Exiles

by Alex Irvine

  Confused but responding to their leader, the Autobots instantly mobilized in the direction of the Ark, which was lifting slowly away from the surface again. Silverbolt streaked out ahead.

  Optimus Prime could not celebrate with them and could not tell them why. He could not admit to them that in Megatron’s moment of insight into his mind—that moment when they had been melded completely together by the incredible energies released at the firing of the Requiem Blaster—Megatron had learned which direction to go if he wanted to find the AllSpark.

  He would go, and the Autobots could not let him get a head start.

  That was why it was more important for the Ark to be freed than for the battle against the Decepticons to be won. Before they could rally, Megatron would be gone …

  … And from such small moments were wars won and lost.

  All of this he thought as he climbed up out of the pit for the last time and saw that Junkion was suddenly empty of all bots save his own, who were sprinting toward the Ark. And in the middle of it all, Optimus Prime noticed Wreck-Gar’s reactor floating right in front of the Requiem Blaster.

  Out of nowhere appeared Nexus Prime. “Watch,” he said, and pointed up toward the Nemesis, with another ship nearby. Optimus Prime had not seen it before.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Time is very short,” Nexus Prime said, ignoring the question. “Get your bots on the Ark.”

  Optimus Prime noticed something else. “The Space Bridge,” he said. “The one that led to Solus Prime’s tomb. It is gone.”

  Nexus Prime nodded. “In time, perhaps, you will discover that place again,” he said. “The Matrix will guide you there when you have need.”

  Optimus Prime was shocked to realize that Nexus Prime was addressing him as a comrade, as an equal. Nexus Prime winked. “And now,” he said, “it is time for me to go. This looks like a marvelous time to be alive.” He grew serious for a moment and locked optics with Optimus Prime. “You are doing very well,” he said. “You lead your bots with strength, and you will succeed if your purpose does not falter. Be well, Optimus Prime.”

  “And you,” Optimus Prime said as Nexus Prime divided into five protoforms. All five stood for a moment, saluting Optimus Prime as each incorporated a piece of the Cyber Caliber into itself once more. Then they lifted slowly away from Optimus Prime and accelerated away, streaking in five directions out into the vastness of space.

  Optimus Prime stood alone, considering what Nexus Prime had told him. He did not always feel that he was doing well, but the Autobot quest survived and they had brought powerful allies out of an epochal exile. Perhaps Nexus Prime was right. Optimus Prime wanted to think so … but when he looked around at Junkion, it was hard to feel that anyone was right.

  “Optimus Prime!” Perceptor said over the commlink. He looked up and saw the Ark very close, coming in low to gather in a small group of Junkions who had emerged from the wreckage. “There is a serious Energon instability near the Requiem Blaster. Something is going to explode there.”

  “I know,” Optimus Prime said.

  “We have recovered all the survivors we can find,” Perceptor went on. “And all Autobots are accounted for. The Junkions are requesting that we pursue the ship that captured Wreck-Gar.”

  “In time,” Optimus Prime said. The Ark hovered low over him, and he climbed aboard it. When he got to the bridge, Sideswipe said, “There’s no working Space Bridge. Where do we go?”

  Optimus Prime pointed out into space, in the direction he knew the AllSpark to be. “That way,” he said.

  Between the remnants of Junkion and the three inert Space Bridges, the Nemesis, too, was curving around to that bearing, with the other ship close behind. Between them, drawn by the gravity of the Requiem Blaster, was Wreck-Gar’s makeshift reactor.

  As Optimus Prime watched, the Requiem Blaster detached from the Nemesis, tumbling away as the Nemesis brought itself around and accelerated away. What was Megatron doing?

  A moment later, he got his answer, as the reactor exploded and for a nanoklik a new star burned over Junkion.

  The reactor had contained enough Energon that if it had detonated on Cybertron, the explosion would have destroyed an entire city and left a hole in the planet that never would have healed, Perceptor explained later. But the deformation of the gravitational field near the Requiem Blaster meant that its explosion had a different effect. Junkion, Perceptor believed, was completely destroyed and might never accrete again. The Nemesis and its pursuer? Perceptor was less certain, but the Ark’s sensors had, at the moment of the explosion, detected a rupture in space-time.

