Nowhere near done yet, I may add more when I get round to writing it
File 001: The Rain of the Cosmos
The glistening, swirling vapours of the hydrogen cloud exploded apart as four monstrous fusion exhausts blasted their way through the cosmos. Parting in front and trailing behind like waves in the wake of a boat, the mighty spacecraft shook and shuddered as it thundered through the gas, veering unsteadily past the larger asteroids- smaller ones however impacting constantly on its pock-marked surface.
The particles directly behind the gigantic engines ignited from the exhaust, leaving a burning trail of rainbow coloured incandescence behind the departing craft as it continued its madcap race through the stellar debris.
A streak of light emerged from away astern, flitting effortlessly through the dust before it hit the topmost engine with a thunderous explosion- spewing chewed metal and gleaming plasma from the twisted hole it left behind.
The star ship visible fell several hundred metres from the impact before barely regaining its course with its remaining engines.
A bright light suddenly broke through the gas cloud behind, and a second vessel burst out of the bank- just as damaged and battle-scarred as the first. A large, skeletal antennae of debris stood atop the hull where presumably a larger structure had once perched and large sections of the craft were hastily patched over, as though keeping the craft operational was barely more than a time-consuming inconvenience to the occupants.
Lights flickered dizzyingly inside the first ship, before snuffing out totally. Random electrical explosions from the myriad consoles lit up numerous metallic bodies and limbs frantically managing controls and computer systems- or in some cases holding large chunks of bulkhead together with bare hands.
From atop a large command station a voice thundered down, a series of mind aching electronic roars and bellows but which were understood only too well by the other occupants of the ship.
“By the Great Maximo, am I surrounded only by the incompetent and foolish? Bring the Nemesis back on course! I command it!”
A voice like a series of Mathematical sine waves grated back across the popping electrics and screaming consoles.
“The fusion core is damaged, Commander… the ship is venting plasma at critical levels…”
“I seem to recall this alleged ‘ambush’ was your idea, Commander!” Sneered a third voice from the weapons station.
“Silence!” Exploded the first voice. “Continue quantum field bombardment- they must not be allowed to get a confirmed signal lock!”
“Even if their future shots all miss,” The Mathematical wave explained amidst a cloud of sparks from an overhead compartment, “The core damage is permanent- total systems core collapse anticipating in seven breems, we must abandon ship!”
“Never! We will never surrender to our hated enemies!”
“Then what do you suggest?” Came a desperate plea from the weapons station.
“Soundwave- open all emergency vents, expel all drive plasma. Skywarp, engage solid fuel rockets and set course for the nearest planet! Starscream, signal all decks to prepare for crash landing!”
“Drive plasma venting…”
“Course prepared, mighty Megatron!”
“Ignite!”
The voice was drowned out by a fresh shower of sparks and dust as the roof collapsed.
The fleeing vessel was festooned still by streaks of light from its pursuer, now bearing close on its stern. Similar electrical difficulties plagued the oncoming ship, with all sounds inside consumed by alarms and frantic electronic screeches.
“Prowl, report!” An authoritative command preceded a mighty presence bearing down on the back of the helmsman’s chair as a powerful hand reached out to steady itself.
“The Decepticon ship is badly damaged- their speed has dropped to seventeen yu per microcycle…”
“From the plasma trail they’re venting I’d guess their reactor is going critical!” Added a voice from close by.
“A lucky shot, Ratchet… we may not get a second with our sensors virtually destroyed! Ironhide, prepare a boarding party!”
In the darkened and increasingly smoky rear of the large command centre, a barely visible form stood up and rushed to the exit.
“As you command!”
Suddenly, with a colossal and deafening boom the entire bridge section was thrown violently backwards- the figures inside catapulted from their positions and sent sprawling across the floor.
A pair of neat, clinical eyes pulled themselves up heavily to look at the screaming computer.
“They’ve engaged solid fuel boosters, Commander- the drive plasma has ignited! The hull of the ship is compromised!”
“Sensor array totally obliterated, Sir, we’re blind!”
The large shape of their superior clambered to its feet and stood looking out of the bridge window into the impenetrable clouds beyond whilst the ship slowly regained its equilibrium and slowed to a halt.
“Where are the Decepticons?”
“…We’ve lost them, Commander…”
Optimus Prime sank back into his command chair, his head in his hand.
