“Reactor three just died!” somebody yelled from behind him.  Off to his side, one of the panels exploded, showering his shoulder with sparks and tossing the co-pilot from his seat.  Behind him, he could hear somebody cursing.

     “We’re almost there.” the pilot said.  The little ship shuddered as another direct hit struck.  The lights dimmed, and never really came back up.  The pilot hunched forward, as though he could urge his ship to outrun the group behind him.  Veering wildly to port, he narrowly dodged another laser bolt, though the move sent people flying around in the crowded rear cabin.

     “Hold on!” he shouted, trying to keep them calm.  Panic now would be disastrous.  They had almost reached safety; another half hour, and they’d be out.

     He just prayed the ship would stay together that long.

     “Fall back!” Ironhide shouted snapping off several useless shots.  It was just his luck to have set his troops up in the path of the gestalts.  Now they were crushing his men, and there wasn’t much he could do.

     “We’ve gotta get out of here!” Cliffjumper shouted.  The smaller red Autobot was standing next to Ironhide, firing madly at Devastator.  Not that their firepower could have much of an effect: it took a gestalt to beat a gestalt.  “I think we’re screwed.”

     “I hate to admit it, but you’re right, Cliffjumper.” Ironhide agreed.  Taking a few more shots at the more sensitive connection points on Devastator, Ironhide and Cliffjumper fell back, the last from this little outpost to do so.

     “It’s a pity there are no challenges here.” Menasor said to Devastator.  He had been hoping for a challenge, but it seemed that all he could find were weak-willed Autobots who fled before him.

     “Agreed.” Devastator said.  “I was hoping for something more.”

     “What, you mean something like this?”  The voice had come from nowhere, and the two gestalts whirled about to see if someone had snuck up behind them.  This proved to be a mistake, however, as Devastator soon discovered.  With seemingly nothing affecting him, he was knocked flying into a building, collapsing against its side.

     “Who’s there?” Menasor shouted, trying to look everywhere at once.  Out of the corner of his eye he caught a slight shimmering; he spun to look at it, and was shocked by the sight that greeted him.  “Omega Supreme?” he said, shocked.

     “In part.” the massive Autobot replied.  “But more, as well.”  Faster than Menasor could have imagined, Omega Supreme rushed at him, his fist swinging up and slamming into Menasor’s face.  The one-armed gestalt reeled back, shocked.  Though Omega Supreme had always been powerful, he’d never been able to move like that before.  What was going on?

     But before he had the chance to think about it, Omega Supreme was on top of him.  Gripping Menasor’s throat in his right hand, Omega brought up his laser-cannon arm, aiming it at Menasor’s torso.  Though the blast would not kill him, it would knock Menasor unconscious, which would cause Menasor to break apart.

     Omega Supreme had not, however, remembered to factor in one thing: Devastator.  The emerald Decepticon had recovered faster than expected, and seen what was happening.  Reaching into his subspace pocket, he withdrew his rifle and lined it up with Omega Supreme’s head.  Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger lightly, and a blast of superhot light flashed out, headed directly towards Omega Supreme.

     Fortunately for him, he had seen Menasor’s attention diverted by something off to his right, and taking a guess as to what that was, let the Stunticon drop before throwing himself backwards.  A lucky thing, too, as the laserblast flashed in front of his face, and would have taken off his head if he hadn’t moved.

     Seeing Omega Supreme in a weakened position, namely flat on his back, Devastator dropped his rifle and rushed over, intent on finishing off the Autobot behemoth with his bare hands.  Omega Supreme, however, had other ideas.  Swiveling the new shoulder-mounted lasers, he snapped off a few wild shots at Devastator, slowing his advance long enough for Omega to get back to his feet.

     Unfortunately, Menasor was back up as well.  Omega Supreme stood there, staring out at his two opponents.  They, in turn, watched him, hoping to gain an idea of his strategy from his stance.  Neither moved, each waiting for the other to act first.

     “He did it!” Prowl shouted, watching as Omega Supreme halted the advance of both gestalts.  Prowl had definitely been worried, as it seemed Optimus wouldn’t return in time to do anything other than disturb the Decepticons victory celebration.  He chided himself for doubting his commander: Prime had never let them down yet, and he should have known better than to think he’d start now.

     “Yes, but how long can he keep it up for?” someone asked.  Though Prowl’s first instinct was to tell them to have faith in their commander, he had to admit the speaker did have a point.  Omega Supreme was powerful, even more so since the upgrades, but he was out there against two powerful opponents.  Prowl just thanked Primus that Piranaking hadn’t shown up here.  Against three Decepticon gestalts, not even Metroplex would have stood a chance.

