Disclaimer:
All organizations and places belonging to Hasbro and any of its partners are still their registered property; I make no attempts to challenge their copyright. However, all new characters, concepts, organizations, places, and anything else that doesn't belong to Hasbro is mine and can only be used with express written consent by me.
A/N This is the revised edition of my first ever fic. I was reading through it last night as a reference for the next chapter that I've been working on, and I decided to upgrade it to my current standard, as well as fix up a few things that had been annoying me.
Over the next few days I'll revise the rest of the chapters, and hopefully by then the next pat will be ready to upload.
Anyway, if you can spare the time, I'd really appreciate reviews; I didn't get that many for them last time, and being my first fic I sort of got a bit discouraged (hence the time taken to do the next chapter)
Finally, I'd like to thank Nightdragon for his support and patience whilst beta reading this fic, I know I must've been a real pain at the time.
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"Slagging, festering damn heap of junk; by the Pit!"
"Lieutenant; anyone'd think that you were a sailor the way you swear, now what's wrong?"
"Sorry captain, it's just this sla.. fes.. uh, sorry, it's this damn terminal; it keeps fritzing out. I've tried everything, but it's really playing up."
The captain leaned over to get a closer look; just then it came back on, crisp and clean.
"There, you see.. oh frag!"
I looked in horror at the image on the display screen; it was a picture from one of the many satellite-cameras that showed the external of the hull. Abeam to us, on our starboard side was a ship easily 100 times the size of ours. A red beam shot out from its nose. The next scene was utter destruction; the whole rear portion of the ship was completely cut away (note; if you've seen starship troopers, then the scene where the transport is cut in half by the bug-blast is pretty close to this.)
Breach-foam sprayed out of the severed portions, like mech fluid out of a gaping wound; it was designed to seal tiny tears, nothing like this.
The mechanised voice of the ships computer droned on in the background, I didn't hear it.
"Hull integrity critical. Engine rooms not responding. Total system failure in 6 cycles, life support failure in 3 cycles."
The bridge was rocked violently by the engines in the rear portion exploding; at least they were separated when they blew, but not that that would help our chances of survival.
I watched in horror as the monitor showed several small black spheres being released from the enemy ship; they were about 3 feet in diameter. Their beams cut away the sealed sections of the ship as easily as an energon blade through synth-flesh. Nothing could stop them; I tracked their dispersal through the ship, the horrified screams from the comms ringing in my ears.
The blast shield behind us glowed a deep crimson, before a large hole opened in it. One of the spheres flew in; it was black all over, and hovered in mid air. It was definitely mechanical, but nothing like anything that I'd ever seen.
It turned from me to the captain; I could see the worried look on her face.
It turned back to her, and four circular hatches opened just below the equator. The captain screamed. It was cut short by the sound of high-speed projectiles; the viciously hooked flechette tore through her body; mech fluid sprayed everywhere, coating the walls and the sphere, reducing the captain to a messy pulp. I estimated about 2000 shots fired before it stopped. I heard the click of reloading, then it spun around and faced me, I screamed.
I was hit in the head by a pillow.
"Hey Nightwing, cut down on the stim-caff eh? You scream like a girl."
I groggily opened my eyes, hovering in front of my head was one of the black spheres. I froze, completely unable to move, desperately trying to blink away the sleep. The sphere resolved itself into the model of Unicron I had suspended from the ceiling above my head.
"Man, you need counselling or something; you're really whacked!"
I sat up on my bunk and checked my chrono; just 25 cycles to get ready for the days' learning.
I put my hand to my head; man, what a headache!
"Heh heh, looks like someone had a good night last night! I bet you can't remember much of it."
I rolled over and threw Banshee's pillow back at him, I smiled as he unexpectedly jerked backward and fell off the top bunk. I jumped lightly down off mine.
"Come on Banshee, we're going to be late for munitions practice if we don't hurry" I said, grabbing my sidearm out of the chest at the foot of the bunk.
"Yeah, like you really need it." although Banshee was always making jokes at my expense, I could detect the hint of respect in his voice.
I grinned, "You want some lessons?"
Banshee just glared; it wasn't that we were enemies, or anything like that, probably not even rivals. We just liked slagging off at each other.
