The transwarp jump had gone on without a hitch, truly remarkable for a vessel that had never been intended to travel in such a manner. Of course, other Destron vessels had been retrofitted with transwarp drives in the past without disaster, but Megatron still felt that such a painless maiden voyage was an omen of ill yet to come. Outside of the bridge, the stars slipped past as the Nemesis charged towards her goal, the tiny set of shimmering spots dead ahead.

"Do we have an estimated time of arrival, comrade helmsman?"

"Approximately three solar cycles CT, comrade Megatron," the helmsman replied.

"Excellent. Then we will continue as planned. Full speed ah-"

"Comrade Megatron!" wailed a voice from behind. The bridge's sliding doors disgorged a speeding utility hauler, which promptly spun out, collided with a low railing, and unfolded as it transformed into a femme that tumbled down the short steps to the wheelhouse floor.

"Comrade Soundwave? What is the meaning of this?"

"Oh, I'm going to feel that tomorrow," winced Soundwave, picking herself up from the floor. "Listen, Megatron, sir, there's- there's something you need to see! I mean, hear! Just- we've got to stop!"

Megatron narrowed his optics. "Comrade Soundwave, there is no doubt an Autobot flotilla warping towards us as we speak. If we were to stop, we would risk coming under an attack. If you have information that could outweigh that risk-"

"They're out there," Soundwave interrupted, her voice trembling. "They've made contact."

"Comrade helmsman, divert course into the nearest empty sector and engage cloaking systems. Hold there until further orders."

"Aye, comrade Megatron!"

The Decepticon leader saluted the bridge crew goodbye, and transformed into his armored hauler mode.

"Show me what you found."

***

Starscream sat quietly, his optics closed. There were several possibilities why Soundwave might invite him into her quarters and then dash back out, but he was electing to not think about any of them. It was better to have no expectations at all then to have them crushed. Besides, she had proved extremely hard to read when she had met with him before, so it would be unwise to assume anything about the nature of this encounter.

What he did know was that her quarters were an absolute wreck. Most of the room was occupied by a large computer, which she had not shut down in her absence. The computer was taking up the space that the other officer quarters used for storage, which meant that her personal effects were strewn across the floor. That was before the sprinklings of empty ration packs that had been distributed to nearly every surface in the room.

I mean, she's still cute for a slob, he thought.

With the thought of her flirtatious smile still fresh in his memory banks, the door opened. Starscream stood and faced the entrance, and his previously-hot circulatory fluids instantly ran cold.

"Air commander Starscream," mused Megatron, who stepped into the room cautiously, as if he might step on something. "This is a surprise."

"It certainly is, comrade Megatron."

"I mean, I was aware that you were familiar with Soundwave, but I had no idea you were this intimate."

"Oh, no, sir, it's not anything like-"

"All right, everybody's here!" cheered Soundwave, sidling around Megatron to squeeze through the door. "Could you lock that behind us, maybe? This is… it's big," she explained as she tiptoed through the debris along her floor to her computer's swiveling chair.

"It was about oh-thirty CT today. Apparently, the electronic warfare module had kicked on," she said, waving her hand over the computer's gesture sensor to snap it out of its sleep mode, dispelling the Telesoft logo. She clicked through a few menus until she arrived at a folder full of audio files. "It' not supposed to do that automatically, unless it thinks we're being pinged. So I opened up a feed, and we were getting interference. But it wasn't from an Autobot scanner. This is what we got."

She point-clicked a file, and the computer began playback. The sound was faint, and the quality was scratchy, but the pattern of noises was instantly recognizable.

"It sounds like someone talking," whispered Starscream.

"How do we know that this isn't some sort of encrypted Autobot transmission?" asked Megatron.

"That's what I thought," Soundwave replied. "So I decided to see if I could clean up the quality. The problem was that the signal was choppy, it had been interrupted by something. So I started splicing together what I could. That brought me to this." She played another file.

"…listening to… one hund... its… ercial fr… back to the music!" buzzed the voices in the file, before being drowned out by a distinctly-patterned drumbeat.

Soundwave paused the track, and began to lose her battle against her excitement. "The language is completely unknown. There are some similarities to some smaller Cybertronian dialects, but it's almost entirely new. The syntax, the phonemes, everything! And then, at the end there- it's music! And that wasn't the end! These transmissions, they're increasing in regularity. I've been splicing more of them together as I receive them, but I can't keep up, there's so many! It's just amazing! There's a culture, there's a society! I mean, what else could it be?"

