1novels Chapter 119 First Battle - Scotsburgh
Chapter 119 First Battle - Scotsburgh
When the war truly began, many cities were unaware that it had already arrived.
Fort Scots is neither Cybertron's most bustling city nor its most remote border. It has its own energy transmission towers, outer defense lines, garrison systems, and a surveillance network that hasn't been truly at full power for many years.
The garrison here knew that there was chaos outside.
Charon, Ironforge, the utterly chaotic parliament, the Decepticons, the Autobots...
These words are appearing more and more frequently on the communication channels, like a constantly flashing warning symbol.
If the warning symbol flashes for too long, many machines will get used to it.
The same goes for the garrison in Scotsburg.
-
The first abnormal signal appeared at the Scotsburgh outer orbit monitoring station.
The monitoring station sent three identification requests to the city's central control center, but received no response.
Before the fourth request was sent, the entire orbital communication link was suddenly interrupted.
The officer on duty looked up, but before he could order the backup channel to be restarted, the three signal towers on the northwest side of the city went out simultaneously.
It was like being extinguished one by one by a giant hand.
Then, the alarm went off.
A sharp red light flashed from the city center across the streets, traffic control systems began to force lane changes, low-altitude air routes were closed, and civilian transport ships were forced to land.
Civilians who had not yet entered the evacuation zone stopped on the road and looked up at the sky.
The first dark shadows appeared in the sky over Scotsburgh.
The Decepticons didn't give them any more time.
The assault troops swooped down from below the clouds, gliding along the edge of the city's outer defensive shield.
The first round of artillery fire landed precisely between the city's defensive nodes.
Just as the outer gun emplacements of Fort Skoglund turned, the flank power supply lines were cut. Before the ground defense forces could even assemble, the command channel was hacked into a cacophony of static. Several communications soldiers frantically switched to backup frequencies, only to hear the same cold, repetitive signal.
"Those who surrender will be disarmed, and their basic energy supply will be preserved."
"Resistants are considered military targets."
"Repeat."
"Those who surrender will be disarmed, and their basic energy supply will be preserved."
One of the guards cursed.
The next second, the control panel of the zenith defense cannon exploded, and the shattered screen smashed onto his shoulder armor.
Scotsburgh's defenses were too slow, too outdated, and too reliant on the belief that war would come knocking prematurely.
The Decepticons didn't knock; they just removed the lock.
When Megatron personally entered the main defensive line of Scotsburgh, the first wave of defenders in the city had already begun to retreat.
His figure emerged from the smoke and dust, scorch marks from the defensive cannons still visible on his shoulder armor. Several Scotsburgh guards re-established their firing positions at the far end of the block, aiming their cannons at him.
Megatron didn't stop.
The first shell grazed his shoulder and exploded on the metal wall behind him.
He raised his hand and deflected the second shot, which crashed into the broken transport rack in the middle of the road.
Before the third shot was even fired, the assault troops above the firing point had already landed.
After a few short, sharp explosions, the area fell silent.
Megatron stepped over the cracked pavement and headed towards the city center.
Behind him, the Decepticon logo was projected onto the tallest signal tower in Scotsburgh.
At that moment, Scotsburgh finally realized that it had fallen.
It has barely remained intact, though the city has changed hands.
Commander Scoborg was brought before Megatron, half of his arm armor broken. His optics flickered violently, but he remained standing.
Megatron glanced at him.
"Disarm all authority."
The commander did not answer.
The red spider stood to the side and slightly behind, its wings still covered in fine metallic dust, and gave a soft hiss.
Megatron did not act immediately, but took a step forward.
"I will not repeat this a third time."
The commander's fingers tightened.
The central hall was silent for a few seconds.
Then, he lowered his head and inserted his command key into the console.
Scotsburgh’s defenses were shut down layer by layer.
The outer turrets shut down, unmanned sentry planes landed, and the city's armed control was transferred. The Decepticons took over Fort Scots.
It has fallen.
Red Spider turned his head to look at the guards being led away, his tone nonchalant.
"Truly merciful."
Megatron didn't look at him.
"A complete city is more useful than ruins."
"Of course," Starscream drawled. "Resources, factories, shipping lanes, civilian labor. How rational."
Megatron turned his head, and Starscream immediately shut up.
The sound waves approached from the other side, but the screen remained expressionless. The laser bird perched on his shoulder, its red optical lenses scanning every corner of the central hall.
"Communications within the city have been taken over. Thirty-seven resistance channels have been located. Civilian energy systems are maintaining 62% supply. The medical zone is undamaged."
Megatron nodded.
"Issue an occupation order."
The next moment, all public channels in Scotsburgh lit up simultaneously.
Megatron's voice echoed throughout the entire city.
"Scottish has been brought under Decepticon control."
"All armed units must immediately disarm. Resistance personnel will be treated as enemy combat units."
"Civilian zones, medical zones, colleges, and basic energy facilities must not be attacked. Anyone who loots, executes, or destroys without permission will be dealt with according to military law."
There was a moment of deathly silence in the city.
Then came a lower level of unrest.
Organic breathed a sigh of relief, but was even more frightened. Organic couldn't understand why the occupiers would preserve the academy and medical area, and also sensed in that command a shadow that shouldn't exist on the battlefield.
