Uncanny. I've been on Earth for three days and this is the second time we've run into trouble. It seems to follow us around and drag the people around us into it. First we escape form the Autobots and almost lead two dozen of them into the heart of Flame's research complex. Then Rampage gets carted off to the Decepticon Peace Academy for treatment and I don't even like to think about what happened while they were there.

Then after they got back we went to give me a field trial at an Autobot smelting pool which just happened to be the covert testbed for the new type 2 guardian unit. What fun that was. Still, we somehow managed to complete our mission and come out ahead at the end of it all. But it doesn't change the fact that the Gunbots could all have been killed and the Decepticons would have lost one of their most effective elite fighting units if it wasn't for Divebomb's swift action.

I still don't like our having to leave Cybertron. I know the Gunbots can handle themselves, and there isn't much in the Autobots' arsenal that the Mayhems can't overcome, but I wish I could be there to fight alongside them. Megatron has three gestalt teams on Earth already, despite Vitani's best efforts to relieve Menasor of one leg. The Autobots here don't have any that we know of. How many does he need? As many as he can get, I suppose. Especially if that tank was part of what I think it was part of.

Razorclaw and Tantrum recognized the configuration. Silhouette matched that of the tank section of a Decepticon guardian unit from back in the golden age. One worked at the docks where they were employed. It functioned as security and energon transport to the moons. Separated into a tank and a short range cargo rocket and launcher. They were the largest Transformers ever constructed, and their size was their biggest weakness. The strain put on their bodies by all that mass meant they couldn't support a lot of heavy armour and internal components. In fact, they were little more than empty frames with a thin covering of light armour, and nowhere near as strong as they appeared to be.

I am as strong as I appear to be. If Tantrum's memories are accurate, I am around the same size as a Decepticon guardian. My mass is two and a half times greater. Yet I don't fall apart, because Flame managed to modify all these fancy structural support fields and inertial spreaders that we were originally fitted with by Spanner. He said that given a few cycles he may be able to arrange a cascade effect in my inertial spreaders so I wouldn't leave footprints even on soft Earth ground.

He said it was all fairly simple, but then he is one of the greatest minds on Cybertron. A lot of things are fairly simple to him. But the Autobots aren't slow when it comes to innovation, either. They could improve upon Spanner's designs as well, and soon there'd be no limit to the size of the warriors they could construct. What if they applied Predacon technology to a refitted Decepticon guardian unit? They'd be able to realise the original designer's vision of the ultimate Transformer warrior. They could mount all the armour and enhanced motors they wanted without worrying about it suffering stress fractures under the strain. Lo and behold, my existence has doomed the Decepticon cause yet further.

No. There's nothing I can do about it now. Our creation was not our decision. My creation was born out of necessity, and it probably had nothing to do with this Autobot project. If I'm lucky, what I saw was just a prototype. If I can find it, and destroy it, the Autobots might abandon the project. Maybe. Or maybe the failure of a single unit would cause the Autobots to step up production of more. I wish Bruticus was here. He'd know what to do.

Stop it! This . . . thing was made using my technology. It's my responsibility to destroy it before it starts killing Decepticons. Or humans. No. The Autobots don't need a superweapon to kill the natives. They managed that within a few cycles of landing here. They killed everything. Not just sentient beings. Animals. Creatures harmless to them. They slaughtered them in their millions for sport or fun. Burned their habitats to generate power they converted into energon. The creatures we were designed to mimic no longer exist. The humans are running out of food and air. Nothing I can do about that, either. All I can do is fight.

The thought brings me out of my little daydream. I've been following this thing's tracks for four breem now. Tracks of tracks, to be specific. The tank section was designed exclusively for perimeter patrol duty and can only run on rails. At least the Autobots didn't see fit to let it roll freely. Probably to free up processing power for the rocket section. It could well be in orbit right now. Watching me. I've already activated my force field generator. The Autobots have no doubt fitted the cargo rocket with something big and loud and damaging. It's not like them to leave anything that could support a big gun without a big gun to support.

I wouldn't normally be able to keep my force field up for extended periods. Certainly not on Cybertron. But Flame in his wisdom coated us all in translucent solar cells, so when the dense black clouds parted above me I would have a handy boost in power. As had happened today. Just having the one moon gives Earth much more predictable weather patterns and Decepticon command predicted a three hour window of sunshine this morning. Their estimate was off by two and a half minutes... which is just over a quarter breem, but I think I can forgive that.

The humans spoke fondly of the way their world used to look, so I decided today would be a good time to go for a walk to try to see what they once saw. Unfortunately, the sunlight only made the world around me all the more depressing. In the near-permanent dusk that was Earth's daytime we were spared the grim details of our surroundings. Now, in the harsh light, all was revealed. The ground was black all the way to the horizon and in all directions. This area was something called a "rain forest" up until four Earth years ago, when the Autobots decided to burn all the flammable material to produce energon. The "trees" were pulled up by their roots leaving deep craters everywhere. Some of them were several meters deep and I've stumbled a few times, each time I inadvertently step into one of the deeper ones.

I suppose they were testing the structural stability of the tank's rails out here. If it could remain level on this sort of terrain it could go just about anywhere. It must have had forty kilometers of track or more for it to have come as far as where I was when I first spotted it, and for me not to have come across the launch station by now. The Autobots must have given it a very generous subspace allocation. I could hardly believe my sensors when the entire tank section passed into subspace when I came across it.

This leads to a new worst case scenario: the cargo rocket could perhaps carry enough energon to shunt every other part of the unit into subspace and withdraw it when it arrives at it's destination. That would mean the unit could cover large distances at high speed and be rapidly deployed in enemy territory. It could be long gone by the time I reach it's base position, and the next time anyone sees it is when it bursts through the wall of Decepticon Headquarters with a regiment of Autobots inside it.

I sigh out loud. Headstrong. His pessimism is getting to me. There are five of us in here, currently sharing a single mind and we'll all be gushing optic cleaning fluid if he keeps this up. I have to do something to cheer him, and in turn myself, up. He was an artist once. Perhaps if I try to imagine what this place was like before the Autobots came it will raise our spirits.

This land must have been magnificent before the Autobots destroyed it. The trees would have stretched up above even my head, their leaves almost blocking out the sun as the ash from their funeral pyres does today. Nothing significant grew on the forest floor. When leaves were broken off the trees' branches they fell to the floor and disintegrated to be absorbed back into the soil. The leaf components would be carried back into the tree and reintegrated into the tree's structure. Well, that's what I understood of Diego's explanation.

Organic life is very strange. The turnaround of life and death is very rapid. Some organic beings only live one or two Earth solar cycles. They exist only to produce the next generation. The slightest design modifications take several generations to effect. Even humans are incapable of modifying themselves to any significant degree. Certainly, they can increase their strength and stamina without surgery and it all sounds very impressive, but it takes cycles for this "exercise" to yield any significant results. And even they live such short lives. Even before the Autobots came a human was not expected to live more than a single vorn, and even that short period leaves their bodies fragile and extremely easy to damage. To top things off, there are these tiny organic creatures called "viruses" that can cause "diseases" to which all larger organic creatures seem to be more vulnerable as they grow older.

Thank Primus I'm a robot.

Ah, yes. Primus. The Autobots would have us pin the blame for all this destruction on Him. They say that Primus was the author of the Autobot Manifest Destiny: that Transformers, as the most powerful race in the universe, are the only ones fit to rule it. To bring order to the chaos. And there is little in the universe more chaotic than the "ecosystems" that exist on Earth.

What am I thinking? Are the Autobots right? Is it our duty to make sense of the insanity of the universe around us? To show up the blatant flaws in organic life for what they are and replace it all with machines? Compared to organic creatures we are nearly invincible. To us there is no such thing as a "permanent injury". We can easily repair or replace damaged or warn components. We need no air, or food, or sleep. Just energon. And sources of energon are everywhere. We can live anywhere from the depths of the ocean to interstellar space to barren moons to volcanic wastelands. Organic systems are too complex. They have too many demanding requirements. They're so damned vulnerable. If the "evolutionary process" that Diego seems to enjoy going on about for hours at a time is so great, why hasn't it produced anything more like us?

In the middle of my tirade, I almost miss it.

A single flower, blooming in this barren and desolate land. Before I realise it I'm down on my knees in front of it. I touch the edge of it's pink petals with my finger. It's so beautiful. So soft. So fragile.

The humans say that beautiful things are always fragile. I wonder if the reverse is true? Are powerful things always ugly? Maybe it's a proportional relationship. The more powerful someone or something becomes, the less beautiful it is. If that is so, whatever it is I'm tracking must be the ugliest thing on Earth. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe I am.

Am I ugly? Would the few wild creatures that still inhabit this dying world turn their faces away when I appear? Would they run from the sight of me? Of course they would. All Transformers are ugly. For all it's shortcomings, this is a beautiful world, and my kind are too ugly to live here.

It all becomes clear now. The universe is chaos. It is chaos and insanity and diversity and therein lies it's true beauty. The Autobots think we Transformers are perfect, that the universe must learn to be like us, but they are wrong. We have more to learn from the universe than we can ever possibly teach it.

How could I have been so blind? Organic systems are too complicated. They're vulnerable. They cannot adapt to rapid change like we can. Then why is this here? How can this flower have grown here, separated from it's power source by these dense clouds of ash? If you take away our precious energon then we are nothing! The entire Transformers race, all our grand technologies, all that we have achieved over hundreds of thousands of vorn of civilization would grind to a halt. And yet, somehow, this tiny pink and green shoot is more resilient than all of us. That is true strength. Real power. From that perspective, this flower is stronger than me. I guess it's not a proportional relationship after all.

Primus forgive me, it happened again. I've been kneeling here, lost in thought when I should be tracking that damned Autobot. He could be anywhere by now. It's time to get up and start following those tracks again. I lean back on the ground and steady myself with my hands, then bring my feet out from under me and stand straight up so as not to disturb the soil around my newfound symbol of hope. I begin to dust the ash off of Headstrong and Tantrum and check the weather status. In under a breem, around seven minutes in local time, the sun will disappear behind the ash clouds again.

My solar collectors are presently supplying sixty percent of the energy required to keep my force field up. What was it Flame said? "It's not a question of supply so much as peak output". With my ultraconductive power distribution system I can keep going for longer on the same amount of energon, but they can't handle as much charge as a normal superconductive system. My solar collectors are hardwired to my force field generator when I'm in my combined form, so I can keep everything else running at full power with it up when the sun is shining. When the sun goes in, I have to cut back somewhere. Usually on some other high energy device like structural support. If I have to suffer energy and physical attacks together for extended periods I'll be in trouble.

Something's moving. I can feel it through the shifting of the air around me. I bring all my sensors up to full capacity. Lateral sensors place an object twenty five meters high, presently one point six kilometers away and headed in this direction at sixty-eight kilometers per hour. A brisk walking pace for something that size. The soft ash is muffling it's footsteps, so I can't hear it. I can smell it's paint, though. Matches the scent of the tracks I've been following. It must be the guardian unit. Primus help me. Here I go. . . .

There's a fair sized hill between me and my opponent, meaning I can't see it and it can't see me for the moment. If I can reach the top before it I'll have a slight tactical advantage. I also know the lie of the land on this side better, so if I'm toppled I'll still have one up on the guardian. Will one be enough? It better be.

