Chapter 3
"AAAAHHH!"
Rhona felt the soles of her white trainers collide hard with a metal plate, sending it and herself falling out of the bottom of the ship onto solid barren ground, crumpling into a ball. It took a few moments for her to regain her breath and to reassure herself she hadn't died having fallen through the bottom of an alien ship. After being satisfied with this analysis, Rhona uncurled herself, gradually used her arms to sit upright and looked around. The sky was a beautiful collage of red and orange and the last beams of light hit a river below the ledge she was seated on, giving the water the appearance of liquid gold. She was seated underneath the alien ship and noticed a natural bridge formation leading from the landed U.F.O across to a huge open plain. The rocky desert was free of vegetation until Rhona focused on the horizon. Hints of trees could only just be seen by the human eye. Seems like the best and only place I could go and hide at the moment. But if I leave, how will I get back in the computer room? Rhona allowed herself to stare up at the hole she had fallen from. It was at least seven foot high, too far out of reach for the young women to grab onto and she highly doubted she'd be able to pull herself back up the tunnel. With one last sweep along the bank of the river, Rhona concluded if she stayed where she was, she would surely be captured again. A wave of nausea rose over her thinking of what might happen if she was caught. The only choice she had was to make for the trees for shelter, but they did not appear close.
Hesitantly, Rhona wobbled to her feet; she'd need to get a move on if she wanted to be there before dark, or before the robots realised that she wasn't inside the ship anymore. Sparing one last glance at the gargantuan aircraft, Rhona began her hike towards the trees. One saving grace, she thought to herself, was that it was so warm! It was the middle of January; they had been forecasting snow in some areas of England. Rhona loved the warmer weather and the brighter colours that came with it, but the change of climate was yet another thing that confirmed to her that she was no longer at home. She marvelled at the heat she was feeling even though the sun was setting! She was secretly glad she'd only worn jeans and t-shirt under her coat at home, any other form of clothing would have left her sweating and exhausted in this kind of temperature. Wherever here was. Little did Rhona know above her stalked a great white tiger watching her move across the plain from the rocks overlooking the ship. He allowed her a few more metres ahead before slowly beginning to prowl after the human.
It must have been at least an hour before Rhona finally reached the edge of the forest and she was beginning to feel weak. She didn't think in all honesty she'd be able to climb anything tonight or make any form of shelter. Her head felt dizzy, and she dragged her feet beneath her to eventually sit against the bottom of the tree as the forest continued to get darker. Rhona only now began to consider the possibility of other predators. What if there were lions here? Or some kind of creature closest to that? Exhaustion got the better of her, once she had committed to sitting down, she had lost every sap of her energy. I have to rest but I can't let myself fall asleep; Rhona internally ordered, austerely, but her eyes were already starting to half close.
"Choosing here to shut your optics would not be advisable, youngling." Rhona awoke with a jolt, cradling her head with her hands as she knocked it back against the tree trunk. Wincing, she was greeted with the sight of a sizeable snowy tiger, laid a small distance from her beneath another tree. Its green eyes glowed in the dark as he inspected her movements tranquilly, as if calculating what she might do. The moonlight glittered through the leaves of the different trees, the tiger's fur appearing almost silver in its light; Rhona felt in awe of the beautiful sight until her anxiety reminded her that she could soon be made its dinner. She tried to stop herself from making any sudden movements as she pushed herself harder against the tree bark. The tiger simply responded by cocking his head with curiosity and swished his tail. "You need not be frightened of me. I am not in the habit of hunting humans," he chuckled. The young girl's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. Kidnapped by a robot, seeing prehistoric animals come to life and now a tiger was talking to her. The surrealism of the situation was becoming too much for her.
