Chapter 1

Heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 275.

Thin wisps of vapor flowed up and over the edges of the red jet’s wings, almost smoke-like so high up in the atmosphere. Outside, frost coated the windows, save for a few places where it had been rubbed away from the inside by a warm human palm.

“Will ya quit that, Spike? I don’t fancy scrubbing myself from the inside out.”

“Sorry, Powerglide.” The hand was quickly removed and a rag replaced it, trying to wipe the greasy smudges away.

The red jet made an unsatisfactory noise deep in his vocalizer. “Gah. Leave it, will ya? Just settle back; I’ll turn up the heat.”

Chastised, Spike slumped into the cushy pilot’s chair, warm brown eyes sliding over to the co-pilot’s seat where Carly perched, elbows on Powerglide’s console. The young woman was peering intently at the radar panel, her finger idly following the green line as it flicked merrily around the circle. “Glide, how are we going to see anything? We’re too far up.”

“You might not,” a low, feminine voice chimed in over the comm, “but that’s why I’m here.”

“Flare!” Carly exclaimed. “I forgot you were there; sorry.”

“Easily done,” the femme replied.

“Any sign of Decepticon activity?” Powerglide called up, keeping his “voice” on two levels so that Spike and Carly could understand what he was saying to Solarflare.

“Not yet. I’m beginning to see this as a false trail. We’ve been cruising for a while, but nothing, not one scrap of breakage over this whole area. If there really was a platform – of any nature – I would’ve seen signs by now.”

“You just don’t trust Red Alert’s code-breaking abilities,” the jet jested.

A low static rumble over the comm caused both humans to turn to each other and chuckle. “My opinion of Red does not mean that I doubt him. I just think this is slag; we’re wasting fuel. I don’t know about you, but being fifty thousand feet up is killing my joints.”

“Ya gotta get out more, Solarflare!”

Carly pressed her face – gently – to Powerglide’s window, peering up. Among the vapor, there was a thin black shadow, too distorted by the clouds to resemble anything avian. But she knew that it was Solarflare up there, her keen optics piercing through to the ground below. She closed her ears to the banter between jet and eagle and lost herself in the serene beauty that surrounded them.

“Hmm.”

Carly looked up from her musing and peered at Powerglide’s panel. Spike had fallen asleep, a thin line of drool winding its way down his chin. Tsking to herself, Carly sat up and looked down at the radar screen. “What is it?” she asked the red jet.

“Dunno.” Powerglide seemed unsure. “Check it for me, Carly. I’m doing a wingover, so wake Spike. I don’t want him drooling on me, either.” The plane started to tip to the side; Carly reached over and shook Spike a little more severely than she normally would have. The young man spluttered, a line of drool flicking over to land on Powerglide’s instrument panel. “Oh, for the love of all that’s holy!” the jet cried – and flipped over.

“Glide? Glide? What is it?”

“Check it, Carly,” Powerglide stated, completely ignoring Solarflare’s urgent call for confirmation. Carly slid close, as much as she was able, what with everything tilted and her body strained against the safety straps.

“Movement,” she murmured, “definite movement.”

“Oh, my head,” Spike muttered in the background, sounding slightly sick.

“I knew it!” the plane crowed. “Flare? Got it?”

“Looking …”

Powerglide’s left wing tipped downwards as he began spiraling in a wide circle. While he did not have Solarflare’s augmented sight, he did have something she didn’t – radar. With Carly’s running commentary, he was able to figure out the approximate location. Calling up to Solarflare, he relayed the coordinates.

“Oh, yes! There! I see it.” There was a distinct, heavy pause. “MIRAGE??”

“What?” exclaimed three voices. “He’s not out on patrol,” Powerglide added, confused. The lights on his panel flared to life. “Powerglide and Solarflare to headquarters, urgent! Respond!” A burst of static lit the board up with savage crisscrossing lines of unintelligible sound. Perturbed, Powerglide dipped lower, hoping to Primus that it was only the altitude. “Powerglide to the Ark. Prowl, Prime, Jazz, anyone – respond!”