  Megatron was alive. Optimus Prime knew that much. And while he lived, he would follow the Autobots and pursue the AllSpark. Optimus Prime had no doubt that his path and Megatron’s would cross again. And who knew what other roving renegade bands they might find? What other lost colony planets? What other cultures and forms of life?

  “So we cannot know where Megatron is,” Optimus Prime summarized.

  “That is so,” Perceptor said.

  Optimus Prime looked around at his valiant Autobots. “Where are we?”

  “The Ark was far enough from the explosion that our spatial dislocation was relatively minor,” Perceptor said. “We are still fairly near the former location of Junkion.”

  “What damage?”

  “Very little,” Sideswipe said. “The Ark’s as spaceworthy as it’s been since we left Cybertron.”

  The universe was full of hidden surprises, Optimus Prime thought. How many sentient beings could pass directly by Vector Prime and never know he was there? Or never know what he meant to the entire history of Cybertron? Surely other hidden and revelatory treasures lay scattered across the galaxies.

  And somewhere the AllSpark waited. The universe was vast and perilous, Optimus Prime thought. Their enemies were many, and their resources limited. Despite this, they would prevail.

  “Then I repeat my previous order,” said Optimus Prime. “After the AllSpark.” He pointed ahead. “That way.”

  Autobots! For Cybertron!

  I have feared the worst, and sometimes those fears have come true. The longer one lives, the more adept one becomes at managing expectations. False pessimism is every bit as destructive and corrosive as false optimism. I will indulge in neither. Yet it must be said that the situation lends itself to pessimism. Cybertron continues to tear itself apart. Optimus Prime pursues the AllSpark, but the same innate sense of responsibility that fits him to be Prime also distracts him from this quest. One can only wonder if he will ever return to Cybertron and bring an end to this interminable war.

  Even if he does not, perhaps that would be for the best. Our race must not be confined to a single planet or even a single spray of colony worlds. To survive, Cybertronians—all beings infused with a Spark—must spread across the galaxy. If Optimus Prime is seeding our culture among the stars and Cybertron itself is the necessary sacrifice … well, so be it.

  Yet I hope that is not what the future holds.

  My only link to things outside this room now that Shockwave has put me under detention in my study here in Iacon’s Hall of Records is the Covenant. Shockwave cannot read it, and I pledged that I would not read it to him if he did not let me keep it in my possession and continue my appointed task of its inscription. I do not mind the solitude. I never have. I do, however, mind—and strongly protest—the enforcement of my isolation. Shockwave does not care, and as yet no Autobot has made an attempt to break me out. I am glad of this. I want no bots to die on my account, and I find the solitude agreeable. Because of it I have delved into the Covenant more deeply than I have been able to in a great while, and I have learned something fascinating.

  At times, the Covenant contains stories and information that I did not write.

  How this should be possible I do not know. I can only conjecture that there is a life in the Covenant, a force one would be almost tempted to call consciousness … and it is, if I am correc
t, of much greater scope than any single bot or any other life-form Cybertronians have heretofore encountered. It seems sometimes that I write in the Covenant and other times that the Covenant writes itself.

  Certainly it contains material from the Age of the Thirteen that I do not remember recording, narratives of events at which I was not present.

  And now, I think, this phenomenon has begun to happen again. I am at a loss to explain it, but there is a notation in the Covenant that not one but two of the Thirteen have made an appearance in our universe again.

  Nexus Prime, true to his nature, has appeared and vanished yet again after performing some action that the Covenant does not record.

  The Covenant also contains material suggesting that Vector Prime has returned. This, too, is an ambivalent signal. We Thirteen relinquished our hold on the affairs of Cybertronians ages ago, and for good reason. We had long since allowed our personal conflicts, nurtured over endless cycles, to interfere with the good of all bots. The return of all the surviving Thirteen—however many there may be—could well intensify the divisions that have already nearly destroyed us.

