Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers.

I wrote this fic right after I did Reflectance, but just never posted it because as usual I wasn't very happy with it.

But, I was prompted by a friend to put it up and just see how many reviews I get for it, so if you read this, be kind and leave a review.

………

I sighed as I looked around the war-torn fortress. The survivors were working as hard as they could to get the defenses back up in case there was another attack.

They were all working so hard and I could do nothing.

I'd often wondered what it would be like to be dead. I'd been blown up more than enough times by my own hand to know that it was a very real possibility.

But I never actually thought it would happen. I'd always survived in the past, and although I never thought myself immortal I never really feared the next explosion.

But we were decimated. The Decepticons could have easily beaten us, even when Prime arrived our chances of survival were non-existent.

It was only really Starscreams realisation that he was finally in a position to take command that made him call the retreat; Prime was dying, all our medics were already dead. The Defenses were down, and they still had Devastator. Omega Supreme and the Aerialbots we still at least an hour away en-rout from Mount St Hillary.

But I couldn't do anything by this stage except watch.

Watch is all I could do. It was mostly my designs that went into this place. My designs and Huffers engineering. I'll have to live with the guilt of seeing it all fail for the rest of existence.

Live. That's a joke.

I know that there's nothing that I really could have designed any different, but it was still a blow to see the places where I second-guessed armour thickness fail, or to realise that the turrets had a blind spot over the south courtyard.

Poor Arcee. She was the one that dragged us inside out of pity. Now that the pressures off she's openly weeping as she works.

The Dinobots, I spent months wondering if I made the right decision to reactivate them. They've come in handy innumerable times since their reawakening.

Blaster, our communications expert and rival to Jazz for the holder of the most annoying music collection.

Perceptor. I had no idea that in the situation that he would be able to hold his own so well. He always struck me as a gentle fool.

Ultra Magnus. He was always an advisor to Prime. To some extent I can't help but wonder how Prowl felt about him; Prowl was the one that we all thought would be the next to take command.

And then there's the dead.

When we built this place it was to be the Autobots stronghold. The Decepticons had slowly but surely managed to gather enough energon in the few successful raids to return to Cybertron, hunt down the resistance there and take it over fully.

I can still see Ironhides face when he heard about Chromia. I guess they're together now for eternity.

Poor Ironhide. He hated being posted up on Moonbase 1 away from the action.

We should have foreseen it; the Decepticons had had 4 million years to tap the moons, or to leave holes that the spies could get in. we closed off as many as we could, but it only ever needed one little hole to be exploited.

Ah the benefit of hindsight; we had shuttles going out almost every time that we didn't think anyone was watching.

But still, the Decepticons backed themselves into a corner; it they hadn't beaten us when they did they probably never would have. It was very shortsighted of them to think that they could leave Earth to us almost fully and manage to win the war with the energon that they had.

Then again, they managed to do us a bit of damage, even though we had the tactical advantage.

But I'm beyond all bitterness now. Surprisingly, even though I had so much that I wanted to do, I find myself without any regrets.

Still, I can't help thinking about who will take over my work now that I'm gone. Daniel had asked me to repair the gyros in his hoverboard just that morning, and I was going to revise several of the more dated weapon systems when I got the time.

"There you are Wheeljack."
"Huffer?"

"Yup, they got me in the back as I was trying to run to the bunker. I just knew something like this would happen. Still, we have to go."

"Go where?"
"I'm not sure yet, but there's a bunch of guys waiting on the west road. We'd better hurry or we'll miss them."
I shot one last glance back at the desolation that I would be leaving behind for eternity. With a final heave of my shoulders, I turned my back on it all and slowly followed the smaller Autobot down the path to where the others were waiting.

………

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