Fate Calls

by Sci-Fifan95

In life, the only certain thing that applies to us is death. We cannot escape it. We cannot outrun it. It is a fate that finds us all. However, He plays chess. And you don't find out until too late that He's been playing with two queens all along.

35. Rage

Well, this chapter kept on going. Equaled my longest chapter and kept on going for another 5k words. All I can say is, dang. Really went all-out with this. I hope you all enjoy it. :)

To those who have favorited, reviewed, or followed this story, thank you so much. One of the major reasons I still keep writing this is because of how much you like reading it and tell me. The fact I love writing it so much also has an affect. Lol. But seriously, thank you. :)

Ashwood's Flame - I left it at a cliffhanger because I like them WAY too much, and it adds suspense. :)

Guest - I have no comment regarding that, despite the fact that is being covered in this chapter. :P

Hmm. The rhythm of the song doesn't fit with the Autobots, at least not with the style of my writing and what does on in this story. I can see why you picture it going with the Autobots, though. That one line does seem to work with how they are in Prime. And I read all my reviews, most of the time more than once. I never ignore feedback, good or bad. :)

And you read this whole thing in three days? Good gosh, your eyes must be hurting a lot. You went through what is basically three full-length novel's worth of material in 72 hours. I am flattered you found this worthy of burning your eyes looking at a screen so much. Haha. Hope you like this update.

dragonbookadditct - Glad you like it so much. I have put tons of work into each character, location, and detail. I am always happy to see people who like it as much as I do. :)

Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.

Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.

---

June 24, 2013 4:41 P.M

Prisoner ship Hammer, interrogation cell

Scalpel barely had time to register the Xel'Tor's words, and had no time to notice the fact his prisoner's wounds repaired themselves in the short time the Xel'Tor spoke, before he was kicked in the chestplates and sent flying into the door of the cell, his frame leaving a noticeable dent in the super-dense alloy. He then slid to the floor and moved sluggishly, heavily dazed by the blow, but still able to understand what was happening.

The soldiers in the room sprang into action immediately, bringing their rifles up and opening fire on the prisoner, sending hundreds of stun rounds through the air, since their standing orders were to not offline their captive.

The Xel'Tor was unfazed by their fire, and charged at the nearest soldier at a speed that shouldn't have been possible. He lowered his shoulder-joint and rammed into the soldier, sending the guard soaring into another one near the wall with enough force to shatter not only their shields, but their armor as well, leaving both of them injured and out of the fight for the moment.

Within a nano-klick, the Xel'Tor was moving again, this time rushing a soldier near the wall. He reached the other mech in an instant, and slammed his still-restrained servos into the soldier's tank, taking advantage of their shields' noticeable weakness to kinetic energy, and breaking the barriers of the guard effortlessly and knocking him against the wall, before finishing him off by sending one of his elbow-joint into his helm, crushing the soldier's helm like it had been made of Tin.

As soon as they saw that they had suffered a fatality, the other guards switched off the stun mode on their weapons and continued firing. They each knew every protocol for their position as prison guards, and standing orders were overridden when a soldier was offlined by a captive.

But the Xel'Tor adapted to the new threat, and used his speed to dodge as much of their fire as he could, and simply took what shots he could not dodge, the wounds from such shots repairing themselves almost as quickly as they opened.

The enraged mech reached another soldier, the one who had hit him with the stock of his weapon, ripped the rifle from his grip, and snapped the guard's servo with almost no effort, and the guard grunted in pain. The Xel'Tor then started using the soldier as a shield, while at the same time returning fire with the rifle he just aquired.

One guard caught a five-round burst to the chestplates. His shields were made to withstand extreme amounts of fire from weapons built by a Tier 2 race, but they were not built to take punishment from weapons built with Tier 1 technology. The shielding held against the first two heavy Hard-Light rounds, the third then broke them, and the final two dug into the guard's armor and exploded, tearing his frame apart and offlining him before he even had a chance to move out of the line of fire. His offline chassis was then reduced to nothing but ashes, as was typical of Hard-Light weaponry.

Another soldier was offlined when the Xel'Tor aimed at his weapon and hit its power cell, consuming him in an explosion of orange energy that incinerated his frame as easily as paper was destroyed by lava.

The five guards who remained standing or were not being used as a shield focused their fire on the rifle in their prisoner's servo, having identified the threat it posed when the enraged mech used it. The rifle was soon atomized by their fire, leaving their prisoner weaponless.

With his rifle gone, the Xel'Tor snapped the neck of the guard he had been using as a shield with one servo, the action so violent, and the strength behind it so great, that the soldier's helm was almost twisted off.

He rushed forward, almost appearing in front of one of the remaining soldiers due to the speed he moved. His fists shot forward like black lightning bolts, breaking the Hard-Light of the soldier's shield in two blows, then offlining him with a third punch that broke every joint in the guard's neck, and sent his helm clattering against the floor.

The Xel'Tor was moving again almost before the other soldiers realized another of their comrades had fallen, and were only just beginning to shift their aim by the time the enraged mech was upon them.

One guard was offlined by his own rifle, his helm caved in from when the Xel'Tor used the weapon as a club.

Another had his frame riddled with Hard-Light rounds, and fell into a pile of amber ashes, suffering the same fate as one of his fellow soldiers.

The third ended up with a moleculon combat knife sticking out of his spark, having attempted to cut into the Xel'Tor's neck when his backplates were turned to him, only to be disarmed and offlined so quickly by his opponent that his optics couldn't follow his movements.

And the final soldier had his pedes swept out from under him, before his helm was crushed beneath the pede of his enraged prisoner.

In all, the entire battle took less than five micro-klicks, but to Scalpel, it seemed like time had gone by even faster. The Xel'Tor had a Quriomus Protocol, and he had activated it. How had he not taken precautions against that? Oh, yes. Because only one in almost one point seven trillion mechs was even born with it! That was why he hadn't taken precautions against it! And now his interrogation cell was a mess! There were ashes on the floor, for Primus' sake! Those were always hard to clean up!

The part of Scalpel's CPU that still retained its sanity blocked out the part that had become mad, and the interrogator noticed the Xel'Tor was staring at him from across the room, his once royal cobalt optics now blood red with pure, unadulterated rage.

His prisoner started to slowly stalk toward him, each step breathing anger and rage. The insane mech suddenly felt the urge to lock himself behind a very sturdy door, with a large arsenal of weapons within reach… And perhaps with a few cubes of high-grade.

Abruptly, a shot rang out from Scalpel's left, and a dozen orange pellets of energy hit the Xel'Tor in the chestplates, and he fell to the floor and didn't move.

The insane interrogator looked at where the shot originated, and saw one of the soldiers the captive had sent into the wall aiming an MK IV X-801 Close Combat Heavy Scattergun, known commonly as a 'Vaporizer,' the latest version of the highly-popular series of shotguns that were built by the original Research Division from data found by the first Reclamation Division when they still had the personal ship of the Thirteen in their possession.

The guard dropped the shotgun and let his helm fall against the wall as soon as he'd fired, faceplate set in a grimace. A shard of his broken armor was sticking out of his tank, likely piercing his soft protoform and causing an internal injury. But he seemed to have been unharmed besides that. The other soldier, however, seemed to have been offlined by either the initial impact of his collision with the one who fired, or from the injuries that followed.

Scalpel was about to speak to the soldier, to complement him on his accuracy, but then he realized one important detail.

The Hard-Light pellets didn't explode.

A spray of rifle fire suddenly riddled the soldier who fired, and his shields broke before he had time to react. His frame was then torn apart by the bullets that pierced his armor and exploded, and he disintegrated almost as quickly as his shields were broken by the heavy Hard-Light rounds.

The interrogator snapped his helm in the direction of the weapons fire, and he froze at the sight of the Xel'Tor standing upright, faceplate set in a snarl. There was a gaping hole in his chestplates, but it was regenerating, repairing itself at a rapid rate, countering the amber Hard-Light that was attempting to eat his armor away before exploding.

The Xel'Tor walked over to where the final guard had been, the wound in his chestplates still repairing itself, and picked up the X-801 and held it in his left servo, while keeping the rifle in his right.

His wound finished repairing itself shortly after he picked the shotgun off the floor, and he shifted his attention to Scalpel, optics seeming to stare into his very spark. He let out a low growl, a sound that seemed more appropriate to have come from a beast in the wilds of Ventqura Munitum than a Cybertronian.

The Xel'Tor lunged toward him.

And the last thing Scalpel felt was his helm being crushed by a pede.

---

An alarm sounded throughout the ship. It had been triggered by Onlooker, the doctor assigned to watch the interrogations of Chief Interrogator Scalpel for the next mega-cycle. And now, the entire ship was on high-alert.

A team of eight riot suppression guards ran down a hallway, rushing to Interrogation Cell D-113, where the Xel'Tor had been transferred after he was brought onboard.

Each soldier was better equipped than normal guards. Their armor was thicker, their shields were stronger, and they were authorized to carry whatever gear they wished. Four carried a SMG in one servo, while Hard-Light shields attached to their other servo, allowing them to offline or subdue most prisoners with minimal effort. The other four guards carried Z-349 Specter HMGs, weapons capable of sending thirty Hard-Light rounds per micro-klick into a target more than three kilometers away.

The squad reached the door leading to Cell D-113, and they set up a defensive position in front of it, with the soldier's with shields creating a wall in front, while the others aimed their HMGs at the door.

One of the soldiers in the back rank stepped toward the door, HMG pointed at the ready, but he stopped and quickly fell back into position when the door unexpectedly opened by itself, allowing a frame of a Cybertronian to fall to the floor, since the only thing that had kept it upright was now gone. The offlined chassis was too damaged to be positively identified, but the guard's suspected it was Chief Interrogator Scalpel.

The room beyond the offline frame was pitch black, darker than the night. The Xel'Tor had, evidently, destroyed the lights in the cell, concealing his position.

Since they still were standing in a heavily-lite area, having their optics adjust to the darkness would only blind them. So, one of the soldier's with the shield on his servo opened a sub-space pocket in preparation for throwing an energon flare into the room, but he, along with his squad, tensed up and waited for possible attack when they heard the sound of metal clanging against metal from inside the cell.

No assault came, and a metal object rolled right up to the four with shields, coming to a stop almost right beneath their pedes. At first, it looked like a metal ball, but upon closer inspection, they realized what it was.

It was Chief Interrogator Scalpel's helm, crushed and shaped into a sphere so that it would roll smoothly.

Doom descended on the squad at that moment.

There was a pair of orange flashes of orange light inside the dark cell, and the two shield-toting guards in the middle of the squad's makeshift wall fell to X-801 fire in the brief moment they spared to look down at Scalpel's crushed helm, and had lowered their shields just a few inches. And one soldier carrying a Specter was dissolved when a stream of rifle rounds hit him in the helm, breaking his shields in an instant and offlining him before he had a chance to react to the initial fire.

The squad returned fire, the guards with HMGs spraying hundreds of rounds through the door, unable to distinguish between a shadow or a shape without actually being inside the room, while those with shields tightened together to fill in the gaps left behind by their fallen companions.

But this was exactly what their opponent wanted, and now their flanks were more exposed, since the two remaining shield-carrying bots had moved closer together.

There was another pair of flashes inside the room, and the last two soldiers carrying shields were offlined, again by X-801 fire, and those wielding Specters renewed their suppressive fire, riddling the entire room with bullets. But their weapons were quickly silenced when precise rifle fire from their opponent offlined them one by one, reducing each of them to nothing but dust.

Once the final guard had fallen, the Xel'Tor stepped out from the shadows, wounds he had sustained when hit by multiple HMG rounds rapidly healing as he walked into the well-lit hallway.

He tossed the rifle in his right servo away from him, its power crystal drained and now useless to him, and he picked up one of the Specters up from the floor, wielding the massive HMG like it weighed nothing.

With his new weapon in servo, the Xel'Tor ran down the hallway, heading in the direction the riot squad had arrived from.

In his enraged state, he knew nothing but anger, and he needed another target to satisfy his fury. But his hyper-active CPU was also aware that unless he turned the vessel's alarm system off, as well as the surveillance system that he could feel tracking him, he would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of soldiers that converged on his position at the same time.

The Xel'Tor aimed the X-801 at a dormant holographic panel that he was about to run by. Without his enhanced senses, he would not have been able to detect it. But, since his Protocol was active, the almost undetectable electric field the panel created while it was inactive was as obvious to him as a neon sign.

He fired once, and hit it directly, destroying the panel and sending Hard-Light pellets into the electrical systems, which immediately began to eat away at the advanced circuitry, using the electrical current to travel at near lightspeed, due to its unique qualities.

Within a micro-klick of the Hard-Light entering the electrical systems, the lights went out.

And with a single shot, the Xel'Tor caused chaos across the entire vessel.

---

Captain Steelclaw was a by-the-book-type mech. When he was transferred from his position of XO of the battlecruiser Silence of the Night to being the first captain of the Hammer, he had followed instructions without complaint, despite the fact he vastly favored his previous job. He did nothing without consulting the numerous military protocols of the Paraions, and acting exactly as it said.

So when an alarm was sounded by Onlooker, Steelclaw had contacted the doctor through his personal comm-link, asked why he had sounded the alert, and dispatched a riot squad upon learning the Xel'Tor was in the process of offlining everyone in his cell. It was what protocol called for when an individual prisoner rebelled against his or her captivity. He did not even issue a notice to the fleet around Fomes, the red gas giant that the Paraions used for various tasks, including keeping their fleets fueled. Only a full riot warranted a notice to the fleet, according to protocol.

Only when he watched a live feed of the Xel'Tor slaughtering the riot squad, did Captain Steelclaw decide to declare the situation a full riot, and warn the neighboring vessels.

But by then it was too late.

The main lights on the bridge went out before Steelclaw could order a message to be sent to the surrounding fleet, the artificial gravity went offline, and the holographic terminals powered down, leaving the bridge in total darkness. But the lack of light only lasted for a moment, since the emergency power system kicked in, and the dim backup lights turned on, along with the backup gravity generators.

"What happened?" Steelclaw asked a damage control officer calmly, unaffected by the sudden lose of power.

