A tag to Code of a Hero
by Birgit Staebler
A silent figure stood in the vastness of the desert, two
dim red optics gazing forlornly over the plains stretching out in front
of him. Everything was cool and quiet, no sound disturbed the silence.
Now and then a night-active animal entered the peripheral vision of the
figure, but he never moved. His optics were fixed on the star-speckled
sky. It seemed to him that someone had taken a handful of diamonds and
had scattered them over black velvet. No cloud obscured the beautiful sight,
no shuttles or ships added their blinking lights to the stars above. Everything
was naturally beautiful. He was adrift in blackness in an alien universe,
alone and unseen. Just like he wanted to be.
Rattrap lowered his gaze and found his optics drawn to
the far edge of the lava flow he was only a few walking minutes away from.
When the alien device had almost destroyed this planet, a lot of volcanoes
had suddenly become active, spouting ash and finally magma. Now everything
had more or less quieted down and the cool lava was one reminder of what
catastrophe had almost happened here. All around him silent reminders stood.
Bare trees, burned ground, ash-covered soil. But the planet was already
reviving, struggling against the suffocating mantle of debris and fighting.
Yes, fighting. Just like the Maximals had fought and
were still doing so.
They were fighting for this planet, just like the planet
was now fighting for itself and for its continued survival. And what had
it gotten them?
Rattrap looked at his hands. Silvery metal gleamed dully
in the star light. He was a Transmetal now, a change from what he had almost
grown used to being for such a long time. He had been a partially organic
creature, a rat. A robot in a rat's body, as he had once put it. Now he
was a metal rat, though Rhinox had once mentioned that this was not real
metal. Not metal in the sense of metal. Parts of him were inseparably fused
with the organic molecules. The quantum surge had done this. It had done
the same to some of his comrades and also his enemies. He didn't know what
to think of it, though this was more like what he had been before this
whole disastrous trip with the Axalon than anything he had been before
– and just as far from it as well.
One change had led to the other.....
The sun broke over the horizon and slowly boiled up into
the morning sky. The night shadows began to shrink back and the smell of
wet sand began to receide. It was going to be a hot day, out here in the
desert. Rattrap watched the brilliant ball of light rise. This early in
the morning it was still comfortable to be here, but in the afternoon it
would be unbearable and cooling systems would labor hard to keep his core
temperature down.
He sighed.
Rattrap had come here, as he had come every night for
the last week, to think and be alone. He could have done that back at the
Axalon because he was rarely disturbed in the mess he called his quarters,
but he had chosen this remote location. Another location had been in his
mind as well, but the valley held too many painful memories and those painful
memories were the reason why he was out here. He didn't need enhancement;
what his mind held was enough already. Here, in this isolated hell hole,
he was truly alone and nothing and no one would remind him of the painful
day he had lost a friend – except for what he did himself to be reminded.
A small smile flickered over his features.
When had he come to think of him as a friend?
Answer: a long time ago.
He sighed again. Shading his optics against the brightening
beams of light he tried once again to shut out the last minutes, but it
was impossible.
Dinobot was dead. And with him, a small part of Rattrap
that had been born on this planet had perished as well. He had hated Predacons
ever since he could remember and he had fought them wherever he could.
He had been a spy, he had infiltrated and sabotaged, he had killed – and
he had seen his friends get killed. Then he had signed onto the Axalon
to see something else, to escape this dangerous routine that had settled
in, to get away from what memories he still had of the war... only to be
forced to work and live together with a Predacon traitor!
Dinobot.
A stinkin', scaly dinosaur with an attitude you could
cut through titanium steel with. From the first day on they had been at
each other's throat, keeping their optics open for opportunities to strike
at the other, to verbally attack and slaughter. The few hassles, the physical
shoving here or there, had just been to add to the verbal threat. Somehow,
Rattrap now thought back, he couldn't think of Dinobot really attacking
anyone of them to kill.
True, okay, so he had nearly shot him....
He sighed deeply. Dinobot had defected back to the Preds
and when Megatron had ordered him to terminate Rattrap, Dinobot had seemed
to go through with it, only to stop in the last moment. He had seen it
in his optics then, Rattrap recalled. Dinobot had grown ... had changed...
had been unable to kill his comrades. They had started out hating each
other's guts, then changed into respecting the other one and finally....
yes, what then?
Rattrap leaned back against the rocky surface behind
him. He had accepted the Predacon among them. He had accepted his presence
and had also reached out to become a friend. They had fought, yes of course;
they had nearly strangled each other on occasion, called the other names,
but he had changed to a point where he was ready to step in for Dinobot
and defend him.
A lot of defending you did! a small voice mocked. He
died alone against an army of Predacons because none of you great heroes
were fast enough!
He risked and lost his life because he was stupid! Rattrap
raged back silently. He could have waited for back-up!
And the human race would have been destroyed; Megatron
would have won, the voice reminded him.
