The Rebirth
Part 2
I wrote the first treatment of The Rebirth when I was a kid. Back when the Generation 2 comic came out and killed my favorite character. I immediately had this idea of having him come back via a backup as other Transformers had done over the years. And I wrote the first version of this story for the old Teletran fan magazine back in the day. I didn’t get much beyond this story. It looked different than this story, you understand. I’ve learned a lot about writing since I wrote that one. And its taken some different twists already. But it is still substantially the same story as it always was meant to be. The broad strokes are the same. The details are different, and the details are pretty amazing if I say so myself. I wrote this treatment because the creator of the old Teletran resurfaced after several years and decided he wanted to start it up again. I offered to freshen up and finish this story for him and he agreed. And if you get Teletran, you have already read this story. If you don’t get Teletran, here it is for the first time for you. And since this is complete fan fiction, I provide it here completely free.
You will see some art here. Some of it is art I hired real artists to do for me. Yes, I like Fortress Maximus enough that I hire people to do art of him. Some of it is pictures of toys that I used Grok Imagine to shift into cartoon colors and place on backgrounds of my imagination. Some of them come from scans taken out of old comics and heavily run through Grok Imagine to upscale them and reimagine and repose them. I try to make every piece of art shown here based out of something that really was Transformers. This is how I seek to keep this story grounded in the mythos that is the Transformers universe.
Timestamp: Late 1993
Location: Interstellar Space Near Earth
The Rebirth
Steelhaven
Chromedome looked up from his virtual workstation aboard the Ark’s backup computer core as the long, elegantly cylindrical Steelhaven slowly entered the Autobot starship’s debris field. The anti-matter explosion that destroyed her tore her heart apart, but she had been a large craft and an impressive amount of her outer hull and systems survived in the form of scattered debris.
The Autobot number cruncher calculated that Steelhaven’s tractor beams could sweep most of it up in a manner of cycles and sent out the commands. The spacecraft responded quickly and began sucking the debris into her cargo holds.
The immediate cleanup procedures started and he scanned Steelhaven’s systems for other information. They’d abandoned her in a deep parking orbit on the far outskirts of Earth’s star system stellar cycles ago, and she’d sat there ever since, unmolested by the harsh conditions of interstellar space. She reported limited fuel reserves, and her store of spare parts was almost entirely exhausted. She was an empty starship, left alone and lifeless since her masters abandoned her.
Chromedome frowned as one of the reports caught his attention. Odd biological waste gases contaminated Steelhaven’s atmospheric mix. Some people made the mistake of thinking that since Cybertronians didn’t breathe air to live that they came from a world with no air. But every planet with a gravity well trapped gases into an atmospheric shell around it, unless unprotected solar radiation stripped it away, and Cybertron was no exception to that rule. The planet had an atmosphere, and the starships she sent into space carried atmospheres with them.
Steelhaven’s atmosphere had been modulated to match that of Nebulos before they left that planet for Earth, and it turned out that humans of both planets found that atmospheric mix to be very comfortable. Not everything was the same, but Spike had never complained overly much about the smell. After he got used to it. They’d left the atmosphere like that when they abandoned the ship, and the automatic systems should have been able to maintain it.
But the mix was off. The waste gases did not match anything any human he’d ever studied emitted.
Chromedome frowned and initiated a full scan of Steelhaven’s interior. The scan came back quickly and the Autobot’s frown turned into something far more alarmed.
Steelhaven was infested with biological life forms. A quick check against the database showed they came from the planet Klo. He remembered that planet. A nice and peaceful place.
Then he saw what the Klozians were doing and his eyes narrowed. He tapped a command to activate a speaker in the bulkhead next to one of them and spoke in their language.
“Excuse me, but could you please stop doing that?”
The nearest Klozian jerked in surprise at the sudden request. Then the intruder brought a weapon up and shot the speaker.
Chromedome sat back at his virtual workstation and considered that for a long time. That was not normal for a Klozian. He finally sent several commands, stood up, and went to see an old friend about the problem they all had.
