AUTHOR COMMENTS:
This story follows up on events in "Andraxus, Part One: Slag, Lord of Khalhyer" so it would advisable to reread it before commencing Part Six

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Part 0

The Head of the Finance Executive, Lord Treasurer, High Lord of Andraxus Minor and former personal Secretary of the Lord Commander headed out across the landing field. He paused to check his comlog, noting that he could only pick up the limited datasphere of this barren world. Nothing from the major Well-Access links. Nothing from shifts in reports and stockmarkets. He was effectively cut off from reality, thrust into a crude environment where he lacked even the basic fundamentals of civilisation.

Raindance miserably picked at the brown icicles forming along his retracted wings. How could anyone live here? The ground was unstable, the weather was chaotic and the blizzards were at such high speeds that the particles could rend metal down to a flayed endostructure within minutes. His ANDRAX didn't look too healthy, either; it half-heartedly flickered in and out, letting sharp bursts of cold through that his own internal systems had to tick overtime to deal with.

He stepped through the slush, heading from the covered spaceport towards Landing, wanting to head back to his flagship, Victory Rider, back to offices in Andraxus Minor, back to safety of the Treasury and his ledgers and journals.

But no. He had to do this. For national security, for the Empire, for Starscream. " It won't interrupt your schedule one little bit." The Lord Commander had explained, rather apologetically at such short notice. "I need you to go to Khalhyer and ..."

Raindance had sighed, knowing that really he didn't have a choice, not when it was Starscream. He'd served first as personal secretary, then as treasurer. Starscream had created his datacore, programming it, and modifying it from the others in his original batch. Starscream had named him, when he'd won the War Games, (by default, as the other wing had been exposed as Fivestrike operatives). He sat at Starscream's left side, at Starscream's table, in Starscream's party. "Alright," he admitted to himself, he was a lackey, a flunky, someone who's job it was to be loyal and to give his commander the faithful service he had been created to do so. But he had his own things to worry about, didn't he? He was suppose to drop everything and run over to Slag's stupid ice ball. He'd been working on stock options for the Leisure and Recreation Executive, he'd had to track down a suspicious fraud-leak that he'd traced to Octane, he'd been cleaning up core links by matching up accounts and ensuring that everything conformed.

And then, just as he was going over the next financial year's budget for the LR Executive, Starscream had stalked into his room, bypassing all the complex the security networks, time sequence locks, and Well-Core trigger alarms, and /demanded/ that he simply drop everything and rush out on this 'most important affair'.

" No. " Raindance had said obstinately. "Not until after the budget statement." He glared at the Lord Commander with what he hoped was the proper fire in his optics.

"Raindance, the AGM is very close." Starscream had said, locking his arms together and pacing back and forth in front of Raindance's desk. "And this ... matter must be resolved. NOW! We cannot afford to have any things over our heads when the Senate comes into vote. The budget is low priority. This 'most important affair' has TOP priority."

" It's not fair!" Raindance muttered. " You never give me any warning! The budget may not mean a lot to you, but it's important for the economy and ..."

But he could never hold out for long. After a token protest he found himself on his way to Khalhyer.

Part 1

Slag was waiting in the rain, a dismal blur in the howling, arctic winds while chips of ice raked past that could slash an unprotected part of fuselage to ribbons. Slag's ANDRAX blazed like a corona of hellfire, registering Raindance's presence. Raindance looked down at his own halo of sickly, trembling, flickering green light and sighed. He never made very good impressions.

"Why don't we meet inside, Slag ?" he offered hopefully. "It'll be better there ... "

Slag shook his head. "No one listen up here. Slag think too many ears about. Here just you and Slag. Talk, Slag not like waiting."

"Uh, I'm here because Starscream..."

"Starscream sent you. Yes, you never do anything without him talk. If he say jump, you not come down. If he say go talk to Slag because me Starscream think Slag not want to talk to him, then he send you, and you come running as fast as flagship can go. Bah!" Slag spat, spiked hands gripping the thick haft of his blade.

"Uhm." Raindance began rather apologetically. "Yes, that's right, he did send me. About those transmissions you reported on the northern cap."

Slag stopped, STARING at him with blood-coloured mirrors. "What YOU SAY ABOUT TRANSMISSIONS ?"

"Well, I've been told to investigate them. It's important we get there ASAP and check it out."

Slag growled, " And WHY so important ? "

Raindance sighed, " We have reason, to uh, believe that the aberrant behaviour you reported was conducted by a certain political group who operates conductive to ASWP's policies and .."

"Ashraker!" Slag howled. "I told Starscream to execute that rat! Slag said, if Ashraker spend all his time being loyal to Thunderwing, then him not about to spend time being loyal to you! Him Starscream never listen to Slag! Slag knew Fivestrike was involved!"

"Wait, wait ..." Raindance said quickly, " We have no reason to believe it could be Ashraker, either. Fivestrike tech was used, yes, but I can't see the re-establishment of Thunderwing's special forces. And Ashraker's too closely monitored. He couldn't do it ..."

"Bah! Think, Raindance. Use soft head for once. Ashraker know he monitored. Him snake, him cunning. Who else of Thunderwing's toads he use? Coalition all work together, them like rats in pack. Thunderwing gone, but they still plot. That point of Coalition."

Raindance shrugged. " I think that we're looking at outside involvement ..."

"Yes. From the Far Worlds."

"Sting?" Raindance protested. "He remained neutral in the uprising! And he's got an impeccable trading record, all his stuff /balances/, unlike yours, which I may add. I have to do your accounts most of the time, and ..."

"You do books as that all you good for." Slag spat. "That and being message-mech for Starscream. Sting slime. Slag never trust him. Sting care about deals, making credit, getting rich. Him and Ashraker buddy-buddy." Slag paused, cracking the ice beneath his feet with massive stomps as he paced in circles. " They want this thing on Khalhyer. But they not ask Slag. They send down troops, to investigate. Only when they finally find what they look for, Slag find them. Slag kill them. They keep quiet. But they want this thing on Khalhyer bad. Very bad. So they make another attempt soon. And Starscream send you, to tell me, yes?" Slag stared at him triumphantly.

Raindance sighed, nodding meekly.