Just before I ran out the door, I glanced in the small mirror that I had hanging at the foot of the bed. I never knew why I'd gotten it, since my face never changed, but it just seemed like the sort of thing to have.
I stared at my reflection; my body was mostly black and silver, but on my arms and face there were several patches of black organic leather, I always assumed that they were for aesthetic purposes. When I was younger, I always wanted to get rid of them, but now I felt that they added some character to my appearance. On my shoulders were the wings that became my wings when I transformed into seeker mode; it was an unusual arrangement, as they basically thinned out and elongated, before becoming almost extensions of my upper arms, pointing straight up. Primus must've had a new concept in mind when he'd told Vector-Sigma how to design me.
Although I was a Pred, I had declined to have any emblems visible on my body; I just didn't like the insect motif that the Predacon high electorate had chosen when they differentiated out from the Decepticons.
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I dove away, and narrowly missed being caught up in the explosion as the frag-grenade landed at my feet. I got hit in the leg with a few pieces of shrapnel, but the combat droid that fired it lost its head, and most of it's body, before it got a chance to break the gun and reload it.
Turning, I fired at the flyer that was about to take my head off with the ring of rotors around its circular rim. I jumped and somersaulted over a kamikaze droid that looked like a huge roller, and jammed my energon blade down into it's core, narrowly missing the kiloton of explosives packed into it's barrel-shaped frame. Reaching down into the hole my sword had made, I pulled out the detonator and threw it at a massive tracked droid that looked like it had once been part of a heavy-lifter before some mad-man had re-fitted it with every weapon it could hold. The detonator lodged in somewhere near one of the drive motors and nestled up against the munitions store for it's massive rocket launcher. Perfect I thought, and fired at the detonator. The track blew off the droid; I ducked as it sailed over my head. I jumped behind the wrecked flyer, just as the rockets blew up. I stood there for a nano-cycle, then spun, just in time to slice the razor-disk that had been fired at my head neatly in half. My plasma blast reduced the wall port that had fired it to little more than a molten smear.
The dimmed lights came back on. I heard clapping; the dura-steel door on the training chamber opened, and in stepped the sergeant.
"Well done, I knew that you'd give us a good show; pity you made such a mess" he said, pressing a cigar into the still-glowing wall where the disk-shooter had been; it lit up from the heat.
No one knew why he smoked; several of us had snuck into his quarters once when we were really young as a dare, inside there had been a cartoon pic of a strange robot wearing a brown sergeants uniform, with a cigar hanging from it's skeletal jaw. I learned later that the pic had come from an Earth game, and we figured that that was also where he'd learned to smoke. Or at least, that was where the concept had come from.
He walked over to the battle-droid that I'd fried, and picked up the twisted remains of its break-action grenade launcher. The hand was still gripped around it, and hung by a single wire from the remains of the shoulder, which had partially melted to the track-housing.
"I really don't know why they still let you in here; even in live-fire exercises, you really clean up." he tried unsuccessfully to open the grenade launcher; the hinge was fused shut, he threw it down in disgust.
"Good thing that the academy doesn't have to pay for all this."
"Good thing I don't have to pay for all this."
The sergeant nodded, put his hand on my shoulder, and led me out through the blackened door.
"Wow, that was amazing!"
Rift-wing drew up short, looking at my leg; it was actually cut up pretty bad, but I hadn't noticed it.
"You should get that seen to my boy."
"It's just a scratch." I replied.
"Yeah, if you say so."
I looked down again; I could see a trail of little puddles of greyish mech-fluid leading to a larger one forming where I was standing.
Seriously, I hadn't even noticed it.
The sarge shook his head as his star pupil limped off with the young femme toward the medical centre. He sighed and thought again about the black seeker. Nightwing never really talked much about his past, so his early life was never fully understood. All the sarge knew was that even at a very early age he was some sort of prodigy when it came to weapons and fighting. He'd developed a thermo-nuclear device before he could even really comprehend what it was that he'd made. At around 5 years old, he was taken on by the Academy in the hopes that he could be trained properly, and his skills put to good use.
Nightwing was a strange character; he handcrafted all his weapons, even ones commercially available. The excuse being that he could tell just when they about to break, and that it would be his own fault, and not someone else's.