“Well, that’s just prime.”
File 010: The Woodlands
“No, Jessie, it’s not like that…” Buster tried as hard as he could to dig his way out of the unfortunate situation he seemed to have inadvertently fell into. ‘He who dares wins’ was obviously inapplicable to senior year high-schoolers, and sadly each stroke of the shovel only seemed to make his trench that little bit deeper.
“You honestly thought I’d go to the ball with you? You?” Scolded the red-head callously. She twitched her soft face, flicking her long hair back over her shoulders.
“I just thought you might…” He had by now lost count of the number of sentences he had been permitted to start but not finish.
“I’ll have you know that Hank will be taking me.”
“Hank?” Choked Buster in disbelief. “The captain of the football team?”
“He is a very sweet gentleman…”
“Gentleman? He can barely string words more than four letters together!”
“Buster!” Snapped Jessie indignantly, shifting across the small pile of rocks and turning to face him, the sunlight streaming down from the treetops onto her angry face.
“He’s a gorilla, Jessie!”
“How dare you! He’s better than you are, reserve on the high-school football team and the Science teacher’s pet geek!” She seemed to visibly explode a little inside before hurling her arms to the sides of her sweater and spitting, “Don’t you EVER come near me again!”
Buster sighed as he heard her clambering away over the stones and pebbles and then rustling into the distance through the ferns. The pair had been coming out here ever since they were small children, and he had thought this would be the perfect place to ask her out at last.
She had been cold to him for several months now, and this last conversation finally broke his heart. How could anybody really go out with him? She was obviously right.
He ran his hand through his mop of blonde hair, before pulling himself to his feet and starting over the fields for home.
The young man lived with his father in the small town, out in the back of beyond of Iowa. The golden fields and farms slowly drifted by as he trotted back along a dirt path, kicking at random stones and cans.
Eventually, the squeaking sign over ‘Witwicky’s Auto Shop’ greeted him home. He swung past the screen door, glancing inside expecting his father to be listening to the radio or secretly smoking some foul-smelling junk and thinking his dark thoughts about ‘Nam’. Finding nothing inside, he slinked over to the workshop.
His dad, ‘Sparkplug’ as he was called by his friends but Al to everyone else, was headfirst down the hood of an old Cadillac. A thin, reedy cigarette hung out of his mouth and a monkey-wrench was being rattled deep in the bowels of the car.
“Hey son.” He murmured, without looking up.
“Hi, Dad.” Sighed Buster, who began idly playing with some of the tools scattered over the oil-stained floor.
“Uh-huh.” Confirmed his parent, still firmly ensconced within the automobile. “Did tell you, didn’t I boy? She’s no good…”
“That’s not true!”
“Now son…” Al lifted his head from the car and flicked his cigarette away. His face was world-weary and stubbly. “I used to think the same thing about your Mother, and look what happened there… I know it doesn’t seem like it but you’ll get over it and find someone better, now don’t beat yourself up over it.”
“But Dad…”
“Don’t go knocking yourself down. There’s plenty of people in this world willing to do that for you without you doing it for ‘em. Now, you go along inside, get your chores done and give some thought to your future…”
“Aw, not again Dad…”
“Son, you got the brains and you’re not going to waste ‘em. You’re smart enough to go to college and you need to start thinking about where and how- it’s not far away now.”
“Sure Dad…” Buster replied sullenly, meandering out of the shop.
“Atta boy.” His face disappeared back down inside the Cadillac. If one thing was certain, Sparkplug wasn’t going to let his son make the same mistakes he had.
File 011: NASA
The computer crunched a few moments longer, before making a deep rumbling noise (which Geoff usually took to mean ‘collating’) before spewing out the exact same answer.
“There it is again.”
“There WHAT is again?” Asked Harold with a tired tone.
“Unidentified objects- two of them. One faint reading and another much stronger… coming in at an angle of 43 degrees at two AM last night over the mid-West…”
“Uh-huh, why not cross-reference with the local observatories?”
“I did… nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whatever these things are, they just came in and then… disappeared.”
“They probably broke up in the atmosphere coming in at that angle.” Said Harold with a yawn, reaching for his coffee. The night shifts with Geoff on radar at mission control were always a drag.