  Or it could catapult us into a new Golden Age as the collected wisdom and experience of the Thirteen guide the younger and more callow bots in the messy but necessary business of conducting a civilization. I exist and have done what I could do. Vector Prime exists and has returned. Nexus Prime—and the mighty Star Saber, if on a whim he has not given it away to the first bot he saw—might also still be out there somewhere among the many lost worlds that the Space Bridges once brought into contact.

  Who else? Is the Fallen still living? Does he still plot his plots and nurse his grudges? Does he, too, note the return of Vector Prime?

  I hope not. One murder among the Thirteen was enough. The Fallen will hardly be content to stop there.

  And as for Optimus Prime … he has yet to realize the totality of his destiny. I cannot tell him. That is not quite correct. I could tell him, at least to the extent that the Covenant permits me to know, but the task awaiting Optimus is so great that his only hope of completing it will come from his own hard-won realizations about its nature. And its cost.

  For now, I will await such bits of news as filter their way back here from travelers and Decepticon spies. I will send such aid as I can. And I will keep my commission, which is to protect the heritage of our race until the last glimmer of my Spark is extinguished.

  Farewell, Optimus Prime. Cyberton awaits your return—and the universe itself awaits your arrival.

  Axer recovered more quickly from the explosion than most of the pirates and other prisoners on the pirate ship. He was wearing stasis cuffs that still functioned, even though most of the ship’s electronic systems were slow to come back from the electromagnetic wave that resulted from the Energon explosion. Just his luck. Around him, the other prisoners—including Wreck-Gar—were stirring and getting to their feet. Axer got up and headed for the edge of the cavernous space in the ship’s hold where the pirates had thrown all of their prisoners. “Hey!” he shouted at the door.

  No answer. He waited, and shouted again. Still no answer. But Axer kept it up and eventually a voice came through the door. “Shut up in there.”

  “Get the captain,” Axer said.

  “I said shut up.”

  “Sooner or later I’m going to talk to your captain,” Axer said. “Once he hears what I have to say, he’s not going to be happy you made him wait. Think about it.”

  There was silence from the other side of the door. Then, just when Axer had decided his gambit had failed, he heard footsteps receding down the corridor. He looked over his shoulder at Wreck-Gar and the other Junkions. “I know what you did,” he said. “You sold me out.”

  “You killed Shearbolt, junk!” Wreck-Gar said. “Furnace is what you deserve. Melt you down and forge you again, better luck next time!”

  “I didn’t kill Shearbolt,” Axer said. “I did try to sell you out to the Decepticons, but Makeshift—”

  “Makeshift!” roared Wreck-Gar. “Junk! He killed Shearbolt and he’s your friend!”

  “Not exactly friend. We have common interests,” Axer said.

  An impact on the door sent a boom through the prison cell. Axer stepped back as the door opened to admit the pirate captain and several of his crew. “Who’s the loudmouth in here?” the captain demanded.

  Axer raised one hand. “Captain, that would be me. Axer. I’ve got a trade to offer you. It’s not exactly to my advantage, so I’m a little reluctant to make the deal, but you’ve got the upper hand.”

  “Trade?” The captain looked incredulous. “What am I going to give you?”

  “First, I’ll tell you what I can give you,” Axer said.

  Wreck-Gar thumped forward. “Don’t listen to this junk. Murdering, lying scrap, this one.”

  The pirate captain looked at Wreck-Gar. “A recommendation from the Junkions. Okay, Axer. You’re Cybertronian. I kill Cybertronians. So I’m going to kill you. But if you want to run your mouth for a bit first, go ahead.”

  “Opportunity cost, Captain,” Axer said. “You kill me, you miss out on the chance to kill a lot more Cybertronians.”

  “Universe is lousy with Cybertronians,” the captain said. “I’ll find ’em with or without you.”

  “This is where the deal gets complicated,” Axer said.

  “Don’t like complicated deals,” the captain said. “Cannonball, eject this Cybertronian.”

  “Aye, Captain,” a hulking bot near the door said. He started toward Axer.