"Unknown, still working on getting access to the system from this," the officer, a smaller mech called Shifter, replied, gesturing at the physical keyboard that had deployed from his station following the main power being taken down, the holographic stations requiring too much energy for the backup systems to power. "Got it. All cameras are offline, but data logs show Hard-Light entering the main systems just before they went down. It's possible that the Xel'Tor found a fault in the system, and exploited it. Probably with a shotgun."

That was not good. "Are communications still operational?"

"We have communications inside the ship, but long-range comms are a negative," the Intelligence officer of the Hammer, a large mech called Frontline, answered instead of Shifter. "I tried sending out a hail to any nearby ships after the backups came online, but there's a fault in the system. I can't send out a message."

Steelclaw took in this information, then looked at his navigator. "Can we dock with a station?"

The navigator shook his helm. "Whatever the Xel'Tor did has had an effect on a few of the backups. Engines one and two are cold, engine four is running at half power, and engine three is running at less than one tenth full. I can barely move the ship forward, let alone get us into dock."

"Is a precise sub-space jump an option?" Steelclaw questioned, walking around several bridge crew that ran around the room, attempting to bring power to some non-critical systems without success.

"That's a no-go. Computer's glitched, giving me wrong answers to calculations," the navigator replied. "Any rupture we open would send us on a blind jump, a randomized one. We could end up on the far side of the universe in a thousand centi-vorns, or come out the other side of the jump inside one of the suns in this system in a micro-klick."

Captain Steelclaw paused for a moment at this news. Protocol did not cover this situation exactly. It was vague, so captains could act as they saw fit. But for a mech like Steelclaw, that was difficult, and it took him time to come up with plans that were outside of protocol. Evacuating the ship was an option, since the escape pods scattered around the Hammer were powered by the backup systems, but that was only used when a ship was too damaged to continue fighting or had been boarded by too many enemies to repel. The only other option he could think of would be to put the ship on alert, lockdown all unnecessary areas, and keep the lockdown in place until security forces could deal with the Xel'Tor. His protocol-following processor found that to be the most logical choice.

"Officer Frontline," the captain finally said, addressing the Intelligence officer calmly. "Put the ship at Level Red. Lockdown all critical areas, armories, launch bays, engine room, prisoner cells, secure everything. All guards are authorized to use lethal force on sight, and are to travel in squads at all times."

Frontline wordlessly followed Steelclaw's orders, connecting his station with the universal communications channels inside the ship and relaying the captain's instructions to anyone listening.

The captain turned his attention back to the navigator. "Keep working on the glitch, I want engines back to full power as soon as possible." He didn't wait for a response from the mech before he walked over to where Shifter was seated at his station. "Can we get power restored to the cameras?"

"Not from here, no," Shifter answered. "It's not an issue with the power, it's wiring. All the cameras are linked to a processing unit, which allows them to function on their own and alert an operator when it spots suspicious activity. The processing unit was located near the 'D' cells."

"'Was'?" Steelclaw asked, noticing the wording of the damage control officer.

"Yes, 'Was.' The Hard-Light went through our whole system, and the processing unit for the cameras was one of the first systems it hit. It's gone. We won't have the cameras operational again until we replace it," Shifter responded, before adding dryly, "But if you would like, I could playback the last million breems of collective footage from the whole system."

Steelclaw ignored Shifter's attempt at humor. "That will not be necessary," he said, then left the damage control station and began thinking of his next course of action. The ship was running on emergency power, cameras were down, sub-space drive would do more harm than good if used, long-range communications were offline, engines were essentially useless, and he had a rampaging prisoner loose, who had already offlined nineteen bots.

He was in a tough situation. So how to get out of it?

The captain's thoughts were interrupted by a cry from Frontline, "Captain! You need to hear this!" He typed a command into his keyboard that would turn on hidden speakers on the bridge, and allow allow the crew to listen into the communications channels onboard the ship, a system he hadn't made sure was active before addressing Steelclaw.

The system was online, and the communications that came through the speakers caused the entire bridge crew to come to a halt and listen.

"Did you see him?" A soldier on the comm asked.

"Affirmitive! The Xel'Tor's here!" Another soldier answered, raising his voice to be heard over gunfire in the background. "We have four casualties, but we got him pinned down at hall D- Wait, he got behi-" The soldier was cut off by a new burst of gunfire.

"He's behind us!" A new guard cried. "How the frag did he do that?!"

"Shift fire!" What seemed to be the squad leader ordered. "Shift fir-" He was cut off by the thunderous report of an X-801.

"The Sergeant's down!" A fourth guard yelled. "We nee-" He, too, was cut off by an X-801 being fired.

"No, no, no! Stay back!" The guard who first reported the Xel'Tor got behind them shouted, his rifle firing almost constantly, accompanied by metallic pings as the bullets hit their mark. "Stay ba-" There was an audible snap over the link, followed by a low growl, and then silence.

"Delta squad, do you copy?" The first soldier who spoke asked, then cursed when his question was met with silence. "Slag. Echo squad, double ti-" A long, continuous burst of HMG fire cut him off, followed by other weapons returning fire.

"He's here already!" A new guard reported, then the link went silent.

Frontline had muted the audio. "There's more reports like that one coming from the comm, but I think you get the picture, sir."

Steelclaw certainly got the picture, and he didn't like what it looked like. The soldiers were getting slaughtered. "How many?"

"I can't make contact with Delta, Echo, Omega, Bravo, and Sword squads," Frontline replied. "I think it's safe to assume what happened to them."

The captain put a neutral look on his faceplate and kept it there. Between the five squads, that was forty soldiers, and with the other nineteen added in, the total was just under a seventh of the entire security force on the Hammer. Normally with a ship as large as his, there would be a fighting force three times that size, but since the Hammer was a prisoner vessel, there was a smaller number of soldiers onborad in order to make way for the captives, who outnumbered the guards four to one.

But, with at least fifty-nine offlined, that ratio was now closer to five to one. And would likely grow before this was over.

"See if you can unlock the armories for the rest of the squads," Steelclaw instructed. "They will need more firepower."

"Yes, sir," Frontline acknowledged, then began working to unlock the armories while keeping Level Red active, while at the same time connecting his station back into the communications channels of the Hammer to listen in on the conversations between squads.

The captain looked around the bridge after giving instructions to Frontline, searching for any member of the bridge crew who needed orders. But he found that everyone present was busy with their appointed tasks, like they should have been.

With his presence not required at the moment, he walked up to the upper level of the bridge, where the door was located. He then turned and gazed around the bridge, the higher position giving him a better view of the bridge than his captain's chair, located on a slightly elevated platform below him, ever could.

Steelclaw sighed quietly as he watched his bridge crew work, trying to find solutions to their situation, only to fail and try something else.

He missed his old position on the Silence of the Night.

---

Recruit BM-115, a former miner who hadn't found it necessary to take a name after joining the Paraions, sprinted down a hallway that was just a few hundred meters from the bridge, rifle attached to his backplates so he could focus solely on running. Around him, his fellow members of Zetta squad, and the unit they joined up with, Tango squad, gave him suppressive fire, lighting up the otherwise pitch black hallway with orange Hard-Light rounds.

BM-115 was trying to get to the M-98 Hydra Cannon that his squad leader, Chains, had taken from an armory they raided just before meeting up with Tango squad, a slightly larger unit with nine members. The Xel'Tor had made Chains a priority target, and he had been the first to fall when the two units made hard contact with the escaped prisoner. But despite their superior numbers, and the extra firepower they recovered from the armory, they were losing ground. Fast.

The recruit instinctively ducked his helm when one of the mechs he was running by was distintergrated by unnervingly accurate Specter fire, shields offering almost no protection from the HMG.

That was the eleventh guard to be offlined since the fight began, and it seemed like their bullets did nothing to the Xel'Tor. BM-115 had hit him several times, of course, and even in the dim light he had seen the Hard-Light rounds he fired try to eat away at the armor of the prisoner. But, the amber light always faded away, leaving no indication that the Xel'Tor had ever been hit. Using standard weapons to try and offline an opponent that could repair himself so quickly was about as effective as using a combat knife to fight an incoming cruiser. All a bot had to do was look at how close they were to the bridge to figure that out. Cyber squad was on their way with riot shields and a number of heavy weapons, but they wouldn't arrive in time if they kept losing ground like this. The Xel'Tor had fought his way though most of the ship, at least from deck D to deck A. And nothing was stopping him.

That was why BM-115 was rushing to the Hydra Cannon. They couldn't offline the Xel'Tor with the weapons they were currently using, the fact they lost elev-

The booming report of an X-801 drowned out the sound from the weapons of his fellow Paraions, and a mech from his squad was reduced to amber ashes.

-Twelve soldiers to the Xel'Tor was proof of that. They needed something bigger, something that would leave nothing for the Xel'Tor's auto-repair systems to regenerate. And that something was a Hydra Cannon.

Another mech he was running by was offlined by HMG fire, and BM-115 ducked and slid, coming to a stop next the Hydra Cannon and the dust that was once his squad leader. With a herculean effort, BM-115 lifted the huge heavy weapon up and placed it on his shoulder-joint, then aimed it down the hallway he just ran down.

It seemed the Xel'Tor finally ran out of ammunition, since only BM-115's fellow Paraions were firing weapons. But he didn't let himself think that offlining the Xel'Tor was going to be easy now. A lot of mechs had been offlined this cycle, and they had the advantage over the escaped prisoner just like what remained of Zetta and Tango squads did.

The jet black shape of the Xel'Tor came running out of the darkness further down the hallway and lept at a member of Tango squad. The guard lost his shields and was offlined so quickly that BM-115 didn't even see what happened to him.

BM-115 aimed the Hydra Cannon, intent on ending the Xel'Tor before he got to anyone else.

But the escaped prisoner moved again, this time crashing into the last remaining member of Zetta squad besides BM-115 himself, and caving his chestplates inward with two powerful blows, one to break his shields, and the other to offline him.

BM-115 readjusted his weapon, but kept his digit off the trigger when the last members of Tango squad attacked together, firing their rifles at full-auto.

The Xel'Tor ignored the rounds hitting him, and jumped into the air, forcing the two Tango members to aim upward. As the escaped prisoner came down, he kicked the barrel of one of the soldiers' weapons toward the other, and then landed on the guard, crushing his helm beneath his pede while the second soldier was offlined by the redirected fire of the first guard's weapon.

With no weapons to keep the corridor lit, the hallway descended into darkness. But in that blackness, BM-115 saw two red optics look directly at him.

He fired at that moment.

Even long after it was first designed, the Hydra Cannon was still one of the most powerful and advanced infantry weapons the Paraions ever designed. What made it so successful wasn't the missile-shaped Hard-Light projectile it fired, but the fact that the projectile split into dozens of micro-missiles after firing, with each one only slightly less powerful than the initial one, made it such a feared weapon.

The orange Hard-Light missile flew out of the Hydra Cannon's barrel, then seemed to be suspended in the air for a nano-klick while it split apart, before all the projectiles accelerated to hypersonic speeds and zeroed in on the Xel'Tor.

The missiles impacted, and for a brief moment there was a star in the hallway, blinding anyone who looked at it.

The light faded a micro-klick after detenation, as if sucked into a blackhole. And the hallway was dark again, apart from the rapidly cooling slag that was once the floor, walls, and ceiling of the blast zone.

BM-115 waited for the feeling of relief that accompanied victory, but it never came. He was still on alert, still on the high of battle. He felt like he was still being watched.

The Xel'Tor, somehow, someway, avoided the Hydra shot.

The recruit pulled his secondary weapon from his hip, a Binary Heavy Pistol, and aimed it around the hallway as the Hydra Cannon ejected an empty power crystal, and replaced it with one of the remaining two inside the weapon. There was no way the Xel'Tor should have been able to avoid that shot, and yet BM-115 could feel the escaped prisoner nearby, watching, waiting. It made the recruit feel like he was being hunted, or played with.

A faint, metellic clang from off to his right reached his audio receptors.

BM-115 whipped his pistol around and fired three shots from where the noise originated, but in the brief glimpse he was given by the light from his bullets, he saw there was nothing there, just a locked door.

A louder clang came from down the hallway, behind the impact zone of the Hydra shot.

The recruit fired another three rounds in that direction as fast as he could pull the trigger, and again he saw that nothing was there. The Xel'Tor was playing games with him. He hated games.

He would have had his optics adjust to the darkness and amplify the light a thousand times, but he was onboard a ship with no windows, and had no power, there was no light to amplify. Not even the slag from the Hydra Cannon shot provided light, since the material the slag had been made of was designed to cool rapidly. He was fighting blind.

BM-115 felt, rather than saw, movement off to his left, and he fired in that direction. But, like the previous two times he had fired, he saw that there was nothing where he heard the noise.

"Where are you…?" The recruit whispered under his breath, listening for sounds that signaled the Xel'Tor's movements, ignoring the voice of Officer Frontline using the universal communications channel to ask for status updates from Zetta and Tango squads. He would talk to Frontline later, right now he needed to focus.

He never noticed the furious, blood red optics slowly open directly behind him.

The loud snap of metal tearing sounded throughout the hallway, and BM-115's offline frame fell to the floor, with his severed helm unceremoniously dropped next to him.

The Xel'Tor relieved the mech he just offlined of his Hydra Cannon, as well as the heavy pistol he had been using. He then looked down the hallway, toward the bridge.

His heightened senses could feel every vibration in the floor he stood on. Every step a Cybertronian took, every weapon that fell to the floor, he could feel, and even distinguish between the two. And he felt Cybertronians moving in that direction, behind a locked door. Movement meant bots.

And bots meant targets for his fury.

With an animalistic growl, the Xel'Tor ran toward the bridge.

---

Captain Steelclaw continued watching his bridge crew work. Most systems were still unoperational, or online but not responsive. And despite numerous attempts to repair to replace critical components, no issues had been solved. The Hammer was still severely crippled by the Hard-Light that had passed through its electrical system.

Frontline's reports had no good news in them, either. The Xel'Tor was still tearing through Steelclaw's security forces, and had been steadily moving in the direction of the bridge since he escaped his cell. And now he was so close that Zetta and Tango squads were apparently engaging him just a few hundred meters down the hallway away from the locked door behind him, with Cyber squad moving to assist. If they did not get communications up and running soon, he might have to order an evacuation.

