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  “Our problems are many,” Override said. “Resources are dwindling, and our star is beginning to emit unusual radiation. You have not seen this yet, but you will. Its storms cripple and destroy our communications, which we then have to spend precious resources to rebuild. Trace elements for communications networks are rare to begin with, and our star’s recent activity has brought this to a crisis point.” She paused, looking from Optimus Prime to Jazz to Bumblebee to Silverbolt, regarding them as if she wanted to make sure the gravity of the situation had registered.

  “That is why I am glad you are here,” she said when they did not make any response. “We have been waiting for help from Cybertron for a very long time.”

  Waiting to make planetfall with the second Autobot team, Prowl looked down on the crisscrossed face of Velocitron and listened to the transmissions from the first landing team. He thought he might like to race some of these bots. He was among the fastest Cybertronians and had taken some practice laps at Hydrax Speedway, but he didn’t have to watch these bots for long to know that they made speed an art.

  However, like most art, their speed was useless. What could they do with it? Prowl had seen plenty of fast bots die in the war and plenty of slow bots survive. Everything was now filtered through his experience of the war. He rarely trusted another bot now, having seen too many turn from Autobot to Decepticon. He evaluated everything on the basis of its potential use in combat. Now he watched bots race up and down the overbuilt roads of Velocitron, and his only thought was, This will not help you when Megatron comes.

  How could they race? It was a waste. They should have been preparing. Even if they could not have known of the war on Cybertron, how could they be so naïve as to believe that the universe was empty of threats? While they raced and watched races, while they devoted their entire attention to the pursuit of speed, threats could be developing anywhere. History, which was ambivalent on so many scores, was unanimous on the topic of war. It was everywhere and inevitable.

  Before the war on Cybertron, he had not felt this way. He had investigated crimes and pursued criminals. He had believed in the fundamental stability of Cybertron under the ancient system of guilds, which had slotted him into the role of law enforcement. His most cherished belief was in the rule of law.

  Then had come the war, and Prowl’s beliefs had shattered along with so much of Cybertron’s culture and the surface of the planet itself. Everything had been called into question, every ideal compromised, every spark of goodness threatened or extinguished. Prowl was a different bot now than he had been. The natural suspicion of the enforcer of laws had developed into a profound cynicism that he acknowledged but had no desire to fight. The universe was a cynical place. Wars were not fought for ideals. They were fought for power.

  All that said, Prowl was a loyal Autobot. Even from the depths of his cynicism he believed that Optimus Prime was a just leader and that the Autobot cause was the way forward for Cybertron. But implementing even the highest ideals required some less than idealistic actions, and Prowl stood ready to perform those actions.

  Prowl was jittery to get down onto the surface and really get to know the Velocitronians. They couldn’t be as shallow as they seemed. When he looked at Velocitron, what he saw was a civilization deliberately avoiding a problem. No society threw itself into leisure so completely unless it was indulging in a collective denial of a deep-rooted issue that it lacked the courage to address. He remembered the last years before the war on Cybertron, when the gladiator pits had flourished along with the obsessive re-creations of Six Lasers and Hydrax Speedway and all the other frivolous entertainments that had arisen to mask growing discontent over the stifling pressures of the guild system.

  “Hound,” he said. “When do we go?”

  “Waiting on the word from Prime,” Hound said. The other two members of their landing team, Sideswipe and Ironhide, were deep in the details of a full inspection of the Ark. Prowl’s understanding was that they would not make the drop until the inspection was complete, but he asked because he couldn’t stand not to. He needed to know whether Hound and Optimus Prime were communicating directly without including the rest of the team. It was part of the police mentality that he had developed through long experience; he always wanted to know who was talking to whom and what they were saying that they didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  That went for Optimus Prime just as much as for any other Autobot. Prowl believed that his mission among the Autobots was to prevent factions from developing and, more grimly, to detect and destroy any possible Decepticon spies. He trusted no one and would have considered himself a failure if he did.

  “Strange world here,” he commented.

