*

They had been at war with Earth and its species since the Alliance accords of 2017.

Ever since the Dominion were able to get themselves together again after their main Government was destroyed back then and they had recovered some time after, they continued their war with their enemy.

The Alliance at the time had been successful in eradicating a menace called Decellion as well as removing the physical vessel of her dark master Deukalion, who had been inhabiting the body of Galvetron, he was gone but not destroyed completely. But they had not yet subdued or done away with the race that still followed the dark beliefs of their former leaders some 500 or so years later.

The Dominion however had gone on without their former dark leaders and their council of the time. And continued their age old war of dominance wanting anything and everything the Alliance or anyone else had, and destroying it if they couldn't have it for themselves.

That species was all mechanical in nature and believed their kind to be the superior above all, nothing else mattered. They had evolved initially with the mindset of dominating all other races, and eliminating all those that were not mechanical in nature. But they were openly opposed by the Alliance, with or without their leaders, hence the reason the two empires have been at war ever since. One fighting for dominance and the other freedom.

Meanwhile the Alliance continued on defending themselves as they have for million of years against their old foe. But since the early part of the 21st century, they had the help of Earth and its forces as well as the Cybertronians and also many other planets that had joined its ranks since then.

During the early 21st Century, some more races and planets in the Milky Way Galaxy had begun to join the Alliance and although the people had pretty much been protected from the war zones, some planets had been lost and many more refugees had to be absorbed into generalised areas of the Alliance.

Including what was left of the Cybertronian people.

One such planet that had been lost was once home to another race of mechanical beings called Cybertronians, a race of giant autonomous transforming mechanoids, or at least the majority of them used to be. By now most had adapted to the Bioroid technology that was freely provided to them by the Alliance. Not all took advantage of it though, but the ones who did, were able to learn to control the nanomorphic technology in their upgraded systems and could learn to take any form they wanted. Those that didn't take advantage of the technology offered to them stayed and evolved the way they were.

Their planet had been completely and utterly destroyed by the Dominion in their greatest battle with them in the early 21st century. And now their species were scattered all over the Alliance, concentrated mainly in the Delta and Tau systems. The core of their military forces were now stationed in and around those two systems.

The two sides, which once comprised of the former Autobot and Decepticon forces, were once opposing, warring factions and they were now united under one banner, lead by the former Commanders of both sides, Optimus Prime and Megatron. The Commanders of either side bringing an end to their people's civil wars, after the destruction of their home world, they brought together a single force, under the Alliance's Mecha Battle Corps, representing the Cybertronian species.

Today they were stationed to patrol the Tau system, of which one planet in that system was called Earth, the third planet from the sun in this system.

A battle patrol was monitoring the area around the outer planets when the event started around Jupiter.

The Dominion had snuck some attack fighters into the system through the active warp gates the Alliance had built for travel into and out of this system, as well as many others. They had procured fake codes in order to operate the gates to get there and destroy what they were ordered to find.

The Alliance never did find out why they attacked at the time, they just assumed it was another desperate attempt to exert their distaste of the Alliance and anything they stood for. And so they sent the closest surveillance team, one of the Battle Corps units, who were currently patrolling the Tau system.

The Battle Corps had set up shop on the closest planet to where they had discovered the attack, and that was the Jupiter moon Ganymede.

What they found there was a survivor amongst the rubble. One small female inside a building area that they surmised had obviously once been a lab of some kind. But what kind of lab they didn't know, it would warrant further investigation later.

What most of the soldiers were focused on was helping to evacuate other survivors in some of the other settlements that were being sacked by this attack, getting them safely to the ships in space for sanctuary and hiding the rest where they could on the moon.

But on the moon, the field medics were dealing with the injured on site before they could be shipped anywhere, or help the ones who couldn't be moved in the midst of the battle zone.

There were some of them holed up in an old military bunker close by one of the major settlements. A medic called Ray Chalmers had set up shop, issuing orders and dealing with any and every person that came in as best he could as the battle zone escalated. Right now he was removing some shrapnel from an injured human, a result of a recent bomb blast.

"Remind me again why I bothered taking up my old job once more?" He grumbled, remembering that brief period where he had been dead as a mecha then reborn again as a human, eventually remembering who he really was and becoming a machine again, just like some of the others had.

