THE 2005 CHRONICLES

		By Raksha


[Historian's Note:  This is a "fictionalized" 
account of "factual" events.  Some characters 
and scenes are composites, some details have 
been altered, some names have been changed, 
etc.]



   Think in terms of bridges burned,
   Think of seasons that must end.
   See the rivers rise and fall -
   They will rise and fall again.
	--Bob Seger, "The Famous Final Scene" 


	13.8.05
	Events happened quickly in the last days 
... an abrupt downward slide from our lofty 
ambitions, into the greatest disaster 
imaginable.  I think of Megatron still in his 
final hours, proud and indomitable, eager to 
wage his assault against Autobot City on Earth; 
he knew well that this would draw his greatest 
nemesis from hiding, knew well that the one-on-
one battle to the death, that they had been 
circling for millennia, was finally at hand.  
He was confident of his victory.  And he alone 
emerged the survivor, while Optimus Prime was 
shattered beyond repair.  But even Megatron had 
not escaped unscathed, and the series of events 
which cascaded over us afterward, could 
scarcely have been foreseen.  Oh, that 
Starscream would attempt some manner of 
treachery, I should have known, but he has 
never exerted true lethal force, and I maintain 
that even this time, the end result was not his 
true intention; none the less he cannot be 
absolved of blame.  Greater blame falls to me, 
however, for in our hasty flight from Autobot 
City, I was not prepared.  I would not have 
imagined the anarchy in the shuttle, the ease 
with which Starscream goaded the others into an 
insensate fury, so that they might have turned 
on anyone who stood against their mob mentality 
at that moment.
	I think of Megatron, being cast adrift.  
That moment of stark terror, forever frozen 
into my mind - the mob would turn on me, I 
knew, if I made a counter-move, and my 
creations nestled inside me, clamoring to get 
out as they saw everything through my eyes, as 
I stood and did nothing ... as Megatron 
disappeared into the cold black void.  I would 
be back for him, of course, I told myself 
desperately, yes, of course, his injuries were 
grievous but not enough to kill him ... and yet 
when my mind reached for him, I found it 
dwindling down into some lightless abyss, as an 
unnatural energy surged through it and silenced 
his thoughts.  A mistake, a horrible mistake, 
to have let that one instant of fear sway me - 
but the realization came too late.
	Megatron was gone, and in his place 
returned something fashioned from his remains, 
Galvatron.  His mind was cold and impenetrable, 
shot through with this unnatural power ... he 
showed flickers of individuality, moments of 
brilliance, but all his striving was to break 
free of the chains that bound him.  I did not 
know this Decepticon.  Shaken still from what I 
had allowed to happen, I simply followed along 
with the rest ... against the Autobots, against 
Unicron, and, when it was all over, here to 
this wretched planet where we find ourselves 
today.  Galvatron is lost in battle, and we are 
left to contemplate the heights from which we 
began, and how badly it all fell to ruin.
	Megatron ... Megatron would have known 
what to do, what to say to these broken and 
disillusioned souls that take shelter in the 
crumbling ruins of a lost civilization.  
Perhaps I'd have once known what to say to them 
too, but what right have I, to reach out, when 
I allowed Megatron to die alone?
	My creations ... much as I try to shield 
my thoughts, I hear the questions in their 
minds, the confusion, the uncertainty.  I 
gather myself, at least for their sake, to 
present some semblance of assurance now that 
their world has been torn out from under them.  
I keep the telepathic link closely guarded.  I 
cannot burden them with this, in addition to 
what they have already suffered.  They must 
believe that somehow, we will survive.
	What would Megatron have said?

	15.8.05
	This world is called Charr on the 
starcharts, and it is a most diabolical 
combination of light and dark, withering heat 
and circuit-numbing cold.  One face it keeps 
eternally turned toward its sun, and to venture 
to the Dayside invites exposure to the infernal 
star's unique radiation; this disrupts the 
impulses travelling along the neurocircuitry, 
and immobilizes the victim under the harsh 
glare, turning outer armor into a heat-trap 
that melts the vital circuitry from the inside.  
The Nightside is marginally livable, and 
Cyclonus, Galvatron's subcommander, who seems 
by default to have ascended to a leadership 
role, has urged us to shore up one of the 
abandoned buildings for shelter.  The warriors 
are listless and disinterested, still reeling 
from the defeat after such high expectations, 
and well aware of how little fuel and resources 
we have left.  With great effort I rouse myself 
from my own apathy - *somebody* must begin - 
and set my creations to helping with the task.  
Give them something to focus their minds on.  
Even numbing physical labor is a better choice 
than sinking into despair.  Presently some of 
the others are inspired to help.
	The hours pass into days ... a few walls 
get patched, some building material gathered 
from the outlying ruins ... it is at best a 
half-hearted effort.  Cyclonus stalks about, 
seething in frustration ... what could he know, 
how could he relate, to those of us who served 
under Megatron and saw him raise us from the 
lowest dregs to the conquest of a planet?  
Could he understand the loss?  ... Perhaps so.  
He scans the eternal night skies, he urges his 
immediate subordinate, Scourge, and his pack of 
Sweeps, to scour Charr's little solar system, 
over and over....  Slowly I begin to recognize 
the pattern.  Cyclonus seeks his commander, 
unwilling to give up for lost the individual to 
whom he swore loyalty.  I must wonder whether 
Cyclonus would stand aside in a shuttle full of 
chaos and anarchy, and allow his leader to be 
thrown to his death?

	23.8.05
	Cyclonus has finally convinced us to pool 
what little resources remain to us, so he and 
Scourge and the Sweeps might travel farther, 
track a possible trajectory for Galvatron.  
This Galvatron, he is a stranger, and his name 
leaves me cold; I owe him nothing.  And yet, I 
look around at the others.  They would benefit 
from a strong command figure.  Cyclonus himself 
has managed to muster himself to commanding the 
attention of even the most disinterested of our 
group - his optics burned with conviction as he 
spoke of Galvatron, as he asked from us the 
very last bit of fuel that we could give.  To 
my surprise it was Motormaster who first 
stepped forward and offered what little he 
could; I had always suspected that behind his 
growling, blustering mannerisms, his loyalty to 
the cause ran deep.  Could I do less, with my 
creations watching, their optics gleaming with 
a haunted light and their minds full of 
questions?
	Cyclonus and his troops were gone a 
number of days ... one loses track ... but true 
to their word, returned with Galvatron.  I no 
longer sense the impenetrable barrier around 
his mind, the twisted power that surged through 
him ... his thoughts reel with an instability 
and a miasma of undirected rage that repels me 
with sheer revulsion. He is quite mad.  Gone is 
the cold, lethally efficient and single-minded 
stranger who strained at the leash Unicron had 
shackled him with.  He is unfettered now, and 
loose upon us.
	Cyclonus in some manner manages to direct 
his seething energies.  The warriors suddenly 
step up their pace of finishing a somewhat 
livable base, if only to keep clear of 
Galvatron.  Slowly we scrape out a subsistence 
from the capricious fossil fuels of Charr.

	13.9.05
	Cyclonus seems oblivious to Galvatron's 
insanity, supporting his every edict.  I fail 
to understand.  Cyclonus himself seems 
competent, dedicated ... there is a core of 
conviction about him, an unshakable center of 
duty and warrior's honor.  I have seen him 
settle disputes among the warriors, with words 
alone, which left them ashamed of their 
actions.  Why he pledges his allegiance to 
Galvatron, is beyond me.  This is no longer the 
individual whom he followed in the first days 
of his existence.  This individual is a danger 
to us all.  Sometimes I venture to probe the 
whirlwind of thoughts, in the vain hope that 
there should be anything of Megatron left ... 
sometimes I think I catch a whisper, deep 
within, something struggling upward ... but no, 
I delude myself.  I cannot bring myself to 
think of Megatron's mind, trapped somewhere 
within that froth of psychosis.
	When Galvatron proclaims that he will 
lead us in an all-out attack on Cybertron, I 
look over our bedraggled army and only shake my 
head.  But they have nothing to lose, they will 
fight fiercely for re-entry to their homeworld 
- or die in trying.  Perhaps one fate is as 
good as another.
	We manage to re-claim a tiny corner of 
what was once ours, Polyhex City, traditional 
center of Decepticon High Command, and its 
looming fortress of Darkmount.  What the 
Autobots have not torn down beyond repair, we 
slowly restore, and somehow hold our own at the 
borders on a hostile world.

	15.10.05
	Discipline has fallen into a shambles; it 
seems the warriors are constantly at each 
others' throats.  In Cyclonus' presence they 
slink away in opposite directions - Galvatron 
scarcely cares, unless sparked by some stray 
impulse to fire a fusion blast randomly at his 
own troops - but in the absence of supervision, 
they return to their old ways.
	Onslaught comes to me, desperate for 
answers, for reassurance.  Why come to me?  It 
was my doing, or lack thereof, that caused all 
this....  "We must restore *order*!" he 
insists, his every sense of military regimen 
and structure crumbling beneath him, and he 
struggling to keep a foothold.  "I'll find a 
way to restore the Decepticons to what they 
once were," he swears.  "With our without you."
	Can I truly turn away from my species 
now, when they need me the most?  I consider 
the remnants of the old order such as 
Motormaster and Onslaught; I consider the 
promising young warriors, such as Ramjet and 
the other flyers; I consider Razorclaw and his 
Predacon team, who barely knew Megatron - can I 
let them head blindly into the future without 
knowing their past, without urging them to live 
up to their heritage?  My mind reaches out to 
my own creations.  For them, I will survive.  
Long enough to see the Decepticons restored to 
their former glory, long enough to insure that 
my creations live to see us rise again from 
these dark times.
	I go to the others, those in confusion 
and despair, and speak to them in absolute 
assurance and conviction.  While assisting in 
repair bay, I speak to them.  I remind them 
that we have all withstood setbacks before.  I 
remind them of the courage with which our 
fallen heroes faced their fate, and can we do 
less now, than to face ours and overcome it?  
With enough repetition, I sound convincing.  
Here and there, I see hope flicker up again in 
their optics.  The troubled thoughts whirling 
through the minds of my creations begin to 
settle, as they slowly adjust, as they slowly 
begin to accept this gray existence as 
tolerable, a temporary stage before the 
inevitable upward swing.
	I wish I believed it myself.

	21.10.05
	It is made even more clear to me that I 
have a task to fulfill, much as I should like 
to give up on the struggle and run from my own 
failings ... but there are others who can still 
be helped, and I owe them my efforts, at least.  
Adamia, one of our most skilled medics, brings 
me Vortex with a self-inflicted laser wound 
having severed the left side of his helmet; 
"You can help him," she says with a hopeful 
certainty, "I've seen a little bit of your 
file, and if anyone can, it's you."  I patch 
the physical damage over a number of hours, 
working carefully and improvising the linkages 
where possible, to reconnect all the cerebral 
neurofilaments with our scarcity of replacement 
parts.  There may be some slight, irreplaceable 
memory loss, but other functions should remain 
unimpaired.  The true damage is psychological, 
and when Vortex awakens I seek his permission 
for an in-depth telepathic scan.  "This will 
give me awareness of everything about you," I 
warn him, "perhaps even that which you do not 
know about yourself."  It is perhaps the 
ultimate invasion of privacy, but he agrees to 
it, the despair that drove him to place an 
active weapon to his head being more painful 
than any fear of what I might find.  I delve 
into his thoughts, through the surface layers 
and toward the core of his being, sifting 
through his memories, his experiences, the 
unique set of impulses and reactions that gives 
him his individuality.  I come upon mental 
barriers erected millennia ago to contain parts 
of his past too horrible to recall, re-routed 
memories and re-directed reflexes.  It goes 
back to his days before joining the 
Combaticons, when he had another life which was 
brought to a close by Autobot imprisonment and 
lengthy, repeated torture - it was there that 
he learned his own arts of interrogation, where 
he learned to insulate himself against the 
suffering of others.  When he was finally 
restored to a place in Megatron's army, he 
found a degree of peace in serving his 
function, in being part of a close-knit team in 
a larger army that strove for the same goal.  
But that unity was gone now, dissolved in the 
face of a leadership in which the warriors 
found no faith - and it goaded all of his old 
impulses to the surface in ways for which he 
was not prepared.
	Piece by piece I disassemble the barriers 
in his mind and restore order, melding the 
disconnected bits of his experience back 
together again into a balanced whole.  When we 
come out of the link, I tell him that the 
Decepticon cause is above us all, and in that 
context, giving up and embracing death is the 
easy way out, the coward's way, an additional 
compilation of failure atop past mistakes.  I 
speak for both of us, though he does not know 
it.  He thanks me most earnestly and promises 
to re-dedicate himself to the cause and our 
eventual victory, no matter the hardships we 
may yet face.  I am gratified to have reached 
one individual, at least, who would otherwise 
have been forever lost, and it is perhaps a 
small payment toward the debt I owe my species.

	25.11.05
	I spend a great deal of time in the 
laboratory adjoining the repair bay.  There I 
am close by, to assist if I should be needed, 
but also relatively isolated, in familiar 
surroundings that sometimes almost let me 
forget what lies outside the lab.  It is a 
place where the others have come to realize 
they can find me, should they wish to.
	I work on the cerebral circuitry, 
stringing together the fantastically 
complicated nanocomponents.  The absolute focus 
required, is a welcome thing, it drowns out the 
roar of self-recrimination that gnaws 
constantly at the edge of my awareness.  What 
right have I, really, to bring another creation 
into these desperate times?  What sort of life 
would this one have - I run my hand over the 
gleaming metal of the robotic bodyshell, built 
along the lines of Rumble and Frenzy - is it 
selfishness, pure and simple, to spark another 
life because I feel alone in the vast universe 
and wish an additional mind to be close to?  I 
am, of course, imparting him with specialized 
knowledge, ways of infiltrating Autobot 
defenses from afar, to perhaps turn our 
disadvantage into a chance at victory, to 
prevent the continued loss of life on the 
border skirmishes.  Does that make it 
acceptable?
	"Welcome, Hack," I say to him as I 
activate him, and he looks up, then around the 
lab, and smiles ... He learns quickly to steer 
clear of Galvatron; one day I will tell him 
about our true leader, and what he achieved, 
and what he might have yet achieved, if only-- 
No.  That part, he does not need to know.  
Difficult enough to integrate himself into the 
group of his siblings, as they are quite 
literally from another era ... let him face the 
future with confidence.  He is clever and 
enthusiastic, perhaps a touch overconfident in 
his youth, inherently skilled in the ways of 
information access, and forever eager to learn 
more.
	It was not a mistake.

