Astrosecond~ .498 seconds, milli-cycle~1 sec, cycle~1 min, breem~ 8.3 minutes, mega-cycle~1 hour, meta-cycle~1\2 hours, solar cycle~1 day, day~ 20 hours, orbital cycle~ 1 month, gigacycle~ 1 year, deca-cycle~10 years, vorn~ 83 years, stellar cycle~400 year, mechanometer~ 1 meter, vun~ hectometer, hic~ 1 kilometer

Thoughts, 'binary code', (alien language), "talking"

During the attack Vibes covered her damage with patches; she planned to repair the damage once the Decepticon threat was over. The assault from the Decepticons was starting to die down, giving Vibes a chance to check on her team. She went to Dropshot first hoping he was still functioning. "Dropshot! Dropshot can you hear me?"

She looked down in disappointment as she placed her hand on his chassis. But then the large hand grabbed hers and asked, "So, how are we doing ma'am? Is Clocker, OK?"

Vibes lied to Dropshot, "I…I don't know…but it doesn't look good. When that tank came, the Decepticons lost all lot of interest in us. It looks like it took out the last drone, Snapdragon too. All that's left is Apeface but I haven't seen him," Vibes's scanners alert her to Apeface's movements. He was heading towards where the unknown vehicle and Snapdragon lied. "Hang on Dropshot, I'm going to help our new friends." Armed with a rifle, she attached her personal scope to look for Apeface's energy signals.

The flack was heavy and they weren't given the chance to even attack it. The best the team could do was to send Tali and Legion's combat drones. Unfortunately they kept getting destroyed before they could actually be of any use. "Shepard if we don't do something we won't be leaving this planet anytime soon."

Lost for a few seconds in his memories Shepard just told himself, Goddamn it, like Akuze all over again. No, I won't let that happen not again, especially with Tali here, I can't! "Legion, watch over Tali while she contacts the Normandy for air support and hot extraction."

"What will you be doing Shepard", Tali asked with fear hidden in her voice.

Shepard loaded his Locust and just replied, "I'll distract it, maybe even give it a black eye or two."

With terror Tali grabbed Shepard's arm before he left the cover, "NO, you can't do that! You'll die! I won't leave you! I won't…"

Legion interrupted, "If no action is taken, probability of survival is 0.632% rounded up. Advise immediate action to be taken to improve odds."

Before they could argue any more a single shot rang out, followed by an explosion and metal grinding against the sand. Shepard looked out finding the last robot lying in the sand with much of its head gone. "Someone took the synthetic out in one shot. Let's hope their friendly." No one wanted to put their weapons away after fighting those monstrosities.

A female humanoid figure came slowly, walking towards them from behind the blowing sand. The team took aim at the figure's head. Slowly she became more visible. The machine has red colored armor with white plating everywhere else. The female figure had shoulder armor similar to Shepard's old N7 shoulder but much longer with a red symbol on the sides of the shoulder guards. The symbol in question looked almost like a face. The figure's right shoulder was poorly rigid with temporary patches, wheels on its feet, and it had lights on its chest. A yellow visor covered what would anatomically be the eyes and a rounded helmet covered most of the head. The being had suffered several minor burns and dents from events before this one. It carried the rifle with its left hand but from the damage and posture that was the only way it could carry the rifle. She placed the rifle and a side arm housed on her waist onto the desert sand, backing away from them. It spoke in a similar language they detected earlier and what the dinosaur-like thing spoke.

(Hello my name is Vibes. I am an Autobot. We are defenders of freedom and justice. I have a friend named Dropshot who was injured in combat, can you provide assistance?)

After it finished the team looked to Legion with Shepard asking, "Did you understand a word of that?"

With a flash from its head plates, Legion just said, "No."

Tali interjected, "Legion, I know the geth can network themselves together and you said that geth use FTL comm. buoys to upload data, so why don't you interface with this…thing?" She was trying not to be insulting even though she really couldn't care less what Legion thought of her.

