Shane Freak
patreon
Chapter 631: Terindad Island
🕑 Added 2023-09-24 11:05:28 +0000 UTCTransformers Begin : Table of Content/Chapter List
XXX-----XXX-----XXX-----XXX
Terindad Island, a volcanic island located in the South Atlantic Ocean.
It falls under Brazil's jurisdiction, but it's over 1,100 kilometers away from mainland Brazil, with an area of just around ten square kilometers.
The island has no permanent residents, only a rotating team of Brazilian Navy soldiers on duty.
Until this year, including the dilapidated Oceans station established by the Brazilian Navy on the island, Terindad Island has maintained a year-round population of around thirty people, making it an extremely desolate island.
Terindad Island is covered in numerous lava domes and steep mountains, with the highest peak reaching an elevation of 620 meters.
For humans, it is an island with no resources, scarce freshwater, and entirely reliant on regular supplies from Brazilian Navy transport ships. Apart from expanding territorial and economic waters, it serves no other purpose.
But for the Decepticons, this island is simply magnificent.
The unique composition of the volcanic island results in the surrounding waters being filled with hidden reefs, except for a safe inlet blasted open by the Brazilian Navy. This inlet serves to periodically replenish supplies for the stationed soldiers on the island, while over eighty percent of the area surrounding the island is off-limits to ships.
The island's steep cliffs and numerous caves make it ideal for concealment.
Sun Cheng didn't fully trust Swindle, so he didn't entertain the idea of taking him directly back to Base Two.
A long time ago, Sun Cheng obtained a metal plate with stored information from a Pathfinder elder who called himself the "Beast General," acquired from Lop Nur. The descriptions of Lord Fallen by this "Onyx Prime," one of the Thirteen Primes, did not align with Sun Cheng's understanding.
However, just the fact that the Beast General referred to him as Megatronus Prime indicated that Megatronus Prime had recently fallen.
Ordinary Cybertronians would display devout humility when facing a Primus, which was understandable. Sun Cheng's initial knowledge of Lord Fallen came from the records on the metal plate left by the "Beast General."
According to the Beast General, long before antiquity, the Thirteen Primes repelled an "Invader from the Universe," although he didn't provide detailed information. Among the Thirteen Primes, Liege Maximo was the first to fall.
He continuously manipulated the relationships among the Thirteen Primes and ultimately drove the then-undfallen Megatronus Prime into opposition, even challenging him to a life-and-death duel.
In the duel, Megatronus Prime accidentally killed Solus Prime, his lover, and this clearly deeply affected him. He willingly gave up his weapon, the Requiem Blaster, and exiled himself. Under the custody of the other six Primes, he embarked on a journey to hunt down Liege Maximo.
During this process, Megatronus Prime's guilt over killing his lover and his longing for Solus Prime drove him to the brink of madness.
They eventually followed Liege Maximo's lure to ancient Earth, where Megatronus Prime attempted to use the unique abilities of the Requiem Blaster to create the Stellar Extraction Tower, intending to destroy the sun and create a more powerful All Spark to resurrect Solus Prime.
This proposal and demand were met with resolute rejection by the other six Primes.
In anger, self-blame, and resentment, Megatronus Prime ultimately fell from grace.
He took the name Lord Fallen and, by unknown means, reclaimed the Requiem Blaster he had once abandoned, even stealing the Leadership Module from the other Primes.
A vicious battle among the Primes erupted on ancient Earth.
The six Primes paid a heavy price but ultimately wrested the Leadership Module from Lord Fallen once again.
Beast General was one of the Pathfinders who followed one of the Thirteen Primes, Onyx Prime, and was one of the first to arrive on Earth. He suffered severe injuries during the great battle of the seven Primes and remained dormant until he woke up at an unknown time.
Later, in his search for possible surviving members of his race on Earth, Beast General explored many places on the planet.
Unfortunately, aside from some traces left behind by Pathfinders who had come to Earth in the past, he had only encountered some wicked and belligerent Decepticons.
In the final stages of his life, Beast General had found something he referred to as "a treasure even coveted by the Primes themselves."
Sun Cheng was extremely curious about what this treasure could be.
For that reason, he had been investigating relentlessly.
Fortunately, although Beast General hadn't left detailed coordinates for the location of this item on the metal plate, he had provided a fairly detailed description of its hiding place.
A long time ago, Sun Cheng had learned that this treasure was hidden on an island, specifically a volcanic one.
However, underwater volcanic eruptions were one of the primary ways islands formed on Earth, so there were not just a few, but thousands of volcanic islands on the planet.
With no other choice, Sun Cheng had gone to great lengths to obtain detailed satellite maps of Earth.
Initially, the base launched several satellites, with most of them being high-resolution Earth exploration satellites, except for two designed for emergency communication for intelligence personnel.
Because Sun Cheng had too many tasks to handle, he hadn't focused all his energy on the treasure hunt. Instead, he had tasked the intelligent computer at Base Two, named Teletraan, with the job of sifting through the vast amount of high-definition maps obtained from the satellites to identify islands that matched the conditions described by Beast General.
Teletraan did not disappoint. After several months of meticulous data comparisons involving tens of millions of high-definition maps of islands, one island that closely matched Beast General's description had finally been singled out: Terindad Island.
Sun Cheng had learned about this discovery more than two months ago.
Subsequently, he had dispatched a Decepticon engineer along with a team of laborers and a substantial number of robots to land on Terindad Island and conduct a detailed survey and search.
As for the Brazilian Navy soldiers stationed on the island, nobody cared about them.
A Brazilian Navy platoon typically consisted of 21 personnel, and the soldiers stationed on Terindad Island made up one such platoon.
Most of their time was spent in a relatively small barracks near the southeast coast.
Life on the island was quite Spartan, with minimal facilities and virtually no road infrastructure.
Brazil had enjoyed many years of peace, and although it had territorial conflicts with some neighboring countries in South America, Terindad Island was not within the conflict zone.
Based on the information gathered by Yuri and his team, the Brazilian Navy soldiers sent to this island for duty were mostly troublemakers who had offended their superiors during their service or had committed various offenses. In plain terms, they were sent here to endure hardships.
The information gathered by the engineers' released drones during the island investigation also supported this notion.
Supplies were delivered to the island only once every two weeks, and occasionally, delays due to weather conditions left the stationed soldiers on the island with insufficient fresh water and provisions.
As a result, the primary duties of the naval soldiers stationed on Terindad Island were not patrolling the island but rather manufacturing freshwater using a distillation system and fishing in the sea.
As for the Oceans station, which also belonged to the Navy, it had been established in the 1950s. Due to the harsh living conditions on the island, the Oceans station was only operational for about three to four months each year. Additionally, with routine maintenance factored in, it had a staff of only three to four individuals.
So, Sun Cheng and his team took control of Terindad Island with confidence and established a small base there.
[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, without ads and support the work.]
XXX-----XXX-----XXX-----XXX
Next Chapter >>Chapter 632: Depths of the Magma (Part 1)
