Bella was not afraid of The Fallen. She roughly knew what he could do, while he knew nothing about her. That was an advantage.
She was only worried that she could not carry the Autobots through this. Carry all four Autobots by herself? Better leave that difficult job to Optimus Prime!
"Let's go rescue Optimus Prime! This Fallen guy you're talking about seems to be looking for something in Egypt. He's been searching quietly for a long time already. If we delay a little longer, he probably still won't find it. Let's rescue Optimus Prime first."
Bella explained her plan. It was also the Autobots' tried-and-true routine after all these years. Can't beat the Decepticons? Deploy Optimus Prime! Too many enemies? Deploy Optimus Prime! Optimus Prime died from exhaustion? Revive Optimus Prime, then deploy Optimus Prime!
Old methods were often good methods.
Once they learned there was hope of rescuing their leader, the Autobots immediately abandoned their earlier idea of fighting a major battle with the Decepticons.
But where was Optimus Prime? Bella had originally had no clue. After seeing The Fallen, however, the new clue filled in some of the missing information, and the Cauldron of the Cosmos quickly showed her the barren surface of a world.
"This definitely isn't Earth. Where is this? Can any of you tell? Optimus Prime should be on this world." She spoke with complete confidence.
Bella did not know enough astronomy, and the Cauldron of the Cosmos could not connect to Weyland-Yutani satellites to transmit data, so she could not compare environmental information. She could only ask the more knowledgeable Autobots.
Ironhide specialized in combat and shook his head to show that he did not know. Jazz and Ratchet discussed it for a while, then each projected a holographic star map and began comparing and calculating. They soon identified the location.
Ratchet said, "This should be a moon of the planet you call Saturn. Its sixth moon."
Saturn VI? Bella froze for two seconds. What kind of world was Saturn VI? In the Marvel universe, it had a far more illustrious name: Titan! It was the home of the Eternals and the birthplace of Thanos.
Thanos looked old, but he really was not that old. Strictly speaking, he was even a little younger than Thor and Loki.
Thanos was roughly a thousand years old. He left Titan at eighteen, spent eighty years as an interstellar pirate, eventually returned to Titan and slaughtered his own people, then left the Solar System.
Do the math. That was nine hundred years ago.
The Fallen could have used the Eternals' remaining structures on the world as an outpost, then imprisoned Optimus Prime there and quietly come to Earth to search for the Matrix of Leadership. It made sense.
Titan was not particularly dangerous at present, but getting there was a problem.
Earth was fairly close to Mars, only 70 million kilometers (about 43.5 million miles) away, but Saturn was much farther: 1.2 billion kilometers (about 745.6 million miles)!
After learning that humanity would still fail to leave the Solar System in the future, Bella began taking Weyland-Yutani's space travel program much more seriously. Vast resources were poured into it regardless of cost, and development had gone very smoothly.
Several technologies related to faster-than-light engines had made major progress. Anyone could understand the importance of leaving Earth and the Solar System, and Bella understood even better what it would mean for Earth to possess spacecraft of its own.
Worlds like Patrick Star and Pandora were simply too far away, but several planets within the Solar System could be explored. Weyland-Yutani's spacecraft program had always remained far ahead of those of the other aerospace companies.
Bella used her own connections and Charlie's to consolidate resources. Large numbers of scientists joined the research into spacecraft engines, and even Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four was pulled in to help.
The Tachyon Propulsion Chamber copied from a Cybertronian spacecraft still had not been fully understood. Many of its materials simply did not exist on Earth. The technology was too far ahead of current human science. The spacecraft could not achieve warp propulsion, but the high-speed Plasma Propulsion Engine had been completed.
At present, Weyland-Yutani spacecraft could travel within the Solar System without trouble. They could reach Neptune in one week, covering roughly 1 billion kilometers (about 621.4 million miles) per day. That sounded fast, but in reality it was nowhere near enough.
The distance between the Sun and Neptune was 6 billion kilometers (about 3.73 billion miles). That radius of 6 billion kilometers roughly covered the region where the Solar System's planets moved, but the planets occupied only a tiny portion of the Solar System. Farther out, a region extending roughly 15 trillion kilometers (about 9.32 trillion miles) still belonged to the Solar System. Six billion kilometers versus fifteen trillion kilometers—just how large was the difference between those two numbers?
The Solar System's diameter was 15 trillion kilometers (about 9.32 trillion miles). A light-year was 9.4 trillion kilometers (about 5.84 trillion miles), so the Solar System's diameter was equivalent to 1.5 light-years.
How long would humanity need to leave the Solar System? Using America's newest spacecraft, traveling one light-year would take 95,848 years. Even a god could die of old age waiting! A Weyland-Yutani spacecraft would still need 15,000 days to leave the Solar System, which meant forty-one years!
Interstellar travel was completely unrealistic right now, but travel between several planets in the Solar System was already sufficient.
The Autobots planned to take a spacecraft there. Bella hesitated for a while, then decided to use Teleportation after all!
Teleportation carried uncertainty because they had no idea what conditions were like on Titan. If they dropped straight into an enemy encirclement, they would be in serious trouble.
A spacecraft was relatively safe. Even if the enemy attacked, we would still have time to turn around and run.
However, considering that they had already alerted the enemy, Bella worried the Decepticons might kill Optimus Prime ahead of schedule, so she prepared to take some risks.
She could not open the portal at home. If Titan carried some pathogen or parasite that reached Earth and caused a catastrophe, she'd be the one to blame.
She and several Autobots hurried to one of Weyland-Yutani's secret research facilities and opened the portal inside a fully sterilized room.
"Go! Go, go! Hurry! Move!" At her repeated urging, Ironhide raised his two huge guns and charged through the portal first, followed by Jazz and Ratchet, with Bella, wearing the Cloak of Levitation, bringing up the rear.
The teleportation target was somewhat imprecise, and Bella did not know what conditions awaited them on the other side. Fortunately, the ambush she had feared never appeared.
Titan was the second-largest moon in the Solar System. Its diameter was forty percent of Earth's, making it quite a large moon.
Jazz, Ironhide, and Ratchet formed a triangle. All three raised their guns and vigilantly watched their surroundings.
Only after receiving the all-clear did Bella come over.
"What the hell!" Even with Environment Adaptation Magic active and her body much stronger than before, Bella was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of methane that filled the moon.
This stuff was basically fuel gas. Any open flame could set it off in an explosion!
Ratchet began scanning the nearby environment. Normally, they would not need this step. He was checking now mainly for Bella, who stood beside them.
"Ninety-eight percent of the atmosphere here is nitrogen. Can you survive in this environment?" Ratchet asked.
Bella rolled her eyes inwardly. Come on, I'm already here. Don't you think it's a little late to ask that now? If an ordinary human had followed you to rescue Optimus Prime, someone like Sam Witwicky, he'd probably be dead by now!