Tigatron wanted to go hunting and she preferred to hunt alone, leaving Airazor to find another way to spend her morning. She decided to see if Cheetor wanted company and went up to the command centre.

He was alone, sitting at the navigation station. She couldn't tell what he was looking at, only that he seemed intent on it. "Hey, Cheetor. Did you find a stasis pod?"

Cheetor yelped and jumped, shutting off the screen. "Augh!" When he realised it was her, he didn't relax. "Uh, no. No, still looking. Everything's fine."

Airazor put her hands on her hips, staring him down. "That doesn't sound suspicious at all."

He hunched back over the station. "I'm just busy. Very busy. Got to keep scanning."

Cheetor was probably just trying to hide that he'd been playing video games. Airazor decided to let him get away with it. She went out the roof hatch and climbed up on top of the Axalon. She hadn't been able to go up and sit on the Axalon's roof in the rain, but for the first time in a week the sky was clear and the hull was dry so she was taking the opportunity.

The air was already dry, the sun burning away the damp as if trying to erase the existence of yesterday's rain. The wind blew warm, tangling her hair when it would have once ruffled her feathers. It had been a bit frightening the first time she'd climbed up there without wings, with the ravine so far below. Now she wanted it. The height and the wind weren't flight but they gave a little bit of that feeling.

The scout sat on an autogun emplacement, letting her legs dangle, and took in the world. The planet wasn't strange to her - she had flown between colony worlds and had known organic planets before. This one was only the most wild.

She had overheard a conversation the day before, Scorponok complaining to Waspinator that it was wrong, all this green, all this brown, all this water - it wasn't natural. Airazor had to duck out of the corridor and nearly smothered herself trying not to laugh. Not because she thought Scorponok was wrong, just that she was used to Tigatron and her tastes and philosophies. What was considered natural came down to the nature of the beholder.

Airazor had a preference for metal but it didn't mean she couldn't like an organic world on its own merits. She liked the green and the wet - here.

"Oh! I can depart if you prefer to be alone."

Airazor turned to see Silverbolt at the hatch, hands braced on the roof but the action needed to pull him up and out incomplete. She waved him over. "I'd like company."

The neophyte climbed up and walked over to stand beside her, looking out over the jungle. "It is a lovely view you have up here."

"Doesn't belong to me." Then, because she was thinking about the topic, "You think it's pretty? What are you comparing it to?"

Silverbolt glanced over at her. "What could I compare it to?"

The scout shrugged. "Other worlds. That's what everyone else is doing."

"I know no other worlds."

"Other lands, then. The wasteland where you first woke up."

Silverbolt frowned in confusion. "How could they compare? That was a desert, this is a jungle."

Airazor laughed. "I'm glad someone around here understands that. What've you got planned for the day?"

"Very little," Silverbolt admitted. "Dinobot and Rattrap are not recovered enough to continue training Quickstrike and me. They have listed reading and viewing materials but I have already completed most of them." He shook his head. "How does one set about acquiring tasks?"

"Oh, just ask around, see what needs doing." She looked back over the landscape. "Not much use in being a scout right now. Can't get far on these legs."

"But you have other skills."

She chuckled. "I'm a good pilot. That's no use now, either."

"I want to work. I want to be useful." Silverbolt's fists clenched, then his hands fell loose at his sides. "I just do not know what I do."

When a Cybertronian was made, they were made for a purpose. It might be a vague purpose like 'scout' or 'technician', but it was there. Airazor couldn't imagine not knowing that she was a scout. Even if she couldn't do it now, she still had the knowledge of her purpose. "What do you want to do?"

Silverbolt sighed. "I do not know that, either."

"Maybe we can find out."

Others tended to head for the green areas around the Axalon when they had a chance to laze around outside. Quickstrike chose brown, remaining near the back of the ship, finding a large, flat rock. The sun had heated it - not unbearably, not this early in the morning, just enough that it was pleasantly warm against his back. He'd removed his shirt to use as a makeshift pillow, one arm over his eyes to block out the light, the other stretched out to the side. Quickstrike lay back and let the morning heat wash over him. After days of feeling sick and chilled all he wanted to do was soak up as much heat as possible.

The sensation might have been more intense if he'd showered later and let the sun dry him but he'd discovered by accident that Inferno always took a shower half a megacycle before the first shift started so he'd changed his schedule to fit. Of course, by the time the sun rose high enough to bask, he was dry, but seeing Inferno was worth it. As far as Quickstrike was concerned, the woman was perfect. Well, physically anyway - she was a bit weird to speak to but Quickstrike found all of them strange, them and their robot talk.

