Chapter 5
Cybertron in the year 2005, Iacon outlands Autobot resistance
Ultra Magnus was thinking about his situation. The Unicron battle would come really soon. He thought about himself and his role in it. The first time this battle happened for him, he had just been repaired from heavy damage and was to weakened to actually be a help.
The Sweeps had literally shot him apart. It had been a wonder that no vital system was destroyed.
This time he was in a good condition and he was here. Was it really the right thing to stand by and don´t do anything?
Could he really do nothing while the other Autobots are risking their lives?
Had he not already influenced the past alone by being here?
After some time of sitting for himself in the room the Autobot resistance gave him temporally and thinking, he finally came to a decision.
xxxxxxx
Cybertron 9.000.000 years ago border of the sector Poliphex
The small group of Decepticons had gone into an ambush. Two Seekers and a ground soldier with tank alt-mode were being attacked by a larger group of Autobots. The Decepticons were on their way to deliver their cargo as the Autobots surprisingly attacked them. Now, they were in a desperate situation. They were trying to take cover behind a few down broken walls.
Suddenly they saw in some distance something that looked like a flash of light.
One of the Autobots addressed his team leader.
"Def Charger, I detect three new Decepticons, unknown type."
The group leader Def Charger was a large, mostly green Autobot who transformed into a war vehicle. He was one of the few Autobots who was designed especially for combat during the last war against the Decepticons before the golden age.
Now that the Decepticon leader Megatron had started a new war he was the leader of an elite team of Autobots.
"Understand Grim-Side. Can you tell me something about the abilities of these robots?" he asked the tracker of his team.
"No, the readings I get are completely off. What ever models they are, I can not identify them."
Damn it, probably new prototypes, Def Charger was thinking.
xxxxxxx
A few miles away Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge were recovering from their misdirected time-jump.
"It will take approximately 5 breem (1 breem ca. 8,3 minutes) till the time displacement controller is recharged and we can go back to our time," Galvatron told his two followers. Both looked somewhat startled by the events.
"The corrupting programs that Unicron had placed into us had slowed down now," Cyclonus informed the others.
Galvatron made a system check that confirmed what his Second in Command´s claim.
"That proofs our theory that Unicron´s destruction would stop the programs and set us free," he said.
"But why have they then not stopped now? We are 9.000.000 years in the past?" Scourge asked nervously.
"That only means that Unicron already exists in this era. Somewhere in the universe, in some form he is already around," Galvatron explained.
He, Cyclonus and Scourge had realized that Unicron had a form of mental connection to them. That made it for example possible for him to torture them mentally or influence their programing over a distance.
His influence was now weaker when he was further away and not aware of them. When he was dead it would completely stop. But so far in the past they couldn´t do anything against him and it was too dangerous.
"We will return to our time as soon as the device is working again. Then we will try again. Stay here and wait, I don´t want to risk accidental interfering in the past."
"Boss we have a problem. Autobots are coming," Scourge warned the others.
A few moments later laser blasts were fired at them. They saw their opponents lying in wait on some of the buildings close to them. This robots were now shooting them from save cover. Cyclonus recognized the Autobots Ironhide, Prowl and Grim-Side.
The three new Decepticons were with the back to the wall. They had no choice than to fight back.
"Take them Out," Galvatron ordered, "but be careful not to kill anybody. Remember we must not change anything."
With that Cyclonus and Scourge transformed and attacked their enemies from the sky. They realized that this Autobots were the Elite Security Squad, a command group that was active during the golden age and the first years of the war.
They were in many ways the predecessors of the famous group named the Wreckers. Their members were their leader Def Charger, Grim-Side, the later war heroes Ironhide, Kup and Prowl and two Autobots named Fist and Cable.
This team was once a legend and Cyclonus and Scourge were fighting them right now. Nine Million years were much time for technical progress. Over the years all Transformers had been growing stronger, very slowly and subtle but they did. In Cyclonus and Scourge´s case to this came the upgrade from Unicron that made them stronger than any regular Transformer anyway.
The Elite Security Squad had some of the best fighters of Cybertron of their time but against Cyclonus and Scourge they were only statistics. The fight took only minutes. Had the Decepticons been allowed to use their full strength and lethal shots it would have been seconds.
Even so Cyclonus managed to disable Ironhide, Prowl and Cable without problems and Scourge Grim-Side, Kup and Fist. After the short struggle the Autobots were retreating.
The three other Decepticons who had originally been ambushed by the Autobots were now lying on the ground, damaged and mostly unconscious. Cyclonus and Scourge transformed and landed to check on them and their carriage.
They saw that all three were still functioning. On the ground next to them lay a large metal box that this robots were obviously transporting.
Galvatron arrived and landed next to them. He looked around at the unconscious Decepticons.
"Has anything been damaged here? Beyond what should have happened anyway?" he asked them.
Cyclonus stared at the three Decepticons and the box. This entire scene reminded him of something.
"Wait", he told the others and opened the box.
Inside was exactly what he thought it would be, six metal cubes.
Autobot personality cores. This was a transport of war prisoners who had been stripped of their bodies. And the transport was intercepted by a group of enemy fighters.
