Exiles (34 page)

This was crazy.

The only thing that would make me feel better right now
, Prowl thought,
is to shoot down a Seeker with a missile
.

He fired.

The missile, crossing paths with a fusillade of missiles from the incoming Seekers, missed Starscream but hit Skywarp squarely at the base of one wing. The explosion buffeted Slipstream, who had been just above Skywarp,
ruining her aim. She fired at the Ark but missed, her energy cannons chewing trenches in the junkscape around the Autobot ship.

But Starscream and Thundercracker were right on target. Their missiles exploded in a jagged line across the Ark’s flank, from the bridge most of the way back to the newly plated hull covering the fuel reservoir that Clocker and Mainspring, with the help of the Junkions, had just finished welding and sealing into place.

“Well, I’ll be …” Clocker never finished the sentence because another missile knocked him off his feet. Mainspring flicked out twin energy cannons and stitched a line of holes across the bottom of Starscream’s fuselage as the Seekers screamed overhead before banking out in a wide sweep to come in for another pass. Skywarp, the Autobots noticed, was lagging significantly behind and trailing smoke from his damaged wing.

Prowl fired again as the Seekers came around. This time his missile hit Starscream a glancing blow before detonating in the Seeker’s wake. A rain of missiles and energy blasts fell among the Autobot defenders.

That was when another one of Prowl’s tracking devices pinged to let him know the subject had come back within range. Each of them had an individual frequency and signal, but Prowl couldn’t believe he was hearing the one he was hearing.

He glanced down at it, ducking away from the spray of shrapnel and debris raised by a missile impact between him and the Ark.

It was true. Prowl raised his head again and looked around, trying to get the signal’s bearings to match up with the real-world environment.

“Optimus?” he said.

The Space Bridge near Solus Prime’s tomb accepted the four bots smoothly. As had happened the last time, there
was something strange—almost a hesitation—in their sense of reality, of existence, before they appeared …

… and slammed—Silverbolt first and then the other three in a tumble—into a huge pile of slag and twisted metal and the cinders that were the residue of superhot polymer blast furnaces.

“No,” Silverbolt said as he reassumed bot-form and dug his way out of the minor junkslide the impact had created.

“Yes,” Optimus Prime said.

Bumblebee squawked as Silverbot said, “We’re back on Junkion!”

The implications of this dawned on each bot individually, except Chaindrive, who had just arrived and still was having a little trouble assimilating the fluid and complicated situation. He was looking around at the immensity of the pit and the industrial works it contained. He might also, speculated Optimus Prime, have been looking at the clear signals of battle coming from the highest rim of the pit … or at the one bot, a recently deceased Decepticon, who came bouncing and bumbling down the terraces to crash near where the four Autobots had reappeared.

“If we are on Junkion, then the Requiem Blaster is here,” Optimus Prime said. “And so is Megatron; I can feel his proximity. So now is the time to discover what happens when this puzzle is put together.”

He thought furiously. How could he not have anticipated this? The Matrix had led them to Junkion, and he had delved deep into its interior. How had he not sensed something as powerful as the Requiem Blaster? Was it cloaked, or had Optimus Prime been so certain that the object of his quest was the Star Saber that he had let his judgment be clouded by that certainty?

A fusillade of energy fire blasted into the pit walls nearby, spurring Optimus Prime out of his reverie.

“We should maybe get behind some cover,” Silverbolt said. All four of them scrambled, ultimately finding a recess in the wall, a cavity created by the most recent dig in that area. Once in a more secure position, Silverbolt added, “We should get a ping out to Prowl and Sideswipe, too, make sure they know we’re back.” A rumble shook the ground below their feet, dislodging long-impacted pieces of junk from the walls and arching ceiling of their makeshift cave.

Optimus Prime looked at the ground between his feet and began to understand. “We need to hurry,” he said. “Silverbolt, inform the other bots that we are back. But I might not be able to stay until they can rendezvous with us.”

He looked at the pieces of metal in his cupped hands and said, “We now know that we do not have the Star Saber. But what do we have?”

