Now, I know I said one chapter per month. This chapter just happened to be ready, so here it is (and it is September). Chapter 3 will appear in October. Oh, and this will probably be my longest chapter for a while. It took me forever to get this written. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Once again, huge shout out to autobot12328 and Darth T-Rex. You guys keep me going with this! But please, reply to me darn emails more than once a month. It makes writing very difficult for me.

Of the First Four Receiving the Artemis

Timecode: 9501.2.06-09

When Galvatron woke up from stasis, the first thing he noticed was Oilslick's face closer to his own than was comfortable. Of course, upon seeing the green face, he yelped and his head shot up colliding with Oilslick's helmet and leaving a huge crack in the glass. Galvatron proceeded to growl and rubbed the place on his head that had made contact.

"That's one way to get up in the morning," Oilslick groaned taking in the crack in front of his face. "I'll have to make a new one."

"Next time, don't put your face in my face," Galvatron snarled, "Now how long was I out?"

"You've slept into the next megacycle," a voice came from a source beside them.

Cyclonus stood in the doorway, "Come along, General Strika needs to get you debriefed on how to servole the ceremony, we'll be in the bridge."

He left.

Galvatron shot off the berth, and took off leaving Oilslick. It appeared that he was on the Payload, but he knew his way around the ship having spent some time here a couple stellar cycles back. He decided a good flight was in order, before breaching the subject of his...'promotion'.

In four breems, he was in the sky performing all the aerial manoeuvres he could remember.

Captain Galvatron II. It certainly had a ring to it. But why was he being promoted? Every time that the Council of Generals had come to New Kaon, he had done his best to tick the off. Pranks, lewd shouts, crashes, you name it, he'd done it to all of them. Well, except for Strika, Sky-Byte and General Dynobot. Actually, he expected to be demoted. What was the council up to? He tried to remember what Megatron would do to mechs he didn't like. Ignored them mostly. If there was an assassin, he could flush them out with bait. And rebellious mechs were sent to die on suicide missions.

His engine spluttered and he tried to level himself out again. That was it. The Council considered him rebellious. They wanted him to die. And Galvatron couldn't turn down any missions or a promotion. Sure he would laugh in their faces but he would never go over the line. Not as long as Cyclonus lived. Sky-Byte he could leave, Sky-Byte would always be able to find company, but Cyclonus was all alone.

I have to live for my teacher, he pleaded, otherwise there's really nothing keeping me in the world.

Once more, Galvatron returned to the Payload and prayed to Primus that he could stay awake throughout the whole breifing. At least he only had one possession to pack for the trip.

-(\:/)-

The Strangler touched down outside of New Kaon. Shrapnel and his Insecticons didn't like the docks but they did like the bars with high grade. They chatted excitedly and began to unload their cargo as Nightbird stepped outside.

New Kaon hadn't changed at all. It was the same dark planet that Galvatron had conquered all those stellar cycles ago. She had been assigned to the Insecticons on a different colony, and hadn't left them since Cybertron had been lost. Above her, the sky had a bit of activity. A few ships were coming in and she thought she could see a lone flyer out and about. Vaguely, she wondered who her new Captain would be.

The Insecticons threw her two crates filled with all of her possessions next to her. Their laughter could be heard but it seemed far away now. They were teasing her, most likely. Carrying their own crates, the four Insecticons raced into town without looking back at her. That was fine with her though. She had never liked them in the thousands of stellar cycles that they had served together. In fact she had never liked any of the squads that Megatron had assigned her to even back on Cybertron. She wasn't a social person.

Picking the crates up by their servos, Nightbird entered the population. It really hadn't changed much, she decided as she observed the brawling Decepticons and the merchants selling there goods. The only difference was the depression in many of their optics and the scars on many of the mech's armor that opened up. It seemed many of them were dying. She wondered if Megatron was aware. Galvatron certainly would have never let his comrades fall into such a state.

"Lookie," a lewd voice sprouted from somewhere. "A femme."

Nightbird ignored the voice and the many others that joined in.

"Hey babe, you looking for a nice chassis?"

"Come spend your time with me."

"I can be very charming when you get to know me."

"Don't be like that babe."

"I promise to be gentle."

"Let's talk-" a servo reached out and grabbed her right arm.