Steelclaw felt the floor shake beneath him, and faintly heard an explosion from behind of the locked, airtight door behind him. That did not seem good.

"What was that?" The captain asked Frontline.

"Zetta squad's leader reported taking a Hydra Cannon from an armory," the Intelligence officer answered. "Felt like they just used it."

"Contact Sergeant Second Class Chains, and confirm that they are the cause of that disturbance," Steelclaw ordered.

"Yes, Captain," Frontline acknowledged, and focused on his station, likely already tapping into communications.

Steelclaw went back to looking around the bridge, watching for any sign that he was needed somewhere.

Shifter was still at his station, working on restoring systems lost when the main power went out. It did not seem like he required help, but it also appeared that he had not made any progress since he first began trying to restore systems.

The navigator was also still working, trying to solve the glitch in the system that prevented the Hammer from being able to open a stable sub-space portal. He, too, seemed to have made no progress in his task, like Shifter. Steelclaw had some knowledge of sub-space, but not enough to be of any assistance to the mech, so kept searching the bridge.

"Sir," Frontline said, causing the captain to turn his attention to him. "I can't raise anyone in Zetta or Tango squad, they've gone dark."

Steelclaw's optics widened a fraction of an inch in alarm. If Zetta and Tango squads were down, then there was nothing between them and the Xel'Tor. "Unlock the bridge armory. We need to ge-"

The door to the bridge exploded in a blinding flash, and Captain Steelclaw simply ceased to exist.

The light from the Hydra Cannon shot faded, and the Xel'Tor jumped over the molten metal that had once been the door and landed in almost the exact position Steelclaw had been standing. He aimed a Binary pistol at Frontline and fired.

The Intelligence officer saw the shots coming, and rolled away from his station and took cover behind a console. But, despite his quick reaction, the Xel'Tor still managed to take down his shields and hit him with two more rounds, leaving him in pain, but functional.

An engineer who had been working on repairing a power converter deployed the only weapon he currently had access to, a servo-blaster. He fired multiple shots, but the shots fired by the older weapon were ineffective against the Xel'Tor, and he was offlined by a trio of rounds from the escaped prisoner's Binary pistol.

Several other members of the bridge crew deployed servo-blasters and took cover, trying to avoid the enraged mech's deadly aim. But even though they rushed behind cover, two crew members fell to precise Binary fire.

Frontline took advantage of the fact the Xel'Tor was occupied with the other members of the bridge crew, and rushed to the armory on the bridge to grab some more serious firepower, limping slightly due to being shot in one pede. He reached the armory within a micro-klick, due to it being close to his station, and he unlocked it as quickly as he could and reached for a deactivated X-801 on one of the racks. From the footage he had seen before the power went out, a Vaporizer had been the only weapon that knocked the Xel'Tor down in one shot, so it was logical to assume multiple shots would offline him. He just nee-

A Hydra Cannon shot hit Frontline directly, reducing him to stray ions in the air and turning the section of the bridge he had been standing into molten slag.

With his heavy weapon depleted of ammo, the Xel'Tor threw the empty Hydra Cannon at an engineer who had been trying to run between cover, the huge weapon hitting the mech with enough force to break his shields. The escaped prisoner finished him off with a single shot to the helm.

The Xel'Tor shifted his aim to the navigator, who had been too shell-shocked to take cover, and unloaded the last four rounds in the power crystal of his Binary pistol, shattering the mech's shields before hitting him twice in the chestplates and offlining him so quickly that his pedes remained locked.

Without even watching his latest victim off to the floor, the enraged mech dropped the Binary pistol and lept at Shifter, who happened to be the closest bot to him. The smaller mech was unable to offer much resistance, and was offlined within half a micro-klick.

Some members of the bridge crew deployed swords and axes, preparing themselves for close-quarters combat while continuing to open fire on the Xel'Tor. They knew they had little chance of defeating the enraged mech, but they also knew Cyber squad was on their way, and that they would be bringing heavy weapons. If they could last long enough for them to arrive, they had a very real chance of living through the cycle.

But luck, or fate, was not on the side of the crew.

As the Xel'Tor turned and began to engage the rest of the bridge crew in a one-sided close-quarters battle, the offlined frame of the navigator slowly tipped backwards, and fell on the control panel of the helm. His chassis pushed the lever on the physical panel that controlled the engines, and pressed the controls for activating the sub-space drive, sending the Hammer toward an unstable portal to the extra-dimensional space between realities.

And outside the Hammer, suspended beneath a nearby refueling station by no visible metal or force, was a Hard-Light Projector, a weapon that fired a solid beam of Hard-Light, and delivered enough power to break the shields of almost any type of ship in only a few micro-klicks, depending on its size.

The Projector's sensors, operated by an advanced VI, detected the energy of a sub-space rupture being opened, and, as with all unauthorized ruptures, sent a warning message to the prison ship, ordering it to power its sub-space drive down and report its status.

When the VI received no response, and the Hammer continued moving toward the rupture at a slow pace, the construct reviewed protocol, and came to the conclusion that the crew of the vessel were defecting, or the prisoners onboard had taken control.

Neither scenario was acceptable, according to protocol.

The VI powered up the Hard-Light Projector under its control, aimed it at the Hammer's midsection, and unleashed a solid wall of Hard-Light on the prisoner ship. It effortlessly cut through the ship's shields, destroyed eighty percent of its interrogation and holding cells, incinerated Cyber squad as they moved down the final hallway they needed to navigate to reach their destination, and reduced the Hammer to a pair of useless, two-hundred and fifty meter long pieces, one containing the engine room, and the other containing twenty percent of the prison cells along with the bridge.

The actions of the VI may have destroyed the Hammer, but a sub-space rupture did not require power once opened, and would not close until the vessel that opened the portal passed through it, or the sub-space drive created what was called an Antirupture, which caused the original rupture to close.

So, despite the fact the bow of the Hammer had little power, no engines, no control, and no sub-space drive, the momentum it had achieved when its engines were active remained constant, and it continued flying toward the rupture.

Less than half a klick after the VI effectively destroyed the Hammer, the bow of the vessel reached the portal.

And at the same moment as the last remaining crew member was offlined by the Xel'Tor, the Hammer passed into sub-space, and the rupture closed behind it, leaving no trace behind as it began its journey into the unknown.

---

My white-hot rage faded, and my vision returned to normal, after the last Paraion fell at my pedes. Unlike when the first time my Protocol activated, I was not confused by finding myself in new surroundings, in a completely different area.

I looked around the room that must have been the bridge, not needing to adjust my optics to the dim lights around the room due to the streaks of blue and black coming from the view port.

The door to the bridge was gone, and I could see sub-space passing by in the edge of the hallway, where whatever had shot the ship had hit.

The bridge was littered with the frames of offlined bots. Some of them had clearly been shot by the pistol I picked up when my Protocol was active, and many others were broken and twisted in grotesque manners.

But not like when my Protocol deactivated for the first time, I did not feel guilt or disgust at seeing what I had done. I didn't feel anything, in fact. No sadness, no anger, no repulsion, no satisfaction, nothing. I felt nothing. And I had no problem with that. I had intentionally and knowingly activated my Quriomus Protocol, this is what I expected to feel after it finally deactivated.

My pedes started to weaken abruptly, and I let myself slide down the side of a station next to me. So my energon levels were getting low, about time. I had silently been wondering why I had been able to stay standing after my Protocol had been active for so long. I had gone through my energon at a much faster rate the first time my Protocol turned on, but I also had used my jet form at the time, so that may have burned through my energon quicker than just staying in true form. Yes, that was the most logical conclusion.

I turned my helm and looked out the view port. The blue and black streaks of sub-space were swirling, spinning around and merging with one another in an otherworldly dance of color. The display was beautiful in its own way, almost like a straight, two-toned Aurora Borealis. To me, they resembled Arcee and I, at least in how they looked. But I didn't react to its sight like I normally would, I was too focused on what caused me to activate my Protocol in the first place.

My spark, my everything, was gone. And Optimus was offline.

I felt numb, hollow, just thinking about it. Arcee was offline, taken by a bullet fired by a Paraion while she was critically wounded and unable to defend herself. I had no doubt she would have kicked their aft had she been standing up. Probably trick the bot into shooting one of his or her comrades, disarmed them, and then cut their throat with one of her servo blades. That was how she liked to fight, with nearly blinding speed and quick, precise strikes. She could beat anyone except Optimus in a spar if she put all her effort into a fight. I think the only reason I occasionally won one of our sparring matches was because she just didn't put all her effort into them… Or, she had just let me win out of pity. We wouldn't be sparring again… Or talking, for that matter.

Tears began to form in my optics, and I blinked them away, though I could do nothing to stop my thoughts. I had done everything I could to keep my feelings a secret from her, practically blackmailed Bumblebee from telling her for me. Probably should have let him, looking back. Would have made it easier in the long run.

But I hadn't let him tell her, and by the time I finally decided to tell her, she was offlined, adding another name to the list of people I had been very close to, and had lost. My human mother, my brothers Jim and David, and now Arcee. It wasn't a long list, but when it was a matter of the heart or spark, that didn't matter. It was still enough to turn you numb, and not follow the advice you gave to someone you loved with your all. Losing that someone puts you into a position you can't imagine until you are in it, and are totally and completely alone.

Like I was now.

The tears started to form again, and this time I didn't blink them away, I let them form while continuing to gaze out the view port, remembering the femme who captured my spark as I watched the streaks of blue and black dance around each other. Her laugh, her smile, her humor, her kindness, I spent time thinking about everything about her, and how I would never see her again.

Tears began to drip down my faceplate, and for the first time since my human mother was killed, I cried. I didn't sob or wail or cry out, but I simply cried, and silently wept for my everything.

I cried until my energon levels reached a critical low, and, mercifully, darkness took me.

---

(Human calendar) July 1, 2013 6:22 P.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)

(Cybertronian date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)

Star system R136a1, Path Kethona galaxy (Known as the Large Magellanic Cloud to humans)

Above a planet so hot that its surface was beginning to boil, the Apex Sentinel floated in space, motionless.

Its design was not artistic, but neither was it utilitarian. It was between the two, with some designs meant to be pleasing to look at, and others meant to only do their jobs. And at one-hundred and ninety-three kilometers in length, the ancient Calvori vessel was large enough to be considered a planetoid, and also half again the size of a Prime-class fleetcarrier, the largest spacecraft fielded by either the Decepticons and Autobots. An impressive fact, considering it originally was created by an organic race.

A golden shield, strong enough to not only take massive amounts of fire even from Cybertronian weapons, but also withstand the incredible heat of the system's star, hugged its hull, keeping the ship safe from the heat that was turning the planet below into a comet. Its hull was lined with thousands upon thousands of Combustion Cannons, Omega Missile batteries, and Warden anti-fighter cannons, giving it enough firepower to take on a pair of Kaon-class dreadnoughts, and win.

A hanger covered with an atmospheric shield was at the bow of the ship, and it went all the way to the vessel's engines. Once, the hangar had been the Apex Sentinel's main cannon, a primitive coilgun that had only been able to fire twenty-one ton round at sixty kilometers per micro-klick, but it had been since been removed to better suit the needs of the neutrals that called the ship home.

Since its rebirth as a Cybertronian neutral vessel, it had attracted members of all factions from the war, and even some who had not been involved at all. Once there had only been a few hundred neutrals onboard, now there were tens of thousands of bots walked its halls, operated its systems, and repaired and refitted it constantly. Many small groups of Cybertronians had joined the Apex Sentinel as well, and their numbers swelled the population onboard. But the massive vessel was far from being crowded, and any bot who wished to join the crew and live in peace with those already living on it were welcomed to join.

On the ship's enormous bridge, surrounded by other bots working at or repairing terminals, stood the Apex Sentinel's captain, a golden femme called Delta.

She stood at thirty-one feet in height, tall for a femme, but not as tall as others. Her optics were yellow and appeared cool or even cold, but in reality the color of her optics made it a bit harder for the average bot to see the kindness in them, the steadfast determination to keep her crew safe from harm. Her personality revealed this more so than her optics. She was lax in formal titles much as 'Captain' or 'Ma'am,' she made the safety of her crew her chief priority, not whether a task was successful or not, and she did not tell the bots who followed her who they could or could not court.

That particular decision had led, in one way or another, to nearly half the population of the Apex Sentinel being sparklings, and nearly a quarter of the fully-grown bots courting or sparkbound. Delta herself had been asked out by a number of mechs that followed her orders and instructions, partly because she was considered to be physically attractive, and partly because she refused to send anyone into unnecessary harm. She had yet to accept the advances of a mech under her command, and didn't plan to, unless she felt like she had met the one meant for her. Being the leader sometimes called for some personal sacrifices, such as romance. Most who had never been in command had a hard time grasping that fact.

Delta looked out one of the large view ports of the bridge, down at a small, shielded location on the planet the Apex Sentinel was orbiting. More than two-hundred of her bots were down there, mining as much Gold as they could from a vein of the precious metal that was just under three kilotons in total reserves, while also extracting Xieron ore from a deposit that exceeded a megaton in size. Those were two resources they always were in need of.

Gold had multiple purposes for Delta and her bots. One was for electrical conductors for the powerful shielding of the vessel itself, as well as the shield generator that those on the planet's surface were using to keep the heat of the system's star away from their operations. Another use for the metal was trade. The Apex Sentinel wandered the stars, and had encountered many alien races, and some of those races had access to vast reserves of raw, processed energon. Only a few discovered the wide variety of uses energon had, but they were willing to trade rare metals for large quantities of the lifeblood of the Cybertronian race. And with more than eighty-thousand Cybertronians onboard, Delta needed to get as much energon as she could, whenever she could.

And Xieron was, while not strong compared to most Cybertronian metals, still stronger and resistant to heat than Iron or Titanium, the primary metals used in the initial construction of the Apex Sentinel by the Calvorians, and it helped them continue the constant process of upgrading or repairing the immense vessel.

But despite knowing how necessary it was to have workers on the surface, Delta still worried for their safety. The surface of the planet outside the shielding around her bots was more than sixty-five hundred degrees kelvin, and was being hit by huge amounts of solar radiation from the system's star, both of which would cause serious damage if a Cybertronian had prolonged exposure. And even though the shielding was keeping any heat, and most of the solar radiation from the star, from coming inside their work zone, the ground itself was still hot enough that the Gold they were mining was in liquid form. They were hard workers, she would have to make sure they had a few cycles off when they returned to the Apex Sentinel.

