Chapter 43

"Soldier of fortune"

Hawkmoon wandered. Through the station. Walked and strolled and ducked her helm to avoid catching anyone's optic, just to take a break from all the glaring - on her part, mostly, but there were a couple of beastformers who genuinely didn't look happy to see her. It was easier pretending no one else existed. Especially when she took to the quieter paths, to exploring the outer layers and near-abandoned levels of the station.

She walked.

And walked.

And walked until she found herself in a temple and realized she'd been there before, on her first visit. The one Longhorn and Strada had shown her.

Because Cyberwarp had convinced her to take them up on their offer.

Hawkmoon's talons dragged against the already well-scarred steel of her palm. She wet them, her palms, when her claws cut too deep. The blue seeped through her clenched digits and dripped, dripped, dripped onto the dark floor. She ignored it in favour of staring at the sculptures of thirteen smug mecha.

Primes.

Prophets, kings, demigods. To the Cybertronians, anyways. She wasn't sure what to think. Did Zeta Prime count amongst them? Was there a reason why there was no statue of him erected? Vos hadn't liked him, sure, and Hawkmoon wasn't any different in that respect, but...

No. No, it wasn't important. It didn't deserve her time. It didn't-

Her comms system pinged.

::Yeah?:: Hawkmoon asked, a little sharper than she intended.

::I have a job for you,:: Thunderhowl replied. ::Are you fixed to fly?::

::What do I have to do?::

Her first hunt.

Her first Krenshan hunt.

It didn't exactly pan out as she expected it to, though. Mainly because Noctorro, who was in charge of the whole endeavour, specifically told her to go hide in a gas giant's asteroid ring and count the joors as they ticked by. In a gruff manner too. Hawkmoon was left under the impression that he didn't like her very much.

Sucked to be him. She was the coolest person she knew.

Hawkmoon held against the side of an asteroid with the digits of one servo and an emergency docking spur on the back of one heel. Her plating was folded tight over her frame, keeping the heat inside her chassis from escaping lest the emissions betray her position, and her optics were at their lowest light setting. Most of her form was hidden beneath a fractal-shroud - some Krenshan device that operated almost identically to a genuine Eliksni shimmer-cloak and distorted the light bouncing off her, all but making her invisible to the naked eye. Or optic. Or whatever visual sensory organs the system's native alien species possessed. Of course a closer look would have betrayed her as a faint mirage, just as it would for a shimmer-cloak, but no one was going to check every asteroid in the belt for a Seeker they had no idea was waiting for them.

Not when they had bigger problems to worry about.

::Herding them your way,:: Jetstorm warned her. ::They're getting desperate now.::

Hawkmoon extended her shoulder cannon. Charged it up. Brought its targeting matrix online and set it to sweep for movement - anything beyond the slow drift of neighbouring asteroids. She felt the frigate before she saw it, tasted the electromagnetic tracers sweeping through the empty space around her, the alien-built computers looking for targets of their own. She could sense the heated photon bursts of hailfire, of plasma-based weaponry tearing through the field behind the vessel in hopes of snagging a Cybertronian flyer.

Then it peeked around the corner, still some distance away but in full view. It was a wedge-shaped thing, designed with some organic curves and stacked with hideous extraneous renovations over the otherwise smooth hull. It was a ship covered in panels and pipes and raw machinery. Not Cybertronian, though. No, it was a vessel built by a lowly organic species called the Hredda - and the frigate belonged to smugglers of that same species trying to secret some Cyber tech back home, just to fill out an off-the-books government contract.

Hawkmoon took in the state of the ship. Its warp-spinner was shot out, its primary railgun was blown to bits and its flanks were blackened with scorch marks. Still chugging along, though. Still going. Terrified and forced to scurry in an asteroid field, sure, but still flying fast.

She took aim and fired on its primary thruster. The high-powered nucleon-charge round needled through the core propulsion system and shot out the other side. The rear of the ship burst apart in a storm of shrapnel and briefly flaring flames. It all but 'tripped up', careening away uncontrollably, so Hawkmoon kicked away from her asteroid and soared towards it.

It wasn't a large ship up close, only about five times her size, so after blasting out a couple of remaining turrets she grabbed hold and kept her thrusters burning, stabilizing the vessel before it was smashed apart. A signal emanated from somewhere in the middle of the thing, chafing along her EM field. Hawkmoon gritted her denta and tried to ignore the feeling; it was like sandpaper on bare skin. Stolen tech, probably. It needed shutting up - someone else's job, that.

Jetstorm, Noctorro and Airazor caught up in no time, looking no worse for wear. The latter pair were in their alt-modes, mechanical flight-enabled alien fauna modified with their own interstellar propulsion-systems, while the former was hefting a dark rifle in his servos and gliding along, his four iridescent dragonfly wings spread out wide as if to catch on solar winds.

::Good work,:: he said. ::Life-support still intact?::

Hawkmoon dipped her helm. ::Of course.::

::Good,:: Noctorro grunted. ::At least you didn't mess that up.::

Hawkmoon bristled.

"Easy," Augur whispered into her audial. He was coiled about her neck, one moment absent and forgotten and the next right there with her. "Control yourself."

Hawkmoon kicked away from the scuttled frigate and schooled her faceplates. ::What now?::

::Now? Now we recover what's ours and leave them to clean up their own mess.:: Noctorro turned the vessel and raised a channel. Hawkmoon piggybacked on the connection, if only to link up with the ship's admittedly barebones mainframe. Whether the Hredda were aware of what she was doing was hit-or-miss; she was being exceedingly clumsy and well aware of it. Her only consolation was that the little organics weren't all that technologically advanced. What firewalls they had in place easily buckled under her intrusion, opening up before her without so much as a hint of meaningful resistance. Oh, there were a couple of low-intelligence AI systems in place, but they were brainless little programmes - digital mites her own anti-virus systems annihilated on sight without her having to even try.

Once past all that she took a curious peek inside. The Hredda were panicking hard; the bridge was filled with the clamour of screaming klaxons and officers bellowing orders. They were squat little things, like a cross between newts and cockroaches with shiny black shells and faces full of twitching antennae, slick from head to toe with a sweat-like mucus covering. She found them unrepentantly hideous. Hawkmoon kept watching, though, prompted by that morbid curiosity one felt for strange creatures like big hairy spiders or deep-sea fish. The kinds of creatures she didn't want to be in close physical proximity to but was perfectly fine observing from a distance, almost enthralled with.

Loudest of all was the bridge's comms unit, through which Noctorro was speaking to them. The device produced a series of gaseous emissions too, introducing new pheromones to the ship's artificial gravity. Another form of communication, Hawkmoon guessed. She didn't care enough to investigate further. Instead her focus travelled down the length of the ship, parsing through security systems as if they weren't even there. She found the contraband in the frigate's primary cargo bay, lashed across the floor with a series of chains and steel-wire ropes. Cybertronian tech but old. Cut away from something with plasma tools, left in a ragged state. There were some engine parts, some energon converter components, but most alarming was the sight of an old rusted chassis with its sparkchamber laid bare. A corpse, ancient and withered.

Easy to see why the Krenshans took offence to the theft. No one liked having graverobbers on their porch.

::Central bay,:: Hawkmoon reported. ::I could empty it out now, if you want.::

Noctorro's bat-like form shot her an unreadable look - unreadable because she wasn't all that great at reading the expressions of alien animals cast in mechanical forms. ::Do it.::

Hawkmoon interacted with the door systems and, after double-checking that there was nothing alive in the cargo hold, closed down the airlocks connecting it with the rest of the ship. The bay doors slowly creaked open, releasing the stale air within to cold, cold space. It was clumsy, it was shoddy, it was the kind of work she just wasn't evolved for, but she did it all the same. Jetstorm reached inside, snagged the chains with a claw and tore them apart. Airazor helped him drag everything out. Noctorro, when he was finished chewing out the terrified organics, grabbed hold of the rusted chassis in his talons and flew back the way they'd come - to where a Krenshan gunship waited just beyond the asteroid ring. Airazor followed, but Jetstorm waited for Hawkmoon.

