The seekers reached the outskirts of Slaughter City and sped over the buildings toward the central sector. They had been told to fly to the Council Hall and destroy it, along with anyone who stood in their way.

As they passed into the inner sectors, they started to fly over war-damaged streets and buildings. This part of the city-state seemed abandoned.

Then, suddenly, thousands of Autobots and civilians seemed to materialize below the low-flying seekers. The atmosphere filled with shafts of plasma fire, and seekers broke formation, scattered, and fell.

They rained down in tens and twenties to crash on the broken streets below.

Sideswipe felt it as soon as Sunstreaker lost his hold and tumbled down toward the ground.

He turned his seeker around and flew toward the place where his twin was falling, desperate, afraid he'd be too late.

He also felt it when his brother hit the ground.

He leaned forward, forcing his ride down toward the streets, then jumped off at the last astrosecond. The seeker spun out of control and crashed into a building, but Sideswipe rolled, and was on his pedes in an astrosecond. He charged toward the motionless yellow form on the street ahead of him.

He wasn't too worried, though. Sunstreaker was still conscious.

"Sunny!" Sideswipe skidded to a stop right over him.

Sunstreaker groaned, but accepted Sideswipe's proffered hand and let his brother pull him to his pedes. "Don't call me that."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I think," Sunstreaker grimaced. "I landed pretty hard… might have some internal injuries or something… nothing life-threatening."

Sideswipe believed him. If Sunstreaker was really badly hurt, he'd try harder to hide it. "Well," he sighed. "I guess we should probably try to find some Autobot unit to join… or get you to medical."

Sunstreaker snorted. "I'm fine. No thanks to you and your stunt with the seekers."

Sideswipe shrugged. "You have to admit that was fun, though."

Sunstreaker hesitated, then shrugged. "Yeah." He glanced up at the sky, where the former residents of Vos were still swarming. "You want to try it again?"

"Pit, yeah," Sideswipe said. "Right now?"

Sunstreaker's answer was to head for the nearest tall building. Sideswipe followed him. He got a comm. directing him to join the nearest group of Autobots, but he ignored it. Prowl had sent him—and probably Sunstreaker too—a couple of annoyed messages about disobeying orders, but he'd stopped after a few breems, probably because the twins were actually doing something useful.

The elevator—which was working, fortunately—took them slowly up to the top floor of the building. Sunstreaker spent most of the ride up stretching and wincing. Sideswipe would have to make sure he went and saw a medic after this was all over. He figured he should probably be worried about Sunny jumping on another seeker, but he knew his brother had good enough judgment not to do something like this if he was too badly injured.

It was kind of crazy and life-threatening anyway. Might as well throw injuries into the mix to make it harder. He smirked.

"What?" Sunstreaker said.

"Since you're hurt, I'll let your points count for one and a half, to make it even."

"Or I could punch you in the faceplate," Sunstreaker said. "That's another option."

Sideswipe grinned.

The elevator came to a stop and they jogged out. Unfortunately, most of the doors in the hall were locked, and the few that weren't didn't lead to rooms with windows. Eventually, though, they found a balcony and stepped out onto it.

Seekers flew past them—above, below, all around—close enough Sideswipe could feel the wind as each one shot by. One saw the twins and fired at them as he flew past, but missed and didn't seem to care enough to come around for a second pass. Sideswipe looked over the edge, waiting for a good opportunity. You had to wait for one who wasn't going too fast—one who was going in a straight line so you could judge went to jump.

He took a deep vent, counted, waited…

Then he vaulted himself over the railing and dropped down. For an instant, he felt a surge of atmosphere around him and time seemed to slow.

And then he landed on the seeker and grabbed on.

The danger was so worth the adrenaline rush.

He positioned himself to match the shocked, disoriented seeker's center of balance, and then pulled to the side. The seeker screamed as they narrowly missed a building, then tried to gain some altitude. Sideswipe used that, steering them into a cloud of other seekers, forcing them out of formation. The seekers had a fascinating way of flying in complex, organized patterns. It was like they all knew exactly where every other seeker was. Which was great when you didn't want to hit each other. But not great if you wanted to stay focused on what you were trying to shoot at when someone else was flying where they weren't supposed to be.

