I'm open to critique as this is my first bit of Transformers fanfiction, ever. I don't claim to be a writer, so feel free to tell me what I did wrong.
Also, attached is a Word doc copy of the same story because I really do dislike forum formatting.
My optics focused in the deep night of a backwater world. So close to the system’s only star, the forsaken rock was a dangerous place. Light was death, and night was hardly a respite. Freezing cold or searing hot, just the way I like my options for termination. If I had any other choice I think I’d rather be offlined by a spacerock through the central processor, and even that ignoble death might be a welcome release from the tiresome conflict that plagued our kind. Fortunately, my line of work put me in these dangerous situations often enough, throwing me into threatening scenarios that could result in my untimely demise. Even the slightest miscalculation could spell disaster. A lesser processor might have been offline megacycles ago.
Unfortunately, I was very good at what I did.
The silhouettes moved along the edge of a chasm to use the jagged stone formations as cover. Smart of them, it masked their signature against anything but the most probing sweeps in case there was any activity in the area. One of the benefits of tracking your mark personally, though, was that you rarely had to rely on things like long-range scanners that could be duped or jammed. You could see them, you could touch their tracks, you could hear their servos whirring in the darkness.
I doubt they expected visual confirmation on their position so soon. I was invisible to them. Nestled between the rocks of a far-away ridge, my reactive camouflage was barely necessary. The only sign they could possibly detect would be the blue focusing matrix of my rifle as I leveled it onto its bipod. Its barrel “opened” to reveal the shimmering central core that would condense energy into a high-frequency laser capable of searing through even the toughest Cybertronian alloy. Once my optical targeting unit had a proper lock on one of the Autobots I curled a metal claw around the trigger.
It was nothing personal.
“By Primus, Hailstorm, move your servos! There could be Decepticons anywhere!” Airhawk said irritably, shoving a smaller Autobot in front of him. He was a large, scout-function Cybertronian skilled in hand-to-hand combat and air-to-air engagements. Many viewed him as a natural leader, a strategist, if the Autobots had such a thing in their ranks. While many were designed to be workers, scientists, and explorers, some had to be equipped for dangerous scenarios. These were typically put in charge of smaller detachments, and Airhawk was especially proud of his authority.
“Hey, these rocks are unstable!” the smaller robot snapped. A cryogenics unit specializing in the preservation of artifacts and delicate research materials, Hailstorm was as far removed from his pushy superior as a lump of carbon was from a finely-cut diamond. Short, squat, and lacking the resolute programming to forge ahead into the unknown, he was more comfortable working in a laboratory turning specimen samples into ice cubes. Confrontation made him feel uneasy and put his processors on edge, and his superior officer’s haughty attitude made every order a confrontation in and of itself.
“Quiet, you two!” Nine-breaker, a construction bot, snapped. The two hushed immediately. While Nine-breaker was rarely in charge of anything except being muscle, he performed exceptionally well in that regard. With a big crane on his right shoulder and stocky, all-terrain treads, the massive Cybertronian was handy to have around in unstable environments for rescuing his teammates. He and Airhawk had been on several assignments together and while the airborne Autobot was more often in charge, the two bickered like a faulty resistor and an overloaded circuit.
“I don’t know why I’m even out here! You two are the search and recovery functions,” Hailstorm grumbled, finding his footing on a ledge. Airhawk knelt down and gave the squatty blue bot a stern optic.
“Your team reported Energon readings that would indicate a Decepticon depot,” the gruff commander intoned with a degree of finality Hailstorm felt helpless to argue.
“Besides, you’re the sensitive materials transportation expert,” the clunking hulk up ahead remarked, noting that his big hands were far from delicate by clenching his fists. He crouched next to a large outcropping, looking down into the chasm stretching out before them. This canyon, while good for keeping themselves hidden, was treacherous and rocky. Shifting stones meant that their weight could collapse their footholds or they might fall through the roof of some underground cave.
“Whatever,” Hailstorm griped as he slid down a flat rock. “You guys are squawking on about Decepticons like you’ve seen one in the last stellar cycle.”
