The Ultimate Price: Part Three

Cheetor approached the silvery-blue shield of Hashlyn and wondered how he was going to get in. He stopped in mid air and hovered there in flight mode. He stood a good chance of being shot if he went any closer without warning the Maximals within that he was of their faction. He was about to try and contact someone using his COM. when a ship glided past him. A hole in the shields appeared for the ship to enter. This was his chance. He followed the ship closely. It went through the hole and he got inside just before the hole closed. What he saw below shocked him.

Hashlyn was busy. The airfield was alive with movement and full of ships. Alarms were sounding and he could hear an anxious voice screaming over the loud speaker.

“That’s the last of the ships allowed in! Hold the shields and don’t open them to let anyone in unless I order otherwise!”

He noticed that the ships were all pointing in one direction. Their engines were roaring and they looked like they were assembled for some kind of take-off formation.

“Alert! Alert! Predacons advancing toward western section of sentinel shield!”

He landed amidst a pandemonium he hadn’t experienced before. He transformed to robot mode and almost got knocked over by a hurrying bot. He stumbled forward and caught his balance.

He heard a loud rumble sounding above the noise of ships and he looked up to see that there were dark clouds gathering in the sky above the shields.

“Would you look at that!” he exclaimed. The atmosphere was chaotic but ominous at the same time. Something had happened and something worse was going to happen.

He looked along the airfield and spotted one bot standing still. She was walking along the side of an aircraft with a cyber board, probably running a routine check.

“Hello, I’m sergeant Cheetor of the Vixadonion Ground Force. I’ve just arrived but I’ve no idea what the situation is here. Could you please explain?”

Outside the shields things were a lot worse. Some Predacons had suffered from energon build up but most of them continued fighting until they’d killed themselves of exposure. They were ruthless and a good deal had managed to get past the energon field and were a safe distance away from it. They’d slaughtered the human defense there and what was left of the EA army retreated back towards the shield to try and prevent the Predacons attacking the base of sentinel.

Joe was one of these humans and now he was standing a mere three meters away from the shield with his back to it. There was only a thin line of humans holding the Predacons back but because the energon radiation was lower here, some Maximals risked leaving the safety of the shields and came to their aid.

Joe was standing next to a tall human soldier who hadn’t ceased firing in about three minutes. His body was trembling but then again, so was Joe’s.

“Do you think they’ll blow up the energon and kill at least some of the Predacons?” Joe yelled above the thundering of explosions.

“Yeah, the Maximal officers have placed a detonator inside the energon. All they have to do is press a button and that’ll kill a good few Preds in a 100-foot radius. I don’t think we’re far away enough not to feel at least some of the blast!”

Joe didn’t like the sound of that. The EA had expected to hold off the Predacons a little longer than they did. They weren’t aware when the strike was coming but Joe got the sense that they weren’t expecting it to happen today. He could tell by the shocked and dismayed faces of the officers. Today, for some unknown reason, was an important day for the Maximals and this Predacon attack wasn’t helping.

There was a lot of dust now, the outer auto guns were almost all gone and smoke and steam rose up from the numerous machines and dead Maximals lying on the floor. Joe could hit more Predacons now because of the way they disturbed the smoke when they ran through it.

“My laser gun’s low on power,” Joe muttered as he eyed the flashing red light on his weapon. He had smuggled a pistol in his pocket when he went to the weapons stand. This pistol was a special kind of weapon that although it only had a few bullets, the bullets were like tiny bombs. When they hit their target they blew up causing termination of the enemy and splash damage to those around him/her.

Joe fired a little longer when his laser gun wore out. He dropped it and fiddled around clumsily in his left leg pocket.

“Come on, where is it!” he hissed. He heard a gut scream and two men down the line a human fell with his hand clasped around his abdomen.

There was a small explosion to his northeast and little shards of metal and dirt hit the glass of his helmet. He closed his eyes instinctively and when he opened them he could hardly see out.

He suddenly felt the cold handle of the gun and pulled it out. He smeared the muck off his helmet with the back on his left hand and aimed with his right.

“I only have a few bullets left. I’d better make them count,” he whispered.

“Gotcha!” he cried and prepared to fire again when he felt a sharp jab of pain in his stomach. It was such violent pain that he fell backwards and landed in a sitting position. His eyes widened in shock and he slowly looked down. His right hand was held tightly against the area that had been hit but blood was already seeping through the cracks between his fingers. His breathing became erratic and his vision blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared.

His eyes filled with tears and one rolled down his cheek. The sky above was dark with clouds and for a brief moment he felt like he was home on earth again. His breathing was shallow now and he knew it was over. He closed his eyes and let death take him.

It was taking too much time. She wasn’t sure how long it had been but it felt like she’d been standing there waiting for him for an eternity. She knew one thing, though, and that was there was a Tripedicus bomber ship on its way here and as soon as Magnanimous left the base and was a safe distance away from it, the ship would move in and destroy the original Vector Sigma. By his command of course. He had direct contact with the pilot. Everything was hanging by a thread. The tension was becoming unbearable.

