AUTHOR COMMENTS:
This is a story that is set in an alternate future where the Autobot/Decepticon war has long since ended. How ? What the hell happened ???, you ask. All shall be revealed ... Well some things anyway ...

Any suggestions or criticisms are welcomed. This story is the first in a projected seven-part series, each dealing with a different aspect of Andraxus.

* * *

I am the archivist. It is my function to record events as I see fit. All information is to be considered. Recording is my first priority, before collating, compiling and storing can be done. I have archived the extensive history of our race, I have seen the rise and fall of leaders, I have seen empires collapse and expand, I have seen our race crushed and broken and I have seen them victorious. This analogue takes place at the current point in time. The Empire of Andraxus is recovering from the civil wall in the capital between ASWP and the Coalition High Lords. Sentiment has been replaced by cynicism. The election nears and the public is in state of mistrust for the current government. The aim of this archive is reveal something the character and motivations behind the High Lord of the Seat of Khalhyer. The aim of all the archives in this series is to establish a history based a the shifting views of the High Council.

Part 1

The following is an excerpt of an intercepted communication broadcast between an unidentified point on Andraxus and this point on Khalhyer. It remains the property of the Enforcement Executive.

(BEGIN TRANSMISSION)

...we have located the beginning point of the shaft that we believe extends far below what was reported in previous geological surveys...(BAD DATA)...believe a central chamber and radiating out five points...(BAD DATA)...quite expansive, though we cannot estimate the technological level of the civilisation...(BAD DATA)...however it remains Old Kingdom Cybertronian, unusual for this period...(BAD DATA)...excavation shall proceed with caution ...

(END TRANSMISSION)

Part 2

100 787 AF
Khalhyer, Somewhere beneath the Northern Polar Cap

Dead air hung still among the ruins, in the crude atmosphere formed long ago by unknown means. Perhaps it served to aid communications based upon microwave radiation. Who could tell what was necessary in this artificial underworld ?

" What do I care ? " Snare rumbled to no-one in particular. " Khalhyer is a waste-dump. Fit for only High Lord Slag and his pit-beasts..."

" Take good care I do not strike you for that. " Skylord hissed. " I shall see you scrap in the Arena on Andraxus Major before this year is out. Perhaps I shall hand you over to the High Lord himself for the games. I hear that the Arena on Khalhyer is not so civilised ... "

Skylord turned away and addressed the rest of the unit:

" We are here to investigate. Nothing more. My information is under strict security. Suffice to say that all you see and hear shall be reported to me via the proscribed channels. If you see something at ... unusual, you are to report at once. "

The descent team moved quickly and efficiently, adjusting the drill site and forming a tight guard over all of the access points to the chamber. Skylord gave Snare a warning look and the grunt reluctantly nodded in submission, taking his place at the first sealed exit to the cavern.

The team that had remained in the base camp atop the crust had been responsible for gathering enough information to co-ordinate the FC-gate to transport the descent team to the layer where the signal was being transmitted. A miscalculation could leave the descent team in the wrong sector or stuck in the ice. Those who had entered the field were then subsequently transported to where the signal was being transmitted. Readings indicated it was in a large, cavernous space. The surface group remained in the cutting, arctic winds to relay messages and to keep the FC-gate locked so that the descent team could return.

Meanwhile, the descent team had located the source of the signal. And then it had stopped.

" It should be right here ! " exclaimed the technician. " The readings definitely emanate from this point. "

Skylord did not have to acknowledge the member of a such a lowly caste but he favoured the whining little fuelsucker with a direct gaze. " Keep drilling. "
His solution was that if they excavated the point where the transmission had vanished then they would find the source of the signal. Some sort of transmitter.

The subterranean chamber was smooth-carved from rock and paved with metallic paving. He had no knowledge of architecture or of the dim and distant past of his race. To him it was alien, different. He had deployed his troops out over the access points to the chamber and several more guarded the FC-gate. When it was activated once more a field would appear that reveal the mud-brown snow and terrible skies of the Khalhyer surface.

Skylord ran a check-list. All troops were serviceable, except for Snare whom he disliked. How he had ever won his name and colours was beyond Skylord's understanding.

" And he has to be in my unit. I shall see him draw the lowest of duties, until he has to understand what being in a troop is all about. " Skylord thought, snickering.

" Squad-Commander..." grovelled one of the technicians.

" Yes ? What have you found ...ah ...." Through rubble and rock-dust a space had been cleared. Some sort of hatch ...

Skylord stared. The red insignia ramped over the entrance hatch was a product of old military sims.

" Scorponok and His Savage Commandos ", " The Battle at Altair-5 " , " The Brave and the Few " - his personal
favourite. Now he was staring at something from old legends, dead stories. Something that was out of his frame of
reference.

" Autobots ..." he whispered. In imitation of Scorponok, he waved his shoulder-mounted weaponry in what he hoped was a menacing manner. " Troops.... " Skylord snarled. " Spread out !!! "

One shot should easily clear that hatch. " Out of my way, scrap ! " he howled at the technical crew. Everyone was staring. Hadn't they seen the award-winning sim ? Scorponok runs at the gates of the Autobot headquarters, the only warrior left with personal honour that sees him through battle after battle with the cowardly scum. He smashes through the gate, only to find that they have betrayed the parley and have started to dissemble Scorponok's field marshal. With the courage of a true Andraxan, Scorponok destroys the cringing ground troops and takes a shot meant for the field marshal and survives. He liberates his superior and returns to HQ and receives a personal commendation from the Lord Commander.

