Chapter 2

Glowing in space like a magnificent jewel, is the planet Cybertron; home planet to the Transformer. With the defeat of the Decepticons during the battle of Nebulos, the Autobots were able to restore Cybertron to its former beauty. It now stands as a beacon of hope and prosperity to all other planets in the UDC of what can be one with a little hard work.

Inside Astrotrain, the Constructicons can't help but look on in amazement at seeing their home world once more as they approach. "With luck, one day Charr will look that magnificent, and the universe will see that even we Decepticons are capable of such great feats!" Scrapper muses mostly to himself.

"You guys better hold on tight, with our approach to Cybertron I am predicting that we will be experiencing turbulence on this flight." Astrotrain says over his interior speakers.

"I thought you said they wouldn't notice a smaller vessel!" Bonecrusher yells.

"I never said that! I said that a smaller target has better chance of getting past their defenses. They will notice us, and they will open fire. So unless you guys don't want to be thrown around, you best strap yourselves in and hold on tight, like I suggested." Astrotrain retorts. Not wanting to argue with someone that can leave them floating in the middle of nowhere, the Constructicons brace themselves, as Astrotrain increases to his maximum speed wanting to get through the grid as fast as he can.

Getting closer to Cybertron, hundreds of satellites can be seen, with the approach of Astrotrain, several of them turn there focus on him, using camera to get a good look at incoming vessel, and transmit it to the large orbital space station above Cybertron's north pole.

Inside the space station, there are several different different races that can be seen to keep the defense grid running. Most notable among the races are the Autobots, the green skinned humanoids known as the Nebulans, and Humans. Among the Autobots, one easily stands above the rest, literally. The powerful and cool headed City Commander Ultra Magnus. While most races wear white uniforms with colored stripes denoting position, The Autobots that have joined the UDC wear the sigil of the space federation on their bodies. For Ultra Magnus; His is on his right shoulder replacing on of his Autobot Symbols, as well as repainted most of his body white to match the UDC officers he works with.

A small alarm goes off, alerting a near by Nebulan of an incoming vessel. He looks up to the large blue and white Autobot. "Commander, we are picking up an unidentified ship, It appears to be an outdated Terran Shuttle."

Ultra Magnus' blue optic brighten. "Outdated Terran Shuttle?" He says softly "Been awhile since I've seen one of those... Best to put it on screen, Napalm."

The Nebulan nods softly "Yes, Commander." and switches the camera's view to the main screen in front of Ultra Magnus, showing Astrotrain rocketing towards Cybertron at great speeds. Ultra Magnus' optics brighten as he realizes just who the Shuttle really is.

"That's no Shuttle, that's Astrotrain!" He says loudly, the other UDC members suddenly looking up in shock. "It's been ages since we've even seen a Decepticon, what would they want now?" Napalm asks curiously.

"The same thing they always want... Destruction. Arm all turrets, I don't want him getting through. There's no telling how many Decepticons he's carrying inside of him. I don't want to take any chances with this. Even a small party could cause havoc that would require years to clean up."

"Right away sir!" Napalm responds.

The turrets that have locked on to Astrotrain power up and open fire, releasing powerful laser blasts as the small shuttle craft. "Slaggit, They've noticed us already... I was hopping that we'd be able to get much closer before they seen us." Astrotrain says as he starts to dodge the volleys of laser fire as best as he can. Luckily for him, he's right about the turrets having a harder time with small singular targets. Only a few hitting him every now and then.

"Sir, the grid doesn't seem to be made for small targets. Astrotrain's having little trouble avoiding the blasts. What do you suggest we do?" Napalm asks

Ultra Magnus' optics dim as he rubs his chin while thinking. "Best to alert the base on Cybertron, We'll need ground troops on standby just in case they do get through. Also employ the Aerialbots, they should be able to keep Astrotrain and his occupants busy while the guys in engineering fine tune the lasers to try and get a better lock on them."

"Alright sir." Napalm responds.

Outside the space station, a small hanger opens up as the five Autobot jets launch out into space, each of them sporting a UDC sigil on one of their wings. Quickly the aerial aces home in on Astrotrain and open fire of him. Its times like this that Astrotrain resents being such a slow and clunky shuttle, not having anywhere near the maneuverability of a jet. With the Aerialbots now in the fray, he is quickly taking a beating unable to avoid the jet's fire.

"I don't think I can take more of this kind of punishment, I'm out manned and out gunned as long as I'm stuck in my shuttle mode. We're going to have to come up with something quick if we want to reach the surface in one piece!" Astrotrain says over his speakers to the Constructicons.

"Quit whining... We're not that maneuverable either out there, especially in this war zone. But if you open your cargo bay door, I think we might be able to cover you from inside. You just stay focused on getting us planetside." Scrapper says unbuckling himself and getting up, taking his gun from subspace. "Come on guys, we've got some wings to clip."

Astrotrain's rear opens as he continues to try and doges the lasers and Aerialbots. As soon as the door has opened all the way, the Constructicons open fire targeting both Aerialbots and turrets. They manage to take out several turrets, which cause them to go up in spectacular explosion, resulting the Aerialbots having to dodge the fireballs as they continue to try and bring down the small group of Decepticons.