Once the seeker stopped fighting him so hard, Sideswipe pulled out his gun and started shooting. The seeker didn't seem to like that at all, and kept trying to swerve to throw off his aim. The other one had been easier to control. Stupid seeker.

Maybe Sideswipe could leap from this one to a different one. That might be tricky. And he had the feeling the one he was riding right now would chase him down and shoot at him. It didn't seem very happy with him.

He still managed to cause a lot of trouble. A few seekers shot at him, but most of them probably didn't want to risk hitting one of their own.

Sideswipe let the seeker take him high above the city, out of firing range of the others. He looked down. Smoke and dust obscured the distant streets below in a thin haze. There were places the city was burning. He could see soldiers fighting in desperate formations, but from this distance, he couldn't tell which groups were Autobots and which were Decepticons.

The fighting went on as far as he could see, from the seekers swarming low over the canal, to the teams of ground soldiers in the streets to the…

What.

The pit.

Was that?

"Get off of me!" The seeker spun them into a nose dive, then flipped them over, obviously trying to capitalize on Sideswipe's momentary distraction and dump him off. Sideswipe held on more tightly, digging his fingers into the seeker's already dented wings until it screamed. Then he heaved to the side, pulling the seeker around and angling so they were flying down toward the enormous moving form that had caught his attention.

It looked like a mech, but huge. That thing had to be three times as tall as the tallest transport he'd ever seen. The other mecha nearby looked like little mech-shaped symbiots in comparison.

Little offline mech-shaped symbiots.

That thing was definitely bad news, and he was pretty certain it wasn't an Autobot because the nearby seekers were shooting at the handful of mecha still trying to fight it.

"Sunny?" he said over an internal comm.

"Don't fragging call me that."

"If they're really big, do they count as more than one point?"

"No."

"Oh well."

Sunstreaker wasn't going to be happy about this. Sideswipe wasn't really happy about this either, but that thing was killing his fellow soldiers. Someone had to stop it.

"Oh, Primus," Springer said, drawing his long energon blade from subspace.

They'd just rounded the corner to face the big mech-shaped giant. Despite Prowl's description, Impactor had not expected it to be this large. There was no way a spark could support something that massive. "I don't know if you can get close enough with that blade," he said, holding up a grenade.

In all honesty, he wasn't sure if they could do anything about this. Not with the seekers raining fire down on them and keeping them from giving this problem their full attention. And according to Prowl, this thing had really good armor.

The other Wreckers were elsewhere. If Impactor had everyone here, they'd make short work of this, but it was just him and Springer.

Well, they could at least keep it busy for a while.

"You do your thing, I'll do mine," Springer said, then charged forward. He caught the giant's attention and it swung wildly at him, but he dodged out of the way.

Impactor threw his grenade, and detonated it just before it hit the giant's arm. The giant staggered, but didn't fall.

And now it was angry. It lifted what looked like a crumpled piece of a building from the ground and lobbed it at Springer, who had to dive out of the way.

Then it rounded on Impactor. Impactor stared into its crazed, red optics.

It was big and dumb. Maybe they'd be able to…

Something hit him in the shoulder, knocking him forward, to his knees. He scrambled back up, but didn't have time to look behind himself to see who was shooting at him. The giant raised the big missile launcher it was carrying and fired. Impactor leaped out of the way just in time to avoid the center of the blast.

Frag, the bombs in that thing were at least as powerful as the ones he was packing.

Not good.

He got to his pedes and glanced at Springer, who nodded once.

They'd put up as much of a fight as they could, but they might not win this one.

Then out of the corner of his optic, Impactor saw something large coming toward them from the sky. It was an unusual shape, so he glanced up and froze.

What the pit?

He barely had time to stare before the seeker and the mech clinging to it crashed into the giant at full speed in an explosion of fire and shrapnel. The giant fell, breaking apart as it did so.

Impactor put an arm up to block his faceplate as the wave of heat hit him, then lowered it as the ringing cleared from the atmosphere, leaving relative quiet.

"Frag," Springer said. "Did you see that?"

Impactor stepped forward, then stopped as another seeker flew down. This one also had a mech riding it, but he jumped free and the seeker veered and flew back up and away. Impactor recognized the yellow mech, who was now running toward the remains of the first crash.

