The Intergalactic Highway

A/N Okay, this story is basically supposed to be a revamp and complete redo of my "Secret Agent of the Vok" story. However, it will be very different in many ways. This story is also co-authored with Lady Warrioress, who owns Yume. All of the other OCs belong to me. That's all, please let us know what you think.

Chapter 1

Dinobot scowled in impatience. Over the past few days he'd been trying to teach Yume how to defend herself so that she wouldn't have to rely completely on him. It was something she needed to learn, especially since she'd chosen to live here. But it seemed like she just wasn't getting any better.

"Yume!" he snapped. "I have shown you six times already how to handle a blaster properly, yet you keep missing the target!"

"I-I'm sorry," the girl stuttered, holding the blaster in shaking hands. "It's just that it's heavy and... I've never been good at aiming..."

"That is no excuse!" Dinobot snatched the weapon out of her grasp and frowned down at her. "What if that had been a Predacon?" he growled, pointing his free hand at the target. "You would be dead right now. Would you want that?" He scowled, his eyes boring right into her.

"I-I'm sorry!" the girl insisted, stepping back slightly. She hated when he yelled at her. "Don't you have anything lighter I can use?"

"Anything lighter would be useless. Unless you want me to give you a pea-shooter!" He shoved the weapon back into her hands and pointed at the target again. "Now try again. And I want you to at least hit the target," he snapped. At this point he figured they would be making good progress if she could do that much, never mind hit the X mark in the center of it.

"I'll try..." she said uncertainly.

Dinobot frowned and took a couple of steps back, folding his arms across his chest. He was watching her very carefully, never even blinking.

The girl raised the gun and planted her feet to get a good stance. She aimed the gun the best she could and pulled the trigger. A bolt of pink energy exited the weapon and hit the very tip of the target.

"Did I hit it?" she asked uncertainly.

Dinobot walked over to the target and examined it, touching the area she'd hit with his fingertips. "Well," he said, "it looks like you did, just barely." He gave her a look of disapproval nonetheless.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, suddenly defensive. "At least I hit it."

"You only grazed it, and this is the most progress you have made in days!" Dinobot made his customary guttural noise. "I don't know why I even bother you! This is the smallest blaster I've given you and you can't even handle it right!"

"Well excuse me for being human!" she shot back, suddenly losing her temper. "I'm not a big strong robot like you! I have my limits, robo-raptor! The least you could do is understand that but no all you do is yell at me all the time!"

She threw the blaster to the floor. "I can't help it that I suck!"

Before Dinobot could do more than open his mouth, both of them heard the sound of someone clearing his throat behind them. The ex-Predacon turned to see none other than Optimus Primal entering the storage room, where he and Yume had been working on their target practice. This room was the largest one inside the base, and it had been decided that it was the best place to do it, especially since they wouldn't be interrupted by Predacon attacks like they would out in the open.

"I could hear both of you all the way from the control room," Optimus commented, glancing from one to the other. "Is everything alright in here?" He looked directly at Yume. She looked upset.

The girl looked from the fallen blaster to Dinobot. His optics bore into her eyes she was forced to look away. She cast her eyes on the floor. "Nothing is wrong," she said. "Everything is normal." she looked at the blaster again. "I just suck."

"That's not true, Yume," Optimus said in a gentle, soothing tone. "I'm sure all you need is a little more practice." His optics shot in Dinobot's direction. "And perhaps a little more patience and understanding from your teacher."

Dinobot looked at Optimus, making sort of a "humph!" sound. "She couldn't hit the broad side of the Predacon ship," he remarked, still grumpy from the lack of progress they'd made.

"I'm sure I could hit it if it was close enough," she said in a small voice. "And at least I hit the target this time even with that heavy blaster."

"Yume, why don't you take a break," Optimus told the girl. "You look like you could use it, and I'd like to talk to Dinobot for a moment."

"Okay." the girl looked at Dinobot one last time then made her way out of the room, side-stepping Optimus as she did so. "Maybe I'll do some working out or something..."

Optimus watched her as she headed out the door, then he turned to Dinobot. "I really think you should go easier on her," Primal said. "She's not built the same way we are, you know."

"It seems pointless," Dinobot grumbled. "I have tried giving her every blaster we have in this place, even the smallest ones, and she can't hit a target." Some of his frustration and annoyance had evaporated, but some of it still remained.