Slag grunted. "Him Starscream is lucky that he not talking to Slag. If him here instead of you, Slag rip out his optics and gut him open. Sick of Starscream thinking him run everything without telling Slag." Slag roared, stabbing his huge sword into the ice at his feet. "Sick of this, sick of High Council, want to go back, yes ?"

"What do mean ? " Raindance asked, bewildered by the sudden turn in conversation.

Slag looked at him, with a stance that could almost be weariness, light flickering erratically in those hellfire optics. "Did not want this ... " he gestured, indicating his intricate sigil branded on his chest, the Khalhyer signature; indicating the pale flames of his ANDRAX rippling over his limbs, outlining his bulky form against the frozen waste. "Was happier, being pit-fighter. Not have to think. Just fight."

" Hey, without you we'd never have won the battle against Thunderwing. You can't wish all of that away, surely ? " Raindance gasped, disliking Slag in this frame of mind. It was unnatural, that was it.

Slag growled. "Slag stepped on Matrix, when he was not looking. He get ANDRAX, make him stronger, smarter. Thunderwing close down pits, Slag knew he kill Thunderwing. But Slag want to fight again, but High Council says, no fighting against each other." He ripped his blade up from where it had been stabbed into the pack-ice and lurched up, bellowing, "Slag sick of Khalhyer, sick of other people taking Slag's planet away from him! If Slag not have Khalhyer, no one will!" He stabbed a spiked fist at the sky, like an angry proclamation of doom.

"Uh, can we go now ? I want to get back in time to finish off the budget."

Part 2

Raindance hated ANDRAX-assisted teleports. He felt queasy, and feared the sudden lurch into darkness, and the adjustment your mapping sensors had to make when they realised that you were in a totally different environment than you were before ... it was unnatural. He could have come in from the air, but Slag lacked the means to fly and in any case only knew the location of the site through a blind jump in the first place.

Slag stepped forward, flickering out of reality in a rush of flames and Raindance tagged his slipstream, marking the energy trace of the ANDRAX emissions over the 'A-Spectrum', where only ANDRAX energies and emissions were visible.

Raindance initiated the jump, only to clang heavily into Slag on the other side. He was repelled a short distance, saved only when his thrusters had kicked in on instinct.

"Slag!" he bawled. "Move out the way when I come in on your stream!" The primitive oaf had just been standing there, hands clutched around the hooked sword, staring at what appeared to be a massive crater gouged out of the ground, now filled with a light dusting of ice and lightly packed drifts of the filthy, brown Khalhyer snow.

Raindance had effectively teleported straight into him, as Slag had still been standing where the slipstream ended. The two ANDRAX had repelled each other violently, Slag's corona flickering with mad flames; Raindance's weak aura sparking up and down with brief bursts of coloured light.

And Slag was ignoring him. "This Slag's world!" he muttered again. "No should be here. Only Slag!" The High Lord of Khalhyer paced roughly around the crater, his trophy chains jangling with anger.

Raindance cleared a layer of filthy ice that had been forming off his delicately painted retracted wings. His servos whined fitfully, and he began to worry about how much longer his ANDRAX would hold off the foul weather down here. Scanning the crater, he observed from the blast radius that /something/ had exploded out of a single point at the centre. He stared down through the snow, noting the objects lodged there were the slagged remnants of what once had been bodyshells, but the equipment that remained was blasted and could not be mapped to any recognisable image.

Scanning for emissions. Flicking through the lower spectra had no effect, but higher up he noticed a distinctive cloud of ions patterning the location. "Got it." He muttered.

"Slag!" He called out, the signal bouncing through the area.

Slag had been slashing his sword at the ground like a spade, ripping up chunks of ice as if he was going to dig his way down to the core. "SLAG'S WORLD! SLAG RULES!" he screamed, over and over again. "SLAG'S WORLD! SLAG RULES!"

" Uh, Slag ? " Raindance called out querulously. " I've got some data on the ..."

CLING

Slag was suddenly /there/, point-blank in front of him, the hooked blade drawn and pointed at his throat, ringing as it rang against rough metal.

" TALK!" Slag bellowed. "Tell Slag!"

" Uh, if you could put that instrument down, I'd be happy to oblige ..." Raindance's ANDRAX made a feeble show of might by flaring up in weak sprats of light.

Slag snarled, tilting back the blade. Raindance began quickly, " They used an FC-gate, a rough matter-transfer linkage. Most of the time they don't work, being unstable. But I can follow the stream. Uh ..."

/Don't bring him. Too much pain!/

"I'll go down and confirm the site first," Raindance offered. "I'll come back once I tell you what I see down there. You won't be able to follow the rupture."

It tore him to see Slag's glare flicker into something resembling friendship. "You soft in head. Weak. But Slag trust you."

Raindance nodded, and prepared to jump. The last sight he had was of Slag staring at him intensely, all of that madness and violence just waiting to erupt under at any provocation. Raindance shuddered and was glad. Because things weren't like that now.

Part 3

The chamber was large, with a smooth-cut stone ceiling and with metal-plated floor and walls. The sculptured cavern seemed vaguely familiar to Raindance, putting him in mind of the design of the underhalls in the Spires and in the network of plazas and tunnels beneath the red crust of rocky Andraxus.

"This is an Ancient site." he thought to himself with a slow, unbelieving wonder, recalling from the Old Dialogues of the Founding. " And then we dug the first layer of Andraxus beneath the crust of the New City, for the Old World, now swallowed by the War and the oblivion of time, was layered and hollow and to preserve that memory we shaped the original part of the city in the same style. Look upon the Foundation Quarter of Andraxus and know that the Ancients lived in similar tunnels, long ago when the Old World lived and the Great War continued unending ..."

He ran his hands along the slick metal with interest, and then finally made himself stare at the excavations. Ashraker's party had been tunnelling at the smooth floor of the carvern. But the rig had been fused in a horrific blast of considerable magnitude and smelted bodies were piled atop each other, frantically scrabbling out of the pit towards a non-existent FC-Gate. They were only vaguely humanoid as all discerning features had been melted from them. Pools of singed lacquer and hardened, boiled metal splattered and pocked the chamber's walls.

Raindance hadn't even seen such carnage in the pits. And he knew that the melting point of good Andraxan armour was nearly impossible to reach.

