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        "Hello, hello, Autobots!" Jazz leaned in close to his microphone, making sure he would be clearly heard even if there was some long-distance signal breakup. Not that it would matter if the Decepticons started jamming him, but he would have to hope. "Cybertron’s under attack. We’ve got Decepticons swarming all over the place. Come on home! We’ll let you know if we need reinforcements from Earth. Everybody on patrol, come on down! This is Jazz—Autobots, we need you to come on back to Iacon, pronto! We’ve got ourselves one heckuva situa—"

        As he spoke, he had been noticing a slight vibration in the console underneath his hands, and in the deck at his feet. It slowly became more pronounced, and now the loud sound of approaching engines filled Command and Control. Jazz cut off the transmission and turned to look out the bank of windows at the front of C-and-C—

        —and saw the smashed freighter, its hull carbon-scarred and on fire, smoking in a dozen different places from the shots of the perimeter guns, bearing down on the hub of Autobot control on Cybertron. It was listing badly to one side, but the shots from the perimeter guns had only damaged it, not destroyed it, and now it was too late to stop it. Its engines still fully active, the Decepticons had aimed it for the Iacon base itself before abandoning it to fight the Autobots.

        Jazz raised his arms to shield his face, knowing even as he did it that it was futile, as the freighter smashed into C-and-C. Jazz felt the explosion lift him into the air, was amazed by the bright light of it, and watched as his own body shattered into a thousand fragments, knowing darkness only after he had seen his own laser core fly across the chamber.

        "Oh, no—Springer, look!" Arcee pointed at the dome of the Autobots’ Iacon base, where the rear half of the transport slid down into one of the perimeter gun emplacements, rocking the base with a second explosion. The first explosion had virtually disintegrated the forward sections of the freighter, and left a gash in Iacon nearly two hundred meters high. C-and-C, she saw, was no longer a part of Autobase—the freighter had been aimed directly at it, and it had been ground zero for the first explosion. The exposed floors of the base sagged, as if crying tears of broken wire and debris.

        "Damn, they broke right through our defenses. All right, I guess we’re gonna have to do this the hard way." Springer frowned, shooting at a passing Decepticon—Thrust, if Arcee saw him correctly. They both knew what the loss of C-and-C meant to the Autobots. After the Unicron crisis, when the Autobots were retaking Cybertron bit by bit, they used it to remain in touch with each other, to be able to coordinate their attacks flawlessly. Under Optimus Prime, the old Moon Base One was used similarly for all engagements with the Decepticons near Cybertron. Now, they had to fight as they had before—and that significantly increased the odds of the Decepticons winning this engagement.

        "Here’s a hard way for ya!" A cream-colored tank rolled around a nearby building, its cannon aimed directly at Springer. It fired, and Arcee barely had time to scream Springer’s name before the green Autobot leapt out of the way of the blast. Behind the Autobots, one of the remaining wrecked buildings on Cybertron’s surface shuddered with an explosion, then collapsed in on itself.

        "Oh, no you don’t!" Arcee saw Kup driving up from behind Blitzwing, transforming quickly and jumping on top of the larger tank. Arcee saw him wrench the top hatch on Blitzwing’s tank mode open, then stick his gun down inside and start firing.

        "Ow! Hey—what—?" Blitzwing began swinging his turret back and forth, trying to shake Kup loose as the old Autobot continued firing into Blitzwing’s unarmored interior. Springer and Arcee forgotten, Blitzwing rolled off behind some nearby buildings, still trying to shake Kup off.

        Springer shook his head to clear it as he walked up to Arcee.

        "Come on, Springer, they’re going to need us in the middle of the battle." And she ran off to join the main batch of fighting on the shattered bridge leading to Iacon.

        In Iacon, in the smoking wreckage of C-and-C, a small, fireproof box sat perched precariously atop some debris. Built into the side of the case was a small, black control panel with red LED numbers that, at the moment, read 0000. Then, as thin tendrils of smoke rose into the air from the rubble, those three digits began to whir, until they came to rest first on a seven, then on a four, then an eight, and finally a three. The case cracked open, and the cool air from inside it swirled out and steamed in the heat of the fires in Iacon. Finally, it opened completely, and the small, blue minicassette recorder inside transformed into Soundwave, the Decepticon communications and espionage expert.