He took one of them out, the one with the storage number 0050. Cyclonus held it in his hand and looked at it, it´s significance.
In this moment he heard a weapon discharge and an explosion.
One of the seekers, he remembered him by the name of Gunpoint, had shot and destroyed the box with the other five personalities.
xxxxxxx
At the same time, sector Kalis
The Decepticons were attacking something that had before the war been a factory for space ship parts. Now it was a weapon factory for the Autobots.
Of course it was well guarded by several soldiers. Even one of the large so called guardian-robots, who had in the golden age been responsible for the security of Cybertron, was defending the factory. The Decepticons needed a strong force to take them down but the outcome was inevitable.
Since their former leader Sentinel Prime had been killed by Megatron the Autobots were disorganized and without clear structure. The forces who were guarding the Kalis sector were alone and without any hope for reinforcements.
The defenders of the factory had no chance. Megatron personally and some of his best troops were carrying out the attack. A group of seekers led by Skylord the Decepticon Air-Force Commander was starting an air assault, while Megatron and his ground troops were storming the building.
The seekers Skywarp and Thundercracker two of his earliest recruits were fighting the guards on the main gate. Meanwhile their leader Skylord destroyed a automatic gun on the roof.
Thundercracker and Skywarp shot a salve of missiles at the guards and then transformed into robot mode. Skywarp teleported and reappeared right before one of the Autobots. He shot the completely surprised robot directly into the head. His partner Thundercracker used the chance to attack two remaining guards from the other side. He shot both of them and killed them with several blasts.
As the seekers had weakened the defenses the ground troops attacked. The guardian unit was so large that normal Transformers not even reached it´s knee. It´s armor however was nothing special and rather weak in comparison to real war-units.
The Decepticon Shockwave used that weakness and attacked it in gun mode. One shot from the Decepticon ripped through the the guardian´s chest and destroyed it.
Megatron fired a blast of his fusion cannon between the five remaining Autobot fighters. He hit none of them directly but it was enough to bring all of them of balance and damage a few. The other Decepticons attacked after this and easily finished them off. They went all down fighting.
Skylord, Thundercracker and Skywarp had meanwhile secured the entrance. They stood at attention as Megatron and Shockwave addressed them.
"Is the factory completely under our control?" the Decepticon leader asked Skylord.
"Yes Megatron no Autobot remains in the building", the commander of the Air force answered.
"Good take everything we can use from the building. Destroy the rest," Megatron ordered.
"Megatron the patrol has arrived," Shockwave informed him.
Another group of seekers came just closing in. They were led by a silver and red flier, who was instantly recognized by Thundercracker. As the patrol transformed and landed he greeted their leader, before he and Skylord brought him to Megatron. Skywarp smiled too as he saw the newcomer.
"Megatron," Skylord begun to speak, "can I introduce you to one of our new and one of our best recruits," he presented the other seeker to Megatron.
"This is Starscream."
The young seeker looked nervous and insecure as he was introduced to the Supreme Commander.
"Starscream, yes I have heard of you," Megatron said
"You have gone through the War Academy in record time despite the fact that you were not even a soldier before."
"He had the best grades that were ever reached at the War Academy. They were even better than Skywarp´s and mine," Thundercracker threw in.
"Yes Megatron, this guy is a genius," Skywarp agreed without any real jealousy. He and Thundercracker had quickly developed a liking to the new seeker.
"Thank you Sir. It is a honor to meet you sir," Starscream replied, flattered that Megatron himself remembered him.
"Starscream was a scientist before the war. He was part of a exploration mission and has only recently returned to Cybertron," Skylord explained.
At the mention of this. the young seeker had for a moment a sad expression on his face, something that the Air Commander noticed.
"He was the only member of the group who returned. His partner was lost," he added.
"I am sorry about your loss. Have you and your partner been close?" Megatron asked.
"We were friends. We knew each other very good," Starscream replied, but barely showing real emotions.
"When I finally returned to Cybertron I heard that war has broken out. So I joined the army of our faction," he explained, this part without any visible emotions.
Megatron didn´t need to hear what else happened. He could easily figure it out by himself. Starscream´s post in the science academy was void when the war broke out. His place in society, in the Autobot society, was lost. He was alone, so he joined the Decepticons.
"I understand. It is good to meet a promising young talent like you. With recruits like you I hope we can finally win this war and bring our people the place in society they deserve," Megatron explained to the seeker.
"You have to understand something Starscream. You have been very lucky. Maybe not in the last time but in the years before. Your creators, whoever they were, gave you the chance to be educated and become a scientist in the first place.
Countless other seekers never got that chance. Many were just created and thrown om the street afterwards like garbage. Nobody needs war machines in a time of peace," he pointed out to him.
"Skywarp and Thundercracker here for example had been created in a factory that had produced seekers in the last war. And after the war was over they continued to produce them, despite that they know that this seekers were not longer wanted in the society, only to justify their own existence.
So they had been created and thrown away just afterward, like many others. They were not needed and not wanted by this planet ruled by the Autobots."
Starscream looked at the two. Their expression told him all too clearly that what Megatron said was indeed true.
