Subject: [FANFIC 3/10] Lord of the Flies Starring the Transformers
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 00:00:00 GMT
From: David Filip <grimlock@u.washington.edu>
Organization: University of Washington
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers

        Lord of The Flies Starring the Transformers

                By David Filip

        Part Three:  The Killing Begins

        Windcharger and Bumblebee sat the last piece of shrapnel on the
roof of their creation.  Now that two of the three shelters were near
completion, they only needed to weld the parts together to ensure that
acid rain wouldn't pose a threat.  Some of the Micros walked around
lazily, doing very little, so Bumblebee called for help.
        "Hello?  Hello?"  When the littluns ignored him and laid down to
take naps, he spoke to Windcharger.  "Most of us built the first shelter,
but after a while it was just us two who built this one.  We still need
some Cybertronians with built-in welders to make the places secure, but I
don't know where everyone has run off to.  My Auntie always said..."
        The rest of this anecdote was drowned out by a screeching wall
of feedback, followed by rapid bursts of chords and soloing.  They all
recognized Thundercracker's favorite song, "Ultraviolet Haze."
        Thundercracker was an introvert who rarely yelled.  Playing this
kind of music was his way of speaking out in the world, just like his
idol, the ancient Cybertronian musician VanHendrixoid.  His playing
style was just as identifiable as a fingerprint but it was not
appreciated now.
        Windcharger grabbed the megaphone and went ballistic.  "Damnit!
I know why nobody's helping out on the shelters, they're too distracted
by Starscream's bunch!"  Under other circumstances he would have been
pleased by the music, but not now.  He released a guttural grunt and hit
the ground running when he transformed into a Corvette.
        Bumblebee sighed and transformed to his slow VW Beetle mode to
follow.  He alone would appreciate the lyrics to the next song more than
the other students.  Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" seemed a prophetic
song indeed for the events that would unfold in a matter of days.

        From the coast of gold
        across the seven seas
        I've traveled on
        far and wide
        but now it seems
        I'm just a stranger to myself
        and the things I sometimes do
        It isn't me but someone else...

        The red Corvette arrived on the scene in a matter of minutes and
it transformed into a furious gray and red robot with a megaphone held
to his face.  "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?  I'M CALLING A MEETING,
NOW!"
        Whatever anyone thought they were doing, they certainly stopped
it.  Rumble and Frenzy dropped their fanfics.  Brawl stopped trying to
figure out the difficult-to-open Swiss Army Matrix.  The band stopped
instantaneously on the beat -- in fact, they stared down on their
instruments suddenly with faces of shock and disbelief, as if they had
no idea how the instruments got there.  Thrust slapped the sides of his
face with both hands and dropped his jaw in an even greater display of
shock, and it wasn't long until everyone looked directly at their chief.
        Windcharger skidded for a few metertrons while he had the momentum
and went to the center of the commotion.  "Look at yourselves!"  he
screamed into the megaphone.  "You aren't doing anything!  We shouldn't
just sit here while there's work to be done!  Make yourselves useful!"
He wanted to say so much more, but he couldn't find the words that
expressed his anger properly.
        Luckily for the crowd, Afterburner stepped forward and provided
some good news.  "Don't worry about the situation one bit Windcharger.
A few of us kept working on the particle beam communicator while the rest
listened to the music, and the device is almost complete."
        "Yeah," Huffer said.  "It's just too bad that we don't have a
starter for it yet..."
        "Don't be like that," First Aid said in a soothing voice.  "We'll
find something that will work."  He continued, speaking to Windcharger.
"We'll need to put it on top of the mountain, of course, so we can sweep
as much of the atmosphere as possible with the beam.  It's a hit-or-miss
kind of operation, so we'd better have a good field of fire."
        This brought a welcome change of attitude to Windcharger, who
knew that a chance of going home was more important than yelling at
disobedient schoolchildren.  He nodded to First Aid and spoke into the
megaphone.  "Okay, do you hear that everyone?  We're going to bring
the communications equipment to the mountain.  I don't want anyone to
be reading any more stories, I don't want you to start playing an
instrument, I just want you to do what needs to be done.  Are you still
with me?"  He was surprised to see so many of his truant workers reply
positively to this.  They dropped all their entertaining materials,
started lifting the boxes, and helped with Skids' organization of the
equipment.  It seemed they had a chance to be rescued after all.

