The newly elected Emirate was uneasy to be in Vos, but it took all of Impactor's skill in reading his clients to tell. To the rest of the world, Emirate Xaaron must have looked confident and almost carefree, despite the precarious nature of his mission. He was the youngest member of the Iacon Council of Elders, if youngest could be applied to any of them, and barely out of the ceremonial robes, too. Sending their most junior member would be read as a subtle insult to the Vosians, and the truth as Impactor knew it wasn't any better.

The Council was collectively too lazy, too foolish, and too corrupt to bother. Emirate Xaaron was the only one who gave a slag about the corroding political situation, and when the chance came, he'd volunteered to go. Impactor remembered how Emirate Xaaron had veiled his eagerness, and when no one else had come forth, he'd offered himself. Impactor could only shake his head. Emirate Xaaron seemed to think he could really accomplish something, but he'd find himself corrupt, jaded, or a doddering fool, same as the rest, as time wore on him. Meanwhile, work was looking up for mercenaries.

//Air space is secure,// radioed Whirl, sounding slightly bored. If all went well, the helicopter would stay bored. Bored mercenaries were mercenaries who could spend their cheque on energon and houses of ill repute, rather than on repairs.

//Verified,// chimed in Rack.

//And let me tell you, boss, it's great to be home,// Ruin added.

//The Iaconians just don't know how to build their cities for fliers,// Rack finished.

Impactor snorted and glanced up skyward for a moment. Lacking any sympathy for the two mini-jets, he snapped, //Yeah, yeah. Don't spring an optical leak over it. Stay sharp. We're here on work, not vacation.//

//Roads are clear,// Roadbuster reported, voice quiet. He was outgoing in the field, but this bodyguard work, though profitable, left Roadbuster withdrawn. He generally seemed at a loss for what to do with himself.

//Do these people even use their roads?// Topspin demanded, sounding affronted. They were in the city state of the fliers. What did he expect?

//Underground levels check out,// Twin Twist said, crackling with static from trying to boost his signal through several floors worth of metal. //Looks like no one even touches these.//

Impactor turned his attention back into the passenger space of the transport and glanced over to see Emirate Xaaron regarding him with an amused look. He wanted to snarl at him to wipe that smirk off his face, but the Emirate was paying the bills. Emirate Xaaron settled the datapad he'd been reading rather intently on his lap and asked quietly, "Does everything check out correctly?"

"Yeah, fine," Impactor said brusquely. It wasn't the Emirate's business to know how his security worked, just that he had it. That wicked curiosity of his made him a better employer than most in that he happily took measures to make Impactor's job easier, like not staying in an apartment with a balcony, no matter how fashionable they were, but it also made Impactor's job rather harder in that he wanted to know what, precisely, a morale bonus was and why his security team needed it. Impactor paused, his mouth worked, and he asked, "Why do you ask?"

Emirate Xaaron lightly drummed his fingers against the datapad and commented, "You snorted. You don't do that except as a reply."

Impactor snorted and then grimaced, having proven the Emirate quite right in his conjecture.

"Don't feel bad. It's my business to read people." He then bent to resume reading his datapad. Impactor flicked his gaze over to Emirate Xaaron's reading, which looked to be more composed of equations and symbols than actual text. The Emirate looked back up at Impactor and explained, "I'm still on the Academy's funding committee."

"It's on your calendar," Impactor said, somewhat annoyed. He knew Emirate Xaaron's calendar for the next millennium perhaps better than the Emirate himself did.

"Ah. Yes." Emirate Xaaron laughed, and Impactor quite failed to see the humour. The Emirate tapped the datapad. "This fellow's grant proposal will be up for review right when I return from this trip. While the actual subject matter is intriguing, he really does need a better editor."

Impactor zoned him out then, having ascertained that Emirate Xaaron was still determined to fulfil his minor duties properly, one of those admirable traits that was probably absolutely useless in getting him elected. One thing done right was nothing compared to a dozen half-afted hand-waving appearances at volunteer events, as far as background went. People didn't pay as much attention to quality as they did quantity. Impactor could always rattle off the campaigns he'd been in, the losses and the victories, and no one ever stopped to wonder what he'd been doing in any given one because the list itself sounded impressive. Emirate Xaaron had asked him to detail his role in each of them before he'd hired him, that irksome smirk of his growing ever larger as Impactor explained how he'd hidden his men in a foxhole for three weeks during the Stanix-Kalis Skirmish before he learned that they'd lost a month ago. Unlike his constituents, Emirate Xaaron checked his facts.

Fact-checking was why they were flying coach on a diplomatic mission. Impactor had been ready to toss the Emirate over his shoulder and take him to a travel agent when he first explained the idea. Then he listened to the actual explanation. Iacon, being composed of generally good but overly trusting people, saw no reason to keep it a secret where and why it was sending Emirate Xaaron. If he took a private transport, a would-be assassin would have a clear shot at him and just him. If he flew coach, the assassin would have to get past not only his security but the port security, such as it was, and would probably make a slip-up somewhere in first class. The logic was sick but beautiful.

Sitting on the tarmac, Impactor wondered if maybe a private flight would have been better for Emirate Xaaron's health because sitting on a crowded transport, waiting to file out, was making Impactor feel more than a little murderous. When their chance came, he hustled Emirate Xaaron out of the transport and through security. The Emirate packed light, and most of their bags had been sent ahead with the advance team. Impactor knew he'd feel better when he was reunited with Roadbuster, who had all the heavy ordnance they wouldn't let Impactor take on the transport with him.