Which meant that the explosion had been horrific.

Raindance gingerly walked through carbon-scorched limbs and through small slag piles to the pit's edge. And peered over, his vision filtering through the dark. Thigh chunks of rubble and more smelted body-shells blocked the pit's core but with ANDRAX-boosted strength and cunning uses of force-fields, he cleared the pit's centre.

Some sort of melted hatchway, with some sort of unrecognisable symbol melted from it. Beyond, some sort of smooth, cubic chamber. Perfect dimensions, he registered. And though his calculations mapped this out to be the focus point of the blast, the metal lining of the chamber was smooth and untrammeled. Raindance hovered in the shaft on retracted jets and anti-grav drives, thinking. The blast had originated from /here/, melting the troopers as they were scrabbling upwards towards the FC-Gate. And the gate would have carried the brunt of the explosion through it, through to the surface which matched up with Slag's report of a giant tower of flame mushrooming upwards to the sky before the hurricane-force winds of Khalhyer's ice-surface dispersed it.

Raindance stared at the chamber, wondering how the blast had occurred. Querulously, his ANDRAX flickered outwards, filling his mind with vague images of some sort of shock-field.

"What field?" he snapped sharply at the ANDRAX. By the Spires, they could be so vague at times!

His ANDRAX wasn't sure, only that a field had been activated. And the explosion was caused by the field rubbing against the non-field space. Friction, in other words.

Raindance wondered idly how the damned field had been activated in the first place. His ANDRAX thought it knew how, or at least had some inkling of an idea. "How?" Raindance demanded impatiently, his thoughts returning to the massive budget report for the next financial term.

/Like this!/ the ANDRAX sent him, eager to please its despondent host.

And for the second time in recent history, the hellfire holocaust exploded through the lost city of the Ancients and the chamber rocked and the walls shivered, cracked and collapsed inwards.

Part 4

Raindance damped out every external sensation he could process. And why not? He was going to die. The field which had smelted the search party into molten chunks would boil his armour and delicate internals and splatters of liquid green lacquer would eat at the crumbled chamber walls and there would be nothing left of him. And who would do the budget then? No, not Octane! Anything but that lowly scavenger who threatened things, and who would distort the books, who yelled at him the entire time and ...

"Do something! " he begged his ANDRAX. "Save me!"

The weak flames of blue-green light shimmered in and out, fading. Raindance screamed. And was lost.

Part 5

Raindance's ANDRAX was sad. It had been only trying its best to please its host and to comply with the given request. It disliked it when the host was nervous or upset or sent it gouts of sharp, violent emotion. The ANDRAX needed calmness, stability and quiet and the host provided this most of the time.

Most of the time the host was in a state of nervousness. It worked building Patterns and Webs and was happiest crafting these. However there were many who made it [FEAR] especially those who yelled at it, or seemed overbearing. The ANDRAX longed to soothe its host, to teach ways of quiet and calmness, to mold its inner strength so it would defend itself against those who tried to berate or dominate it. But being a passive construct, the ANDRAX could only gather around its host and protect and shelter, while the host who had been constructed as a servant before entering the symbiosis remained in its own mind a servant, to cower before raised voices or stern glares, to obey and live in a perpetual state of abysmal self-confidence. These things did not make for a healthy ANDRAX. It was weak, where it should have been stronger; the host was trapped in its own mental cages. The host needed to learn strength and this the ANDRAX could not teach. So it clung and soothed its rattled, trembling, quivering host, fending off perpetual starvation and brittle weakness.

The host screamed:

/YouSTUPID!wasteofENERGY!Icould
HAVEBEENKILLED!DOESthatMEANanythingTOyou????/

The host was sending FEAR and ANGER through it. Confusing it. Hurting it. The ANDRAX hid its tormented misery of sorrow and pain from the host and bravely sent warmth through the link, reassuring:

/I will not let you cease. Without you I would cease. Energy cannot be lost, only transformed./

/WhatENERGY??TELLmeABOUTtheSCRAPPIN'TRAP
now!!!WhatIStheENERGYANDwhatisHAPPENINGto
MEEEEEE???/

/The energy is MOVEMENT (friction) relays set back and forth. We are MOVING. Unshielded, it burns [image of smelted bodyshells] Shielding device inactive [image of smelted bodyshells] Past-Image: [Metal pods with squirming organic things inside] They RODE on the MOVEMENT (friction) Must be made different for (metal/energy beings, metal beings, transformer life-forms)/

/MOVINGwhere????SendMEBACKnow!!/

/Not where. Same spatial overlay. When./

/When?WHEN?WhatDOESthatMEAN?WHATDOESit .../

/Host: [Achieve a state of calmness and quietude.] We have arrived./

Part 6

The fact that he was awake came as a welcome surprise.

" We're alive!" He cried, rising upwards, retracted wings clinking against the wall he'd been squatting against.

His ANDRAX flickered in and out, rather dimly, clinging to his limbs with a muted glow. Raindance moved upwards, scanning the area ... and to his surprise he was near the objective surface of the place. Rather than being thousands of klicks of crust below Khalhyer, they were near the surface. Was the ANDRAX right and they had moved in temporal rather than spatial co-ordinates? And if so, what was Khalhyer like in Ancient times? And how would they get back to Andraxus? His ANDRAX growled weakly: /Hungry/ and Raindance nodded, hoping the thing (he still refused to think about what it exactly was) would know what to do when it had time to recover from the ... jump?

Raindance didn't want to explore. It meant leaving the effective safety of the place where he'd arrived, exposing himself to all sorts of vulnerabilities. He ejected a data seed from an internal socket, flipped it in the air and then rammed it back into its holding place, snarling inwardly - he'd take a quick scout around and no more, no matter what /he/ had said ....

Overview of the arrival chamber: almost identical to the place of his departure, the ancient architecture exposing the smooth metal plated walls and floor, leaving the hewn rock ceiling untouched. Except for the lack of rubble and smelted bodies and Ashraker's drilling rig, nothing could have happened at all. (A high-res image of the carnage flicked across Raindance's vision. Nothing? Nothing at all?)

