Chapter 11: Starscream

Tucson, a city located in a desert valley region, surrounded by mountains.

It is situated in Pima County, southern Arizona, United States; the distance from Washington D. C. spans almost the entire United States.

Over such a long distance, and in order not to attract human attention, even though the police car Barricade transformed into could speed like a gust of wind on deserted roads, it still took nearly fifteen hours to carry Sun Cheng to Tucson.

Bored to the point of near-suffocation by the silence along the way, Sun Cheng only then felt the car's speed gradually slow down, until it came to a complete stop.

"We're here!"

Barricade said.

Sun Cheng looked outside through the car window, and his heart could not help but grow suspicious.

With his vision, even though it was late at night and there were no lights nearby, it did not affect his observation of the surroundings in the slightest.

"This is a mountainous area?"

A hundred meters away were mountain peaks, looming in the darkness, looking exactly like terrifying giant beasts lurking there, waiting to choose someone to devour.

This feeling made Sun Cheng very uncomfortable, especially when Barricade opened the passenger door, and the Spy Template equipped within his body suddenly issued a warning.

Although it was only for an instant, it had still captured a hostile gaze from the endless darkness just now.

"Get out!"

Barricade urged impatiently.

Sun Cheng had no choice but to jump out of the car; after landing, he cautiously went on alert, pushing his two pairs of electronic eyes to their limit, trying to find the figure of the target that had revealed hostility toward him.

Unfortunately, he was clearly destined to be disappointed!

There was a clattering sound beside him, and after the sound of metal and gears rubbing against each other ended, Sun Cheng only felt his body suddenly lighten, and before he could react, he had already been grabbed by Barricade.

"Lord... Lord Barricade, who are we going to see?"

Although Barricade only grabbed him in his palm this time, unlike the murderous intent he had shown last time, this feeling of having one's life out of one's own control was so terrible that even though Sun Cheng tried his best to control himself and not let his chassis make any reaction that would irritate Barricade, his Core still beat wildly, and the warning sounds in his mind were incessant.

Seeming quite satisfied with Sun Cheng's attitude of not offering any resistance, the cold Barricade did not stop his pace and began to walk toward the nearby mountainous area, but he did answer his question, "A big shot, you will know who he is very soon!"

Barricade's pace was fast; although he was carrying him, his walking speed was not much slower than Sun Cheng's sprinting.

He took Sun Cheng and did not go up the mountain, but walked along the foot of the mountain to the other side for no less than four or five kilometers before seeing a rusty, long-abandoned railway track extending straight toward the nearby mountain.

"An abandoned mine?"

Following the track with his gaze to look ahead, Sun Cheng indeed quickly found the outline of a mine, puzzled as to whether Barricade intended to take him into the mine.

It was no wonder he would be suspicious; that mine was clearly a product left behind by humans in the past, and not to mention anything else, just looking at the rust spots on the tracks was enough to infer that this place had likely been abandoned by humans for at least ten years or more.

Just the height of that cave entrance alone was not something the transformed Barricade could enter.

Amidst his doubts, the two had already arrived in front of the abandoned mine.

Seeing Barricade stop, Sun Cheng was just about to ask about the situation when he felt the world spin around him; when he came to his senses, he realized Barricade had transformed back into police car form, and he had been placed in the passenger seat.

"Vroom vroom..."

With the roaring sound of the engine, Barricade controlled his wheels to make slight adjustments so he could drive on the abandoned tracks, and then he drove into the mine without the slightest hesitation.

"Huh!"

Although they were installed quite covertly, after driving into the mine, Sun Cheng's two pairs of electronic eyes frequently captured the fluctuations of surveillance equipment, so he let out a soft sound of surprise, lost in thought.

When first entering the mine, Barricade's speed was clearly not fast, and the car body occasionally made a collision sound or two, possibly hitting some abandoned ore or the like, but Barricade had no intention of avoiding them at all.

After turning into four consecutive branching tunnels, Sun Cheng, who had been staring out the window, felt his eyes light up.

It turned out that although the tracks ended here, this abandoned mine had clearly been renovated; not only was it more spacious, but some cables and the like could also be seen in the surroundings.

Moving forward all the way, driving deep into the mine, Sun Cheng kept counting the time in his heart; when he counted to 129 seconds, he finally saw the space ahead suddenly open up, and a huge space, no less than ten meters high and likely no less than a thousand square meters in area, was immediately revealed before him.

After driving out of the branch, Barricade stopped; this time he didn't give any warning, but directly transformed and flung the unprepared Sun Cheng out, who first hit a metal support pillar nearby and then fell to the ground.

"Hey, you idiot, don't interfere with my work!"

Sun Cheng picked up his phone and stood up; before he could even confirm if the phone was broken, he heard an angry mechanical voice from the side.

He couldn't help but look toward the sound, and his eyes immediately lit up; it turned out that the one yelling at him was a robot two heads taller than him, looking exactly like a forklift. Sun Cheng had just happened to see its data in his memory and knew that this big guy, whose Core was a Production Template, was just a lowest-level Decepticon like him.

"Shut up!"

He yelled back at him irritably, and after confirming the phone wasn't broken, Sun Cheng looked around with interest.

Hidden deep in a mine in the Tucson mountains, this place looked like a small Decepticon base; its scale was clearly incomparable to the Moon Base in his memory, but it was not bad either.

Just in this hall in front of him, there were no fewer than thirty or forty Workers equipped with Production Templates busy moving back and forth; some were moving machines from several mine branches into the hall, while others were busy assembling, presenting a scene of bustling activity.

Because he was equipped with a Spy Template, there was no shortage of data on some mechanical equipment among them.

Sun Cheng studied it carefully for a while, and he really did notice that the machines these Workers were assembling were actually sets of Geothermal Generators, which piqued his interest, and he stared at them intently.

"You seem very interested in my Geothermal Generators, little one from the Cassette Corps..."

A voice suddenly sounded not far from him; Sun Cheng reacted immediately, hurriedly turned his body to look, and was startled.

He saw that not far from him, a huge Decepticon, looking a size larger than Barricade, was standing there, looking at him with a smile on his face.

This Decepticon's chassis looked very comical; although huge, it was somewhat graceful, and it actually resembled a crab to some extent.

However, even though this Decepticon appeared with a smile and looked very friendly, after seeing clearly who he was, it scared Sun Cheng so much that his Core almost crashed, "Lord... Lord Starscream..."

Sun Cheng's eyes were filled with despair, "Damn it, why is it him..."

If he had known earlier that Starscream had also come to Earth, Sun Cheng wouldn't have dared to come to see Starscream even if he had ten times the courage.

The reason was none other than the fact that this Decepticon named Starscream had a truly notorious reputation within the Decepticon Legion!

Starscream, Leader Class Decepticon, Commander of the Air Team and Deputy Commander of the Decepticon Legion, an existence whose notoriety in the Decepticon Legion was second only to Megatron.

Although Frenzy was a new spy born through Soundwave's hands not long ago, this did not mean he was ignorant of the targets that Soundwave had specifically mentioned needed to be treated with special caution in secret tasks.

According to the intelligence he possessed, this notorious character had launched at least six rebellions in the past thousand years, two of which had almost overthrown Megatron's rule.

If it were humans, any country that had such an ambitious hero would surely have them dismembered by the authorities after failure.

Yet this master had rebelled repeatedly and failed repeatedly, but Megatron hadn't done anything to him; not only did he still let him control the Air Team, but he hadn't even stripped Starscream of his position as Deputy Commander.

From this small glimpse, one could see the schemes and methods of the master before him.