The seeker the mech had been riding turned and came back, firing rapidly at the yellow mech, but Springer shot it down with a few well-aimed plasma blasts to its engines, and it crashed into a building.

Prowl sent Impactor instructions to go join another part of the battle. "Give us a breem," he commed back, and approached the smoking wreckage of the giant. The yellow mech was cursing and growling as he dug his brother's frame out from the others.

"Is he online?" Springer asked, coming over as well.

It didn't look good. If he was online, he wouldn't be for long. Impactor was surprised he wasn't in a thousand pieces all over the place.

"Medical's down that way," Springer pointed. "You okay?"

The yellow mech picked up his brother, struggling to his pedes. "Fine," he growled.

"I can carry…"

"No." The yellow mech trudged off in the direction Springer had indicated.

"Impactor, I need you to go."

"Come on," Impactor said to Springer, then transformed. The yellow mech would make it to medical. It was just around the corner.

"That was pretty epic," Springer said. "I hope that red mech survives. He was the one who came and asked to join us, right?"

Impactor nodded. Riding seekers… that was a pretty crazy idea. And dangerous. But the mech had probably saved their lives.

"So…" Springer said.

"I still don't like him," Impactor grumbled. "But I won't try to stop you from recruiting him."

Jazz dodged out of the way of a falling seeker and kept looking. He had done some quick research in that breem and a half he had of waiting, before the ambush, and had learned what the different markings on the seekers' wings meant and how to tell if one of them was higher up in the chain of command.

He didn't absolutely, absolutely need someone higher up, but it would make his job easier and faster.

A plasma blast barely missed him and he ducked into the shelter of a nearby building. That was one good thing about fighting from the ground. There was a lot more cover than there was up in the sky. Prowl was probably making full use of that.

Jazz watched as the seekers regrouped.

And more kept coming, filling the sky, firing on the mecha below, dropping bombs that filled the atmosphere with thick smoke and the smell of burnt energon.

There were too many of them. They'd overwhelm the weaker Autobot force before long. That was why Jazz had to do his job quickly. Now that the initial ambush was over, the three Autobot seekers in Slaughter City would be up there, doing their part. They needed a little time.

But if Jazz didn't finish his part fast enough, it would be too late. The timing here had to be right. Once he was ready, he'd wait for Prowl's cue, but he needed to be ready in time or they could lose.

He could feel the tide turning here already. They wouldn't be able to hold their ground for much longer. So many would offline—so many were already dead.

He couldn't stop and think about the battle so far. He couldn't let himself lose focus on what he was doing. If he made it out of this alive, then he could worry about numbers and broken promises, but right now he had things to do. Jazz left the shelter of the building to continue searching.

Silverbolt joined one formation after another, trying to get as close to as many different seekers as possible. He could tell from the way they shifted away from him that they were sometimes annoyed or confused, but he kept moving, hoping that no one noticed he wasn't supposed to be in their unit. Or at least that they wouldn't have time to do anything about it before he'd moved on.

He did not like flying this high. It was getting hard to focus on the seekers around him and not the fact that there was nothing between him and the distant ground but empty atmosphere, nothing keeping him up but a pair of wings and an engine.

"Hey you!" A seeker said, flying out of formation and toward him. "What are you doing, drifting all over the place? What unit are you in?"

Silverbolt didn't have an answer. He turned and flew away, but not before he heard shouting behind him. "Look at his wings! That symbol!"

They hadn't known they were going to be doing this. They hadn't had time to do anything about the insignias. Silverbolt had hoped that the fact that seekers hadn't taken much interest in the war prior to Vos's fall would save him from being recognized for what he was.

It had worked until this point.

He heard engines behind him and then felt a shot go right past one of his wings, grazing it. He banked hard, and couldn't help but look down at the ground below. If they hit him, his engines could burn out and he could fall. Dizziness swept over him.

They were going to outpace him. He didn't want to fly faster. He couldn't. He swerved again and landed on the nearest roof, transforming and running for the stairwell.

He wasn't fast enough. A seeker transformed above him and landed on him, pinning him to the ground. He heard others land around him.

"An Autobot!" someone shrieked.

"Traitor!"

"Kill him!"

Silverbolt was roughly rolled over and seekers crowded around him, pulling on him, stepping on his wings. Someone shot at him and his armor absorbed it, but it still hurt.

