Exiles (3 page)

Optimus, still connected to the Ark’s surveillance arrays, magnified the view to get a better sense of what the settlements looked like. He saw staging and repair areas, foundries and mines, extensive shopworks and processing plants for road surfaces. He saw factories churning out machines that rolled out over the planet’s surface looking for untamed natural features or roadways damaged by weather, the passage of time, or accidents. And on those roads, bots in low-slung, sleek alt-forms moved almost faster than optics could follow. Even within the factories, the automated mechas were a frenzy of motion bathed in sparks and the blaze of arc welders.

“The whole place looks like the Hydrax Speedway,” Jazz said, pulling Optimus back from his magnified observations.

It was true, although the Hydrax Speedway had long since been destroyed in one of the early battles of the civil war, when its grandstand and staging area had been
turned into Decepticon positions that the Autobots had crushed to rubble. Optimus Prime remembered that battle as one of the few outright successes in the war’s first cycles. He was surprised to think of how long ago it had happened.

An oval track not unlike Hydrax came into view at the edge of the magnified display. Optimus directed the formation that way, and they cut across the Velocitronian sky, with seemingly endless stretches and curves of roadway below them.

“Perceptor, Jazz, Bumblebee,” Optimus said. He cut off the display as they braked through the tropopause and selected a landing spot outside what seemed to be one of the main settlements, which appeared to be an appendage of the speedway if the configuration of roads and structures was anything to go by. That, apparently, was how Velocitronians’ priorities were arranged. “Let us see if we can slow them down long enough to introduce ourselves.”

The atmosphere of Velocitron wasn’t very different from Cybertron’s, and Optimus Prime had no reason to expect hostility. Still, he had been reluctant to bring the entire Autobot contingent down all at once. There was no telling what surprises might await, whether ecological or cultural. He did not want to risk any more Autobots than necessary at first contact, and he absolutely did not want to risk landing the Ark until he was certain that both Velocitron and its citizens would be hospitable.

A second team waited back on the Ark to make planetfall once initial contact had been established. Leading that team was a steady junior officer in the Autobot ranks by the name of Hound. Agile in both body and mind, Hound had proved himself an able leader of small-group actions in various battles back on Cybertron. Now he was eager to prove his worth as an explorer
and an integral part of the Autobots’ quest. He had pestered Optimus to be part of the second Velocitron landing team until Optimus had agreed out of fatigue as much as faith. But now that the decision was made, Optimus was comfortable with it. Hound was developing into a useful Autobot officer. Among his most useful qualities was an uncanny intuition about the Decepticons’ strategy and tactics. Even Optimus Prime, who knew Megatron as well as any bot, could only marvel at Hound’s ability to anticipate what the enemy would do next.

Optimus updated the second team’s orders, putting them on standby alert. They needed to be ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Then he led his team from their landing site to a crossroads where an inter-settlement highway intersected what was apparently a ring road that defined the perimeter of the speedway area. Bots blazed by, seemingly unconcerned by the visitors—if they noticed the Autobot presence at all.

“These are some focused bots,” Jazz said while Perceptor ran a number of scans on ambient atmospheric levels and elemental signatures. “If a bunch of strangers fell out of the sky on my planet, I’d stop and look.”

“Maybe they’re used to it,” Optimus speculated. “We don’t know how much traffic there is among planets. Cybertron’s been isolated for a long time.”

“What do they do here?” Jazz wondered. “Is the whole point of this place that everyone goes fast?”

“Whatelse?” buzzed a voice as a bot zoomed by so fast that Optimus Prime’s optics could barely register what color it was.

“Come on back and tell us what else!” Jazz called out.

With the signature squeal of a high-G turn, the bot came into view, slowing as it slewed around and came back in their direction. Slamming to a halt, it said, “Make stuff that makes us go faster. That’s what we do.

Make laws that make it easier for us to make stuff that makes us go faster. Now I’m sick of talking so slow. Later.”

“Whoa,” Optimus Prime said as the bot revved up again. It was a blue and white wedge with heavy guns overhanging the sides of its alt-form chassis.

“ ‘Whoa’ what?”

“We’ve come a long way,” Optimus Prime said. “We need to talk to one of your leaders here. Is there a High Council?”

“Nope.”

“What kind of leaders do you have?” Optimus persisted. At the same time, Jazz asked, “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Blurr,” came the reply before Blurr vanished again.

They watched the dust settle in the wake of Blurr’s passage. “Fast,” commented Jazz.

“Extremely fast,” Perceptor agreed.

“Too bad he is not so fast about telling us what we need to know,” Optimus said, shooting a look at Jazz for interrupting his questioning of the Velocitronian. “We will have to—”

“What do you need to know?”

All four Autobots spun around at the new voice. The speaking bot was sleek and red, still finishing the last minor adjustments as it came out of a two-wheeled altform flanked by four companions in more conventional four-wheeled configurations. They hadn’t heard its approach over the screech of Blurr’s departure. Its retinue remained in alt-form, idling as if they might need to peel out at any moment.

“You can call me Ransack. Along with Override, I run this planet. Who are you?”

Optimus Prime stepped forward. “I am Optimus
Prime. These are Perceptor, Jazz, and Bumblebee.” He indicated each of his fellow Autobots in turn.

“Prime? You’re Prime?
From Cybertron?
” Ransack looked skeptical.

Confused, the literal-minded Perceptor looked up from another experiment he was running. “Where else would a Prime come from? You are aware that only one Cybertronian may carry that title?”

Ransack looked at Perceptor with an expression of mingled confusion and irritation. “You don’t need to tell me the old stories. I’ve heard them all, too.” He turned back to Optimus Prime and added, “How do you call yourself Prime?”