***
Maximus relaxed as he scanned the virtual recreation of his beloved Manganese Mountains and felt a job well done. They were exactly as he’d built them back before the War For Cybertron began. Maybe even better. They were a dream given form again, and he loved every hill and crag of them.
Chromedome stepped out of a door in the air and froze as he beheld their old home arrayed all around him.
“Whoa.”
“Yes,” Maximus answered. “I find this to be a most pleasing sight. What do you think?”
“Amazing.” Chromedome stood in place for a long time, eyes taking the mountains in as he had when they were both young. Then his old friend shook his head. “But I didn’t come here to admire this. We’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
“Steelhaven has arrived at our location in real space, but it is infested with Klozians. They’re looting the ship for any Cybertronian technology they can rip out.”
Maximus frowned as he considered that. Klo had been one of the worlds he’d considered moving to when he left the War for Cybertron behind. The locals called it “the World of Enduring Peace” and it was a truly beautiful world. A jewel in the cosmos, and her people were kind. Passive. And utterly devoid of the kind of advanced industrial manufacturing any Cybertronian would feel at home with. Nebulos had just the right kind of high technology society he wanted to be a part of, which had influenced his choice in the end.
But Klo had been a contender. Klozians were some of the easiest people in the entire universe to deal with.
“Have you asked them to stop?”
“Yes.” Chromedome cocked his head to the side in consternation. “They shot the speaker I spoke from.”
“With a weapon?” Maximus looked at Chromedome in disbelief. That did not sound like any Klozian he had ever heard of.
“A Cybertronian weapon,” Chromedome clarified.
Maximus shook his head and looked back up at his mountain peaks. It had been a long time since Cybertronians visited their world. It was hard to believe that the people he’d talked to back then would do anything like what Chromedome described. Something must have happened to them. That was the only thing he needed to know. Someone needed his help to get back in touch with their inner peace.
That was a job for Fortress Maximus.
“You wish my help with this?”
Chromedome smiled at his leader. “Yes. I’ve activated Steelhaven’s fabricators and am building security bots right now. The first two should be functional in a breem or two.”
Maximus nodded in understanding. Security bots rarely had minds of their own, but their core processors were designed to allow other Transformers to easily take command of any bot attuned to them. He’d done it often in the past with the security bots that patrolled his Manganese Mountains. And security bots were much more mobile and durable than a speaker in a bulkhead if the Klozians tried to shoot them.
That was a mental image he never would have expected to conjure.
He sent out a mental ping to his partner.
No response.
Maximus frowned and looked towards Chromedome. “Do you happen to know where Spike is?”
Chromedome gave him an innocent look. “Why ever would you think I would know that?”
Maximus cocked a suspicious head to the side. “It comes to mind that I’ve seen you conspiring with him and his friends lately.”
“Ah yes.” Chromedome chuckled and raised one finger into the air, giving the Autobot leader a point. “They’re playing Doom.”
Maximus frowned. “What is Doom?”
“It’s a new computer game coming out on Earth. Ethan obtained an early build of it before the Ark launched and I… optimized it a bit. They are fully engaged in something called a ‘deathmatch’ at the moment.”
Maximus grunted. “That sounds suspiciously bloody.”
“Only for the electrons that offend them,” Chromedome reassured his friend with a smile.
“Interesting.” Maximus looked up at his beloved Manganese Mountains one last time and shook his head. “Do you remember this place and time fondly?”
“I do.” Chromedome scanned the mountains they’d lived in and fought from for so very long.
“Do you regret the choices we made?” Maximus looked to his friend. “The sacrifices we made?”
Chromedome chuckled. “Do you mean to ask me if I wished there was one less voice in my head now?”
Maximus laughed in response. “That is one way of putting it.”
Chromedome shook his head. “It is not always easy, but I have come to enjoy the young thoughts rattling around in here. Too many of our kind have allowed age and war to burn away our will to live. We forgot how to just live. My partner makes me feel alive again, in a way I haven’t felt since before the wars. I would not take that choice back for anything. What of you?”
Maximus smiled. “I feel the same.”
“Good.” Chromedome turned his back on the mountains and aimed an expectant look toward his friend.