Airhawk stood up indignantly and appeared to be a hair’s breadth away from giving his typical speech about being on guard at all times. Hailstorm flinched inwardly in preparation for a long-winded instructional track on how the Autobots were honor-bound to ensure their great enemy did not succeed in subjugating other worlds or spreading their vile influence to innocent planets such as this. As he turned to give his superior a nasty look he caught a glimpse of a bright light, like a shooting star glimmering through the atmosphere, passing across Airhawk’s head. The taller bot stood motionless before he teetered and dropped to his knees, then fell to his side. A circular hole, nearly perfect in every dimension, had been bored through his head in a smooth tunnel from one side to the other, the molten metal lining the passage cooling rapidly.
“A-Airhawk!” Hailstorm squeaked, his vocoder faltering as his logistic circuits flew over the possibilities, trying desperately not to arrive at the only conclusion available. An ambush.
“Get down!” Nine-breaker thundered as he covered the petrified robot.
Everything was quiet. The faint sizzle of an exposed wire sputtered ominously up from the depths of Airhawk’s steaming processors. Nine-breaker was crouched low next to one of the rocky walls, his wrecking ball extended out to serve as a makeshift weapon. He could twirl it like a flail and, thanks to his excavator-like strength, had proven more than capable of demolishing dangerous bots like so much stone under his skillful swings. Still, it was no plasma cannon or missile launcher, and Hailstorm was positive they were going to join the Well of All Sparks.
“NB, NB,” he sputtered ineffectually, his servos quivering in his joints.
“Quiet! It’s going to be all right, just stay hidden,” the bigger bot hissed, peering up over the chasm wall, ignorant of his comrade’s desperately pointing finger.
Sad.
I know that certain ‘bots were never programmed to be warriors, but I expected them to at least be functional. After I took out their commanding officer I was able to sneak around behind the Autobots’ location. Taking advantage of the same chasm they had been using as cover, I moved along until I was standing so close I could hear them. Not that I couldn’t from half a klik away, their sound dampening was horrible.
“It’s going to be all right, just stay hidden,” the big one said. If he was second in command, he was already on a poor path by staying right where I had shot my target. He was looking over the wall, trying to find me. His smaller comrade was focused on panicking, and I knew that this would be the end for both of them. My mission was a success before I had even finished it. I mused over the prospect of a fresh oil bath back at the base to clean out some of the dust and contaminants I could feel seeping into every crease on my frame. Just had to finish up here…
“A Decepticon!” Hailstorm managed to squeak at last, bringing his companion’s attention to the towering frame standing at the crevice’s edge. Nine-breaker turned and gawked at the shape that appeared but remained invisible. Hard edges were evident against the dark sky while stars shimmered out-of-place along the constructed outlines of a Decepticon hunter’s angled chassis. As it took one step forward color seemed to flow across the shape-that-wasn’t, a black and blue assortment of camouflage that would have served well, had this stalker not been using cloaking technology.
As the resounding metal-on-stone clang sounded out and the tall hunter landed in the canyon with the two Autobots, Nine-breaker was pulled from his stupor. Immediately he hefted his wrecking ball and hurled it along with its chain toward their enemy. The Decepticon moved easily to one side, bringing up an arm clutching a long, vicious-looking rifle. A single blue-white beam pierced out from its barrel and sustained itself for a scant second. This was long enough to sever Nine-breaker’s ball and chain and send the makeshift weapon hurdling off into the deep pit at the end of the canyon.
Moving much faster than a machine of his bulk would imply, Nine-breaker was on the Decepticon before it had readied that laser-rifle for a second shot. They were almost evenly matched in height, but NB was the heavier, knocking the assassin off-balance and back toward the sheer cliff face that ended the canyon’s winding path. With his massive arms locked in a strong grip, the construction robot slammed his attacker into the canyon wall and forced the huge gun to the rocks. Hailstorm, still stunned that they had been set upon by their ancient enemy, scraped his chassis backward, unable to tear his view from the battle at hand while his processors tore between the multitude of possibilities. If he didn’t help, Nine-breaker would be in danger, but if he tried, he might put himself in danger. If he fled, he would be hunted still, alone and completely unprepared for survival on a harsh planet.