She looked up. The sun hung low in the sky but when he left it was only peeping over the horizon. The morning air sent a chill through her body and she felt uneasy.

She studied the oval building below and noticed there was a faint trace of a blue beam coming from the middle of the roof of the structure, leading up to the sky.

“The stairway to the Matrix,” she whispered. She’d never seen Vector Sigma before. She’d only read about it. It was the only machine that produced transformer protoforms, which were shipped off to birth clinics in various cities. Couples would give the doctor in these clinics the baby spark they’d created, it would be inserted into one of the protoforms and then the body would take form. It was a somewhat magical procedure because every transformer, like snowflakes, came out differently. You could always put a transformer back into the protoform state, but only Vector Sigma could produce them.

“A very important machine if we want our race to survive,” she whispered. She heard a rustle behind her and immediately she swiveled round and aimed her weapon. Ahead of her was a barren landscape containing nothing but dry grey soil and a few rocks.

The sky was fading out of a navy colour into a paler shade of blue. There was silence.

She remained dead still, listening intently for any noises. She heard the tell tale click if a gun and she shot at the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. She could identify a form moving through the dust and she fired at it. She heard a roar of pain and she knew someone, a Predacon, was stalking her. But how? How could he see her?

She panicked and looked around wildly. No one was around. She could try and find the ship, but if she got inside her enemy might try following her, bump into the ship and then know of its location. And if he destroyed it, they had no form of transportation back to Hashlyn. She couldn’t risk it. She spoke into her COM. and contacted the pilot.

Her COM link crackled. Even this close to the ship somehow, something was interfering with the COM waves.

She fired at the ground and spun round so as to create a circle of dust around her. Sure enough, she could make out two forms but before she could react one of them fired a shot. She cried out in terror and dodged the bullet, rolled and sprung to her feet. This was no good; she couldn’t see what she was fighting! She remembered the training lessons she used to have at night. How they seemed so impossible because her opponent was never very clearly in view. Her father had always told her to keep her cool because panic blinds you. She tried to stay calm. Shots rang out and bullets hit the ground by her feet as she sprinted away from her enemy. There was no cover for her anywhere and the area was barren and flat for miles around her save the slope that led down towards Vector Sigma. She couldn’t go there, she’d be blown to scrap!

Suddenly, a bullet hit her leg and she crashed to the ground. She’d never felt laser fire of such intensity before. She suppressed a scream and lay on the ground as still as she could.

“Don’t struggle, Diamond. I’m not going to hurt you,” she heard a voice say. It was deep but not menacing.

She could hear footsteps approaching and was vaguely aware that someone was standing over her.

“I’ve been watching you for some time now and you haven’t made any moves toward Vector Sigma. I was just wondering when you were going to retrieve a copy of those all-important plans?” he questioned calmly, smoothly.

“I’m able to see you by your signature. You can thank Tarantulas for supplying me with the technology of getting around the signature blockers,” he explained.

Her spark shuddered. Tarantulas. Did he actually do that? Did he really betray her?

“To answer your first question, though,” he continued. “Let’s just say I’m a friend of Kismet.”

“Yes, I believe you two were connected,” he went on. “She had powers and so do you. I suspect you are going to put those powers to good use and retrieve a copy of Vector Sigma. After which you plan to destroy the original, don’t you? Am I right? Oh and, don’t bother lying. I have stasis gun aimed at your head, all I have to do is fire, knock you out and extract whatever information I need from your processor.”

Diamond couldn’t believe this. This person, he…he knew so much about her! He knew about the plan, about her powers and Kismet…he only had one thing wrong though.

“Then what are you doing here and why was Kismet looking for you?” he demanded, his tone considerably more aggressive.

She edged her hand towards a compartment in her left side and took out a small bomb. He couldn’t see her, just her signature. She tossed the bomb in the direction of the voice, knowing it would detonate in five nanoclicks and rolled.

He fired and missed and before he could fire again, the bomb went off. It was only a small bomb but it obviously knocked him off his feet. The energy field released from the bomb had a surprising effect on both of them. She could feel it pass through her body and she felt pain but at least he’d taken the full impact. The energy, however, disrupted the cloaking device on both of them and suddenly he flickered into view. A few moments later, so did she. They were both lying on the ground, and both began to slowly pick themselves up. She rose unsteadily to her feet and had a good look at her opponent…opponents. There were two. The larger of the two stood up and faced her, his face twisted in an angry snarl. She gasped and almost dropped her gun.

She’d seen him before. Her dad had shown her a picture of this Predacon on his laptop and had told her all about him.

“Megatron!” she hissed and narrowed her optics. She raised her gun and aimed it at him.

The other on the ground wasn’t getting up. He must have taken the main impact, as Megatron hardly looked scratched except for a skimmed right arm were she’d shot him earlier.

His right arm was obviously his tail in beast mode and it was glowing purple. That could only mean—

In a spilt second he raised his arm and a powerful blast hit her in the chest. She fired a shot at him just before she was hit but it hardly damaged him at all.

She was thrown back a meter and landed hard. She rolled instinctively but when she tried to get up, she found her entire body to be aching.

