During the rest of the day, the Terrans and Autobots raced to prepare themselves for the oncoming assault.  The Terrans managed to get their Mobile Command unit into the base, along with all the heavy weaponry and the combat walkers.  It was a little cramped, but the Autobots were too busy to care.  They were readying the defenses, manning the walls and scouting the area.  It was late by the time the scouts came back in, and the news they brought was far from good.

     “Motormaster is on the move.” Air Raid reported after coming back.  “He’s a good seventy clicks outside of the perimeter, and he’s pushing his men pretty hard.  They look like they’ll arrive some time early tomorrow.”  Finished with his report, he hurried out of Ironhide’s office and off to the energon stores, leaving Ironhide alone.  For a few moments, he stared at the holotank he had had installed, so that he could keep track of the enemy’s movements from his office.

     “He’s coming,” Ironhide muttered, “and he’s not going to stop.  Until he’s satisfied that whoever killed Dead End is one piece of very cold Slag.”  An odd little piece of slang, he thought to himself.  He couldn’t help thinking of the Dinobots whenever he used it.  Absently, he wondered just how Slag’s name had become a byword for trouble.

     But there was no time for that now.  Leaning forward, he studied the map, trying to think of any flaws in his logic.  It looked sound enough, and he hoped to Primus that it was.  Now, all he had to do was wait.

     “I’m glad you could all make it.” Optimus said, taking his seat.  He was at the head of a rectangular table, with Grimlock on his right and Prowl on his left.  Also at the table were Kup, Ultra Magnus, Wheeljack and Silverbolt.  Behind him was a large display screen, though it was dark at the moment.  Each Autobot knew what was going on in the area around Viridia to an extent, but only Optimus and Grimlock knew how bad it really was.  Of course, that was about to change.

     “As you all know, tensions have been mounting between ourselves and the Decepticons, and between the Terrans and the Decepticons.  And you all saw Motormaster’s little publicity stunt concerning Punch?”  They nodded, and he continued.  “Well, yesterday, elements of the Autobot garrison force entered Viridia and rescued Punch.”  There were shocked gasps around the table, as none of this information had been made public yet.  “Furthermore, during the rescue mission, the force was required to construct a diversion, which took the form of an attack on Viridia.  They were careful to avoid killing enemy troops unless absolutely necessary, but the situation eventually reached that state.  In order to protect his comrades, Warpath opened fire on the Stunticons, obliterating Dead End.”  This time, there was no audible sign of surprise.  Everyone was too shocked, instead, especially Silverbolt.  There was a certain connection between members of a gestalt team, and it was hard for non-gestalts to understand.  Nevertheless, everyone knew how that event would affect Motormaster.

     “At roughly 1300 hours yesterday, Motormaster assembled a force consisting of all the troops he could find in Viridia, and is currently heading towards the the Terran/Autobot encampment.  We expect him to arrive sometime early tomorrow morning, and attack immediately.”  Optimus leaned back, in his chair slightly, before he resumed speaking.  “All the information you will require is in the packages in front of you.”  Everyone except Grimlock and Optimus immediately opened the packets, withdrew the data disks and input them into the personal viewers each seat was equipped with.  Optimus waited until they were all finished before speaking again.  “Now, I want to know how you think this will affect the rest of the planet.”

     “I think it’s pretty obvious, sir.” Ultra Magnus said, placing his hands on the table.  “This could easily pull us into another civil war, and I think that that is exactly what will happen.  We should prepare troops along the border, and begin to fortify our positions in the city-states.”

     “Agreed.” Prowl said.  “Whether or not the rest of the Decepticon Council agrees with Motormaster, they will have to support him now.  A split in the face of impending war would make them look too weak.”  It surprised Optimus that Prowl had given thought to political considerations.  Always before, he had been more security oriented, focused on the actual nuts and bolts of his operations.  Optimus was glad to see that he was expanding his skills.

     “However, we are overlooking one very serious problem.” Silverbolt said, finally getting into this planning session.  “The Decepticons possess five fully functional warships orbiting Cybertron right now.  If they want to, they can simply obliterate us from space, and never have to risk a signal trooper.”

     “True,” Kup replied, “but that would mean the loss of the cities themselves.  There’s a lot of machinery and infrastructure here that would take them decades to rebuild.  No, they’ll try to limit the damage they do to the cities if they can.”  The old warrior leaned back, going over the data disk once again, making sure he hadn’t missed anything.  “Prime, there’s just one thing I want to know.”

     “What is it, Kup?” Optimus asked, curious.  He had thought that the recording would have answered all the questions, but it seemed that it hadn’t.

     “Where’s Soundwave in all of this?”

