“We’re dead, we’re dead, we’re DEAD…” Cliffjumper whimpered upon seeing the huge spaceship. The vast Vexoran craft was filling the entire sky, even though it was so far away it was skimming the Earth’s outer atmosphere.

     “What is that thing!?” Obsidian asked, breaking off from his attack on Atlas and transforming into robot mode. He turned his optics on infrared, as did everyone else in the area—since the massive Vexoran battleship was blocking out all sunlight, and only the tiniest specks of artificial light came from distant windows on its underside, it was far too dark to see normally. “It doesn’t look like a Cybertronian spacecraft…”

     “It’s your leader Scourge’s PALS,” Bulkhead said. “Y’know, the guy you work for? He’s an alien.”

     “But…. Impossible!” Obsidian said, bewildered. “Buzzsaw couldn’t have been… no….”

     “Look, Obsidian, you can sort out your emotional state later,” Atlas said, wavering a bit in the air as he fiddled internally with his engine output. “That thing’s so massive, it’s actually messing with the gravity a little. It’s easy to compensate for, but if that starship is big enough to actually have its own gravitational pull, it’s going to make VERY short work of us! We have to get out of here, now!”

     Obsidian looked around at the surrounding trees—indeed, though the pull wasn’t nearly strong enough to, say, rip the trees from the ground or send any animals flying into the air, the leaves and branches of the trees seemed a little higher off the ground than they were last time he looked.

     “’Bots, LOOK!” Cliffjumper shouted, pointing towards a cannon that was unfolding out of the bottom of the spacecraft. It looked tiny from this far away, but given that it was all the way in the outer atmosphere…

     “They’re getting ready to fire on us!” Atlas shouted. “Everyone, get out of here, NOW! Back to our ship!”

     Considering everything he had worked towards since his activation was falling apart, Obsidian pulled himself out of his stupor remarkably quickly. “Vehicons, fall back! Follow Atlas, leave the wounded, there’s no time for anything else!”

     As fast as they possibly could, Atlas, Bulkhead, Landmine, Obsidian, Scavenger, Strika, and Mirage transformed and zoomed away from the communications outpost, heading towards the northeast where Atlas’ ship had landed. Tankorr, the only one damaged in the fight who hadn’t gone completely off-line, yelled out for someone to help him, as his optics had been destroyed, but as much as they wanted to, the Vehicons continued to flee. There was simply no time to help anyone injured from the fight. The cannon was already starting to glow yellow as it powered up, and another cannon was starting to fold out from another place on the spaceship’s underside.

     Atlas did a double-take.

     Wait a minute.

     Someone was missing.

     “Cliffjumper!” Atlas yelled into his comlink. “Get out of there NOW and follow us, that’s an ORDER! We don’t have time to help Hot Shot!”

     “No, he’s my best bud!” came Cliffjumper’s voice back over the comlink. “I can’t just leave him here! I can make it!*grunt* There, I got him… Now, all I have to do is—“

     “Cliffjumper, get OUT NOW!” Atlas screamed in panic just as the glowing cannon fired. Within a few seconds, the massive yellow beam zoomed through the atmosphere, momentarily blinding the fleeing ‘bots a millisecond before it crashed into the area directly behind them, slamming into it with all the force of a meteor. The ground was completely obliterated from the impact, and the massive wave of force that followed from what had to be at least a mile-wide destructive beam swept over the Transformers, sending the ones in the air spinning uncontrollably into the distance, while the ones on the ground were blown into the air for several hundred yards.

     “CLIFFJUMPER!!” Atlas screamed in grief as the world turned a blinding yellow around him while he tumbled through the air. A few disorienting seconds later, he slammed full-on into a hillside, and everything turned black.

     Tigerhawk gaped in horror as a huge yellow beam slammed into the Earth just over the horizon… and it looked like another one of the starship’s huge cannons was coming online as well.

     “What do we do!?” Silverbolt yelled, his voice near-panic. “They just destroyed—“

     “No, they couldn’t have destroyed the Ark, nor the Predacon base-- that’s not the right direction,” Tigerhawk replied. “It must have been something else the Vexorans decided to annihilate first.”

     “Then what dost thou recommend we do?” Gryphtron said. “Surely the Vexorans will destroy the Ark next, we shan’t—“

     “No,” Tigerhawk interrupted. “No, the Vexorans want to preserve their version of the time stream, not warp it. The Earth, over time, will heal from those blasts, but time will not heal if the Ark is destroyed. We must put aside our differences with Rhinox and return to the Ark—it is the only place where we may be safe for the immediate future.”

