Huntress flew threw the dark stormy night.  The wind whipped threw her wings as she prodded threw the dense foliage.  Earlier, the wolverine/eagle spotted something crashing into the rainforest that she now was in.  Huntress knew that she had to find whatever it was before Bludgeon's troops did.

-------

Back at the Astroplex, Whisper and Snarl were hanging out at the small bar.  Quiron stared at the odd pair at the bar counter as he rubbed a glass clean.  Whisper uttered to herself worriedly, "I can't understand it, Huntress should have reported back here megacycles ago."

Snarl stared insensitive, "She can handle herself. Besides, she probably met some Pred's on the way.  Probably saw some action.  Man, would I like to get out of this base.  If I only could...Errr!"

"You don't understand!" Whisper complained, "She's in Pred territory. I also just discovered that our comlink system has been knocked ofline.  I'm sooo worried."

"Why don't you send Eclipse or Skysaber to look?" Quiron suggested. "They both know those parts as good as any of the Preds."

Whisper's eyes lit up with hope, "That's just what I'll do!  Thanks Quiron!" With that, she bounded out of the room, leaving Snarl behind with his mouth open and finger outstretched.

“Quiron,” Snarl snickered, “ I think that you know very well that Eclipse and Skysaber don’t like being interrupted.  Heh-heh-heh.  Whisper doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.”

-----

Alpha Hound stood silent in his room as he stared out the window.  He knew, too, that Huntress had been missing.  His main concern, though, was that the comlink transmiter was down.  Behind him, the door slid open as Prowl walked in.  "Alpha Hound, the comlink transmitter is in the process of being fixed.  Quiron just arrived to give it his best try.  It's amazing how Slewslander destroyed it with one of his missiles..."

"I hear Knio and him had an argument," Alpha Hound said, still staring out the window, "I think it was concerning the food Knio made..."

"Ha-ha! Knio’s always good for laughs,” Prowl became serious again. “Anyway, we got our backup transmitter on full power, but it still isn't as strong or sharp as the other one."

"Any word from Huntress?"

"No, sir." Prowl said sadly, "I'll let you know when we hear something."

"NO!  That's not good enough!" Alpha Hound shouted, finally showing emotion.  "I've seen lots of my friends die becuase of situations like this.  I won't let it happen again.  Gather a small team to find her."

"Yes, sir!"  With that, Prowl left into the open hallway.  He started to walk down it when he realized how few would volunteer for such a mission.  The storm would for have lowered the maximals' spirits for sure.

-------

Huntress continued flying through the dense tree line of the rainforest.  She had been travelling for a long time and did not know how far she had travelled.  One goal still stuck on her mind: to not let the fallen object fall into Bludgeon's hands!  Suddenly, she spotted a clearing ahead.  Smoke billowed out as a thin glow filtered throught the trees.  Huntress landed and stalked closer.  She peeked through the bushes. Huntress gasped as she saw a massive crater with a huge transformer lying in it!

"Why isn't it in a stasis pod?" Huntress whispered to no one.  She slipped closer to the creature.  He was slightly bigger than Alpha Hound and already had a beast mode, a dragon at that.  "Maximize!" She whispered to herself as she anticipated the whirring of gears that followed.  Now in robot mode, she stepped in front of it.  Steam rose from his heated metal.

Huntress turned on her comlink and spoke into it, "Huntress to base.  I have found a large transformer here in vector 5813.  It's a really odd one, actually, has no stasis pod."  She paused for an answer.  Static hissed endlessly.  Huntress tapped it again, "Huntress to base!"  More static insued.  "Slag!" She screamed, pounding the body of the transformer.

-----

Prowl stared at the few maximals he was able to gether for the rescue mission.  Standing before him were Snarl, Whisper, Riptide, Basin, Knio, and Slewslander.  It was a ragtag team, not exactly the best to have in times of trouble.  "Let's go!" He commanded as he transformed to beast mode and started to fly off.  The team looked at each other.  Basin shrugged and followed with the others.

-----

Rain continued to beat down on the Astroplex as Quiron stood on one of the landings on the outside.  He stared at a bundle of wires that he had to connect to the new transmitter's wires.  His finger opened up and a tool extracted out.

Inside, Scratchcap sat by the console, waiting for any form of transmission.  Whisper went on the rescue mission, so he had to help Quiron get the transmitter back on line.  Suddenly, he heard a bit of words break through a field of static.  He flicked on his walkie-talkie, "Quiron!  Don't do anything, I'm getting a message!"  Scratchcap hit the record button as Huntress' voice came on: "...In vector 5813..." The transmission suddenly died.  Franticly, Scratchcap called Quiron, "QUIRON!  You dope!  What did you do?  The transmission was getting through and then it suddenly died!"

"Sorry Scratchcap, that wasn't me.  Maybe one of the wires were still loose."

"Ugh!  Next time, make sure everythin's working before you let it sit!"

"But I-I-I..."

"Never mind! I think I got it working again." Scratchcap said as he shut off the walkie-talkie.  He waited a couple of moments.  The transmitter silently hissed away.  “Apparently, this transmitter doesn’t have as much of a range as our other one.”  He hit a couple of buttons and spoke into the microphone, "Prowl, Huntress may be in vector 5813!  Check it out!"

------

Prowl listened intently at Scratchcap's message.  He turned to his fellow maximals who lagged far behind.  "Let's hurry it up, huh?  We know where Huntress is!" Lots of groans answered him.  The rain really made the travelling hard.

Soon, they reached the entrance of the rainforest that Huntress entered.  Snarl let out a low whistle as he stared up at the intimidating trees.  Worriedness spread across Knio's face, "Knio not like this idea."

