Morgan Hudson wrote:

Hi!

Well, I wanted to post something, but my next Ronin Summer chapter is still 
far from ready for general consumpton. So, in honour of the list's new 
guidelines, here is an older fic that I never posted here before because 
nobody was sure if Transformers counted as "anime" or not. Thanks to the 
new, more relaxed approach we're taking now, I no longer have this problem. 
^_^

C&C is greatly appreciated: this poor darling got nothing the last time it 
was posted somewhere.

Anyway, thanks for reading, please enjoy, and don't fret: my next RS fic is 
still under way. ^_^

**********

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I in no way wish to claim ownership of the Transformers - 
they are the property of Takara/Tomy and Hasbro, as well as IDW publishing 
(comics) and Dreamworks (the upcoming movie).  This is merely my attempt to 
have a little fun with some characters who were sadly overlooked both in 
their own day and in the present. I am only borrowing them for a short time: 
as soon as somebody else seems to want them, I will gladly give them back.

                                  PLANET OF THE PRETENDERS

                                      A Transformers Fanfic

                                       by Morgan Hudson


-> File 1-1: Planetfall

	In the depths of space, it can be very quiet. 

Well...yeah.  No air.



Few species have

mastered the art of star travel, and the sheer vastness of the universe
makes it rare that any path could be considered busy - even the most
travelled thoroughfares see less traffic than a lonely country road in
the dark of night. With a good pair of magnetic field generators to nudge
aside the odd micrometeorite and an above average sensor grid to warn of
anything bigger, most ships barely even need a pilot to traverse the void
of space.

	The shuttle currently gliding through the stars had a very good
set of magnetic field generators and a sensor grid that could detect a
flea sneezing, but it had a pilot anyway. At the moment, that pilot was
feeling about as necessary as a fourth leg on a tripod. His ship had been
soaring majestically through space for what felt like nearly two years,

That's oddly precise unless the reason why it feels like nearly two 
years is because it has been nearly two years.  Which isn't an 
unreasonable transit time given Transformer life expectancies.

and he had long ago stopped pretending to care about the view outside his
windshield. Reclining in his massive chair, he placed his feet on the
main display board and rested his hands behind his head.

	The bridge was dark, the other stations vacant and shut down for
the cycle. Aside from the soft glow of the amber running lights along the
base of the walls and the cool green light of his display screens, there
was nothing else to see by. Even the usual hum of the air recycling and
pressure systems was silent - they had vented atmosphere and closed off

So the synthetic flesh needs air?

most of the life support systems long ago. The rest of his crewmates had
even gone so far as to shut themselves down to conserve energy. He was
essentially riding inside a large rock that was still sailing on the
momentum of its last burn nearly sixteen hours ago.

	"Next course correction in ninety astroseconds," he murmured to

Whoo.  Astroseconds.  Sounds all spacey.

himself as he idly tapped at a console with one metallic finger. "This is
Autobot Cloudburst speaking to all of our sleepy comrades down in the
stasis chambers," he spoke into the public address system. "We'll be
experiencing a slight bit of turbulence during course correction as the
retrorockets ignite for a controlled burn. If any of you guys felt like
waking up and looking to your left, you'd have a wonderful view of the
black hole we hope not to get any closer to. Thank you, and good night."
Speaking to a pile of deactivated robots wasn't much in the way of social
interaction, but after a few cycles sitting by himself in the dark it was
better than nothing.

	"I know I'm a robot," Cloudburst muttered, "but I think I evolved
past the 'repetitive tasks' phase a few upgrades ago. These cargo runs
have got to be the most mind-numbing things in the universe! Next time
Smokescreen offers to play me for mission berths, I have got to say no."

	With the gentle whine of hydraulics, the bridge door glided up to
allow another figure to enter. Standing nearly seven feet tall, the
dark-haired man was clad in a silver pressure suit with thick red armour
covering most of its torso and limbs. A rebreather hissed and burbled
softly as it stomped across the metal deck plating and stood next to the
slightly taller robot's chair.

	"Hi, me," Cloudburst said to his remote unit. "Good job patching
up that faulty connector in sector seven."

	The humanoid remote lifted its thumb and smiled behind the
faceplate of its helmet.

	"I suppose we may as well merge," Cloudburst continued. "Even
though you're the closest thing to company I've had in ages."

	In response to his signal, the human-like unit hissed and cracked
open, its head sliding forward to rest on its armoured chest as its arms
slumped down and a large portion of its back clicked out of place and
folded down to touch the top of its belt. With an athletic leap,
Cloudburst flipped over the top of his chair, spinning through the air
as his body whirred and clicked itself into a more compressed form.
Sliding into the hollow cavity of his 'shell', the crimson robot attached
himself to the internal control systems and ordered the unit to close
back up. With another sibilant hiss, his shell slid shut over him like
some form of exotic flower devouring a Cybertronian insect.

	"All right," Cloudburst said, flexing his new fingers and checking
the seals on his pressure suit, "looks like we're in pretty good shape.
Better go check on that starboard rocket before the burn - it was giving
some odd readings last time."

**********

	Roughly twenty minutes behind and below the Autobot shuttle, given

Not "astrominutes"?

their relative velocities and positions, a sleek and nearly invisible
cruiser glided through space like a shark hunting for prey. 

Y'know when you're looking to intercept someone you are far better off 
approaching from the front.  As the saying goes, "A stern chase is a 
long chase."


There were

no external lights to give away its presence, and no thrusters flaring to
give off a heat signature. Instead, the inactive craft glided along on
inertia alone - more than enough to maintain a safe but effective distance
from any pesky attempts by the squatter, clunkier shuttle to notice
something untoward.

	The cruiser, one 'Penetrator' by its designation, was very good at
not being noticed. Its skin was coated with a thick cloud of purplish
material, a cold plasma shield that could diffuse and absorb any attempt
at radar. Its interior was carefully soundproofed to prevent detection by
passive sonar while it ran silent. As a final touch, its crew were far too
careful to rely on any kind of active sensors while piloting. Flying in
the Penetrator was much like trying to drive with one's eyes shut and
relying on a passenger for advice on road conditions, but it was necessary
for the jobs that it performed.

	Not being seen was by far the least of those jobs. Its captain
smiled to himself as he let his fingers drift down the tactical display
built into his armrest. There were so many ways to kill Autobots, he
reflected, and it was so hard to select one that seemed suitable.
Missiles were an option, he supposed, but they were not as shielded as
the Penetrator - they might alert the Autobot in time for him to evade.
The phased array laser banks could blow out a few vital compartments, but
that would only cripple them at best. Most of his x-ray weaponry was
designed for fleshier prey; robots tended not to mind radiation as much
as biologicals.

	His smile grew, exposing several rows of small needle-like teeth.
Maybe he would just hit his thrusters and ram them. It had been several
years since his crew had been able to enjoy a good boarding action, and
he had always had a soft spot for the classic 'walk on board and shoot
everybody' approach.

	"Lord Roadblock!" A lizard-like creature standing near a wall of
glowing monitors turned to face the captain, baring its fangs in a sick
parody of a grin. "We detect growing thermal signatures from the Autobot
vessel. They may be planning to redirect their flight path!"

	"Excellent, Iguanus." That made	his choices even easier. "We'll
wait for them to burn their rockets - they should slow down to change
direction. 

Not unless it's a rather radical manuever, more than a 90 degree turn. 
In space one does not "slow down to change direction" because ships 
don't have tires or roads that the tires need hold to.  However, he does 
have to attack now because if he doesn't he'll lose the advantage of 
surprise since he'll have fire his own engines to match the new course.



Plot their course and aim our coil guns at their projected

turn point. We'll hit them amidships with lasers - that will give them
something to think about while our shots arrive." Reaching down to the
communicator in his seat, Roadblock flipped its panel open and tapped a
sequence of buttons on the revealed keypad. "Submaurader?"

	"I hear and obey, Lord Roadblock," a quiet voice answered over
the speaker.

	"Take Finback and prepare the skimmer. I want you to arm
yourselves for boarding. We'll soften their shell from here: you'd better
be in position to rip out their bellies."

	"Understood, Lord Roadblock," Submarauder replied, with the
closest thing to actual excitement in his voice that Roadblock had heard
since... well, since the last time he had ordered Submarauder to do
anything that involved violence.

	"I want no survivors, Submarauder. Kill every Autobot on that
ship, do you understand me? Every single one!"

	"With pleasure, Lord Roadblock."

	"Lord Roadblock," Iguanus asked, stepping away from his console,
"if I may ask: were we not ordered to take prisoners? Cyclonus feels they
may have information-"

	"To the pit with Cyclonus!" Roadblock snapped, his silver eyes
flaring crimson. "Somewhere on that ship is the only blemish in my
otherwise flawless record. I have hunted that Autobot for decades,
and he will not escape me again, do you understand? We shall burn that
ship around him if we have to!"