She acted reflexively. Dropping her possessions to the ground, she rammed her free servo at the joint in the arm holding her captive. The lewd mech let out a howl of pain but Nightbird had shifted to a fighting position, and sent her right elbow into the mech's side. He doubled over and she sent her left knee into his face. The mech lay on his side curled up and making no sound. Nightbird retrieved her supplies and moved on. She remembered exactly where the docks were even if the Insecticons had the annoying habit of parking far away. Galvatron had used to just sit in the docks with his paperwork because the dockmechs would leave him alone instead of the generals that would never dream of such acts.

Luckily for her, the mechs in the street now left her alone. Maybe the demonstration had done the trick. It didn't really matter to her. That was until the ground began to shake. Her head spun around had she dropped crouching close to the ground. Around her, many mechs' helm were spinning in confusion. Was it an earthquake? Turning her head again, she saw that it wasn't.

Five members of the Heavy Brigade were walking by. Nightbird recognized Devastator and Blackout at the head laughing together. Even just one walking about was a surprising sight, but five was unheard of. Then her eyes lay on the center Heavy. He wasn't the largest or the smallest, however he seemed to most nervous. He carried a crate, and there was one of the smaller Heavys on his right and left. It was almost like an escort. Why would he need to be escorted?

When they passed, Nightbird went on her way again, surrounded by the whisperings of the mechs around her voicing the small questions that plagued the back of her mind.

-(\:/)-

Hook took a small transport ship to New Kaon. It was highly undignified but the fastest way to get to New Kaon before the ceremony in which the ship he would be stationed on would be presented. The funny thing was, he didn't know what ship he would be on. Last he checked there were no open ships, and all the ships on Lucifer were either in service or in many pieces.

The pilot spoke through the speakers, "New Kaon's coming up, please be ready to exit the transport."

Hook and a few other engineers gathered up their belongings. Hook had brought four huge crates that would require a couple of trips to unload. Privately he wondered how long his ship yard would last without him.

Not a week, he thought nastily, I'll give them a week, maybe two, until they're begging to have me back.

He didn't really like New Kaon. He never had. True it was known as home to some of the most powerful Decepticons in existence, but the place had always struck him as dirty and vile compared to Lucifer and its machine based society. He liked to drink, but he disliked the brawls that followed. And most of New Kaon's population were soldiers. Grunts that spent their life fighting and gambling on unimportant matters. Mechs addicted to the presence of their master, Megatron.

Now Hook didn't hate Megatron. Megatron was the cause of all of Hook's success. Megatron was autonomic perfection and knew just what to say to get what he wanted. Hook admired his way with words that brought the whole Decepticon population to their knees, even if he didn't like the fighting that he went through. Hook believed that Megatron was a freedom fighter, but had a secret love for fighting. It made him want to punch the mech nearest to him when he received orders for reforging the twin blades.

The ship rocked as announcement was made informing them that they had landed. Hook began to stack his crates and pull them outside. They were being difficult things, and Hook cursed under his breath has he tried to move them out of the cargo bay and onto the conveyer belt. There, his possessions fell over and a mess quickly appeared as crates hit other Cybertronians and curses were heard. He could feel the glares hot on his back but didn't acknowledge them as he collected himself again at the end of the belt. A tall purple mech that was walking by in a drunken state began to pick them up.

"Where are off to?"

Hook was rather surprised by the help, there weren't any friendly mechs in New Kaon last he checked.

"Dock 9," he managed to splutter indignantly.

The mech narrowed his optics and at first Hook wondered if he had said something wrong. Then his optics lit up.

"Ah, that new ship. Haven't seen it around before; it's this way."

The mech took off with Hook's crates and said mech trailed behind. The mech stopped moving suddenly and Hook crashed into his back. The stranger didn't notice.

"Do you know her name? I haven't been able to recognize her. Anyway, I guess I'll see you around."

With that, he disappeared, leaving Hook confused.

Now alone, Hook looked up to see a very familiar ship. So familiar in fact that Hook found himself yelling with all his might at the mech he saw was currently standing outside of it speaking to a grey femme.

"SKY-BYTE!"

The Blue and White mech with his golden faceplate and long white fangs that never truly hid behind lips literally jumped, staring at the charging engineer with a hint of fear in his large red optics. He tried to give his best smile as the femme he had been speaking went aboard the ship.

"Oh, Hook! How very nice to see you again-"

"What the frag is she doing here!" Hook screamed into the Decepticon Admiral's face as he pointed to the ship he was now assigned to. Sky-Byte looked back and forth between the ship and Hook's contorted features.