                        *       *       *

        Brawl cradled pieces of the particle beam generator under his
arm and made a script readable by draping it over a square box from the
frame.  He raised his free fist and cheered while reading his favorite
part from the script.  "Way to go Falling Down Man, fight for your
right to eat Womlets at eleven thirty seven!"
        Nearby, Warpath took out his Newton notepad and muttered
"'Womlet?' That sounds good," as he wrote the word down. "Hey Brawl!  
What are you SLAM reading there?"
        "It's a great Earth film called Falling Down.  It's about some
guy who works hard for his whole life and goes psycho when anyone
makes it harder.  At least that's what he's starting to do."
        Ramjet overheard this and started teasing one of the boys
within earshot.  "Huffer, do you think if we dropped some of your beam
pieces that you'd get mad and go crazy?"  He made a gesture as if to
drop the power converter.
        "No!"  Huffer yelled, almost tripping in the process.  When he
saw Ramjet resume his hike up the mountain without damaging the cargo,
Huffer started to whine.  "You shouldn't joke like that.  How are we
going to get home if you don't take care of the equipment."
        "Well...you could fix it up in a couple of hours, and I wouldn't
object to wasting your time.  He heh."
        Huffer's voice raised in pitch.  "That would be mean!  Why should
you make me go through all that work just to...to..."
        Ramjet was known to tease his fellows, but didn't ordinarily try
to get them this upset.  Huffer, of course, was extraordinarily high
strung.  "I was only joking, I didn't mean to--"
        "Don't get me mad," Huffer said, much like a child, "you won't
like me when I'm angry."  The orange robot clutched his own pieces of
the particle beam system tighter and stormed up the trail in a rage.
He hoped he could outrun the people who didn't share his view of the
beam's value.  To Huffer, it was the most important part of their stay 
on the island.
        Brawl looked over to Ramjet and Warpath in disbelief.  "What a
jerk!"  After thinking for a short while, he asked "Do you think he's
just mad because we're reading while we bring the pieces to the
mountain?"
        "Nah," Ramjet replied, "You were right the first time.  He's just 
a whiny little jerk.  Don't worry though, we're bigger than him, so we 
can just push him around any time we feel like."