	"But why-"

	"Why kill Autobots, Iguanus? You will do it because you are a
Decepticon. You will do it because I command you." Rising from his chair,
Roadblock strode down the steps that led to Iguanus' station, breathing
heavily as his pressed his blunt, leathery face against his subordinate's
scaled snout. "And most importantly," he snarled, "you will do it because
I will have you melted down and turned into commemorative keychains if
you do not. Are we clear?"

Iguanus is SO gonna fink on you if you both get out of this functional.

	For a moment, Iguanus tensed, and Roadblock almost expected him
to strike. His second-in-command was tough, he knew, and uncommonly strong
as long as he was in his synth shell. 

So he's _stronger_ in his organic form?


Those claws that were twitching by

his side could cleave through hull plating if he let his temper get the
better of him. It was not a fight Roadblock wanted, but it was not one he
intended to back away from, either. Iguanus would lose, and Iguanus knew
it. Iguanus would lose, because Roadblock was already angry. When his
fury burned like this, there was no such thing as fear for him. Iguanus,
on the other hand, was wise enough to realise what their fight would mean
for both of them, and -unlike Roadblock- he feared the result. But for
that one moment...

	The moment passed, and Iguanus let out a ragged breath. "I
understand, Commander."

	"Good." Roadblock smiled. Moments like that reminded him of why
he liked Iguanus. "Let me worry about Cyclonus. There will be time enough
to deal with him when we have finished with the task at hand."

**********

	The shuttle was partway through its planned burn when the first
shot tore through the deck and tossed Cloudburst halfway across the
control room. Clutching the empty captain's chair, he slid to the floor
as another barrage of shots caused the vessel to shake like a marble in a
blender. If there had still been any atmosphere, Cloudburst reasoned, he
would probably have been sucked out through the large crack their
windshield seemed to have picked up. 

Well no.  The wind simply would have been whistling past him.



If that particular laser had burned

through the floor a few feet to the left, he would have had a very
interesting story to tell the medics about why he had a hole running from
his foot to his brain. All things considered, things could have been a
lot worse.

	Whoever was outside obviously agreed, as the constant thumping
against the hull seemed to imply that they were trying their luck with
kinetic weapons. Cloudburst groaned. He was beginning to suspect that
clinging to the chair and hoping whoever it was went away was not going
to be an option. Crawling across the violently swaying floor, he pulled
himself up to the sensor controls and activated power to the station.
Almost immediately, the LIDAR and RADAR gleefully informed him of an
incoming ship a little more than one megametre away and closing at roughly
five kilometres per second. T

Lets see now.  One thousand kilometres, means the bad guys will be on 
you in 3 minutes, 20 seconds.  OK, sounds reasonable.




he imminent collision worried him a bit less

than the large purple emblem blazoned proudly across the small skimmer's
hull.

	"Oh no," Cloudburst moaned, "not them! Don't they have anything
better to do?"

	The communications system chimed, and Cloudburst scrambled for the
activation button. Finding it after a few desperate seconds, he looked up
as the monitor flickered to life to reveal a stern face of chiseled blue
steel, with silver eyes peering out from under the edged dome of a golden
helm.

	"Skyhammer!" Cloudburst blurted. "Boy, am I glad to see you!"

	"My stasis chamber was knocked off-line by the first attack,"
Skyhammer explained, his glowing silver eyes narrowing. "I've got a lovely
new viewport where my wall used to be. What's going on up there?"

	"Decepticons incoming," Cloudburst replied. "Looks to me like they
want to throw a little boarding party."

	"Then I think we'd better light our candles," Skyhammer answered.
"Begin evasive maneuvers immediately - I'll be up there as soon as I check
on the rest of the crew."

	"You got it, boss," Cloudburst said, leaping back into the pilot's
chair and quickly powering up the main thrusters. "Here's hoping I'm still
around to greet you," he added quietly under his breath.

**********

	"The Autobots are running!" Iguanus cried over his shoulder,
watching on his displays as the bulky shuttlecraft ahead of them slowly
rotated on its axis.

	"No, they're not running," Roadblock said, rising from his chair.
"I've seen this tactic before. They're going to use their thrusters to..."
His eyes widened. "Contact Submarauder and tell him to dive. Now!"

**********

	"Hope you like hot plasma!" Cloudburst crowed, jamming down on the
ignition as he cranked the engines to full thrust. The entire shuttle
lunged forward abruptly, hurling Cloudburst back into the thick padding
of his seat as he clutched the edges of his chair with one hand and
fumbled for the restraints of his safety harness with the other. The
Decepticon ship on his monitor ducked and weaved as a thick plume of
exhaust washed over its hull, burning the purple enamel a dull black as
it rapidly receded into the distance. "Now, to find us a nice, big rock
to hide under..."

	The door whined as it slid open, and Skyhammer strode briskly
onto the bridge, followed quickly by the rest of the bridge crew.
Taking his seat in the centre of the command deck, Skyhammer wasted no
time in powering up the rest of the stations.

	"So what's the report, Cloudburst?"

	"Gave some 'Cons a warm welcome and split," Cloudburst explained.
"I'm hoping we can find some way to lose them in one of the nearby
planetary systems."

	"Good call. Pincher, get me a status report."

	The gunmetal gray Autobot tapped swiftly at a keyboard with his
large pincered hands. "Looks like they got us pretty good, boss," he
reported, the light of the monitors glistening off of his curved horns.
"We're down to fifty-three percent functionality." A panel sparked and
exploded behind him. "Make that forty-eight," he corrected himself.

	"Looks to me like the thrusters are one of the only things that
didn't get hit," one of the other Autobots commented sourly. "The few
weapons systems we had on this bucket are all slagged in their ports. Not
that those pea-shooters would have been any use to us, anyway; we're
outgunned, outclassed, and outnumbered. Did I mention doomed?"

	"We'll think of something, Doubleheader," Skyhammer said, turning
back to Pincher. "What about the ship's magnetic shielding? Can't we use
it to deflect their shots?"

	"If we'd known they were coming, I'd say no problem," Pincher
responded. "But with the system already damaged like it is, we're sure to
overload something if we run it at full power for too long. We might block
one or two salvoes, but it'd be a pretty big gamble."

	"So we can't fight, and we can't turtle," Skyhammer concluded,
rubbing his chin with his fingers. "Looks like Cloudburst's plan is the
best choice we have - hide and hope these Decepticons have other things
to do than smoke us out."

	"The navigation computer says the Tlaloc system is only a few
lightseconds from here," Doubleheader offered. "If we push it, we might
be able to get there before the Decepticons catch up." The entire ship
shook, and everybody grabbed the nearest stationary object to steady
themselves. "And," he added glumly, "before our luck catches up with
us, too."

	 "You heard him, Cloudburst," Skyhammer ordered. "Get us to the
Tlaloc system, and don't spare the energon!"

**********

	The Tlaloc system, as it turned out, was a rather small little
place. Five planets swung in their cycles around a small white sun that
filled the Autobot shuttle's bridge with harsh, unrelenting light. The
asteroid belt at the edges of the system was so fine that even the largest
of the rocks was barely big enough to leave a decent dent on their hull.

	"These things are more likely to clog our intakes than give us any
decent cover," Cloudburst groused as he steered the slowly disintegrating
ship through a dense cloud of boulders roughly the same size he was. "I
feel like I'm piloting a left-handed garbage scow."

	"Aim for the nearest planet," Skyhammer said, gripping the
armrests of his chair. "We'll set down on their moon, if they have one.
Make repairs if we can, or scatter and hope the Decepticons don't come
looking."

	"No moon on Tlaloc 5," Pincher reported. "No hope of repairs,
either - it's a gas giant. We'd be crushed before we reached anything we
could hope to scavenge raw materials from."

	"What about Tlaloc 4?" Skyhammer asked.

	"Looks better," Pincher admitted, peering at his monitors while
scrolling through the pertinent information. "Two moons, iron core, and a
biosphere that's capable of sustaining organic life. We could make it if
we strain ourselves."

	"Then let's strain ourselves," Skyhammer said, turning to face
one of the other Autobots. "Any sign of noisy neighbours, Groundbreaker?"

	"Huh?" With a confused look, the young Autobot turned in his
chair and gulped. "Me? Uh, no! That is, no sign of any Decepticon
activity, boss. Yet."

	"Maybe they all decided to take their toys and go home?"
Cloudburst suggested with a hopeful smile. Seeing the blank gazes of the
rest of the crew, he sighed and turned back to his controls. "Yeah, you're
right - maybe not."

