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       To Chapter Fifteen
 

        The Decepticons fought on with startling tenacity. Cyclonus was just beginning to wonder if he was as inspirational a speaker as Galvatron when his optics caught the first glimpse of something approaching Cybertron from space. He stopped to gaze upward as the Decepticons drew their battle lines forward, pushing the Autobots backward to their Iacon base, where Devastator awaited. Despite the addition of Skyfire and Sky Lynx to their forces, the Autobots were no better in the face of the onslaught, struggling futilely for every meter of land.

        That is, until the Autobot fleet arrived, the guns on its ships firing at the Decepticons and scattering their forces as they came in low over Cybertron, their egress ports open and discharging the Autobots that had been traveling inside. The sudden addition of so many opposing weapons made the capture of Cybertron a much more difficult task, but not an impossible one. Watching the forces arrayed against him, Cyclonus realized that there were only four dozen or so many Autobots joining the battle, and their tactics, like those of the other Autobots, left them essentially out in the open rather than in the buildings all around. Cyclonus smiled—these Autobots weren’t warriors. If they were, they would be using guerilla warfare and be crushing the Decepticons. Instead, they fought out in the open, where they could be picked off one by one—which he would be able to do, if the Decepticons followed his commands.

        "Decepticons, listen to me! Concentrate your fire on the Autobot cruisers, one at a time! Take out first one, then another! Aim for the engine housings and weapons bays!" Cyclonus yelled over the din of the battle. The Decepticons heard him, and their aim shifted from the reinforced Autobot positions to the hovering and exposed cruisers. As soon as the Autobots realized what was happening, the pilots tried to escape, pulling the cruisers back into space, or flying away to other horizons. For two of the cruisers, it was too late, and their engines detonated, sending them crashing to the surface and into the Autobot lines.

        "Now, Decepticons! Attack!" Cyclonus ran over a pile of rubble that had been shielding him and several other Decepticons from Autobot fire. As soon as he motioned them forward, they surged, charging the Autobots with superior numbers and firepower, to retake Cybertron.

        "I may cease functioning, Galvatron, but know this: the Matrix within me lives, and as long as its light guides the Autobots, you will lose."

        "Pfah!" Galvatron fired—

        —and the shot went wide, as Arcee leaped onto Galvatron’s back and pulled him backward, off-balance. The energy disintegrated enough of the wall next to Rodimus that he was able to pull himself out from under the debris that had fallen on him.

        Galvatron, meanwhile, was struggling with the female Autobot, trying to grab her and pull her off of him. Arcee was smaller and more agile than the Decepticon, however, and kept slipping out of his grasp to keep his attention occupied. Finally, though, he was able to grab hold of her, and he picked her up and threw her off of him into some debris on the far end of the battlefield. He leveled his cannon at her.

        "Now, your breed is extinct!" Galvatron snarled.

        Rodimus kicked him in the side of the head, his gears protesting the deft action. Galvatron stumbled, and the power generators in his cannon began cycling down, their energies unspent. Rodimus punched him in the side, where a human’s kidneys would be, several times, then spun him to punch him in his gut. When Galvatron was bent over, confused and in pain, Rodimus uppercut him, sending him flying backwards into a wall, where he struck and slid down into piled-up wreckage.

        "You can talk a mean streak, Galvatron, but you keep failing."

        "Not this time, Rodimus Prime!" Galvatron cried, leaping up from where he fell. "Say goodbye to your female!" Galvatron transformed into his artillery mode, his massive cannon aimed not at Rodimus, but at Arcee, who was still lying, dazed, where Galvatron had thrown her.

        Out of Rodimus’ reach.

        The sparkling lights of explosions and laserfire speckled the surface of Cybertron around Iacon. At the helm of the Autobot shuttle, Swerve tried to open a communications channel with Command and Control to no avail. When he received only static, he turned to look at Spike.

        "Up to you, Ambassador. We’ve got a choice—I can stay up here and keep you and your family safe, or we can go down there to help out, only to possibly get killed."