Delta looked at the view port on the opposite side of the bridge from where she stood, where the system's star could be seen behind heavily tinted view ports. It was an energetic blue hypergiant that was rapidly shedding its mass, and would go hypernova within the next thousand centi-vorns, she guessed. And despite the fact they were more than a billion kilometers from its surface, the Apex Sentinel still required its shields to be active at all times, or it would become like the planet it was orbiting. She was grateful for the fact the world below was not closer to the star. It would have been impossible to recover any resources from the planet if that had been the case.

The door to the bridge opened, and Delta turned to see her XO, Flightstorm, walk through the entrance with his son Wildwing right on his heels, animatedly talking to his sire and holding a picture he had started to draw that cycle. Full of life, that one.

"How is the mining operation coming along?" Delta asked.

"Slowly," Flightstorm answered, then quietly directed his son to go to another part of the bridge for a few klicks while he spoke with the captain. The grey and red mech walked over and stood at Delta's side while Wildwing happily moved to the opposite side of the bridge and began to work on his picture silently. "A few bots had to be taken back to the ship when their radiation levels went beyond the safeties we established before they went down to the surface."

"Any casualties?" The Apex Sentinel's captain asked, a trace of worry in her voice. Cybertronians were almost immune to radiation, but it could be fatal to them if the levels they were exposed to eclipsed the sizeable amount a bot could naturally expel from their systems.

Flightstorm shook his helm. "No, thankfully. Docs got to everyone quickly. No one's going to have any permanent damage." He turned to her slightly. "But you know it's just a matter of time before someone else on the surface needs to be evacuated, and someone else after them."

Delta sighed quietly. She was aware that the mining operation was now running on borrowed time, with workers beginning to fall victim to radiation. Gold and Xieron were valuable to the Apex Sentinel, but the life of a bot was far more important. "Yes, I know."

"Should we bring the rest back and leave the system, trade what we've already mined?" Flightstorm asked, letting her know what his opinion on what they should do while disguising the statement as a question.

The Apex Sentinel's captain considered the option for a moment, then shook her helm. "No. Send them some radiation flushers, that will let them work for another cycle or two." She hated her own order to keep the workers down on the surface for the time being, but she also had little choice in the matter. The ship was low on energon, and had been since they began taking more and more neutrals, Autobots, and Decepticons onboard. And organic races payed premium amounts of energon for Gold. As much as she hated to, she had to keep the crews working for as long as possible, and give them the chance to mine as much metal as they could.

Flightstorm nodded. "Right away, ma'am," he said stiffly, his background as a former Decepticon making it impossible to not acknowledge a superior formally, and opened a comm-link to a resupply team that he had been keeping on standby. He was not angered or frustrated at Delta's decision, and they both knew it. He was annoyed that they did not have the option of bringing the bots down on the surface back home as soon as they wanted.

The grey and red mech finished relaying the captain's orders, and closed the link. A short silence formed between the two commanding officers of the vessel, before Delta broke it. "How is Cyberfrost?"

"She is doing well, thank you for asking," the XO replied. "She and Dawnfire just started teaching their first class of sparklings."

"History or art?" The golden femme asked. For the last eight jours, Cyberfrost had been going through the process of becoming one of the teachers on the Apex Sentinel. With the sparkling population onboard being as large as it was, there was a mentor needed somewhere, and Cyberfrost had wanted to help in whatever way she could, mostly by wanting to teach sparklings the importance of learning history or how to express themselves through art.

Flightstorm chuckled. "Both. She couldn't choose between one or the other, so she and Dawnfire decided to teach both in their class."

"I bet Wildwing loves that," Delta said with a smile, glancing over her shoulder-joint to look at the mechling, who was still working on his picture excitedly.

"He does," Flightstorm said, also looking over his shoulder-joint at his son. "He loves being near his carrier all cycle, also enjoys playing with the other sparklings there." He gave Delta a brief look. "And my 'Frost loves being able to keep an optic on him at all times."

"She still worries about him after what happened last orbital-cycle?" The Apex Sentinel's captain asked.

Flightstorm gave a small nod, still focusing most of his attention on his son. "He managed to trap himself in an escape pod and travel nearly fifty-thousand light-years until he landed on the planet Earth. Of course she worries for him," he said. "And I worry for him as well. He's driven by the desire to explore and examine things he hasn't seen before. It was that desire that got him inside the pod in the first place. Primus was watching over him when he landed in the midst of Autobots willing to be his temporary care-takers. But if he gets himself into a situation like that again, he might not land among Autobots."

Delta understood, or at least she believed she did, the concern Flightstorm and Cyberfrost felt for their son. He was adventurous even for a sparkling, and had an unusual habit of climbing everything he could. It was natural for his creators to fear for his safety, especially after being separated from him for nearly two mega-cycles once.

"We made it more difficult to inadvertently activate the ship's escape pods. He won't be leaving again unless you go with him," the golden femme reassured as they both continued watching the seekerlet work on his picture, which was beginning to look like both of the bots who had taken care of him on Earth, standing on a hill, walking side by side. "Does he still talk about them often?"

"He does," the XO answered. "They were good to him, managed to keep him from being too affected by our separation. He looked up to both of them, loved them like family." He chuckled again. "He still hopes we can go back and visit them."

"And you have to keep telling him, 'Maybe,'" Delta concluded, and gave Flightstorm a sympathetic look when he nodded. "Sometimes we must lie to those we love, in order to protect them from the truth."

Flightstorm sighed quietly. "I am aware, but that does not mean I need to like lying to my son."

"Never said you had to. You just have to make your son happy," the golden femme said, smiling faintly.

The conversation between the Apex Sentinel's commanding officers came to an end when the door to the bridge opened, and a Velocitronian femme stepped into the room.

The Velocitronians were one of the many groups of Cybertronians who had been encountered by the Apex Sentinel, and had joined its ranks two vorns ago, shortly after the massive ship arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy in search of resources. They were Cybertronians who had been living on the planet Velocition since the cycles of the Golden Age, and had brief dealings with the Autobots aboard the Ark after the population of Cybertron mostly dispersed. Their society had been built around speed, and no one on wheels could go faster than they could. Their builds tended to be tall and slim, or more streamlined than average Cybertronians, to support their love of speed and racing, habits they had since put on hold until Cybertron could be restored, and its great surface repaired and ready for racing courses to be built. They were the least numerous faction onboard, numbering only two-hundred and fifty. This was due to the fact Velocitron was a small, barren desert world. Those onboard were, in fact, seventy percent of the former population of Velocitron.

But despite their small numbers, they were still valuable to the ship, and knew how to mine every last ounce of metal out of rock. Many of those on the surface of the world below were members of the small faction.

The femme who stepped onto the bridge was Override, their leader.

She was red in color, and had yellow accents that turned into racing stripes when she was in her alt mode. Her optics were orange, and carried a hardened, cool look, with kindness just below the surface. The look of a seasoned leader who had been through tough trials. At thirty-nine feet in height, she towered over most femmes. This was mostly due to how Velocitronians were built less heavily than normal Cybertronians, and were less suited for direct combat. This would normally make her a liability in battle, but her speed, skill, and strength made up for her lack of durable armor. She was also considered to be 'Hot,' by the less mentally mature single mechs onboard, to the others, she was 'Downgraded' to stunning.

Whether or not she was aware of that fact, however, was a matter that some crew members discussed. The group that believed she wasn't aware argued that since energon and raw materials had been so scarce on Velocitron, relationships on that world had been exceptionally rare and almost frowned upon, and as a result had no idea she was attractive. And the group who believed she knew suggested that maybe she just wasn't interested in a relationship.

Delta hated having to listen to her bridge crew gossip about things that didn't involve them, or even mattered. Besides, Override was a leader like her, she likely viewed romance in the same manner that she did. Something that had to be sacrificed in order to keep the bots under their commands safe.

Override searched the room for a moment, then spotted Delta and Flightstorm and walked over to them. "Captain Delta, Commander Flightstorm," she greeted formally.

"Override," the two commanding officers greeted back in similar manners. It was clear the Velocitronians' leader was on the bridge on official matters, not social like she sometimes was.

"I just heard that a group of bots have been admitted to an infirmary, and three of them are my Velocitronians," Override said. "What happened down on the surface?"

"Their radiation levels went beyond the safe zone. They were taken back to the ship before they could suffer any harm, and are now being treated by the docs," Flightstorm answered.

The leader of the Velocitronians took a moment to process what the XO said, then asked, "When are the rest of the workers being evacuated?"

Delta shared a brief look with her SIC before refocusing on Override. "They aren't. Not for another cycle. The Apex Sentinel is short on resources, and right now this operation is our best option for getting us through the next jour."

Override did not react to being told her bots were not being taken out of danger, being the leader that she was. "The Apex Sentinel is always short on resources," she said, not with a tone of anger, frustration, or exasperation, just a factual statement. "But resources are still easy to come by on this vessel when compared to the situation on Velocitron."

"That may be," Delta conceded. "But the population onboard is also more than two-hundred times larger than Velocitron's was, even during its golden cycles. We go through a much larger amount of resources in a far shorter period of time."

The red femme was silent for a moment before she replied, "I see your reasons and understand them, but the safety of my Velocitronians are my chief concern. I formally request that they are evacuated before their radiation levels get any higher. The metal they have already recovered can be traded for enough energon to run the ship for at least a jour."

"Your request is denied," Delta said. "Traveling uses up a lot of energon, and we do not know if the next system we visit will have any exploitable resources. And as the one responsible for all onboard, I must make sure we have as much raw materials as we can get before moving to another system. I am sorry, I really am, but I must ask your bots to work for one more cycle before we evacuate them."

"When you asked to come aboard this ship, you and your Velocitronians agreed to become part of its crew and follow its commanding officers. This is an instance where you must trust us to bring your bots home safely," Flightstorm added.

Override looked between the two commanding officers of the Apex Sentinel, standing noticeably taller than both and looking down at them, but she nodded. "Of course, officers. I thank you for hearing my request."

Delta gave the other femme a mild look. "I have told you many times to not address us so formally, I only tolerated it earlier because you had a serious matter you wished to discuss."

"I am aware, I just can't help it," Override said, changing her tone to a slightly less serious one. "Optimus Prime awoke the leader inside of me when his Ark arrived on Velocitron, I cannot help but think back to that time and look at how he carried himself, and try to do what he did."

"He is an excellent leader, you can't find a better bot to learn from," Flightstorm said, silently recalling the brief time he had the privilege of meeting the Prime when he went to Earth. "But relaxing when not in on the battlefield does every bot good, whether they are Cybertronian or Velocitronian."

"Point taken," the red femme said, though it was unclear whether she planned on following the XO's subtle advice to let herself act normally. She changed the subject, "How is Cyberfrost handling her first class of students?"

While Override and the two commanding officers of the ship began to speak of another topic, Wildwing, who had been working on adding the blue and pink to the Arcee in his picture, suddenly froze in place, and he tilted his helm like whenever he encountered something that he had not seen before.

There was a funny feeling in his spark, one he hadn't felt before. It felt almost like sire's bond with him, but far, far stronger, more powerful, yet also somehow further away and untouchable. For a reason he did not know, it felt familiar to him, like a long-lost comfort or guardian. Wildwing found that strange.

The funny feeling changed, and felt almost like how sire felt when he was showing Wildwing how to do something, only in that funny, stronger-yet-further-away feeling. It felt like the feeling wanted him to look down.

Wildwing followed what the feeling told him and looked down, at the picture he was drawing. He had the outline of Arcee, but he hadn't colored her in very much, only one of her shoulder-joints and servos, as well as some of her chestplates.

The funny feeling became less noticeable when he looked at his unfinished picture of her, and Wildwing felt as if a gentle servo turned his helm to look at the part of the picture that Shadowstreaker took up. The feeling got stronger, and Wildwing felt a sense of urgency come from it, but he did not understand what the feeling was telling him. Was it saying? Was he supposed to go somewhere? Look for something important? Get back to carrier in time for rechargetime stories?

The feeling of a gentle servo turning his helm happened again, and Wildwing found himself looking at a view port close to the front of the bridge. Urgency filled him again, this time much firmer and clear in its meaning. There was something outside he needed to see. Something that had something to the nice mech who helped take care of him on Earth. And he needed to find it quickly.

Wildwing followed what the feeling told him and got up from where he was lying on his tank and drawing, and rushed to the view port as quickly as his little pedes could carry him.

From the other side of the room, Flightstorm noticed his son suddenly leap off the floor and run to the front of the bridge, leaving his picture behind without a second thought. "Wildwing?" He asked, stepping around Override so he could begin to follow the little mechling. "What's wrong?"

His son didn't answer, and continued running to the front of the bridge without changing course, even going so far as to go through the pedes of a bridge crew member and causing them to nearly trip to keep from stepping on him.

"Wildwing!" The grey and red mech said in a disapproving tone, both shocked and surprised his son would be as reckless as he had just been, as well as confused by his unusual behavior, but that was pushed aside while he focused on reaching Wildwing. "Stop right there, young mech!"

Wildwing didn't stop, and he reached the far end of the bridge and climbed up onto the sill of a view port, looking in every direction almost frantically, as if searching for something.

By the time Flightstorm, now accompanied by Delta and Override, reached Wildwing, nearly the entire bridge was watching the scene.

Flightstorm picked his son up and looked at him sternly, while at the same time sending him emotions that let the little seekerlet know he was more concerned than angry. "Young mech, what has gotten into you?"

Wildwing turned his helm so he could continue looking out the view port, searched for a brief micro-klick, then pointed one of his little digits out into the void. "That."

Delta, Flightstorm, and Override looked at where the mechling was pointing, then blinked in surprise.

There, floating in the vacuum of space above and away from the Apex Sentinel, was a ship.

It was one, perhaps two, thousand kilometers from where the Apex Sentinel was parked in orbit. It was two-hundred and fifty meters in length, twice as tall, and thrice as wide, from what Flightstorm saw. And it appeared that what was in front of them was only a section of a spacecraft, since the back end of it was cleanly cut off, as if carved by a photon laser.