Maximus nodded and turned away from the fondest creation of his spark. “I suppose we should go collect our other halves before they traumatize too many innocent electrons then?”
“The electrons would thank us, I’m certain,” Chromedome answered and waved a hand to open the virtual door again.
It revealed a room in a human house with three men sitting at computers and destroying virtual electrons on screens as they played their hands across keyboards. They hooted and laughed at each other as explosions filled the screens.
Maximus smiled and considered just how good the life those humans had known was. They could play at war and it was fun to them. It was good to see them at it. Good to see them having fun with it. Thinking it was just a game. And maybe it was. Maybe everything was just a game.
Maximus looked towards Chromedome who nodded in response. They had no need to rehash the old debate. Chromedome believed what Teletraan X told them. They were living inside a physical backup of the Ark’s computer core that truly existed in real space, and that all their memories were real. They had all died in the wars and lived now only because Teletraan had saved their minds as it saved every other piece of data from Cybertron in its capacious memory banks. They were a backup of everything Cybertron was and knew and had ever been.
And if Teletraan X’s fears were accurate, they might be the very last backup.
It was a terrifying thought to a bot who had lived through that war and death only to sacrifice his life to stop Megatron from controlling that vast database of knowledge. The thought that he might not be done protecting it, even in death, filled him with dread.
But the Autobot engineer that rebuilt himself into Fortress Maximus was willing to accept the possibility that everything was real. And that it truly was his job to return Teletraan X to Cybertron to make certain that the knowledge contained within those databanks survived.
Maximus stepped into the human room and surrounded himself with the laughter of human friends once again.
“Hey, Maxie!” Spike Witwicky shouted a moment before an explosion filled his screen. “Ah, nuts.”
“Yes!” Ethan Zachary shouted as his screen turned to fire at another moving figure.
“No fair!” Stylor of Nebulos glared at his red screen with a kill counter showing him in last place before aiming his deadly eyes at the Earthborn humans.
“I’m just that good!” Ethan returned with a laugh. Then he turned towards the new arrivals. “How’s it going, guys?”
Ethan had been a genius computer programmer on Earth, and became one of the Autobot’s human allies during the Earth Wars. He still hadn’t explained exactly how he convinced Teletraan to save his mind into it, but he had said that living inside the most powerful computer in the known universe had been something he couldn’t resist.
Maximus could understand that. The possibilities were limitless inside the computer core. A being could build anything they wanted. A fact he was reminded of when a pretty human female pranced into the room to give the victorious Ethan boisterous praise and a cold drink. And a very thorough kiss.
“That is a supreme misuse of a tactical artificial intelligence,” Chromedome transmitted for Maximus alone to hear.
“The humans have a saying about turning swords into plowshares,” Maximus returned.
Chromedome aimed a hard look at his friend. “They also have a saying about how those who turn their swords into plowshares often end up plowing for those who keep their swords.”
Maximus raised a finger to acknowledge the point. “There is a difference between waging peace and being too harmless to wage war when the need arises.”
“And we have lived that difference, old friend.” Chromedome’s eyes said everything that needed to be said about that.
“Agreed.” Maximus nodded, turned towards the humans, and began speaking for their ears. “We have a new scenario that might be interesting.”
Spike pulled his attention away from the celebrating Ethan and his very friendly celebration partner to aim a question at Maximus.
Maximus provided the details over their binary-bonded back channel and Spike took a moment to review it.
“Repelling looters?” the human asked in a doubtful tone.
“With limited resources and trying not to kill them,” Maximus clarified.
Spike’s eyes showed interest at that. “Sounds like a challenge.”
“Could be.” Maximus smiled. “Are you game?”
“Yeah.” Spike jumped to his feet and strode over to his Autobot partner. “Sounds like a fun game to try out.”
And there was the rub. Spike did not wish to believe that everything they’d gone through together was real. It was war. It was horrible. And he deeply wished that none of it ever happened. Maximus understood that wish. He shared it. But there was still enough of the old bot in him that he was more willing to act on the possibility that neither one of them would get their wish.
Spike gave him a knowing look.