I charge up the hill, making no effort to silence my approach. The guardian's headed straight for me so it already knows I'm here. The paint smell is a lot stronger now that the wind has changed, and there's something else with it. I check my olfactory catalogue. Coolant. Standard coolant gel for Autobot plasma weaponry. Great.

I can hear it now. The shifting of the ash with each step, and something else. A high pitched hum. Probably the plasma cannon. It's getting ready to fire on me as soon as I come up over the hill. This leaves me with an interesting decision. Should I put everything into my force field and take the blast directly to show how tough I am, or be ready to dive to the side as soon as I'm visible to him? Shrugging off a direct hit from a plasma cannon - a big one, judging by the noise - would deal my opponent a damaging psychological blow and throw him off balance. The Autobots put a lot of faith in their guns. This one is probably no different.

Wait! This thing is just a refitted guardian unit. A facsimile construct. Psychological warfare doesn't work on a computer. Almost to the top of the hill, I stop in my tracks. It's just hit me. What if it isn't an FC? What if this . . . thing is another me? A hapless neutral forced to fight and kill for the Autobots? I can't risk killing it. Him. Her. Oh, Pit. Second-guessing myself is going to get us killed. I'll do what I can to disable it without fatal damage. If I do have to kill it, it may think I'm doing it a favour. Maybe I can take the head back to Decepticon HQ and have the brain module transferred to another body. Maybe I can take back the whole thing and we'll have another giant warrior on our side. We'll s-

I realise a little too late that the humming noise has stopped. The hilltop in front of me explodes into a flaming stump of glowing molten rock and yet more ash is hurled into the sky to join the thick clouds above. The clouds! I have barely two minutes before they cover the sun again. I hope it's enough.

The smoke starts to clear and I finally see it. It's a golden-age Decepticon guardian model, all right. The calming pale blue colour scheme of the Decepticon variant is replaced by a red torso, yellow shoulders, a yellow stripe down the front of both shins, and a translucent orange visor covering the face. Probably some sort of tactical display. Everything else is beige. I hate beige. Some of the tank's rail housings form cream 'wings' of a sort on it's back. The housing is probably designed for rapid deployment, hence the high rate at which all those kilometers of track shot away from me earlier. As expected, a gloomy Autobot insignia stares blankly out into space from the top of it's inclined breastplate.

"Target: located," it slowly announces to itself. "Confirmed . . . Decepticon. Identity: unknown. Configuration: gestalt. I hope you . . . are . . . more of a . . . challenge than those . . . Seekers."

Hmm. Not an innocent victim. He holds up his plasma cannon arm and shows me one side of it. With his big gun at that angle he's not going to try anything funny, so I take a chance and zoom in. Three buckled, burnt but intact Decepticon badges sit crudely welded to his forearm, each one the right size for a Seeker jet's nosecone. If he can take on three seekers at once and come out of it without any visible damage, he's bad news. If he keeps bits of his victims for posterity as well, he's really bad news.

"Do you . . . have any . . . badges?" he asks. Sicko.

There's a pretty small Decepticon sigil to the right of Razorclaw's head, and another just under Tantrum's head. Poor pickings for a mech my size. He'll be very disappointed.

He looks upset now. The distance between us is now only four hundred meters, and he's storming towards me at quite a pace. He'll be here in less than a minute. I hope. It looks like the Decepticon weather report is going to be annoyingly accurate this time. I only have fifty seconds. Nowhere near enough time.

"I . . . said . . ." he bellows, "do you . . . have any . . . badges!"

It looks like his earlier question wasn't rhetorical after all. I thought he was asking just to psyche me out. Looks like he genuinely wants to know. Tough. If he wants my badges, he's going to have to come and take them. Looks as if he has that course of action in mind already.

He stomps right over the still-molten bare rock of the hilltop. Of course he has full thermal shielding. He's designed to function in space. That means my laser may not be as effective as I'd hoped.

An immense and unexpectedly long three fingered claw arm comes up and makes a grab for my head. I catch one prong in each hand, and stand my ground. So. He is heavier than me. That and his momentum from running up the hill push me back, and I can feel a small dune of ash building up behind each heel. Eventually my heels dig into bare rock, and we come to a lurching stop. I can just make out his face now, under that visor. He looks mad, in every sense of the word. Optics unfocussed, mouth contorted in a feral snarl; he looks possessed. No. His face is too scary. I'm going to look at the implement of my impending demise instead. Luminous orange. What were they thinking?

Now probably isn't the best time for Divebomb's patented not-now sense of humour to become dominant in my mind. I could use a little more input from Rampage, or Vengeance, or one of his more experienced personalities.

"Well?" he grunts. "Do you have . . . any?"

I pay no attention to his ranting. Let's see. His feet are massive. Tripping him is going to be out of the question.

"Why don't . . . you answer? Maybe . . . you can't speak. Well . . . I hope . . . you can scream . . . Decepticon. . . ."

Perhaps a well-aimed head butt right into his Heads Up Display could rattle him enough to let me get into the open. I start to lead his claw arm off to my left, hopefully forcing him to bring his- Primus wept!

The guardian brings up his plasma cannon arm, aims it straight at my face and charges it up. What is he thinking? At this range . . . he'll be okay because he's equipped to cope with high temperatures. Right on schedule, everything descends into near-darkness and the ash clouds cover the sun. Perfect timing. I can feel my force field start to degrade as the telltale hum of a plasma blast building up cuts out.

I make my decision. I switch off my force field and try to get my head out of the way. The plasma bolt vapourizes my left antenna and takes my left side audio sensor with it. With my force field off there was nothing to hold back the blast so heat damage to my other systems is minimal, all things considered. However, my vision is slightly fuzzy and my magnetic sensors were overloaded by the proximity of the blast. I'm down one and a half senses, and another is temporarily impaired. And I think the rock I'm standing on is starting to crumble.

Sure enough, with a hard crunch my left leg slips away, and I begin to fall. I shift my grip on my opponent's claw arm and change the emphasis from push to pull. He's so obsessed with tearing my face off he keeps pushing and we fall together. I manage to swing his claw arm off to the right as I slide back and to the left. As planned, I slam into the ash on my back and he careens face first into it, plowing a great charcoal grey trough halfway down the side of the hill.

I slide quite far too, but not as far as him and I manage to regain control a little sooner. I lean up on my right elbow and watch him struggle to evacuate himself from the deep mound of ash his upper torso is currently embedded in. Spotting an opportunity I jump up and make a beeline for him. He's up on his knees, scratching desperately at his visor which is completely obscured with ash. A little too late he realises how close I am and raises his cannon arm in defense. It doesn't help.

The average mass of a Predacon is fourteen tonnes. Rampage and Divebomb slightly less; Tantrum and Headstrong slightly more. Each of my footpads weigh one point five tonnes. So it's hardly surprising that he lets out a yell as my left foot comes up smartly to meet the end of his helmet and his entire body lifts into the air. He lands on his back with a crash about ten meters away, legs up in the air. Divebomb finds his posture quite amusing. I admit I am starting to enjoy myself. This mech has killed at least three Decepticons and I'm going to stop it from killing any more, with a bit of luck.

I bring my force field back up, anticipating some kind of high-energy retaliation from him when he gets up. He doesn't disappoint. As I approach again he sits up and spins his head around, revealing the barrel of his tank section. An unexpectedly strong laser beam slashes across my chest. Or rather, my force field. It holds up easily against the beam, and I come off without a scratch. I look down at Razorclaw's lion head, feigning surprise at not seeing any damage. I look back at him, and bring up my left arm with my x-ray laser on it. There's no harm in trying.

I hit him with a full power blast straight in the Autobot sigil. That sullen red face always gives me the creeps. It takes just over two seconds for the laser to discharge completely, and for another second I'm almost overwhelmed by the smell of ozone in the air. It comes as a surprise- I didn't think there was that much free oxygen left around here.

The guardian's sigil is burned beyond recognition. Only the very edges are still even red. Unfortunately for me, one melted insignia seems to be all the damage done. He looks down at the smoldering dent, then back at me, and smiles.

"Stalemate," he says. "Looks like . . . we do this . . . the old fashioned way. . . ."

He brings one foot in under his body, stands, and rushes me. I lower my centre of gravity and brace myself for another head-on crash, but instead he brings his cannon arm round in front of him and swats me down the hill. With the clang of the impact still ringing in my remaining audio sensor I crash onto my right side and roll all the way to the bottom. With no trees to hold I in place there isn't much soil left under the ash and I glance off bedrock several times on the way down. When I eventually stop I'm completely covered in ash and lying face down in more of it. As I push myself up onto my hands and knees, I notice the end has snapped off my x-ray laser, and with it one of the focusing mirrors. So now it's even more useless.

Cleaning fluid covers my optics, clearing them of ash fairly quickly. I almost wish they hadn't, since the guardian is now bearing down on me with plasma cannon raised. There's that humming noise again. I shunted all available power to structural support when he charged me, and there's no way I can build my force field up enough to absorb a full power plasma bolt before he fires it. Still on my knees, I dive to the left as the bolt slides out of the guardian's cannon and lights up everything from here to the horizon. All the solar cells on my right side overload and shut off, and the blast melts half of my right wing. The top of Rampage's torso is warped by the heat. Looks like he was holding back with the last shot.

Rampage and Divebomb both scream inside my head while the world lights up again as the bolt loses cohesion at the edge of it's range and bursts apart. Must have been quite a light show, but it all happened behind me. In front of me, the guardian keeps coming. He stops a few paces in front of where I lie still on my side.

"I want . . . your . . . badges . . . Decepticon," he growls, pointing his cannon at my head. I can hear it start to charge up again. Just. There's a steady crackle in my audio channel now, and I am now officially blind in my right optic. Rampage suffered a sensory overload so intense it almost knocked him off-line. I can't afford to lose him now! I need . . . something. . . .

And then I realise it. Where I am. Where he is. That's it! This Autobot has crossed the line!

He's.

Standing.

On.

The.

Flower!

Rampage says "no" to the pain and a course of action forms in my mind. I bat the guardian's cannon away just as another plasma blast burns a deep crater in the ground, then jump up onto my feet. My first act is to push him back, off the tiny symbol of organic resistance and off balance. I take a careful step forward after him, clasp my hands together, bring them up high over my head and bring them smashing down right on the Autobot's head. His arms fly up in shock and pain from the impact, and I press my advantage by delivering an uppercut to his jaw, followed by a double backhand to the side of his head. His visor cracked after the first blow, and shattered completely after the third. He loses his tactical display, his balance, and a visible amount of self confidence.

I decide to press my advantage. As the Autobot drops to one knee, I bring up my own knee and Headstrong's head hits him square in the chest. He falls backwards but manages to find his footing after a few backsteps. He swings his claw arm but I manage to duck under it, and reward his efforts by gouging a deep trench in his chestplate with my knuckle blades. Well, the trench felt a lot deeper as I was gouging it. In fact I only penetrated a few millimeters of armour, but it was a start.

I continue to pound away on the Autobot's head and upper body until he regains his composure. The raging fire is slowly dying within me, and I can see it start to swell within him. With a bellowing roar, he smashes the end of his plasma cannon into my face. Straight after it the claw arm comes up and makes a grab for my helmet, and I only just manage to grasp the sides of it before the three grasping orange fingers close around my head.

Here we go again.