He held out his hands and let the five pieces of metal drop over a piece of sheet metal that would serve as a makeshift tabletop. They fell in a pattern, hooked ends toward the center and arms radiating symmetrically outward. Another tremor shook them back and forth on the table’s surface, but they maintained their symmetrical relationship to one another.

“When I dropped four of them, they did the same thing,” he said. “Also three. But two only? Then they just fell as you would expect two pieces of metal to fall. Something greater happens the more of them are interacting simultaneously. Ideas?”

“They’re like the hands of a clock,” Chaindrive said.

“Except there are five of them,” Silverbolt pointed out.

Optimus Prime had been considering this problem. He stepped forward and looked again at the five pieces where they lay on the ancient steel sheet. Once, perhaps, it had covered a bulkhead on a starfaring ship … Junkion
was like a great puzzle, every piece of it a hint of long-forgotten history. “Perhaps it is a sort of clock that measures something more than time,” he said. “Or
different
from time.”

“Alpha Trion told me that Vector Prime hid himself away in another dimension,” Chaindrive said. “If we think of those clock hands as pointing toward coordinates …”

“Yes,” Optimus Prime said. “Two for time, three for space.” And with that idea in his head, he thought he knew where that set of coordinates might be found.

Before leaving Cybertron, during his last consultation with Alpha Trion, Optimus Prime had asked whether he might take a copy of the Covenant with him. Alpha Trion had informed him that that was not possible. “The Covenant does not permit itself to be copied,” he had said. “It does not even permit some parts of itself to be memorized.”

Shuffling among the litter of artifacts and scholarly flotsam on his desk, Alpha Trion had come up with a data gem. “You may, however, take this with you,” he had said. “The Covenant states that you will. I have had it in my possession for so great a span of time that I no longer remember where it came from. I would tell you to consider it a gift, but the truth is, I have no real choice about whether I give it to you or not. The Covenant removed that choice long ago.”

Optimus Prime had accepted the gem. “I’ll say thank you, anyway.”

“Your sense of decorum is impeccable,” Alpha Trion had replied. As usual, Optimus hadn’t been able to tell whether he had been joking. Alpha Trion’s sense of humor showed itself rarely, and a bot could almost never be certain whether the archivist was being proper or gently mocking.

Further consideration of Alpha Trion’s humor had been interrupted by a glow from the data gem. A sparkling beam had appeared, linking it with the center of Optimus Prime’s torso, where lay the Matrix of Leadership. It had lasted just a moment, but when it was gone, so, too, was the gem. “The Matrix has taken the information into itself,” Alpha Trion had observed. “You are not meant to know of it yet.”

“Then I will trust that the Matrix will reveal it to me at the correct time.”

Now, thinking back on that conversation, Optimus wondered if the correct time had come. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on the gem, feeling a response from the Matrix within him. Silverbolt and Bumblebee watched, curious but calm. They had long since grown used to the Matrix’s revelations and could tell when Optimus Prime was experiencing one. Ratchet and Jazz came scrambling into the cave, having gotten Silverbolt’s message.

“Status update,” Jazz said. “It’s hell out there. Megatron’s bringing in the
Nemesis
, and unless I miss my guess, he’s going to bring it right down here. It’s already close enough that we’re having to redeploy away from it.”

Debris erupted from the bottom of the pit, hanging in the column of a tractor beam. Tracing the beam, the Autobots saw that the
Nemesis
was lowering itself over the center of the pit. It had come down nearly to the level of Junkion’s surface. Futile streaks of Autobot defensive fire crackled on its surface, but the
Nemesis
did not even bother to return fire. Evidently it had a single task: recovering the Requiem Blaster.

“Let Megatron search,” Optimus Prime said with a confidence he wasn’t sure he should have. He did, though. The answer was close, and he would find it as
long as he listened to the Matrix. “We will be ready for him.”

“Also, the Seekers are shooting up the Ark, but Prowl took a pretty fair piece out of Skywarp,” Ratchet said. “He got away, but I don’t think he’s going to be flying again until he puts in some shop time.”