Maximus shrugged in recognition of the point that it was rather difficult to hide doubts from each other. Then he turned back to Chromedome to see Stylor at his side and ready to jump. One good thing about that Nebulan was that he was always willing to tackle a new challenge. Whether it be finding a new and better set of clothes to make him look prettier, which he was good at, or trying to attract a female, which he was not.
“Ready?” Maximus asked.
“Ready,” Chromedome reported and stepped back through the open doorway with Stylor on his heals.
Maximus and Spike followed them to find themselves in a communications center showing the channels linking Teletraan X’s drone body with the nearby Steelhaven that was busy sucking in the Ark’s debris field. His old starship had accepted his command codes and Teletraan X had full access to her systems. Various displays showed the Klozians tearing pieces of the ship apart while a humming factory module filled one completely different display.
Arms, legs, wheels, and treads slid out of the module a piece at a time, and Maximus recognized the standard body form of his old security bots. Not much more than basic brain power in any of them, but he remembered one he used as his eyes more than any other.
“Can you paint one of them blue and grey?” The Autobot’s request came out of fondness more than anything else.
Chromedome smiled at his leader. “Cog?”
“You know me so well, old friend.”
“Do the other one in a stylish brown and white,” Stylor commanded.
Chromedome aimed a question at his partner.
“With some red highlights to make you look pretty,” his human partner added.
Chromedome gave a long-suffering sigh, but the various pieces began changing colors to match the indicated requests.
Four small vehicles soon rested outside the factory module and Maximus claimed the blue and grey ones. The heavily armored tracked car he designated Grommet, and the lighter and faster wheeled buggy became Gasket. Just like the old days.
“I’ll take Gasket,” Spike said after a quick scan of the security bots.
“I assumed you would,” Maximus returned and walked up to the communications panel to download himself into the armored car.
He felt the heavily armored skin surround him and catalogued the weapons it carried. Circuit welders. Spectrum disruptors. A thermal booster. Spike’s buggy carried more circuit welders, electro-scramblers, and a neutron synthesis shield.
“You’ve made some upgrades,” Maximus said from Grommet’s form.
“I always do,” Chromedome answered from the brown armored vehicle.
Spike spun his tires for a moment and chuckled. “I like them.”
“And they look amazing,” Stylor added from his brown and white buggy as he spun it out to test the acceleration. His engine roared and the tires screamed on the deck as he shot around the chamber surrounding the factory module.
“Quietly,” Fortress Maximus ordered. “We don’t want to alert the Klozians.”
Stylor brought his buggy to a chastened stop. “Sorry, sir.”
“We should combine for greater mobility.” Maximus rolled closer to Spike.
“I agree,” Spike returned and the two vehicles quickly combined and transformed to form the robot he’d once designated Cog in the old days.
Chromedome and Stylor quickly replicated their maneuver and the two security bots faced each other.
Maximus handed their circuit welder handguns over to Chromedome. “Hold these for us. We will try to dissuade them peacefully.”
“And if they shoot you?” Chromedome asked.
Maximus smiled. “That is why you will be backing us up.”
“Understood.”
Then Maximus turned away and strode out of the factory module compartment to go find the nearest Klozian looting party. He strode through the cavernous corridors of the starship, fully conscious of how small he was compared to the last time he’d walked them. Security bots were much smaller than the massive fortress-like body he’d built himself into over the eons. Barely larger than the Klozians in fact, but they were better than having no body at all. He followed Steelhaven’s systems to find several Klozians busy tearing her apart around a corner.
Maximus held his hands up as he stepped around it to show he carried no weapons and amplified his voice to speak with the Klozian language. “I am Fortress Maximus, Autobot commander of this starship. Please stop tearing it apart and leave us in peace.”
Several Klozians jumped in fright. One raised a weapon and fired.
Spike triggered their neutron synthesis shield and deflected the blast into the nearest bulkhead.
“I come in peace,” Maximus projected down the corridor. “Please leave my ship be.”
Two Klozians joined their fellow in shooting at them, and Spike deflected their blasts as well.
“I don’t think they’re listening to you,” Spike said into Maximus’s mind.