“It would make it a lot less easier for you, Diamond, if you just answered my questions. Because if you don’t I’ll rip them from your head!”

She was lying on her right side, wincing with pain. She looked up at the approaching giant and glared at him.

“If you want to do this the hard way, then so be it!”

He’d made it down the slope undetected. He’d flown over the first three walls and fences unnoticed and when he got to the energy field which stretched up for miles and surrounded the base, he’d channeled a ball of power toward a section of the field. It cut a tunnel though the field which although he couldn’t see it, he could feel it. He didn’t realize at the time how much energy he’d used up by doing that while still in airmode. He’d drifted through the hole in the field, which was fast closing up and flew over the last wall and found himself at the front door of the base. He was still undetected. Although most of this news was good, there was some bad news too. He was struggling to hold it all together. He was using an incredible amount of power to keep himself in this airy state and he’d already used some more just to cut through that field. None of the autoguns had fired at him and because he was so cautious when he drifted past the sensors, he hadn’t even been registered as more than a very gentle breeze. But he couldn’t move as slow as this if he wanted to make it out here alive. He had one last thing to do, and that was get inside this base. The door was tightly shut, air locked and indestructible, it seemed. There was nothing but a tiny console which was where, he suspected, you typed the secret code which got the doors to open.

Magnanimous moved over the console. He’d finally found a use for his power to be able to look into the past. He reformed again and relied on the invisibility cloak to hide him. It was a relief to be back in a physical body and he savored the moment. He would have to revert back to airmode when he entered the base and becoming physical again, even now, was a risk. He needed to, though, so he could channel his energy into his ‘past’ power. He closed his eyes and gently touched the console. He waited patiently and finally a vision came to him. He saw in his mind a Predacon walking toward the console. The Predacon lifted his hand toward the console and punched in a code. He watched which numbers the Predacon had pressed. 58740275839. A longish code, but he could remember it. The Predacon walked inside and the doors closed. The vision ended and he opened his eyes again. He punched in the exact same code and sure enough, the doors opened. He quickly reverted to airmode again and moved inside. Before this day he’d been practicing holding airmode as long as he could, lasting a little longer each time. His record was ten cycles but he’d kind of passed out after that! He hoped that he would be in and out of here before that, because it took at least five minutes just getting over all the security. When he entered the base, he found himself in the middle of one very long grey corridor. It stretched for about fifty feet left and right. There were no signs to indicate the direction in which the Altron Chamber was. He sighed mentally. He’d have to guess. He vaguely remembered the Predacon in his vision seemed to have veered left just before the doors shut. That meant that Vector Sigma was probably down corridor right, because Tarantulas had told him that only the top scientists had access to the machine and they never left the base. That Predacon, therefore, could only have been a guard or maintenance worker, as he came from the outside. He could be wrong, but right sounded like the way to go. He turned right and moved swiftly down the corridor. He expected this place was going to be like a maze to confuse imposters. He was right. Five minutes, two elevators and eight corridors later, he found himself to be lost in an impossible labyrinth of grey passageways. The base seemed empty as he’d encountered no one, but he guessed they were all inside the Altron chamber or were in a meeting somewhere. There were probably a lot of bots on this campus, but most of them were guards and therefore were stationed in an outside building, ready and waiting to defend their base in case of an attack.

He could feel himself beginning to tire, his powers were running out and his vision was beginning to fade in and out. He was utterly lost. He was just about to turn around and try another direction when he spotted a door on the right hand side of the corridor wall. Most of these passageways had a door at the end of them and behind those doors were usually just labs or storage rooms. This one, however, was positioned midway down the corridor. He drifted up to it, found it to be marked with some funny symbols and decided to go inside. He couldn’t. Unlike the other doors, this was air locked which meant there was something important inside. There was no handle, no console, nothing to indicate a way in. Just a large silver door. He had a good look at the metal of the door. It was laser proof, bullet proof and air proof.

“Bet it’s not Magnanimous proof!” he whispered and reformed into a body so he could channel his energy into a charge of power which would hopefully break down the door. No sooner had his feet touched the ground than every single alarm in the building went off.

“Warning! Intruder!” a computer voice boomed over. His invisibility cloak was still on but he noticed to his horror that he was being hit by pulses of energy coming from holes in the wall which were not spare lights, as he’d first thought them to be. They were energy barrels. The first blast hit the back of is legs and almost blew them off. He cried out and wasted no more time. Any moment now troops would be rushing toward him. He cupped his hands together and a blue ball of power formed. He threw it at the door, which exploded. He had to remain in physical form if he wanted to be able to press buttons and use the console, so he didn’t revert back to the safer airmode, but ran inside the room. The energy pulses didn’t follow him through the door and he could see why. Dead ahead of him was the biggest computer he’d ever seen.

It stretched up to the roof and spread out horizontally. It had at its base a very large console. Numerous buttons and lights flashed all over it and on the right hand side it opened up and a long ramp, supported by short metal pillars, spanned out. It wasn’t a ramp, it was a conveyor belt and lying upon it were protoforms. It moved very slowly and the conveyor belt stretched down the right hand side of the room for hundreds of meters, which explained why the building was so long. From the center of the machine there was a glass screen no, more like a window and inside its heart it glowed bright blue and he knew that was the base of the stairway to the Matrix.