He kept his optics shuttered, wondering if he was about to offline.

"Wait!" someone said. "Wait, there are regulations. We have a punishment for treason!"

No, Primus, no… Silverbolt struggled, but he was shoved down and someone kicked him in the helm.

"Stop crowding!"

"Let me at him!"

"Rip his wings off!"

"Everyone quiet!"

Silverbolt looked up as several of the seekers backed off. The one holding him down stepped back for a moment, then planted a pede on his wing, close to the joint.

Silverbolt gritted his denta as the other mech leaned forward, putting all his weight on the wing joint. "Anything to say for yourself, traitor?"

It didn't hurt to try. "The Autobots didn't sink Vos," Silverbolt said. "It wasn't them, it was Megatron."

"Ha! How gullible do you think we are? Or maybe you're the gullible one. Either way, those words are treason. Renounce the Autobots or we'll cripple you and send you to the rust beneath with those groundpounders, where you belong."

Silverbolt could pretend, but he didn't know if they'd believe him, and if he was going to die, he wanted to die with honor. He said nothing.

"Admit it! Admit you're a traitor! Admit the Autobots destroyed Vos!"

He shook his helm, not trusting his voice, then shuttered his optics again as he felt clawed hands grab the edge of his weighed down wing and pull upward. He screamed as the wing was twisted out of shape—his voice drowned out the groan the metal itself made as it bent. They mutilated his other wing as well, then started dragging him over to the edge of the building.

"Please, no," he gasped. "No…" But they didn't hear or didn't care. Probably both.

The pain was almost as overwhelming as the terror. He wouldn't be able to transform with his wings bent like this. He was going to fall to his death—his worst nightmare made reality.

He was going to find out what it felt like when he hit the ground at terminal velocity.

No.

The femme's spark flashed and went out, and she lay still. Offline. Gone.

Ratchet stared at her with a sinking, churning feeling in his tanks.

No.

This couldn't happen. He'd never lost a patient before. He was the gifted one—the brilliant, talented young medic, the miracle worker. He was supposed to be infallible.

But he hadn't saved this femme.

She was dead.

He should have done better, trained harder, worked faster.

The mech assisting him—a nurse from one of the hospitals—started to move the femme from her spot. Ratchet clenched his fists, instinctively wanting to stop him. There had to be something he could do still. He couldn't give up just because…

Well, the patient was dead.

He had already failed.

He let his assistant carry the dead femme away, then stepped back, looking around. Chaos ruled the room. Chaos, and the desperation of trying to save fading sparks.

He couldn't do this.

He was done.

He'd request to take over from the femme directing traffic. He couldn't touch another dying soul. He couldn't watch while that happened again.

Nearby yelling snapped him out of his shock. Not frightened yelling, just arguing, somewhere outside the door of the building. Was someone blocking the way? What was going on? He'd put a stop to it, whatever it was. He marched over to where the mecha at the door were trying to take a broken mess of metal from a yellow mech.

"You're not injured, you have to stay out there."

"Get out of my way!" The yellow mech looked up and met Ratchet's optics. Ratchet recognized him from before the war.

He'd pieced this mech together once, in Perceptor's house, in the middle of the off-cycle. He'd saved this mech's life, along with his twin… Sunstreaker and Sideswipe

The guard outside the door reached for the badly injured mech Sunstreaker was carrying. "Let us take—"

"Let him in!" Ratchet cut in. "Come on, hurry!"

The guards didn't argue. The yellow mech brought what Ratchet assumed was his brother and let Ratchet take him and set him down on the ground.

"Oh my…" his assistant said.

Sunstreaker collapsed, and Ratchet let the assistant catch him and knelt over this red idiot. He was practically in pieces, covered in burns and missing chunks of armor. You could see straight through to his spark chamber, which was pulsing weakly.

Ratchet hesitated. He still felt completely burned out. He still felt like he couldn't touch another injured mech this orn. But he had to. He hadn't saved this idiot's life just to let him offline now.

"This mech might have internal injuries," the mech working with Ratchet said. "He just passed out."

"Leave him be, he's fine," Ratchet replied. "He collapsed because they're twins."

"Really? How can you tell?"