“They might have done – but there’d still be debris, both objects were over four-hundred yards long and must have weighed thousands of tons…”
Harold sighed.
“If they were that big, Hubble would have picked them up, we’d have had warning. Asteroids that size don’t just appear out of nowhere.”
“But there’s the data.”
“I say the systems on the fritz.”
“But…”
“Or you. Remember that time you were convinced the mainframe terminal had developed sentiency? Remember that?”
“Alright, I admit that one was out there… but I was under a lot of pressure…”
“Pressure my sine function. If objects that big had come through the atmosphere we’d have known about it- the nuclear winter would have been a bit of a give away!”
“I’d better report it, just in case…”
“Sure.” Harold yawned again. It was going to be another one of those nights.
File 100: First Contact
Buster liked the evening. The first stars had just begun shining in the dark blue sky above, and the disappearing sun illuminated the distant fields; bathing the landscape in a sea of autumn red.
The outlying trees of the woodland had begun to grow around him, and the ferns rustled under foot.
He hoped his dad wasn’t going to be too mad when he found he’d snuck out… but thinking about college really was not the first thing on his mind. The rocks started to crunch beneath his shoes.
At least coming out in the fresh air meant he had come time to himself. Time to think, decide what was what. He arrived at the scene earlier in the afternoon on the edge of the hills and caves- little piles of gravel and stones built up from rock-falls strewn about him. He started to climb.
How could she say those things? How on earth could she go out with Hank, the senior year’s answer to the Incredible Hulk? How in the name of God could she… be on top of the hill already…?
Buster looked about him. The green and pleasant woodland stretched away around him in all directions for several miles- he could see the gurgling river making its unhurried way down towards the coast… and sure enough, he was stood atop the hill which had taken him only until a few days ago at least ten minutes to climb. He’d managed it in a minute and a half.
“What the hell?” He buzzed about the rocky outcrop like a bee fresh out of an overturned hive. “Where’s the rest of the hill?”
The young man threw his hair out of his eyes, and began to give serious consideration to the missing three-quarters of his current location. He walked over it slowly, then back again in case he had missed anything. Sure enough, where previously there had been another twenty or thirty feet there was just a flat, gravely plateau about two hundred yards one side to the other.
‘This is insane…’ He told himself. ‘Hills don’t just disappear…’ He walked over to the edge and looked down. There was no evidence of any blasting going on, and no tracks from heavy machinery.
He glanced back anxiously, his foot prints clearly visible in the dusty disjectamembra of the hill. From the far edge, a tall, cylindrical tube had silently emerged and appeared to be staring at him through a bright blue light perched on the top.
The horrified teenager stepped backwards, and found his heel slipping over the almost vertical eastern edge of the former hill, with a clear fifteen-foot drop the other side.
The tube appeared to bend twice, like a piece of plumbing being flexed under heat to go round a corner, slowly edging its way closer and peering at him almost quizzically.
Buster got ready to jump.
File 101: Analysis
“You specifically said that this planet was uninhabited…”
“The computer definitions were not calibrated for such primitive forms of life, Optimus- the few scans we were able to manage slaving Hound’s sensors to the computer indicated a barren world…” Prowl was apologetic. He simply hated grey areas, they always led to mistakes.
“Have Huffer and Pipes completed their analysis of the atmosphere?” Prime turned to Wheeljack.
“Yes, mainly nitrogen, with some oxygen, carbon dioxide, trace other elements. Nothing hazardous, it’s safe to open the hatches and begin external repairs.”
“Alright,” Prime sighed and stared into the large computer monitor. “Let’s do the best with what we have… is there any chance these life forms are aware of our presence?”
“Negative.” Reported Prowl, folding his slender arms. “From our analysis the life here is too primitive, and even if they did possess scanning technology we diverted the remainder of our power during atmospheric descent to the cloak- it might have been outdated against the Decepticons fourteen mega cycles ago, but I think it would still fool most others.”
“Good. How go repairs on the sensor array?”
“It’s nearly up to basic operation- we should be able to scan the surrounding area by the end of the solar cycle.”
“And what is the likely position of the Decepticons?”
“I calculate a 67% chance they are still in orbit, their core ejection sequence appeared to actually work…”
Prime folded his arms and murmured.
“He sacrificed one of his own troops to fly the core away from the ship…”
Wheeljack considered observing it might have been a volunteer, but he knew as well as anybody that was unlikely.
