Not for the first time, Dogfight was reminded of how uncomfortable it was to be working in Terran architecture.  Though they had tried to make the base at least close to Transformer size, they were still far from being habitable for extended periods of time.  He would be glad when this was over.  It had only been a few days, and already he longed to be out of this place.
 
    “Not exactly glamorous, eh kid?” he asked the bot standing next to him.  Kobal looked over at Dogfight, their fairly similar stature meaning that he was only looking slightly down on the aerial warrior.  Leaning nonchalantly against the walls, Kobal and Dogfight were on watch today.  Not that there was much to watch for, though.

      “Yeah, well, when I heard that the Terrans wanted a force to back up their troops, somehow I imagined things being a little more exciting.” Kobal responded.  Unfortunately, his high dreams of heroism and battle had been worn away by days of sentry duty, broken only by the messages to and from Kestral.  Thank Primus he had her to keep him from dropping of boredom.

      “Well, this’ll teach you not to let your imagination run away with you.” Dogfight replied.  It was early in the day, and the sun was just recently up, so they weren’t really expecting anything.  And it didn’t really look they would be disappointed, either.  Just another day staring out at the sand dunes.

      “Hey, what’s that?” Kobal asked suddenly.  Off in the distance, he could just make out an exhaust cloud coming towards them.  Hurriedly, he drew his rifle, sighting in on the centre of the cloud.

      “Settle down, kid.  That’s just Chamber.” Dogfight replied.  As the dust devil came closer, Kobal could make out a Transformer inside it, and an Autobot at that.  He was large and boxy, some kind of tank mode alternate.  It was hard to get a could clear idea as, the dust and the distance were combining to obscure him still.

    Soon, however, Chamber stopped in front of them and transformed.  In his robot mode, he was larger than both Kobal and Dogfight, and still blocky looking.  Obviously a Transformer that wasn’t easily intimidated.  Leaving Kobal standing against the wall, Dogfight walked over and greeted his apparent companion.

      “Chamber, good to see you again.” he said, extending his hand, which was dwarfed by Chamber’s.  “I didn’t know you where here as well.”

      “Indeed I am, Dogfight.  Seems like I’m not the only one anxious for a little action, eh?  Perhaps this peace was not meant for old war-horses like ourselves.” Chamber replied.  His voice was deep but not threatening, and he was obviously a pretty good-natured bot.  “So,” he said, letting Dogfight’s hand drop from his own, “who’s the kid?” he asked.  He inclined his head slightly towards Kobal, making it pretty obvious who he was referring to.

      “I’m Kobal,” he said, striding towards the pair,  “and I’m no kid.  Of course, we can’t all be old and slow like you.” he added.

      Instead of answering right away, Chamber merely laughed.  “He’s got spunk, this one.” he said at last to Dogfight.  Covering the distance between himself and Kobal in a few strides, he placed his hand on Kobal’s shoulder.  “C’mon Kobal, I’ll buy you a drink.” he said, leading the way.  Dogfight stayed behind for a moment, stifling a laugh, and Chamber turned back to him after a few steps.  “Coming, Dogfight?” he asked, though his tone indicated that he knew what the answer would be.

      “You know it, Chamber.” Dogfight replied, hurrying to catch up with the unlikely pair.  “I was just remembering; I seem to recall you saying much the same thing when you met me.”  Chamber chuckled, and led the now-trio off towards the makeshift pub that the soldiers, both Terran and Transformer, had built.

      In a darkened room in the Autobot Council chambers, a hunched figure sat at a desk, illuminated only by the weak glow from his computer screen.  He was looking through various reports, things like troop allocation and construction schedules, trying to come to a decision.  This was, after all, delicate work.

      It was while he was looking at dispersion schematics that he finally figured out what he was going to do. It was obvious from this that the Autobots were not confident in their ability to hold out should the Decepticons attack in force.  By this projection, a little over six months after the beginning of the war, Decepticon forces would have Cybertropolis surrounded and cut off, and after that it depended on what the defensive forces consisted of.  But in no simulation had they been able to last more than three weeks.  A most disheartening outcome,
indeed.

      Of course, those projections also said that the Decepticons would lose between seventy four and eighty nine percent of their forces, leaving Cybertron almost depopulated, and with huge collateral damage all over the planet.  Though they would be wiped out to the last bot, the Autobots would exact a heavy toll on the Decepticons, crippling them for decades to come.

      Which was, of course, exactly what he wanted to hear.  The more damage the two groups did to each other, the better.  Though, in the end, his victory would only be one of degrees.  There was no way that these upstart Transformers would prevail in the long run.