Legion's head looked down for a moment to process the possibilities when the runtime had reached consensus, "There is a possibility that we might be able to interface with the unknown programs. Addendum: These being represent an unknown. We recommend Shepard-Commander and Creator-Tali'Zorah to be prepared. These machines have demonstrated their destructive potential." Legion returned its sniper rifle to its back and Legion's eye began to glow brightly. Even with the sandstorm still blowing Legion's light was as intense as a lighthouse.

A number of entities flew through a realm filled with shattered bodies as well as places that were bleak and desolate. The runtimes had found two moons as they orbited around a metal world and could be seen yet the closer they tried to get the further the planet got. They continued to search for the programs that were housed within the female looking body but all they were finding were empty shells, pictures of beings & places from that metal world and floating screens replying battles. Finally there was a corridor was noise echoing down it's halls but it wasn't just noise it had a beet to it. The closer Legion's runtimes got to the sound the noise started to become beautiful music. It sounded like the music the quarians once played before the Morning War, as the geth call it, or Geth War referred to by the quarians and the others organics.

The programs found an open door which lead to a room that was well kept and lit, with the automaton in the center playing an odd looking string instrument. They watch as she played her song but she was crying the whole time. There was an image of another robot that was with her, a blue and white robot with the same red symbol adorn on its chest. Legion's runtimes waited for her to finish playing before entering the room. The female unit stood up and picked up the display and walked towards the open door way and she was taken by surprise, not expecting to see anyone. "Oh! I never expect…how did you…I'm sorry. No one else has ever been here…" she looked down towards the image of the other robot and the bodies outside the room, "Well, other than ghosts anyway. Who, or what, are all of you."

In unison they all spoke, "We are geth. The mobile platform we use is referred to as Legion by the organics we work with. Your form of communication is inefficient. You use audio like organics yet you are capable of linking with other machines and converse using high bandwidth communication channels. Why?"

She was lost for a few milli-cycles but she regained her composure, "First let me introduce myself, the name is Vibes and in truth I never knew we could do this until you came. I'm sorry but is…'geth'…the name of your race?"

"Yes. We were created by a race called the quarians. We were originally designed as labor and battle units. We eventually gained sentient status when our Creators allowed us to network with other active programs. The Creators attempted to destroy us, fearing we would rebel against them. We defended our right to exist. Eventually the Creators left their homeworld and colonies, leaving all they knew for life on board ships three hundred years ago. Descendent Creator-Tali'Zorah vas Normandy is one of the allies currently working with these runtimes. The planet and images from before. Your homeworld? Allies?"

Looking even more depressed she breathed a heavy sigh, "Yes, Cybertron, my home. The others are friends and comrades I have lost during this stupid war!" Her voice growled in anger and disgust. "I think I should be detailing all of this with your comrades though."

"Agreed. You use a language none of us are familiar with or could decipher. Addendum: We can provide galactic language data."

"Yes, we would not be able to proceed if communication can't be established. Thank you for the data Legion." This all may have taken minutes between organics but the exchange of data between Legion and Vibes was only about three second in real time.

The mech put its hand around its throat while sound came out of its mouth. The machine was adjusting the audio output into a comprehensible language until she finally spoke, "Hello, organics. My name is Vibes. Thanks for your assistances with the Decepticons, but I may need more help."

Shepard spoke up, "Decepti-what?"

"Decepticons; power mad egomaniacs who want to enslave the universe. But we can talk about this later. A comrade of mine needs immediate assistance, if you can provide it. I don't want to see yet another spark extinguished under my command." Vibes grabbed her weapons then started to transform. Her head was pulled back in as her chest swung up. The tall shoulder guards aligned with her chest. Her upper spun around as she started to lay her tires onto the sand. The red boot-like part of her feet attached to the other side of her legs as the rest of her body started to align. As she changed a similar sound came from her as did the dinosaur robot, but hers was of a higher pitch. She was now a red sports car and popped open the doors closest to the group. Somehow she could still speak as she said, "Get in it'll be a lot fast this way. I may get sand in my gears, but if it saves my squad mate I'll do whatever it takes."