"Then it is as Glyph predicted," Megatron muttered. "A planet full of life. Life that does not yet know of Cybertron. That is quite the variable to add to the equation."

Starscream rolled his optics internally. Soundwave had just discovered sentient extracybertronian life, and Megatron simply written it off as a potential roadblock. He supposed it was a very military way of looking at things, which led him to question his own mindset towards the mission. Starscream recalled his dream of the femme and the canyon- there was no solace to be guaranteed on this foreign world. Whatever was happening between him and Soundwave was not likely to go any further without serious repercussions. This wasn't a pleasure cruise, after all. But there might be a way to delay that harsh reality a little longer.

"Permission to speak freely, comrade Megatron?" asked Starscream.

"Of course," his commander replied.

"Our mission will put us on a collision course with this alien life. As long as we are on that planet, there is a chance that there will be contact. And we have no idea how they might respond to this contact."

Megatron nodded. "Go on."

"What if we were to assemble a scouting party? A small, stealthy team that could land on the planet undetected and directly observe its inhabitants might serve to prepare our larger expeditionary force. It's best to tread lightly in a dark room, after all."

"Ah, one of Yōketron's proverbs," smiled Megatron. "Such wisdom is commendable. Very well, Starscream. You will have your scouting party. Assemble your team. I will arrange for your transport and inform the crew of our change in plans," he said, heading for the door. "Do not fail me."

Soundwave spun her swiveling chair to face Starscream. "Did you just score me some field work?"

"I think that's what happened," said the flier with a coy smile.

"So I guess you're a flier and a talker, then."

"Sometimes a mech can improvise."

"However you did it, thanks. It means a lot that I can finally get out there and do something, you know?" She placed a hand on his shoulder.

Play it cool, Starscream. Play it cool.

"Hey, don't mention it."

Soundwave retracted her hand, nodding slowly. "Well, I had better get back to studying this. It would help if we could speak their language by the time we land."

"Y-yeah. And I have a crew to pull together," mumbled Starscream, who knew it was time to make himself scarce. "I think we'll need a scientist along. Do you know any?"

"I think the engineering team, those Constructicons, they've got a chemist. Her name's Mixmaster. I ran into her while I was picking up my rations earlier. She seems kind of off-putting, but she might be the best you can get."

"I'll see if I can get ahold of her."

"Does that make us even?" asked Soundwave with a wink.

"You bet," said Starscream, making his exit. He tripped over a tray on his way out.

***

The dropship was meant for a much larger group than what Starscream had gathered, which was something of a positive. Mixmaster, who was just as difficult as Soundwave had implied, could sit at the far end of the troop bay, alone with her multi-volume codex. The logistics mech, a huge linehauler, was sleeping close to the front, his engines sputtering along in a long, grinding snore. This meant that he and Soundwave could occupy the cockpit in peace. The linguist had plugged a playback device into her audio receptors, as she practiced the alien world's foreign language.

"Hello," she said quietly. "We… come… in… peace… from… the… planet… Cybertron…"

Starscream made sure that the dropship's course was steady, and took a moment to observe the femme while she wasn't looking. Her bright optics were focused straight ahead, twinkling in the soft glow of the instrument panel, her lips gracefully adjusting to the foreign sounds. She was a statistical anomaly, an outlier. Beautiful things had a very low chance of appearing in Starscream's life. There was nothing good, pure, or innocent about Caminus, and Cybertron had not been much better. The war was just and righteous, but it was not attractive. And yet here she was, next to him, mouthing out words she had never spoken before as they traveled together to a new world.

"Gorgeous," he said aloud.

The word seemed to shatter her trance. She plucked the playback device out of her audio receptor and turned her attention to the Seeker. "What's that?"

"The planet," said Starscream quickly, glad that the celestial body's proximity offered an easy out. "Look at it."

"It's amazing how much it looks like Cybertron. With all of the lights."

She certainly wasn't wrong. He had seen Cybertron from space many times, and the array of golden flecks jeweling the surface of this planet did bear a great resemblance to the homeworld.

"It looks more peaceful, though," Starscream added. "I like that."

