Across the infinite reach of the cosmos, life abounds. However, one form of life is unique among the trillions of species across the universe. Orbiting the Star Alpha Centauri is a machine world, made entirely of metal. No rock or sand or soil contributes to its bizarre geography. This planet is called Cybertron, and it is inhabited by a race of sentient robotic life-forms known by others across space as the Transformers, capable of changing their bodies into any shape imaginable. Once, Cybertron was a paradise, but then came the war, terrible war. A faction known as the Decepticons, lead by a robot named Megatron, rose up to overthrow the governing council of Cybertron, but a counter-revolution then began as Optimus Prime and the Autobots struck back. Now the Autobots and Decepticons wage war on Cybertron and thousands of worlds across space and Megatron prepares to enact his endgame to defeat Optimus Prime and conquer Cybertron...
A great battle was raging on the planet of Xerxes-Sigma. An Autobot Garrison under City Commander Roller had been attacked by a wave of Decepticon infantry forces with air support. The City Commander was monitoring the situation from the base's war room with his top officers. "They came out of nowhere, Sir. We don't know how long we can hold out against a force that large." An earthy green Autobot with large armor plates, deep-treaded tires on his shoulders and thighs, and a missile cannon on his right shoulder informed his commander of the developing situation.
"Thank you, Hound. Get me Ironhide!" Roller responded. A radio operator patched Roller into the radio channels. Out on the battlefield, Sergeant Ironhide was revving on all cylinders, firing his twin shotguns, built in grenade cannons and machine guns. Each pull of the trigger sent a burst of laser blasts slamming into a Decepticon Vehicon trooper, dying before their corpse could hit the ground, then his communicator blinked, indicating a transmission coming through.
"Yes sir?" Ironhide put the transmission through.
"Ironhide, how much time can you buy? The Decepticons are too many." Roller briefed Ironhide of the situation.
"I don't know. If each of my troops can buy you five minutes...then we can still hold out for about and hour, sir." Ironhide responded to his commander.
"What? How many casualties has your unit sustained?" Roller inquired of the Sergeant.
"The 'Cons first wave took out about half our strength. All our field officers and SNCOS are dead or on the way out, save yours truly. I've got one platoon, and thankfully it's the cream of my company's crop." Replied Ironhide and Roller signed off. He then turned to a trench where Big Shot, Flak, Sidetrack, Sunrunner, Scoop, Quickmix, Landfill, Tracks, Smokescreen, Cliffjumper, Pipes, Huffer, Gears, and Inferno stood. "Alright men, we have to buy enough time for Roller and the others to raise the base's defense CHARGE!" Ironhide roared, and the Autobots climbed over the top and followed their sergeant into battle. Scoop smashed a Decepticon's head in with his pickax, Flak fired a salvo of unguided rockets which blew a tank Vehicon to pieces, Sunrunner took off and transformed into his attack gunship mode to strafe Decepticons on the ground and Inferno sparked his torch and incinerated multiple Vehicons into a puddle of slag. At the base, Roller and his Autobot forces were loading up several ships with their supplies, preparing to leave, but soon enough the ships were loaded and Roller was aboard his own ship.
"Lift off." Roller said, and the three ships lifted off. Meanwhile, above the planet, several Decepticon cruisers hovered ominously. One was commanded by a caped Decepticon, cloaked in wings and two blasters on his arms, wearing blue, silver, and crimson armor and his chest like a cockpit of a jet fighter. Starscream, Decepticon Air Commander, was flanked by two others like him, one black, sliver, and purple, and another blue, red, and grey, their names Skywarp and Thundercracker.
"Skywarp, status report." The air commander purred, greasily.
"The Autobots are mounting a last-ditch defense to allow their comrades to escape the planet." Skywarp answered Starscream. Starscream grinned at the opportunity. He had made a reputation for himself as a feared warrior of the skies, raining terror upon Autobots.
"Skywarp, Thundercracker, to me." Starscream ordered, and his wingmen followed Starscream to the flight deck of the cruiser, where they leaped into the air and changed into their jet fighter modes, followed by dozens more like them, and flew down to the planet's surface to join the battle. Down on the battlefield, Ironhide lead his forces and put up a valiant defense against the Decepticons. Ironhide heard a cry.