“I’ll try.” There was panic in Solarflare’s vocalizer, something neither of them could understand, because she had yet to describe what she had seen. Through the open channel, more static erupted in an ear-splitting squeal. “Jammed! We’re jammed, Glide!”

“Dammit,” the jet grumbled. “Well, looks like we’re going down. Sweep good, Flare; I only see one, but you never know. Brace yourselves, lady and gent – here we go!”

They had been flying over swampland, which did not provide the best of landing strips. Powerglide had to backtrack a few miles to find suitable space; the ground was muddy, and it splashed up all over his brilliant crimson armor, but it had to be done. As Spike and Carly were gingerly disembarking, the low roar of twin boosters announced the presence of Solarflare. Looking up, the two humans were nearly blinded by a vision: a grey angel alighting on Earth from Heaven. And then the image was broken as Solarflare shook her wings, glancing over her shoulder at the frost that clung thickly to her metallic pinions.

“How far are we?”

Powerglide groaned as he transformed, hands dark with mud; these he flicked at the trees until most of it was gone. Standing straight, he peered into the thickness of the swamp. “Two miles, maybe three,” he hazarded. “Can you see anything?”

Solarflare didn’t even bother glancing in the direction they’d turned from. “No. Too thick. You’ll have to lead us, Glide.”

The plane huffed and dipped his shoulder to Spike. “Up you get – and don’t tap your feet on me. I’m dirty as it is.”

Wearing a scowl at being chastised so much, Spike clambered up and sat in the thin space between Powerglide’s head and where his wing jutted straight up above his shoulder. A little taller than the minibot, Flare had about as much room on her own sloping shoulder struts. She knelt in the mud – perhaps as an example to Powerglide, perhaps just to make it easy for Carly – and helped the young woman up. Carly slipped a little and Flare was forced to hold her to her neck with her right hand acting as a brace. A click made Carly look down; Solarflare’s left arm had come up and a plate on the back of her wrist had popped open, revealing six thin metal tubes. A quick glance towards the femme’s white face let the human woman know that Solarflare had also opened up the chambers behind her optics that would allow her to release a rapid-fire laser blast.

Thus they trudged: two Autobots slogging through the mud and muck with two humans perched on their shoulders – nice and dry, mind. More than once, Solarflare’s wings got stuck between two trees or caught up in some vines. Grim determination etched on her face, the avian femme forced her wings into tight alignment against her back – not something easily done, for her eagle’s head and chest were also tucked back there. After getting snagged for the fifth time, Solarflare stood back and struck the base of the tree that was causing all the trouble.

“Never get between a femme and her mech,” Spike murmured appreciatively as she stalked on through, pushing the fallen denizen to the side with a casual shove.

“Damn right,” Powerglide muttered, eying the long slashes on the bark of the tree as he passed.

“Will you two stop jabbering? Powerglide’s supposed to be up front,” Carly called back.

“Yes, ma’am,” both males chorused. Powerglide reached up and pushed a stray branch away with his pistol, holding it up for Solarflare to pass through. Flare flicked her trifold crest in thanks, lifting her pyramidal black feet high to step over a fallen log; once under, Powerglide again took the lead, a thin green film covering his optics as he checked his radar.

“Weapons drawn, Flare,” he cautioned. “I get two now.”

“Let’s put them down,” she recommended, head turning this way and that, searching for a suitable – and dry – patch of land. Spotting a pile of logs to the right, she started lowering herself into the murky water. “Carly,” the grey femme whispered softy, almost inaudibly, “we’re going to drop you here. Powerglide’s got two on the radar. Here,” she added, setting the woman down and pulling a thin pad from her outer left thigh, “if anything happens, get out as fast as you can. Use this to contact base.”

“We’re not leaving you,” Carly replied stubbornly, refusing the comm pad. Frowning, Solarflare lowered herself further into the muddy water, repressing a shudder of revulsion as a thin snake wound on by.