After all that fighting and pain and rage, we're now right back where we started. Casualties - well, one casualty in this case - lie around us, the land is devastated and neither of us is a pretty sight at the moment, but nothing has really changed. A more fitting metaphor for the entire Autobot/Decepticon conflict does not exist. On one side, the aggressor, hell-bent on destroying any and all opposition in order to rule what's left. On the other, the scorned victims, the original targets of the aggressor's violent ways, risen up from the ashes to protect others.

But at the same time it's nothing like the war. Our conflict is a tangled mass of all known Cybertronian philosophies and cultures. Here I stand, a conglomerate of captured neutrals built to kill for the Autobots partly using stolen Decepticon technology, and modified by a scientific genius who defected from the Autobots to the Decepticon resistance. My opponent: a hundred and twenty thousand vorn old Decepticon guard unit design augmented with state-of-the-art Autobot technology to become the ultimate warrior. We both possess the best of both worlds. The greatest of everything that both sides have to offer. How can either one of us triumph?

I'm surprised he hasn't yet thought to employ his plasma cannon again. I can't think of an easy counter to it and here on level ground there's nowhere to run from the blast. But his cannon arm stays by his side. Why?

Oh, that's why.

I forgot for the moment that his claw arm is also the rear half of his rocket section. In the centre of his 'hand' is a propulsive engine capable of lifting an eight tonne rocket with thirty tonnes of cargo into a geostationary orbit. As the ion emitter flickers into life, I can't help but wonder what the consequences will be for both of us when he fires it. He will probably be thrown for a kilometer of more unless he gets forced straight down into the ground or up into the air, and I will be . . . in trouble.

I shift all the power I can muster into my force field generator, forsaking all other systems. As my structural support field starts to weaken I can feel my knees buckle. The Autobot, unsurprisingly for someone of his mental stability, begins to laugh. I close my eyes as the ion drive rumbles into life barely a metre from my head, and my world explodes before me. . . .

When I wake up, my chronometer claims just over a breem, some ten minutes, have passed. There's smoke coming from somewhere. Smoke coming from quite a lot of places, actually. I slowly tilt my head down to look at the rest of my body instead of the bleak sky above. Two arms: check. Two legs: check. A body to connect them all to: check. That's a good sign. I don't seem to have any paint anywhere above my knees. Razorclaw's lion head is badly scorched and was probably partly molten up until very recently. Two of the gold panels on his mane seem to have fallen off at some point before the others melted. My visor is cracked and warped at the bottom. Not enough to obscure my vision entirely, but still very annoying. All right. Enough with the visual examination. Now for the bad news: the auto-diagnostic report.

Audio sensors: left side receptor off-line; right side receptor 40-11,000Hz range off-line. I can believe that. Repair time: left side receptor: n/a. I can believe that too. right side receptor: 4.7 breem. Well, it's a start.

Olfactory sensors: off-line. Oh well. Repair time: 1.8 breem. Okay.

Magnetic sensors: off-line. Repair time: n/a.

Electrical sensors: off-line. Repair time: n/a. Four down. Four to go.

Lateral sensors: left side sensor off-line. Repair time: n/a. Right side sensor: on-line.

Optic sens- yeah, yeah. I can see. I know at least one of them is working. Let's get some stories from the other systems.

Force field gen: off-line. Repair time: n/a. That's bad news. Must've been overloaded by the explosion.

Structural support field: Active. No higher than 34% recommended output. Time to full restoration: 11.6 breem. Well, at least it's still working. How about motor function?

Right hand: index finger, second finger, third finger and wrist motors off-line. Repair time: 0.6 breem. That's what I like to hear! Okay, how about power?

No energon leaks detected. Energon level: 38%. Crystalline microfractures detected in ultraconductor system. Present ultraconductor efficiency: 63% of normal. That's about as lucky as it gets, I'd say. Component body damage summary?

Component bodies have suffered 234 individual injuries. None are immediately life-threatening, although five injuries require semi-urgent medical attention. Where are they?

My onboard computer displays a schematic of my body, and paints 229 tiny red pinpricks on it along with five large ones. Hm. Three on Razorclaw; two on Rampage. Semi-urgent. That means the auto-repair'll keep them alive but not at their best. I wonder if my opposite number faired any better or worse. I'm guessing better.

I sit up very slowly. I'm right. In the distance, some one and a half kilometers away, there he is. He's standing, which is bad news for me. I try my zoom function. Nothing. Great. I should probably have read the rest of the sensory report. Eh.

So we fight on. If the state I'm in is any indication of the state he's in, it won't be a very long fight. Eventually I struggle onto my feet. It was harder than I'd hoped it would be. I don't know if I can face him again. He's arguably stronger than me. He has much thicker armour and better weapons. I can't beat him without backup. How will the other Decepticons react when they discover their ultimate warrior can't beat the Autobots ultimate warrior? No, it's better they find out I'm not invincible than lose me altogether. I have to forget about Decepticon morale and call for support. He took down three Seekers with little difficulty. I'd better tell them to send another gestalt team, or maybe two. Oh, no. . . . What if. . . .

Subspace communications: on-line. Yes! One message recorded 0.44 breem ago. A message? Origin?

Cybertron. Polyhex region.

Polyhex? Open encoded channel.

A scene from a bustling Decepticon surgery appeared in one side of my view. In the rest of my view, a burnt, beige and belligerent Autobot began stomping towards me presumably with murder in mind. Despite the inherent vulnerability of doing so, I separate my consciousness into it's five component parts in order to communicate more easily.

"Hello?" Razorclaw said.

An unmarked mech with a distinctive fiery paint job and equally fiery orange optics ran past his view, skidded to a halt, jumped back in front of the camera and dropped into a chair opposite it.

"Razorclaw!" he exclaimed warmly. "I see you're in your combined form right now. Am I interrupting something?"

"Nothing we can't handle, Flame. To what do we owe the honour?"

"Razorclaw . . ." Divebomb hissed in his mind's ear, "he's getting closer. . . ."

"I've got a little surprise for you and the boys," Flame said with an air of obvious satisfaction. "I've found a way to maintain the vibrational effect of your sonic sword when it's size and mass is increased to the correct scale for Predaking to use."

"I didn't think that was possible. How did you manage it?"

"Aw, you know me, Razorclaw," Flame sighed, leaning back in his chair with his joined hands supporting his bucket-shaped head. The acetylene pipes that hung from his forearms clipped a tray of parts, but it remained on the table top. "impossible is my specialty. Seriously though, I didn't really manage it at all. I cheated. Only the top twenty centimeters is wired up to the vibracore. I laced the rest of the blade with the same vibrational dampeners installed in the hilt. Or a rough approximation. I didn't have the right components so I had to improvise a-"

"-But it's ready, right?"

"Oh yeah. I deposited it in your subspace pocket about half a breem ago. That's why I called. I want you to give it a field test as soon as possible, to see if it functions well enough in a combat scenario. Is that okay?"

"Flame?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Taken aback, Flame stared at the screen for a second. After a moment's pause he pointed his finger at the camera and simply said: "Thanks!"

"I'll have those field test results for you very soon. Razorclaw out."

"Have fun, boys," Flame waved with one hand and reached out to turn off the camera with the other.

"So . . ." Divebomb probed. "Dr Claw over there's in for a surprise, is he?"

"To put it mildly," Razorclaw replied. "Form up, everyone. It's time to finish this."

I'm back. Some of the Predacons were unsure of how we were to continue, but now that our minds are linked all becomes clear. Tantrum had a lot of contact with the Decepticon guardian at our docks, and Razorclaw knew the internal layout of it's rocket section from many, many energon deliveries. The energon tank for the rocket's ion drive was just above the drive itself. High energy weapons would detonate the energon and likely kill us both, but simple vibrations wouldn't. The sympathetic resonation would cleave through his armour easily enough, then the energon would just leak out. The hydrogen tanks in his plasma cannon, assuming there's anything left in there after the number of bolts he let off at me, ought to be similarly vulnerable.

He's covered a lot of ground. Over a kilometer in one and a half minutes. There's only three hundred meters between us now. I can see him quite clearly. Most of his paint has been burned off and the scratches in his armour from my earlier attack are more obvious. The barrel of his cranial laser seems to have broken off, presumably when he landed, and one of his track housings is hanging open. Unfortunately his beige parts all appear to be heat-resistant ceramic plating and it's all still there. I wonder how the Autobots came up with ceramics without help from the humans?

He's almost on me now. One hundred meters, my remaining lateral sensor tells me. Another ten paces and that claw will be reaching for my head again. Or maybe he'll try a different tactic this time?

He doesn't. The claw comes up once again, and I remember that he's done it twice so far and each time managed to deal me a significant amount of damage. But this time will be different. This time I'm ready for him.

I can just about hear him roar as he charges forward. It sounds strange, since I've lost the lower end of my audio spectrum so only the higher frequencies register. Now that he's only a few paces from me, I can see a multitude of small and not-so-small dents and cracks all over his armour. He must have landed harder than I did. Good.

I pull Razorclaw's sword out of subspace and into my functioning left hand. I feel it's handle swell in size as I call on the extra material stored next to it in subspace to inflate the sword to my scale. I cue the vibracore toggle with my thumb and hear the telltale whine of the shuddering blade tip. The Autobot spots my sword but by then it's too late. His inertia carries him forward that last step, and before he can bring his claw arm down, I stoop low and jam my sword up through the thick beige armour just behind his wrist. The sword moves easily through his armour, suggesting that ceramics can't handle vibration all that well. Something to bear in mind in future.

A steady stream of energon runs down the blade and onto my hand. Exactly what I was hoping for. He won't be using that little party trick again in this fight. One more push and the tip of the blade comes out through the top of his forearm. The Autobot screams and swings his arm away from me. He takes a couple of steps backward and paws at the sword's hilt with the end of his plasma cannon. He only has one hand and there's no way he can reach the sword with it, and all the while the tip of the blade is shaking itself an ever-larger hole in his arm. Eventually it'll fall out, but by then there's a chance he'll have blown my head off with his plasma cannon. I leap forward and tear the sword out myself, and with it comes the last of the energon from his rocket section's fuel tank. One down. One to go.

The Autobot's claw arm falls to his side, and he immediately brings his cannon to bear on me. Not this time, murderer. I take a savage swipe at the end of his cannon, hoping to damage the magnetic compressor and prevent him from being able to crush the hydrogen in his tanks down to plasma. Alas, my sword hits it too far down the blade, and all I succeed in doing is batting his arm away. In an instant I decide to go for maximum psychological trauma, and bring my sword up again. I rake the tip of the blade right along the inside of his cannon arm, peeling open his armour and slicing through his carefully preserved trophies. I imagine the loss of his "badges" will do more damage than the loss of his cannon.

I'm right.

"My badges!" he screams. "My beautiful badges..."

Now I've done it. I broke his badges, and now he's going to stop at nothing to kill me. He may have lost his rocket engine but his claw is still intact, and the hydrogen tanks in his other arm were made of something different from his outer armour. The vibracore couldn't adapt quickly enough to rupture them as well. Or could it?

My olfactory sensors are starting to come back on-line, and there's a definite smell of molecular hydrogen in the air. I turn my head to listen with my left audio sensor, and his arm is quietly hissing. I've got him now.

He's still in shock from the loss of his badges, but he'll recover soon enough. I have to do this quickly. I aim a kick at his midsection that forces him to stumble back a couple of steps, and tell my x-ray laser to transform back into Razorclaw's concussion blaster mode. My sidearm flips one hundred and eighty degrees, barrel covers swap ends, what's left of my laser barrel retracts into it's housing, some internal components shift around and the blaster is ready. This gun knocked over Bruticus once, so it should be enough to do what I need it to do.