“Vector Sigma,” he said in awe, and what a sight it was to behold. He snapped out of his trance very quickly when there was a piercing yell. Two scientists were taking up odd-looking guns and one shouted: “Release the energy waves! If there’s an intruder inside wearing a cloak, these guns will make short work of the device which is powering his invisibility!”

“I know that you idiot! I helped developed this weapon,” the other scoffed. Magnanimous had heard enough. Being careful not to hit the machine, he fired two power balls at the scientists and knocked them both down. The power he used was considerably weaker because he didn’t want to make them explode and have their flying parts smashing holes in the machine. Then again, he didn’t have enough energy left to make anything stronger. He ran towards machine and stopped just in front of it.

He took out a copying device, switched it on an immediately a red beam shot out of the barrel. It hit the heart of Vector Sigma but it did it no damage. It spread out like water until it covered the entire machine in a red light. The copy device hummed and beeped. It had a tiny screen which displayed a progress report. The beam was penetrating the shell of Vector Sigma and making a copy of its infrastructure. 20%. 25%. 30%.

“He’s broken into he Altron Chamber!” he heard someone yell. The guards were almost here and no doubt they had similar weapons to the scientists which would expose him.

He was suddenly thrown forward as someone shot him from behind. He crashed to the ground and the copying device fell from his hands. Thankfully, it carried on copying from the floor and the beam wasn’t disrupted. However, the invisibility cloak was and as he pulled himself to his feet, he realized he was flickering into view. He turned around to see twenty odd soldiers aiming their weapons at him.

“Hold your fire! He’s standing directly in front of the machine and we don’t want to hit it by accident!” one of them yelled.

Magnanimous wished he could summon another power ball but he needed to save what little energy he had left for his escape…if he was going to be able to do that.

He took two steps back toward the copy device and got onto his knees. He put his hands behind his back and stretched one hand to try and pick it up.

Magnanimous knew that if he hadn’t been directly in front of the console, they would have shot him by now. He found the copy device and picked it up. Now that he had it, he could revert back to airmode and the copy device would become a part of him.

Magnanimous gave the commander a crooked smile and a wink, and then disappeared.

Almost instantly he felt himself weaken, his vision flickered and began to fade, he felt pain and nausea and he almost passed out. He’d used up too much power; he was never going to make it.

“I’ve got to try,” he thought desperately and sped out of the room like a wind and down the hallway. It was easier finding his way back because more and more Predacons kept running down the corridors toward Vector Sigma and he flew in the opposite direction to them. He found that they were all using one particularly large elevator and when the elevator doors opened and about five more bots left he seeped through the crack between the elevator and the floor and flew down the shaft. It was much quicker than actually taking the elevator. He reached ground level quickly but the doors were closed. He reformed again and buckled over. He was panting his entire body trembled. After a moment, he pulled himself together, raised his fist and punched a hole in the elevator door. The hole was only the size of his fist but of he reverted back to airmode, he could squeeze through. He remained dead still as he suddenly realized something. He was low on energy and when he entered airmode again, that would be the very last time he could do it. Entering the mode caused fifty percent of the strain and power loss and he knew he’d be lucky if he could even get back into that mode in the first place! Now might very well be his last opportunity to use his COM. link. He raised his wrist to his lips and activated it.

“This is Special Unit to Tripedicus General Trex. I grant permission to attack target, but give me six cycles to get out!”

Wasting no more time, Magnanimous changed back into airmode for the final time and flew, perhaps a little slower than before, through the hole. He entered the hallway, which had the front door, and as he expected it was open to let in the numerous soldiers from outside who were searching the base for him. He flew over their heads, exited the building and approached the energy field. The tunnel was gone, naturally, and he couldn’t summon the energy to make another hole without transforming back into his physical body, and he most certainly couldn’t do that. He was going to have to fly through it. Not actually being a solid transformer, he might make it through alive. He flew at it fast and when he hit the wall of energy, it felt like someone had punched him, but he made it through. He didn’t want to even think about what damage it would have done had he been in normal bot mode.

Yet when he came out the other side, his vision had gone. He felt a pain that he’d never felt before, so terrible that he wanted to kill himself right then and there. He struggled to fly further, blindly over the distance of the last few barriers and walls and out of the danger zone, and he wasn’t sure if he’d made it that far when transformed in mid air back into a solid form. He had no more energy to fly and he crashed to the ground. He lay motionless. He could still hear noises; he could still feel pain and that meant he was alive. His vision returned to his optics briefly and he realized he was halfway up the slope. Diamond would be waiting for him at the top. He began to crawl slowly to his feet and he made it, but he hadn’t walked two steps when his legs gave way beneath him and he fell to the ground. He panted, blue waves of energy rippled through his body.

He was too weak to move and he lay there, his vision failed for the last time and the pain slowly began to subside. He was dying, and he knew it.