"Well then maybe we'll have to consider other options," the Maximal leader said with a little shrug.

Dinobot looked skeptical. "Like what?" he asked. "If she can't fire a blaster…"

"Then we could simply give her something else to help protect her," Optimus interrupted, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Suppose we made her a special kind of armor to wear when she goes outside? At least then we wouldn't have to worry if the Predacons decided to take a shot at her."

"Hmm," Dinobot purred, turning the idea over in his processor. "It could work, but would she be able to move around in a suit of armor?" He knew that if she complained about how heavy even the smallest blasters were, a suit of armor might be a nightmare.

"That's something we'll just have to work on," Optimus told him.

Before either of them could say anything else, Optimus's intercom beeped. "Hey, Optimus," Rhinox's voice said. "I think you should come take a look at this."

Optimus and Dinobot exchanged glances, then Primal spoke into his communication unit, "I'll be right there."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Samantha Rogers decided that, for all practical purposes, she felt thoroughly useless right now.

She and her two Maximal comrades were traveling on a small ship, attempting to track down a device that had been lost or stolen. Samantha hoped that it had merely been misplaced; she didn't want to think about what could happen if the experimental gadget had somehow fallen into the wrong hands.

"Commander," she called out, glancing toward the cockpit where both of the Maximals were. "Anything new yet?"

The team leader answered from the pilot's seat. "Not yet, Sam. Hopefully we'll have something more concrete soon."

The other Maximal, who was seated in the copilot's seat, chimed in as well. "All we know is that a surge of energy was detected from the device on Earth, originating sometime during the early 2000's and going back into the prehistoric era."

"Which is why we have to try and track down just where that signal went, so we can hopefully get the device back," Samantha murmured, rubbing her temples warily. She still wasn't sure if the gizmo had been purposely stolen, or if someone had simply done something stupid and accidentally made the device go off through time and space on its own.

But since it had been used again, that had to indicate that someone had gotten hold of it and used it. That either meant that someone had stolen it and was either playing around with it or trying to change history, or someone from the 2000's had gotten their hands on it and went for a temporal joyride into the prehistoric age.

In many ways, the past did not interest Samantha much, whether it be the prehistoric age or the twenty-first century. She liked to live in the present, along with all of its comforts and technological advances.

Of course she played a minor role in helping to develop the device. But it wasn't due to a desire to travel through time. She simply wanted to see just how far science and technology had come, to see if it was indeed possible to create a time-traveling machine. And apparently it had worked.

But to what end? Something had gone wrong and it was now missing for one reason or another. It was quite possible that this device was more trouble than it was worth; at least it had the potential of causing trouble. It did give her some comfort, though, that apparently she and her Maximal companions had come farther in finding its trail than any of the other search teams had.

"Looks like we have a fix on the location," the commander announced just then, cutting into her musings.

Samantha glanced up. Well, that was the best piece of news she'd heard all day. "You do?" She stood from her chair and moved closer to the cockpit, peering inside. "Does that mean you can compute the destination into the navigational systems?"

The female Maximal seated in the co-pilot's seat smiled a little. "I'm already on it," she said.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Optimus and Dinobot entered the control room together. Rhinox looked up from his sensor readouts as they approached. "Take a look at this," the scientist said.

After peering at the screen, Optimus blinked. "Hmm, it looks like some sort of temporal anomaly, like when a transwarp engine is starting up and trying to lock onto some specific coordinates," he remarked.

"It looks almost like they're trying to lock onto our location," Rhinox said. There was an undertone of excitement in his voice.

"Then is it possible that someone is trying to find us? Or has found us?" Optimus asked, hardly daring to get his hopes up. At this point, receiving a rescue party from Cybertron was probably more than they could hope for.

"I don't know," Rhinox admitted with a shrug. "We'll just have to keep an optical sensor on this and see what happens."

At this, Dinobot chimed in. "If we are detecting this, it is likely that the Predacons are as well," he commented.

"Tigatron, Airazor and Cheetor are out on patrol right now, I'll contact them and tell them to keep an eye out," Optimus said, already activating the communication terminal.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Uh oh," the commander murmured in quiet alarm as he gripped the piloting controls.

Samantha, who was now in the cockpit just behind him, gripped the back of his seat with her hands. "Uh oh?" she echoed warily. "What's 'uh oh' mean?" She had a feeling that she might not want to know.