	22.12.05
	I become aware of the mutterings, the 
undercurrents of fear and suspicion that seep 
through our forces.  I come into repair bay one 
day to find Adamia comforting a subordinate, a 
delicate Insecticon who looks up at me with 
huge, frightened optics.  "Onslaught," Adamia 
says by way of explanation, her optics 
darkening in anger.  "He accused her of 
consorting with Autobots, threatened her with 
death or worse.  And she's not the only one.  
You know it yourself, Soundwave.  You *know* 
what he's been up to."  I regard Styxx, being 
well aware of the reports my creations have 
brought back to me, of her too-friendly 
meetings with Autobots at our borders.  At best 
she is a naive child; at worst, a deliberate 
security risk.  And yet, Onslaught's methods of 
"keeping order" are a means of last resort, not 
the first weapon to be reached for, and I have 
had heated debates with him on the subject.
	"I will speak to him," I assure them.  I 
think I understand what drives him, but it has 
caused more problems than it solved.
	I find Onslaught in the command center, 
facing down a raging Galvatron, with Cyclonus 
beside him very nearly as enraged.  Galvatron 
screams about a "secret police" whom Onslaught 
set among our ranks; "How dare you force anyone 
to answer to you, above me?" he rants. ... "One 
of your own operatives came forward," Cyclonus 
puts in, his tone low and dangerous.  "She 
recognized your sordid little secret ring for 
what it was, cowardly and dishonorable, and 
sowing unrest and treason!"
	He has already been struck several times, 
and both of his accusers have their weapons out 
and fully powered.  He catches sight of me, 
gives me a beseeching look ... I cannot stand 
by again and make no intervention.  "Lord 
Galvatron," I speak calmly, the title reflexive 
and faintly mocking, as Megatron himself would 
have disdained it, "Onslaught's intentions were 
admirable even if the methods were unwise.   
There is indeed disloyalty among the ranks, and 
he sought to eliminate it in his way.  He meant 
no treachery against you."
	Galvatron whirls on me.  "I didn't ask 
for your opinion, Soundwave!" and his cannon 
waves in my general direction, but at least he 
is diverted from Onslaught for the moment.  It 
is Cyclonus who grabs the Combaticon by the 
throat and snarls, "Names!  I want the names of 
all your 'operatives' in this filthy 
undercurrent!"
	Onslaught to his credit maintains as much 
dignity as possible under the circumstances, 
and provides his list ... a list I recognize as 
the names of some of the most clever and adept 
infiltrators and spies that remain to us.  
Cyclonus shoves Onslaught away as though 
disposing of something filthy, and the 
Combaticon slams back against the nearest wall, 
slipping to the floor.
	Galvatron turns from him to me, his 
optics seething scarlet fire.  "You, Soundwave, 
will take over this ring of espionage experts.  
Send them against the *Autobots*.  If I should 
catch you maneuvering in any way against me, 
you can consider your life over!"  He stalks 
out, Cyclonus at his side.
	Onslaught glares at me venomously.  I 
smile a bit, regretfully.  "It is hardly my 
fault that Galvatron handed your operatives to 
me.  He is correct in one thing, their talents 
are best turned on the enemy.  Your method of 
keeping order was counterproductive, as I have 
told you.  I know you miss the old ways, as I 
do, but one cannot induce unity through fear.  
It must be inspired.  Unfortunately..." my 
voice lowers, "there is precious little in the 
high command to inspire us these days.  So that 
task falls to us, those who remember how it was 
before."  I offer him a hand up.  Much as I 
oppose his recent actions, I feel a kinship 
with him, as he like myself is a relic of a 
former age, and I well understand the despair 
that drove him to these lengths.  As I have so 
many times assured others, I assure him that we 
will somehow survive and triumph.

	20.1.06
	Of all the faces out of the past that I 
had hoped never to see again under current 
conditions, this shadow that materialized in 
Darkmount was surely the most disquieting: 
Nightbird, thought long-lost and deactivated.  
Somehow she managed to escape her captivity on 
Earth and sneak aboard a ship to Cybertron; 
with equal ease she bypassed our security 
systems (such as they are) and appeared before 
me in the hallway.  Already she knew that 
something was wrong, that Megatron was nowhere 
to be found; I was forced to confirm the worst 
of her fears.  How to look into her optics, the 
female whom Megatron had loved, and explain to 
her that *I* was at fault, that a moment's 
hesitation cost our leader his life and our 
species their future ... I could not do it.  I 
was at least able to tell her that she was not 
thoughtlessly abandoned, twenty years earlier 
when she was seized by Autobots and returned to 
her human captors ... that Megatron and I spent 
months scouring the planet for any trace of 
her, that I finally had to insist upon calling 
off the search, for the sake of our cause and 
for what remained of Megatron's own health.  I 
imagine briefly what it might have been like, 
if he had been here today to greet her ... it 
is like a laser dagger through my fuel pump.  I 
can bring myself to tell her only the 
sketchiest details of the end.

	16.2.06
	Nightbird comes and goes, appearing 
unexpectedly in clashes against the Autobots, 
bringing an occasional key piece of information 
to me, appearing outside the base or dropping 
down soundlessly into my lab from the 
ventilation shafts.  She will speak only to me, 
trusting me in some way, the one that she 
should despise most - or maybe I am merely the 
closest reminder to the life that she could 
have had with us.  She will not serve an 
incompetent madman such as Galvatron, she tells 
me, but she will serve the Decepticon cause, 
and she looks to me to indicate how that is 
best done.  Always afterwards she vanishes 
again, to some lair she has made for herself 
out in the ruins.  Once I had Ravage trail her, 
so I would know where she spent her time, 
whether the location was secure for an alien 
who knew nothing of this world.  I was 
satisfied that she seemed instinctively to know 
how to keep hidden when she wished.  Now and 
again I have Ravage or Laserbeak check up on 
her ... I imagine she would be outraged at the 
revelation ... but I am determined to see that 
she stays safe.  It is the very least I can 
still do for my leader.

	18.4.06
	Events have occurred rapidly once again 
... at the edge of the vast trenches that 
stretch east of Iacon, there stands a memorial 
called the Liberation Arch.  Its builders have 
long been forgotten, and the legends that 
surround it, claim it was the memorial erected 
when the Quintesson slavers were driven from 
our world in the distant past.  The Autobots 
consider it akin to a holy relic, with the same 
misplaced sentimentality with which they guard 
a memorial statue to Optimus Prime that stands 
at the gates of their spaceport.  Some 
Decepticons have equally impractical notions, 
caught in the romance of its fanciful lore ... 
it is - or was - after all, just a lifeless 
material construct.  When the Predacon Tantrum, 
in a fit of nameless spite, shattered the Arch 
to cinders, he became instantly a hunted 
criminal.  I remain dismayed at how quickly 
some of our own warriors took up the cry for 
his fuel - how even Cyclonus denounced him as 
dishonoring Cybertron's glorious past - 
Cyclonus, who has many fine qualities, but 
knows nothing of Cybertron's past beyond that 
which he has read.  Tantrum's motives, I cannot 
guess at - perhaps just to cause an uproar, he 
is not known for thinking his actions through - 
but I do know that the life of a Decepticon 
warrior is not comparable to a mere inanimate 
landmark.
	When I heard that a combined group of 
Decepticons and Autobots had captured him and 
dragged him to the site of the destroyed Arch, 
I went there at once, determined to free him by 
any means necessary.  To my surprise I found a 
gleaming-white figure calming the crowd, 
standing amidst the rubble ... he called 
himself Sanctorius, Prophet of Primus, and 
claimed the tremors sent out by the Arch's 
destruction, had re-awakened him from long 
stasis.  Instantly I sensed something about him 
... we telepaths can always detect one of our 
own.  Though he was not a telepath, precisely, 
that would not be the right term ... but he had 
a way of exuding mental control over others.  
He recognized me for what I was as well, his 
expression unreadable as he noted my presence 
... I felt his influence reach out to me, and 
with years of long training I snapped my mental 
shielding into place, listening to the words 
rather than the subliminal spell.
	He spoke that which I would have said, 
that an inanimate object, no matter how 
symbolically significant, cannot be balanced 
against the life of a sentient being, and he 
had the crowd sufficiently enthralled that they 
came to agree.  He then proceeded to "rebuild" 
the Arch.  To all appearances it looked as 
though double ribbons of silver and gold rose 
from the ground, entwined about each other, and 
solidified into a new version of the old 
monument.  Most of the onlookers took it as a 
miracle, but I know a thing or two about matter 
displacement, about what, in theory, is 
possible, and what technology the ancients may 
have had, that has been lost to the ceaseless 
wars.  The new Arch is most assuredly solid and 
physically real, but I hold no illusion that it 
was constructed by paranormal means.  This, 
however, is the impression Sanctorius was quite 
obviously aiming for.  He spoke of peace 
between the warring factions, of the myths of 
Primus ... Cyclonus to his credit reacted with 
extreme skepticism and called for a return to 
base, but too many of our numbers remained 
behind, caught in the magnetism of this 
"Prophet."  I was surprised to see Adamia among 
those that remained, she who had always seemed 
so pragmatic and steadfast.  Something will 
have to be done about the situation.  We cannot 
have some Neutral on a deranged holy quest 
filling the heads of our warriors with this 
type of nonsense.  If the Autobots do not kill 
us, if Galvatron does not lead us into ruin, 
then this sort of thing surely will undermine 
the Decepticon fighting spirit.
	I do not trust Sanctorius, nor the 
mythology he represents.

	20.4.06
	Virtually simultaneous with the awakening 
of Sanctorius, many of our warriors have begun 
to manifest strange symptoms.  Those who did 
not flock out of curiosity or otherwise to the 
newly-rediscovered "Temple of Primus", lingered 
about Darkmount, fading in and out of a strange 
sort of waking consciousness.  It does not 
affect all of them, to be sure, and for some it 
only lasts mere moments, but I am aware of it 
when it occurs, being very tuned in to 
telepathic influence now.
	I exhort my creations to keep their 
mental shielding up, and watch my closest co-
workers carefully.  Onslaught comes to me in 
the research lab, equally concerned; "*Do* 
something!" he demands of me, clearly fearing 
some external influence would take hold of him 
as well. ... "You must maintain vigilance over 
your own mind," I tell him.  "That, I cannot do 
for you."
	Jetstorm, one of the younger flyers, 
bursts in on us, hovering in above the ground, 
wild-eyed and waving his arms.  "Unicron!" he 
announces in a fervor of passion.  "Unicron 
lives again!  We must heed his call!"
	I feel cold, for I detect the same 
unworldly power emanating from him, as I had 
felt crush Megatron, as I had read from 
Galvatron when he first came to us.  I focus my 
thoughts and send them into Jetstorm's mind, 
hoping to free the young warrior.  Instead, I 
run up against a vast consciousness lurking 
behind the individual whom Unicron is using as 
a puppet.  Jetstorm's voice deepens into a 
rumble of distant thunder, his optics change 
color and take on a nearly greenish cast.  
"Sanctorius," growls the voice from inside 
Jetstorm.  "Sanctorius must die."  Then the 
external influence abruptly vanishes, and 
Jetstorm crumples to the floor, unconscious.

	21.4.06
	While others have felt the distant touch 
of Unicron's thoughts, it seems to be Jetstorm 
who is most susceptible, who has been selected 
to serve as the "mouthpiece."  Unicron's 
severed head remains in orbit around Cybertron, 
and Jetstorm has made several trips back and 
forth, quite against his will and without his 
knowledge.  Each time Unicron speaks through 
Jetstorm, he demands the deliverance of 
Sanctorius.
	My telepathic scans are attuned to their 
utmost, as I screen everyone who comes near me 
for alien influences.  Somewhere deep within 
Galvatron I think I catch the whisper of a 
familiar mind ... I regard Jetstorm, and the 
faint hope of a possibility begins to form.  I 
believe the humans had a saying about 
"bargaining with the devil."  It is precisely 
this that I am prepared to do.

	22.4.06
	I follow Jetstorm on his journey to the 
circling head, and lure Galvatron to me with a 
false report.  I wait in the cavernous interior 
of the hollow eye sockets, communicating with 
Unicron telepathically while Jetstorm hovers 
and stares blankly ahead of himself.  "Restore 
that which you have taken," I implore Unicron, 
"and I will hand you Sanctorius, or anything 
else you may wish."  I have no way of knowing 
if the vast mind which I address, can even hear 
my faint call.
	Galvatron sails through the opening in 
the dead lens, trailed by a pack of Sweeps and 
full of blustering demands.  "What is it, 
Soundwave?" he snaps impatiently, when a beam 
of light strikes him.  He screams, writhing ... 
I hurry forward to catch him as he falls 
senseless.  "We must return to base!" I tell 
the Sweeps urgently, and have one of them haul 
Jetstorm back with us; he does not resist, nor 
does he seem to know what is going on around 
him.
	I bring Galvatron to repair bay; his 
optics remain dark.  I begin to fear I may have 
once again made the wrong choice.  His life 
signs are weak ... what will become of the 
already-chaotic Decepticons if Megatron is not 
restored, and Galvatron dies as well?  He is at 
the very least a figurehead that Cyclonus has 
used to maintain some semblance of devotion to 
our cause.  Searchingly I send my thoughts deep 
into his mind.  A faint torrent of disordered 
images and jarring impulses, fading off into 
the distance.  Something else rises up 
underneath, a clearly ordered structure of 
personality, a familiar sense of confident 
individuality.  I reach for that energy-
pattern, draw it upward, try to enhance it.  
The lights in the optics flicker on.  Megatron 
looks out at me through Galvatron's eyes.
	I have seldom known such a sense of 
release and relief.  "Commander," I say to him 
by way of greeting, falling easily back into 
that old form of address.  "You were still in 
there after all."
	He pushes himself carefully to a sitting 
position and smiles, the familiar expression 
looking scarcely different on Galvatron's 
features.  "Yes, I was there," he says, and his 
optics darken.  "Forced to look out, forced to 
watch every incompetent move and impulsive 
blunder Galvatron made."
	I turn my head, unable to look at him ... 
worse than death, this was the fate I had 
condemned him to.
	"But I'm back now," he says, the easy 
confidence returning, no trace of recrimination 
in his manner.  "Gather the troops together, 
Soundwave - we're going to make some changes."
	*Go find Nightbird*, I mentally instruct 
Ravage, who has been loitering about the 
shadows watching every move with riveted 
attention.  Noiselessly he slips away as I help 
Megatron to his feet.