Dinobot was stationed south of Diamond with a small army. They were guarding the road toward the V.S. base. Although most of their enemy would be invisible and they were not, if they were spotted no doubt whatever vehicle was traveling down that road would stop and try and shoot them. There was little they could do, they acted more as bait, sacrificing themselves for the mission’s success. He would die any day for his daughter and he was more than prepared to do this task. He was in charge of the army and so far, no Predacons had come into contact with them. The Maximals had set up a roadblock to stop any ground vehicles from getting past, but that didn’t stop cyber cars and ships. All they could do was hope that they were at least helping a little.

Dinobot was standing still, watching the sunrise when a small soldier came up beside him. He recognized the bot as Silvertron who was in charge of running the small scanner, which had been set up to monitor the area.

“Sir! My scanner reports a lot of firepower in Sector Virex! Isn’t that where—”

“Diamond!” Dinobot exclaimed. Before he could do or say anything else, someone screamed and the air erupted with the sound of laser fire.

He turned toward the direction of his men and found them to be engaged in battle with their invisible foe. One or more Predacons had come down that road and discovered them. He let out an irritated growl and looked around for his second in command.

“I’m leaving to aid Lieutenant Diamond in Sector Virex. I believe she’s under attack. You are now in command. I trust you will try at best to destroy the Predacon attackers,” he said.

He turned and ran back to join the army and Dinobot headed toward his cyber car that had transported him to this location. He got in and drove at maximum speed toward Sector Virex, which fortunately wasn’t very far from here. Although he wished they’d been stationed closer to her, he knew the Maximal Generals wouldn’t risk drawing any attention to the delicate operation happening in that sector.

A few cycles later Dinobot was closing in on the sector and suddenly two bots appeared in the distance. As he advanced on them he could see who they were. One was Diamond and one was Megatron.

He didn’t bother gasping, exclaiming in shock and wandering how and why he was there, he just sped towards his daughter determined to help her.

Diamond felt her body being slammed against the ground again and she felt her insides rattle. Her chest was charred black from another hit from his laser and her right arm was severed. Little pipes of mech. fluid had been ruptured and the silver-red substance oozed down her arm. Her left optic was cracked and her legs were weak with exhaustion. One of her guns had been destroyed. She’d done more fleeing than fighting. Maybe blowing up Megatron’s stasis gun wasn’t such a good idea. Now he had to put her into stasis lock by brute force and that was considerably more painful. She had no doubt that he was going to win. He was too powerful for her and so full of wrath that he was bordering on insane. Once again, she began to get to her feet but he shot her again and she fell on her stomach and let out a gut scream. She could hear his thundering footsteps as he approached.

“I believe you now, that you have no powers. Because if you did you would have destroyed or escaped me by now,” he snarled.

“Therefore you are of no use to me. I was mistaken. You’ve wasted a lot of my time, Miss Diamond, and now you will pay!”

He kicked her in the gut and her optics began to dim. She reached for her gun but he blasted it to bits. She tried to remove her sword from its casing attached to her body but he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up. He was a lot bigger than her and she found herself being held about a meter above the ground. She was face to face with him. She kicked him and he stretched his arms out so her legs could no longer reach him.

“I suggest you speak and explain what’s going on. If you do, I might spare you your life. If you don’t, I’ll kill you in an instant. Make your choice!” he spat.

“She doesn’t have to,” snarled a voice behind Megatron and Diamond watched as his body jolted and the tip of a spinning sword came through his belly. Megatron’s optics widened and he dropped her. She crashed to the ground and lay in a crumpled heap. She recognized the voice immediately and tried to call for her father, but she was silenced by the noise of Megatron roaring. Dinobot had yanked the blade out of Megatron and was now firing his optic laser at him. Megatron had turned to face his enemy with a fully loaded tail laser.

“Dinobot! You’ll pay for that!” he screamed and shot at the raptor. Dinobot dodged the blow and pulled out a gun from his sub space pocket and didn’t hesitate to fire.

Megatron suddenly lifted off the ground and both Diamond and Dinobot stared at him.

“Dad!” Diamond yelled in horror. With a surge of adrenaline she pulled herself to her feet and started to run towards him.

Megatron swiveled around in the air and shot at her. She narrowly escaped being hit.

“Like father like daughter, I see. Both pesky and difficult to get rid of!” Megatron exclaimed and continued to fire at Diamond. Dinobot staggered to his feet, a huge hole in his chest had ruptured a lot of important circuitry and he felt weak.

Suddenly there was a high-pitched wail and all three turned towards the source of the noise. Before any of them could figure out what it was coming from there was a blinding flash of light and a tremendous explosion that threw all of them to the ground. The earth seemed to be shaking and Diamond found herself lying face down with her audio sensors shutting off. The ground shook for some time before everything began to calm again. She opened her eyes and turned up her hearing. She could see Megatron ahead of her, lying on his stomach with his face twisted towards her. His optics were dark. She slowly got to her feet and spotted her father sitting up and rubbing his head.

He looked up at her and was about to say something when his jaw dropped and he pointed to something behind her. She turned around and what lay before her sent off a thousand alarms in her head.