Thinking about the Predacon warrior made him feel warmer so he kept right on doing it. It also gave him an ache that started in his groin and spread up into his chest but it was kind of a pleasant feeling. Primus, but that woman is gorgeous. Copper skin - couldn't be called flawless, not with all the scrapes and bruises she'd got from renovating Megatron's quarters, not with that nasty-looking scar on her hand from where she'd been burned by some chemical, but Quickstrike thought her damages just enhanced her beauty. Not because they were pretty to look at but because they showed Inferno to be strong and active, unafraid of injury, shrugging off pain like it didn't matter. And there was watching the water flow down soft curves and hard muscle, making him want to ... well, come right down to it, Quickstrike wasn't certain what he wanted. He was sure he'd figure it out if he got the chance.

Too bad she's with that Megatron fellow. Well, 'Ferny ain't the only woman around. Maybe Tigatron. She was built to similar heroic proportions and she didn't seem to have a man ...

"Hey, Maximal. Want to go for a ride?"

Recognising Terrorsaur's voice, Quickstrike debated whether he should bother opening his eyes. 'Course, where there's the screecher, Waspy ain't far behind and she's worth lookin' at. He lifted his arm and opened his eyes. Terrorsaur looked down at him from a sharper angle than usual - he was standing on a metal pad suspended in the air. "Whaddya want, red?"

"I already said," Terrorsaur snapped, rolling his eyes.

Quickstrike looked past him. As he'd guessed, Waspinator was there, standing on another pad, giving Terrorsaur an impatient look. She was pretty in a different way than Inferno - scars didn't suit her, she looked better now that her burns had mostly healed. She and the others were still kind of reddish around the face and neck but that was all. Quickstrike had tried talking to her before but all he ever got were disdainful little 'I don't talk to Maximals' sniffs. He didn't think it was fair. Whatever Waspinator had against Maximals, Quickstrike didn't think it should apply to someone who had only woke up eleven days ago and been nothing but friendly.

"Hey!"

The Maximal dragged his reluctant gaze back to Terrorsaur. It was completely unfair that pretty Waspinator ignored him but her noisy redhead didn't. "What?"

"You coming or what?" demanded Terrorsaur.

He took a longer look at the contraption Terrorsaur was standing on. It looked a little like the loader sled in that it was a flat piece of metal hovering half a metre above the ground. However it was about a quarter of the size and had the control stick off to the side. "With you?"

"With me," Terrorsaur snapped. "Primus! How do you Maximals get anything done if you're this slow on the uptake?"

"Forget scruffy Maximal," Waspinator urged. "Terror-bot is wasting time."

Quickstrike looked back at Waspinator. "Well, s'long as I get to spend time with you, sugar, I might be able to put up with red ..."

"What's going on down here?"

Another female voice. Quickstrike finally sat up so he could look around. Airazor this time. Sleek, streamlined, and easy to get along with. Tigatron was kind of aloof and the Predacon women weren't real friendly but Airazor would smile and chat like they'd been pals for years. She was currently being trailed by Silverbolt, unfortunately. If'n that tinhorn gets himself a lady before I do ...

Quickstrike didn't get a chance to report. Airazor swung up behind Terrorsaur and the pad lurched as Terrorsaur tried to move away from her without letting go of the control stick. He had to settle for glaring over his shoulder. Airazor grinned at him, though it was more just baring her teeth than a smile. "Where are you two going?"

"We're testing the range of the hoverpads by reprogramming some jamming towers into signal boosters for the commlinks," said Terrorsaur. It was funny how he was trying to hunch up scared and stand tall and snobby at the same time. "So it's Predacon business no matter how you look at it."

"There's a truce on," Airazor reminded him. "Predacon business is Maximal business. Besides, nobody's supposed to go off alone, not when we're stuck like this."

'Snobby' won out and Terrorsaur turned and drew himself up so he could look down his nose at Airazor. "Like anyone follows that rule. What makes you think Waspinator and I were going to split up?"

Airazor wasn't impressed by his height or his pointy nose. "You've both got toolboxes. Lucky guess."

"Feh," huffed Terrorsaur. "You only caught us because I was being a good little Predacon, following the rules, asking if Quickstrike wanted to come with me."

"Ain't goin' nowhere with you, red ..." Quickstrike started.

Airazor cut him off. "Fine. Silverbolt, you've got a job for the day. I'll go with Waspinator."

"No," said Waspinator flatly. "Bird-bot shoots at Waspinator. If Waspinator has to take Maximal, Waspinator takes silver-bot."

Quickstrike wanted to protest that he'd be perfectly happy to go along with Waspinator but Waspinator grabbed Silverbolt's arm and started away, forcing him to jump on lest he be dragged. Quickstrike glanced back at the other two, who were giving each other reluctant, wary looks. "You could say that I pushed you over and took off," said Terrorsaur.

"Quickstrike, go tell Cheetor where Silverbolt and I went." Airazor tightened her grip on the handrail. "I'm coming along whether you like it or not, Predacon."