	"Let's just get to that planet before something else can go
wrong," Doubleheader said with an air of grim certainty.

**********

	"Lord Roadblock!" Iguanus hissed, his forked tongue darting out
between his fangs as his tail lashed with anticipation. "We have caught
them! The Autobots are retreating towards the fourth planet of this
system!"

	"Excellent, Iguanus," Roadblock replied, idly stroking his weapons
panel. "Let us make our presence known to them, shall we?"

	"With all due respect, Lord Roadblock," Iguanus said, "they may
be trying to lure us into some form of trap..."

	"Then it would be in our best interests to catch them before they
can spring it, wouldn't it?" Roadblock said, giving his reptilian crewmate
an icy glare.

	"As you say, Lord Roadblock," Iguanus acquiesced, glumly
activating their thrusters.

**********

	"Decepticons to the aft!" Groundbreaker called out, lunging to
his feet. "They've got a firing position on us!"

	"Everybody brace for impact!" Skyhammer blurted, as the ship
heaved and shivered under a withering hail of gunfire. Groundbreaker
tripped and fell, sliding across the deck on his back before coming to a
rest against the side of his captain's chair.

	"Believe it or not, that was us being lucky," Doubleheader
announced, glancing over his shoulder at Skyhammer. "Cloudburst got the
magnetic fields up to full just in time to turn those coil guns into
glancing hits. Anything else, and we'd be looking like so much vapour."

	"Good work, Cloudburst," Skyhammer said to the man in the
spacesuit. "Any chance of you pulling it off again?"

	"Maybe," Cloudburst admitted, "but I wouldn't count on it. Once
those Decepticons realise we deflected their shots, they'll switch over
to lasers."

	"Get us to that planet, Cloudburst - that's all I want you
worrying about."

	"Under these circumstanes? Sorry, Skyhammer, but that planet is
not what I'm worrying about. The planet isn't shooting at us."

	Clutching his head, Groundbreaker wobbled back over to his station
and stared in disbelief at the display on his monitors. Blinking, he
rapped the side of his head with the heel of his hand and looked again.
Much to his surprise, the display remained the same.

	"Uh, guys? I think I might have cracked my cranium or something."

	Skyhammer glanced over at the young Autobot. "Why do you say that,
Groundbreaker?"

	"Because I think the planet is shooting at us."

	"What?" the entire crew managed to chorus, in perfect unison.

	Groundbreaker shrugged. "Uh, yeah. I mean, according to this
screen, the planet just fired about... um, three hundred thousand drone
fighters into orbit. And, uh, they aren't exactly broadcasting as
friendlies."

	Cloudburst banged his forehead against his console. "Oh, this work
cycle just keeps getting better and better...."

	"So," Doubleheader asked, strapping himself into his chair, "what
was that you were saying about planets, Cloudburst?"

	"Stow the chatter, Doubleheader!" Skyhammer barked, pointing his
finger. "Cloudburst, I want us on full evasive, as of two seconds ago!"

	"Do you want me evading the Decepticons, or the planet guns?"

	"I don't care right now: just pick one and stick with it!"

	"Yes sir," Cloudburst replied with false enthusiasm. "Picking and
sticking, sir!"

**********

	Roadblock stiffened and narrowed his eyes at Iguanus. "They
deflected our shots?" Each word was carefully weighed and rolled around
in his mouth before being spoken.

	Iguanus nodded. "Yes, Roadblock. The Autobots must have managed
to raise their shields at the last possible second."

	"Then we shall have to shoot them again, won't we? And do a much
better job of it, if I may suggest."

	"With all due respect, Lord Roadblock..."

	"You say that phrase quite a bit, Iguanus. I don't think it means
what you seem to think it means."

	"With," Iguanus continued, as though his captain hadn't spoken,
"all due respect, it would seem that the Autobot trap I was concerned
about has been sprung. I suggest we retreat."

	"Your suggestion has been noted," Roadblock said coldly. "But if
you are referring to those drones that just left the planet, then you are
mistaken. I recognise those drones - they are no threat to us."

	"With all due respect, I disagree."

	Roadblock reached down and punched his communicator. "Bugly, are
you there?"

	"This one hears your words, most enlightened leader."

	"Could you please inform Iguanus as to what he is seeing on our
monitors?"

	"Ah." Bugly paused for a moment, making a strange buzzing sound as
his eyes flickered darkly. "Fighter drones," he said, after a moment.
"Inelegant weapons, from a less advanced time, but with an admirable
clarity of purpose. This one has seen their like before, long ago....
Deceptitraan, I believe? Yes, Deceptitraan..."

	 "You see, Iguanus? Those ancient drones are ours. They were a
common model in the third Cybertron war." Roadblock grinned. "Luckily for
us, there must be an old Deceptitraan model mainframe on that planet. You
really should pay more attention to history."

	"Right," Iguanus grunted. "And did any of your history lessons
explain why they might be taking up position to fire on us, too?"

	"What?" Roadblock sat up and rushed over to Iguanus' station,
resting his hand on the back of the other Decepticon's chair and looking
over his shoulder. "That outdated old antique must have its circuits
crossed! Set a course for that planet and send it a query on one of the
Decepticon wavelengths: I'll talk some sense into that thing or have its
diodes decorating my stasis chamber!"

**********

	"Good news, Skyhammer," Cloudburst said. "The Decepticons are
breaking off and heading for that planet!"

	"Then I suppose it's a good thing that you're focusing on those
flying antiques over there," Skyhammer responded, relaxing slightly in
his seat. "Let's just pay our respects and get out of town, Autobots.
Hopefully, this will keep those Decepticons too busy to stop us."

	"Uh, guys?"

	"What is it, Groundbreaker?"

	Groundbreaker cleared his throat with a burst of static.
"Whatever those Decepticons are doing, I, uh, I don't think that those
drones like it very much. They're going to fire on all of us in about
thirty astroseconds."

	"Cloudburst, dive for the planet! If we can get between those
guns, they won't be able to fire at us without hitting each other."

	"Hey, less shooting always makes my day," Cloudburst agreed, and
abruptly jerked the control yaw to the left before pushing it away from
him with all his strength.

	"I really hope we make it through this all right," Pincher said
plaintively. "I have several very volatile chemicals on board that I may
have forgotten to list on our cargo manifold. Or patent. Or check for
possible side effects...."

I like him.  He's funny.

	"Great," Doubleheader moaned. "Even if we don't get shot, we can
look forward to blowing up anyway. Thanks a lot, Pincher. You've really
made this trip more enjoyable for all of us."

	"Why, thank you, Doubleheader!" Pincher smiled. "I'm glad that you
came, too."

	"I was being sarcastic, you poorly coded excuse for a-"

	There was no time to say anything more.

***********

	Jax laughed and slowly pulled the long cloth strip from around his
neck, unbuttoning his collar as he sat in the long grass on the edge of
the sand dunes. Directly below his feet, a ten metre drop of soft white
sand tumbled and swirled its way down to a wide expanse of beach that
glistened in the light of the moons. With a smile, he pulled his sandals
off and laid them next to him in the damp grass as he dangled his legs
over the edge like he had in his youth. For all the world, the young
Tlalocon man was a picture of total contentment.

	"Gotcha!" Springing from the side of the path, a lithe young
woman in a grass-stained and rumpled evening gown landed beside the
youth and gripped his shoulders tightly. Jax started, then turned to look
at his attacker and chuckled.

	"Mira, what are you doing here? The party's down on the beach."

	"That's what I was planning to ask you!" With a playful swat to
his shoulder, the girl sat next to her friend and dangled her legs
alongside his. "There is a party going on down there, in case you haven't
noticed. What are you doing up here like a wart on a bognard?"

	Jax shrugged and ran his fingers through his ash-coloured hair.
"These guys aren't really my type, Mira - you know that."

	Mira turned away, suddenly very interested in her fingers. "Ah,
so? I thought that you sure looked like Zula was your type a few minutes
ago..."

	"Zula?" Jax raised an eyebrow. "I don't want to be rude, but Zula
is kind of everybody's type, don't you think? I couldn't get her to leave
me alone!"

	"Ah, so," Mira replied, nodding sagely as though he had just
solved some ancient and complex riddle. "So you don't like her, then?"

	"I pretty much just said so, Mira."

	"Well, we need to be clear on things like this. You can be awful
dense sometimes."

Opaque?  Obscure?

	"Do you mind? I happen to resemble that remark." Jax chuckled
again, and after a moment his friend joined in.

	"Why so happy, then, if this ghastly party and its dreadful
attendants are so beneath your attention?" Mira asked, a spritely twinkle
in her hazel eyes.

	"Hey, I am officially a graduated full Pacifican citizen - that's
all the reason I need to be happy!"