The femme stared at the console in front of her for a moment, then glanced in Samantha's direction. "It means hang on," she told the human. "Things are gonna get a little rough going down."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

When Rattrap awoke from his nap in his quarters, the first thing he did was stretch and yawn loudly. He hadn't had a good rest like that for some time. Then he decided to go and get something to eat.

He headed out of his quarters and as he headed down the hallway and rounded the corner he ran right into someone. He grunted, startled, taking a step back. It took him a moment to realize who it was.

"Hey, Dreamgirl," he exclaimed, looking down at her. "You mind staying out of the way? Some of us are trying to walk here."

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I didn't see you…" she looked away. "I don't mean to be in the way."

Noticing the way she looked, Rattrap realized she looked upset. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she replied, refusing to look at him. "I just have some things on my mind."

"Doesn't have anything to do with Chopperface, does it?"

"Sort of," she replied. "But mostly it has to do with me." she closed her eyes. "Oh who am I kidding? He's right anyway. I'm not going to get any better. I don't even know why I'm still here. Maybe I should have just gone back to my own time."

Rattrap cocked his head to one side, folding his arms across his chest. "Wait a cycle, does this have something to do with him teaching you how to protect yourself?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I take it things ain't going well, then," Rattrap said. It was more a statement than a question. "Well, let me tell you something. I think the problem is that you're not built to handle some things, and Dinobutt isn't a great teacher. But…" A mischievous look crossed his face. "There is something else we could try."

"Really?"

He grinned impishly. "Oh yeah." He indicated her to follow him with a gesture of his finger, then he turned and began to head down the corridor.

Curious, the girl followed.

Rattrap led the way into his room. Once they were both inside he closed the door and then he went over to a small, metal box that was on the floor, against the wall. "You know what's in here?" he asked her, giving the lid a thoughtful pat.

"No."

With that he opened it, revealing a case of small, square-shaped objects. "This is where I keep my stash of explosives," he said. "Now with these babies, all you have to do is switch on the time and either leave it near your target, or give it a toss toward your target. Either way they're great to use, and you just need to make sure you're not too close to them when they blow up." He looked at her. "So, want to try and learn how to use these?"

Yume stared at him in horror. "No!" she exclaimed. "That's terrible!"

Rattrap blinked a little at her. "What?" he asked, a little taken aback by her reaction. "Hey, it was just an idea. And it would show Dinoboob that there's more than one way to look after yourself."

"But bombs?' she asked. She shook her head. "No no no. I can't use bombs."

"Why not?"

"Bombs killed my grandfather."

Rattrap blinked, then he lowered his gaze. "Oh. Well, I didn't know that." He closed the metal box.

"How did it happen?" he then asked.

"What?" she looked at him in confusion. "How did what happen?"

"What you just said about your Granddad," Rattrap replied, looking at her curiously.

"Well," she rubbed her arm. "It was an accident. It never should have happened. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Yeah well, those things happen sometimes," Rattrap said with a small shrug. "It doesn't mean bombs are bad or that accidents will happen to everybody. You just gotta remember to be very careful with them."

"No!" she shouted. "You don't understand! It wasn't his fault! He just wanted to stop the terrorists from-" she clammed up and turned away. "Forget it."

Rattrap looked at her. "Terrorists?" he exclaimed. When she'd said it was an accident, he had assumed she was talking about an incident where someone got careless with a bomb inside a home or a factory or something. But…

Just then his commlink chimed. "Rattrap, we need you in the control room," Optimus's voice told him.

Aw man, Rattrap thought to himself. "Yeah okay, Optimus, be right up," he muttered into his commlink. Then he looked at Yume. "Well, they want me in the control room. Feel free to tag along, or… whatever." He shrugged and moved past her, opening the door and heading out of the room.

"No thanks," she said. "I'm going to head to my room and draw..."

"Suit yourself," was the last thing Rattrap said before he went completely out of sight.

Yume watched him go then turned her attention to the box he'd shown her. She stared at it a moment the turned away and headed down the hall in the opposite direction.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Indeed, the landing was a rough one. Thankfully the stabilizing thrusters kept the ship from going into a freefall once they entered the Earth's atmosphere, and then the commander managed to keep the nose up so they didn't crash straight into the ground. Instead they merely went for a very bumpy ride, the ship skidding and scraping across the planet's crust, until it came to a rather sudden stop against a large clump of trees.