	23.4.06
	Cyclonus corners me in the med bay, his 
optics burning with fury and grief.  "You vile 
traitor!" he snarls at me, slamming me back 
into the nearest repair table with a double-
fisted blow.  The table shatters in half under 
me.  I offer no resistance, I knew this was 
coming.  But I attempt to reason with him, "It 
is better this way, Cyclonus.  You still have a 
valuable role here--" He hauls me up and throws 
me against the opposite wall.  "Never!" he 
insists.  "Never will I subjugate myself to a 
leader who has stolen the mind and body of Lord 
Galvatron!" ... "It was not his mind to begin 
with," I counter, but he brings his hands to my 
throat, exerting a crushing pressure.  Now I do 
struggle, but he flings me away and back into 
the broken repair table.  He stands over me, 
shaking in fury, his hands curled to fists.
	"Consider: I too had to follow a leader 
whom I felt was unworthy, but to turn away 
would have done even greater damage to those 
left behind.  I apologize for what had to be 
done, if only for your sake," I say, and this 
is true, I see the depths of his devotion, and 
I am honestly sorry to have caused him this 
grief, regardless of how unworthy I feel its 
object was ... but he will accept no reason, no 
words of conciliation.  He storms from the room 
and away from Darkmount.  I can only hope that 
once his fury is spent, he will allow me to 
speak to him, that he will not turn his back on 
the Decepticon cause which he could so greatly 
benefit.
	Adamia steps into the med bay, which had 
been her domain, almost like a stranger from a 
different world entering an unfamiliar place.  
It is the first I have seen of her since she 
lingered with Sanctorius at the re-formed Arch.  
But she has not entirely abandoned her 
responsibilities, for her training returns as 
she sees me amidst the shattered remains of the 
table; she comes to me, repairs my minor 
damage, asks few questions.  I think of 
Cyclonus ... I truly regret what this has done 
to him.  But I think of Megatron rallying the 
troops on the night of his return, how they 
formed themselves almost reflexively into a 
solid unit before him, how they stood more 
confidently and shouted his name; how Frenzy 
later in the command center impulsively hugged 
Megatron's legs and Megatron glowered down at 
him, unable to entirely hide his amusement; how 
Nightbird joined us in graceful silence, her 
optics gleaming a brilliant gold as they locked 
with Megatron's gaze, and I ushered the others 
out of the room ... I would take this action 
again, and more so, if necessary.

	27.4.06
	I had meant to speak to Megatron in 
private and seek some form of forgiveness for 
my failure aboard the shuttle, but there was 
never the opportunity - he was consumed with 
his new plans, and Darkmount, though 
understaffed due to the lure that Sanctorius 
cast, and disrupted due to the possession 
increasingly exerted by Unicron, began to 
resemble a military outfit again rather than a 
refugee camp. For all that he still had 
Galvatron's body, he moved like Megatron, and I 
found it easy to envision him in his accustomed 
silver form, the Galvatron shell not at all 
distracting, the unpleasant memories associated 
with it being swept clean.  Scourge and the 
Sweeps subordinated themselves without much 
outward protest, as did the other younger 
warriors; Motormaster and Onslaught slipped 
quite happily back into their old roles as 
squadron commanders (though Onslaught remained 
on edge, constantly fearing a mental 
subjugation of his autonomy); my creations were 
exuberant, and in their joy I left behind the 
nightmare of the last few months, not wishing 
to bring up the subject to Megatron after all.  
Cyclonus remained missing without a trace.
	Megatron had been informed of Sanctorius' 
presence and Unicron's influence, and he 
immediately determined that both were a threat 
to the efficiency of the Decepticon army and 
were to be eliminated.  I concurred, but told 
him of my promise to deliver Sanctorius to 
Unicron, in hopes that this would cease 
Unicron's interference with our troops as well.  
Megatron gave me free reign to deal with the 
matter, and I set up surveillance outside the 
Temple, watching the dazed and enthralled 
Decepticons and Autobots move in and out.  No 
good could come from such companionable contact 
with the enemy, no matter the focal point of 
their interest.
	Sanctorius was aware of my presence and 
several times stepped out of the protective 
ring of his followers to speak to me.  I told 
him in no uncertain terms that I knew he was a 
false prophet, that he was using ancient 
technology to revive a myth of deity that was 
long dead and should have remained buried, that 
such ritualistic nonsense only served to weaken 
minds and dissipate resolve.  In my scan of his 
thoughts, what I could read through the unique 
interference currents that went along with his 
subliminal powers, it was obvious that he 
believed himself to be what he said, that in 
his twisted mind he was working for the benefit 
of all Cybertron, and in his way he was devoted 
to his cause and loved his world and its 
inhabitants.  But it was an outdated notion, 
that our warring factions should ever again 
find peace outside of the total annihilation of 
one or the other; neither would give up their 
ideals to the demands of the other.  This too I 
told him, but he seemed not to grasp the 
concept, lost in the shadowy corridors of some 
ancient mysticism.

	29.4.06
	I was on my watch over the Temple, 
waiting for an opportunity to lure Sanctorius 
away from his acolytes, when it happened.  My 
attention sharpened when Cyclonus landed before 
the stone edifice and went inside; my instinct 
for danger went on full alert when I detected 
the faint crackle of a radio communiqué going 
out from the Temple to Darkmount.  Not long 
after, Megatron soared in from the north and 
landed.  Immediately I left my sentry post to 
join him.  "What has occurred, Commander?" I 
inquired in concern.
	"Cyclonus wishes to speak with me about 
releasing our troops from Sanctorius' thrall," 
Megatron replied, his optics darting about the 
clearing mistrustfully; he too sensed something 
amiss.  "He's apparently willing to return to 
base, thinks some agreement can be reached with 
this false prophet."
	"It is a trap," I said in absolute 
certainty, and he nodded.  "None the less, I'm 
putting an end to this once and for all."  I 
could not dissuade him.  All I could do was 
follow him into the temple, determined to 
safeguard him.
	Sometimes our certainty in our own 
abilities borders on overconfidence.  Sometimes 
we are too lulled by past successes, to realize 
the danger of the unfamiliar.  Whatever 
Sanctorius' mental powers, I felt sure my 
telepathic abilities were more than their 
equal, that I could protect Megatron.  And no 
doubt I could have, if not for additional 
factors.  I should not have walked with him 
into the heart of the trap, but instead done 
everything possible, by any means required, to 
prevent him from entering in the first place.
	The gate slammed shut behind us as we 
entered - that much, we were expecting. 
Sanctorius was a gleaming-white figure at the 
head of the dimly-lit room, Cyclonus beside 
him; the acolytes, wearing Decepticon and 
Autobot symbols alike, sat blank-eyed in rows 
along the walls, humming in unison to 
themselves.  "Megatron is the walking dead, 
brought back to life by the dark power of 
Unicron," Cyclonus was whispering to 
Sanctorius; I, of course, could hear every 
word.  "He has stolen Galvatron's body and his 
right to life.  This abomination must be 
corrected." ... "Those who were one with 
Primus, should not be torn back into the realm 
of the living," Sanctorius agreed gravely.  
Megatron caught a few muttered words, among 
them "Primus," and I could see by his stance 
that he was about to roundly condemn the entire 
mythology ... and then every trace of light 
died, and I could feel Sanctorius' mental 
powers surge past me and take hold of 
Megatron's mind like the grasp of a great claw.  
I likewise latched onto Megatron's mind, noting 
for the first time how tenuous was his hold on 
the reality that we knew, how wildly 
Galvatron's personality still screamed 
underneath; but I was determined to keep 
Megatron locked in place to the body which he'd 
gained as his own. The acolytes intensified 
their toneless humming as though to lend their 
prophet support, but I ignored them.  From 
somewhere in the dark, Cyclonus slammed into 
me, momentarily breaking my concentration, and 
in that instant of lapse, Sanctorius' hold 
intensified.  I struck out at Cyclonus as he 
sought to grasp my throat, to pound my head 
against the cold stone of the floor ... I 
reached out to Megatron desperately, and felt 
his personality, his individuality, his 
identity, sliding out of my telepathic grasp 
like sand seeping away.  In its place, the 
screaming maelstrom of Galvatron surged into 
the void left behind.  I struck out with all my 
strength at Cyclonus, sending him sprawling, 
but some ancient force-field technology of 
Sanctorius' had hold of me now ... the gate 
flung itself open and I was sent crashing out 
of the Temple.
	The opening sealed itself.  It was too 
late, in any case.  I had felt the last 
remnants of what had been Megatron, collapse in 
on themselves and extinguish themselves 
totally.  For the second time, I had failed my 
closest friend, and all I could do now was 
silently vow revenge.

	1.5.06
	I cannot truly hate Cyclonus for his 
actions.  He is bound by his loyalty, by his 
word of honor, just as I am, and though I 
cannot comprehend the specifics of his devotion 
to a being such as Galvatron, I can understand 
the principle of the matter.  Can Cyclonus not 
see the damage Galvatron's leadership causes us 
all?  Already the momentary hope and resolve 
that had bound the troops together under 
Megatron, has slipped back into the 
disorganized infighting and petty dissipations 
of earlier months.  Cyclonus cannot see it, he 
is utterly blind.  And yet I cannot hate him.  
When I look inward I am startled to find an 
established hatred for Galvatron, which has now 
come to burn bright enough that I am no longer 
able to overlook it.  I ask myself, is it his 
fault, that Unicron brought him into existence 
at Megatron's expense, is it his fault that 
Megatron cannot exist because he does?  For all 
his insanity and incompetence, is he not still 
a fellow Decepticon who deserves my help rather 
than my contempt?  But it is no use.  I hate 
him.
	And Sanctorius.  Sanctorius will pay.

	4.5.06
	Amidst tragedy, a small bright moment in 
the dismal existence I have been plunged back 
into: an old comrade-in-arms from my early days 
with Megatron's army, long thought dead, has 
been uncovered and returned to us.  He did fall 
in that long-ago battle, but enough of the body 
remained intact for the scouts to recognize him 
as one of our own, and his neural core was 
miraculously undamaged and so could be 
reactivated.  Thus Backtrack lives.  I should 
like to welcome him in friendship, and yet my 
thoughts spiral downward into the abyssal 
depths of my drive for vengeance.  Perhaps when 
this debt is settled, I will be sufficiently 
becalmed to make another attempt at patching 
some semblance of a life out of the tatters.

	6.5.06
	Sanctorius is well aware that I mean to 
kill him, and hides in the safety of his Temple 
or amidst his followers, who surround him like 
a living shield when he ventures abroad.  But I 
have learned, if nothing else, an infinite 
patience, an instinct for opportunities.  
Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage alternate in 
keeping me aware of his activities when I 
cannot keep watch myself.  Darkmount is in a 
chaos of crumbling organization as more and 
more troops wander off or explode into 
unpredictable rages, their minds permeated with 
the preternatural power that is Unicron.  Both 
Autobot and Decepticon attempts to annihilate 
the great head in orbit, with its hollow yet 
eerily-glowing eye-sockets, have shattered 
against an invisible forcefield that now 
protects the monstrous apparition.
	At a tip from Ravage I catch Sanctorius 
alone in the wilderness, deep in thought, 
wandering the boulder-strewn foothills of the 
Bismuth Mountains.  A forcefield flickers up 
around him as I drop down out of the sky before 
him.  The same sort of thing that protects 
Unicron.  It is surely no coincidence.  My 
thoughts brush his mind, seeking out that which 
I might use.
	"You have unleashed Unicron upon us," I 
accuse.  "Every day, more citizens of Cybertron 
fall under his power.  He did not revive until 
you awoke.  He told me he wished you dead.  
There is a connection.  Do not try to deny it."
	Sanctorius bows his head.  "It is true, 
my presence re-activated the old cosmic 
energies.  This is why I went dormant to begin 
with.  There is too much ancient power within 
me, it attracts the wrong sort of forces.  For 
all that you hate me, you must believe me when 
I say I would take any measure for the sake of 
Cybertron and its future."
	I keep my mental shielding impenetrable.  
"Then *you* must destroy the threat you have 
awakened," I say to him inflectionlessly.  "It 
seems, you are the only one who can.  If you 
have hung back from this necessary 
confrontation out of fear for your own safety, 
then I now remind you of your 
responsibilities."
	He nods grimly, his optics flickering a 
bit, his own mental shielding closing down.  He 
looks up toward the dark sky, where the 
gargantuan head of Unicron edges above the 
horizon like a third moon.  He levitates upward 
and is rapidly lost in the deep shadows and 
faint gleam of the jagged mountainsides.
	But he will not elude me so easily.  I 
eject Laserbeak and transform, bidding him to 
carry me in his claws and follow.  He places me 
gently on the precipice where Sanctorius stands 
to face down his ancient enemy, no longer 
taking note of his surroundings.  Awash in a 
brilliant swirl of green light, he raises his 
hands and sends all the power at his command 
against the looming head.  The hollow eye 
sockets blaze bright ... a corona of green and 
yellow flares up around the horned helmet -- 
and then the gruesome satellite shatters apart, 
in unworldly silence above the reach of the 
atmosphere.
	Sanctorius sinks to the ground, his 
personal forcefield gone, his mental defenses 
down, the great majority of his own life 
energies drained.  I transform.  With an effort 
he lifts his head, and looks up into the barrel 
of my plasma rifle.
	"*Galvatron* was Unicron's creation - not 
Megatron," I tell him coldly, and my mind 
touches his; he knows without question that I 
speak the truth.  "Cyclonus was ... 
misinformed.  And he misinformed you.  You have 
released your enemy's handiwork upon your 
beloved homeworld.  Do not think that the 
destruction of Unicron counterbalances 
Megatron's death, and the fate to which you 
have condemned the Decepticons."
	For the briefest instant I savor the 
horrified realization that dawns in his eyes - 
and then unleash the bright bolt of plasma that 
scatters his cerebral circuitry out the 
backside of his head.