"Help! Help!" He turned and his optics widened. A little yellow bot with black stripes lay wounded with a massive gash in his chest and hemorrhaging energon.
"Sarge, don't let me die! Don't let me die!" he cried. Ironhide sprinted to the aid of the young Autobot and began to try and heal him.
"Don't worry, Bumblebee. I've got you." Ironhide told him.
"I don't think I'm gonna make it!" Bumblebee cried.
"I don't think you're going to make it, I know you're going to make it."Ironhide said after he field dressed Bumblebee's wound "Come on, soldier, let's get you out of here." He then helped the little Autobot to safety. Another transmission came through for Ironhide.
"Ironhide, we're airborne. Pull your forces out and we'll be en route to pick you and whoever else you have left." Roller informed Ironhide.
"Roger that, Sir. We're on our way." Ironhide replied, and he then contacted his forces. "Everybody, let's get out of here. Commander and his guys are on the way to pick us up. Roll out!" The Autobot foot soldiers got their sergeant's message and they disengaged from the battle and drove to catch up to Ironhide. The sergeant changed to his armored truck mode and Bumblebee clung on to his roof. Overhead, Roller and his ships arrived, the command ship touching down as Ironhide and the Autobots drove aboard with all deliberate haste. Bumblebee was placed in the ship's medical suite and once all of the troops were aboard, the ship's pilots heaved the ship off the ground and took off, its jet boosters flaring as two smaller escort ships followed behind, but the Autobots were not yet out of danger as Starscream and the Seekers closed in for the kill.
"Commander, I have a visual!" Thundercracker called.
"Attack formation!" Starscream shrieked as the seekers screamed in abreast of one another with their machine guns blazing. The three Autobot shuttles were slammed by the relentless attack from Starscream and the seekers. The two smaller escort ships fought off the seekers, each being swarmed by seekers.
"We're going down! Repeat, we're going down!" Shouted an Autobot over the radio as his ship was in flames and plummeting down into the atmosphere.
"One down, two to go!" Starscream chuckled, sadistically. His targeting computer locked onto Roller's ship.
"Sir, I'm picking up a lock on us!" Hound exclaimed to Roller. The Autobots prepared for the worst as Bumblebee heard this.
"We're going to make it, Bumblebee, I swear!" Ironhide said as held Bumblebee's hand, firmly. Suddenly, a voice came over the radio.
"Roller, get clear, we'll draw Starscream's fire!" It was one of his senior officers, Shackle. He took control of his shuttle and heaved it around on a heading with Roller's ship .
"Shackle, what are you doing?" Roller shouted at him.
"It's been an honor serving with you Roller, now get clear and make the jump to hyperspace!" Shackle said, and Starscream launched a missile and it streaked toward Roller's ship. Shackle placed his shuttle between Starscream and Roller, and instead of taking out Roller, Shackle and all of his crew's sparks were extinguished when the missile blasted the ship into thousands of fragments.
"Punch it!" Roller roared, and Hound threw a switch which catapulted the ship beyond the speed of light and out of the Xerxes-Sigma system to their home planet, Cybertron. Starscream changed back to his robot form and watched as the Autobots slipped into hyperspace and scowled. The Autobots all breathed a collective sigh of relief, but their escaped came at a great cost. After some time, they arrived on Cybertron at the spaceport in the Autobot held capital of Iacon. There, a massive, red, blue, and grey Autobot with broad shoulders and huge muscles was flanked by a heavily armored light blue, white, and brick red Autobot with large, blocky shoulders and another, smaller, black and white one with a red crest on his forehead stood to greet them. Roller, Ironhide, and the surviving Autobots disembarked off their ship with the wounded to be greeted by the supreme Autobot commander, Optimus Prime, and his two lieutenants, Ultra Magnus and Prowl.
"Ironhide. It is good to see you, old friend." Optimus said, calmly.