His main weapon skills encompassed the entire range available, which the sarge knew was a difficult thing to do. But he almost always preferred to use an energon blade for most of his fighting as a matter of honour. The sarge had never seen a student with such a strict honour code, which seemed to dictate that he always try to fight at a disadvantage to his opponent. Despite his preference for a weapon that required great skill to wield, he had at times been seen with an energon staff.
The sarge again thought about Nightwings sidearm; it was truly remarkable. Many scientists and technicians had tried both during and after the war to reduce the devastatingly effective plasma weapons down to something the size of a pistol, but most of the attempts resulted in a gun with a large storage chamber for the critical mass of the plasma needed to prevent it from self-extinguishing, and a heavy backpack containing the power cell. Because of this, plasma-weapons were usually only used by siege-troops wearing load-lifter combat suits. Somehow however, Nightwing got around this problem by designing three small storage chambers into the handle, which then compressed the shot down into one large shot. The rest of the space was taken up by the equipment needed to create the thin energy-shell needed to contain the shot during firing.
The result was a weapon that was largish by any handgun standards, but well within reason, and considering the punch it offered, it more than made up for it. Nightwing had certainly learned to use it effectively enough.
"Truly remarkable."
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I banged my head hard against my locker; that was one of the worst lectures all year. The time I just wasted learning about astro-navigation physics, and how any object flying in a straight line long enough would actually be flying a slightly curved path, could have been spent servicing my weapons.
Brigand sighed, leaning wearily up against the locker next to mine.
"Man, that 'was' boring. Now what?"
"I've got a four mega-cycle break, I was going to the terminals to looks some things up on the net."
"You mean waste your time! We both know that you've got nothing important to look up."
It was true; I did tend to just waste the megas away, doing nothing other than look up whatever came into my head.
"Well, I'm personally quite hungry after that waste of time; I'm gonna get something to eat."
I shrugged and followed him to the refectory.
We walked out of the building and out into the sun; it was blinding, Brigand pulled out a pair of glasses.
"Wish I had a pair on me; all this natural light. I'd rather prefer the warm glow from a monitor."
Brigand laughed. We walked across the synth-turf on the quadrangle; other students were seen sitting in groups talking and laughing, some were sleeping, all were relaxed.
I loved academy life; it was always so relaxing, except when there were exams on, or assignments due.
The Academy wasn't like any of the other schools that newly programmed bots were sent to.
It reminded me of a lot of things I'd read about from Earth; scout groups, cadets, grade school, standard university, and in particular, the 'Gardens' out of the FFVIII game.
Although technically not military-owned, combat training was featured rather heavily for any of the bots interested in learning such discipline-enhancing subjects.
It was generally thought of as a 'private' school, the parents of the students either being rich, or the students being bright enough to be sponsored.
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The refectory always had a strange smell about it; it was nothing like anything else I'd ever smelt.
I was sitting with my back to the door. Brigand sat opposite me, I guess from the distance that we looked just like any other students having our own private conversations.
"There you are!" Rift-wing walked in. "You weren't in your usual spot."
"Brigand wanted something to eat, otherwise I would have been up in the 'sanctuary' warming my terminal seat"
She smiled and sat down next to me.
Rift-wing looked similar to most seekers, except me. You could tell at a glance that we were both from the same generation, but I had discovered that my appearance, and indeed my seeker mode was fairly unusual. She didn't have any organic patches, and she was much lighter in colouring to myself. She was more slender than I was, about the same height, but that didn't detract from her beauty any. Her wings basically kept the same proportions that they had in fighter mode, whereas mine thinned out a lot. Instead of being extensions to her upper arms as mine were, hers attached to the tops of her shoulder blades, and hung parallel to each other down her back.
Although she looked more like the others than she did me, her wing arrangement was still odd; Banshee's and Brigand still had wings which formed a V shape, the same style as the 2B class seekers had during the war.
"Well, well, if it isn't mister head-case."
"Hi Banshee, take a seat."
"No no, just passing through."
"Good, we wouldn't want to interrupt your passing."
Banshee looked at me strangely; I could see him thinking of an insult, finally, he just gave up and walked away.
