Read Online Transformers: Retribution by David J. Williams, Mark Williams - Free Book Online

“It would do you no good.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Because you have no moral compass. You are a sociopath, Shockwave. It sickens me that Cybertron has passed into your custody.”
    Shockwave looked amused. “Now we see your true colors, Alpha Trion. You sit in your archives and pretend that you are above all this, yet you cannot hide your contempt for me.”
    “Can it really be said I ever tried?”
    “You are pathetic. You and your fellow Primes could have ruled the cosmos, yet you fell out over trivialities.”
    Alpha Trion shook his head. “What divided us was anything but trivial.”
    “When we Decepticons gain such power, we will not make the same mistakes.”
    “You’re already making them.”
    “Clarify that,” Shockwave said.
    “Megatron entrusted you to rule this planet, yet no sooner had he left than you began plotting to make yourself his master.”
    Shockwave looked genuinely affronted. “I am his loyal servant.”
    “Did Megatron not give you orders I was to be left alone until his return?”
    “I could no longer ignore the aid and comfort you have been furnishing to the Autobot cause. Why, just last week the Wreckers destroyed another of my laboratories.”
    “I have had no contact with the Wreckers since they left Iacon.”
    “But you
have
had contact with Optimus Prime.”
    Alpha Trion said nothing.
    Shockwave stepped closer. “Oh, don’t think I’m not aware you sent a courier to him. As well as a cargo. Fragments of the Blades of Time. Do you deny it?”
    “I merely acted as I had to.”
    “And so I had to take you into custody.”
    “But you mean to go further than that,” Alpha Trion said.
    “Because science demands it.”
    “What you call science is really just a craving to play god.”
    “You
were
a god once, Alpha Trion. The Thirteen together acted as such. And then you threw it away.”
    “And if you have any sense, you will leave it where it fell.”
    “Now, that is something I can never do,” Shockwave said. He pressed a button. There was a whirring noise, and the floor began to descend. The room was one large elevator; Iacon’s skyline quickly slid from view. But the interior walls of each level were transparent, and through them Alpha Trion could see sights he would have preferred not to see. In one room an Autobot hung from the ceiling while a clawed machine pulled him apart. In another an Autobot was slowly dissolving as acid dripped over him. And in still another, a bot that looked half Autobot and half Decepticon was battering its head against the wall in a way that suggested it was anything but sane. The sights got even worse as the room reached the bottom of the tower and dropped down through subterranean levels.
    “You are a monster,” Alpha Trion said.
    “I passed beyond labels a long time ago,” said Shockwave. “All that interests me now is results. You contain within you the knowledge of the ancients. It is churlish to deny that power to we who must dwell in the desolation of today.” The last of the levels was left behind as the elevator accelerated seamlessly toward supersonic speeds. They were in a maglev chute now, plunging ever farther downward.
    “I know where you are taking me,” said Alpha Trion.
    “I would expect nothing less.”
    “You should not do this.”
    “And why is that?”
    “Because you are meddling with forces far beyond your understanding.”
    “Do not presume to set limits on my understanding,” Shockwave replied.
    After several more minutes, the room halted. The doors opened onto a huge underground chamber whose ceiling vaulted upward like a cathedral. The far wall was covered with dials and instruments arranged around a glowing orb that seemed to grow out of the wall itself. If it had been possible for Shockwave to smile, he would have.
    “Welcome to Vector Sigma,” he said.

Chapter Nine
    M EGATRON STORMED ONTO THE BRIDGE OF THE
N EMESIS
and dismissed the Decepticon guards with a wave of his hand. Even though his