Pain and Servitude

Chapter 21

His digits stilled upon the keyboard, the sounds of clicking buttons fading as Blurr listened intently, angling his swept-back helm this way and that. When silence fell upon the dimly lit room, undisturbed, he glanced around just to be sure, switching to infrared just to be sure. The only life forms he could detect were still the two guards stationed outside the room and they hadn't budged from their spots. There weren't even glitchmice here anywhere! This building was too important to the council to be infested by such vermin. Sighing, he rubbed at his temples, feeling the ache build up in his processor. He hated this, as if the war hadn't been enough, now they had to fight again. But this time, they had to oppose their own people.

The archive thankfully provided more information on the decepticon warship that any other outlets they've found up until this point. It would seem that the Autobots were going to use it as a trophy, no surprise there really, they'd all guessed that. Eventually the Nemesis would become a museum, there were some plans alluding to that. Most likely to further instill their propaganda upon the young population of Cybertron. But those plans were put on hold for the duration of the 'lost decepticons' crisis. That meant that they hadn't had time to properly remove the Nemesis's defenses. Good. They still had a few of the ship's weapons in their arsenal then. Not all of them, naturally, since they still needed a size able portion of fuel for making their way to the closest planet and couldn't afford to waste it all on a defense that would keep the autobots at bay only temporarily. The good news was that the council decided to use the warship as a short-term prison for the slaves. That spoke of several things. First of all, it meant that the Nemesis was still in good enough condition to act as a secure location. Second of all, that meant that since Iacon was still being rebuilt, not surprising, it was a lengthy process, there were no other less conspicuous as of yet to shelter the decepticons for the unstable period. That gave them some time before the council was finally able to relocate the captives. Third of all, it gave them the perfect opportunity to escape without having to orchestrate several break outs. But there were of course drawbacks as well. The decepticons were all grouped up in one place, meaning that the security would be unbelievable and they'd have quite the struggle on their hands, one that right now had at least an 80% chance of failure and consequent capture. It also meant the possibility of meeting some members of Team Prime on board, if not all of them. While the current Elite Guard was inexperienced and thus easier to overcome, the members of Prime's squad were far from it. The only one who had even a remote chance of keeping Optimus at bay was Megatron, but given his current condition..

It would be months before the former warlord would show physical signs of carrying, so it would not hinder him much as of right now, but he was severely weakened after all the time he spent in captivity. Blurr didn't know the full extent of what had gone down in Iacon prison, but thanks to Soundwave's very obvious panic attack, he had a pretty good idea. The decepticons weren't just malnourished and left injured. They were tortured, mentally, physically.. perhaps even sexually as well. Maybe not all of them, but Shockwave and Soundwave for certain. Blurr had encountered the decepticon scientist a few times during the war and Shockwave had never been short of impassive. But looking at his behavior now, he'd become so different. Compassionate, caring.. afraid. As if the trauma from the first empurata they'd performed on him wasn't enough, the council was actually going to make a repeat attempt if it weren't for Ratchet's interference. It was enough to shake Shockwave to the very core, to suffer almost every night from nightmares. Ratchet had used to comfort him, staying by his side with warm energon and a welcoming field, but he wasn't there anymore. Which only drove the scientist to work even harder on getting them all out of there, tinkering with whatever he could scavenge in an attempt to make additional weapons since they had no chances of successfully storming the Nemesis without additional help. Four mechs against a small army. The very idea was laughable.