It left a very impressive dent in the front of the ship and the engines, along with the metal hull and walls, seemed to groan and sputter for a few moments after they stopped.

The commander and the femme were a bit shaken up and had a few scratches and dents, but were otherwise okay. Samantha was alright as well, except for a minor case of whiplash.

The first order of business, once they were certain everyone was alright, was to get a general reading of the area.

"Hmmm," the commander murmured as he looked over the sensor readouts. He frowned, as if concerned or not liking something he'd just learned.

"What?" Samantha asked, getting a little worried again.

"There is a lot of energon here," he told her without looking up from the readouts. "Too much of it. If either of us Maximals go outside as we are, all of that radiation is going to fry our circuits."

"What does that mean? You can't go outside and so I'm going to be stuck trying to find that device all by myself?" Samantha asked in annoyance. She had seriously thought that the crash-landing was the worst thing that could happen. But if she had to do things on her own while her comrades stayed inside the ship…

The femme cast an amused look at her. "No, we can simply choose alternate forms to protect ourselves from the radiation. Have you forgotten?"

"Oh," Sam murmured with a small nod. "Yeah well… I guess I've just gotten so used to the way you two look as you are now."

"Well we'll look a bit different when we choose a secondary mode," the commander acknowledged with a thoughtful look. "But nothing else about us will change."

Over the next few minutes the Maximals and the human watched silently as their computer systems scanned multiple life forms. Once they had a fair number of scans stored in the databanks, the femme looked over what was in there and soon made a selection.

"What did you choose?" the commander asked curiously.

The femme merely smiled. "You'll see," was all she said before she vanished into the replication chamber.

A few minutes later she stepped out, having a completely different appearance due to her new beast mode. Her large eyes blinked a little in the dim light of the room, and her golden feathers almost seemed to have a glow of their own.

"A golden eagle," Sam murmured, admiring the new look. "I have to say I like it."

The commander shook his head. "Figures. You've always been vain, so it's only natural you would choose a pretty beast mode." He smirked at her.

The femme gave him a look. "I've also chosen a new name in honor of my new beast mode," she announced proudly. "Call me… Dawnstar."

"A pretty name to go with a pretty form," the commander murmured. "Well, now it's my turn."

He then took his time to look through the scans that were stored in the databanks, attempting to select a form. Somehow though, he found that he just couldn't make up his processor over two selections.

On the one hand he liked the look of a hawk, for it seemed like a majestic creature. Plus he thought it would be quite enjoyable to go on an occasional flight, perhaps with Dawnstar at his side. He smiled at the thought and then shoved it aside.

On the other hand, the mountain lion looked like a good choice as well. It was a strong creature, yet sleek at the same time. It also looked like a good running animal.

"Hmmm," he finally murmured aloud, stroking his chin thoughtfully with his servo.

"What?" Dawnstar asked, peering at him with her new, organic eyes.

"I think I might create a fuzor beast mode for myself," he replied, already punching some instructions into the computer.

Sam blinked. "What's a fuzor?" she asked.

"It's when the DNA replicator creates a hybrid of two forms," the commander replied, then finished inputting the commands he wanted. "I have selected two organic modes I wish to blend together."

"Hopefully it's not something weird, like a snake and a dragonfly," Dawnstar commented with a mischievous glint in her eyes. She was obviously teasing.

The commander chuckled. "No, nothing like that." Without another word he stepped into the replication chamber and waited for the door to shut, then shut down his optics as he waited for the process to finish.

A few minutes later when he stepped out, he looked just like a gryphon. He had a pair of brown, feathered wings on his back, a pair of bird-like front feet, a pair of cat-like back feet, a furry tail that swished back and fourth, and his head contained a pair of pointed ears. He had a pair of large golden eyes, above a large beak on the front of his face.

"Impressive," Dawnstar murmured in spite of herself. "I was half expecting something freaky, but that… isn't bad."

The commander gave a bow of his head. He somehow seemed both smug and sarcastic in making that simple gesture. Then he glanced down at his claws, noticing they were an odd color. They were sort of… yellowish.

"So what's your name gonna be, now that you've chosen a new mode?" Sam asked. She knew that apparently it was customary to choose a new name, after choosing a new alternate mode.