	"Yeah," Mira sighed, leaning back and looking up at the stars. "No
more teachers, no more tests..."

	"No more books..."

	"No more studying together all night..."

	"No more of Trainer Exelon's surprise quizzes..."

	"I won't get to see that cute panicked look on your face when he
popped them on you..."

	"Hey," Jax said with a grin as he leaned back and joined Mira in
looking up, "I'm sure I'll have lots of reasons to get panicked in the
future. After all, as soon as my parents get back from salvaging the
Floating City next phase, they'll probably be on my case to get my digger
creds so I can help them 'rediscover our lost history', or whatever."

	"What? Big, bad Jax too manly to sift through artifacts with Mommy
and Daddy?"

	"It's not so bad," Jax admitted, "but sometimes I just want to-
What in the name of Mohk is going on up there?"

	"Huh?" Mira looked up where Jax was pointing. Among the stars,
a series of coloured flashes zipped back and forth like a child's scribble
in the sky. "Hey, that is kind of weird. Maybe it's some kind of fireworks
from one of the other cities? I guess some of their kids must have gotten
papered today, too..."

	"Looks kind of funny for fireworks," Jax said, twisting his mouth
in that particular manner he did whenever working on a problem that made
Mira want to grab him by the shirt and do some distinctly non-friendly

Or perhaps more-than-friendly?

things to him. Not that she was going to admit that to the giant dunce.
Noticing him glancing at her, she quickly turned her eyes back skyward
and pointed.

	"Hey, look! Meteors!" Sure enough, a pair of twisting and twining
lights were plummeting downward on streaks of flaring orange.

	"Awfully big for meteors," Jax argued, getting to his feet. "Looks
like one of them might be coming this way, too - you see how it looks
shorter and fatter than the other one?"

	The meteor was big, and growing bigger with alarming regularity.
By the time it shrieked overhead, the glowing piece of space debris
looked to be at least as large as Jax's entire house. The two teens
covered their faces and turned as an almost palpable wall of heat washed
over them, ruffling their hair and clothing and kicking up a spray of
sand. Jax ducked instinctively, grabbing Mira by the wrist and pulling her
down with him before realising that he was being stupid: the meteor was
still far too high to graze them. It had just seemed like it was close,
because of its size...

	"That," Mira said breathlessly, "is going to leave one heck of a
crater!"

	"Yeah," Jax agreed, as the sky brightened suddenly, then dimmed
back down to more acceptable evening levels. Rubbing the swirling colours
out of his vision, the youth grabbed his sandals and started to pull them
on. "That looked like it landed just a few miles from here. I bet if we
ran, we could get a good look at whatever it is before the police tape
everything off."

	"Are you nuts? That thing could be radioactive, or poisonous,
or..."

How do you expect to get superpowers if you don't check out a few 
radioactive meteorites?

	"Definitely," Jax said to himself, nodding as he began to jog off
down the path and into the woods in the general direction of the meteor's
landing point.

	"You," Mira snorted as she kicked off her high heels and padded
after him in her bare feet, "are the single most frustrating person on
this planet, Jax Tercal!"

**********

	Emerging from the thick brush with his lungs burning, Jax paused
and rested his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. Five miles of
rough terrain was a bit much, he supposed, even for someone who had a
collection of track medals. But when he felt the waves of heat pounding
against his bare arms and legs, he couldn't help but smile. It was near.
Whatever that weird space thing was, it was close by if he could feel its
heat. He had to get a better look at it, just to see how big it was, just
to get close to it. Nothing so big had come from space for as long as any
of the people of Pacifica could recall - he might be the first person in
generations to see something like this!

	Jax chuckled and wheezed. Maybe he was going to end up becoming a
digger like his parents, after all. He sure was curious and foolish, and
his dad had always sworn that was all it took...

	Whatever his next thought was going to be, it forgot to show up
when he turned his head to the right and looked out at the trail of
twisted metal and churned soil that stretched over the crest of the small
hill in front of him. Specfically, the trail of twisted, bolted, panels of
metal that were longer than the piers he used to fish off of in his
childhood.

	"No meteor," he gasped, and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. No meteor had rivets and panels - no meteor he had ever heard of.
Almost against his will, Jax began to walk along the deep trench of
churned earth, his feet seeming to move him towards the hill automatically.

	Even before he crested the hill, he had known that it would have
to be some kind of craft. He had even known that it was going to be big.
Intellectually, he had pieced that much together. It was still a very
different thing to be aware that a big vehicle was crashed nearby and to
actually see the twisted and shattered remnants of something that must
have been big enough to cover his entire street section when it was in one
piece. Massive steel girders jutted from the crash site and towered over
the trees. Huge, smoking holes hissed and spat fat sparks of electricity
or hummed and clicked ominously. The entire thing was still vibrating, a
chorus of pings and cracks coming from its skeleton as the metal cooled
and contracted. Whatever it was, there was almost no sign that a few
hours ago it had been even close to seaworthy (skyworthy? What would
the equivalent be, he wondered?). It had hit hard, he could tell - it
must have been scattering bits the whole way down, even before spreading
itself over the landscape.

	What Jax had not expected was the hovering cloud of defense drones
that were circling above the wreckage, sifting through and carrying off
various parts of it. He had never seen active defense drones before: there
had been one that Mira's mother had shown off on their field trip to the
Chamber of Security, but that had been an inactive replica. In the past
twenty years, nobody had seen an active drone, not since former Secretary
Alana had been ousted from office and left to form Seabase...

	Something moved in the bushes nearby, and Jax crouched. Maybe it
was the drones, but he was beginning to feel a little paranoid. There was
something oddly sinister about such beneficial machines; almost as if they
were not programmed with his best wishes in mind. It might be a good idea
to seek cover, he decided. Not because he was afraid, just because he
didn't want the drones to report him to the police for loitering, or
something. Yeah. That was it.

	The bushes rustled again, and Jax saw a hand move aside some of
the shrubbery.

	"Mira," he whispered warningly, "this is not a good time for your
games, okay? Something is seriously wrong, here."

	The hand's owner pulled himself a few feet forward. It was most
definitely not Mira, unless she had traded her gown for some kind of dirty
grey suit with big red plates covering her chest and forearms, to say
nothing of switching her gender and changing her hair from dark pink to
brown. Whoever it was, he looked as though he'd been dragged under a
thresher.

	"H-help," the strange man choked, weakly tugging on the untucked
tails of Jax's shirt.

	"Uh, yeah, sure," Jax replied, quickly tucking his arm under the
other man's and resting the stranger's arm around his neck. "You don't
look so good, pal. I think maybe we need to get you to a hospital, or
something."

	"No," the stranger whispered, raising his other hand to brush
the fingers across Jax's face. "I'll... heal... in time. Need to find
the others. We need to..." his eyes closed as his voice seemed to drawl
and grow softer until it was gone. Jax shook his head. Great, the guy was
unconscious.

	"Well, come on, then," he whispered, dragging the surprisingly
heavy man away from the circling drones. "Let's get out of here before
somebody catches us."

**********

	Roadblock inhaled deeply as he felt his neural net reactivate
from stasis lock. Far from the burning, crumbling, rattling death trap he
last recalled being in, his current location was a cool, darkened room
with a single light glaring in his eyes. With a twitch, he adjusted the
infrared filter on his shell's ocular casings and blinked as his vision
shifted. According to his sensors, the room was twelve feet by thirteen
feet by ten feet. It was made of concrete, a primative building material
made of crushed silicates that was popular among the fleshlings. Each
wall was three feet thick. He estimated he could tear through it with
little difficulty.

	"Greetings, Decepticon." the voice was mechanically distorted,
which Roadblock found almost charming enough to amuse him. As if the
speaker was going to survive long enough for his identity to matter.

	A grate slid open, and Roadblock tensed to hurl himself across
the room to the nearest cover. To his surprise, a glowing cube nearly the
size of his head was gently pushed into the chamber on a rolling tray of
some form.

	"This," the voice said, "is energon. You do need energon to
function, do you not, Decepticon?"

	"If you're trying to purchase my mercy, you will find me sorely
lacking," Roadblock growled, rising to his feet. "And if you think me
enough of a fool to let a single energon cube prevent my vengeance, then
you will be greatly disappointed." He smiled. "Your heart just sped up,
flesh creature. I heard it. And now you are beginning to rise from your
stool, twenty feet to my left, behind that charming wall you probably
think will slow me down."

	"Don't do anything rash, Decepticon," the speaker said, the tinge
of fear in his tone audible even through the distortion. "We are not
unprepared to deal with your kind. We have reactivated you for a
purpose - we would be most foolish not to provide ourselves with insurance
that you would listen."