"That'd be 'or not', Maximal." Terrorsaur hesitated, then steered the hoverpad to follow Waspinator.

Quickstrike sighed and pulled his shirt on, feeling that he'd been cheated out of feminine company. Red didn't seem too happy about goin' with Airazor. What kinda idiot doesn't want to hang out with a pretty girl? The fact that she made Terrorsaur nervous just made her more attractive to Quickstrike.

The neophyte wandered up to the command centre. "Hey, spots - Airazor said to say that her and 'Bolt went off with Waspy and red to go look at some tower things."

Cheetor called up the duty roster file. "Jamming tower reprogramming. Yeah, Terrorsaur and Waspinator came up to sign out a few cycles ago." Then, grumbly, "Maybe the Preds will actually do what they said they went to do if they've got a couple Maximals along."

"She said they were gonna split up," said Quickstrike. He wasn't sure how detailed Airazor wanted the report to be but since it was for her he wasn't going to be found slacking. "Airazor went with red, 'Bolt got Waspy."

"She what? Airazor and Terrorsaur together is practically a truce violation by itself!" Cheetor exclaimed. "I mean, they really don't like each other."

Quickstrike made a derisive noise. "I can see not likin' Terrorsaur."

Inferno hated the jungle. She hated how leaves and branches kept brushing and snapping against her. She hated how they snagged on her clothing and scratched her skin. She hated how the dense foliage hid things from her. She sniffed the air, then wrinkled her nose. She couldn't distinguish between scents like she used to - they all blended together now and she lost the subtleties. The smell of the jungle, wet and green with an undertone of rot, covered everything else. The smell was so thick it was almost a physical thing, like the air was liquid.

Burn it. Burn it all down. Inferno quashed the impulse with effort. Megatron had ordered her to wait. She would wait. The fire would burn all the hotter when it could finally be released.

She wanted to be in the sky, where her targets were easy to see, where she could scream her war-cries. In the jungle, sound was a liability. She had to be so careful walking, trying not to make any noise while still keeping her senses open to anything else. Sound was the sense she currently found herself relying on for protection. Scent muddled, vision limited by plants, complete loss of all radar and thermal scanners - Inferno listened to the ambient sounds of the jungle. Silence meant trouble. Silence meant that the life around her had fled and Inferno wasn't fast enough to give chase. Prey was faster than her now. So were predators.

Sound wouldn't help her find prey. Prey would also be quiet, listening for the same tells Inferno listened for. Hunting was by sight, looking for likely animal tracks in the thick, damp soil and rotting leaves.

It was because Inferno was paying such close attention to the ground that she noticed the footprint.

It was easy to tell human footprints - long ovals that had no toes because they wore boots. The tiger must have come this way ... Only something seems wrong ...

Inferno stepped into the footprint. It was larger than hers, which ruled out everyone but Megatron or possibly Dinobot. It must have been made today or the rain would have destroyed it. She frowned down at the impression in the leaf mould. Megatron hadn't been out this way and Dinobot was stuck in the Axalon. Another Maximal, perhaps. The stasis pods had all come down in the energy wave and the Maximals couldn't find them. One could have activated on its own.

Megatron would think this discovery more important than hunting. She tried to contact the Axalon to ask him for instructions but her commlink was full of static. Left with the choice of backtracking the footprints to find the stasis pod or following them to find the Maximal, Inferno followed. Only her pod had been a colony; she had no use for an empty one.

She wasn't certain what she would do with the Maximal once she caught up with them. Under ordinary circumstances she would attack but these were not ordinary circumstances. Hopefully by then she would have new instructions.

"Your blasted hair keeps blowing in my face!"

"Deal with it."

Airazor entertained a brief fantasy involving a pair of metal snips but cast it aside. Other than having too much hair, Terrorsaur wasn't doing anything obnoxious. She decided not to remind him that for once she was behind him, and though she was unarmed she could easily snatch Terrorsaur's gun from the holster strapped to his back. He'd shot her in the back often enough that the idea of returning the favour with his own weapon was tempting. Doubtless he was already thinking that ... if his mind wasn't fully occupied by flying ...

It wasn't great flying, they were only a metre off the ground and dodging trees, but it was better than nothing. She wondered if the hoverpad could go faster if there weren't any obstacles to slow it down.

She leaned out a bit to avoid Terrorsaur's hair and got a faceful of leaves. Airazor swore. Terrorsaur had enough sense not to turn around while he was driving. "You speak Predacon?"

"Sometimes," Airazor admitted, picking leaves out of her hair. "Well, you lot have the best swear words."

"You should have gone with Waspinator." Terrorsaur chuckled. "Or talk to Scorponok. Scorponok can strip paint just by cursing at it."