The five pieces lay on the table as Optimus Prime approached, eyes still closed. He opened them and arranged three of the pieces to create a center and a triad of legs radiating out. After a pause, he moved two of the legs to make the angle they created more acute. This done, he tapped his chest, and the three pieces rose into the air over the table, hovering in midair as they arranged themselves in space to create a three-dimensional figure. Optimus Prime picked up the fourth piece and placed it parallel to the floor with one end of it at the center of the figure. When he took his hand away, it, too, remained suspended in the air.

“You feel that?” Silverbolt said. Bumblebee nodded. When Optimus had placed the fourth piece, it was as if a chord had been struck in the fabric of time and space. Now he held the fifth. He reached out and placed it in the air a short distance above the other four, using both hands to angle it. When he let it go, the five pieces together formed what looked like a strange three-dimensional rune. One after another, each of the five pieces lit up, and their ends were linked by curving arcs of indigo radiance.

“This was never the Star Saber,” Optimus Prime said. “It’s …”

“It’s a gateway,” Ratchet said.

Optimus Prime was nodding. “A gateway to Vector Prime. It was once known as the Blades of Time. It was created by Vector Prime, as he had the power of space and time. He created this key to open the portals between the dimensions of space. He must have left it behind
when he withdrew, knowing that someday Cybertron would have need of him again.”

As he spoke, they all felt a vibration in space, surrounding them and creating harmonics within each bot’s body. Each of them save Optimus Prime took a cautious step back.

“Tell you what,” Jazz said, “I’m getting a little sick of running across all of these hugely powerful and ancient artifacts. What I could use is a McAdams and something dumb to watch while I drink it. Like a race or something. When’s the next Speedia?”

“Shut up, already,” Sideswipe said. “There won’t be a next Speedia if we let Megatron take over Velocitron and everywhere else he goes.”

“Enough,” said Optimus Prime.

Turning back to Optimus Prime, Ratchet said, “What happens now?”

Optimus Prime reached out until his open palm was nearly touching the perimeter of the gateway. “The only thing to do is open it,” he said, and touched it with the tip of a finger.

The gate, opening, tore a hole in space and time. It had no color and no definable outline. It was a field, an intrusion from another dimensional logic, and every bot present felt right down to its Spark that entering that field might well be the last thing it ever did. The five pieces of the key had vanished as if annihilated by the energies of the gate’s creation. Nevertheless, Optimus Prime stepped right up to it, feeling the fabric of reality come unraveled within arm’s reach. “None of you have to go with me,” he said. “When I return, I will let you know if it is safe. Or if another trip through this gateway is needed at all.”

“With you?” Silverbolt said. “One of us should go instead of you.”

Optimus Prime shook his head. “No. I am Prime. This is my burden, my responsibility. Already I give the Autobots too much to bear.”
And the Junkions
, he thought.

Everywhere we go
, he thought—
everywhere I go—misery spreads in our wake like the disintegrating debris field of Junkion
.

Perhaps it will take one of the Thirteen to show me the way to lead the Autobots without destroying them
.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Optimus Prime said, and stepped through the gateway.

He felt something happen to his senses, but when the sensation had passed, he still saw, heard, felt. Around him was an infinite black speckled with stars. Below his feet he felt a hard surface but could not see it or discern its outlines except by the absence of stars. He looked around, and his optics adjusted, shifting into different frequencies to take advantage of the starlight. His surroundings resolved themselves.

A flat and featureless black plain stretched around him. Optimus Prime turned in a complete circle, and just before completing it he registered the presence of another figure on the plain. It was far enough away to be just at the limit of his ability to perceive it. Optimus began walking.

“Optimus Prime,” the figure greeted him as he drew near.

Optimus inclined his head. “Vector Prime.”

“Yes.”

“For a long time I thought you were a myth,” Optimus Prime said.

Vector Prime did not seem upset by this. “Such is the nature of the passage of time,” he said. “Had you not known Alpha Trion personally, you might have thought all of the Thirteen were just stories.”

This was true. Optimus Prime took some time to consider
it. Then he shook himself out of the reverie and asked, “Does time pass here at the same rate it does in … where I came from?”