Bands of Avalon

by
Delilah Draken

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Empire
Ironhide: Promotion

"Sunlight," he remembers his training sergeant saying, " can be your worst enemy."

Back then he didn't believe the old soldier, thought himself invincible in a way that only rookie cadets who've never seen a battle before can ever be. He didn't see any sense in learning about camouflage techniques and how to move an army without making a sound. Fighting from a hidden point seemed like an act of cowardice to him.

"You'll change your mind," the sergeant told him. "You'll change your mind so fast that not even a hacker could follow your thoughts."

Now, that he has been stationed on Calios Minor, he can appreciate the irony in his teacher's words. Cybertronian eyes are just not built to work well under the gleam of two suns. If he were to allow himself to contemplate the reasons - which he will definitely not do, by the way - he would see than any kind of light resistance is not something a species living on a planet without active sun would ever develop on its own.

Too bad then that he is the only soldier in his platoon who has not gone through with the recommended procedure and gotten his eyes recalibrated. One of these days he is going to kick himself in the head for this useless fear of medics.

Of course, that will have to be not today, as he is quite busy fighting against a whole platoon of Tharl.

"Where is our slagging reinforcement?"

They had lost thirty men this morning, so the question is nothing but appropriate at the moment. Maybe a bit distracting, he tells himself while he dodges fire from all sides and tries to get a lock on this damned tank the little organics are using to keep them away from their city.

The tank, annoying thing that it is, does not comply to his wishes and keeps on firing at him.

"Don't know," he says. "Don't care."

The other falls silent and begins to concentrate again on eradicating the enemy fire. A moment later that soldier is nothing but smoking scrap metal coated in mud and body fluids. Not much of a loss, that.

If he had paid attention to his surroundings, he would have realized that the Tharl were obviously winning this battle. But, as has always been his nature, he is a better fighter when fighting alone, he does not see that the number of soldiers on his side is dwindling by the dozens.

For a long time he fights like this, always thinking only about his next shot, his next move closer to the enemy lines.

He fights so long that, when reinforcement finally arrives in the form of three flyers coming down on the Tharl like Unicron's bad humour, he needs a moment to put it all in perspective. After all, there wouldn't be much sense in firing at his own people.

He blinks, takes a look around himself and seeing the carnage has to sit down. Is he really the only survivor? That can't be right, can it?

Later, when he wakes up in a military hospital, he is told to report for a duty reassignment.

"Lord Protector," they say, "was impressed by your... stubborn streak."