I let loose both barrels straight into his chest, where his sigil used to be. His arms flail and he staggers backwards again as the blinding blue-white wall of supercompressed air strikes him. His weakened outer armour cracks. Fragments fly off, revealing the bare metal beneath. He swings his claw arm in front of the wound, and flecks of energon rain from the hole there. One drip of energon falls past the hydrogen leak on his cannon arm. Highly energetic liquid meets highly reactive gas at high speed. The hydrogen ignites.

I had turned the solar protection on my visor up to full in preparation for the explosion, and I was glad I did when it finally came. Even through the blackened Plexiglas my vision turned white, then faded rapidly back to black. The shockwave rocks me and I almost stumble backwards, and the bang was deafening. My remaining audio sensor shuts down automatically to prevent further damage.

I wait a few seconds for my vision to return to normal before slowly reducing the protection factor on my visor. The land before me still looks dusky, but blue flames from somewhere on my left give the scenery an unusual look. I look to the source of the flames, and see that most of the Autobot's upper body is on fire. Every flat surface seems to have a small pool of evaporating liquid hydrogen burning away on it. His right side track housing is fully open now, and tank rails are spilling out onto the blackened earth. He's in a Pit of a state. It's over. It must be.

It isn't.

Still burning away, the Autobot raises himself onto one knee with his claw arm and stares at me. Utter disbelief in his eyes. His mindset clearly doesn't allow for failure, or being creamed by a single Decepticon gestalt.

"I . . . am . . . " he rumbles, "Omega . . . Supreme!"

So that's his name. Typically pompous. All the most powerful Autobots seem to have flashy names, often very similar to human Latin. The translation is usually very funny, which was why Divebomb insisted on looking them up in the dictionary.

'Optimus Prime', 'the best leader'. Sure he is. 'Ultra Magnus' means roughly 'super great', which I suppose is how he sees himself. Omega Supreme means . . . 'the last, greatest'. Interesting choice. He's certainly the most powerful Autobot I've ever faced, but the last? Maybe he'll be unique. No others like him in the Autobot army. I certainly hope so.

Primus, he's actually getting up again. That's it. I've had enough.

Enough of him. Enough of the fighting, the pain and the ridiculous explosions. This land is horribly wounded, but life was returning to it. Our battle has extinguished that life. He has extinguished it, and he still isn't satisfied. Now all he wants is to kill again.

No. I'm going to put him down permanently.

He stands up and careens towards me, but in his current shape he's too slow and unsteady to be a threat. Since my right hand is now back in full working order I grasp the handle of my sonic sword with both hands and thrust it into the exposed metal of his chest as he bears down on me. The vibracore at the tip has no problem penetrating the inner armour or the internal components beneath. Unfortunately the rest of the sword fares rather worse, snagging on a piece of ragged metal inside the Autobot's chest.

I try pulling the sword back out, and Omega Supreme comes with it. He reaches for my head in a daze, so I push the sword back in again. The Autobot rocks backwards, and the blade shifts barely a centimeter before stopping again. It's officially stuck. I try shifting the blade back and forth in hopes of freeing it, and trying to ignore the screams of the impaled Autobot it's stuck in. After a few seconds of violent rattling I finally try to pry the wound open wider so that I can pull the blade out around the obstruction. My spark sinks as I hear a loud crack and my sword suddenly feels lighter in my grasp.

The vibrating section of my sword's blade had snapped off inside the wound, and without the vibrational dampers along the rest of the blade and regulators in the hilt it'll proceed to shake the Autobot to pieces. I can't actually see the vibrations since they're so small and so rapid, but the Autobot's stuttering cry suggests it's doing a lot of damage in there. Then the cracks start to appear in his outer armour. Slowly, larger and larger chunks of fractured beige plating rain down off the Autobot's body. Sparks shoot from the wound. Armour panels shake apart and smoke billows out from the cracks. After about twenty seconds of this punishment, the Autobot actually begins to fall apart.

Omega Supreme's legs, which form the tank docking stations, collapse into their component parts and the great Autobot crashes onto his back. Instead of reconfiguring themselves into a recognisable platform the cracked and buckled parts simply lie on the ground in a heap. The rocket sections - his perforated claw arm and still-burning cannon arm - slide off their broken housings and clatter onto the ground. The cannon rolls away and its fires are finally put out by the smothering ash. The other track housing on his back ruptures suddenly and pours out about a kilometer of unguided rail into a pile behind his head.

The Autobot's head looks about ready to come off, too. Smoke is coming from the housing where it meets his torso, and it seems to be flailing around as if his neck motors are no longer connected. His face is contorted into a silent, agonising scream. His vocaliser has long since shut down. Maybe it's my sensory-deprived state, or the atrocities that this mech represents by it's very existence, or the fate of those three Seekers, or the fate of that flower, I don't know. I just can't bring myself to have any sympathy whatsoever for this Autobot, even in his apparent death throes.

I can't tell how extensive his injuries are without my electrical sensors but I know a Transformer in stasis lock when I see one, and when Omega Supreme's eyes went dark I knew it was all over. His original stab wound was now a gaping fissure, and I could see the vibracore still vibrating it's way into the Autobot's backpack. I decide that enough is enough, and shove what's left of my sword back into the wound to try to match the blade's contacts up with the vibracore and switch it off. I poked around in the tank's shattered innards for a few seconds before finally putting my sword straight down on its wayward component and hitting the hilt toggle. The vibracore stops vibrating, and the Autobot stops throwing up small, wispy clouds of ash from all around its shuddering form. I pluck out my sword, reach into the wound with my now bladeless right hand and pluck out the vibracore between two fingers. Not surprisingly, the vibracore had shaken off the surrounding metal of the blade tip. I make a mental note as I subspace the pieces: tell Flame that the new sword needs a bit of work.

With the battle won, I take a moment to look again at my surroundings. There's a lot more smoke and a few new craters in the earth, and that hill is now three or four meters shorter than it was yesterday, but other than that the landscape is apparently unchanged. Apart from the miraculous local flora, of course, which may well be gone forever.

That's when I spot a small reflective surface some two hundred meters away. Judging by it's proximity to the hill - the only real landmark in the area - it would be about where we were when Omega Supreme decided it would be a good idea to turn his rocket engine on me. It's probably one of Razorclaw's golden mane panels which was knocked loose by the force of the blast. I may as well take it back with me. Even though Razorclaw's lion head is barely recognisable at the moment, it'll be one less panel to replace when it's being repaired.

I reach the small glinting object soon enough, and slide my thumb into the soft ash beside it to get a good grip before picking it up. It takes me a second to notice that the panel is lying in one of Omega Supreme's footprints, and to my utter shock and surprise underneath it is a tiny, healthy green shoot with an attractive arrangement of slightly singed pink petals on top. The flower! I can't believe it survived! I quickly compare the massive footprint to another clearer one nearby and realise that the flower was caught between the Autobot's treads. When he fired up his ion drive, my armour panel that was blasted loose must have fallen on top of it and protected it from most of the heat. That's another asset that organic life - and myself - can boast that the Autobots seem to lack. Luck.

"Hey, PK. You all right down there?"

The sudden voice from nowhere startles me. With my magnetic sensors off-line and my audio sensors impaired I couldn't detect the approaching jets. I visually scan the sky for a few seconds before locating two incoming black dots in the charcoal heavens. My zoom facility still isn't working in my functional optic, but the voice on the radio was definitely Skywarp. That means the other one is probably Thundercracker. I'm glad to see neither of my new friends were Omega Supreme's earlier victims. I wave to the pair as they approach.

Sure enough, Thundercracker and Skywarp transform and land a short distance away from me. They both seem rather taken aback by my own state and the scene around me. Skywarp is the one who eventually speaks first.

"Predaking, what happened here? When all those crazy seismic readings came back from where Diego said you'd gone rambling, we figured you were either practicing yer ballet moves or you'd found a great big Autobot to play with."

"I'm guessing it's the second one," Thundercracker continued, "looking at the state of you. What in the universe did you run into out here?"

Thundercracker and Skywarp had spent so much time together they had a tendency to finish off each others' trains of thought. To answer both their questions I pointed to where Omega Supreme's smoldering remains lay.

"Yeah, we saw that on the way in," Thundercracker said. "'Warp thought it was some kind of new Autobot mobile battle station. Is that what it was?"

I shake my head, and trudge off through the ash towards the Autobot debris. Skywarp and Thundercracker trot along behind me. There is a myth being passed among the Decepticon ranks that I cannot speak. This is not true. I simply choose not to speak because I find listening to others much more interesting. People feel more free to talk around me when they think I can't comment on it or tell anyone what they've said.

It comes as something of a relief when Skywarp finally opens his mouth again. He speaks in a low whisper, wrongly assuming that I cannot hear him over my own footsteps. My audio sensors may be presently impaired, but only the lowest frequencies are now inaudible to me. This, in fact, partly muffles my footsteps and makes it easier for me to listen in.

"TC, we have to get out of here," he hisses. "We don't have time to play charades with big, gold and shiny up there. The Autobots'll be here in less than an hour."

Autobots. Interesting.

"This could be important," Thundercracker whispers back. "Maybe something we'll have to know about in the future so it doesn't wipe us out before we know what's happening."

Skywarp lets out an unconvinced whine.

"Look, it's gonna have to be pretty nasty to rough Predaking up like that. We should take a look. Maybe get some scans. See what we're gonna be up against."

Skywarp whines again, then says: "Fine. Lets see what it is then get the Pit out of here. I really don't wanna be here when that shuttle turns up."

Autobots in a shuttle. Now we're getting somewhere. I wonder how many? After my battle with Omega Supreme it would do me good to stomp some small fry. To do my bit to rid the Earth of the Autobot plague with a little less risk of getting killed.

I stop next to Omega Supreme's wreckage. Skywarp and Thundercracker walk round me and gawk at the shattered form before them. I'm not all that bothered. I've seen it. Besides, Earth's resistance is alive and well after I thought it destroyed in the Autobot/Decepticon crossfire. Nothing can spoil my good mood. Not even a shuttle full of Autobots.

"Whoa . . ." Skywarp breathes. I wonder if he considers this worth sticking around for. "Do you know what this is?"

"Nope," Thundercracker admits after a moment's visual inspection. "Well, at the moment it looks like someone who messed with the wrong Decepticon! Am I right, big guy?" He pats me on side of the leg, and I resist Divebomb's urge to pat him on the head. "Still, if you mean do I know what it was when it was still in one piece; no."

"Megatron told me about these," Skywarp said in the same awestruck tone. "It looks like a Decepticon guardian unit from way back before the last war started. Different colour scheme - the Decepticon ones were light blue - but it's definitely the same design. It turns into a patrol tank, a set of rails for the tank to run on and a launch pad with a cargo rocket to launch from it. I guess the Autobots stole the design and added a . . ." he notices the exposed magnetic compressor inside the Autobot's cannon arm. "Personal touch."

"Look at how thick this armour is," Thundercracker remarked, holding up a piece of Omega Supreme's outer armour. "Hey, what is this stuff? It's not metal, and I don't think it's plastic. . . ."

"It's ceramic, TC," Skywarp explained, peering into the gaping wound in Omega Supreme's chest. "Made from clay. The humans have used it for the last sixty vorn or so. When you make it right, it can take really high temperatures. Lasers'd be all but useless against this thing."