Maximus agreed, but he wasn’t going to give up so easily.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” he shouted at the aliens that should be more peaceful than him according to everything he knew about them. “Please don’t make me!”
Spike took control of his arms and spun them to aim the electro-scramblers as the Klozians refused to see reason. He fired a quick pulse down the corridor and the aliens flew back. Sparking weapons flew from their hands as they fell to the deck and vibrated with the power of the electricity flowing through their bodies. Most fell unconscious before hitting the deck. The rest followed their fellows soon thereafter.
Maximus sighed.
“I didn’t want to do that,” he said loud enough for the Klozians around the next corner to hear. “They are unharmed. Please retrieve your fellows and return to your ship.”
The Klozians responded by turning the corner and opening fire. Spike used the shield to send the blasts into the bulkheads, but its energy levels dropped with each hit.
“I can’t keep this up, Max!” Spike shouted through their link.
“Fine!” Maximus bellowed and brought the high frequency spectrum disruptors in his legs online. They reached down the corridor, twisting light and sound and everything the old databases said the Klozians could sense. The aliens reacted violently to that attack, throwing up all over the deck and bulkheads as they fell and moaned and prayed to their gods for the torment to end.
“You’re not dead!” Maximus projected towards them after turning the disrupters off. “You’ll just wish you were for a while.”
Then he stomped forward towards the helpless aliens. He strode past them and stopped short of the next corner where Steelhaven told him the next batch waited.
“Please be reasonable!” he shouted at the third group of Klozian looters. “I come seeking enduring peace with you!”
“What does one of your kind know of enduring peace!” one of the Klozians shouted back at him.
Maximus sighed. But shooting words was an improvement over shooting bullets. Or missiles. Or laser blasts.
“Far less than I would like,” Maximus projected around the corner. “But I seek it nevertheless. Will you seek it with me?”
“Why should we trust you! Your kind destroyed our world!”
Maximus shook his head. It seemed something had happened to them to make them like this. “I had no part in that. But the ones that did. Did they wear a purple symbol on their chests? Were they Decepticons?”
“Why should we care? You’re all monsters!”
Maximus shook his head.
Chromedome walked around the corner and strode towards his position.
Maximus waved at him to stay back, but his friend just shook his head and continued to approach.
“I am not a monster,” Maximus returned. “I’m an Autobot, and our greatest leader declared that ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings.’ I fight for that and only for that. To protect others from the Decepticon menace.”
“Well you failed at that!”
“Yes.” Maximus nodded. “I have failed at that more times than I can count. I failed at it so many times I finally decided to run from the fight! But I couldn’t escape it. It just found me again and forced me to fight or die. So I chose to fight. Now you are the ones giving me no choice but to fight. And if you force me to, I will fight you. But please, in the name of enduring peace, give me the chance to let you go in peace.”
Silence came from around the corner and Fortress Maximus ordered Chromedome to stop short of it. The other Autobot did so with manifest reluctance and Maximus nodded at him. Then he raised his hands and very slowly stepped around the corner to face several Klozians aiming weapons at him.
“Please. I’m an Autobot. Allow me to protect you from at least my own weapons. If I can protect you from nothing else, let me at least do that much.”
The Klozians looked back and forth at each other in confusion, but at least they weren’t firing at him. That was progress.
Then a lone Klozian stepped around a corner far down the corridor and raised a large weapon. It fired a powerful beam of charged particles towards Maximus that pierced through Spike’s shield and blew one of their arms off.
“That’s it,” Chromedome said and stepped around the corner, electro-scramblers, spectrum disruptors, and circuit welders firing at maximum rate. Weapons exploded in Klozian hands, electricity sparked through their bodies, and light and sound attacked them from every angle until they fell to the deck in quivering heaps.
The furthest Klozian ran away.
“I could have stopped them,” Maximus said as he retrieved Spike’s severed arm and held it to their shoulder for the self-repair systems to knit them back together.
“But you weren’t,” Chromedome returned with a shake of his head. “So I did. Our resources are limited, and we can’t afford to keep taking damage like this if we intend to save the ship.”
“You’re certain?”
“I ran the calculations, old friend.” Chrome sighed. “Your convictions are good. But they are forcing our hand. We have no choice.”