"H-how-? W-what?" Rhona closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before nervously matching the tiger's gaze. "You're one of those robots, a-aren't you?" The tiger simply responded by crossing one of his front paws over the other with a small laugh. "I am a maximal, if that is what you mean?" Rhona felt her cheeks flush red. He was teasing her. "Maximals, Predacons, I don't really know or care what you call yourselves. I just want to be left alone," Rhona huffed, moving to stand up and walk away but her legs were too weak to move her seated position. The tiger stood quietly and silently walked closer, before pausing a few feet away. Rhona felt uncomfortable. He was examining her. Was he lying about not eating humans or was he going to take her back to Dinobot? "Are you hurt?" he asked gently. Rhona furrowed her brow lightly before realising he was looking at her bruised arm. Unconsciously she reached and placed her hand over it, but the bruise was too big to cover. "It's nothing," she attempted to say but the words caught in her mouth as the tiger morphed into his robot form. The mech was green with white parts of fur over his shoulders and back from the tiger. Rhona noted what looked like a gun on his back as well. The mech slowly lowered to one knee, scanning over her arm before softly reaching out his hand towards Rhona. She stared at it in silence, more than a little confused. "Here, I can help you stand." He offered a friendly smile, and it was enough to wash away some of Rhona's fear. Her face relaxed and being unable to think of anything to reply with, she stretched her quivering hand to lay in the middle of his green palm. His hand alone was huge. It completely enveloped hers and he effortlessly pulled her to her feet gently, waiting to ensure she had regained her balance before letting go. As if realising how intimidating his size was, he allowed himself to take a step back from the girl, but Rhona could still see his eyes running over nearly every part of her. Rhona attempted to avert her gaze, hoping for this inspection to end soon but when it didn't, she forced herself to swallow before asking, "I-is something wrong?" The tiger robot's eyes flickered to meet her gaze. "No. I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I have never seen a human this close before," he admitted before taking a moment to twist back into his animal form. "W-well, I've never seen a … whatever you are before," Rhona mumbled. She was unable to stop the small smile which broke her face when the tiger laughed. "My name is Tigatron. My comrades told me you made the quite the exit. I suppose you did not wish to be found." Rhona opened her mouth and then closed it. When Rhona made no answer, the tiger hummed. "The jungle is no place to stay at night." He padded closer to the human before laying on the floor and indicating for her to crawl on his back. Rhona reconsidered running away but she had to admit to herself, Tigatron was right. Weakly, Rhona pulled her leg over to straddle the tiger, gasping quietly as he stood and began to walk out of the forest.
As the tiger continued his journey, Rhona replayed the days events over in her head as she held onto Tigatron's fur. As Tigatron walked closer and closer back to the 'base' as he called it Rhona began to regret her decision to go back with him. Why had she so easily allowed the tiger to take her back to the ship? What if he was tricking her and he was really taking her back so she could be eaten by the velociraptor and the others that were chasing her? Somehow though, Tigatron didn't give Rhona the vibe that he was deceiving her. Maybe because their first interaction didn't begin with an attempted kidnapping or maybe because he didn't chase her or threaten to eat her. "Not much further now, youngling." Why does he keep calling me that? Rhona stopped herself from asking though as a beeping noise grabbed her attention. "Tigatron? Come in, Tigatron, this is Cheetor." Rhona clenched her stomach at the sound of the familiar voice. "Tigatron here, I am incoming to headquarters. ETA two cycles," Tigatron responded, continuing his steady walk. Rhona focused her attention on the road ahead, the bridge visible under the starry sky. "I'll open the pod for you, big cat." Tigatron didn't reply but both noticed an elevator declining from the ship with a yellow mech on it before it transformed into a cheetah. The one Rhona had previously run from. Her knuckles turned white as she squeezed his fur slightly tighter. "Do not be frightened." Rhona looked down to see Tigatron, glancing up at her. "No maximal here has any wish of harming you, trust us." Rhona sighed before nodding and watching as the small predator cat ran across the bridge to meet them. His eyes trained immediately on to Rhona's face. Again, with the starring, Rhona grumbled internally, instantly beginning to feel more uncomfortable with the attention she seemed to always be receiving from these robots. Before Rhona could register, Tigatron dipped his back legs causing the human to slowly slide off his back onto her bottom on the ground, now face to face with the leopard.
"Hey! You're the kid from before!" The Cheetah smiled, sniffing her red hair before circling her. Rhona flinched and mentally reminded herself over and over what Tigatron had said to her, that no one would harm her here. "I'm Cheetor, what's your name?" Rhona had to force herself to practically whisper, "Rhona." "We've all been really wanting to meet you! You gave us quite the shock running out of my quarters like that!" "Do you think you can stand?" The tiger asked, stopping the smaller cat from asking many more questions. At a loss for words, Rhona mutely nodded and slowly moved into a crouch before pushing herself to her feet, using Tigatron's back to steady herself before they continued their walk to the elevator.
It didn't take long for the trio to reach the platform, Cheetor and Tigatron transformed into their mech forms and Rhona was sure she looked as white as a ghost. The elevator back into the ship felt like the longest journey she'd taken in her life. Endeavouring to become as small and unnoticeable as possible, Rhona shuffled backwards to hide behind the larger Tigatron. Cheetor appeared to be too excited to notice her new hiding spot and practically ran into the control room. "Ultra-gear bots! Look who Tigatron found!" Rhona peaked around Tigatron's back revealing two mechs she had never seen before but the third made her blood turn cold. Dinobot. The deep red optics glared into her soul as he brought his arms to fold across his chest. She was so focused on Dinobot she hadn't realised until it was too late that Tigatron had moved to the side of the room to allow the other mechs to see the young human.