There was a female nurse to one side of him. She was assisting him with items to help operate on the patient that was on the table in front of both of them. She offered some kind advice. "Because you like helping people. And if you didn't help people then, people like me wouldn't be around and then where would I be. I would be a memory and I don't want to be a memory because of all the good I've done since joining the Autobots and then the Battle Corps since and you know we can all make a difference and..."

"Ok Belle that's enough." Ray bellowed and then swore when some fluids sprayed him in the face. "Slag it! Give me some suction here on the double. You, nurse?" He turned his head and yelled to someone behind him, "New face mask, now!" He grumbled, "Sometimes I really hate operating on humans, especially when they have a habit of bleeding all over the place and dying so easily."

Many had died that day when the Dominion had snuck through the Tau systems warp gates and openly attacked on a random target. At least that's what the Alliance had thought they were doing. Many of their attacks of late had been random and had led the Alliance council to believe they were just desperate attempts at spreading chaos and fear through the Alliance areas they attacked.

The civilisation on the moon of Ganymede was relatively new. It had been around for less than 100 Earth years and they had suffered the brunt of the attack, not knowing what the Dominion's real intent was.

There was one crew out in space fighting what was left of the enemy squad that had infiltrated the system and another down on the moon sifting through the rubble of the main city on the moon of Ganymede helping to rescue the survivors and fight some ground fighters that had landed there.

Before the young female had been rescued, this was how she had been found.

A team led by a dark skinned mecha humanoid named Jayce Zederman, a Colonel in the Battle Corps, was fighting one or two of the enemy who had landed on Ganymede. They were now trying to destroy anything and everything in sight before they were finally defeated and terminated.

Jayce had moved around the battlefield many times issuing orders to move forward here or retreat there. But it was the battle's distraction that led him to make a small mistake and not calculate the strength of some rubble he was using as cover. The ground gave way beneath him and that was when he discovered the underground facility with its prize therein.

"You alright down there boss?" Asked one of his Private's calling down to their senior officer.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Came his spluttering voice back, full of coughing and hacking through all the dust that had been brought up from the fall.

That was where he picked up faint life signs under all the destruction caused by the attacking enemy and found a youngling, alive under rather weird and dire circumstances.

He called back up to the young soldier, "Hey Backbeat, see if ya can get y'self down 'ere, I found somethin'?"

*

Elsewhere in the system, on Earth.

A Military officer was paying respects to the anniversary of the deaths of some family he lost back in a battle in 2039. He lost both his bondmate and his eldest daughter that day. He was very well endeared to both and it had left a sore spot in his core ever since.

His other two daughters were watching on from not far away, letting their father have some time alone during his time at his wife's memorial grave, after they had visited their sister's grave together earlier.

He had knelt down to put some Earthen flowers over the marker as was his tradition; he always bought her flowers when he felt like it and even after her death at her memorial.

He got up and looked up at the stars for a moment and sighed, then looked out over the view of the city below. The memorial was up on a manufactured parkland reserve in the heart of the city in a hilly area. He stood there and wondered why his internal heat regulators weren't working to better stave off the cold here as it was mid winter and snowing. But thought that his energy was just being subverted due to his current emotional state.

Cybertron City was situated mostly over what was once the state of Oregon back in the 21st century, stretching as far north as where Seattle had been and as far south as San Francisco.

He put his hands in his coat pockets and projected his thoughts out to his dead mate, 'You know if it wasn't for you and the rest of my girls and my brother too, I don't know how I would've gotten through the rest of this retched war till now.' Thinking about how much he had loved his bondmate saddened him, even after all this time he still wasn't ready to let go of her and his other daughter and let himself move on. He wasn't the hard headed soldier he used to be, and readily let the fluids flow from his optics and collapsed into a sobbing fit on the snow laden grass.

His daughters stepped forward to comfort him.

"It's ok Papa we're here." The youngest one said, coming in to give him a strong hug to support him.

"We'll always be here with you." Said the elder one, standing next to the other two but not making any contact.

But the officer was denied his moment of peace of what was left of his family as someone else had arrived to intrude on their time alone.

"I'm sorry to disturb your time off with your family Lieutenant, but your presence has been requested on the Andromeda."