The commander somehow managed a smile with the corners of his beak mouth. "Amberclaw," he announced proudly.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Looks like a ship came down, over in this grid here," Rhinox said as he, Optimus and Dinobot stood looking at the large holographic map of their territory. He pointed to the area where the ship they'd detected came down.

"Then we'd better get over there before the Predacons do," Optimus said.

Just then, Rattrap wandered into the room and glanced around at everyone. "Hey, what's happening?" he asked, walking toward the holographic map in the center of the room.

"A ship came down, one with a Cybertronian energy signature," Rhinox informed him.

"A ship?" Rattrap's audio sensors perked up. "You sure it wasn't just another one of them stasis pods?" He wasn't about to get his hopes up until he was sure.

"This is definitely a ship, and one that intended to come to this very place and time for some reason," Optimus said. "We need to get out there before the Predacons do."

"We should leave immediately," Dinobot said, already beginning to move toward the lift.

"Hold on," Optimus told him, "you need to stay here with Yume."

The ex-Predacon turned to scowl at the Maximal leader. "She will be safe here at the base," he said, "especially if Rhinox stays with her."

"You are her bodyguard," Optimus reminded him firmly. "It's your job to stay with her, and she should stay here at the base. We don't know yet if that ship is friendly or not."

Dinobot looked as though he was fully prepared to argue, but he already knew it would be useless. As much as he wanted to be out there where his skills as a fighter would be truly useful, he knew that he had his orders… as well as his duty. "Oh very well," he grumbled, coming very close to punching the wall.

"Keep an eye on things," Optimus told him. "The rest of you are with me," he said, indicating Rattrap and Rhinox. "I'll call the others to meet us there once we're outside. Let's head out!"

Chapter 2

Dinobot growled softly under his breath as he watched the others leave. Of course all of them were going out where all of the action would be. He would have to stay here and watch that stupid girl, all because she couldn't handle or aim a blaster!

Still, he had his duty. That meant he had to stay in the base and watch her. He also reminded himself that his duty also meant he needed to keep an optical sensor on the base itself, too. In some small way, that made him feel a little better. Although it wouldn't really amount to much unless the Predacons decided to attack the base.

In spite of himself he smiled slightly at the thought. That would definitely be a glorious battle, if he had the chance to single-handedly defend the base during an all out attack, even if he had to do so while defending that girl…

His mouth formed a frown as his thoughts drifted back to her. Where was she, anyway? He glanced around the control room, although he already knew she wasn't there. "Yume!" he called out, looking toward the doorway that led into the deeper part of the base. She didn't answer.

He sighed. Hopefully she was still in the base, otherwise he would have to leave his post and go out and look for her. Part of him felt a twinge of worry for her, even a small amount of guilt for the way he'd treated her earlier.

Growling softly, he shoved those feelings aside as he marched out of the control room to look for her. Why should he care so much what happened to her? She was his responsibility, but that didn't mean he had to feel this way. It had been her idea to be friends, after all.

But you were the one who asked her to stay, part of his processor reminded him. You told her that she shouldn't go if she didn't want to. And you told her that you wanted her to stay, too.

He scowled as he continued marching down the corridor, toward Yume's room. He had a feeling that's where she probably was. "She can't even defend herself," he murmured out loud, answering the voice in his head.

You knew that this would be a problem even before she decided to stay.

"Shut up," he snapped at the voice. He felt a little silly afterwards. For all practical purposes, he was simply arguing with himself. Why did this seem to happen at times, ever since that girl chose to stay at their base?

The "voice" in his head fell silent and all he could hear was his own metallic footsteps as the clanked against the floor. He neared Yume's room a few moments later and found the door closed. "Yume?" he called out. "Are you in there?"

"Go away!" she called from the other side. "I don't feel like being yelled at again right now!"

Dinobot sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "I just came to… talk," he finally said, in a somewhat softer tone.

"What about?" she asked. "About how sucky I am at defending myself? About how terrible I am as a pupil? About my lack of metal in general?"

"Yume, please come out here." He winced a little at his choice of words, but if he wanted to try and smooth things over, he had to be more… polite. He never used the word "please" with anyone else, and hardly ever with Yume. But this situation seemed to call for it.

"Why?" she demanded, still refusing to open the door. "What do you want from me anyway?"

