CHAPTER ONE ONLINE. The memories come first. Memories of my troops. Memories of war, of peace, of friends, of enemies. Then of capture. Of eons of endless torture at the hands of the Chaos Bringer. Of insanity. Of the promise of release. All I had to do was destroy everything. And I almost did. Almost. VAPOR SENSOR SYSTEM ONLINE. I smell oil, hydraulics, coolant, waste. This isn’t a session. I don’t know how to feel about that. Optimus - this universe’s Optimus - took pity on me. He had me dismantled, examined, analyzed in an effort to rehabilitate me. My entire existence since then has been spent offline or in the presence of that headshrink, Rung. AURAL SENSORS ONLINE. Footsteps. The whirring of machinery. I hear a gruff, nasally voice saying “He’s coming back. I don’t like this.” Another voice, cool and calculating, says, “What’s he going to do, Wheeljack? Head butt us to death?” TACTILE SENSORS ONLINE. I feel three taps to my forehead. Cool and calculating says, “You in there?” OPTICAL SENSORS ONLINE: Oddly, it’s now that I realize I’m paralyzed. I feel nothing below my neck. My optic - the left one doesn’t seem to be working - slowly comes into focus. There are three Cybertronians staring at me. VOCAL PROCESSOR ONLINE. I manage to croak out, “I’m here.” Cool and calculating looks at me. I cannot read his face, it is a mask of emotionless indifference. Cool and calculating turns to one of the bots and asks, “Perceptor, is he stable?” A nod from Perceptor and cool and calculating launches in. “I’m Chief Security Officer Prowl. We’re having a bit of a … situation. It’s the first bit of emotion I get from him. Fear. Just a hint. “This,” an image appears before me, a hologram, “is the prison planet Garrus 9. The worst offenders - both ‘Bot and “Con - end up there. The only reason you’re not there is by request of Optimus.” There’s a bit of anger in Prowl’s last sentence. A bit of ire. Maybe even some mutinous intent. He continues. “Three years ago there was an incident that forced us to send in a special ops team. A prison riot. It was so bad, we turned the whole planet into a prison and let the scum have free reign. The entirety of Garrus 9 is one massive unsupervised prison. No guards, no warden, no rules. Just the prisoners running free.” The hologram flickers a bit, and thousands of dots around the planet appear. “To make sure there are no escapes from Garrus 9, a defense grid has been set up. Thousands of satellites in a geosynchronous orbit around the planet, each armed with a variety of weapons. Nothing bigger than a turbofox leaves. “And you woke me to brag?” Perceptor chimes in. “Your psychological profile shows that you have made great strides in recent years. You have been granted a rare opportunity to … prove yourself.” Prowl takes over. “Three days ago, the Autobot ship Lazurus sent out a distress call. The Lazurus’ transponder shows that it has crashed on the surface of Garrus 9, here.” An Autobot insignia appears near the equatorial region of the planet. “That ship is a risk. It carries the codes necessary to disarm the satellites surrounding the planet and offers a means of escape.” Something’s not adding up. I ask, “Why not blow it up from here? It had to have a self destruct device. Even if it didn’t, blow it up from orbit.” “We need to retrieve the pilot.” The hologram flickers again. A face is staring back at me, triangular and wide-eyed. “This is Resurrection Specialist Scrounge,” Wheeljack states. “He’s the best at what he does.” “And what does Scrounge do, exactly?” Prowl bends over, places both his hands on the table. I’m on a table. I’m not paralyzed. I’m decapitated. Prowl’s optics narrow. “Our leader has a nasty habit of self sacrifice. But most of the time we’re able to recover his spark chamber and rebuild. Other times, well … never mind. We started building spare bodies for Optimus so that the amount of time we’re left leaderless is cut to a minimum. That’s why we need you to recover the cargo as well.” The hologram flickers again. A full body image of Optimus Prime stares back. I notice that in the corner of the lab a black, headless copy of that body stands. “This hologram is of OP-WL-021 Transtector. A spare body specially designed for forest and wetland combat. Scrounge was transporting that back here.” “Where is here?” I ask. “Here is none of your damn business,” Prowl says in a very matter of fact tone. “You want a shot at redemption? Go to Garrus 9, destroy the Lazurus, rescue Scrounge, retrieve the Transtector. Sky Lynx will take you there. You’ll be going down and coming back up in a pod that’s calibrated so that only you or Scrounge can pilot it.” “I might do better if you give me two working eyes.” “No can do, Nemesis. That left optic? Not an optic. It’s a capsule containing a single Scraplet. If you haven’t completed your mission within 12 hours of planet fall, it’ll eat you from the inside out. Call it an insurance policy.” Prowl leans over to me, so close that the others can’t hear. He whispers to me, “You know? Part of me is hoping you fail. A really, really big part of me. So what? We lose Scrounge, we lose a ship, we lose a Transtector. To get rid of you without dirtying my hands, well worth it.”