So the local government is run by bad guys?

	"You humans have never done much to convince my kind that you are
NOT most foolish," Roadblock replied with a toothy grin as he began to
walk towards the wall his so-called captor hid behind.

	"We are no mere humans, Decepticon!"

	"Meat by any other name is still meat," Roadblock said with a
shrug of his armoured shoulders as he continued to advance.

	"There is a chip in your mind, robot! One more step and we will
overload your central processors!"

	Roadblock stopped and tilted his head to one side. "A chip, you
say? In my mind?"

	"That's right." Behind the wall, the fleshling calmed its heart
and sat. "We are prepared to deal with you as allies in good faith, but
if you force us we will find other ways to ensure your co-operation."

	"Speak on, human. Tell me what you wish of Lord Roadblock,
Commander of the Fifth mechanized Decepticon forces!"

	"Our demands are simple - we require your services in a plan of
our own for which one of your... unique... qualifications may prove
useful."

	"Is it your people who command the drones?" Roadblock asked,
closing his eyes and turning his focus inward.

	->Accessing self-diagnostic program RBDC-00342
	->Scanning neural net for foreign presence...

	"Yes," the voice replied. "We have taken command of the drones
away from your Deceptitraan. They are programmed to protect us now: from
you and any of your kind."

I kind of doubt this guy is part of the "we" who have command of the 
drones.  It might be smarter to disavow responsibility for the shooting 
down of a vengeful Decepticon, particularly if you plan to use him 
against the people who were responsible.

	->Error found. Foreign presence detected.
	->Reconfiguring neural net...
	->Neural net reconfigured. Foreign presence counteracted.

	"Well, then," Roadblock said, sinking to one knee and bowing
gracefully, "I see that I have no choice but to serve you, flesh creature.
I commend you for your masterful planning in taking such total and
complete control over me. May I inquire as to the dispostion of my crew?"

What is this Cybertronian..."sarcasm" that you speak of?

**********

	Jax eased the door to his home open with one foot and tossed the
keys onto the counter. "Thanks for helping with this, Mira," he whispered
as he grabbed the slumbering stranger by both elbows and began to back
into the kitchen. Mira followed soon after, the stranger's feet tucked
securely under her arms.

	"I could be at a party with every other kid in school right now,"
Mira hissed. "I could be dancing, and having fun, and most importantly, I
could be not throwing my back out helping you carry a total stranger you
found lying in some ditch. A stranger who, by the way, happens to weigh
more than a fully loaded largax!"

The metal he's made out of must be amazingly light.

	"I swear, I'll make it up to you, Mira," Jax promised as they
carried their cargo into his living room.

	"You'd better, Jax Tercal!"

	"Here, we can put him down here." With a loud groan, the two
youths lowered the strange man onto Jax's couch and stretched their backs
with a chorus of pops and cracks. Jax rotated his shoulders while Mira
rubbed the back of her neck and rolled her head from side to side.

	"Great work, Jax. What now?"

	"I suppose," the stranger said, his eyes snapping open, "that I
should thank you before I start to seem rude. My name is Cloudburst.
What's yours?"

	Mira yelped and jumped as the strange man sat up on the couch.
Jax, with a relieved smile, extended his hand.

	"My name's Jax," he said, as the stranger looked at his hand
curiously. "The girl on the table is my friend Mira. We found you in the
reeds near a crash of some kind."

	"Ah! Of course - I remember now," the stranger -Cloudburst- said,

He shows no sign of not remembering before.

his face brightening as he reached out and shook Jax's hand. Turning to
face Mira, he raised one eyebrow. "Jax, is it customary to stand on
furniture when greeting each other in this place?"

	"Mira's just a little high-strung sometimes." Jax shrugged and
tried to ignore the dirty look he could feel himself recieving.
"What about you?"

	"Well," Cloudburst said with a slight shrug and a smile. "I'm not
entirely certain where I am, to be honest with you. Is this Tlaloc 4?"

	"No," Jax replied, "this citystate's called Pacifica. Tlaloc's
the name of our planet, but I can't say I know of any citystate that uses
numerical identifiers."

Jax is being a bit dim here, isn't he?  I mean he knows this guy's from 
space.

	"I was travelling with some friends of mine," Cloudburst said,
quickly changing the subject. "I don't suppose you saw any of them when
you picked me up?"

	"Sorry," Jax said. "You were the only person there. Although the
drones were going through the wreckage pretty thoroughly - I'm sure they
must have found your friends."

	"That's kind of what I'm afraid of," Cloudburst muttered, then
grinned and laughed when he noticed the two native lifeforms looking at
him. "Don't mind me! I always worry about little things like this.
Usually stuff turns out okay for us."

	"Glad to hear it," Jax answered. "I guess if you don't have a
place to stay, you can cr- uh, I mean you can sleep here for the night.
My parents will be gone until the next lunar phase, so there's plenty of
room."

	"Jax, are you nuts?" Mira blurted. "This guy could be a thief,
or an enemy of the citystate, or something! You should report him to the
police and wash your hands of the whole thing while you still can!"

	"I can hear you, you know," Cloudburst interjected. "I'm standing
right here."

	"Ah, he seems okay," Jax argued, placing a hand on Cloudburst's
shoulder. "Besides, I can't just turn my back on a guy with nowhere to
go. I'm sure he's no different from you or me."

	"He fell out of the sky, Jax! From space! He could be some kind
of alien, or have parasites, or some weird space disease! For all we know,
he might be some killer robot like our parents told us about, just dressed
up like a person!"

	"Hey, now," Cloudburst said, nervously clearing his throat and
glancing for the nearest exit. "Don't you two think you should be having
this discussion somewhere that the nice spaceman can't listen in and get
worried?"

	"No need," Jax assured Cloudburst, "because there's no discussion
to be had. I'm the one who lives here, Mira, and I say he stays."

	"Fine!" Mira sniffed and turned her back on the pair. "But mark
my words, Jax, no good will come of this!"

**********

	Iguanus knelt near the wreckage, his tongue sliding out of his
mouth and tasting the air as he swayed gently from side to side. Roadblock
stood nearby, keeping an eye on the surroundings. According to the walking
meat, the drones had been programmed to assault anything with a
Cybertronian energy signature. In theory their synth-flesh Pretender
shells should muffle their signatures enough for them not to set off any
of the automated defenses. He wouldn't put it past the humans for the
whole thing to be a trick of some kind, though, and Roadblock had not
risen through the ranks of the Decepticon army without the common sense
to watch his back: he was fearless, not stupid. Besides, he'd seen enough
of the wreckage to get a pretty good idea of what had happened. It was a
bad crash, but not an unsurvivable one.

	Which all but guaranteed that somewhere on this forsaken planet,
his quarry was still waiting for him. He was mildly surprised to feel
relief at the concept. After so much time chasing one Autobot, it would
have seemed cheap to lose him to some antiquated drones.

	He still would have taken it, of course, but it would have seemed
a bit cheap.

	"I smell the stink of Autobot synth-flesh," Iguanus hissed, his
eyes narrowing as he picked his way through the debris with his tail
swaying counterpoint to each turn and twist of his torso. In the darkness
of the night, his purple scales made him look almost like a ghostly
shadow floating through the wreckage in search of the dead. "There were
Pretenders aboard this craft, Commander Roadblock. Most did not leave.
The stench of torn fluidics and broken shells is strong."

	"Tell me more, Iguanus," Roadblock whispered as he leaned against
a tall spur of steel and folded his arms across the chest of his purple
and black power armour.

	"I smell many Autobots," Iguanus responded, leaping to perch atop
the spur that Roadblock was leaning on as he lifted his snout to the sky
and lashed his tongue about like a snake looking for a place to strike.
"Alive, but not well. Stasis lock, definitely. And I smell drone exhaust.
The drones took the robots away."

	"Good, then," Roadblock said with a smile. "It is clear to me
that the Autobots must have had a much less fortunate turn of events than
the two of us, Iguanus. If we can be certain of their misfortune, then we
are truly free to proceed however we wish."

	"Wait." Iguanus' sickly yellow eyes narrowed, the slitted pupils
dilating as he tasted the air again, a flick of the tongue so swift that
the flesh creatures standing a respectful distance back may not even have
noticed it. "Perhaps not so unlucky after all, Commander. I smell
fleshlings."

	"I'll be smelling fleshlings for weeks after this mission,"
Roadblock joked. "A few good chassis scrubs should cure us of that
problem."

	"Not the ones who came with us," Iguanus explained, smiling to
show he appreciated the joke regardless. "Others. Two, a female and male.
They were running, sweating. Their scent is still strong here. And they
dragged something away from this site - something that reeks of Autobot
synth-flesh."