He drew in a deep breath. "I want to apologize," he finally said. His tone sounded sincere, but it also sounded like he had to force the words out of his throat. He cleared his throat, then added, "I shouldn't have yelled at you. You were doing the best you could in there. And… Optimus and I talked about it, and we think that if you can't use a blaster, we may simply have to find another way for you to… be protected."

For a moment there was a silence, as if she was letting his words sink in.

Finally she opened the door and looked up at him. "What brought this on all of a sudden?" she wanted to know.

He was a little relieved when she decided to open the door. "It wouldn't do for you to be killed, after all the time I've spent trying to train you," Dinobot said with a small shrug. Then something in his face softened a little. "We just want you to be safe," he added.

"Oh."

A small silence fell between them. Dinobot finally broke it after a few moments passed. "How would you… like a suit of armor for protection?" he asked her thoughtfully.

Yume stared at him like he'd lost his marbles. "A suit of armor?!" she exclaimed.

"We could make one your size," Dinobot said with a shrug.

"But suits of armor are heavy!"

That was the exact thought Dinobot had had before while talking to Optimus, especially considering how much trouble the girl had in simply handling a blaster. "We could… work on that," he finally said, and frowned a little. Of course he knew full well that there wasn't much a person could do about, well… the properties of metal. Metal was heavy. Not much could change that fact.

"Maybe you could just um... let me use a baseball bat?" she suggested.

He gave her a look. Instead of saying anything though, he simply walked away, out of sight.

A few minutes later, he came back and handed her what looked like a short metal pipe. It was the closest thing he could find. "What do you think you could do with this?" he asked out loud as he gave it to her.

"Hmmm..." the girl grabbed the pipe and weighed it in her hands. It seemed to be okay. she did a few practice swings then said. "It could work."

Dinobot snorted. He looked a bit skeptical. "Take a swing at me," he then said, looking as though he wasn't really expecting to feel much of anything.

"Okay," she said, then swung for the one thing she could reach.

BAM!!!!!!!!!!

Dinobot's eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and pain. "AARRGH!" His hands moved defensively over the pelvic region of his robotic form and he staggered backward a little, his back bumping against the wall.

Yume stared at him in shock. She hadn't expected him to react like that.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed dropping the pipe and rushing over to him. 'I'm so sorry!"

Dinobot winced, gritting his dental plating together. "Oh shut up," he griped, then grimaced at the pain in his voice. He stiffly moved away from the wall, walking very carefully. "Just pick up your pipe and come with me," he said grumpily. He needed to get back to the control room since no one else was there.

"I uh.. okay.." she said, stepping back. She reached down and picked up the pipe, her face flaming with embarrassment. 'Good going, girl. He's got another reason to hate you now..."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Terrorsaur was very, very bored. Then again that was the way he always felt when he got stuck with monitor duty. And today he had an extra shift, all because he'd pissed Megatron off over what he felt was a trivial matter.

It was Waspinator's fault anyway, the red-colored Predacon thought, narrowing his optics. He tried stealing Megatron's rubber duck all because he couldn't find his stupid teddy bear. I was simply trying to put it back!

Of course, neither Predacon would openly admit they had either of those items. At least, not to the Maximals. Terrorsaur had simply been looking out for his own hide when he tried putting the duck back, because he knew Megatron would blame him first for taking it. And all that he got for his efforts was caught while trying to put it back. And thus he earned an extra duty shift.

For once, the universe had smiled down on Waspinator and chosen to hate Terrorsaur, it seemed…

Terrorsaur's thoughts were interrupted when he noticed a flicker on the screen. A second later the computer spoke aloud, "Alert, alert, incoming space craft detected."

"Ah!" Terrorsaur exclaimed, instantly interested by what he saw. "Looks like this could be my lucky day!"

"Oh really, Terrorsaur?" a deep voice spoke behind him, causing him to start with a little squawk. "And how is that?"

"Um, because I would be the one to tell you about this!" Terrorsaur said quickly, looking up at Megatron as he walked closer and peered over his shoulder.

"Well I shall take over the sensors now and keep myself duly informed, yess," Megatron told him, then switched from his beast mode into his robotic form. The Predacon leader then elbowed his minion aside so that he would have more room to look at what the sensors had detected.

"It looks like it is a ship," Terrorsaur said, mostly to save face. He rubbed his side warily, trying to see if there was a small dent forming or not. He didn't feel anything.

