Chapter Text
Elizabeth hadn't planned to be on the run from the Decepticon Empire with a group of fellow outlaws, but sometimes that's just the way things worked out.
She was not pleased. Mostly because the people she was stuck with did not have their shit together, and she was on a tight schedule. That in and of itself would have been a big enough problem. Tack onto it the fact that they were being pursued by a relentless bounty hunter, and you had on your hands a Very Bad Day. And the hunter was gaining ground fast.
In all the years she had been stealing interplanetary secrets, information, and—if she were feeling generous or had fallen on hard times—money, she had never been caught. Suspected, sure. Classified a dangerous criminal and forbidden to return to certain quadrants of space, of course. But never caught.
But with these fools she was with, that streak seemed to be coming to an abrupt end.
"Turn there! Turn here, dammit! YOU IDIOT, YOU MISSED IT!"
"I swear to the Creator, Hera, if you don't get your damn hands off of me—!"
"Well, maybe if you’d actually do as I say! We could have lost him in the asteroid field!"
“Yeah, if this was fucking Star Wars.”
Fitz turned around just as Hera decided to pummel Kelvin for his lack of ship maneuvering. "Warp drive's still on the fritz. And if we don't hustle, we'll be in range of his cannons soon."
"Fucking perfect," Kelvin grumbled, slapping the ship's steering wheel with a meaty hand. Craning around in his seat, he pinned Elizabeth with the same disapproving glare he had no matter the situation. "What's the word, new girl? You know this sector, right?"
"Fairly well," Elizabeth hedged with a secret smile as she typed hurriedly on a comm. "We're about to pass a moon, but keep going. It's uninhabited. The planet it's orbiting, however..."
"Got it," Kelvin said as he gunned the engine.
Their ship, the Trinity, gave a protesting whine as it was pushed to run harder and faster than its age typically allowed. But desperate times and all that. Their choice was between either risking frying the engine or getting shot in the back. Fortunately, there was a third option: make it to the inhabitable planet and find some immediate cover before either could occur.
Behind them, their pursuer opened fire, no doubt knowing exactly what their plan was. Judging from the precision of his shots—which only narrowly missed, thanks to Kelvin’s maneuverings—it didn’t seem like he was too concerned with apprehending them alive.
Elizabeth tightened her jaw. That just wouldn’t do. If she really were about to get caught, she’d prefer it to be alive. You couldn’t fight back and escape if you were already dead.
They entered the planet’s atmosphere at an alarming rate. How they didn’t burn up on entry was impressive enough, and Elizabeth could only attribute it to the Trinity’s shields, unreliable though they tended to be.
Coming up fast before them was an expansive and clear blue ocean. Kelvin banked the ship up nowhere near the last second; if he had, they would have been more likely to crash, and then the bounty hunter really would have a bunch of corpses to take back. But because of the Trinity’s limitations, their pursuer gained valuable ground, his turns much sharper and controlled than theirs were.
Elizabeth braced herself, waiting for the shot that would inevitably come.
Except it didn’t.
She jerked around and watched in disbelief at the screen Fitz was studying, the very one which showed that their bounty hunter was backing off.
“What the…” Fitz was muttering, then his body tensed, and he whipped his head to Elizabeth, opening his mouth to shout a warning.
Only it was Kelvin that shouted, and it was far too late. A shot ripped into the Trinity, coming not from behind them but from the front, shattering straight through their shields. Hera tackled Kelvin from his seat as sparks and fire erupted chaotically along the dash, warning horns blaring that the engine had finally overheated, they were losing fuel, and—oh, yeah—they were on a collision course.
At least there was land ahead.
As smoke entered their compact space, Elizabeth covered her mouth with her shirt and braced for impact as best as she could.
Even with restraints, she was jostled harshly as the ship skidded along the ground and slid several feet, taking trees and who knew what else with it. Glass shattered, metal crunched, and the fire spread. Without intensive repairs, the Trinity would never fly again.