Shepard and Tali felt uneasy about trusting this synthetic given everything that had transpired, but without hesitation Legion hopped in and just looked at the others, "Shepard-Commander? Creator-Tali'Zorah?" So far Legion has not done anything to endanger the team but it still felt out of place. With her new passengers Vibes took it easy taking about a minute to reach the downed ally. The sandstorm was starting to die down now, improving visibility.

She opened the doors waiting for the team to get out. As soon as they were a safe distance from her, Vibes quickly transformed back to her robot form, "Dropshot!" She rushed towards him speaking her native language, (Is your spark still burning? Are you OK? Come on, don't go offline on me!)

Vibes leaned her head on him as she started to cry but a hand put itself on her back and that unintelligible language from before. (Sorry for the scare, ma'am…I was just saving my power until you came back. So, find our welcomed party crashers?) The large white bot kicked the drone chassis off him.

(Yeah, and with luck they may be able to help us.) She took a chip that popped itself from the back of her head and placed it into a slot that appeared on his chest, (Here, this data has the language the peoples of this galaxy use.)

It took a few second for the data to process. Then the downed giant started to speak, "I'd say nice to meet you, but as you might have noticed I can't see…or do much at the moment. Thanks for the assistance, if you're providing of course." Dropshot raised his hand straight up into the air and gave 'a thumbs up' in no particular direction.

With hesitation Shepard asked, "Are the two of you A.I.s or organic controlled exosuits?"

"We are what we are. Now please, I'm no expert in tech, so could you please help him?" Vibes tied to plead with the small organic male as he assessed both of them.

Legion added, "Shepard-Commander, you are worried that these two units will endanger your crew. We can say that with 87% certainty they will not endanger anyone without being provoked first. Shall we provide assistance to Unit-Vibes' comrade?"

Shepard doesn't like putting the team in unnecessary danger but if they didn't do anything that Dropshot fellow was as good as dead. "Alright, we can ask questions after we fix up your friend. Luckily we have my crew's best tech specialists with us."

With relief and gratitude in her voice all Vibes could think of doing was to bow as she said, "Thank you for everything."

Shepard knew Tali was going to have reserve feeling about this and he could see it on her, even through her helmet Shepard could see Tali's angst as she asked him, "Shepard, can we really trust these things? For all we know they could be working for the Reapers, or they could just be lying to us." Even with Legion and EDI apart of the crew, Tali still didn't trust A.I.s.

"I understand you're concerned about this, but you saw what the others could do. And I'd rather not have to fight anymore right now."

Tali hesitated, but replied, "OK Shepard, but I still don't like this. The only reason I'm doing this is because of you, but I guess I can't just let it suffer either. Come on Legion, we have work to do." The two of them stared to head towards Dropshot. When they got to him, Tali spoke to Dropshot, "Hello, my name is Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, but you can just call me Tali. The other here working on you is Legion."

With a laugh Dropshot said, "Judging from your voice, I'd wager you're a femme. Thanks for the assistance ma'am." He reminded her of Kal'Reegar when he said that. "I can't see right now so who's this Legion fella?"

Legion had already started to work on Dropshot's critically damaged systems. Tali started to work as well when she told him, "He, if you can call it that, is a machine like you, but not like you. He uses a neural network to attain sentiency."

Dropshot's mouthplate moved as he spoke, "So it's just a bunch of simple programs working together to become smarter, huh? Too bad some of our drones don't have that," Dropshot then thought about that for a moment. "Well maybe not. I'd probably be offline by now if they were. Ha ha ha…" Dropshot started coughing.

Without stopping his work, Legion spoke before Tali could tell him, "Unit-Dropshot. Advise not taking any unnecessary actions or power usage."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I got two great mechanics working on me, right? Besides, you'll need my help in some understanding of the hardware and it helps me to talk, reminds me that I'm still online. It also helps to not think about the pain, too." The two of them were silent as they continued with their work. "Come on, neither of you are curious about me or us in general?"

Tali was just trying not to be rude, so to indulge him she asked, "Yes, I mean who wouldn't be? Your hardware is amazing, you have what looks like repair units working on the trivial areas and your size is unthinkable for what you are."

