It started, as all good things do, with a bang. It was one of those deliciously crispy, loud bangs that you not only hear, but feel rattling your very core; an overpowering noise which soaks into every fiber of your infrastructure and just begs you to imagine the blinding explosion that has to accompany a bang that big. If she hadn't been about to die, Chromia would have really enjoyed it.
Instead, the blue Autobot swore violently in surprise as she struggled to set the last of the detonation charges. Another closer, louder, bang shook the darkened, purple corridor inside Decepticon Headquarters. The explosions shouldn't have started yet. She checked her internal chronometer, but the fraggin' thing just flashed 12:00:00 at her, and she realized, too late, that she had forgotten to reset it after her last recharge.
Her communicator came on with a loud, hissy pop, but the message from Autobot Leader Elita One was garbled by the interference from the ever-nearing detonations. Chro..Ktzzzz El..Kss One…Charges….prematuzzz.. detonatKzzzz…Oonracesssssss… Out Now! Chromia didn't bother to reply as she hurried to prepare the charge. There was a reason it had been saved for last. It was the largest, and was close to an energon storage room that would, hopefully, make the last bang of this symphony of destruction the biggest by a megamile. Without the charge Chromia was setting there was little chance for the structure's complete devastation, and it was crucial that there be nothing left to rebuild.
Another blast, close enough that Chromia could feel the heat, see the flash, hear the groan of the building as the explosive ripped it apart. The charge was almost set. She connected a few more wires, frantically trying to remember which buttons to push, which switches to flip. The little light will flash green three times, she told herself. Firestar had been very clear on that, and Chromia had focused as hard as she could. Three times. Chromia paused. Or was it four? She stared at the red light on the charge, and flipped the last switch. It flashed, twice.
What did that mean? She heard a loud insistent beeping down the hall and she looked toward the noise. It was coming from the charge that had been planted a hundred or so meters away, just where the hallway began to curve. She could barely make out the little light on the charge, flashing green, pulsing rapidly in time with the beeping, which was getting louder and faster. That can't be good… She thought to herself. Her com came on again, this time, as far as Chromia could tell through the static, Elita was nearly shouting, and she thought she could hear Moonracer wailing apologies in the background too. KzzRomi…zzzzkt..UT NOW…kzzst…Irect Orde… Get out now!...Bzz Romia I'm Sorry!...Kzzzz..
Chromia would have given her backup data processor for a moment to gather her thoughts, but when a light on the charge down the hall suddenly flashed red she knew that she didn't even have an astrosecond. She threw herself as far down the hall as she could and transformed into her vehicle mode just as the charge blew. The force of the blinding explosion propelled her forward faster than her wheels could turn and she ended up scraping against the wall with the sound of a stylus screeching on cold steel. She regained control just as the heat of the blast cooked her tailgate. Chromia floored it, feeling the red hot metal buckling beneath her. All around her in the inferno the building moaned and creaked, but faintly, far behind her, she could hear the charge she had set begin to beep. Fighting panic, she sped through the twisting ruined halls as fast as she dared, focusing on only one thing: the exit. She would either reach it before the charge blew, or she wouldn't; and she only had seconds before she'd find out which it would be.
The exit was only fifty meters away when the last, largest charge detonated. Chromia, going well past her top speed, heard a roar, a scream, a cackle, and a low, but growing, hiss. Then she was swallowed in a blinding cloud of fire. For an instant she felt herself at the edge of all things, her fluids being boiled away, falling into the abyss and devoured by the blinding, final light. And then she was out, and all she could see were stars.
The explosion had thrown her from the brightly flaming Decepticon Space Bridge and she was looking up into the night sky over Cybertron. I think, she thought, feeling the cooling air rushing past her windshield, I think I am still falling. She knew that she was bound to crash into the ground at some point, but for some reason, she wasn't too concerned. The stars were so bright and beautiful, and everything was going slow, and glowing, and burning. And one of those stars is Earth, she thought. She was wrong of course, as Perceptor could have told her. One of those stars was Earth's SUN. Earth could not be seen from Cybertron. But as Chromia crashed into the ground, blackened and smoking, she really didn't care.
"I don't see her." Firestar said, and Elita's mouth tightened with annoyance. Now was not the right time to be stating the obvious.
From their fall back location on the sheltered rooftop of an abandoned foundry, Elita One, Firestar and Moonracer, were anxiously watching the collapsing building; their fear growing steadily ever since the last message to Chromia had been met with static. Elita was counting down the detonations. The big one would be next and there was still no sign of Chromia. Every explosion was like a punch in the processor, and she could imagine how the sight of each blast was affecting Moonracer, who had incorrectly set her detonation device, causing it to go off prematurely, triggering the rest of the devices.