                        *       *       *

        It was only a matter of astrominutes for Afterburner, First Aid,
Huffer, Beachcomber, Skids and the others to put the beam pieces together
as a near-working product.
        "You see," Huffer explained to everyone, "we need to have an
energy sparker if we want the beam to start running.  All we would have
to do is pull it through this piece with the rip cord.  But we don't
have anything with the right materials!"
        "Go on," Starscream said to no one in particular, "use a synthetic
energy sparker."
        Windcharger looked both ways and demonstrated further incompetence
with his next question.  "Does anyone have some matches?"
        Beachcomber looked at the setup they had put together, a particle
beam communications array that would send signals through this planet's
dense atmosphere.  It wouldn't be able to reach Cybertron or any other
planet, but if they were to direct it at a nearby ship, that ship would
certainly receive a distress call from their island.  It was powered by
some spare energon, but still needed something unusual to start firing
the engine.  "If anyone has a Laconia coated body part they'd care to
donate for a while, that should do the trick."
        The kids muttered to each other.  Laconia was not a very common
alloy for young boys such as these to be made of, but luck was on their
side for the time being, and Bumblebee stepped forward.  "My faceplate
is made of Laconia.  If you promise not to scratch it, I'll let you
have it."
        "Of course we won't," First Aid said as he removed the silver- 
colored reflective faceplate from the Autobot's yellow head casing, 
"we'll only need to borrow it for a short while."
        He carefully gave it to Afterburner, who placed it inside the box
that housed the rip cord.  A couple violent yanks on the cord produced
a humming sound, and the particle beam shot out into the sky.  Afterburner
handed the faceplate back to Bumblebee and spoke to Windcharger.  "You'll
have to put someone in control of this beam at all times.  It will only be
effective if a Transformer can target the ships outside the atmosphere
and make sure they receive the message.  If a ship makes it inside the
atmosphere--"
        "I can't imagine why it would unless it's supposed to rescue us,"
Brawn butted in.
        "As I was saying," the Technobot continued, "lower the Particle
Beam intensity level if you want to make contact with a ship inside the
atmosphere.  This beam is powerful and takes up a lot of energy, and I
don't want us to shoot down our rescuers."
        Skids stepped forward, proud of his part in the device's creation.  
Even if he only spoke about what its shortcomings, he felt motivated to 
remind the others of his work.  "It's only too bad we couldn't have created 
a built-in tracking computer for it.  Then it could operate all by itself."
        "Let's not forget something very important," Huffer warned his
fellows.  "It runs on energon cubes that have to be processed through
Transformers.  EnerFruit just doesn't cut it for this thing, so we'll
have eat some fruit first, and then have a Cybertronian regurgitate it
once it's been processed for his system.  That's what I did, and I'm
still a little tired from the experience."
        The Micros were extremely repulsed by this idea, as many of the
other Transformers were.  Starscream found an opportunity to promote
one of his goals here, and would have felt foolish if he passed this
opportunity up.  "But what if we hunted a creature with energy already
in it, like a Quintesson?"
        First Aid thought about it, then said "That just might work.
Poor Huffer over here had to give up all of his energon and was
deactivated for about five minutes until his energy converter processed
the EnerFruit.  I think that if a Quintesson's energon is compatible,
hunting would be a much better way to get the energy.  Of course I'm
personally against hunting..."
        Skids jumped in on the conversation.  "Isn't it wrong to
kill when we don't have a good reason?  There must be some other way to
get the energon, at least one that doesn't violate any of our morals."
        Skids' words echoed in all of their thoughts, because they
remembered that Cybertron was a peaceful, happy place, and that nothing
was ever killed or harmed while there.
        Beachcomber added "the Cybertronian standards of peace and
prosperity must be upheld throughout the galaxy.  If we don't hold
this universe together, who will?"  Even more of the robots started
to question the act of hunting.
        "Killing is wrong, can you just stick to songs?"   Wheelie asked 
the choir.
        Windcharger thought for a moment, then folded his arms and said
"They have a pretty tough argument to top.  So what do you say,
Starscream?  I don't suppose it could be too harmful for some of us
to give up our own functionality for a couple minutes as long as we
can keep this particle beam running."
        Starscream came up with a counter argument that won the support of
the littluns in a heartbeat.  "When we go to Earth or Bajor to laugh at
the primitives, are we doing something wrong?  No, of course not, we're
just there using the resources.  So if we go out here and stab a
Quintesson to death, then drain it of its energon, is that really any
different?"
        Bumblebee saw a tremendous difference, but the rest of the youths
present nodded their heads and made comments like "he's got a pretty
good point," and "I guess we can't argue with that."
        Even more disturbing to Bumblebee was the fact that Windcharger
was swayed by Starscream's analogy as well.  "Okay Starscream, you can
go out and hunt a Quintesson.  Just drain the energon quickly, and bring
it back to the mountaintop."  To make sure Starscream didn't get away from
this experience with everything he wanted (or more clearly in the chief's
mind, for Windcharger to feel as if he were truly giving the orders and
not parroting his followers) he added "but you have to leave a hunter
behind to man the particle beam.  It doesn't have a targeting system of
its own, you know."
        Thundercracker didn't really feel like hunting, so he raised his
hand to volunteer.  Starscream picked Ramjet to stay instead, but then
thought about this decision while his chief spoke.  Windcharger was
satisfied with this particular arrangement, and told his audience "we
can't just bore poor Ramjet for the rest of the time that we're on this
planet.  We'll rotate in 10 astrohour shifts, so each of us will take our
turn at p-beam duty.  With this planet's rotation speed that means a
full day and night for each turn.  That's not unfair.  Rumble, Frenzy; go
to the trees on the side of the mountain and get some good EnerFruit while
the rest of us keep working.  When you're done, you get to relieve
Ramjet.  If there are no more issues to attend to, the rest of us will
work on the shelters again."
        "I have a question," Dirge spoke in his usual grim baritone.
"Since we're the hunters, we're supposed to use the Swiss Army Matrices,
right?  But I can't figure out how to open mine.  Is it just because I'm a
Decepticon that I can't open the Matrix?"
        "No, no."  First Aid held up his own Swiss Army Matrix.  "There
are actually enough of these for all the biguns, and any Autobot or
Decepticon can use them.  Just push in and twist.  That's all there is
to it."  As the small red and white Autobot did this, his Matrix opened
to reveal a magnifying glass, a wire cutter, a cellular phone, a spork,
a duct tape dispenser and other tools.  Of course, it also had a knife.
        The crowd was slow to disperse, and Starscream examined a Swiss
Army Matrix while he spoke.  "I don't know if five hunters will be
enough," he told his choir.  Knowing he was out of Windcharger's
earshot, he whispered "Ramjet, come back."
        "But who will take care of the particle beam?"
        "Find someone!"
        Ramjet walked to the beam and shut it off while he looked for the
nearest Transformer.  "Hey Afterburner, you have to look out for
particle beam now."
        Afterburner looked back and grumbled.  Then he, too, discovered
he could pass the buck.  He changed from a robot to a closed-cab motorcycle 
and drove by Brawl and Brawn.  He couldn't decide which to relegate the 
duty to, so he yelled "Hey Brawln.  It's your turn to watch the particle 
beam.  Got it?"
        After hearing the word "Brawln," the two similarly named robots
each thought the other was chosen to stay on the mountain with the signal 
device.  To clarify this for sure, Brawn asked "What was that?" but 
Afterburner's speedy motorcycle form had taken him too far away to hear.
        To Brawl, Brawn said "You heard him," hoping this comment would 
elicit a reaction from Brawl that would demonstrate a clearer understanding 
of Afterburner's words.
        Brawl, still unsure himself, never liked to appear indecisive.
"Yep, I heard him."
        "Good."
        "Yeah, I guess."
        "So we know who's going to look out for the particle beam?"
        "Uh, of course I know."
        "Me too."
        "Yeah."
        "Right."
        They parted ways to look for scrap metal for the third shelter and
neither went back up the mountain.