        Spike frowned. He didn’t want to bring Carly and Daniel into danger, they had been in enough already. But they had also fought in the war, knew what the Autobots fought for, and they all knew it was a worthy cause. He didn’t know the situation planetside, but if C-and-C was destroyed, chances were good the Autobots needed all the help they could get. He turned to his family.

        "I’ll help, dad!" Daniel piped in, smiling.

        Carly, behind him, squeezed his shoulders. "I’ve been in this war for twenty years. I doubt I’ll see anything new this time."

        Spike nodded, then looked back at Swerve. "Let’s get down there and help our friends."

        Swerve nodded, then took the shuttle into a deep dive toward the surface of Cybertron and the battle raging there. Spike led Carly and Daniel to the back of the ship to get into their exosuits.

        As the shuttle approached the battle, stray laserfire from both sides occasionally rocked it, but Swerve compensated easily and kept the ship on course. The shuttle didn’t have any weaponry, so Spike opened the side door so he and his family could use the weaponry on their exosuits to fire down at the Decepticons.

        "Looks like we’re in bad shape down there," Swerve said as he held the shuttle steady after a flyby by three Sweeps. "I can see our fleet—they’re moving into a low orbit, so they can fire on the Decepticons without getting shot at themselves."

        "Smart move—I wish we could do the same," Carly said.

        "Mom, Dad—look!" Daniel pointed toward one of the cruisers that was lagging behind. Its engines were on fire, and it was moving very sluggishly. Several Sweeps strafed it, blowing more holes in its side, and its engines suddenly exploded, taking the entire cruiser with them. The flaming wreckage crashed down on a group of Decepticons charging the Autobot lines.

        "This is bad," Spike said. "The worst I’ve ever seen."

        Carly, firing down at the Decepticons, was the first to put things together. She saw the Decepticons forcing the Autobot forward lines backward, saw Devastator moving up behind those lines. "Oh my God! It’s a trap—they’re forcing the Autobots into Devastator!"

        Daniel shuddered, remembering Devastator’s attack on Autobot City. "He’ll make mincemeat out of them!"

        "Mincemeat?" Swerve asked.

        "It’s an expression," Spike said quickly. "So, what can we do? We don’t have time to warn all the Autobots—"

        "Those things you’re wearing have jet packs?" Swerve asked.

        "Yeah," Carly responded. "Why?"

        Swerve turned around in his chair. "I’m gonna come in low over the Autobot position. When I give the signal, jump—use your jet packs to slow your fall. I’m gonna crash this hulk into Devastator, take him out of the battle. That’ll give our boys the chance they need."

        "But you’ll be killed!" Daniel cried.

        Swerve smiled at the boy. "I don’t plan on getting myself deactivated for Devastator. No, I’m gonna bail before the shuttle crashes. But I’ve gotta stay for just long enough to make sure the shuttle hits that Defecticon. Everything’ll be fine, Daniel, just you wait and see. Now, folks, get ready, ‘cause here we go!" Swerve pushed the control wheel forward, and the shuttle dropped almost directly downward toward the surface of Cybertron. Swerve pulled up a mere dozen meters from the surface and flew straight over the heads of the attacking Decepticons.

        The Decepticons, in turn, raised their weapons and began shooting at the passing shuttle. The Witwicky family ducked and hid beside the open hatch on the side of the shuttle, though several of the Decepticons’ photon charges blasted clean through the hull to dissipate inside the ship. The shuttle came closer and closer to the Autobots, hiding behind the marginal defense of torn-up wreckage and rubble. Closer. . .

        "Now! Jump!" Swerve and Spike yelled it at almost the same time, and the Witwickys leapt from the shuttle arm-in-arm. They engaged their boosters simultaneously, and landed softly on the metal ground of Cybertron.

        Trailbreaker glanced over his shoulder at them. "Hello, folks, and welcome to Cybertron! Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here. . ."

        There was no way Rodimus could get to either Galvatron or Arcee in time to save her. He ran toward Galvatron anyway, desperate as he watched the purple energy build within Galvatron’s orange barrel. If Galvatron killed her, he would tear him apart, circuit by circuit, atom by atom, and Primus Himself would not be able to stop Rodimus.

