After Earth - 

The Great Battle

 Part 1

By: Sapphire

Authoress’ Note:  I originally had three parts to this series, but I’ve not sent in part two.  Because, it really wasn’t that good, and hardly worth it.  I think if you’ve read After Earth part one, then you’ll understand this one.  Just a recap quickly, in case there are any details I may not have mentioned in the first story.  Optimus is a navigator pilot, who circles the planet looking for things that are unusual.  Like a sentry, making sure no unregistered ships leave or enter the planet.  Rattrap is a news photographer, journalist, reporter, and there are a few photographers etc. I’ll mention that you won’t have heard of.  Don’t worry, they’re not important and have little relevance in the story.  Um, Rhinox is a lead scientist (who would have guessed?).  Dinobot is a war trainer, er Diamond is his daughter and student, and Cheetor is a Cybernet computer games designer.  The Cybernet is like out equivalent of the Internet. Eagleite, well, I hardly mention her, just remember she has a crush the size of the Axalon on Dinobot, I’ve no idea why.  Ok. Oh and, this is my first attempt at a war drama.  There are probably militaristic errors like ranks and parts they play in a war, and stuff like that.  Just bear with me!  Also, I am South African so some of my spelling is different from the American or British spelling. Ok, enough chitter chatter, on with the fic.

Proper Summary and Note from the Authoress here     

Note this is a war drama, so if you don't have a good military knowledge, click here for summary.

“Dad?”

The door creaked open and a sliver of light leaked into the dark room.

Just a thin line of light on the otherwise black floor.

There was no noise, just a slight stir.

She bit her lip and opened the door a little more and slipped inside.

She closed it partially, allowing some comforting light to sneak in.

The silence was rather disturbing.

An urge to turn on her infra red lights was kept at bay, as in such silence you could actually hear the slight beeps as the infra red light came on.

She walked silently, something she was good at. She had learnt various skills

about how to keep the noise level down.

She tightened her grip around the note she had in her hand.

The paper made a very slight crackling noise.

She winced, almost as if the noise had hurt.

She approached the far right hand corner of the room, a little frightened, though she had no idea why.

She cautiously moved closer to the chair her father often fell asleep in. She squinted in the dark, trying to make out the outline.

The chair seemed to be empty.

She paused a moment.

Suddenly, she felt a warm grip fasten on her shoulder, unthreateningly.

On instinct, she brought her hand up to her side quickly, letting her finger hook onto the trigger of her laser gun.

She moved so quickly, jolted her shoulder up so sharply, that the hand was knocked off.

She spun around; weapon aimed at who ever had tried to take her by surprise.

In an instant her infra red lights beeped on and she could see.

“Dad!” she exclaimed relieved.

He grinned.

“Quick, but I could have shot you.  What are you doing in here?”

Diamond shook her head.

He was right; he could have easily killed her had he been an attacker.

She felt immensely disappointed with herself, all these training lessons...

“I came to tell you that I’m going out for the morning,” she said, her voice still shaky from her past fright.

“It’s all right, I am not going to kill you,” he snorted.

She realized she was still holding the gun, aiming at his chest.

“Sorry,” she said as she put the gun back into its pocket in her side.

“Where are you going?” he asked half heatedly, walking towards the door.

He switched on the light.

She sighed, preparing herself for a potential argument.

“I’m going to the lake with Cheetor, we were going to enter a canoeing race,” she said, not eager for the reply.

“Hmmmm.”

“So then, I’ll see you at the training centre this afternoon,” she said quickly, a little surprised.

“I thought you were going just for the morning,” he questioned with a slight menace to his tone.

“Well, I don’t know how long the race will be, I thought it would be nice to have lunch afterwards,” she sighed.

“You have been spending, quite a bit of time with Cheetor,” he said calmly, though she could hear something in his tone that told her he was a little irritated.

“He’s my friend.  I know you aren’t very sociable, but I am,” she said, trying to sound confident.  She knew that fights with him were almost always unpleasant.

He didn’t reply.

Instead he just sighed and walked out the room.

“Hmph.  Well, I’m going now!” she called.

She suddenly felt a little hurt, like he didn’t care as much as she thought he did.

She almost wanted a slight argument.

It showed that he was concerned.

But then again, why should he be concerned?

She was sixteen, tough and responsible, and Cheetor was a friend of his, well sort of.