::What about them?:: she asked, gesturing to the frigate.

Jetstorm tilted his helm. ::What about them?::

::Are we not helping them get back home?::

::They can see to their own repairs.::

::And if they can't?::

::Then that's their own fault. They shouldn't have tried to steal our tech. C'mon.::

Hawkmoon gave the frigate one last look before following suit, transforming and taking after the mech. ::That seems... cold, honestly.::

::Maybe,:: Jetstorm said. :: But we've warned the Hredda to stop before. They're still trying, again and again. They've exhausted our patience as is. From what I hear, Thunderhowl's only a couple of incursions away from marching on their homeworld and making them stop for good.::

::Why do they even try?::

::Because our tech is a whole lot better than theirs - and they want it. Plus, there's plenty of it about. Doesn't matter how much scrubbing you do, can't catch all the old empire's reserves. Just too much ground to cover.::

Something about that troubled her. ::How is it the empire fell so far?::

::Rust plague,:: Jetstorm grimly replied. He paused. ::You're not one for history, are you?::

::Not in the slightest.::

::Thought you Seekers were supposed to be whip-smart.::

Hawkmoon would have shrugged if she could. ::Meh.::

Jetstorm snorted. ::Meh?::

::Yep.::

::Okay, okay, I get it.::

::Not sure you do.:: Hawkmoon idly rolled, wings tilting. ::So... are we going to be doing this a lot?::

::Hm?::

::This. Going after smugglers and the like.::

::Might be. We're flyers, you and I. This is the kind of work we're built for.::

::But is it really such a bad thing that organics use Cybertronian tech?::

::Not in itself, no,:: Jetstorm explained. ::But the tech they're trying for is in our territory. They've exhausted their own deposits, which is all well and good until they try to steal from us.::

::Is it really stealing, though?:: Hawkmoon asked. ::This stuff looks like it came from an derelict mining ship no one's touched in a hundred vorns.::

::It is when we can use it ourselves,:: Jetstorm replied. ::Besides - the Hredda would probably try to make weapons with it and we just can't have that. They're not a, uh... a reasonable species.::

::Ah. Okay.::

::Yeah?::

::I mean, you could've started with that,:: Hawkmoon grumbled.::Would've been simpler to just say 'these guys are a little contrary so we're not letting them make weapons of mass destruction'.::

::Maybe,:: Jetstorm said. ::I just thought that was a given.::

::Mmm, not really.::

::I'll keep that in mind, then, the next time a Seeker asks me our moral reasoning.::

::You do that.::

The Holdfast welcomed them with relative silence. Not the dangerous, worrying kind - but a lack of interest, of fanfare. Hawkmoon stepped out of the gunship, looked around, saw no one waiting for her and just... slipped away. That was it. No one cared. Which wasn't in itself hurtful, but... it was hard to realize that yes, she was alone. She was without a pack, a fireteam, a trine. She was on her own. For better or worse (and it was definitely worse), she was alone.

It was a surprisingly difficult thing to accept.

She retreated to her quarters, pulled what remaining dataweave materials she had left and looked around her room. Hawkmoon pulled open one of the dresser's drawers, tugged out what looked like a thin blanket and went to work from there. Augur watched all the while, sitting beside her on the berth with his head on his paws.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Distracting myself."

A beat passed.

"What are you doing?" he asked again.

"Complaining in my own little way."

"What are you doing?"

Hawkmoon shuttered her optics and groaned. "Shut up."

"What-"

"I'm telling a story," she snapped. Paused. Reined her anger in. "I'm putting words on... not paper, but something close."

"You are writing?"

"I'm threading. It's better than writing. I get to do more with my ha-... with my servos."

"Threading raw data," Augur hummed. "Herding its shape into hidden concept. Not a common skill."

"I had a colourful education."

"Enlighten me."

"Could you leave me alone?"

"I'm curious," Augur said persistently. "Regale me with a tale."

"About... what, my education?"

"Yes."

"What's there to tell?" Hawkmoon said with a frown.

"Where did you learn to thread?"

"A friend."

"A skilled one, I imagine." Augur raised his head and pointedly looked at her servos. Hawkmoon glanced down; her talons were doing the word of needle and shuttle. "The natural works of sapient minds are of special interest to me."

"Skilled..." Hawkmoon trailed off. "Maybe. Nah, he was just alright. He... got me into the habit in the first place. The rest I picked up along the way."

"Where did he learn?"

"A lover." Hawkmoon grimaced. "A partner he'd loved and lost long before he met me."

"Did he love you?"

"Hm? Uh, no. No, I don't roll that way. He didn't either. I was a robot, he was flesh-and-blood - which is, I mean, look, that's no barrier but I'm pretty sure the first time we met I freaked him the hell out." She smiled. "Miss him, though. Traveler above, he would have thrived here."

"You grieve."

"'Course I'm fragging grieving," she snapped, her melancholy evaporating into red mist. "Of course I-"

One of the data-threads snapped. Hawkmoon stared at it.

"Frag."

Augur yawned, lower jaw separating into two. "You naturally channel your grief through anger."

"Fragging wonder why," Hawkmoon grumbled. She worked on mitigating the damage, cutting away the frayed ends and reconnecting the nano-wires with painstaking care. "I'm having a moment, Augur. You know what that means."

"You never have anything but moments," he told her, but he stood up and jumped down from the berth all the same. "Inform me when you have finished. I would like to see the fruits of your labour."

"'Fruits of your labour'?" Hawkmoon echoed in a high, needling voice. "Get scrapped."

Augur disappeared with a lingering disingenuous laugh.

"Hawkmoon."

"Yeah?" Hawkmoon perked her helm up.

"What is... that?" Thunderhowl questioned. He'd frozen in place, the stylus clasped between his digits hovering over the screen of a datapad.

"Hm? Oh, this? It's a scarf."

Thunderhowl leaned back in his chair. "... A scarf."

Hawkmoon nodded and tugged self-consciously at it. "Yeah."

"Why are you wearing a scarf?"

Because technically I'm naked and that just isn't right, so here's at least one article of clothing to spare the little human in me a world of embarrassment. "Because I felt like it?"

"... I see."

He didn't see, but Hawkmoon refrained from commenting on that.

"Moving on," Thunderhowl said after a moment's pause, "How did it go?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "We caught some smugglers, seized their contraband and left them with a scuttled warp-engine."

"The Hredda deserve no less."

"I'm sensing you don't like them."

Thunderhowl gave her a sidelong look. "I don't."

"Is it because-"

"They've tested my patience at every turn. I have no more sympathy to spare. Not for them."

"Ah. Riiiiight." Hawkmoon leaned back in her seat and folded her legs. "Any, uh... anything else I could be doing?"

"Hm?" Thunderhowl's stylus tapped tapped tapped over the datapad. "Am I to think you are, in truth, not satisfied with the job you've been given?"

"That's it. That's exactly it."

"I was speaking rhetorically, Seeker."

"I wasn't. Didn't feel right, firing on people who've never done me harm."

"They would if they could."

"But they haven't. That's a little hurdle I'm finding I just can't jump over."

Thunderhowl sighed and put the stylus aside. He propped his elbows up on the desk and clasped his hands together. "You want another job."

Hawkmoon nodded, relieved he'd caught her point. "I want to be kept busy."