Their appointed watchdog, who was probably politely called a greeter or guide, met them on the other side of security, sincerity as fake as the wings on the dancer at Asphalt's Alkaloids. Speaking of wings, just about everyone had them here. The only ones who didn't had rotor blades or were visitors. So obviously the latter, Impactor felt twitchy. He caught those stares of pity mingled with disdain to see ground-pounders, and he knew he'd be catching a lot more. So had his headache started when he boarded the transport or was it really just starting now?

Their guide, who probably worked intelligence one way or the other, greeted warmly, "Welcome to Vos, Emirate Xaaron!" Impactor, as a bodyguard, did not actually exist, of course, and was not included in the greeting, the way people didn't include 'has air' when they described the contents of a room. He might as well have been Emirate Xaaron's luggage. "I am Skyjack. I do hope that you find your stay in Vos pleasant."

Emirate Xaaron dipped his head in a nod and replied, "Pleased to meet you. I'm certain I'll find my stay productive."

"How would you like to start your trip? Perhaps a tour of the Pantheon of Winds?" Skyjack offered eagerly.

"I'm afraid I'd just like to head to the Embassy now," Emirate Xaaron replied.

"The Pantheon of Winds is widely acclaimed as the single most important architectural achievement on Cybertron," Skyjack insisted, getting in a jab so unsubtle even Impactor caught it. The Celestial Spires in Iacon were no slouches, but Emirate Xaaron betrayed no hint of insult. "Our entertainment district also has much to offer. You simply have not lived until you've seen the dance in its pure form." Impactor would take dance down and dirty any day. The pure form of aerial dance wasn't something people lived for. Instead, they died for it, one out of four every time. "In our art galleries, Needlenose is having a new showing of his pre-production models."

He sounded like he could go on for quite a while, but Emirate Xaaron politely yet firmly insisted as soon as he could get a word in edgewise, "The Embassy, please. I wish to compose myself for the talk tomorrow."

Their guide looked rather stricken, as if he wished to say, 'What would a ground pounder like you ever know of composure?' Instead, he ceded, "Very well. This way."

Impactor considered for a moment. That guide really was too rather put out to not have to show a pair of ground pounders around his beautiful city state. Impactor had planned on keeping his optics open, anyway. He followed.

Impactor ducked out of the room where the Emirate would be staying after conferring with the other Wreckers. He reported, "Yeah, the place is bugged. I bet Tarn had more bugs in the place than Vos could hope to find before construction was even finished, and Vos could hardly let Tarn show 'em up, eh?"

Emirate Xaaron shrugged and replied, "I wasn't planning on doing anything I wouldn't want made public. It is safe, otherwise?"

That was about what he expected the Emirate to say. Impactor led Emirate Xaaron into the room and gestured, "See along there? Don't go past that floor panel. A sniper on that building," he pointed out the window, "will have a clear shot on you if you do. The walls are pretty thin. Otherwise, it's okay."

Emirate Xaaron deadpanned, "Fantastic." He moved over to the recharge berth, which was built wide with wings in mind and with a groove down the middle to accommodate tailfins or nosecones. Emirate Xaaron looked rather small, perched on it, and he frowned at the groove down the middle, which would surely make his defragmentation less than stellar. Deciding to put off using it just a little longer, he paced over to the vidscreen and turned it on, commenting, "Might as well check the news."

"You expect to hear anything useful on there?" Impactor asked, voice making it clear that he didn't. If military intelligence was an oxymoron, journalists were even worse.

"Of course not," Emirate Xaaron replied, "but what they don't say can be very interesting indeed."

"One way to look at it," Impactor muttered. More loudly, he explained, "Rack's going to stay at the door for you. The others are in the area. I need to check up on a few things."

Emirate Xaaron's gaze was drawn up to the corner of the vidscreen, and he said, "Which you can't go into right now because the place is bugged. Got it."

Impactor himself was bugged in an entirely different way, to put it frankly, but his client was right. Contrary to popular belief, the costumer was not always right. In areas where mercenaries were hired, the customer was quite often incorrect and slightly deluded if not completely jetslag bonkers. Emirate Xaaron went at it in a whole other direction by being sane, understanding, and not at all genocidal, which sometimes spooked Impactor. The Wrecker captain grunted and left. He needed to talk to an old contact.

Impactor would not call Powerglide a friend. The Minibot was a heavily armoured ground-attack plane that could fly with half a wing shot off, a tank-killer, and Impactor just so happened to be a tank. More, Powerglide was Vosian, and Impactor was Tarnish. A very long time ago, Impactor had been an eager young Tarnish soldier, and while they never, strictly speaking, went to war with Vos, they skirmished enough for a thousand wars when the deaths were added up. Quite by luck, he managed to actually shoot down an equally eager and even younger Vosian soldier, whom he had taken prisoner, not yet hardened and jaded to just shoot the foe when he saw him face to face. By the time he had marched his prisoner back to base, Impactor was indeed ready to just shoot the Vosian, who did not understand the meaning of 'shut up,' 'be quiet,' or 'can it!'

The chatty youth turned out to be Powerglide, ace of aces, which was more an indictment of how slag-poor non-Vosian fliers were, that a ground-attack plane could down them, than anything to be proud of, as far as Impactor was concerned at the time. These days, Impactor would grudgingly admit Powerglide deserved the title but still not half of what he claimed. There was no way Powerglide had ever shot down a satellite, for one thing.

Powerglide owned a sports bar, packed with his own memorabilia. Ducking in the door, Impactor paused for a second to study an air endurance race poster that painted Powerglide as being half again taller than he really was. He didn't remember it from his last visit, and he chuckled. It was nice to know that Powerglide hadn't changed a bit. Ignoring the scowling ma๎tre de, Impactor wandered into the seating area. Powerglide wasn't going to be down here, with the patrons. Impactor looked up and squinted at some tinted glass. With a quick, "You using this?" he grabbed a spare utensil and lobbed it at the window before the patron could answer.