	"So one of the Autobots managed to drag himself away after all?
Good." With an imperious sneer, Roadblock waved one of the pewling meat
sacks over to him. "My comrade and I are done here," he said. "You may
seal up the scene as best you can. We go now to hunt for our enemy. Tell
your employer that we shall return when the task is complete, and remind
him of my desire to have the rest of my crew returned to me as well."

	"Come," Iguanus snarled, leaping down from his perch and landing
in a crouch mere inches from the human Roadblock was speaking to. She
jumped, and tried not to look afraid as Iguanus smiled with all of his
fangs showing. "Before the stench of their fear overwhelms the trail."

**********

	The morning came, and brought with it pancakes. Cloudburst was
more than willing to help himself to a large stack of the floppy, edible
discs, since the small red light in the corner of his vision was warning
him that he was running on the energon equivalent of fumes. Luckily for
the cautious Pretender on the go with concerns as to how well his host
would take to a guest who licked the appliances, his synth-shell was
able to convert biomass into a weak energon substitute. In other words,
Cloudburst was famished, and ate roughly seven of Jax's pancakes with a
liberal helping of lemon juice to wash them down. It was a good thing, he
reflected, to be on the right side of adaptable Powermaster tech. The
pancakes weren't exactly going to send him supernova, but at least they
would serve to keep him from total shutdown for a while. Later, Jax
convinced the Pretender to let him take a look at his suit and try some
cosmetic repairs. He had come back with a rather advanced tool kit for a
species of his apparent development, so Cloudburst had settled back on
the couch in the living room and agreed to let him see what he could do.

	"I've got to admit, Cloudburst - I'm not sure what to make of
you," Jax said as he started to buff out a few of the dings in
Cloudburst's shell armour. "I mean, no disrespect, but I've never had an
alien over to visit before."

	"I've never visited one of your kind before, either," Cloudburst
reminded him. "I'd say we're both getting along pretty well so far."

	"Now isn't that sweet?" a dry voice hissed, with a guttural
rattle. "The little Autobot's picked up a pet. It warms me to the very
core of my energon pump." Glass crunched under a heavy foot, and the tip
of a purple snout snaked around the corner of the main hallway. A
foot-long tongue the colour of fresh grass spooled out into the air and
flicked back in again. With another step, a massive and muscular creature
rounded the corner, its sloping shoulders almost brushing against the
ceiling. It was gigantic, nearly as wide as the doorway it filled and
covered from fanged head to clawed toe in thick, heavy scales that slid
against each other like well-oiled armour. Jax could see a tail waving
from side to side behind the beast: from his vantage point it looked to
be as thick as his leg. The only signs that the creature was intelligent
were its gleaming golden breastplate and the malevolent glare in its
jaundiced eyes.

	"Iguanus," Cloudburst said coldly, reaching to his side and
drawing what seemed to a be a coiled length of metal cable as he slowly
rose to his feet and faced the creature.

	"One of your friends, Cloudburst?" Jax asked shakily.

	"Nope," Cloudburst answered with a stern look on his face.
Gripping one end of the cable, he shook it out to its full length. With
slight surprise, Jax realised that the thing was actually some kind of
fancy metal whip. "Leave this to me, Jax. You just stay back and you'll
be fine."

	"Actually," a voice said from behind them, "I have a pair of
plasma blasters that seem to think he won't."

	Jax turned to look, and wished he hadn't. Stepping through a
large hole in the back wall of his house was a creature from a nightmare.
It had black, leathery skin that buckled and stretched over a skeleton
that obviously was not human. Large, sail-like ears braced a head that
was almost engulfed by huge blank eyes and a sick, twisted smile that
stretched too far back. The creature was clad in purple and silver armour
that gleamed in the early morning light and held a pair of long black
pistols with very large mouths that didn't look pleasant at all.

	"Iguanus," the alien creature said calmly, "why don't you handle
our Autobot friend while I see about liquidating the collateral over
here?"

	"You're not liquidating anybody, Roadblock!" Cloudburst yelled,
spinning on his heel to face the alien and snapping his whip. The metal
coil swirled and cracked, knocking one of the guns out of Roadblock's
hand and wrapping around his wrist. Even as the purple-armoured creature
raised his other weapon, Cloudburst grabbed the whip with both hands and
tugged, yanking Roadblock off of his feet and swinging him through the
side wall. Bricks shattered, and Roadblock bounced twice on the pavement
outside. A horn blared, and there was the sound of a horrendous crash as
the armoured figure rolled into traffic and shattered the windshield of
an oncoming car.

	"That was your last mistake, Autobot!" Iguanus hissed, lunging
forward with a speed that made his massive form seem to blur out of sight
before reappearing directly behind the distracted Cloudburst. Clutching
his fists together, Iguanus swung his arms into the small of Cloudburst's
spine in a vicious hammer blow.

	Cloudburst crumpled to the floor, his vision switching erratically
from rightside-up to upside-down. He'd heard that Iguanus was strong, but
he had never expected anything to hit with enough force to pass through
his armour and synth-shell with enough power to damage his circuitry.
Worse, the sound of screaming and tearing metal from outside told him
that Roadblock was nowhere near out of the fight yet. Judging from the
shooting and the squealing tires, he might be distracted for a few
astroseconds, though. The human might be able to escape.

	"Jax, get out of here! Quick!"

	"I don't want to leave you here, Cloudburst!"

	Iguanus' tail slammed into the floor, cracking the timbers where
Cloudburst's head had been seconds before. Rolling to his feet, the
Autobot reached behind him and unlimbered his laser pistol. "I can't help
you here, Jax! Get away and find the police! I'll keep this one busy
until you can get back with reinforcements!"

	Jax looked left, then right, clearly fighting the urge to stay and
help. Cloudburst hoped the kid was smart enough to get away while he
could - Decepticons were not something you wanted to tackle without any
proper training. Or, he amended as he snap-fired his pistol at Iguanus and
watched the lizardman effortlessly dive out of the way, proper weaponry.
Grabbing the barrel of his gun, Cloudburst twisted the nozzle clockwise
and levered the action on the priming chamber. His second blast roared, a
white flash of sizzling light that left behind a faint blue haze and the
stench of ozone. Blinking away the static, Cloudburst smiled as he saw a
thick purple tail rapidly slipping around the corner.

	"What's the matter, Iguanus? Don't like my little toy?" Tilting
his hand, he checked the digital display built into the butt of the
pistol. A small counter whirled its way down to zero, and blinked at him
mournfully before slowly beginning to count up again. Cloudburst made a
face. Great. As he'd feared, that 'thunderbolt' setting had almost
completely drained the reserves. It was going to be another hundred
astroseconds before he would be holding anything even close to a weapon
again. Lucky for him Iguanus didn't know how low he was on energon, or
the Decepticon would never have lunged for cover.

	"What the heck was that?" Jax asked, rubbing the bridge of his
nose and shaking his head as he tried to clear the afterimage burned on
his retinas.

	"That was the least of what they'll do to you if you don't get out
of here, Jax." Cloudburst smiled to reassure the boy. "Don't worry; I can
handle these guys with one hand welded to my skidplate!"

	"What?"

	"Uh, never mind. Just get out of the way so you don't get shot!"
Grabbing his friend by the shoulder, Cloudburst gave him a rough shove
in the general direction of the front door.

	"You can't escape us, Autobot!" Iguanus' harsh, rasping voice
echoed from around the corner. "If we don't get you, the drones will!"

	"Don't worry, scalehead - I'm not going anywhere!" The handle of
his pistol beeped softly and Cloudburst quickly dialed it back down to a
more energon-efficient setting. One hundred astroseconds went by pretty
fast in a fight. "In fact, now that the human's out of the way, I'm
feeling downright frisky. How about you and me play a little game of laser
tag?"

	Something darted across the open doorway, and Cloudburst fired,
the sharp twang of his shot followed by the crackle of his bolt flattening
against concrete. Missed! But at least he was keeping Iguanus at a nice,
safe distance. Crouching, Cloudburst sidled to the right and craned his
neck trying to see where Iguanus had gotten to.

	The sudden, mechanical roar of a revving motorcycle was his only
warning. Throwing himself backward, Cloudburst tumbled over the carpet as
the wall was shredded by a thick spinning wheel covered in blades and the
malevolent machine tore into the room in a thick cloud of plaster and wood
splinters. Bouncing on its rear wheel, the purple and crimson motorcycle
rolled forwards into the furniture, chewing its way through both the
coffee table and the sofa before spinning on its front wheel to face
Cloudburst. Thick clouds of exhaust shot from the long cylindrical
exhausts that jutted into the air on its sides like wings of brimstone as
the engine growled and snarled.