“My predictions correlate with Prowl,” He said, “I also concur that given our analysis of the indigenous life, Megatron is unlikely to be interested in them. However it is possible there may be deposits of elements useful to him in the planets crust- he may attempt an extraction.”
“Alright, first things first…” Decided Prime. “Complete sensor repairs and give me a full, accurate sweep of this world. Once we know about our environment, we can consider how to tackle the Decepticons. Has your subspace transmitter been completed yet, Wheeljack?”
“Almost, Optimus,” Confirmed Wheeljack eagerly, the lights on the side of his head flashing cheerfully. “Hopefully we can re-establish contact with Cybertron…”
“Prime!” Ironhide tumbled into the control centre.
“What is it, Ironhide?”
“Security breach! I detected movement above and have detained a SPY!”
“The Decepticons already? They should still be in orbit!” Prowl was incredulous.
“Easy Prowl, I place more faith in your predictions than most people’s facts regardless…”
“But Prime, this Decepticon spy is different- small, wiry…” The security officer was obviously worried.
“In what way, Ironhide?” Asked Wheeljack.
“…You’d better come see.” The three departed.
Prime sank into his chair. It was obvious this final phase of their battle was not going to be an easy one.
File 110: Lab Rat
Buster cowered into the smallest corner he could find of the strange metal cage he found himself in. Some primordial panic gripped his senses and paralysed his limbs, the same terror that must run through the heart of a mouse when it is being toyed with by a cat.
The same giant, red robot that had captured him returned through the sliding doors into the brightly lit room, which looked like some sort of laboratory. Computers flashed and hummed on the wall and appeared to be crunching numbers of some sort, although the digits were of no design the teenager recognised.
His captor appeared to ‘introduce’ his find, with a series of deep buzzes and electronic clicks. A second robot, slightly smaller than the first, entered. It was mainly white, with meaty black arms and a bizarre face- seeming only to have a pair of blue eyes in an inscrutable head with odd bulb-like things on either side.
Finally, a much taller mechanoid appeared in the doorway. This one was white and black with a neat, human-like face (similar to the red robot) and a thick, red ‘V’ on his forehead- almost like a Samurai, Buster thought amidst his panic. He must be their leader.
Prowl approached the holding cube and examined the terrified occupant closely.
“It doesn’t seem very Cybertronian… its design is totally alien to my databanks. Is it perhaps an indigenous creature, which the Decepticons have modified?”
This series of electronic sounds made Buster put his head down and cover it with his hands.
“It’s… terrified!” Observed Wheeljack. “I knew the ‘Cons were cowardly but this is bizarre… let me run a spectral analysis…”
“Will it hurt it?” Asked Prowl.
“Who cares!” Said Ironhide with a careless wave of the hand. “It’s a Decepticon spy or I’m a sulphur plane turbo rat!”
“It won’t even know it’s happening,” Said the scientist, “Scanners are built into the cube… I’m already getting data back… detecting heavy concentrations of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen… this creature appears to formed from a carbon base with a body consisting of mainly water…”
“Water?” Asked Ironhide suspiciously.
“Yes, it must be an indigenous creature…” Mused Prowl. “Continue your study, Wheeljack, find out what you can about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ironhide,” Prowl grabbed the security officer by the arm, “Come with me.”
“Prowl?” Wheeljack asked after them. “Do you want me to perform… invasive analysis?”
Prowl thought for a moment.
“I don’t think Supreme Commander Optimus would approve… do not hurt it. For now.”
Leaving Wheeljack with his charge, Prowl and Ironhide headed back along the corridor.
“Now listen,” Began Prowl, “This could be bad… that creature appeared quite advanced, far more so than we predicted before we made our emergency landing. We don’t need our operations here complicated by a sentient dominant life form… you are to go and assist Bumblebee in Communications- scan every frequency, and not just the quantum and local subspace either, scan everything even down to low energy radio. It’s possible there’s something on those primitive levels we didn’t even consider.”
“And what do I do if I find something?” Asked Ironhide.
“…Pray to the All-Spark that you don’t.”
File 111: The Threat From Heaven
“A master stroke, Mighty Megatron!” Fawned Starscream, although he was genuinely impressed. “The Autobots shot right past us and crash-landed into the planet!”