Fortunately they soon left the jungle behind them - the jamming tower was out on a rocky plain. Airazor couldn't think why her crew hadn't destroyed it. Maybe the Predacons put it up recently and we just hadn't found it yet. Of all the things to have turned out for the best!

Terrorsaur steered over beside the tower and they realised there was a new problem. The hoverpads, altered for long-range use, could only gain so much height. Both flyers looked up at the jamming tower. Terrorsaur frowned. "I'll have to climb it. I'll tell you what tools I need and you pass them up."

The toolbox had magnets and could stick to the metal frame of the tower but manoeuvring the entire box up and down the tower seemed more difficult than Terrorsaur's suggestion. "Got it."

He parked the hoverpad so he could fiddle with his commlink. "Terrorsaur to the Axalon. Axalon, do you hear me?" The only reply was static. Since the Predacon was distracted, Airazor slipped up behind him and took his gun. "Treacherous Maximal!"

"I'm taking this for your benefit," said Airazor, stepping back before he could lunge at her. "The way I see it, we have to look out for each other. If some big animal attacks I'll be in the better place to fend it off."

Terrorsaur sneered at her. "Suddenly feeling all protective, Maximal? What brought about this change of spark?"

Airazor settled the gun against her shoulder, barrel pointed to the sky. "Because if something happens to either of us, even if it's just by accident, no one is going to believe we didn't get in a fight."

He snorted - all the agreement she was going to get from him. Terrorsaur tucked an impact wrench into his belt and scrambled up the tower. He took out and pocketed the bolts that held the access plate on, then dropped the plate. He had carefully lined it up so that it wouldn't hit Airazor but close enough that it was obvious he'd have preferred if it did. "I need that little box and the soldering iron."

Airazor set Terrorsaur's gun down on the hoverpad, then obligingly gathered up what was indicated and climbed to stand on the crossbar. She traded tools with him and swung down. "Why do you hate me so much?"

"Oh? And which one of us decided she needed to tear me apart ten nanoclicks out of her pod?" Terrorsaur asked. "Get me the pliers - the long ones."

"You were about to shoot Rhinox in the head," Airazor pointed out, climbing. "What was I supposed to do?"

Terrorsaur shrugged and accepted the pliers. "You take up my airspace."

Airazor shifted gears to follow the argument. "You've got no problem with the other flyers."

The Predacon didn't look down from where he was fiddling with wires and chips. "Waspinator doesn't count. She used to be helicopters anyway."

"I expect ..." Airazor started, then realised what Terrorsaur had said. "Hang on. Helicopters, plural?"

Terrorsaur stopped working so he could look at her. "Duocon. Our CR tanks couldn't handle reformatting her properly so she got stuck with a monocomponent beast-mode."

Terrorsaur's tone held a distinct note of You wanna make something of it? so Airazor filed the information about Waspinator away without comment. "I'll bet Inferno used to be a helicopter," said Airazor. "Optimus ..."

"Jetpack? Please."

Terrorsaur returned his attention to the tower, leaving Airazor to mull the conversation over. To her disgust, she realised he'd summed up perfectly why she hated him on such a basic level despite barely knowing anything about him. Waspinator and Inferno were threats but they were never personal threats.

It wasn't the voice, it wasn't the attitude, and it wasn't even the backshots - Terrorsaur was an enemy jet and he took up her airspace. Even when he was a pteranodon. Even when he was a soft xeno.

She was startled when he spoke, though it wasn't to her - the Predacon had activated his commlink again. "Terrorsaur to the Axalon. C'mon, answer."

Cheetor's voice was tinny through the tiny speaker. "What do you want, Terrorsaur?"

"Nothing. I'm just testing the range of the commlinks."

There was the brief pause of instruments being checked. "There's a bit of static but your signal's strong."

"That's all I wanted. Terrorsaur out." Shutting off his commlink, he turned back to Airazor. "This one's done. Hand up the panel." When she did, Terrorsaur reattached it, tossed Airazor the impact wrench, then started his climb down.

His foot missed the crossbar. Terrorsaur grabbed at the tower, missed, and fell.

"Terrorsaur!" The fall hadn't killed him at least - Terrorsaur spat out two words that Airazor knew and a dozen that she didn't, cradling his foot. Airazor jumped down from the hoverpad, reached down, and thought better of it before she touched him. "Are you all right?"

"Oturaton ... Obviously not!"

"We should go back to the Axalon."

"Nngh. Yes."

Airazor bit back surprise. Just about everyone she knew would have insisted they weren't that hurt and they should continue their work. She held out her hand - let him decide if he wanted help or not - and he let her pull him to his feet. Foot, anyway. Terrorsaur winced when he let the injured one touch the ground and had to lean on Airazor to get back to the hoverpad.

To make conversation, Airazor said, "I couldn't translate most of that. Want to teach me more swear words?"

Terrorsaur carefully sat down on the hoverpad. "It wasn't Predacon."