	8.5.06
	With the elimination of both Unicron and 
Sanctorius, the citizenry of Cybertron is back 
to normal, or at least as normal as usual ... 
those enthralled by either power, have wandered 
back to base and resumed their duties, a bit 
hesitantly as though waking up from a dream, 
but slowly everybody has resumed their place.  
Or very nearly so.  It is with considerable 
regret that I note the death of Combaticon 
commander Onslaught under unfortunate 
circumstances - circumstances I cannot help but 
think I might have prevented.  I knew he feared 
external mental control, but I could not 
imagine the lengths he would go to, to protect 
himself.  At some point in the past weeks he 
convinced one of the med techs to install a 
psionic damper into the sensory nexus of his 
cerebral core.  This experimental device is 
designed to generate "static" that blocks all 
attempts at telepathic scans or influences, and 
is dangerous even in the most skilled of hands; 
in the hands of an inexperienced med tech, 
cowed by Onslaught's insistence, it could only 
prove disastrous.
	I only discovered what he had done when, 
after missing for two days, he staggered back 
to base, battered and filthy, so unlike his 
usual fastidious polish, without the memory of 
where he had been and why he had gone there.  
In the process of repairing him, I came across 
the energy signature of the damper.  I insisted 
upon removing it immediately, but something 
snapped in Onslaught and he leapt off the 
repair table, stunning me with a burst of 
electricity and making his escape.  I followed 
as best I could when the stun had worn off, 
trailing him to the cratered wastelands that 
lay beyond the borders of Polyhex.  I came 
across Motormaster on the way, and he joined 
me; additionally I released Buzzsaw and sent 
him scouting ahead.
	The ground was alarmingly unstable under 
us as we finally caught up to Onslaught and 
landed in one of the jagged canyons, its 
cliffsides shuddering ominously in synch with 
pulses of seismic activity.  He was firing in 
all directions, shouting about the hopelessness 
of the war, how we had been promised victory 
and instead had lived a thousand million years 
of lies, how all of our efforts would lead to 
nothing and he was renouncing it all.  
Motormaster and I tried to get close and still 
somehow avoid the barrage of artillery.  
Buzzsaw finally managed to swoop down and pluck 
the rifle from Onslaught's grasp, and I walked 
toward him, slowly, trying to calm him with the 
same words I had used on many a despairing 
warrior: that we had survived dark times 
before, and would do so again, that it was up 
to us to be resolute and strong for the sake of 
the cause, for the sake of those who had fallen 
in combat, for the sake of those who depended 
on us currently, and for the sake of those yet 
to come.  He had a counterpoint to my every 
word, but his attention was on me, while 
Motormaster took the opportunity to circle 
around behind him.  We might have tackled him 
then and there and taken him safely back to 
base, had not Galvatron come upon us, drawn to 
the commotion and the steady, ominous rumbling 
of the landscape.
	At the sight of Galvatron, Onslaught 
burst anew into a torrent of recriminations, 
detailing Galvatron's incompetence and 
unsuitability for command ... he spoke the very 
words I would dearly have loved to say to the 
imposter leader, words that I knew Onslaught 
had long believed, and only now, with the 
damage from the damper removing all inhibition, 
did he fling them like missiles at the 
instantly-enraged Galvatron.  "He is suffering 
from cerebral damage and knows not what he 
says," I attempted to forestall Galvatron's 
fury, but he was beyond hearing, charging 
forward as he powered up his cannon.  I knew my 
only chance was to subdue Onslaught before 
Galvatron reached him, and apparently 
Motormaster had the same thought - 
simultaneously we leapt for the Combaticon, 
just as the ground sagged away beneath us and 
sent all three of us sliding down a crumbling 
slope.  I was aware of Buzzsaw circling 
frantically overhead, caught the flicker of his 
thoughts, his desire to dive for Galvatron's 
optics as Galvatron threw himself after us, but 
I commanded urgently that Buzzsaw keep clear.  
Galvatron impacted and sent all four of us 
tumbling further downslope, Galvatron and 
Onslaught thrashing frantically in their 
attempts to tear into each other, Motormaster 
and I trying somehow to interpose ourselves and 
taking the brunt of the blows.
	We impacted sharply at the bottom of the 
slope, the ground still heaving beneath us.  
Onslaught disentangled himself and staggered a 
few steps away, drawing a small handlaser with 
which he peppered the area in our general 
direction, Galvatron trying to free his cannon 
arm to silence the offender for good.  I 
scrabbled to my feet, "accidentally" jostling 
Galvatron's aim in the process as I urged 
Onslaught to stand down, to think of his own 
safety.  "Think of your team," Motormaster 
added, "what happens to them, if you throw away 
your life like this?" ... "My team?" Onslaught 
wailed in response.  "Where are they, then?  
Why have they abandoned me to this dismal 
fate?" ... "*We* have not abandoned you," I 
started to say, but my words were lost in the 
thunderous roar of crustal plates shifting, 
fissures opening in the ground to all sides of 
us and cracking into a network of rifts.  I was 
thrown off my feet again, as was Galvatron who 
had another shot aligned; only from the corner 
of my vision did I see a great yawning gash 
open up under Onslaught and swallow him alive.  
I heard him cry out, saw Motormaster plunge 
forward to grasp at the falling Combaticon and 
miss, saw the gash close again with a grinding, 
shattering groan as other fissures opened up in 
its place and closed again nearly as quickly as 
they formed.
	We were forced to take to the air to join 
the circling Buzzsaw.  Galvatron hovered, 
firing downward again and again with brilliant 
fusion blasts, screaming with insane 
vindication.  Motormaster and I looked at each 
other, the last division commanders, now, of 
the old order, and some unspoken moment of 
mourning passed between us - for Onslaught, for 
ourselves, for the Decepticons as they once 
were.  Without a word I turned in the air and 
headed back toward base across the dark, 
rumbling landscape, Buzzsaw following and 
trying to get into my mind, to read my mood, 
but I would not grant him access.
	I would only hope that Onslaught will not 
be remembered as he was in his final hours, but 
rather as a dedicated commander who never lost 
sight of what it meant to be a true Decepticon. 
He and I had our differences over some issues, 
but many of those were resolved in recent 
months; I came to have great respect for his 
abilities as a warrior and his efforts on 
behalf of our cause, and I for my part shall 
miss him.

	9.5.06
	Buzzsaw is disturbed by the past day's 
events, fears that Galvatron will one day turn 
his fury against me as he did against 
Onslaught.  I assure him that I retain enough 
control of my facilities to give no voice to 
the opinion I hold of our "leader," but he 
worries none the less; "Galvatron is a ticking 
timebomb," he insists telepathically, "and one 
day he's going to take the rest of us with him 
when he explodes.  Something has to be done 
about him."  I admit that this thought has come 
to me as well, and as abhorrent as I find the 
notion, as foreign as it would ordinarily seem 
to me, I turn it over in my mind and examine 
it.  "And who would you propose to take 
Galvatron's place?" I ask Buzzsaw, and he 
shifts uncertainly ... "I don't know ... you, 
perhaps?"  I laugh, but there is no humor in 
the sound.  "Be realistic," I chide him gently.  
I am no command figure - I have neither the 
nature nor the desire to lead an army to grand 
heights of destiny, certainly not an army such 
as the Decepticons, who need an inspirational, 
larger-than-life commander.  My own 
Intelligence and Espionage division, I manage 
quite well, as they are a small unit of focused 
and sober individuals, who accord as much 
weight to a quietly spoken command as to a 
shouted one - but that is not the norm among 
warriors.  A particular sort of leader is 
needed ... but who?  I have seen flickers of 
brilliance in Cyclonus, and I feel he would 
make a respectable commander, but how would one 
exterminate Galvatron without falling under 
undue suspicion, and without traumatizing 
Cyclonus to the extent that he *could* not 
lead?  I will have to think on the matter.

	10.5.06
	Due to the steady increase in seismic 
activity in the vicinity of the trenches, we 
have gone down into Cybertron's vast underworld 
of passages to investigate the cause.  
Galvatron leads a reasonably large contingent, 
likely on Cyclonus' recommendation that experts 
in many fields be included, as we do not know 
what we may find.  I have always had an 
interest in exploring more of Cybertron's 
subsurface, as I am convinced that many of our 
lost records may be uncovered there; there are 
tales of entire civilizations that rose and 
fell without ever seeing the star-filled night 
sky, clustered into the mesh of tunnels and 
caverns that are layered through the planet's 
interior.
	After a day's travel almost directly 
downwards, we come to a level expanse, the 
ceiling so far above as to give one almost the 
illusion of being above ground again.  
Occasional barriers and columns divide the vast 
space, with the ground under our feet 
alternating between a slosh of cold, corrosive 
liquid and a litter of sharp-edged metal 
debris, tangles of cable, and rusted walkways.  
Obviously things live down here, as we detect 
occasional moans and wails around us, echoing 
in such a way that their distance from us is 
indeterminate.  Sometimes we must rely on the 
illumination we have brought with us, and 
sometimes a guttering lightpanel here and there 
will indicate the way.
	We are attacked repeatedly by bands of 
robots, or perhaps always the same band, it is 
difficult to tell as they leap out of the 
passages and bear down on us with ululating war 
cries, fire a few harmless shots, and then dart 
away again.  From what I can see of them, they 
are colored largely in red and white, and 
additionally marked with strange patterns and 
sigils, some transforming into small agile 
hovercraft, and others darting in at ground 
level.  We fire back at them more to drive away 
the nuisance than because they offer any real 
threat; occasionally one falls, smoking, and is 
carted away by another.  I also detect, though 
none of my travelling companions are aware, the 
scrape and clatter of clawed feet above us in 
the hanging coils of pipes ... something 
watching the raids, and then moving on.  Some 
of the others are visibly nervous in these 
unfamiliar surroundings that are so ripe for 
ambush, but it detracts from our efficiency to 
waste energy on anxious twitches and jumps.  I 
keep my sensors fully attuned, walk steadily 
near the head of the column a few paces back 
from Galvatron and Cyclonus.  One or the other 
of my creations occasionally wishes to emerge, 
but for the most part I keep them inside, 
letting them view the surroundings through my 
senses.
	Rumble trudges along beside me as we come 
to another great clearing, this one lit by 
hundreds of small fires scattered before us on 
a plain of smoking rubble.  The buckled walls 
of what might once have been buildings lean 
precariously over us as we make our way ... and 
again that scrape of claws, that clatter of 
metal feet....
	Eyes gleam out of the shadows, and then 
four ... creatures ... block our path.  When 
Galvatron imperiously commands them out of the 
way, they transform and stand their ground.  
They are medium-sized robots, armored in all 
colors, with odd sigils and symbols painted 
over their plating, smeared in grime and 
bearing weapons that range from broken clubs to 
old-style laser pistols.  They are all but 
unintelligible, their optics gleaming with a 
dull brutality as they gibber something that I 
vaguely understand about their hated rivals, 
the "Technos", apparently the pack that has 
been harassing us on our journey.
	Their leader joins us, a robot of 
Cyclonus' size who calls himself Hun-Grrr, the 
Khan of Angselik - he gestures around at the 
ruins as he speaks the city's name, shattered 
to pieces as it was in the earth tremors.  He 
is adorned in dangling bits of metal and 
strings of torn circuitry, his armor carved 
with symbols and painted grotesquely.  
Galvatron to my amazement resorts to diplomacy 
- perhaps these filthy beasts appeal to his own 
nature - he first boasts of the vast empire he 
rules in the lands above, something which seems 
to impress the Khan, and then seeks information 
on the tremors that have been rattling this 
realm and ours.  The underworld dwellers, the 
Terrors, as they call themselves, are 
suspicious, but Adamia steps forward and offers 
small energon cubes which she has brought, and 
this seems to immediately smooth relations.  I 
am impressed at the medic's resourcefulness, 
for now we may get some information.
	Hun-Grrr and his troop lead us down one 
level and bring us to a smoothly gleaming wall 
of metal, nearly featureless except for a 
slight curve, as though the entire thing were a 
vast cylinder jammed vertically into the 
ground, and we were only seeing a small part.  
This, Hun-Grrr claims, is the source of all the 
disturbance, the monster that dug the floor out 
from under his city, but why this is, and by 
what method, he cannot begin to explain.  His 
words are punctuated by snarls and slashes of a 
great heavy halberd, and his followers burst 
into howls or senseless giggles at random 
intervals.  One of them leers at Rumble and 
claims he would make a tasty morsel; Rumble 
peers out from behind my leg and snaps insults 
in return.  I bid him silence; Adamia steps 
forward with more salvaging energon cubes.  I 
will be glad when we are away from this place 
again.
	Galvatron returns to the brute-force 
approach, melting a hole in the wall before us 
with his fusion cannon.  The Terrors clearly 
delight at being able to enter this barrier 
that has been taunting them for what can only 
be centuries; we find ourselves in the narrow 
passages of a massive engine compartment.  The 
Terrors scrabble upward eagerly, leading the 
way through the labyrinth of equipment.  As we 
follow, my internal warning sensors go off ... 
the structure all around us is giving off a 
damaging radiation.  I return Rumble to my 
storage compartment and run a quick analysis; 
if we do not spend an inordinate amount of time 
here, the emissions should not affect us.  If 
we were to be trapped here, however, I cannot 
currently guess what its effects would be.
	We are passing through the heart of the 
huge engine, the walls and pipes around us 
still radiating heat from recent use.  Again we 
are blocked by a metal barrier, which Galvatron 
blasts through, earning looks of grudging 
respect from the Terrors.  A commotion up ahead 
... we burst through one last wall to come into 
a command center, infested by a small group of 
Autobots, along with the same group of red-and-
white "Techno" robots who had been antagonizing 
us earlier - and in their midst, a Quintesson.  
The five-faced creature seems quite mad, 
howling about how he intends to use his Spiral 
Engine to lacerate the whole of the planet 
Cybertron, that it was complete now after all 
these many years, and we would not interfere 
with his destiny.  He is still frothing when 
the largest of the Technos splits him in two 
with a powerful axe-blow.  Hun-Grrr almost 
immediately lunges for the other robot, as 
though they were mortal enemies - and perhaps 
they are; Galvatron lets loose a barrage of 
fusion blasts that shatter consoles and melt 
scanner screens and send the Autobots and their 
allies fleeing out the hole which they have 
blasted into the opposite wall of the control 
room.  When all settles again, Hun-Grrr offers 
his allegiance to Galvatron, the "Great Khan," 
for the destruction of the Spiral Engine and 
for striking fear into his hated enemies.  
Galvatron eagerly accepts, promising them all 
places within the Decepticon ranks, and I can 
only shake my head in disgust.