The patron screeched, a pale parody of his prince, and the bouncers were attracted to the scene like scavengers to a battlefield. It helped that Impactor looked like trouble, his grin as threatening as the cannon on his shoulder. Like clockwork, a small dark red form burst out of a neatly concealed electric lift. Furious, Powerglide waved off the bouncers and stomped over to Impactor, bouncing up on his tie-toes to do his best impression of getting in Impactor's face. The Minibot blustered, "Don't get your hands dirty, men. I happen to know this miscreant."

Impactor looked down, crossed his arms, and said, sounding hurt, "Miscreant? Slag, I've been downgraded. Thought I was an honourless tread-head."

"That too and more," Powerglide snapped. He put his hands up in fists. "Out in the alley?"

"Whatever you want," Impactor said agreeably.

The patrons clearly didn't know whether to be impressed by Powerglide's bravery or confused by Impactor's placid responses. Powerglide stormed out a back door, Impactor on his heels. The Minibot whirled on him as soon as the door slammed and demanded, "What do you want?"

Impactor levelled fast. There could be no pleasantries between them. He said, "I need to know if there's anything going down here."

Powerglide looked up. Impactor took a glance and saw just another jet, scarring the sky with his trail. Powerglide's optics glinted with consideration, and he replied, "I'm retired. Of course, I traded the military life for the air show circuit, and let me tell you, those re-enactments can get fierce. There was this one time that I-"

"-and you ended up with a cute little jump jet," Impactor finished, skipping the middle of the story.

"No, this was a divebomber, but I definitely jumped the jet if you know what I mean," Powerglide protested.

"Yeah, yeah." Impactor waved a hand dismissively. "You're retired, but you know people who aren't, and they'd love to have you back to trot you out."

"Of course they want me back. Can't manage without me." Powerglide puffed up with pride.

"So is everything really as quiet as it looks?" Impactor watched a Pantheon of Winds evangelic pamphlet blow around the alley.

Idly, Powerglide stomped down on the pamphlet and asked, "Who are you working for?"

Guardedly, Impactor explained, "Civilian sector. Protection work."

Powerglide burst out laughing and held his abdomen, trying to keep his sides from splitting with mirth. He exclaimed, between snickers, "Hoo-boy! Impactor, captain of the fearsome mercenaries the Wreckers, is doing bodyguard work? Who is it, some rich celebrity past his prime and gone paranoid?"

"That's just you," Impactor replied, watching Powerglide make the most interesting faces, despite his faceplate. "Ever heard of Emirate Xaaron?"

Powerglide was unimpressed, but he was never able to see anything grander than his own image. "Emirate Whozat? Never heard of him. Some trumped up official from Stanix?"

Impactor shrugged. "Just Iacon's newest Elder on the Council."

"Oh. Might have heard something about him on the news. Can't say I paid attention. The sea plane race was on. I know the winner – a real wildcat, especially if you-"

"Powerglide. I'm working for a Council Elder from Iacon. Nothing to do with Tarn, these days." He held up his hands."I just need to know if they're going to lock down the city-state because Grand High Muckety-Muck Starscream's having another crisis of self-esteem because Shockwave's got and is a bigger gun than him."

Powerglide wasn't a fan of his city-state's figurehead, and he rubbed his chin, trying and failing to hide the glint of amusement in his optics. He said slowly, "The recruiters have been pretty insistent these days. They're always all over me, but they haven't been this interested since, well, the Battle of Cotterpins. Why are you here, anyway? You're a long way from Iacon."

"If you'd been paying attention to the news, you'd know. Emirate Xaaron's hauled out here for some fuel summit."

"That's not like a fuel tasting, is it? No? Don't want to hear it. Yeah, uhm, this might not be the best time to enjoy beautiful Vos. I also have this buddy in the 703rd. I don't hear from him much, but I was going to have him over for dinner, and he had to cancel real suddenly."

"But nothing concrete?"

Powerglide's wings twitched up cockily, and he replied, "This is Vos. We build with aluminium and titanium. You'll never find anything concrete here."

"Just flimsy little tin cans with flimsier information. Got it." Powerglide had enough to make Impactor worry, but there wasn't enough substance to it that he could take his worries to Emirate Xaaron. The Emirate would want to see his duty out, and he'd go on about how flippant it would look for him to leave now. Impactor could hear him even now. Wait, that was just Powerglide going on about himself again. Impactor turned his back on the Minibot and grumbled, "Can it."

Impactor caught back up with Emirate Xaaron after the first round of talks. Emirate Xaaron opened with, "The talks went poorly." Impactor was jarred, because those words applied neatly to his own talk with Powerglide. Luckily, Emirate Xaaron was too wrapped up in his own issues to notice Impactor's momentarily slip. Instead, Impactor must have made a face that looked like 'tell me about your day,' since the Emirate did. "I knew the Vosians wouldn't take me seriously. I'm the junior member of the Council. My impeccable record means that they can't just buy me. My choice of bodyguards makes me look like a warhawk and is mildly insulting by implying that something might happen that I would actually need a whole mercenary team."

Impactor decided that he needed to perfect an 'I don't care about your day look' and moved doing that to the top of his to-do list. He could have told Emirate Xaaron that he wouldn't get anywhere. It was politics. Hasn't he heard that congress was the opposite of progress? Some people were just suckers for losing battles.