Riptide uttered, "Dito."

Basin and Whisper just stared as a thin fog started to drift in.  Prowl turned to them, "Alright, everyone. We've come a long way to find Huntress and we're going to find her.  She's somewhere in there and probably needs our help, are we going to let her down?"

"No?" Knio answered.

"Right!  We never let our comrades down in their time of need.  Now let's go in there and find her!"

The team's spirit lifted as they ran in the forest, yelling excitedly!

------

Huntress sat silently, waiting for someone to pick up her transmissions.  The massive transformer hadn't moved since she found him, and she was wondering if he ever will.

Prowl soon saw the crater with Huntress inside, beside a large transmetal dragon.  “Interesting,” he thought to himself.  The other maximals stood with him on the crater wall.

Prowl and the rest ran down to Huntress, glad to see her.  Snarl stayed back, glaring into the shadows, checking if there were any Pred’s lurking near by.

"Snrk! Wow!  He's huge!" Slewslander said as he saw the transformer.

"I'll say, " Huntress said, "I've been staring at him for the past two megacycles."

Prowl stared worriedly, "How're we going to move him?"

"Why do we have to move him?" Riptide asked.  "Why don't we just wake him up?"

"If he crashed here two megacycles ago and was not in a stasis pod, I doubt he'll ever wake up," Prowl looked at Snarl who still stood on the crater wall.  "Snarl!  Will you come down here and help us?"

Snarl ran down to them.

"What were you doing up there anyway?" Whisper asked.

"Just checking something out, girlie."

"Don't call me - "

"I know, I know...Let’s get this transformer movin’!"

-----

Bludgeon stared at the four blips on his screen. Loki was near, also staring.  "This is very unusual," Loki said.

Bludgeon continued to stare as the blips started to descend, "I'll say, four stasis pods coming down and no maximals leaving the base..."

Loki hit a switch, displaying the rescue team heading back, "These are the only ones outside the base, but as you can see, they're heading back.  Also, the other odd thing about these pods, is that they seem to have a magnetic link, so that they would come down together."

Bludgeon stared into his yellow eyes, "Where's the estimated drop zone?"

A computer voice came on, "The estimated drop zone is in Beta 96215467 to 96215470"

Satisfied, Bludgeon hit the intercom button on his chair.  A small screen decended, showing a small team of Preds playing cards.  A low growl of dissatisfaction rumbled through Bludgeon's throat.

The 4 blips continued their decent as Bludgeon spoke to the troops via intercom, "Flashfire, Millitant, Shaft, Tigershark!"

The troops suddenly dropped their cards and stood straight, saluting.  "Yes Commander Bludgeon?" They said in unison.

"I have a mission for you, a big one.  One that will require your best efforts."

------

Alpha Hound sat in front of the rescue team that had just returned.  His face was grim.  "Let me get this straight, you found a transformer WITHOUT a stasis pod?" He asked suspiciously.

Huntress was the first to speak.  "Yes, sir.  I think we can assume that he was not part of the Axalon's cargo."

Alpha Hound breathed a heavy sigh as rain continued to plummet down out the window.  "Prowl, what's your say in all this?"

"I think this transformer is of alien design.  He has no Maximal, Predacon, Autobot, or Decepticon symbol on him.  Wherever he's from, it's not Cybertron."

"Where's the transformer now?"

"He's in the haul with Swoop and Sonar.  They’re trying to get him back online."

Just then, Whisper walked in.  Alpha Hound and the team turned to her.  "Where've you been, "Alpha Hound asked her, "We've been having this meeting for almost a megacycle."

"That's way too much time to take an energon leak, lady," Snarl grinned to himself.

Ignoring Snarl, Whisper walked straight to her chair and sat down.  Riptide turned to her, "Is something wrong?"

"I've got good news and bad news, the good news is that we just got the transmissions and radar back online and to maximum."

"Snrk. Alright! snrk, snrk," Slewslander laughed happily.

"To no help from you," Knio shouted back.

"Quiet!" Alpha Hound screamed.  "Now, Whisper, what was it that you were saying."

"Thank you, sir.  As I was saying, we just got them back online, the bad news is that they picked up 4 stasis pods crashing to earth not far from where we found the transformer.  They crashed at Beta 96215468, about 2 microquads from where we found Huntress.  We would have been able to secure the area if we had the transmissions and radar working fine!" She screamed in frustration, glaring at Slewslander.

"Snrk, It wasn't my fault, snrk, snrk, it's Knio's" Slewslander yelled defensively.

"No! You the one who say that Knio food stink!"

"Snrk, it did!"

"You want to see who smart when Knio throw dead fish!"

"Enough!" Prowl interupted.  "What we need to do, Alpha Hound, is to send a group of flyers to the crash site. The Pred's would've gotten a good start ahead of us.  But what I know, is that there is also a river that runs near the area.  We could send Basin, Knio, Riptide, and Quiron through there, undetected by the Preds.  This way, Bludgeon's troops will be trapped from attacks from both sides, the flyers on one, the swimmers on the other.  Hopefully, this will cause the Predacon's to fall into confusion -"

"Breaking down their defenses." Alpha Hound finished.  "Very good plan, Prowl.  There’s one thing, though.  The Predacons would try to change them from maximals.  Quiron should go on the trip so that he can revert them back to maximals before they are activated.  Gather the teams together quickly and move out.  Bludgeon would have sent a large number of Predacons down there.  They will surely be a fair match for the team that we're sending.  Prowl, you should stay here and help us to revive the transformer. If we can get him up and on our side, than he can prove to be valuable weapon in the battle.  Meetings over, let's get this plan happening!"

To Be Continued...