Thundercracker steps out in front of me and looks up at my face.

"Hey, Predaking. Your only armament's a laser. How'd you do all this damage?"

It doesn't really matter right now. Not worth dropping my facade for. Razorclaw can explain it to them later. For an answer, I just look straight back at him.

"Ah well. One of your boys can tell me later." Thundercracker pulls a small personal scanner out of subspace and starts taking readings from the Autobot's remains. "Brain activity is minimal, but it's there. Looks like the brain module has it's own emergency supply."

"Hey," Skywarp piped up, "why don't we take the head back to base camp with us?"

Not a good idea. It could have all manner of tracking devices installed.

"Nah," Thundercracker replied, "it could be bugged. It'd lead the Autobots right to us." Great minds think alike. "We'd better leave all of him here."

"Okay. Hey . . ." Skywarp raised a finger in salute of a good idea in the making. "I think I still have one of them crazy little listening doohickeys Bombshell made up in my subspace pocket. They're only detectable visually, right?"

"Right. . . ."

"So if I put it somewhere they can't see it like, say, on the inside of his armour here. . . ."

Skywarp pulls a small plastic disk out of subspace and presses it onto the inside of Omega's chest. Some of the fractured metal crumbles in his hand, and he withdraws in shock. Then he looks up at me.

"Man, Predaking, you really did do a number on this guy, didn't you?"

He killed three seekers. He stood on the flower. He deserved all he got. He's lucky to be alive. Well, at the moment he is. Once he's brought before the infinite wisdom of Optimus Prime, he might wish I'd killed him. I don't think Optimus will be all that pleased about his new toy being crippled on it's first mission. This will no doubt make Omega Supreme even more angry, bitter, and insane. The next time we meet, he'll be out to kill me from the start. And I'll destroy him then, too.

"Okay," Skywarp said as he straightened up. "We came, we saw, we placed a bug. Now can we get out of here?"

"I don't see why not." Thundercracker crouches, preparing to leap into the air and transform to jet mode. I still don't know what the hurry is, apart from something involving some Autobots and a shuttle, so I put one hand on his shoulder before he leaves the ground.

"Huh? Oh, Predaking. Look, we have to get outta here. There's an Autobot battle unit headed in this direction in an atmospheric shuttle. Life readings indicated somewhere around two dozen Autobots. They'll be here in forty five minutes. That's . . . about five and a half breem, if you're not so hot on human time yet. Just enough time to get you back to the caves. Come on!"

Two dozen Autobots? It would be a challenge even for the seven of us, especially with my force field generator out. Perhaps if I brought down the shuttle before it landed. Of course, that might be difficult with my x-ray laser damaged. But I can't leave. I can't leave that flower here for those Autobots to land on or trample over or simply destroy out of spite and sheer evil. I won't let them kill this land again. Not one more living creature will fall victim to the Autobots' evil while I function. Not one more!

I have to tell them. I have to make Thundercracker and Skywarp understand why we must stay and fight. This is worth breaking my silence for.

"No," I say to them. A simple word, but one with a great deal of impact. The two of them stop in their tracks and just stare at me. For a moment I wonder if I have actually sprouted a second head, but then I start to think about the sound of my own voice. The lower end of my audio spectrum has not yet returned to some of the sound is lost, but I think it's deep. Feral. There was a definite 'growling' backdrop to it. I'm sure it suits me, but the sound of it must have given them both a shock.

"Hey, Predaking," Skywarp calls up at me, "since when have you been able to talk?"

"I have always been able to speak," I explain. "I simply never felt the need to do so before now." I give the statement a moment to sink in, Skywarp opens his mouth to respond, but I have to say my piece. "We cannot leave. Life has only just started to return to this barren land, and I will not abandon it to the Autobots."

Confusion. It's written on both their faces.

"Predaking, what are you talking about?" Skywarp says at last. I point to where the flower sits among the ash.

"A flower is growing out there. The first living creature that has been able to thrive out here since the Autobots destroyed the forest."

"Predaking . . ." Thundercracker says with a sigh, "it's just a flower. Diego and Caitlin have lots of flowers back in the caves. They have all those UV lamps that power them. Remember?"

"This one is functioning out here, were there are no lamps and little solar radiation penetrates the clouds. The rain that falls here is so acidic even we have to protect ourselves when we're out in it. It survives even in these harsh conditions. It's existence is a symbol of the humans' resistance movement. It will give them hope: show them that their world can recover from the Autobot invasion. It's too important for us to leave behind. We have to protect it from the Autobots. We can't run the risk of letting them destroy it."

"Now look, Predaking," Thundercracker says, "I know you're a tough guy. Femmes want you, mechs want to be you, all that. I'm not denying it. But there's no way you can take on twenty-odd Autobots on your own in that kinda shape."

What kind of shape? As if in answer, my 234 individual injuries loudly announce their presence. It seems that some of my tactile sensors were off-line and have just come back on. My entire body burns, and anything that doesn't burn just aches. I really should have read that sensory report. Ah well. It's just as well I didn't, I suppose. If I had remained blissfully ignorant of my present condition and gone thundering off to battle twenty plus Autobots armed to the optics like this, I would have been sent home in lots of little boxes. But still the situation remains unresolved. How can we protect the flower from the Autobots?

Thundercracker holds up his hands in a gesture of submission.

"Okay, okay. Here's what we can do. I've got a tarpaulin in my subspace pocket. We can take the flower out of the ground, and all the stuff around it so it's like it's not going anywhere, and we take it back to the caves with us. How's that?"

"Perfect. We can show it to the humans as soon as we get back."

"Exactly!" Thundercracker pulls his tarpaulin out of subspace and gives it a shake. He trudges off in the direction I had pointed in earlier, muttering "I can't believe I'm doing this" to himself.

"This is all my idea, Thundercracker," I call after him. "You can blame all your uncharacteristic behaviour on me."

"I will! Count on it! And you're carrying it back, too!" he shouts back. Then he kneels down next to the little pink flower, lays out his tarp, and proceeds to pick up handfuls of ash and soil and drop them onto the middle of it. Skywarp heads over to help him, and by the time I arrive there is a fair sized mound of earth in the middle of the tarp. "How much 'surrounding stuff' do you suppose it needs, 'Warp?"

"How should I know," he asks back, still scooping up soil. "I'm not a . . . flowerologist!"

"Botanist," I say as I drop onto one knee to help them. "That's what they're called." I dig my hand deep into the earth next to the flower until my fingertips hit rock. I scoop up a meter-deep lump of earth with the flower sticking up in the middle and deposit it on the tarpaulin.

"There. That should do it."

"Cool," Skywarp says, brushing the ash off his knees. "Now as one steel refiner said to the other, let's get the slag out of here!"

Thundercracker bunches all four corners of the tarpaulin together and ties them with the attached rope. "All yours, big fella." He holds up the tarp and I put one hand under it. He lets go and I place my other hand lightly over it to stop too much soil spilling out as I stand up.

The two Seekers roar into the sky, leaving a haze of ash in their wake. I set off after them, leaving Omega Supreme's smoldering remains in my wake. I could kill him now and relieve the Autobots of their most powerful warrior, but I won't. My wanton killing days are over. I'm a soldier, not an executioner. I only kill when there is no other option. Besides, the Autobots could just find some other poor spark and put him in the body instead. It wouldn't solve anything. Now I know how this guy ticks, what his strengths and weaknesses are. Maybe he knows mine too, or maybe he's just so obsessed with collecting souvenirs he wasn't concentrating. Whatever. Right now, I don't really care. I've got my flower, and I'm going home.

"Predaking's back!" I can hear the children's excited shouts and cheers as I approach. Diego and Caitlin built three themselves, and the others were made by other members of this resistance cell. I think the process is similar to the ancient art of spark budding, but more complicated as usual for organics. It all sounds like a messy and excruciating process, and the products arrive with minimal programming. Language, motor skills . . . everything has to be learned firsthand and it takes years. Typical organic process. Inefficient and overcomplicated, but undeniably cute.

As usual, the children come tearing out as fast as their little legs can carry them to meet me. I'm covered in ash and some of my armour is still quite hot. If they touch me they could be injured and their 'parents' will never forgive me, so I stop a few paces short of the cave entrance. Thundercracker and Skywarp are already there, and they step in between me and the children.

"Hold it right there, kids," Skywarp says. "Predaking's way too dirty and beat up to play with you guys right now."

There are a few groans of disappointment from the small crowd, then one of the children looks up at me, blinking painfully in the ashy air, and shouts: "What happened, Predaking?"

This triggers a torrent of other questions from the rest of the children. Was it the Autobots? How many were there? Am I going to be okay? Did I beat them? The last question prompts a response from Skywarp.

"Of course he beat them! There isn't an Autobot alive today that could take Predaking!"

The children cheer, and I'm touched by their concern. I don't think these small humans understand the concept of insincerity. They're always glad to see me, and they all seem to love just sitting watching me carry out normal, everyday tasks. Skywarp says it's because 'I'm so damn cool'. Maybe. And earlier on today I was worried that the creatures of this world thought of me as a monster like the Autobots.

Alas, watching me carry out a standard motor function check each morning isn't enough to inspire the absolute confidence that the children have in me in the larger humans. When I first arrived here some fifteen solar cycles ago to protect Diego's sensitive hydroponics research, the larger humans didn't want the smaller ones to go near me. When a group of humans was ambushed by a small Autobot contingent on a scavenging mission in a nearby ruined city, I got my chance to impress them. I saved a number of them by holding up a collapsing building they were trapped in while fending off three Autobots at the same time. Everyone got out with barely a scratch and after that they started to let the children play near me.

It seems that my concern for the humans' lives matters more to them than my ability to smash Autobots. I think the larger humans have become jaded and don't think we'll ever throw the Autobots off their world, so all they care about is their own survival. It's a shame. maybe the flower I found will bring a bit of hope for the future back into their lives.

As Skywarp and Thundercracker herd the children out of my path, I head for the cave entrance ahead. As I near it, Starscream and Diego stand waiting for me.

"So you won, huh?" Starscream says, a look of impending large workload crossing his grey visage. "I'm glad I don't have to treat the other guy."

"Yeah, we thought about taking him back with us too," Skywarp called over his shoulder, "but we figured you'd have enough to do with Predaking."

"Aw, you guys are so considerate." Starscream sighed as he looked me up and down. "I don't have nearly enough spares or materials to make full repairs here."

I offer him the mangled armour panel I found on the forest floor. Starscream chuckles as he takes it from me and looks it over.

"It's a start, I guess. . . ."

Then he turns his attention back to the other Seekers.

"I don't suppose either of you know how all this happened?"

"He had a run in with a big Autobot," Thundercracker explained.

"Just one? How big?"

Skywarp took over: "You ever see a picture of those old Decepticon guardian units from the golden age?"

"Yeah. . . ."

"One of them. Refitted with lots of modern tech. Structural support fields. Plasma weaponry. Ceramic armour. The whole deal."

Starscream was stunned. It was Diego who spoke up.

"Ceramic? How could the Autobots have come up with ceramic armour without help from humans?"

"No idea," Thundercracker said. "but Skywarp had the presence of mind to attach one of Bombshell's listening devices to the body. We reckon the Autobot shuttle's here to check up on him or something."

Starscream stopped looking at the piece of armour I'd given him and shot Thundercracker a skeptical glance.

"Twenty two of them?"

"I don't know. Maybe the guy's crazy! Ask the Predacons!"

