The Next Life.
By Kaimaler.
AN: READ THIS FIRST. Duh.
This story will NOT take place in a known Transformers universe, I generated it myself. I didn't change much, but what I did I hope you enjoy reading.
FIRST THINGS FIRST, to avoid confusion: Humans and Cybertronians are the same average height. (some taller some shorter, randomizes, etc.)
Things have changed, there will be character/time/plot inspiration from the "All Hail Megatron" series, the original Generation One show, as well as the most recent movies. My mind works like a time bomb, so at any moment, something might come out and stun you, either you like it or not, doesn't matter right now, this is just a beginning.
So read and enjoy, or bitch about how "inaccurate" it is to Cybertron itself after I told you I made this AU myself with not many, but still some, changes. If you want to suggest certain ideas for this AU, GO AHEAD. Just say "Hey, how about this character?" or "What about this city?" BECAUSE... I don't know many Cybertronian locations/characters that only were on Cybertron/ etc., and can only go on what I can and have found online at the Transformers Teleraan wiki.
SECONDLY!
All review replies will be posted here! Author's notes will be nearly non-existant in this story, the only time it will be used is in the case that a question MUST be answered! About the plot, characters, universe, etc. etc.
So read, review. Replies will be posted right here!
Red lights flashed, alerting all aboard the space cruiser it had been irreparably damaged from the blast. Crewmen scrambled, tightening their life support suits and continuing on the emergency protocol.
The Captain always wore her suit; all she needed to do was lock in her helmet and open her visor. Forcing her way through the trained crewmen and women, the Captain stormed to the cockpit while her pilots retargeted unnecessary programs to life support, hoping to keep the cruiser in one piece as long as possible, giving the crew enough time to attempt to rescue the ship.
"Do we need it?" The junior pilot asked his mentor. "No, we don't redirect its power to the shields. They're rounding and preparing for another attack."
The Captain gripped the senior pilot's seat tightly as the pilot's computer read the energy discharge. "Hold on, this is going to hurt."
Outside the ship, two smaller fighters dropped bombs, causing the cruiser to suffer and be forced away. Tilting the ship, everyone inside felt it as the artificial gravity stabilizer snapped under the pressure, sending the crew flying into nearby walls, tables, and the ceiling. The fighters simply flew away, charging their negative pulse bombs as the cruiser whined and groaned.
"Can we direct power to the engine?" The Captain asked, getting a growl from the senior pilot. "Love to Captain, but this is all we got. We have two options; redirect power to the escape pods and abandon ship, or keep it on our shields and pray to your personal God that they just get bored and fly off."
Sighing, the Captain closed her visor. "Tell the crew to assume evacuation procedures. After their next shots, get the escape pods running and get aboard one yourselves."
"Aye aye, Captain." The senior pilot nodded, preparing the holoboard for the blast.
The Captain turned around, heading back down the cockpit shaft into the War room just as the pilot began the onboard safety system.
In the War room, the Corsair's personal A.I. stood, speaking through the intercom to take evacuation measures. "Hye Kwan." The android responded by looking in the Captain's direction and nodding, "How can I help Captain?"
"Store yourself in the safe room. Lock all the doors, convert part of the ship's power to keeping you in sleep mode." The Captain saluted the A.I. as she did in return. "Goodbye Captain, I shall await your rescue." She disappeared; the A.I. was on her way to the safe room, turned off. Her sleep mode would last several months depending on the quality and level of power received before set on stand by.
"Blast incoming!" The pilot's voice rang over the intercoms. "Hold on tight!"
Without time, the blast tore through the ship's hull, ripping a gaping hole straight through the armor. "Captain! Our power reserves are only able to fuel half the escape pods! It's not enough to hold the entire crew." The Captain's comlink screamed in her ears, the interference was jamming the signals. "Then it's going to be a tight fit. Get in a pod now!"
Without a word, the pilot pulled the junior's out of their seats and shoved them down the corridors. "Move, move! You heard the Captain!"
Turning around, the senior pilot and his rookies appeared. "Captain." He let the junior's rush to the escape pods without him. "When I said the escape pods wouldn't hold the entire crew, I already calculated how many we could fit into a pod without depleting the life support." The Captain cursed internally, she knew her pilot was always right, this time, she sincerely wished he was wrong.