"Me, too," she smiled. "We'll have to set down in a dark region, though. Avoid the population centers. Our first contact needs to be isolated."

"Right," Starscream sighed, the warm, cozy feeling extinguished by her reminder of the delicate nature of the mission. Everything depended on Soundwave being able to establish a peaceful relationship between them and the natives. To be at war with the aliens, however easily they might be defeated, would be a waste of time and resources that they didn't have.

The dropship rattled as it began to enter the planet's atmosphere. Starscream put his mind back to piloting, and prepared to fight the controls.

"This is it, people! Buckle up!"

Warning klaxons began to shriek, alerting him to the increase in atmospheric density and hull temperature. The ship had been pushed far harder than this before, but he had no idea how it would respond to the environment of the new planet.

"One hundred kliks to surface!" he called out, shoving the yoke forward to force the nose of the craft down. The dropship was built primarily for entering and exiting atmospheres, a bus that could carry soldiers between larger spacecraft and planets. It had the aerodynamics of a rock, and was best flown roughly like one.

"HOLY SCRAP!" wailed Soundwave, reaching for the cockpit's grab-handles.

"FIFTY KLIKS!" The vibrations through the cabin continued to grow more intense.

"OHH PRIMUS L-L-LOOK AT THAT," Soundwave yelped. "W-WE'RE GETTING R-REALLY CLOSE TO THOSE VAPOR CLOUDS!"

"WE'RE GOING TO GO RIGHT THROUGH THEM," explained Starscream.

"BUT WHAT IF TH-THEY'RE ACID?"

"WHY WOULD THEY BE ACID?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

Despite Soundwave's protests, the ship dove directly into the clouds, which were not acid after all. In fact, they did nothing, exactly as Starscream had predicted. He had flown through clouds on numerous planets before, and none of them had been acid. He couldn't blame Soundwave for being skittish, though. She had never left Cybertron before and, Cybertronian natives didn't usually take their first off-world excursion in the front seat of a military dropship. Starscream flipped a switch to his left, which engaged the cockpit's integrated low-light scan mode. The landscape below them pulsed into an eerie green, revealing a few rocky crags in a mostly flat expanse. Just to the west, a thin black strip cut through the scrubland. Starscream heaved back on the controls, and the dropship evened out into a more gentle descent.

"Is… is that a road down there?" asked Soundwave. "That's what it looks like."

"I don't know, maybe it's acid," Starscream teased.

"Ha-ha, very funny. A road might be a good place to meet a native, though. They wouldn't build something all the way out here if no one used it."

"I'll put us down nearby. I suggest you go brief everyone else."

Soundwave nodded and disengaged her safety harness, which allowed her to clamber back into the troop bay.

"How did everyone enjoy the flight?" asked Soundwave. The logistics mech shrugged. The chemist was much more vocal about her opinion.

"I hate you."

"I'm going to ignore how unnecessarily hostile that was, and get down to business. We're about to land. Everyone here has a job. I do the talking. Mixmaster, you need to collect samples. You- uh, big guy- uh, name?"

"Hotbox," the linehauler sighed.

"Hotbox, great! You're going to carry the gifts. And Starscream is in charge! Any questions?"

Mixmaster raised a hand. "Do you ever tire of your vapidity?"

"I am going to pass on that one," grunted Soundwave. The troop bay floor jolted underneath them, and the dropship's engines began to wind down.

"Okay, mission is go," Starscream stated as he climbed out of the cockpit. He pressed a button on a camera pod fitted to the side of his head, triggering a small red light. "Synchronize your clocks. Move together and stay calm. Let Soundwave handle communication with the aliens."

Hotbox gave a thumbs-up, and Mixmaster pouted. Starscream marched to the end of the bay and punched the bay door release, causing the giant hatch to crack open and depressurize with a significant hiss. Soundwave took a hesitant breath.

"It seems… normal," she murmured.

Mixmaster wrinkled her nose. "That smell, though."

"Like burnwater," Hotbox remarked.

"All right, let's get mobile," said Starscream, making the historic first steps onto the planet. His feet fell upon dry, crunchy soil that cracked under his weight.

"It's a little soft," he warned.

"Is it safe?" asked Soundwave.

Starscream stomped his right foot down, failing to make the ground collapse any more than it already had.