                        *       *       *

        "Dirge, be careful with that knife!"  Starscream warned as his
team of jets swooped down from the sky and transformed into robots on a
natural trail.  "You could hurt yourself."
        Remembering to push in and THEN to twist, they all revealed the
knives of their Swiss Army Matrices.  As they walked along the trail,
the hunters noticed burn patterns indicative of the Quintessons'
energy-flotation beams.  They closed in on the burns with knifes at the
ready, and spotted an unusual sight.
        "What's that?" Thrust asked.
        "I don't know," Dirge told his red friend, "I'm majoring in wood
shop."
        The Quintesson droppings were warm.  They were vaguely shaped
like a cube and pink in color, but were not fluorescent like energon
cubes.  In fact, they were grotesque solid objects with diced white
pieces of pork fat staggered periodically in the mass.  Each dropping
was covered with a salty-smelling slime.  It was so shocking to the eye
that Thrust stared down on it for a few moments, even while the others
were following the trail.  "Come on," Skywarp prodded, as he pushed Thrust
along the path "you're starting to go crackers on us."
        "But it was just so horrible."
        "Quiet!"  Starscream told his minions.  "We're very close."  He
pointed under a patch of creepers, and the movement of tentacled shadows
and rotating multi-faced creatures was undeniable.  "We must plan our
attack carefully, lest the Quintessons escape..."
        "Uh, Starscream,"  Dirge mumbled, obviously more distressed
than usual.  "These knives are too sharp.  I just cut off some of my
fingers."
        Starscream sighed.  "I told you it was sharp.  You should have
been more careful.  Now you'll have to wait for repairs."  He sighed
again.  "Hold the Swiss Army Matrix properly in your other hand or I
won't allow you to use it at all.  Now where was I?..I was planning our
attack.  Should we try to get the whole group?"
        Skywarp watched the shadows through the jungle carefully.  "No,
it looks like there are at least thirty of them.  I say we just get one
big one."
        "Yes," Starscream started to rub his chin, "that would be very
simple and very effective."  He pointed to the plumpest Quintesson in
the pack, and told his hunters to fan out.  The Quintessons muttered to
each other quietly with each face while using their wire-like tentacles
to pull EnerFruit from the trees.
        "Get ready to surround the fat one on three...ready...THREE!"
        A trio of Starscream's warriors had fanned out enough to cut off
some viable escape routes, but the target Quintesson was still able to
run past Skywarp, Thrust and Ramjet.  Nearby, Thundercracker dived in
an attempt to tackle the creature, but only succeeded in grabbing a
tentacle.  The Quintesson was slowed down by this action, but still ran
through the path in the forest at a brusque pace.
        "Aaaaauuuggggghhh," Thundercracker muttered as he was dragged
along, "this is a tough one.  Can somebody help?"  Soon his request
became moot as he was smashed into a tree and let go.
        The Quintesson started to accelerate, but Ramjet transformed into
his aircraft mode and quickly placed himself in the way with a controlled
crash.  The Quintesson turned to travel down another part of the path, but
Skywarp teleported directly in front of him.  "Try to get out of this now,
you half organic pip-squeak!"
        The Quintesson had only one direction to turn, and found
Starscream and Dirge there to grab him.  "Dirge, hold him still while
I slit his throats."
        "I can't.  I think I lost a few more fingers."
        "No matter," Starscream smiled as he used his sharp Swiss Army
Matrix to slash one, two, three, four, and finally all five throats on
the bulbous Quintesson's body.  Naturally, it stopped squirming and its
energy beam ceased to hold it upright.
        Skywarp and Thrust ran over and materialized energon cube shells
to catch the geyser of EnerBlood pouring from the Quintesson, and
Thundercracker and Ramjet walked to watch the spectacle.  Thundercracker
was aghast when he looked at Starscream.  "The Quintesson's energon...it's
spilled all over you!"
        Starscream was sponging the EnerBlood up with a cube shell.  "It
feels surprisingly warm and pleasant.  Besides, isn't that what we've
come for?"