Slingshot, always the daring one, gets up close to Astrotrain, deciding to see just how many are on board. "Yo, Magnus, come in. This is Slingshot. Do yo read me? Astrotrain opens his cargo bay doors and I have clear view in side. The good news is there's only six of them in side. The bad news is they're all green..."

"Just the Constructicons and Astrotrain? Strange... None of Galvatron' men are with them... What could they be up to?" Ultra Magnus muses the last bit to himself before shaking his head. "Regardless what they are up to, Devastator means big trouble."

Slingshot laughs as he expertly dodge the laser fire of the Constructicons "Heh, I'm not worried about big green and ugly. We got Superior up here and Computron down below. They won't stand a chance!"

"Slingshot, this is no time to get cocky. Just bring them down." Silverbolt commands, knowing that attitude often gets them into trouble. Which is no different this time, as before Slingshot can answer a shot for one of the Constructicons clips his right wing, sending Slingshot spiraling off towards a nearby turret which explodes in a giant fireball.

"Hehehe, thats one less annoyance!" Long Haul gloats taking pride in the fireball that reflects in his visor.

"SLINGSHOT!" Air Raid cries in shock, seeing his best friend in the midst of such an explosion. Without waiting for the other, Air Raid immediately breaks off pursuit and flies towards to wreckage. Dodging what he can of laser fire and debris, he ignores what damage he does take, focused only on saving Slingshot he quickly reconfigures himself into his robot mode and searches the area, until he finds the badly damaged vehicle mode of Slingshot. "C-can you hear me buddy? Say something, anything if you can!" Air Raid pleads, only to be meet with silence form his offline friend.

Air Raid's optics glow brightly as he fills with anger. "Slaggit! The rest of you guys make sure those Decepticreeps don't get away with this. I'm taking Slingshot back to base for medical treatment." He says as he grabs on to Slingshot and flies back to the Orbital Command Center.

"Were almost through! Just hold them off a little..." But before Astrotrain can finish a similar style Terran shuttle sideswipes Astrotrain, causing the Decepticon shuttle to spin off the side some. The white shuttle transforms, taking on the strange saurian-like form of Sky Lynx. Like with the Aerialbots he also sports the Symbol of the UDC on his wings.

"Great... As if we didn't have enough to deal with, Captain Ego is now here..." Skydive says resentfully seeing the large egotistical Autobot.

Sky Lynx looks over to the three Remaining Aerialbots, and huffs at the nickname. "You lot are just upset that you can't handle a simple threat without my magnificence to back you up. You've already lost one of your group, it was just by luck that I happened to be in the area and decided to go out of my way and grace your with my presence and help the lot of you. You should be praising me for saving your afts. But if you gonna act like that, just run along, and I will show you how to handle such a pitiful threat like this." He gloats as he rushes toward the stunned Decepticon shuttle and slashes at him with one of his massive catlike paws, sending Astrotrain flipping out of control while jarring the Constructicons inside and throwing them out into the void of space.

"Alright, I'm getting tired of this windbag. I'm going to have to alter the plan if we ever want to see planetside!" Scrapper yells and looks to Sky lynx "You want to pull out the big guns! Well we're gonna show you the REALLY big guns. Constructicons unite and DEVESTATE this loud mouth!"

The Constructions fly together, pairing off as the Transform. Scrapper and Mixmaster first switching to vehicle mode and then into Devastator's legs. Long Haul and Hook going next, transforming and combining into Devastator's torso before linking up with the legs. Finally Scavenger and Bonecrusher link up forming the arms as Devastator's head lifts up from somewhere inside the torso. "Lets see how big mouth likes being smashed around!" Devastator roars and clasps his fists together bringing them down on top of Sky Lynx causing him to hurtle down into the planet below like a comet.

Thanks to Devastator's size the turrets have a better target to lock on to, and begin to pumble him with volley after volley, making the massive Decepticon even angrier, he pulls his rifle from Subspace and begins blasting a path towards Cybertron, grabbing Astrotrain with his free hand. The Aerialbots barely able to miss the giant laser blast, as they turn back and head for base, without Air Raid and Slingshot they stand no chance against Devastator. With his path clear Devastator thrusts himself towards Cybertron

Ultra Magnus watches the screen as Devastator makes his decent, his optics bright in shock. "I-I've never seen Devastator be so... so focused like that!" He says in disbelief "The Constructicons are NEVER this united. Whatever they have in mind, it can't be good for us if it can make them work that well together."

Napalm looks to Ultra Magnus, being used to only a time of piece the Nebulan seems lot in the face of such a direct assault "What are your orders, Commander? Something has to be done to stop him..."

Ultra Magnus nods as he walks to a strange cylindrical device in the back of the room, grabbing his gun before entering the tube. "Inform Prime on the situation, I don't really want to get him involved. He's been enjoying the peace far too much, but it could get bad seeing how focused they are. Then contact any Autobot UDC agent you can, they appear to be heading towards..." Magnus stops and looks at a radar screen to check Devastator's destination. "This day is just full of surprises. They're heading towards Crystal city. I'm going down there to handle this personally. When you get a hold of Prime, tell him that I'll contact him for reinforcements if this gets out of my hands."

Napalm nods and turns to his console. "Roger, sir!" He says as he starts to locate any and all UDC agents in the area. While the tube closes around the large Autobot who disappears in a flash of light as he teleports to the surface.