"Busy? I could have you seeing to shield maintenance. It's time-consuming work, and it demands plenty of attention."

"Not what I had in mind."

"And what did you have in mind?" Thunderhowl questioned with narrowed optics.

Hawkmoon hesitated. "Something a little more... I want to say precarious, but..."

"You told me some time ago that you established contact with another alien species," Thunderhowl said suddenly.

She frowned. "Um, yeah?"

"You engaged with them on a diplomatic field, yes?"

"I... guess. The Tai..." Hawkmoon winced. "The Taishibethi were a little... strange. There wasn't much time and- Look, it's complicated."

"I don't care," Thunderhowl said. There was an edge in his voice; not anger, but something a little more... testy. Impatient. "Were you at the forefront of this effort, or was another of your formation responsible?"

"... Sorry?"

"Were you the acting diplomat?"

"Not, uh..." Hawkmoon shrugged again. "I wasn't supposed to be, but, uh... some of the Tai took a liking to me, I think. And... I liked them. We got along. Is that diplomacy?"

"It may as well be." Thunderhowl scrutinized her. "Would you be able to tolerate the presence of an alien in close proximity?"

"That's a weird question."

"You're a Seeker of Vos. I have to be sure."

"Ohhhh, you-" Hawkmoon scowled. "Of course I'd tolerate it! I don't mind it. Like - at all."

"You best be sure of that."

"What's this all for?"

"There is a job you might find... suitably precarious, as you say, but only if I have your word that you'll behave."

"Have I not been behaving so far?"

"Only up to a point," Thunderhowl muttered. He raised his voice. "Your word, Hawkmoon."

"I'll behave," Hawkmoon replied, rolling her optics. "What's the job?"

"Protection detail."

Tureda-VIII was a world of obsidian and dust, where the crust was so thin one could feel the heat of the mantle below their pedes. How the magma hadn't cooled off was a mystery, but the sensation was nice so Hawkmoon wasn't going to question it. She stood there, optics half-shuttered and vented a deep sigh. For maybe the first time since losing Gecko and getting punted across time, she was thankful she wasn't a Warlock. Warlocks were ones who picked and prodded at the universe's every little mystery; Hunters just rolled with it. And this?

This was something to roll with.

"You doing alright there?" Fractyl questioned, clearly amused.

"Yup." Hawkmoon put her servos on her hips. "This is nice, isn't it?"

"It won't be if Elphox catches you slacking."

"Miners aren't here yet."

"They're on their way."

"So I still have time to take this all in, right?"

Fratyl snorted. "Bad attitude to have 'round these parts, Seeker."

"Why's that?"

"You're just asking for a buck to snap you in half."

"Mhm." Hawkmoon allowed herself one last moment to take it all then, then turned on her heel. "You mean a… what did you call 'em, a Trizu buck, right?"

"That's the one."

"What are they like?"

Fractyl, a slender mech with a silver frame and dull green plating, shrugged. "Big, mad, violent. Not very clever."

"They aren't?" Hawkmoon quirked an optical ridge. "Thunderhowl said they were a common problem in this sector. As in- Hold on, wait-"

Fractyl shook his helm and rejoined the others by the weathered old landing pad. Elphox shot her a look but otherwise said nothing. Hawkmoon scowled and fell in line. They were left waiting for a few breems, then a whole joor, until finally a dark shape plummeted down through the heavens above - squat and square-shaped, soon followed by a series of smaller, sharper gunships.

"Look at that," Elphox murmured. "They've brought friends."

"I think those are Eimin-Tin dropships," Buzzclaw announced. "Didn't realize they were in cahoots."

"They weren't," Elphox replied. "This is new. Fractyl, I want you to send a report home. The Andegeans have enlisted Eimin-Tin aid."

"On it."

"Seeker."

"Yeah?" Hawkmoon raised her helm, holding her chin high. "What'cha need?"

"Do those gunships look armed to you?" Elphox inquired.

Hawkmoon focused on the formation of blade-shaped ships trailing behind the mining lander. "Well, yeah, but as far as I can tell they aren't aiming our way."

"Suppose that's the best we can hope for. Spread out please. Seeker, keep watching them. Warn me if they make any moves."

"Got it."

But they didn't make any moves. Not until they were hovering above the LZ - and even then just to extend docking clamps. A pair of gunships remained above, however, and took to patrolling overhead. Hawkmoon could feel the radio signals linking between each vessel, but they were guarded with firewalls she knew she had no hope of piercing. A touch more advanced than the Hredda, that was for certain.

It was the mining ship that opened up first, depositing a contingent of small humanoid creatures with pointed heads and short stocky tails, all contained within white pressure suits. The Andegeans, Hawkmoon presumed. A reptilian people, highly social, martially compromised by an instinctual aversion to violence. Intelligent though, and able negotiators. They walked perpetually hunched over, with their masked heads often brushing against one another's for social reinforcement. Each step they took, each movement they made was stiff and all but bordering on clumsy. Maybe it was the gravity, different to what they were used to, or maybe they were just naturally poorly balanced walkers.

"Mhiazah," Elphox said, which was the Andegean version of how's your day going, how's the wife, the husband, the kids, the dog, all good, that's good, but you know what else is good, it's seeing you here hale and hearty.

Or something like that.

The lead Andegean, marked by a green patch on its shoulder, responded with "Mhiazuh," which was you too.

"Wasn't aware there'd be extra company," Elphox continued. He nonchalantly crossed his arm, leaned on one heel and glanced over at the landed gunships. "This mean we've been replaced?"

"Ah, no," the Andegean supervisor said. "An extra precaution, nothing more."

"What, are we not enough? I'm wounded."

"We mean no insult, noble Krenshans! We-"

"It's fine, it's alright," Elphox sighed. "So long as we get our pay and our merit. Who's the... Oh, you've got to be joking."

The rear of each landed gunship slid open, disgorging perfect ranks of a different sort of alien. Not entirely unlike the Andegeans, but where the miners were rigid and awkward, their new friends were limber and graceful. Reptilian, Hawkmoon thought, but a different kind. Their legs were digitigrade like those of the Andegeans, and while humanoid their backs were slightly hunched forward just the same, but that was where the similarities between the two species ended. The Eimin-Tin, if that was what they were, were larger than the miners by some margin, most of them of height with Hawkmoon's waist, and they were long. Their tails were sinuous things, all but flowing behind them as they marched and tipped with something sharp. Their arms were longer and they had five fingers as opposed to the Andegeans' four. Their skulls were pronounced the other way around, so where the Andegeans had long conical bony crests rising from the rear of their skulls, all wrapped up in the safety of a biosuit's covering, the Eimin-Tin had forward-jutting snouts that seemed almost reminiscent of beaks. They too wore biosuits, and armoured ones at that.

What really caught Hawkmoon by surprise, though, was what followed them out - even larger specimens, almost identical to the rank-and-file but for the elongated blade-spines on the end of their tails and the even more fearsome gear they carried. She spotted a shimmer around the closest of them, too, betraying the presences of personal shield-systems.

"Akildn," Elphox said. Hawkmoon didn't know if it was a curse or the name of the things wading past the lesser Eimin-Tin. It sounded like both. "This is overkill, Imaxis."

"It was not our, ah... decision," the lead Andegean said quickly. "The Stratocracy requested that we-"

"Stop talking," Elphox ordered. He walked past the dejected Imaxis to meet the closest Eimin-Tin giant - who opened up with a greeting Hawkmoon's translation programme couldn't parse through. It involved an awful lot of hissing, though. It was... what was the word, sibilant? A sibilant-heavy language, from the sounds of it. Or maybe they were just as surprised as Elphox was that there was going to be extra company and equally as displeased.

