Classified - Satellite of Doom

Plot

On the Blue Planet, Duane and his team ambush a couple of the local wolf creatures, and kill them, hoping to use them as food, but find out they are mechanical, similarly to the Autobots and Decepticons, and thus are inedible by humans. The group continue exploring the planet to tyr and find some way to leave it, thanks to finding ruins of an advanced race elsewhere.

Back on Earth, Professor Lindsay and Kittridge are examining the Cylinder from Battle Mountain, while Kevin and Gears are watching, during the tests, they accidentally set off the Cylinder,a nd everyone starts to escape, however when nothing happens they return to examine it, and realize that it has been activated, but the timer is set for about four days later, which COULD help them recover Duane, or not.

At Hyperdynamix Aeronautics, Dr Porter is showing General Marcus, Optimus, Ratchet and Ironhide his RLV rockets which are designed to go up to his HODDIS space station for various tasks, including clearing away the debris around the Earth's orbit. The doctor takes his guests up to the control room to contact the station.

On the station, the crew are contacted, and explain how they help the RLV's to clear up the space above Earth. After cutting off the communications, Porter reveals that one of the secret roles of HODDIS, hidden even from the crew, is to examine the meteors etc that enter the planet's atmosphere, in case they turn out to be Cybertronians, so they can be minitored etc as they enter the planet, so they can learn about them, and also explains that he's working on a weapon that'll kill all the Decepticons on Earth, but not the Autobots. Optimus and the Autobots don't like this idea, but Marcus thinks it's a good thing to end the war in one move. Before a real argument can begin however four objects, similar to Cybertronian meteoroid forms are suddenly detected (from nowhere) approaching Earth, and almost hit the HODDIS station, and head to Idaho. The team prepare to head out to deal with the situation.

Dr Porter's son Douglas leaves the base, after haveing been snubbed by his father yet again, and goes on the private helicopter. On the helicopter Douglas watches footage he managed to get of his father's meeting on his notebook, and mocks his attempts to "rule the world" with his accomplishes. Douglas then patches into another of his spybots, which he planted on Kevin before, and it detached from him and hid at NEST. The new feed shows him what happened with the Cylinder, and he's interested.

On the Blue Planet, the soldiers are exhaunsted and are still evading the wolves, so they head to a high-rised area, during this incident, Duane's leg is injured, but they all make it up the high point. The point is surrounded by the wolves, who start trying to climb the sides, indicating some level of intelligence, however they are stopped by a giant centipede monster, which shortly afterwards leaves as well.

On Earth again, Optimus, Ratchet and Ironhide are heading out to intercept the meteoroids, when they find them they find the meteors cracked open, but empty, however they soon find the former contents - four of the giant centipedes from the Blue Planet (renamed as Robo-pedes by Ironhide). They attack the Autobots, and manage to escape in two directions, injuring the Autobots, but forcing them to split into two groups to track them before they can hurt any humans

Back at the NEST base, Lindsay is given orders to have the Cylinder relocated to a more secure facility, in case the wormhole created causes a lot of damage to people or property. Gears and Kevin manage to con their way into joining the convoy that'll be delivering it. Elsewhere, Douglas has watched this footage,and contacts Simon Clay to aid Reverb in an ambush of the Convoy, along with the stolen tanks.

Optimus tracks two of the Robo-pedes by himself and manages to take them both down, then heads off to find Ironhide and Ratchet, in case they're having problems.

In the hidden former mine-base used by Reverb, he is practising to control the Hyperdynamix tanks with his mind when Simon Clay comes in to report their boss has a mission for them. Reverb is told to ambush the NEST convoy, which includes Bumblebee and Gears, but to not kill the human child Kevin, as he's needed in the long term. He agrees to do it, but throughout the conversation he's annoyed by the drone who freed him from NEST in the past, which he has renamed Loudmouth, so he crushes and kills it. Back in Idaho, Ratchet and Ironhide track the last two Robo-pedes, they easily kill one of them, but the last one starts to speed up and approaches a human settlement, it dives into the water nearby, which Ironhide follows him into, and kills it in front of some local fishermen.

The NEST convoy sets off with the Cylinder, Bumblebee is up front, and Gears (with Kevin) are bringing up the rear, along the way Gears reassures Kevin that he's staying around with him until he knows he'll be okay, regardless of what happened to his brother. Nearby Reverb and Clay set up the ambush and wait for them to get close..

Before long the attack begins, Kevin gets out of Gears, and the two Autobots transform into robot mode, Kevin sees the stolen tanks and Reverb, and puts it all together, that he's in control of the tanks and wants the Cylinder. Nearby at Hyperdynamix Aerospace they find out that the convoy is under attack, Porter thinks the attack is about his rockets and satellite, so he sets them up for an instant launch, as Marcus won't reveal what the convoy was actually for.