"Well, you see, the mech being promoted is a good friend of mine and-"

"I don't care about your relationship with my captain! What I want to know is why she's not in your docks on Trivok!"

Sky-Byte blinked stupidly, "You're on her crew?"

"Yes I am, no I don't want to talk about it, and you haven't answered my question!"

"I couldn't keep her! I was given the Trypticon by Lord Megatron and she was just collecting dust on-"

"She's not for some rookie captain Sharkticon," Hook snarled insulting Sky-Byte by using the fact that he looked like a Quintessa Sharkticon. "I designed and built her with your piloting and attacks styles in my processing unit! No other mech can fly her as efficiently as you-"

"I'm fully aware of that Hook, and her new captain was taught piloting by myself so I expect him to be able to use her."

"I don't care! You should have commissioned a ship-"

"I tried to!"

"Obviously not hard enough!"

"Do you know why the Council of Generals are even doing this!"

"Don't care, and-"

"They're trying to get you all killed!"

That shut Hook up. Sky-Byte brought a clawed servo up to his face and a great gust of air whirled through his vents. His optics looked back at Hook's.

"Onslaught's been preparing this for a while now. Ever since Megatron left to find the AllSpark, actually. Anyone who had served their purpose to the Decepticons as much as they possibly could was to be eliminated along with any rebels. Your captain's done a good job of making himself some powerful enemies, and most of the Council voted to send him off. Onslaught had a little harder time getting them to kill you off, but the rest of the squad are major, well, not rebels, but different mechs."

Hook found his voice again, "But why me?"

"Jealously conquers the weak

"It seeks all

"But never defeats."

"Horrible again, Admiral Idiot."

"I felt it was appropriate, and I don't know."

"Next time just answer the question. Now, you never answered my original question."

"Truly, I believe that my friend would have a much better chance of keeping you all alive if he had a good ship. Your thoughts?"

"Probably, but I'm still angry."

"I understand completely, now about your luggage..."

-(\:/)-

Bruticus had woken up early due to Devastator's loud snores. In the Heavy Brigade's barracks, it was hard to get your own quarters due to the sheer size of the occupants. Because of this, most of them recharged together in the rec room. Usually, Bruticus and Menasor would sleep in their private quarters, but last night, Bruticus had felt like sleeping with his brothers. Blackout had spent the night and news of Bruticus' move had spread to the others. Like himself, they had been rather surprised and were cautious about letting him leave with 'Galvatron'. They had even promised to go with him to the ceremony. It made Bruticus feel a little better, even if he did believe they were babying him.

Blackout had gotten up with him and the two went outside watching as the Decepticon colony began to move about. Bruticus could make out crates filled with oil barrels and thought to himself that they were probably for the party that always followed occasions such as these. Really, Decepticons would take any excuse to party. Beside him, Blackout began to stretch and walk off, waving to Bruticus. He was probably going back to Team Chaar before the streets got too busy.

Now alone, Bruticus allowed himself to wonder about the life he was about to leave for. Yesterday he had decided to go despite his long stay on New Kaon simply because the Decepticons on the planet, (though they didn't get close to him) couldn't seem to leave him alone. Everyday, they appeared simply to watch his brothers fight and spar. Everyday, they placed bets on who was fighting and looked at him to snicker. Sometimes a Decepticon would ask him a question just so his friends could laugh at the way he spoke.

Yes, it was finally time to leave. Live on a ship for a while, see different places and spend time with mechs that might not make fun of him. Blackout had said that Galvatron was like Sky-Byte, and Sky-Byte had never been mean to him. Did that mean that Galvatron would be nice to him? Maybe he wouldn't make him fight. But he didn't know who else would be with him on the ship. He hoped they were nice.

Devastator and Menasor emerged behind him, followed closely by Predaking. Devastator passed him an energon cube.

"Bruticus need strength," Devastator announced gravely as he downed his own cube. The other Heavys were copying his example. Bruticus sipped lightly.

"You feel good?" Predaking came up to him and slapped his back.

"I'm...fine," Bruticus told him as Menasor sat down next to him.

"Big day!" Menasor chuckled and crushed his cube. "Where you gonna go?"

"I...don't know," Bruticus brought the energon back up to his face and chugged the rest of the cube, "Maybe...far away."

"Bruticus go far away," Devastator nodded while throwing his empty cube over his back. Bruticus heard something crash, followed by a second crash and he noted to find out what had broken. "Bruticus go far away where Devastator not help him."