“Although it did cost you a valuable soldier.” Warned a monotonic voice, emanating from a single-eyed warrior of similar stature to Megatron.
“Stormbreaker was expendable.” Said Megatron carelessly. He was sitting comfortably in his command chair with his lieutenants surrounding him. “The Nemesis was saved, now all we need is a new fusion core to return home.”
“Scanners report heavy deposits of radioactive elements on the planet below.” Soundwave chimed. “We should be able to construct a primitive reactor to drive the ship back to Cybertron, estimated journey time seventy kilo cycles…”
“Assuming Cybertron still exists.” The monotonic voice butted in again.
“Your continuing pessimism for our mission is beginning to irk me, Shockwave.” Growled Megatron. “Perhaps you would like to make your own way back?”
“…No, Commander Megatron.”
“What do you plan for the Autobots?” Asked Starscream eagerly.
“As soon as our sensor array is fully repaired and we can pinpoint them exactly… how close are we, Soundwave?”
“We’ve narrowed their location to the Northern Hemisphere, continent XC4, somewhere within a twenty sec radius…”
“Excellent, continue work. As I was saying, once we have located them we have all the advantage…”
“We can just strike when we choose and they will be defenceless!” Beamed Starscream.
“Precisely. You, my Aerospace Commander, will lead our battalion against our hated enemies…”
“Thank you, Lord Megatron… I’ve always dreamed of taking on the might of Optimus Prime himself…”
“No!” Megatron scoffed. “Prime is for me, mine for myself. Nobody will destroy him but me. Of the others though, you may take your choice. Go and prepare your forces…”
The Aerospace Commander bowed and left.
“Commander…” Soundwave cut through the momentary silence.
“Have you located Prime?” Asked the Decepticon leader.
“Scans are still continuing, Megatron, but I have detected considerable data traffic on the lower energy radio waves…”
“…data traffic?” Mused Megatron.
Shockwave stepped forward to a free terminal and called up the statistics. His single, cold eye began digesting the data.
“These reports suggest a considerable indigenous population with a global communications network, Megatron…”
“The indigenous life must be completely alien to our systems, Commander,” Explained Soundwave. “I have readings of primitive mechanoid life but nothing capable of such technology.”
“Hm, an inhabited world…” Their Commander was deep in thought. “Study these broadcasts, learn their language… then they will learn to obey me better. This promises to be most interesting… yes… most interesting.”
File 1000: The Prime
“We missed it because it was too primitive…” Prowl explained.
Prime, however, was incandescent. Very seldom did the Autobot Commander lose his temper, and the results were usually enough to unsettle even the calm, tactful Head of Operations.
“We’ve crash-landed on a fully inhabited world with a Class 1 civilisation?!” He slammed his heavy fist down onto the arm of his chair.
“I understand how complicated this makes our situation, Commander…”
“Understand?” Prime glared at him. “You don’t have the slightest idea! These pitiful creatures…” He gestured to the myriad computer banks, displaying television and radio stations from all over the world. Many more were displaying screenshots of websites and Internet communications. “These poor, defenceless organisms living their safe little lives… do you understand what we, what I, have done?”
“Optimus-“
“I have brought a war beyond their imagination down on top of them! When the Decepticons strike, how are we to fight back for fear of harming these creatures? How are we to end this conflict with these poor things constantly in danger?”
“What if we leave, Optimus?” Jazz had turned his sleek, conjoined eye to his commander and hoped to soothe his nerves. “If we go, the Decepticons might well follow…”
“It’s not much, but it’s all we have, Commander.” Confirmed Prowl.
“We came out here to destroy Megatron and his lieutenants… we could have turned and run many times before now. He would find his way back to Cybertron just as we would and our war would return to a stalemate. We must stop him for the sake of our world… but…” Prime put his head in his hands. “…What of the creature Ironhide captured?”
“…He is still being kept in a detention cube, Commander…” Said Prowl, looking firmly at the ground.
Their commander was beyond anger, he merely sighed a long, deep sigh.
“Have your isolated their language yet?” He eventually asked.
“I have,” Agreed Jazz. “They have several variants, but I’ve computed the most likely language for this continent as ‘English’ at 62% probability, with ‘Spanish’ second…”
“Give me the data slide.” Said Prime solemnly.
