Around three stellar cycles later…

"Alice?" Lockdown checked each room that he passed as he looked for his daughter. She had figured out how to walk, and that meant she'd hide for hours, making him look for her. It was a game of sorts, and he normally didn't mind. But she was quiet this time, not giggling happily.

Just then he heard crying coming from the med-bay. "Slag." He swore as he ran inside, stopping when he saw Alice sitting in a puddle of her own energon-blood. There was a laser scalpel in her hand, and her helm was missing the parts that went over her cheeks.

"Sweetspark, what are you doing?" Alice turned to face her mother, tears running down her cheek.

"I… I don't wanna wook wike him…" Alice sobbed. She hadn't expected the PAIN that would come from altering her helm's appearance. Lockdown sighed, knowing exactly who she meant. He had been doing some upgrades to security when Alice had found a visor. She liked the color, a soft, but still bright, yellow and she had worn it sense. It had helped her see, and when some reports had been shown, she had noticed her mother's reaction to the picture of Megatron.

"Shush… It's okay. I could never be afraid of you. Now let's put something on those cuts…" Lockdown carefully picked up the sobbing sparkling and set her on the berth. Taking out some bandages, he covered the small cuts on her cheeks first before bandaging her helm. It would never be the same, but maybe that was how she wanted it.

"Mommy, why does he hate us?" Alice's question shocked him, and he glanced down at her. She was only a sparkling, had she been thrust into something that shouldn't involve her.

"He… He hates everyone, Sweetspark." Lockdown answered as he kissed her helm. "Now, how about a story?"

"YAY!" If there was one thing Lockdown knew would raise his daughter's spirits it was her favorite stories: Alice in Wonderland and Alice's Adventures through the Looking Glass. She loved how she was named after the young girl in them, and how she could just feel as though the stories were more real then they let on.

They had only gotten a few pages before the ships alarms went off. Cursing, Lockdown hid Alice in her closet and went to go find the problem. "Oh slag…" He had not been expecting a Decepticon patrol to find them this far out. The fight was brief, with Oil Slick managing to melt one of Lockdown's legs and one of Cyclonus's swords slicing off an arm.

"I don't know why Lord Megatron wants you back alive… But I don't really care. Leave him as is, we'll let the ship crash and tell Megatron he was already dead." Strika ordered after she destroyed the navigation computer and the ships controls. Her subordinates were happy to follow her orders, and left quickly, Oil Slick smirking in Lockdown's direction as he left. Lockdown let out a string of curses as his ship was rocketed toward a small planet by turbulence they caused.

"…Mommy?" Alice asked as she ran down the hall. When she reached her carrier, the sparkling kneeled down and wrapped her small arms around his neck. Lockdown held her close and partially underneath him to protect her on impact. He could die, but she couldn't.

-On Underland-

"Ah, look Mally, a shooting star." The techno-organic youngling looked to where her caretaker was pointing. Her large ears twitched, much like her Dormouse likeness's would as the shooting star streaked through the sky in the direction of the chess board.

"Tarrant, get Mally back inside now!" The tall mech turned to see his long-time lover come running toward him. "That ship is going to crash near the chess board, and I want you two inside." Stayne had a right to be worried, if any Decepticons landed there would be trouble… Mallympkun used that as a reason to break free of the Hatter's grasp and run off.

"Mally! Get back here!" Stayne shouted as he ran after her. The orphan had nearly died when her creators had been attacked by the 'Cons, her escape pod just barely letting her survive the landing.

Mally ignored him and hurried to the chess board, a site that most of Underland's inhabitants avoided because of the fearsome Jabberwocky. She reached it in time to see a mech, obviously a Cybertronian, crawl out of the wreck, armor on fire, before falling down. There was something in his arms that caught her interest, though and she carefully walked closer. "Hewo."

Lockdown looked up the best he could. Surviving the crash had been a miracle, and the small techno-organic looked as though she was scared, yet intrigued. He smiled and felt the warmth of unconsciousness creep upon him as she turned away, and a voice called out to her. "Mallympkun! What has Tarrant told you about… Oh God! There's a survivor!" It was the last thing Lockdown heard as he passed out, Alice still in his arms.

-On Team Charr's ship-

"I'm sorry, Lord Megatron, but his ship had already crashed when we had found him." Megatron snarled at the screen, knowing that Strika had probably killed the bounty hunter. That was fine, but he wanted to know only one thing about a passenger on the ship.

"Any sign of a sparkling?" he asked and Strika looked nervous. "Well?"

"Negative. If he had your heir on board then he hid the signal. We suspected the worst, sir." Megatron slammed his fist into the computer's controls, rage quickly taking over. How dare that bounty hunter take what has HIS? His heir was now dead or floating through space. He signed off and stormed off to his chambers. If he ever found Lockdown, the bounty hunter was as good as off line.