Kaleidoscope

In the midst of war lies the seeds of peace, triggered to grow by the heat of flames.

“There, there. It’ll be all right. There’s no need to be afraid,” he whispered.

The swirl of colours in front of her eyes changed and darkened into a deep red, before lighting up into a blur of blue and yellow and fuchsia.

Such were the symptoms of eyes recently blinded by a flash of light. Light leaves an imprint in one’s eyes that can be seen as a multitude of warping colours when the eyes are closed. It isn’t supposed to happen to transformers, but Diamond had long since sensed she wasn’t one of them. She merely resembled a transformer. The heart beat, sweaty palms, the imprint of light in her optics was all too much to keep her thinking she was the same as the others.

She opened her eyes and for a moment, she could not see. Then her vision cleared and the speckles danced away into the corner of her eyes.

A male bot stared down at her with a gentle smile. She was lying down, on her back, looking up. She had a slight headache.

A hand stoked her forehead gently, a very tender spot for female transformers. But she really doubted she was one of those anymore. She was just some kind of mutant.

Eventually she focused on the bot and, with starling realization, saw that it was Cheetor. Now, how on Cybertron did they end up meeting again? Another strange twist of fa…

She preferred not to think about fate. It seemed to make her feel uncomfortable. Like fate itself was coming for her. A strange, insane theory that had tortured her through the lurid dreams she’d had recently. Maybe it was a sixth sense, this feeling that something or someone was after her. An altogether disturbing sense.

All fear drifted away as she looked up into those optics. She smiled weakly in his direction and he ginned in relief.

She made a tiny peep in response. Her chest felt as if a ton of bricks were balancing upon it.

There was a long pause that followed and he stared at her in a strange way. A way she’d never seen before.

“What ya doing here?” she eventually said, her voice hoarse but at least back again.

“It’s an unbelievable story, but then, all those who have survived this massacre have unbelievable stories to tell,” he told her.

Another long pause and Diamond decided it was time to get up. Yet, just as she was about to try and heave her body off the medic bed, Cheetor’s eyes darkened and his face became serious. She could see by the way he tensed up that he had something to say to her.

“I was behaving like an imbecile. I should have thought of another strategy to---”

“No, that’s not why you’re here. You probably reacted by instinct, and yours is to fight. You’re a warrior, Diamond. It’s second nature to you,” he explained.

She opened them again and stared at him wearily.
Gee, he’s such a nice guy. Trying to find excuses for all my imperfections. Sorry Cheets, there’s just too many.

“The thing is, the reason you’re lying injured on this medic bed is because of me.”

“I saw you fighting, by yourself. And I also saw a missile being fired in your direction, which your were oblivious to. I shot you to knock you out of the way. Then the rescue ship came and…that’s why you’re here and I’m sor--”

“Cheetor you saved my life! Unless you regret it, there’s no need to be sorry,” she said, her eyes wide with shock.

She lost track of time. She had no idea how long they cuddled there, in plain view of everyone else in the cabin.

“We’re going to Vixadonia. It’s more than likely that we’ll be separated,” he said unhappily.

“It can’t be helped, Cheetor. But I promise you now, I’ll try not to get slagged. If not for me, then for you,” she said.

“I don’t know, Dimes. It’s just that I feel…something is going to happen. Something bad and…I just don’t want to lose you.”

Her response was delayed when she felt her head begin warm up. The diamond on her forehead began to burn like a hot ember and she felt a strange tingle go through her. Then it faded and she was left feeling more uneasy, but strangely much stronger.

“Somehow, I think that whatever happens, it’s for the best,” she said, yet it hardly felt like she had said it. It was like something else was speaking for her.

“Hey, if we do get zapped, we’ll share a star in the Matrix. And if I get there first, I’ll save a spot for you. We can’t continuously worry about the future; otherwise we have no strength to deal with the present. All we have to do is have a little hope and acceptance and that come what may, it was our destiny. One cannot avoid fate and don’t you think, that the fact that against all the odds we met up again must have some kind of significance? I’d like to think so.”