     “Scramble any flyers we’ve got!” Prowl ordered.  “Try and back Omega Supreme up out there.  As for the city,”  Here he paused, trying to work out the best strategy.  “Withdraw all forces to the third perimeter.  Deploy remote platforms along the twelve line, and transform all building in sectors one through four.”  Immediately, people rushed to their jobs, shouting orders into transmitters or relaying the complex orders that it took to transform a city.

     Soon, the area around central Rubigen resembled not so much a city, as a battlestation.  Building had either retraced into the ground to provide better lanes of fire, or been enveloped in incredibly tough armor, to protect whatever happened to be insde.

     “Now,” Prowl muttered to himself, “Let’s show those ‘Cons what we’re really made of.”

     “…withdraw to third perimeter.  Repeat, all forces, withdraw to third perimeter.”  Dogfight looked in surprise at the others when the orders came through.

     “Looks like they’ve got a new plan.” Kobal said.  They’d just ambushed another squad of Decepticons, and each of them was loaded and ready to fight.  These new orders, however, would force them to cover a good amount of ground, as they were well away from the center of the city.  “Guess we’d better hurry.”

     “No kidding.” Dogfight said.  With a thought, he switched to his aircraft mode, and Chamber followed suite, transforming into his tank form.  Both were much faster in these modes, whereas Cable and Kobal were both modeless.  This was easily solved, however, as each simply hopped up on one of the other two.  Kicking their engines into overdrive, Dogfight and Chamber sped off towards their new destination, their passengers holding on for dear life.

     “This was most unexpected.” Soundwave remarked, staring at the satellite image of the battle below.  Moments before, Omega Supreme had appeared out of thin air to stop Menasor and Devastator.  Soundwave was at a loss to explain where he could have come from, or why he appeared to be so much more powerful.

     “But not unduly worrying.” his guest observed.  “It is of no real consequence if Motormaster and Hook lead their forces into the Inferno.”  There was a slight pause before the speaker resumed.  “As long as he takes the Autobots with him, of course.”

     Further communication was interrupted when the comm line chimed on.  Soundwave was most displeased, as he had left strict instructions not to be disturbed.  “What?” he snapped, as Battletrap’s face appeared on the screen.

     “Sir, long range sensors have detected several hypserpace footprints approaching Cybertron.” Battletrap reported.  “One small one out front, and several larger ones behind it.”

     “That does not sound like any force we know of.” Soundwave said.  “Could it be Terran reinforcements? “

     “Doubtful, Soundwave.  The Terrans are stretched thin, and they have too little to spare for such a group.” Soundwave’s companion stated.  “Whoever they are, the Autobots will surely have seen them  by now.”

     “Agreed.” Soundwave said.  Turning to face Battletrap, Soundwave quickly formed an appropriate response.  “Signal all ships.  They are to advance to within engagement distance of the vessels’ projected entrance.”

     “Should they be running hot?” Battletrap asked.  ‘Hot’ referred to a ship on combat alert, with both weapons and shields up.

     “Yes.”

     “Sir!”  Ross turned to see what the young sensor tech was so excited about.  “The entire Decepticon fleet is on the move, and we’ve got hyperspace footprints approaching this system.”

     “Hm.” Ross said.  This was a new wrinkle, and he already had too many to deal with.  “All right.  Signal all ships.  We will proceed to the projected entrance for these  unidentified ships.  But I want no aggressive moves towards the Decepticons.  We don’t know who these ships are, and I’d rather not end up shooting it out with Decepticon reinforcements.”

     “Understood sir.” The boy said.  Immediately, the crew leapt into action, bringing the massive superdreadnought around and signaling the rest of the fleet to do so.  ‘What now?’ Ross couldn’t help thinking.

     In space, there is no air, thus, no sound carries.  If there had been, however, the two spacefleets would have heard a tremendous boom when the great rift in space opened out.  Hyperspace gates are spectacular to see, the fantastic colours of that other realm playing on the ships hulls as it exits.

     These ships, however, were more sinister than majestic.  A dozen warships, chasing after a small shuttlecraft, their weapons blazing.  Immediately upon registering the two groups of ships around them, they leapt to the attack, huge flights of missiles and massive laser bolts heading towards both Terran and Decepticon fleets.  Caught by surprise, both groups took moderate damage.  But it wasn’t long before they unleashed their own broadsides.

     Armor plating bubbled and boiled, air hissed out into space and explosions flared as all three groups launched salvo after salvo and battery after battery.  It was the first major naval engagement in Cybertron’s system ever.  And nobody was really sure what this meant.