     As a matter of fact, Soundwave wasn’t involved in the frantic actions on the planet below.  Right now, he was aboard the Gladiator, accelerating out of the spacedock.  Though, in the context of starship movement, the term accelerating might be a bit too liberal.  His ship was actually moving quite slowly and carefully, as Soundwave was wary of accidentally clipping off a piece of the dock.

     “Time to clear spacedock?” he asked, looking over at Astrotrain.  The triple-changer was seated ahead and a little to the left of Soundwave at the pilot’s station.  His fingers danced over the control panel, making minute adjustments to the battlecruiser as it cleared it’s moorings.

     “We’ll be out in approximately three minutes, commander.” Astrotrain replied.  Soundwave had originally been a little wary of placing him on his bridge crew, but it seemed that Astrotrain was competent enough both to do the job and stay on Soundwave’s good side.  Which was important, because Soundwave was not about to let untrustworthy Decepticons onto his starships.

     “Signal the Conquest and the Assail.  We will cross the terminus in exactly five hours, placing us above the enemy encampment at the correct time.  Once we have achieved stable orbit, all batteries will open fire.” Soundwave ordered.  Working quickly, Crankcase sent the message to the other two ships.

     “Message sent and acknowledged, sir.” Crankcase said after a few moments.  “Conquest and Assail report that they are underway.”

     “Excellent.” Soundwave said, leaning back in his chair.  From the arm of his seat, he picked up a small data pad, and proceeded to type in several commands.  The display he received was a small circle, representing Cybertron, and several triangular shapes.  There were two green ones, representing the Terran ships, and six red ones, for the Decepticons.  The Autobots, having no warships, had never been assigned a color.  Three small, dotted lines traced the paths of his warships, each coming together in the designated area.  Inputting several more commands, he transferred the image back to the spacedock, to a secure computer terminal in his office.  He knew that there was someone back there that would be very interested in what was happening.

     In the background, Soundwave could hear the traditional hubbub of a starship in action; bots talking into comm lines, talking with each other, the click of keyboards.  Below that, he could feel the vibration of the massive engines required to move something this large, the decks humming slightly to themselves.

     “Status of the Terran vessels?” he asked after several moments of relative silence.  Without looking up, Battletrap replied “Terran vessels are maintaining their position, orbiting the far side of the second moon.  They do not seem to be aware of us.”

     “How long until we are out of their intercept range?” Soundwave asked.  Though the Terran vessels couldn’t hope to stand up to his trio of ships, they could slow him down and damage them considerably, ruining his strategy.

     “In approximately twenty three minutes, we will be too close to the target for them to intercept us in time.” Battletrap answered.  The Duocon was rather bored; there wasn’t much for a sensor-tech to do on a run like this.  Still, he supposed he should be happy just to be allowed on this ship.  It was a mark of how much Soundwave trusted him that he had allowed Battletrap up here.

     “Hm.” Soundwave muttered.  “Maintain course and heading.” he said, turning back to the data pad on the arm of his chair.  Even now, he could not break free of the demands of his personal empire.

     “Sir, we’ve got something.”  Onboard the Terran battlecruiser Saratoga, Commodore Ross was startled from his thoughts by the sound of Chief Senosr Tech Harkness.  Rotating his chair to face the sensor tech’s station, Ross leaned forward.  “What kind of something, Chief?” he asked.

     “Not sure.  We’re having a little trouble refining the image.  Solar radiation is interfering with our scans, and the shadow of the moon isn’t helping any.”  Harkness leaned forward over his console, as though he could will the sensor resolution to improve.  However, it remained stubbornly hazy, leaving Harkness unable to brief his Commodore on what he had seen.  “Sir, I’m afraid that the moon is proving to be an unexpected source of trouble.  We seem to be unable to transmit properly around it, and so we can’t get any good readings from our probes.”

     “Very well.”  Ross swiveled his chair again, returning it to it’s traditional, forward facing setting.  “Mr. Smith, would you please take us around the moon.  Best possible speed, but there’s no need to tax the engines.”  Smith nodded, keying up main engines.  The ship shuddered slightly as it started to move, it’s engines releasing massive amounts of power to move the battlecruiser.  Slowly, the ship edged it’s way around the Transformer satellite, emerging into the light of Cybertron’s sun.

     “Refining sensor data, sir.” Harkness said.  “Sir!”  It was obvious that, whatever he had seen, it was bad.  “Three Decepticon vessels are moving.  Their projected course will take them directly overhead of our forces’ location.”

     “Mr. Smith, full speed.  Intercept those ships now!” Ross bellowed.  The whole bridge sprang to life, the possibility of combat setting people into motion.  Ross only hoped he could make it in time.