Fitz helped Elizabeth out of her restraints, relatively as unharmed as she was. Hera and Kelvin weren’t so lucky, having been preoccupied with helping each other than saving themselves. Hera had been tossed into the ship’s frame, barely missing the flames. With the glass, it was a different story, and she hosted a series of cuts along her face and down her bare arms. Kelvin, on the other hand, was out cold.
Together, the team scrambled to hoist Kelvin up and carry him out of the ship. The goal was to get away from the potential time bomb that was the spreading fire and the engine fuel as well as to elude their attackers. For now they knew their enemies consisted of more than just the one bounty hunter.
They did not get far.
Elizabeth stumbled out of the ship first, fighting back coughs and failing. She tried to scout out the area as best she could, though her coughing and the smoke rising from their ship made surveillance difficult. As if through a long tunnel, she picked up the sounds of shouts and a foreign language.
It seemed their crash had disturbed the natives.
She swiveled around once, twice, but she couldn’t pick out where their assailants were or, more frightening still, who they were.
Fitz and Hera emerged from the ship, Kelvin hoisted up between them. His head was bobbing slightly, indicating a return to consciousness, but it was coming too slow. They needed to be ready to run at any second.
Elizabeth knew it was out of the question to suggest leaving him behind.
“Well,” Hera said, impatient but with a hitch to her voice that betrayed her fear, “where are they?”
“I don’t—” Elizabeth never got the chance to finish.
They heard them before they saw them. It was a disturbance of pressure in the air that sounded more constant and unyielding than thunder. And as it approached, the sound was much louder as well.
They came from the east, having looped around to return to the crash sight. Two airships, identical in every feature except for their colors. One was green, the other blue.
Fitz, though lean in frame, hoisted his laser gun in his hand with all the determination of a dog that had been kicked and was ready to exact revenge.
“Let’s see what these bad boys are made of,” he bit out, taking the attack rather personally.
“What if they’ve got a crew with them?” Elizabeth asked, clenching her own weapon tight.
“Then we fight through them, too.”
Elizabeth prepared herself for the worst as the ships neared, but as they slowed, something happened to prove to her that her perspective of what could be classified as “the worst” was laughably unimaginative.
Instead of landing, the ships did something that real ships weren’t capable of doing. In midair, they twisted in unison, a revolution of dancing metal and screeching dissonance. When they landed, they weren’t ships any longer.
Elizabeth watched alongside her band of vagrants with wide eyes, each of them realizing by the matching brand on each giant robotic being to whom their enemies belonged.
You’d have to travel to the outreaches of known space to find someone who didn’t recognize the symbol of the Decepticon Empire.
“Doesn’t look like they need a crew,” Hera muttered. She kept trying to shake and slap Kelvin awake faster, and it seemed to be working. He was beginning to curse and ward off her blows.
“But what the hell are Cybertronians—Decepticon bounty hunters, even—doing coming after us?” Fitz asked, eyeing their newest member with newfound suspicion.
Elizabeth knew the exact reason why they would be here, but she was still surprised. She hadn’t expected them to react and come after her so soon. And to have been found so quickly…
A distant memory stirred, one involving a robot without a face or voice, one who seemed to see and hear everything in spite—or perhaps because of—those limitations. His security measures had been the tightest and most arduous to bypass, both in regards to the mission and any other mission she’d previously been tasked with. She thought she had gotten in and out undetected, but now she knew she was wrong. He had heard. He had seen.
And he had sent a few friends to retrieve her and the information she still carried.
Her gun felt useless in her hands as she stared at the hulking beings. Running sounded more and more appealing by the second.
That was, until, the blue-colored robot rose from his crouching position and looked up.
She didn’t know how he’d done it with just a single gesture, didn’t know why it happened, but meeting his glowing, red optics caused something within herself to stir. Restlessly.