Raindance's hefty tonnage echoed hollowly throughout the chamber as he passed back and forth in front of the gleaming metal walls that through back distorted green reflections in the light cast by a back-mounted flash rack. Sonar indicated a door leading out of the chamber

/Hungry/ The ANDRAX repeated again more urgently, pleadingly.

"We'll worry about that later." Raindance said, moving around, noting the small cubic chamber in the shaft was virtually unchanged, but everything above him seemed different. The energy maps glittered with life, power. The base was used. Okay, that should do it for the scan. Raindance stumped over to the shaft, peering down the relay. "Can you activate it again? Got to go back to Khalhyer. Present time."

/Hungry!/ wailed the ANDRAX.

Raindance shuddered, "Alright, alright. I guess that means leaving this place then ..." He paced over to the door lock, recollecting that it was smooth stone in his time. It had been sealed in quite cleverly, for some reason. Fiddling with a few datasquirts, he finally activated the lock and the doors irised open. Outside was a corridor, but he paused for a few moments, before heading back over the to the wall terminal. He tapped in, and stumbled around blindly, unused to the lack of depth or WELLspace. It was astonishingly primitive, all the data compiled in compressed lumps. He downloaded a few segments, and focused on the maps of the installation, mapping out the route to Khalhyer's surface from the initial chamber. The installation was deathly quiet, though layered with multiple security grids. Raindance easily bypassed these, though he worried that he had no basic skills that related to sneaking and hiding. No camouflage holorig, no stealth mode walking, no heat dampers. He sulked internally, muttering, "I'm an accountant. A financial analyst. The best in all of Andraxus and here I am crawling in the gutters." A brief flashback to the civil war against Thunderwing. Running, hiding, running in the biowaste tunnels beneath Andraxus, sniping off the Strip's legions, hiding from covert Fivestrike operatives before linking up with the old gladiators, finding Slag who could have ruled the Empire, Slag who had returned Starscream to life, Slag who had almost slain Thunderwing. A flicker of confidence speared through Raindance: "Right, planning," he muttered. "Gotta plan in an unknown situation. Leave installation, feed the damned ANDRAX, get back ..."

He was completely on his own, the ANDRAX felt entirely drained. Normally they recovered with time, that was all he knew. All the High Lords had theories on what fed the bizarre energy fields, theories about what they were. He knew that his was aware, and he could talk to it, share things with it. But he had a vague idea about getting his ANDRAX fed, fuelled by a memory of Thunderwing, insane, leeching the energy from dead transformers ... the only trouble though, if he was to avoid be trapped in a strange time forever he'd have to find others of his own kind.

Part 7

The sky was the deepest azure he'd ever seen. And the surface of the alien Khalhyer was hot, rather than being a frozen hell whipped by screaming winds. The air was still, quiet. The landscape was a little like Andraxus, though without the reddish tint of iron oxide that covered everything. Brown rock, boulders, flat ground. Ochres, yellows - warm ruddy colours that pleased him for some reason. The installation was deep under the surface, linked to the brown desert through pedestrian access shafts. No aerial access shafts though, which surprised him, nothing so you could simply drop down from the air and glide through the layers of underground tunnels, guided by beacon-beams. And what a sky! Deep, unknown, rippled with white layers of cloud. And the land around him seeped with organic life, from small stubby spiny plants to crawling insects in the soil. So unlike the organics he'd known: pit beasts grown to savage another for spectator sports, brain-boxes that formed relay links, the hideous survivors of the Nebulos experiments.

A wind picked up, smearing his viridian enamel with a smear of brown dust. He leapt up, and flew, transforming into his Skyhawk jet mode, though having trouble with the heavier gravity and the mess the different environment made of his navigational array. Raindance decided to cut away from the installation, and glided towards the far horizon. His radio blared with signals and he filed through them, ignoring the ones that belong to the indigenous organic life of this era. They were a doomed race, destined to be supplanted. Finally as luck would have it, he literally stumbled across communications belonging to his species:

[... looks like a seeker-class, weird design, aerodynamic ...]

[...heading out from the REGENESIS facility, we've tagged this bogey...]

[...two of 'em? Damn, that's all I need . Launching surface-to-air ...]

A dim spark rose to meet him, which his databanks helpfully identified as some primitive combustion missile. He panicked, thinking, "What if it hits me? What if it hits ME?" He rolled and dropped and the blasted thing trailed him. Remote control? He ECMed the missile, trying to cloud the thing's signal, only to trigger it instead. The resulting shock wave dropped him from the sky, into a spin that he couldn't pull out of in time. Designed for the light gravity of Andraxus, Skyhawks suffered in heavy G unless you could adapt by cutting flaps and adjust things, only Raindance didn't have the time to optimize. He was panicking, over-riding the constant influx of data, and he screamed as he hit the desert floor.

Part 8

When Raindance gathered consciousness again, his nanotech servers reported a five hour delay until further flight. Muttering, he transformed, staggering. Cursing. "Stupid ANDRAX!" he screeched at it. "I'm supposed to be invulnerable! Bloody nanotech's saving my systems, not you!" He waited for the inevitable response, but there was nothing. Nothing? An ANDRAX made you a High Lord, made you able to do funky stuff that normal transformers could only dream about, made you invulnerable, made you run without the need for fuel. But as Raindance scanned his system with rising panic, there was nothing there! Nothing to distinguish him from the old Raindance before the touch of the Matrix. In short, he was now mortal. He felt it, felt fear and weariness and terror as he'd never known it before and he wailed internally. He saw a plume of dust rise on the edge of the horizon.

Raindance limped away, aware of the lag this would place on his nanotech. "First I get shot at, then I lose my ANDRAX ... not Highlord anymore, just a bloody server class mech again. I don't run the Minor anymore. Can't run the system accounts. Suppose they give my job to Octane?" He grunted with rage, "Oh that would please them. Giving my job to that little fuel scarping piece of scrap!" Suppose the Matrix found Octane worthy of it? Suppose after the High Council met after Raindance's exclusion, and posted Raindance under Octane, to be pelted with sticky-pellets, to do all the leg-work of accumulated data, not to be able to organise the financial reports, to lose the only thing he'd ever really enjoyed?