Primus, where’d all that come from? Was that me speaking or was I finally accepting my gift? My…gift…

“You’re truly special Diamond, and so incredibly strong. I’ll always remember you for those qualities,” he said gently.

Both felt the rumble of the ship as it began its decent at least some 12 miles from the probably stormy city, for security reasons.

The noise of a commander who must have been aboard the rescue ship when it picked them up came over the loud speaker, yelling orders. They stared at each other as, almost as if in slow motion military officials entered the large medic compartment, assembling the healthy into groups. A beige coloured bot latched onto Cheetor’s arm and pulled him away.

“Until we meet again” he whispered before being spun around and ordered to take a handful of bots and lead them to the outside. She stood still, distantly aware of someone yelling orders to her from behind, and watched him depart, his final glance at her one of hope…and that strange look that she now could define as love.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Captain! A Maximal ship has been spotted 12 miles off Vixadonia. It’s one of the rescue vessels from Kiulist!”

The Predacon Captain stood in his underground base, just one mile off the city. He had been watching the bombarding progress on the shields at Vixadonia and it looked as if sentinel would break any moment now.

“Tell the lieutenant to send two bombers and squash them when they’ve landed. How’s the progress on the crashed vessel?” he asked.

“Destroyed sir. We’re rooting out survivors and without their own signature blocking technology, they’re easy to find. I estimate they’ve all been found and destroyed, but I can get a proper report on that,” he offered.

“Yes, do that. And keep me informed on the status of the other rescue ship,” he ordered.

He watched as the weak area in the sentinel shield flickered and sputtered under the pressure. About four hundred Predacon Missile Launchers were shooting at the area.

He could see, once the hover camera moved in closer that there were ground soldiers just inside the shield.

“Stupid move, Maximals. Once the shield is down, we’re not going to even bother with troops,” he chuckled darkly.

“Sergeant, ready the hover tanks!”

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Joe sighed as the shields flickered for the umpteenth time, each flicker getting more violent than the last.

The female soldier who had conversed with him for four hours now was looking increasingly stressed.

“You know,” she began, “I occasionally wish the damn thing would just break, and we could get all this crap over with.”

“Yeah, the tension is tiring. All we’ve seen so far is explosions repeated over the same spot. I have to wonder, when that area which is about ten meters above our heads breaks, what the heck do we do? I don’t see any ground troops of the enemy’s near by, just planes,” he pondered.

“Oh they’re out there. Just hiding…waiting for that precise moment,” she said coldly, her eyes narrowed to slits.

A long, frightening silence passed and Joe’s terrified little eyes began to water from being open for so long. There was a heart- stopping electric shriek as the shields began to crumble even more. It raised the hairs on his body.

Suddenly, a bloody transformer rose up out of a pile of rubble directly in front of Joe and he screamed and crawled backwards. The thing was a meter away from his face; only a faulty shield was between them.

“Ah! Get it away!” Joe squealed and backed up against a piece of debris, staring wide-eyed at the transformer ahead.

“Lieutenant, Lieutenant!!” the female called Lara screamed yet she remained in her position.

Joe watched the transformer, covered in blood and charred all over waved his hands around desperately, his shattered optics flickering.

He collapsed to his knees and his now limp arms weakly pointed to a sticker mounted on his torso. A Maximal sticker…

“Hey, Lara! He’s a freaking Maximal! Aren’t they the good guys?” he called over the incessant noise of explosions.

Both of them watched as the Maximal crumbled to the floor, lying face down in the dirt. Waves of blue energy rippled through him and one severed arm waved in the air to show that he was still alive.

All the soldiers looked up to see a bright orange flash on the focused area above and suddenly, the shields disappeared in a shower of electrical sparks. The ships that had been attacking them flew in without hesitation and began pounding ground troops within Vixadonia, while others fell back to regroup.

“Oh my…Sh*t!” Joe exclaimed. The noise of gunfire was so loud and so suddenly real that it had him rooted to the spot.

