Cybertron had died a great death. She was magnificent even in her ruin, a metallic orb that had once pulsed with life and light, now a cold and lifeless sphere drifting through the relentless vastness of space, ancient and violent past remembered forever by the charred spires of broken cities, an echo of her glory blown across the dusty, barren land by feral winds.
The light of a living creature can be snuffed out in the barest instant, but Cybertron's death throes had lasted for years. Though a massive exodus had taken place, both Autobots and Decepticons realizing that they must look elsewhere for survival, across her surface war continued to rage, right up to the very end, even though it no longer mattered who won or lost; inevitably all who stayed suffered the same fate as the planet herself. Finally, the violence was put to a final end by the inexorable hand of Death, whose icy fingers closed about the throat of Cybertron, choking off her final breath.
Elsewhere, younger and brighter star systems continued. Lights shone out, piercing the abyssal darkness of space, promising new days and new life. It was towards these distant stars that the Cybertronians marched, their other choice being to die. For all of their power to create and destroy, and the ancient nature of their eternal war against one another; there was nothing they could do to save Cybertron, and the only way to save themselves was to go, leaving -perhaps forever- the planet which had given them life. There was no going back, their home was gone.
Yet some could not, even then, place their need to survive over the longing to stay. Some, both Autobot and Decepticon, remained behind. Not to cover the retreat of their masters, though there were those who did that as well. Some stayed because it was their home, and they chose to die with it rather than set forth into the great unknown, seeking a future that might not even exist.
The vessels that carried the refugees from Cybertron were crowded, the Cybertronian passengers often weak and sick from depletion of their energon reserves, and afflicted with the nameless malady that comes to all who leave a dying world too late. Somehow, in spite of this, Megatron managed to continue his mad campaign, to carry on with his brutal war games, and the last of the primes, Optimus, gathered the resources to respond in kind. He had no choice. If the Autobots did not fight even now, under these extremes, then Megatron would wipe them out.
Victory at any cost had become his creed.
Optimus had left Cybertron with a fleet, but only one ship made it to Earth, and there were precious few survivors aboard her. Space is no kinder to ships than the sea, and the vessel had taken a severe beating, even aside from skirmishes with Decepticon warships. Her occupants were sick and starved of energon, with Earth as their only hope. Earth, rich in energon because of the foresight of both Optimus and Megatron, which had led them to cache energon in huge quantities off of Cybertron.
Earth, farthest from Cybertron, was the last hope.
But landing on Earth was not to bring the relief Optimus and his few had been hoping for. Already Decepticons had been there, and the Autobots who had come first had been unable to drive them away. In fact, there were a mere handful of survivors, subsisting on minimal reserves.
What precious little they had, the Earth-based Autobots laid at the feet of their leader without hesitation. Too wise to take it without question, Optimus learned of the bitter battles waged for this tiny reserve. And too, he learned the fate of the Scout who had been among the first to fight for this world.
"The damage was extensive," Ratchet told Optimus, "Biologically he's recovered, mechanically I've done all the repairs I can. But we haven't got the energon to revive him."
In a stasis chamber Ratchet had modified into an emergency medical life support system, the Scout was motionless, his eyes black, looking as if he were dead. There was no trace of the physical damage done to him by the shot that had left him comatose, but a lifetime of battle had nonetheless left him with scratches and dents that would never be fully repaired.
"How long?" Optimus asked simply, his surface impassive even as his spark broke for the courageous Scout of whom he had asked so much.
"Decades, I think," Ratchet shrugged, "Time hasn't had a great deal of meaning lately. I kept hoping," Ratchet hesitated for a long second, "I kept thinking... maybe... maybe he didn't survive all that he did... for nothing. I don't know... maybe I just didn't have the bearings to finish what the Decepticons started. Still, it takes power to keep this running, and there were times..." he shook his head, tried to continue, "So many times..." he broke off, but Optimus knew what he did not say.
"I understand, old friend," Optimus said sympathetically.