She walked out and down the hallway and tossed the note in the bin.

It was simply a message to tell him she was gone incase he was sleeping. 

She obviously didn’t need it now.

She exited her home and headed towards the lake.

Thinking deeply.

Cheetor looked across the huge lake, full of excitement.

He had wanted to enter the annual canoe race for a long time.

He just never had a real trustworthy partner up till now.

He knew that with someone as strong and stealthy as Diamond by his side he had a good chance.

He was pretty tough himself.

The sky was clear, except for the hovercrafts that buzzed higher in the air.

The lake itself had been mechanically made, about ten years ago.

It had fish that had been taken from Earth, so it was a popular spot for robots.

Though they did not eat the fish, many found it amusing to try and catch them, simply to throw them back.

To him it was a bit pointless.

Because he had kept his beast form, he would sometimes have the urge to eat the fish, which was prohibited, but he’d got away with it once.

He grinned, there were a number of robots around, hurriedly preparing themselves for the race.

He had already picked a canoe.

He was wondering if he could maybe just snatch a fish while no one was looking...

His thoughts were interrupted when Diamond came beside him.

“Hey Cheetor.”

He turned to face her.

“Hiya Diamond, isn’t this cool?  I have been wanting to do this for a long time,” he said gazing at the lake again.

“Yeah, it’ll be real fun!” she said; trying to sound excited.  She just didn’t really feel that enthusiastic.

She’d obviously fooled Cheetor, he didn’t notice any lack of eagerness in her.

“Come on, let’s go to the check in table and give in our names.  Then we can go and line up at the start,” he said grabbing her hand and pulling her along to the table a few metres away.

“Oh boy,” she said quietly.

Optimus was flying again in his scout ship, looking for anything unusual.

In 16 years, the most unusual thing he had witnessed was a leg floating past him once.

He had no idea how it got up there.

But, besides that, nothing ever happened.

He lay back in his chair and put his feet up.

Around him were various monitors, filming all around the ship.

He glanced at them occasionally.

He took a sip of what is the robot equivalent of coffee and relaxed.

“Life is.... boring,” he said aloud.

There was obviously no one to hear him.

“Should have done what Rattrap did, become a traveling photographer.

At least he doesn’t have to stick around in the same old place, circling the planet,” he sighed.

Then rather half heatedly he glanced up at one of the monitors.

Just a few stars, a distant comet that flashed by, a strange alien ship the size of 50 Axalons.

Nothing un....

Optimus shot up and spat out his 'coffee'.

“What in space is that?” he said alarmed.

He moved his chair up hurriedly to the computer.

“Computer identify objects in monitor E5,” he said quickly.

The computer rattled a bit then replied.

“Stars: Trixlon, Firis, Kantrloph, Daxlider, Gishnoaxtro identified.  Alien space craft of High Command in Gitrix War Technology identified.”

Optimus gasped.

“Whatever that is!” he said.

But he knew that the word alien, Gitrix and war were not a good combination.

The alien craft was absolutely huge.

Optimus radioed the Space Command Centre hurriedly.

“Yes Optimus?” came the familiar voice of Hashlyst.

“Sir, we have a problem...”

“Ready, set, GO!”

The canoe, with a sudden burst of energy, lurched forward.

“Whoo hooo!” cried Cheetor in delight as the two dipped their paddles in the water and pushed.

The race had begun.

Around them were at least one hundred others competing and doing the same thing.

Diamond knew that this was going to be long and tiring.

“Ok Cheetor, for the first ten cycles you and I give it all we got, then you ease down and I’ll take the next ten cycles with full strength and then you take full strength and so on.  All right?” she asked, wishing they had discussed their tactics before the race.

Both had little idea how canoe races worked, they both knew how to paddle, but that was about it.

“Sounds cool to me!” he cried happily.

They were about thirty canoes away from the front.

The race was supposed to go on for a minimum of three megacycles.

Diamond winced as she thrust the paddle through the water.

She wondered how long her arms could take the strain.

“Fun hey!?” laughed Cheetor, obviously enjoying himself.

“Yeah!  Really fun!” she yelled above the thundering splashes.

‘Really fun,’ she thought sarcastically.

“Picture Perfect!” cried Rattrap happily.

He’d just taken a photograph of the new war space shuttle that had just been put out of its garage.  The ship had been called the ‘Firelash.’ 