  Hound nodded. “That it is.”

  “You think they’re really that devoted to racing? Or …?” Prowl let the question trail off so Hound would fill it out on his own. An old interrogator’s tactic: Let the suspect imagine his own questions and thereby reveal what the interrogator’s line of inquiry should be.

  He intended to do the same thing with the Velocitronians. Something must be going on below the surface, and Prowl would find out what it was.

  Optimus considered carefully what to say next. The history between Cybertron and Velocitron was so ancient that he could not draw on any shared experience or ideals. Worse, though, it was as if the Autobots, so recently refugees themselves, had in a strange reversal become rescuers, or so Override seemed to expect. Her reaction and her public announcements had put the Autobots in a difficult spot. Optimus noticed suddenly the amount of junk present. The walls of the hangar were lined with inert machinery and jumbled heaps of parts. A number of the bots present were clearly not fully operational, although none seemed wounded or in danger of serious malfunction. All waited for what he would say in answer to Override’s speech, jittering from proto- to altform and back, revving engines and shuffling back and forth in a collective nervous exertion. We came here looking for a way station, a place to regroup, he thought. And what we have found is, if Override is correct, a situation nearly as dire as the one we left on Cybertron—although without a civil war to make it worse.

  With no way to avoid the truth, Optimus reasoned, there was no reason not to tell it directly. “There are a few things you should know about Cybertron,” he said.

  All the Velocitronians present stopped. The sudden lack of motion was unsettling, and it struck Optimus Prime that there were small but significant differences between Velocitronians and the Cybertronians among whom he had always lived. These natives of Velocitron were longer-limbed and elongated of torso, with streamlined bodies and armor flourishes that looked like they were designed for aerodynamics rather than ornamentation or defense. They looked, in short, as if they had been built for speed above all else. He wondered how well they could fight or whether the long isolation and obsessive focus on racing had vitiated their combat strength. Perhaps they would never have to find out. Seeing them massed in large numbers brought home the differences between Cybertronian and Velocitronian and clarified for Optimus Prime just how long it had been since there had been any commerce between the two worlds. Both populations had changed in the interim. Some of the Velocitronians were entirely new forms, sprung up native to this planet. Even in the absence of the AllSpark, Optimus Prime saw, life found a way.

  Optimus felt the pressure of their expectations and already was conscious that he must fail these strange, fast bots. At times like these he sometimes wished he had never been plucked from the archives and thrust into the center of great events. He happily would have gone his entire life monitoring and cataloging transmissions. But that was not the will of the AllSpark or the Matrix. They had called him to duty, and duty he would perform.

  And to be truthful, had he been so satisfied and happy? If so, why had Megatron’s first raging broadcasts, roaring up from the depths of Kaon, moved Orion Pax to action? There was much that a bot did not know about himself, Optimus thought. They were small gears in a great history.
/>   And now Velocitron was part of that history. The Matrix would not have guided them there otherwise.

  “There is war on Cybertron,” he said. “Much of the planet is in ruins. The AllSpark is gone. I lead a faction known as the Autobots in a war of resistance. The enemy calls himself Megatron, and his followers are known as Decepticons. They have torn down the civilization that had grown on Cybertron over billions of cycles—since the Age of Wrath, when after the Quintesson invasion the Golden Age of Cybertron began and the Space Bridges extended Cybertron’s reach into the farthest parts of the galaxy. Much has been lost since then, first because of our inattention and then in the devastation of war. This enemy, Megatron, will not stop until they have destroyed the last Autobots and put all of Cybertron under their tyranny.”

  In the hangar, the only sound was the quiet idling of Velocitronian engines. Optimus Prime considered what to say next. Until he had spoken, he had not considered how the Autobot situation would sound to bots who were unfamiliar with it. Having lived with it for so long, he had grown accustomed to it as the regular state of things; the look on the Velocitronians who listened to him told Optimus just how devastating this news was.

  “We search for the AllSpark,” he said. “When we have found it, we will return to Cybertron and put things right. There remains a resistance there. The Decepticon takeover is not complete.”