"Of course it's a ship," Megatron said irritably, then his expression turned thoughtful. With all of the energon interference it was difficult to get an accurate reading on the ship's design and who might be inside it. He thought he might have detected some Maximal energy signatures, but he couldn't be sure.

So what did it mean? It could be just a ship that got lost, but he had to consider the worst case scenario. What if it was an official search party from Cybertron? If the Maximal government discovered their whereabouts, and if they captured Megatron and his crew, that would be it for them.

Megatron instantly called out to his troops. "Scorponok, Inferno, BlackArachnia!" He pointed at the Predacon who stood next to him. "And you too, Terrorsaur. We're going out there to find out who is on that ship, yess."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Amberclaw insisted on being the first one to go outside and scope out the area. His comrades had wanted to go with him, and Dawnstar had outright insisted on going along, but he told her and Samantha that he wanted them to stay inside the ship until he knew roughly what was out there.

This made Dawnstar a bit miffed. She even went as far as to make a remark about his "chauvinism" under her breath. Amberclaw had simply pretended not to hear that as he went outside. At least Samantha didn't say a word—or if she did, she waited until he was out of hearing range.

Amberclaw simply felt that he was taking the initiative he needed to take as the team's leader. Perhaps in some ways he was a bit protective of the femmes, especially considering they were in unknown territory and the energon radiation was blocking pretty much everything from the sensors.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Amberclaw broke into a run. His spark pulse quickened in exhilaration as all four of his feet pounded against the light-colored ground, allowing him to move swiftly. The sand kicked up a bit as he went, combining with the breeze as the air whipped through his fur. He already knew that his fur and feathers were going to be filthy by the time this was over, but for the moment he did not care.

Finally he began to feel the urge to try out his wings. He wasn't sure if it was partially due to some instinct to use his wings beginning to surface from his beast mode, or if it was simply a desire in his spark. Either way, he decided to give in. He was already going at a pretty good speed so spread his wings and began to flap them, then kicked himself off the ground. It took a few good, hearty wing-beats to get himself up off the ground, but once he did he began to move higher toward the sky.

It felt truly marvelous, especially as he looked down on the ground. He tucked his hind quarters in against his body and stretched out his front legs in order to guide himself. He felt perfectly in control and on top of the world.

He found he could also see things better. Indeed, this was a strange planet. It looked like the sandy, desert-like region he was in expanded for a few miles, but then it blended into an area that looked lush and green, with plenty of trees and grass.

When he looked off in yet another direction, he thought he saw snow way off in the distance. Just what kind of a world was this? He knew it was prehistoric Earth, but it almost looked like the planet could not make up its own mind about what kind of climate it wanted.

Suddenly he noticed something moving, coming toward him. It looked like a bird, flying in his direction. Curious, he carefully slowed his pace and allowed the creature to intercept him.

Sure enough it appeared to be a large falcon, and it had a decidedly feminine look about it. Amberclaw immediately deduced that this was no native life form.

And this was confirmed when she spoke to him as she neared him. "Hello there," she said, moving alongside him so that they matched altitude and speed. "I take it you're new here." Her voice sounded cheerful and casual. She didn't sound all that surprised to see him, although she seemed curious about him.

"Hello there, little lady," Amberclaw replied, flashing her a smile with the corners of his beak and his large, golden eyes. "I take it you're a Maximal?"

"Yes I am," she replied. If they had been on the ground she probably would have nodded her head, but she couldn't while she was flying. All she could do was spare an occasional glance as she watched where she was going. "I'm Airazor. What's your name?"

"Amberclaw. My team and I just arrived a short while ago."

"Yes," Airazor acknowledged, "we saw your ship come down and we decided to come out here and investigate. It looks like I'm the first one here to greet you."

"So it would seem. But I must admit I'm a little surprised to see someone like yourself here. How many of you are here?"

"Seven Maximals, seven Predacons," Airazor told him. "Though, assuming you're a Maximal, I guess that makes eight on our side. Plus however many are on your team," she added.

"Well we won't be staying long," Amberclaw informed her. "We're only here for a very specific reason."

"And what might that be?"

"I'd like to discuss that with your team leader, first. Who is your leader?"

"That would be Optimus Primal." Airazor then glanced down toward the ground. She could see a few shapes off in the distance, moving toward their location. "And there he is now," she murmured.