He had managed to sneak in past security into the highly restricted area of the War Vehicles Construction Centre.  He’d managed to outwit some of the guards and sneak past officials.

He grinned wildly as the ship disappeared into another garage.

It had only been out for a few seconds and in that time he’d managed to get a shot at it.

“Man oh man!  My salary has just gone up ten percent!” he laughed and sank behind a fuel tank for cover.  No one on this planet except for his old companions had beast forms for obvious reasons.  So, his rat form became quite an advantage.

Now, he had to figure out a way to escape unnoticed.

He surveyed the scene before him.

About ten security guards and officials were walking around in the open ground the size of a human rugby field.  Garages and metal buildings containing all sorts of top-secret war machines surrounded the field.  There were a few workers walking in and out of some open and empty garages.

The rest were closed.

In the far corner was a fence.

Behind that fence was definite danger but a way out.

Behind him was a gate guarded by two heavily armed robots.

The gate was closer.

He bit his lip and thought about which route to take.

He had previously snuck in by slipping into an empty fuel can that was brought into the centre to be refilled at one of the petrol stations within the centre.

He had snuck past various officials purely by camouflage in his rat form.

Now he had a temporary hiding place behind a large grey empty fuel tank.

“Hmmmmmm,”he mumbled quietly.

He looked around him for any objects.

He spotted an old rusted sheet of metal and stared at it.

Then he picked it up.

It was reasonably small, small enough to be thrown easily.

He looked up to see the two guards talking to each other.

He noticed the pile of rubbish near by them.

He waited till they were looking at each other talking before he threw the object across and into the pile of metal scrap.

It made a loud clanging noise.

The noise covered his noise of transforming into beast mode.

The two robot guards stopped and turned quickly towards the pile of rubbish, alerted by the sound.

Their guns aimed at the metal and the two stood in fighting postures.

This was his chance.

He darted behind their backs and made it to the gate.

He quickly transformed into robot mode again and took a breath and jumped.

He knew that the fence was to high to jump over but he had to at least try to make it halfway and then crawl the rest.

As he hit the fence and grabbed hold of it he made a loud noise.

Immediately the two guards turned and saw him.

“Hey!  Stop!” cried one and the two opened fire.

Rattrap scampered up feeling shots tingling at his feet.

He then made it to the top and flipped over the fence.

He felt a stab of pain as two bullets hit his side.

He landed with a thump and rolled.

The precious photo was inside his internal camera.

Ahead of him was just bare open terrain with outposts scattered for about a mile before an exit.

“Oh SLAG!” he cried and sprinted.

“Catch him!” cried one of the guards and the guards in the outposts opened fire.

Rattrap, full of experience of dodging bullets, veered to the left and transformed into beast mode.

“What on Cybertron is that?!” exclaimed a guard.

It occurred to Rattrap that none of them would have seen a rat before and grinned.

He darted quickly across the open ground, twisting and turning so that no one could get a straight shot easily.

He felt a sting hit his leg and he was blown to his left and rolled.

He rolled about ten metres in agony before he landed in a ditch.

“UMPH!”

The ditch was barren with just a bit of litter.

“He fell in there!” He heard a voice yell.

His eyes opened weakly and he managed to transform.

A broken rat leg was no use when you were in beast mode.

He knew it would be suicide to jump out of the ditch and into view so he quietly edged his way up, hearing footsteps coming ever closer.

The grey sticky sand like substance, which was the ground on Cybertron, clung to him.

Luck was on his side.

A tangled bunch of wires met him as he neared to top of the ditch.

He carefully pulled the wires, which were no longer dangerous, around into a ball.

He waited for one of the guards to appear.

One did and he chucked the ball at him, not knocking him down but startling him enough to give Rattrap time to leap the final length out of the ditch and carry on his sprint.

Bullets stung his feet but he was almost there.

He could see a group of reporters and fellow photographers cheering him on as he neared them.

Just a few metres.....

Rattrap came at such a speed that he almost slammed into the ELECTRIC fence.

“Whoa!  Oh great, dis just makes my day!” he cried.

Then he saw Track.

She was the only flyer there, and his Ex-girlfriend.

There was urgent chatter amongst the reporters of how they were going to get Rattrap out of this mess.

“Track, she could fly him over!” said Trilans, a friend of his.