“Captain! Order the troops to congregate directly below the hole in the shields and fire at will!!”

“But sir,” the voice of the captain protested, “we’ve only a few men and the ships are coming in by the dozen. It would mean leading them into a full offensive!”

“Captain I order you to carry out the requested task! Now engage your troops!”

“Isn’t it?” she responded. Both got up and started following the other soldiers to their positions, but Joe stopped beside the transformer.

He knelt beside him and latched onto his arms and began dragging him back into the city.

“Hey buddy, you’re my ticket out of this death trap,” Joe muttered as he dragged him back.

“Private! What are you doing?!” a sergeant screamed as he jogged up beside Joe.

Around them both the ground flew up as shots pounded it, just feet away. Joe spotted a soldier getting hit on his way to the shooting area. He crumbled in a bloody burst. Joe could see a hole the size of a dinner plate in his back as he lay face down in the dirt. He looked up at the sergeant.

“I found an injured Maximal, sir. He came up here from outside the shields.”

“He’s armed, which means that there must be others out there. A possible lone survivor of a back up team, sir?” Joe queried and turned the Maximal onto his back in full view of the crouching sergeant.

The little bot was charred badly on his front and holes on his torso revealed severed wires inside. Joe imagined that was pretty painful for an intelligent machine.

“Ag, take him down that manhole behind you. There’s a sealed off underground chamber now used as a medic base. He should be safe from tunnel rats and so forth, but hurry private. We’re gonna need all the help we can find out here,” the sergeant said, his voice of a more personal tone.

Joe didn’t hesitate at this blessing and heaved the transformer over to the manhole, thanking his lucky baseball sealed in a pocket within his suit that this was a small bot. Otherwise he’d be impossible to drag in!

Once Joe got him into the already full medic camp (from bomb attacks during the early hours of the Uprising) he found that there were no beds available and no nurses either. He laid him down next to a tub labeled ‘TRANS. CLEANSER FLUID’.

Joe knelt beside him and scooped a handful of the slimy liquid and poured it on his charred body. The bot shuddered in pain and swore.

The transformer’s optics lit up and focused on his rescuer for the first time.

“Okay, more importantly, where’d you come from?” Joe questioned, using his bare hands to scrub some of the muck off the Maximal’s chest.

“Ship. Crashed. Blown up…by invisible…jets. No survivors. Only me…coz of beast mode. Signature seekers…slagged da lot of us!” choked the bot.

Joe hardly understood what he meant, but gathered that a ship had crashed outside the city and for some garbled reason, this little bot was the only survivor.

“Name’s Rattrap. But it…don’t…matter no more. I’m a dead piece a-”

“Hey, we’ve got a valuable soldier here in need of attention! Will someone help him for God’s sake?”

Joe continued scrubbing away the charred bits of metal, his hands already cut and bleeding from this repetitive procedure.

“Okay buddy, you don’t have to talk anymore. I’m not going back up there coz if I do, I’ll never come back anywhere again. Instead, I’m going to stay here and help you. Now, because they don’t teach first aid on transformers back on more-water-than-earth-but-stupidly-named-after-the-latter, I’m going to need you to guide me a bit. ’Kay?”

Rattrap shivered as more energy ripped through him. Strangely, the energy didn’t give Joe any sensation of a shock at all.

“I had a pet mouse once. He fell off the table and I did CPR on him,” Joe said.

Joe did this and watched in awe as the dismantled little machine transformed into a burnt piece of toast that very vaguely resembles a pink rat.

“Typical ignorance! AGH!! Okay, take…an energon tube…an’ stick it in my mouth! My energon absorber…on…my robot mode…is stuffed. Yous know what an energon tube is?”

“YES thanks to Jason’s incessant transformer biology classes I DO know what it is AND what it looks like. It’s your lucky day!”

Joe scampered off and a few minutes later returned with a small box with an attached tube. He inserted it into Rattrap’s mouth and pressed the ‘on’ button. He basically was giving him some nutrients…kind of like a transformer drip.