"By who?" He asked annoyed.

The young female replied, "By Commander Orion."

Saul huffed and also noticed that the Officer was the eldest daughter of one of his closest friends, Jayce Zederman. "You know if it had been anyone else interrupting our day today Daphne, they wouldn't be addressed so nicely."

"I understand Sir, that's why Base Central sent me along to send you word."

"Thank you Officer Dazzler." He replied.

The blue black haired femme nodded slightly in recognition of her work title. She gave him some time to peel one of his daughters from his kneeling form and join her.

He turned to face his daughters, "You two should be fine to get home without me right?" As he had been the one that had provided the transport here in the first place.

They looked at each other before the younger one replied, "We're fine."

Dazzler took a few steps before her human form morphed into a larger mecha one and she transformed into a blue, black and white sky car and took off at lightning speed. Lieutenant Stryker did the same and followed her closely behind with his own gold and black sky car, keeping up as best he could behind the fast femme.

*

Ray had just been able to get most of the surgery done with all the help he could muster. Right now in the bunker, he had been looking over the young female that Jayce had brought in and was letting the nurses and other doctors finish up with the rest of the injured.

Jayce's team were also getting some medical attention for the injuries they'd gotten from their fight in the wake of the onslaught that had apparently subsided for now. And Jayce was sifting through the reports from all sides of the short battle and had been in contact with his superiors letting them know about the condition his team was in by streaming the data directly to their personal servers and also telling them what he had found.

That was about the time Ray came to ask him a few questions about the strange circumstances that he had found the young mecha female.

As Ray was approaching him, "So you found her in an energy cacoon of some kind?"

"Yeah, never seen anythin' like it, an' I've seen a lot of things from one end'o tha galaxy to'nother!" Jayce replied.

"Hmmm." Thought Ray to himself, "You know since she's still in stasis, I'm going to have her transferred up to the Andromeda when the recovery team arrives for the injured and have Percy take a look at her. Maybe bring Jack' in from Earth to check her out also."

"Ok. So how's she doin'?"

"She'll be fine for now. There's no way to determine how long she's been there in suspension or even how old she is, but I've got her isolated in ICU till we can deal with her properly."

Jayce was lost in thought for a moment before Ray raised his brow at his old colleague, knowing Jayce wanted to say something else. "If it turns out she doesn't have any relatives, I'm sure me an' Des' can take her in."

Ray smirks, "You sure she'll let you take another stray? We both know you have a soft spot for war orphans and the like."

Jayce shrugs, "Couldn't hurt. B'sides she really won't mind, she'd want a distraction from her sparkterm anyhow."

"How's that going for her? Wasn't Heartia watching her for that?" He asked knowing he would've gotten the job of watching Jayce's bondmate himself if he wasn't a full time military medic again. Instead Jack's bondmate had taken up a civilian Medical Officers occupation in Cybertron City back on Earth and had been given the job while Jayce's mate was on leave from her ambassadorial work.

"She's doin' ok. She took a career break to get through it all and have some time to herself and to us and the new kids. She should be back from Delphine in a few days."

"You should be loving the fact you have your bondmate back at arms length again right?" Ray asked.

Jayce could tell Ray missed his own bondmate. She had once been a civilian mechanic, Heartia and Jackson's daughter, but she enlisted and was now away most of the time with her father Jackson, working on various science projects on Earth and around its planets, while Ray was assigned to the mecha's main ship, the Andromeda.

Jayce just smiles at his old friend, remembering the old days when things were probably much simpler for all of them when they were all still single and unattached, and were all once normal Cybertronians.

*

The young female had awoken in an isolated ICU room to an unfamiliar environment. She wasn't distressed about it, only curious. Even though her body was that of an infant, she was aware of everything that happened around her, despite her processors not yet understanding all of it, everything was all just information to her right now.

She didn't know how she had gotten there or how long she had been there, only that she was there now. Her protective energy shell was also gone. She didn't know where that had gone or why either, only that it was gone and she was being made to vent gas into and out of her chest ventilation units to cool her systems and extract trace materials from the gas for her body to function.

The last thing she had been aware of was being safe and sound inside a cacoon of energy pondering the existence and nature of the minds and emotions of the ones around her in the white room that was now not there. The Laboratory that Jayce had found her sealed up in.