"You see why this war is necessary Starscream. Because the Autobots had won the last war against our ancestors we became second class citizens.
The Autobots tell us our ideas and the ones of our ancestors are wrong and we are too dangerous to be in charge of Cybertron. But that is not true. The only reason why they were ruling the planet till now and we were in the underground is that their ancestors won.
They won, we lost, so easy is that. It was never a question about right or wrong."
Megatron placed a hand on Starscream´s shoulder.
"You are one of us Starscream. We will make our place on Cybertron and you will get yours too."
Starscream stared at the Decepticon leader. A place in the world, that was what he had wanted the whole time since he returned to Cybertron. And he already knew that Megatron was right about everything he had just said.
xxxxxxx
At the border of the sector Poliphex
Five sentient completely helpless beings had just been wiped out in the blink of an eye. They had been enemies but they were still completely helpless war prisoners.
But all that wasn´t what gripped Cyclonus mind right now. He stared at the destruction and then at the object in his hand. He remembered who that was, what it meant. It was pure look that I had taken that personality out, he realized. He could only think about one thing.
The entire future, nearly destroyed by the cowardly act of an idiot. Since his recreation Cyclonus had heard a voice in the back of his mind that told him to fight, to kill, to destroy and now Cyclonus finally followed that instruction.
He clutched Gunpoint at the throat and was willing to crush his neck with one hand. His hands were digging into the metal of the seeker´s body. Cyclonus saw the pleading look on his face, begging for mercy. The voice told him to crush that disgusting creature, to torture him, to rip him apart. This time he wasn´t resisting.
Cyclonus remembered the importance of the personality he just had in his hands, what nearly happened.
He remembered how he had seen that situation before, how Gunpoint had lied to Skywarp about what had happened to the personality cores, how he had lied to him.
His anger knew no limits anymore. He started to crush his shoulders, to rip parts of his wings off. That was one off the most painful things that could have happen to a seeker.
In some distance the Autobots Ironhide and Kup were lying under cover. They had seen what Gunpoint had done. Ironhide was about to lose his restraining.
"This damn bastard. I will…" he snarled.
But Kup was holding him back.
"You will do nothing. Have you forgotten what this new Decepticons can do? By the way, it looks as if this other Con is taking care of this matter for us."
"Yes you are right. I have never thought that I would wish a Decepticon good luck," Ironhide admitted.
Cyclonus was ready to kill. The seeker had already lost conscious and would soon die by his hand. Then he heard Galvatron´s voice.
"Cyclonus what do you think you are doing? You can not kill him remember."
He realized Galvatron was right. Gunpoint was meant to die in another way. He knew that.
"Mighty Galvatron I have just remembered something. I have seen this scene before," Cyclonus explained.
He looked at the seeker he was holding in his hand. With a move of his wrist he threw him into a near wall.
"You are right I can not kill him. I have never thought that I would congratulate the Autobot who did."
"Do you remember the prisoner transport out of the Kalis sector?" He asked Galvatron.
Cyclonus saw after a moment that he remembered.
The two Autobots were still watching. They finally saw that the three Decepticons flew off and left the unconscious ones behind.
"We have seen enough," Kup declared, "let us go back to Def Charger."
"Yes there is nothing left for us to do," Ironhide replied. He secretly wished to go down and finish that murderer off but he told himself the he wouldn´t sink as low as him.
"Do you think that seeker had survived?" Kup asked him.
"If he had, I will get him some day."
xxxxxxx
Sector Kalis, former Autobot weapon factory
Skywarp was in a conversation with one of the other seekers as Shockwave approached him. The Decepticon general was a machine of pure logic and duty and never socialized like other warriors.
So that he even spoke to someone meant usually that he had an order for him.
"Skywarp the group who was transporting a number of captured Autobot personality cores had not reported to the set time," Shockwave stated casually, without emotion. "Go with two other seekers and find them," he said to the seeker.
"Yes sir," Skywarp replied simply.
He knew that Thundercracker had other duties right now and Starscream was in a conversation with Megatron. So he would just take two of the others.
Megatron showed great interest in the promising recruit, like in him and Thundercracker. Understandable, they were the best air warriors in the army. Sometimes they managed even higher scores than the Air Commander, sometimes.
xxx
"You see Starscream the Autobots claim to be standing for freedom and justice. They say their state is just, they want to tell you what is right and wrong, but that is only a way to stay in control", Megatron explained to the young seeker.
They say that we are wrong because we have started a war and attacked them. They say we have started a violent uprising, us," he said full of sarcasm.
"But what was the reason that they were in control of Cybertron for the last hundred thousands of years? What was the foundation of their peace?" he asked "Because they won a war."
What was the reason their government came to power in the first place? It was the rebellion against the aliens who once controlled this planet.
It was a violent uprising that brought them into power.
It was violence that brought them into the place they are and now that they are in charge they condemn violence. Do you see their Hypocrisy Starscream?" Megatron asked the young Decepticon.
"Don´t let others tell you what is right or wrong. In reality freedom and power only come to the one who is willing and able to fight for it. If you want something and you think it is right for you, take it," he told him.
"I will always remember that mighty Megatron," Starscream replied.