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Chapter 698: Prowl
🕑 Added 2023-10-07 07:32:00 +0000 UTCTransformers Begin : Table of Content/Chapter List
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The wreckage of Sentinel Prime's spaceship lay nestled within an impact crater, just like Earth's vigilant satellite, the Moon.
Throughout the eons, the Moon had dutifully shielded Earth from most malicious cosmic visitors, and the price paid for this protection was evident in the countless meteorite impact craters that covered its surface.
As Bumblebee drew closer to the crash site of Sentinel Prime's spaceship, a sense of familiarity washed over him. He cautiously advanced while reminiscing, soon realizing why he felt so at home.
A short distance from the impact crater, the United States of America flag came into view, alongside remnants left behind by the Apollo Moon Program. It all clicked for Bumblebee.
"No wonder this place feels familiar; the spaceship crashed right near the spot where Earthlings first set foot on the Moon..."
However, Bumblebee's expression quickly soured as he advanced only a few hundred meters ahead and spotted a relatively small impact crater.
At the bottom of the crater lay a spaceship that was all too familiar to every Autobot, silently resting there.
"Hope-class... It really is a Hope-class..."
The Hope-class was a small transport spaceship designed and built by the Autobots during the Second Civil War. The prolonged conflict with the Decepticons had taken a severe toll on the Autobots.
As the Second Civil War progressed, with more and more territories falling under Decepticon control, the Autobots found themselves incapable of constructing larger Ark-class spaceships, despite the fact that the Ark was only a medium-sized transport spaceship even during the Council of Primes era.
One crucial reason the Decepticons had managed to overpower the Autobots during the Civil War was their devastating exploitation of controlled territories' resources. They cared little for the post-victory habitability of Cybertron, from Megatron to the Skytiger Legion, all Decepticons had a single-minded goal: annihilate the Autobots first, deal with everything else later.
In contrast, the Autobots had a significant number of dissenters, even when it came to destructive resource exploitation, especially during Sentinel Prime's brutal suppression of dissidents.
Without his ruthless suppression, the Autobots might have been utterly defeated by the Decepticons even before the end of the First Civil War. Due to the numerous Autobots who opposed destructive mining, the resources they could access were far less than what the Decepticons controlled.
To address this, Sentinel Prime had to allocate resources to allow scientists like Jack to design and build several medium-sized transport spaceships, similar to the Explorer-class ships from the Council of Primes era. These ships were used to transport supplies from nearby satellites and other colonized planets.
Although the resources obtained this way were far less than what the Decepticons extracted from Cybertron, the transportation costs were prohibitively high.
However, there were advantages. Under the control of Sentinel Prime, Autobot territories were spared the destructive resource exploitation suffered under the Skytiger Legion. These areas remained suitable for Cybertronians to inhabit.
Unfortunately, the balance of victory did not shift in favor of the Autobots due to environmental gains. Megatron's ruthless methods ultimately won him victory after victory.
With the construction of the Decepticon terror vessel, the Retribution Number, Autobot transport spaceships were systematically attacked and destroyed in outer space.
To ensure their resource supply routes were not completely cut off by the Decepticons, under Sentinel Prime's orders, Jack, a prominent Autobot scientist, led a group of technical experts.
These Autobot scientists designed and built a small transport spaceship capable of carrying around a thousand tons of resources. It was faster and more cost-effective. The first spaceship, placed with great hope by the Autobots, was named Hope-class, and subsequent spaceships in this series were referred to as Hope-class Small Transport Spaceships.
As the Second Civil War neared its end, the Skytiger Legion had conquered all Autobot-controlled territories, except for the capital, Iron Fortress.
Before the brutal Iron Fortress defense battle was to take place, the former Autobot leader, Sentinel Prime, announced his abdication and elevated his student, Optimus Prime, to the position of new leader.
Meanwhile, Sentinel Prime himself took on an important and perilous mission. He led a few trusted guards and piloted the Hope-class spaceship to transport hundreds of Energon Cubes stored in the Iron Fortress energy warehouse to the satellites.
Those hundreds of Energon Cubes were the Autobots' last reserve and their hope for a future counterattack on Cybertron.
At that time, the Autobots had lost complete air superiority due to consecutive defeats, making this transport plan not only risky but also extremely perilous.
Bumblebee was merely an intelligence officer and not part of the Autobot high command, so he had no idea why the top brass of the Autobots had agreed to this seemingly unreliable proposal.
The final outcome had become painfully clear: Sentinel Prime and the Hope-class Spaceship loaded with Energon Cubes had barely taken off before they were intercepted by the Decepticon Aerial Combat unit, which held absolute air superiority. Ultimately, an intense explosion in the sky spelled the end, and they were never heard from again.
Initially, all Autobots believed that he and the Hope-class spaceship had been destroyed, even blown to bits by the Decepticon aerial forces.
However, a century later, the spaceship that all Autobots had deemed destroyed or even exploded was discovered crashed on a distant moon several light-years away.
"Something's not right!"
In an instant, Bumblebee, who had spent years navigating the frontlines as an intelligence officer, realized that something was amiss.
He swiftly drew his weapon and cautiously approached the impact crater, remaining vigilant. His first instinct was that this might be a trap designed by Frenzy and the Decepticons.
As an Autobot intelligence officer, it was challenging for him to trust the Decepticons, and even now, all Autobots, including Optimus Prime, could only avoid hostility when dealing with Frenzy.
The deep-seated animosity between the Decepticons and Autobots, forged over millions of years of conflict and opposition, couldn't be easily overcome with a few words.
Slowly, step by step, he made his way toward the spaceship. Although he didn't sense any Decepticon electromagnetic signals nearby, the special materials used in the crashed spaceship could dampen the detection of electromagnetic waves.
So, if someone was hiding inside the crashed spaceship, they could still catch him off guard.
The impact crater wasn't large, and despite his slow and cautious progress, Bumblebee soon arrived at the front of the spaceship.
Looking at the dust-covered wreckage, which appeared to have been left untouched for at least several decades, Bumblebee's vigilance began to wane.
He holstered his weapon and leaped onto the ship's hull, preparing to enter through a breach.
Suddenly, a brilliant blue arc flashed out from the spaceship, striking Bumblebee's mechanical body and causing him to convulse and fall to the ground.
In the split second before he lost consciousness, a black-and-white figure, vaguely familiar, approached him.
Before Bumblebee could get a clear look at the figure, his vision went black, and he lost all consciousness.
The scene shifted, showing a black-and-white mechanical warrior walking slowly to Bumblebee's side. To his surprise, it was Prowl, an Autobot who had been missing for over a month.
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Next Chapter >>Chapter 699: Deceitful Machinations (Part 1)