"What?" asked Airazor. Terrorsaur's lips tightened. Okay, so he speaks some other language and it embarrasses him.

Airazor got back on the hoverpad and rested her hand on the device's control stick. It was designed to be flown one-handed but trying to hold Terrorsaur's gun at the same time would make balance difficult. Reluctantly, hating that Terrorsaur would be armed and behind her, she gave his weapon back.

He reached back and holstered it without a second glance. "If I shot you now, I'd be stuck out here," Terrorsaur said, shrugging.

And if I just pushed you off and left ... Airazor started but refused to finish the thought. He's hurt and he needs help, so I'll help. She took the control, guiding the hoverpad across the plain.

Terrorsaur gave an unpleasant chuckle. "I suppose you win this one, Maximal. You got what you wanted."

"I didn't want you to fall off the tower."

"Maybe, but don't think I don't know why you insisted on coming along." He adjusted himself a bit more comfortably, drawing his legs up so his feet wouldn't dangle off the hoverpad. "Truce nothing, teamwork nothing - you needed a chance to fly."

The base of the Monument was a wreck, not only destroyed by the tower's collapse but by an energy weapon. Tigatron's doing, but Megatron knew there was no use cursing the Maximals lest he never have time to do anything else. Megatron and Blackarachnia sifted through the rubble as best they could. The broken parts were very machinelike compared to other examples of the aliens' technology, though from Scorponok's and Blackarachnia's descriptions, the tower's core looked less like a true machine than a stack of machine-like parts piled up by someone who had seen a machine once but didn't understand it. Megatron had set aside a small pile of odds and ends he planned to run tests on later.

They had been digging for nearly two megacycles, trying to find the core of the site. To his annoyance, Megatron found himself doing most of the work. Worse, he knew it was how it had to be. He had always been far larger and stronger than Blackarachnia but before she could have done her share of the heavy lifting. In these bodies, Megatron wasn't even as strong as Blackarachnia used to be and Blackarachnia's small organic form was nigh useless for debris-clearing.

The odd thing was that Blackarachnia was trying. Before, she would have been laughing about how he, her commander, was doing the grunt-work - Ooh, Megatron, I would love to help but I'm just not built for it. Blame Tarantulas. Here, perhaps sensing his irritation, perhaps angry at her own physical limitations, perhaps just wanting the work done as quickly as possible, Blackarachnia was digging through the ruins, moving what pieces she could lift, and straining over ones she couldn't.

Megatron had removed his shirt over a megacycle ago in an attempt to avoid overheating. He'd found out that Dinobot had kicked him hard enough to leave a large bruise when Blackarachnia pointed it out. Of course she wanted to know what happened but Megatron left the explanation at 'these bodies damage too easily'. Let her distract herself inventing theories.

He picked up his shirt again, using it to mop the coolant from his face and neck. "You once controlled this structure," he said. "What was that like?"

"Transforming." Blackarachnia shrugged and sat down on the metal sheet she'd been attempting to shift with another piece of debris as a lever. She drew her legs partway up so she could lean her elbows on her knees. "It just felt natural, like the island was an extension of myself."

"Mm. More than just jacked in. More than Monitor commune? I've heard that was like being a building."

Blackarachnia shook her head. "It was like wearing a new body. It was mine and it was right and if I'd had just a little more time I'd have been able to do more than fire the guns and steer it."

Implied that she would have destroyed the Axalon and the Maximals given the chance. It didn't need to be said that she would have come after Megatron next. Despite the unspoken threat, Megatron had no fear of her - Blackarachnia was too smart to want to lead the Predacons in their current situation. "Similar to what happened to Primal with the Probe. I wonder if he could have done more with it if he had been more focused."

"What about the site out in the grassland that you and Optimus checked out? What came of that?"

"Nothing, yet. The samples we took were perfectly ordinary specimens of plants and rocks. It appears to lend credence to the theory that the aliens do not build their sites but transmute them, " said Megatron. "I wonder, if we could trace back the Flying Island to its origin, if we would find the land had a scoop taken out of it. Do you know where it came from?"

She shrugged. "No. I didn't check its previous flight path, if it even stored that information."

"Unfortunate. How close are we to the power source?"

The technician picked up her scanner again. "Very."

Megatron tossed his shirt aside. "Let us finish this."

It was another half-megacycle of digging before he saw it. The device was like the sphere that Inferno had found under the Standing Stones, only twice as large with light purple glass insets instead of blue. It was lit from within, dimly. "Finally, a point of consistency." The size and colours were different but it was obviously the same type of device.

Blackarachnia waved the scanner at it. "This is what's giving off the power readings, all right. It's very weak but not completely dead."

"Good." Megatron waved towards the device. "Take it from the chamber, Blackarachnia."