“YA GOTTA LEAVE!!! Dey got invisibility cloaks! Any minute now…dey gonna send in invisible troops, or worse…hover tanks! Tell yer officer ta fall back…an’ if dey don’t listen…tell ’em ta talk ta me!” Rattrap screamed.

Joe didn’t hesitate to ask for permission to retreat.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Of course this will complicate things, but this war isn’t going to wait for anyone. I say you adjust the ranking immediately and replace General Pernicious with yourself, sir.”

The two bots stood in a small, badly lit room inside and out building of the Quantile Head Quarters Complex. The building had been sealed off for investigation after the death of Pernicious and all orders were being directed from smaller buildings outside.

Four- star General Alesion was the rank directly below Pernicious, and thus assumed his position after his demise. But the new five star general was unsure whether to move up some of his men in rank just yet…not until the killer was found. Major Megatron was advising him otherwise.

“It’s not that sir,” Megatron interrupted, “I simply desire an example to be set that in spite of this, the Predacon army is not halted in any way and will continue as normal. We cannot wait for it may take weeks to years to find this killer, whoever he or she may be,” Megatron pressed further.

“Worried about what, sir?” Megatron asked quietly as he stepped over to the general, who had his back to him.

The General turned to face him, his turquoise eyes duller than usual against his black face.

“I am worried that one of our senior officers did this, in order to be moved up in rank. Power is on the mind of every Predacon,” the general pointed out, the statement not applying to him, as he was forty miles away when it happened.

“In all due respect sir, I believe we have the highest trained, most honorable officers on our side and fail to see how any of them could do such a thing!”

“Oh you’d be surprised,” the general suddenly growled, staring directly at Megatron.

“I will make my decision this evening. Are we finished for now, major?” Alesion asked.

He turned and left the room, trying not to look worried nor intimidated, but hurrying on his way nonetheless.

The general watched him leave right until Megatron was out of range of the security cameras.

“You’ve a bad record, major. Golden disks and whatnot...,” General Alesion trailed.

He turned to look at the screens in front of him, monitoring the situation at both Aswade (now under heavy attack) and Vixadonia.

“But you’d make a fine colonel.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………

From a distance, he could see the visible ships splitting into two groups, one group flying behind him.

And from a distance, when he looked behind he could see a large rescue vessel, like the one he’d been on, begin to land.

Dinobot knew that the only reason he was alive was that the hover tanks, which searched out the fleeing Maximals from the vessel B- 98 Turbo, could not locate him because of his beast mode.

Also due to the fact that he’d woken up after the crash and had wondered outside while the officers squabbled over what to do, and had been away when the vessel was bombed. Those who survived hid in empty houses and under bits of rubble, trying to make their way to the city in the hope that the shields would break and they could get inside. All were sought out and destroyed either by h-tanks or by bombs. Dinobot himself had transformed and hid, knowing full well that retaliating was no good.

And now he was here, standing on top of a pile of rubble, looking at the once grand city of Vixadonia, from a distance.

Dinobot, in raptor form, let out a low growl and flicked his tail about aggressively.

He had not seen the demise of the B-98 passengers, but he had heard the explosions, the screams and the sudden silence that fell once the roaring of the hover tanks had passed. He had guessed they had headed for the city to kill and maim all inside, now that the shields were down. And to top that, right now, when he looked around, he could see another rescue vessel heading this way.

It was dark, but he could already see the faint shimmers of dawn peeping over a horizon that never used to be visible. The city behind him, Dizan, had been flattened, to say the least.

“No,” he whispered as he saw the rescue vessel come in closer, obviously here to drop off survivors of another defeated Maximal city.

“No, can’t you see that Vixadonia is beyond help? Go back,” he hissed softly.

With a hiss he sprinted towards the ship, thankful that his raptor mode was fast and good at jumping over piles of bodies and rubble.

Yet he was halfway there when a tremendous explosion from behind him (he had since turned his back to the city) made the ground beneath him rumble and he stumbled and crashed onto shards of metal, cutting his delicate skin.