"Fine." She sighed, licking her dry lips. Like adrenalin during battle, the reality of her situation finally hit home. All around her, her ship of over a decade of command was falling apart in front of her, along with her loyal crew. The wall panels were melting on the ends, welding came undone, sparks flew from the holographic computer panels, and even Hye Kwan was locked away for safety.
All other crew members were already nearing the escape pods if not already there. Some would have to go down with the ship. Friends, family, living people who were waiting until shore leave to visit home again, after so long in space, it was gut wrenching for her to think that she would have to tell her very own crew, her makeshift dysfunctional family, that some would have to volunteer to go down with the ship.
She already knew one volunteer.
"We have to hurry and tell the crew." The Captain swallowed the lump growing ever more in her throat. She was the Captain and it was her duty. "Come on."
She had to ignore the crew members that had already fallen from the blasts, the painful sounds of her old ship crying in pain, and her military school friend running along side her suffering the same agonizing thought she was. Both knew each other well enough to know they already volunteered the moment they spoke.
Suddenly, she felt like she was back in that same space training class. The simulations felt real enough to get her blood pumping. Her first few tries were terrible, all ending in either her death, the crews death, or both. It took her months to find a way past it all, to save the crew, not herself. It was a test in bravery and honor, one all rookies had to learn before ever being allowed the chance to become a Captain, or even Lieutenant.
Sacrifice yourself for the greater good. Or just because it becomes your duty when you assume the position as the leader of a vessel. The crew was a majority; they would go on, try to become a Captain themselves, or something akin to it.
There was the door to the escape pods and in a line just outside was the entire crew. All collected due to their training. The Pilot and the Captain looked back to each other, this was her job. In attempt to turn a table into a soapbox, she caught the attention of the crew.
Each one was silenced as their Captain stood high, to the more experienced members, it was all too easy to read her face; one of sadness and bravery. She sighed, she faced what often made or broke a Captain, and she wouldn't let it happen to her at the price of her crew, the very people who relied on her to survive.
"It is with a heavy heart that I..." She gulped, the crew's faces already drained of all hope with those few words. "I inform you that there is not enough power to launch all the crew members aboard. This is a vessel of one hundred and twenty crew members, not including myself and our senior pilot." The crew murmured, whispers passed as crew members discussed privately their concerns.
"I, as your Captain, will go down with the ship. I will try to buy you all some time to guide the shuttles back to military space. While our enemies target those aboard our ship, those who flee will have time to reach guarded military space. I will not force this decision on my personnel, you are all my crewmates, but I ask you choose quickly, our power level is draining and the enemy will resume their attacks." The pilot looked up to her, clenching his teeth, they waited as crew members slowly took a step forth.
"Senior Navigator Charles Estep." He announced himself, first to step forward. "I would rather go down with Corsair Escion and you, my Captain."
Motivated, crew members began either stepping forward, or raising their hands. Each and everyone saying their occupation and name before the Captain accepted them. By the time the volunteering had came to an end, more then half of the crew stood forth, presenting themselves. Just about everyone was a senior, expert, or simply a war veteran by the time the Captain had counted them out. Seventy-eight percent of the crew stood ready to die.
It was a courageous act, she was regretful and yet proud that so many of her crew would offer up their lives in this situation.
"We require a base minimum of sixty-five volunteers and though your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the many is noble, I will ask thirteen volunteers to retract themselves."
Quickly, some people pulled back volunteers, a sister pulled back her brother, a son pulled back his father, and finally, the crew could escape. With the right count, the crew members began boarding the escape pods, waiting to launch.
The Captain separated the two groups, the volunteers followed behind her as they all rushed back to the bridge. "At emergency protocol N007B!" The volunteers split off, all working on the guidance computers, the support systems, or working in the co-pilot seats.
The senior pilot took his seat, the Captain once more behind him. "They're rounding back... But their pulse charges aren't armed. They're going to shoot us down. Bastards." He glared at the screen, trying to work the Corsair's systems.
"What do we have?" The Captain asked, watching closely as the pilot skimmed over dead generators and optional force. "Nothing. At all. We can steer, we have some offensive power, our magnetic cannon is out... but our gravity beam is still on full power." He grinned, "It works off a totally different form of energy; a heavy duty condensed gas compound so we may be able to prolong their attack enough for the pods to get away, or buy us enough time to figure out how exactly we want to die."
"Activate gravity beam and close off the bridge with airtight locks, then find out what we want to do with our guests." The pilot took to it, the computer displayed a scene of outer space, the ships coming closer just as the pilot aimed and activated the gravity beam, catching the two considerably smaller fighters motionless.