“What are you going to do?” Asked Prowl cautiously.
“I shall begin by making amends to our guest, whom we have shamefully mistreated.”
File 1001: Release
Buster awoke in the dark with a single shaft of light streaming in on him from the sliding door. He had hoped that the last few hours had just been a horrible dream, and that he might wake up back home and find his dad pestering him about college, Hank ridiculing him at the practices and… a figure appeared to be walking towards him, tall and dark.
The lights slowly came up to a low level, and he saw a gigantic creature, bigger than all the previous monsters, towering above him at over fifty foot tall. It bent down its great blue legs, as wide as oak trees, and brought its glowing blue eyes closer.
Its face wore what looked like a mask, a plate obscuring whatever mouth it might have had.
Surely, if the last one was their leader… this one must be their executioner…
Slowly, as if repeating something it didn’t completely understand, it said in a soft, deep voice,
“I am going to release you now.”
With that, it pressed a series of controls invisible to Buster on the outside of the cage, and the bars appeared to disintegrate. The terrified child shuffled back on his hands and knees as fast as he could, pressing himself against the nearest wall, his eyes wide with terror.
The monster backed away slightly, and its eyes looked down.
“I will not harm you. By the sacred Creation Matrix, I will not harm you.” It slowly reached out a huge hand, big enough for Buster to sit in snugly. “I apologise for our mistreatment of you…”
Buster calmed slightly, thinking solely that if it had wanted to kill him it would probably have done it already. He relaxed a little, and continued to stare at the giant robot.
“Do you understand the language I am speaking?” Its eyes narrowed, as if it were suddenly unsure of something important.
“…y-yes… I understand.”
“Ah, good.” It paused, and shifted a little. “We scanned your world… but we had no idea, we made a dreadful mistake… our world has creatures only like ourselves, so the only things we could identify on this world were similar metallic beasts… we had no idea carbon based creatures like yourselves existed… we took you for a spy, but now we understand. I apologise for our mistake.”
“…Why are you here?” Buster’s mouth was dry.
“We came here pursuing our enemies, the Decepticons. For countless of your years we have fought against them, and in a recent battle above your world our ship was sent crash-landing into your atmosphere. We could perhaps have pulled up, but I ordered a landing… we cloaked the Ark and buried it deep in the crust. We mean no harm to you or your race, we plan only to repair our craft and then leave…”
The teenager thought for a few minutes. He was the first, the very first. Nobody in all of history before had ever spoken to creatures from another planet before. What should he ask them?
“…Buster.”
The robot looked confused.
“Buster… that’s my name. Do you have a name, or a designation?”
The eyes, which suddenly to Buster seemed quite kindly and incredibly old, appeared to wrinkle around the edges as if a smile was blooming invisible behind the face plate.
“Both. But you may refer to me as Optimus. My crew have all been instructed to give themselves names reflecting their character or abilities to help them better interact with you and your people, should we meet more of them.”
“How long will you be here before… before you go back?”
“We hope to return to our homeworld, Cybertron, very soon. But first, we must deal with our enemies…”
“…The Decepi… Decrepi…”
“’Decepticons’ is the closest approximation in your language, or perhaps ‘Destron’…”
“Decepticons, what do they want?”
“They believe in the power of strength and the rule only of the strong. We have fought against them for countless millennia in a bloody civil war for control of our world- those of us who believe in freedom against those who believe only in tyranny. As far as your world is concerned, I hope they want nothing and will leave with us. However, the greed and desire of their ruler should not be underestimated.”
“They might attack America?”
“They may attack your whole world…” Said Prime truthfully, but seeing the teenager cower visibly, he added, equally sincerely, “But we will defend you. I and all my warriors will defend you.”
“Your warriors? You are their leader? I thought the white one with the red vee was…”
“Prowl is second-in-command, my Head of Operations. You will also have seen my Security Commander and personal bodyguard, Ironhide, and our experimental scientist, Wheeljack. I am their Commander.”
“You’re in charge of this ship then, like a Captain?”
“Yes, indeed I am. I am Supreme Commander of all Autobot military operations… on our homeworld, Cybertron, on its twin moon system and now… on the planet Earth. I am the Prime. Optimus Prime.”
The ruler of an entire race?
And he was the first, the very first, to speak to them.