Chapter 55

"Inheritor"

She took to exploring the compound while she had the time. Beyond those she'd already met, there weren't many mecha stationed within; it was almost entirely manned by automated security systems. Top-of-the-line hardware too, at least to her untrained eye. The kind of the tech that would give a Nightfall team butterflies in stomachs. The auto-parlour Soundwave told her about was in the villa - one of the three sub-buildings within the compound and certainly the largest (the other two being the armoury and what looked like a communications station, albeit both were locked and she wasn't brave enough to force an entry). The access terminal lit up at her approach and a hologram noiselessly flickered to life as a rudimentary sensor scanned her frame. It offered options and plenty of them; Hawkmoon flitted through each and every configuration until settling for a simple repaint and buffer job to scrub out the scratches. She laid down on the berth, closed her vents as the laser-pointed spray-nozzles took aim and- that was it for a couple of breems, just lying there and listening to the machine hiss. Didn't take long either. The paint set in quick, Hawkmoon scanned it for suspicious particulates, and when she came up empty she turned the parlour off and stepped outside.

Dystrexin caught her before she could retreat back to her room, though. The femme looked to have been heading for the garden, but at the sight of her diverged and smiled sweetly - in that trained, all-too-honest fashion that Hawkmoon found both pleasantly charming and uncannily persuasive. "You. Look. Fantastic," Dystrexin told her. "Are these... these patterns are based on alien growths, correct?"

"Yeah," Hawkmoon said warily. "Feathers."

"Now that's a rare fashion statement. Oh I like it very much." Dystrexin's electromagnetic field hung around her loosely, relaxed but edged with a sharp inquisitiveness. She raised a digit to her chin thoughtfully, and not a little purposefully if Hawkmoon was reading her right, but Dystrexin was measuredly subtle about it. "It's a rare thing, to stand against the tide like this. Not a lot of mecha would do the same. Do you fancy yourself a pioneer, dear?"

"In the fashion industry?" Hawkmoon asked with a chuckle.

Dystrexin raised an optical ridge. "You don't think so?"

"I don't care enough."

"What if you did? What if you considered it important that you make yourself a statement?"

Hawkmoon almost scoffed. Almost. She stopped herself only because in her mind she imagined Augur whispering in her audial, Augur saying she is trying to test you, and though he was elsewhere the phantom warning was enough to stall her. Hawkmoon considered the question. She considered it for a moment longer than she reckoned was tactful and inched into the realm of obtuse, but the answer she gave was one she felt made up for it. "I'd have to know what I'd be hurtling into first. Know the stakes. See if it's worth all the bother." Hawkmoon tilted her helm. "But no. No, I wouldn't think so. I don't care about prettying myself."

"That's a pity," Dystrexin remarked with faux-disappointment. "You lend yourself well to it as is." She stepped past. "Follow me? Contrail should be returning soon. He'll want to be received in the charter room."

Dystrexin led the way up to the villa's second floor and they entered a sizable chamber that looked like a cross between a personal study, a stocked library, and a wine room - only with glowing energon cubes instead. Everything was fabulous, posh, but the ceiling was what really took her figurative breath away; it was inlaid with a thousand square mosaics displaying an animated, gently swirling image of the galaxy. Their galaxy. The Milky Way. Hawkmoon slowed to a stop and found herself transfixed; it was beautiful. The detail was... it was exquisite. It was a disparate whorl of infinitesimal twinkling lights, reaching out into the deep black with curved arms. And-

And she saw it.

The Orion Arm. Small. A spur, really, a tiny growth amongst the many tangles of millions on billions of star systems.

"Incredible isn't it?" Dystrexin said. "It's a live view too."

"It is?"

"Well, to a degree. The Achtris deep-space satellite launched during the Golden Age feeds our arrays with warp-fed reports - and they pass that information along for a pretty price. It's not a cheap investment, I'll be the first to admit. But well worth it regardless."

Hawkmoon couldn't look away. She recognized the Orion Arm just from a glance alone - and she knew, roughly speaking, where Sol was too. A century and a half spent with a wannabe-astronomer for a partner did that to you. Oh, Ikharos would have loved this. He probably would have chased up on the specs involved to make a replica back home. "Where are we?" Hawkmoon asked. "Where's Cybertron in all this?"