"Creep"
"He's not too bad, but he's a lousy room-mate."
"What'd he mean by 'head-case?' "
"Nothing, just these weird dreams I've been having."
Brigand excused himself and left; he didn't feel that he should be interrupting us.
"You know where to find me."
"Catch you later."
"Anyway, about these dreams" Rift-wing asked gently.
"They're nothing really, I just keep having these strange nightmares."
"What are they about?"
I frowned, not really knowing how to answer that; I hadn't known Rift-wing long, but we were sort of an item (at least, that was the impression we gave everyone) but for some strange reason, I always felt like I could talk to her about anything.
"I don't really know where to begin." I stated.
"At the beginning is a good place." she put her hands on mine.
Maybe it was just that she could wheedle stuff out of me easier than everyone else.
"It's hard to explain." I began, "Each one's different, but they're always along the same lines; it's always out in deep space somewhere, out beyond the fringes. In every single one of them there's a disaster or something, which winds up leaving the entire crew dead. They're pretty graphic."
She nodded solemnly.
"I've woken up screaming a coupla times, and Banshee isn't always very polite about it."
"Perhaps they're visions, or something of the future."
"I wouldn't wish that future on anyone. And anyway, I'm not a seer or anything like that."
"I don't think that you have to be a seer to have visions. Besides, they're varying levels of these things; you might just be blessed with foresight."
"How do you know so much about seers? I thought that real ones were exceedingly hard to find, and they hadn't been entirely ruled out as myths."
"I did a project on them once; one of my teachers was heavily into the occult; believed that she could communicate with extinguished sparks or something. She always wore what she considered "spiritual" adornments and always smelt funny, like she'd been rolling in something. I just appealed to her sense of interest with the assignment; I got fairly good marks for it too."
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Running, running so hard we were out of breath.
The communication had been garbled; we couldn't make much sense of it, other than that it warned us that the star around which we orbited was becoming unstable, and that the drop-ship was leaving in three mega-cycles, with or without us.
Ion storms raged over the surface, and our heavy E-suits were stored in the vehicle-shed a few meters from the base. Even so, trying to reach them would have been instantly fatal.
We'd taken the only alternate route; a system of tunnels and catacombs. They'd never been fully mapped, but we figured that with the maps of the areas that were, that we should be able to find a way out.
My partner dropped beside me, a long spear sticking out of his chest. It had gone right through his spark.
I turned and saw the attacker; some sort of reptiloid. It was standing there, readying another spear.
I ran at it, and sliced it in two. Just then, my energon sword felt very hot. I threw it away, just as it exploded.
Slag, the radiation must've damaged the power core.
More of the lizard-men approached; I picked up the primitive spear from the corpse and began swinging, they backed off hesitantly.
I lunged at the nearest one and imbedded the spear deep into his chest; he made a wet rattling sound before he fell to the ground.
I attacked the rest of the group, knowing I was outnumbered. I managed to kill 6 more of them.
I felt a sticky ooze running down my side; I looked down and saw a spear sticking out of it.
That's funny; how'd that get there?
The lieutenant came out of the cave mouth and walked up to his superior.
"It didn't go too well; we met them both in the caverns. They'd obviously been heavily exposed to the radiation, neither of them was sane. I doubt that they even recognised us. They attacked us, and managed to kill 8 of our men. I had no choice but to fire; it took 4 shots on high to bring Nightwing down. We're recovering the bodies now."
The superior sat down heavily on the rock, clad in a heavy E-suit. It being his only protection from the increasing radiation.
"Blast! Hadn't they gotten our communication; we told them to stay put, we were coming to get them."
"They mustn't have gotten the communication right, or they were already suffering from the radiation."
The last scene was of the drop-ship taking off; 2 names were laser-scribed on a large rock at the head of a patch of freshly disturbed ground.
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"Man, that's really deep, being buried on a dirt-ball where no-one will ever set foot again, man."
I'd told Rift-wing about last night's dream; she seemed honestly shocked, and there was something else.
Pity?
Fear of me?
Fear of the future?
Brigand spoke up, it was the next day and we were out in the shade, just enjoying life. "I reckon it's a prophecy or something; Rift-wing's more knowledgeable in these things than me, but that sort of thing just isn't something that you'd dream up Nightwing, it's just not your character. Excuse the pun."
