“That’s right, Prime.” Elita One said, dropping down to the ground.  Slowly, she walked over to him.  “You didn’t think you’d seen the last of me, did you?”

“I… I didn’t know what to think.” Prime admitted.  “You’ve been gone for so long… And with the trouble here, and back out in space…”  Overcome by his joy at seeing her, alive and well, Prime swept her into his arms.  Right then, he didn’t care that there were bots watching him, or that a war was raging.  For now, the only thing that existed for him was Elita One.

“Much as I’m enjoying this welcome, Prime,” Elita One said, pushing back on Optimus’ chest and looking up into his optics, “We’ve got serious trouble.  The colonies haven’t been seceding; they’ve been crushed and conquered.  All communication was cut off, and almost every ship that tried to flee was destroyed.  We just barely made it here, and with a battle squadron hot on our heels.”  Prime let his arms drop from around her, shocked by the news.  He’d heard no reports of any other galactic powers hostile towards the Transformers.

“Who attacked?” he asked, his voice quiet.  In the silence, they could hear the battle still raging in Rubigen.  There was a tremendous blast, and when he looked back Prime was shocked at the thick column of smoke rising up out of the center of the city.  He hoped to Primus that someone had survived that.

“You’ll never believe this,” Elita started to say, then giggled to herself.  The sound, in the midst of a pitched battle, was strikingly odd to Prime.  “Well, I guess you will, since there’s no other options.  The Cybertronian Empire is back.  Their ships and troops swept through the colonies, crushing each one individually before moving on to the next.”  She paused, as visions of the white and green modeless Cybertronians swept across her vision.  She recalled watching them execute any Transformer that stood against them, and being powerless to stop it.  She’d rationalized it, telling herself that if she was killed for no reason even more would suffer the same fate. But rationalization didn’t stop their faces from haunting her in the night.

Optimus, meanwhile, was stunned by the news.  He had thought that that death of Jhiaxus and all his troops at the hands of the Swarm, a phrase Prime admitted to himself was rather odd, all things considered, had signaled the end of that threat.  Apparently, he was wrong.  The biggest question, however, was just how wrong?  Was this new Imperial force simply the remnants of the older one, or were there more armies and fleets out there, Jhiaxus’ being only a cog in the machine.  If the former, then it shouldn’t be too much trouble to deal with.  But if Jhiaxus’ army had been only a portion of the total Cybertronian Empire, then they were in serious trouble. It was only the intervention of the Swarm that had saved them last time from the overwhelming force of the Cybertronians; he dreaded what would happen this time around.

“Prime?”  He realized that Elita was calling his name, and that he’d drifted off.  “What’s happened here?  Have the Cybertronians attacked?”

“No.” he replied.  “It’s worse.  The Alliance has shattered, and the Decepticons are once again trying to take Cybertron.”  The timing, Prime had to admit, couldn’t have been worse.  A unified front was absolutely necessary, but it didn’t look good now.  “Rubigen,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder with his thumb, “is under heavy assault.  It doesn’t look good.”  Straightening up, Prime turned back to the city.  “I’m afraid I have to go.  Will you be alright here?”

In reply, Elita pulled out her pistol, and several others drew projectile weapons of their own.  “Don’t worry about us.  We’re survivors.”  With a nod, Optimus turned and dropped into his vehicle mode, speeding off towards Rubigen.

High above, in the cargo hold of the Nemesis, Soundwave stood with Ravage on one side and Rumble on the other, examining various debris fragments.  The instant Soundwave had guessed at the fragment’s origin, he’d ordered all the technicians out of the hold, and had it sealed off.  “Well?” he asked, turning to Rumble.  The little cassette was analyzing the carbon bonding on a particularly large piece of outer hull, a molecular indicator in his hands.

“’Fraid so, boss.  It’s Transformer technology.” Rumble replied, straightening up.  Sliding the indicator into his subspace pocket, he turned back to face Soundwave and Ravage.  “The metal stress points match projected Transformer tech points.  The ablative armor follows the same carbon bonding as our own ships, though it’s slightly more advanced.  Scoring on the hull seems to indicate they were using some kind of multi-phasic shielding.  Perhaps even quasi-spectral.”

“Can it be duplicated?” Ravage asked, his voice a low purr, to match his form.  Of course, it was the same kind of purr that a cougar might give before pouncing for the kill.  Soundwave had brought him along because he was well versed in sensors and defense systems, and he had already pointed out several laser emitters, saving himself and Rumble from a trip to the surgeons.

“Maybe.” Rumble replied.  “But it aint gonna be easy with just wreckage to worked from.  Plus, these guys use some esoteric alloys in their ships.  I can’t tell you for sure that our ships would produce the same effect.”