Rack departed and radioed, //That's just the abbreviated boring. It was more concentrated in person.//

//I got that impression,// Impactor drawled. He escorted Emirate Xaaron up to his room in the embassy and took a post inside, leaning against the wall. The Emirate turned on the news and withdrew a datapad, occasionally glancing up from it to look at the vidscreen. Impactor watched it for lack of anything better to do. He caught Emirate Xaaron again staring at the corner of the screen and demanded, "What are you looking at?"

Quietly, Emirate Xaaron replied, "The picture has been edited."

Impactor snorted, "It's the news." That explained everything.

"It's supposed to be live. The edit is very good, but you see there," Emirate Xaaron stood and stalked over toward the video screen, hand outstretched, "how that base is set up? The 703rd aren't stationed there, and the tailcodes for this one in the corner are for the 703rd."

Impactor tackled Emirate Xaaron to the floor, shattered glass raining down on their frames. A dart lodged in the wall behind them, quivering. He held down Emirate Xaaron, hard and fast against the floor, until he realised that Emirate Xaaron wasn't struggling. Impactor loosened his grip slightly and let a string of curses fly. Emirate Xaaron murmured, sounding dazed, "And you'll imprint your blueprints on his factory's main production line, too?"

"Can it," Impactor uttered, low but sharp. They were officially in a combat situation, and that fact put Impactor in charge here. He reached up and snagged the dart, daring that much movement. The dart contained a chemical agent that would induce involuntary defragmentation. The design looked like a knock-off of a Tarnish one, but with the way the arms trade went, it could have been made anywhere. If Vos did want Emirate Xaaron dead or kidnapped, they wouldn't miss the chance to blame Tarn.

The Vosian security crew rushed in, so young that their paint still had to be wet. The leader of the group, his wings sharp enough to cut glass, strutted forward and demanded, "The Emirate will come with us for his safety."

"Like slag he will," Impactor growled. What they meant by 'safety' was 'hostage', and Impactor wasn't letting Emirate Xaaron go anywhere until he and his men were paid. He hauled Emirate Xaaron to his feet and kept a firm grip on the Emirate's elbow. "His security is my business, and he isn't going anywhere without me."

The security officer looked directly at Emirate Xaaron and snapped, "Control your pet."

//Rack, Ruin, Topspin, and Whirl, level 931, room 93117. The rent-a-guards are trying to confiscate our cash cow. His security is our business, and I'll be blasted before I hand him over.// Professionals had to work hard to build their reputations, and Impactor did not fancy trying to recover from getting Emirate Xaaron killed.

//Careful, boss. You just might get that,// Rack noted, living up to his name.

Emirate Xaaron raised his free hand and suggested, voice soothing, "How about this, gentlemen, I go with you, and Impactor comes with me."

"That kind of rational thinking is going to get you killed," Impactor growled and tugged more insistently on Emirate Xaaron's arm.

"You will be kept as safe as possible," assured the security officer, looking rather vexed by Emirate Xaaron's suggestion that Impactor could come along and also by Impactor's snide comment. Impactor could put odds on just how good 'as possible' meant.

Of course, that was when Whirl crashed into the rear guard and loudly apologised, "Oh, excuse me. Didn't see you there." His single optic winked rakishly, when the security guards pointed a dozen guns at him. Rack and Ruin peeked out from behind him.

"They're my crew, and they're cleared," Impactor growled, gesturing at his trio of flier, "which you'd know, if you read their files."

A Seeker who hung close to the lead inquired sharply, "Sir, plan B?"

"That's my call to make!" snapped the lead officer, before he looked back and barked, "Plan B!"

Impactor's orders were much simpler, "Wreck and rule!"

They were outnumbered, and Roadbuster and the Jumpstarters wouldn't be able to make it until the fight was over. He had a useless civilian on his hands that might as well be a fragile parcel, except that fragile parcels didn't do stupid things in combat because they thought they knew better than their handler. Impactor clothes-lined through the opposing force, forcibly dragging the Emirate along behind him. Those short little legs weren't going to cut it right now. He left Whirl, Rack, and Ruin behind him; they could handle themselves, and he needed those security officers kept off his case. A few shots tagged him, and he pulled Emirate Xaaron closer, doing a quick once over for injuries. Looked like they were only interested in dispensing with the hired help, because there wasn't so much as a scorch mark on the Emirate's gilded frame. The alarm klaxons sounded, meaning that he could expect more rent-a-guards on his case. He stopped at the lift.

The voice of the obvious reminded, "Those are going to be disabled, you know."

"I do. Can it," Impactor growled. He let go of Emirate Xaaron long enough to wrench open the lift door, exposing the lift shaft. Impactor gave the Emirate a nudge and demanded, "Jump and grab that cable." Emirate Xaaron hesitated, looking the cable up and down. Unable to stand the delay, Impactor tossed the Emirate over his shoulder and corrected, "Scrap that. Hang on tight."

He felt Emirate Xaaron's finger dig into his cannon even as his words lashed out, "Rope tricks aren't exactly my style!"

"Pay bonuses are my style, though," Impactor quipped as he launched himself at the cable and grabbed it with his one hand. He wrapped his legs around the cable and started to shimmy down the cable. Then, he considered what floor they were on, thought better of it, and launched his harpoon down. As soon as he felt it hit wall, he let go of the cable. As they plummeted, Impactor learned that Emirate Xaaron's scream could put opera singers to shame. He buffered their impact by hitting the wall with his feet. Impactor waited for the tirade about their method of descent as he leapt off the wall to the cable and prepared to do it all over again.

Instead, Emirate Xaaron seethed, "Did you have to make such a scene of it?"

"They were going to take you hostage," Impactor snapped. The little know-it-all sure was blind, sometimes, blind as if he'd sewn up his optics instead of that yappy little mouth.