Which was all very interesting but Hawkmoon figured she'd done her part, so she retreated to a distance she judged safe enough and watched the proceedings from afar.

"Are you regretting your decision?" Augur questioned.

Hawkmoon grimaced. Dipped her helm; closest thing to a nod she could give him, out in the open. She didn't know them. Figured she was better off not knowing them. Didn't care to. They weren't Taishibethi - and they never would be. Didn't matter if they cuddled space puppies for a living or whatever, she wasn't going to even try.

She'd learnt that lesson already.

"You are being watched," Augur remarked.

"I know," Hawkmoon murmured. One of the Akildn - along with the lesser Eimin-Tin forming up around it - was staring at her. She stared back, daring it to do something. It looked away, whispered something to one of its underlings and... continued with whatever it was doing. Loitering, looked like.

"Large," Augur said. "Built for battle. An army, pre-built. For your taking."

That's not how I do things, Hawkmoon thought irritably. Didn't say it, though. Couldn't.

"Weave your weighted words," Augur carried on. "Impart your sweet influence. Take their loyalty firmly in one hand. Point them to war with the other."

"No," Hawkmoon grunted.

Augur turned on her. "There is no choice in this. You must."

She turned her back to him, looking out into the grey wasteland. Nothing alive for as far as the optic could pick up - and her optics could go far. Not a lot of cover either. Unless the locals preds were armed with long-range mortar systems she didn't see why it was so necessary that they be there in the first place.

"You push at the pain of recollection," Augur snapped, "but you will only succeed in hampering your own potential. Act, Seeker."

"No."

"Ac-"

"I have a name," Hawkmoon snapped - as quietly as she dared, but it was out there. Hanging between them.

"Hawkmoon," Augur said. It sounded like he was sneering. "Act. You swore-"

"Nothing."

"What would your once-lover think of you now?"

It took everything she had not to transform a servo into a shard carbine and unload on the Verunlix - and that was only because she was pretty sure it would do absolutely nothing. As it was she kicked at the ground, scuffing a cloud of ash and stones at the fox. He danced away, yipping with displeasure.

"Coward," he barked through gnashing fangs. "Coward I say. Cretin. Craven. Act. Act, before the opportunity is taken from you. Act, before the path to true retribution is beyond your grasp.

Shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hawkmoon clenched her denta, ground them together tightly enough to kick up sparks. Finally, drawing on a reservoir of control she didn't know she had, muttered a low "whatever" and walked away. For show more than anything else, escaping him wasn't exactly an option, but she hoped it imparted the notion that she did not want to talk with him.

Which it did, fortunately. Augur simply watched her walk away in unhappy silence. At least he had some decency about himself.

The Andegeans set to work before the joor was out. There was something floating in the mantle, just under Tureda-VIII's surface, that they wanted to tap into. Something Elphox referred to as 'green energon'. The only issue was that, as a result of the fragile crust, the resulting seismic activity was going to be felt far and wide - and was all but certain to draw the kind of attention the Andegeans would have rather done without. There were confirmed reports of Trizu planetside and Hawkmoon was left under the impression that they were bad news. Bad enough that the Andegeans, for all their technological semi-competence, still reached out to Clan Krensha to ensure their own protection. Along with an Eimin-Tin contingent, but Hawkmoon wasn't one hundred percent certain on that count.

Not with how on edge Elphox was being.

Hawkmoon took to patrolling the perimeter of the mining camp, both on the ground and in the air according entirely to her own whims. She couldn't see anything, but every time she reported that to the Krenshans she wasn't getting the relieved replies she was expecting. The tension, the unease, was starting to get contagious. A nervous crick formed in Hawkmoon's left wing, in the exact spot she remembered tearing it off. It was irritating, it was agitating, and it was nerve-wracking.

::What am I even looking for?:: she impatiently demanded. ::I'm seeing nothing but rock, rock, rock.::

::You'll know it when you see it,:: Fractyl coolly replied.

::But that's exactly it. I'm not seeing scrap.::

::No one assigned you to keep a look out, you know. All you're doing is giving the rest of us processor-aches.::

::Fine.:: Hawkmoon swerved out, increasing the circumference of her patrol route by a much wider margin. Space to breathe, she thought. Or something like it. ::I'll be shutting up then. Aftpipe.::

If Fractyl had a retaliatory remark incoming, Hawkmoon was none the wiser because Elphox butted in and snapped, ::Enough. Focus up, the both of you.::

::Yes sir,:: Fractyl grumbled.

Hawkmoon said nothing.

She stopped and landed only half an orn later, just to refuel, and even then the Krenshans didn't interact with her more than necessary. Elphox handed her an energon cube and that was that. He took it back without a word when she was finished and, though he didn't even gesture it, the look in his optics made it clear that he didn't want her around. So back up into the air she went, circling and circling like a buzzard around a carcass. At one point an airborne Eimin-Tin gunship joined her, lazily keeping pace on the inside of the circle. Hawkmoon dipped to the side, raising one wing as a hello, and it did the same. It rolled when she did. It even flashed its frontal searchlights in time with hers, after a single demonstration on her part.

The only thing it couldn't do was transform - and that effectively killed the game, some breems after Hawkmoon had shifted form. Or maybe it was something else; the Eimin-Tin comms channels were locked tight and they definitely weren't the kind of species she wanted to try her budding hacking skills on - for no other reason than their ground troops looked ready for a war.

After that it was just simple soaring, entertaining herself by trying to snag her wings on eddies of air - just to see how long she could glide without relying on her thrusters. The answer: only so far before it devolved into a controlled, if rapid, descent. It was all well and good being so streamlined, in no small part thanks to the design of the Tai fold-fighter, but she was still a goliath constructed of metal - and the fold-fighter was a spacecraft before it was an aircraft. Sure, it was nice having something capable of travel both in and outside of a planet's atmosphere, but she was decisively a creature of the open reaches before everything else.

Still, it was handy to know where her limits were, at least in Tureda-VIII's rather weak gravity.

Something caught her optics. Movement, on the periphery. Hawkmoon reactivated her thrusters and evened out, ailerons tilting to pull her flight speed back down to a crawl. There was something down on the ground, miles on miles out but steadily approaching, gathering momentum, charging...

Charging towards the mining camp.

Hawkmoon tapped back into the Krenshan comms and barked, ::I've got something. Unidentified organism rapidly approaching your position. It's big. It's... scrap, there's two of them. No, wait, that's three - another one approaching from the northeast.::

::Trizu,:: Elphox growled. She found it a little strange that he hadn't asked her to confirm what they were. ::Are they armed?::

::I don't... think-:: Hawkmoon narrowed her optics. ::Uh... one of them is. With a club. No, wait, that's a femur. It's got a femur. No firearms or energy weapons as far as I can tell. Armour looks natural, biological. They have tusks - four of them. Orders?::

::Harass them. Give us time to prepare. Alerting the Andegeans nows.::

I can do more than that, Hawkmoon thought, moments before she dove. Her shard carbines unfolded beneath her undercarriage and locked on. She opened fire - on the terrain ahead of the pair closest, just to warn them off. They were huge, lumbering creatures, as large as Torca or maybe even larger and shaped like some distorted versions of a Greek centaur - covered from head to hoof in plates of thick purplish-black chitin. As one the pair looked up at her and bellowed in challenge. One of them even raised a stony fist and crashed it against its chest like a gorilla. The other reached down, plucked up a stone the size of Hawkmoon's servo and tossed it. At her. With deadly accuracy too. She twirled to the side and ascended once more, hightailing up out of throwing distance. The critters roared at her some more before resuming their trek towards the camp.