                        *       *       *

        "The atmosphere is too thick here, our communications have been
cut again," Scourge 4033 reported to his friend, "we could be walking
into a trap.  I was able to inform Unicron about today's events, but I
think we are in severe danger without his guidance.  Now that we just
saw them shoot that beam in the air, I'm starting to worry."
        Cyclonus 2795 didn't even bother to look back from his control
console.  "Nonsense.  The energy discharge we detected from the island
was a powerful particle beam, but they were using it as some kind of
signaling device."  He cracked a lopsided smile.  "If they could only
leave it active for a couple astroseconds, I doubt they could be a
threat to us."
        Scourge checked his instrument panel.  "They aren't far away.  We
should be able to find out if they are a threat soon enough."

                        *       *       *

        "Keep working!"  Windcharger yelled to anyone who still listened.
"We have to finish up with these shelters.  We never know when the weather
is going to change."
        "It was more fun when Starscream let us listen to music,"
Powerglide muttered to Warpath as they welded more of the shelter's
frames together.
        "ZOODLE," Warpath agreed.  "Lot's more fun."
        Powerglide almost laughed.  "Zoodle?"
        "I'd like to see YOU try coming up with more of those sayings.
Especially with the slave driver up there."
        "I heard that," Windcharger told them.  "I'm sorry if I'm not
as much fun as I was when we were just students, but there are more 
important things that we have to get done."
        "I suppose," the workers muttered.
        Bumblebee walked over to report to Windcharger.  "The first two
shelters have finally been welded together.  The third one still needs
a lot of work, but--" here Bumblebee stopped dead in his tracks.  "There's
a ship!  A ship!  You know what my Auntie always says!  She says--"
        Windcharger felt elated, but his attention suddenly focused on
a devastating conversation that took place between Brawl and Brawn.
"What do you mean, I should be on the mountain?  Afterburner specifically 
told you to--"
        "Uh uh!  No way Brawn!  I heard it loud and clear.  He said 'hey
Brawn, go do that stuff on the mountain while I do some other stuff.
Don't bother Brawl with it either.'  I have a stroboscopic memory, so I
know it for sure.  That's exactly what he said!"
        "No he didn't!"
        Windcharger ran over to them.  "What about the mountain?  The
only thing that's going on in the mountain is Rumble and Frenzy's trip
for more EnerFruit and Ramjet's watch over the particle beam."
        Afterburner overheard the conversation and commented while he
started welding some metal together for the dome-shaped shelters.
"Ramjet told me to take care of it, but I didn't want to do it, so I
told Brawl or Brawn to take it."
        Windcharger noticed a sinking feeling.  "Which one?"
        "I don't remember...I think I just said 'Brawln' and thought
they'd figure it out by themselves."
        Every participant turned their heads sharply as they followed
Bumblebee's pointed finger to the mountain.  "I have a lot of advanced
optical scanners, and from what I can tell, the beam is definitely off.
There's no way the ship can get our message, not even by accident."
        Now the other Cybertronians present whipped their heads in his
direction.  It was so quick and so instantaneous, the movement produced
an audible snap in the air.
        Windcharger shook his head with rage and spoke into the megaphone.
"Everyone, go to the mountain.  NOW!"