Fear made him run faster, but the thing on the horizon was faster still. Long range optic scan noted a bizarre kind of ground vehicle, small and clunky, with tires, by the Spires, and the most awful colour you'd ever see, a bright yellow that only maintenance vehicles used. It was going to catch up with him and his nanotech whinged constantly. He sighed and as the vehicle neared, he raised his hands above his head.

The little vehicle transformed (yet another clunky bipedal design) and marched over to him, pointing some sort of blaster at him. "Alright, Decepticon." He said in a I'm-a-real-tough-guy voice. "You're coming with me."

Raindance was aware that he towered over the little jerk, and lowered his hands, "I just want to talk to who's in charge." He explained simply, "Perhaps we can trade or negotiate something out. As you can see, I'm not one of the warrior-caste so you can ..."

"I don't talk with Decepticons!" barked the maintenance vehicle.

Raindance's optical visor flickered, giving the impression of a frown. "Decepticon? Get real ..." He tapped his sigil of office on his retracted wings. "I'm from ..." He then recalled the time difference and shrugged it off, "From far away from here. I just need some energy. To reiterate, I'm quite willing to trade or ..."

The maintenance vehicle aimed the gun at his chest, "If you want to talk, you can talk to my boss. How's that? Only he's not one much for talking."

Raindance shrugged, "Whatever." He bowed slightly, and trudged behind the maintenance vehicle. Playing for time, waiting for his nanotech to come online, whatever. Just something to stop the worries and the torment of the fact that his ANDRAX was gone, forever and ever and ever and ever ...

It was grief that made him surrender, though he could never admit to it.

Part 9

Raindance was quite enjoying being in protective custody. Firstly, no one was shooting at him any more. He was in a nice safe cage of energy bars, guarded by several more of the strange transformers (all ground vehicles, he noticed. How odd.) He relaxed, quite sure that he could handle whatever would come his way (his long years of cringing and grovelling came in useful now and then) and listening in on the conversations around him at the base site. It was a small convoy, equipment stacked around in organised heaps, soldiers pacing back and forth, waiting (or so he got the impression) for this "boss" to arrive. The little maintenance drone (who Raindance learned was not a maintenance drone and was called Bumblebee) was telling his comrades about his capture, "...just walked up to me and stuck his hands in the air. Said he wanted to see the boss!" There was laughter, and one of the others called him an "Empty." Bumblebee went on, "I don't know. He claims he isn't a Decepticon." At this the soldiers scrutinised their captive more closely. Raindance stared blandly ahead. One of them, a technician perhaps, said after a while, "Those aren't Decepticon markings on him. They look roughly similar, some colour, but more intricate, broken down into quite a number of complex sub-shapes. Fascinating ..."

"That's enough, Perceptor." Someone came from behind, forcing his way through the circle of guards, "Right. What slimy little maggot have I hooked here?" The voice sneered, its tones rough and raw.

"Bumblebee caught him, Grimlock." Perceptor said defensively.

"Unimportant," snapped Grimlock, cutting his hand through the air. "Hoist, disable weapon systems. Prepare for interrogation."

"I'd rather you just questioned me." Raindance said quickly, not wanting these primitive buffoons to fool around with his systems and learn technologies far advanced of their own.

Grimlock affixed him with a gimlet, blood-coloured glare. "Who are you? Don't recognise you. Inform me at once. Dead otherwise."

"I'm a traveler." Raindance said, mimicking Grimlock's forced, clipped speech pattern. "Got lost. Stuck here. Need fuel."

"Your allegiance?" Grimlock growled at him.

"Uh, neither really. I'm just a traveler ..."

Mutterings. Grimlock stared at him, and pressed his ruddy optics against the mesh of the cage. "Fly through space? Star flyer?"

"If I had my ANDRAX you'd see ..." His thoughts trailed off. Aloud: "Yes. I'm from one of the outer planets." He wished he knew more about the stupid war that was supposed to be going on at the time. What happened? Old World Cybertron, Earth ... By the Spires, if Khalhyer was alive then Andraxus wouldn't even be settled. He thought of the little red planet spinning on its lonely passage through space and was overcome by a burst of homesickness. Sick for Andraxus Minor, the land of starports and rif-raff, a social experiment set up so that Andraxus' undesirables would gravitate there and find amusements to occupy themselves without ruining the pristine, political world of Andraxus Major on the planet's far side.

"Don't believe you." Grimlock scoffed, "Saw you come in, you funny little sky jet. Not aerospace capacity. Not stupid. Like some."

"You talk like a friend of mine." Raindance said before realising his situation. Now was the not the time to be discussing social relations. Then he started and occupied a tiny corner of his mind with some video snippets: Slag stood in the darkness at the end of his great trophy hall, dusky light mantling the bronze-capped horns rising on the back of his base-mode. Around him alien heads snarled in mock, frozen poses of savagery. There were robotic heads, smashed debris from vehicle modes and huge, hack-bladed weapons: legacies of a lifetime of war and struggle. And yet Slag remained bitter and unfulfilled. At the core of his being was this great need that burned within, that made his ANDRAX flame with richly hot fires. Raindance recalled his chopped anecdotes, his mad rantings about his greatest enemy that escaped him. "Betrayed me! They dared to betray Slag!" In Raindance's memory, the Lord of Khalhyer (this very world) rumbled in bitter, charcoal tones about a struggle years ago on a distant world, where the Dinobot Commander, Grimlock, had abandoned him in order to finish off some complex ritual of vengeance against a Predacon. Slag had been buried in a fall of rubble and sank to his supposed death in a lava pit while his Dinobot comrades left him to die. Since that day, Slag had loathed Grimlock and desired nothing more than to cleave his head from his shoulders and place that grisly trophy in his hall. There was even a place for it. Right now it remained darkened and empty, but Slag swore that one day, one day ...

Raindance stared through his cage at Grimlock. At /that/ Grimlock. And Grimlock in turn stopped, as if noticing the change in his prisoner. "What you think now?" The huge, burly war commander leaned forward, oozing brute charisma. Compared to Grimlock, Slag was savage and crude, driven by an irrational lunacy. Raindance swallowed: "You lead the Dinobots, don't you?"

Grimlock rumbled, "Yes. Best unit in Cybertron's history. What's it to you?" Behind him a few largish warriors laughed and waved melee weapons - the Dinobots, Raindance assumed, memorising them. He saw their heads and shivered, for some of them hung in Slag's hall, victims of his vengeance ...