Hawkmoon flipped about and fired a second time - but closer, almost catching the beasts in the storm of crystalline shards. One of them stopped and tried throwing rocks at her some more while the second carried on. Hawkmoon hovered outside the throwers range and transformed, aiming at it with a servo-turned-carbine and raising the other into the air - hoping it would recognize the gesture as the universal calm the fuck down.

It did not, in fact, calm the fuck down. No, it got even angrier, jumping up and down on the spot and spitting what were assumedly guttural obscenities. If it could speak in the first place. She wasn't sure if the thing was just some territorial beast or a person, and the way it presented itself was like a cross of both - primitive and primal, but seasoned with the barest sparks of self-awareness.

::Seeker, watch for sniper fire,:: Fractyl barked.

Hawkmoon blinked. ::Wait, what- Oh scrap!:: Something dinged off her personal shield, leaving a bright flickering mark in its wake. High-velocity kinetic slug, from the sounds of it. Hawkmoon twisted around, her shoulder cannon already engaged, and zoned in on the origin point. The tiniest, barest glint of sunlight reflecting off a lens registered on her optics. She didn't think twice about it; Hawkmoon fired. The nucleon-charge round needled through... whatever it was. The dark-garbed thing fell from its perch back behind a series of rocks amidst the distant mountains and didn't get back up.

::What was THAT?!:: Hawkmoon demanded.

::Delinquents,:: Fractyl coolly replied. ::There'll be more. Find cover or keep moving. ETA on those bucks?::

::Uh...:: Hawkmoon swiveled back around. The one below was still shouting at her, but the other was well on the move. And the third- ::You've got a half-breem on the northeast target, two breems for the next. I'll see if I can stop the first one.::

::Quickly. Those things'll rip through the Andegeans.::

Well that was one way to kill off her reservations. Hawkmoon transformed and soared after the farther Trizu buck, firing on it the moment she was in range - this time with intent to harm, to cripple, to kill if needed. The high-velocity shards took it in the back, digging into shell and lacerating exposed flesh. It slowed and hobbled to a stop, still very much alive and nowhere near as disabled as she'd been aiming for. Thick armour, Hawkmoon thought to herself. Thick hide. Strong bones.

Her carbine switched out for the nucleon-charge cannon. The needling beam pierced its right knee, bringing it down - but then, inexplicably, it stood back up. Black blood bubbled from both the entry and exit point of the wound, clotting and cementing around it.

Regenerative properties. Okay.

She passed overhead. The buck snarled and stepped after her - but there was the slightest tremble in its step. Pain. Not invincible, then. Hawkmoon rolled around, loaded a target-locked incendiary missile and fired. It hit the buck with a flash, enveloping it in flames hot enough to melt solid plasteel. The buck staggered out of the sudden inferno, cloaked in fire, and clawed at itself. Hawkmoon descended upon it, transformed and extended her wrist-blades - slamming into it with crushing force, a kicked pede to the spine and two superheated blades to the base of its cranium. The buck spasmed and died on the spot.

Her shield hissed and crackled in proximity to the intense heat. Hawkmoon pushed away, back into the air, and looked for the next. The closer of the pair she'd left behind was a klik or so out from the camp, being engaged from range by the Eimin-Tin footsoldiers. A couple of the enlarged specimens, the Akildn, were approaching it from the side, armed with rifles and wrist-mounted needle-blades. The Krenshans were behind, armed to the teeth and forming up around the Andegean camp. Hawkmoon looked away, in search of the other Trizu- and found it racing across the wasteland to catch up with its companion. She transformed and rocketed towards it.

And ducked down as another unseen marksman took potshots at her. Hawkmoon twisted about, found two snipers on a ridge to the west some considerable distances away and picked them off with two consecutive roars of her cannon. A third retaliated, crack-crack-cracking at her shield with semi-automatic fire, right up until she annihilated them too. She waited a moment, just to see if there were any others who wanted a go, before diving for the buck stampeding below, blades engaged.

It saw her coming at the last moment and shifted. Her right wristblade missed its neck and sunk down to her knuckles in the creature's shoulder instead, punching right through chitin shell and dark flesh. It reached up for her with a low growl and Hawkmoon pulled back - but her blade lodged on something and the blood seeping around the wound had begun to harden, bubbling where it touched the superheated steel.

"Scrap-" Hawkmoon said, just before a huge meaty hand closed around her upper arm, ripped her away from the Trizu's shoulder and threw her against the ground, right onto her back. Something in her chassis groaned and fractured; her wings almost snapped off with the force and angle of it. The sudden pain stunned her for a moment, but only for that - and as the buck raised up with its front pair of legs to stomp on her, Hawkmoon activated a thruster and skidded along the rocky floor. Stones dug into her back and wings, leaving long scratches in their wake, but that was fine, that was cosmetic damage only. She boosted up, realigned her thrusters and shot back towards the beast. Her left servo punched straight into the alien's forehead as it turned to face her and her second snuck up under its chin towards where its throat would have been if it were a human or most other bipedal species - both blades sinking in deep.

The buck blinked at her, dumbly, and roughly shoved her away. It stumbled back, nowhere near dead enough for her liking, so Hawkmoon drew out, unfolded and activated her Nullblade and bisected the damn thing from shoulder to hip in one vicious strike. The Trizu fell apart into two steaming pieces, spasming a few moments longer before finally falling still.

Should've used a second incendiary, Hawkmoon mused. She rubbed her arm, where the beast had grabbed her. There were a couple of indents on her plating from where its fingers had dug in. She activated her comms system. ::Two bucks down. How about on your end?::

::The Akildn are playing with the last,:: Fractyl scoffed. ::Fragging teasing it. Is that all of them?::

::As far as I can tell,:: Hawkmoon reported. ::What about those snipers? Locals?::

::Just more Trizu layabouts. There's bound to be more, but they won't dare push us. What's your status?::

::I'm fine.::

::Get back here,:: Elphox ordered coldly. ::Now, Seeker.::

Hawkmoon tightened her jaw. ::On my way.:: She shook out her wings, just to get rid of the stinging feeling, before leaping up into the air and transforming. Hawkmoon torched her way back to camp, her thrusters burning an iridescent plasma trail behind her.

The last buck was still where she'd left it, facing the Eimin-Tin and - Fractyl was right, they were teasing it. The buck roared and bellowed, swinging its heavy clawed fists all about, but the Eimin-Tin were nowhere in range. The poor beast was shivering and bleeding from a dozen places, each wound a tiny pinprick. The Akildn currently circling around it had its wrist-mounted needle-blades engaged and already dripping with black blood, along another shimmering purple substance. Venom, Hawkmoon deduced - and from the way it sizzled on the ground and evaporated into a fine violet smoke, she guessed it was Void-based.

She didn't envy the buck. Not even a little. Void-venom was the absolute worst. Basically ate a person up from the inside out, ripping through cellular bonds and devouring all matter in sight. It wasn't even liquefying; it simply left a hollow in a person, an empty space, a void. It was the kind of venom that killed mechanical constructs as surely as it did biological lifeforms. The only consolation was that it was remarkably difficult to manufacture.

But it looked like the Eimin-Tin hadn't received that memo.

Still, the buck had given as good as he got; one of the Akildn had received a beating for its trouble, dragged away by a pair of amused peers and left to lick its wounds on the sidelines while the lesser Eimin-Tin tended to it. The others stood closer, watching eagerly as the one in the middle struck and struck and struck - scavengers waiting for the first sign of weakness.

It was needlessly drawn out. It was needlessly cruel.

Hawkmoon landed on the Trizu buck's back, shattering its spine and bringing it to the ground. With one stroke of her Nullblade she chopped away the arm it swung in a wild arc behind it and with a second removed its head. The beast's upper body twitched and slumped over. She stood up, folded her blade back up and placed it back into internal storage. A couple of the Akildn loudly grumbled and complained in their own decipherable tongue, while the one who'd been harassing the buck straightened and tilted its head. "Ssspharacitæra?" it hissed.