Rattrap looked hopefully at Track.

“Now why on Cybertron would I want to help a dumb low down piece of scum like him?” she snapped.

“Because dis piece of scum has an important photo that we reporters were assigned to get, except I was da only one who got in.  Dat’s why!” he said desperately.

“Come on Track, we need this photo,” Garlista said.

She scowled at Rattrap, then turned on her blasters and flew over the fence.

“Come on you rotting pile of you know what!” she sniggered and grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

“Danks!” he said, not pushing his luck of talking to her anymore.

She hovered above the safe ground and dropped him so that he fell a metre.

“OOF!” he shouted.

“Rattrap! You made it!” cried Dalstal.

“Just!” he blurted.

Then the group left quickly and headed towards the news department.

War.

It sends ripples of fear into every heart...and soul.

It means pain and suffering, blood and tears.

Where loss of life is only a number on a chart.

Where every soldier is just a soldier.

An object, a threat, a fighting machine.

Where an injured soldier is only a burden.

Where tears mix with blood.

Where death is for many, no longer an option.

Where honour is lost and received.

Where a life of hard work ends when a single bullet pierces the heart.

Death can be a reward and honour in itself.

Where life can be so terrible, people seek death.

Where lives are shattered.

Physical and mental scars.

To die for your country, planet.

To die with what?  Honour!

The word can be scoffed at but to some, it means everything, a shoulder to lean on so when death arrives, they know they will be remembered and they died for a good cause.

Where mercy is not shown, or is shown at a cost.

War.

It sends ripples of fear into every heart and soul.

The Great Battle

Part two

The ships hovered in the air.

Thousands of them.

Containing thousands, no, millions of soldiers.

Ready for battle.

Optimus leaned over at the command centre.

He had discovered something horrific and terrifying.

Now after he’d landed his ship, he went to his chief who told him exactly what his discovery

meant.  And he was afraid.

“Aliens.  They are called the Gitrix warriors.  We have been on unequal terms for a long time with them.  They have threatened war many times, they like us need energon to survive.

They have such vast numbers that they have used up their energon and Cybertron has been forced to give them some for the past two decades.

We don’t have enough left to spare to them.  We stopped giving them energon a year ago.  Unless we give what we don’t have anymore, we are forced into a war.

If we give them the amounts of energon that they are asking for, we won’t have enough for our own people.  Optimus, you have just witnessed the beginnings of a great conflict, in a few cycles, we will have verbal contact with the Gitrix commanding officer.  I fear his response deeply,” said Hashlyst.  The look of absolute terror on his face scared Optimus to his very core.

“So you’re saying, this is........war?” he asked in a shaky voice.

He knew what battles could mean.

“Yes.  To put is bluntly.  I am 99% sure it’s war.”

Then there was a hushed silence as the computer’s communicator crackled to life.

“Greetings Cybertron.  I will put this to you as straight forwardly as possible.  Give us the Energon we ask for annually or face our wrath.  Simple.”  Came a confident, deep and cold voice.

Hashlyst realised that the world was in his hands, well, at least Cybertron.

But he knew he had absolutely no choice.

He had a very high position and had been give authority over such decisions.

So, this was it.

“I have to tell you that we have no Energon left to give.  If we give you what you ask, there will be none left for our people.  Simple,” he snarled

There was a long pause.

“Then we will TAKE what you have left and will take it by force.  Surrender or face war.  You have ten seconds to tell me your decision!” the Gitrix commander snapped.

There was a dreadful, heart stopping silence.

“We will not surrender.  This is war.”

The canoe ripped through the water.

The race had been on for three and a half hours and Cheetor and Diamond could see the finish line.

They were about fifteenth but were aiming for a higher position.

“We can do it!” roared Cheetor over the loud splashing noise.

“Not much further!” he cried, worn out but still bitterly determined.

Diamond winced, her arms felt as if they could fall off any moment, every muscle in her body ached and she was gasping and shouting above the noise.

“All right Cheetor, enough talk now just race your heart out!” she screamed

“OK!” he shouted.

The fourteenth canoe was only a metre away.

With a burst of speed the two passed their opponent and crossed the finish line.

As they crossed it, Diamond yanked her paddle onto the canoe and collapsed.

Cheetor did the same and the canoe was tossed about by waves that were caused by the other canoes.