There was a huge mushroom cloud rising up out of the basin where the V.S. base used to exist. There was nothing there now. The Tripedicus bomber had been and gone. Her spark jolted in her chest as the full realization of what had happened struck her.

“They blew up the base! They blew up the base! Why? Oh Primus no! Magnanimous isn’t back yet! No, no, no!!!!” she cried. She fell to her knees and put her head in her hands.

Dinobot stood up and walked towards her. His optics were dim with grief and he had no idea what he was going to say to her. He sighed and came up beside her and looked at the scene of destruction ahead. A great cloud was rising up and almost climbing the hill towards them. He would have knelt and tried to comfort her, if that was even possible, but something caught his eye. Something was moving through that cloud of ash and smoke. He could see a figure staggering up the last bit of the slope and finally reaching the top.

Diamond looked up slowly and saw a figure stumbling toward her. The figure moved out of the cloud of dust and she recognized him.

“Magnanimous!” she screamed and scrambled to her feet as he collapsed to the ground. She ran over to him and dropped to her knees beside his torn and tattered body. His legs were ripped and bleeding and the rest of his body wasn’t much better. He was wheezing and his optics were cracked and broken.

Magnanimous was limp but at the sound of her voice his body jolted and his free hand moved toward his left side. He was trembling and his internal computer was humming warnings and damage reports. She watched as he pressed a button on his side and a silver disk slid out. He rolled onto his back and held up his hand weakly.

“No, no don’t. Don’t die now, not when we’re so close. No, hang on for me,” she said, her voice breaking.

He coughed out silvery mech fluid and his body jolted violently. Blue energy waves rippled through him and the computer even stopped humming. He turned his head to face her and in a last effort, his optics lit up and he uttered a word.

“There it is! I knew it!” cried a voice from behind and Dinobot turned to see that Megatron was back on his feet, his optics ablaze with rage.

Dinobot shot Megatron with his eye beams and knocked the Predacon over again, but not for long. He turned sharply towards Diamond.

“Your brother is dead now. Don’t let his death be in vain. Take the disk and get aboard the ship! I’ll distract Megatron.”

Dinobot latched onto her arm and pulled her up. He took the disk from her brother’s hand and put it in hers.

Diamond broke into a sprint, cursing and sobbing and made her way towards the ship, which was now in plain view. The explosion acted like a signal for the pilot to switch off his invisibility cloak so that Diamond could find the ship again.

She came up to the ship and ran up the ramp that was already out and waiting for her. She turned for one last time to see her father tackling an insane and screaming Megatron to the ground before the door closed and the ship rose up into the air.

It was quite apparent now that there was a very big fight going on outside the city. The fighter ships had all left save three and troops were pouring out of the city through exit gaps in the shield. Cheetor didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t know whether to join the battle or stay inside and hope to catch Diamond before she left the city. His mind was made up when he saw, in the distance, a very large carrier ship being wheeled out of a huge garage. It was unlike any ship he’d seen before. It was a deep grey but its wings had splashes of red and orange in the pattern of flames. He walked towards it and as he approached, he noticed there were letters painted on the side of the ship. The word wasn’t very big and it was painted in an orange. It read: Phoenix.

“Something tells me that ship is carrying some very precious cargo,” he muttered.

He looked around and noticed a lot of bots flocking toward the ship, guiding it to a section of the airfield that was marked with a large black X.

“That ship must be what all the commotion is about,” Cheetor noted and decided to investigate it, ignoring the ominous way in which sentinel flickered above him.

General Alesion sat in front of his computer and watched on the screen the events of Hashlyn. His air force was attacking, is ground troops had advanced almost to the point of being able to touch the shield and the hover tanks had arrived. The outer Maximal defenses were almost gone and the Maximal air force was shooting blindly at their invisible targets.

Things were looking up for the Predacons. The attack would soon be over, the Maximal uprising would be crushed and Hashlyn would be his again.

“Sir! An energon explosion in the eastern side has cut down eighty of our men!”

He lay back in his chair. He heard the door opening and he turned to see who it was. Major Aitech was shaking his head.

“I’m sorry sir, but we just can’t find Megatron,” he reported with a shrug.

Alesion frowned and opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by another radio transmission.

“The Maximal shield is failing sir. We’ve focused our attack on the western side as you ordered.”

“Good. Then I grant you permission to launch a full assault on that section of shield. I want Hashlyn’s sentinel down as soon as possible.”

“Colonel Von, this is General Alesion speaking. I order you and your battalion to move towards the western side of the city. The shield there will fail any moment now and I want those tanks ready.”

Alesion chuckled. Von always had a love for battle and insisted that he fight with his men.

“Thanks you for looking for him, Major. But right now I have no time for Megatron. We are on the edge of a great victory. Go and call the senior officers and let us be ready to celebrate together,” he said, rubbing his hands with glee.

General Alesion looked back at the screen and watched with satisfaction as sentinel began to flicker and fail.

When Cheetor neared the ship he realized that it had been fenced off. The bots had flocked there to put up this make do barrier around the ship. There were plenty of signs stuck on the six-foot fence to remind him that ‘No Unauthorized Personnel’ were allowed beyond that point.