Dystrexin must have done something because the animated display honed in on a point in the galaxy's outer rim - on the disparate edges of the Sagittarius–Carina Arm, right by where the limb began to get choppy. Cybertron was by that edge - by the Brachian Divide, though she knew there was still some drastic distance in the frontier space between them and Kharad-Tan's void-scar. It struck her, then, how truly tremendous the Divide was, how utterly, truly horrifying it was to know... that something made it. Something living, something conscious had cleaved the end of the Arm off - and wiped out hundreds, thousands of stars in the process. Potentially trillions of lives with them, aliens all but assuredly innocent in whatever grudge the bastard held against the First. Someone had done that. Someone had that kind of power, that kind of will, that kind of ruthlessness-

It was near unfathomable. In many ways it was; Hawkmoon kept looking at it, wondering, and it was in that moment... that she figured Augur might've had a point. Maybe the priority should have been the Tenerjiin, not the Hive. Maybe... maybe she was worrying about the wrong Arch-Fiend.

And those Crux-born birds on the other side, circling the local Ley Lines...

Something needed to be done.

But beyond that, Hawkmoon ached. She hurt. She looked on Cybertron's location - and she saw the latest hurdle set before her, the last laugh of Riven and Xol. The Orion Arm, Sol, Earth - it was practically on the other side of the galaxy. Past the galactic centre. Impossibly far away. Tens of thousands of lightyears separating her from a home she no longer recognized. Even if she wanted to, to cut a straight path back would have taken her... forever, maybe. Up to a half-a-vorn of travel, decades of straight sailing through empty vacuum. It was too much. Too many variables. No certainty of making it even part of the way, not with the universe turning upside down and inside out everywhere she went. It was like... walking across a frozen lake. Every step she took left cracks, and those cracks grew into colossal webs, creaking beneath her weight. The more she walked the weaker the ice grew. But if she stayed - she'd only fall through and sink right to the bottom. Right to the Deep.

"What about-" Hawkmoon trailed off and started again; her voice was scratchy, vocalizer fritzing with static. "Has there been any activity on the other side of the Divide?"

Dystrexin glanced at her with some curiosity - the first emotion that seemed to ring honest and true on her. "Some. A couple of stars have shifted, changed, disappeared as they're wont to. There's been some new emergent bodies as well. Any sector in particular?"

"The Cyst Stars. Those."

"Those boils rubbed raw by the Divide," Dystrexin murmured. "The frontier is a terrible place, isn't it? Always just bad news rolling in from that direction. I can't imagine it's any different on the other side. Yes, there's been some activity. Three constellations blinked out. A new one formed - a green star, if you can believe it. The Institution calls it the first ever green dwarf on record."

"A green star?" Hawkmoon asked sharply.

Dystrexin nodded, though she was watching Hawkmoon carefully. "Oh yes. It's very curious. The Achtris's optical sensors are equipped to peel excess gas and dust out of the way. All colour is a figment of chromoreceptors in our optics and processors, you see, but on all levels this newest body appears to be genuinely green - previously thought an astronomical impossibility."

"Where-"

The mosaic zoomed in. Right on the edge of the Divide.

"Oh," Hawkmoon vented. "Ohhh. Well. Fuck."

"Dear?" Dystrexin frowned. "Is everything alright?"

"... Um, no, not really." Hawkmoon clicked her denta together; she worried at her lip. "I... would really like to talk with Contrail. Sooner rather than later. It's... yeah, it's kinda urgent."

"Because of a star?"

"Exactly."

"... I'll inform him," Dystrexin said guardedly. She gestured to a chair. "Please make yourself comfortable. I won't be a breem." She walked past, quickly, and disappeared in the hallway beyond, but Hawkmoon took little notice. She simply stared at the star filling up the ceiling.

The way it flickered and glowed - it seemed to fill the entirety of the room with tongues of soulfire, slithering against the shadows like squirming Worms.

Dystrexin returned a couple of minutes later, Soundwave in tow. The tall dark mech simply took up roost in the seat beside Hawkmoon's own, his servos neatly clasped together and his visor blank, and he did nothing more. He didn't so much as glance in Hawkmoon's direction, content to simply sit there with his spinal strut straight and his helm facing forward. Augur trailed in after him and gave her a long look. Hawkmoon subtly rolled her optics and sat back; he leapt up onto her lap and curled there like a cat, pointedly looking away from her. Nothing to report, she presumed.