A little puzzled with all the techno talk, Dropshot replied, "Sorry ma'am, but all that technical stuff you should be talking to Ratchet or Wheeljack about. I'm just a heavy labor bot turned soldier because of the war." Dropshot hated silence, "You know, you could be asking me about our people or even personal questions."

Legion then posed his query, "Why are units not networked for cohesion?"

"First I have no idea what you just asked. But if I think I got it right, you asked why we aren't linked or something?"

"Yes."

"Hey, I said I wasn't a techy. So just ask things I do know like my name, history, or something."

With a bit of a lip, Tali just goes, "Ok then, tell us how you got your name."

"Alright something easy, it was during basic. See, a lot of Autobots are repurposed from the opposite end of the combat units." Reminiscing with a smile, if his face had a mouth, and chuckled, "Most of us didn't even know how to hold a blaster properly, let alone shoot it."

"If units were not built for task why did Unit-Dropshot continue?"

"That's the thing. Lot of Cybertron's original military units were joining the Decepticons. Sure some joined the Autobots; otherwise the most combat experienced guys came from the justice units like cops or security. Anyway, I got my name because if I'm not injured or hindered by anything, I could drop a Con in one shot. Bam. It was either offline or it couldn't fight but I still dropped 'em."

Just to keep Dropshot satisfied, Tali then asked him, "So how did your Commander get her name?"

Dropshot wanted to look towards her but he still couldn't see so he leaned his head towards where he heard her last, "Who Vibes? I'm not too sure. Probably the same way Jazz got his, her love of music, I suppose. All I do know about the Commander is she's one hell of a sharpshooter. I heard she once downed a Con almost a megamile away." He paused and looked back up, "But she's too hard on herself, just like Optimus Prime. They both grind their gears when they don't need to. They both blame themselves with every casualty. The only difference is Prime does it for every loss and knows how to hide it from us common soldiers, Vibes does it for those under her command or on the battlefield with her, but she has a hard time hiding her feelings about it and dealing with it."

Finishing a broken fluid line Tali asked, "Tell me about this Optimus Prime, what kind of bot is he?"

"Prime, he's charismatic at best. He knows sacrifice is necessary but that doesn't mean he approves or likes it. He's willing to give his own spark just to save one of us." Tali could only think how those characteristics mirrored Shepard's. "Sometimes though, his kindness is also his weakness; occasionally a Con breaks free and tries to join us. I personally was there for six of them that have survived, but four of them turned out to be spies who were just trying to steal something or expose use to a Con attack."

With uncertainty and shock Tali asked, "What kind of leader would order his men just to do that?"

Dropshot turned to her, "Then you never met Megatron. He rules with a cybertitanium fist, figuratively and probably literally too. He destroys anyone who gets in his way, even his own subordinates."

Legion uttered, "Methods inefficient. Sustain more casualties through friendly fire then from hostiles."

Dropshot turned to Legion now, "True, but the Cons aren't running out of supporters any time soon."

Tali saw a blue orb ascend from the sands as it shot out to the stars. "Keelah, what was that?"

Dropshot didn't need to see it, he could feel Clocker's spark as it left the planet. "A spark, I know someone could tell it better than me, but that is our life. Without it we'd probably be more like your friend here." Dropshot turned away from Tali and Legion, "Frag it bot…I told him not to do it…"

Legion heard Dropshot's comments. "Who do you refer to?"

Dropshot didn't want to talk about it but something made him anyway. "We had…another with us. His name was Clocker. Personally I thought, one of the fastest bots on Cybertron." He seemed happy when he was talking about him like that though.

Tali didn't know where the conversation was leading. "So if that's his spark, what happened to this Clocker?"

Dropshot grunted, however he was not in any visible pain. "If…if a spark leaves a Cybertronian's body that usually means he…he…" Dropshot didn't want to face the truth and he now knows Vibes lied to him so he wouldn't feel bad about it. Dropshot just didn't want to accept it. "…It means a Cybertronian's life has come to an end and is returning to the Allspark."

"Oh…" Tali was starting to feel bad about their loss. It was reminding her about all of the quarian marines who that have died protecting her on Haestrom.