	17.5.06
	The Terrorcons, as they are now being 
called, are causing no end of disruption.  Even 
somewhat cleaned up and held to military 
standards, they brawl with our warriors, stomp 
about the base as they please, and have more 
than once been barred from medbay for 
interfering with routine operations.  I remain 
disgusted that Galvatron would add creatures 
such as this to our ranks, for their presence 
degrades the honor of the Decepticon way and is 
yet more evidence of his lack of judgement.
	He called his division commanders 
together today to spout about his plans for an 
invasion of Junkion, as though having hit upon 
a brilliant scheme to harvest much-needed 
resources - and I imagine it could work, an 
unexpected attack on a poorly-fortified world, 
as opposed to an assault on the well-guarded 
Autobot bases.  He is likely aware of my 
loathing for him, but I am always included in 
such briefings simply because of my function in 
communications and espionage, simply because 
there are vital tasks I perform, that cannot be 
passed to somebody else.  Even my closest 
protege in I&E division, Full Blast, still has 
a great deal to learn if something should ever 
befall me and he is to be my replacement.  So I 
am included, and was witness to Hun-Grrr 
bursting in on us in outrage, waving his heavy 
halberd with its dangling trophies and trailed 
by his entourage, demanding to know why he was 
not included with the other "chiefs" in this 
"war council."  Did the "Great Khan" consider 
him unworthy of inclusion?
	The reaction around the table ranged from 
annoyance to amusement, that this bedecked 
barbarian could have any say in Decepticon 
internal affairs.  For my part, I stood back in 
silence and observed, Laserbeak perched on my 
shoulder and recording it all.  Perhaps some 
use could be made of these Terrorcons after 
all, I mused, while Galvatron angrily sent Hun-
Grrr on his way.....

	19.5.06
	The raid on Junkion was uneventful and 
relatively easily accomplished.  I began 
jamming their communications from afar, to 
prevent any mewling for help to the Autobots.  
We arrived in two ships, overpowering their lax 
defenses rapidly and securing an area.  The 
entire planet is littered with metallic clutter 
of all kinds, and a smelter was set up for 
refinement, turning out long heavy bars of 
condensed ores.  Soon enough we had loaded the 
cargo holds to capacity and were ready to pull 
out.  I toyed briefly with the notion of 
feeding subliminal signals into the televised 
programming around which the Junkions' lives 
revolved, perhaps putting them to some good use 
for us - but our time was too short for such an 
experiment, as we were soon underway again.
	The depths of space hold many unexpected 
dangers, however, and we found ourselves caught 
in an ion storm on the way home.  The flagship, 
with Galvatron, Cyclonus, and an assortment of 
warriors aboard, was separated and flung 
somewhere off course, as were we.  When 
scanners and sensors finally came marginally 
on-line again, we found ourselves caught in the 
gravity well of a little world orbiting a small 
white sun, so far off the beaten spacelanes 
that they did not even appear on our starmaps.  
The planet's surface was a swirl of fiery red 
and deep rust, broken by drifting areas of pale 
haze. A faint ring of jagged boulders circled 
diagonally to the planet's equator - the 
remains of what may once have been an intact 
moon.  And it was drawing us in ... our 
crippled engines were unable to compensate as 
the ship plunged downward, its heatshields 
glowing bright and all of us braced for impact.
	We crashed into a vast undulating field 
of fiery red sand dunes stretching to all 
horizons. Fortunately no serious injuries were 
sustained.  When we recovered our senses 
somewhat from the impact, we raised the hatch 
to be greeted by a stream of red sand showering 
down over us.  A constant, driving wind flung a 
steady hail of sharp-edged silicon particles 
against the hull, making it unpleasant to exit 
the ship - but replacement parts for the 
engines were needed, and I could only hope that 
something was to be found in the scorched 
wastelands that surrounded us. While there were 
those among us with space-transport capability, 
sensors indicated that the ion storm still 
raged above us, and it would take the larger 
shuttle's additional shielding to give us a 
chance at breaking through it.  Even that was 
questionable, but the attempt had to be made.  
To the west I made out the faintest of shadows 
along the skyline. Hills, perhaps, or just 
maybe - traces of civilization?

	20.5.06
	With the other ranking officers currently 
lost to us, I seem to find myself in command of 
our small group.  Vortex, Backtrack, Midnight, 
Drop Zone, Blast Off, Dead End, Motormaster, my 
creations, a number of others less familiar to 
me.  As a group we head outward ... I am not 
willing to send scouts out alone until I am 
more familiar with the lay of the land.  The 
dunes eventually give way to sculptured red 
highlands, which have been twisted and scoured 
by eons of wind and sand into sinuous spires 
and smooth, narrow valleys, with many sloping 
rock bridges and rounded crevasses.  Quite 
unexpectedly, some of the larger valleys 
contain metal wreckage - some parts 
recognizable as transport vehicles of a sort, 
others obviously the remains of weaponry, 
missile casings, and other apparently much 
older pieces, shattered and corroded beyond 
recognition. I sift through the remains, 
finding them unsuitable for our use - but it is 
an indication that more useful material may be 
found elsewhere.
	Vortex and Blast Off circle idly around 
the oddly unsettling patches of white haze that 
drift about the landscape, seemingly 
independent of any wind patterns. My attention 
is drawn to those tufts of vapor for a moment 
... they move slowly, but there is something 
ominous about them, something that for an 
instant both repels and attracts me before the 
absurd notion passes.  Vortex slices through a 
faint veil of haze as I gather my group 
together and continue on.
	We come upon a great cliffside of rust-
red stone, smoothed into strange rounded bulges 
and curved natural spires. Climbing up the 
contours of the cliffside, an extraordinary 
city rises alongside. Its multiple layers of 
platforms separate vertically sectioned 
buildings that seem to be nestled into the 
architecture of the cliff itself, as though for 
easy aerial access. I regard the sight in 
astonishment, for the engineering skill that 
went into designing this huge interlinked 
structure is beyond anything I have yet 
encountered. Yet, after the first shock of 
amazement wears off, I become aware of the 
obvious signs of neglect and even damage. The 
buildings stand deserted, their shattered 
windows turning blind eyes toward the 
highlands. Most of the doors are torn off their 
hinges, and even some of the landing platforms 
hang at precarious angles, creaking and 
groaning in the wind. Most walls bear the scars 
of weapons fire and some are broken outward as 
though by explosions from within.  One building 
is especially damaged, and also larger than the 
others, towering at the summit of this vertical 
city.  "We will begin there," I decide, pointing 
to the tallest building.  "Seek out any tools 
or machinery that we might use for repair of 
our engines."
	Vortex rounds on Blast Off suddenly, 
drawing his weapon, his optic band lit with a 
brilliant cold fire.  "I've got a much better 
solution," he grates.  "We'll just disassemble 
Blast Off and cut out his engines for the 
shuttle."
	Blast Off looks startled; I merely regard 
him in puzzlement.  "Vortex, I am aware you 
would like to leave this planet as soon as 
possible and head home, as do we all - but that 
is a bit of an overreaction.  Calm yourself, 
and we will see what there is to be found 
here."
	"I *am* calm," he hisses back at me, "I 
just want to see things done with some 
efficiency for once.  Maybe you can put your 
infernal pack of creations to good use for a 
change, too, and pull some spare parts out of 
*them*."  He looks challengingly around at the 
others, who just gape at him.  "Well, how about 
it?  Are you going to take your ticket out of 
here and sacrifice one replaceable warrior, or 
are you all infected with some idiotic 
sentimentality and tripe of Decepticon 
brotherhood?"
	I cannot fathom what has gotten into him, 
he who had always spoken highly of his comrades 
and swore to me to place the cause above all, 
those many months ago in repair bay.  "That 
will be enough," I command.  "We will *all* 
leave this world safely."
	"If you don't have the nerve, then I'll 
do it myself," he snarls, and snaps off a shot 
at the shocked-immobile Blast Off - but 
Motormaster is quicker and blasts Vortex in the 
back with a stun-setting.  He falls to the 
ground.
	I instruct Motormaster to transform and 
load the unconscious Vortex into his cargo bay. 
I send the others into the city to begin the 
search, accompanying Motormaster back to the 
ship, where I intend to examine Vortex more 
closely.  He may have taken some damage from 
the crash that I did not previously detect.  
Yet when we reach the shuttle, Vortex has 
regained consciousness and struggles free of 
Motormaster's grasp as he transforms, soaring 
off toward the highlands in the distance.  
"I'll get the little twerp," Motormaster growls 
and transforms again, rumbling off after the 
Combaticon.
	I set about preparing what diagnostic and 
repair equipment we have, as night falls and 
the wail of the wind picks up.

21.5.06
	The raging ion storm in the upper 
atmosphere is still playing havoc with our 
long-range communications.   The exploration 
team must come all the way back to the ship to 
report their findings, and I meet them outside 
the hatch.  "You've *got* to come see this," 
Backtrack begins, just as Vortex comes soaring 
in at top speed, closely followed by 
Motormaster, a rumbling black truck tearing 
across the desert after him.  Vortex lands 
beside me as though seeking protection, looking 
shaken and outraged.  "What's with 
Motormaster?" he demands.  "He tried to kill 
me!"
	Motormaster screeches to a halt, throwing 
up great sprays of red sand, and transforms.  
"Next time you'll learn to address your betters 
with some respect," he snarls at Vortex, who 
only shakes his head in confusion.
	"Have you anything to report, 
Motormaster?" I ask, regarding his manner with 
some trepidation.  Vortex on the other hand 
seems back to his usual self, inquiring of 
Blast Off entirely innocently about recent 
goings-on.
	Motormaster whirls on me, optics blazing.  
"And who do you think *you* are, that I'd 
report to you?  You think you're in command of 
this outfit, just 'cause you got a fancy rank 
and title?  Let me tell you a little something, 
Soundwave.  I don't take orders from anyone.  
You sorry lot are going to answer to me from 
now on!"  He glares around at the others, 
contempt flickering in his optics.
I reach out with a low-level telepathic 
scan.  He is sane in the clinical sense but ... 
clearly not himself.  His thoughts are 
permeated by a cold undercurrent of extreme, 
ruthless self-interest, a hostile arrogance and 
overriding ambition for personal power.  
"Motormaster, step inside the ship," I urge 
him.  "Something has happened to you."
Motormaster repeats that he takes no 
orders from me, that he will find his own way 
off the planet with or without us, and takes to 
the air, heading back out toward the highlands 
and the city.  I follow.  I am responsible for 
those under my command, after all, and I must 
bring them home safely.  Without a word from 
me, Midnight trails us, perhaps feeling some 
sense of responsibility of her own.

	23.5.06
	I have lost two entire days, or so I am 
told, though I have always known the inner 
workings of my mind well, and cannot comprehend 
that I would have been conscious, yet have no 
memory of the time.  I look around the 
highlands, not certain how I got there, though 
Backtrack is there with me, and he fills me in, 
even as I make an effort to delve into my own 
memories and draw something forth.
	A few images come to me: a sense of 
disdain for those under my command, contempt 
for those smaller and less physically powerful, 
a willingness to sacrifice each and all of them 
for my own glorification; an image of the 
others, shocked and terrified of me and I 
reveling in it; an echoing of Vortex's words, 
the intent of ripping out Blast Off's engines 
for use on the shuttle; someone hitting me from 
behind and sending me nearly unconscious while 
Blast Off escaped; a mad chase through the sky 
and into the highlands, with Backtrack sailing 
after me; his words to me, "Megatron would be 
ashamed of you if he saw you like this!" and 
some sense of being brought up short by that, 
just long enough for Backtrack's stun blast to 
send me plunging toward the ground, through the 
veil of one of those cold, cold patches of 
fog....
	"It's the haze," Backtrack confirms.  
"Midnight saw you chase Motormaster through a 
patch of it, and that's when we knew for sure.  
He came out normal, you came out ... afflicted.  
And just now when I stunned you and you fell 
out of the sky, through another patch, it 
brought you back to yourself."  He indicates 
the nearest drifting curtain of hazy white, 
which I regard now with a renewed suspicion.
	"Are there any others currently 
influenced?" I ask, for now we knew the means, 
if not the precise scientific understanding, to 
affect a cure.  He indicates Dead End and Drop 
Zone were still unaccounted for.  We will find 
them, maneuver them back through the strange 
patches of mist, and then steer clear of the 
highlands while we explore the rest of the 
planet more cautiously.

	24.5.06
	Finally there is opportunity for me to 
explore the city and the summit building.  The 
inside of this structure is in worse shape than 
the outside, the tarnished walls of the main 
corridor layered with dust and grime, with 
blown sand lining all the corners.  There is 
much evidence of intentional damage - entire 
metal panels are torn loose from the hallway's 
floor and ceiling, all the way through to the 
levels above and below. Though the broken 
windows let in some light, the interior remains 
dim and cold, as though unwilling to give up 
its secrets. The architectural style is 
undeniably alien, yet there is something oddly 
familiar about this manner of building with 
metal. The entrance hall branches into two main 
forks, one ending in an open doorframe with 
scorched and mangled edges - the other ending 
in a damaged, but still sealed door.
	The open door leads to a command center, 
and here the nagging familiarity of the 
structure solidifies into certainty.  A massive 
computer bank and a ceiling-high screen are 
split in multiple places by what look like 
hatchet blows, the screen shattered, with coils 
of wires and chips spilling over the floor. To 
my disappointment, it does not look like there 
is much salvageable data.  But the most 
interesting aspect of the room is branded into 
the tarnished wall above a raised platform, 
supporting a throne-like metal chair, which 
leans erratically, partially torn from its 
bolts. Overhead, unmistakably, though of 
slightly different styling, is emblazoned a 
huge Decepticon symbol.
	It is this that Backtrack and the others 
found, which had them so excited.  Is it 
possible - a lost Decepticon colony, of which 
no records remain?  It is true that an era of 
expansion and colonization prevailed before the 
currently-raging war, and it is true that many 
records have been since destroyed ... so it is 
not too unlikely that this may have been an 
outpost lost to history.  I cannot explain the 
obviously alien elements in the architecture or 
symbolism on the computer bank, however.  Nor 
can I explain the fate of the citizens, 
apparently vanished without a trace before 
Cybertron even lost its orbit.  What befell 
them?  Did they call for help?  Did they even 
have the opportunity?  I regard the hatchet-
marks and laser burns that mar the whole 
interior of this building.  Perhaps the answer 
lies behind that sealed door.