"It's even better to see you. We've got casualties aboard, have a medic ready." Ironhide told Optimus. The Prime then spoke into his communicator.
"Ratchet, a ship of Autobots has arrived and they have sustained casualties. Prepare your medical bay to treat their injuries."
"Right away, Optimus." Ratchet replied. The Autobots drove in to Autobase Iacon, the military headquarters of the Autobots and the Elite Guard. Here was the command center for all Autobot operations across the galaxy. In the medical bay, Bumblebee was recovering from his wounds he sustained on Xerxes-Sigma.
"Don't scare me like that again, little fella." Ironhide chuckled.
"You're telling me. Five cycles out of Scout School and I'm already staring death in the optics on an alien planet. Some war this has turned out to be." Bumblebee said as he sat up and rotated his arm around.
"Easy does it, Bumblebee. Your wounds will take some time to heal." Ratchet advised. Ratchet was an emergency red and white Autobot with a red helme and a white crest like Prowl's. He was the Autobot Surgeon-General, and oversaw all Autobot medical affairs. Up in the command center, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, Jetfire, Ironhide, Roller, Hound, and others were gathered around a hologram table.
"The Decepticon counteroffensive is stretching our forces to their limits." Ultra Magnus explained. "But that seems as though it's their intention, to weaken us."
"For what?" Roller wondered. The projector then showed purple arrows pointing at Cybertron.
"A full scale Decepticon invasion." Ultra Magnus answered, grimly. With his authority second only to Optimus', Ultra Magnus was well respected among his comrades. His judgement was keen and his strategic mind had been key to the Autobots' campaigns across space in the Autobots' war against the Decepticons.
"Then we must close all other fronts and amass our troops here on Cyberton. I have given this much thought and found it to be the only course of action to ensure victory over Megatron. Though our gains throughout space have been noteworthy, it hasn't been until now that the Decepticons have struck back with such ambition. I will give the order to our fellow Autobots to return to Cybertron immediately." Optimus Prime declared. Outside, a birdlike robot stood perched on a rooftop. Using his cameras, he was able to record video and audio of the briefing between Optimus and his senior commanders. He had gathered the information he sought, and jetted off to the west and arrived in Kaon, the Decepticon capital, to a looming fortress shapes like a purple emblem-Castle Darkmount. There, sat the Decepticons' supreme leader Megatron atop his throne. He was a tall and heavily built 'bot who had grey and dark red armor, with tank treads on his shoulders and legs and a massive fusion cannon mounted on his right arm. Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp arrived to report to their leader.
"Starscream, congratulations on your retaking of Xerxes-Sigma from the Autobots." Megatron said in an oily voice. Starscream knelt before his leader and replied,
"You have my undying thanks, Lord Megatron, but..."
"But what, Starscream?" Megatron grumbled. It did not take much to change Megatron's mood from one of happiness to fury.
"The Autobots and their city commander for their garrison escaped the planet. To my knowledge, they were the only Autobots to make it off of the planet." Starscream added. Megatron scowled, indifferently.
"Given your record of successes over the past few cycles, I will grant you a reprieve. Such a small number of Autobots escaping our grasp is a minimal, if not insignificant loss in what otherwise is a decisive Decepticon victory, but such failures come at a cost to our cause, Starscream. Fail me again like that, and you will be counting your screws as I tear them out, one by one!" Megatron growled, angrily.
"I-I understand, Lord Megatron." Starscream stuttered as he rose to his feet, then a blue, white, and yellow 'bot walked in, he had a single, red visor and a clear panel in his chest. His name was Soundwave.
"Lord Megatron, Laserbeak has returned." Soundwave said in his synthesized voice. A red, and black bird glided in and perched himself on Soundwave's arm.
"Laserbeak, report." The birdlike Decepticon projected from his eyes the footage he had gathered while scouting out Autobase Iacon. Megatron studied it intently.
"So it seems the Autobots have discovered our pan to culminate our counteroffensive in the invasion of Cybertron." Megatron said. "I look forward to this..." He grinned menacingly. Megatron had planted the seeds which would soon lead to a harvest in the destruction of the Autobots once and for all...