Hawkmoon imagined it was asking something along the lines of why ruin my fun, so she glared at the alien in return. "Because you're wasting everyone's time. Get back into position."

"Æssiar," the Akildn groaned. "Jhunzalsssur."

"Yeah yeah, sure," Hawkmoon muttered. She grabbed the buck's head and boosted up.

She landed by where Elphox and the other Krenshans were stationed, in a loose perimeter around the half-constructed Andegean mantle-miner. She tossed the head by Elphox's pedes. "Last one right there."

"You stole their kill?" Clampdown exclaimed.

Hawkmoon gave him a look. "Didn't look like a kill to me. Not the way they were going about it."

"It would've been-"

"Be silent," Elphox snapped. Clampdown stopped talking and ducked his helm. Elphox turned to Hawkmoon. "Are you sure that was all of them?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Of the bucks, sure, but those snipers-"

"The bucks are all we have to worry about."

"Those snipers could pick off the Andegeans. We're here to protect them, right?"

"We're outside their preferred range, right here," Elphox explained. "We picked this spot for a reason."

"What's to say they won't try to get closer?"

"Because they're as afraid of the bucks as we are."

Hawkmoon frowned. "But Fractyl called them-"

"Then talk to him," Elphox said impatiently. "And get those dents looked at. Dismissed."

"But-"

"Dismissed, Seeker." Elphox narrowed his optics.

Hawkmoon huffed and backed away - and Elphox walked off with Clampdown and Riptide in tow, headed to where the Andegean overseers were nervously watching everything unfold. She glanced at Fractyl, who gave her a blank look.

"What?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, don't you get smart with me," Hawkmoon shot back. "You and I are gonna have ourselves a little talk. How about we start with what the frag was that out there?"

Fractyl exchanged an exasperated look with Snaptrap, but the other beastformer was looking Hawkmoon up and down with some concern. "Ouch," he murmured. "Should I get some magna-tools?"

Hawkmoon waved him off. "Fractyl."

"What?"

"What the frag is-"

"I'm getting those tools," Snaptrap announced. He toddled off, leaving the two of them be.

Fractyl crossed his arms. "Just Trizu, Seeker."

"Yeah, that's exactly it. Why were there snipers?"

"Because Trizu are a pain in the aft? What the frag are you even asking?"

Hawkmoon shuttered her optics, pleading with herself not to get angry. It was hard not to be angry at most things; she couldn't let it get out of hand. "I'm a little... confused. Let's talk Trizu things, yeah? Educate me."

"Trizu are pests. There. Educated."

"Yeah, but are they local?"

"Probably not," Fractyl said with a shrug. He lazily looked away.

"Why are you being difficult?"

"That's just in your helm, Seeker."

"Why were there snipers? Why did you call them 'Trizu layabouts'?"

"Because they are?"

"Fract-"

"Back," Snaptrap announced. He waved the tools into the air, forcing a smile. "Uh, Seeker?"

Hawkmoon sighed. She walked over to the closest boulder and sat against it, motioning the Krenshan over. Fractyl snorted and scoffed, taking the opportunity to wander off. She glared after him - and grunted when Snaptrap used a magnetized tool to pull out one of her wing dents.

"Sorry," he said.

Hawkmoon muttered an "it's fine."

"So… you killed a buck?"

"And then some." She held up three digits - and paused. Hawkmoon frowned and looked over her shoulder. Snaptrap blinked back.

"What?"

"Tell me about the Trizu," Hawkmoon demanded.

"Oh, uh... sure. What do you want to know?"

"Can we start at the beginning?"

Snaptrap floundered. "I... don't know much about Trizu history, I'm afraid. Just-"

"That's fine. What can you tell me?"

"They're, eh, not nice? Not neighbourly, anyways. Very... dour. I mean, who wouldn't be when your only feasible future is to digest your own brain."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh yeah. The Trizu digest their brains. When they reach a certain age, I think. They're really smart, but when they hit like... I don't know, a vorn-and-a-half, they become Trizu bucks. Their bodies eat most of their cerebral matter and use the biomass to grow new muscle elsewhere. I think it's because they used to live on... I don't know, what do you call them, one of those worlds where organics have to fight for just about everything. They have to be smart when they're small and strong when they're big. That's the strategic reasoning, anyways. I don't think the young Trizu are happy with it."

"That's... I imagine not..." Hawkmoon blinked. "What the frag."

"Yeah, organics can get weird," Snaptrap hummed. He finished off one wing and moved onto the other.

"So those snipers..."

"Were un-morphed Trizu."

"Like... kids?" Hawkmoon questioned. "Those were children?!"

"As in like sparklings? Mechlings?" Snaptrap hmmmed. "Mmmm, no. No, I don't think so. Well they aren't fully mature, but by their standards they're adults already. Trizu spend most of their youth in education centres. Just to soak in as much information as possible, I suppose, before they, uh… eat it all up. And to keep them safe from the bucks, I think. Or they should, anyways. The bucks are cannibals."

"Frag."

"Yup. Disgusting. Weird way to refuel, right? That's what I'm always saying."

Hawkmoon looked back at Snaptrap. "Then why were they shooting at us? Instead of helping us put down the bucks?"

"Hm?" Snaptrap tilted his helm. "Oh, I think they hate us."

"What?"

"And the Andegeans. And the Eimin-Tin - especially the Eimin-Tin. They're at war, I'm pretty sure. Maybe that's why they're here, helping us out... Yeah. Must be. The Trizu don't like anybody. I think they're just jealous."

"So this isn't their home?"

"No?"

"So they flew here?" Hawkmoon inquired.

"Yes?" Snaptrap answered, though he didn't sound certain.

"Then the bucks are..."

"Colonists who grew too old."

"And the snipers-"

"Their descendants."

"That's fragged."

"Yep." Snaptrap got to work on her arm.

"Fragging Pit..." Hawkmoon trailed off, lost in thought. Traveler above. "Will they... Do you think they're going to bother us again?"

"Hm? Oh, I don't know. Bucks for sure, if there's any still left alive around here."

"What about-"

"The un-morphed?" Snaptrap guessed. He shook his helm. "No, Elphox picked this spot to avoid them. They're sneaky when they want to be - but they won't risk getting caught out in the open. The bucks terrify them. Akildn too."

"The Akildn." Hawkmoon sobered and perked up. "What's their deal?"

Snaptrap hesitated. "With all due respect, Seeker, I try to keep out of their business."

"What do you know?"

"Um... they're Eimin-Tin."

"Well, yeah, I got that." Hawkmoon rolled her optics. "What else?"

"I... think they're genetically modified?" Snaptrap said uncertainly. "I don't know. I mean, it's probably true. The Eimin-Tin splice flesh the same way we play with frame-modifications, so... yeah."

Hawkmoon set her lips in a thin line. "That's not much."

"I told you, I stay away from anything involving them." Snaptrap made a face. "The thorn-tails make me uncomfortable enough..."

"'Thorn-tails'?" Hawkmoon echoed.

"Uh, yeah. Eimin-Tin. Akildn are scythe-tails. You can both of them dirk-heads too, if you want. Not to their faces, though. They don't like dirk-head. But the tails bit, that's fine. You can call them silk-serpents too, if you want. They really like that. Might be what they call themselves, actually…"

"Do you have their language files?"

Snaptrap opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "No."

Hawkmoon quirked an optical ridge. "You're a poor liar."

"I don't want anything to do with this. They freak me out."

"You don't want to get on their bad side? That it?"

"I don't want to be on any side where they're concerned.

"... Fine."