The Autobots fend off the tanks, but aren't able to do much damage (remember Ironhide struggled against one last time) and the tanks target the trucks, clearly looking for the Cylinder. Douglas is watching the mission and is glad that Kevin is still alive, but then noticed the footage of his father's lab and decides to stop him from launching the rockets, and thus getting glory as the guy who killed the Decepticons. Reverb approaches the Cylinder in the smashed up truck, when Douglas contacts him and tells him to stop the rocket from launching, or all Decepticons will die. Reverb hates leaving the Cylinder after coming so close, but he doesn't want to die either, so he heads off to Hyperdynamix, and gives contol of the tanks to Simon.

The Autobots notice that the tanks are acting weird, so they manage to deal with a few more of them, Simon's having problems controlling all the tanks by himself and so can't use them effectively, allowing the Auotbots to basically win, and defend the Cylinder better. Optimus and his team are on their way to the base, but wont be back for a while. Marcus finds out that Gears was part of the convoy, and tells him to come to Hyperdynamix, as Porter's planning to launch the satellites, and he doesn't think it'll only kill Decepticons.

Douglas watches the battle on his notepad, and is shocked that Simon's taken control, considering they still have the automated functions they had before, which Simon didn't know about. He orders Simon to program the tanks to retreat as this was a failure, and he heads back to Hyperdynamix in his helicopter. Gears and Kevin also head off to Hyperdynamix, now the battle is over.

Reverb enters the facility and starts tearing through the facility, he makes it to the Control Room, where Porter activates the final countdowns, to make it impossible to stop the launching. Reverb gets angry and attacks Porter and marcus, and destroys the controls accidentally, thus making it truly impossible to stop.

Douglas watches the footage of Reverb's attack on one of his spybots, and is horrified. Gears enters the base and they find Porter badly injured, and the others trying to keep him alive, he's told that Reverb is on RLV-2 trying to tear apart the rocket to get to the satellite, before he can do so though, the rocket launches, and Porter reveals that the satellite weapon will actually kill ALL Cybertronians and not just Decepticons. Gears and Kevin rush off to the last rocket to stop the satellite before it's too late (Kevin went because Gears wouldn't have been able to open the hatch due to his large fingers).

On the Blue Planet, Duane and his team head back to the alien fort they hid out in when they first arrived to see if they can find something to get them home again. On Earth, Douglas returns to Hyperdynamix and rushes to see his father who is being treated. Lindsay contacts Marcus and says that the Cylinder is getting ready to activate again, Douglas interrupts and says he can help out to try and use it to rescue Kevin's brother and his team. At the fort on the Blue Planet, the group manage to unearth another Cylinder and the rectangles on the sides start to light up, like the one on Earth.

Above Earth, the rocket approaches the other rocket, which Reverb is still trying to break into it. Gears leaves the rocket, after Kevin puts on one of the spacesuits, and Kevin is informed by the facility below that he'll need to use the rocket's equipment to deactivate the satellite.

Gears approaches Reverb and explains about how Porter's wepaon will kill all Cybertronians, so he's there to help him deactivate it. The two manage to break open the rocket and the satellite is released. The two Cybetronians ignore Lyon's advice from the base and start shooting it, but to no avail, and in fact speeds up the countdown to just 6 minutes before activation. Kevin is told he will not have to due the deactivation himself manually, so he has to leave the ship and approach it himself. 

Back on Earth Douglas is taken to see the Cylinder, which is now flanked by Optimus and the others, Douglas reveals his actions in the past and shows them the footage he has of the Cylinder being used on Duane and the others, which has the coordinates to the Blue Planet on it. he sends a copy to Lindsay and Kevin (for him to have closure) and Lindsay goes to reset the coordinates himself.

In orbit again, Kevin is trying to disable the satellite, with Reverb moaning at him the whole time, luckily however, he does manage to disarm it, and saves all the Cybertronians from instant death, straight afterwards however, Reverb turns on his temporary allies and badly injured Gears, he goes to kill Kevin, but the crew of the HODDIS station send their probes to attack the Decepticon, knocking him into the atmosphere, and he burns up crash landing. The HODDIS crew reveal that the team on Earth found the coordinates for the Cylinder, and that it'll be activated soon, so he'd better return to Earth now. Gears is left in orbit for the HODDIS crew to rescue and send down to Earth later for repairs.

Kevin heads back down to Earth, but is told that when he lands he'll have to be examined for about an hour before being released, in case of any problems on descent etc, which Kevin doesn't want to do, so he disables the auto-pilot and turns it onto manual, and steers towards the Cylinder's site. Douglas contacts Kevin and reveals he sent the image of the Cylinder to his phone and starts to say sorry for all he's done, but Kevin isn't interested and cuts off the communication, and begins to land, however before he can, his rocket disappears in mid-air, with the Autobots watching.

The soldiers on the Blue Planet are wondering what the Cylinder is doing when suddenly a rocket appears and Kevin pops out of it! Shocking everyone the two brothers reunite, however more of the wolves and Robo-pedes start to appear. Kevin sees the new Cylinder and remembers what Douglas sent to him, so he gets out of the suit and checks his phone, receiving the picture and keys the code into the Cylinder.