Ratchet put a hand on the outside of the chamber, sighing with the weariness of the eons, "I suppose now, with more of us... more coming..."
"No," Optimus said firmly, "Not yet."
"But Optimus..." Ratchet's voice was heavy, as it was the side of the argument he didn't want to be on.
"I will find and secure the energon you need," Optimus said when Ratchet trailed off, "I did not send my Autobots here to die."
"No one is suggesting that you did," Ratchet exclaimed, "Look around. If not for you, none of us would be alive today. But you cannot save everyone."
"Perhaps not," Optimus conceded in even tones, "But I can save our Scout."
It was more than the Scout's life in the balance, and of course Optimus knew it. Though that one life would have been sufficient for him to risk his own to save, he knew there was much more at stake. There was the Scout's knowledge. There was his experience. There were his skills, irreplaceable at best. The Autobots were so few in number that the loss of even one could constitute a fatal blow to their ranks. Moreover, the hit to morale already at rock bottom should the Scout die, and should his death be required in this way, not in battle but by the choice to stop supporting his life in order to spare others... the damage that would do was inestimable. It might well be the thing that finally and forever took the last of the fight out of the Autobots. It was the time, the place, and the nature of things that made it so.
That Ratchet himself had been unable to pull the plug on the Scout told how significant his death would be. Ratchet was looked on as callous, certainly he'd seen more than his share of death and made equally that number of hard calls. But he could not do this. Not to the Scout he'd fought so hard to save once. Not the Scout whom he felt even now that he had failed. Losing Bumblebee here and now, in this way, would take the spark right out of the aged Medic.
That Optimus could not allow.
He saw doubt in Ratchet's eyes that it was possible to survive, much less save the Scout, and he could not blame the Medic. Stoically, Ratchet had gone at a task for which he was ill-suited because circumstances demanded it of him. He was not a leader, nor a Warrior, and the bizarre conditions which had forced him to act as both when his true calling was that of a healer had not brought out the best in him. Rather, he had become hard, and perhaps even bitter. But beneath that was only a long-held pain, and unwillingness to believe that he might finally be able to shed the burden he'd carried and return it to its rightful owner. He was afraid to even hope it was possible, because so many hopes had been dashed so ruthlessly for so long, and this even before his assignment to Earth.
In Ratchet's eyes, Optimus saw the souls of all of his Autobots, and he knew that now was a time when he must do for them what all good leaders must in times of tribulation: he must restore their faith in him, give them something to believe in again and help them to regain their lost hope.
All of this was tied up with whether the Scout lived or died.
Before he left, Optimus placed a hand on the chamber, and looked into the Scout's lightless eyes.
"I am sorry, brave Scout," he said gravely, "But I there is more I must ask of you."
"Even if he is restored physically," Ratchet spoke hesitantly, "there is no telling what kind of mental damage might have been done."
Optimus did not respond to this. He could not. Even should he have wanted to, he could not lie to Ratchet about this. Even with the necessary energon, Bumblebee's brain circuits might have been irreparably scrambled. The result could be memory gaps, alterations to his personality or even corruption of all higher functions. It would not be the first time such a thing had happened. Both Ratchet and Optimus had seen Autobots recover from hideous physical injuries, but come back with no memory of their own names. No Medic in the world could fix damage like that.
Ratchet was not trying to convince Optimus not to try, he was merely reminding the Prime that this was a cause that might well be lost. But, though he reminded, the old Medic understood that Optimus, because of who and what he was, would still have to try.
"Take care of him, Ratchet," Optimus instructed, and then turned to stride away.
"Be careful, Optimus," Ratchet whispered after him.
The other Autobots had wanted to accompany Optimus. They were Warriors, it was their nature to seek after battle. They were Autobots, it was in their spark to aid one another. For reasons of their own, it was their choice to follow Optimus to the end of all things. But he forbade them from following him in this.
As a Prime, he had a reserve of strength and power which they did not. Energon depletion ran rampant through the ranks, both those who had been based on Earth and those who had come so far only to find the situation here was almost the same as the home they had left. They were all too near death to be assets to Optimus in the coming battle.
