006 and Gavin drew their weapons, scanning their surroundings with caution, while Bella extended her psionic senses to sweep the area.
The ventilation shaft stretched on for over 8 km (5 miles) before they finally stepped into the ship's interior proper.
The scale was staggering. Even the ordinary corridors soared nearly 30 meters (100 feet) high, and some sections reached 50 or even 60 meters (160–200 feet). It dwarfed not just humans—even Bumblebee and Shatter looked almost small walking through those passages.
A sharp bang! erupted right at 006's feet. He leaped sideways just in time. About a meter to the left of where he'd been standing, a burst of dark blue light flared up, and throughout the ship's interior, similar bursts could be heard at irregular intervals—explosions like these, along with the energy wells running on low-power standby, were the only things keeping the ship from complete darkness.
Ivan Vanko chewed his toothpick, studying the small fire still burning at the burst point. "Looks like there's more power conduit underneath. Probably a short-circuit safety response after all that seawater seeped in. More or less."
They'd seen plenty of similar incidents along the way.
No matter how durable a spaceship is, drop it into the ocean for sixteen hundred years and things are going to start breaking. The fact that it hadn't blown itself to pieces was a testament to Cybertronian engineering.
The two Transformers never tired, and Bella had spent the whole journey perched on Bumblebee's shoulder, so she wasn't worn out either. The three humans, though, were a different story.
As the passages began to open up—fewer obstacles on the ground, no enemies in sight—Bella decided to have Bumblebee and Shatter transform into vehicle mode and drive them deeper into the ship.
Shatter looked the three soaking-wet humans up and down, her tone dismissive. "I don't haul men."
"Fine." Bella adjusted the arrangement instantly. "The three of them ride with Bumblebee. I'll go with you."
"Autobots, roll out!" Bella called out in her best imitation of Optimus Prime—and all three men watched, slack-jawed, as Bumblebee and Shatter shifted and folded into vehicles right before their eyes.
Bumblebee wasn't the old Beetle anymore. He'd become a sleek yellow Camaro with a modern, sporty silhouette.
Shatter remained her signature red Plymouth. Bella hopped in casually, then turned to the three men with a cheerful wave. "Climb in, gentlemen!"
For robots that could talk and transform into cars, autonomous driving was child's play.
The three men piled into the Camaro—and before any of them could fully process the situation, the car started moving on its own.
What kind of technology is this? 006 and Gavin stared at each other, shock written plainly across both their faces.
Ivan Vanko said nothing. He and his father had always prided themselves on their Arc Reactor work, and his father had even secretly been involved in the Soviet Crimson Dynamo project. Back when his father had first told him about it, the Crimson Dynamo had seemed like the pinnacle of engineering. Now, looking at Bumblebee and Shatter, he was starting to think... the Crimson Dynamo might have been kind of ordinary, actually.
The Plymouth led, the Camaro followed, and the two vehicles tore through the corridors—no traffic laws to follow, no pedestrians to avoid. Faster and faster they went.
"Too slow. Way too slow!" Shatter had switched sides and joined the Autobots, but the Decepticon edge in her personality hadn't fully faded. That aggression tended to manifest as impatience.
With a series of mechanical clicks and snaps, she transformed—this time into a Harrier jet—scooped up Bella, and shot off toward the ship's depths.
"Keep up!" Bella shouted down to the others as the jet carried her away. "We'll go on ahead!"
The three passengers in the Camaro waited. Bumblebee showed no sign of transforming.
Eventually, 006 spoke. "Can't you... transform?"
He wasn't entirely sure how to talk to a car, but he had no better option than addressing the empty air.
Bumblebee answered through the car's audio system: "I can't..."
006, true to form, took it in stride. "It's alright. We'll get there eventually. Drive steady—I need to finish writing today's journal entry..."
Vehicles are faster than walking. Jets are faster than vehicles. Every child knew that.
Shatter pushed her speed to the limit. Even with obstacles scattered throughout the corridor, she barely slowed down, blazing straight toward the heart of the ship.
When they finally spotted the Guardian Knights—armored giants kneeling in two rows, each gripping an inverted great cross-sword like a sentinel frozen in time—Shatter reverted to her humanoid form mid-air. Bella planted her feet and pushed off from Shatter's shoulder in a clean backflip, landing lightly on top instead.
"Huh. Didn't take you for someone who respects tradition," Bella remarked.
"I'm more polite than you think. And speaking of which—you still owe me fifty barrels of aviation fuel." Whether it was the history of being on opposite sides or just personality clash, Shatter had never been particularly gracious with Bella. She picked fights on principle.
Bella studied the rows of Guardian Knights—enormous armored figures that appeared to have fallen into deep slumber—and answered without looking away. "I'm still working on a new supply channel. Aviation fuel isn't easy to source. Look at Bumblebee—he runs on regular gasoline. Much simpler."
"Don't compare me to a child."
"Well, you're not exactly ancient either..."
Bella sifted through what she remembered of the lore. "I heard there's a famous bar on Cybertron called Maccadam's Old Oil House? Supposedly well-stocked with high-grade fuel year-round. Is that about right?"
Shatter answered purely on instinct, without thinking. "I was young then, I never went there—wait." She stopped. "How do you know about Maccadam's?"
She was genuinely thrown. Cybertronian civilization had been wiped out when Autobots and Decepticons tore the planet apart. Nine million years had passed. Every trace was gone. How could a human from Earth know about a bar that had existed nine hundred years ago on Cybertron?
It was trivial knowledge for any Cybertronian—something any of them might have mentioned in passing. For a human on a distant planet, it was information they should never have been able to access.
"Ha!" Bella planted a hand on her hip, looking insufferably pleased with herself. She pointed at Shatter. "You underestimate me. I have access to a great deal of hidden knowledge. Reaching back through time from this vantage point isn't particularly difficult."
She was completely making it up—exploiting the fact that Shatter knew nothing about magic. In reality, she'd need to push her psionic and spellcasting level all the way to Tier Eight before she could even attempt viewing the past or future.
Shatter didn't know magic. She didn't know Bella's real capabilities. For a moment, she was genuinely rattled.
"Hard to believe an Earthling would know about Maccadam's... What a place that was. All gone now." A voice—deep and grinding, like metal being split by an axe—resonated from directly ahead.
Both of them looked up.
From among the rows of kneeling Guardian Knights, a massive humanoid figure rose to its feet—ten meters tall (roughly 33 feet), clad in saffron-orange armor.