He screamed in pain and leapt back up, shaking away the bits of broken glass and metal and turned to look at Vixadonia.

All he could see was a rising mushroom cloud.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Chimera and Kismet were standing, invisible, on the border of the city when an explosion sent up a fiery ball straight in front of them. Thankfully, they were physically transparent. Kismet turned to where she guessed Chimera was. Because the noise from the explosion drowned out all other sound, she spoke to her in telepathy.

“Chimera, go and check if Diamond and her rescue ship has landed. I am going to deal with these slagging Predacons!”

Kismet growled and flew out of the mushroom cloud and up above the city to try and get a better view.

What she saw directly behind the explosion from her position floating above the city, surprised her greatly.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Rattrap sighed wearily and gazed at the entrance to the medic camp. The entrance was a manhole that led onto a platform, which led down a few stairs to the medic base. Not the best kind of entrance for people without legs and such, but they couldn’t be picky.

All of a sudden, the human who’d rescued him earlier appeared at the entrance.

Although none could see the explosion from underground, they could definitely hear and feel it.

The human was sent flying over the short flight of steps and he landed on the floor, skidding on his stomach. Around them, glass shattered under the pressure of the tremendous noise and even the battery-powered lights went out. Large objects were flung across the room and thudded against the walls and into the medics and injured bots. The noise was so tremendously loud that Rattrap dulled his hearing (a thing he was glad transformers could do). Rattrap had guessed that the city’s frontline had been annihilated, but for now there was nothing anybody could do. He had lived through enough wars to know that. He could feel the shivering body of the human beside him and felt sorry for him. The poor organic was probably suffering near deafness from the explosion and his fragile form was trembling from the shock. Anonymous objects began falling all around and Rattrap realised the roof was giving in.
They were trapped, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. The human jolted suddenly and Rattrap swore he could almost hear him scream. Something must have hit the little thing and crushed one of his limbs or something. Rattrap decided if he wasn’t going to live through this, he might as well help someone else. He crouched over the human forming a kind of temple above him, shielding him from the falling debris. There was enough that fell on Rattrap that merely scathed his metal, but would have killed the human. After a moment that felt like eternity, the rumbling subsided and the world became quieter. Rattrap chanced raising his hearing sensors to find that he could hear voices and moans.

Someone switched on a small light, like a torch and the beam of light flowed over the forms of the medic camp occupants for a brief moment. When the light passed over the human, Rattrap could see he was alive with his eyes open a little, and that there was a chunk of metal resting on his shin. Rattrap sat down and pushed the metal off his leg. The torch beam went onto another section of the room and they were in a dark grey kind of darkness. Rattrap could see the glint the white of the organic’s eyes made even through his helmet as it caught the light.

“You okay?” Rattrap whispered, his ears picking up to the sound of gunfire outside.

“This suit has a soundproof shield that comes around my ears when it gets too loud. Thank God for that, or I’d be deaf. I only heard a little bit of the explosion,” the human said, his voice shaky. Rattrap helped him up and eyed his leg. The suit hadn’t been cut, but he figured he’d had been bruised at least.

Rattrap nodded and looked about, Joe was able to see this as he could follow the glow of his red optics.

“Erm, thanks for shielding me. The last thing I needed was for the glass of my helmet to be broken, and for me to be asphyxiated in your atmosphere. My name’s Joe, by the way.”

“Yeah, let’s call it equal. Now, if ya don’t mind, Joe, I gotta find a way outta here an’ see what’s happening outside,” Rattrap said.

Both turned to look at the entrance, as did the guy with a torch. It had caved in.

Without hesitating, he shot at the entrance and the debris went flying and everyone ducked. After a little while, they looked up to see the entrance platform was cleared and everyone turned to look at Joe.

“Yeah, you’re free to go. And I am guilty as charged for freeing you,” Joe said aloud.

Rattrap shook the shards of metal from his back and eyed his own tattered body over.

“Hey,” Joe began. “How come you can speak fluently and aren’t dead yet?” he asked.