                        *       *       *

        The six jets flew over the shelters, but saw only the occasional
littlun running around or playing.  This was very odd, so they checked
the island until they found the bulk of the refugees.  Starscream
didn't care what the littluns thought, but he felt the urge to impress
all the biguns with his hunting skills.  Each jet carried an energon
cube derived from the Quintesson and Thrust carried the carcass itself.
Surely they could feast on the dead animal's body just as they had with
the EnerFruit, but this was a bounty to be shared.  Where were his
fellow students?
        "I can see them now," Skywarp reported.  "They're running up the
path from the shuttle crash.  I think they're headed to the top of the
mountain."
        "Well then, let us land there and intercept them.  I can't wait
to see the looks on their faces.  They'll be deeply jealous of our
hunting abilities!"
        Transforming to robot mode, they landed quickly to arrange the
dead Quintesson and his energon tastefully by a tree.  Starscream
couldn't wait to hear his friends' praise as he saw them climbing to
the top.
        "You blasted idiots!"  Windcharger yelled at the choir.  "Look
what you've done!  You left the beam!"
        "So we did.  But look at the Quintesson we captured!  Look at how
much energon we were able to--"
        "You left the beam."
        Thundercracker heard Windcharger's voice and became very afraid.
There was some importance to the beam that he knew, he KNEW he shouldn't 
have ignored, but couldn't find the willpower to speak over Starscream's 
authoritative presence.
        Starscream did not notice the importance of the beam, however,
and continued to speak.  "The choir and I came up with this cool song
while we came back with that animal.  Let's sing it!"  Thundercracker
did not join in, but the other jets didn't notice his absence from their
melody.

        Kill the Quintesson!
        Cut his fuel line!
        Spill his energon!