She took a step back. "If you want it so badly, you pick it up."

"This site accepted you. Perhaps it still knows you."

Blackarachnia seemed like she would refuse, then thought better of it, setting the scanner aside. Blackarachnia gingerly touched the sphere, and when that brought no reprisal she reached down and pulled it out of its chamber. The strands that had attached it to the structure pulled and snapped like vines rather than like wires.

Megatron retrieved the scanner. Moving the sphere, taking it from its chamber had no effect on its energy readings. "If it was a part of you while you were the tower, which part was it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Blackarachnia, if you are withholding information ..."

"I don't know," Blackarachnia snapped. "Just because it was a part of me doesn't mean I know what it was. Can you name every little piece of your body? Can you tell them apart?"

Before, yes. Now, no. Even having gone over scan data of his new body he wasn't certain what each organ did and his insides felt like a near-homogeneous mass. Despite this, he could make it function without effort. And this was only an ordinary organic body, not a construct of aliens who seemed unencumbered by physics. "Very well."

"Back to the Axalon, then?"

"Hm, no," said Megatron, setting the scanner aside so he could pull his shirt back on. It was still damp with coolant and felt unpleasant but he would rather have the slight protection it afforded than not. "We'll store it at our base for now, with precautions. I'd like to have a better idea of what it is before sharing it with the Maximals. That and the aliens seem to be playing a more complicated game than mere destruction. Until I know their goals I would rather be cautious with their devices. There are undoubtedly fates worse than humanity, yes."

Optimus had slept poorly and woken up feeling stressed and irritable, and up in the command centre the morning's reports did nothing to alleviate his mood. Predacon jamming towers being turned into comm replays was good, but Airazor and Terrorsaur were out there together and that was guaranteed to end in a fight. And that wasn't the bad news.

He folded his arms and looked down at Cheetor. "You let Megatron take the hoversled."

"I didn't let him," Cheetor protested. "He signed out and stole it. I couldn't chase him - he went over the ravine."

"You weren't watching him."

Cheetor spread his hands imploringly. "We don't have cameras under the Axalon!"

"You let Megatron take the hoversled."

"Well, it's got a tracking device in it, right?" said Cheetor, pointing out the blip on the map. "He didn't disable it. I've been keeping track of him. He went to the crash site of the Flying Island. He's been there for a few megacycles."

"Knowing where he is isn't the same as knowing what he's up to," said Optimus. "You should have told someone."

"I didn't want to wake you up." The tone was half you needed the sleep and half I hoped he'd come back before you found out. "Anyway, Megatron's not going to come back even if you ordered him to."

Optimus covered his eyes with one hand and gestured back into the ship with the other. "You're confined to the base for the rest of the day."

Cheetor slunk away - past Rattrap, who had apparently been there long enough to hear the argument. Rattrap stepped into the command centre, shaking his head. "Pussycat's got no sense."

"He could have called for back-up," Optimus said. "Now Megatron's got the hoversled and he's out there doing Primus knows what."

"The hoversled that I took a couple key parts out of." Rattrap made a face. "I should've expected he'd make spares."

"We'll come up with a new lock when he gets back," said Optimus, rubbing his hand across his eyes. "You're sure you're up to a shift? You're still damaged."

Rattrap rolled his eyes. "I can't lie around any longer. I gotta do something."

Terrorsaur was coming to the conclusion that he didn't understand Maximals at all. Airazor had spent months fighting him but now that he was injured by accident she was helping him. He certainly wouldn't be as kind if their positions had been reversed, truce or no truce.

They came back in through the cargo lift, fortunately - Terrorsaur preferred to put off the interrogation that would occur if they came in through the command centre. Let Airazor go report in and try to convince the other Maximals it had been an accident. Just because it was true didn't mean they'd believe her immediately.

The Axalon corridors weren't really big enough to steer the hoverpad through, but Airazor managed it. They had to leave it in the hallway - the hoverpad would be in the way in the small xenobiology lab. Which meant Terrorsaur had to grit his teeth and accept help from Airazor again, putting an arm over her shoulders for support because he couldn't let his foot touch the ground without his ankle screaming agony. The only upside was knowing that Airazor was just as uncomfortable with the arrangement. Terrorsaur hated to suffer alone.

Airazor had been talking about finding Optimus to run scans but it was a moot point because Tarantulas was already in the lab. She looked up from the computer console. "Well, well, what have we here?"

"I fell off a jamming tower," Terrorsaur explained as Airazor helped him to sit on a table. "I think I broke my ankle joint."

"Ooh, structural damage," said Tarantulas too eagerly. "The Maximal didn't push you?"

Tempting as it was to lie, causing trouble right now felt like more bother than it was worth. "Not this time."

Tarantulas got up and walked over to him. "Which foot?"

"Left."