"Just help me with this one." Ratchet worked frantically, trying to stabilize the red mech, trying to tie off energon lines and safely shut down damaged systems as Sideswipe slipped deeper into stasis.

No matter how tired he was or how much he hated this work, he couldn't give up. He couldn't lose this one.

"We are running out of time."

"I know, I know!" Jazz said, fingers and processor running at top speed. He had his two mecha, had his datapad linked manually up to both of their comms, and Glyph had sent him the file he needed. But he was still trying to figure out how to send a message directly to the Decepticon command hub.

"How much longer do you need?"

"I don't know," Jazz said. "Hang on."

"I need an estimate, Jazz. This won't work if the Decepticons have already won. We can't hold out any more than a few more breems before we need to change tactics."

"Well, I don't know if this'll take two more astroseconds or ten breems," Jazz said. "I'm working as fast as I can, all right?" And Prowl's pestering wasn't helping. Jazz already knew how important this was.

"I'm going to have to call a retreat if you don't…"

"Would ya fragging trust me already?" Jazz snapped at him. "Just a few more breems. I need a few more breems."

Plasma fire sounded nearby and Silverbolt felt some of the seekers let go, then all of them, shouting about traitors. Silverbolt unshuttered his optics and tried to sit up as the seekers turned to attack this new threat.

Air Raid.

Silverbolt struggled to a sitting position and got his weapons out. He fired at some of the seekers from behind as Air Raid fought them. His brother was a good fighter, but he couldn't take them all by himself.

Or maybe he could.

They flew off after three of them went down, and then Air Raid jogged over.

"'Bolt," he said. "Ah, pit, your wings."

"I'm okay," Silverbolt said, accepting his brother's proffered hand. "I can't fly, though. I've got to get off of this roof before they come back with their friends. You should go back out there."

Air Raid looked out at the seeker-filled skies. "Nah," he said. "You're hurt—I'm not just leaving you here."

They headed for the stairwell.

Ironhide peeked through the window, watching the seekers. They were flying low to the ground now, swarming just outside, keeping Ironhide and his mecha holed up in this low, dark building while they dropped bombs and tried to shoot through the windows. Ironhide raised his gun and fired, taking a seeker down from the sky, then ducked away as several plasma shots came through the window.

He heard another explosion and felt the walls and the ground shake.

"Prowl," he said over the comm. "You do have a plan, right?"

Prowl didn't answer.

"Prowl!"

Yet another explosion rocked the building. They weren't going to last in here much longer.

Then, the noise died down a little. He could still hear the drone of the seekers' engines, but they weren't firing as much.

Ironhide risked another glance out the window and frowned. Where they'd been in tight, organized formations, now they were flying in more random patterns—some groups broke off and flew away, others called after them and there seemed to be a lot of arguing and confusion.

Finally, Prowl spoke over the comm."Ironhide, get your mecha out of the building. Leave some behind to deal with the seekers there and head three blocks south."

Ironhide relayed orders and Autobots poured out of the building, firing up at the confused mass of seekers in the sky.

"What is going on?" Megatron demanded.

"A fourth of my seekers have stopped responding," the mech running the Slaughter City battle said.

"Nearly a third of mine," the mech in charge of the Tagan Heights battle put in. "I'm not sure what's wrong, and I can't establish a connection with them, but it seems like they're following orders from somewhere else."

Megatron growled. "Well, figure out what's going on and FIX IT!"

"Sir, our ground troops are completely surrounded in three locations," one of the mecha from the Tagan Heights team said. "Should we bridge them out?"

"We're getting a lot of comms from seekers who don't know what they're supposed to be doing," someone from the Slaughter City team said.

Megatron could hear them talking over the internal comms as well.

"What the pit is going on?"

"Wait, maybe your seekers are getting my orders and mine are getting yours."

"What? How the pit would that happen?"

"Then switch battles!" Megatron said.

"There's no way we can do that," one of them said. "Besides, not everyone's getting the comms swapped, so if we switched…"

"DO SOMETHING!" Megatron said. Curse that Praxian. This must be another one of his tricks. Megatron shouldn't have left him alive on Vos—he should have made certain the mech offlined.

It didn't matter that he outnumbered the Autobots. It didn't matter that he had the seekers at his disposal. If his tacticians couldn't properly communicate with his forces, he would lose both battles.

