Introduction: Continuation of the previous few chapters.

Maccadam started awake, gasping as pain lanced through his spark.

"Oh, good, you're online."

Maccadam turned toward the voice, to see Logos approaching. Behind his brother, he could see the screens displaying stars and blackness. He was on Liege's ship.

"You have to check on Liege and Vector," Logos said. "Both of them are in critical condition, and I think Vector's getting worse."

"All right." Maccadam tried to get up off the berth, but fell instead. Logos dove toward him, but didn't manage to catch him before he hit the floor.

"Ow."

"Sorry. Are you all right?"

"Just… weak," Maccadam tried to get to his hands and knees, fighting the magnetism. Logos helped him get up and sit back on the berth.

Maccadam's helm spun, and he shuttered his optics, venting hard.

"Micronus said that too," Logos said.

"Where is he?"

"Back in subspace. He informed me he was finished dealing with our problems and then disappeared."

Maccadam un-shuttered his optics and looked around. Vector and Liege were on their own berths nearby, hooked up to spark support machines.

"What about Mal? Is he okay?"

Logos sat next to Maccadam on the berth. "Well… knowing Mal, he could still show up at some point. But from what Micronus said… it doesn't sound like he made it."

Maccadam shook his helm.

This was too much. One thing after another. "We can't keep doing this. Losing mecha."

Logos wouldn't look at him.

They sat in silence for several astroseconds.

"All right," Maccadam said at length. "Help me get up."

"Maybe you should rest a little longer."

"I'll rest after I've checked on Vec and Liege. Come on."

Logos ducked under his shoulder and helped him walk over to the other berths. Liege was basically in spark failure, and Vector was so deep in stasis that he was functionally offline. But in Maccadam's current state, all he could do to help was mess with some settings.

"How long until we get home?" Maccadam asked when he was finished.

"Another orn," Logos said.

"So I was unconscious for more than a decaorn."

Logos nodded. "Are they… going to make it?"

"Liege, probably," Maccadam said. "Vector, maybe."

"All right," Logos said. "Come on, you need to rest too."

Maccadam let himself be supported back to the berth he'd been on before. Logos helped him lie down, then sat on the edge of the berth. It was hard to see his faceplate, but there was something unhappy about the tilt of his helm.

Maccadam realized that once he was unconscious, Logos would be alone again. It wasn't common knowledge, but Maccadam knew Logos got lonely more easily than his other siblings. He was usually tagging along with Onyx or Nexus or sometimes even Quintus.

"I can stay online if you want," Maccadam said.

Logos shook his helm. "Rest. It won't be long before we're home."

Maccadam remembered. "Logos?"

"Yes?" Logos turned toward him slightly.

"Mal said something… the last thing I remember him saying…"

Logos looked almost afraid… or, no, that wasn't fear.

Maccadam hesitated.

"What?" Logos asked.

"He… said to tell you he was sorry it wasn't him."

Logos sighed, turning away.

"What does that mean?"

"He didn't understand," Logos said softly. "It wasn't… I wasn't angry at him. Of course, from his perspective I understand why…"

"What?" Maccadam said.

"I don't want to talk about it."

All right. Maccadam shuttered his optics and waited.

Logos had been acting especially irritable since coming back to Cybertron. And Amalgamous had been extra difficult as well. Maccadam had been too busy to pay attention. He'd assumed it was just because Onyx had offlined and Logos was grieving. But it sounded as if there was something more than that. If he wasn't so tired, he'd try to convince Logos to talk about it, because there was something almost… guilty in the mech's voice.

"Mac?" Logos whispered.

Maccadam didn't say anything.

"I made a tactical error. Mal thought it was his fault—his fault that Onyx offlined and Vector disappeared."

Maccadam didn't dare move.

"But it wasn't his fault, at least not very much. A good deal more of the blame lies on me, I just… he wouldn't take it seriously and every time he cracked some stupid joke about how Vector must have snapped or… or…" Logos sighed again and Maccadam heard him get up from the berth and walk away.

Logos never admitted to making mistakes. He probably felt a lot worse about it than he was letting on, and it probably wasn't actually his fault. He'd never intentionally do anything to hurt Vector or Onyx. If Maccadam weren't so tired, he'd talk to his brother, learn the whole story, help him process what had happened.