“I was mostly tired when I came in. Despite my injuries, I’m pretty healthy. We have internal healin’ systems superior to yours. I have sustained worse before an’ lived ta tell da tale. I am all right now, which is why I myself am gonna check da situation up dere, unless anyone else wants ta do it?”

“Good,” Rattrap mumbled and stood up and climbed over tables and transformers to the entrance/exit.

Rattrap removed the last pieces of rubble blocking the manhole exit. When he looked up through the manhole he could see nothing but thick smog. He climbed up the ladder (still in rat mode) and once on ground, kept low to it. He looked about and could see nothing. It was as if the bomb or bombs had been dropped a few meters from here.

Rattrap decided to head deeper into the city, away from its front where the explosion had happened, to try and get into a still intact building and get to the top floor. There he could hopefully get a better view on what had happened, although he feared the worst.

His spark shuddered from shock and fear as he crept away from the mass graveyard. One moment there were humans everywhere up here, the next it was a barren landscape. He doubted the officer had listened to Joe and that the humans had got away in time. Rattrap left the area of destruction and moved out of the billowing cloud of ash. Yet, as he headed towards a tall building, he spotted approaching figures in the distance. He hid behind a mound of debris and watched them as they approached. A large group of transformers walked quietly towards him and his spark fluctuated in shock. Were those the new Predacon inhabitants? Should he run and warn the others? Warn them to do what? Where could they go?

All of Rattrap’s worries and fears left him when he actually saw the approaching group properly. They were all Maximals, and flying silently above them were ships. Rattrap had no idea where this help had come from, who had alerted them of the trouble at Vixadonia and how they had managed to get past the P. Air Force. But quite frankly, he didn’t care. He stood and jogged towards them, holding up his arms to show he meant no harm.

“I’m a Maximal! Don’t shoot! An’, by da way, dere are some humans in da medic base awaiting help. Dey’re down a manhole on da frontline,” he cried. The group hesitated at his arrival but moved on by the command of a sergeant, who had obviously noted that Rattrap was indeed harmless.

The figures now were close enough to show detail and to Rattrap’s utter amazement, and much to his delight, walking in the front line of the group was Tourmaline.

He froze and stared, just a few meters away. She was squinting in his direction, then her eyes widened in recognition. She stopped dead in her tracks and the rest of the group marched on without her.

“Oh, Tour, I thought I’d lost you! I love you Tourmaline, I love you so, so much! An’ I’m so sorry for what I said,” he blurted, far too quickly.

“Rattrap, Optimus never dropped me off at Kiulist. As he tried to fly me in, he saw the enemy ships go invisible and knew instantly that it was too dangerous to fly in. He decided to rather take me to Aswade while we could get away. From there, we assembled troops from groups of survivors from other cities and headed towards Vixadonia. Optimus told me that he’d organized rescue ships to get you guys out of Kiulist, so with that hope, I went along with the new plans. No one knew that Vixie was in this much trouble, but it was just as well that we got here and dealt with those Pred ships,” she explained.

“Yeah, but how’d you do that? Dey got signature blockers an’ dey are invisible!”

“Human technology, would you believe? Our ships are using good old-fashioned radar!”

“That,” she said, “was in fact a massive aerial attack by our air force against theirs. The whole explosion took place above, not on ground so the humans below only had to deal with the falling pieces of planes. Most had retreated to the eastern part of the city, where the shield was still unbroken. From what I have gathered, the meat of the Predacon air force is gone.”

Rattrap felt a heavy weight being lifted from his shoulders. He knew, in his heart, that Vixadonia was saved. There weren’t many Predacon jets; just enough to break the shields, so this time the Maximals had the advantage.

“I’ve had it up ta here wid’ dese sergeants. What say you and I beat dis joint and find somewhere quiet? I think da Maximals and da EA will manage just fine without us,” he asked, a sly grin on his face.