He could let it play out. He could tell them to bring the confused seekers home and focus on the communications that weren't getting sent to the wrong place. But he probably couldn't win that fight, and that would weaken his forces significantly.

"Call a retreat!" Megatron said. "Now! Before they capture all of our ground troops. Have them bring as many of the injured as you can." He was fairly sure Optimus would let them retreat. The idiot always did.

"It might just be a glitch in the comm. hub," one of the tacticians said. "We could—"

"NOW!" Megatron shouted, and they stopped arguing with him.

He commed Soundwave. "Get me in contact with Optimus. I want to talk to him."

The Decepticons were retreating. Orion listened over the comm. channels as Prowl started directing clean-up. That had been a close call. They'd probably lost almost as many mecha as they had in the Tesarus battle, except they'd won this time. There was still a lot of work to do, of course. The medics they were borrowing from the hospital probably wouldn't be enough, and they'd have to call for more volunteers.

At least this time they could treat their injured soldiers instead of leaving them behind for the Decepticons to capture.

"Orion, Megatron wants to talk to you," Elita said. "Should we ignore him?"

"No, I'll talk to him."

"Come here."

Orion left his station and went over to Elita's terminal. She moved away and hit a button and suddenly Megatron's faceplate was displayed on the screen.

"Orion Pax," he growled.

"Good orn," Orion said, a little surprised. Megatron hadn't called him that since the ill-fated meeting with the Council. The audible chatter in the room suddenly dropped off as mecha listened to Megatron talking.

"You think you can beat me with your cheap tricks. But you're wrong. You'll never win. Surrender to me, or I'll snuff out the spark of every single Autobot in existence, saving you for last, you worthless piece of scrap metal."

Orion could feel the anger rising in the room. He sent a quick comm. to everyone, warning them to let him handle this.

"I am certain this will come as no surprise to you," he said. "I will not surrender. Not now, not ever. Nor can I allow your reign to spread or your crimes to go unpunished. Did you contact me to make empty threats or did you have something important to discuss?"

"If you will not surrender, then you will watch your precious mecha offline one by one. You are too weak to save them, and you always will be. You're unfit to be a Prime—unworthy." Megatron glared at him, then cut the comm.

"Cheap tricks, huh?" Moonracer growled. "What about what he did in Vos?"

Orion looked down.

Elita put a hand on his arm and sent him a private comm. "Please don't tell me you're letting that idiot get to you."

Orion shook his helm slightly. He was just sad that Megatron was still so angry. He always hoped to talk that mech out of his insanity, but Megatron seemed less and less reasonable every time Orion got a chance to communicate with him.

And the numbers had started coming in. Many mecha had offlined this orn because of this war. So many had died already—all because of one mistake, one misunderstanding.

They had won. But he couldn't bring himself to celebrate.

"Silverbolt! Air Raid!" Skydive waved them over and they hurried to join him and Slingshot.

"I told you we'd find them with the ground-pounders," Slingshot said. "Fragging pit what happened to your wings?"

"Where's Fireflight?" Silverbolt asked, worried.

"Uh…" Slingshot said.

Skydive shrugged.

"Please don't tell me you left him in Slaughter City."

"We thought he'd come back here with everyone else," Skydive said. "Sorry, 'Bolt, I guess we should have made sure."

"The idiot probably retreated with the Decepticon seekers on accident," Slingshot said.

Silverbolt sighed. "Primus," he said quietly, anxiety churning in his tanks. "Let's hope that didn't happen."

"That looks really painful," Skydive said. "You should go find a medic."

It was painful. But... "There are mecha with life-threatening injuries," Silverbolt said. "I need to wait my turn."

Slingshot reached over and flicked one of Silverbolt's wings. Silverbolt gasped, flinching away.

"Hey!" Air Raid shoved between Silverbolt and Slingshot. "What was that for?"

"He should go see a medic right now. We risked our sparks for this stupid cause this orn and he deserves treatment just as much as—if not more than—any other Autobot."

"What, so you're going to make it worse?" Air Raid said. "Just…"

"Please don't fight with each other right now," Silverbolt said as the pain faded back to tolerable levels. Air Raid and Slingshot had—understandably—been extra tense and moody since Vos. Silverbolt hadn't asked, but he knew Air Raid had been conflicted about going to fight this orn. He probably hadn't wanted to risk seeing Dawn there and maybe watching her die. And Slingshot was still grieving. They both glared at him.