Maximus nodded as the arm reported nominal function again. “Very well.”
Then another voice came over their communications systems.
“Oh no!” It was the voice of Teletraan X. “I appear to be in trouble!”
“What is your situation?” Maximus demanded.
“Steelhaven’s tractors beams have locked onto me and they are dragging me inside!”
“Well, tell them to let you go!”
“I’ve already tried that!” The Ark’s computer backup sounded annoyed at that suggestion. “But you’ve been shooting so much stuff up inside that she’s decided she’s under attack and has shut down all outside communications! I’m locked out! And that’s not the worst of it! I’m being dragged into the same cargo bay the Klozian ship is docked in!”
“Unicron!” Maximus swore and aimed a quick look towards Chromedome.
Chromedome nodded in agreement.
“Show me where, and we’ll be there!” Maximus transmitted and began running down the corridor. The location pinged on his internal map, he charted the quickest course, and he realized it would take too long to arrive in this form. Which meant they had one choice.
Fortress Maximus spoke the orders of another Autobot leader for all to hear. “Autobots! Transform and roll out!”
Cog’s form exploded as Maximus and Spike separated into their component parts. Their waist and legs folded in on themselves, their arms flew out as their torso shifted into a new configuration. They hit the deck, tires and treads screaming, and slammed back together in a new mode as their weapons came back in to lock into their new hardpoints. They screeched around the corner, Maximus saw more Klozians ahead, and he powered up their thermal booster as Spike hurled electro-scrambling and spectrum disruption at their foes.
Chromedome pulled up on his own thermal boost to take up position on their flank, and the two armored half-tracks rocketed down the corridor far faster than either robot could have matched as they filled the corridor with weapons fire.
“Do not run them over!” Fortress Maximus commanded as they approached the quivering and shaking Klozians on the deck.
“Roger that!” Spike said and took over the neutron shields.
“Fine!” Stylor added as he did the same.
Maximus and Chromedome took over the disruptors and scramblers as they rocketed down the corridor, filling the center with enough electricity and visual and audio screaming to force any Klozian to the side as Spike and Stylor used their shields to fling those that couldn’t move on their own over before their wheels and treads rolled over them. Klozian bodies crashed against the bulkheads all around them as they sped down Steelhaven’s spine.
They shot through group after group of looters, leaving each one quivering and jerking against the bulkheads as they drew nearer to the cargo bay.
They turned into the massive bay and Maximus saw the Klozian ship with his own eyes for the first time. And that was when he realized it was a Decepticon shuttle. He hadn’t taken the time to examine it from Steelhaven’s sensors, but his eyes told the tale clear enough. The Decepticons truly had destroyed their world and left something behind, either on purpose or because they were sloppy. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they’d done it.
And now the Klozians were here, trying to loot his ship. Probably looking for the resources to rebuild. But he couldn’t let them do that.
His eyes caught the arrival of Teletraan X, glowing red in protest against being pulled into the bay against his will. The Klozians did not miss the glowing red object and some turned towards the Ark’s backup computer core with weapons in their hands while others turned towards the two Autobots rocketing across the bay. Maximus and Chromedome were too far away to stop them, but they were Transformers. That gave them options lesser beings did not have.
“Autobots!” Fortress Maximus shouted for everyone to hear. “Separate and boost!”
“Roger that!” Spike shouted in his mind and separated his attack buggy from the heavier and slower armored vehicle.
Then Maximus reoriented the thermal booster and slammed the back of Spike’s buggy with enough power to send his partner screaming across the cargo hold. Stylor’s buggy followed on another thermal bloom as Maximus and Chromedome came to a near stop next to each other.
“Here!” Chromedome shouted and ejected the circuit welder handguns towards Maximus. “Take these!”
“Thanks,” Maximus said as the weapons locked into his hardpoints and their systems linked up with his targeting gear.
Spike and Stylor approached Teletraan X’s bright red beacon of protest with electro-scramblers firing at maximum rate as Maximus and Chromedome fired long-range sniper fire into the Klozians surrounding the Ark’s backup computer. Shields and weapon explosions sent aliens flying in every direction as the speedy attack buggies pierced their formation. They slid up to Teletraan X and extended their shields to protect him as Klozian weapons fire deflected off them.