        Windcharger's repeated reply was so stern and haunting to the
choir that they all stopped immediately.  "You left the beam."
        Starscream, realizing he made an error of some sort, got
defensive.  "So what?  So I left the beam?  That's no big deal, we
could just start it up again some other time.  Anyway we were looking
for the right Quint' to kill, you should have seen the EnerBlood--"
        "There was a ship.  They might have gotten a message by now"
        This moment was too bitter for Bumblebee, who suddenly blurted
out "You and your EnerBlood, Starscream!  You and your hunting!  We
might be on our way home--"
        Windcharger stepped in front of Bumblebee.  "I was chief, and you
were going to do what I say.  But you talk.  You jam.  You read.  You
can't even help to build shelters, then you run off and abandon the
particle beam.  You even set the charge level to zero before you left!
What's with you?"
        Thrust and Dirge started to cry.  The dismal truth was filtering
through to everyone.  Starscream pointed at the Quintesson in an attempt
to defend his actions.  "The job was too much.  We needed everyone--"
        "You could have asked the rest of us to help!  We were working on
the shelters the whole time, but you had to--"
        "But we needed meeeeeat!"  The two boys faced each other.  There
was the world of hunting, tactics and fierce exhilaration; then there
was the world of longing and baffled common sense.
        Before either of the boys had another word to say, Afterburner
spoke.  "You know guys, that ship is still out there.  If we fire up the
beam again, there's a chance--"
        Starscream suddenly felt he could save face in front of the other
kids if he played this situation right.  Without saying word, he opened his
knife, sliced Bumblebee's Laconia faceplate off, and threw it in the starter
unit.  He pulled on the rip cord just as Afterburner had before, and heard
the purring of the reactor.  He quickly flipped all the charge dials to
maximum and waited for a beam to be shot forth from the device.
        "See?" Starscream asked his companions.  "I'm targeting the ship
right now.  Everything is going to be fine."
        Bumblebee could not see or speak without the eyes or vocal
synthesizer in his faceplate, so he waved his arms around while waiting
for his face to be returned.  It was not needed after the beam started,
so Huffer took it out of the starter box and carefully reattached it
to the loose wires that were currently Bumblebee's face.  "That wasn't
nice, Starscream," the repair robot said.
        Bumblebee started to complain when his faceplate was reattached.
"Starscream, look what you did!  I would have let you had my faceplate
for a second, but you just ripped it off!  You damaged a lot of the
internal circuitry!  I can't see out of half the optical scanner--"
        Starscream lunged at Bumblebee, who whined and scrambled away
until a large rock lay between them.  He glared at Starscream with half
of his face covered in dents.  "Now I can only see from one side!  Just
you wait--"
        Skywarp mimicked the whine and scramble.  "Just you wait!
Yeah, Cockroach."
        Bumblebee and the parody amused the children greatly, encouraging
Skywarp to continue his mimicry.  This brought the group to a new level
of hysteria, and Windcharger became angry when he realized he started
to laugh at the scene himself.  "That was a dirty trick."
        Starscream smiled while answering his accusation.  "It can be
repaired later.  After all, I signaled the ship.  Don't you see how
close it's getting to the island?"
        Laserbeak apparently had been flying while they spoke, and
returned with a distressed squawk.
        First Aid shook his head.  "Laserbeak, that's not possible.  We
specifically made the beam's energy levels adjustable so--"
        Laserbeak squawked again.
        Skids was seated at the time, but quickly rose to his feet.
"That would only be possible if someone left the beam power for the
outer-atmospheric contact the same as if it were for contact with a
ship in the inner-atmosphere.  Starscream, did you change any of the
charge settings?"
        "Well I had to if we wanted to power the beam up fast enough."
        Laserbeak screeched angrily, and Starscream jumped back.
        "I would never do something like that.  Intentionally, I mean..."
        Bumblebee started to look out at the ship with the good half of
his optical visor.  "I can see the ship.  Laserbeak is right.  You did
it Starscream, they got the signal all right."  He smirked sarcastically.
"I hope you're satisfied."
        Huffer started to break down, then suddenly thrust one of the
four fingers on his right hand-claw at the hunters.  "This is all your
fault!  You just wanted to go out hunting, but you weren't paying
attention to the beam strength, and Starscream over here raised the
charge level too high.  You used a beam level that was meant for
getting ships in SPACE on a ship in our atmosphere!  You SHOT OUR
RESCUERS!"  Huffer collapsed to his knees and started to cry.  "Those
were our rescuers, and you blew 'em up!  Damn you bastards, damn you
straight to HELL!"
        "Uh, guys..." Beachcomber started to say calmly, "I really think
we should see about that ship we zapped--"
        "It doesn't make a difference," Brawn started to say.  Pointing
to the red and black hunter, he said "it's going down and that's that.
It's all Ramjet's fault.  You're the one who left your post!"
        "But I'm not Ramjet," Thrust said, pointing to the white and red
robot, "he is."
        The real Ramjet nodded his head and shot back an angry reply.
"Can't you idiots tell us apart?"
        "How do you think we should?"  Wheelie asked.  "Be more alike,
you could?"
        Brawn persisted.  "Yeah, you guys are all the same anyway."
        "We are not!"  Thrust, Ramjet, and Dirge replied simultaneously.
The three coneheaded robots turned to look at each other with faces of
surprise once this happened.
        Beachcomber raised up and down on his ankle hydraulics.  "Guys,
the ship is, uh..."
        Bumblebee stepped forward to address the angry crowd.  "Why don't
we wait and talk about the problem first.  We can't hardly expect to --
what was that Beachcomber?"
        "The ship didn't blow up completely, it was only damaged by the
beam.  It's going to crash on this island.  On the mountain."  He looked
both ways nervously and spoke the next two words with quiet fear.  "On us."
        This created a tremendous panic among the young Cybertronians.
Windcharger called out to his followers to run to the other side of the
mountain, but they weren't listening.  Everywhere he looked, he saw a
Transformer running in one different direction from every other
Transformer, each uttering a scream of terror.
        Off one side of the mountain, he saw the Micro who had warned the
assembly of the beast earlier that day.  On another side of the mountain,
Brawl, First Aid and Skids jumped into one of the nearby caves, hoping it
wouldn't collapse when the ship crashed.  Brawn, Huffer, and several of
the others huddled behind Afterburner and waited for the Technobot to
raise his force field.  Powerglide and the hunters changed into their
aircraft forms and took to the skies to join Laserbeak.  Bumblebee looked
on motionlessly, repeatedly muttering "You wanted a ship.  There's your
ship."
        Windcharger grabbed Bumblebee and dragged him while running off
to the opposite side of the mountain.  He yelled into the megaphone.
"Hey!  Go to this side!  It's guaranteed to be safer over here!  Run to
this...ah, forget it."
        Suddenly a littlun shouted into the air.  "Run for your lives,
we're all gonna die!"  Windcharger dived behind an EnerFruit tree and
looked up at the spectacle that awaited.  The ship that came flying in
was engulfed in flames...