“You will do as you’re ordered. Do I look like Optimus or Bumblebee to you?” A hint of avian shriek underlay her words. “Now, take it.” Taloned fingers pressed the pad into Carly’s hands; the woman, unprepared for the weight, stumbled and nearly slipped off the tree. “And stay put,” Flare called over her shoulder, palming her purple pistol from the black holster attached to her right hip.

As she walked towards Powerglide, the red jet was eying her with a certain amount of respect in his blue optics. “No one’s gotten Carly to stay like that before,” he murmured over-comm.

“Ain’t got time to play,” she replied, flicking the safety off her pistol and raising it to killing height.

Powerglide kept his vocalizer shut; he’d seen this reaction before – usually it was Mirage who grew deathly serious and brooked no argument. There was definitely something more to those two than met the optic; something that went beyond their relationship. “Well.” Powerglide paused and considered his radar. “Funny,” he muttered aloud, “now there’s only one.”

Solarflare looked at him over her shoulder strut, her black lips set grimly. Powerglide said no more, only continued to slog through the muck, his head turning this way and that in an effort to get a clear fix on the object Solarflare had identified as the Autobot spy Mirage. “Two clicks to the right, Flare,” he reported at last.

And so they forged on ahead, one to the right, one to the left of the path between the spiraling trees. Their feet churned up long-settled mud on the bottom of the swamp, oozing into the thin gaps in their armor and generally making it a slow-go. A slight mist hung over the area and settled upon their shoulders, coating them with a fine cloak of droplets. Solarflare shook her head and blew through her nose, raining delicate globules down upon her chest plate; these then gathered into thin rivers and ran down her stomach to her hips, broke off into smaller tributaries winding their way along her legs. Water ran down her top lip and over her face, but she paid no heed, other than to snort now and again – not the most ladylike of actions. But now, she was not a lady; she was a fiercesome formel hunting her tercel – and no one would get in her way.

For such large creatures, the two Transformers moved stealthily, guns at the ready. Powerglide had to check his radar now and again to make sure that Flare was still with him; she was almost as good as Mirage, but he believed this was due more to her coloration than skill. Coated in mud and muck, she nearly blended into the background. After more than half and hour lumbering about, the terrain opened up into a round basin of swamp water. The trees that ringed the area were tall and thick, rising upwards to the icy sky like pillars on a temple. And in the middle of this sacred space was the spy, stuck nose-first in the mud, his left rear tire idly spinning.

“Well, I’ll be a broken-tailed biplane,” Powerglide hissed. “It is him.”

Solarflare completely lost her battle frame of cortex; her hands dropped – and so did her mouth. “This can’t be,” she cried aloud, at a loss. “He – there’s no way – he should be here!”

Powerglide, too, was perplexed. This was no place for the Formula-1 racer – how he had even gotten through the trees in altmode, the jet would never know. He trudged around the basin, poking his foot around in the mud to see if there was any holographic projector hiding there. “Hey, Mirage, ol’ buddy, can ya hear us?” And he leaned down to rap on the top of the spy’s blue cockpit. As if in response, the tire that was spinning began to jiggle. Powerglide lifted his head to see Flare slowly walking around the scene, her optics narrowed, her lips moving silently, talking to herself or to Mirage; Powerglide did not know the answer to that, either.

“C’mon, Mr. Invisible,” the jet cajoled, tucking his gun back into its subspace compartment; he set his hands under the spy’s undercarriage and began wiggling him back and forth, trying to pull him free from the mud, “this can’t be tasty.”

The tire shook again – and then Mirage’s whole frame began to rock violently. The racecar bucked forward like a prize bull, throwing Powerglide down on his aft in the swamp. As Solarflare watched, horrified, the spy’s body split in two … and Starscream emerged from the shell casing.

He was a demonic butterfly emerging from a rusty cocoon, slothing this second skin in an easy, simple shrug of his bewinged shoulders. Covered in mud from head to toe, the Air Commander lifted his right arm and wordlessly fired a single shot at Powerglide.

Before the red jet’s cortex could even form the word “ambush”, he was hit. Laser fire blasted clearly through his plating, sending the burst straight on through to the other side. Though wet, the intensity of the concentrated laser discharge ignited the ancient wood. Garish, ghoulish fire lit the swamp, a lone beacon in the mist.

