By the time Verdant finished reprogramming the Decepticon mainframe to suit her new teammates, Ratchet and Wheeljack had repaired the groundbridge, and Ultra Magnus had come up with a plan for assaulting the Decepticon citadel.
The entire plan hinged on whether or not they could disable the Decepticons' fusion cannons. The massive blasters attached to Darkmount made it impossible for human armed forces to assault the building and take it down.
It had been suggested that Verdant could hack into them and disable them, but the idea was shot down. She would require some kind of link to Darkmount, but the Harbinger was so old and Darkmount was so new, that there was no chance of using the tech to access anything more than their comm frequencies.
On the bright side, those radio waves weren't entirely useless. Verdant found an audio file of a vehicon calling for backup and sent it over the channel to Decepticon Command, giving them the impression that a mine was under attack. This, in addition to another distraction created by using Miko and Jack's cell phones, should mean that Darkmount won't have as many soldiers available when they launched the attack.
All of that was simply a distraction. Commander Magnus already had an entire labyrinth of plans for what each Autobot ground would do. Everyone was split in groups of two, aside from himself. Simultaneous attacks on Darkmount itself would distract them from Ultra Magnus—who the Decepticons didn't even know was on the planet.
His job was the take down the cannons. If he failed, Wheeljack and Bulkhead were to take his place, because they were outside and Verdant could instruct Magnus's ship's autopilot to pick them up and take them to the cannons. Arcee and Bumblebee were plan c.
Regardless of how it was done, Agent Fowler and his fleet of human bombers would descend on Darkmount the moment the cannons were disabled, and they would, as Agent Fowler put it, 'put on a fireworks display that would make Uncle Sam proud.'
Apparently that was human jargon for a very big explosion.
But the plan started to fall apart before Agent Fowler even had the chance to make Uncle Sam proud.
"We're taking heavy fire!" Arcee shouted into the comms. "If they circle in from behind—oh frag."
Bulkhead activated his comms moments later. "Shockwave's here!"
Verdant's optics turned white as she controlled Ultra Magnus's ship from afar, redirecting it from where it was firing uselessly at Arcee and Bumblebee's position and flying it over to the wreckers. Heat sensors gave Verdant little warning as Shockwave fired a massive blast at it before she could even engage the weapons systems.
She swerved, managing to avoid the blast hitting a thruster. Instead, it hit the underside of the deck and threw the ship off of its equilibrium, spinning out of control.
From beside her, Ratchet was frantically typing, trying in vain to break through the Decepticon shields and send a groundbridge to Arcee and Bumblebee, despite him being the one to point out that such an endeavor would be hopeless. He was desperate and had no way of helping the others.
Verdant felt truly sorry for him, but didn't offer any consoling words. She was still controlling Ultra Magnus's ship and the wreckers needed her help. They were taking fire from above and from Shockwave.
At least they'd already gotten rid of the dra– predacon.
"Magnus how are you doing?" Verdant demanded.
"Ugh, down," was the response she got. "Megatron. Plan B."
"The wreckers are occupied and Arcee and Bumblebee are pinned," Verdant told him. "We can't–"
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Going Green
Fanfiction"I'm not Soundwave." Ever since the destruction of her home, Verdant had spent her life as a loyal Autobot soldier. She was Ultra Magnus's third in command, and the most renowned intelligence officer in the Autobots. She was of the same frame-ty...