"We need to find out where Fireflight is," Silverbolt said. "Is he not answering his comm?"

"He's probably all right," Skydive said.

Silverbolt commed him.

And waited.

And waited.

Fireflight answered. "Hi!"

"Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm kind of lost, but I'm heading north so I think I'll make it back to Iacon."

"What?"

"Okay, so it's not my fault. No one told me the battle was over, and I was still trying to get close to as many seekers as possible…"

Oh, Primus.

"…so I was just kind of flying with them and then I realized we weren't getting shot at anymore, from below, and also that we weren't in Slaughter City anymore. So I tried to find a good opportunity and turned to go back the other way."

So he had retreated with the other seekers. Silverbolt glanced at Slingshot. "So why didn't you stay in Slaughter City once you got back there?"

"Huh? Oh, I didn't. I forgot I was going there and started heading north and then I figured you'd all be in Iacon anyway so I'd better just come there."

Silverbolt sighed. At least he was all right. "What are your coordinates? If you can get back to Slaughter City, you can probably find a bridge that will bring you back here. That'll be faster."

"Where is he?" Slingshot asked.

"I don't know." Fireflight said. "I guess I can go back. Okay, I'll do that. It'll be faster than flying back to Iacon."

"Let me know when you get there, all right?"

"Okay. Fireflight out!"

Silverbolt cut the comm.

"Where is he?" Skydive asked.

"He was trying to fly back to Iacon," Silverbolt said.

"What?" Slingshot demanded.

"I told him to go back to Slaughter City and bridge from there," Silverbolt said, then sighed.

"Hmm…" Skydive frowned.

"What?"

"I just… It's probably all right, I'm just a bit worried about what might happen when he flies over Slaughter City. After all, they were just attacked by seekers. They wouldn't necessarily shoot one random mech down, but…"

"That's a good point," Silverbolt said, shuttering his optics and putting a hand to his helm. "It'll probably be at least as bad for him to fly over Iacon, though." How were they going to get him back? He didn't want to ask for a groundbridge just to bring one wandering soldier home, but he didn't want to risk Fireflight getting shot at either.

"You all right, 'Bolt?" Air Raid said. "Maybe you should sit down."

Silverbolt let them lead him away from the crowd of other Autobot soldiers where he sat down on a low wall. He gripped the edge of the wall hard, waiting for the pain to back off a little, but knowing it probably wouldn't.

"I still think you should just go find a medic," Slingshot said.

"Maybe we could get a groundbridge for Fireflight," Skydive said. "If they'd let us. The Prime did say you could talk to him any time you want.

"He's probably busy," Silverbolt said. "But yes, we'll have to try that." He commed Fireflight again.

"Yes?" Fireflight said.

"I've changed my mind," Silverbolt said. "I don't want you to fly to Slaughter City." '

"You want me to go to Iacon instead?"

"I want you to stay where you are and we'll get you a bridge."

"Really?" Fireflight sounded offended. "I'm not that unreliable, 'Bolt. I can do this."

"It's not that," Silverbolt said. "We're just worried mecha will panic and shoot you if you fly over the city."

"What?" Fireflight said.

"Please just stay where you are. Send me your coordinates."

"I'm in the middle of nowhere," Fireflight said, but then sent the coordinates.

"Just find a good place to land and wait."

"Okay, whatever. Fireflight out. For real this time." He cut the comm.

Silverbolt sighed again, but then Fireflight commed him. He answered. "Yes? What is it?"

"I just remembered, I wanted to ask you if everyone is okay."

"Yes," Silverbolt said. "We're all fine."

"Good," Fireflight said. "That's all. Let me know when you want me to do something else, okay?"

"Okay," Silverbolt said. "Silverbolt out."

He shook his helm and cut the comm.

"You're not all right," Skydive said quietly.

"I'm not badly injured," Silverbolt said. "And I'll be fine… It's actually very fortunate I was the only one who got hurt. I think a lot of mecha died in that battle."

"A lot of seekers died," Air Raid said.

They fell silent for a moment.

"Part of me…" Air Raid said quietly, then shook his helm. "Never mind."

"I'm sure she's fine," Skydive said.