        He looked around, his single optic plate taking in the carnage he had survived by staying within the special crash-case. He then reached up and depressed the toggle on his left shoulder, opening the panel on his chest.

        "Ravage, Rumble, Ratbat, Frenzy, eject, eject, eject, eject," he said in his metallic monotone, his words perfectly timed to each cassette’s ejection. "Mission: interception and detention of Autobot Scientist Perceptor."

        The four cassettes transformed in mid-air and took different paths from the shattered command center toward the heart of Iacon, and the sickbay and scientific laboratory facilities that were no doubt located there. Cyclonus had taken Soundwave aside when he first arrived on Charr with the energon freighter and told him that in the attack he was responsible for capturing Perceptor. Soundwave presumed that he wanted Perceptor for the same reason that he wanted the Quintessons—to extract technology from the leg of Unicron.

        Barring that, of course, Soundwave had a backup mission—one which he saved for the one remaining cassette within him, the one he used so rarely he doubted the Autobots even knew its name.

        Galvatron hovered over the battlefield, taking in the sight of his Decepticons swooping low over the Autobots from a hundred different directions, catching them in their crossfire, and resisted the urge to laugh in triumph. He would retake Cybertron for himself today—as he had once shouted at Unicron, Cybertron and all its moons belonged to him! Although that dominion had been reduced by two moons since he had first claimed it for himself. . .

        . . .but that was the past, and this was the present, and once again he led the Decepticons onward to victory! Whenever he got a clear shot, he fired down onto the battlefield. He was not as powerful in his robot mode as he was in his cannon mode, but he could not get such an imperious view in that mode, either. Nevertheless, his particle cannon was strong enough to crack the very surface of Cybertron, and send dozens of Autobots fleeing whenever he fired it, so it did not matter what form he took.

        The Autobots had grown complacent in their long year without war. He knew this would happen—that was why there had been no better time to strike than immediately, before they even knew he had returned from his long exile on Thrull. That way, the element of surprise would be enough to swing victory to him.

        He looked around the battlefield, saw no sign of Cyclonus. He was curious at this—Cyclonus had been by his side since pulling him out of the lava pit. He wondered where his second-in-command, his heir apparent, had gone off to. Cyclonus was a valuable Decepticon—Galvatron’s army was all the better for having him. It was most fortunate that he had seen fit to send the Sweeps to capture that fuel tanker. Such initiative proved to Galvatron that he had a true warrior’s instinct, even if he hadn’t taken command of the Decepticons while Galvatron had been away. He wasn’t like that bungling traitor Starscream. None of his Decepticons were, now, not since he had destroyed the traitor with a single blast from his cannon mode.

        He almost remembered something, from the trip back from Thrull. He remembered anger, though he couldn’t remember what it was about. . .no matter. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t have sent Cyclonus fleeing from the Decepticons—he had been with Galvatron on Charr, and even afterward, when the Decepticons were packing themselves into the human freighter. It was a good trick, that—even though it had worked once before, Galvatron understood the Autobot psyche. They would not be prepared for it if he used it again, and he had been right.

        And now, because of it, they were scattered below him on the surface of Cybertron, their orders jumbled, half-understood, fighting for their lives against a foe with superior tactics and superior firepower. He had destroyed Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, now he would destroy Rodimus Prime. And he would enjoy it, relish every nanosecond of the Autobot leader’s dying screams, inflicting on him the pain that he had caused Galvatron.

        The pain. . .

        Galvatron could feel it growing within him, in his head, in his circuits, in the mind that flowed through them, burning into the very heart of his laser core. And the anger that went with it—the anger! Rodimus did this! Rodimus Prime! The child commander—he had no right to defeat mighty Galvatron! Galvatron, who had a million years of experience in the art of war. Galvatron, who had a body transcendent with Power, Power from the core of the Chaosbringer itself! Power over the Chaosbringer! Had he not held the Matrix? Had he not driven Unicron like a chariot to Cybertron, a conqueror?

        "Rodimus Prime! Prime, I have come to destroy you as I have destroyed your predecessors! And you--you will SUFFER!"

