eugenesis-text

He wondered whether Quantax had reached Cybertron yet. The Transformers’ homeworld (ha!) was
further away from Aquaria than this mud-ball, so perhaps his comrade had yet to arrive. Perhaps, if he
crushed these Cybes quick enough, he could gatecrash the bigger battle. A nearby explosion brought him
back to the situation at hand.
‘We’ve been hit,’ said Q-537 from the communications pit. ‘Two small-scale photon blasts near
subsection 300371. I’m requesting a damage report.’
‘I don’t care about specifics. Deploy all hull weaponry. Hit everything you can. Twice.’
‘Are you sure that was a good idea, Hound’
Bluestreak steadied the windswept Autoshuttle and glanced at his teammate. They’d spent the last
half-hour playing catch-up and now, within metres of the Enslaver, Hound had started firing the KK guns.
‘Keep her steady,’ was Hound’s only comment. ‘This is our last chance for close-quarters combat.’
‘No, that’s close enough,’ decided Mirage. ‘Get us clear. You know what happened last time we got
within sniffing distance.’
Hound pulled away as the Enslaver opened fire on the mountainside. Doused in dust but
miraculously unscathed, the Autoshuttle barrelled towards the City.
‘We’re too late,’ said Hound, taking the shuttle in low. ‘They’re here.’
‘Get us inside,’ snapped Mirage.
‘Metroplex is in fortress mode. He’s impregnable.’
‘Surely there’s a hidden entrance or—’
‘He’s impregnable, Mirage!’
An explosion knocked them off course. A portion of the ceiling disintegrated and flames crawled the
walls like poison ivy. A pack of Tridents moved in for another attack.
Ratchet climbed out of his seat. ‘I hate to state the obvious, but we’ve got to disembark!’
The shuttle dipped and dithered, trailing smoke and shedding parts. Bluestreak locked the controls
and ran to the others at the back, near the tear. The ground below was full of crater-crescents and the first
few Quintesson casualties.
‘You know what to do, everyone,’ said Mirage.
The moat flashed by first, then the punched-up walls, then the barricades and barracks – and suddenly
they were flying over the heart of the City. Bluestreak was the first to jump and the first to land. He looked
up in time to see the others hit the ground like cluster bombs. The shuttle slid into the distance, engulfed in
flame.
Prowl sat at Rodimus Prime’s desk and felt the energy drain from his body. He had been trying to
organise some paperwork (a generic term for data discs and com-slugs and procene acetates) in an effort to
discover the various missions and strategies that had not yet been presented to High Command.
Yesterday he’d have relished the opportunity to revamp Prime’s admin system; now he realised that
there was more to it than shuffling papers: there were proposals to consider, troop transferrals to oversee,
meetings to arrange. He’d once thought that leadership – at least the Rodimus Prime school of leadership –
had been all about unforced charisma, an inspiring turn-of-phrase. You know, general soft-focus hero
worship stuff. He’d never realised that there was so much red tape – and he usually loved red tape.
He selected a random report from a freshly-built stack and –
This didn’t even feel right.
What was he doing here, rummaging through private journals when the diarist was only a few miles
away The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he was about how readily he had stepped into
Prime’s boots. But who else could handle the job He ran through the list, ticking boxes in his head.
Magnus had always rejected outright leadership; Perceptor lacked the interpersonal skills; Jazz had recently
been demoted; Mirage was unpopular; Siren was still learning his trade; Springer … well, there was
something about Springer that made him unsuitable (it was the closest Prowl came to a gut instinct). The
Triple Changer not only wanted to be leader, he felt that he was destined to rule, that it was Meant to Be
(perhaps that’s why he’d recently started dabbling in re-fits and circuit-steroids - as if leadership was reliant
on muscle and tone).