Raindance said quickly, "I'd just heard of you, that's all. That you indeed were the best team. Tales are told of your strength and warrior prowess." He prattled on in this vein for a bit, noting that Grimlock became impatient, but perhaps oddly pleased. He was pressed for information, claimed that he knew nothing, was threatened with weapons, cringed a bit and insisted that he knew nothing and cringed a bit more and in the end was ignored: "Decepticon weasel. Not worth bothering with. Bigger fish to smash," was Grimlock's summary.

"You're mixing metaphors again," one of the techs complained but was stilled with a sudden glare from Grimlock. Over the next few days, he did little except remain passive and watch the enemy. He knew their history and felt rather smug at the fates that would befall them in the future. However one thing didn't click and that was when they spoke of the Decepticon enemies, in particular the leader. Raindance /knew/ the name was wrong and had no place in modern Andraxan histories but filed the word away anyhow for future reference. He watched the Dinobots, saw the rough and easy camaraderie that flowed between them. He saw an earlier Slag, still sullen and prone to mute silences and depression, but a Slag with true friends that coaxed him away from some inner misery and made him laugh and clap them on the back with rough humour. It was a Slag that was ... happy?

Raindance had thought his Slag incapable of contentment. His Slag was dark, bitter, violent ... and incapable of happiness. He mused to himself whether any of the Highlords were happy with their powers - sure, it was great to have all the raw power an ANDRAX gave you, but no one knew what they were exactly and there to have an ANDRAX would forever cut you off from your troops. You become something distant and alien. You were never trusted in the same way again. Raindance remembered when he got his ANDRAX, almost by accident, and how no one could look him in the optic again. He'd been the butt of jokes because of his slavish devotion, his eagerness to perform his financial work, his grovelling mannerisms towards the Lord Commander. But he was above that now, and after the power-rush had died down, he'd had to go back to work to be content. Oh, he ruled Andraxus Minor, but only the budgets and the struggle to balance them made him happy. His work made him content, not an ANDRAX.

Raindance stared at his scraped hands. "It wouldn't be too bad, being normal again," he thought. "I'd just do the same thing I did before. And without all the pressures of governing." His hands tightened in resolution. "I'm going to get home. I don't care how I do it." He looked around: "But how do I get out of here?"

In the end the decision was made for him: Grimlock came to him when it was dark and other troops were elsewhere. "Decepticons coming this way," the gruff warrior grunted. "Going to leave you for them. I don't kill those who don't fight back. Can't have you with us. Don't trust you."

"I should be fine." Raindance said, brightening. Decepticons - ancestors of the modern-day Andraxans. Grimlock eyed him oddly, "They kill you quick. Got to be mad. Mad up here to be 'Con." He tapped his head. "Got to be mad. Not give two frags about anything except yourself. Have this crazy armour that helps you survive." Grimlock seemed ... sympathetic? "Think they kill you. But can't have you with me. Too many risks. Want advice? Get out of here, go back to where you from. This war kills your kind. Kills those who don't fight back." Grimlock depowered the energy cage. "I've cuffed you. When you break free, we long gone." Grimlock turned to head away, leaving Raindance bound in the middle of the ochre desert. Raindance quickly came to a decision, "Hey Grimlock!" The warrior turned, regarding the Andraxan. Raindance babbled: "Listen, you won't believe this but I'm from the future, the far future. I'm like an experimental time traveler. Anyway, in this future the Decepticons kind of win and the Autobots have to stay on Cybertron, actually it's a tie, but our city - Andraxus - is a lot better than Cybertron ever was. But I've got this friend, Slag, he rules one of the planets and ... Um, at one point in the future you and the Dinobots are tracking down the Predacons, and you lose Slag. He gets knocked under a pile of rubble and gets left behind. You leave him for dead basically and ..."

The attack came without warning, completely shattering his left optic. "You not speak like that. Never abandon comrade. If it comes to Dinobot or Predacon, you better believe that I choose Dinobot." Grimlock withdrew his fist and gave Raindance a last look of distaste as he crunched away over the gravel. "Never met a 'Con who didn't speak garbage ..."

Raindance screamed at him from behind, "Slag's mad! He's really messed up. But you can save him! Don't forget, on Charr a few years now, when you fight the Predacons! Go back and get Slag, even if it's the last thing you do! Please, you have to ..."

His words were lost on the desert wind as Grimlock vanished in the distance. "Please," Raindance begged him silently, "Save Slag if you can. He's my friend, but he's so miserable and he's happy now. He'll be the warrior he wants to be, the warrior he can never go back to." As he worked his cuffs, he felt faintly happy, as if he'd done some great deed. But then he paused remembering: without Slag, the rebellion against Thunderwing's tyranny would have failed. Had he saved Slag, only to doom Andraxus forever? A chill clutched at him. Would he be erased from history? Would he remain forever in this alien past? Would he return to a bizarre and different timeline?

Later, the Decepticons came for him. They found him slowly picking his way over the desert, shambling back to the compound he'd emerged from. "This is him!" screamed someone who sounded painfully familiar. Raindance stared and remembered the late Vortex, an enforcer who'd tangled with that slimy little Sting a while back. Gone now, but he'd had to endure his presence for ages as Enforcement and Finance had the misfortune to share the same building. Here was an ancient version of Vortex who looked nothing like the sleek black jetcopter that Raindance remembered, but it was still the same crazy interrogator. Raindance suddenly felt very vulnerable and began to run very quickly.

In the end, Vortex caught him and bound him. He tried to pass himself off as a Decepticon, but Vortex accused him: "Don't mess with me, partner. I saw you come out of that research place. It's so off-limits even /I/ couldn't get in there. Boss said you're some kind of anomaly we've got to neutralise. That's fine with me." Vortex raised a gun and his compatriots sniggered. Raindance was shocked, "I can't die like this, not in a mindless act of violence." He stared at the gun's barrel and remembered an old speech of Starscream's: "I brought civilisation to savages and gave culture to the uncultured. I built them a city that would outlast eternity and gave them a social machinery that would guide every little scrap of unproductive violence into a work ethic that shapes empires. From the Decepticons I brought forth the Andraxans. Look - is not our civilisation a wonder to behold?" Now he would die in past before Starscream's Ascension, gunned down like a dog by the old psychoses and violence of the time. It wasn't /fair/ ...