  But when Cannonball got within an arm’s length, Axer didn’t move. “You won’t kill me,” he said. “Because I know more about Cybertron than anyone else on this ship. I know Megatron, I know Optimus Prime, I know all of the players in the war.” He waited a beat, and just when he could see that the pirate captain had thought Axer had given him everything he had, Axer added, “And I know what they’re looking for.”

  The pirate captain thought this over. “Be easy enough to have my boys just wring all of it out of you,” he said. “If you’d sell them out, you’d sell me out, too.”

  “Two things,” Axer said. “First—and I hate to say this—is that even though I’ve coerced a few confessions in my time, I’ve always known that you can’t trust what a bot will tell you when you put the screws to him. You always have to confirm it with someone else.” He looked around at the rest of the prisoners, Junkions one and all. “Remind me how you could confirm my tortured ravings?”

  “Makes sense just to kill you then,” the pirate captain said. “Don’t lose anything that way except your mouth.”

  “Wrong again,” Axer said. “Remember what I said about opportunity cost. Also, let me explain a little something about how I feel toward Cybertron: I wish it were a cinder. I wish every bot on it—Autobot or Decepticon or unaligned factory drone—rendered into junk so junky that not even Wreck-Gar could find a use for it. I’m counting the cycles until I can see Optimus Prime and Megatron dead. You think you hate Cybertronians?” The captain growled. “Okay, maybe you do. But so do I. I’m not offering you this deal just because I don’t want to die. I’m offering you this deal because I want to be part of your crew. I want to run every Cybertronian in the universe down and kill them like vermin.

  Where do I sign up?”

  “Not a bad speech,” the pirate captain said.

  “I’ll make another one if it helps,” Axer said.

  Cannonball scraped his feet on the deck. “Should space this bot, Captain. He talks too much.”

  “True junk,” Wreck-Gar said. “Space him.”

  “Only reason I haven’t spaced you and your Junkions,” the captain said to Wreck-Gar, “is you’re too good at what you do. So shut up before I change my mind and find some other mechanics. Axer. I like that Nemesis ship. Which way did the Decepticons go? You tell me—and it turns out you’re right—you live long enough to answer my next question. That’s the deal.”

  “Captain, you’
re in luck,” Axer said. “The Decepticons and Autobots are going to the same place. They’re both chasing the AllSpark.”

  “The AllSpark?” the captain said. “What do they need to chase it for?”

  “Because Optimus Prime ejected it into space to keep it from Megatron, and to keep it from being corrupted by Dark Energon,” Axer said.

  “Where is it?”

  “That’s the thing that only Optimus Prime and Megatron know. I think,” Axer said. “But you can be sure that if you find one of them, the other won’t be too far away.”

  “Lying junk!” Wreck-Gar shouted.

  “Now tell me something else,” the captain said. “That explosion. It came from near the Nemesis. But it didn’t destroy us, and Sandstorm’s already got a signature trail from that ship, so the Decepticons are still around, too. What blew up?”

  “Wreck-Gar’s reactor,” Axer said immediately. He believed in telling the truth often enough that people didn’t always assume you were lying. “It was floating near the Nemesis.”

  “Now explain to me why the bits of Junkion are starting to reform,” the captain said. “We can see it though the deep-space arrays.”

  The Junkions shifted and looked up at this news. “Don’t get too excited,” the captain said. “You aren’t going home.”

  Axer thought fast, but the first answer that presented itself was so simple that it almost had to be true. “The weapon,” he said. “It was holding Junkion together. It must have survived the explosion, and the bits of Junkion are coalescing around it again.”

  “That’s what Sandstorm said, too,” the captain said. “And what might this weapon be?”

  “That was the Requiem Blaster,” Axer said. “It’s maybe the most powerful weapon Solus Prime ever created. No one living can carry it or fire it. Judging from what I overheard on Junkion, it was too much even for the Nemesis.”

  “Requiem Blaster,” the pirate captain repeated. “If Megatron dropped it, he’s either afraid of it or it needs work.”