Dystrexin laid out a couple of energon cubes, five of them, and arrayed them on a low table that simply rose up from the floor at some unspoken demand. That settled, she pottered around the room, tugging at knick-knacks and otherwise nervously trying to make the place more presentable. As if it wasn't the most eye-catching place Hawkmoon had ever been. She sat down after another two breems, lips pressed together, and she anxiously shuttered her optics.

It wasn't long before they were joined by Contrail. The door opened and the mech was just there, wearing the glummest, most unhappily exhausted expression Hawkmoon had ever seen on him - or maybe anyone. The glow of his optics was strained and his faceplates were firmly set in place. He looked at her, paused, and nodded - then walked over and swept Dystrexin up into a tight embrace, one she returned with evident relief. Neither of them said a thing; they wrapped their arms around each other, laying their helms on one another's pauldrons, and their vents hissed strongly. Hawkmoon looked away - and her own gaze landed on another mech by the doorway, tall and blocky and...

And bearded. Bearded. Actually, genuinely bearded. Or at least the facial crests of malleable metal reminiscent of such. It gave him the appearance of a large droopy moustache and a stringy beard that lathered over the top of his chest. His frame was broad at the shoulders, long at the limbs, and heavy at the pauldrons; his plating was a light purple for the most part, even the lengthy horns framing his upper faceplates, but the rest like his beard and digits and even his optics were calcified white. No Seeker. No wings. No apparent wheels either, but his build wasn't indicative of someone capable of flight. The mech looked at her with a frown, his features severe and judging if otherwise impossible to read, and his gaze slided past to settle on Soundwave - who was holding so very still. If she hadn't known any better she might have thought him a statue. Or dead.

"Senator," the bearded mech said softly. He sounded old - his voice was clear and powerful, not too dissimilar to those bellowing Titans she'd heard miles away at the Gap, at Mare Imbrium, during the beginning of the Legion's occupation, but it was more than that. It was strained and it was weathered down to its core notes, as if his vocalizer was nothing more than a worn relic of the distant past.

"Librarian," Contrail replied evenly, tiredly, and with some reluctance he disengaged from Dystrexin, standing alone and turning to face them all. His voice lowered. "Soundwave. Hawkmoon. You're alive. You're functional."

"I got out," Hawkmoon said guardedly. "Someone's looking for me."

Contrail inclined his helm and glanced at the bearded mech. "I know."

"Yeah, well, I don't. Care to fill me in?"

Contrail looked as if to respond, but the bearded mech waved to him. "Sit," he ordered. And Contrail sat down, right next to Dystrexin so they could hold their servos together. Without question. Without objection. A Seeker - doing as a grounder instructed. Would wonders never cease? The mech took his own seat, ignored the energon cube on offer and steepled his digits together. For a time no one said a thing.

It was a quiet she just had to shatter.

"I've been led on," Hawkmoon murmured. Contrail looked at her. Dystrexin, Soundwave, the bearded mech. "Can someone tell me what the frag is going on?"

Contrail looked to the bearded mech. The bearded mech glanced back and nodded solemnly - a reluctant encouragement.

"We weren't expecting survivors," Contrail told her. "No one was. Not Vos, not Iacon, no one. We weren't expecting anyone to come back from the Divide."

"But here I am," Hawkmoon said.

"Here you are."

"And that's a problem?"

"An opportunity," Dystrexin cut in. She offered Hawkmoon a warm smile but it was fleeting, flickering out like a dying candle.

"What do you mean an opportunity?" Hawkmoon questioned. She narrowed her optics. "Contrail-"

"Iacon has been... expanding," Contrail said with some difficulty. "They've been planting influence everywhere."

"I know. It was the same before I left."

"They weren't so audacious back then."

"But you're on their Council now," Hawkmoon pointed out. "The High Council. You're one of their senators."

"I represent Vos."

"Yeah? And?"

"I represent Vos alone," Contrail told her. "The seats for Iacon are many. And some of the other cities - they have none."

"Then why bother?"

"Because it's where the Prime sits." Contrail grimaced. "And he's all the power on this world."

"... Okay, look, that's all well and good, but where do I come in?" Hawkmoon pressed. "I'm not political. I'm not even important."

"That might not be true."

"Contrail-"

"They gave us honours. Iacon. Zeta Prime. They showered us in rewards because we lost so many."

There was a pause. "Because... because of us?" Hawkmoon questioned. "My formation?"

"And others," Contrail told her. "They thought to bribe us to take off the sting of having forced our hand."