The first blast caught him dead centre, smelting his chest plating into a rippled, smelted mess. Coolants sizzled, warnings screamed at him from his lower processor. He crashed to the ground, howling. Someone laughed. "Die like a warrior, fool ..."

"Not a warrior." He muttered. "Accountant. Officer. That's a higher bloody caste that you, scrapheap. If I was back home ..."

He heard the whine as the gun powered up again. "I'm not going to be done in by some dumb grunt from a lower caste. He shouldn't even be looking at me, the filth." Rage boiled in him. He jerked up, and stumbled sideways colliding with the guards before being struck down again. His optical visor cracked again and dodgy information cluttered his metaprocessor, confusing him. And then he leapt at Vortex and started to pound into him and in the few seconds before they pulled him off his tormentor he felt like he was one of the Pit Combats, being watched by thousands of viewers throughout the Empire. He thought of all the old violence of the Decepticons, channelled into the cosmetic theatres of the Pit Fights and then knew that it could only be contained for so long before all the millennia of social engineering crumbled. And as he tore into Vortex he had a shock that stabbed him to the core: that it felt /good/ to feel someone die under your hands, to crack their optics with rubber-coated thumbs, to here the resounding clang-clang-clang of armour ringing against armour. These were a good few seconds. Then he felt himself kicked back and he lay sprawling on the desert floor, dust clouding everywhere and seeing Vortex sneer and come closer with that gun again, to fire for the last time and then ...

There was a flash and everything stilled. Dust hung in the air, powder against that endless rolling sky. Vortex tensed, hand paused in the act of drawing back the pistol. His troop members stood silent, watching or moving in to aid their fellow in the combat. Raindance stared around, confused, his metaprocessor warning him with alarm floods that he required immediate technical assistance or otherwise it would initiate shutdown. Someone came in behind him and started to drag him away. He watched the Decepticon squad vanish in the distance, lying there bemused and halfway between death and life. His rescuer came to a halt and Raindance glanced up at his savior. And goggled.

"Ashraker?"

Clear optics flickered amusement, and slight shifting haze around Ashraker indicated an ANDRAX immolation. (Immolation is a ANDRAX-related field effect, Raindance reviewed. When two ANDRAXes are close together, they blaze up. Only mine is ... He looked at his hands that had their protective coating abraded and at his body armour that was scraped and battered and shot up. "Mine is dead," he whispered to himself. "It died when it made the jump here. Too weak, I've always been too weak ...")

Ashraker? How did you get here?" he said rather stupidly. ("You can't trust this guy!" He screamed mentally. "He's your party enemy!")

"I could ask how you found your way." Ashraker said smoothly.

"You got here from Khalhyer!" Raindance snapped at him. "That's ASWP territory. You didn't release an invite. All this clandestine stuff is against Council Code!"

Ashraker laughed, "I saved your life and I do indeed have clearance. We're just doing a few tests now." The High Lord of the Belt Mining Strip dropped a datacodex into Raindance's hands. He stared at it, /knowing/ it was real but unsure of how this all fit together. Too much too soon. Then he saw the date and it was /months/ into his own future. He got up, feeling rather sheepish and flexed his hands. "This time travel's messing me around," he offered by way of an apology. Ashraker nodded and pointed in the distance - "You'll find a relay there. You should find yourself back in the present. Your present." Ashraker stood there quietly, radiating something uncharacteristic for him - was it humour? Geniality? Or was it that he knew something that Raindance didn't? He wanted to demand answers - what had happened, why was he back and here and why had the Council send Ashraker back? Why not a member of ASWP?

Slag had said: "Fivestrike. Neurolock."

He thought of the beacon on Khalhyer and the earlier unidentified squadron. Slag had accused Ashraker of sending parties to his planet to find something. To find something that Thunderwing had known about. So Ashraker was continuing his dead master's work. Thunderwing had known about the time travel equipment and was trying to find it. Maybe he'd known about it in the past and was trying to reclaim it? This bizarre experiment in a base under a desert. Old Decepticon technology. And that base would later become a city and that city would later become buried under layers and layers of Khalhyer ice when the nuke hit and the planet shifted orbit and changes axes ...

Or maybe Thunderwing had learned it was there. From the WELL? Sent troops to check it out but never found it. Then then the People's Revolution and Thunderwing's death. Raindance remember Ashraker at the trials, quiet and stating "I served my liege well."

I have always served him well. I have always served him ...

I serve him still.

Assume that Ashraker blames someone for Thunderwing's insanity. Doesn't believe the official report that Thunderwing induced his own madness when his method of destroying ANDRAXes cancelled out his own ANDRAX. Assume that he's biding his time, waiting. Doesn't seem to hate Starscream, which was funny, when it was Starscream was the one who mangled old Thunderwing.

"I'm sorry, Ashraker. But I can't trust you in this." Raindance said, getting up. "Whatever your agenda is, it's against my boss. Starscream. Without him we'd still be like those savages back there and you've no right to replace him and .."

Ashraker looked quietly into the distance. "I have Council approval, Raindance. Meet me in /my/ - here, I'll [datasquirt] the co-ordinates - meet me at this location in my /present/. I will speak to you then without the time differential. I will speak to you about the future of Andraxus and what we must say to the Council at the AGM. There will be no tricks. But suffice to say that this time technology has the potential for great abuse when I bring it back to Andraxus and there are a number of courses of action that we may take. Wait for me then."

Raindance stared at Ashraker, confused. Too many conspiracies ...

"One more thing ." Ashraker said quickly, "You won't listen to me on this yet, but know that Starscream is an inconsequential puppet of the WELL. He serves /them/ and not our race, not even the city. It was the WELL who destroyed Thunderwing and ..."

Raindance grew hot: "I remember what you said at your trial. That you always served your liege well. Well, Starscream created me ... And I have always served /him/ well."

Ashaker sighed. "Now is not the time to talk. Meet me on that date if you want to save our future. In the meantime when you return to Andraxus, watch Starscream very carefully. The end is near and you stand between destroying our world or saving it."