     “Are you insane!?” Dinobot growled, wincing as the second cannon, now fully on-line, shot towards another objective, this target a bit further over the horizon than the previous blast. The ground shook slightly, and after the Transformers regained their balance, the velociraptor continued. “The Vexorans will not just leave us be! If they cannot blow the Ark to kingdom come, they will take out anyone gathered there personally!”

     “Perhaps,” Tigerhawk said, narrowing his optics, “But at least this way we will be able to take some of them down with us.”

     “Alright, Dreadwing’s in the airlock already!” Barricade said hurriedly, double-checking the console screen to make sure he was correct. “So let’s blast off and GET OUT OF HERE! That starship’s bound to notice us soon enough!”

     “Couldn’t agree with y’ more, mate,” Slugslinger replied, as he steered their ship around and in the opposite direction of the massive starship. “That ship’s got enough guns to easily handle the guys on Earth while still picking us off.”

     Opening up a link to Dreadwing in the airlock, Barricade said, “Dreadwing, buckle yourself down! We’re going to enter transwarp space in a few nanoclicks!”

     “Affirmative,” Dreadwing said, his voice as cold as ever. “Shockwave must know of what we have found….immediately.”

     “High Guardian Zaknos,” Scourge said as he, Scarem and Eclipse stepped out of the ship that had sent for them and into the battlecruiser’s docking bay. He prostrated himself on the floor in front of the Vexoran supreme ruler, and Scarem and Eclipse did the same. “Scarem and myself thank you immensely for your help in this matter. I have also brought along with me a Transformer I have created lacking the free will of the others, whom I have named Eclipse. We are glad that you came when you did, since—“

     “You think too highly of yourself, Scourge,” Zaknos rasped, his eyes narrowed to slits. The Vexoran was several centuries old, to the point where he now had so many life support systems hooked up to him that he was more machine than living tissue. His voice was very dry and scratchy, and it had a metallic twang from various mechanical systems hooked up to the Vexoran equivalent of a respiratory system. He hovered a few feet off the ground on a hoverchair. “We are not here to settle your squabbles with a pack of lowly beasts. We do appreciate your information regarding the continued infestation of the Project, though, and after much deliberation we have decided to follow your recommended course of action. The time stream cannot suffer much more damage without threatening the existence of the Liege and his future plans.

    “However, we are very, very disappointed with your and Tarad’s failure to eliminate such a minute amount of lower life forms. Instead, you have only exacerbated the problem by bringing more of them online. Luckily, this error will be remedied shortly. Your failures have cost us a considerable amount of time and effort, Scourge. Consider yourselves under imprisonment until further investigation is conducted into the matter—and that creature you brought aboard with you is to be deactivated as well.”

    “But—“ Scourge protested. He couldn’t believe the High Guardian blamed him for the problem! He was nothing but loyal to the Vexoran cause!

    “Question me, and you will shatter your hopes of any freedom at all,” Zaknos warned. “Guards, take Scourge and Scarem to the medical center to restore their natural states. Afterwards, lock them up in the cells. Take Eclipse to the waste center to be recycled upon our return to Vexora.”

    The guards flanking Zaknos moved forward and prodded the duo away. Scourge and Scarem, both seething with rage, reluctantly let themselves be led to the medical center. Scourge gave Eclipse a warning look as he was led away not to resist the guards.

     “Atlas! Atlas do you--- me? ---las!”

     Atlas groaned as the noise from his crackling comlink tugged him back into the world of the living. Transforming painfully into robot mode, Atlas turned on his comlink.

     “Ugh… Rhinox?”

     “Atlas! Thank the Matrix you’re --line! Where the slag are you? We figured after -- hit the satellite station where you and the --icons had been going at it—“

     “Well, I kinda did crash into a hillside…. We lost Cliffjumper and Hot Shot, but it looks like rest of us are okay,” Atlas noted, looking around and seeing the other ‘bots around him starting to come back online. Landmine and Strika had been badly burned, but still seemed to be able to move with minor pain. “We made an emergency pact with the Vehicons for the time being. Listen, we’ve got to get to my shuttle before—“

     “Too late,” Rhinox replied sadly. “A beam--- ready hit it a few minutes ago. Get back to the Ark, and hurry! The Vex-- nding down troops by the thousands, according to-- scanners!  They won’t direct their beams here, so we’ve got a chance, albeit a small one.”

     “Got it, Atlas out,” The Maximal commander replied. “Alright ‘bots, we’re heading to the Ark! It’s the safest place left!” With that, Atlas flew into the air, followed by the rest of the small group of survivors. Looking up, Atlas saw small discs starting to break off from the bottom of the mothership overhead. As if things couldn’t get any worse…

     Injector wiped the soot from his face and slowly stood up, staring at the large smoking crater behind him, Spittor, and Sandstorm.