“I did not,” Optimus Prime said. “The High Council did, and the Matrix of Leadership confirmed that decision. I carry it within me.” It glowed within his torso as he spoke, its light reflecting in Ransack’s optics as the Velocitronian leader started back.

“It’s … is it true?” Now, instead of skeptical, he looked stunned. “What’s a Prime doing here? The Space Bridge hasn’t worked in—”

“I know,” Optimus said. “There is a long story to tell, and I prefer not to tell it twice. You and Override are in charge here?”

“We are.” A look came over Ransack’s face, giving Optimus Prime the feeling that the leadership of Velocitron was contested or soon would be. “But maybe you should go ahead and tell me before I bring you to her. Any bot can call himself Prime and make a light glow.”

“Is that how you want this to be?” Jazz asked, stepping right up to Ransack. “You want to talk to Prime that way?”

As slight a provocation as the move was, it brought Ransack’s four companions—more properly bodyguards, Optimus Prime figured—roaring forward out of the dust that swirled constantly along the roadside. Revving
angrily, they aimed and locked their weapons at Jazz and the rest of the Autobots. Bumblebee and Jazz armed themselves while the less combat-ready Perceptor took a step back from the potential melee.

Optimus Prime held steady, keeping his gaze on Ransack. There would of course be challenges, he thought. But if they started off with a battle, things would go downhill fast. “Jazz,” he said. “Stand down. I, too, would be skeptical in Ransack’s place.”

“Skeptical’s one thing. Impudent’s another,” Jazz said.

“This is my world, mecha,” Ransack said. “The impudence is yours.”

“Enough,” Optimus Prime said. “Jazz, I said stand down.” Jazz took a step back and put up his weapons, but he looked angry, and Ransack looked scornful. Not an ideal start to the reunion between Cybertron and Velocitron, thought Optimus Prime, but at least outright battle had been avoided. “Now, Ransack,” Optimus went on. “Where is Override?”

“Where else?” Ransack said. “Racing. You want to see her? Try to keep up.”

Compared with the constant roar of traffic on the roads, the racetrack at the edge of what turned out to be Delta, Velocitron’s largest city, was quiet when Optimus Prime and the other three Autobots reached it. Ransack was already waiting. “You guys are slow.”

“Real slow,” echoed one of his retinue.

Optimus held up a hand to the Autobots, sensing a sharp comment coming from Jazz. “You’re specialized, that’s for sure,” he said. “Impressive. How often are there races here?”

“This is where the championship happens,” Ransack said. “Right now there are qualifying races all over the planet. Winners come here. Once all of the districts have sent a winner, off we go.” He was walking as he talked, doing both incredibly fast. The Autobots worked hard to keep pace with Ransack’s words as much as his strides as they cut underneath the grandstand and through an enormous garage to an even more gigantic hangar space. It was big enough to hold the Ark and the
Nemesis
side by side, but it had been a long time since any spacecraft had sheltered here. Everything on Velocitron was about wheels, and the hangar was no exception. Bots tinkered with other bots in mechanical bays, working over the
myriad small injuries that came from pushing a bot’s altform to the limits of its performance.

One entire side of the hangar was devoted to a wind tunnel in which drag coefficients were measured, and racing bots complained about them as they popped out of alt-form to consult with their support teams.

The Autobots, accustomed as they were to more serious pursuits, shook their heads in amazement. “Can you believe they spend all their time on a sport?” Perceptor wondered. He kept his voice low, but Optimus hushed him anyway. No telling who was listening, and the last thing they needed was to antagonize their hosts.

He felt Perceptor was right, though. Cybertron was convulsed by war, and here, every living bot was concerned about going faster. To what end? Optimus suppressed an urge to shake them and shout,
What will you do when the
Nemesis
comes? What good will your speed do you then? Prepare!

But he did not. He kept his counsel and followed Ransack to a corner of the hangar where a number of bots were doing what appeared to be a routine examination of an alt-form, red and white and of course built for speed. Its armaments, twin missile cannons, were cleverly worked into its alt-form to minimize drag. Optimus Prime wondered what Velocitronians were like in a fight. More important, he wondered how long it had been since they had tested themselves in battle.

That test, he felt certain, would come again sooner than they thought.

As if reading his thoughts, the red and white racer came out of alt-form and strode up to them aggressively. “Looking for me? Override here,” she said. “Who are you?”

“He says he’s called Optimus Prime,” Ransack said.

Override looked sharply at Optimus. “Prime?” she asked, reacting to the title just as Ransack had. The Velocitronians,
Optimus thought, were far removed indeed from the culture and history of Cybertron. It wasn’t unexpected, perhaps, but experiencing the gulf was much different from anticipating it in a theoretical way. How many Cybertronians, he wondered, still believed that Velocitron was real?

Perhaps one day he would return to Cybertron and be able to ask.

“Prime,” he said, allowing the Matrix to show itself. Not in an ostentatious way as he had to the more aggressive Ransack, not to everyone in the hangar, just to Override, to let her know that he was what he claimed to be and that he carried the authority of Prime.

Whatever that authority might mean on Velocitron.

For a long moment Override just stared at him. Optimus began to grow uncomfortable. He heard Bumblebee and Jazz shifting their weight behind him, as if they were looking around in anticipation of a fight.

Then Override reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve come just in time,” she said.

Of all the receptions Optimus Prime had imagined, being hailed as saviors was absolutely the last. Yet that was how Override treated them. She gathered all the Velocitronians in the hangar and, before Optimus could suggest that maybe they should share some information privately before making statements to the general population, announced the arrival of Cybertronians. “At last they have come!” she said to tumultuous cheering. Optimus and the rest of the landing party were applauded, clapped on the shoulder, besieged with requests and hopeful sentiments:
We’ve been waiting! We had almost lost hope! Have you repaired the Space Bridge? What took you so long?