But he didn't even have the strength to get up off the berth. So he let himself slip into recharge.

Quintus helped Maccadam take Vector down to his medical room, while Alpha Trion and Logos half-carried Liege off the ship, which was no mean feat, especially since Alpha Trion's injuries hadn't quite healed yet.

Vector looked awful.

And he wasn't moving. His engine was silent, and there was almost no light coming from his partially exposed spark chamber, and he was trailing all kinds of nasty-looking tubes and wires.

Maccadam didn't talk as they took the elevator down. He didn't say anything in the hallway, or in the room, where he started hooking Vector up to a spark support machine.

Quintus waited for him to say something, but he didn't.

Quintus didn't want to be the one to break the silence. He didn't want to be the bearer of more bad news. They'd had enough bad news lately.

But there were things Maccadam needed to know—things they'd told Logos, but not Maccadam or Liege yet.

"Alchemist?"

"Hmm?" Maccadam asked.

"Before you start working on him… we need to have a meeting."

"I don't want to wait any longer," Maccadam said. "He could offline any moment."

"But there's something we all need to talk about."

Maccadam hesitated, then looked up, and Quintus saw the fear in his optics. He'd probably guessed from Quintus's tone just how serious this meeting was going to be.

"Okay," Maccadam said, and left Vector behind with obvious reluctance as they headed back up to the room two floors up where they always had their meetings.

The table had twelve chairs.

Too many of them were empty.

Mal was gone. Micronus probably wouldn't re-emerge from subspace for decavorns.

At least Nexus had come back from Unicron's planet and was sitting in his spot, towering over everyone else as usual, but abnormally still and silent.

Even with him, there were only half of them at the table.

"So, what's this about?" Maccadam asked, taking his spot beside Alpha Trion, who was perched on the back of his chair, with his pedes on the seat, staring down at the table blankly. His injury was getting better, but it would probably be a while before he recovered completely.

His spark had been damaged, after all.

"Logos? Alph?"

Logos took in a deep vent. "I didn't want to tell you while we were traveling. I'm not sure… I'm not sure I entirely understand myself—"

"He wanted me to have to say it to you," Alpha Trion said.

"No, that's—"

"Please," Alpha Trion said. "It's a good thing. They deserve to hear it from me."

The table went silent again.

"I'm sorry," Alpha Trion said. "I have put our planet in danger by my pride. I've put the entire universe in danger… I…"

"What happened?" Maccadam asked in a hushed voice.

"The Quintessons," Alpha Trion said. "They were controlling the Iacon Council."

Quintus looked at Maccadam, who was staring with wide optics.

Alpha Trion shook his helm. "I didn't know, but I should have. Looking back, I can see that Halogen all but told me several times. He might have been trying to tell me, for all I know. They were probably manipulating him somehow—not the way they did back in the wars, but… in any case, I knew the Council had gone bad. Worse than it ever had before. And I should have… said something, perhaps? Asked for your help or advice? But I was ashamed. It was my responsibility to make sure they governed Cybertron well, and I had failed in that responsibility and I didn't want all of you to know just how miserably I had failed. I gave up instead, and went back to my library and let them… I let them do terrible things, telling myself that I couldn't step in too often without overstepping my responsibility. But it… was the Quintessons the whole time."

Silence fell.

"You know…" Nexus said. "I'm not really that surprised."

Quintus looked at him.

"Disappointed, yeah," Nexus continued "But not surprised. We're supposed to be good at this. You'd think we would be good at this after the hundreds of thousands of vorns we've been online. But we're just a big fragging mess, aren't we? And of course, Solus and Prima and Onyx are offline. The only actually decent mecha among us."

No one said anything. Quintus would normally have been offended, but it didn't feel like Nexus's anger mattered. They'd had so much bad news in the past few quartexes, nothing could really make the situation worse. The Quintessons practically had conquered Cybertron already, and no one had even known it.

There was nothing they could do about it now.

"Why didn't you call me back to help earlier?" Nexus said. "I thought you all had it handled. I thought you were just going to be capturing Megatronus again, but you haven't even managed that. He's still running around out there!"

