"We're here."
T-19 stopped at a door at the end of the corridor. He punched in a code.
Hiss.
The door slid open, revealing a room that felt less like a factory and more like a biological horror movie.
Rows of metal racks lined the walls. Suspended from them were translucent, organic-looking sacs. Inside each sac, a dark, spindly shape writhed in embryonic fluid.
T-20, T-21, and the others were already there, moving between the racks with syringes of blue liquid.
"This is the Hatchery," T-19 explained with pride. "Lord Starscream's most important project."
Nathan stared at the writhing sacs.
Hatchlings.
He recognized them immediately. In Revenge of the Fallen, the Decepticon ship The Nemesis was full of these things.
Starscream is growing an army.
"These are clones," T-19 continued. "Lord Starscream injected our genetic code into Protoforms. They are... our children, in a way."
Your children? Nathan suppressed a shudder. More like your xerox copies.
"We have to feed them Energon every cycle, or they starve," T-19 said, handing Nathan a large injector gun filled with glowing blue liquid.
"Here. This rack is yours."
Nathan took the feeder. "Understood."
He watched T-19 walk away.
So, my first combat mission is... babysitting.
Starscream leaves the base to hunt for god-tier artifacts, and I'm stuck here playing nursemaid to a bunch of slime-covered gremlins.
Nathan approached his assigned rack. There were nine sacs. Inside one, a small, skeletal Decepticon face pressed against the membrane, its optics dark.
He injected the Energon. The sac pulsed, and the hatchling spasmed, absorbing the nutrient.
This technology... it's definitely from The Fallen.
Only The Fallen used this kind of bio-mechanical breeding. The fact that Starscream was using it confirmed their alliance.
"If these hatchlings survive," Nathan thought, "they will be mindless drones. Cannon fodder for the invasion."
"But looking at them... they don't look healthy."
...
Two Days Later.
"Another failure."
Nathan watched as one of the sacs on his rack turned gray and began to leak.
The hatchling inside had stopped moving. Its spark—or rather, its weak proto-spark—had flickered out.
SPLAT.
The sac ruptured, dropping the lifeless, half-formed metal skeleton onto the grating.
Nathan sighed. He picked up the corpse with a pair of tongs and dropped it into the disposal chute.
This was the fourth one he'd lost in two days. The other drones were having similar results. The floor was slick with failed experiments.
"Genetic rejection," T-19 had explained earlier, repeating what Starscream told him.
"These Protoforms were stolen from the Autobots. Their base code fights our Decepticon programming. Only the strong survive."
Stolen Autobot frames forced to mutate into Decepticons.
No wonder the failure rate is 50%.
Nathan looked at the remaining five sacs on his rack.
Survival of the fittest.
While he worked, he covertly watched the other drones.
Scalpel said one of you has a sabotaged chip.
One of you has free will.
But which one?
T-19 was a sycophant. T-20 was a brute. T-21 was silent. T-23, T-24, T-25... they all acted like perfect soldiers.
Maybe the rogue unit knows how to act, just like me.
Or maybe... the rogue unit was T-18.
If T-18 was the rogue, and he died on the operating table, then Scalpel's plan was dead before it started. And Nathan was the only "free" agent left.
Either way, Nathan thought, injecting another dose of Energon. I need to get out of this nursery.
I have a map to a spider ship. I have a rocket launcher. And I'm stuck here wiping slime off the floor.
Just then, the base comms crackled.
[ ALERT: PERIMETER BREACH SECTOR 4 ]
[ UNIT T-19, T-22: INVESTIGATE ]
Nathan's optics flared.
Finally.
He dropped the feeder.
"Let's roll."