"I think I will."

Sounds like my cue. I take a step forward and bend down to deposit the tarp full of soil and it's precious tenant in front of Diego. he looks confused, and immediately comes forward to investigate. Then I stand up again, and prepare to disengage. Given Rampage and Razorclaw's present condition, disengaging while standing up might not be such a great idea. So I sit down.

The impact quickly draws more humans to the cave mouth. One of them is talking about seismic readings and another is angry about having spilled his coffee. I can't help being well armoured. The children are intrigued. They seem quite amused by the volume of the crash when my skidplate met the ground. Children are easily amused, I find, larger humans, less so. It's a shame that they can't mimic the personality traits of their smaller coun-

beep

Rampage and Divebomb drop to the ground and slowly straighten up. Razorclaw stands up and begins a motor function test and Tantrum and Headstrong get up and head back to help their injured comrades.

"Sorry guys," Starscream said, holding up Predaking's disassembly trigger, "but he had that look in his optics again."

"Don't worry about it, Star," Divebomb said as Tantrum took him by his undamaged side and guided him towards the cave mouth, "much more of Predaking's philosophisin' and I would've lost the will to live. And we all know where he got that from, don't we fearless leader?" he remarked as he passed Razorclaw.

"It's not my fault I'm deep," Razorclaw jokingly replied, then turned his attention to Starscream. "Divebomb doesn't have any serious injuries, but he lost a repulsor and won't be able to fly until we get another one. Tantrum and Headstrong got out pretty clean, but their gestalt connections could do with being looked at sometime soon. Rampage's injuries are the most extensive. You'd better deal with him first."

"And what about you?"

"I'll . . . be fine until Rampage has been treated. I lost the motors in my left arm and, well, you can probably see the rest."

Rampage stopped by Razorclaw, and tugged on Headstrong's shoulder to bid him to stop as well.

"Don't you go getting all macho on us, boss. You're worse off than I am, and I'm at least twice as macho as you are. That means you go first."

Starscream crossed his arms and stared at the arguing pair.

"Well, what'll it be, gentlemen? Shall I just pick one, or would you like to arm wrestle to decide who goes second?"

Razorclaw and Rampage stare at each other for a long moment. Finally Razorclaw holds up his functional right arm in defeat.

"All right, I'll go first. Rampage is right, I am probably worse off. But as soon as I'm out of dan-"

"Okay, okay, tough guy. I promise, the second I've finished completing your most vital repair work I'll turf you off the operating table and call for Rampage to come in. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Great. Now come on! Everybody inside! The Autobots will be in sensor range in three minutes!"

The white Seeker lifts Razorclaw's arm and slips his head under it, and proceeds to guide the Predacon leader towards the cave mouth along with the others.

"Oh Primus. Lord Prime is gonna kill us all..."

Skywarp and Thundercracker giggled uncontrollably as they sat around the speakers, listening to the Autobots' conversation along with a group of humans and the other Predacons. Divebomb cackled and requested a high-five from Rampage who lay on his back on the floor behind him. The request was accepted.

"I mean, what could have done this? The Decepticons don't have anywhere near the amount of artillery it would take to do this sort of damage. They couldn't even get it on-planet without us noticing."

"Who is that?"

"I don't know. I think it's Wheeljack."

"Settle down, Wheeljack,"

"Yes! I am the man!"

"Ssh!"

"Sorry."

"Perceptor, can you tell which types of weapon system were used?"

"I think that's Prowl."

"Omega Supreme's outer armour has been completely pulverized at every currently identified impact point. I am afraid that ballistic pattern analysis will be quite impossible."

"Steee-rike!"

"SSH!"

"Sorry."

"Is there anything you can tell me about his attacker?"

"Further forensic analysis of the debris may yet yield-"

"-so no, then?"

"Not at this time, sir."

"Talk to Centurion when you return to Autobot City. Maybe he can tell us more about the ballistic properties of his armour."

"Who the Pit is Centurion?"

"No idea."

"Trailbreaker, did Omega Supreme complete his primary objectives?"

"Affirmative, sir. All three orbital sensor platforms successfully deployed in geosynchronous orbit."

"Sensor platforms?"

"Perceptor, I don't suppose his cerebral access port survived intact?"

"Negative. Omega Supreme's brain was disconnected from his primary power supply, and has been surviving on emergency battery power for the past seven breem. I'm afraid his short term memory would be completely erased by now, anyway."

"Aw yeah! The masked avenger strikes again! No one knows the face of-"

"-Divebomb shut up!"

"Okay. . . ."

"Trailbreaker. Contact Autobot city. Tell them to send out a shuttle to retrieve the sensor platforms immediately. We'll take them back to the surface and access their logs directly. Hopefully they'll be able to tell us where our mysterious assassins are hiding as well as what they did here."

"Oh, no. Razorclaw, are you lis- aaah!"

When Tantrum turned to address his friend and commander in the next room, he found himself staring into said lionbot's scorched pelvic armour. Most of his upper body had been stripped of armour, and his lion head still sat on Starscream's table where it had been left for repair after being painstakingly disconnected. Razorclaw stood testing the new motors in his left arm, listening to the Autobots' conversation.

"I heard. Do we have any weapons here capable of shooting down satellites?"

"Predaking's big gun could take them out," Divebomb offered, "if it wasn't wrecked."

Razorclaw brought his massive concussion blaster out of subspace and triggered it's transformation into Predaking's x-ray laser. Sure enough, the battered cannon was missing a meter off the end if its barrel.

"Starscream," Razorclaw turned to the Decepticon medic, "how quickly can you get this back up to full working order?"

He held the business end of the cannon up to Starscream, who leaned his head away instinctively, before coming back to look at the damage.

"How soon do you need it?"

"Shuttle will be ready to launch within two breem, Commander Prowl," the speaker announced.

"There's your answer, Starscream. A quarter of an hour, plus however long it takes to get an Autobot shuttle into orbit. Tantrum, you don't mind giving him a hand, do you?"

"Nah. So long as somebody tells me all the juicy stuff I've missed once we're finished."

Starscream stared at the crumpled metal at the end of the laser barrel. Transforming it back into concussion blaster mode while damaged had not done it - or, by extension, him - any favours.

"Well, It won't be very pretty, but I can get it back to full functionality quickly enough with some parts in the medical bay. Uh . . . you don't need Predaking to fire it, do you?"

"No. I'll take the shots on my own. I can use the computer assisted targeting system in Predaking's helmet. Somehow it survived the battle with Omega Supreme."

Starscream looked back into his makeshift surgery at the burnt, mangled grey helmet adorned with the occasional fleck of curling orange paint.

"You mean something still works in there? Flame must be even more of a genius than you said he is. . . ."

"Hey! Hey!" Skywarp waved the assembled group - except Starscream, who headed back into his surgery with Tantrum to start work on the laser - back to the speaker on the human-scale table they had all been gathered round until the commotion started. "I think they're loading all the bits onto the ship."

Razorclaw took up Tantrum's old place around the table and listened intently to the crunching and clanking of heavy parts being moved by heavy-handed Autobots, trying to pick out the conversations of any relevance among them. Eventually, Wheeljack spoke again.

"Plasma cannon saw a lot of use before the hydrogen tank ruptured. With all the craters around here I don't know how many hits he managed to score."

"The lack of Decepticon debris suggests that his assailants were very agile, but the level of damage to Omega Supreme's person must mean that they were exceptionally well armed. Also, the multiple impact points spread across the front and rear of Omega Supreme's body suggests simultaneous attacks from multiple angles-"

"-On the back? When did we hit him on the back?"

"The damage is probably from the fall he took after he fired his rocket engine at us."

"He let off his engine at you? Jeez, no wonder you guys looked fried. He must've blown himself for miles!"

"One point two kilometers, actually."

"Whoa."

"There are so many craters around there they probably don't realise he made one or two with his own skidplate!"

"You know . . . this is going to start to look like the work of the-"

"-Gunbots. A group of four Decepticon elite soldiers. They're small and fast, and they've got a lot of firepower at their disposal. They've pulled off a number of successful raids on Cybertron. They're bad news. I hope to Pit they're not on Earth. We've got enough to worry about as it is."

"Ohhh . . . you don't know the half of it, babycakes. . . ."

"Do you believe we should inform the Lord Prime?"

"What - that four Megatron wannabes destroyed his ultimate Autobot with no casualties? I'm sure that would make his day."

"Hm. Yes, that is a valid point. When he discovers the extensive damage done to Omega Supreme by such a small group of Decepticons, he may become irrational."

"Become irrational? Ha ha ha ha . . . hoo boy. That's a good one. I gotta write that down."

"Divebomb!"

"Sorry."

"No. We should keep this quiet. Have Omega Supreme reassembled covertly, and hope to Primus Lord Prime doesn't want to come down to watch him kill something any time soon."

"Oh yeah. I really need that mental picture."

"Ssh."

"Okay. . . ."

"As you command, sir."

The speaker gave out a loud wrenching sound, followed by several sets of ponderous footsteps. There was much swearing and straining. Divebomb grabbed Skywarp and put his hands over the Seeker's audios.

"Get off!"

"I can't!" Divebomb exclaimed melodramatically. "You're too young to be listening to that sort of language!"

"Divebomb, let him go."

"Okay." Divebomb relinquished the Seeker's head.

"They're loading the tank section into the shuttle. It sounds like there are a lot of other Autobots in there."

"Shall I order recon groups to comb the area for these 'Gunbots', Prowl?"

"Ooh, a fembot! This is getting interesting."

"SSH!"

"I don't think so, Arcee. This area's far too large for us to cover with such limited numbers. I wouldn't want to risk sending less than a dozen units per search group after guys like these, and we'd need as many again to protect the shuttle. We'll get them next time. Right now we'd better get Omega Supreme back to Autobot City before his battery runs out."

"Hmph. Fine. Don't blame me when they show up in our biggest energon store and blow it sky high."

"Mi-aow! Aren't we a bitchy one?"

"Quiet. It sounds like they're lifting off."

"And I told you it was a bad idea to leave him unattended!"

"No, you didn't."

"Yes I did! I remember it clearly."

"You did not. My data recall facility is perfect, and you did not."

"Your data recall is s-krzzzzzz..."

"Ah, dammit! It was just getting interesting."

"Sorry, DB," Thundercracker said, "but that's the price you pay for being sensor-invisible down here. They're out of range."

"Well," Razorclaw said, "they still don't know Predaking exists, and there's a chance they'll pin the blame for this attack on the Gunbots."

"Which means they might not keep looking for them so hard on Cybertron," Rampage continued. "So long as we can take down those satellites in time, we can definitely count this as our lucky day."

"And speaking of which," Tantrum said as he headed towards them with Predaking's x-ray laser in one hand and his helmet in the other, "I think it's your cue, bossman."

"Already?" Thundercracker asked. He leaned over and cupped his hand around his mouth, to focus the sound into the medical bay. "Starscream, you're a miracle worker!"

"I had help from a professional," Starscream replied as he stepped out, cleaning the grease off his hands with a rag.

"Whatever. Here you go." Tantrum handed the cannon to Razorclaw, and slid Predaking's ravaged helmet over his head. Skywarp grabbed Starscream's arm, and quickly brought him up to speed on the Autobots' conversation. Before long the two Seekers were giggling like the immense children they were. With a grinding crack damaged locks clattered shut and data connections plugged themselves into various ports around Razorclaw's head. The smashed visor had been completely removed and Predaking's soft red optics glowed from deep within the helmet. Razorclaw ran a check of the targeting system and, satisfied, headed for the cave mouth.