"I am aware of that," Emirate Xaaron replied, voice suddenly level. "I would have suggested out the window."

Who did he think he was he to tell Impactor how to handle a situation? "With the sniper? And the drop so long you'll have time for a filibuster before you die?"

"With Rack and Ruin to handle the sniper and Whirl to catch us," Emirate Xaaron snapped back, yellow optics alight with anger.

Impactor's jaw worked silently. A politician had worked out a reasonable option in a combat situation, there. Impactor supposed that stranger things had happened, but he couldn't remember when. The harpoon sunk into the wall, far below, and they were falling again.

Emirate Xaaron took to the sewers so well that Impactor was a bit spooked. He tried to tell himself that it was just the difficult extrication that was rattling him, but there was no way a scholar and politician, who was used to luxury and finery, should slog through a sewer as if he'd been doing it his whole life. Impactor squinted at Emirate Xaaron and realised that wasn't right, either. Emirate Xaaron still had his dignity about him. He didn't even complain about the muck and the distance. Emirate Xaaron made it look like he was taking a promenade down Iacon's main streets after they'd been swept. A real sewer dweller would know to skulk a bit more.

The silence was too good to last, for Emirate Xaaron broke it with, "They will find us." His voice carried no fear, only firm, accepting certainty.

"We'll deal with it when we come to that," Impactor grunted. "The rest of my crew are keeping them plenty occupied."

"We could go below," Emirate Xaaron offered.

Impactor would not help snapping, "What are you, stupid?"

Emirate Xaaron looked offended and narrowed his optics. Voice crisp and clear, he explained, "I know that you're thinking I am a fool who does not listen to the old tales about the dangers below. As it so turns out, at one point in my history, I was. I know the ways below. Not these ways, exactly, but I am quite familiar with the dangers."

Impactor wanted to stop and stare at Emirate Xaaron, but they had to keep moving. So instead, he demanded, "How? Some class trip with a hexnuts professor? A tour with an armed guard?"

Emirate Xaaron demurred, "It's hardly relevant right now."

Unwilling to put his fate in the hands of someone who wouldn't explain himself, Impactor protested, "It's blasted relevant! I'm not going haring off in demon-infested-"

"You have to go more levels down than I'm intending to hit demons. At the worst, we might run into a few mutants," Emirate Xaaron replied calmly.

Impactor regarded Emirate Xaaron with widened, incredulous optics. The gilded politician said it like he was talking about those rusting fuel negotiations. He was either telling the truth of completely bonkers. Impactor prodded, "Demons are a myth, unless you want to explain in more detail. What have you got to hide?"

Emirate Xaaron pressed his lips together thinly and stared down the tunnel in determined fashion. Impactor would have sworn he was one of his soldiers who didn't want to explain that the reason why he needed a new firewall was that the ten shanix ride he'd picked up had burned out his old firewall. He had ways of pressing that information out of his men, but they weren't quite appropriate to use on an employer. At this rate, though, Impactor felt he might be justified.

Before he could have a chance to try, the ceiling started to crack. Impactor grabbed at Emirate Xaaron, but the Emirate pulled away, so he settled on yelling, "Move!" He whirled to face what might be coming through the breach. He found himself facing down a pair of Seekers with pickaxes. He guessed he'd cornered the market on drilling machines. Impactor fired his harpoon, dragging one down into the muck with him. The Seeker screamed piteously as he was skewered, and he wailed even more loudly as Impactor wrenched the harpoon out and slung him up, one handed, into the other. They both fell down into the sewer with a splash and a wet thump. Impactor turned back to see if Emirate Xaaron was running, as he sensibly should.

Instead, the Emirate was doing something else entirely. His torso split open, his head folding inside and other components folding out. His arms compacted up, and legs folded over his arms. Emirate Xaaron was actually transforming! Impactor fought the urge to ask why and instead whirled right back around, because the Emirate wouldn't transform for nothing. A shot rang out past his side and blew a smoking hole through one of the Seekers, just as he had drawn a bead on Impactor. A second shot ceased the banshee wail of the other Seeker. Satisfied that the threat was dead, Impactor regarded Emirate Xaaron. He was an old-styled light tank, but the style lines rang true, echoed even in that new star gladiator, Megatron, and Impactor couldn't help exclaiming, shocked, "You're Tarnish!"

"Expatriate," Emirate Xaaron excused, transforming back to robot mode with a creak and a rattling protest. "Could you be so good as to fire some shots into them so they can't trace the ballistics evidence back?"

Impactor grunted and pumped in a few rounds, because the logic there was sound enough. He noted crudely, "You should show some tread more often. We had a betting pool on what your alternate mode was, you know. My money was on a lamp post."

"Oh yes, that would go over with my constituents like a uranium dirigible," Emirate Xaaron replied, glancing upward in a derisive fashion.

Impactor narrowed his optics. Emirate Xaaron had just shot and killed two machines he didn't even know, and he wasn't so much as shaking. Then again, he was Tarnish, 'expatriate' his aft, and they were Vosian. What could be more natural? He stated bluntly, without question, "You served."

"Everyone serves," Emirate Xaaron said roughly, stress creeping into his voice. "Could we please go below now? More will come. They had time to radio."

"Fine. Lead the way, sah," Impactor grumbled, in his best low-class enlisted accent.