Interesting, Soundwave thought to himself.  He’d had scientists working on just such a system, and they had assured him it couldn’t be done.  It seemed they had just meant they were incapable to performing as needed.  Perhaps they could work better as mechanics.  “You have unrestricted authority, Rumble.  Recruit whomever you need, and use whatever materials you require.  I expect success, however.”

“Have I ever failed you?” Rumble replied.

“No.” Soundwave said.  “Your service has been exemplary, as has yours, Ravage.  And it has not gone unnoticed.”  That was as close to getting emotional as Soundwave was going to get, and the tapes both knew it.  As such, they accepted it as high praise, and were content.

“Now, can we be certain as to the crew of the vessels?  There can be no room for error here, for all our sakes.” Soundwave said, stepping past the wreckage and examining what remained of enemy warriors.  Most of them had either been killed in the fighting, or died at some other time.  Soundwave assumed a self-detonation device, to prevent themselves from falling into enemy hands.  Whatever it was, it had stripped away the outer exoskelal layers, wiped out the neural net and eliminated any identifiable markings.  Exposed wiring and circuitry was everywhere, corpses looking like bundles of string draped over wire models.  A few, however, had either not been quick enough, dedicated enough, or conscious to activate their devices.

Palming a steel plate next to a large, reinforced door, Soundwave waited as it hissed open.  Ravage bared his fangs at the darkness, and Rumble drew his weapons off his shoulderblades.  Unconcerned, Soundwave stepped forwards, the lights coming up as he did so.  Three white and green troopers stood facing him, defiance etched on their faces.  It was obvious they thought themselves an unbreakable chain. But every chain has a weak link.

It was several hours before Soundwave stepped out of the room again, and when he did so he was covered, from his elbows to his fingertips, in mechfluid and microcircuitry.  The screams of the trio still echoed through his audio circuits, recorded so he could enjoy it later, if he wished.

“I still wish you had let us accompany you.” Ravage growled, falling in beside his commander.  On the other side, Rumble matched pace, though his smaller legs meant he was taking two or three steps for every one of Soundwave’s.  “What if one of them had smuggled in a weapon?”

Wiping off some of the evidence from his forearms, Soundwave didn’t even look down.  “Impossible.  They were scanned before they were brought aboard, and the room was depolarized.  No weapon would work within it.”

“No projectile or laser weapon, sure.” Rumble said.  “But what about melee?  What if they’d attacked you?”

“They did.” Soudnwave replied, as though it was a simple question like ‘how are you’ and ‘nice day, isn’t it’.  “I killed one of them, the leader, as a lesson to the others.  There was no escape; I had to make them realize that fact.”  From the sounds Rumble and Ravage had heard, he’d made that eminently clear.

“And did you learn what you needed?” Ravage inquired.  Now that he had complained once about being left out, he was concentrating on the business at hand.

“I did.” Soundwave answered.  He had wiped off most of the mechfluid, but the tips of his fingers were still coated with it.  “And it is as I suspected.”

“So what’re you gonna do?” Rumble said, pausing to let Soundwave exit the cargo hold first.  That same consideration, however, didn’t extend to Ravage.  The tapes often squabbled over little things like that.

“I may have to kill Hook and Motormaster.” Soundwave answered.  “Though, that would be a last option.  Their gestalt teams are still a valuable asset.  Best case scenario, assuming victory in Rubigen, I will assume control of Decepticon forces and force an Autobot surrender.  They will fall easily, in the face of this new threat, even if it is only temporarily.

Much the same as with Unicron.”  Soundwave had actually been there when Optimus surrendered the Autobot forces to Scorponok on Earth, to unite them in opposition of the chaos bringer.  Of course, that had all gone to hell when Starscream and Shockwave led a treasonous assault on the Decepticon base.

“Then, I will turn to face this new threat with the full might of Cybertron. Last time, we were fragmented and unprepared.  Now, we are a force to be reckoned with.  The age of the Cybertronian Empire is not upon us yet; rather, the age of the Decepticon Empire is dawning.”  From another, that might have sounded pompous and arrogant.  From Soundwave, however, it simply sounded like the logical outcome.  His great gift, that; Soundwave could make almost anything seem reasonable and logical.  Unlike Shockwave, however, he was not bound within the precepts of logic wholly.  Rather, he used it as a tool, and discarded it when he had to.

“Now, we must check on the battle below.  If it is over, or close, so much the better.  If not, another strategy will be used.  A united front must be presented.”  Stopping abruptly, Ravage and Rumble were surprised to find that they had arrived at Soundwave’s quarters already.  Letting him enter first, the tapes followed behind him, both already hard at work on a way to protect and preserve the Decepticon Empire.  And, more importantly to them, Soundwave.