     “We’d, uh… we’d better….” Sandstorm stuttered. For once, the scorpion didn’t know what to say.

     “They’re… they’re all gone…” Injector said, his face twitching. “They’re all GONE! THEY’RE ALL DEAD!”

     The trio of Predacons stood in silence for a moment, staring at what was left of their base. Even the lava beneath it had evaporated under the intense heat—there was no sign that a large Predacon ship had ever been there. The only reason Injector, Spittor, and Sandstorm survived was because they had happened to be on guard duty at the time the mothership directed a beam at their home base, and seeing as how they were patrolling the outskirts of the base’s perimeter, they had only been blown back by the blast without getting hit by its full force.

    “That was one heckuva big blast,
     But we gotta get outta here fast!” Spittor said in his usual rapping beat.

     “But, uh, where do we go, pardner?” Sandstorm questioned. “Ain’t nowhere left fer us to run…”

     “They’re all dead…” Injector moaned.

     “Snap out of it man, it’s no time to panic!
     Now get a grip before you go all manic!” Spittor rapped, slapping Injector in the face.

     “Y-you’re right,” Injector said, shaking his head. “L-listen, guys, I think the Ark’s our only chance. I didn’t see the ship fire in the Ark’s direction yet, so the ship’s probably still in one piece.”

     “Are you crazy, hombre?!” Sandstorm yelled. “Those Maxies’ll gut us alive!”

     “I’m betting they’ll want all the help they can get, same as us,” Injector stated. “Look, you guys got any better ideas?”

     Silence.

     “Alright, then,” Injector said, transforming into his beast mode. The others followed suit.

     “We’re gonna die one way or th’ other,
     So we might as well just go for it, brothas…” Spittor said as the three ran or flew as fast as they could in the direction of the Ark.

     “There’s four hundred ships leaving the mothership’s docking bays and counting,” K-9 gulped as he cycled through the main monitor’s various output screens. “Well, as much as I like to think of myself as an optimist… it’s been nice knowing ya, folks.”

     The rest of the Maximals were all gathered together in the main room, watching the viewscreens and nervously awaiting the inevitable.

     “Well, at least I’ll go down fightin’, just like I always wanted to,” Bonecrusher said, his voice uncharacteristically heavy with dread.

     “This is all my fault,” Rhinox said quietly to the ‘bot who had become his confidant over the past several months, Nighteye.

     “What? Why the slag would you say that!?” Nighteye said.

     “I… I’ve pushed this team too hard, focusing only on beating Scourge, trying to avenge all the deaths he and Megatron have caused, I didn’t… I didn’t even think about directing our effort towards building a ship to get off of this planet. Surely with the amount of Maximals at our disposal now, we could have scrounged up enough materials by this time to reconstruct a good portion of the Axalon, perhaps to the point where it could have been spaceworthy again…”

     “And then what? Let Scourge get away with running this planet? Even sending a skeleton crew on a resurrected Axalon back to Cybertron for help, it would have given us enough of a disadvantage—Scourge would have overrun us as soon as he found out.”

     “Well, at least we’d have had a better chance then we do now,” Rhinox said bitterly.

     “We’d got multiple energy signatures advancing on the base!” K-9 reported to the gathered group. “For the most part, they’re who we expected—Atlas, his gang, and the Vehicons, as well as Tigerhawk’s little club, but… we’ve also got three Predacon energy signatures incoming as well-- Spittor, Injector, and Sandstorm, apparently.”

     “Figures,” Blackarachnia stated. “With the rest of the Predacon base destroyed, the few survivors must’ve run with their tails between their legs to the only safe place they knew, even IF it meant bunking with Maximals.”

     “Hey! Wazzpinator join Maximalzz by choizz!” The transmetal wasp-bot protested.

     “I wasn’t making a universal statement, Bugbrain.”

     “Let them in, K-9,” Rhinox called out. “Just be sure to keep an eye on the Predacons. I don’t think they’ll pull anything, but… we can never be too sure.”

     “Alright,” K-9 replied, “But they’ll only be arriving about a cycle or so before the Vexoran horde itself does. Get ready, ‘bots—in about three cycles, we’ll be making our last stand.”

     “Hey, where Taran?” Dinotron asked, looking around.

     “What!?” Rhinox said, quickly doing a headcount of all the assembled Maximals. Yes, everyone was there except Taran, so he hadn’t taken any of them with him to perform any more sick experiments on… so where had he gone?

     “Found him,” K-9 stated, “The indoor surveillance cameras show him trying to run some type of program in a door inside the Ark itself.”