Raindance bellowed, "You're full of scrap, Ashraker! I'm just sorry he didn't blast you away like he did to Thunderwing!"

Ashraker shrugged, "I should have expected better from /his/ clone. I just saved your life. Such gratitude ..." He turned away and leapt in the air, transforming and flying away with an ease that Raindance could gawk at. He felt very confused but continued on and found himself back at the relay. There was even sheet of instructions. He stared at the technology for a while and then and then ... felt a flicker of awareness touch his mind.

/Hello!/

/You're back!/ He felt his ANDRAX returning and felt joy enfold him and he slipped into a communion with the other's mind with a sweetness that almost beyond his comprehension.

/I ... I thought you were gone forever .../ He told it.

/Never. Just the time ride was ... hard for me. Took back me back into a past with old voices. But back now. Together now. Came back when you remembered food./

/Food?/ Raindance queried and remembered the fight with Vortex and the rush of ... anger? No, it had been determination to stand up for himself, to stop being pushed around. /You feed off my self-esteem?/ he asked, amazed. No wonder the thing was always starving.

/Always (hungry)/ The ANDRAX complained.

/Alright, I'll try and be more positive in future, okay? Be stronger. Stand up for who I am. All of that stuff and um .../

/?/

/Thanks for saving my fuselage back there. Thanks for all the times you've done that./

It responded with a deep, intertwining warmth and his saw his field blaze a rich colour for the first time. There were shades of pale blue and green with ripples of jade and it filled him a sensation of life. Raindance mused again, pondering about Slag and Grimlock, Ashraker and Thunderwing and Starscream, about conspiracies and accusations and thought he'd meet with Ashraker in the future, just to repay the debt of life and awareness. He thought about how he was different from the other Highlords. He heard things, and convinced himself that the weird glowing ANDRAXes were aware and could be talked to it. He thought about how different he was from the others - he was a supposedly a clone but he'd failed at that because he was nothing like his master. He was labeled an idiot and they all laughed at him behind his back, he had destroyed his own self-esteem and had starved his own ANDRAX. All it wanted from him was a bit of confidence to be bright and strong ......

/Why don't the other Highlords hear their ANDRAXes ?/

/Not hungry. You talk inside, all the time, want someone to listen, want someone to share Raindance. You shape me, I learned to hear what they were saying outside of Raindance, learned to hear inside of Raindance./

The symbiont's warmth made him shudder in its terrible magnitude and the ANDRAX's light flamed a clear tourmaline for few brief seconds. /I long to here the other voices again, but they have all passed beyond [A brief flash of Thunderwing's immolation, burning light surrounding him] or are too far into darkness [Starscream holding the Matrix aloft, blazing black fire]. Only you, only you .../ Raindance was surprised at the fear his own ANDRAX had for Starscream's and at its misery at Thunderwing's passing.

No, not sorrow for Thunderwing but for his ANDRAX, at its punishment for its faith, at a friendship that spanned an eternity, at all the unvoiced songs that would never be heard -

Raindance jerked away from a mind too alien for him to comprehend. He shook his head and stared out at the desert for a long time. "Let's go home," he said and felt the other's agreement.

Part 10

When he snapped into focus again he was standing in the snow on Khalhyer, his ANDRAX blazing bright around him. He was horribly damaged and mortally confused. He looked around and saw Slag bending in the distance, lurching towards him, bellowing! "What you find down there? What you find?" He saw the same Slag he always had and felt a stab of betrayal at Grimlock's failure. He stood there about to tell Slag everything and then realised that he couldn't, that there were somethings that must be withheld. "There's nothing down there, Slag." He lied coldly. "It's all been destroyed by that expedition that came here last."

He was totally unprepared for Slag's reaction, for the violence that caused his fellow party member to turn on him, drawing a huge sword and to attack him violently. Raindance stared ahead coolly, his ANDRAX rebuffing Slag's blows and in the end he turned away.

Behind him he could here Slag howling like some stricken beast, forever beyond redemption.

Part 11

Eons later when the war had begun again, Raindance would meet Grimlock again and look at him directly. Behind them Slag screamed for his final vengeance and the battle was joined, from which there could only be one victor. But Raindance would remember what Grimlock would say to him in a hopeless tone of brief despair, just a few seconds before the struggle was joined: "That day on Charr. I tried to save him. But there was nothing I could do."

Part 12

Raindance clutched the sides of his armrests in relief. He leaned back.

"Shall I give the order to disembark now, sir?" The flagship asked.

Raindance nodded mutely. Please. Anything to get off this forsaken hell planet.

Part 13

Raindance regarded Starscream coldly. "That's it. That's absolutely the last time I do anything for you without you tell me what's going on. I could have been killed!"

Starscream's optics blazed with blood-coloured light. On his shoulder, the Archivist, Buzzsaw, shifted, opening his wings and tilting his elongated head to one side. He sighed, seemingly genuinely concerned, "I'm sorry Raindance. I didn't realise you'd be in such danger. You can't believe how grateful I am for your report though. Listen, listen! For this service, indeed for all the service you have given me, I will give you anything you desire. Anything you ...

Raindance shrugged, "I'd like to get back to work on the budget." And I'll meet Ashraker in a few months time and learn what's going on and what you've been holding from me all these years. He paused, "There's a couple of other things though. It's Slag, he's all bitter and angry and well, mad. There must be something we can do to help him. He's part of ASWP. There must be something we can do ..."

"We can't help him with the time relay. That's for ... something else. It's not that I don't trust Slag with the knowledge, it's his overdeveloped sense of personal vengeance. If he finds out what that thing actually does, he'll screw up the whole space/time continuum. Gah. Can you see him going on his stupid hunts through time, as well as space ? He'd go back and slaughter all of his former war-buddies, Grimlock and rest. And he'd do it over and over again. This isn't a /toy/, Raindance. It's a valuable resource. And we must be careful in our management of it."

Starscream gave a look that suggested that it'd be a while before he'd disclose to Raindance about exactly what he intended to do with the time relay. Raindance was sick of those looks, he'd lived through them all the time. He was about to leave but then was struck by a passing curiosity, about a name that he'd heard in the past but had no mention in the vast records of Andraxan history.

"There is one thing, Starscream. Who's Megatron ?"

The End