                        *       *       *

        Scourge fell back from his console.  "It's a direct hit!  We're
going to crash!  Maybe if we detonate three quarters of the ship we can
fake our deaths!"
        Cyclonus growled and replied without turning away from the
viewscreen.  "Perhaps that advice would be useful if they didn't
already destroy more than three quarters of our ship.  We will be
faking nothing!"
        Scourge remembered his dialogue with Cyclonus earlier that day,
when his partner had discounted the Cybertronian threat.  "Well Cyclonus,
how about that?  I was right, you were wrong."
        "Enough Scourge!"  This was followed by the explosion of the
guidance computer, the last functioning device on board.
        Scourge persisted.  "I said they were going to be great warriors.
You didn't."
        "Enough!"
        "Maybe Unicron should stop making Cycloni as a part of his scout
parties, and maybe he should make nothing more than Sweep models?  He
already makes more of me than he does of you, so I think it's only a
matter of time--"
        Cyclonus was angry that he could have been so wrong in judging
the situation, but he could not tolerate Scourge's treacherous slander.
"I SAID ENOUGH!  Unicron makes fewer Cycloni because he needs a few
intelligent leaders to tell his idiotic lamebrains what to do!"
        "Really?  How come the idiotic lamebrain Cyclonus that I had to
work with didn't know how dangerous the assignment would be?"
        Now Cyclonus was angry beyond words, and ignored the view of the
mountain spiraling in their path.  He lifted his blaster in a final
attempt to kill Scourge before the crash of their ship.  "You will die
for your stupidity, even if it is only three seconds before I do!"
        Scourge leaned off to one side as Cyclonus fired.  Cyclonus' shot
blew open the cargo hatch, and the decrease in air pressure sent Scourge
flying out the door.  Disappointed that he could not kill his comrade,
Cyclonus turned to look out the window, and saw oblivion in the blink of
an eye.

                        *       *       *

        From outside the ship, Scourge fell through the trees below and
crashed to the ground head first.  By the time he looked up, Cyclonus'
ship crashed into the side of the mountain, spreading shrapnel everywhere.
A tremendous fire burst forth from the wreckage, and set many of the
EnerFruit trees ablaze.  Each had a cluster of fruit that burst suddenly
with each lick of fire, and it wasn't long before he found a wall of
devastation spreading across the mountain.  The irony of Cyclonus' last
act and its lifesaving consequences were not lost on Unicron's hunter.
        Scourge thought he saw Cyclonus' lifeless body fall out of the
ship, but it was of no consequence.  Through the fire and destruction
of his vessel, a new task soon became clear.
        "I must defeat the Cybertronians, now more than ever."  He decided
that he would find how many Cybertronians were here, what powers they
possessed, and then would either capture one or return to the Quintesson's
mainland continent to request help from there.  In the meantime, he was
on his own.

-----David Filip------------------------ grimlock@u.washington.edu -----
Are you tired of conformity on the internet?  You can rebel against
the culture of the net in four easy steps!
1)  Thank and encourage crossposters.
2)  Discuss politics politely.
3)  Support censorship.
4)  Praise Apple Computers, Intel, Microsoft, AOL and the entertainment
  industry for a job well done.