"Is that how you got your seat?"

"It's..." Contrail gave her a stern look. "No. Not quite."

"Then why does it matter?"

"Because Zeta Prime awarded the lost formations with posthumous anointments. Titles. Rank. Positions of influence - dangling it before us like a lure." Contrail watched her. "Do you understand yet?"

It wasn't an immediate thing. Hawkmoon frowned, confused more than anything else, but it was Augur's bark of laughter that finally clued her in - and oh, oh the irony, oh the sick joke, what a laugh, what a clown, what a guy, that darn Zeta Prime, what a joker. Funny mech. Only she wasn't laughing. No, Hawkmoon wasn't quite finding it so amusing, not as Augur was. He shifted and pressed against her stomach, his claws kneading the plate of her thigh, and he looked up at her with that annoying vulpine grin, with those eyes like stars so full of mocking mirth.

"They mean to dress you up in laurels," he whispered to her. "What do you think of that?"

Nothing flattering. Hawkmoon twitched, scooched back (jostling Augur a little, the bastard), and vented deeply. "Oh," she said, and that was all she could manage.

Yeah, that made... well, it made some sense. But then-

"If that was Iacon at the palace," Hawkmoon said slowly, "or hell, even the Weapons Division, then they already know."

"They do. All thanks to Bitstream," Contrail confirmed.

"They're trying to save face?"

"They're trying to steal our advantage out from under us."

"And that's it?"

Contrail pinned her with a look - one that said shut up, don't you dare, we're not talking about that thing in your chassis right now. "I presume so."

"Why?"

"Because they were so certain you were dead they appointed you, as a trine-leader, a Vidame." Contrail paused laboriously. "And they named Swiftsear, as formation-leader, as Emirate."

"Swiftsear's dead," Hawkmoon softly replied.

"I am painfully aware. And so, by virtue of hereditary formation tradition, his title is yours. In his absence you are his acting Emirate."

"I... Contrail, I quite literally do not know what that means."

"It means a lesser noble station whose duties lie somewhere between that of a compulsor and a censor, with all the rights of a decorated evocatus-ranger," the bearded mech interrupted. "It's a landless position, but one with some significant public recognition and legal power even unto this age."

Hawkmoon's frown grew troubled. "That's... fragging Pit, what- Okay, wait a damn moment, who the hell are you?"

"Hawkmoon," Contrail said warningly.

"What?"

"This is Alpha Trion."

Hawkmoon raised an optical ridge. "So?"

"You don't know who I am?" Alpha Trion rumbled curiously.

She frowned. The name did sound vaguely familiar, but she couldn't pin it down. "Should I?"

"... I suppose it does not matter."

Hawkmoon looked to Contrail for help. "What's he doing here?"

"He's sympathetic to our plight," Contrail replied crossly. "And he sits on the High Council. You would do well to show more respect."

"I will when he earns it. So far he hasn't said much of anything. Why is he even here?"

"To get the measure of you," Alpha Trion said. His faceplates were blank, but his optics were set on her. "You could be useful."

Hawkmoon shot Contrail an angry look. "'Useful'? I'm not being your puppet. Look, it's awful that Iacon's being a bully, but there are priorities some magnitude above that that we have to consider."

"Hawk-"

"That's not a natural star." She pointed up, right at the green sun still centred on the animated mosaics. "That's Hive. That's-"

"-Xenological infestation seeded by another sapient species: the Hive." It was her voice again, played by Soundwave. Her debriefing in the palace. Soundwave quizzically angled his head and leaned forwards. "Query: basis for conclusion?"

"That's soulfire," Hawkmoon replied, still pointing. "It's not a star at all. More like a funeral pyre."

"For who?" Dystrexin inquired.

"Everyone they've killed. A funeral for them. A feast for the Hive and their gods. That's gotta be the consolidation of their tribute; the Web numbered nearly a hundred worlds at least. Hundreds of billions of sapient lives, countless ecosystems. Hive put it all to the sword and they eat the death, they chew it up and give it all to green fire. It's a ritual, one meant to appease their deities. Their king and queen and god of war - and the Worm Gods behind them."

There was a moment's silence.

"Gods?" Dystrexin echoed dubiously. "Rituals? My dear-"

"You know I'm telling the truth." Hawkmoon turned to Contrail. "You know it. You were wired in. I spoke the truth and you confirmed it."