I looked thoughtfully for a moment, then got up and left.
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It was a strange planet; N-class stars are a real rarity, and the science team wanted to check out the planet's surface.
It was completely dark, even though it was around noon. N-class stars are usually stars that burn up their fuel a lot quicker than others. As a result, the light they emit is way out of the visible spectrum, so although the sensors told us that there was light, everything was completely black.
I looked over at where the scientists were unloading sensory equipment; the green glow of the light-amp goggles giving everything a strange greenish tint. Although the light on the planets was well out of our visible spectrum, the goggles had been calibrated to the maximum setting. Yet they were still almost black; I heard constant cursing from the techs as they banged their shins on the crates that they'd unloaded.
I walked over to where the security guard was standing, looking bored. I knew him and I were friends from way back, but I couldn't remember his name.
"Man Nightwing this place would be a good place to set up a training grounds; let the soldiers play their war-games here."
I grinned, although he couldn't see me.
"You got that right…"
I was about to say more when I was interrupted by a huge flash; someone screamed.
"Hey, you techs! Stop wasting those flares!"
I heard a low growl behind me; I turned around and was immediately blinded. I heard firing, and an animal yell.
I was rushed to the infirmary, it turned out that three scientists were missing. My optics were alright; the photo-sensors were partially scored by the intensity of the light, which was amplified by the goggles. They'd recover in time.
"What was it?"
"We don't know, but it was definitely organic. We guess that in this light, that it uses some sort of high-intensity flare to damage the eyes of its prey. You're lucky to be alive"
I hate it when people say that.
Over the next few days, more and more of the crew disappeared. A hunting party was sent out, but they never returned. It seemed that the creatures were actually sentient, possibly even more intelligent than us.
"Damn, I can't raise anyone on the comms."
"Keep trying; it must just be atmospherics."
Even though I was blind, I could still hear the hollow empty sound of the circulation fans wind down; I didn't need the startled cries of the techs to know that the power had been cut.
I heard screams; I could only imagine what was going on.
I felt a hot breath on my cheek.
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Banshee was sitting up on his bed; he'd tired of taunting me, and I think that he was now genuinely scared of me.
I'd seen the academy medic; she prescribed drugs to make me sleep better, but they only seemed to numb my defences; aggravating the dreams. It also made it very hard to wake up.
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The ship had crash-landed somewhere; it had been pulled through the warp, and we had no idea where we were.
Crewmembers were dropping all over the place; there seemed to be some sort of plague sweeping through the ship.
Falling, falling so fast. I tried to transform to my jet mode, but I knew before I even started to transform that I was falling way to fast.
I heard my wings fold back and tear off under the strain, I was only dimly aware of the pain.
The ground rushed up toward me.
Screams, blood-curdling screams. There was total panic; the hull had been breached. I saw the red glow on the walls, and felt the searing heat of the beam cannon; my organic components were on fire. I was conscious to the end.
The walls were covered in a layer of mech fluid; the ceiling dripped with the stuff. There were body parts all over the place; we had no idea what had happened. After that electrical discharge in the engine rooms, we'd crashed landed on some sort of asteroid. The census taken showed 84% of our 10,000 crew slain, I heard a rattling in the air vents. There it was. It looked like it had once been one of the ensigns; it had a scrap of blue armour-etched chest-uniform still hanging on its chest. It had been horribly mutated; huge fangs hung from its mouth, and it's arms reached to the floor. It's claws, easily 4 feet long, scraped the floor behind it as it hunkered over. It charged, I pulled out my weapon and removed its head.
It apparently didn't need it; it kept running. I could feel the claws slide into my body, feel the life force draining away through the gaping wounds in my chest, I collapsed in a pool of my own mech fluid on the floor.
The engines were damaged. All crew dead. I'd ejected in the only stasis pod available, just as the ship blew apart.
There was something wrong with the stasis pod; all my systems were locked down, I couldn't move and wouldn't age, but for some reason I was conscious; conscious and unable to move.
