The tiny probe eagerly gathered data as it orbited the planet waiting patiently for the arrival of the next team of explorers. It had been deposited there millennia ago by a lonely first explorer who had discovered the planet, saw its potential, and sent back his signal to alert the ones following him of his discovery and its location before continuing on in search of other planets for other teams.

A new signal reached the probe. It became a flurry of activity, its long wait over. The next team of explorers was finally within range and ready to receive the information it had gathered. Sending out its own signal and preliminary report, it acknowledged the new arrivals.

A small spacecraft received the signal and report. He awakened, mentally shaking himself, dispelling the last of his drowsiness, and examined the incoming data. Then he checked his chronometer. It had been a very long trip, much longer than Mission Command had promised. Briefly, he wondered if Mission Command still existed. After all, 100,000 vorns was a long time, even for Cybertronians.

No matter, I have my mission he thought. Time to get to work.

Lights flickered on inside the spacecraft, monitors came to life, systems were checked and whatever damage he'd sustained during his long sleep was diagnosed and repairs began. Satisfied with his own condition, he sent out another signal.

This signal, though, had a much shorter trip. Nestled within his body slept another, much smaller, Cybertronian. He barely knew this mech, having only exchange a few words with him before he'd been put into stasis and loaded like the rest of the cargo and equipment into his hold. The spacecraft had been assured of their compatibility and their brief conversation had gone well, so he was eager to meet the youngster again.

The second mech activated in the same languid manner as the spacecraft. Consciousness came slowly after the long dreamless inactivation. He lay placidly in his berth, letting his systems come alive at their own pace until his memory returned fully. Excitement made his limbs tingle, eager to get moving. They had arrived, wherever they were.

He pushed open the lid to his berth and sat up, looking around, ready to meet his partner and get to work. Securely fastened boxes of equipment and supplies reaching to the ceiling surrounded him. He grinned at the thought that while he'd been nothing more than equipment at the beginning of this trip, he was now he was a fully functioning member of the team.

He got slowly to his feet, carefully testing and stretching each long unused joint and cable. Resisting the urge to ask 'are we there yet?' he said, "So, G.S., what's the good word?"

There was a brief pause as the spacecraft pondered the young mech's words. "I prefer Galaxy Shuttle," he responded in a matter-of-fact tone, neither offended nor amused, merely stating a fact.

Great, the mech thought. No sense of humor.

"As for the good word, H." Galaxy Shuttle continued. "We are approaching our destination, but we are not quite there, yet." There was another brief pause. "Or do you prefer 'Hound'?"

Hound choked back a laugh. "'Hound' is quite all right. Sorry."

"No offense taken. Now, if you'd like to look over the data that I have received, follow the lights to my bridge."

"Like too? I'd love to. Just lead the way."

The trip to Galaxy Shuttle's bridge didn't take long. For a space going vehicle, Galaxy Shuttle was remarkably compact. Hound passed several small, well-equipped labs which he supposed were for his use, but since he wasn't a lab-type mech, he doubted he'd be using them much. The thought of sitting in a little room looking through a microscope at some sample someone else had collected made him shudder. He much preferred collecting samples to analyzing them.

Hound entered Galaxy Shuttle's bridge and froze, entranced by the spectacular view before him, over him and under him. Galaxy Shuttle's entire bridge hung suspended in stars, chairs and monitors drifting in space. He took a step into the bridge then grabbed for a seat as a wave of vertigo hit him. He shut off his optics and sat down.

"Are you all right?" Galaxy Shuttle asked.

"Heh, not really. My gyros can't seem to handle the view." He grinned but didn't turn his optics back on.

Instantly, the stars disappeared, replaced by white walls and a single view screen. "I apologize. I find the stars soothing and being surrounded by them pleasant. I have adjusted the view."

Hound onlined his optics and relaxed as the vertigo passed. "I'd be surprised if you didn't prefer it. Me, I prefer solid land under my antigravs and a horizon." He leaned forward, elbows resting on the control panel, and stared at the view on the screen. "So, what have you got so far?"