A grating clang echoed from the Decepticon’s fist as it crashed into Nine-breaker’s stout head, staggering him, creating just the opening necessary for a swift knee to the chestplate. Escaped, the hunter raised an arm and extended a vicious blade from its forearm compartment. A brutal swipe barely missed Nine-breaker’s arm, and another scraped the outer metal of his shoulder. He fell, slamming into the jagged boulders to one side of the crevice as the blade sent molten sparks through the air in a wide arc, as if it were as angry as its wielder for missing its mark. The gleaming blade raised high in the air, its long, sharp curve reflecting the barest glimpse of starlight before it—froze.
Hailstorm cried out a long, feeble battle shout, aiming both his arms and the equipped cryo-beams at the Decepticon. Blue streamers rippled out, touching and immediately encasing the killer robot in ice. The crystalline shapes ran down its blade, the attached arm, across its chest, down its leg. A furious roar sounded out from behind the cruel faceplate, the burning red optics narrowing down, no doubt targeting the squat Autobot. Hailstorm stared incredulously at the Decepticon-sized icicle, half-frozen to the ground and pinned in place, both arms and both legs immobile. Only the exposed head still writhed, screaming its incoherent frustrations.
“Good work, Hail,” NB said, staggering to his feet. He was dented and had a few deep gashes across his armored hide, but nothing had been so significantly damaged as their leader’s head. Suddenly recalling the offline soldier, both Autobots turned to the sparking frame laid out on the canyon floor.
“Oh slag, is he?” Hailstorm asked as he stumbled away from the still-fuming Decepticon.
“He’s still got spark signature readings, but they’re fading fast. I’ll send out a distress call.” The huge bot turned away, commlink crackling to life inside his helmeted visage. As he began relaying the emergency communication, Hailstorm stared at the hole that went from one side of Airhawk’s central processor casing to the other. It had cooled into an almost perfect circle, with the occasional exposed wire or visible circuitry marring the smooth innards. The gun that made the wound was still where it fell from their assailant’s claws.
Shakily getting to his feet, the cryogenics specialist strode over to look at the massive weapon. Sure, the Decepticon was monstrous, tall as Nine-breaker, but to a stocky scientist, this laser cannon was intimidating. He could feel the probing optics scanning his frame as he knelt down to lift the rifle in both hands, steadying it, gripping it in a painfully awkward, unfamiliar fashion.
“Do you have it in you, little Autobot?” a resonating, gravel-like sound asked.
“What? Do I have what in me?”
“What it takes to shoot,” the Decepticon replied flatly. For a moment, Hailstorm regarded the frozen figure and marveled at his complete lack of personal concern. “It isn’t just the ability to aim for vital areas. The core processor, the motor control units, the central matrix…they’re all parts of one big machine. Do you have what it takes to extinguish the spark? Can you snuff it out, end a life, send me to meet my maker?” The words were cold, colder even than the ice that trapped the Decepticon where he stood, and entirely without conviction. It was as if this assassin was cruelly aware of the paradox of a killer questioning the motive and ability to kill.
Hailstorm looked down at the rifle in his hands for a long second before he stepped around in front of his prisoner. “I’m not like you, Decepticon. I’ve got plenty of what it takes to stop you from destroying this galaxy without being a sparkless murderer!”
“How unfortunate.”
With that brief response the Decepticon turned in its icy prison and flexed. In a grind of servos and motivators and a great splintering of crystal shards, it was free, turning to face its captor with blade raised. Hailstorm let out a startled yell as he stumbled, dropping the rifle. This was the end, he was sure; his tanks hadn’t been able to replenish their cryo-energy from his internal reactor. He had never had to use his beams offensively – he had no way of knowing they would only layer up enough ice to pause an angry Decepticon. As he braced for the inevitable impalement, a shape of green and yellow was suddenly there.