For the rest of eternity…
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I tried very hard not to let the dreams influence my studies, and I nearly succeeded. I just didn't think about them. I was made of stronger stuff, but my friends noticed the way I was becoming more and more withdrawn. I tended to spend more time in the bar at nights, quite often reading or partying until daybreak just to avoid sleeping. I started falling asleep in some of the more boring subjects, but luckily I managed to keep the screaming down, and the lecturers didn't seem to notice.
I had looked up the seers on the net, and while most was just myths and stories written by creative minds who had far too much time on their hands, I did find a few scraps of the theory behind their existence, but certainly nothing like what I was experiencing.
The months wore on, and the year began to come to an end. I agreed with my friends that perhaps it was all just stress, and that a break from academy life might just give me the rest that I needed.
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It was the last day of the school year, I'd just returned from the infirmary to the sound of cheering. It was standing orders that if anyone on off-world missions came across an S-series hunter that they were to destroy it on sight. The S-series were designed to be self-evolutionary, and were a weapon against the last remanents of the Quintessons. Their self-evolutionary abilities and sophisticated AI meant that they were deadly warriors, completely uncontrollable, and packed with whatever weapons that they cared to develop and construct over their lifespan.
We'd arranged it some time ago; there were reports of a captured S-series that was in stasis somewhere in a warehouse nearby, as part of someone's private collection. It had taken 12 soldiers to capture it, and they were all badly wounded. Since it was illegal to even have one, the academy secretly requisitioned it, in order to destroy it.
It had been a grand fight; most of the student body turned out to witness the gladiatorial-style fight between me and it. It was a tough battle; it had had a long time to develop and was massive in every sense of the word. Easily twenty meters high, and blistering with every type of weapon imaginable.
I'd sustained several injuries, as well as a busted shoulder. My right shoulder wing fluttered uselessly, but it was a good fight; everyone had thought that it had me when it started using its tentacle-like chain-whips. That's where I got the busted shoulder; I jumped out of the way and didn't see the wrecking-ball arm.
Anyway, I'd eventually managed to jump from limb to limb and ram my energon sword down into its only eye. It struggled a bit and threw me off, cracking a few ribs under my exo-skeleton, but it couldn't get a bead on me, and I'd finally managed to blow it's core with one of it's own grenades.
The cheering grew louder as I came out into the light. I raised my fists above my head, basking in their praise.
It took nearly a full mega-cycle to finally get back to my room. I'd been constantly stopped by other students to congratulate me, and I was feeling pretty tired from the battle.
My room was completely empty. I climbed up to my bunk, and there was a letter propped up against my pillow.
I opened it; it was a letter from the Arch-chancellor, requesting my presence in his office.
The secretary beamed at me as I opened the door, and asked how my shoulder was. We small-talked for a bit until I was called in.
The Arch-chancellors office was a massive dome; the walls and ceiling covered with scenes out of all four great wars. There were statues spaced equally around the room; I recognised many of them from the Decepticon Hall Of Heroes. Many of them hadn't been seen since the epic scene where Galvatron busted in on Starscreams coronation and vaped him.
So that's where they got to.
Around the room were the rest of my friends; Brigand was pacing back and forth, Rift-wing was sitting in a chair bouncing her knee, Banshee was leaning heavily against the wall; he had a rag out and was polishing his gunblade.
"Students." The Arch-chancellor stood behind his ornate desk, and beamed at us.
"I have heard many great things from your lecturers and peers about you four, as have the scouts from the Predacon high-electorate."
We all looked at each other questioningly.
"Due to your exploits, you four have been chosen for a wonderful opportunity; it really is once in a lifetime." He leaned forward over his desk, savouring the feeling of pride for his academy, which had taught such promising students.
"As you know, the Predacons and Maximals have sought unity for a while, and we've finally managed to develop a project between both factions; it is to be seen as a symbol of peace and unity, the dawning of a new age."
"You four have been chosen as special crew aboard a new long-range exploration cruiser designed for the task of travelling to the very boundaries of the galaxy. You've all earned your places, and I'm proud of you, it is of course your decision whether or not to undertake this opportunity, but if you do, then you will all be held in the highest esteem. Your studies will be postponed until you return, and you will all receive special credit points."