And suddenly getting caught didn’t seem like such a scary, end-of-the-world thing.
Elizabeth holstered her gun and, without looking at her companions, said, “Go.”
Hera looked at her like she’d grown a tail. “What?”
“They’re after me, not you.” At least that’s what Elizabeth thought. Perhaps her temporary crew had put themselves under the Decepticon radar before she met them. But also perhaps not. “I can buy you guys some time, but you need to start running now.”
Hera’s argument was half-hearted while Fitz remained stonily silent. It was a groggy-sounded but independently upright Kelvin who got the ball running.
“Do as she says.” He held an unsure hand to his head, but his tone was nothing but certain. “If she wants to make a final stand, let her. As for us, we need to go.”
Elizabeth didn’t watch as they left her, skirting around the wreckage of their ship to rush towards the safety of the trees. She didn’t take their ready abandonment personally. They hadn’t exactly been friends. Instead, she marched forward, taking note that the green Decepticon was already stalking in the direction her ex-comrades had fled. Fortunately, she would intercept him.
She couldn’t help but notice how the blue Decepticon remained still and merely watched her.
Holding her hands up in surrender, she marched forward and stopped in the line of the green Con’s path. Either he’d stop or he’d step on her.
Mercifully, he stopped, looking down at her with contempt.
“Well, officers,” she said, stretching the word out mockingly. “Congratulations. You caught me. I hope it was worth it. Though sending two hunters for a single mark seems a bit much.”
“Where did your fellow rebels go, human?” the green Con demanded severely, as if daring Elizabeth to speak anything but the immediate answer to his question.
“Been doing your research on me, huh.” She smiled and shrugged. “And I don’t know about rebels, but those other idiots piloting the ship went crazy and ran, I hope.”
The Con sneered down at her then turned to his blue companion, who Elizabeth could see was identical to the green Con in everything but color scheme, just the same as their airborne modes were.
“Dreadwing, continue the hunt.”
“With pleasure, brother.”
During the exchange, brief though it was, Elizabeth learned a series of important points. The first was that the dashing bot blue was named Dreadwing, and it was a name that was indescribably befitting. The second was that his voice was as deep as she’d hoped and even more assertive and confident than she’d imagined. The third was that the green bot was his brother, and the fourth—and perhaps most important—point was that the robot she was intrigued by was about to leave her with the other robot that she was decidedly not on board with and who she had just succeeding in pissing off.
Just as rapidly, Elizabeth recalled a key fact about the hunter who had initially chased them. The ship’s color scheme had been green. Which meant the one who had shot them down had been…
“You’re the one that shot us down. Dreadwing, is it?” Elizabeth wasn’t hard of hearing; she’d just really wanted to say his name aloud, test it on her tongue. “I hope if you’re the one who’s going to do all the work on this little hunt that you’ll keep all of the reward money. Even if Green Machine over here is your brother.”
The green Con’s response was a piercing blade as he leaned down to pin her with his stare. “Prisoners should learn when it is prudent to speak and when it is best to hold their tongue. I assure you, by the time you reach Kaon, you will have learned that valuable lesson.”
“But,” Dreadwing interjected, neither pleased nor displeased with the current conversation at hand. “The mark has a fair point, Skyquake. You don’t want to have come all this way without demonstrating the full power of Lord Megatron’s perfect law yourself, do you?”
The green Con, now identified as Skyquake, seemed to think on Dreadwing’s words. Soon, he straightened.
“Indeed, you’re right. It has been a while since I truly stretched my wings and enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. Watch the human, Dreadwing. I shall return with the others, alive or otherwise.”
In a smooth transformation that took seconds, Skyquake took to the air in a blast of power and wind. Elizabeth flung up an arm, covering her face from the heat that rushed from his engine before he left them rapidly behind.
When she lowered her arm, she was smiling. “Ah, alone at last.” She turned around to face her captor. “I do so love it when things go my—whoa!”