The area she had been in was not there anymore, she was now here. Wherever here was she didn't know.

There was someone else with her also. A grizzly looking old mech with grey and red hair, doing things. She didn't recognise this one. He was different from the others, not all metal like the others were, she could sense it, half metal and half something else. What, she didn't know.

He was looking at things around her crib from what she could observe. She wasn't in much of a position to see anything really. She was on her back and was attached to monitors and other things around her with cables.

The grizzly one as she thought of him had noticed she was awake and watching him and came over to see her. That was Ray, he had since transferred her and the rest of all the injured and staff from the hidden bunker on the moon to the mecha military ship, the Andromeda.

He was currently doing his rounds and checking over the stats of all the patients that had been settled in and finally came to see the young female.

"How's she doing?" Asked another behind Ray.

"She's seems to be doing fine Aiden." The other medic was a full time medic flown in from Earth, he was still part of the team called the Protectobots and were stationed at the main military base in Cybertron City. His original name was First Aid, but he, like many other Cybertronians that had been upgraded to Bioroid status, had now adopted the normality of human like names, being known to most as Doctor Aiden Francis.

Ray played with the femme's fingers as she cooed and gurgled over the presence of the two medics and the attention she was getting from both of them.

Aiden smirked. Despite the gruff and grizzly demeanour of his superior officer, he had a soft side for kids. "You only have just the one daughter don't you?" He asked.

"Yes, but Scalpel's all grown up now."

"And I bet she's as much as a terror in medical wards as her father is."

Ray couldn't help but laugh at his old friends comment. He was right, his daughter was an outstanding medic, a military surgeon, the best in her field of nano-cybernetics, currently serving on the Andromeda's sister ship, the Archimedes.

Aiden had picked up the femme to help Ray. He was currently changing the youngling's bed cloths. "Shouldn't the nurses be doing that?"

"What and miss out on our little guests' company? Not likely!"

Aiden laughed then, but the sudden laughter caused the youngling distress and she started to cry. Aiden knew that Ray had a father's experience while he had no offspring of his own bar the occasional patient he had to talk to and the young femme was better off with Ray right now.

Ray bellowed, "Here hand her over." As soon as he had a good hold on her he talked to her, "Now missy you be quiet this instant, Aiden was only laughing, there's no need for you to cry." She was immediately quiet. Ray looked at Aiden, "You see, no problem at all." Then the infant grimaced and threw up weird fluids all over his new coat and Aiden couldn't help but burst out laughing again.

"Shut it you." While Aiden was trying in vain to stifle his laughter, Ray called for a nurse on his comms to come and clean up the mess while he went and got changed.

Aiden in the meantime was handed the young female. He put her on a change bench and began cleaning her up. When he was done he returned her to her crib and left to return to his work once the nurse and some attendants arrived. He was still amused by what had happened to Ray though, and smirked to himself all the way down the hall on his way back to his office.

*

Saul had not used his old Lamborghini form for nearly 400 years now. Once he had gotten his Bioroid conversion, he barely used it and eventually stopped using it altogether, having taken full advantage of the molecular manipulation abilities of his new form and some of the additional programs they could install into their systems also. But there were times that he found himself a tad nostalgic and went back to using his old Cybertronian alt mode as it had a hover conversion system, a form he hadn't used since he had been on Cybertron originally over 4 million Earth years ago.

He had not been happy about coming back to work so soon. He still had another week left of his leave and he had wanted to spend it with his daughters. They wouldn't be happy about it either, but they would understand. Such is the life of an enlisted soldier especially one of his rank.

He had forbade the both of them to enlist and get involved in this war with him. And after the death of his eldest daughter and his deceased bondmate due to military enlistment and war concerns, who could blame him.

He entered his room and looked around. He was glad he hadn't been noticed coming in, not that he would want to talk to anyone anyhow. The place was musty and he switched on the ventilation to clean the air out. The room hadn't been cleaned since he left almost a month ago and he noticed his brother, who occupied the room next to his was using it for storage of his contraband again.

He ignored it for now and looked over the holopictures of family on the wall shelf.