He noticed, quite suddenly, that although inside the fence various bots were moving up and down the ship and giving it various checks, the vast majority of the bots outside the fence were all standing still and looking east. There was an air of expectancy and everyone seemed to be waiting for something to appear. He turned and looked up in the direction everyone else was. At first he saw nothing, but then a gap opened in the shield and a ship flickered into view. His spark jumped in his chest because he thought that only Predacons had that technology. But when he looked around and noted that no one seemed alarmed he understood that somehow they had developed or gotten hold of it recently and the ship that was arriving also contained something that was of great importance. The ultra-jet came into land about one hundred meters from him and suddenly, chaos raged again. The bots outside the fence were herded away from the ship and Cheetor was ordered to move at least sixty feet away. He did this and watched as a high ranking officer moved briskly over to the ship, he watched as a gate in the fence was opened and how the bots who had been running checks on the ship left in a hurry. He turned his attention to the ultra-jet and watched with keen interest as a ramp slid down. There was a pause and the entire airfield seemed to go quiet. The officer stood at the bottom of the ramp and waited. Then, slowly, a bot appeared on top of the ramp and slowly made her way down. She held in her hand some kind of disk. The authorized personnel, who had now left the area of the Phoenix, erupted into cheer and the officer took the disk from the femme bot. Cheetor focused his vision on the femme and with a gasp of surprise discovered it was Diamond. He almost screamed her name but he held it back and decided to wait until she was out of the limelight. The officer hurried back toward the carrier ship while the bots continued to cheer. The crowd’s attention was now on the carrier ship and he made his move toward Diamond. He approached her as calmly as he could and once close enough he called her name.

She had been looking down at the floor, her posture slumped. She seemed to be the unhappiest bot in the whole airfield.

She looked up at the call of her name and when she saw him, her face lit up perhaps a little and she walked towards him. At this stage he was no longer walking but running and when he got to her he threw his arms around her.

“Cheetor. Oh Primus, I’ve still got you,” she said, her voice broken with emotion.

She began to cry and he kissed her on the head and stroked her arm with his hand. She was quite beaten up and obviously shaken up emotionally as well. He had no idea where she’d just been and what she’d done, but he knew that she had succeeded. He decided not to ask questions for the moment and savored being able to hold her.

He almost didn’t hear the sound of the engines firing up behind him. He was vaguely aware that the carrier ship was preparing for take off, but he didn’t really care.

Soldiers marched through an exit in the shield. Their purpose was to secure the area around the airfield.

Rattrap didn’t really care what their purpose was, he just wanted them to hurry up so he could scamper through that gap and enter the city. Eventually the line ended and he made a dash for the gap. He got inside just as the gap closed.

After a long road trip, lots of bumps resulting in dents and scratches and the odd Predacon scout getting in his way, he’d finally made it to Hashlyn. He’d entered the airfield, it seemed and there were many bots running about and shouting. The airfield’s outer defense was still holding and it seemed that the Maximals had channeled all their efforts into protecting this section of Hashlyn. He’d wondered briefly why but as soon as he got inside, his thoughts changed. Now that he was here, he had to find Tourmaline. He didn’t come all this way to go sight seeing. Besides, he’d grown up here.

He transformed into robot mode and looked around wildly. This side of the airfield was quite empty in comparison to the other side where there were a collection of ships and a lot of bots. He was so involved in his search that he didn’t even realize the massive ship rising off the ground in the distance.

He started making his way toward the crowd in the hope of finding her there but it turned out he didn’t have to go that far. He spotted her standing about halfway across the airfield. She was looking up and hadn’t noticed him.

He ran over to her, his spark quivering with a mixture of emotions, his mind racing on what to say.

She turned with the look someone has when they are snapped out of a daydream and when she saw him, she looked surprised.

“Rattrap,” she called softly. He slowed down as he neared her and finally came to a halt in front of her. He didn’t hug her or kiss her; he just stood looking at her. She looked at him expectantly.

His sentence was cut off by the sound of loud rumbling and he followed her eyes skyward. Rising in the air was a very large carrier ship. Its nose was aimed at the roof of the failing sentinel and three smaller stealth fighters were rising up with it. Explosions from outside sent tremors through the ground and the air was alive.

The ship rumbled and suddenly it burst into action, flying with speed toward the sky and ripping through the shield. Sentinel seemed to cough and splutter before finally breaking into a million pieces, which rained down on the bots below. It was an eerie sight because of the dark clouds above; it was almost as if it were raining.

The four ships rose steadily out of the sky just as the defense around the airfield broke. Rattrap watched wide-eyed and slowly turned to look at her again.

“Ok, I knew that you came here ta get that baby out of your system. But I didn’t know you were gonna go so far as ta blast it into space! Tour, what’s he or she doing in there?!!!”

“He or she is going to a new planet. It’s safe, it has energon and onboard that ship are the plans to build a new Vector Sigma. I think I’ve done the best I could to secure our child’s future, don’t you?”