Nine-breaker tackled the hunter bodily, sending them both toward the cliff’s edge. Try though it did to brace against the onslaught, the Decepticon was swept back. Rocks ground under the metal assault and fragmented, cracked, broke and fell. Before Hailstorm knew what was happening he watched the ledge give out and both frames toppled out of view. He heard himself scream out in disbelief and fear, but he had no idea if it was a coherent word or something more garbled and primal.
Then the night was silent.
How far the prideful have fallen – I could tell you exactly how far if it weren’t for the huge Autobot punching me in the faceplate on the way down. In retrospect, my choice to move in closer and finish them off theatrically in the visceral art of melee combat was arrogant. The canyon was narrow, and I couldn’t out-maneuver the big one. The little one…oh, how I wished then that I had killed him first. Why did I do it? Why did I expose myself, endanger myself, give up the leisure of cover and distance and superior firepower just so I could look into the optics of my enemies as they went offline? Likely because it had been megacycles since I had found a challenge, now that I reflect on my processes. I wanted something close to the experience, the rush, of those glory days that seemed so long ago.
I had killed warriors, robots designed to riddle my chassis with lasers and bullets and missiles, and yet here I was, limping through rocky canyons and up winding paths over dangerous cliffs, cursing the entire way. I blamed my lack of practice, my apathy toward the very cause I had fought so passionately in the war. A simple scouting function was able to thwart me. As I stalked back to the Decepticon observation post I was furious with myself, not only for allowing my desire for satisfying conflict to overpower my logistics, but for my defeat. Honestly, I expected better – to be better.
My left knee’s motor control was malfunctioning, one of the many obvious injuries I sustained during the fall – I was on the bottom when we landed. I had opened the Autobot from spark matrix to optics and made sure he was extinguished before I carried on, but with the bad servo in my leg it was a long trek. I couldn’t even transform, as several integral parts of my torso were broken or bent or somehow incapacitated; I would need a full service in the maintenance bay and it would be solar cycles before I could hope to resume duties.
I knew what the Autobots had been searching for. There was a Decepticon Energon depot on this world, in an underground bunker shielded by the metals in the planet’s geological makeup. It was a refueling station for outbound parties from a base deeper into these unexplored reaches of space, but only once in a long while did a ship need to actually dock. The Autobots had evidently sent out an exploration team to make this space a bit more hospitable on their star-charts, or perhaps they were actively probing for signs of Decepticons. Whatever the reason for their snooping, they dug up a major secret.
The amount of Energon stored on this planet was nothing short of preposterous. I believe the Earth analogy is “putting all your chickens in one basket,” but the truth of the matter, at the time, was that we had a surplus. Untamed worlds beyond Autobot scanners were rich with natural resources we could harvest into our universal power source. Since the Decepticon conquest of Cybertron, Earth, and all worlds in between had been cut short thanks to heroes long-since committed to legend, we had been in hiding, waiting for the day when we could once again reign. Time was our currency, and we had it to burn. Decepticons, however, were evidently only united in fear of Megatron, and after he was offlined by Optimus Prime, infighting had prevented us from becoming an interstellar army once again.
Still, those of us who held any loyalty to the cause – or were simply too far lost to our programming – clung to the last remnants of an empire that once almost consumed the stars themselves. We hoarded Energon in secret bases across the galaxy; we coordinated, obeyed rank, and gave and took orders. It was a charade at best, and a bad one. My charade, though I had no way of knowing as I stumbled through the hidden door to my mountainside base, would soon be at an end.
The lights flickered along the main hall as they detected motion. I had powerful thermal imaging and light-enhancement installed in my large, circular left optic, but these tiny patches of illumination were a comfort after hiking across the ever-night of the planetary belt. I was the only Decepticon stationed here, and as I dragged myself into the communications room I lamented my loneliness – not because I truly longed for company, but because I was forced through lack of options to report the night’s mission to my superior officer.