	25.5.06
	With the help of Backtrack, and with 
Blast Off, Drop Zone, and Ravage accompanying 
us, I have managed to unseal the door. What we 
found was at once wondrous and gruesome, for 
this was the last stand of the scientists who 
worked here, while an unknown enemy raged 
outside.  No dust or sand had collected inside 
the locked room, and experimental equipment of 
all sorts gleamed in orderly rows on the 
shelves along the back, as though just 
yesterday replaced, and awaiting the accustomed 
touch of a scientist's hand again tomorrow.  If 
not for the toppled lab tables that were shoved 
about to barricade the door, and the lifeless, 
fuel-less Decepticon body slumped among them, I 
could easily picture this room as a modern, 
fully operational laboratory.  The skeleton of 
an organic being came to light near the dead 
Decepticon - smaller, humanoid in form, though 
most definitely not human.  It is as though 
these two sacrificed themselves to seal the 
barrier, knowing well that they would starve 
before they could safely emerge.  One can only 
imagine the value of what they were protecting.
	There was a row of stasis chambers along 
the back wall.  I detected the faint, very 
faint hum of some power source, still operating 
at maintenance level after all these millennia.  
One chamber was still operational; the others 
had malfunctioned, producing three more 
drained-dry Decepticons.  With some trepidation 
we opened the fourth chamber, to find a most 
unique being - a robot, though built to 
resemble the organic skeleton that lay in the 
jumble of tables.  He bore a Decepticon symbol 
and spoke to us in a strange language, which I 
was able to decode after some time.  He was 
wary of us at first, but he recognized the 
symbols we bore, and I promised him no harm.  
His name is Sotanyavejin, and he is the past 
come to life - a first-hand source of 
information on this lost colony.  He is quite 
obviously a product of alien technology and 
Decepticon science joined, and we could learn a 
great deal from him.  The species he represents 
is called the "Dyranens", who were apparently a 
conquered race who merged their scientific 
talents with ours on this forlorn planet.  
Again, no records of them exist on Cybertron, 
and there is nothing to indicate what became of 
them.  This is a unique opportunity to revive a 
part of our history that is incompletely known.  
To that end, I have removed the cerebral cores 
of the four deactivated Decepticons that we 
found; they are burnt dry and beyond revival, 
but perhaps I can extract something from the 
memory chips once we return to Cybertron.  Drop 
Zone, who explained to me his former 
archaeological training and professed a great 
interest in ancient Decepticon history, has 
been of great assistance to me in this matter, 
and he is in the process of coaxing the 
laboratory computers back to life, while the 
others seek out equipment with which to repair 
our shuttle.

	26.5.06
	With some translation and decryption, we 
have come across the resident scientists' 
reports on the madness that slowly consumed 
their outpost.  It becomes obvious that the 
enemy was internal, that the affected 
Decepticons destroyed each other, with only 
those few in the lab remaining safe from the 
plague. Previous logs indicate the scientists' 
study of an older civilization that once 
existed on the planet.  We did find remains of 
such, out where the highlands come to an abrupt 
end, though I did not at the time note their 
significance: a vast plain of stone stretched 
outward, its surface ridged with symmetrical 
ripple-marks like a petrified sea.  It is the 
only evidence we have seen, that standing water 
ever existed on this world.  From the air, one 
can see a network of fissures in the stone 
plain, as though its overlying ocean had been 
scorched dry all at once by some great blast of 
heat.  Most notably, at the edge of what was 
once the shoreline, a jumble of broken stones 
and twisted, corroded metal lay scattered, in a 
pattern that faintly suggested the ancient lay-
out of a city foundation.
	From our superficial observations, and 
from the archeological text in the lab 
computer, it is apparent that this previous 
society destroyed itself as well. I thought it 
ironic, but did not see the connection until I 
recalled my sensations when first encountering 
the mist in the highlands - which brought on 
the personality distortion in our landing 
party.  When I first saw these patches of haze, 
it seemed to me that I sensed ... not a mind, 
exactly, but the remnants of one; a sensation 
of being watched, without a true consciousness 
behind it.  I dismissed it at the time as 
illusion.  But now I have a highly unorthodox 
theory that may provide some explanation.
	I hypothesize that the original 
civilization of this planet was based on 
anarchy - greed, violence, and utterly self-
serving avarice - for those are the traits that 
manifested themselves in our landing party 
later.  And as one would expect from such a 
civilization, it annihilated itself.  But the 
force of their emotions was so strong, their 
hatreds so intense and their violence so 
powerful, that they "imprinted" themselves onto 
the landscape.  This is not scientific 
terminology, I realize, but it is the only way 
I can explain it.  And those "imprints" - not 
sentient minds, by any stretch, but the 
remnants of so much negative emotion, of so 
much violent death - lingered and affected any 
others who walked through that haze.  From a 
detailed medical scan of the last individual to 
be afflicted, Dead End, it seems that affected 
individuals carry residual amounts of mist in 
their neurocircuitry, so perhaps the cure has 
to do with the haze re-absorbing those trace 
amounts upon a second exposure.
	It is all highly speculative, of course.  
But if nothing else it is an example to us as 
Decepticons: that if we ever were to descend 
into the pure anarchy and treachery that our 
enemies accuse us of, then the fate of these 
lost civilizations will be our own.  A 
momentary brush with such a fate is all I ever 
hope to experience; I am more than relieved to 
see all of us back to normal.

	28.5.06
	We have managed to repair the shuttle and 
return to Cybertron, enjoying an uneventful 
flight home, but the sight that greeted us upon 
our return, was one that horrifies me even now 
to think of it.  Galvatron in customary manner 
had neglected to post sufficient guard to our 
territorial borders, giving no thought to what 
the remaining warriors might do in his absence.  
The Autobots took advantage of the overall 
disorganization, to overrun Polyhex City almost 
to the very gates of Darkmount.  By the time 
our ship returned from its unscheduled side-
trip, Galvatron's shuttle had made it back to 
Cybertron, and our troops had been rallied 
enough to drive the enemy from our lands, but 
by then the damage had been done.  Without 
regard for the numerous non-combatant civilians 
who inhabited the city under Decepticon 
protection, the civilians whom the Autobots 
continually claim to value so highly, they had 
stormed the streets and leveled buildings, 
under the guise of rooting out Decepticon 
sympathizers and of course killing what 
warriors they could.  Ironically enough it was 
the non-combatants who were hardest hit, those 
who wore no brand of allegiance at all; the 
warriors, who were the ostensible targets, had 
the training to defend themselves or ultimately 
escape.  It is the repeated hypocrisy of the 
Autobots that infuriates me, even more so when 
I regard the ruins of what was my home city, a 
city that I should have been present to defend.  
Damn Galvatron to the deepest smelting pits, 
for his blundering incompetence, and damn the 
Autobots for their sanctimonious lies and false 
pretenses!  Far worse than simply wrecking 
destruction, which is only to be expected in 
war, is the claim thereafter that they had the 
interest of the entire planet at heart.  Once 
again my resolve strengthens, to somehow 
survive this era and see both Galvatron and the 
Autobots driven to defeat.

	31.5.06
	I come upon Hun-Grrr in repair bay.  He 
has run afoul of some Decepticon with a 
firebolt cannon, and needs a molten piece of 
chest armor replaced.  Brusquely he orders me 
over, tells me to perform whatever rituals and 
scribe whatever runes I must, in order to heal 
him.  Though I am almost loath to touch the 
underworld-dweller, I am somewhat intrigued by 
his mannerisms, and so begin work, explaining 
that our methods of repair are not nearly so 
complicated as what he envisions.  Casually I 
make reference to the "war council" before the 
invasion of Junkion, where the "Great Khan" so 
cavalierly excluded him; how he and his 
followers were so conveniently left out of the 
mission.  He bristles, no doubt rethinking his 
pledge of subordination to Galvatron.  I 
indicate further that even the most powerful of 
warriors have weaknesses, and it might be 
theoretically possible for someone such as 
myself to point these out.  His optics light up 
in anticipation, and yet he snarls at me 
warily, "What could a shaman know of a 
warrior's mind?" ... "You would be surprised," 
I tell him calmly, and leave it at that for him 
to think over, as I fit the newly-restored 
armor into place.
	I envision goading Hun-Grrr and his horde 
into dealing with Galvatron for us.  It should 
not be difficult.  Hun-Grrr is cunning and more 
intelligent than the others, but flawed with 
the overwhelming desire to rule absolute again, 
as he did over his lost city of Angselik.  The 
right word, the useful snippet of information, 
the proper incentive, and he can be guided.  If 
the resulting destruction should be mutual, if 
Galvatron in his last battle should obliterate 
the Terrorcons, then we are rid of two problems 
at once.  For a moment something tugs at me ... 
have times become so desperate that I am 
willing to manipulate others to my ends like 
this?  The notion sickens me; it is not my way.  
And yet ... the Terrorcons are not Decepticons, 
they are a pack of disruptive scavengers that 
Galvatron drew to him, and I owe them nothing.  
It is the Decepticon army that I must safeguard 
first and foremost, and if these vile means are 
necessary, then so be it.
	Hun-Grrr skulks off, casting me a 
glowering, appraising glance over his shoulder 
before disappearing out the door.  Some of the 
dangling chips and filaments with which he 
festoons his armor, have come loose, and I 
sweep them off the repair table and into my 
hand, ready to toss them into recycling - when 
one of the objects catches my closer attention.  
It is a datachip, I realize, one of an archaic 
design, and missing an edge, but perhaps none 
the less readable with some clean-up.  I rub 
some of the grime from the other pieces.  These 
too are datachips and bits of disks from 
ancient information storage banks, none of them 
complete, but perhaps readable in part.  
Considering the information that lies waiting 
to be extracted from the memory files of the 
Red Planet's ancient colonists, and what might 
lie below in the vicinity of Hun-Grrr's realm, 
I have the intoxicating sense that several 
entire chapters of our past may open up to us.  
I spend the rest of the day in my lab, 
carefully cleaning the "adornments" and 
scanning their broken fragments of data into my 
files.

	1.6.06
	I have managed to secure sanction to lead 
a small group back into the underground in 
search of more datachips and storage disks.  
Sinnertwin, who has integrated himself fairly 
well among the Decepticons relative to the 
other Terrors, offers to guide us.  Drop Zone 
and Brigand, one of Scourge's Sweeps, have 
volunteered for the mission out of 
archaeological interest; Swindle thinks he may 
find something of value, though he does not 
seem to fully grasp the true value of what we 
are after.  Ravage wishes to walk with us 
rather than be carried in my chest compartment; 
a few additional warriors join us out of 
boredom or to provide back-up firepower if we 
should need it.
	We return to the site of the collapsed 
city, but Sinnertwin tells us this is not the 
hunting ground for the chips and storage disks 
that were considered prized trophies by the 
subterranean populace.  They are scattered 
further down in the passages.  The contortions 
of the ground that swallowed Angselik, have 
left dark rifts leading downward.  Carefully, 
we climb lower.  Subfoundations of buildings 
and other makeshift dwellings are barely 
distinguishable from buckled passage walls 
here, and the whole path is littered with 
debris.  I am encouraged that we find a few 
corners and edges of storage disks along the 
way; even through the grime that covers them, 
one can see the faintly-edged trace of patterns 
on their surface, and once one has a search 
image for them, they become relatively easy to 
pick out.  At one point Swindle reaches down 
and pulls up a warped metal panel with a faded 
Decepticon symbol scratched into its surface.  
The remains of a surface-dweller who was 
dragged to his death in the depths, or 
something entirely different?  I do not have 
enough information to formulate a picture.
	We emerge into an open area several 
levels below the city, also littered with low 
ruins.  Almost immediately a wild howling fills 
the dark cavern, echoing off distant walls.  
"Transorganic!" Sinnertwin hisses, his gaze 
darting around for cover.  "They come up out of 
the core shafts, kill anything that moves.  In 
here!"  He plunges for one of the remnants of 
small buildings, just as a massive eyeless 
beast with gaping jaws bursts up from one of 
the patches of darkness nearby.  We follow 
Sinnertwin into the roofless building - there 
is not much cover.  It is Swindle again, who 
finds an opening along the base of the wall 
that is just large enough for all of us to slip 
through.  We drop down into complete darkness, 
just as the slavering jaws of the transorganic 
crash into the opening above us.  Again and 
again the creature hurls itself against the 
scant protection of the ceiling above us.  I am 
none too confident of the chamber's structural 
integrity, as particles of rust and plaster 
rain down on us at each impact.  The frantic 
screeches of the beast, fill our entire 
consciousness as the walls and floor shudder 
under us.  But so far, the barriers seem to 
hold.
	"Keep completely quiet," Sinnertwin 
advises us.  "Eventually it'll think we've died 
in here and go away.  Transorganics like their 
prey live."
	We wait in the darkness, while the beast 
howls above us.