"Thank you," Snaptrap sighed, relieved. He pulled out a couple of remaining dents before stepping back. "All done."

"I owe you one."

"It's... it's nothing." He put his tools into storage and hastily made his leave. Hawkmoon stretched out her wings; they felt better. Not perfect, but nothing her own self-repair couldn't fix given a few joors.

"I could teach you," Augur purred from by her pedes.

She almost kicked him - and stopped herself only because she knew it wouldn't work. "Piss off," Hawkmoon muttered.

"I can teach you. Languages are no barrier to me."

"Seems a whole lot more trouble than it's worth. I can just download the files when we get back."

"And you'll have missed your opportunity to speak with such able warriors."

"There's always a catch with you, isn't there?" Hawkmoon grimaced. "What did it say to me? That Akildn?"

Augur laughed. "It declared you a killjoy."

"Don't know what I expected." Hawkmoon got back up. Stalled in place. "Fragging kids..."

"Now is not the time for regrets," Augur informed her.

Hawkmoon didn't deign him with a response. She wallowed in the idea of it for a long moment, then transformed and left the ground far below - back to patrolling high above in sweet, poisonous solitude.

The evening rolled in slow and steady, blanketing everything in the deep smog of a moonless night. The Andegean miner lit up everything in the proximity with glaring searchlights, which was more of a detriment than a help but it put the small aliens at ease. Hawkmoon returned to share in the blue energon cubes being handed out, sipping and sitting by the edge of the group.

Which must have constituted as an invitation in Eimin-Tin culture because she was barely there for a quarter of a breem before a curious Akildn joined her. It sidled up to her, all casual and the like with its long tail lazily swinging behind it, and softly hissed, "Jærvissa."

It had a whisper-y voice with brassy, metallic undertones.

Hawkmoon barely glanced at the alien before giving Augur a pointed look.

"A greeting," he explained. "One made in the fellowship of blood spilt."

"Great." Hawkmoon turned back to the Akildn. "That's... that's great, that is. Can you understand me?"

The Akildn tilted its head the other way. It tapped its chest - and its armoured biosuit melted away into glittering transmat, revealing it for the alien that it was. It had a face like a cross between a falcon and a moray eel - with a little more emphasis on the latter. It had a pseudo-beak in the form of thin bony crests running down the middle of both its upper snout and under its chin that culminated in an almost spearhead-like structure, all gleaming and razor-edged. Easy to see where the 'dirk-head' term came from. Bony plates covered the top-most part of its head and ran down its back in segments, over a line of supple, elastic muscle banding around its spine. That muscle ran down and down to its long, powerful tail and on from there, probably to give it a little more kick. That tail was tipped at the end with another bony structure, completely blade shaped. Two long gossamer wings draped down from behind its shoulders, but they looked vestigial. Not fit to lift the heft of the alien.

The rest of the Akildn's skull - along with most of its body - was covered in a smoothly scaled skin of a bluish-purple colour, like iridescent oil catching the light at just the right angle. Two slit-pupiled violet eyes twinkled above its maw, behind two pairs of nostrils set into the side of its snout. Artificially sharpened fangs jutted out the sides of a lipless mouth like a crocodile, and when it briefly opened its craw up to speak Hawkmoon saw what looked like another pair of jaws within - with a couple more rows of teeth to boot.

Definitely like a moray eel.

Its physique was... waifish and slender, but the word Hawkmoon settled on was sculpted. She saw nothing but banded muscle and ropey sinew packed in tight below skin and over bone. The legs were digitigrade and the arms of the more human-ish variety, but there were some extra bony plates on the back of its hands and over its feet. It had claws fit to gut a Cybertronian and even the thumbs necessary to mold the world around it like any respectable sapient lifeform. There was a sparse mane of ivory quills at the base of its neck, arrayed around it like a collar, as well as a couple at the rear of each heel and behind each elbow.

In short: the Akildn before her looked like a bio-engineered killer. Like someone had tossed a human, a snake, an eel, a dragonfly and a meat-eating therapod into a mixing pot, then cut out everything weighing it down to leave behind something exotically dangerous. Even the Taishibethi, for all their beautiful grace, had nothing on the perfect form of the alien in front of her. It had the kind of build Hawkmoon would have killed for, had she still been human - strong in a wiry, fleet-footed way.

Hawkmoon looked it over a couple times more. She... could not tell its gender, not on sight alone. Though it was bare, it lacked genitalia and just about every other feature analogous for human sexual dimorphism. Which was... fair, most alien species she'd met were like that - be it Eliksni, Hive, Taishibethi, Myods, Eecharik and all the others. The Andegeans were probably the same, underneath their own biosuits.

"Girsssanava?" it questioned, flashing its... definitely not pearly whites. Crystal clears, rather. It had teeth built of seeming glass.

"I don't know what the frag you're saying," Hawkmoon sighed. "Look, might be best that you jog o-"

Elphox pinged her, cutting her off. Hawkmoon glanced at him, with both optical ridges raised, but all he had to answer her with was a datapacket. Containing language files. He gave her a guarded look and nodded to the Akildn before being drawn back into a conversation about something or other with Riptide.

Hawkmoon blinked and loaded the language files up to her vocal systems and auditory systems. Girsssanava the Akildn had said. Gear-built star-crosser. Cybertronian Seeker. She shot Augur a fleeting sneer before facing the Akildn once more.

"I am," Hawkmoon warily replied in kind. "I'm a Seeker, yeah."

The Akildn lowered the front of its snout. "You speak Irinum?"

"I do now." Hawkmoon paused. "What do you want?"

The Akildn exhaled, slowly. It heard her demand, Hawkmoon knew it did, but rather than meet it it tactfully ignored it. "I am Elulim."

"And I'm Hawkmoon. What do you want?"

"To speak. Have I not made that obvious?"

"Speak about what?" Hawkmoon continued.

Elulim's eyes narrowed. Now there was something familiar. "Are you angry?"

"Just-"

"We only thought to amuse ourselves. There was no ulterior agenda behind it."

The buck, Elulim meant. "It was still uncalled for," Hawkmoon said stiffly. "It was unnecessarily brutal."

"They are brutal."

"Doesn't mean you have to be. You've got to be the bigger person."

"Be larger?" Elulim snorted, its nostrils flaring. "Is that a Cybertonian idiom?"

"It's something alright," Hawkmoon muttered. She huffed and raised her voice. "You'd get better conversation from Elphox over there."

"But I want to speak with you."

"Why?"

"We seldom encounter your ilk in these parts," Elulim whispered lowly. She idly reached for one of Hawkmoon's wings - and Hawkmoon pulled back, startled. Elulim dropped its hand, unbothered. "Your people are odd in general, but Seekers... You are your own sort of strange."

"Glad to hear it."

"I mean no offense." Elulim's pupils widened into a diamond shape. Hawkmoon had no idea what to make of it. "Where I'm from, strange is unique. It is... treasured."

… Ah.

She was being flirted with. In a very… forward fashion, too.

For a second Hawkmoon was so flabbergasted that she forgot to offer a response, a rebuke, anything. It was that momentary lapse of hers that Elulim pounced on. It took one of Hawkmoon's servos into its hands and gently ran a claw over the back of her palm - tracing the Hunter mark there, following the blue serpent as it dutifully slithered in a near-perfect ouroboros.

"You are fast," Elulim softly remarked. It let go of Hawkmoon's servo and reached for her faceplates, to cup her cheek. "I watched you fly. I watched you strike. You stole my kill, but I am not-"

"No, no no, no." Hawkmoon stepped away, almost dropping her energon cube. "I'm flattered, really... but I'm not... I don't like... what are you, anyways? A man? A woman? A-"

"Neither," Elulim said, watching her with eyes narrowing all over again. "I am neither tiercel nor formel. I am Akildn."