	"Oh, right," Cloudburst said with a lame grin. "Pretender. That
whole two places at once thing. Nice trick, using your shell to make me
look the other way."

	The motorcycle idled menacingly as its padded leather seat split
down the middle and peeled open to either side, sliding down to rest
against the exhaust. Cloudburst swallowed thickly as a very large and
painful-looking cannon rose from somewhere inside the machine and
racheted into position.

	"I guess this means I'm 'it'," he muttered to himself, raising
his own pistol and pointing it menacingly. "Better make it count, Iguanus:
tagbacks are a real pain!"

	A shadow flitted across the floor, and Cloudburst cursed as he
ducked and twisted to fire up at the reptilian monster hurling itself at
his back. Stupid, he thought to himself. Got so wrapped up with the
Decepticon in front of me I forgot about his shell. I can't believe I fell
for the same trick twice... His gun bucked as a quick burst of three shots
stitched across its belly before several hundred pounds of angry lizard
landed on his shoulders and drove him to the floor. Cloudburst landed
hard, his teeth jarring as the pistol slipped from his hand and spun
across the broken floor. Iguanus' shell hissed, opening its jaws wide and
waving its tongue in his face sinuously as it shifted its grip to lean
its weight on his lower back.

	The motorcycle's guttural rumble disappeared in the brief hum and
click of transformation. Exhaust vents spun, extending hands and flexing
into arms as a pair of feet detached from the rear wheel and touched down
on the floor to lift the entire ensemble onto a pair of rapidly defined
legs. Within seconds, a slim and sleek robot stood where the vehicle had
been sitting. Golden eyes narrowed in a face whose cruel features seemed
to be carved in ivory as Iguanus stepped forward and stooped to pick up
Cloudburst's fallen weapon.

	"As you suggested, Autobot," he claimed with a snide twist of his
mouth, levelling the gun to point between his target's eyes. "I made it
count. And my follow-up is going to be... killer."

	"You know something, Iguanus?" Cloudburst wriggled in the viselike
grip of the reptile, then gave up. There was only way out of this
situation.

	"What, Autobot?"

	"You're not very funny." With a grin, Cloudburst activated the
ejection system on his shell. There was a muffled whoomph, and then the
backplates and head of his human body flew open to blast his robotic form
free with incredible force. Still compacted into his dense 'carrying
form', Cloudburst was little more than a cube of solid cyberdanium alloy
travelling at almost sixty miles an hour.

	Realistically, Iguanus' legs didn't stand a chance. The robot
howled in pain and flipped through the air in a massive somersault that
nearly managed three rotations. As Iguanus slammed facefirst into the
spine of his own synth-shell, Cloudburst revised his opinion of the
Decepticon: on second thought, he was kind of funny, after all. He would
have tried to see more, but that was as much as he got before slamming
through another wall and landing under the kitchen table.

	"Man," the crimson robot groaned as he transformed and stood up,
"I hope Jax has a really big repair budget for this place. Like it or not,
there is no way he's getting that room back in the condition he lent it
to me." Something creaked loudly, and Cloudburst turned his sensors to
the ceiling. "Uh-oh," he said, doing a quick scan of the structure. "Did
we leave any *walls* in that room to hold up the-?"

	Covering his head and flinching, Cloudburst leaned back as a
torrent of plaster and wood flooded down into the room next to him with a
thunderous cacaphony of destruction. Lowering his arms, wiped off the
thick layer of dust that had somehow managed to cover his optic lenses
and looked out over the vast pile of debris that used to be the house's
second and third floors.

	"Ooh," he said, pursing his lips, "something tells me that's not
going to buff out. Well, I guess it couldn't have happened to a nicer
Decepticon. Have a good nap, Iguanus - say hi to any deactivated relatives
for me."

	A dangling piece of shingle fell onto the pile with a soft clink,
and the debris began to shift. Slowly, impossibly, a massive scaled hand
wormed its way up through the broken and shattered material. Pushing aside
a few fallen timbers, it made way for a depressingly familiar head and
torso. He was holding his ribs with one arm, and a large piece of metal
rebar jutted from his side -to say nothing of the myriad shallow cuts and
smaller pieces of glass and plaster that littered his body- but Iguanus
was undeniably still active.

	"Oh, come on!" Cloudburst yelled indignantly. "You could have at
least stayed down there long enough for me to finish gloating!"

	Iguanus looked at the Autobot through its slitted eyes -one clear,
the other milky- and snorted a thick cloud of dust from its nostrils.
"You have more serious problems than that," he snarled through battered
lips and broken fangs. "Can you not hear the sound of the drones
approaching?"

	Cloudburst blinked. "Th-they'll blast you too, Decepticon."

	"Not so," Iguanus explained, shaking his head. "I am protected
from them by my shell. But your shell, Autobot... well, you'll forgive me
if I did not feel up to excavating it for you. I'm afraid you may have a
bit of trouble reaching it in time." The whine of the approaching fighter
drones grew louder, and Iguanus twisted his mouth into an approximation
of a grin. "But do not worry about your pet, Autobot. My commander and I
shall take very good care of him."

	"Cloudburst!" Jax yelled from outside, as the crimson Autobot
turned his head to peer around the debris to see his friend. "Are you
okay in there? Speak to me!"

	"Jax, what's going on? I told you to get out of here!"

	 "Oh, he tried," Roadblock sneered, clutching his captive tightly
by the shoulder and wrist. "The little runt gave me quite a workout,
actually. I was planning to break him down into his component parts, but
now I think I've got a better idea. We're going to hold onto this little
pet of yours, Autobot; I know how much more motivated you fools become
when a so-called 'innocent' is involved."

	"What do you want, Roadblock? Just tell me!"

	"I want Skyhammer's overclocked hard drive on my mantle,"
Roadblock responded with a short laugh as he squeezed Jax's shoulder until
the boy's lip began to bleed from fighting the urge to cry out in pain.
"Consider it a personal reward to myself for a job well done. As I am a
considerate being, I will give you until the second moon rises to locate
your leader and deliver my message to him. On my way here, I passed a
large building with three golden spires: tell him I shall await his
arrival there so that we may complete our business."

	"But I don't know where Skyhammer is!" Cloudburst complained. "I
don't even know if he's still functioning!"

	"That would seem to be your problem, not mine," Roadblock said,
shrugging. "If he does not function, then there is no reason for me not
to return to my original plan. But I will give you until second moonrise,
as I promised. And, should you fail to avoid those drones that are buzzing
ever closer, I doubt you will care any more about what happens to one
pathetic biological."

	Cloudburst cursed as the drones bobbed into view over the city
skyline. Another few minutes and they would be in firing range, he knew.
Anything that had been able to carve up their shuttle would make tinfoil
out of his plating. With the laughter of Decepticons ringing in his ears,
Cloudburst lunged into the pile of broken masonry and began to burrow as
if his spark depended on it.

*********

	Mira stepped out of the taxi and paid the driver with a healthy
enough tip to guarantee he would stay quiet about the evening exploits of
a slumming socialite, no matter how young and unescorted she was. Even
with the added discretion that only her mother's money could buy, she was
careful to get out a good block or two away from her actual destination.
Sniffing imperiously, Mira adjusted her jacket and began the walk to
Jax's house. Honestly! As if they expected her to fall for some line about
a gas eruption exploding his home! Not everybody in Pacifica was gullible
enough to believe whatever came out of Secretary Zala's mouth. Mira, as
Secretary Zala's only child, had stopped believing her mother long ago.
Normally it didn't bother her: politicians were supposed to lie. She just
shrugged it off.

	But where Jax was involved, Mira could never seem to shrug it off.
Especially not since she knew very well that some kind of spaceman had
just happened to be staying at the place when it collapsed. And if the
reports on the cybernet were right, some kind of spaceman had been
causing a big ruckus near Jax's house just minutes before it got smashed.
Mira had stopped believing in coincidences about the same time she had
stopped listening to her parent.

	Carefully twisting her citizen's badge so that it 'happened' not
to be facing outward, the pink-haired girl ducked under a security cordon
and slipped behind a large tree as three security officers walked past.
Unnoticed, she detached from the tree and minced around the corner of a
convenient garage. What, she wondered, were General Thale's people doing
around? She had just assumed that this kind of thing would be a job for a
police, not whatever passed for an army in this place. No wonder Mom had
been so evasive when she had tried to get more details on what had
happened...

	 Jax's house was just three buildings down the street, now. All
she had to do was figure out a way to get past all the guards without
being seen and snap a few pictures of the wreckage with her convenient
digital camera. She could analyse the footage in the comfort of her own
room, and there wouldn't be any pesky flash to alert the security. It
would be just like Mom to let Jax lie in some hospital, hurt, with nobody
even knowing what had happened to him, just so she could poke and prod at
some creepy space alien without having to tell anyone. Well, Mira was
going to find out the truth.