"It's true," Contrail murmured. "It's true that you believe it."

"Contrail-"

"It just doesn't sound plausible."

"Mortals don't like the taste of divinity," Augur whispered to her. "Give them only a morsel. Condition them into wanting for more."

"Worm Gods?" Alpha Trion asked. His optical ridges were furrowed; when Hawkmoon glanced at him he looked... troubled. Thoughtful. Surprised. "What do you mean by this?"

"Only a little," Augur continued. "Tease them. Lead them to our side."

"Ancient alien entities," Hawkmoon coolly explained. "They've driven the Hive onto a genocidal warpath. They've just destroyed a sprawling interstellar civilization capable of annihilating its own suns. And they won't stop there. They know about Cybertron."

"They're all the way across the Divide," Dystrexin said flippantly. "And if they are coming for us, they'll have to contend with the bastions littered against the void. You took shelter on one of those worlds, did you not? The homeworld of the Eimin-Tin?"

"Penchant," Hawkmoon confirmed. "Which is all well and good, but the Eimin-Tin are about to go to war with the Drezhari - if they haven't already. That'll turn their attention inwards."

"Then the beast clan-"

"They don't have the numbers or the weapons to take on a single Hive Tombcarrier, let alone a flotilla of warmoons. The Hive outnumber them. They outnumber every civ set against the Divide. I really need you to be listening to me; the Hive are an active threat and they aren't going to wait until the Rust Plague comes back around to put us in the dirt. They know about Cybertron. They know about life on this side of the Divide." She gestured up again. "They've probably cleared out most of their section of space by now; they'll be spreading to the rest of the spiral arm once they finish up."

"The colony worlds will crush them. The Drezhari will flay them. The Eimin-Tin will tear them apart," Contrail uttered sternly. "Let them keep their broken finger; this arm is ours."

Is it? Then why is an angel running things? "They'll challenge that."

"They're a thousand lightyears away, Hawkmoon. Traversing so vast a distance takes a toll on organic constructs, particularly at any significant speed." He paused. "Cybertron is safe. You are safe. What happened out there was a gross miscalculation - a tragedy. And nothing less."

"They were my friends," Hawkmoon snapped. "They looked up to you too. Don't just write them off."

"I am not."

"Then what are you-"

"Swiftsear was dear to me," Contrail barked furiously. His field crackled and exploded with anger, lashing like a thousand whips. "If they come to us, these organic barbarians, we'll burn them for it."

Hawkmoon felt the fight leave her. They weren't listening. They weren't believing. "Then what the fuck do you want from me?" she asked. "To be your political icon? Your puppet?"

"Dearie-" Dystrexin started to plead, but Contrail cut across her.

"Yes," he said coldly. "Yes, that is exactly what I want. I could dress it up in fancier words, but it would be a disservice to us both. You are a commodity, a resource. Vos needs you and for that Iacon wants you destroyed."

"And... what? I'll have to shoulder that risk for the rest of my functioning days? For the sake of a city I don't even recognize?"

"Only until we pull back the curtains. Only until you're in the public eye. They won't dare strike you then."

Hawkmoon scowled. "No. Frag no. I'm going for option B."

Contrail grimaced. "There is no option B."

"You can't exactly force me."

"I can, actually. Unless-" Dystrexin put a servo on his arm and Contrail trailed off, fell still. His faceplates cleared and his field pulled back. His optics dimmed. "If you prove uncooperative," he said in a low, measured voice, "then I can offer you a posting at the Harfix-IV trade lanes, at the edge of friendly space. It's quiet there. Iacon won't find you. You'll be free to waste your life plying mundanities."

"That's no option at all," Hawkmoon vented hard. "It really is your way or the highway, isn't it? You can't risk losing face. Can't risk letting me go. You'll have me watched. A prisoner exiled to some distant asteroid base. All because I lived where everyone else died."

"Yes," Contrail said bluntly. At least he was honest.

"When did survival become a crime?"

No one said a thing. Dystrexin was averting her optics, Contrail was giving Hawkmoon his best blank look, and of the other two there wasn't much to be said. Alpha Trion wore a mask of neutrality and Soundwave - well his mask was that little more physical.

"I let your lackeys drag me back," Hawkmoon said slowly, "if only to warn Cybertron. The Hive killed the Taishibethi and everyone with them. They're going to do the same here."

"We will discuss it later," Alpha Trion murmured. "These aliens. Your concerns are noted."