Emirate Xaaron shot him a look that could have blown away a city from orbit. Someone was testy about rank! The Emirate knelt and hefted away a grating with a strength that didn't seem incongruous, now that Impactor had seen his alternate form. They dropped down into another set of sewers. A few quick sprints and some clever removal of floor panels, and they found themselves in what would have been the city of Vos, thousands of years ago, before the towers were built up ever-higher, to loom over the other city-states with disdain. The place was dank and dark, worse still than the sewers, so Impactor withdrew his electric torch and held it out for Emirate Xaaron. As soon as he felt the Emirate take hold, Impactor wrapped his hands around the smaller ones and tugged Emirate Xaaron in close. He demanded, "I'm going to regret this later, since you can't seem to keep your mouth shut, but talk. Now."

Emirate Xaaron complained sourly, "This is going to bleed my war chest dry, between hush money for the whole incident and paying to shut you up."

Impactor sniped, "You should have told me you're Tarnish. I give a discount for countrymen."

"Expatriate!" the Emirate exclaimed. "Could you just be silent about that matter?"

"You're Tarnish enough to drop a pair of Seekers without cycling a blink," Impactor observed sharply. "You were a Tarnish soldier, you know your way around the underground, and this links up with Xaaron, Iaconian scientist and politician, how exactly? Oh, and you're touchy about rank. What, did the other officers pick on you for your name?"

Emirate Xaaron forcibly yanked his hands and the light away, and even his footfall smacked against the wet metal of the floor angrily. He seethed, "I was enlisted, you oversized jet-bait!"

That little bomb did leave Impactor dumbstruck, staring at the quivering, wrathful figure before him. Eventually, his processors caught up, and he sputtered, "You were enlisted? No way. No how."

Bitter as the arsenic on a candy-circuit wafer, Emirate Xaaron reminded, "In case you haven't noticed, I am a light tank. The only tanks who get anywhere in the ranks are the heavy tanks as blessed with processor ticks as they are armaments, and few enough of those. Now, does that explain to you why I left Tarn to take up science in Iacon?"

"Sure does," Impactor agreed easily enough. He had left the Tarnish army to become a mercenary for much the same reason. "About these demons and things?"

"Now that was a hazing ritual gone terribly awry. The Iaconians do it, you see, and we figured that if they did, it had to be a stroll down main street." Emirate Xaaron rubbed his head and muttered, "I was an idiot."

"Bet your sergeant really chewed you out for it," Impactor commented absently as they walked. He trailed the tip of his harpoon along the wall, leaving a thin trace of their passage. If trackers made it down this far, they would find enough traces to follow, thin line or not, and Impactor wanted some mark of where they had been in case they became lost.

"Slaughterpact pretended it didn't happen. When I had the temerity to say it did, he stitched up my lips with bailing wire and had me write out, 'I will not say stupid things' with my own fuel until I passed out. Of course, I had to clean up the mess when I came to," Emirate Xaaron explained, unperturbed. An Iaconian would have been horrified.

The name Slaughterpact rang a faint bell. The ornery old sergeant was something of a legend. That made the Emirate even older than Impactor had figured. He said slowly, "You wouldn't happen to be that Xaaron, would you?"

Emirate Xaaron replied softly, in a sing-song voice, "Oh, our factories roll them out, day by day, and every one's a soldier, if he wants to stay. Some of them are true, and some of them are rotten. Xaaron was one of the worst, and he won't ever be forgotten. A coward to his core, and arrogant to boot, when the order to hold the enemy came, he thought he knew better, and he craved fame. He turned the men against their officer and their rightful orders, too. So foolish Xaaron did something no soldier should ever do. The city that should have held fell, and Xaaron and those men all went straight to –"

Impactor waved a hand and cut him off, "I know the tune."

Emirate Xaaron smirked impishly and pointed out, "Do I look dead to you?"

"C'mon, everyone who wasn't minted an officer, stupid, or both," which was a lot of them, "knows that's not the way it went. It's just some spin command put on it to keep the enlisted from questioning and mutinying." Impactor had never believed a word of that story, for the life of him.

The Emirate admitted, clearly pained, "I already admitted that my judgement was lapsed as a youth. Many were killed as a result of my actions then," then his voice and expression turned hard, "but one less than there should have been."

"You gave me the third degree over my history," Impactor noted cuttingly. "How every battle went, how-"

Emirate Xaaron was clipped and short and he ceded, "I did three tours of duty. The first time, I was factory fresh. Eager. Stupid. It ended when a shell from the 703rd blew me in half. I crawled back to find myself discharged. As soon as I had my health back, I had no need for something so petty as my liberty, and I was pulled off the street and back to the fray. That time, I was slightly more dissatisfied." Impactor snorted. "Piledriver ordered us to hold a podunk border town called Vix. The Vosians were coming around in a pincher attack." He sketched it out on the wall with the light from the torch. "Vix was going to fall. The only question was when. If we had stayed, it would have taken a little longer, and we would have been dead. I rallied the troops and had us pull out. Then, at least, we could live to fight another day and retake Vix from a position of strength. Piledriver was furious, of course, and didn't have the decency to go down with Vix, as his ill-informed plan suggested. He wanted me executed, but command realised that a dead martyr could spur a massive mutiny of the lower ranks. Instead, I was summarily kicked out. An irritable, unemployable drifter isn't particularly inspiring. I waited until my past sins had been forgotten, and I signed on of my free will for the first time."

Given Xaaron's past experiences in the Tarnish army, Impactor couldn't fathom why. He again entertained the idea that Xaaron might be the kind of sane that was really just crazy. Impactor asked, startled, "Now why would you do that?"

Emirate Xaaron smiled deviously, and Impactor felt a chill. The Emirate rubbed his chin and feigned innocence, explaining, "I joined, thinking I would stay just long enough get in close enough to kill Piledriver, but once I was in position, I released that it wasn't my place to hand out his death, no matter how many he killed with his asinine orders."