	2.6.06
	Finally all is silence outside.  
Tentatively someone flickers on a light.  
Between the sagging ceiling and the mounds of 
clutter on the floor, there is barely enough 
room for me to stand, but that concerns me 
little as I recognize what we have been so 
thoughtlessly trampling over. Broken shards of 
datachips and storage disks litter the floor, 
all covered with a layer of metal dust and 
crumbled plaster, surely made worse by the 
collapse of the city built above, and by the 
frantic impacts of the massive transorganic.  
More wondrous yet, a faded Decepticon symbol 
can just barely be made out on one of the 
buckled walls. The construction of this chamber 
differs from that of the overlying buildings 
... was this once a Decepticon base of 
operations in the underground?  It would seem 
as much, as other entrances lead off to the 
sides, though they are completely blocked by 
fallen debris from above.
	Overlying the Decepticon sigil, 
apparently added much later, are numerous claw 
marks, painted sigils, and runes, of the same 
designs that I recognize from the Terrorcons' 
armor. The squalid underworld-dwellers have 
apparently used the room as a ritual chamber of 
some sort, and I can only despair at how much 
information they might have destroyed.  
Carefully I sift through the litter at our 
feet, picking out shards of storage disks.
	Drop Zone is in a delight of discovery, 
examining the old-style data consoles that are 
gutted and scattered all about.  He finds one 
that is very nearly intact, and cannot resist 
opening its casing and gently knocking loose 
the fine layer of corrosion that has coated 
its interior.  It is my understanding that 
these devices were used at one time, before 
more miniaturized technology, to transport 
and safeguard important information - I 
seem to recall seeing one or two of them 
on a back shelf at DeceptiTech Labs, but 
by then they were already obsolescent.  
Drop Zone concurs, but points out that the 
reason this model was popular for so long, 
was its ability to take punishment due to 
its primitive parts.  He is amazed anew to find 
an intact datachip stuck to the bottom of the 
terminal.
	I urge him to try a reactivation, 
intensely curious now as to what we may still 
be able to read.  I patch in some cables from 
my own central systems, and generate an 
electric current to simulate the long-disabled 
power supply.  Haltingly he begins to coax the 
screen to life, drawing up what looks like 
schedules, blueprints ... among them many 
corrupted sectors of the chip that are 
unreadable under these conditions. He comes to 
a list of names, beginning to read them 
silently to himself before stopping and looking 
up at me in shock.  "It's ... a mission 
briefing ... from ten million years ago ... I 
don't believe it....  And the participants--" A 
list of names.  About half of them unfamiliar.  
The others are well known to us.  The 
Terrorcons.
	I look to Sinnertwin in amazement, as 
though seeing him for the first time.  "What do 
you remember of this place?" I question him, 
and he looks around blankly at first, speaking 
of rituals of the hunt and of retribution 
against their enemies that the Terrors 
performed here ... and then slowly he begins to 
recall other bits and pieces, which he had long 
reclassified as dreams: being sent underground 
after a group of Autobots, being charged with 
safeguarding valuable information, spending 
long years trailing, tracking ... establishing 
a base, then building a city above it.  He does 
not know anymore who the Sinnertwin was, who 
was sent on this quest, he only has a few of 
his memories left.  But I look to the 
flickering screen that Drop Zone is managing to 
keep active, and seek more information, though 
already the situation is becoming clear to me.
	The individuals whom we today know as the 
Terrorcons, had been part of an elite unit sent 
after a group of Autobots, among whose names I 
recognized the "Technos" who had likewise 
climbed to the surface and re-forged their 
allegiance with their own kind.  This group of 
Autobots had stolen invaluable data, and Hun-
Grrr's unit, directed to establish a safe place 
of storage in the underground anyway, followed 
them down.  So, what some of us had assumed to 
be semi-sentient savages, unworthy of our 
ranks, were in fact once Decepticon warriors, 
whose minds were eroded over time by the 
emissions given off in this region.  I think of 
the Quintesson's Spiral Engine and the readings 
we encountered from it during our first venture 
to this area, and I can well picture the 
debilitating effects of exposure over 
millennia; in retrospect I am not surprised 
that the remnants of this Decepticon battle 
unit lost all sense of their identity.  Their 
service to their species caused them to be 
damaged through no fault of their own, and 
those of us who have disdained them, myself 
included, have done them a great injustice.  I 
will have to offer my apologies to the 
Terrorcons, as fellow Decepticons, and work to 
re-integrate them into their rightful place, 
and to be less hasty in my judgements in the 
future.
	There will be no sending Hun-Grrr against 
Galvatron.  I will find another way.

	4.6.06
	All the datachips and storage disks we 
could gather, have been stored in my laboratory 
for eventual cleaning and decryption.  It will 
be a task that cannot possibly be completed in 
my lifetime, at least under current conditions, 
and I will have to content myself with 
unraveling a piece or two of the puzzle only 
every so often during a free hour.  But at 
least the information is retrieved, and waits 
only to be restored.
	Meanwhile, work begins under Scrapper's 
direction on the reconstruction of Polyhex, to 
the spite of the Autobots who had leveled 
nearly everything and hoped it would remain 
that way.

	5.8.06
	I must give my highest commendations to 
those who rebuilt and restored Polyhex after 
the vicious Autobot attack.  The speed with 
which the city was re-built, and the 
architectural skill that went into the design, 
is a testament to Decepticon nature itself - we 
will never go down in defeat to the point where 
we will not rise up again, stronger than ever.  
The newly designed city is very different from 
the one I once knew, but that city has been 
gone for millennia.  My appreciation especially 
to Scrapper and his team for bringing Polyhex 
to life once more.

	11.8.06
	It almost amuses me that the Autobots, 
unable to keep Polyhex in ashes, have resorted 
to petty vandalism to vent their aggravation at 
the indomitability of the Decepticon spirit.  I 
was not present to witness the event, but I am 
told that an Aerialbot and a Technobot went to 
great lengths to sneak past the gates, and 
began to deface the new buildings and fountains 
with paint.  It amuses me even more, that they 
were apprehended and beaten to within a micron 
of their lives by the citizenry itself, before 
Decepticon troops even had to be called into 
the picture.  These are the civilians whom the 
Autobots make such great pretense of protecting 
- the very civilians who lost friends and 
relatives in the recent Autobot attack.  Did 
the two invaders think they would be welcomed 
as heroes? ... I am gratified to note that the 
civilian citizens themselves also set about 
removing the graffiti, again without the 
intervention of Decepticon troops.

	13.9.06
	Galvatron seeks to renew ties with Earth 
- that is, to make use of its abundant 
resources as we did in the past.  That suits me 
well, for I am transferred to Megatron's old 
undersea headquarters and far from the "leader" 
whom I so despise.  The old Earthbase seems 
frozen in time - with a bit of lighting and a 
bit of polish, I might almost expect to see 
Thundercracker and Skywarp flying in through 
the air-access tower, Reflector wandering the 
hallways, Megatron himself striding into the 
command center....  The thought generates 
sadness, but an odd sort of comfort too, as I 
feel somehow closer to those lost warriors 
here.
	Adamia is among those who requested 
transfer to Earth, and she has been a great 
help in returning the base to livable status.  
While welding the hairline cracks in the walls 
through which moisture seeped in from the 
pressure of the overlying ocean, she sings 
ancient Decepticon songs, and I find within my 
datafiles the music that accompanies them, and 
we work together in reasonable contentment.
	Nightbird too has joined us here - I have 
not seen her since Megatron died irrevocably 
for the second time - and she has had me 
construct her a flight-pack with which she can 
go out into this world and return when the mood 
suits her.  I remain uneasy about her random 
disappearances, but such is her desire, and I 
must respect it.

	21.9.06
	The humans, no doubt egged on by the 
Autobots and emboldened by what little trickle-
down technology they have been able to eke from 
their allies, have thought to attack our base.  
Unfortunately for them, they severely 
overestimated their abilities.  Did they assume 
I did not have sensors on full to detect any 
approach from a great distance - let alone a 
thrumming fleet of submarines that sent out the 
ripples of its engine signatures over half an 
ocean?  Did they assume that our defensive 
capabilities were not yet on line, that we 
would have thoughtlessly neglected such a 
thing?  Sensors and weapons were the *first* 
things I saw to.  Although there was never any 
official promotion, I am quite by chance the 
ranking officer at this outpost, and as such I 
suppose I am Earthbase commander - though I 
feel myself more in the role of a guardian than 
a commander.  I have come to regard Earthbase 
as a memorial of sorts to Megatron, and I will 
not see it harmed - certainly not by mere 
organics.  They will never find all the pieces 
of their ships, nor all the bodies of those who 
died in them.  They will from now on steer 
clear of us again, as in the old days, as it 
should be.

	28.9.06
	I find Megatron's old gladiatorial 
scimitar, a great gleaming heavy blade.  Giving 
it a renewed coat of polish, I hang it on the 
wall over his seat in the conference room, 
which will now forever remain empty.  Frenzy 
comes in and sees me doing it, and quite 
unexpectedly bursts into tears.  He laments 
Megatron and Skywarp and the others who were 
lost to the wars, and berates himself bitterly 
for taking no action when his best friend 
Thundercracker was forced out of the shuttle 
and to his death.  "What could you have done," 
I try to calm him, "one small Decepticon 
against a troop of panicked warriors?  Would 
Thundercracker have wanted you to die too?"  I 
try to send him a sense of reassurance and calm 
over the telepathic link, but my shields are 
not what they should be and he catches a 
glimpse of the abyss of self-recrimination that 
I have lived with ever since that day.  I sit 
on the floor with Frenzy and hold him close to 
me, look up at the glittering scimitar, and 
curse myself a thousandfold for my own 
cowardice.  "You could not have affected a 
different result," I say quietly to my 
creation, and eventually he seems to realize it 
... the sadness remains, but the sense of 
personal responsibility begins to lift.  
"That's true for you too!" he insists suddenly.  
"You would have gone up against a whole shuttle 
full of warriors, you wouldn't have been able 
to change things even if you'd tried, except 
that they would've killed you too.  And then 
you wouldn't be here for us now..."  He hugs me 
tightly as though fearing I will vanish before 
him.
	I break off the telepathic exchange 
completely, so he will not see how impossible 
it is for me to believe him.  I saw the one 
critical instant that would have made all the 
difference - and I hesitated too long.  Every 
action I have taken on behalf of the 
Decepticons since then, has been a poor 
substitute for that single, all-encompassing 
failure.
	"Come, Frenzy," I say to him softly.  I 
rise and carry him from the chamber, closing 
the door behind me to leave the scimitar 
gleaming silently in the dark.

	4.10.06
	Out of some combination of prudence and 
old habit, I routinely monitor the humans' 
airwaves - another small fact which the 
scuttling natives of this world must have been 
unaware of - for when they captured Nightbird, 
I knew of it a mere forty-three minutes later.  
Knowing it was useless to call for back-up from 
Cybertron - Galvatron would never authorize a 
rescue mission of this sort - I endeavored to 
free her myself.  Adamia, the only other 
Decepticon present in the base at the time, 
accompanied me.  One of the humans' 
governmental organizations had sequestered 
Nightbird in a heavily-defended building.  
While Adamia and I drew their fire outside, I 
released Ravage, Laserbeak, and Frenzy to 
infiltrate and reach Nightbird.  I suspected 
that once she herself was freed, she would 
fight her way out even as we fought our way in, 
and we would encounter each other half-way.
	So it went, apparently, because just as 
we were ready to break down an outer wall, 
Nightbird burst from the building, flinging a 
hail of razor-edged throwing-stars behind her.  
Ravage, Laserbeak, and Frenzy followed closely.  
Laserbeak and Frenzy took to the air, Frenzy 
carrying something - I could not at the time 
make out what it was - and Ravage leapt towards 
me.  I opened my chest compartment to grant him 
entry, then swept up Nightbird, who had lost 
her flight pack, and flew upward with Adamia.
	Nightbird's manner wavered between terror 
and fury.  She was initially built by humans as 
a sideshow act, as a slave, and was thereafter 
kept in captivity for twenty years - and surely 
one of her greatest fears must have been that 
they would one day recapture her.  I assured 
her that I would never again allow that to 
occur.  She was missing a few armor panels - 
obviously they had begun to poke into her inner 
workings before she managed to break her bonds 
- and when we got back to base I began repairs 
at once.  She insisted that I install permanent 
flight engines while I was at it.  Much as I 
urged her to first recover from the trauma of 
this experience, she would hear none of it.  
She had a debt to pay back, she told me, and 
would not rest until the human who had led her 
capture lay dead at her feet.  For that she 
needed more reliable means of travel.  I 
complied, and undertook the lengthy process of 
fitting in the engines, rearranging much 
unusually alien circuitry to do so.  She 
currently rests in my quarters - I took her 
there and left the room to her, as she seems to 
feel safe there.
	With Nightbird momentarily seen to, there 
is another matter I must settle.  Frenzy has 
brought back a human.  A *human*.  This is what 
he was carrying, and he dragged it all the way 
back to base with him.  When I begin to take 
him to task, he explains that this human - 
Nicole Bradley, he calls it - had helped him 
and Ravage and Laserbeak sneak into the 
building.  They'd transformed into their tiny 
cassette modes, and the human had carried them 
inside without arousing suspicion.  At least, 
not until the three Decepticons leapt forth and 
transformed.  "The human government knows that 
she helped us," Frenzy insists.  "We *can't* 
send her back - they'll put her in jail or 
maybe even kill her."  The human pipes up that 
it has been a great admirer of ours for some 
years, and simply had to take the opportunity 
to assist when one presented itself.  The words 
barely register.  What could an insignificant 
creature such as this, know of the Decepticon 
way?
	I am not about to let an Earth-dweller, 
who would traditionally be in league with the 
Autobots, wander about the base without doing a 
thorough telepathic scan.  The creature gasps 
sharply as I enter its mind - it did not occur 
to me to warn it - and I sift through the thin, 
slippery layers of thoughts and memories and 
intentions, scanning rapidly, alert to any 
subversive plans or past contact with our 
enemies.  To my faint surprise, I find none - 
the human's intent does seem to be as claimed.  
I catch glimpses of a self-sufficient existence 
on the fringes of this planet's system of laws, 
flickers of contempt for the human species as a 
whole, a self-taught study of technology and a 
fascination with alien worlds - in particular, 
*our* world.  An admiration for our species.  
Very well then.  I withdraw my thoughts.  
Frenzy can keep it, if he feeds it and cleans 
up after it, but it still disturbs me, to have 
such a creature underfoot.

	10.10.06
	The human has actually tried to make 
itself useful, striking up a friendship with 
the rest of my creations and several other 
Decepticons stationed here.  It spends a good 
deal of time with Adamia in repair bay, where I 
am told it has been of assistance; it seems to 
have a thorough understanding of mechanical and 
electrical workings, and an innate ability to 
learn more.  Every now and again it tries to 
speak to me, but how does one communicate with 
such a being?  I have a hard time considering 
it even fully sentient, although I see clear 
objective evidence to the contrary.  My 
creations, on the other hand, have no such 
problems.  They are younger and more flexible 
yet, without the overview of mistrust and 
contempt that humans have engendered in me over 
the last two decades, seeing them link 
themselves to the Autobots so willingly.  What 
can be noteworthy, about such a species?  
Frenzy agrees in principle, but insists, "Nic's 
not like the others."  We shall see.

	19.10.06
	I found myself actually conversing with 
the human today ... I was in the conference 
room adjusting the scimitar on the wall, when 
the small creature entered and clambered up 
onto one of the chairs, looking about in 
curiosity.  Quite unobtrusively it - she - 
asked about the weapon, and to my surprise I 
found myself telling her about it, how it had 
belonged to my leader - no, not Galvatron, I 
emphasized in response to her question - and 
how he'd kept it as a memento of his time in 
the State Games, and how I was keeping it now, 
in memory of him.  I said no more than that, 
but it was strangely consoling to tell her 
about it.  I cannot speak of such matters to 
other Decepticons, who have their own problems 
and do not need my dismal reminiscences as 
additional burden.  Afterward I carried her 
back to repair bay, almost fearing to pick up 
such a fragile being, as any wrong move would 
crush her.  I have never before really noticed 
how ephemeral these organic life-forms are....