“NO!”

Starscream pivoted just in time to take a shot from Solarflare’s pistol in the chest. Coughing, he stumbled backwards, tripping over the pretender shell. Rising like a sparking Phoenix from the muck and clutching his injury, Powerglide rammed the Decepticon in the back.

“Where’re your buddies, Screamer?” Powerglide taunted, his left arm hanging limp by his side, the gaping wound oozing liquid Energon and a black, oillike substance. Bits of pink-tinted foam bubbled from behind his mask; this he dashed away with his free hand, one that immediately began searching for his firearm.

“I need no ‘buddies’,” the Decepticon sneered, lifting his arm for another shot.

A second blast rang out from Flare’s pistol; she fired again and again as Starscream twisted and turned in the morass that was beginning to form in the swamp from all the churned up silt. The Decepticon dodged the first two, but caught the third in the shoulder. Down by his left, Powerglide managed to fumble his gun free. Seeing that now was the time, the Air Commander thrust all available power to the boosters in his heels; steam rolled up, water boiled from the intensity. Taking advantage of his foes’ temporary blindness, Starscream drew a bead on Powerglide with his left arm and Solarflare with his right. Several rapid-fire bursts of his lasers cut through the chaos. A second later, he was rewarded with their screams.

As loathe was he was to leave this unfinished, it was all part of the plan. Pulling the thin, one-time launcher from subspace, Starscream loaded the special payload into its muzzle. Down below, the mist was slowly clearing, giving him the most perfect of shots at Solarflare. Too bad, too, too bad, he mused, I can’t just kill you now. But I promised Megatron an example. And you are it. Good bye, little bitch.

With a rumble reminiscent of distant thunder, the missile left the launcher and streaked as a vengeful angel towards its intended target. Solarflare looked up just in time to witness her undoing hurtle towards her on wings of fire, the face of Satan laughing in the background.

And she fell.

The missile tore through her stomach and bounced off her laser core, plowing right under her spark chamber. Foam, liquid and air burst out from her open mouth as her stomach exploded, dumping all the fuel she had consumed that morning out onto the grimy surface of the swamp. Her body shook as the projectile discharged its exclusive warhead, lodging in her spine.

Stunned, her body’s warning system went berserk; one optic exploded, throwing shards of golden glass into the water. With smoke and other grisly liquids sloshing from every orifice, Solarflare tipped headfirst into Hell.

Carly squatted by Solarflare’s head, up to her waist in filth. Beyond where the avian femme lay, Spike sat with Powerglide while the red jet radioed for help by the smoking remnants of the old tree. True to form, once they’d heard the call of battle, the two young humans had abandoned their safe spot and made their way through the swamp, only to arrive in the aftermath. It had been easy to locate Powerglide; the red jet’s paint, though splattered with mud, half-processed Energon and God-knew what else, was a beacon in the dark, illuminated by the flames. Solarflare … well, that was another matter. Starscream had done his worst – she lay flat on her front, the water gently lapping over her broken wings, sparks haphazardly spitting out in faint golden bursts. Grey metal blossomed outwards, blackened at the tips; Carly ruminated in the back of her mind that it reminded her of a carnation – ones that had been dyed for special occasions. From these gaping holes, blue foam bubbled, a froth created by a punctured ventilator.

“Will you guys hurry up?” she called over her shoulder, and surprised herself with the tremors in her voice. Carly laid her hands on Solarflare’s charred crest, slowly stroking the big grey femme’s head, trying to soothe the hurts she had no extensive knowledge on away. Solarflare shuddered, long, once. Water gurgled from her mouth, strands of coolant floating along the surface of the swamp.

“We’re trying,” Spike called back, his voice equally strained. “How’s it coming?” he asked Powerglide. The minibot jet was tinkering with the comm-unit Solarflare had given Carly.