Elizabeth staggered back the second she noticed the sword Dreadwing was holding in his left hand, a wickedly sharp, wide blade he hadn’t been holding before. And he was pointing it right at her.
This must be what a fly felt like when it was up against a fly swatter. It was terribly unfair and just short of ridiculous. All the same, Elizabeth felt charmed at the sight.
This feeling worsened when he began to speak.
“Elizabeth Palmer. Alias: the Extractor. Your only option for remaining alive relies upon your immediate and unconditional surrender. Otherwise, I will kill you, extract the information you have stolen, and present both it and your organic corpse to Lord Megatron. Do you understand?”
Elizabeth raised her arms in surrender as he was speaking, indicating that she had no intentions of fighting back physically. She schooled her features to take his words seriously, which honestly confused her. Dreadwing was deadly serious, and she wouldn’t stand a chance if he decided to terminate her. There was no question of that. So why did she so badly want to smile?
“Yeah, sounds good,” she said in response to his question before scrunching her nose in distaste. “Although, I was never really fond of that name. The Extractor. Not very flashy. But, alas, Black Mamba and Quartermaster were already taken.”
Dreadwing, however, was not listening. He had just received an internal transmission from Skyquake.
The rebels have commandeered another vessel and are piloting it off world. I am in pursuit. Continue on to Cybertron with the thief. I will meet you at the capital with the other prey.
Dreadwing sent back a single word. Understood.
Elizabeth was surprised when Dreadwing suddenly sheathed his sword then stooped down to trap her in one hand. Her arms were free and she squirmed, automatically rebelling against the tight squeeze he had her in. She stopped when she noticed his other hand coming towards her.
In a burst of rationality, uneasiness seized her in a tighter grip than Dreadwing’s own. “What are you—?”
A small bit of metal flew from between his fingertips seemingly of its own accord and came to snap around her wrists, resizing itself around them both in a cruel pinch. Handcuffs. Fantastic. She knew that tugging against them would be just as pointless as her previous attempts against his hand had been, but she tried anyway.
“So out of curiosity,” she said, straining against her bonds to no avail, “what precisely are you capturing me for? And what’s Megatron offering you in exchange?”
Dreadwing’s stern voice was a steady and distracting vibration. “You are under arrest for daring to commit cyberattacks against the Decepticon Empire. It is as simple as that.”
He’d ignored her other question, and Elizabeth decided to let it go for now.
“I bet it doesn’t help my case that I succeeded in those attacks, does it?”
Dreadwing’s brows turned down in contempt. “Neither will your arrogance, thief.” He spit out the last word as if it were a thing too disgusting to contemplate.
“I prefer the terms information broker or freelancer,” she said flippantly, meeting his crimson optics with a challenge in her own. “I’m an activist for the free acquisition of uncensored information. A hacktivist, if you will.”
"You are a thief and a degenerate, and that is exactly how you will be treated."
His tone was angry, and she expected his body to react in anger against her as well, perhaps have his hand squeeze her into silence. But other than the ire in his words, he maintained strict control over himself, and she was impressed. It gave her the courage to say what she was about to say next.
"Sure do know all the right things to say to a girl," Elizabeth quipped back smartly as a coy smile settled on her lips. "But while we're doling out compliments, allow me to say: authority in a man is so attractive. You’re really getting my blood going, handsome."
Dreadwing couldn't be sure if she was joking or not. All the same, it was better to stamp out any wayward thoughts this human criminal might be harboring.
With a sneer to match Skyquake’s, he said, "Cease your prattle. I am not even of your species."
Master of his own emotions though he was, Dreadwing couldn't help the sense of, well, dread that fell over him when his captive's only response was an airy laugh. Even when he transformed into his alt-mode—the thief secure in his cockpit—she didn’t seem the slightest bit shaken. If anything, her interest and confidence only seemed to grow.
It was going to be a long flight back to Cybertron.