Due to Spectral Death's relentless pursuit of LONAC, it had become common place to Waitstate.

"Looks like we've been rather victorious today. We've all sustained considerably less damage than we usually do fighting Spectral Death" Slipstream said almost cheerfully as the crew arrived back at the LSS Freedom's air lock.

Ignoring the others, Waitstate pushed the button to open the air lock. He was disappointed at their loss, but little did he know he was in for a much bigger problem. To him, everything seemed to be in slow motion from that point on. The airlock door opened ever so slowly. When it fully opened, the seemingly lifeless corpse of Artifice fell to the station's floor.