	Creeping silently up to the remnants of Jax's house, she fought
the urge to whistle. The entire place was smashed, like a three-story cake
that someone had dropped a brick on. Shaking aside the grisly image of
what would have happened to anyone trapped under that ceiling when it
gave, she knelt down and lifted her camera.

	So absorbed in her work, Mira didn't even realise how little
attention she had been paying until a thick and heavy hand landed on her
shoulder. Gasping, she leapt up and spun out of her attacker's grasp,
snapping a quick punch that missed by a matter of inches when the stranger
pulled his head back. Whoever he was, he had odd taste in clothes: the
man was wearing a pair of shirts tied around his waist like a skirt and a
long, heavily padded jacket even though it was sweltering. A large floppy
hat made of straw with a gigantic plastic flower tucked into the scarf
around its brim hung low over his face, and a pair of pants had been
wrapped around his face with the legs tied behind his head and left to
flap in the breeze. On closer inspection, he also appeared to be wearing
oven mitts and a frilly apron that proclaimed him to be the world's
greatest cook.

	"Wait, Mira! It's me! Cloudburst! Don't hit!"

	"Cloudburst?" Mira squinted and leaned closer. Somewhere from
under the gaudiest gardening hat she had ever seen, a vaguely familiar
pair of eyes twinkled behind the faceplate of a sloping blue helmet.
"Where's Jax, what are you doing here, and why do you look like an idiot?"

	"First of all, I think this disguise is ingenious. Jax didn't
exactly have a lot in his basement that fit over my spacesuit, you know.
I've been walking around this city of yours all day, and not one person
has tried to get too close to me."

	"That's because you look like a dangerous loon," Mira snapped,
still holding her hands in front of her with her fists curled. "For all I
know, you are."

	"Secondly," Cloudburst continued, "you need to learn to relax."

	"You need to learn not to surprise someone who plays as many video
games as I do," Mira retaliated. "Now where's Jax? Tell me right now, or
so help me I'll scream."

	"Woah, okay." Cloudburst made placating gestures with his hands,
scanning the area nervously. "I'll tell you as much as I can. Just don't
go calling in too much attention, all right? Those guys who jumped us
today might have people in the area looking for me."

	"What guys? Who jumped you? More space people?"

	"Look, I don't really know what's going on, either!" Cloudburst
responded angrily, flailing his arms at his sides in frustration. "All I
know is that some psychopath has a beef with my boss, and he and his
little Decepticon buddies are holding Jax until the second moonrise! And
if I don't do the impossible by then, they're probably going to kill him."

	"Wait," Mira interrupted, her face going pale. "D-Did you just
say Decepticon?"

	"That's right. A couple of them popped by this morning to say hi.
You can see what happened after that."

	"That isn't funny, Cloudburst." Mira placed her fists on her hips,
glaring at the Autobot as though he had just claimed that Jax was captured
by walking fruit cups. "If there were any Decepticons on this planet, our
drones would have found them and destroyed them - it's the entire reason
we reactivated them! The remodelled cyberdrone hunter seekers are patched
into a country wide sensor grid that continually scans for Cybertronian
energy signatures. I should know; my mother runs the skragging thing!

SO it's what, a joint venture of the city states?

There is no way that a Decepticon could come within parsecs of this place
and survive for more than five or six minutes."

	"I don't have time to argue, Mira - you'll just have to believe
me." Cloudburst reached out and grabbed the girl by her shoulders,
crouching down slightly to make eye contact with her. "The Decepticons are
here, they have your friend, and the drones can't find them because
they've sealed themselves in biological shells. It's like... like wearing
a spacesuit made of synthetic muscles and skin. I'm not sure how, but the
drones can't recognise their energy signatures through the synth-flesh;
it's mistaking them for organic lifeforms."

	"Why should I believe you?" Mira asked, hugging herself and
stepping back. She had never noticed just how dark it was. Decepticons,
on her planet? After almost twenty years? It didn't seem possible. She
refused to admit that it was possible.

	"Because," Cloudburst responded, rolling up his sleeve, "it's the
same technology that's keeping me from getting detected, too." Under the
bulky fabric, Mira saw the gleam of his space suit. The forearm was
damaged, deeply - she would have expected to see the bone in a normal
person. Instead, lightly covered in a thin layer of red fluid, miniature
pistons and hydraulics whirred and clicked with every motion of his hand.
She could see banks of blinking lights flickering amber and green, with a
network of cables snaking from component to component before disappearing
into the very realistic flesh on either side of the wound.

	"You're a... I mean, you're one of...." the girl stammered,
finishing the sentence with the sudden bleak horror in her eyes.

	"Yes and no," Cloudburst said, rolling the sleeve back down. "Have
you ever heard of the Autobots?"

	Mira looked confused. "What's an Autobot?"

	"A very long story," Cloudburst sighed, hanging his head. "And I
don't want to repeat myself, so if you don't mind I'll save the
explanations for after we've saved Jax. Just do me a favour and assume
that I'm one of the good guys, okay? It'll make this whole thing go a lot
easier. Do you know of a building with three golden spires anywhere around
here? I've been looking all day, and I can't find anything in this place."

	"Sure," Mira answered. "That sounds like the main power facility
for Pacifica. My parents said it used to be some kind of energon producing
facility during the occupation. But that's on the other side of the city
from here, and second moonrise is in five minutes! You'll never get there
in time!"

	"Don't worry about that," Cloudburst said with a cocky grin as he
shed his borrowed clothing, "I'm full of surprises."

	As Mira watched, amazed, the man in the red and white armour
suddenly shuddered and cracked open, his upper torso breaking into several
sections and peeling away as a large mechanical device flipped into the
air, shifting and reforming into a tall crimson robot with glowing blue
eyes.

	"You said five minutes, right?"

	Mira nodded dumbly.

	"That should be all the time we need," Cloudburst concluded, as
he transformed. In moments, a large crimson spacecraft was hovering above
the grass. Powerful thrusters swung back and swivelled as it turned to
face the girl.

	"Hop in," the ship said, opening its glossy blue cockpit with a
soft hiss. "I'll drive."

	"How did you do that?" Mira asked, obligingly stepping over the
lip of the craft and settling into the comfortably padded seat next to
the controls as Cloudburst -or his shell, she reminded herself, Cloudburst
was the ship now- sat next to her and began to strap itself in.

	"Easy," the man in the suit said, gripping the controls in front
of him and flipping a series of switches. "I'd be a pretty lousy Autobot
if all I could do was hop in and out of this shell of mine. Pretenders
are Transformers, too. By the way, you may want to do up that safety
harness, there. I tend to do about Mach 3 when I'm not taking time to
enjoy the scenery."

	"That's not what I mean," Mira snapped, looking around her. "You
just got inside of yourself, Cloudburst! This ship must be at least ten
feet long. How did you get so big?"

	"Mira, I can stay here all night and give you an explanation that
won't make any sense to you, or I can just admit that I don't know either
and we can go save your friend. Which do you think is faster?"

***********

	Roadblock stifled a yawn and looked over at his captive. The
human's hair and clothing were billowing and moving in the eddies and
currents of the magnetic bottler, his watch tugging at his wrist with
growing force. The look of fear on the small worm's face was enough to
warm Roadblock's silicon. 

Spark, I think.


He had already gone through the usual

explanations: escape was useless, resistance was futile, and so forth. It
was most generous of his benefactor to give him free reign of the energon
facility - in addition to the possibilty of a nice snack every now and
again, it gave him a really interesting way to dispose of people.

Excellent justification for a deathtrap.

	The massive glass tube that the flesh creature was currently
pounding with its puny little fists was merely part of the overall design.
Energon, once it had been synthesized from existing resources, had a nasty
side effect of being incredibly volatile. Hence, the only way to safely
transport or handle the stuff was to contain it within magnetic fields to
prevent the energon from giving in to its natural desire to scatter
everything around it across the face of the planet. This took place
within the magnetic bottler, the glass tube in which his guest currently
resided. One press of the right button, and Roadblock could flood the
bottler with sheer, raw, unharnessed energon. He figured that much power
would be enough to convert the flesh creature directly into energy
himself, at which point the bottler would cheerfully shape what remained
of the boy into cubes for later consumption. Recycling that was both
efficient and ironic - Roadblock had made a point of writing that
execution method down for later.

	 "Nothing like a little natural flavouring to give your energon
the right kick," he said, and grinned as the flesh creature futiley
redoubled his escape efforts.

	"You're a real twisted machine, you know that, Roadblock?"

Tsk.  Giving up the advantage of surprise just to engage in banter? 
Autobots are such tactical wizards.


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