"But it does take priority. What happened was a mess," Contrail growled. He stared at her. "Same as that incident on Penchant, same as at the Freeport. And you - Hawkmoon, you aren't to utter a single word about what happened at Azal."

"Do you even know yourself?" Hawkmoon challenged.

"Minerva showed me everything."

That would do it. "I could show you the Hive."

"And I could show you our streets, but I think you've already seen them," Contrail fired back. "Vos is falling apart. Cybertron is falling apart. The High Council under Zeta Prime is entrenching their position with reinforced caste-systems, with energon rationing and blatant censorship."

"And what am I supposed to do about it? Wave my arms in the air, do a raindance? You'll be forcing the Prime's hand for... what? Me? Putting me in that kind of position is like shoving any Seeker into a closet and locking it after yourself. It's just a bad idea and you're not going to get anything real out of it."

"It'll be a start."

Hawkmoon snorted. "I'll say."

"You don't want it?"

"No."

"Not even if it gives you the chance to repurpose Cybertron's military towards this... what, xenological cult?"

"And that's in my job description?"

"No, but the cameras will be pointed your way," Contrail told her. "And the mob loves a villain. Better one from a different world."

Hawkmoon grimaced. "I'm not going to be your puppet."

"You won't have to be," Dystrexin interjected, apologetic and reassuring - her tone soothing where Contrail's had been belittling. "All we want is for you to be on our side."

"You say that like it'll be a fight."

Dystrexin glanced at Alpha Trion. Contrail too. The old mech didn't react outwardly, though there was a faint fluctuation in his field.

"You're hiding something," Hawkmoon observed. "You're trying to convince me to offer myself, to sacrifice what's left of my life - and you're still lying to me."

"You've lied plenty," Contrail snapped. "You lied during your debriefing. Gave us only half-truths and tidbits."

"I gave you enough. Didn't hear you complain."

"For your sake."

"Oh, for my sake. Not yours. Not for the sake of your newest tool." Hawkmoon stood up. "I'm not doing this. I'm not. Find someone else to be your tool. I only let myself come back because I thought you all deserved to know what was coming. Not to play into your game of political charades." She scoffed. "Only Seekers would ignore the genocide of billions to further their own positions. You're pathetic. I'm not having any part of this."

She turned for the door and left, her audials ringing, but no one called after her. No one said a word.

Her room wasn't familiar enough for her to consider "safe", but it was the only place she considered worth retreating to. Rook was there, waiting, and immediately as she returned he took off from the table and flew to her shoulder, chirping with glee - though the moment his more rudimentary EM field touched hers, his initial joy faded. Rook pressed his beak in the crook of her neck, prodding her between her plating. Hawkmoon shivered. "'M fine," she mumbled, all but falling into the nearest chair. "Just... fuck people. Fuck them and fuck all their problems. Fuck their solutions especially."

Rook gave her a knowing look, tilting his head to stare at her with one shining optic.

Hawkmoon sighed. "This is a mess. I knew it was a mess but I let it happen anyways. We should have just left."

"You said you trusted him," Augur whispered to her. He crept along the back of the chair, silent and brooding. Even without an EM field she could sense the tension in him. The restlessness. "You said you trusted this Contrail."

"I did," Hawkmoon replied. She paused. "I do. I trust him not to sell me out, but... Look, trusting someone to be reasonable is a whole lot different to trusting them for real."

"Trust is trust, however much or little of it there is is inconsequential. You assigned worth to this android, this mech. You made him something of value to us. Can we not use that?"

"He wants to use me, Augur. I'm not falling under those chains ever again. Doesn't matter how noble they dress it up, I'm no pawn. I just... no," Hawkmoon muttered. Rook made an inquisitive sound, his field exerting a sense of confusion. He couldn't see Augur either. No one could. Except... "What about on your end? Find anything?"

"Nothing," Augur growled. He settled on her other shoulder. All in all Rook was certainly the heavier of the pair, though he was nowhere near as frustrating. "That creature-"

"Soundwave. Names, Augur."

"-is odd, but not... not alarmingly so."

Hawkmoon set her lips together tightly. "If you're certain."

"I'm not. I still hold to my prior suspicions. As do you, I sense."

"I dreamed about him, Augur. I dreamed and it felt so real - and he was there. I was wounded, I was leaning on him and..." Hawkmoon vented. "Cybertron was broken. Like - I dreamed. Not the usual Exo dreams, but something almost real."