"Alright, they should be able to deactivate it in five minutes, so think fast." The pilot warned, doing all he could to keep the beam running. "Bring up a visual around us." The pilot nodded, changing the screen to multiple external views of around the ship.
"There. See it?" The Captain pointed on the screen, "Yeah, it's a... planet. Captain we don't have enough control over this ship as it is, much less enter a planet's atmosphere without ripping Corsair to shreds. We'll be thrown out of the ship before we hit ground, not to sound judgmental, but I don't want to die watching the ground coming at me, I'd much rather be blown up." He grinned, the Captain sighed in reply.
"We have no other choice; it'll force them to land to investigate the area, giving the escape pods enough time to reach UN military space."
The pilot slowed, watching the screen as the planet grew larger and larger as the ship approached at a crawl. "Alright..." He ground his teeth, he wasn't afraid of dying, there were many cases where death was a higher probability then survival and he faced it bravely, willing to die for his crewmates, but going down, vacuumed out of his ship to watch as he plummets toward his death, he'd still do it, no questions asked, though it isn't his preferred way to die.
"Bring us close, don't loose the targets." The Captain watched as the enemies engines began rotating once more, roaring at their hindrance. "When I give the signal, deactivate the gravity beam and put the pedal to the metal, we're going to need to move; fast."
"Our highest speed possible won't take us to the planet. It'll just put us in orbit around it." He answered; flashing concern came over his Captain's face. When she had an idea, she wasn't one to hide it, that the entire crew learned the hard way. "Then put us in orbit, the blast from their next attack should force us through the atmospheric barrier."
"Or we'll be blown into oblivion. Y'know what? I actually okay with those odds."
Corsair sped up, flying as fast as she could with all the damage that had been done. Her ship, her crew, was in pain, barely limping along as they began to close in on the strange grey planet. "Break the gravity beam!"
The pilot nearly jumped at the order and just as the beam went down, the ships took off. Gaining their distance so their target couldn't try to pull them in again.
Just as the planet began to truly come into view, the duo in the cockpit turned attention from their offenders to the metal planet below. "Holy shit." The pilot looked on to the planet, "The hell?" The Captain narrowed her eyes. "Am I seeing this right?"
"Perfectly, Captain. There's nothing wrong with our holographic generators." He said, all the while staring into the planet's core.
This planet appeared manufactured, as if it was built as a city in space. There were cities built upon asteroids or moons, even some with their own orbit pull in space without an organic rock base, but this odd metal looking planet had a golden warm glow from the core between what they could see as buildings.
"Let me get a closer look..." The pilot licked his lips in anticipation; the oddity of this unknown world was putting him on the edge of his seat. Yet as the enlargement of the planet came, it appeared interestingly abandoned. The Captain felt a foreboding presence, something unseen and fearsome, but as they examined the surface of the planet, nothing appeared. No life, only lights that were clearly dying out, buildings rusted and destroyed, some tipping while most remained tall.
It was clear, whatever become of the residents of this unknown planet had been wiped out not to long ago, by a force unseen and very possibly still present.
"The fuck is this place?" The pilot stared with wide eyes constantly flicking from side to side, determined to find some glint of life.
"Where are we?" The Captain gaped in awe, never in her years of service, traveling to worlds uncharted, species unseen, and unmapped vastness of space had she seen a space city built in place of a planet, not on this scale. It was utterly remarkable; it was too bad she couldn't report this sighting to her superiors or the archives.
"We are on the edge of the Void ma'am; it seems that this planet has never been on record, much less has anyone actually been in this area since the great Void Barrier Project."
Leaning forward as the planet drew closer, the Captain noticed smaller lights, indicating this world was still active. "We've hit the planet's orbit; we don't have enough to push through the No-Go layer." A rookie term, oddly mentioned in this case. "No-Go layers" were the separation from oxygen, o-zone layer, and space, there was a natural shield planet's produced that protected the circle of life on the planet from shifting, nicknamed since rookies had a hard time, and often failed, breaking it. Which led the Captain and her pilot to believe that this was no built city, it was a planet and over generations became a metropolis.
"Here they come!" He announced, watching the ships turn around and come full speed back for an attack.
Her blood pounded; suddenly it was as if it couldn't happen fast enough, what crew was aboard could hear past the Corsair's sparking just to hear the last pulses dropped.