Predaking nodded, "You sure you want to go?"

"Yes...I've been...here...too long," the green Heavy confessed as he looked down into his now empty cube, "I need to...go...and see things...different things."

"Promise to call, right?" Menasor put a fist on top of Bruticus' helm. "Don't know how they'll last without your wisdom."

Bruticus hummed at this as Devastator and Predaking shouted angrily at Menasor who was grinning happily. "I'll need...frequencies."

All three Heavys took out datapads and scribbled numbers and names before tossing them into Bruticus' empty cube. This prompted an action out of the youngest Heavy Brigade.

"Need to go...pack things."

As he left his brothers, the remaining Heavy Brigades began to whisper among themselves, but Bruticus didn't think much of it. He entered his old quarters, which were plain and clean except for the berth, which was a mess with objects covering it. He took out a crate and began to carefully place datapads inside. First the number games, then the frequencies, and a couple of story pads that he had been given by Swindle when the merchant had stopped by on certain megacycles. Packing his things up really made the fact that he was leaving sink in. He began to go through holopictures that he had kept over the stellar cycles. Megacycles with his brothers were mostly catalogued, though every now and then Lugnut appeared in a picture. The main differences in all of them were the backgrounds, each a different planet. There was one picture that he really loved, it had all the Heavys in front of their barracks, without Lugnut, together laughing and smiling. It was before he had met Megatron. Before fear had taken the place of happiness.

Placing his final possessions in his crate. Bruticus left his quarters. He wouldn't see them for a long time.

-(\:/)-

Many mechs had gathered outside in the assembly. Most of them Galvatron had never seen before. Slag, he didn't even know his own crew yet. Why they were here though was obvious. They wanted to be part of the party that came afterwards, though Galvatron planned to make himself scarce as soon the ceremony was done. Maybe if he was lucky, his crew would agree to simply take the ship and leave before the party had even begun.

When he had returned to the Payload, Strika had started pounding quite useless information into his processor about speeches that the generals would make, certain oaths he would take, the way that he would hold himself, his addressing of his crew, and most importantly, the presentation of his ship. He had been nearing sensory overload when Blackout had appeared and distracted the femme general long enough for him to store the information. Now the information was driving him up to the ceiling. He couldn't wait to press the delete button and watch it disappear.

General Onslaught stood up and began to speak to the crowd, but Galvatron didn't listen to all the nonsense. Instead he watched the crowd, looking for familiar faceplates or counting the number of oil barrels. Then he estimated the percentage of future drunken mechs. Suddenly his name was mentioned.

"...Galvatron II!"

The crowd roared. Galvatron shot up trying to look dignified as a strode in. General Onslaught took his servo and smiled, but the smile was nasty. The servo was not comfortable but rough and trying to tear off his own. Galvatron felt it best to play along.

He squeezed the other's servo with a great deal of might while giving his most hostile smile. Onslaught's servo began to crunch and the smile evaporated replaced with a glare. Their servos separated and he motioned with his good servo where Galvatron would stand. He moved with the smile still in place as Onslaught went back to address the crowd who knew nothing of what had just transpired.

"Medical officer and engineer, Hook!"

There were many gasps as this mech was introduced and more cheers when he appeared on stage, waving at the crowd that seemed to be going crazy. Galvatron realized that he knew the mech. On his way back to Team Chaar after his flight, he had bumped into a green and black painted mech whom he had helped with his belongings. After shaking Onslaught's servo the mech made his way over, and seemed to recognize him as well.

"So you're the unlucky mech," Hook shook his servo, "Well, I hope you're good because I would like to live another million stellar cycles, Galvatron II."

"Just Galvatron," the violet mech chuckled, "and I guess we'll see."

Hook took a place beside him as the next member was announced. "...Cyberninja Nightbird!"

There was cheering, but no one appeared. Slowly the applause ended and Onslaught did not look happy. He muttered to some of the Decepticons on duty and then returned to the crowd as they disappeared. "It appears this one is shy."

Laughter erupted, but it abruptly stopped when the two Decepticons that had just went inside were thrown back out. Galvatron looked back at the entrance expecting a tall but skinny mech. Instead he saw a petit and thin femme, completely grey with freezing red optics. She looked right at him and her gaze went from hateful to surprise. What had she expected? No, that wasn't surprise, that was shock. Nightbird the Cyberninja appeared to be in a state of shock at seeing him. Part of him wondered why.