Delta looked at a sensor operator. "How come our scanners didn't pick that up?"

"Don't know, I just calibrated them a few breems ago," the operator replied. "It might be the solar radiation from the star is interfering with our instruments."

"Then calibrate them again. I want to know where that thing came from," the golden femme ordered, then looked at Wildwing as the operator began to follow her instructions. "How did you know that was there?"

"I didn't. But the funny feeling did," the sparkling answered innocently.

Flightstorm gave his son a confused look. "What funny feeling?"

"The one that wanted me to look out the window," Wildwing answered, as if that should have been obvious.

Before Flightstorm could wonder what the seekerlet meant, the operator Delta ordered to recalibrate the sensors reported, "Delta, there are Cybertronian life signals onboard that ship!"

The captain gave the operator her full attention. "How many?"

"Not sure exactly, the star's still causing some interference," the operator responded. "Best guess would be between two and five-hundred."

"Do we know how long that ship has been here?" Delta asked, tone making it clear this was her chief concern for the moment. The solar radiation coming from the star could prove lethal to a Cybertronian after just half a breem of exposure. If that ship had been floating aimlessly for nearly that amount of time, the bots onboard were as good as offline unless their ship had shielding, which Delta highly doubted it did in its present condition.

"Less than five klicks," another operator answered instead of the one Delta questioned. "Now that we recalibrated, my instruments are giving proper readings, and it appears they detected an unusual burst of energy a few klicks back, but didn't spike until now."

Then there was still time to get those bots off their vessel. "Flightstorm," the captain said. "Get a boarding force together and get everyone you find off that ship."

"At once," the XO acknowledged, then handed his son to Override. "Watch him while I'm gone, will you?" He smiled at the dumbfounded look the red femme gave him, then turned and ran through the door and out into the hallway beyond.

Delta watched her XO leave the bridge before she focused on Override and the mechling. She chuckled at how the veteran leader was looking at the sparkling in her servos like he was a member of a rust-based species. "He is just a sparkling, Override, there is no need to be nervous."

"Sparklings were more rare than any resources on Velocitron, and I have, up until now, avoided real interaction with the sparklings onboard due to the simple truth that I have no idea what to do with them," the Veloctronian leader said, and looked at Delta. "What do I do?"

"You help me draw!" Wildwing answered for the captain, and opened a sub-space pocket and presented the red femme with a writing tool, essentially a pencil that didn't break.

Delta held back another chuckle as Override tentatively took the offered writing tool and walked to another part of the bridge with Wildwing, still looking completely lost as to what she should do.

She looked out the view port, at the section of ship slowly floating by, and at the shuttles that were already leaving the Apex Sentinel and moving toward the unknown chunk of vessel.

This was proving to be an interesting cycle.

---

Flightstorm was riding in a troop transport on its way to the unknown section of ship, along with fourteen other shuttles surrounding the one he was in.

There were other bots in the shuttle with him. Wraith Squad, a former mercenary unit that had been active in the first cycles of the war for Cybertron. They had done jobs for the highest bidder during the war, seeing the entire conflict as nothing more than a way to get quick credits. But when the economy of Cybertron collapsed, and the actions of the Decepticons came to light, they realized their foolishness and went neutral, but still took the occasional job from the Autobots in exchange for raw materials and energon.

The Squad's crimson-opticed tank, Gravelneck, sat next to Flightstorm, taking up two seats in the shuttle. He was a massive mech, well over twice the height of the XO, and had shoulder-joints as broad as Flightstorm was tall. His paint was dark green, and grey camouflage crisscrossed his frame, which gave him an aura of intimidation. He carried a Plasma Mortar, a weapon usually mounted on tanks, and he wielded it easily. But despite his appearance and immense size, he was a kindly mech, never yelling or losing his temper unnecessarily. Calling him a gentle giant off the battlefield was an accurate description of his personality.

Gravelneck's sparkmate, a femme seeker called Angel, was seated next to her mate. She was primarily dark pink in color, although the edges of her wings and shoulder-joints had purple accents. Her optics were blue, and carried the look of her unusually bubbly and outgoing personality. Her preferred method to solving situations was diplomacy, but the long combat knives attached to her upper pedes proved that she was not afraid of the use of violence if it was required.

Scorch, Angel's twin sister, was sitting on the floor of the shuttle, looking like she didn't really want to be on the tiny spacecraft. Being a twin, she had the same optics and frame as Angel, but she reversed her colors, partly to symbolize how different the two sisters were. While Angel was bubbly and friendly, Scorch was blunt, crude, and often rude to anyone she had not met before. She was also a pyromaniac, and carried a modified flamethrower she had taken from a Decepticon Pyro she had offlined.

Wraith's sharpshooter and hacker was a mech called Clockwork, a bot as dark as the night and as silent as the void. Flightstorm had only heard him speak twice, the first being when he spotted an asteroid heading for an unshielded organic home world, and the other when his favorite sniper rifle was destroyed. Currently, the XO had no idea where the mech was, but suspected he was sitting in the darkest corner of the shuttle.

The first of the two leading figures of the small squad was another femme seeker called Secura, who happened to be the elder sister of Angel and Scorch. Her optics were dull violet, and her only colors were different shades of grey, since her logic-driven processor found that decorating her frame was unnecessary. She did everything she could to watch out for her younger siblings, and the twin Photon SMGs she carried proved that.

The final member of Wraith Squad was Voltage, a Praxian who stood at thirty-two feet tall. He was mostly white in color, with dark blue accents on his shoulder-joints, servos, helm, and knee-joints. His light green optics carried less emotion than most, as well as regret and sadness just below the surface. He said little, just enough to issue orders, offer his input to conversations, and answer questions directed at him. He preferred to let his Disruptor Pistols and Rifle do most of the talking.

Flightstorm and Wraith Squad said nothing during their trip to the unknown ship. There was nothing that needed to be said, and Wraith Squad tended to be more guarded when in enclosed spaces with bots outside of their group, even when those bots were the XO of the vessel they currently called home.

Only a few short klicks after the shuttles left the Apex Sentinel, they arrived at the section of the ship and hovered within a few feet of the vessel, doors lined up with the various hallways of the cleanly-cut spacecraft.

"We're here, sir," the pilot of the shuttle carrying Flightstorm and Wraith Squad said, directing his statement to the XO. "We've got about fifteen klicks until the bots onboard start offlining from radiation, so I recommend getting back to the shuttles when that starts to happen, or you get everyone back here."

"Noted, pilot," Flightstorm said, standing up and deploying his Plasma Assault Rifle. He looked at Voltage. "Let's get to the bridge."

Voltage nodded at the implied order. "Move out, Wraiths," he said, and the Squad got to the pedes, and Clockwork materialized out of the shadows.

Flightstorm and Wraith Squad moved out at that, opening the shuttle door and stepping into the unknown ship. They had magnetized their pedes in preparation for what they thought would be a zero-g environment, but were surprised when they felt artificial gravity pull them down to the floor. The ship still had power, despite being cut into pieces.

The shuttle moved away, but would return when Flightstorm called for it, and they began moving toward the bridge was located, according to the scans they took of the ship while they were flying to it.

It took less than ten micro-klicks for them to encounter a bot.

A dull silver mech came from behind a bulkhead where he had taken cover, and opened fire on Flightstorm and Wraith Squad with a heavy rifle that had portions of it suspended around the main body of the weapon, its loud shots lost to the vacuum of space due to the lack of atmosphere.

Flightstorm saw the mech just in time, and fell to the floor to avoid the orange energy rounds the unidentified Cybertronian fired, then moved to a nearby bulkhead and used it as cover. And just in time, too, since the grey and red mech saw that the bullets fired by the unknown mech's weapon began to eat away at his cover.

Wraith Squad reacted in the same way he had, but they also all, apart from Gravelneck, returned fire, literally in Scorch's case, on the mech as they moved to the side like the XO had. But all their return fire was absorbed by an orange shield that flashed around the unknown mech, leaving him unharmed.

Flightstorm leaned around his cover and fired a short burst at their opponent, but it was absorbed by the mech's shield like the weapons fire of Wraith Squad had been. It was clear that lightweight weapons weren't going to take down his shielding.

Voltage, apparently, reached the same conclusion as he had, and turned to Gravelneck. "Light him up!" He ordered through a unit comm.

The massive mech chuckled through the link, and stepped out of cover and powered up his Plasma Mortar. He fired three times after his heavy weapon powered up, and all three plasma projectiles impacted the unknown mech directly. But, amazingly, his shields held out against the weapon used primarily on tanks until Gravelneck fired another three shots and finally shattered the protective barrier and knocked the mech backward.

Before their unknown opponent could bring his lethal rifle to bear, Clockwork popped out from his cover and, without taking even a nano-klick to aim, fired his Phaeston Anti-Material sniper rifle, and reduced the mech's helm to scrap, and his offlined frame fell to the floor.

After the unknown mech was offlined, Flightstorm accessed the universal communications channel connected to every other neutral that had boarded the ship. "All neutrals, be advised, hostile Cybertronians are onboard this ship, and are equipped with shielding and powerful weaponry."

'Got it, Flightstorm,' or a similar statement was most of the responses the XO received, except for one.

"Tell us something we don't know," Duststorm, a femme who used to be a Decepticon energon seeker, and whose trine joined the Apex Sentinel only a dozen orbital-cycles ago, said. "We just encountered a pair of them not far from our drop off."

"Any casualties?" Flightstorm asked, glancing at the offlined mech. He had been a surprisingly tough opponent. If he had chosen a better place to hide and used the element of surprise, he may have offlined one or two members of his squad. And two of them would be even deadlier.

"Three. My trine and I are the only ones left out of our squad," Duststorm reported, attempting to sound calm and emotionless like she had been taught in the few combat courses she had taken on the Apex Sentinel.

Flightstorm silently cursed. "Roger that. Have you encountered any friendly bots?" He asked, hoping the question would distract the femme from the bots that offlined around her.

"'Friendly' isn't a word I would use to describe them. We found a couple enslaving overlords in a cell," she said, using her own name for the few Autobots she had met on the Apex Sentinel. She may have been a neutral, but she was still almost hostile to the Autobots, and viewed them as evil, power-hungry bots, while believed that the Decepticons were noble and just in their actions. Flightstorm blamed her views on the fact that the only channels she and her trine could access when out seeking energon off of Cybertron were Decepticon propaganda stations.

The XO chose to not point out that the bots Duststorm viewed as noble attacked the Collected last orbital-cycle for little reason. "Did you say they were in a cell?"

"They are," the energon seeker confirmed. "I ordered us to move forward, though. No point freeing trash. We were looking for other cells that might have Decepticons in them, but the other two Cybertronians attacked us before we could really search."

Flightstorm narrowed his optics even though the femme was on another part of the ship. "Go back and release the Autobots you found. This is a rescue op, and you don't get to decide who we rescue based on what side they chose. After they're free, meet up with another unit and continue searching for other cells."

Duststorm was silent for a moment, a sign the grey and red mech took as her holding back a protest. "Understood," she said, then left the universal channel.

The XO left the channel as well, while also adding a mental note to speak with Delta about Duststorm's behavior when they returned to the ship. He motioned to Wraith Squad to move up, and they did.

"Autobots in containment cells, sounds like this was a prison ship," Secura observed through the squad link.

"Yeah, no slag, captain states-the-glaringly-apparent," Scorch said. "Already figured that out."

"I was merely thinking aloud, little sister," the elder femme replied calmly. "This vessel does not match any design I have seen before, and the mech from before was clearly not a member of the Autobot or Decepticon factions. I am wondering where this ship and its occupants came from."

"Save the thinking for later," Voltage interjected, looking further up the hallway and seeing signs of battle, alone with an offlined mech surrounded by ashes and abandoned weapons, all of similar make as the one wielded by the bot they encountered earlier. "We got a chassis up ahead."

The seven bots reached the offlined mech, and Angel crouched next to the frame. "He had his helm ripped off," she said with a slightly disgusted look on her faceplate, having never gotten used to, or liked, seeing offlined Cybertronians. "Least it was a quick offlining."

"Same with everyone else around him," Gravelneck said, then gestured to the ashes and weapons around the Squad and Flightstorm. "This is probably all that's left of his unit."

"So there was a battle onboard before this ship came here, and the bot we fought was a straggler," Flightstorm said. His optics tracked the scorch marks along the walls, following where they led, and saw that a door leading to a dimly-lit room, their destination, was where it seemed the battle had continued. "Looks like we can answer two questions at once. Move up."

They did so, and quickly reached the door of what must have been the bridge, which, they noted, had been melted by an unknown weapon. They stepped inside the room and observed the carnage.

The offlined chassis' of bots that looked somewhat like the one in the hallway littered the floor, some shot, and some broken in close-quarters combat. The view port of the bridge let in little light, partly because the bow of the ship was facing away from the system's star, and partly because the view port had still adjusted itself to the light, despite the fact it didn't need to. The ship's sensors likely were being effected by the solar radiation of the system, like the Apex Sentinel's.

"Clockwork," Voltage said, keeping the observations of the mechs and femmes short. "See if you can access one of these computers, get what you can off their database. But don't take too long, I don't want to be exposed to this star longer than we have to."

The silent mech nodded and immediately went over to a terminal to follow his leader's orders, while the others began to search the room for anything else that might tell them where the ship came from, with Flightstorm and Secura walking toward the offlined bots, while Gravelneck followed the twin femme seekers to a part of the floor that had been melted to slag.

Flightstorm crouched down next to one of the offlined bridge crew. "This one wasn't a soldier, he only had a servo-blaster. Probably a tech that didn't want to give up."

"He did not last long, then, if the same group that offlined the unit outside stormed the bridge," Secura said. "The bridge crew are typically not soldiers. They did not stand a chance against their attackers."

"No, they didn't," Flightstorm agreed, looking at several other members of the offlined crew before turning back to the one he was still crouched next to. He pointed a digit at the first chassis. "Shot." He pointed at another. "Shot." And another. "Helm crushed." And one last one. "Neck snapped."

"Multiple methods of battle," Secura noted. "More than one team of attackers?"