  “Why are you here, then?” Override asked.

  An interesting question, Optimus thought. He gave the only answer he had: “The Matrix of Leadership led us here.”

  “The Matrix of Leadership?” Override echoed. “You are led by mythical trinkets now? Things are that bad on Cybertron?”

  Optimus Prime spread his arms. “The Matrix is no myth,” he said, and let the shape of it blaze forth through the armor on his torso. Its radiance filled the hangar and brought startled exclamations from the assembled Velocitronians. “I carry it within me, as Prime. I am called to the leadership of the Autobots and to all other free-thinking beings who would see Cybertron restored to its former glory.”

  Ransack stood forth from the crowd. “You aren’t our leader,” he said.

  “I am Prime,” Optimus said. “Make of that what you will.”

  “We don’t need myths,” Ransack growled. “We need resources.”

  So do we, Optimus Prime thought.

  The report came in to Optimus from Sideswipe, who as the Ark’s pilot bore primary responsibility for overseeing the diagnosis of its repair needs. The Ark was in relatively good shape, but a number of its systems had suffered some damage from the violent dissolution of the last Cybertronian Space Bridge. Could it go on? Optimus asked. The answer was yes, but its continued function would be fully assured only if they had time and—more important in light of Override’s revelations about Velocitron—materials to make some repairs first. “We’ll have to see about that,” Optimus said. “Meanwhile, you and your team come on down. Rendezvous at my location.”

  “Understood,” Hound’s voice crackled through the commlink. “En route with Sideswipe, Prowl, Ratchet.”

  Now, Optimus Prime thought as he turned back to the Velocitronian delegation, he had a number of tasks to complete simultaneously. He needed to make sure the Ark could go on. He needed to make the Velocitronians understand the situation on Cybertron and get a sense of whether they might be counted on to help. And, if it was possible, Autobot and Velocitronian, working in concert, needed to get the Space Bridge working. Other colony planets—who knew how many?—lay on the other side of it. Optimus began to realize that part of his quest to discover and reclaim the AllSpark would entail re-creating the far-flung network of Cybertronian colonies. He let the vision of this run away with him for a moment, seeing in his mind a great interstellar civilization ready to receive the AllSpark again and catapult itself to new heights of progress, strength, and influence.

  Of course, none of that would matter if he didn’t find the AllSpark. So, back to the task. With the second landing team on its way, he nodded to Velocitron’s two leaders. “We will offer what help we can,” he said. “But as you have heard, we are in need of some assistance ourselves.”

  Ransack and Override, standing shoulder to shoulder, considered Optimus Prime’s statement. In the hangar, other Velocitronians got back to the tasks they had abandoned, putting the visitors out of their minds since there appeared to be no reason to celebrate … or worry. Our appearance has changed nothing, Optimus Prime thought. We bring news of Cybertron, but it is bad news. And our bad news is not bad for Velocitron—it’s non-news … until Megatron arrives, that is. That was Optimus Prime’s fear, that disappointment at the Autobots’ circumstances would lead to despair, and despair would make Velocitron a fertile recruiting ground for Megatron. The last thing any of them needed, Cybertronian or otherwise, was for the war to spread to other planets.

  Blurr appeared, braking into visibility. “So what you’re saying is you’re not here to save us.”

  “We’re not in any shape to save anyone,” Jazz said. “Maybe not even ourselves.”

  “And there’s a war on Cybertron?”

  “That’s why we left,” Optimus Prime said. “We search for the AllSpark. Until we find it, Cybertron’s wounds will never heal.”

  “Well, what can we do?” Blurr said, seeming to dismiss the Autobot’s words easily with a shrug. “Let’s race.”