"Well, I can't tell anymore," Air Raid said, "Since the bond is gone… gah, what are we doing? We're the only ones."

"The only Autobot seekers?" Skydive said. "It is kind of crazy, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Slingshot said darkly. "And if we had been shot down, it would probably have been the Autobots doing the shooting."

Silence again.

"Well," Silverbolt said. "We made a decision and we're going to stick with it, because it was the right decision."

The others nodded, though Silverbolt was pretty sure they all understood that there was no backing out now anyway, even if they wanted to.

"I told you it was not advisable to send them into battle immediately," Shockwave said.

Megatron scowled. "You told me you upgraded their armor." As far as he was concerned, Shockwave's experiment had been a success, even though the mecha had offlined. But he was still in a bad mood from losing the battle.

"Their sparks were still not as stable as they could have been," Shockwave explained. "When one of them offlined, it offlined the other four."

"Can you solve that problem?" Megatron asked.

"I do not know," Shockwave replied.

"Well, can you at least make more of them?"

"Yes," Shockwave said, still calm and emotionless. "That would be possible. I would need more volunteers."

The mad scientist already had a reputation among the Decepticons, and finding the first set of volunteers had been hard enough. "Would it work if they were unwilling volunteers?"

Shockwave took a while to answer. "The procedure would be possible," he said. "But their loyalty might be compromised."

Very true. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

Shockwave nodded.

"I will leave you to your work," Megatron said, and walked away. Soundwave commed him while he was on his way back to the room he'd claimed as a command center. He answered. "What is it?"

"The Council is willing to speak to you now."

"Ah, good. I will be there shortly."

He'd had a thought at the end of that battle. A thought about how powerful the Autobots were and about not letting them become any more powerful. And a different thought, about who the real enemy was here. Orion, for all his posturing, was fairly useless without his supporters.

But that wouldn't be true forever.

Megatron knew what would happen if he waited too long. He could not allow Orion to receive the Matrix of Leadership and become a Prime.

He got to the command center and made his way to his seat. Soundwave, who was off to the side of the room, waited until Megatron was ready and then initiated the call. A screen lit up across the room and Megatron could see the Iacon Council sitting on their own thrones.

The mech in the very center seat—Halogen—looked directly into the camera.

These were the mecha who ran the show—his true enemies. These were the mecha who'd ignored Kaon's plight, who'd allowed the world to fall into darkness and corruption. And still they sat there, scheming, no doubt trying to keep hold on their power. Maybe Megatron could use that.

He hadn't used to be a very good liar. But he was practicing.

"You called us, Megatron," Halogen said. "Be brief. We have very little time for you."

"I would like to offer you a deal," Megatron said.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. It seems that even with superior forces I am unable to match the Autobots in strategy."

"So it seems," Halogen said calmly.

"I am looking for some more experienced leadership for my army, and was wondering if you would all be interested in joining the Decepticon cause."

Halogen looked troubled, though Megatron noticed several of the other senators seemed interested.

The head of the Council regained his composure quickly. "I'm sure you are," he said. "However, I'm hesitant to believe you would want our help, seeing as you've slaughtered the Councils of the cities you've taken so far."

"That's where the deal comes in," Megatron said. "I will allow you positions of power in my army if you will bring me the key to Vector Sigma."

Halogen frowned. "And what exactly would you want with the key?"

"Vector Sigma holds the knowledge of the Matrix's location, does it not? If I have the key, I can prevent the Prime from receiving the Matrix."

"So you can defeat him?" Halogen seemed unimpressed.

"Yes."

"Well, he doesn't have the Matrix now, and he's already defeating you so I don't see how that will help your cause. Perhaps earlier on, we would have been willing to throw our lot in with you, but at this point we have nothing to gain by it."

"Optimus will have you killed when your usefulness to him has run out."

"And you wouldn't?" Halogen said flatly.

"I will kill you," Megatron said. "If you will not give me the key, I will come and kill you and take it from you."

"We will not be bullied," Halogen said. "Your threats are no more than bluster, and unless you have something useful to say then I'm afraid we have more important issues to see to."

Megatron glared at them, but said nothing else until they cut the comm and the screen went dark.

"You'd think they'd all know, after what we did in Vos," he said. "I don't make empty threats."