"A great deal, actually. The probe has been gathering data for a long time. A very long time," the spacecraft said slowly.

Hound looked away from the view screen, disturbed by his partner's tone. "How long?" he asked.

"100,000 Vorns."

"Oh," Hound responded quietly, absorbing the news. He rubbed his helmet thoughtfully. "A bit longer than planned. I take it you haven't heard from Cybertron?" Galaxy Shuttle's silence gave him his answer. "Well, no sense delaying then. Show me what you have."

He spent the rest of the trip to the new planet absorbed in the probe's data. He'd thought Cybertron was a wonderful, living planet, full of warmth and life and light, but this new one made a lie of his beliefs. Cybertron looked inert compared to this ball of rock covered in organic material. He watched the videos the probe had sent, 100,000 Vorns condensed into a few breems. The planet's surface evolved, colors blossomed and then receded as the climate changed. The land masses, at a much slower stately pace, moved across the massive bodies of water. Water froze and thawed at the poles. From the beginning to the end of the recording, the surface changed but still remained recognizable.

By the time Galaxy Shuttle fell into orbit for their final survey before landing, they'd learned what they could from the data. Galaxy Shuttle, the geologist...Hound found it strange and somehow amusing that the spacecraft was a specialist on rocks... had developed a map of possible interesting geologic formations for Hound to check out, including likely energy sources. Hound, the generalist, couldn't decide what to do first. Everything from the organic covering of the planet to the soaring mountains drew his attention. He wanted to see it all. He almost envied Galaxy Shuttle's narrow view, almost. It would've made his decisions easier but much less fun.

Hound sat at his station on the bridge and gazed in fascination at the planet passing beneath his feet...once firmly in orbit he'd asked Galaxy Shuttle to restore the view...when he should've been selecting a landing site. He couldn't decide between mountains, plains, areas covered in organic material or areas completely free of organics.

"You'll have time to explore most of it," Galaxy Shuttle reminded the young scout.

"But not all of it. Even if we stayed here a million vorns I couldn't see it all by myself. That's the problem, it's not a matter of figuring out what to see, it's figuring out what to miss because I'll miss something." He sighed and pushed himself out of the chair and laid down on the floor, optics glued to the planet spinning beneath him.

Suddenly, the image disappeared, replaced by white floor. Hound snorted unhappily and glared at the main control panel where he'd decided Galaxy Shuttle resided.

"Get up and make a decision or I'll make it for you and you'll be stuck with my rocks," the spacecraft chided him. Then he put up an image on his view screen. "This area looks promising. It has water, organic material that runs right up to the mountains, the planetary crust seems extraordinarily active right there. I'd say it's a good place to begin."

Hound looked at the image thoughtfully and read the data Galaxy Shuttle had collected and nodded. "All right. I guess I have to start somewhere. Though it looks like there are more rocks there than anything else."

Galaxy Shuttle chuckled, "You had your chance. Now sit down and buckle up, I'm as tired of sitting in orbit as you are."

Hound scrambled to his seat and hung on tight as the spacecraft fired his rockets to push him out of orbit.

Several breems later, Galaxy Shuttle restored the view and Hound gasped at the sight of approaching ground under his feet. He clutched the arms of his chair tightly and stared openmouthed as the organic carpet flashed by in a blur of grays, greens and browns. Then they were slowing and a completely alien view took shape. Hound leaned forward, absorbing everything he saw, eager to get out and touch and smell everything as well.

They raced towards the mountains, skimming the top of the organic canopy when Galaxy Shuttle swerved suddenly as an enormous organism raised it's head above the green carpet, three optic sensors staring at him.

"Whoa!" Hound shouted in surprise. "What was that? Go back, Go back! I have to see." But it was long gone, and Galaxy Shuttle just chuckled.

By the time his speed had slowed to a comfortable cruising speed, the mountains reared up into the sky, their heads capped by a gleaming mantle of frozen water. Scanning for the location he'd selected to start their explorations, Galaxy Shuttle turned and followed the enormous range of craggy mountains. In the distance, a smudge of black smoke spoiled the expanse of blue sky, and Hound had his first destination. In between their landing site and the smoking mountain was plenty of land to explore including, he hoped, large organic life forms.

