Chapter Ten

Rodimus darted from his chambers and raced down the corridors to find Ultra Magnus. The Matrix connection was now faint. He was tempted to write it off as a silly wishful dream, but every now and then a stronger surge of something came through. His connection to Optimus had been restored, although it was unstable and tenuous.

He pounded on Magnus door, hoping that this would not become a habit. Once again Magnus answered, grumbling and looking quite put-out. "Really, Rodimus, what is so blasted important that you have to interrupt my recharge cycle?"

Rodimus fairly beamed at him. "Optimus is alive!" he sang out, overjoyed.

Ultra Magnus looked at him as if he'd sprouted an extra head.

Not an uncommon reaction from the city commander, actually. "How can that be? We saw the wreckage of the shuttle. You said you felt him die through the Matrix. How could he possibly be alive?" Despite all his skepticism, he couldn't help but feel a tiny seed of hope take root.

Roddy shook his head. "I don't know! But my connection to him is back now. It's weak but definitely there. If I concentrate, I can feel it."

"Rodimus, if this all turns out to be in vain-"

The glare was foreboding, but the young Prime was too excited to care. "Come with me to the command center! We need to find a way to locate him!" He hurried off without waiting for a reply, and Magnus was forced to tag along.

By the time the city commander caught up with his wayward leader, Rodimus was already surveying the star charts. "How will we know where to look?" Magnus asked, his weariness quickly evaporating.

Rodimus powered down his optics and concentrated. Three glowing balls of light. Three suns. "Metroplex, display a diagram of all trinary star systems in the area." The large city obliged. There were seven possibilities.

Prime thought back again to his dream/vision. One large and red; the others smaller and yellow. A red giant and two yellow stars. That left three possibilities. He thought harder and recalled the seven round spheres, which were not bright like the suns. Seven planets. "Metroplex, display all systems with three suns and seven planets."

There were two. "Put both on the display."

He studied the Ganges and Verderon star systems. Both could fill his criteria. Three suns, seven planets, both systems far away. They knew very little about either system, save for the very basics. The planet that had captured his attention in the dream was a stripey blue-brown and yellow. This was the planet he needed to find. The seventh Ganges planet was red with hazy sulfurous gases hovering in the atmosphere. However, Verderon VII was definitely blue-brown with dashes of yellow. That was it, then. He had found where Optimus was recuperating.

"Metroplex, bring up all available information on Verderon Seven."

Several files flashed on the screen. The city dutifully reported, "Verderon Seven is the seventh planet in the system, located near the Kobalis Nebula. The planet is renowned for having the most advanced medical facilities in the quadrant, focusing on a holistic mind-and-body combination healing." Medical facilities? Sounded like a promising place to look for someone who was injured. "Several indigenous species inhabit the planet. The dominant species is rumored to slightly resemble a Terran bird."

Avian creatures? "That's it!" Rodimus whooped. "That's where Optimus is being treated! Prep a shuttle immediately. I'm going after him."

"Whoa, wait a minute there!" Magnus held up a hand in warning. "One minute you're mourning him, the next you're running around like you've lost your mind. Listen, if you're right, then I'll be the first to celebrate. But if you're wrong…."

"It would be disastrous to raise our people's hopes, only to dash them again. And there's so little we know of what is truly going on here." Rodimus shook his head. "The nature of my mission must remain a secret."

Magnus sighed. He could see that talking Rodimus out of his harebrained idea was useless. "There's so much of this that I don't understand. How could Optimus have survived the explosion? And how was it that you didn't sense his spark through the Matrix until now?"

"Good question. Somehow he must have been rescued or picked up by a passing ship. I felt him dying, there's no doubt about that. The Matrix must have severed the connection due to the intense pain. It either became overwhelmed or tried to spare me the worst of it. We know so little about the Matrix, but proximity may also play a part. Long distances do not seem to affect it much, but the separation by several galaxies may very well weaken the connection."

"And you're sure there's no way I can talk you out of this?" Magnus did not look hopeful.

"Definitely not. Since I've got the Matrix, I'm the only one who can sense where Optimus is, roughly speaking. And since we've got to keep this a secret, we can't involve anyone else."

"At least take Ratchet. If Optimus has been injured, he'll need an expert on his systems to take a look."