I stood shocked. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't. Just over a mega-cycle ago, I'd been at a peak; my movements were controlled entirely by instinct. Now, I doubt that I could have lifted my legs and run, even if I'd been able to think of doing so.
Banshee stopped polishing, and nodded, Brigand leapt up whooping. Rift-wing glanced at me, and replied.
"I speak for myself as well as Nightwing when I say: sign us up!"
I couldn't have refused even if I'd wanted to; I couldn't even think.
The arch chancellor beamed at us even more. "I'm sure the Predacon High-electorate will be most pleased."
I was still frozen to the floor as Rift-wing and Brigand grabbed my arms and dragged me back out.
It was roughly 4 mega-cycles before I could finally speak again (at least, I think it was four mega-cycles; I'd lost all track of time, but that was about how long it had been since I entered the Arch-chancellors chambers.)
Only one question came to mind; "Why?"
Rift-wing answered, "There are several reasons why, not least of which is that it's a unique opportunity. But there are others; you need to face your fears for one thing; it's the only way to deal with them. Also, you need answers, and besides, someone's gone to a lot of trouble to cause those premonitions; you don't want to disappoint them now, do you?" I assumed she meant the fates with that last comment.
I still couldn't get over it, but when Banshee and I returned to our room, our new uniforms were already laid out on the beds; although robots technically didn't wear clothing, it was more for ceremonial purposes. We were after all still students. If we later signed up with the navy, then our body-armour would be re-painted and laser-etched in the fashion of the Cybertronian Armada.
I guess I could have just told the Arch-chancellor that I'd made up my own mind; it didn't occur to me until later that if I had, then the premonitions should have gone away, but I couldn't bear to let my friends go off alone after the thing's I'd seen (not that I'd been able to protect anyone in my visions; but I'd still feel guilty for chickening out and letting them be killed.).
I dreaded going to sleep that night; just knew that this would be the worst premonition yet, but strangely, either I didn't dream that night, or I didn't remember it. I guess that any dream would have paled with the fact that it was all about to come true.
The parties lasted a whole week; end of year parties were usually wild, but there were several in our honour. The attention was almost embarrassing. I didn't mind attention if I'd earned it, but we hadn't done anything yet. Needless to say, I wasn't really the life of the party. I knew that the next time that I saw these faces that they'd be far more sombre. Assuming I'd ever see them again.
The ship had been christened the Journeyman, a ship that size hadn't been seen since the likes of the Ark.
Considering the levels of miniaturisation done to our physiologies since those times, then it truly was a colossal ship. Something like that couldn't have existed if it weren't for the combined efforts of Maximal and Predacon.
It was the most advanced ship ever created; it was heavily armed, and designed to be prepared for anything. Crew complement consisted of 2,842 enlisted, 7,000 scientists, 100 techs, 50 engineers, a full complement of diplomats, tacticians, and ambassadors, and 8 specialists.
Totalling 10,000 I thought.
She really was a wonderful sight, but I couldn't help having the feeling that she was a ghost ship.
Or would soon be.
As I headed up toward the boarding ramp, the sergeant jogged up to me, and held out a small leather parcel. "I made this just in case you ever needed it"
"Thanks but you shouldn't have."
"Nonsense; consider it a reward for doing so well against the hunter or something."
I opened the small package; inside was a knife in it's own leather sheath; the blade was about a foot long. I looked down at the sonic-knife and rolled it around in my hand. I unsheathed it and activated its power switch; there was a high-pitched whine, which quickly grew above the level that my sensors could detect. The steely-coloured blade, vibrated by the sonic emitter, changed to a dull straw colour and then quickly went through the spectrum until it was white-hot; I could feel the heat on my hand where I held it around its hilt. I switched it off.
"I know that they're illegal, but it just might come in handy."
Fate, it seems, has a sense of humour.
I looked at the sergeant and thanked him.
"Hey, don't look so glum; I'm one of the 2,842 enlisted. I applied for a position when the keel of the Journeyman was laid down, and I was informed yesterday that one of the officers had been caught in an accident at the shipyard and so I got his place. He's recovering, but he'll miss his flight. I'd already made your little present, and so I'd thought it right to give to you anyway."
I only half heard him; already this journey was shaping up to be bad. I'm not superstitious or anything, but an injured crewman this early in the trip had to be some sort of omen.