Tarantulas very gently took his left foot in her hands, then yanked his boot off hard enough that the sock came with it. Terrorsaur yelled as the joint was pulled. "Ow! Maniac!" Though no wonder it had hurt to remove the boot - his ankle looked thicker than it should have been, and a dark slash of a bruise stood out sharply along his foot.

"You want me to look at your foot, I need to be able to see it," Tarantulas chuckled.

Terrorsaur automatically reached back for his gun ... which he had left lying on the hoverpad because it got in the way of Airazor holding him up. His fist clenched air. "If Waspinator was here -"

Tarantulas leaned close, grinning. "But she's not."

"I'm still here," said Airazor. Distracted by Terrorsaur's injury, neither Predacon had realised she hadn't left. "What would Waspinator do?"

Terrorsaur glared at Tarantulas. "She'd make sure every pain the spider caused me was paid back double." He shifted his gaze to Airazor to briefly check her reaction, but paused, surprised at the considering look she was giving Tarantulas.

Tarantulas picked up on it as well. "No fighting in the Axalon." But she sounded a bit uncertain.

"That's really for cross-faction fighting, isn't it?" asked Airazor. "What if I fought a Predacon to defend another Predacon?"

"That might be an amusing loophole to untangle, but not at my expense," Tarantulas huffed, then went to a cupboard.

Terrorsaur took the moment of semi-privacy. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "I don't want your help."

Airazor glared at him but leaned down and whispered back. "And I don't want to help you but I'm not leaving anyone alone to the tender mercies of that sadist."

Tarantulas returned a moment later with a scanner. She waved it over Terrorsaur's foot a couple times, then gave a disappointed sigh. "No bones broken. I think it's more like an overextended ligament. I expect it will just repair itself."

That was better than it could have been but did nothing to help him now. Terrorsaur collected his boot but didn't put it back on, and carefully slid off the table, landing on his undamaged foot. Before he could wonder what he was going to do now or how to get there, Airazor caught his arm and put it over her shoulders. "I'll get you to your quarters, then you're on your own."

He let her help him back into the corridor, then twisted away, catching the wall for balance. "I'm not going to be indebted to you," Terrorsaur snapped.

At least she didn't try to grab him again. "I don't want anything from you."

"I didn't ask for your help." He managed to make his way to the hoverpad and retrieve his gun. He stowed it on his back, almost losing his balance at the weight, but managed to stay upright.

"No, I offered it."

"And I refuse." He turned away, making slow progress back towards the lift, hanging on to the wall and taking small hops. Airazor didn't follow, which raised her a grudging point in his estimation. Terrorsaur would go back to his quarters to rest his foot and curse the universe.

Airazor tapped the door chime and waited. When Cheetor opened the door, she grinned at him. "I was told you'd probably be here. I need someone from the core crew and the others are busy." Running around with Terrorsaur had been an unexpected distraction but it had given her time to sort out her plan.

Cheetor glanced down the hall. "I'm kinda grounded."

"I already talked to Optimus - you're only stuck on the ship. We're just going to the cargo bay. Come on."

She knew he wouldn't take much convincing. Cheetor stepped out of his room. "What're you up to?"

"Crates," she said, leading the way. "You're part of the original crew so you've got the override clearance I need to open them."

Cheetor rubbed at the back of his neck. "I don't know if we should be digging through other people's stuff without them."

"Already taken care of," said Airazor, opening the cargo bay door. "I found Quickstrike before I found you."

They walked in. Cheetor flinched away from a crate that had been carefully tucked to the side - the rain meant that the Maximals hadn't had a chance to set up the pyre to dispose of Crossbolt's body. Airazor patted his back. She hadn't known Crossbolt, his death only affected her as the death of any strange Maximal - sad but not personal. She found herself checking the floor instead, to see if they had missed any blood. There was no evidence of that day at all - even the Predacons had finished their work and replaced the deck plates.

Quickstrike was waiting for them, perched on one of the personal crates near the back of the cargo bay. He swung down as they approached. "Hey, sugar! I was startin' to wonder if you'd forgotten me."

"Who could forget you?" Airazor teased.

Quickstrike laughed, then, "How come you don't know who I was? You matched the number on the pod to the number on the crate. Wouldn't I have had to sign up for this rodeo?"

"Names change," said Cheetor. "Especially on colony missions because there's almost always a reformat involved to fit the new environment and people usually change their names if the reformat is major enough. I mean, I was 'Velocitor' before. I wasn't 'Cheetor' until I was a cheetah."

Quickstrike looked Cheetor over, frowning. "You ain't a cheetah."

Cheetor looked at his hands. "Yeah, this was a pretty big reformat. I still feel like a cheetah, though." He shook his head. "Anyway, that's why we don't use names."

The neophyte shrugged. "I don't remember packin' but I don't remember anythin'. Open 'er up."