Suddenly the ship jerked aside, without resistance to the blast, Corsair was shoved aside harshly and directly into the planet's atmosphere. "Breaking the No-Go! Everyone strap yourselves in!"
The shocking push from the ship threw the Captain off balance, knocking her to the floor. The pilot was worried she wouldn't get to her seat in time. With the armor plates tearing off and obvious sounds of the crew in the War room be tossed around. Nothing about the fear of death could be done, they volunteered, and if asked would they do it again, they would in a heartbeat.
"Captain!" The pilot shouted over the blaring sirens of the ship's emergency systems and the ear-splitting sounds of crew members screaming and Corsair falling to her, and her crew's, death. Deep pitched rumbled shook Corsair, tossing her crew about like ragdolls as they attempted to buckle themselves in for the ride.
The pilot couldn't care less about Corsair, where he earned his title, compared to the safety of his Captain. "Captain! Come on, you can make it!" He yelled, turning in his seat to see his Captain struggling to stand.
Then, time slowed down for the Captain of the Corsair. It was a strange thing to know she was going to die, enter the blackness without a thought, without a dream, no chance of life ever again. The had faced what most claim certain death situations, but she always saw them as near death situations, she fought her way to freedom, leaving a trail of bodies behind her. Her companions were most thankful they had a stubborn Captain, they owed her their lives more time then they could count.
For now, though, it seemed that the Captain's hardheadedness was the only thing saving them. She was going down with the ship, the Corsair slowly dying as she fell, the ground seemed far away from the observation windows in the cockpit and she felt she may never reach the ground at this speed.
Holding on as tightly as she could, she pulled herself closer and closer to the seat, hoping to buckle in before crashing. Living through a crash of this magnitude was impossible, the impact would kill her, if not, the explosion of metal, heat, energy, and fuel would, no doubt what materials on the surface of the uncharted world would collide, spark a flame, overheat the systems and blow the Corsair that way.
Yet, the option was there. The seat, the safety of the buckle, and the promise of a steady fall rather then the beating she sustained from being thrown viciously across the cockpit.
What would it matter? Death was creeping up slowly as the Corsair's internal cooling finally snapped and the flame bursting outside from the penetration of the planet's No-Go was melting the metal externally and internally. She could feel her armor burning into her skin, searing her skin as her oxygen helmet's HUD warned her of the life threatening conditions.
It was all overwhelming. She had sentenced part of her crew to death, some already killed from the blasts and the heat. She cared not for the ship as much as her pilot did, but she felt guilt at the end as she predicted. After alerting the crew at the escape pods, never telling them her plan, and then finally bringing them down into a painful, burning death. Guilt was the only way she could say honestly that she was a good Captain until the very end of her dangerous life.
As she raised her head, only having a split second, the protective barrier burst, sending shards of glass straight towards them. Ducking, the Captain dodged some, other cracked on impact against her suit. Some pierced her armor's weaknesses, slicing deep into her already suffering body.
Before she could regain herself, the pressure and gravity systems burned out. The pilot, strapped in, was holding onto the controls as if his piloting skills would save them somehow.
The Captain, however, was not secured. Just as the gravity pull finally reached empty, the Captain felt as though she were flying. She felt it before, falling involuntarily. Quickly reacting, she grasped the closest makeshift handle she could, latching onto it. As she held onto it for dear life, the pilot opened his eyes, spotting his long time Captain slipping from the hold she had on the ruined computer.
With a glance, the Captain caught her pilot's eyes. Half a second passed as the two shared their last moment. The meaning of their expressions, their unexplainable calmness was unmatched. With only a catch of his eyes, the Captain spoke to him about their lives, the lives they spent together, and the times most meaningful to the two.
Then, it was over. She lost what little grip she had as was vacuumed out of the cockpit. The pilot didn't call for her, nothing he could do would bring her back, only faith that in the end, they would meet again.
As the Captain fell, her suit's HUD went haywire, the compass lost track of itself and flashed errors into her helmet's display. Righting herself, she saw instantly as a metal bar came her way. Shocked, she bashed into the already damaged metal. It bended under the stress, slamming into what the Captain could see as a skyscraper. It collided with the side of the abandoned tower, sending her straight into the broken window.
All she saw was metal, rust, blood, and ruble as her body met a solid object, then there was nothing.
Errrrrk! Stop right there! Review replies will be posted at the top! :)
