"Talk to the Animals" Part 3 and Epilogue

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALK TO THE ANIMALS or THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION – PART 3

Deep beneath the Autobots’ feet, in a sealed chamber, a special Autobot lay waiting. He was Navigator, warrior and guardian of Autobot destiny. In his long, slow machine world, a million years were as fleeting seconds. Human history had passed over him.
Jazz could know nothing of this. He only knew of his friendship with a small boy, and what could happen if his enemies prevailed. He fired. The craft and all its contents instantly vaporised in a massive implosion. Nothing remained.

Somewhere in the sprawling grounds of Stansham Castle there was a rarely visited forest glade in which stood a strange and hideous gargoyle-like statue. It had stood there, gathering moss, for as long as anyone now living could remember. Every day it stood there. Sometimes children would come and clamber over it, and occasionally they went running back to their parents claiming that it had come to life and spoken to them, told them tales of a time when the castle was a real castle, plagued by dragons and giant armoured men. No-one believed them, of course. But at night, when he wouldn’t be missed by the humans, Junglewalker stalked the land, and fuelled many local legends of ghosts and demons.
An eagle-like form leisurely circled around the castle, then dived to the earth. There was a loud bleat of distress, suddenly cut short. A sheep would be missed the next morning. As his internal incinerators combusted the animal carcass and recharged his nearly exhausted flight batteries, Eyrie rose up once more and came down to settle on the grotesque statue’s head, the blood running down his chest only partially hidden by his body’s red colour scheme.
“(Wake up.)”
Junglewalker’s eyes lit up, and he growled an annoyed greeting.
“(Where the devil have you been?)”
“(Siberia! It was wonderful there – so wild and unspoilt. Marvellous hunting. Why? Has anything happened?)”
“(Has anything happened, he asks! Good grief! Can’t you see that something has happened?)”
Eyrie replayed in his mind the appearance of the castle as he flew in, this time paying attention to the man-made portion of the landscape. “(Oh.)”
“(Oh, indeed.)”
“(Tell me.)”
“(Where to begin! Well, for a start, Mount St Hilary erupted quite recently. No, don’t ask me why. Something changed its status from dormant to active. I have no idea what. Shortly afterwards, giant robots started wreaking havoc in Oregon. Yes, I think Optimus Prime and Megatron are among them.)”
“(Do Red Alert and Inferno know about this?)”
“(I have no idea. If they listen to the news on the radio, they will learn about it soon enough. But they’re in deep cover and seem to care more about helping humans than their own kind these days. There have been severe forest fires in recent weeks in the eastern part of that State which may have prevented them from responding immediately even if they realised what was going on. If only they checked in with me on a regular basis, I could sort them out, but I don’t think they like us very much.)”
“(The feeling’s mutual. But if the Transformers are running around in Oregon, what’s been going on here?)”
“(Oh, they made a point of paying this place a visit. Picked up the signal from the craft, didn’t they? Came over here and killed both its crew members.)”
“(The Decepticons got here first?)”
“(Both factions were here. And it was the Autobots who destroyed the rescue craft. I’m at a loss to explain why. They didn’t even check to see if there was anyone alive on board. Craft vaporised – all gone. Sealed chamber beneath the ship ruined. Navigator blown to bits – no hope of repair.)”
“(Engineering section?)”
“(They didn’t find that, fortunately. Didn’t figure out that it had been separated after landing and before burial. The implosion itself was fairly contained. Minimal damage to the castle, and even less to the engineering section. Deathsaurus is still imprisoned – and still sleeping.)”
Eyrie’s tense body relaxed somewhat. He looked around, memories of his time in Siberia long forgotten. “(I’ll miss those two Autobots. True, they were never very talkative, but after that initial misunderstanding they began to grow on me. Oh, well. C’est la vie. What do we need to do now?)”
“(Don’t worry, I’ve arranged everything.)”

Instructions were issued by nameless authorities. Trucks came. All traces of the craft and its final resting place were obliterated. Summer came around again. The tourists descended, attracted by stories of UFOs and mysterious sightings. They found only an empty plain, echoing with memories.

“(Well, you managed to cover that up very well, I must say. I’m impressed.)”
“(It’s always wise to cultivate friends in nameless authorities.)”
“(What next? I sense our time on Earth is drawing to a close.)”
“(Yes, we need to start shutting down our experiments. The Liege Maximo’s eye will be drawn to this location and he’ll detect Deathsaurus’ resting place, even from as far away as the Large Magellanic Cloud. And when he orders Leozack to come and pick Deathsaurus up and reinstate him as Destron Liege Centuro, there won’t be anything Download and Ironjaw can do to put him off, not this time.)”
“(The question is whether they’ll get here before the Autobots and Decepticons realise they were too hasty the last time and decide to give this place another going over.)”
“(Either way, we’ll have to get back inside with the boss before he wakes up and finds us missing from our supposed prison.)”
“(What I can’t understand is why the uprights are always fighting to be leader. It’s been lovely having a millennium off here on this planet without the burdens of leadership on our shoulders.)”
“(You never said a truer word. I understand now why Download was so keen to retire to pursue his projects in peace and obscurity all those years ago – and why Ironjaw keeps pestering us to come back and resume our former positions.)”
“(Well, at least that means there will be one Destron pleased to see us back, at any rate.)”

TALK TO THE ANIMALS or THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION – EPILOGUE

“I’m your opponent now! I will not run nor hide!”
“Your presence here proves that you consider me the number one Destron!”
“Bluff while you can!”
“Eat this! TIGER BREAST ATTAAACK! EAGLE BREAST ATTAAACK!”
“GRRROWWWRRR!”
“SQUAAAWWWK!”
“STAAAR SABERRR!”
“(Oh, crumbs.)”
“(Watch out for his-)”
“(Ow.)”
“(Never mind. Oh, no, not the jaw again- Damn it!)”
“BREAST CHANGE!”
“(Right, that means he wants me to become a bow, yes?)”
“(Yep.)”
“(Got it. Here goes!)”
“You’re not as good as you say you are, Deathsaurus!”
“Hahahahahaaa!”
“(Drat, missed.)”
“I believe it’s now my turn!”
“Yaaa!”
“Run back to the Black Nebula, you coward!”
“I will defeat you some day! Hahahahahaaa!”
“(Oh, good, we’re retreating at last. Thank the Matrix for small mercies.)”
“What’s that you say?”
“GRRROWWWL…”
“Silence, fool! MEDIC!”

THE END

[legios]

Martin, apologies for the delay in getting around to reading parts two and three of this. Real life has been intruding a bit recently (how are it?!).

It was well worth the wait though. It is a lovely little piece, great to see something with its roots sunk firmly in TMUK continuity. Like the first part it does a good job of giving us a new way of reading existing bits of history, not changing anything but deftly giving us a different perspective on things. The real strength of it is in the characterisation though. Eyrie, Junglewalker et al are very distinct characters, with a real sense of roundedness to them.

The distinction between the four and their putative masters is also highly amusing. Juxtaposing Killbisons understanding of his partner ("good for jumping out of Killbison's chest) with the actuality of things is a wonderful moment.

(You realise, of course, that I am never going to be able to watch an episode of Victory again without this colouring the way I see things on-screen....)

Wonderful stuff Martin.

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Thanks, Karl! Glad you enjoyed it.

Martin