"You have many dreams."

"But they should just be that," Hawkmoon said gruffly. "I'm not a Warlock. I'm not a Thanatonaut. I'm... I'm a Hunter. A Cybertronian. We don't have prophetic dreams."

"I do," Augur said. "And thus I know there is nothing limiting about visions. They care not for the boundaries of species. They don't stop to consider the elements found in your cerebral substrate. They simply occur. There are forces-"

"Yeah yeah, I know, Light and Dark and every fucking thing in between." Hawkmoon grimaced. "Been there, done that, now I know and wishing I didn't."

"Another wish?"

"Figure of speech. Ignore it." Hawkmoon pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, bracing her knees against her chest. "I've had my fill of dragons. Not like I'm liable to fall prey to ano-"

The door pinged. Hawkmoon rose up, unintentionally jostling Rook, but beyond an irritated squawk he stayed where he was. She crossed over, opened the door, and sighed as she saw her own faceplates reflected on Soundwave's peerless visor.

"Oh," she said coolly. "You. This is the part where you try to convince me to pitch in or terminate me to keep me quiet?"

No reply.

"I could promise that if I'm allowed to leave I won't share a word of what happened here, but that wouldn't satisfy either of us. I won't beg. I'd prefer if you didn't as well."

"No begging," another mech said. One of the twins. Greenie. He stepped out from behind Soundwave, his servos cradling a whole load of... stuff. Her stuff, Firespitter among them.

"Ah," Hawkmoon remarked. "Bribery. I see."

Soundwave stepped aside and Greenie approached. Hawkmoon, despite her foul mood, graciously took everything back - Tai-spun beads and ribbons, the Eimin-Tin handcannon, a couple of spare energy cells and all the other useless clutter she'd picked up. All of it bar a single alarming item.

"Uh... where's the spark?" Hawkmoon questioned with a frown. She looked at Soundwave. Soundwave looked at Greenie. Greenie hesitated.

"It's missing," he said.

There was a ringing sound, right from the back of her head, chiming in her audioreceptors, pulsing behind her optics. Something like hatred fanned the flames and everything narrowed down.

"Now that," Augur grumbled irritably, "that changes things."

Greenie left. Soundwave stood still as a statue right by the door, watching her - and Hawkmoon, for her part, paced in place, muttering curses and worse under her nonexistent breath. "This is bad," she muttered. "This is so fucking bad."

"Carrion birds circle above," Augur noted. "They must have caught the scent of death. One we ferried with us."

Hawkmoon glanced at him but didn't dare say a thing. Not with Soundwave there. She turned to the mech. "When did it go missing?"

Soundwave tilted his blank helm. "Timeframe: unknown. Estimation: during forced incursion by agents under Linguistic-Secretary Bitstream."

"So the Weapons Division have it? Iacon?"

"Conclusion: likely." Soundwave inclined his head. "Result: unfortunate."

"Unfortunate?" Hawkmoon echoed incredulously. "It's a fragging disaster! Do you know what that spark was?"

"Negative. Query: who was it?"

"It..." Hawkmoon trailed off and narrowed her optics. She gritted her denta.

Soundwave took notice. "Fault: lies elsewhere."

"I don't need this. I don't need you here to compound my troubles either. Get out."

"Objection." Soundwave straightened up. "Division: committed theft."

"Obviously-"

"But Hawkmoon: committed murder?"

Hawkmoon blinked. "... Now that's... He attacked me. The Eimin-Tin witnessed it. I killed him in self-defence. Go ask them."

"Curious."

"What is?"

"Hawkmoon: claims seized spark was deceased. Spark: was functional." Soundwave's visor shifted, the screen showing a reading - one Hawkmoon couldn't make head nor tail of. "Electromagnetic field: functional. Life readings: functional. Analysis: impossible."

"I cut the frame from him," Hawkmoon said stonily. "But he wouldn't stay dead."

"Evidence: irreputable." Soundwave paused. "Alarming."

"Of course it's..." Hawkmoon trailed off, her expression hardening. "This is just a ploy, isn't it? You're trying to make the Weapons Division my enemy. I don't care for that; seriously, that spark needs to be destroyed. Rampage-"

"He's not lying," Augur interjected.

Hawkmoon struggled to not look at him, but she fell silent all the same.