The last charge went off, and the noise was like the death wail of an entire planetoid. Elita felt her core sink down to her feet, as her hopes for the best dissolved into fears for the worst. She shut off her optical sensors. The fireball blooming from the petals of the nearly destroyed Decepticon Space Bridge was mocking her.
"Look!" Moonracer shouted. Elita opened her eyes just in time to see a small bluish van falling from the fireball. "It's her!"
"Great Cybertron," Elita whispered, already calculating distance as the blue van fell. She heard Moonracer whimper as Chromia collided with the metal platform at the very base of the space bridge.
"Firestar, transform and come with me. Moonracer, you remain here at the fallback position." Elita-one commanded, as she converted into vehicle mode.
Moonracer began to protest as the two pulled away from the foundry, "No, but Elita, you need my help…I need…"
Elita-One cut her off. "Moonracer," she repeated slowly "Stay here." She didn't need to add 'and that's an order,' Moonracer knew it was. Elita never said anything that she didn't mean.
As they neared Chromia's crash site, Elita again steeled herself for the worst. Chromia was durable, sometimes it seemed indestructible, but they had all accumulated damage since their mentor, and medic, Alpha Trion, had become one with the super-computer Vector Sigma. And no one had taken more of a beating in the time since than Chromia. Firestar did the best she could, but most of them were in dire need of a serious overhaul. Elita had thought they could handle one last mission in their current state. In fact, when she weighed all her options she realized they were the only bots who knew the territory well enough to pull it off. She wondered now if her decision would cost her Chromia's life. Have I come through four million years of siege with my team intact, Elita thought, only to lose one now, so close to the end?
Firestar was silent. Normally she would try and think of something helpful or positive to say, something to put her mind at ease and hopefully everyone else's, but right now she was terrified. She was what passed for her team's medic now, though she was woefully under-programmed for it. What if Chromia is too injured for me to help? And someone like Ratchet or Wheeljack could have saved her, but I couldn't? The thought was more horrific for Firestar than the possibility of Chromia already being terminated.
Elita slowed when she saw the thin column of smoke rising beyond an old guardpost. It had been abandoned since Shockwave no longer had enough soldiers or drones to man the post, or even enough energy to keep the equipment running. Keeping close to the building, and well in the shadows, the Autobot Commander stopped and transformed, knowing that the ever watchful Firestar would follow her lead and do the same. As concerned as they all were about Chromia Elita knew that they couldn't afford to rush blindly to her side, as Moonracer would have, without first checking the surroundings. Shockwave's sentinels were dumb, but not dumb enough to miss a flaming skyscraper, especially one they were occupying. If they hadn't been destroyed in the explosions they could be patrolling the area. They might even have already gotten to Chromia themselves. Elita slowly crept around the corner of the guardpost, hugging the wall, and peeked quickly around the corner. One peek was all her optic sensors needed.
Not many beings can say that they've impacted their planet in a serious way. Chromia was now one of those beings. She had impacted Cybertron so seriously that the crater resulting from it was later deemed by Shockwave to be "serious enough to warrant repair when sufficient resources for such cosmetic repairs once again become available." A sad, smoking, blackened, dented, bluish wreck with three flat tires smoldered in the center of the mini-crater. But more importantly, Elita hadn't seen any Decepticons. And most important of all: the bluish wreck was groaning.
Elita signaled Firestar and, finally, they rushed to Chromia's side. Starting near the crumpled front bumper Firestar started to quickly examine the Autobot van. Elita-One kept one optic sensor on her soldiers, and the other on lookout for the enemy.
"Chromia?" Firestar whispered near Chromia's windshield, "Chromia, it's Firestar. Can you hear me?"
Chromia moaned, then coughed a cloud of black smoke out her engine block, "It's about time you bots got here…" Her voice was weak, but coherent, "I thought I was gonna have to tow myself home."
Firestar laughed a little, relieved, but still concerned, "Can you tell where you're damaged?"
There was a pause. "Ahhhuu…everywhere?" Chromia half joked, half moaned.
Firestar looked to Elita, feeling the panic rising in her feedback stabilizer. She can talk. She can joke, She's not visibly on fire. She'll be fine. Firestar reassured herself. Suddenly Elita jerked her head to the side and pulled her pistol. "Firestar we must hurry, I just picked up something on my early warning scanner. It may be a sentinel or even Shockwave."