As he neared the entrance, Starscream called out to him: "Will you be able to target all three platforms without going outside the shield?"

"Probably not." he stopped and turned to face the seeker. "What do you suppose Prowl will do if they detect a Decepticon life signal out here?"

"If he can get the manpower from Lord Prime, he'll put together a massive search team and comb this entire area. We should still be safe behind the shields and the hologram. The only way the Autobots will ever find us is if one of them stops for a rest and happens to lean against a rock that's not there."

"And if he can't get the troops?"

"High level scan, most likely. We'd still be safe here."

"So there's no chance he'll decide to proton bomb the place out of existence?"

"Prowl? Nooo . . . he's too rational for that. He's not likely to waste such massive ordinance against four Decepticons."

"Not even the ones who took down Omega Supreme?"

A broad smile crossed Starscream's face.

"He doesn't want Prime to know about that, remember? There's no way he'd be able to requisition a proton bombing without Prime's permission, and of course he would want to know why. If he told Prime the truth, he'd be tortured for negligence. If he lied and Prime found out, he'd turn him inside out. Whatever way you look at it, you stepping outside for ten seconds isn't going to prove dangerous to this facility."

"All right." Razorclaw approached the apparent wall of rock covering the cave entrance, and stepped into it. "I'm going to have to put the targeting sensor outside the shields so I can get a lock. It shouldn't show up on the Autobots' sensors."

"Okay, let me know how it goes. I'll be in the repair bay. Oh Ra-ampa-age..." he sang. "Your turn. Let's get that melted armour off you and see if there's anything left underneath."

Outside, a thick black metal pipe emerged from the middle of a boulder and waved around in the air for a few seconds, before settling on a near-vertical orientation. "I've spotted the first sensor platform. Locking on . . . target locked. Firing. . . ."

A scorching white beam tore out of the end of the pipe and arced into the darkened sky.

"Damn!"

Thundercracker, Skywarp and the three remaining Predacons now stood just inside the cave, waiting for news from outside.

"What?" Skywarp asked apprehensively. "What is it? What happened?"

"I missed by one point four degrees. The cannon's set for firing from Predaking's left arm, higher off the ground and further from the helmet. I'll have to recalibrate it."

"Take your time," Divebomb said, rolling his optics. "We've got, oh, three minutes till that shuttle takes off."

"Maybe it's better we wait till the shuttle leaves to start taking out the platforms," Tantrum suggested. "That way the Autobots are still in the dark and they waste all that energy sending a shuttle into orbit."

"You're obsessed, you know that?"

A crackling hiss came from the false rocks in front of them.

"One down," Razorclaw stated matter-of-factly. The assembled Decepticons, except Headstrong, cheered for a moment before Razorclaw's words silenced them.

"Lining up on second platform. Got it. Firing . . ." another crackling hiss. "Two down. Third one's inaccessible from here. I'll have to go outside to take the shot."

"Good luck, boss-man," Divebomb called. Razorclaw did not answer. He stood up, walked calmly out through the sensor-blinding energy shield and the protective visual cover of the holographic rock face, and pointed the x-ray laser at the heavens. A moment's silence.

"Target established. Firing. . . ." The laser let out a fourth beam of tightly focused electromagnetic radiation into - and through - the ash clouds above. More silence. The five Decepticons inside were on tenterhooks, staring intently at the fake wall in front of them and expecting Razorclaw to stroll back through it any second. He didn't.

It was Tantrum who broke the nervous silence.

"Razorclaw, what's going on out there?"

"I rushed," he replied. "Clipped the target. It's still intact. Spiraling out of control."

"Think it'll burn up?"

"Not before the Autobots get to it. I'm going to try to hit it again."

Razorclaw carried out a quick calculation in his head, then fed an equation into the targeting computer. Immediately his arms shifted to a slightly different angle, and he fired another blast before bringing his weapon down and running back through the artificial wall into the artificial caves.

"The third sensor platform has been destroyed, Commander."

Prowl turned to address the black pickup across from him in the shuttle.

"Trailbreaker, are you detecting anything down there?"

"One life signal. Definitely a Transformer. Forty eight kilometers from our landing site. That's all I can get. The readings make no sense at all. Size, configuration, allegiance . . . it could be anyone."

"Anyone who's capable of shooting down three small objects in orbit in quick succession from the ground in poor atmospheric conditions. Where's the signal now?"

"It- it's gone, Commander."

"Gone?" A look of frustration flickered across Prowl's face, before he regained absolute control over his emotions. After a moment's thought, he addressed Trailbreaker again. "A Decepticon with the sensor blurring capabilities you've described with an alt mode that shunted most of it's mass to subspace would be almost invisible even to you, wouldn't it?"

The pickup sat low on it's springs, anticipating a thunderous blow from above.

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"All right. More circumstantial evidence that the Gunbots were the ones who destroyed Omega Supreme's body. Bumper!"

A yellow minibot turned from his station at the front of the cabin.

"Aye, sir?"

"Contact the shuttle preparing to leave Autobot City. Tell them to abandon the sensor platform pick up. I want them to load up a class four sensor array and do a low pass, high resolution sweep of the entire area. A full scan of every millimeter of ground within a one hundred kilometer radius of where Trailbreaker picked up that life signal. Any signal even approximating Transformer life readings is to be fired upon immediately. Have you got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Also, contact Grapple and tell him to meet us at the landing strip. He was part of Omega Supreme's design team: he'll assist Wheeljack, Hoist, and Perceptor in the repair work."

"Yes, sir."

Arcee, who had been pacing back and forth against one wall of the shuttle (and anyone with the slightest spark of intelligence got out of her way as she did so) came to an abrupt stop, pursed her lips and stormed over to where Prowl was standing with his back to her.

"Boy," she said to his back, "my 'search party' idea's starting to look pretty good about now, isn't it 'Commander'?" Prowl ignored her. "If we'd just gone out and looked, instead of running away from four puny little Decepticraps, we'd be carrying their carcasses home with us as well as Omega Supreme's." Prowl's shoulders arched. Only slightly, but the movement was made more obvious by his extended doors. She was getting to him, and it felt good. "And we'd still have those three sensor platforms. I thought you were supposed to be a good strategist, Prowl." She grinned a sick, humourless grin. "What happened?"

Prowl still did not move. He continued to monitor Bumper from a distance, making sure that the minibot relayed his orders precisely and accurately. Only when the yellow Familia had received confirmation from Grapple and shut off the communication system did he move to answer the fembot's bitter tirade.

"Arcee . . ." he began.

"Yes, darling?" she said with as much false sweetness as she could muster.

"If you ever address me in such a tone again I will shove my gun down your energon intake and fire so many acid pellets into you that they'll have to identify you from your PCR serial number. Is that understood?"

Arcee stood, mouth open, staring blankly at Prowl's back. She had been hoping to get a cheap rise out of him. To undermine him in front of a large number of Autobots. To show him up. To make them laugh at him. Now they were sniggering at her. And that pissed her off. She was about to launch another flaming torrent of abuse at him, calling his bluff, when he cut her off.

"I said is that understood, Lieutenant?"

Still facing away from her. As if she wasn't even worth facing. A thousand cheap but venomous insults sprang to mind, but before she could speak Prowl's acid pellet launcher appeared in his hand.

"Well?" he asked flatly.

Arcee crossed her arms, and tried burning a hole through him with her imaginary hate-vision.

"Whatever."

It seemed as if a second of reality had been 'cut' from the film. As if the period where Prowl turned to face her and jammed the muzzle of his gun into her face had been skipped. One moment he was standing with his back to her; the next she was staring at his angry blue optics at the far end of his gun barrel.

"That's no way to talk to your direct superior either, Lieutenant. The correct response is 'yes, sir'. Now," he said condescendingly "let's hear it. . . ."

One Autobot at the edge of her peripheral vision covered his face with his forearms, as his upper body shook in a paroxysm of barely concealed mirth. She memorised his chassis. He would suffer for this.

"Yes . . . sir. . . ." she hissed.

A sick smile played at the edges of Prowl's mouth.

"Now, say it like you mean it. . . ."

Arcee had crossed the line with him on more than one occasion, and her latest outburst was the last straw. She would never again question his orders or tactical decisions. Here, in a cramped space with no way out and in front of twenty other Autobots, he would make sure that she held her vocaliser in future.

Arcee looked at the end of his pellet launcher's barrel, then back at him. She appeared unsure whether or not he would make good on his earlier threat. Finally, as he began to squeeze the trigger of the device which would relieve the femmebot of her sneering face, she stood smartly to attention and spoke.

"Yes sir."

Another sniggering Autobot slid down the wall onto his side, and most of the others covered their ear-to-ear grinning mouths or held their sides. The sound of muffled laughter echoed around the shuttle. Arcee's mind screamed in outrage. They would all suffer for this. Every one of them, especially Prowl. Some day.

". . . just completed the adaptations. You'll be able to use Rampage's thermal sword next time out."

Razorclaw sat in front of the small screen, squatting on his undersized chair. In front of him, Flame's image looked typically worn out. He had existed purely on energon for cycles, and was badly in need of a recharge bed for the sake of his own sanity, as much as for the health of his internal systems. The Decepticon resistance had put him to good work; any time he wasn't putting fighters and abused empties back together he was working on one pet project or another. Between pet projects and repairs, he worked on modifying the Predacons' weapons and equipment. Anything of consequence he developed for the Predacons would quickly go down the line to benefit the entire Decepticon army, so Megatron and the Cybertron resistance leaders had no objections to this apparent favouritism.

"We all appreciate all your efforts, Flame. None of us would be alive right now if it wasn't for all the work you do for us."

"Aw, shucks. . . ."

"That's why I almost hate to ask-"

"-and I hate to answer, big fella," Flame anticipated his question. "but that vibracore in your old sword is all vibed out. I can't repair it, and I don't know where we're going to get another one." Flame looked at his knees for a second, then back up at Razorclaw's featureless face. "Swindle's asked around all his higher level contacts. Only three of them have ever even heard of one, and they all say the same thing: 'it's an Autobot black project'. Getting one is going to be next to impossible."

Razorclaw paused. He could see how upset Flame was by not being able to help them. He had to say something encouraging.

"I understand. Don't worry about it too much for now. Omega Supreme is the only Autobot we've seen so far with ceramic armour, and we don't anticipate seeing him up and about again any time soon."

"Yeah, but when he does resurface, you're going to need some kind of vibration based weaponry. Not much else'll work against ceramic armour. Rampage or Tantrum's swords aren't going to do you a blind bit of good, and Divebomb and Headstrong's swords aren't really scaleable. We already know Predaking's x-ray laser is like a paper dart to this guy. Maybe if I can increase the destructive yield of your concussion blaster. . . ."

"It certainly gave him some problems last time."

"Hm. I'll get back to you on this once I've got some idea of how to go about it. Okay?"

"Okay. Hey, did you tell the Gunbots the good news?"

Flame brightened visibly.

"Yes, I did! Browning and Blastwave got a real kick out of it. Straxiss reckons they should hold off on the raids for a quartex or so, just until the Autobots cool off on the search parties and thirty mech guard details. Then, it's blitzkrieg time!"

Razorclaw chuckled.

"Tell them to keep an optic out for a vibracore when they storm the gates of Iacon."