With that, the two slipped away from the rest of the group and found a quiet place to be alone together, for the first time in a while.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A few hours later…

It was getting dark on this part of Cybertron, which seemed fitting because the sky seemed to do so as the news of Vixadonia’s fall to the Maximals reached the Quantile base.

Waspinator was standing in the back row of a large hall, where all the top officers and strategists were meeting to hear of such news. He felt rather out of place, but since he was Megatron’s assistant, he got a pass into meeting seminars like this. Beside him, Vindictive and Megatron stood listening to the new General. Waspinator could see that Megatron was worried and tense as the reports of those cities lost were announced. Waspinator knew that when Megatron left Hashlyn, he left Asphyxiate behind. He had no idea whether Megatron left the serpent in charge, but if he did, he knew that Megatron was in some trouble. To what extent his punishment would be, Waspinator feared to think.

“As you will know, the loss of both Vixadonia and Hashlyn is only temporary. In both cases we were taken completely by surprise, which shows that we have underestimated our opponents. However, it was the element of surprise that got us over sixty major Maximal cities.”

There was a low murmur of pleasant surprise that went through the hundred attendants.

“Aswade is the main air base of the Maximals and stands, at present, unconquered. It is with fighter jets from this base that the Maximals claimed back these two cities. Maximal fighters are formidable and despite their lack of invisibility cloaks and signature blockers, they have proven powerful still. I say to you, that the Predacon Air force was defeated at Vixadonia by ships that were both fully visible on our screens and in the air. They defeated us by the use of simple, old fashioned radar.”

“So, what does this mean? The very metal on our ships has to be coated with a substance that will prevent the radar from finding us. This is both humiliating and shameful to our race! Further research into past human technologies have shown that earthlings have indeed found ways around the coatings as well with heat radar, which actually x-rays a ship and searches for heat. Although the amount is little, transformers do let of a certain amount of heat. With more and more EA jets arriving by the day, such technology is being brought right into the hands of our enemies,” the general informed them all.

Officers turned and glanced at each other and whispered their shocked exclamations.

Megatron looked a little shaken by this humiliation, but his face was still solemn and cold. General Alesion had not yet gone onto how Hashlyn was defeated and, in further detail, what had exactly happened to General Pernicious. Waspinator had a feeling that Megatron had something to do with the demise of their former general. He for one knew that Megatron wasn’t very fond of Kyroid…

Waspinator’s eyes narrowed to slits as he glared suspiciously at Megatron, almost positive that he was onto him. Yet when Megatron glanced at Waspinator, the wasp’s stare fled from his face and he quickly turned around. Rather pale. He chose to forget what was in fact the truth.

“As for the defeat of the city Hashlyn,” Alesion said, his voice rising. Megatron stiffened.

“We were again defeated by a simple idea. Guerilla warfare. Maximals had obviously not been fully defeated and the city was not cleansed of them. They waited until all Predacons were off their guard and then attacked. They did it with such cleverness and careful planning, that when the Maximal air force came along, it was too much for all Predacons to handle. The majorities of our troops were captured and are being held as prisoners of war. This defeat proved to us that conquered cities must from now on, be double-checked and fully scanned before any of our troops are allowed in. I formerly lay no charges on the major and the deceased captain who were in charge around the time, as it was the fault of the officers who first ‘defeated’ Hashlyn for not cleaning it out properly.”

“So, it is a simple matter of awareness that will ensure that slip-ups like this don’t happen again. Our senior officers and our scientists are working together on a solution to the radar problem. As for General Pernicious and the other two bots, the case is closed. There is not time at present to search for the killer and I have decided to merely jack up security around the main offices and back up power supplies are being installed. I am moving a number of officers up in rank and a list will be placed on the notice board of rank promotions tomorrow. Another seminar will be held in a deca-cycle. Dismissed.”

The crowds suddenly erupted into a frenzy of chatter as officers discussed their various theories and opinions. Being at the back of the hall, Waspinator was one of the first ones out. As he left the room, he caught a glance at Megatron.

The major was smiling again with a renewed kind of determination Waspinator only recognized as a hint of insanity.

………………………………………………………………………………………………