“Better,” he pronounced, flipping it over one-handed, using his hip as a prop. “Thank Primus Screamer’s jammer was sitting right with him.” Powerglide gave one dial a final twist. “Ah, there we go. Powerglide to the Ark, come in.”

Across the way, Carly clapped her hands to her ears to dam the flow of screeches that blew up from the unit’s small speaker.

“Okay. Let’s try that again,” the jet coughed, chagrin coating his vocalizer. “Powerglide to the Ark – emergency. Respond.”

The comm unit fizzled and popped – but it worked. “Blaster here. What’s wrong?”

“Screamer ambushed us. Made himself up to look like Mirage and fooled us into taking a course into the swamp. I’ve got a busted shoulder and wing.” He paused and glanced over at Solarflare. “But Flare’s bad, Blaster. She’s got a blown middle and pouring coolant and Energon all over the place.”

Though the screen was fuzzy, Blaster’s expression was clear – shock and concern. “I’m sending a party out to recover you. Stay put and don’t move.”

Powerglide abstained from rolling his optics, though he doubted Blaster could see him, anyway. “Don’t worry, neither of us can walk well.” The comm fizzled, spat and went dead. Perturbed, Powerglide chucked the unit into the swamp and hesitantly got to his feet. Spike dodged and landed in the mud as the red jet tipped to the left, then to the right. Getting his equilibrium under control, Powerglide lumbered over to where Carly sat with Flare and squatted by her side. Though Flare was taller by a foot or so, she weighed far less; slipping his one good hand under Flare’s chest, Powerglide went around to her back and started pulling her upright.

Water, dark and chunky, gushed forth from her slack jaws, splattering over her mud-covered chestplate, painting it with flecks of green and blue. Air hissed from fractured pipes, dank, fetid. “C’mon, Flare, c’mon, little bird.” Dim light shown from her one good optic; the other was plastered with mud, giving her a rakish, pirate appearance. “C’mon, Flare, Screamer can’t hit the broad side of a storage cell. You’re not that bad.” Yes, you are, he thought, the truth of the matter cold in his Energon pump.

Beyond, Carly and Spike sat, trying to keep each other warm as darkness settled gently about the swamp. They tried not to look at the water, into the woods, where unsavory and potentially-poisonous things dwelled. Just as their shivering began to become uncontrollable, the roar of powerful jet engines filled the air. Though obscured in part by the trees, Skyfire’s massive form was unmistakable.

“Ahoy!”

A thick coil of rope fluttered down through a gap in the foliage, followed almost immediately by the boxy white form of Ratchet. The Chief Medical Officer landed with a sickening squelch, the grim set of his face swiftly changing to one of revulsion. His cold optics swept the scene, evaluating the situation in a parsec. Looking up, Ratchet tugged the rope; reacting to the signal, a large cage descended from Skyfire’s hold, hovering inches above the mud. A second squelch heralded the arrival of First Aid; the junior medic’s optics grew twice their normal size at the sight.

“Get used to it, youngster,” Ratchet groused, slogging through the sludge to reach his patients. “Attend to Powerglide; I’ll take Flare. You two,” he called over his shoulder, not even turning around, “get in, now.” Too tired and cold to protest, Carly and Spike jumped at the order, almost racing each other in order to get into the cage.

Looping an arm around the minibot’s shoulders, First Aid braced Powerglide, gently easing him from under Solarflare’s body. Before his grip was totally relinquished, Ratchet was there, scooping the wounded femme up into his arms. With an optic honed to almost godlike precision, the medic quickly analyzed her injuries and ticked them off in his cortex. There would be long, long hours in the bay, but thankfully, nothing was life-threatening: the missile – missiles, he corrected – had bounced off her core, missing her spark casing by mere inches. That was, unless they returned to the Ark too slow and the mud stuffed into every available inch of her frame managed to clog anything else vital. “You’ll live to fly again,” gruff Ratchet murmured to the femme, though she could not hear her, having gone into stasis-lock.

With coolant and Energon seeping through his fingers, the CMO climbed up into the cage. First Aid reached out and tugged the rope; slowly, the cage lifted, bringing the warriors into the cool night air and into salvation.