Back on Earth the Autobots lament the apparent loss of Kevin as well when the Cylinder activates again and Kevin and the soldiers all stumble through. They're concerned about the monsters following through, so the Autobots prepare to destroy the Cylinder, but Douglas stops them, revealing that by just turning it off it'll break the wormhole, which it does. Douglas then says he has a lot to explain, which Optimus agrees.

Later the teams all collate their information, and determine that the Blue Planet Robo-pedes were the same as the ones who attacked Idaho, but so long as they don't link up to that planet with the Cylinder again, then they shouldn't feel the need to come to Earth again, and they decide to lock up the Cylinder in the vault at Yucca Mountain to keep it safe and out of the way, and start reviewing Douglas' information about the Cylinder, which he's collated from watching it and from Reverb (presumably). They haven't decided what to do with Douglas yet, considering that he did help them in the end. They also all assume that Reverb died on re-entry, but aren't sure.

Kevin visits Douglas at his father's bedside, who is still badly injured, but seems to be getting better, Kevin leaves after thanking Douglas, who doesn't want his thanks, considering everything he did, and he leaves.

Outside, Kevin goes into Gears, who is off duty for two weeks, and Kevin admits that he feels sorry for Douglas for everything that he did just for attention and what's happened. Gears is glad that he can spend the next two weeks with Kevin before he has to return to NEST, and the two go for a little drive.

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab

Gears - Armoured Truck

Bumblebee - Sports Car

Ironhide - Pick Up Truck

Ratchet - Military Rescue Vehicle

Decepticon

Reverb - Black Jeep Burned up in Atmosphere

Megatron (Mentioned)

Human

Kevin Bowman

Douglas Porter/Stealth Leader

Sergeant Duane Bowman

Corporal Cobb

Corporal Anson

Corporal Rose

Corporal McVey

Simon Clay/Stealth One

General Marcus

Chief Lindsay

Kittridge

Dr Alexander Porter Badly Injured by Reverb

Lyons

HODDIS Commander Gent

HODDIS Pilot Donnelly

HODDIS Science Pilot Hayes

NEST Personnel

Hyperdynamix Aerospace Personnel

Gilbert Poole (Mentioned)

Mr and Mrs Bowman (Mentioned) Dead

Blue Planet

Wolves

Robo-pedes

Earth-Team Robo-pede 1 Killed by Optimus Prime

Earth-Team Robo-pede 2 Killed by Optimus Prime

Earth-Team Robo-pede 3 Killed by Ironhide

Earth-Team Robo-pede 4 Killed by Ironhide

Other

Loudmouth - MP3 Player Killed by Reverb

Hyperdynamix Tanks Several Destroyed, Others being traced

Spybots

Moryus Minor (Mentioned)

Fifth Baron-Warlord of Polyhex (Mentioned)

Abraham (Mentioned)

God (Mentioned)

Notes

• This is the third and (supposedly) final book in the Classified series. I say supposedly, because it has quite a bit plot line left open...the Blue Planet, and what it's ruins and connection to Cybertron were!
• Oddly this storyline is actually able to be in continuity with the IDW Movie comics, as Reverb could have actually survived plummeting to Earth (he survived the exiting of the atmosphere) and then joined up with Brakedown and Dirt Boss for Nefarious!
• This is actually the first Classified story to not feature any true Cybertronian deaths (Reverb is debatable at the moment, and Loudmouth doesn't seem to be a Cybertronian, and it's unclear if any of the Blue Planet animals count)
• Loudmouth is a bit confusing, he seemed last time to be piloted by someone, but here he seems to be sentient...maybe he was something exposed to Allspark energy in Mission City?
• Yeah, I think Optimus and the others, especially Ratchet realized Dr Porter was targeting all Cybertronians with his weapon, as the Autobots and Decepticons are the same race, with no actual differences in mechanics
• Ironhide makes the following statement: "I'm not waiting for them to rust to death" about the Robo-pedes...this is particularly evil considering how he dies in Dark of the Moon....
• It's not stated what happens to Simon Clay at the end of this story, wonder if he found out that his boss was just a kid?
• From the dialogue here it seems that Duane's team was sent to the Blue Planet only about 3 weeks ago
• I find it very unlikely that NONE of Duane's team died in the time he's been on the Blue Planet
• Gears changes his alternate mode YET AGAIN, and it's still not what it is in the toy line!!
• Douglas Porter's actions in the past 2 books are revealed here to basically be a ploy by him to outshine his father and get attention from him, as he planned to use the Cylinder to rescue Kevin's brother and his team, amongst other things.
• Project Nightbridge is never fully explained here, it just has something to do with the Cylinder, so maybe he was planning to use it to travel to other worlds for their technology perhaps?
• It's a bit weird that we don't get a proper emotional scene between Kevin and Duane in the end isn't it? I mean we see him at the hospital with Douglas and Dr Porter, so presumably he was visiting him there for his leg injury, but we didn't get that scene!