"Yeah, I got that but what-"

"Genderless," Augur explained. "Neither man nor woman by your estimations. Ve is what ve says ve is; ve is confined to veir identity, a soldier born and crafted and honed to a deadly purposes, and nothing more than that. Not entirely unlike yourself, Seeker."

"How do you know?" Hawkmoon questioned.

Augur jumped up onto her shoulder - a significant distance given his size, but she wasn't surprised by it anymore. "I listened," he whispered into her audial. "I listened as they spoke to each other, referred to one another. While you patrolled."

"Who are you speaking with?" Elulim asked with what was assumedly the Eimin-Tin version of a frown.

"Uh, it's nothing." Hawkmoon rubbed her faceplates. Gender-neutral identity, that was fine, could've made it easier for her to pick up on but maybe that was her being... "Look, yeah, still flattered, but I am not in the mood."

"... I see." Elulim straightened up. "My apologies."

Hawkmoon gave ver a tired nod. "It's fine, it's-"

Elulim turned about and retreated, back to the safety of veir kin.

"See you, then," Hawkmoon sighed. She looked down at Augur - and found him watching her. "What?"

"I have uttered naught a word," he sneered.

"Yeah yeah, screw you." Hawkmoon half-heartedly glared back. She finished her cube off. "There. I'm hitting the hay; if we hear about another couple of bucks, wake me up."

"If that is what you wish."

"Get fragged."

Hawkmoon walked back to the others, laid her empty cube by the stack being steadily built up and wordlessly retreated to where the Krenshan gunship was docked. She slipped inside, sat against the hull and forced her system to unwind. Tried to mentally scrub out what had happened - that day and all the days before. Leave her scoured of everything; leave her as an empty shell.

Bring on the reset.

No, no, no, she couldn't hope for that, it would be an end to her as she knew it, she couldn't-

"I don't care anymore," Hawkmoon whispered to herself. "I don't. I don't."

It was that mantra that carried her into recharge.

She didn't know where she was. A long hallway with many paths to walk. She looked down one and saw a mound of chipped off-colour stones, a broken sword standing at one end like a makeshift grave-marker. Insects scurried between the rocks, soaked to the shell in a bright blue liquid that stank of gasoline. She looked down another and spotted a woman in a wicker chair with a nest of serpents for hair, knitting herself a mask of solid gold. There was a man behind the back of the chair, wearing a scowl and a mask of his own - one with three green eyes, bright like hellfire. He watched the snake-haired woman at work and bit his cheek. His mask moved with the motion, indistinguishable from his own skin.

Hawkmoon glanced behind her. Something tall and slender was marching her way, filling up the space with its sinuous brawn, its six eyes a-glow with fierce rage.

"It's time to sink or swim," it snarled. It held a mitochondrial helix in one hand, each interconnected strand burning bright.

Hawkmoon looked ahead of her. The way was barred; the door was chained shut. But it shook. It SHOOK. She could hear voices on the other side, voices like-

Silence/Silence/Silence/Silence/Silence

/ERROR/

Silence yawning, silence stretching, silence forever.

/ERROR: NEURAL CONNECTION DEGRADING, CLOSE CLOSE CLOSE/

"Someone's calling me," Adria said wistfully. "Wonder if it's my mum. Maybe she's sorry."

The tall-thing, the six-eyed-thing, the thin-thing, it was on her, it was planting its helix into the ground to throw up a field of black and orange while it grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Time to sink or swim," it said again, gnashing teeth she couldn't see. "SINK OR SWIM. SINK OR SWIM."

/CLOSE CLOSE CLOSE THIS NOW HAWKMOON PLEASE IT HURTS/

It let go, looking instead at the mound of rocks. It picked up its helix, walked over and planted the twisting DNA strand opposite the sword - and looked mighty proud of itself as a result. "Witness me," it cackled.

"Do you still walk with gods now?" the three-eyed masked man hoarsely asked. Lennox-2 looked at him. "These shackles are strong."

She shook her head, exasperated. "Oh you."

"Oh him," the snake-haired woman agreed. She graced them with a small smile. Affectionate. Happy. Happy happy happy, happy with-

/CLOSE THIS DOWN CLOSE THIS DOWN THIS IS TOO CLOSE THIS IS TOO CLOSE IT HURTS/

Hawkmoon blinked. "Hello?"

/BREAK THE DOOR LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT NOW/

Adria walked to the door and pressed her ear against it. Lennox-2 strained to hear. Hawkmoon screamed and struggled against her bindings.

"What's a little more tightrope walking between friends?"

There was a gap in the door, she saw a room, a room with the shadow of a malnourished man hunched over the remains of a broken helmet with tears running down his cheeks, and he whispered and prayed and cried and there was a spider, a great big gossamer spider with a beautiful web and a leg on every forking thread, so many threads, every thread, all threads, they were watching they were watching, she was watching, she was learning, she wanted to scream and cry and pray just like he did but she couldn't she couldn't she didn't have a tongue that had another shape, a different shape, worn and wielded by another as a wicked cloak, leaving her mute, leaving her alone, leaving her stranded-

/LET ME OUT/

/LET ME OUT PLEASE/

/IT'S NOT WORKING/

Hawkmoon blinked. /HELLO?/

Silence yawning, silence stretching, silence forever and ever and ever.

/I CAN SEE y0u/

/WHO IS THIS?/

/I CAN SEE YOU, H4WKM00N. I CAN SeeeEE/

/WHO?/

She pushed the door open. The man inside looked up at her with wide eyes.

"I... I know you," he said.

And he looked past her, as if seeing the spider for the first time in his life.

"I know of her too," he said, still surprised, still ecstatic, this horrified but all less so. Subdued by something. "She's... you need to let her go. It's not working. Hawkmoon, it's not working. Let go."

Hawkmoon looked down at her servo. Adria spread her fingers, realized there was sticky silk between them. Lennox-2 watched the smothered spider in her palm slowly unfurl and rise up, free at last.

/THANK YOU/

/WHO ARE YOU?/ she asked.

/WE'LL TALK SOON. MISS YOU ALREADY. WHEN THE DEVIL SINGS, CUT OUT HIS TONGUE./

There was a scuffling sound behind her, the sound of small feet being dragged. She knew that sound. Lennox-2 turned around and there he was; her boy, her kid, her son, her baby. "Benni."

"I have a trick to tell you!" he crowed excitedly.

"Oh yeah?" Adria knelt down in front of him, taking his hands into her own. "Go on."

She would go to hell and back for him, cross infinite seas and chart the darkest of spaces just to keep him safe, keep him near.

He turned to ash before her very eyes.

"It's called..." he said, before he melted away entirely, "you are now manually breathing."

Adria rolled her eyes and chuckled, laughing with him as he went - now there was a rite-of-passage kind of joke, she'd pulled the same in her-

Stopped.

She couldn't breathe.

She couldn't BREATHE.

She couldn't-

Online. She was online. Her chassis was attempting to expand and contract, huge wracking heaves that left her convulsing, seeding a deep unnatural ache in her support struts. It hurt. More than being alive should have.

Gunship. She was still inside the gunship. No one else was there - but she could hear the Andegean miner outside, hear the voices, hear them all. No shouting, no screaming, nothing but talk.

She was alone.

Augur lifted his head beside her. Looked at her in that frustratingly curious way of his.

"Are you well?"

No I'm not well, I'm the definition of NOT WELL, how can I be well if I- No, he'll use that, he'll use that, lie lie lie.

"No," Hawkmoon whispered, utterly defeated. "No, I'm not well."

"What is the matter?"

"... I don't know."

AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for the edits!