Galaxy Shuttle slowed even more until he hovered above a large, fairly flat, open area. Unfortunately, it was a tumble of giant boulders, where, not too long ago, a piece of the mountain had given way in a massive avalanche of rocks that had destroyed everything in its path.

Hound studied the area. "Hmmm, not too bad, I guess. I won't be hanging around long enough so it's as good a place to start as anywhere." He pointed at a spot that was fairly free of debris. "Put me there. At least I can stand with both feet on the ground."

"Are you sure?" Galaxy Shuttle asked. "It's rougher than I anticipated. It wouldn't be too much trouble to find a smoother spot."

"I'm sure, I'm sure. Remember it was your first choice," Hound responded impatiently. "This is good. I'm ready to go now."

"Get ready to disembark, then."

Hound rushed to Galaxy Shuttle's cargo bay while the shuttle eased down. He opened his cargo hatch, and Hound was able to jump lightly to the ground, bracing himself so he wouldn't fall on the uneven surface. Leaping gracefully from rock to rock, he put a fair distance between himself and Galaxy Shuttle. The cargo bay door slid shut and Galaxy Shuttle eased away from the ground on a blast of jets.

"Receiving my telemetry?" he radioed the spacecraft.

"Signal is strong. I'm already receiving interesting data."

"Great," he said cheerfully. "I'll meet you at the smoking mountain, then," Hound told him with a wave.

The gleaming white shuttle dipped his wings in a graceful farewell and thundered away already intent on his own surveys.

Hound, alone for the first time on a new, unexplored planet, watched Galaxy Shuttle disappear into the distance. When he couldn't see his partner anymore, he turned his attention to his surroundings. With sensors on full, he turned 360 degrees, listening, looking, smelling, and feeling as data streamed in unconsciously storing the flood of information so he wouldn't be overwhelmed.

Once the initial scans were completed he gracefully jumped from rock to rock until he reached the edge of the organic carpet. Only it wasn't really a carpet. It was a vast tract of towering brown poles capped with puffy green heads. Reports from previous missions had named these common structures "trees" and even though they differed in basic ways from the information Hound had, that's what he called them.

Hound peered into the shadows, squinting slightly as his optics adjusted to the low light. The smell of organic decay was so strong he could practically taste it. Despite the strong odors, he was excited to see what was inside. Once his optics adjusted he saw that the trees were far enough apart to allow him to transform and drive through them comfortably.

It was a slow process, though. He kept stopping to take samples and to scan interesting discoveries and, of course, everything was potentially interesting. Several kilometers in, his long range scanners detected a new form of organic life. Except for the brief glance from Galaxy Shuttle, he'd never seen organic life before. He'd read about it in other exploration reports, though, and the opportunity to observe and report on a new life form was a dream come true.

Excitement bubbled up as he saw the size of the heat signature. His scans revealed not just one creature but dozens moving slowly away from him. Eager to get a close-up look at them, he gave chase.

After a few breems, he could hear their movement as they crashed through the trees and ground cover and grunted and squealed to each other. He slowed and transformed quickly before creeping silently through the trees until he made visual contact.

The huge beasts moved forward on six sturdy legs that supported an enormous body and long slender neck topped by a small, three-eyed head. A long tail extended straight out from their rears.

The larger beasts nipped the tops of the trees with huge mouth plates while the smaller ones nibbled on the lower greenery. Occasionally, the largest would raise its head up above the treetops and sniff the wind.

Keeping carefully out of sight, Hound followed the herd for several solar cycles, creeping along at their slow pace in the general direction of the smoking mountain . He made copious notes and observations about their behavior, completely fascinated by their habits even though they were noisy and smelly and not very intelligent. After a few solar cycles he realized that they didn't even seem to notice or care about his presence, so he joined the herd in robot mode. In fact, the only ones who noticed him at all were the smaller creatures, the larger beasts were so big they couldn't see him. The smaller ones accepted him as part of the forest they roamed through even allowing him to touch them.