"Should be. Now, stay close."

He crept forward, stepping lightly in case his assumptions about the soil were less than correct. The others followed as instructed, moving in tight formation.

"We're approximately a klik from the road. No signs of sentient life," whispered the Seeker for the benefit of the camera pod.

"Wait," interjected Soundwave. "There's something due south."

They turned around, locating the something instantly. Across the vast, dark plain, a single spark of light wavered in the night. Below it, short shapes were framed in shadow.

"Let's move to investigate."

They exchanged their former course for a southbound one, walking parallel to the road. As they moved, Mixmaster opened her storage drum and removed a vial, which she filled with the crumbly soil.

"Requires further evaluation," she muttered under her breath.

The walk lasted only a few cycles, but it felt much longer. The aliens could be watching. The sky was full of strange stars, and only one moon. And the air did smell a little odd. Starscream tried his best to remain focused, but with every step, his concerns doubled. Those concerns only grew as they approached the light. The light itself was being produced by a lamp affixed to the exterior of what appeared to be a solitary residence. The structure was rather plain looking, with a simple construction of some sort of horizontal beams, but there was one feature that everyone agreed was extremely uncanny.

"It's so small," whispered Hotbox.

"Perhaps this is a splitter residence," Mixmaster theorized.

Soundwave shook her head. "Then why are there haulers sleeping outside?"

She pointed towards an even smaller structure, just barely illuminated by the lamp. Outside sat two small haulers, both covered in a fine dust of soil. Why they would park themselves outdoors overnight was a mystery, however.

"Note the curvature of the frontal bumper structure," murmured Mixmaster. "It would seem to suggest that the natives have evolved with single large powerplants located in the anterior region. Reminiscent of ethnically Kalicean altmode layout."

"Here, I'll try to wake them up gently," offered Soundwave, drawing her audio playback device from under a storage panel. She carefully adjusted the volume, and pressed the play button. The device crackled out a few lines of the transmissions she had recorded on the Nemesis.

"Non-stop… hits … three-hour… latest from… album…"

Then the ghostly music began, disjointed, but still recognizable. The natives did not seem to respond. Soundwave paused the playback, and put the device away. She instead opted to speak to them directly.

"Hello," she began, having carefully practiced the words. "We come in peace from the planet Cybertron. We are like you, but from far away."

This also failed to get a response, so she tried again, louder. The natives did not stir.

"Hello?" she asked loudly, bending in closer. "Hello?"

She reached her hand toward the closer of the two haulers, making every movement as gentle as possible.

"Should she be doing this?" asked Hotbox.

Starscream felt his neural net tense up, causing him to shiver with fear. "I don't know."

Soundwave's fingers made contact with the native's outer panels. She immediately withdrew her hand, and yelped.

"Oh, Primus," she gasped. "It's so cold- they- they're dead!"

Before Starscream could try to comfort her, a clattering sound emerged from the larger of the two structures. What seemed to be a small window suddenly illuminated. A shadow raced past the light, and Starscream dove forward to stifle another scream from Soundwave. The structure continued to creak and groan, thump and stomp. And Starscream began to realize why- the small buildings, the unresponsive haulers- it fit together in a way he hadn't thought of. No one had thought of it.

"They're not dead," he whispered. "They were never alive."

"Then… then who are the natives?" sniffled Soundwave.

The Seeker pointed at the larger structure. "They are."

A small door on the larger building burst open, and a diminutive creature shambled out into the dim light. It was around the size of a splitter, maybe smaller; it walked with a limp. It wore no armor, and its skin was not divided into plates. There were no altmode components visible on its structure, though it did resemble a bipedal robot mode. Its skin was tan, similar in shade to the dirt that it must have lived near, the surface wrinkled with age. Its head was covered with thin white filaments. It rested a hand on one of the large structure's railings, and stared up into Starscream's optics.

"Mother of God," it said softly, the words incomprehensible to Starscream's audio receptors. "You bastards came back."

Soundwave blinked her disbelief away, and reminded herself of the task at hand.

"Hello. We come in peace from the-"

"Oh, so you sons of bitches learned to talk?" it interrupted, staggering off of the railing and onto the ground. Its movements were slow and uneven, as if it were ill. "You think that's gonna fool me? Ain't no way, not on God's green Earth!"