"Sure, sure," Rodimus waved his hand distractedly. "But no one else!"

Magnus clasped Roddy's hand. "Good luck then. And be careful. This army can't deal with the loss of two Primes."

"I will," Roddy replied solemnly. "You just keep things afloat here until I get back." Magnus saluted and exited the command chamber.

Rodimus grabbed a container and began tossing data pads in haphazardly. The journey would no doubt take almost a week, and he could at least take advantage of the tedious downtime to get some paperwork done. Just as he turned to go, the room's comm. channel beeped. It was the P-chan, which Blaster had integrated with the Decepticon communication grid to facilitate Alliance communication. "Megatron?" he said breathlessly. "I was just on my way out. What's up?"

"We need to meet to discuss the situation with the Circle."

"I'll have Magnus contact you. Normally I'd insist on being involved, but something urgent has come up that I need to address. I may be gone for several weeks."

"Oh," the Decepticon leader said flatly. "Very well, then."

"Wait!" Roddy exclaimed. "Listen. I owe you a huge apology over this Circle mess. You were right all along that it was an inside job, and I would have seen it sooner if I hadn't let my suspicious cloud my judgment. If I had pushed things just a bit further, we'd be back on the battlefield trying to shoot each other's head off. I just wanted to thank you for keeping the Alliance together, even though I nearly destroyed it."

"Spare me your Autobot sentimentality," the Decepticon leader snorted, though he sounded pleased despite himself. "You would have discovered the truth eventually. Besides, you weren't entirely wrong. That's what I was calling to tell you. I've discovered that quite a few Decepticons were members. I've got them confined to the brig."

He choked. "Decepticons? Members of the Circle?! I thought the whole point of the Circle was to make the Decepticons look bad and destabilize the Alliance."

"The latter part of your statement was why they joined. Remember, the Circle was a very shadowy and mysterious organization. No one knew who the leader was, or even who most of their fellow members were. The Circle was ostensibly about destroying the Alliance, and as you can guess, the concept of the Alliance did not sit well with many of my people."

Rodimus shook his head. It seemed that this Circle business had thrown him for yet another loop. Just when it seemed that he had this thing figured out! "That's amazing. Do you mean to say that Autobots and Decepticons were working together within the Circle to wipe out our Alliance of Autobots and Decepticons?"

"Pretty much," Megatron chuckled darkly. "They formed an alliance, unbeknownst to them, to destroy our Alliance. You'd better believe I'm driving home the irony to them. You can bet they would have never knowingly followed an Autobot's commands."

Roddy could not contain his curiosity. "So which Decepticons were members?"

"I'm not surprised by the majority of them. It's mostly people who either don't like my rule, or don't like the idea of the Alliance, or both. All of the Predacons and Seacons are members. Motormaster and Wild Rider of the Stunticons are as well." The Autobot leader winced. Another combiner team separated. "If Starscream were still alive, I'd have no doubt that he would have joined. I'm just grateful that Soundwave and Cyclonus weren't members."

"It's good to have 'bots to count on," Rodimus said meaningfully, trying to underscore his apology. "Look, I really do need to get going, but I'm glad that you contacted me with the update. I'll have Magnus get together with you right away."

"Have a good trip." The words were polite, but rather stiff. Rodimus realized that it would take more to restore trust between them.

The young Prime hesitated. "Listen, Megatron. I've got some amazing news, something that no one else but Ultra Magnus knows. Optimus may still be alive."

Dead silence. "Optimus Prime, alive?"

"…yes…" Rodimus realized that Optimus and Megatron had been archenemies since time immemorial. But the time had come to start trusting. If he couldn't trust Megatron with this information, then they might as well dissolve the Alliance right now.

"That's wonderful news! If anyone can hold the remnants of the Alliance together, it would be Optimus. We need him now more than ever."

Rodimus breathed a sigh of relief. He had known that trusting Megatron was the right thing to do. "I'm leaving now to see if I can locate him. I'll let him know that you said hi."

Megatron laughed, and Roddy couldn't help but grin. It was good to have hope again. "You do that, Autobot. 'Till all are one."

"Till all are one." Prime severed the comm. link. Truer words were never spoken.