His deceased bondmate, Sunstar, or Stella Knight as she was known to others, took pride of place in the centre of them, and was surrounded by many other fond moments captured on still and motion holographic images. She was a medic and a scientist that had come to rival both Jackson and Ray at the time before her death, but other than that, she was also a fighter who bested Saul himself, and this made him smile. No one else had come to equal him except his brother, at least no female. The only other one that came close was his eldest daughter Azrael.

It was around 2039 that their deaths had happened. Azrael had been a perfectionist like her father and on most occasions, far exceeded those levels. But her academy training wasn't a match for the torture and horror or being a POW to the Dominion. She had been captured on one occasion in battle, trying to protect the rest of her team when she didn't need to. She was abused, experimented on and manipulated; turned into a weapon of destruction and returned to the Alliance to try and destroy them.

It had taken Stella's life to finally stop her and Saul grieved over it. When the end of the civil war had come between the Autobots and Decepticons, he had turned down an invitation to join the Battle Corps and went into civilian life with his bondmate.

He had regretted the decision to let Azrael join the military and forbade his other two daughters, Luciah and Solara, from doing the same after her death.

He still felt guilty over it all. He couldn't even stop her himself. And after he had been taken down, he had found out later that his mate had stepped in and done the job herself at the cost of both of their lives, and he had been living with the grief of their deaths for a long time now.

He felt he should've been there. Should have stayed in the military to keep her in line. But he wasn't and he blames himself for it. And to make matters worse he couldn't even lay their old shells to rest as they're bodies had been completely obliterated in the resulting energy explosion of two immovable forces meeting.

All he had gotten was a memorial plaque for his bondmate and a grave plaque elsewhere for his daughter. If he hadn't been who he was, he wouldn't have gotten anything at all considering the things Azrael had done before her death. But everyone wanted to remember her the way she was before the Dominion got hold of her.

And it was the good memories of both of them that drove him back to reenlistment again, in order to protect others so they wouldn't suffer the same fate his family did.

He let his emotions settle again and focused his attention on the items his brother Seth had stored in his room. He picked some of them up and stormed next door to find someone to throw them at.

He knew the code his brother locked the door with and walked right in oblivious to what he could see in front of him. Seth had snuck a femme into his quarters and was having his wily way with her on his recharge cot. Saul's sudden entrance caught them both off guard.

"Sunny? Err…hi!" Said his brother surprised.

He threw the items at both of them and the startled female squealed and fled out the open door. And then he turned on his twin brother. "Go find somewhere else to put your junk Sides', my room isn't a warehouse."

The annoyed short black and red haired male got up from the bed and started putting his clothing back on. "Well it wasn't like you were using the room now was it?"

Saul humphed and then stormed out, back to his own room to continue moving more of the items.

"Nice to see you again too Bro'!" Seth called out. "It wasn't like I was in the middle of anything?" He grumbled to himself after Saul left, "It's not like it had taken me several deca cycles of begging, pleading and cajoling to actually get that nurse into my room to begin with? No. It took all of five klicks for my bro' to come storming in, coming home from his leave early for her to run out screaming and I'll probably never get her in here ever again. She was one of the hottest new femmes we've had here on the Andromeda for ages and oof…" His brother had come back in and dumped more things in Seth's room from his own, on top of Seth and his sleeping cot.

Saul leant over his annoyed younger twin and smiled, "It's great to see you too, you dipstick!" He lifted him up with both his hands and then gave him a tight hug. Saul didn't care about his brother's whining while he had been gone, but he heard it along with some of their other residents as it had been rather loud and complaintive. He then dropped his brother on his cot and left the room alone.

Three other soldiers had come calling outside in the hall due to the commotion. Jayce, their Colonel, who had returned with his team to let them rest and had everyone replaced with another team that was sent out fresh when the Dominion soldiers returned again. Major Blair Sterling, head of communications. And another soldier, Sergeant Major Cliff Johannsen, a short red headed male who was an assistant to the infantry trainer, Brigadier General Henry Irons. All three were Bioroids and were more commonly known to the rest of the base as Jazz, Blaster and Cliffjumper.

Jayce was amused by Saul's entrance back on the base, "Ya back early Sunny?" He questioned, curious. "Good ta see ya back!"

"Yeah and he made an entrance to get himself noticed as usual." Came a snide remark from Cliff.