"Earth- is that what this place is? Is this Earth?"

"I ain't tellin' you! Not any of you! You're not going to get away with your plan!"

"Our… plan?" asked Soundwave.

"I've seen it! They gave me visions! It's there, right there in the pyramids! In Stonehenge! It's all part of your plan! That's what they showed me, in the visions! I was smart, I figured it out! I merged minds with you bastards! I've seen beyond time and space!"

"What's it saying?" mouthed Starscream.

"It's crazy," replied Soundwave silently. She tried to calm the native down. "We come in peace, from the planet Cybertron."

"No," it said, shaking its head. "No you don't. You didn't come in peace last time." It lifted something off of the ground- a long, narrow implement.

"It's got a gun," whispered Starscream. "Soundwave, we need to back off, now."

"No- I… I think it's trying to tell us something. I need to know more," protested the linguist. "Last time? Do you mean you have seen our people before?"

"You were bigger. Angrier. I know they've got more of you, the government. They're scared of you. But they didn't know you were coming back. I did! I followed the signs, just like the visions told me! I- I knew- I- ugh," it moaned, leaning forwards over the railing. It made a series of sickening grunts before vomiting onto the ground. Starscream, Soundwave, and Hotbox all winced, but the creature's illness had the opposite effect on Mixmaster, who crept closer.

"Tell it I want a sample," she hissed.

"My friend wants to help you," translated Soundwave, taking some liberties.

Mixmaster drew a scalpel from her backpack. "Ask it what part is infected."

The creature was only just starting to recover from its episode when it spotted Mixmaster closing in. It raised its weapon, its aim shaky.

"Don't- don't come any closer! I swear, I'll-"

"Get back!" cried Soundwave, "You're just scaring it more!"

"There will be more of them. There's no reason in trying to talk to this one. But the tissues… they'll be very useful."

Despite Soundwave's pleas, Mixmaster lurched forward, catching the creature by a leg. It wriggled in a futile attempt to escape as she lifted it into the air upside-down.

"Amazing… life independent of CNA. It's so soft." The creature yelped in pain.

"You're hurting it!" wailed Soundwave.

"It won't be hurting for much longer," Mixmaster explained, raising her scalpel. As if it understood, the native creature stopped struggling. Starscream's spark skipped a beat when he realized the real reason why. It still had its weapon.

"The human race says hello," it snarled, and pulled the trigger.

Compared to the sound of larger Cybertronian weapons, the pop of the creature's little gun was almost toylike. It was still loud enough to echo across the flat plains that surrounded them, traveling out into the wastelands beyond. The night air, formerly what seemed to be somewhat warm, felt cold on Starscream's skin. Mixmaster dropped the creature and her scalpel and clapped her free hands to her face, letting out a roar of agony.

"GYEAAAAAAARGH!"

Everything that could have gone wrong, had. Starscream watched the horror spread across Soundwave's face, the beauty lost amid the terror. Reality had arrived, and it was just as unpleasant as he had feared.

"Abort mission," shouted Starscream. "Abort mission! Fall back! Hotbox, get Mixmaster out of here!"

"Yes, sir," growled the linehauler, wrapping an arm around the scientist, and hefting her over his shoulder.

Soundwave knelt over the creature, the human, as it had called itself, as it stared up at the stars, gasping for breath.

"No, no," she cried. "I didn't want this to- I only wanted to help… I- I'm so sorry."

Starscream had already begun to escort the rest of the team back to the dropship when he realized she had stayed behind. "Soundwave, we need to move!"

"I gotcha," the human wheezed, its lips pulling back into a pained smile. "I finally gotcha. If this… is where it ends…" he coughed, releasing what Soundwave guessed were circulatory fluids.

"Don't die, no! Please! What did you mean- what did you mean when you said you had seen us before? What did they say?"

"Look at you… look at you now," it gasped. "Now you ask me the questions… heh… I'll tell you, sweetie… you sound like my… I'll tell you."

It coughed again. Soundwave leaned closer, desperately trying to make things easier for the human.

"What? What did they say?"

"They told me… that if I ever saw them again… they said… the seals are open… the devourer… is awake."

"What… what is that? What does it mean? What is the devourer?"

"You ain't… never going… to find out," he whispered, running out of breath. He pulled out a small device from underneath his garments, a box with a plunger and wire. "Go to hell."