Onslaught and the rest of the crowd seemed to be scared, so Galvatron decided to do something. He stepped forward and placed himself in front of the femme who was still looking up at him with those awed optics. He held out his servo.

"Hello there," he tried to act civilized, "I'm Galvatron. You're Nightbird, correct?"

For a moment, the femme did nothing but stare at his servo. Then there was a tightening of her expression, a whirl of vents, and she nodded as she took his servo.

The tense atmosphere disappeared and the cheering was louder than even the time with Hook. Galvatron guided Nightbird to stand beside him and Hook shot her a curious look as Onslaught attempted to regain control of the situation. "Last but most definitely not least: Heavy Brigade Bruticus!"

Not as much as the previous mechs, but the rest of the Heavy Brigades made up for it with their hooting as a huge green and white mech appeared. His servo, (or could one call it a servo? More like a claw but blunt) was too big to shake so the two just nodded coolly to each other. Bruticus took his place behind Galvatron, Nightbird and Hook. He didn't seem interested in speaking at the moment.

"Gentlemechs! I am proud to present the ship that this squad will fly: The Artemis!"

Galvatron turned to see Bruticus was obstructing his view. Without a word, the large mech stood to the side allowing Galvatron to see the ship that had just appeared.

It was the same ship that had been in dock 9. She was a dark Decepticon purple, just as the Nemesis and Trypticon but three times as wide as she was long, flat and in the shape of a triangle. It was smaller than the Payload, but bigger than the Strangler.

"I designed her myself," Hook's voice floated up bringing Galvatron back to reality. The conveyer belt lowered and out jumped Sky-Byte bowing dramatically. Of course Galvatron had to smile at his friend's antics. Judging from the cheering behind him, the crowd loved him to.

Sky-Byte jumped down in front of Galvatron. He straightened and Galvatron readied himself.

"Let it be known that now you are a Captain,

"You will do much for our cause

"But only if you fight for yourself."

"Didn't like that last line, there was no rhyme and too many syllables in the first line," Galvatron told him truthfully.

"You're right, but remember it well my comrade," Sky-Byte held out his claw, "and do take care of Artemis, will you lad?"

"Don't worry about her," Galvatron laughed clutching the claw hard, "worry about me in this idiotic trap that the fools have tried to spring on me."

One of Sky-Byte's optic ridges shot up, "Tried?"

"I know what they're up too," he grinned, "and knowing is the first step in fighting back."

Then he noticed his crew was listening as well. Bruticus was frowning, Nightbird had that awed expression in her optics again and Hook smirked.

"Nice to know you're up for the challenge," Hook chuckled quietly, "Now let's finish the business here up and leave."

-(\:/)-

"And these will be your quarters," Sky-Byte opened a door to reveal a spacious room with a large recharge berth and a desk attached to a monitor to Galvatron. "They're a little bigger than the rest of the quarters in the ship, because this is the captain's cabin, but I really like the monitor. It allows limited access to all the ships functions while the other monitors only allow small things like air temperature changes. Well, I'll leave you to get settled in."

Sky-Byte left the new captain to himself and Galvatron found the room lonely. From his subspace he took out his only possession; a datapad featuring four pictures. The first was of himself and the group of mechs he had onlined with. They were all members of a Decepticon scientist experiment to see if old sparks could be brought back from the well if the conditions were right. For ten megacycles they had all grown as close as brothers. Then they had been shoved out into combat. The last battle on Cybertron, and out of all twenty of them, only Galvatron had survived. They weren't very pleasant memories and Galvatron flipped to the next picture before anything else surfaced.

The next picture was of him with Sky-Byte in a small oil bar at the edge of New Kaon. Galvatron smiled. It had taken a while to warm up to the Admiral, the first time they had met was when Galvatron had been in a brawl outside. After much coaxing his superior had opened Galvatron up and helped him move on. Without Sky-Byte, Galvatron was sure he would have been offlined by the Council of Generals a long time ago. Of course, because Sky-Byte was his only friend, Galvatron had begun to hang around command and bothered most of the high ranking mechs that lived there.