The large silver mech with red optics offered a smile. "Welcome to maximal headquarters. My name is Optimus Primal. You definitely made us jump with you entrance earlier." Rhona twitched the corners of her mouth upwards briefly in response, but her head felt as if it might explode. "Please don't be frightened. We are maximals, we are descendants from the Autobots who helped your planet during the great wars." Rhona furrowed her brow. "Great wars? I thought the autobots were a myth." A large grey rat scoffed as it entered into the computer room on all fours before sitting back on its haunches to lean against the door frame. "Myth? Typical human race not teaching their young the important parts of the past, seriously who leaves out a war between a different species from their history books!"
"Rattrap, that's enough." A broad green mech sternly stated, leaning back in a metallic chair. The rat made a hissing noise under his breath before transforming and walking to sit in one of the computer chairs. "We're from a planet known as Cybertron. The autobots are an older race who were at war with the decepticons for eons," the green mech explained softly. Rhona noted he seemed to have taught this particular lesson hundreds of times. "The leader of the decepticons unfortunately took their war to your planet, Earth in an attempt to steal its resources and they had planned to eventually wipe out the human race. The autobots, with help from you humans, ultimately overthrew the decepticons, thus ending the great war." It was a lot of information to take in. As if coming to terms with the fact that aliens were real was not enough to get her head round. "A number of humans were ambassadors for Earth on Cybertron," Optimus added. "Then how come I didn't know you existed back home?" Rhona asked bluntly, regretting her question when she heard Dinobot scoff under his breath. Optimus just smiled. "That's a fair question. Not every human was very forthcoming of the autobots, supposedly," Optimus continued to explain, sending a warning glance towards the dinosaur. "The autobots found it better to keep their presence a secret as much as possible, even after the great war. A few humans were lucky enough to act as ambassadors for the planet, but it was incredibly rare on Cybertron to ever come into contact with a human." Optimus paced around the large table in the middle of the room. "Which begs the question, as to how you got here." All eyes fell on Rhona and everywhere fell into complete silence. Rhona gently wet her lips with her tongue. Could she trust them? "it's a long story," she finally muttered, rubbing her bruised arm absently.
"Why don't we leave the details for the morning, if I remember correctly humans normally need more time to recharge than we do," the large green mech interjected, watching Rhona's hand as it moved up and down. "Agreed, Rhinox," Optimus confirmed. Rhinox beckoned Rhona to fall him down the same corridor she had attempted to escape down when she first arrived on the ship. Rhinox was surprisingly light on his feet. He was very bulky even compared to the other mechs but his whole demeanour was calming. At least to Rhona anyway. She still wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him or any of the others. "Is your arm hurt?" Rhona shook herself from her thoughts and noticed Rhinox had stopped to kneel closer to the aforementioned limb. Rhona shook her head 'no' but allowed the mech to continue his observation. Rhinox nodded before opening a door to a plain room and indicated for her to walk in. If possible, it was even plainer than Cheetor's room. There was no window, no picture like in in the cat's room and she couldn't help but wish there was a plant at least. It felt more like a prison. The doors reopening took Rhona by surprise as Rhinox left without another word, not even saying goodbye and the doors shut behind him. To be honest, Rhona was a little relieved to be finally left to herself. She crawled onto the slab of metal and before she could recognise the noise of the doors reopening, she had closed her eyes and fallen asleep.
Rhinox hummed sympathetically as he gently laid a blanket over the sleeping human and quietly activated his scanners to observe the girl's bruised arm. Not that he didn't trust the young woman, but he had found with previous experience of humans their injuries could be much more subtle than maximals. Not to mention fatal at times. "How is she?" Rhinox didn't bother to turn around, knowing it was Optimus even before he spoke. "Scanners didn't show any signs of fractures or internal bleeding other than bruising." Quietly, the rhino turned from the human towards his leader and lead him from the room. "In a way, we're fortunate that the council requested every explorer ship to carry emergency supplies for humans." Optimus nodded silently and followed his comrade from the room. He couldn't help but chuckle as the other members of the crew sat in the corridor, impatiently waiting to hear the news. "Can we help you with something?" the gorilla asked sarcastically with a cocked eyebrow. The bots mumbled before dispersing back down the corridor towards the control room, followed by the gorilla. Optimus sighed and his smile disappeared. Having heard Dinobot's ide of the story, he knew it would not be long for Terrorsaur to have relayed to Megatron the recent development of a human within the beast wars. "This could prove troublesome," he muttered to himself as he reached the computer terminal with folded arms. Megatron hated humans. In truth, Optimus felt the main reason Megatron wanted to return to Earth was only to destroy their race as revenge for the part they played in defeating the decepticons. The energy source from the planet was simply a secondary benefit. Their young human guest would now be in serious danger.