"Most certainly," Flightstorm said. "But unless we find the bots who attacked this ship, we can't know for su-"

"I found one that doesn't look like the others," Scorch said, having broke away from Gravelneck and Angel and moved further toward the front of the bridge.

The XO stopped crouching as Secura and the other members of Wraith Squad besides Clockwork walked toward Scorch. He followed after the oldest femme in the group, and rounded the corner of a terminal, and looked at the chassis of the bot that Scorch had found, apparently leaning against the station.

Flightstorm nearly jumped in shock when he recognized the jet black mech, and Voltage noticed this.

"What is it, sir?" The white and blue Praxian asked, almost curiously.

The grey and red mech took a moment to respond, still stunned by seeing the mech. "That's Shadowstreaker."

"The mech who helped take care of your bitlit last orbital-cycle?" Scorch asked.

"Yes," Flightstom replied, still looking down at the unmoving mech. How had he gotten out here? He had been on Earth, and it took mega-cycles to get there from here. Had the Autobots on that world attacked this ship when it arrived in their sector of space? No, that did not make sense. The Autobot forces on Earth did not have the firepower to cut a ship into pieces. The only answer that made sense in the XO's CPU was that Shadowstreaker had been captured by the bots on this ship, and had been part of a riot that led to the vessel's destruction.

But, this conclusion raised two new questions. How had Shadowstreaker been captured, and where was Arcee? It had been clear to he and his mate that those two were close, nearly inseparable, in love without realizing it. If Shadowstreaker was captured, the chances were Arcee had been as well.

Flightstorm opened his link to the universal communications channel. "Neutrals, be on the lookout for a blue and pink Autobot femme. Average height, slim build, small stabilizer wings on her backplates, her name's Arcee."

"The 'Arcee'?" A squad leader by the name of Pathline asked, an Autobot seeker whose unit had joined the Apex Sentinel when they were separated from their main force. "She's a legend among the 'Bots."

"Legend for being a tyrant or offlining noble bots?" Duststorm asked through the channel, tone dripping with sarcasm and anger.

"Lock it down," Flightstorm ordered, adding another mental note about Duststorm. "We are on the same side here. Now, return to searching for prisoners to release, and inform me if you find Arcee." He closed the link into the channel, and looked at the unmoving Shadowstreaker. His son would be devastated when he found out one, possibly both, of the bots who took care of him on Earth were gone. He had adored them, and still did. The only good thing he could see in this situation was that they could either send Shadowstreaker's frame back to Earth for a proper memorial, or repair him and send him off from the Apex Senti-

Flightstorm forced his thoughts to come to a halt as he continued looking at Shadowstreaker, and noticed that there was no visible damage to his frame. His armor was in need of a long visit to the washracks, but overall it was pristine.

The XO felt a nagging feeling in the back of his processor, and he looked at the frames of the bridge crew. They were shot with unnerving precision, had their armor dented or caved in from servos wielding immense physical strength, and the one in the hallway had been offlined with brutal indifference.

He looked back at the inert form of Shadowstreaker. The mech was a good shot, from what he had been able to tell, and certainly possessed the strength to offline bots with his bare servos. He did not, however, have a personality that supported unnecessarily brutal acts of violence. But there was something that could change a mech, make him do things he normally would not. And Shadowstreaker did appear to be completely unharmed, despite the number of offlined crew members nearby.

This situation was becoming familiar.

"Scorch, did you check for a spark reading?" Flightstorm asked the blunt twin.

"No, didn't think I needed to," Scorch answered. "If he was online, he would be moving, even if he was close to offlining."

"Please check," Flightstorm said.

Scorch looked at the XO for a moment, then activated a scanner and waved it over Shadowstreaker's frame. She raised her optic ridges marginally. "Huh. He's a lucky aft. Still got a spark pulse," she said. "Never would have thought he'd still be online, since he's not responsive."

"That's probably the reason he's online in the first place," Angel said, thinking of the mech they offlined earlier. "Why is he down in the first place?"

"Lack of energon," Flightstorm said, answering Angel's question before Scorch could even open her mouth to reply.

The blunt twin nodded. "Yes… His energon's almost gone," she confirmed slowly. "But how the frag did you know that?"

"Long story, I'll tell you later, if I am correct on something," Flightstorm said as Clockwork virtually appeared next to Voltage. "Did you get any recoverable data?"

The sharpshooter nodded.

"Was there any security camera footage in what you recovered?" The XO asked.

Clockwork nodded again.

"I will want to review that when we get back." The grey and red mech looked at Gravelneck. "We're leaving, carry Shadowstreaker out, please."

"Of course," the huge mech said, and placed his Plasma Mortar on his backplates and picked up the unmoving black Triple-Changer, then started to walk toward the door, followed closely by his mate and her sister, with the other Squad members following further behind.

Flightstorm moved out of the way of Gravelneck, then accessed the universal channel again. "Our time's up, neutrals. Release what prisoners you can get to, then make your way back to the shuttles, we're going back to the ship," he said, then closed his link without waiting for replies.

The XO turned and walked in the direction of the door, moving to catch up with Wraith Squad and the unresponsive Shadowstreaker. The mech was nearly out of energon, but if what Flightstorm suspected happened to the Triple-Changer was more than a suspicion, then he would be fine after he was given energon. And after that, he would be ready to answer the questions Flightstorm had for him.

Like how the pit he ended up on a ship nearly two-hundred thousand light-years from Earth.

---

I became aware that I was online again, and lying down on a hard surface. I could sense a lot of movement around me, and hear voices speaking in the language of Cybertron, but I could not hear the exact words spoken. And for the most part, I did not care. The excruciating emptiness I felt in my spark drowned out what I heard and felt. Arcee was gone.

I opened my optics, and was met by the sight of a metal ceiling far above me, almost as high as the Safe's. It must have been built to allow larger Cybertronians access to the room.

Blinking once at the sight of the ceiling, I sat, noting how I was lying on a berth, and examined the room I was in.

It was an infirmary. Massive in size. White. Sterile. Large, open space near the back for Cybertronians of the Destroyer class, along with a door that was built for bots of their size. Perfect for treating patients of all types. I was in the center of the room, and there were berths all around mine, each one occupied by either an Autobot or Decepticon. They looked to be in perfect health, but seemed weak. Possibly low on energon.

Medics and doctors were moving to different areas of the room, checking on bots on the berths or the larger Cybertronians in the back. None of them were the same color like the Paraions tended to be. That was good. And they were nearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients in their infirmary, judging by how they never seemed to stay with a patient long enough to utter more than a few words before moving on.

I slid my pedes off the berth, stood up, and made my way toward the door. It was clear my presence would not be missed by the staff, and I needed to find out where I was. I had been onboard the Hammer when everything went black. This was certainly not the Hammer. The ship must have left sub-space and been found while I was inactive.

Patients looked up at me curiously as I passed by, but I did not look back at them and continued on. It took nearly half a klick to reach the door from my berth, not long, considering how large the room was.

But before I reached the enormous entrance, one femme and two mech seekers blocked my path.

They were all similar in height at around thirty feet. Each of them were black and purple in color, with noticeable changes in how they used the two dark colors, and their optics were similar shades of red. Their armaments were minimal and underpowered for bots of their size. They were energon seekers, designed more for recon than combat.

"XO says to keep you here, Autobot," the femme said, as if the name tasted sour. Her tone suggested deep resentment and open hostility toward the Autobots, resentment and hostility born from being fed biased information. And her trinemates seemed to have the same beliefs as her, considering their wings twitched twice at the femme's words, a sign of challenge among seekers. They likely only had access to Decepticon propaganda during the war.

I regarded the femme evenly. "I do not know you or your XO, therefore their orders to not carry weight for me." My voice was dull, flat, empty. It sounded how I felt now that my spark was gone.

"He saved your life. You should be grateful, bot," the femme said with a slight hiss in her tone she was attempting to keep hidden.

"I have been held captive for an unknown length of time," I said. "Being contained to a single room, by order of a mech whose loyalty I do not know, is not acceptable at this time."

The femme gave a faint scoff. "Hmph, typical Autobot. Always trying to get your way, expecting everyone to bow down and worship the ground you walk, never listening to the bots whose backplates they used to build their cushy lifestyles, and labeling anyone who stands up to their oppression as a 'Terrorist.'"

I did not react to her statement. Her hostility toward the Autobots was clouding her judgement, her reasoning. It would only be logical to not take her words personally. "Your hatred of the Autobots originates from prolonged periods of time where you only had access to Decepticon channels, and only heard the stories they gave to you. It has led you to believe the Decepticon cause is just and good, and that its commander is noble. Both of these conclusions are false."

The wings of all three trine members twitched, and one of the mechs bared his dentas in a half snarl, though they seemed to be covering up surprise that I knew part of their background. "It doesn't matter where we were during the war. We still knew what nobility was when we saw it."

"The atrocities committed by Megatron and the Decepticons during the war disprove your claim," I said.

The femme narrowed her optics at me like I had personally insulted her. "Atrocities? It was total war! There's always collateral damage in war, whether you're leading a revolution, or trying to keep your slaves."

Hmm. Decepticon propaganda must, evidently, be focused on convincing those listening to its channels that the Autobots are to blame for every war crime they committed. This femme genuinely believes the Autobots were trying to enslave the entire Cybertronian race, and is completely unaware of how wrong she was. It was almost tragic. "Collateral damage is caused by unforeseen circumstances coming into play, which complicate a battle and require immediate solutions. These solutions are not always perfect, and innocents are sometimes caught in the crossfire. This is, indeed, a fact of war. But the crimes of which I speak were not accidental. They were planned operations carried out by the very Decepticons you believe noble."

"The pit are you rambling about?" The second mech asked, tone suggesting disbelief.

My gaze shifted to him, not blinking as I stared into his suddenly nervous-looking optics. "Vorn zero, orbital-cycle fifty-two of the war: Decepticon forces from the 17th Infantry and 7th Armored Division assault the femme-dominated neutral city-state of Uraya. Nine-hundred and eighty-eight thousand femmes, and more than two-hundred thousand sparklings, are offlined over the course of two solar-cycles before Autobots led by Optimus Prime come to its defense and halt the invasion," I said, recalling the information I read in a data pad once. "Megatron's officially issued reasons for the attack: Preventing an attack from Autobot forces, and attempting to apprehend caste system supporters hiding in the city."

The femme shrugged. "Seems like a good enough reason for me. I would've attacked anyone who was plotting to attack me, too. The caste system supporters would have just been a bonus." Her wings, along with those of her trinemates, twitched in amusement.

"Unofficial, and suspected real reasons for assault: Access to large, genetically diverse population of femmes, to be used when Decepticon numbers fell and replacements on the frontlines were required on short notice. Aftermath of battle: Vast majority of femme and sparkling population side with Autobot cause, mildly reducing the difference in troops between the two factions," I added in monotone.

The wings of all three bots shrank back in distress and mild shock, but the femme shook her helm in refusal. "No, that's not something the Decepticons would do. That assault prevented an army of Autobots from attacking Vos and killing its civilians to devastate the number of seekers in the Decepticon ranks. It saved more than fifty-million bots from being offlined, as well as kept a critical shipyard from being sabotaged. You Autobots tried to cover up your plot by saying the majority of the offlined femmes were unarmed."

She was in denial. She didn't want to believe the truth. And that was understandable, with the example I gave. It was a battle that still had many unanswered questions. Accepting the least disturbing version of a story was common, both among Cybertronians and my former race.

She and her trine required a different example.

"Vorn seven, orbital-cycle twenty-one of the war: City-state of Tarn is nearly destroyed by missile-strikes from Vos, and forty-four percent of Vos is leveled by a three multi-megatron Fusion missiles from orbit. Total casualties amount to nearly three-hundred million, the majority of which from Tarn. Conclusions reached by several Decepticon investigation teams: Autobot saboteurs took control of Vos missile defenses and bombarded Tarn, then called in Fusion missiles-strikes from orbiting Autobot war crusier to cover up their activities."

The femme and mechs glared at me. "I would be very careful what you say about Vos, Autobot," the femme said, voice a dangerous whisper.

"Findings of Autobot Intelligence: Coded transmissions intercepted from Decepticon governor Shockwave's office suggest Decepticons ordered Vos Air Commanders to bomb Tarn, in order to prevent the officials from breaking away from the Decepticons after finding their rule to be cruel and unjust, then destroyed a portion of Vos to prevent Air Commanders involved from speaking the truth. Aftermath of bombings: Tarn is declared a wasteland, and inhabitants of Vos call for air-strikes on Iacon and other Autobot city-states. City-states of Vos, Altihex, and Perihex join the Decepticon cause willingly, Decepticon ranks swell with new recruits in the form of seekers from Vos, while Autobot territories are ravaged by three mega-cycles of hit-and-run strikes from furious seekers from other parts of Cybertron."

The trine's wings fell in horror, and the mechs exchanged an uncertain look, but the femme shook her helm stubbornly. "No, no that's not possible. The Decepticons wouldn't destroy an entire city-state just because they didn't agree with them, and they wouldn't bomb their own city just so they could blame the Autobots."

"Then explain why the survivors of the Vos bombing joined the Autobots, or how the Autobots were able to send Fusion missiles when their forces were busy attempting to take Crystal City at the time of the bombings," I stated.

The femme had no answer.

"Centi-vorn two, vorn nineteen, orbital-cycle eighty-one of the war: Decepticon assault of the Hydrax Plateau Autobot spaceport ends in the defeat of Autobot defenders, and the surrender of all civilians working within the spaceport," I said. "However, all civilians are found offline following the battle, totalling sixteen-thousand in number. Official investigations conclude the workers were caught in the fire during the assault, or targeted by Autobot troops, in order to prevent Decepticon numbers from increasing even marginally."

The femme nodded her helm, looking relieved that the conversation was not focused on Vos or Tarn. "Yes, the Decepticons held memorials for the civilians offlined in the battle." She attempted to glare at me, but it was weak. "But you Autobots accused the Decepticons of being the ones who targeted the civilians, even when they did more for the families the fallen left behind than the Autobots did."