Galvatron went to the next picture. This one featured himself and Cyclonus. No one had really known where the flyer had come from, but Megatron himself had placed him on Team Chaar, so no one asked questions. That didn't mean that anyone had liked him though. Like himself, Cyclonus had liked to escape the colony in favor of the dark of New Kaon. It was there that they had met. They had fought a bit, and then seeing that Cyclonus was a skilled swordsmech, Galvatron had begged to be taught. It had taken a while to convince the mech, (along with seemingly endless stalking) but Strika had gotten sick of him and forced Cyclonus to do something. The end result was that Galvatron began to hang around Team Chaar. If he remembered correctly, Sky-Byte had taken the picture. Of course, Cyclonus wasn't smiling in the picture even if he was. Galvatron had never seen Cyclonus smile.

One more press of a button and Galvatron saw himself with Team Chaar. After forty stellar cycles of training with Cyclonus, General Strika had decided to take Galvatron aboard for a bit. It had been two long stellar cycles, and Galvatron was sure that Strika regretted taking Galvatron anywhere.

Out of subspace Galvatron took out a holopicture that he had just received. Sky-Byte had taken a picture of himself and the new squad. He decided that he liked the picture. He placed both objects on his desk and looked around again. Not much in this room, but he had never stayed in one barrack very long before moving. Maybe this time he would stay.

He left the room and looked down the hallway. On either side there were doors that led to more quarters, and before Sky-Byte had brought him to his own, he had seen Nightbird slip into her own. The others had probably already settled in. Now it was time to leave this hunk of metal. Of course he wondered how they would take to him as a captain. Hook seemed alright with him, and Bruticus seemed okay, but Nightbird's reaction was rather nerve-wracking. What was she expecting of him.

Shaking his head, he travelled quickly to the bridge. What would Cyclonus do? Probably just stare at mechs until they did something. Sky-Byte? He would be his dramatic self throughout the whole ride. Might as well do that.

Stepping onto the Bridge, Galvatron looked at the three seats in front and the captain's seat at the back. Only one of the front seats had been moved aside and in its place sat the green Heavy. He looked up at him and then looked back down at the datapad in his thick digits.

"Um..." Galvatron wasn't sure how to address him, "Bruticus right?"

The Heavy looked up at him again, "...Yes."

Galvatron vented a bit, "You're not going to the party?"

Truthfully, he didn't know if there was a party, but he was willing to bet that there was one. All that oil wouldn't last long during times like this.

Bruticus narrowed his optics, "Aren't you...going?"

"Pft! As if! Most of them are idiots and I don't think they're celebrating my promotion," Galvatron decided to answer honestly. At least Bruticus seemed to be relaxing.

"I've already...said good-bye...to my brothers."

Brothers. The Second Life Project subjects came and invaded Galvatron's processor for a second time that megacycle. He shook his helm before replying.

"I guess I've said my good-byes too." He flopped into the captain's chair and stared at the ceiling.

A deep silence enveloped them. For a few breems they just allowed the thoughts of what they were leaving to pass before their optics.

"Blackout says...you're good...like Sky-Byte."

The new captain tilted his helm to look at Bruticus again, "Really? That's nice of Blackout."

A frown appeared again, "Are you...being...sarcastic?"

"Nope, I've just known Blackout for a while but he's never mentioned you."

The Heavy shrugged, "I'm...different. Megatron...doesn't like me."

"I don't know what Megatron thinks of me. I've only met him once and I remember he looked at me like was expecting something else..."

Suddenly Megatron wasn't Megatron. In Galvatron's mind Nightbird had appeared and was staring at him with those expectant optics, though Megatron had simply waited while Nightbird seemed to be holding onto a desperate hope. They were rather similar. Both wore grey armor and had red optics full of age and experience. Nightbird's armor was simpler, and her weapons were less flashy than Megatron's, but that was beside the point.

"Do you...like Megatron?"

Galvatron looked at Bruticus again. It was such a straightforward question, but a very important one considering the look Bruticus gave him.

"I don't really know what to think of Megatron," he explained carefully looking out the window on the side of the bridge. "Sometimes I hate him, mostly for leaving all of us stranded here with the Council of Generals while he goes looking for the AllSpark. Sometimes I admire the way he took on the Decepticons from my namesake, but I only feel like that when I'm reading battle logs in the Decepticon archives. One time I was scared of him, but the fright quickly turned to curiosity. These days I'm just happy that he stays away because if he was around all the mechs on the Council would tell him what I was up to."

There was a small silence as Bruticus seemed to be processing the data. "I don't...like Megatron. He...scares me."

So the Heavy was scared? Well, Megatron was strong, maybe he was scared of everyone stronger than him. But he was telling, no, confiding in him.