"Nexus…"

"It's not like sentient life would evolve on Unicron's planet if I turned my back for an orn. Did you all just forget about me or something?"

Logos raised an optic ridge. "Are you suggesting you could have—"

"I don't know what I could have done, but I know I could have helped!"

"It was far too late to solve the real problems by the time any of us got here," Logos said.

The fact that Megatronus being loose on Cybertron could no longer be considered a 'real' problem…

Quintus took in a deep vent and let it out slowly.

He was almost tempted to follow Micronus's example and just abandon this mess.

"Well, what do we do now?" Nexus asked. "Logos? Alph?"

"I'm at a loss," Logos said. "If we'd known earlier, we could have done something about the Council."

"Yeah," Nexus said, glaring at Alpha Trion. "That's true."

"Hey!" Maccadam said. "He didn't know either."

"Alchemist, don't defend me," Alpha Trion said dully.

"Primus could have warned us," Maccadam said. "He must have known. Vector must have known too, and he also didn't say anything. Don't try to blame this all on Alph. At least he was here, trying to do what Primus asked us to do. He did his best, and there's no way he could have known—"

"I should have figured it out," Alpha Trion said.

"It's the Quintessons!" Maccadam glared at him. "And I'm sorry to break it to you, but you're not all-knowing. We're not infallible! I mean, just look at Megatronus. We make mistakes, we do stupid things, we even go insane sometimes. We're not that different from the regular mecha out there. So all of us have got to stop blaming each other and ourselves for things that may not have been within our power to change." He shot a pointed glance at Logos before looking back at Alpha Trion.

Alpha Trion took in a deep vent, and huffed it out. "Very well."

"So what do we do?" Nexus asked again.

"Well," Logos said. "Alpha Trion's in charge unless we get Vector back online."

Alpha Trion shook his helm. "I'm willing to step down. I'm not sure I'm up for this. We could follow you, Logos, or Liege, or even Alchemist."

"No," Maccadam said firmly. "I have to manage my establishment, not to mention piece Vec back together. Alph, you don't have to wallow in self pity to prove to us that you're sorry."

Alpha Trion raised an optic ridge.

"Though," Maccadam said with a small smile that didn't match the mood of the meeting. "If you do want to prove your unspeakable remorse—"

"Do not suggest that I cut off my beard," Alpha Trion snapped. "Fine, fine, here's what we'll do. The best potential solution to our problems, and source of answers is Vector."

Logos nodded.

"Alchemist, once you've repaired him and can bring him back online, we'll be able to see whether he's… capable of helping us, or if his processor has been corrupted by the Quintessons. While we're waiting for that, we can work on some other plans, just in case Vector can't help us. At the very least, we should come up with a way to apprehend Megatronus. That's a problem we've solved many times."

"I can work on that," Logos said. "Though, once again, it would be a lot easier with Vector's help."

"Good," Alpha Trion said. Then his optics widened. "Oh, my library! I completely forgot. Was it badly damaged in the battle? And… and I should arrange to talk with the young Prime. I'm sure his training… No, Primus has gone dark. We'll need to find out if Orion can still receive the Matrix."

"Wait…" Maccadam said. "You don't know? Alph, have you really not checked the news since you came online? Optimus already has the Matrix. And he was asking after you when he came to see us, back when you were still unconscious. Primus spoke to him before going dark—it sounded almost like he had a message for you."

Alpha Trion looked up, hope dawning in his optics for the first time since he'd come online. "I should contact him immediately. Excuse me."

He hopped off his chair and left the room.

"So…" Nexus said.

"Help Liege to one of the spare rooms," Maccadam said. "Keep an optic on him. Quintus, do you think you could come take a look at Vector with me? I need a second processor to help me figure out everything that's wrong with him."

Quintus nodded, and got up.

He hadn't expected this meeting to make things better.

But sometimes, he supposed, things couldn't actually get worse.

Notes:

1. There will probably be one more of these spare parts about the 13 before I start posting stuff about some of the other characters.

2. Still no specific estimate on when I'll start posting the next long story, but it should definitely be before the end of the year. Probably sometime in the fall. Maybe. I think.

3. I hope the apocalypse is treating you all well. Stay safe and healthy!

4. Thanks for reading!