"The truth the Decepticons covered up, and was only discovered in the final cycles of the war by Autobot Intelligence: Following Autobot defeat, all civilian workers were executed on sight, in order to further tarnish the Autobots' reputation by blaming them for the needless offlinings, while at the same time preventing Autobot forces from receiving shipments of resources from the Hydrax Plateau, and honoring those offlined. Aftermath of assault: Decepticons gain the willing support of the city-states of Tryron and Liegus, Autobots lose the ships and resources of the Hydra Plateau."

The three trinemates shared looks, but the femme continued to shake her helm in denial. "But… But that's not something Lord Megatron would order. He wouldn't offline a bunch of unarmed civilians after he'd won a battle. His moral code from being a gladiator wouldn't allow him to."

It was time to make her see. "Centi-vorn ninety-seven, vorn thirty-four, orbital-cycle three of the war: A plot to poison the Core of Cybertron is thwarted, saving the lives of the twenty-billion bots that remain alive on the planet. Story given by Megatron, and widely accepted by his followers: Autobot forces attempted to place antimatter bombs in the Core, to destroy the planet they could no longer control."

The femme looked at me, optics almost asking me to stop talking. "Don't say what I think you're going to say. Do-"

"The truth," I interrupted. "Known only to the Autobots until after the end of the war: Nineteen divisions of Decepticon infantry, armor, and seekers attack the Core, intending to poison it with Dark Energon, a rare, twisted form of energon that corrupts anything it touches. Megatron's reasons: To dominate the will of all Cybertronians who were not given countermeasures like his Decepticons. And only Optimus Prime's tense negotiations with the Decepticon leader, even during the heat of battle, prevented Megatron from succeeding."

None of the trine said anything, though their wings spoke for them. They were trying to deny the truth, to not see how the dots connected, to make themselves go back to believing the lies of Megatron without a second thought. They were distressed, shocked, lost and feeling betrayed. The truth can hurt at times, but knowing about it was always necessary.

"The Decepticons have been keeping things from you since they started the war, and its so-called 'Noble' leader has betrayed you again and again," I stated. "Everything you blame the Autobots for, was not caused by them."

The trinemates said nothing, just kept up their silence.

I didn't waste anymore time, and walked around the femme to get to the door. I had spent an almost illogical amount of time showing them how their trust was misplaced. It was only logical to leave them to their thoughts.

They didn't try to stop me from leaving this time.

I reached the door, and it opened to reveal the area beyond.

It was a hanger, an immense one that stretched at least seventy kilometers in either direction, with shielding sealing one end of it, which seemed to lead into space. The ceiling was about two kilometers above my helm, and I was standing on a walkway an equal distance from the floor and the opposite side of the hanger. A tram system was attached to the walkway, and any walkway in sight, likely made for convenient travel throughout the vessel.

Bots of all sizes and types were moving around me. Destroyers, Annihilators, Brutes, Pyros, seekers and average Cybertronians who hadn't had their spark transferred into a frame built for war were transporting materials, making repairs, or constructing buildings throughout the hanger, between the many walkways that crisscrossed the area. Judging by the mixture of Autobots and Decepticons, I was on a neutral ship. A large one.

Two younglings, one Praxian one seeker, less than a quarter of my height ran toward me, interrupting my observations as I watched them go by, not attempting to get out of their way.

They did not seem to mind having to go around a large Triple-Changer, and continued running next to each other, laughing as they played a game of some sort, not even giving me a glance. And it seemed that most bots on the walkway behaved like the sparklings in that regard. I wasn't getting any looks from any of the bots walking by me. No distrustful looks. No curious glances. No acknowledgement at all, not even from the sparkling and younglings, which, I noted, were very high in number, along with femmes in various stages of the carrying process. They all just continued on with their business.

However, that wasn't surprising. This ship was clearly vast, and its population equal to a small city. If one was to stop and look at every Cybertronian they hadn't seen before for more than a micro-klick, they would end up standing in the same place for solar-cycles. An illogical waste of time.

I turned away from where the younglings ran off and started to walk in the opposite direction, toward a nearby tram that was taking passengers. I did not know where it was going, on account that I had never been on this ship before and was unfamiliar with its transport systems, but it led somewhere other than here, and that was my first step to finding the bridge, the first destination I would seek out. It was the most likely place to find out how I came to be onboard this ship, and where, exactly, this vessel was located in the universe. Finding out that information took priority.

"Shadowstreaker!" A voice behind me called over the sound of the crowd and the seekers passing above, sounding distinctly familiar.

I paused. The bot had called me by name, my real name. I had not shared my name with any neutrals besides Wildwing and his creators. And since the voice was a mech's, it could only be Flightstorm, and that in turn could mean one thing. I was on the Apex Sentinel, the ship he had been XO of since before Wildwing was born.

I turned around and looked up. A grey and red Cybertronian jet was hovering above the walkway, nose pointed down at me.

The jet transformed, turning into the familiar form of Flightstorm and landing a short distance away from me. "It's been a long time, Shadowstreaker."

"It has," I said plainly.

Flightstorm didn't seem to take note of my lack of enthusiasm. "I honestly didn't expect to see you again after we left with Wildwing," he said. "And I most certainly didn't expect to find you surrounded by offlined bots, onboard the drifting wreck of a ship in the Path Kethona galaxy."

So that was where I was. "And I did not anticipate finding myself there."

"No, you definitely didn't," the grey and red seeker agreed. He gave me a serious look. "And that begs the question of how you ended up getting all the way out here."

I didn't answer, mostly because I was trying to keep myself from thinking about what I did to end up here, and what caused me to willingly activate my Protocol. But, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't ignore the agonizing, empty feeling in my spark.

"Yeah, I figured it was one of those stories," Flightstorm said, appearing to read my distress despite the fact my faceplate was blank. "That's why I cleared out a room for us to talk. I ordered Dustrom and her trine to keep you in the infirmary, so I could come and get you as soon as you onlined. Seems she didn't do her job very well."

I ignored the majority of his statement. "Lead on, then."

Flightstorm looked at me for a brief micro-klick, then nodded and transformed, before activating his jets and flying in the opposite direction I had been walking.

I transformed and flew after Flightstorm, staying back so he could lead the way to the location he wanted us to go.

After flying for a few klicks, Flightstorm landed in front of a door on a walkway a few levels above the one the infirmary was on.

I landed next to him as he opened the door, revealing a small room with a table, a few chairs, and a video screen on the far end. Very simple space.

Flightstorm stepped into the room and gestured for me to enter with his helm, then closed the door once I entered the room. "Have a seat, and then we'll start," he said as he walked over to an energon dispenser on the wall and began filling two cubes.

I walked to the table at sat down at the end, the furthest possible position away from the door. It gave me a clear view of the room, allowed me to watch the door at all times without looking like I was, and would give me time to analyze any other Cybertronian that entered the room and react accordingly. Flightstorm was one of the only bots I knew onboard this ship, and paranoia was the logical response to entering a confined, unfamiliar place after being kept captive for a lengthy period of time. And it never hurt to be prepared for attack.

Flightstorm finished filling the cubes and turned around. He paused when he saw the position I had chosen at the table, and raised one optic ridge slightly. "You're safe here, Shadowstreaker," he said as he moved to the table and sat in the seat across from me. He set one of the cubes down in front of me. "You don't need to worry about a surprise attack. Relax."

"I have not had the luxury of relaxation for a long time," I said, sliding the cube Flightstorm offered me off to the side. My energon levels did not feel low, like they had been when my lights went out. I likely had been given energon after being brought here. There was no need for it right now.

"Since we found you onboard a prison ship of a design we've never seen before, I am not surprised to hear that," Flightstorm said, taking a small sip from his cube. He looked at me, a curious yet serious look in his optics. "Let me start this conversation by asking how you ended up there in the first place."

"The explanation to that question requires an explanation," I said.

The former Decepticon looked around the empty room, then back at me. "I've got time."

I considered not telling him the story, since it would eventually lead to topics I did not wish to discuss, such as Arcee… And how she was gone…

I locked down that thought and decided to tell Flightstorm the story. Not desiring to speak about past events was caused by sorrow, anger, or pain someone experienced during those events. Those were emotions. I was driven by logic now, I had no use for emotions.

"Very well," I said. "I am not able to provide an exact time or date, but sometime ago, our sensors detected unknown Cybertronian technology located on a moderately-sized asteroid passing Earth. I investigated, along with Jetfire and Springer. And during that investigation we discovered a research station built throughout the interior of the asteroid. From what information we were able to uncover, the station was constructed to study a ship at the core of the asteroid. The Infinite Reverence, the personal ship of the Thirteen."

"The Thirteen?" Flightstorm asked. "How did you determine that?"

"We found data logs from the leading researcher on the station. We also spoke to the primary AI of the ship, he informed us of its name," I replied.

The grey and red mech's optic ridges rose in surprise. "Ah, that would do it," he said, sipping from his cube again. "Go on."

"It was just before we spoke to the AI, that we encountered a spherical computer. It was taken over by the AI of the ship, and it… Stunned me, for lack of an appropriate word," I said. "It transferred something to me, showed me images and visions I cannot see long enough to decipher."

"That doesn't sound useful," Flightstorm deadpanned, though his optics had an interested look in them. "It sounds more like a hinderance."

"The purpose behind the transfer, is yet to be seen," I agreed. "Only one of the visions I was given during the transfer was clear."

Flightstorm sipped from his cube. "And what was it?"

"It was of a being of great power and evil speaking to me, and referring to me as 'Xel'Tor,'" I answered.

The former Decepticon gave me a confused look. "That isn't a title I've heard before. What does it mean?"

"That, I do not know," I admitted flatly. "The name does not appear in any of our records, and Optimus Prime copied a large portion of the Hall of Records before the Ark left Cybertron. All that we could learn about the title is that it is not a word in any known language."

"So it's an old title, then. Old enough that the Hall of Records has no data on it," Flightstorm concluded, giving me a mildly humorous look. "And here I thought you were a younger mech."

I did not share his amusement. "It is an old title, and an important one, to those who are aware of its significance, and know the identity of its holder."

The grey and red seeker seemed to understand what I meant. "The ship we found you on, the bots onboard captured you because they somehow found out you're this… Xel'Tor?" He asked, although it sounded more like a statement.

"You are correct, in a way," I responded. "The organization they were a part of captured me, but the vessel you discovered me on was not part of that operation."

"Alright," Flightstorm said. "So how did this… Organization, capture you?"

I did not respond immediately. I was trying to not think about how they captured me. Arcee and Optimus would be brought up if I did, and they were something else I was trying to keep blocked from my CPU. Thinking about them would only cause me more pain than I was already in. "We received a message from my carrier, informing us that she had left a 'Gift' for me at a set of coordinates that were sent with the message."

"And why would something from your carrier be unusual?" Flightstorm asked, interrupting me from continuing. "Contacting their creations is what carriers do, and with unnerving skill. I still get an occasional message from mine, and her transport used a space bridge to flee to NGC 3212 in the Eridanus Cluster."

"My carrier is Solus Prime," I stated without emotion.

The former Decepticon's optic ridges rose again. "Ah. Well, that would make it important," he said. "That wasn't brought up during my brief stay on Earth."

"It was not relevant at the time," I said.

"Apparently not," Flightstorm said. "Continue."

"I went to investigate the coordinates, but they were a trap," I said, leaving out any mention of Arcee and Optimus. Didn't want to think about them. "The organization that captured me knew I am Solus Prime's son, and used that as a way to lure me out from our base, and into their ambush."

Flightstorm looked at me oddly, like he was filing a piece of information away for later use. "You keep referring to the bots that captured you as members of an organization," he observed. "What do you know about them?"

"Little. They are called 'Paraions,' an organization founded by a mech by the name of Extremis. Their main base is on a mostly aquatic world with two suns," I replied. "They have access to a number of Cybertronian databases, as well as vast amounts of technology from the Age of the Primes. They are studying this technology constantly, and have made more progress in recreating it than scientists of the Golden Age ever did."

"That is… An impressive feat, all things aside," the grey and red seeker said. He looked at me curiously. "If they had access to that technology, why did they pursue and capture you?"

"Because I am the Xel'Tor," I responded. "I am 'The Key to many Doors,' in the words of Extremis."

"So, they took you so you could... Unlock something," the former Decepticon said. "What was it?"

"It was more than a single object," I said. "Extremis took me to a complex built by the Primes, a structure so massive it was built into the crust of the planet of their headquarters. Eighty-six point four percent of its systems were restricted unless accessed by the Xel'Tor. By me. Thirteen percent of the systems could only be used by a Prime or I. Only a total of point four percent of its systems were unlocked for any Cybertronian to access."

Flightstorm seemed to understand the significance of that piece of information. "They have eclipsed the Golden Age in technology, and they only have a small fraction of the systems available. No wonder they wanted you. If you had unlocked those systems, their technology would have jumped forward light-years." He froze and looked up at me. "You did leave those systems restricted, didn't you?"

"I do not possess the knowledge of how to access any system in that complex. I could not have unlocked any of its systems even if I had wanted to," I answered. "But even so, I did not wish to help them."

"They probably didn't like that very much," Flightstorm said.

Flashes. A moleculon knife cutting my shoulder-joint. Fists impacting my helm. A plasma torch melting armor. Maniacal laughter.

I blinked the memories away. "No. They did not."

"Is that when you were transferred to the prison ship we found you on?" The grey and red seeker questioned, the look in optics suggesting he knew, or at least suspected, that I had been interrogated on the ship.

"It was," I said.

"And how long were there?" Flightstorm asked.

"I do not know," I replied. "Time is difficult to track when in a cell."

Flightstorm nodded. "Alright," he said, sipping from his cube. "What about the others we found on the ship? Do you know any of them?"

"No. All prisoners aboard that vessel were kept separated. And I am not familiar with any of them," I said. "How many others did you bring here, along with myself?"

"Three-hundred and thirty-six, according to the docs treating them in the infirmary you were in," Flightstorm answered.

"There used to be many more than that," I said. A feeling of guilt entered me. In a way, I was responsible for why most of the prisoners were not down in the infirmary, recovering. But at the same time, many captives most certainly would have found being offline would have been preferable to continuing to be a prisoner of Scalpel. And, although my reasons for activating my Protocol were not noble, I also was inadvertently the reason there were freed prisoners in the first place.

I could not decide if those two technicalities canceled each other out or not.