Impactor gaped and stifled the urge to smack Emirate Xaaron. Due process and nobility were all well and good, but some people just needed to be shot, especially if they were going to waste the lives of others. He exclaimed, sound ringing off the walls of the underground, "That's it? Guess the story was right about the cowardice."

Emirate Xaaron narrowed his optics to mere yellow slits in the dark, and he concluded, "I dredged up evidence of his other transgressions – Piledriver was also embezzling from war funds, among other things – and dropped them off in his superior's office. Piledriver was out of the forces faster than you can launch that harpoon of yours. Funny, that credits are worth more than soldiers' lives. I could never quite grasp that logic, for all that I could play the politics. I was done with Tarn then, and I am sure that Tarn is quite done with me."

Impactor and Emirate Xaaron had to walk, narrow as some of the passageways were, but they were tanks. They wouldn't be making great speed even if they did transform. Emirate Xaaron observed, "We are days off from a safe spot to go aboveground, unless you know of safe spots you didn't mention when we planned this trip." He quirked an optical ridge and looked at Impactor meaningfully.

Impactor static-coughed. Of course he did. He excused, "They're not relevant right now."

Emirate Xaaron sounded cross, "And my history was?"

Impactor grinned like a rascal and cheerily answered, "No, that was just entertaining. Seriously, there's the location of every oil house and full service lube from here to there."

Emirate Xaaron grimaced, prissy, and opined, "Forget I asked. We will need to defragment, then. I would not advise handling the underground with anything less than full wits."

"Most folks would advise not handling it all," Impactor needled. He held out his hand and offered, "Here, I'll take that and sling you over my shoulder while you catch some RAM. We'll still make time that way."

Emirate Xaaron hesitated, drawing the electric torch in against his chest. "What about you? I can't carry you, but I can stand watch."

Impactor mimed thinking and replied, making it sound like he was harbouring some serious doubts, "I don't know if I want Xaaron the Rotten standing watch over me."

The Emirate was the most amusing little thing when he fumed, Impactor decided, how all his dignity went right down the drain, how his hands curled up just so. Impactor grabbed the electric torch away from him and tossed him over his shoulder, snickering at how he struggled and sputtered.

Impactor did take Emirate Xaaron up on his offer. He roused from his defragmentation cycle to the Emirate shaking him. Any time Impactor woke up in an unfamiliar situation, he always ran through two possibilities: one, that someone attractive might be there or two, that there might be an interrogator ready to sink his hooks into him. Emirate Xaaron definitely wasn't an interrogator. Treads aside, he decided to wait until he knew why the Emirate was shaking him to figure out the former. Emirate Xaaron pointed back and hissed, "Mutants!"

"Ugly sons of glitches," spilled out of Impactor's mouth, his vocal circuits evidently having processed the image data before the rest of his processors could catch up. He wasn't sure if the creatures could even transform, and not in the subtle, nondescript way of the Emirate. Their parts were laid out in a way that fundamentally screamed, 'Wrong!' at Impactor. He did what anyone would do in his situation and fired. One with clamp-like claws squealed and went down in flames. The rest lurched forward. Impactor got to his feet and demanded of the Emirate, "What do you know about these wrecks?"

"They aren't very bright," Emirate Xaaron ventured. "Sort of like this electric torch."

There were six of them left, and Impactor was not liking those odds in the least. He pressed, "Got anything else?"

"They're mutants!" Emirate Xaaron snapped. "Can't expect them to be consistent."

"Transform," Impactor growled, since the Emirate seemed like he was being shy about it.

Emirate Xaaron's face twisted into a stricken look, but he complied, his joints making a terrible ratcheting noise. He really needed a good, deep oiling. Impactor debated their options. A burst of flame from the one off to the far left singed his frame removed the option of just trying to stay at range and pick them off. Emirate Xaaron's barrel swivelled up and wasted the ceiling, effectively erecting a barrier between them and the mutants. Shrapnel bouncing off his armour, Impactor grunted, "That works."

The light tank excused, "You try going several thousand years without target practise. I have all the aim of a cross-opticed Yuss yokel. Let's go before they try a side passage."

"Sounds like your problem," Impactor muttered. He couldn't imagine letting himself slip like that, but the only kinds of shots that the Emirate was liable to be making were shots at faulty arguments in debates.

Emirate Xaaron transformed back to robot mode, apparently much more comfortable in it, and they hustled. Shortly into their sprinting, they could hear scraping, erratic footfalls off down the tunnels. Impactor looked to the Emirate and then looked to one of the abandoned buildings. Emirate Xaaron said that the mutants were stupid. Impactor hoped that they exceeded expectations. He jimmied the lock on the door with his harpoon and gestured for Emirate Xaaron to follow him. The Emirate ducked in after him, and Impactor carefully closed the door up flush. He laid down and rolled over, fast against the wall. Emirate Xaaron sat down next to him, but for this to work, they simply could not be visible through the window. Impactor pulled the Emirate in close.

Emirate Xaaron opened his mouth to protest but closed it just as quickly, the nature of the plan dawning on him. He didn't even take his complaints to radio, so the thought that maybe one of the mutants could pick up on radio signals must have hit him, too. There wasn't much to do until the clang of the mutants milling around outside went away. Impactor wracked his processors for some way to kill time, since they couldn't kill all those mutants. He held Emirate Xaaron close in the dark, willing the sounds outside to go away, and his mind kept going back to Emirate Xaaron as a light tank. Speculatively, he cupped his hand under the Emirate's chin and tilted his face up. Emirate Xaaron tensed, and his optics flickered with uncertainty. The Emirate's aim might have been poor as jet slag, but Impactor hoped he hadn't forgotten how to get away with fraternising under the gunny's nose.

