Two for the Price of One

If you make a good deal with Swindle, count your fingers, count your toes, then count your nearest relatives.

Synopsis

While meeting with another client, Swindle is interrupted by a call from Faghadi, ex-king of Carbombia, demanding to know where his weapons are. Swindle attempts to ignore his radio so he can concentrate on the current deal, however when his new client also asks about weapons, Swindle decides he has the perfect way to arrange a demonstration. He arranges a meeting with Faghadi in two days.

Meanwhile, a recording of violent protests in Carbombia is played at a meeting at NATO Headquarters to demonstrate how the Carbombian Protection League has managed to get hold of laser weapons. As the members of the meeting discuss how the C.P.L. got hold of such weapons, Major Bergstrum introduces them to Agent Sato, whose organisation has discovered that Swindle has been selling arms. Intelligence reports say that Swindle is planning on turning over a large consignment at a ruined university south of Betah.

Bergstrum and Sato join NATO forces in Carbombia for a briefing before the mission. After Sato's revelation that Faghadi himself will be at the meeting, she turns over detailed information on Swindle. Bergstrum works out a plan of attack, and before long, snipers are in position.

The radio operator reports that a jeep answering Swindle's description has been sighted, and Bergstrum is determined to destroy the Decepticon, despite Sato's suggestion that Swindle's comrades might not be too happy. The Carbombians soon arrive at the location, along with Swindle, however Faghadi isn't happy with the results of the weapon tests and demands bigger guns. Swindle responds that he can get bigger and better weapons, but it'll take a year or so. Faghadi decides to go with what they have. Once the deal is made, Bergstrum orders his men to open fire, and the jeep is turned into scrap. The Carbombians are taken down as swiftly, Bergstrum personally knocking out Faghadi.

Afterward, Bergstrum chews out the video camera operator for displaying lights during the operation, but the operator denies it was him. Bergstrum looks at the position where he saw the lights, and for a moment sees some sort of metallic bird. The soldiers have made another discovery — the jeep that they destroyed was a real jeep, not a Decepticon, and the trailer which supposedly contained weapons had candy dispensers in it instead. Bergstrum wonders where Swindle is.

Swindle is meeting with Sato in an abandoned village elsewhere in Carbombia, closing the deal on some weapons for the Japanese government.

In Decepticon headquarters, Laserbeak plays back his recording of the weapons trade in Betah, and the Decepticons realise where their weapons have been disappearing to. Megatron berates Onslaught for not keeping better control of his men, and sends Skywarp to retrieve Swindle. In pieces if necessary.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Errors

• On page 134: "His reply was just a quiet." That should be "just as quiet."

Continuity notes

• Two for the Price of One is ostensibly set in the same continuity as The Transformers Trilogy, and does not conflict with any of its material. However, the foreword of Transformers Legends states that its short stories are "not part of continuity" and "don't count as facts". If readers choose to legitimize this display of authorial intent, it would effectively render the stories as micro-continuities of their own.
• In the Dreamwave Generation One continuity this story takes place after Megatron's return to power. Since Megatron's return was just starting when Dreamwave went belly up this means that, if one considers it canon, this story is the last entry in the Dreamwave timeline.

Transformers references

• Onslaught remembers Swindle losing a personality component.

Real-world references

• Fakkadi believes the Decepticons possess a "gate of stars, time-traveling police box or teleportation device", having seen such things on TV.