The Monster of Kaon (Transformers Si): Chapter 19

In a starship floating in the void between star systems, the noise of heavy materials being moved around rang out along with the clanking of metal striking metal.

“Keep moving you little shits! unless you want to become spare parts for the crew or sustenance for our pets”

The cruel bot standing on a podium lashed out with a blast of his rifle towards one of the slower organics below the podium, one among many who shared the same fate.

The blast of energy barely grazed the body of the insectoid creature that clicked in distress and pain but did not dare to even lower the massive cargo placed on its back, for it did not wish to die like the many prisoners before it who rebelled against their captors.

Among the large group of prisoners who were forced to do meaningless labor just for the sake of pushing their bodies to exhaustion, there exited many different species.

Some of them, were clearly mechanical life originating from Cybertron and its various colonies, while the others were organic races of various forms.

The bot on the top, with wings and a body that held ancient Cybertronian markings, sneered at the injured organic before squarely pointing his blaster at it.

“Keep moving, or die, insect.”

The sheer fright of its impending death forced the creature to stand stock still, unable to do anything but stare with its four beady eyes full of terror at its impending doom.

Thankfully, this would not be the day it met its end as a Bot behind it forced it to keep walking, using her arms to push the insectoid forward and making sure to keep her head low lest the monster on the podium see it as disrespectful and kill her and the insectoid on the spot like he loved to do.

The Cybertronian on the podium, the spy and enforcer of this band of monsters, Famine, grinned savagely as he saw this, knowing that this defiant femme had finally learned her place and no longer dared to look him in the eye after he gave her his ‘tender’ care personally over the past few years.

But his thoughts could not be further from the truth as the defiant fire within the femme’s optics was just as bright as always, however, after the many torture sessions, she had learned to hide her defiance and plans better than before.

Soon, after hours of useless work, the prisoners were allowed to go back to their holding cells with meager supplies of Energon for the Cybertronian life, barely enough to keep them alive, and a slop of organic matter for the organic life, just enough to satiate their body’s needs but not enough to fill their stomach.

It was only in the safety of these prison cells, which was an ironic statement in itself, that the femme allowed herself to speak freely since this old experimental ship from Cybertron from before the war did not have any cameras pointed at the cells.

With a tired sigh, she collapsed against the walls, dearly missing the feeling of wind on her faceplate of the thrill of a proper race.

Silently, another bot collapsed by her side, his form while similarly mechanical to herself, was made entirely out of different kinds of junk, or at least, things that looked like junk, clearly indicating his homeworld.

“….Did you succeed?”

The bot shook his head and made a few noises that the femme was able to translate thanks to spending many years in this place.

“No. Sandstorm is still patrolling the corridors like always and Famine is always keeping an eye on our section of the ship. They may be useless scrapheaps but they are still pretty thorough in their own, horrific, way.”

The words said by the bot with his voicebox torn out made the femme slum in defeat.

“That was our last shot, Crank, it was a stroke of luck that we managed to find an intact quantum communicator on this junk of a ship. But now, no one will know where to find us-“

The bot from Junkion, Crankfist, made a motion and a few noises.

“I did not fail entirely, Override. While I did not manage to contact any of the colonies, or any other force out there that could help us, I did manage to throw out a distress signal on a loop with the live coordinates of this ship being updated every second. As long as no one discovers that the communicators and hailing systems were tampered with, which is nearly impossible thanks to our resident cripple being used as the very computing system of this ship, someone should come to check out the source. If we are lucky, it would be someone capable of fighting these monsters.”

Override, the former leader of Velocitron, sighed at his words and leaned against Crankfist who looked at the floor sadly.

“Hopefully, you are right. I, I no longer want to avenge our worlds. I just want to escape. I just, can't take this anymore.”

Crankfist wanted to comfort his dear friend, but he too felt the same way as her. He too had long since lost the ambition of avenging his destroyed home and the extinction of his people, the ambition to take back the artifact of the Primes that had kept Junkion intact for countless millennia, the very same artifact that these monsters now used to pull entire worlds out of their orbits for the sake of gaining more slave worlds for themselves.

If it was just Famine, Sandstorm, and their atrocious leader, Thundertron, then Crankfist was confident that with the help of his friend and the other Cybertronians, they could rebel against these three and escape their fate.

However, it was the real leader of the Star Seekers who terrified everyone and practically demolished the confidence of all the prisoners.

How could they hope to defeat a monster strong enough to tear apart a Combiner with his bare hands? How could they hope to defy a being that held advanced weapons from before the fall of Cybertron?

How could they penetrate the shield that he wields? One that is made with ancient technology now lost to time? A shield that took the full barrage of an armada of warships armed with decently powerful weapon systems even by Cybertronian standards and came out unscathed?

With despair filling his mind with these thoughts, the bot slowly let himself enter stasis alongside his friend to conserve their Energon.

They still had an entire cycle of useless manual labor in front of them and it would not do for them to run out of Energon during that work.

Who knows? If Famine really gets annoyed, he really might tear them apart and use their bodies for spare parts.

Just like he did to Silverbolt.

The poor bot that was one of the original crew of this vessel that that Star Seekers appropriated was defiant to the end, standing tall against the monster known as Fortress.

Yet, all he got for his stalwart and noble nature was a blast of Energon cannons straight to his limbs, turning him into a cripple that is now being used as nothing more than a power source for the prison cells and their containment fields, as well as the main navigational, and auxiliary computing systems with his brain module, slaved to the ship’s main systems.

With those terror-filled thoughts, he finally allowed himself to fall into stasis.