Dinobot had given his life so another race would be able
to survive, to stop Megatron from achieving what he had come here for.
Unfair! Rattrap's core screamed. Unfair!
He should have waited!
One life to save many. Dinobot had finally found his
destiny, as he had put it himself in his last moments.
It wasn't his destiny to be slaughtered by the Preds!
Rattrap's inner self cried desperately. It should have been me kicking
his butt into the Pit!
They had always threatened each other like that, making
promises that one would one day terminate the other. But there had always
been this tell-tale twinkle... the amusement hidden behind harsh words.
It had been a game.
Now the game was over and one player was dead.
Thinking back to the last weeks before Dinobot's death,
Rattrap suddenly saw the tiny changes in the former Predacon. He had been
on the edge, always wired, tense.... ready to strike. It had started way
before his almost desperate defection back to Megatron, he now realized.
It had started... when? Optimus Primal's death? Sooner? He didn't really
know. He only knew that everything had effectively led to these last actions,
this heroic death.
Heroic, yeah, right!
He snorted and scooped up a handful of warm sand, letting
it run between his fingers. It trickled back onto the ground. The sun played
with the dust and glittery particles, dancing through the veil of sand
and over his armor.
What was so heroic about it? Dinobot was dead, for crying
out loud! His spark had risen to join the Matrix, which was at least some
comfort. He was among those other great warriors.....
Rattrap dimmed his optics more, but not because of the
flaring sun in the sky.
What had Optimus said? 'He lived a warrior, he died a
her'..... Yes, a hero. Too bad heros always died early.....
He had lost a friend. A good friend.
And I never even got the time to really apologize for
what I said, he thought, a painful stab sinking into his fuel pump. Had
his words driven Dinobot out into that valley? Had he been part of this
suicidal decision? It was a thought he was unable to lose. He had provoked
the Predacon just before he had left, and he had seen it in Dinobot's optics
that he had been ready to strike him. But Dinobot had reigned in his temper
and merely left, also leaving a confused Rattrap, and the next time they
had met Dinobot had been dying.
He remembered the shock coursing through him at the sight,
the mind-numbing fear, the fist of ice enveloping his fuel pump. Rattrap
had been unable to say anything for several seconds, mouth agape, optics
wide, and finally had averted his optics. Realization of what was about
to happen and what had happened before had hit him, but acceptance was
still a long way off.
Rattrap cleaned his hands from the clinging sand and
gazed into the desert, feeling lost and alone. The lava lay ahead in great,
ropy masses, black against an almost white sand. It stretched into a limitless
distance, disappearing from sight as it touched the horizon. Already the
blackness began to shimmer in the rising heat.
His fault?
Was Dinobot's death his fault and he was to blame for
it all alone?
No one openly blamed him, but no one knew of those harsh
accusations. Maybe some did, maybe Optimus knew, but then he had always
known that Rattrap and Dinobot were not exactly on friendly terms. At least
on the outside.
Rattrap lost track of time as he sat in the rising heat,
staring at the almost featureless landscape. His accusations had hit a
nerve inside Dinobot and maybe they had triggered his suicide. That's how
Rattrap mostly thought of his death. Suicide. The dim-witted lizard had
killed himself with what he had done! Stupid Predacon honor! A truly narrow-minded
way to live! Dinobot's way. His actions had been driven by his code of
honor, his Predacon honor, and in the end he had given the ultimate sacrifice:
himself. His life for others; his salvation. His freedom.
Rattrap tried to forget the dead body shell, the burns
and blasts, the open wounds, but it was impossible. It was imprinted in
his mind. The funeral pyre had not been able to erase this memory as it
had disintegrated Dinobot's shell. It would always be a part of his life
and his past.
He had lost a bit of himself that day.
He bravely tried to fill the void, searching almost desperately
for a replacement, and he had somehow found it in Silverbolt. Teasing the
Fuzor was just as much fun as getting on Dinobot's nerves. Granted, Silverbolt
was kind of slow in the cynism and sarcasm department, or at least he did
a pretty good show of not understanding half of Rattrap's ambigious one-liners,
but he was easy to irritate if you knew what buttons to push. And Rattrap
knew some pretty short-wired buttons that were assured to get a reaction
quickly and sometimes violenty.
He chuckled, then shook his head.
He had tried to hate Dinobot when they had met.
He had tried to hate himself when he had discovered that
beneath that Predacon shell was someone not so unlike himself.
He had tried to.... be a friend. And failed.
He had to live with it.
As he had to live with so many decisions, failures and
events from before.
Dinobot had found his peace, he thought with a faint
smile, rising to his feet. But in doing so he had left a gap among his
comrades. One day the gap might close, the wound might heal, but a scar
would always remain.
"Good-bye, lizard-lips," Rattrap said quietly into the
undisturbed silence of the desert. "It was an honor serving with you."