  At an appointed time in every solar cycle, the greatest racers of Velocitron gathered for what had become known as the Speedia. The arrival of the Autobots had interrupted preparations for that momentous event, but not for long. Most Velocitronians looked up briefly at these strange bots from a world they believed mythical—when they thought about it at all—and then went back to work. They had racers to prepare, tracks to resurface, and a thousand other preparations to make. The Speedia was without question the most important thing on the Velocitronian calendar. Often the choice of leaders was based on the order of finish at the Speedia, and certainly Velocitronians adored the winner whether or not he became leader of the planet. Override was a past winner—multiple times—and Ransack’s power came from a Speedia during which he had staged one of the great comebacks in the race’s history, roaring back from last place over the final five laps to come within a bumper of taking the whole prize. He and his followers, Blurr told them on their way into Delta, had been heard to mutter among themselves that Ransack actually had won that race. “It’s not true, though,” he said. “For one thing, there’s rules about how two-wheels and four-wheels should compete, and Ransack was only in that race as an experiment. For another, Override won fair and square. I know because I was third that time, right behind both of them. But I’ve won a bunch since. I’m going to win this year, too.”

  “Didn’t know you were one of the racers,” Jazz commented.

  “I am.”

  “Then how come we’re out here wandering around instead of in the track getting ready like everyone else?”

  “You want to race?” Blurr challenged Jazz. “You beat me, then you can tell me how to get ready for Speedia. I know Speedia. You’ll see.”

  “Okay,” Jazz said. “No offense.”

  But Blurr’s comment—You want to race?—stuck in Optimus Prime’s mind. He had an idea. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but it might turn out to be a necessary one. To deflate the tension, he kept Blurr talking about the race, and by the time they got to the great racetrack and Blurr broke away from them to run some last-minute checks with his crew, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots knew as much about Speedia as any non-Velocitronian alive.

  Hound’s team, with Ratchet, Sideswipe, and Prowl, arrived just as the racers were coming to the starting line.

  “They say they’ve done this a million times,” Jazz said to Ratchet. “You believe it?”

  Ratchet shrugged. “Why not? The only limitation is how often their mechanics can put them together again.”

  That was, thought Optimus Prime, a uniquely Ratchetesque perspe
ctive. He wondered how much Speedia and the whole infrastructure of smaller regional races contributed to the resource shortage on Velocitron. If the key to their survival turned out to be the surrender of their identity, what would they choose?

  “A gloomy question,” was Ratchet’s answer when Optimus Prime posed his internal musings to the group quietly so that none of the Velocitronians could hear. This was true as far as it went, but it wasn’t really an answer.

  Then a roar went up from the crowd, and Optimus, along with the rest of the Autobots, looked around to see what was happening.

  Delta’s central racetrack—one of twenty-eight in the city, Blurr had mentioned proudly—was a banked oval with straightaways of equal length and tight turns through which the track was angled at as much as forty-five degrees. “Enough to take flight if you handle the acceleration wrong,” Prowl muttered. Inside the track, the infield was scattered with rescue crews, media operations, repair facilities, and two low ranks of seating reserved for past winners and important visitors. The Autobots had been offered those seats but chose to sit in the main grandstand, which surrounded the track and rose three times as high as the next tallest structure in Delta. Optimus Prime had wanted to get close to the general sentiment of the Velocitronian people before spending so much time with their leaders that they wouldn’t open up to him anymore. Override, unfortunately, had complicated this plan by sending Ransack and a retinue of his cronies to sit with the Cybertronians. There was visible tension between the two leaders of Velocitron. Optimus wondered how much worse the Autobtots’ arrival had made it. Both of them, he assumed, would be looking for ways to turn the Autobots’ news to their advantage. He would have to be careful not to be used in that way; awareness of cynical political stunts was one thing Megatron had taught him a long time ago.

  Even with all this occupying his mind, Optimus was curious about the intensity surrounding the imminent start of the Speedia. Velocitron was sparsely populated, and it seemed that most of its population was either jammed into the grandstand or milling around the staging areas between the racetrack and the main hangar that also apparently doubled as the center of Velocitronian government activities. Anything could be happening out in the desert hinterlands, and no Velocitronian would care about it until the race was over.