He wasn't even going to make a retort back. He just ignored Cliff and his comment. He was an officer like they were now and could push them further than he ever did verbally before. But they were also well aware of the fact he wasn't so easy to bait as he was previously. Stella had made sure to teach him how to react and when to stop people from getting to him, and that had made him more dangerous to some who still wanted to try and push his buttons as he was more in control of himself than ever.

Jazz smiled at the fact he didn't let Cliff get to him and outstretched his bandaged hands to greet an old friend.

Saul turned his attention to the dark skinned humanoid and shook hands with him and answered his question. "Your daughter was sent by Base Central to come and get me for what's going on here."

"Did she come with you?" He asked, "I haven't seen her in a while that's all."

"Yeah she's around somewhere; she's probably gone to find her friends over in the femme's quarters." Saul replied. "She said she was needed for something by 'Lita anyhow."

Blair and Cliff had since gotten bored and left them to it and Jazz followed Saul back to his quarters for a chat. "Yeah I'd heard they're bringin' in anyone an' everyone they can spare just in case this gets dirtier than it is right now. They've already taken me an' my team off till we're fixed up and sent in someone else with their team to replace us. Keepin' us rested an' all."

"So how's the new team?"

"They're okay, they work well together at least. I got one of Blair's kids on my team too. We got a lot of heavy fire from the Dominion fighters though, just for that short period they tried to fight."

The door to Saul's quarters was still open and Jayce could hear someone talking in the halls asking questions, as well as a few others whistling. He could tell it was a femme who had braved death itself to walk alone into the mechs quarters and also knew it was his daughter Daphne.

"He's over at Saul's place Daph'." They heard someone say.

"Thanks." Came her reply. She got to Saul's door just as Jayce turned up and casually leaned on the door frame. Jayce could still hear the others present in the halls jeering his daughter and he raised his vocals. "Okay that's enough knock it off already, that's my daughter."

There were many in the halls who were new and didn't know who Daphne was. The ones who did were smart enough not to say a word or whistle at her because they knew Jayce was around somewhere.

Daphne smiled at her father when his attention turned back to her, "Hey daddy cool! How's it hangin'?"

"Kinda half way t'day girl, jus' came back from work!" Jayce replied.

Saul commented from inside, "You know Jayce? If I didn't know she was your daughter, I'd say she was almost your twin, you two are the spitting image of each other despite your genders and family position to each other!"

Saul talking had caught Daphne's attention and she replied, "I could say the same about you and Solara in that regard, but she ain't nothin' like you in the personality department that's for sure! I got all the same great looks and style and all round coolness that Papa dearest right here has got, while that bitchy blonde could make Starscream look nice!"

While Jayce smiled at his daughters compliment for him, Saul didn't and Jayce noticed. It well known between the two of them that Solara had taken to hanging out with a group of elitist femmes who were the daughters of the politicians who represented their kind for the Alliance council. Jayce knew Saul didn't like any politicians and liked it even less that his daughter had been inducted into their offspring's clique.

"Can't always help how ya kids turn out Sunny, now matter how much good ya do raisin' 'em." He commented with concern.

"Yeah. Seems out of three girls I've only got one who's good through and through."

"Well right now I got one'o each, with another three on the way and possibly another femme too. I think that's enough for me."

Saul looked at his friend and raised his brow confused.

"Say what?" Questioned Daphne. "I thought Ma only had the femme triplets due, what's this about another femme on the way?"

Jayce told them about what he'd found when he and his team had been on the moon fighting the Dominion soldiers. Saul knew that Jayce was one of the very few military officers who had licences to adopt and take care of war orphans and thought he must have found another youngling to take home. That and he just had a soft spot for them anyhow.

"So where is she?" Saul asked.

"She's over in tha infirmary in ICU, Ray's watchin' her."

Daphne looked at her father expectantly. "Can we see her?"

"Now girl don' get ya hopes up, she ain't a part o' tha family yet. Gotta wait for ya Ma to say yes first. Actually I gotta ask her first! After last time I ended up livin' here on tha base till she took me back when she kicked me out for doin' my own thing an' not askin' her first!"

Saul laughed. He had been there the last time when Jayce had done something without asking his bondmate and expecting her to go along with it. She had thrown him out of their quarters and not let him back for over a month.

*