        Then, out of nowhere, the ground next to Galvatron exploded, sending his shot awry and knocking him back into his robotic form. He was bounced back into that same wall, then fell headfirst into the crater that had formed next to him, roughly the size of Omega Supreme’s footprint.

        Overhead, one of the Autobot cruisers flew by, its gun ports open, its weapons trained on Galvatron, who even now was rising out of the crater. Rodimus recognized it as one of the ships he had sent to Darios IX, one of the ships he had filled with Autobots sent to hunt down the Decepticons even as they were plotting to strike at Cybertron itself. One of the ships that could have ended this attack far earlier if it hadn’t been for his orders.

        The ship’s engines screamed with restrained power as its pilot set it to hover above the fairly isolated battleground Rodimus and Galvatron had fought on. Galvatron stared up at the cruiser, his fist shaking at its unseen captain. "How dare you! I have beaten your leader! My troops have shattered your defenses! I am Galvatron, I am unstoppable! How dare you attack me!"

        Rodimus watched as he raised his cannon, but another shot from the ship, aimed with pinpoint accuracy, knocked it off his arm and back into the crater. Rodimus and Arcee watched as he clambered for his cannon, how he seemed to become more and more infuriated as the cruiser’s weapons kept him at bay from it, firing at him whenever he got close to it. He finally dove for it, and the ship’s lasers tore into his back, leaving large, black scars and exposed, sparking circuits. He ignored the pain, feeling the deeper ache of wounded pride bubbling within him, and fired at the cruiser even as it fired at him. His particle cannon blew several holes in its thick, golden-orange armor, but finally the shots he was taking overcame him and, screaming in impotent rage, he was forced to flee, flying away from the cruiser and Rodimus and Arcee, over the major portion of the battlefield, and into space.

        The shuttle was rocked again and again by Devastator’s enormous rifle. Swerve hadn’t realized exactly how much open space there was between the Autobots and the combiner, and because of that was struggling to keep his ship on course. Glancing over his control board, he saw that the hull integrity had dropped to barely sixty percent, and the reactor output was only at fifty percent. It was riddled with holes in its armor from the Decepticons firing at it, and Devastator himself had knocked out the portside engines and the stabilizers.

        Testing the controls, he took his hands off the steering column. The ship immediately started to spin out of control and off course.

        That settled things, then. He would have to stay in the shuttle to make sure he took out Devastator.

        "Well, Optimus, looks like I’ll be joining you in that big auto body shop in the sky. . ."

        Devastator’s face froze in a look of terror as the shuttle bore down on him. He fired his rifle into it again and again, blowing out enormous chunks of its orange-golden surface, setting it afire in a dozen different places. Still it came, still it held its course—

        —and Devastator’s scream was drowned out by the enormous explosion he was engulfed in, the light of it becoming a sun on the surface of Cybertron. When the smoke of it cleared, Devastator lay shattered as the Constructicons, broken and scattered on the battlefield.

        Cyclonus saw the destruction of Devastator, knew what it would mean for Decepticon morale. He saw Galvatron fly away first, without the call for retreat, from somewhere far to his right. Other Decepticons, on seeing their leader leaving them, took off after him, and that was followed by a mass exodus from the battlefield. Cyclonus cursed Primus silently—they had had the Autobots. Cybertron had been theirs. He had tasted victory.

        And now that victory had been stolen from him, from the Decepticons. And they were once more consigned to living in squalor on Charr.

        "Decepticons, retreat!" He called over the battlefield, for the benefit of those who had not realized the retreat, for those who had fallen and were lying low until their brethren could reach them. He himself rose into the air, transformed, and fled into space, his anger at the Autobots greater than it ever had been before. After the destruction of Unicron, he had known the Decepticons would not be able to hold Cybertron. They had had no leader, and their ranks had been broken by the Chaosbringer. But this time—this time they had been ready for it. This time they had won.

        And they still lost.

        And the Autobots would pay for that.
 

       To Chapter Seventeen