"Well," Galvatron couldn't help but grin, "You're most certainly honest."

Bruticus looked at him directly in the optics and his law clamp rose in what must have been a smile, "You are...too." The green mech tucked his datapad into subspace, ""I think I...know what Blackout...meant now. You're...good...like Sky-Byte."

The captain of the Artemis quickly drew to the conclusion that Bruticus must have some psychic power for within the two seconds that went between the comment and Galvatron's impending question, Hook and Nightbird entered the bridge.

"We have been given the all clear to take the Artemis and leave New Kaon, Captain Galvatron!" Hook announced.

"Sounds like you two have wrapped things up then," Galvatron grinned, "take your places and let's fly far away!"

"To...where?"

"Anywhere that's not here!"

"You do realize that we have a mission to complete," Hook did not look impressed with his new leader. Nightbird wasn't facing him, but Galvatron could see something beginning to form.

"What mission?"

"You weren't listening to General Onslaught; were you?"

Galvatron chuckled nervously, "I might have tuned him out after 'My fellow Decepticons...'"

There was the sound of slapping and Galvatron saw that both Nightbird and Hook had their faces in the palm of a servo.

"Hey, this is my second mission plus the first I'm leading. I didn't spend that much time with Team Chaar."

Hook did not look amused, "When I saw you for the first time on that platform, I thought that maybe we'll get through this. You seemed like the responsible kind-"

"Oh Hook..." he smiled at the compliment.

"But now I see that they're planning on killing us through your inexperience."

"So leave."

The change in the atmosphere of the room was automatic. What had been light was now dense and Galvatron didn't look happy.

"Go on," he pointed behind himself, "The door's right there."

Hook didn't move. The superior attitude that he had just been leaking was gone as well. He looked nervous. "I can't go."

"Well why not?"

"The Council has assigned me here! I can't disobey!"

"So why not?"

"The Decepticons are everything to me!"

"Then they've got you haven't they?" Galvatron stood up further unnerving Hook. Nightbird and Bruticus we're watching curiously. "Do you think I asked to be promoted? That I asked them to give me a ship with a crew of mechs they want to disappear? Well I didn't. I don't want to be the reason that you or Nightbird or Bruticus offline. But the Decepticons are all we have, the Autobots won't take us in, I'm sure that someone has Shockwave looking for us, and we can't exactly go rouge without attracting bounty hunters. Shockwave will know that what we've done and tell the Council of Generals who will pronounce us traitors.

"You see Hook, I live in a world where really, I don't give a slag about anyone else besides the mechs I think are worth something. Now I don't know many mechs that are worth something, but I know enough to keep me online, and I know fewer that make me want to stay in the Decepticons, but I know enough. Obviously the Council of Generals wants me dead because of the millions of times that I've messed with them, and right after the war ended, and when I lost all of my brothers, I would have welcomed such a demise."

For that third time that megacycle, their faces filtered through his mental barriers. He pushed them aside again. "But now I have a reason to live, and I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I will live and not for myself. However I won't play this game of theirs by their rules. I'm going to show them that they can't control me completely, that they'll never get me. The only problem is all of you.

"I won't be able to live for long if we don't all want to live, and if we don't support each other. I'm going to need your help, although I don't think that'll be a problem considering your positions are nearly as desolate as mine!" With that, Galvatron fell back into his chair and proceeded to stare at the ceiling.

The darkness that had unknowingly crept up on the bridge dispersed. Nightbird was looking at him with those awed filled optics again and Bruticus was starting up the ship. Hook began to set coordinates into the ship and slowly the ship came to life. Bruticus took the controls.

Galvatron turned and looked out the window at the dark surface of a planet that he wouldn't see for some time. He turned back to Bruticus grinning wildly.

"Hit it!"

Bruticus began to move them, slowly off the ground. The ship was hovering, then rising.

"Are you sure Bruticus at the controls is such a good idea?" Hook hollered.

"Don't worry," Galvatron laughed, "I trust him much more than I trust you!"

Then there was acceleration. The Artemis shot through New Kaon's atmosphere like an arrow in the air. On the ground, many Decepticons pointed out the ship. Cyclonus himself looked up and his optics trailed her assent until his sensors could no longer pick up her signal.

"May we meet again," he whispered. None of Team Chaar with whom he stood next to noticed what he was saying. "Galvatron II..."

...And done! See you guys back in November with our very first action scene! (If Darth T-Rex ever replies...)