        On the ground, Ultra Magnus heard Galvatron’s scream echo across the battlefield, and it froze him in his tracks. He had faced Galvatron once before, on the planet of Junk, and it had nearly killed him to do it. He felt the fear, still lingering in his circuits, crawl across him like cold fingers scrabbling over him, tensing his joints and leaving him paralyzed before the enemy. He couldn’t move, so strong was his fear of Galvatron. He still remembered the words—

        Sweeps, destroy him!

        —still remembered the lances of laserfire arcing into him, piercing him in a dozen different locations, shattering his body. He remembered clawing at the Matrix, begging it to open, to give him the power he needed to defeat the Decepticon leader.

        Open, dammit, open!

        He remembered the hopelessness that sank into his gut when the Matrix did nothing, remembered staring into the constantly changing patterns of light in its crystalline core as the weapons of the Sweeps tore into him, destroying him.

        "Magnus! Snap out of it!" Red Alert’s voice next to him woke Ultra Magnus to his surroundings just in time to see one of the Decepticon seekers flying straight for him, its weaponry unloading on him. The explosions on his armored hide knocked Magnus reeling, and the seeker flew past, unopposed. Red Alert ran over to the fallen Magnus, whose armor hadn’t been breached by the attack. "Magnus, are you all right?"

        "I’m fine, Red Alert. I was just shocked, that’s all—Galvatron doesn’t seem to have any lack of confidence, now does he?" Magnus rose and fired the missiles on his upper arms at an approaching Sweep. They hit him dead on, and he went spinning away to crash into a distant building. He hoped he sounded confident in himself, hoped that his attack on the Sweep would blind Red Alert to the fact that Magnus had been badly shaken by the voice of Galvatron. "Come on, we’ve got to try and cut off some of these Decepticons in that gully—if we can catch them in a crossfire, we’ll knock them out of the battle."

        Pipes looked around, saw he was manning the only remaining perimeter gun on the battle-side of Iacon. He knew that meant he was stuck in the largest remaining target on the battlefield, and he also knew he had to get some pretty good shots off before his big guns got blown out from underneath him. On the targeting screen in front of him, Galvatron was firing his particle cannon into the battle below, apparently no longer caring whether he hit his own troops or not.

        It would take him a few seconds to line up the shot right to hit him—these guns weren’t, after all, built to shoot anything smaller than an Autobot shuttle—and then he would have him.

        Just. . .one. . .more. . .

        Pipes jerked away from the controls as searing pain stabbed through his side and back. In front of him, the control console exploded, and he heard the twin shots from the cannon released into dead space. Underneath him, the power core cycled up for another shot—

        —and the entire tower the guns were mounted on exploded, disintegrating Pipes and the gun he was firing. Cyclonus flew through the cloud of smoke and fire, his first attack run since returning from the Cybertron moon a success. Galvatron had been spared—and now, with the artillery out of the way, the battle could advance to its next step.

        On the battlefield, shooting at a line of Autobots holed in behind a raised barrier protecting everything below their shoulders, the Constructicons saw the last gun destroyed. Hook smiled.

        "Constructicons, transform and merge for the kill!"

        They transformed, their green vehicle modes bending again at odd angles, flying through the air impossibly to come together into one enormous robot. Legs, arms, torso formed, and now the black head rose up out of the shoulders.

        "Devastator shall crush all in its way," it said ponderously in its awkward voice. It lifted one enormous leg and brought it down on the Autobot position, destroying it. The Autobots, faster than their adversary, were able to scutter away from it like so many ants, and it frowned. The Devastator did not appreciate it when its enemies fled its approach—but it also knew its true purpose, and began to make its way across the battlefield to that purpose.

        Laserfire from the Autobots bounced harmlessly off its heavy armor plating as it walked slowly toward Iacon, ignoring or crushing everything in its path. In its disassembled form it was the Constructicons, perhaps the most effective engineers anywhere in the galaxy. As the Devastator, it had all their knowledge of structural strengths and weaknesses—and it would use that knowledge to tear down the very home the Autobots had known for millions of years.

        Iacon itself.
 

       To Chapter Twelve