"We guessed as much," Flightstorm said. "So, how did the ship end up becoming a drifting piece of scrap?"

"I escaped my cell. A guard got distracted, and I took advantage and took his weapon, fought my way through the ship," I explained, leaving out the details of my Quriomous Protocol. Mentioning it would mean explaining what it was, and why I willingly activated it. Not something I wished to think about. "I eventually reached the bridge. My weapons ran out of ammunition then, and I had to resort to close-quarters combat. At some point, the ship's FTL drive was activated, but a station or another ship opened fire before it could fully power up. The reason for this, I suspect, is to prevent their technology from falling into the possession of others. But the important fact is, the ship, despite being reduced to the state you discovered it, went to FTL, and eventually made it to the same system as the Apex Sentinel, where you found the others and I."

The former Decepticon finished his energon and rested against the back of his chair. "That's quite the story."

"It was worse to live through," I said.

"I don't doubt that," Flightstorm said. "But." He raised two digits briefly before lowering them again. "There are two things that I feel you didn't tell in full."

I did not change the emotionless look on my faceplate. "What do you feel I have kept from you?"

Flightstorm regarded me flatly. "Well, first off, you didn't go to investigate the coordinates in the message by yourself, like you said. Optimus Prime and Arcee were with you."

If I had not felt empty, I would have reacted to Flightstorm's statement with surprise. But since I did feel empty and hollow, I just kept giving him a blank look. "How are you aware of this fact?"

Flightstorm pressed a button next to him on the table, and the video screen began to play security camera footage of me in the holding cell on the Hammer, audio included. "We recovered some information from their computers when we found you. It took twenty bots on the bridge more than a breem to give each file a brief look, but they finally found something you were in. Going by the time of each piece of footage, you were onboard that ship for twenty-two solar-cycles. Most of that time was spent being interrogated, but there are a few points that are interesting." He paused the footage just before Scalpel could begin an interrogation session, and gave me his full attention. "But we'll get back to those in a moment. Tell me how you really got captured."

My emotions threatened to seep into my mood, but I forced them out as much as I could. "We were ambushed by drones. They nearly shot Optimus Prime's servo off, and Arcee… Her spark was almost pierced. Our communications were jammed, and Arcee was running out of time, so I... Told Optimus to take her and run out of range of the jammer, so that he could get in contact with the others and return her to base. I stayed behind and fought, and was eventually captured."

"And Optimus and Arcee?" Flightstorm asked.

I didn't reply. I couldn't. My mouth stopped working, and I struggled to maintain my stoic mentality. My spark, my everything, was gone. "They are… Gone."

"I see," Flightstorm said with the odd look in his optic from earlier. He was taking mental notes. The former Decepticon let the footage start playing again, but quickly started to fast-forward through it, then stopped when Scalpel entered the cell again after I had spat in his optic, and was slowly revealing his knowledge of my feelings for my spark. "Let's go back to those interesting points I mentioned. The first one's coming up."

I watched the footage play mutely, though it was making me relive the insane mech's speech. The sudden knowledge of my feelings for Arcee, the casual taunts, the mocking sympathy, the… News. That alone wasn't enough to break my emotionless behavior, but when I saw my Quriomus Protocol activate, I almost lost it. Not from seeing from the other side how terrifying it was, but because it made me feel like I was experiencing the loss of my spark again. It was painful to even think about.

The grey and red seeker paused the video again when the image of me offlined the first four guards within two micro-klicks. "Goes on like that until the camera went out about a klick later," he said, looking at me patiently, as if waiting for an explanation.

I took a moment to form a reply, then started my answer, "That was my-"

"Quriomus Protocol activating," Flightstorm interrupted factually, flat look on his faceplate.

I blinked in curiosity. How did he know what the Protocol was? "How do know about the Quriomus Protocol?"

"You're not the only one who has one, you know," the former Decepticon replied, tapping the side of his helm and giving me a knowing look. "You and I, we're probably the only two mechs alive who have it lodged in our helms."

"When did you realize it?" I asked, suppressing my surprise. The odds of a mech having the Quriomus Protocol was one in one point seven trillion. The odds of there being living two mechs with the Protocol, with the Cybertronian population as low as it was, were astronomically low.

"Long time ago, before 'Frost and I really even knew each other," Flightstorm answered. "It was only about four or five orbital-cycles after we left Cybertron, and we were on a full name basis with each other, barely talked. Our transport landed on a planet to resupply on energon and metal for repairing our ship. We chose a bad place to land. Cybertronian marauders were using the planet as a base to attack any ships that entered the system. They attacked us as soon as we landed, targeted only the mechs, tried grabbing any femme they saw. I was calm and professional throughout the battle, right up until one of our attackers went to grab Cyberfrost." He looked off to the side, as if recalling an event. "In that moment, I felt anger the likes of which I've never experienced before or since, and it felt like I descended into a dream. When I became fully aware again, I was standing over Cyberfrost, and the marauders were all offline. Later, when our medic was examining me, he found I had Imprinted on her a jour prior." He looked back at me. "So, when did your Protocol first activate?"

I didn't want to respond, to think about something that involved the femme I loved so much, but I had little say in the matter. All I could do was keep my thoughts to a minimum. "It was the solar-cycle before I was captured. A human terrorist group named MECH was active at the time. Their goal was to trap and study one of us on a… Thorough level. They had not been able to truly succeed, until they allied themselves with a femme by the name of Airachnid, and captured Arcee. My Protocol activated then, and I destroyed them before they could begin to 'study' her."

Flightstorm nodded. "So you Imprinted on Arcee?"

I set my jaw at the reminder. I had been trying to not think of her. "Yes, I did."

"And do you understand the significance of that?" The grey and red seeker asked.

"I do," I said flatly. The explanation I received from Optimus, Jetfire, Ratchet, and Moonracer wasn't something you forgot, even without a perfect memory.

"Do you? Do you really know?" Flightstorm asked, a searching look in his optics. "Or do you just know what the Autobots have on it from the Hall of Records?"

I blinked in mild puzzlement. What other sources of information about Imprinting were there? "I do not understand. What else is there to know?"

Flightstorm chuckled without humor. "Ha, you'll be surprised," he said, finishing off the energon in his cube. "Firstly, Imprinting isn't initiated by the mech or the femme… Well, technically it is, but that is a topic of debate among our medics and scientists. From our findings, and, with some of us, personal experience, the Imprint is not a conscious decision like some data pads say. The spark acts on its own."

"That does not change my understanding of Imprinting," I informed. Jetfire said I had Imprinted either consciously, or my spark had Imprinted on her without my knowledge. The information Flightstorm was giving me was not something I had not heard before.

"It isn't supposed to," Flightstorm said. "It only confirms the theory that bots do not have control over Imprints, they happen on their own."

"Then what is the point in discussing Imprinting?" I asked, not wishing to talk about something relate to Arcee. It physically hurt. "It is illogical to discuss something when there is no new information being exchanged."

The grey and red seeker saw through my words. "You don't want to talk about something that, for you, is associated with Arcee."

"How would you feel, if the femme you loved more than anything in this life was taken from you, before you even had the chance to tell her how you felt?" I asked, voice dead. "And you saw the footage, what he said, she's gone."

"But is she really gone?" Flightstorm asked in turn, tone suggesting he knew something I did not. He rewound the footage back to when Scalpel entered my cell for the first time, but kept it paused. "This is the start of the second point I wanted you to look at. Take a look at the way that Scalpel mech holds himself. See the arrogance? The twisted giddiness? The way he is looking at you like you'll be another victim?"

"Yes," I replied without looking at the screen. I had seen that the first time I saw Scalpel, I did not need to be informed of what I had seen.

The former Decepticon moved the footage ahead to when the Cortical psychic patch failed to get the information Extremis wanted Scalpel to recover from my helm. Whatever that was. "Now look at this one. See how that arrogance has turned to frustration, the giddiness to rage? Or how he now views you as an annoyingly difficult target?"

"I do," I responded, again without giving the screen a glance. No point in looking at something I had already seen.

Flightstorm skipped ahead in the footage again, stopping it at the exact moment Scalpel entered my cell on the second cycle. "Now, do you see how he's carrying himself this time? How he's a little less arrogant? A little less giddy? And views you more like a challenge than the usual victim?"

"What is your point?" I asked. Why was he asking me to look at footage of events I lived through?

The grey and red seeker skipped to when Scalpel entered my cell the next cycle. "How about how he carries himself the following cycle? How that arrogance shrinks..." He skipped to the following solar-cycle. "That giddiness turns to frustration…" He fast-forwarded the image to the next cycle. "How his frustration increases…" He skipped again. "Every…" And again. "Single…" And yet again. "Cycle." He went straight to the end, back to the moment Scalpel entered my cell for the final time, and gave me a serious look. "Right up until this moment. Why do you think that is?"

I did not answer, partly because I wanted Flightstorm to finish his thought before commenting, and partly because I did not wish to try to get in the helm of an insane interrogator I offlined.

"I will tell you why," Flightstorm said. "It is because you proved too resilient to his interrogation methods, and cycle after cycle you would be standing there, taunting him with his continued failure of breaking you. And finally, he had enough, and searched for a weakness in your resolve. Can you guess what that was?"

"Arcee," I said without pause.

The former Decepticon nodded. "And the fact you didn't know what happened to her after Optimus retreated with her," he said, then pointed at the screen without looking at it. "He used that against you, gave you the worst possible news. He lied to you so that he could finally break you."

Almost every part of me wanted to believe that, to go back to feeling the world again. Almost. "And how do you know he is not lying? He could have known Optimus Prime and Arcee's fates since the beginning, and was waiting to use the information until he had exhausted every interrogation technique."

Flightstorm held up two digits. "Two things," he said as he lowered his digits again. "One, if Scalpel knew about their fates when he first walked through the door, he would have told you immediately. He is sadistic, enjoys the emotional and physical pain of others. Why would he wait so long to break you?" He rested against the back of his chair again, his optics shining with what seemed a smug look. Highly inappropriate, considering the conversation. "And then there's point number two."

"And what is the second point?" I asked tonelessly. I wouldn't, couldn't, let myself revive my hope right now. As logical as Flightstorm's argument was so far, there was still a possibility he was wrong. I wouldn't survive having my hope being destroyed twice.

The odd look Flightstorm had earlier joined the smug one. "It is the fact that if the femme a mech's spark chose as its second half is offlined, and he has a Protocol, it activates as soon as they pass to the next world, and it never again turns off." He gave me a quick once over, humor replacing the two looks in his optics. "And since your Protocol isn't active…"

In that moment, it was if the universe had color again. I had been deceived, my hope was never gone. My spark, my everything, was online. She had to be, otherwise my Protocol would still be active. "A- And Optimus?" I asked, my flat voice now shaky. I was still recovering from Flightstorm's statement.

The former Decepticon gave me a look that bordered between amusement and incredulity. "Shadowstreaker, you said Arcee had almost been shot through the spark. How, in Primus' name, would she be able get herself back to your base without being carried?"

Whatever doubt I had left evaporated. Optimus and Arcee were online. They were online. My optics had been clouded from the truth. I wasn't alone. I never had been.

"I see you're in shock," Flightstorm observed with a smile. "I'll be outside for a while." He stood up from his seat and turned to walk to the door, but he paused and looked back at me. "You know, there is one more thing about Imprints that we've found…"

I gave him my full attention, curiosity most certainly written on my faceplate. "And what is that?" I asked with a smile, still reeling from finding out my spark was alive.

Flightstorm's smile widened, and he leaned forward, optics shining with an odd mixture of mischief, humor, and happiness. "It's that Imprinting is a two-way phenomenon. The Imprint sent by the spark of the one who initiates the process, cannot be accepted by the mech or femme who is Imprinted on… Unless their spark Imprints back."

I froze, completely, and I struggled to form a single thought. What?

The former Decepticon's smile turned into a grin. "I'll let you think about that for a while." He turned, opened the door, and left the room without another word.

It took me a few micro-klicks to realize he had left, and when I did, all I could do was look at the door blankly. What. Just. Happened? He… Just said my Imprint couldn't have been accepted without Arcee's spark Imprinting back. Tha- That meant she loved me, like I loved her. Her spark wouldn't have Imprinted back unless she did.

With a thunk, I fell back into my chair. The signs had been there the entire time. The fact she told me about her sisters so soon after I arrived, how she didn't hunt me down and offline me when I accidentally saw her in the washrack, the way she ignored embarrassing events like I did when I was with her, but also didn't let them keep her from spending time with me. And also how she was always at my side if I was in the med-bay. She would wait for me, even if I was out for mega-cycles.

I internally Gibbs slapped myself. I had been so afraid of ruining our friendship, so careful to keep how I felt secret, that I didn't see the glaring signs that had been there all along. I was, without a doubt, the stupidest, most oblivious mech alive.

Time to change that.

With a resolve as firm as starship armor, I stood up from my seat and marched toward the door.

I was going home.

And I needed a ride.

---

So yeah, I dropped a few surprises at the end. And then left it at that. But you blame me? I mean really, this thing went on for more than 25k words, and I have way too much narrative to go through it all in one go.

But, I can say, without having a double meaning this time *I swear!* that I have been planning and looking forward to this next one for a very, very long time. :P

Now, there are some things I must say in this author's note. Firstly, the characters of Wraith Squad do not belong to me, they belong to DaLintyMan, who was kind enough to let me use the characters. Duststorm and her trine *whose mechs are unnamed at the moment* belong to KayleeChiara, who also was nice to me and let me use her character. So, thank you both for that, and I hope I didn't change them too much for your liking.

And the only other thing I have here is that there are some Halo references scattered throughout this chapter. I will give you a cookie if you spot them WITHOUT cheating and using Google. Lol.

This chapter's credit song is "Epic Rock - Fallout" This song is more suited to the tone I have set in this story for the last few chapters. It relates to the interaction between Shadow' and Arcee, how they are linked, how Imprinting works. It is epic in how it sounds, but at times it seems like Shadow' and Arcee are talking through the song, if that makes any measure of sense. It fits perfectly.

Please leave some feedback telling me what you liked, or didn't like, about the chapter. I really appreciate and love all types of feedback. They help me improve my craft. :) And thank you all for taking the time to read this ridiculously long chapter. I will see you soon.