Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 7, 2009 18:56:16 GMT
“Welcome back, Cosmos.”
“It’s good to be back. There’s nothing welcoming or familiar out there in space.”
“Where’s Outback?”
“Gone his own way. Unlike the rest of us, I think he likes being off on his own. He had always expected to be just another casualty of the Autobot-Decepticon war. Now he has to adjust to being one of the eight who survived it. He wants to be left alone out there. And we must adjust to being down to seven.”
“Not quite. We have visitors.”
“What do you mean? I’ve detected no Creation Matrix life-force nanobots anywhere in the Milky Way Galaxy besides Outback, myself and the six of you down here.”
“Nevertheless, here I am.”
“Good gravy! Is that… Mirage?”
“A piece of him.”
“You’ve changed, and not just your body. You read as dead to my sensors!”
“I’m very much alive, but a nanobot purge was necessary in order to stay that way. Red Alert, Inferno and Thundercracker will similarly surprise you.”
“I’ve seen too much already to be surprised. Trailbreaker! Cybertron is no more.”
“What do you mean? Has it gone spinning through space again?”
“No. It’s still there, but it’s been completely destroyed. Alpha Centauri has no planets now, just a series of rings, a disc of dust precisely the same mass as Cybertron, and with exactly the same chemical composition.”
“Mirage… tell me this isn’t true!”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it ‘destroyed’, so much as ‘changed’. Around a million years ago the rulers of space around Alpha Centauri decided it would look prettier that way. It’s certainly proved a less antisocial neighbour to other species in this form. Here comes Cliffjumper.”
“Hey, your new best friend Thundercracker’s behaving rather oddly. Insists on ‘inspecting’ Scavenger.”
“Understandable. They’re the last two Decepticons, and he wants to make sure his colleague’s not about to start anything that will cause him angst.”
“Well, tell him to cool it. Scavenger brought us all back from the dead, and has earned our friendship.”
“All right, I will.”
“Are they really the last two Decepticons? If you’ve all been able to purge your Matrix life-force, there could be hundreds more out there.”
“There aren’t. All the Autobots and Decepticons who didn’t die either went to J’nwan or left the Galaxy millions of years ago, and never returned.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Pause.
“All right, then. So what have you come here to do? Send us away too?”
“Of course not. We came to welcome you back. We’ve missed you all, and now we’ll be together.”
“That’s a relief. I’ll tell Bluestreak, Hoist and Tracks.”
“What next? Inferno said this planet was one of his nature reserves, or some such thing. You want to take us somewhere else? Will we all have to have our nanobots purged?”
“There’s no rush to do anything. Let’s just sit a while.”
“Tell us what happened when they disintegrated Cybertron. Did they find anything of Primus?”
“They say there was a residual geode, but that an alien called Dicet Alpha-Zero stole it and disappeared. It’s probably apocryphal, but makes for an interesting story. I’ll begin at the beginning…”
THE END
“It’s good to be back. There’s nothing welcoming or familiar out there in space.”
“Where’s Outback?”
“Gone his own way. Unlike the rest of us, I think he likes being off on his own. He had always expected to be just another casualty of the Autobot-Decepticon war. Now he has to adjust to being one of the eight who survived it. He wants to be left alone out there. And we must adjust to being down to seven.”
“Not quite. We have visitors.”
“What do you mean? I’ve detected no Creation Matrix life-force nanobots anywhere in the Milky Way Galaxy besides Outback, myself and the six of you down here.”
“Nevertheless, here I am.”
“Good gravy! Is that… Mirage?”
“A piece of him.”
“You’ve changed, and not just your body. You read as dead to my sensors!”
“I’m very much alive, but a nanobot purge was necessary in order to stay that way. Red Alert, Inferno and Thundercracker will similarly surprise you.”
“I’ve seen too much already to be surprised. Trailbreaker! Cybertron is no more.”
“What do you mean? Has it gone spinning through space again?”
“No. It’s still there, but it’s been completely destroyed. Alpha Centauri has no planets now, just a series of rings, a disc of dust precisely the same mass as Cybertron, and with exactly the same chemical composition.”
“Mirage… tell me this isn’t true!”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it ‘destroyed’, so much as ‘changed’. Around a million years ago the rulers of space around Alpha Centauri decided it would look prettier that way. It’s certainly proved a less antisocial neighbour to other species in this form. Here comes Cliffjumper.”
“Hey, your new best friend Thundercracker’s behaving rather oddly. Insists on ‘inspecting’ Scavenger.”
“Understandable. They’re the last two Decepticons, and he wants to make sure his colleague’s not about to start anything that will cause him angst.”
“Well, tell him to cool it. Scavenger brought us all back from the dead, and has earned our friendship.”
“All right, I will.”
“Are they really the last two Decepticons? If you’ve all been able to purge your Matrix life-force, there could be hundreds more out there.”
“There aren’t. All the Autobots and Decepticons who didn’t die either went to J’nwan or left the Galaxy millions of years ago, and never returned.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Pause.
“All right, then. So what have you come here to do? Send us away too?”
“Of course not. We came to welcome you back. We’ve missed you all, and now we’ll be together.”
“That’s a relief. I’ll tell Bluestreak, Hoist and Tracks.”
“What next? Inferno said this planet was one of his nature reserves, or some such thing. You want to take us somewhere else? Will we all have to have our nanobots purged?”
“There’s no rush to do anything. Let’s just sit a while.”
“Tell us what happened when they disintegrated Cybertron. Did they find anything of Primus?”
“They say there was a residual geode, but that an alien called Dicet Alpha-Zero stole it and disappeared. It’s probably apocryphal, but makes for an interesting story. I’ll begin at the beginning…”
THE END