Cheetor shot up and grabbed the paddle and tried to get them to shore.

He was so weak.

“A hand please, Diamond,” he gasped, but he was smiling nevertheless.

Diamond gave him a weary glare and forced her self up.

She heard a scream from behind her.

“Watch out!” yelled a robot in a red canoe but as she grabbed her paddle, she felt the canoe crash into theirs.

Suddenly the green canoe they were in tumbled over and she and Cheetor plopped into the icy water.

“Aaaaaagh!” cried Cheetor but received a gulp of water instead.

Work only started on Saturdays in the afternoon, so he could relax.

He sank down into his chair and enjoyed the silence.

For the past few hours, he’d been doing financial work on the computer, so his eyes, well, optics were rather strained.  He decided to have a rest....as long as he remembered to set his internal alarm clock on for three megacycles.  He did just that and closed his eyes and breathed in deeply and sighed.

Peace and quiet.

     ~     ~     ~

Just then there was a loud slam and a gush of light poured in.

Dinobot glanced up to see his daughter in the entranceway, dripping wet.

“What happened to you?” he asked, rather amused.

“Oh nothing.  Just fell in below freezing water and had to swim back!” she scoffed bitterly.

Dinobot grinned.

“Where did you come, I mean did you finish the race?” he asked.

“Yes we finished.  We came fourteenth and Cheetor, despite falling in, was joyous!  Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go and dry off,” she said moodily.

She then stormed off to her bathroom and slammed the door.

Dinobot sighed, smiling to himself and fell asleep.

3 days later.

_____________________________________________________________________

“By the pit!” 

“What is it, Jaxlin?”

“Do you see that?   One of out reporters managed to get to Captain Hashlyst and just got the story of the century!  Saltera, get the team down here pronto!”

“Yes sir!”

Rattrap gazed up to where the commotion was coming from in the office.

He saw his boss, Jaxlin, staring up at one of the television screens and the whole team was gathering round, a look of shock on their faces.

“Now what’s goin’ on here?!” sighed Rattrap and he made his way to the television.

Rattrap’s ‘jaw’ dropped.

“By Primus!” cried one of the team.

On the screen was Ulextra, standing next to some guy called Hashlyst.

But that was not what shocked them.  It was the scene behind.

The command centre that Hashlyst worked at had been bombed, there were fires and smoke everywhere, metal pieces kept falling out of the sky.  What shocked them even more was what Hashlyst said.

Jaxlin turned up the volume.

“So sir, you said that we hadn’t enough Energon to give, and they simply fired on us?” asked Ulextra.

“Yes, they have threatened war for many years unless we give them what they ask, this time we couldn’t.”

“So we are facing war with the Gitrix army?”

“Yes.”

“So there you have it, first hand news from the Space Command Centre, or what’s left of it.  People of Cybertron, prepare yourself for war.  I’m Ulextra Silone from Cybertron International news, Galphrates.”

The transmission went off, as did the television and the team was silent.

“War,” mumbled Rattrap.

Eaglelite turned the television off and slid down onto the floor.

“By Primus, we’re fighting the Aliens.” She whispered.

“They’ll take my son, he’s now a war trainee, they’ll take my son!” She cried.

“Oh Primus, no....why did I even send him!?  Oh no!”

She felt sick with worry.

Then another though came to mind.

“Dinobot.  They’ll take you too.”

Rhinox had been so busy for the past two days that he hadn’t slept.

He was a scientist and now the Cybertronians were at war, he was expected to come up with new oils and fuels, new medicines and chemicals...war to him just meant devastation and hard work.  He had a lot to do in very little time.  “Slag!” He mumbled as one of the chemicals to help fuel efficiency failed to reach the standards required.  He sighed and set to work to try a new formula.

He knew that he would not be sent to war, and was very grateful that he was a scientist.

At the back of his mind, he knew some of his dear old friends would be sent to war.

He knew that there was a good chance Cheetor, who had war experience would go.

He knew for certain that Dinobot and his daughter would be sent, he was pretty sure Optimus would have some involvement but as for Rattrap and Eagleite, he wasn’t sure.

He doubted Rattrap would be sent, being a news reporter and all, and Eagleite most probably wouldn’t go because they’d take her son instead.  “Poor woman,” he muttered to himself.

Then his thoughts wondered back to his experiment.