Rattrap soaked in what she had said and tried three times to say something. He eventually gave up and accepted that that is what had happened.

He closed his eyes and tried to deal with the whirlpool of emotions inside of him.

He could hear in the distance the sound of alarms going off, gunfire and yells. The Predacons had broken through. This was it. He held her close as the last pieces of the silvery shield fell to the ground around them.

Even as far out as the desert of Vector Sigma, one could see the light the Phoenix made as it left the atmosphere, although it was only a rising orange speck.

Dinobot lay down, his head propped up against a rock and watched through failing optics as the Phoenix made its way to safety. He had defeated Megatron, but at the cost of his life. It had been one on one battle; the two were fighting near the edge of the slope. Megatron had Dinobot pinned and was about to kill him and then go after Diamond when the body of Magnanimous burst into light and blinded the Predacon, sending him stumbling back as he shielded his eyes. Dinobot did the same and when the light had cleared, Magnanimous was gone. Dinobot knew that his spark had joined the Matrix and his spirit had rejoined Fate. While Megatron was dazed from the light, Dinobot had struck, knocking him over into his back and forcing his sword through Megatron’s chest. He succeeded in piercing the spark of his enemy but the force of energy from such an action sent Dinobot meters into the air and flung him back. He landed hard and his body skidded to the ground and eventually came to a halt where he now lay. He was badly damaged before that explosion, but that just finished him off.

He lay now, dying, watching the orange dot in the sky become ever fainter and he smiled. His daughter had succeeded, as he knew she would. She had saved the lives of the future Maximals and her brother had more or less ended the war with the destruction of Vector Sigma. Dinobot was not afraid to die. He knew that even if he survived his battle with Megatron it would only be a matter of time before he was killed. Without Vector Sigma, the population of Cybertron will eventually fade away until there is nothing. Then the Tripedicus will move in and make it their home with their own copy of the V.S. plans.

He felt the pain begin to ease and darkness edged around his eyes, slowly closing in. He smiled a little happily, a little sadly. His daughter had triumphed and in his mind, he died with the greatest honor of having been her father.

“Fellow Predacons, as you can see on my screen here, our attack on Hashlyn has been successful and it is only a matter of time before—”

“Excuse me,” he said with forced politeness and he turned around to speak to his Captain.

“Yes, hurry up with it Captain,” he almost snarled. He was extremely annoyed.

“Sir, I sent one of my ships to investigate and my pilot discovered that the base has been destroyed! Vector Sigma is gone!”

Alesion’s jaw dropped and he could hear the exclamations of the officers behind him.

“Sir, we’ve no idea how the bomber got so close. We’re trying to track it now—”

Alesion slammed his fists onto the console and cried out curses on the heads of those who destroyed the base.

He succeeded in breaking the console and thus he did not get the message from Air Commander Blackton that a large carrier ship had managed to escape out of the planet and that three cloaked stealth fighters took out the Predacon ships that were sent to stop it.

It was probably a good thing too because he was so full of rage and confusion that any more bad news would have driven him to murder.

Explosions erupted to their right and the two armies clashed as the Maximals inside the airfield ran forward and met their invisible foes. There were so many Predacon pouring into the city that a Maximal could fire just about anywhere and he’d hit one.

But in all the chaos two bots remained still, a fair distance away from all the action.

Rattrap still held Tourmaline against his chest and he could feel her trembling from fear.

“I’m glad,” she began, “that our child wasn’t born to face the terrors of this world and that he or she has been granted a future on a new planet far away from here.”

“Yeah,” Rattrap said, “And if he’s lucky, he’ll inherit my dashing good looks and quick wit.”

“You know, those Preds beat me up on earth, blew up my apartment, destroyed my city and tried to kill me on my way here, I think it’s time that I give ‘em a little payback, don’t you?” he asked, taking out his gun.

The two of them turned and ran into their final battle, ready to fight and die side by side.

Another couple stood away from the battle but they paid no attention to it. Instead, they waited for it to come to them and until then, they would treasure the moment they had together.

Diamond was glad Cheetor hadn’t asked her where she’d been. She guessed that he had sensed she’d done something important and that it was over now. He did the best thing he could for her right then, and that was hold her and tell her that he loved her.

She had lost everything and her demise was but moments away, so those words meant everything to her. She was happy that he’d come for her because she couldn’t bear the thought of dying alone without anyone to be there at her side.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. It must be late morning now, but the sun was having difficulty shining through the dark clouds that hung above them. Still, one ray managed to shimmer down through a crack in the clouds and light up the airfield a little. The beam hit the floor nearby to where they were standing. Explosions shook the ground from time to time and occasionally she and Cheetor wobbled a bit, but she felt safe in his arms and although frightened, she felt prepared to meet death. In her eighteen years she’d grown and learnt and loved and fought two wars. She’d lived quite a life, even if it was short.

The Uprising was over and in a few days time the children of the Phoenix would begin the first day of the rest of their lives. Today was Diamond’s last but she didn’t mind so much.

For those of you who are interested, I've written a brief note where I reflect on the Uprising series and reveal my plans for the future.