"You sure you're ready for this?" Impactor asked, looking Emirate Xaaron over. He didn't need a mirror to tell him that they both looked fit for the junk heap.

Emirate Xaaron replied coolly, "I'm sure that if I don't do it now, there will never be any time to be ready." He flung open the door.

Traachon's voice insisted, "Vos's demands are that we stay out of their, ah, skirmish with Tarn. If we do not comply, they will-"

"-do absolutely nothing to me, because I do not happen to be there," Emirate Xaaron cut in, quite ignoring protocol.

Impactor took up a post slouching against a wall and crossed his arms to watch Emirate Xaaron, how he was the picture of composure and dignity, despite the scratches and stains. A few of those gouges were Impactor's fault. He wasn't sorry. Emirate Xaaron was positively radiant with calm, controlled determination, and he strode over to his seat in the council like he had merely been delayed by traffic, rather than narrowly escaped from Vos via a harrowing trip underground.

Traachon looked shaky and stuttered, "Emirate... Emirate Xaaron, you're, ah –"

"Filthy," Tomaandi finished, his disgust quite clear. He even physically shifted himself farther in his chair away from Emirate Xaaron. Impactor glanced up, trying to hide his derision for the Councillor. The smell wasn't going to kill anyone, but licking the Emirate might. Impactor was still waiting on the results of that test.

"I am thrilled to hear such enthusiasm for my well-being, but I found it more prudent to attend this meeting, as is my duty, than waste time cleaning," Emirate Xaaron answered. He absently rubbed a patch of green off one of his arms and let the flecks skitter off in Tomaandi's direction.

"This changes everything!" Siloxane noted, glancing around the council chamber with alarm.

"Quite," Emirate Xaaron agreed amiably. "Now, shall we take this from the top, gentlemen?"

A few thousand years later, Impactor was slogging through tunnels with Emirate Xaaron again, which was one of many fascinating things in their shared history that he didn't want to be doing with Emirate Xaaron right now. Only standing through another Council meeting ranked lower, and the Council was dead now. There were no more meetings to be had. He called out, tired, "You said, 'The base under Kalis is just one more right turn,' and that was two right turns ago."

"You made us take a left," Emirate Xaaron shot back, glaring.

"The tunnel was caved in," Impactor protested.

"Then don't complain about the detour. Ah, here we are." Emirate Xaaron stopped and looked over at a blank wall thoughtfully. He flipped a panel open on the wall and typed in a series of numbers, quicker than Impactor could see. A door slid open with a groan. Emirate Xaaron bowed slightly, gestured, and offered, "Welcome to the Kalis Autobase."

Impactor looked around and was grudgingly impressed. For a scrappy band of mostly ex-civilian rebels, they had done a bang-up job and fast, too. Emirate Xaaron smirked slightly at his gawking, so Impactor reverted to his default state of cross, and he demanded, "Am I going to get a tour?"

"All the bells and whistles," Emirate Xaaron promised, and he grinned rakishly, making a sweeping gesture for Impactor to follow. The base really was laid out quite well, and their final stop was in the barrack. The Emirate explained, "And these are the temporary living quarters, which you can use when you're staying over from your own base at Debris."

Impactor paused. There was something wrong with that. It clicked, and he asked, "And where are yours?"

Emirate Xaaron looks down and placed his hand on his own other elbow. Then he looked up and said softly, "We can't, Impactor. Not anymore. It was one thing when you were my bodyguard. It made sense for you to be in my recharge room with me alone, it even made sense for you to follow me to the shower, although maybe not into it. I have to put a face on this rebellion. If anyone ever found out –"

Impactor's jaw dropped, and his harpoon went along with it, hitting the floor with a clink, and the line spooled down along to puddle over it. He grabbed the Emirate by the shoulder, held him close, and protested hoarsely, "No. Slaggit, no!"

"The accusations of favouritism to your sect are bad enough as it is, Impactor, just because you and your Wreckers used to be my personal guard. Do you have any idea what it would do to my image if they found out you were my lover?"

"Are," Impactor insisted, running his hand down Emirate Xaaron's back. Reassuringly, the Emirate shuddered. "I know you're a good for nothing politician, but if your precious image really does mean more to you than I do, so help me, Primus, I'm -"

"Forget Primus and help me," Emirate Xaaron countered. He looked up at Impactor, pained and pleading. "This isn't about you and me. Our scattered cells have enough trouble holding together as it is. They need someone, and I wish it could be anyone else, but I'm the only one left. If their faith in me falters, the whole resistance falters. You know I can't allow that."

Impactor rocked back and forth and muttered, feeling defeated, "I hate these Autobot politics."

Emirate Xaaron tried to make light, "Impactor, you hate all politics."

Impactor held his Emirate closer and denied, "I always did like it when you did Tarnish-style negotiations."

"This is the first army that won't even let me near the field," Emirate Xaaron noted, seizing the conversation shift like a falling Autobot to a ledge.

"Good thing, too, given your aim and how you don't have any," Impactor needled, wishing for once that his Emirate didn't have such perfect composure, that he could show his pain in more than brief contortions of his face. Perhaps the grief Impactor was showing was enough for the two of them. Slowly, he reeled his harpoon back and let Emirate Xaaron go. He turned to leave, having had enough of this tour of the Kalis Autobase. A thought stilled his tread, and he turned back and asked, because nothing ventured would gain him only wistful thoughts, "One last time, for old time's sake?"

Emirate Xaaron's optics lit brighter, and he smiled tentatively before bounding the few steps that separated them to throw his arms around Impactor's shoulders. He nestled his head against Impactor's neck and whispered, "Primus, I was hoping you'd ask. My room's right down this way."