Red Spider, of course, understood as well.
He looked at Megatron, his lips twitched slightly, but he swallowed his words back in the end.
The post-war administration of Scotsburgh lasted for three cycles.
The Decepticons cleared out the remaining resistance points, rearranged the energy supply system, and converted the central hall into a temporary command post. The garrison troops were escorted in batches to temporary detention areas outside the city, while civilians were confined to their respective neighborhoods and prohibited from moving between districts.
The flags were replaced, the roads were blocked, and Decepticon soldiers stood at every corner.
This is what war originally looked like.
-
When the news reached Iron Fortress, Optimus Prime remained silent for a long time.
On the communication screen, the city outline of Scotsburgh remained intact.
The jazz stood to the side, tapping his arm guard lightly with his fingers.
"At least they didn't destroy the city."
There was no answer, because the sentence sounded both fortunate and unfortunate.
Optimus Prime turned off the projection.
"Notify neighboring cities to raise their alert levels."
His voice remained steady.
"Scottishburg is not the end."
They all knew that Scotsburgh was just the first city to fall.
Megatron left Scotsburgh before the end of the same cycle.
He didn't bring many people with him.
Soundwave followed behind him, with Laserbird perched on his shoulder. Starscream seemed about to say something, but after glancing at Megatron's retreating figure and then at Soundwave, he wisely remained in the central hall of Scotsburgh.
Megatron went to Iron Fortress.
Ironforge's defense system did not fire at him, and the Decepticon guards remained outside the outer protocol line.
Megatron entered the judicial center alone.
The war has not destroyed all the tacit understanding.
-
The door to the hibernation chamber opened silently.
It was very quiet inside, a completely different world from the battle reports, orders, communications in occupied territories, and troop movements outside.
The vector was lying in the hibernation pod.
The deep purple outer armor, though resealed, still showed signs of repair after severe damage at some joints. The dark blue secondary armor, bathed in cold light, resembled a deep shadow. Outside the ignition chamber, the partially closed magnetic core ring maintained a stable, extremely low-frequency glow.
The monitoring equipment left behind by the ambulance operated quietly, data scrolling across the screen line by line. The immune system's activity was stable, consciousness was weak, and the body's self-repair rate was lower than expected, but it did not continue to deteriorate.
This is already good news.
Megatron walked up to the hibernation pod.
The sound waves didn't go in; he stopped outside the door and turned off the external monitoring for him.
Laserbird tilted its head slightly, its red optical lens looking at the gravitational vector inside the hibernation pod.
Megatron looked at her.
She had been quiet like this before, in those cycles that had not yet been completely crushed by war.
Her quietness at that time was not sleep.
She was simply too lazy to speak, or perhaps she was deep in thought, or she was looking at him with a very calm gaze, as if she could see through all his unspoken ambitions, anger, and resentment.
Now that she wasn't looking at him, the whole room felt even colder.
Megatron raised his hand, his knuckles hovering in front of the transparent armor on the outside of the hibernation pod, without lowering it.
After a while, he withdrew his hand.
"Scottish has fallen under Decepticon control."
His voice was deep, as if he were delivering a battle report.
"The garrison has been disarmed. The city center remains intact. The energy system is preserved. The medical district and the academy were not attacked."
After he finished speaking, he paused for a moment and looked down at the blue-green flame on her chest.
"I did not order the purge of civilians."
The room became even quieter, with only the faint sound of the instruments running.
Megatron knew exactly what those words sounded like.
Explanation, justification—a conqueror who has already gone to the battlefield is actually submitting evidence to a sleeping judge.
It's ridiculous.
But he still came.
He came from Scotsburgh to Ironburg, passing through all the officers waiting for orders and all the advancing fronts, and stood before her, saying these words she couldn't hear at all.
Megatron's gaze darkened.
"How would you determine it?"
he asks.
"To occupy, or to liberate?"
The vector lay there quietly, offering no reply or rebuttal, nor did it offer a calm enough tone to annoy the machine and point out the flaws in his words.
She didn't even open her glasses.
Megatron suddenly found this even more unbearable than her rebuttal.
If she's awake, she'll talk a lot.
Preserving a city's integrity does not equate to legitimacy; ordering against the massacre of civilians is not mercy, but the bare minimum; a city forced to submit will not voluntarily surrender simply because it has not been burned.
Some things make him angry, others make him silent.
But at this moment, those words could only remain in Megatron's own processor, repeating over and over again, like some kind of residual program that could not be deleted.
He stood there for a long time.
Finally, he whispered:
"The war has begun."
He turned and left the hibernation chamber.
Outside the door, Soundwave looked up.
Megatron's mask returned to its usual cold and hard appearance.
"The Scotsburgh command has been taken over by the Second Army Corps," he said. "Intelligence from the eastern front is being gathered in preparation for the next phase of the advance."
The sound wave nodded slightly.
"Yes, ma'am."
The laser bird spread its metal wings and flew over the door frame.
The door to the hibernation chamber closed again.
The flag in Scotsburgh has been changed to a different color.
The war on Cybertron began to extend to more distant places.