Before me the wall of monitors glowed, all showing precisely what they had been showing for the last hundred stellar cycles. The central screen was off, and I sat for a moment simply watching my reflection, pondering that oil bath I had so eagerly desired at the beginning of my outing. If anything, a deep soak would have cleaned up the scrapes and scratches in my paint and I might’ve looked halfway presentable to my superior.
My decision was made for me when the screen hummed and an image was displayed. Replacing my own was a cold visage I loathed with every circuit in my body. Cool, flawless chrome in a round, beetle-like shape sat there, staring back at me through a thin red optic that split this mockery of a face like a grin. I sometimes imagined that my superior was only a head, just this oval of metal with an unblinking slit for a face that contacted me to condescend and berate, because all a head could do was spout out words and nonsense.
That paltry humor paled in comparison to the truth.
“Reckoner,” I intoned evenly, not wanting to let the dripping contempt that boiled in my spark seep through.
“It would seem I find you very indisposed,” his metallic voice replied. Even for our kind he was emotionless. “I hope I have not sufficiently delayed your repair sequence so as to cause your untimely demise.”
Even without emotion in his vocoder I knew he was sarcastic. “Sadly.”
“It is regrettable that I must find you in such a state. A proud warrior, perhaps too proud, reduced to malfunctioning scrap by a scouting party.”
“This is no simple scouting party, Reckoner. They were looking for our depot.”
“I am well aware of this information. At this very moment, I observe the results of your gross failure and ponder your fate.” The image cut suddenly to show a large cruiser, an Autobot cruiser, lowering toward the planet’s surface. Several forms were moving around underneath it to load the disabled from of the Autobot leader I had shot onto a hover-stretch. The one who froze me was there as well.
“Impossible,” I murmured.
“Highly improbable would be a more applicable assessment – improbable that a function of your caliber would be unable to foresee the obvious ramifications of his foolish actions. I regret the loss of a talented agent, but we must accept that these things do happen.” Reckoner’s voice was strangely serene, as if he were giving a eulogy in my honor. My targeting optic narrowed suspiciously.
“What makes you think that I won’t be able to repair myself and get to the depot before they’re able to discover our encrypted files and pull our database logs?”
“Because you have always been a problematic logistics unit and a rogue spark. Your confidence clouds your ability to process information and arrive at a plausible tactical response; instead, some devotion to honor in battle or other idyllic notion drives you, something fueled by intangible, unproven faith that is the result of faulty programming and stellar cycles left to develop it into your primary function. I can no longer trust you with the safety of our Energon depot.”
“Oh, no, please, don’t reassign me off of this Primus-forsaken rock.”
“I have no intentions of reassigning you. I am going to terminate you.”
I scoffed. “If you think I’m arrogant, you should take a moment and reflect. I do apologize that you’ve equipped me no better than a scrap reprocessing plant to guard one of the largest deposits in this sector and expect me to run this heap like a fortress.” This was the end of my involvement with Reckoner; I had grown tired of his superiority complex and his delusions of grandeur. “Faulty programming would be an applicable assessment of your problems, you glitched, useless hull. You imagine yourself a successor to Megatron and expect us all to follow you like in cycles past? What you fail to compile is that Megatron was a thousand times more a leader than you will ever be!”
“And what you have failed to compile is that your lax security measures have allowed me to plant Energon-mass bombs inside your base for ten solar cycles. Give my regards to the Well of All Sparks.” With that, the image of Reckoner’s unmoving features was overlaid with a countdown – one that was alarmingly short.
I sat back in the communications chair and stared at the unwavering image, entirely stunned. The sudden clank of metal-on-metal drew my attention away from what could have been a freeze-frame, or simply Reckoner’s infinite patience. When I turned, I saw a small remote drone much resembling its master’s head skittering into the room. Its spindly, claw-like legs carried it and the blinking red beacon on its back toward me, and then the Energon within its cargo began to glow. Accompanied only by a long, steady beep that echoed throughout the facility, the light hit me like a supernova and all was darkness.