Shilah was reading outside, she was reading a book her mother had given her for her birthday two days ago.  The weather was fairly warm and bright.

She was sitting on a bench outside and was enthralled with her book.

She was relaxing in her small little garden.

She was living in a poorer part of the city Hilanes so nothing really exciting happened.

Her mother was inside sleeping, her father had disappeared a week ago, so she was alone.

She heard a low and distant hum and a kind of charging up noise, a bit like a quiet wail.

She frowned as a dark shadow fell over her, and the house.

In fact the whole neighbourhood seemed to darken.

How could that be?

It hardly ever rained on Cybertron, and the sky was clear a few moments ago.

She looked up and gasped.

Above her was the biggest ship she had ever seen.

It was as big as the whole neighborhood itself.

It wasn’t far up in the sky and a small red light seemed to be widening from the bottom of the ship.

“Mom!” She cried fearfully.

She ran towards her house to wake her mother.

The wailing noise grew louder until it was deafening.

Screams of panic could be heard from all over.

“MOM!” She screamed and burst into the house.

Her mother was running towards her.

They embraced and she started to cry.

Though her cries could not be heard as the sound was too deafening.

Her mother pulled her along and the two ran out of the house and tried to get away from the demon in the sky.

Around her ran many panicked Cybertronians.

She squeezed her mother’s hand and ran with her into the crowds.

Suddenly she was knocked over and away from her mother by a running robot.

She rolled and felt heavy feet stand and kick her accidentally.

She winced and rose to her feet.

“MOM?!” she wailed.

She could not find her mother.

Out of pure instinct she carried on running.

She found it extremely difficult to get passed all the robots so she veered off to the left and pulled away from the crowd.

She ran on the outside of the panic stricken neighborhood.

All of a sudden, above the terrible noise there was a blinding light.

It grew brighter and brighter.

Then there was a huge bang and the world around her exploded.

There was another blinding light as the bomb crashed to the ground.

She felt a hot ball of fire sweep towards her.

She jumped into a ditch and screamed as loud as she could, hoping that someone would rescue her.

In an instant that lasted eternity the whole world became the Inferno.

Flames rolled over the top of the ditch and she pushed her face into the mud and curled up.

The ball of fire swept through the city, taking out everything and everyone in its path.

There was a loud roar and hissing sound and a shattering noise as houses and people were just sucked up and burnt.

She hugged herself and wept as she felt immense pain, a burning pain, cover her body.

Then, after what felt like hours, the burning seemed to die down a little.

Her hearing systems switched back on and the world seemed to go silent, except for distant wails and the sound of fire burning down remains.

She lay in the hot mud, not wanting to get up.

Slowly, she turned onto her back and stared up.

She only saw thick black smoke.

She stood, though her whole body was screaming not to.

She looked down at herself and noticed that though she was pitch black and badly burnt but she was not that badly damaged.

She shook some of the ashes off and climbed out of the ditch.

She could see nothing, only smoke and hear sirens wailing.

“What happened?” She choked.

No one was left to answer her.

Cheetor threw down the news disk in disgust and anger.

“WAR.” was the marked clearly on the disk.

He had watched images and read reports from the disk telling him of what war would mean and who had already been affected.  He saw the images from the Hilanes city and couldn't believe the devastation.

He also knew that he was most probably going to have to fight in the war, probably his friends too.

He sighed out shakily and waited for his e-mail to load.

He closed his eyes, hoping that he would not receive e-mail from the army.

The e-mail beeped and he opened his eyes.

There were four new e-mails.

One was from Diamond, the other two were financial and the other one was what he’d been dreading.

He opened it and read its contents.  It was a short notice to inform him that a pick up ship would be coming in two days time and he was required to join the robots who were going to be sent off to war.

“Slag.”

Diamond watched as Dinobot read the war e-mail and shook his head ever so slightly.

She’d just emailed Cheetor to tell him she was off to war.

She didn’t have the guts to phone him for she dreaded what news he might tell.

There was another thing that bothered her.

She had been a war trainee for a long time and was on the second highest level, meaning she’d be given a higher rank, perhaps a lieutenant.

She was to be sent off to the war active area called Kiulist.

Her father would be sent somewhere else.

She hadn’t bothered to read the entire e-mail, it would probably tell her who she’d be in the ranks, but she’d let her father tell her that.

She had recently received news that Optimus had been promoted captain of a fleet.