Besides, the Scout had suffered enough as a consequence of following the orders of Optimus Prime. He did not need to discover the cost of his waking again had been the lives of his brothers. That was a hard thing at the best of times, to survive when others did not. Under these particular conditions, Optimus feared it might be more than Bumblebee could take.
Dangerous as the undertaking was, Optimus anticipated his success alone for more reasons than the mere fact that he must succeed in securing some energon from somewhere or the lives of his Autobots would be forfeit. Something Ratchet had overlooked was the probability that the Decepticons were becoming careless. The Decepticons stationed here had never been the cream of the crop; up until recently there were more strategic and prestigious postings elsewhere. Time, and the awareness that the Autobots were near death, lacking in energon and numbers, would have made them careless.
A soldier may die of a thousand and more causes that have nothing at all to do with him, but carelessness has ever been his most deadly enemy. It is through carelessness that his weapon falls into disrepair and fails when he needs it. It is carelessness that causes him to sleep while on guard duty. Carelessness causes him to step through a doorway without checking for traps first, and ends his life. Through inattention, he may wander into even a poorly constructed ambush. Through carelessness, he may trust to memory what he should have checked, and find himself without as much ammunition as he thought in a firefight. Any soldier can die at any time, such is the nature of warfare. But a careless soldier will almost certainly die, and unfortunately take others with him when he goes.
This was a lesson Ratchet had learned so long ago that he had forgotten that he had not always known it. So it did not occur to him that young, low-ranked Decepticons might not have learned it at all, or might have forgotten it in the face of boredom and overconfidence. It was a mistake Optimus had made long ago, and it had cost him dearly. In his time, he had read hundreds of reports which bespoke of the carelessness of young Autobots, carelessness exploited by older, more experienced Decepticons. It was about time an Autobot got a turn to do the same to the Decepticons.
Optimus had more than mere understanding of Cybertronian nature to go on. The Earth-based Decepticons had already proven to him that they were carelessness. From the reports given to him almost the moment he arrived, it had been obvious. The Autobots knew where several Decepticon controlled energon caches were, yet the Decepticons had made no move to relocate or fortify these locations. They did not know where the Autobots were based, but they knew where they came from, and seemed only to concern themselves with heavily guarding the outermost caches, assuming the Autobots would target the energon closest to them rather than penetrating more deeply into Decepticon held territory. But they'd forgotten their own limited numbers, arrogantly presuming that no Autobot would realize that large tracts of land between each cache was unguarded. On Cybertron, they'd had numbers, and systems in place to warn them of encroaching Autobots. It had taken tremendous skill to get past watch-posts.
But there weren't any true lines of defense here. Each cache site had been purposely isolated from all others. It was a small matter to draw a course between cache sites, selecting one far from the front to assault. This Optimus did, choosing a site miles within the Decepticon "borders," that was guarded by a little under a dozen vehicons, and one Decepticon underling.
An impossible target for an energon-deficient Autobot fireteam, a pitiably easy one for a Prime.
The hardest part was taking them all out before they could radio a warning to their sister outposts. It was crucial the Decepticons not realize they'd been hit until Optimus had gone. He could not spend time and energon in fending off incoming waves of Decepticons, could not hold the site indefinitely. He needed to clear out the Decepticons, pick up all the energon he could carry, and hightail it back to the Autobot base. And he had to be sure he wasn't followed. The Autobots in their weakened state could not hope to withstand a siege; the Decepticons must not find where they were based.
As always, it was overconfidence that proved to be their undoing. Optimus had succeeded only in taking out three vehicons before he was spotted. The alarm was raised, but the Decepticons did not send out a distress signal. The underling running the mining operation at this site saw a single Autobot, and did not take into account that this Autobot was a Prime. Arrogantly, he chose to believe he could neutralize the threat without help aside from that of the vehicons assigned to him.
It was a fatal mistake.