Flame laughed out loud. He knew that the Predacons and Gunbots held each other in high regard, but the idea of four Decepticons bringing down the entire Autobot Empire on their own was just a shade optimistic.

"I'll tell them to ask Ultra Magnus for one as they slip the inhibitor claw on him."

Divebomb sat at the other side of the Decepticon-scale section of the cave, watching TV from their Decepticon-scale couch. Skywarp and Thundercracker sat on either side of him, leaning outward to make room for his bulky form. Even though he had subspaced his wing pack, he still took up half of the normally-three seater by himself. Rampage lay on his side on the floor in front of them, and a row of human children sat in front of him. Divebomb leaned back and looked over his shoulder at the Predacon leader.

"I wonder what he's laughing about."

"Probably not you DB," Rampage said, patting his friend's shin reassuringly. "don't worry about it."

Divebomb turned back to the tigerbot in front of him. "Oh, I'm not worried about that. It's just that whenever Razorclaw and Flame laugh like that, he's usually just come up with some crazy new superweapon for us to try out. That's what I'm worried about."

On the massive screen in front of them, an animated giant robot with big cat's heads for feet and hands delivered another crushing blow to his alien opponent. Divebomb looked around, then stood up.

"I'm going walkabout. T'see what our brothers are up to. Let me know what happens."

"I'll give you a hint," Thundercracker mused, then leaned forward and whispered into Divebomb's audio, "the good guy wins."

Divebomb turned on his heel and clapped Thundercracker loudly on the shoulder.

"Don't we always?" Then Thundercracker gave him a funny look. At first he thought it was discomfort - after all, he had hit him unnecessarily hard - but after a second he realised what it really was. Skepticism. Doubt. From one of Megatron's finest. That would never do.

"Course we do! Art does imitate life, after all."

Thundercracker looked skeptically up at him for a second, and Divebomb looked straight back. I may be a realist, Divebomb thought, but it doesn't mean I think we're all doomed. We can win. We've got the brawn, the brains and the ball bearings to kick the Autobots off this planet. And after that . . . who knows.

Thundercracker sighed and turned his attention back to the TV program. This isn't over, TC, Divebomb thought. Not by a long shot.

Divebomb strode off in search of the other Predacons, and Skywarp breathed a sigh of relief. He stretched and spread himself out across his part of the sofa. he sat with a contented grin until Rampage looked over his shoulder, and his face fell.

"Hey! Free seat!" Rampage took the back of a child who was leaning on him in his hand and nudged him forward, then got up and dropped his skidplate into the middle of the sofa. He sat forward with hands clasped in front of him, still keenly interested in the cartoon before him. His great red shoulders almost obscured the screen from Skywarp's view, as he feigned starting to cry in frustration. Rampage was completely oblivious to his theatrics.

After a minute or two of wandering, Divebomb spotted Tantrum and Starscream in the repair bay. Starscream was still working on Predaking's helmet, adjusting some unseen control deep inside it while watching the readout on a diagnostic terminal hooked up to it in various places. Tantrum sat with a partly dismantled giant fist, and was applying an electron bonder to two halves of a broken knuckle blade. When he was finished, the blade would be as good as new, thanks to the tiny device. Electron bonders had been in use by both factions for hundreds of vorn, but the Decepticon devices were growing old and beginning to wear out. The Gunbots had given a number of brand new Autobot bonders that they had happened upon on one raid or another to the Predacons to dispense among Megatron's medical personnel. They were gratefully received.

Divebomb stopped by their table.

"Hi guys. How's it going?"

"Pretty well," Tantrum said without looking up from his work. "Starscream's just finishing aligning Predaking's magnetic sensors, and this is the last piece of his right hand I'm working on. Once all the bonds are established in this piece I can put it all back together."

"Hey, that's great." He looked over at Starscream, then back at the bullbot. "Listen, the Animated Adventures of Voltron Three is almost over. You think we'll be ready to give the kids a look at the real thing when it's finished?"

"Give us a breem," Starscream said. "I want to make sure all his sensors are calibrated properly before I let you guys run off with his helmet. I don't know when I'm going to see it again, so I want everything to be as close to perfect as I can make it."

Divebomb crossed his arms, a skeptical expression on his face. "Are you trying to say we skip out on our checkups?"

"Yes."

"True," he admitted. "Where's Headstrong?"

"He finished work on his footpad about an hour ago," Tantrum said as he tested the blade's strength between his thumbs and forefingers. "Said he was going to the hydroponics area for a while."

Divebomb groaned. "I don't suppose he mentioned why?"

"Hey, I was lucky to get that out of him."

"Also true. Okay," he sighed, "I'm going to go stop him before he thinks too much and ends up trying to kill himself. See you guys later."

"Have fun."

"Bye."

Divebomb ducked under the increasingly low ceiling, and spotted the first signs that Headstrong had indeed come down this way. There was a long groove in the ceiling that looked very out of place, and perfectly matched the indentations made by the rhino horn on the back of Headstrong's robot head on other low ceilings in the past. At the end of the cave section, Divebomb had to get down on his hands and knees to fit through the comparatively tiny doorway. It was quite large by human standards, but cramped to an average Transformer and almost impassable to a Predacon. There was a groove at the top of the doorway, too.

Inside the vast chamber was a sea of green. The Predacons had assisted Rumble, Frenzy and the Constructicons in the excavation of these caves and tunnels, and had constructed the hydroponics chamber deep into the bedrock under the mountain. It was fifteen hundred meters long and over three hundred wide, with a thirty meter ceiling. Predaking could stand up easily in there, but due to the fragility of the surroundings he never had. Much of the ground was dug up into trenches filled with soil, and trees, bushes and row upon row of crops grew from it all. Dull ultraviolet lights shone on the plants twenty four hours a day, all run by a small Decepticon fusion reactor in another part of the facility.

The temperature varied greatly throughout the chamber, where different environmental conditions were simulated. Divebomb decided that an aerial survey would be the easiest way to locate a twelve meter tall black, red and yellow rhinobot among all the green and brown. He transformed and lifted smoothly off the ground, steadying himself on his new wing repulsor against the air currents generated by the changing temperatures. He shifted silently through the air towards the far end of the chamber, and soon spotted a dark patch far off in one corner. It wasn't Headstrong; the entire patch of ground was darkened, as if the lamp above it wasn't functioning properly. Divebomb zoomed in on the offending light source, and it appeared to be fine. Just dim.

As he flew towards it, he spotted the unmistakable hulk of Headstrong under the dim area. Primus, he thought, he's actually managed to depress a light bulb. Divebomb swooped in, and transformed a few meters away from where Headstrong lay. It was only then that he noticed the significance of the tiny dulled section of the chamber. In a patch of depressing grey-brown earth, sat a cheery pink flower with two slightly singed petals. The only living thing in the patch of ground.

"Okay," he said with a sigh, "What's up? What morose little thoughts are going on in that big old, diamond-hard, rhinocesorian head o' yours?"

Headstrong lay unmoving. After a fashion, he opened his mouth to speak.

"I talked to Diego yesterday. He reckons that this flower is an accidental genetic mutation; in the soil that this species is accustomed to it would die, because it's better suited to far more acidic earth types."

Divebomb hunched down to look more closely at the flower, then turned back to Headstrong. "Lucky for it, huh?"

"It's also native to a region several hundred kilometers from here. It must've been carried here by wind currents."

"Cool."

Headstrong finally looked at his brother Predacon. "Do you know why plants are so important to the humans, Divebomb?"

"Nope. I always figured they used them for fuel."

"They do. But not in the way you'd think."

"Really?" he asked unenthusiastically. Still, at least he's not depressed.

"Humans need molecular oxygen to fuel the chemical reactions in their bodies, right?"

"Right. . . ."

"And when the reactions are complete they give out carbon dioxide. All animals do this."

"Great. So?"

"Well, apparently, plants manufacture a carbon-based molecule called 'glucose' to power themselves using water and the carbon dioxide that humans and lower animals give out. They construct the molecule through a catalytic process called 'photosynthesis' using the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. You see?"

"Oh . . . I figured they just used it for power directly, like our solar cells."

"Uh, no. They use the radiation to break down the water and carbon dioxide and to form the bonds in the glucose molecules that they break down to fuel their own growth."

"So why don't they just use the radiation directly?"

"Why do we use energon instead of just plugging ourselves in?"

"Uh. . . ."

"Because energon can carry lubricant and auto-repair nanites around our bodies. In the same way, plants use glucose as a source of power and materials in one."

"Right. . . ."

"And guess what the waste product of the synthesis is?"

"Surprise me."

"Molecular oxygen!"

"Oh. That's handy."

"Exactly. That's why there's so much free oxygen on this planet. Nothing to do with metal refining processes - the plants give it off."

"And without plants the humans are screwed."

"Exactly. The humans had been working on carrying out photosynthesis artificially, even before the Autobots arrived, but it just doesn't work. They haven't been able to figure out the right chemical pathway."

"Will they?"

"No time soon."

"Can we help?"

"I asked Razorclaw to mention it to Flame. See if there's anything he can do for them."

"Oh yeah. I heard those two throwing big words at each other when I was looking for you. I remember photo . . . somethingus."

"Synthesis. Photosynthesis."

"Whatever." Divebomb raised his forefinger, as if he had just had an idea. "Hey! Listen. Voltron'll be over by now, and I want to catch all the kids at once. Tantrum and Starscream ought to be finished their repair work by now, too. What say we go out and give Predaking a little shakedown?"

"What about the Autobot patrols?"

"Ah, they're gone. The shuttle's passed this way every three hours for most of this week. It hasn't been back since last night."

"Maybe they just went back to Autobot city to refuel."

"Nah. Autobot City's only about an hour away at full pelt for one of those things. They'd have been back by now. They aren't, so chances are they aren't coming back. Probably figure they've wasted enough resources looking for us already."

Headstrong rolled over and got up onto his hands and knees.

"Well, then. Let's not keep our fans waiting."

Divebomb straightened up and offered the rhinobot his hand.

"Headstrong, for a moment there you almost sounded eager about something."

Headstrong accepted the hand, and stood up with a grunt. He almost smiled.

"Nah, you just imagined it."

"One of these days, Headstrong," Divebomb threatened, pointing a finger at his associate. "One of these days I'm gonna make you laugh so hard you lubricate yourself! Come on, let's go." The pair started off towards the doorway, and Divebomb subspaced his wings again in preparation for squeezing through that accursed doorway.

The children gather around their usual vantage point. Close enough to the action for them to see everything, and far enough away for their parents to know I'm not going to stand on any of them. I wait until Thundercracker has lifted the last of the smaller children up onto a nearby boulder to give them a better view. I'm surprised he came out to watch me today. He doesn't normally get involved. Well, part of me isn't surprised. Divebomb, I think. He knows something the rest of me doesn't, but he's keeping it to himself for now. I'm sure he has his reasons.

I transform my newly-repaired sidearm back and forth a couple of times to make sure that the x-ray laser barrel doesn't snag on anything as it slides in and out. An unexpected golden shaft of light obscures my vision for a moment before my visor adjusts. It appears that the clouds have momentarily parted. Headquarters predicted periodic gaps in the cloud throughout the day because of the strong southerly wind. Sure enough, the sun lights the earth around us for a few precious moments, and I begin my motor function test. With all the shiny gold plating Starscream reapplied, I imagine I must look quite striking. The children seem quite enthralled by it, and that's all that matters to me right now.