She knew he must be quite chuffed with that rank.

Dinobot seemed to be looking very tense.

Then he slammed his fist down in anger.

“Fools!” He cried.

“What, what is it?” She asked, rather worried.

“I am only a captain!  These Maximals do not know my skills!  They do not trust me!” He hissed.

“Well, you were a Predacon, it’s wrong I know, but understandable.” She whispered.

Dinobot carried on muttering to himself, cursing the Generals.

“What am I?” She asked.

“A first Lieutenant.” He grumbled.

“So you are only two ranks above me?” She asked, trying not to laugh.

“No, I am miles above you, but not according to this e-mail...”

He put his head in his hands.

She wasn’t sure what he was really worried about, being a captain, or letting his daughter go off to war.

Just to make sure.

“Dad, it’ll be OK.”

Two days later.

It was early morning; the world seemed to be holding its breath.

The streets were not nearly as busy, in fact there was barley anyone about.

Rattrap looked out of the window of his home and into the street.

“Man am I glad I ain’t goin' off.” He mumbled.

There was a distant rumble getting slowly louder.

Then some doors opened and out stepped robots with small sacks.

Guns at their sides and armour cases strapped to their backs, Rattrap knew they were off to war.

He shook his head, knowing that he’d chosen the right profession.

“I’m just gonna watch you guys get blown ta smithereens and then put that on da television.  Dat’s what it comes down to.” He said aloud.

He sighed and walked away.

-----------------------

Diamond sat on the bench outside, Dinobot stood silently next to her.

‘So, this is it.’ She thought, as the two remained silent in the darkness.

There was a faint glow in the distance. The sun was rising.

She had trained all her life for this, yet she’d always hoped she would never have to fight.

“Ironic, so ironic.’ She thought.

She turned her head to watch Dinobot, who was looking up to the pink glow seeping into the sky.  He was distant, deep in thought.

Besides them both were their armour cases and small sacks.  That was all, besides their weapons, that they were aloud to bring.

True, Predacons were also fighting in the war; they would all fight together. But to prevent fights with each other, there were separate Predacon and Maximal armies.

A clever idea, though had Dinobot been in the Predacon army, he most probably would have been a general.   That bothered him, but not as much as she thought.

Dinobot thought about many things in the hour before they took off.

He thought about The Great War and how different this war would be.

He thought about what it was like to be a Predacon, he wondered if being a maximal would make much of a difference beside his rank when it came to war.

He thought about how Rattrap and Eagleite got away with not having to fight.

A smile threatened when he imagined Rattrap all dressed in armour with a determined face, with those buckteeth.

He thought about the war training sessions he taught and hoped that his teachings would pay off for his students.

He thought about Diamond, how would she cope?

He remembered her first day in the War Training centre.

He had given her a small sword and had told her to strike the dummy, the way he’d shown her.

She had panicked and blurted out:  “But I’ll hurt him!”

This time a smile did spread over his face.

He had grown to love the pretty little girl who had been abandoned when she was young and who had cried outside his door.

She needed someone to take care of her, she had no money, no skills, she was as good as dead without him.

Robots are born as adults, they have a basic knowledge how to defend themselves and so on, but on Cybertron they would often stay with their parents for financial support or to be taught certain things.  True, they could live without their parents, but they could never live good lives.

They needed some support.

The thought of looking after a child had disgusted him at one stage, but now he loved his adopted daughter.  She had wanted to be a warrior like him so she’d stayed with him all these years.   And now, she was leaving, going off to what she had been trained for.

He knew she might never return, and he knew that he might never return, but he would take each day in his stride and let fate do the rest.

Around them were many robots, waiting outside their homes for the pick-ups that were coming.

Diamond was going off to the city Kiulist and Dinobot would go off to Raltraxon.

The rumble of the ships grew louder and finally they came up the street, marked clearly with bold letters which number they were.

“Number 12, that’s my ship.” Said Diamond in a shaky voice.

She looked at Dinobot who was still waiting for his ship.

He smiled and saluted her.

“Fight well and watch your back.” He said.

She grinned and threw her arms around him.

“Keep safe.” She muttered and felt her emotions turn on like an eggbeater was stirring them.

Then she pulled away and saluted him.

Before he could say anything she turned and ran towards her ship, trying desperately not to cry.

Continued in The Great Battle part 3.