Chromia gave a pained sigh, "Can't you just let me hope the explosion destroyed him? At least for a little while longer."
"Chromia, can you transform?" Firestar asked. It was the third question a medic was supposed to ask, after 'Can you hear me?' and 'Do you know where you're hurt?' Asking one of these three questions comprised most of a medic's job on the field, and many thought the third question was most important. The ability of an injured soldier to transform told a medic a lot about the extent of their injuries and the transformation process also triggered the automatic repair systems.
"Maybe…" Chromia answered. "I'll try…awhh…but it won't be pretty." The blue van began to shake a bit, and a low, unpleasant, grinding sound came from deep in her body as hundreds of tiny, overheated, twisted gears, cogs, and pistons, struggled to move past, around, and through, each other. Her engine revved, then stalled for a second, and finally with a low, gravelly whine Chromia transformed back into her robot mode. "That was distinctly unpleasant," she moaned, leaning back on the twisted, scorched, ground.
"Firestar, transform." Elita-one instructed, then kneeling beside her friend she put one arm under Chromia's shoulder and started putting the other under her knees. Chromia pushed her hand away.
"I'll walk to the truck, thank you very much," she said. Elita put her shoulders down and backed away. Chromia struggled and groaned on the ground for a moment, attempting to stand with obviously damaged equilibrium circuits, as well as several dislocated linkages, before finally sighing and raising one sooty arm. "I need some help. But with getting up and walking please." Elita smiled slightly and took her friend's arm over her shoulder to support her; allowing Chromia to painfully hobble the few steps to Firestar's truck bed. "Thank you," Chromia wheezed as she lay back in the red truck.
Elita gently patted the injured Autobot on the shoulder and smiled, "Anytime, old friend. Anytime." The pink Autobot Commander transformed into her vehicle mode. "Moonracer," she radioed as she and Firestar rolled toward home, "Firestar and I have Chromia. Head back to headquarters and inform the others of the situation. We will meet with you there."
Chromia! Moonracer radioed back, her voice strained with anxiety, Is she…
"I'm fine, Moonracer." Chromia croaked, leaning her head back on the roof of Firestar's cab, enjoying the cool air rushing past her scorched faceplates.
Ohzzzzzzkit..omiazzzsss!
Chromia sighed and tapped the side of Firestar's bed. She heard a faint hiss and knew that Firestar had turned her comm on, "Use Firestar's communicator, Moonracer. Mine got pretty cooked."
Chromia I'm so sorry! Moonracer's voice called from inside Firestar's cab, It's my fault. I'm so…
"It's all right Moonracer." Chromia sighed again, shifting painfully as Firestar went over some rubble. "I've been through worse." Much worse. She thought, her hand across her forehead.
But I was the one who set the charges wrong. I had..
Chromia interrupted her before Moonracer's apology could devolve further into self-loathing, which could go on forever. "Moonracer, it's alright. I'll be fine. I'd rather not talk about it now." She sounded twice as exasperated as she really felt, and only hoped that Moonracer's guilt would be stronger than her need to explain just how guilty she felt so that Chromia could get some peaceful rest.
Silence from the communicators and Chromia smiled. The only sound she could hear was Firestar's engine, her own engine, the rush of the wind, and the crackling of the burning Space Bridge, a flaming flower framed with stars, now shrinking into the distance.
"It's beautiful." She murmured raspily.
"Yes, it really is," Elita replied. She was bringing up the rear, making sure they weren't followed. "For all that its destruction stands for."
"It's the most beautiful destruction I've seen since…" Chromia trailed off. "I'm sure Optimus would have loved to see it."
"Optimus doesn't really enjoy destruction," Elita said, "whatever the cause and use for it."
"Oh." Chromia coughed some more black smoke. It was clogging her internal cooling fan intakes and she was starting to get dizzy. She stared at the stars again, the stars and the flaming, destroyed Space Bridge.
Elita closed the small gap between her front bumper and Firestar's tailgate. "But I'm sure Ir…"
"Beautiful." Chromia rasped, "just beautiful."
They were silent, and the Space Bridge continued to shrink smaller and smaller into the distance, obscured more and more by tall, dark, empty towers, until all Chromia could see was a fleeting glimpse every now and then, and a glowing halo of light in the sky. They were almost to the entrance to their secret headquarters. A break in the skyline allowed Chromia one last look at the destruction she had helped cause, the destruction that had almost swallowed her up. Beautiful, she thought. Ironhide would have loved to see this.
And then, they were home.