	25.10.06
	I receive a strange message while at my 
monitoring station, originating from a cloaked 
shuttlepod, in orbit, of Quintesson design.  
The lone passenger calls himself Chronicus, 
babbles on about seeking the means of travel 
through time, and requesting my assistance.  My 
first impulse is to dismiss him, as I have no 
more trust for the Quintessons than I do for 
the Autobots, but it becomes clear from the 
exchange that this is a fugitive from his own 
kind, one who sought the means to further his 
studies, and was denied them.  With access to 
the proper equipment, for instance our space 
bridge, he claims, he can make his theories 
reality.  He sends me a datadump of formulae 
and equations to look over.  Although they mean 
little to me, I am intrigued despite myself ... 
I think of that one critical instant in the 
shuttle, and what it might mean to turn back 
time to *that* moment, to then replay history 
in a different tune.  Absurdity, of course.  
None the less, I grant him access, stash him 
under heavy security in one of the lower cargo 
holds that have recently been pumped clear of 
seawater.  Behind several layers of forcefields 
and alarm systems, I provide him with a 
computer bank and holographic model generators.  
It is clear that he seeks an alliance only to 
further his own ends, whatever those may be, 
but that interests me little if there is a 
chance, even a slight chance, that I may 
achieve my own goal.  But the very idea is so 
preposterous, the potential recriminations so 
great, that I keep his presence secret from all 
others at the base, my creations included.  If 
this Quintesson generates something worth 
considering, then we will see further - though 
I do not truly expect results, and it is easy 
enough to make him disappear again if 
necessary.

	9.11.06
	Laserbeak brings me startling news.  He 
has been deep in conversation with Adamia - I 
knew she had come to feel protective toward him 
and his siblings, and they have enjoyed 
spending time with her - but what he conveys to 
me, is something I would never have expected.  
He sends a telepathic echo of her words to him: 
"Laserbeak, I think I'm in love with your 
father."  I am caught completely unawares.  In 
retrospect, I should have seen the many 
sidelong glances, the multiple visits to my 
laboratory on faint premise, the request for 
transfer to Earthbase.  But the concept never 
entered my mind.  "Come to repair bay," 
Laserbeak urges from afar.  "Talk to her.  
Someone as special as Adamia shouldn't have to 
cry."
	I try to explain to her that I have not 
entertained the notion of a mate since the 
death of my consort many millennia past; that I 
have greatly appreciated her presence as a 
reliable and dedicated co-worker; that I am a 
relic of the past and not someone upon whom she 
should pin her hopes.  I try to forestall any 
sense of lowered self-worth on her part, by 
pointing out the many, many Decepticons whom 
she has pulled back from the brink of death; 
how it is not easy to see so many die, and 
still maintain the compassion which is so vital 
to a good repaireon.  Her optics darken even as 
I speak, the light of hope guttering and 
flickering out.  I wish to reach out to her, to 
in some manner ease her pain, but she turns 
away.  Laserbeak is correct in that she does 
not deserve this anguish, but I cannot feign 
that which I do not feel; I can only regret 
that I cannot provide her with that which she 
seeks.  I tell her that I am available in the 
capacity of friendship whenever she should wish 
to seek me out, but she does not even seem to 
hear me.  At her request, I sadly leave her to 
her own thoughts.

	17.11.06
	An urgent message from Cybertron sends us 
all back to Darkmount, Nicole included.  
Someone has given her a golden Decepticon 
symbol to pin upon her clothing over her heart, 
and I make it very clear to the other warriors 
that she is one of us now, and is not to be 
harmed.
	It seems that in my absence no one 
thought to monitor the surrounding space, 
instead focusing all their awareness upon the 
enemy or their internal squabbles - and now we 
were faced with the imminent collision of an 
onrushing asteroid, nearly half the size of the 
planet, and too close, by now, to be thrown off 
course by the conventional means at our 
disposal.  Flights are organized for the 
gathering of data, while the science division 
prepares to analyze the results.  Nicole offers 
assistance as I set up and calibrate some of 
the necessary equipment.  Afterwards, we have 
only to wait.  She finds herself a storage 
crate in my laboratory, which she fashions into 
a den for herself, and then emerges to 
anticipate the readings we are soon to receive.

	18.11.06
	I step next door into repair bay for a 
momentary break from the laboratory work, to 
find a most unfortunate sight.  Sotanyavejin, 
whom we brought back from the Red Planet, lies 
curled up on one of the repair tables, his 
limbs wrapped around himself as though to ward 
off a pending strike.  Underneath his crossed 
arms I can see the ugly black burn-marks of a 
high-impact laser weapon.  "He was shot out of 
the air," Adamia explains.  "The Technobots.  I 
think it was the fall that killed him, more so 
than the shot."  I regard the curled form in 
silence.  I promised him no harm.  Instead I 
brought him back to this world, to meet this 
fate.  I had intended to set aside some time, 
eventually, to speak to him at length about the 
meeting of two cultures that brought him to 
life, and to assure myself that he was settling 
in well among the Decepticons - but as with so 
many things, the opportunity never arose.  I 
shake my head, unable to dwell on it, as I must 
return to my work.  We are informed shortly 
thereafter that hostilities with the Autobots 
have officially ceased for the duration of this 
crisis.

	19.11.06
	Theoretically there is a way to shatter 
the asteroid at a point along a microscopic 
fissure, which will pulverize it.  I say 
theoretically, because this would require a 
sophistication of light-beam weaponry, which we 
do not currently have available.  And it *must* 
be a light-beam, capable of immense power-
output and instantaneous directional 
adjustments, in order to fracture the rock in 
such a manner as to render it harmless.  Even a 
well-placed explosive charge will not do the 
job, for this would break it into multiple 
large fragments, to do more damage than the 
intact planetoid.  We scientists among 
ourselves are quite certain of the 
specifications of the necessary laser weapon, 
but it is such a sophisticated construct that 
it will take longer to build, than we have time 
remaining.  Still, both factions pool their 
resources and begin the hopeless task.  
Cybertron is our homeworld, and none of us wish 
to see it destroyed without making every effort 
to save it; the notion of fleeing without an 
attempt, is not even mentioned.  None the less, 
Motormaster and Scourge and I quietly begin to 
formulate evacuation plans.

	20.11.06
	The skeletal weapons frame already stands 
atop the highest plateau of the Iacon 
Highlands, when one of the auxiliary power 
cells explods into a brief fireball of noise 
and heat and light.  They are touchy things, 
and when transported a bit too roughly, their 
chemicals overactivate into a runaway chain 
reaction.  But the destructive output of a 
single cell is minor, barely even jostling its 
neighbors.  If one happens to be an organic 
being caught in the blast, however, the result 
is very different again.  I am shocked to see 
the damage done to Nicole, by an explosion that 
would barely have scorched my armor.  Limbs 
burnt beyond recognition, bits of casing 
imbedded in her head....  She is thankfully not 
conscious, but I detect the remnants of 
lifesigns within her.  Hurriedly I send 
Laserbeak to take her back to repair bay in the 
hope that something can be done for her, in the 
hope that another ally will not meet death on a 
planet far from home.  I know very little of 
how these beings function, and so I cannot be 
much help, but irrationally enough I feel the 
urge to travel with her.  I cannot do so, of 
course, as I am needed at the construction 
site.

	21.11.06
	It becomes more and more obvious that we 
will not finish our weapon in time.  Another 
conference is held ... Decepticons and Autobots 
glower at one another suspiciously across the 
open floorspace of a meeting hall in a Neutral 
city.  Once again Hook explains the necessary 
parameters of the laser device, and how 
impossible it will be to construct it on this 
time-scale.  "Then our only option is to 
evacuate," says the Autobot leader, an 
ineffectual upstart, though he may be correct 
in this one thing.
	"No!" Galvatron rises, his optics 
flashing bright.  "I will not see my world 
destroyed.  *I* can generate the necessary 
power, with the needed directional control, to 
destroy this floating chunk of frozen rock."
	One of the Autobot scientists taps a 
keypad.  "According to my calculations, you can 
indeed output the necessary power," he muses, 
"but it would fuse your every system and smelt 
you from the inside out.  There is no way you 
would survive."
	Galvatron favors him with a withering 
glare.  "I am aware of that."
	A flurry of discussion follows, with 
Cyclonus and several others arguing vehemently 
against this course of action, and a good 
number of Autobots, and some Decepticons, 
voicing their opinions in favor.  I merely sit 
back and observe.  Once he has announced his 
decision, Galvatron falls silent, a cold 
determination hardening his features.  There is 
not one ranting outburst, not one uncalled-for 
lashing-out at the nearest underling ... it is 
the most controlled I have ever seen him.  I 
would not have thought him capable of such 
devotion to the homeworld.  I will make no 
effort to argue him out of his chosen course of 
action - I would not be overly surprised if he 
were to back out at the last moment - but if he 
does indeed undertake this task, he may perhaps 
in some small manner earn a place in history 
after all.

	22.11.06
	We gather at the plateau, in the shadow 
of the unfinished laser weapon.  Cyclonus will 
be piloting a small shuttlecraft into high 
orbit to bring Galvatron within range of the 
asteroid, and all the Darkmount Decepticons 
have turned out to pay their respects.  Even 
some of the Autobots are here - not many of us, 
I imagine, have come out of any great affection 
for Galvatron, but one must acknowledge that 
this is an act of tremendous courage, and the 
sacrifice is to be honored.  Nicole is here as 
well, her missing legs, right arm, and optics 
having been replaced with bionic constructs.  
The right side of her head is shielded by a 
metal plate, and part of the memory capacity of 
her organic brain has been replaced with a 
computerized insert.  I regard her dubiously 
for a moment as she maneuvers on her crutches, 
still growing accustomed to the metal 
prosthetics.  I must wonder if such a mix of 
organic and metallic circuitry can possibly 
function - but other than a bit of physical 
awkwardness, she seems fine, and so I turn my 
attention back to the scene before us.
	With few words, Cyclonus and Galvatron 
board the shuttle and launch.  The 
Constructicons have brought a viewscreen, and 
we are all able to witness the events: the 
shuttle hovers in orbit while Galvatron 
disembarks and transforms.  If one looks 
closely, it is possible to make out the 
asteroid in the distance of deep space, its icy 
surface glittering faintly, deceptively far 
away but in reality closing fast.  Galvatron's 
cannon barrel swings in its direction.  For a 
long moment, nothing happens.  Then a massive 
blast of light bursts from the barrel, 
momentarily overloading the screen in its 
brilliance.  When the picture flickers back 
into view, the bulging torrent of light has 
narrowed down into a lethally focused beam that 
is all but swallowed by the eternal night of 
space.  But the glitter of the asteroid begins 
to change, taking on a more reddish cast ... 
even as Galvatron's cannon form begins to 
shimmer with waves of heat and radiation.  The 
sustained barrage seems to stretch on into a 
silent eternity.  Galvatron's form glows red-
hot; the asteroid finally shivers to dust, a 
glittering cloud that spirals into orbit around 
Cybertron.
	Cyclonus returns with the great cannon 
that was Galvatron, still molten-hot and fused 
nearly shapeless.  Scrapper takes a hopeful 
reading for lifesigns, but there are none ... 
only heat-dissipation patterns.  "We'll have a 
ring around Cybertron from the asteroid dust," 
someone murmurs quietly in the background.  
"It'll be a permanent symbol of his sacrifice.  
He won't be forgotten."

	23.11.06
	The memorial service is held in Polyhex 
City's great coliseum.  It is simultaneously 
Cyclonus' ascent to command.  One by one, 
various warriors rise to say a few words in 
memory of Galvatron.  "Let us not remember him 
as an iron-fisted tyrant, but as the hero who 
saved Cybertron," some say.  Phrases like "He 
led us with valor and dedication" permeate the 
proceedings.  I must question where all this 
noble sentiment comes from, all of a sudden.  I 
will not tell such outrageous lies, merely 
because they happen to sound good on this 
solemn occasion.  He *was* a psychotic tyrant, 
he *was* unbecoming of the leaders who went 
before him, and I am not sorry he is gone.  But 
he did give his life to preserve our homeworld, 
an act of courage and honor that ultimately 
made him worthy of the symbol he wore.  That 
much, I am willing to say.
	I regard Cyclonus.  I know he mourns 
Galvatron, and I do feel for him, as I have 
been in the same position - but more and more I 
sense the rise of a new sensation within me, a 
sense that has been absent so long that I 
scarcely recognize it upon its return: a 
genuine hope for the future.  Cyclonus has the 
talent to lead.  I have seen it in him for some 
time, though he intentionally stood back in 
Galvatron's shadow.  He may require some 
guidance in presenting himself with absolute 
authority to the troops, because if he has 
self-doubts and allows any hint of them to 
show, it will invalidate all of his other 
abilities - especially now, with confidence in 
the High Command on such shaky ground.  A 
change of leadership among the Decepticons is 
always a precarious thing, rife for internal 
power struggles by those who have waited in the 
wings for their golden opportunity, real or 
imagined.  Such conflict is to be prevented at 
all costs, and to that end, the new commander 
must exert strength and certainty and 
dedication.  I believe Cyclonus has that 
capability.

	16.12.06
	The inevitable challengers to Cyclonus' 
command have been quite swiftly put down, and 
all is proceeding smoothly.  I have even toyed 
with the notion of building another creation, 
the first to symbolize this new, brighter era 
that we are moving towards.  I even have a name 
in mind, Tangle, and the specifications for his 
functions and abilities begin to sort 
themselves out in my mind during idle moments - 
but another matter requires my attention first.  
I notice that Nicole seems to be having 
problems.  As I feared, the cybernetic implants 
in her organic brain are proving to be 
incompatible.  Her memory processing has gone 
awry; she is losing track of times and dates 
and sequences of events.  I bring her to repair 
bay, to see if Hook or Adamia or someone else 
who knows more about organics, might be able to 
reverse the problem, but they are at a loss.  
Assistance comes from an unexpected source - a 
warrior known as Theta-7, whom I have only been 
dimly aware of as someone who was built for 
armed service to the Quintessons, and some time 
ago asserted his own will, broke free, and came 
to join us.  His service record has been 
reliable, if unremarkable, since then.  But he 
has some experience with organic design from 
having worked near Quintesson scientists in his 
early years, and he is able to halt the worst 
of the deterioration.  He tells me it will not 
be a permanent solution.
	I remain overnight with Nicole in repair 
bay, as I might with a creation of my own.  She 
asks me when the memorial service for Galvatron 
will be.  I tell her not to worry about it, to 
sleep.  I am aware that she is perhaps two 
decades old, a mere fourth of her species' 
already-brief expected lifespan.  Surely there 
must be some way to assist.

	17.12.06
	I instruct Buzzsaw to carry Nicole, and 
Laserbeak to take the backpack in which she 
keeps her sustenance, and meet me at the 
shuttle p