     “Slaggit, he better not be betraying us again!” Rhinox cursed. “Blackarachnia, Sigma Prime, the Dinobots, with me! Let’s find out what Taran is doing and stop him if it seems the last bit suspicious! The rest of you, get your weapons ready and help the others in when they get here, we’ve got less than 2 cycles until the Vexorans arrive at our front door!”

     “Taran, stop right there! What the slag are you doing?” Rhinox said, aiming his rotary gun-hands at Taran, while the other Maximals with him arrived and readied their weapons as well.

     “Awfully paranoid, aren’t we?” Taran chuckled, though otherwise he ignored the Maximals by continuing to hack into the security system that was holding this door inside the Ark closed. “I’m just providing you a means of escape, that’s all. No need to get all agitated, heh.”

     “What Taran mean?” Triceradon questioned, lowering his weapon slightly.

     “I mean… this,” Taran said, as he punched in a few last commands into the door and with a hiss, the ancient airlock slided open.

     Inside was a large—well, it was large compared to the Maximals, it was probably somewhat small compared to the Autobots—Autobot shuttle, in all its ancient glory. It was a little dented in some places from when the Ark crashed here millions of years ago, but it certainly was in good enough condition for spaceflight.

     “But… the history tracks never mentioned this!” Blackarachnia said, confused.

     “History’s still being made…” Rhinox said in realization.

     “Why didn’t you tell us about this before, Taran!?” Sigma Prime demanded.

     “Obviously, I didn’t want any of you to leave the planet too soon,” Taran said. “I helped you get assistance from Cybertron, but at an opportune time for myself—you think it was a coincidence that Maximal help arrived only about a day before the Vexorans did as well? And here I thought you Transformers were intelligent…”

     “Say the word, and me Grimlock cut him to pieces…” the white-and-black velociraptor-bot growled.

     “Why? I thought you wanted to keep the Transformer race alive!” Blackarachnia asked.

     “I do, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m also not very fond of my own race, either,” Taran smirked. “I figured, why not have your race prove yourselves by going up against one of the most powerful races in the galaxy? Prove that you’re worthy of existing, I say, by eliminating my own kin. If you win, congratulations, and my Vexoran problems are solved. If not, then I guess I overestimated your potential, but at least a planetful of you will leave a sizeable dent in the Vexoran fleet. The Vexorans do not take you lightly anymore, not since you blew up both their planet buster and Tarad’s starship—they’ve sent their entire military force to conquer you. If you think the mothership that’s visible in the sky here is the only one circling the planet, well, you’re in for a nasty surprise. You should be honored, I suppose. But regardless, either way, I win to some extent, heheh.”

     “Me Triceradon had enough!” the tricera-bot yelled in rage, and fired his blaster at Taran. Cheetor’s upgraded shell was too fast, though, and Taran dodged the blast with little effort.

     “A little impatient, are we?” Taran chuckled. “Now, can I finish monologing? The Vexorans should just now be getting within the autoguns’ firing range, we still have time. It’s the least you ‘bots can do, since I was so nice that I helped you send out a message giving Cybertron advance warning of the impending attack. If you’ll give me about another cycle, I can make some quick modifications and turn this shuttle’s shield into a cloaking device that will hide you from even the Vexoran’s sensors. Then I’ll teleport off this planet and leave you to make it out on your own.”

     “You’re so full of slag,” Rhinox growled. “You don’t care if our race exists our not, despite what you say. You’re just using our kind as a way to destroy your own hated kin.”

     “The point is moot,” Taran said, “Let me get to work now, Rhinox, before I get bored and leave.”

     Suddenly, Rhinox’s comlink crackled on.

     “Rhinox, the Vexorans are starting to pierce the blast doors!” K-9’s voice said over the com, though it was hard to hear him over all the metal straining noises in the background. “All the autoguns have been destroyed! What are you doing over there!?”

     Rhinox sighed heavily and nodded for Taran to continue with his work. Turning on his comlink, he replied, “K-9, all of you, fallback to the Ark! I repeat, fallback! We may have found our ticket out of here!”

     “Well… not all of you,” Taran said as he opened a panel on the bottom of the Autobot shuttle and started working.

     “What do you mean, ‘not all of us’?” Sigma Prime said, narrowing his optics.

     “Isn’t it obvious? This shuttle was made for carrying a maximum of four Autobots. Given our smaller size, I imagine you could fit sixteen Maximals in here without topping the spacecraft’s weight limit. The rest of you will die.

     “Choose wisely, Rhinox—I know how much you love making life-and-death decisions, heheh.”

To be continued…

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