      Reaching over, he opened a secure channel to seemingly empty area.  It was not, of course, deserted, but that was what all but the most powerful sensors would display.  And even those would register nothing unless they were directed precisely towards the area when the signal went through.  Something he had been careful to avoid.

      The message that he sent through was relatively short and simple.  It was an address in Polyhex, a name, instructions to take the target alive at all costs, and what to do once that was accomplished.  He would be worth nothing if he were dead, after all.

      On the other end of the channel, Onslaught smiled, reading through the orders.  Turning back, he looked at his fellow Combaticons.

      “We have our orders.” he said.  “Blast Off, Swindle, Vector and myself are heading to Polyhex.”

      “Polyhex?” Vector intoned.  “What the heck are we going there for?  That’s the second most heavily guarded area in the system.”  The first, of course, was the orbiting spacedock, which Soundwave had taken as his personal headquarters.  Nobody got in there unless Soundwave ordered them there personally, and even then they were subjected to a thorough battery of tests.

      “We’ve got somebody we need to pick up.” Onslaught responded.  “A bot named Punch.  Or Counter-Punch.  Take your pick.”  Turning, he crushed the message and calmly discarded the remnants.  Checking to make sure that his weapons were fully charged and armed, he headed towards the door.  Behind him, he could hear the other three following him out.

      Punch was studying the situation between the Autobot and Terran forces and the Decepticons, trying to think of what might be useful to find out for his next report.  Up until now, he had managed to find very little that was helpful to the Autobot forces.  The last build-up for example, the massive ship construction, he had managed to get only a vague time for it’s completion date.  And though that had let the Autobots prepare some forces, the terrible vagueness of his report had left them too short of information to really plan for what the ‘Cons had planning.  As such, the Terran forces had fared badly, and war seemed an even more foregone conclusion than before.

      Suddenly, he heard a sharp knock at the door.  His head whipped around, and he quickly shut the computer off, his finger hovering over the specially-added self destruct button.  Cueing up the intercom, he spoke.  “Who’s there?” he asked, being careful to keep his voice steady and emotionless.

      “Building maintenance, sir.  We’ve had some complaints about malfunctioning climate controls.  I need to come in and take a look at it.” the voice responded.  At once, Punch assumed it was a trap.  He’d lived here long enough to know that building maintenance was horribly slow, and he hadn’t heard anything about climate control problems, so they surely wouldn’t have.

      “Sure,” he replied, setting the computer off, “just give me a minute.”  Grabbing a pistol from a drawer, he bolted towards the back door, the one that lead out to the back stairs.  He was a second from opening it when he heard a sound that stopped him.  There was someone coming up the stairs, someone large.  And he had no doubt that whoever they were, they weren’t friendly.

      He took a moment to try and figure out his options.  There were people at both doors, but the one at the front would probably be over confident.  When Punch hadn’t answered, he must have assumed that he had gone to the back door, and this second bot would take him out.  Unless, of course, he had expected Punch to know about the guy out back, thereby expecting him to come out the front.  But then, he might have anticipated that thought as well, and planned accordingly...

      No.  He could get locked into second guessing his opponent for an eternity, and the only thing that would come of it would be that this pair would be able to double team him.  Better to follow his initial instinct, he thought.  He dashed back across the room, and slammed into the door.  It exploded outwards, and Punch briefly caught sight of an orange bot, looking pretty shocked over all.  Even if he had expected Punch to come out, he hadn’t expected this level of force.  Quickly, he barrelled down the hallway, looking back to make sure that this first party was still out.

      Of course, that was when disaster struck.  Something quite hard struck him forcefully in the back of the head while he was running, knocking him to the floor.  He rolled over slowly, staring up at a huge bot.  In his hand, he held what looked like a modified pistol.  He fired once, and Punch slipped into stasis lock.

      But before he went totally, he could just hear that orange one talking to the bigger one.  “Just like you said.” he heard, and then he knew no more.

      In his dwelling, Motormaster was enjoying a little light reading when he heard a knock at his door.  Putting down “A History of Cybertronian Gladiators”, he walked over to the door.  Pressing the open key, he was shocked at what greeted him.

      There was a bot there, bound, and a small data pad lying on him.  Motormaster bent down and picked it up, hurriedly reading through the information.  After only a few lines, he let it drop and reached over to his left, keying up the intercom.

      “Security to my quarters!” he shouted.  In the hallway, Punch didn’t even twitch.