I thanked him again and returned his salute. I turned and walked toward the boarding ramp.
As soon as my foot touched the slightly green metal of the ramp I felt like I'd been electrocuted; it was as if the ship had seen what was in my mind, and was recoiling in fear. As far as I knew, the ship wasn't sentient; it must have been another premonition.
"There you are" the guys ran up to me, "we've been looking all over for you."
"We'd hoped you'd chickened out" chuckled banshee, "at least I don't have to put up with your dementia this trip."
I looked around my room; I kinda liked the jade pattern on the walls. In one corner was a small basin, and in the other was an energon slot. The foot of my bed faced toward the door, and there was a window above my head.
I'd read up on the ship before I came aboard; our mission was one of peaceful exploration, but we were armed in case we came across any trouble. We were supposed to travel round the galaxy, investigating several areas of interest. The ship was equipped with a trans-warp drive, but since it was only a short-range time-travel device, it wouldn't be too helpful here. The main form of travel was ion engines; these being considered the most efficient form of travelling over such distances. Since the engines were almost 100% efficient, only small amounts of fuel are needed to produce large amounts of thrust. The general concept as that the fuel is sprayed into a chamber where it is vaporised into a plasma-vapour. This plasma is then fed through an energised plate that polarises the vapour; it is then magnetically drawn to an oppositely charged plate in the nozzle of the engine. It is then ejected out the rear at a tremendous velocity, producing large amounts of thrust.
The general idea was to engage a short trans-warp hop, then travel faster than light on ion engines. I knew enough from my few moments of paying attention in class to know that a body travelling faster than the speed of light is immune to the effects of time. It would still take us roughly 500 years to reach our first destination; a small outcrop of stars roughly 10,000 light-years away, but according to the theory, the rest of time would stand still; we'd arrive a fraction of a second real-time after we left. The mission was scheduled to take four years, but this was to remain flexible. Stasis pods were provided for the entire crew to be used during transit periods; most of the four years real-time would be devoted to studying and exploring.
I heard the message over the comm.; "All stations, the mission will commence in 5 cycles."
I headed off toward the bridge, my friends had had the same idea. It was nothing like anything I'd ever seen. It looked like a war-room; there were screens everywhere, and just as many seats.
I walked up to the captain and tore off a textbook-perfect salute.
"So, this is the famous Nightwing eh? I've heard a lot about you."
"I hope it isn't all bad."
The captain laughed; she appeared young, perhaps just out of school, but her bio had said that she'd been a captain for nearly ten years; which meant that she looked a heck of a lot younger than she was.
"Not 'all' bad, but most."
I looked blank until I saw her grin.
"I'm Captain Essara, but everyone just calls me Sara."
"That's a bit informal isn't it?"
"True. It used to be said that the crew lost respect in the captain if he wasn't a complete discipline-freak, but I've had ten years of field experience to rethink that; I've tried both ways, and in a crisis situation I prefer to have the crew thinking independently and not be worrying about being reprimanded by the captain for their actions."
"That makes sense."
An ensign saluted the captain.
"All crew have reported in captain."
"Take us out."
I looked out the view-port, and saw my home planet slip away. As a seeker, I'd flown above it all countless times, but never as far out as where we're going. The atmosphere visibly thinned from a deep blue to black, and then we were in orbit.
Banshee walked up to me, "Hard to believe it'll be almost a million years before we see it again." I could sense apprehension as well as excitement in his voice."
I'd never really been good mates with Banshee, but still, we all had to get along on this mission.
"Just be careful, ok?"
"Don't tell me about your "visions" psycho, I don't want to catch anything."
"Even still, just watch your back."
"You watch your own, don't worry about me."
I knew that he was acting tough just because I'd lowered my guard and had tried to show some concern, but even still, I could tell that deep down he knew that I wasn't nuts. He more than likely believed that I wouldn't have had such a problem if there wasn't one.
"All systems are go captain."
"Punch it!"
The scene outside the view-port vanished, and was replaced by tiny pinpricks all round. The screen in front of me circled a very small faint one, and I knew that that was home.
To be continued…
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So, what'd you think?? Please R&R