Soundwave turned away just before the human erupted into a huge fireball. The structure he had come from exploded as well, scattering thin shards of shrapnel. The blast threw Soundwave forward, into the waiting arms of Starscream, who was shouting something she couldn't hear. Eventually, her audio receptors began to function again, but she wasn't listening. All she could think of was the little creature, the human, and its sad little eyes. They looked like her father's eyes. For all of its hair and vomit and red fluids, it was so much like them. Why was it so much like them? Why?

"Why… why… why…?" wept Soundwave, completely incoherent. Starscream ignored her, focusing all of his effort on running. They were nearly back at the dropship now. There, they would be safe. But then the dropship would fly back to the Nemesis, and the Nemesis would fly back to the planet. And then they might never be safe again.

***

The flight crews stood on standby as the dropship approached the hangar bay, eager to perform the basic post-mission checks and return to what remained of their off-duty shifts. Megatron waited with them, stern and silent, expecting the worst. His intuition was not wrong. The dropship entered the bay on-course, but landed far harder than it was meant to, crippling the starboard landing gear. The team scrambled out from the vessel, the massive logistics mech at point.

"We need a medic, now!" he roared, taking a moment to look down at the limp femme in his arms. It was the Constructicon chemist, a variety of vital fluids leaking from her head. As the ship's medical staff began to arrive, the first mate and intelligence officer emerged, moving much more slowly. In fact, Soundwave seemed reluctant to leave the ship at all. Starscream located Megatron among the crowd and greeted him with a terse salute.

"Comrade Starscream, report."

"The natives were not what we expected," strained the Seeker. "I have the mission recording, but if you want a full debrief-"

"They were hostile?"

"The one we encountered, yes."

"Only one?"

"It was small, but heavily armed. From what Soundwave tells me, it's possible that Cybertronian life may have made contact with them before."

Megatron nodded in understanding. "Yes, that would align with Glyph's theories. We will have to avoid the population centers, then. But that may delay us even further."

Starscream did not like the sound of that. He had a mission to complete, and the longer they were stuck on that accursed rock, the harder it would become. There had to be a solution. Soundwave slumped up against the side of the dropship, burying her head in her hands.

"Not necessarily," said the Seeker. "Have you heard of Operation Green Flag?"

"Yes, in my studies of the Colony wars," replied Megatron. "That's standard reading for Decepticon recruits now, isn't it?"

"Autobot forces were able to infiltrate Promet-2's guerrilla forces by reformatting themselves into metazomorphs. Since the colonists associated standard altmodes with the security forces, they had no idea that the enemy was among them. These creatures don't have altmodes, but they do have vehicles. An exact-copy reformat wouldn't even be a stretch for most of the crew. We could sit around in plain view, and these natives-"

"They'd have no idea about the robots in disguise. A clever idea, Starscream. But your last idea was clever, too. Perhaps you are familiar with this proverb- 'Two failures a coincidence, three a pattern'."

"I understand, comrade Megatron," gulped Starscream. "I won't let you down again."

Megatron wagged a finger. "Oh, it won't be a personal offense. You'd be letting everyone down. Now, why don't you see to comrade Soundwave? She seems shaken."

He turned on a heel and marched away, his coat billowing out behind him. Starscream stood motionless as the flight crew began to make repairs to the dropship. His hope had given way to fear, which had given way to numbness. Perhaps that lack of feeling was because he had felt too much over the last few solar cycles. Or perhaps it was because he was uncertain of what the future held. Gradually he lowered himself into a sitting position, as numbness gave way to exhaustion. He looked to his right and found Soundwave looking back at him.

"S-so…" she whimpered. "Do you think that's going to work? Your plan?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "I don't know about anything anymore."

"I know that you're here," she said softly, opening her arms and falling onto him in an embrace. Starscream was too tired to be surprised, or to put any effort into what was considered proper professional conduct. He let his head slide back against the dropship, and savored the warmth of her body against his, an anomalous moment of beauty after the harshness of reality. He looked up, away from Soundwave, who had buried her face in his shoulder, instead focusing on the hangar bay's viewports. The planet was once again visible in the distance, a tiny blue orb gradually increasing in size. It was unlike the world in his dream, but he was unwilling to let go of that fantasy. There had to be some way to make it come true.