Maximus and Chromedome sniped Klozians as fast as their weapons recharged, destroying their weapons with direct fire or disrupting their minds with audio and visual attacks that left them unable to function. Spike’s and Stylor’s shields reported full depletion by the time Maximus and Chromedome dropped the last Klozian on the deck, but they’d protected the computer core. Teletraan X was unharmed.
“Oh, goodness!” Teletraan X said as he glowed alternating red and blue. “That was most distressing!”
Then another Klozian stepped onto the ramp of the shuttle and aimed a heavy weapon at the computer core.
Maximus and Chromedome swung their weapons around to shoot it, but they were too slow. The Klozian’s finger was on the trigger and he was pulling it.
Stylor shot the Klozian with two full power circuit welders and vaporized the alien before it could trigger the weapon.
“No!” Fortress Maximus protested. “Our job was to save them!”
Stylor turned towards him with no remorse in his manner. “And he was going to destroy everything you care about. He was going to pull the trigger. You know it. I know it. I stopped him.”
“But you didn’t have to kill him!”
Stylor spun back and forth in disagreement. “Chromedome calculated every possibility. Every option. Everything. There was only one way to assure the survival of Teletraan X and you know it. I was just the one willing to pull the trigger to stop him.”
Maximus looked towards Chromedome.
The other Autobot lowered his weapons to imitate a nod.
Maximus snapped his weapons away from where the dead Klozian had stood. “We should have found another way.”
“He didn’t give us one, old friend,” Chromedome said in a sad tone as he boosted over to join his partner.
“You agree with him?” Maximus asked in disbelief.
Chromedome came to a stop and they merged to become their robotic form. The two looked back at him, united as one. Partners. And when they spoke, it was with one voice.
“Yes.”
Maximus rolled up to Spike and they merged into Cog’s form to face Chromedome.
“They’re right, Max,” Spike said inside his mind.
Maximus shook their head in disagreement.
“You know me, Max.” Spike’s mental voice surrounded him. “You know I’m the last one to want to resort to violence. But in this case, they’re right.”
Teletraan X glowed blue and jerked into spastic motion. “Well, I for one am very happy that he did it! I was getting most concerned for my survival!”
Maximus stood still for a long moment, scanning everyone about him with an infinite sadness. “You all stand against me in this?”
“We stand beside you, old friend,” Chromedome said and their combined form walked up to do precisely that. “Even when you are wrong.”
“I am not wrong!” Maximus returned in a determined voice.
“And neither are they,” Spike’s internal voice said.
Chromedome returned his steady gaze without any give.
Maximus sighed and accepted the inevitable. They would not always agree. But they were partners. They were one.
Fortress Maximus spoke with one mind. “And neither are you.”
Chromedome nodded in agreement and turned to look at the Decepticon shuttle.
“This was a fun game,” Spike said on their private back channel.
“Game?” Maximus asked.
“Yes.” Spike smiled at him. “Game.”
Maximus aimed a mental sigh at him. “Even though we killed one of them?”
Spike brought his attention to the unconscious Klozians all around them. “Look at all the ones we saved. We did good.”
Maximus studied the Klozians for a long moment before speaking out loud for everyone to hear. “We will need to build a brig for all of these prisoners.”
“The other security bots coming out of the factory module can secure them for us,” Chromedome reported from his study of the shuttle.
“Well, since that’s taken care of,” Teletraan X said with a flashing blue light of agreement. “What do we do next?”
Maximus looked at the unconscious Klozians again. There was really only one choice. One thing he could do with them. He shared his thoughts with Spike and Spike nodded in agreement.
“Chart a course for Klo,” Fortress Maximus ordered. “We will take them home.”
“Excellent plan!” Teletraan X said and flashed a rapid blue. “I shall make the arrangements immediately!”
And then the Ark’s main computer backup began to hum in a contented manner as he hovered away and went to work activating Steelhaven’s engines once again.
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Not The End
Cog by Tim Kreusor 2026