Cheetor overrode the crate's lock and flipped up both halves of the lid. Airazor leaned a bit closer for a better look, asking, "This all looks like personal items. Finally! May I?"

"Be my guest, sugar. What else would be in my luggage?" Quickstrike picked a small holographic emitter from the jumble of items.

Airazor listened to the others talk as she rifled through the crate, pulling out a stack of plastic sheets for inspection. "We keep finding random scrap in these things," Cheetor explained. "Like, Airazor's was full of metal cut-offs like someone had trimmed a bunch of plates but then threw out the extra instead of recycling it. It looks like you actually did your own packing. Maybe you'll finally know who you are."

The neophyte made an annoyed sound. "I know who I am."

"Well, who you were before."

"A pin-up collector." Airazor flipped through the stack of plastic sheets - posters. She chuckled. "Maybe I'm wrong. It's hard to tell - it's all pictures of xenos from what I see - but I'd swear these were meant to be racy."

A smaller sheet fluttered out of the stack, and Quickstrike scooped it up. Curious, Airazor looked over his shoulder.

The picture was different from the others, not only because of its size. Mostly it was that it looked natural instead of posed. It was a picture of a female of the species they were now, or something similar. She might have been something else - there was something about her face that was unlike any of theirs. The skin seemed looser. She had short, messy hair that might have been wavy if it was longer, dull copper with a silver streak. Her skin was darker than her hair and her eyes were brown. She was seated on a berth, legs crossed at the ankles, leaning forward towards the viewer, one hand rubbing her thigh, the other tugging at the fastening of her shapeless gray coveralls. They were open to her midsection - she was leaning forward to accentuate her breasts. She was smiling, mouth open slightly, as if she had been caught speaking or just about to laugh.

Airazor shifted her attention to the wall behind the figure. The architecture looked Maximal, with lines that suggested a ship or base. A corner of a window showed blackness and stars. Quarters, probably hers. There was padding on the berth and it seemed to be to her scale. Of course, in Cybertronian-built quarters, there was no way to tell scale - the person could have been four metres tall.

In the lower right corner were words written on the plastic. In the precise pictograms of the Maximal alphabet: I bet you're sorry you left. After, two words in a curving alien script and a symbol that didn't seem to be a letter. "Do you know who this is?" Airazor asked.

Quickstrike shook his head. "Not a clue. Not even a feelin'." His lips twitched into a smirk. "Seems friendly, though. Maybe I shoulda stayed with her."

"Maybe you were transferred," said Airazor. The card felt playful rather than bitter - whoever the person was, she and Quickstrike had parted as friends. "Can you read those two alien words?"

"No. I don't even recognise the alphabet." The neophyte sighed. "Too bad. It's probably her name. Wouldn't mind knowin' it."

"Maybe you left because you'd signed up to be on the Axalon," Cheetor suggested.

"Maybe. Ain't no way to tell from this."

Airazor left Quickstrike to continue picking through the crate. "This is odd ..."

Quickstrike glanced over. "What, sugar?"

"There aren't any spare parts," said Airazor. "Or hardly any. Just some welding rig assemblies."

Cheetor came over to look, taking one of the devices from Airazor to inspect it. "Maybe his previous form was something that wouldn't be useful on an organic planet so he didn't bother, or ..." He laughed suddenly. "'Property of Quickdraw'! You must have some memory if you picked a new name so close to your old one, 'Strike. Or since there was no reprogramming you're still the same person so of course you'd have a similar name."

The neophyte smiled slowly, a look of dawning comprehension, and Airazor thought Quickstrike's previous name must have jogged his memory until he spoke: "No spare parts. No robot bits," he said. "That proves somethin'."

"Oh?" asked Airazor.

Quickstrike clapped her on the shoulder. "I've been right the whole time."

Airazor and Cheetor left the cargo bay to let Quickstrike dig through the remnants of his old life in privacy, and to talk. "He's more convinced than ever that he's always been organic!" Airazor complained once the door closed. "He'll never believe he's Cybertronian now!"

"Well ... maybe he wasn't," said Cheetor. He picked up the small picture, frowning. "She does look an awful lot like we do now. If she knew Quickstrike, maybe Quickstrike was the same species. Maybe the aliens didn't change him at all."

"What?" Airazor rubbed her temples. "Don't tell me you've caught his delusion. He was a protoform. Rhinox even pulled what he would have looked like out of his pod's datatracks. How come she has a xeno name but his stuff is labelled 'Quickdraw'?"

"Xenos have sparks too, right? Sort of?" asked Cheetor. "Maybe someone's figured out how to put them in protoforms."

Airazor shook her head. "Impossible."

"Okay, it's impossible, but it feels important."

On to Someone I Forgot - part three
Back to Other Vengeance 2.0
Back to In Space, No One Can Hear Starscream