eugenesis-text

Galvatron fumbled with the Trident’s control web and – much to the surprise of his fellow passengers
– managed to find the right combination of touch-keys and hand-pads. The ship choked on its light-drive
and lurched back into reg-space, materialising just outside Aquarian orbit. Up ahead was the third and final
Quintesson mothership, Thermopylae.
‘It’s heading straight towards us!’ said Siren.
‘Correction,’ said Death’s Head. ‘We are heading towards it.’
‘Will you two shut up in the back seat!’ snapped Galvatron. He threw the Trident into a violent
evasive manoeuvre, dipped between two towers, hugged a stretch of engine tubing and nearly clipped a
radar cluster as he cleared the far side.
Ultra Magnus pulled his hands from the trenches he had made on the arms of his seat. ‘Nice. Very
nice. So much for slipping by undetected.’ He peered through the viewscreen. ‘I take it that’s Aquaria
down there, Death’s Head It looks like it’s going to explode.’
‘Perhaps we should turn back.’
‘No way, Siren. The Matrix is down there.’
‘Xenon’s down there,’ said Galvatron.
Ten billion shanix is down there, thought Death’s Head, but decided to keep quiet.
The Trident pierced the atmosphere and dived into the maelstrom. Venomous clouds heaped
themselves high, acid rain hit hard and the ocean foamed itself into a frenzy. Galvatron flung the Trident
into a nosedive and cracked the raging sea-green surface with suicidal force.
‘An Autobot shuttle would have been crushed in seconds,’ said Ultra Magnus gravely, feeling the
need to make conversation as the Trident dived deeper. An entire world of pressure was bearing down on
him; it reminded him of being dragged underneath churning lava back in 1987, his senses stripped to touch
and taste alone.
With Death’s Head consulting his tracking database, the Trident soon found the abyss. It had become
wider in his absence, and probably deeper too, but it was definitely the right one.
The searchlights began to flicker and fade.
Optimus Prime stood behind Bluestreak, the Ark’s new pilot, and stared through the spacecraft’s
viewscreen. Dense protective forcefields were wrapped the ship like clingfilm; they gave the outside world a
turquoise tint. Although the Quintesson Fortress did not yet register on the horizon, he saw that the first
Tridents had already taken to the air.
He’d led larger armies into battle (hell, Strikeforce Beta alone had been made up of three thousand
Autobots), but this one was different. He’d never seen the current breed in battle, but the thought stirred
feelings of awe and disgust in shifting measures. The majority of Transformers clogging the deck had honed
their dark art. In the early days – and he cursed himself for referring to them as such – even the Decepticons
were inexperienced when it came to fighting; by 2012 everyone regarded it as second nature. No, it was
their nature: the fighting had become contextual, and life and death found expression purely through the
act of war.
He closed his eyes and raised the communicator to his mouth. ‘The Quintessons have rallied their
troops,’ he said, wearily, ‘and the Tridents are heading this way.’ The message was broadcast to every
member of the aerial strike force, who, having detected the counter-attack the moment it materialised, was
holding back until the lead order. ‘Autobots, Decepticons: take them down.’
A thousand metres above the long-deserted border settlement of Lerrius, above a knot of expressways
and coolant towers, Quintesson and Cybertronian forces overlapped, and night became day.
Autobots and Decepticons fired high-wire clusterbombs into the onslaught of Tridents and banked
hard to avoid the rush of surface flame. Debris flew like popcorn. By the time the first explosion had
peaked, the division between Trident and Cyberjet was non-existent: the two sides had become one. The
battle raced high and wide with the force and spread of a blister-bomb. Soon, Polyhexian aerospace was
scabbed with a crust of flared air and afterglow as one scribbled burnout trail bled into the next.
Sevax, Ryknia and Jolup split up the moment they left the Fortress. Their Decepticon bodies felt like
second nature now, and they fought with a rage and tenacity beyond the grasp of most Quintesson pilots.
These ingrained skills, plus superior speed, firepower and endurance, made them a dangerous enough
enemy, but their biggest advantage was their outward appearance. The Cybertronians saw them as allies,