"He's not lying, Hawkmoon," Augur continued. "He is not being entirely honest, but he is not lying. Everything he has said is true. I can taste it in his words."

Which just means the unspoken things are what I have to watch out for, Hawkmoon thought. "Whoever has him," she said slowly, tone measured but urgent, "needs to destroy him. Or mecha will die."

Soundwave said nothing, but his helm re-orientated quizzically.

"If nothing else, believe this," Hawkmoon told him. "Rampage - that's the spark I had. I meant to find a way to destroy him, but nothing's worked so far. I killed him under the shadow of a pre-Eimin-Tin structure of alien origin and it was watching. It knew him. He worked- He used to operate on its behalf. And if he gets back up, he might return to doing just that. Do you understand?"

Soundwave, for a moment, didn't reply. Just looked at her. Then- "Soundwave: understands."

"Good, then you need to contact the Weapo-"

"Negative. Weapons Division: will not heed advice. Survival beyond frame-destruction: impossible. Implications: incredible. Function: to be studied."

"Undeath is not a simple phenomenon they can replicate," Augur growled. "It is a gift, a fell one, and those who shared it will inevitably come to collect. His heart is a beacon. Their agents are already looking this way."

Hawkmoon offlined her optics and she saw warmoons in the sky. "There has to be someone who can tell them to stop."

"Affirmative."

She onlined her optics. "Who?"

"Zeta Prime," Soundwave explained - though he may as well have said Oryx.

Hawkmoon set her jaw. "And he'll listen?"

"Negative."

"What about Alpha Trion?"

"Alpha Trion: holds little influence over Weapons Division."

"What about with Zeta Prime?"

Soundwave just shook his helm.

"Then who can tell him to tell them to stop? Contrail?"

"Contrail: unlikely. Weapons Division: protected in Iacon. Contrail: represents Vos."

"What if he explained they stole it from Vos?"

"Contrail: would be forced to explain how it was collected." Soundwave's visor went back to black. "Hawkmoon: would be revealed."

"... Oh," Hawkmoon said grimly. She looked at Soundwave and only just repressed the urge to glare. "That's a neat little snare you've got set up."

"Circumstances: undesirable," Soundwave evenly replied. "Situation: regrettable."

"Doesn't change much," she muttered unhappily.

"Negative," he agreed, then played her words back: "Doesn't change much."

Hawkmoon vented and all but fell into the nearest chair. Rook flew to her, nestled on her lap, and she allowed her servo to softly fall over his back.

"We could leave," Augur whispered.

We could, Hawkmoon thought, and where would that leave us? More importantly, Cybertron?

As if reading her thoughts, Augur jumped up onto the chair's armrest and stalked close enough to look into her optics. "We could leave," he reasoned. "But if we leave, then we surrender Rampage and the Luster in his heart. If we leave then we allow those behind the razor-birds here to ride to easy victory. If we leave then we allow the angel cloaked in dead steel to open the gates. If we leave then the Arch-Fiends will come with their dread hungers and their starveling fleets. Mayhaps we will find another bastion to secure and bolster down the line of the spiral arm, but they will still feast on all the life on this side of the spiral. All the death."

"Really feels like I don't have an option at all," Hawkmoon snarled. Her servos curled into fists, the tips of her talons scraping along her palms. "Oh I hate this. I hate it."

"It may be to our advantage to reach those elsewhere with early warnings," Augur murmured. "Prepare them."

But no one's ever really prepared for the Hive, Hawkmoon silently mused. Not until you've gone down into the Deep and faced them for yourself. "You're making me stay," she said, looking back at Soundwave. He didn't react. "You're making me stay and I'm going to make a muck-up of it all. I just want it said that whatever happens, it's on your shoulders."

"Warning: noted," Soundwave droned.

"... Fuck." Hawkmoon said up, moved Rook back to her shoulder and leaned her elbows onto her knees. "Fine. Fine, I'll stay. I'll stick around. I'll..." She pursed her lips. "I'll wear the dead man's cloak and I'll make it a vow."

"Query: a vow?"

"Don't you know? When you take up a fallen torch you make a purpose of it." Hawkmoon paused. "It's a frontier thing," she lied. Sort of. "Alien."

"Understood." Soundwave moved for the door. "Contrail: will be informed. Soundwave: is grateful."

"I'm sure you are. But really, get out."

This time he listened. This time he left. And Hawkmoon wasn't feeling any better for the bastard's absence.

AN: Massive thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!