Five solar cycles after joining the herd, he detected an increase in the humidity of the forest. The Trioptics , the name he'd given the creatures, became excited and restless and the biggest one, the leader, moved ahead of the rest. Intrigued, Hound followed. They broke out of the forest into a huge clearing divided by a wide, placid river. The leader paused at the edge of the forest line and surveyed the area, head high and alert, looking in all directions. Behind him, Hound could hear the rest of the herd rustling around restlessly waiting for their chance to get to the river.

The leader's all-clear was nothing more than a snort before taking off at a gallop towards the water. The rest of the trioptics followed quickly at a pace Hound couldn't keep up with in robot mode. He transformed and, laughing, joined the stampede to the water, as happy to stretch his legs and shake off the stiffness of the slow pace they'd been keeping as the organics were. The young ones quickly fell behind, their short legs unable to keep up with the longer ones of the elders. Hound sped back and forth between the two groups swerving to avoid thundering legs. The elders didn't even stop when they reached the water's edge, instead, they charged headlong into the river sending waves of water in all directions. The youngsters halted at the edge of the river letting the water wash over their legs and dipping their heads for long drinks. The bigger creatures bellowed and wallowed happily, rinsing off dust and dirt.

Hound moved upstream away from the muddied section of river. He waded in scanning for other life forms that might make the river their home. He was so engrossed in his observations that he nearly missed the frightened squeal of one of the youngsters. He looked up in time to see several new creatures stalking his herd. These were six legged beings as well except they walked on four limbs and used the foremost limbs as hands which he could plainly see as one grasped a small trioptic. Hound prepared to race to the rescue but halted as he remembered he was here to observe not interfere. Regretfully, he stopped to watched when a split second later he wished he were somewhere else entirely. The entire herd bellowed loudly in warning and terror, turned and stampeded towards him.

Tough as he was, he wasn't built to withstand being trample by multi-ton organic beasts with six legs each. He transformed and made for the forest. He was nearly there when the herd caught up and started to overtake him. He was caught up and carried along,unable to break free of the thundering legs rushing past him on all sides. Swerving desperately, he managed to avoid them for a few cycles, but he just couldn't see them all. A huge limb caught him in the rear and sent him tumbling. He tried to regain his balance but more and more legs struck him on all sides until he didn't know up from down. Confused and dizzy, he never saw the last enormous foot strike him from above, smashing him into the ground.

*******

The first thing he was aware of when he regained consciousness was that he ached all over. The second thing was that he was still in alt mode and his gyros were telling him he was on his back. Third was that he was still alive. I guess that's good. At least, I wasn't a total failure.

"Now I know what not to do," he moaned softly.

"Good, because this was starting to look like the shortest mission ever."

Startled by the unexpected voice, Hound turned his optical sensors towards the source of the words. Galaxy Shuttle, still radiating heat from his apparently very recent arrival, towered over him.

"Sorry," Hound said contritely. "Can I have a little help? I can't seem to move or transform."

"Are you injured?"

"Not seriously. Hurts like the pit but it's just a few dents."

Galaxy Shuttle gave the young transformer a quick once over, he was embedded in the muddy, trampled ground which was probably why he couldn't transform. Squatting down, the giant transformer gently pried Hound from the mud and flipped him over.

With much creaking and squelching, Hound transformed and sprawled tiredly on his abdomen for a few breems making sure all his parts were still attached. Finally, he sat up and Galaxy Shuttle handed him a cube of energon.

Hound glanced thankfully at the squatting space shuttle and asked, "I take it you followed my emergency beacon?"

Galaxy Shuttle nodded. "It took a while to actually locate you. You blend in quite well, you know. I only just arrived."

Standing and stretching, Hound sighed, "From now on I study the resident life forms from a safe distance, and it only took being stepped on by a giant six-legged organic to learn that." He grinned at Galaxy Shuttle. "Meet you at the smoking mountain?"

With a chuckle at his partner's resilience, Galaxy Shuttle nodded before gracefully leaping into the air. He transformed quickly and sped off in the direction of the volcano. Hound took a breem to rinse off in the river before following his partner, eager for his next adventure.