Skylord aimed a steady burst at the hatchway. It flared and slagged open. The technical crew jabbered and whined but they knew their places, set into a social system that separated the military from the scientists and ranked the lowliest grunt above the top scientists.

He focused and magnified his view ... a chamber. Smaller. Cubic in shape, almost-exact dimensions. He took a step forward. And then the transmission started again.

Part 3

" Field-Major. There is an unidentifiable object at 122/Elkl/1231. "

Arrowdive turned and scanned the point at where the scout had indicated. Infra-red - useless in this frozen hell. Several adjustments of the spectrum and he could make out a blurred shape that would not resolve into any known configuration.

" Aim weapons. Full charge. " he broadcasted, indicating the co-ordinates in his transmission.

Broadbeam, the communications officer, automatically patched him in a transmission from the descent team.

Snare: out...in waves...

Arrowdive: Cannot copy. Repeat transmission.

He now had multitask his attention between the apparition coming over the lip of the bowl down towards the base camp and some disaster occurring thousands of metres beneath his treads. On the horizon: a burning, blazing shimmering, coming closer.

Beneath the crust -

Snare: shut site activated...protocol seven...shut site

[Image Dump]

Arrowdive: Understood

*All staff shut FC-gate. Break all links. Leave area immediately*

*Explanation: Someone set off some sort of defensive weapon down there, might spill out
through gate, damage camp*

Tech#6755: Too late to power down its open

Arrowdive: Evacuate immediately

Too late, the hellfire exploded through the open FC-gate, carrying its immolation from thousands of metres below the surface, vaporising those locked around the base camp and spewing chunks of debris high into the air.

Part 4

Arrowdive crawled away from the blast site. His system check warned him of internal damage and his nanotech had difficulty co-ordinating the problem areas which meant there was some processing problem.

He managed to rise. He thought he could manage a transformation. He was the conventional Air Force Executive atmospheric cruiser. He had the capabilities to make it the base, Landing, a fair way south, he judged with his scrambled navcomp and then, and then -

A massive foot was planted in front of him. It was burning.

Arrowdive had never seen an " ANDRAX " - he couldn't quite recall the acronym - or projected energy field created by the Matrix that interfaced with a selected host. It could be made to manifest in a number of cosmetic forms, depending on the personality of the host, but only one had ever chosen to appear as though he was in flames, at the centre of a white-fire holocaust, constantly smothered in flames that leapt and flared savagely. There were only seven in all the Andraxan System who had such energy fields. And only one would be on Khalhyer.

Part 5

Behold: High Lord Slag, governor of Khalhyer under the auspices of the Lord Commander. A massive sword smelted from an incredibly dense stellar alloy was stabbed in the permafrost in front of the throne-like dais formed from slabs of super-cooled ice. High Lord Slag's horns hung over his squat, square humanoid form - they were capped in a dull, corroded metal that gleamed like blood in the weak sunlight that echoed through the cloud cover.

A thick, matted pelt of some gargantuan beast was draped across Slag's iron-grey frame. The skull perched atop his hood, fangs bared themselves in empty space. The skull was stripped bone. Eyes in the sockets of the long-dead beast burned like fireflowers.

Slag raised a pitted hand spiked with arena claws and covered in ichor-clotted chains.

" Why you here ? " He bellowed. " Slag rule Landing. Slag rule Khalhyer. This Slag's world ! "

Arrowdive shuddered and stared at the ground. Re-engineered for survival in the Khalhyer climate, his sensors nonetheless inched towards critical.

Hang on, his processor managed to reason, I should be near the blast site. I'm no where that I can tell. I've been teleported obviously, but I don't see any tech...

The High Lord appeared nonchalant, his fist tapped the pommel of his mighty blade.

" Lord Slag ... " Arrowdive radioed. " We ... "

" You have no excuse ! " Slag roared. " You sent here to spy. Slag kills spies ! " The barbaric High Lord crushed his hands together. " Tell me why you here. One last chance. "

" We crashed here. We're just a recon unit... "

Slag's frost-rimed visor burned a throbbing red. In one easy motion, the kind of motion that enabled him to become Champion Pit-Fighter on Andraxus, he grabbed the Field-Major in a fast grip and smashed a fist through his armour.

" Slag no like liars. " he grunted. Arrowdive screamed silently as his systems collapsed, the miraculous engineering architecture that enables his functions -transformation, life - shorted out through a shattered fuel pump.

" Slag no read datacores... On Andraxus they read your mind. Through Well. Slag likes this way better. More reliable.

" Now, " the High Lord hissed, "Tell Slag why you here or Slag break you open. Slag knows your design. Fast in air. Weak on ground. Die quick in Pit. "

" Thhe - thehee - " spluttered Arrowdive.

" Talk. Or die. Not both. "

" Ciittyy. Unnder caapp iice. "

" You drill for city ? "

" Yeesss... "

" How far down ? "

" -*Fpphht*- Pfft "

Arrowdive's personality snapped out of existence, leaving a dead shell in the High Lord's cruel grip. " Neurolock. " Slag muttered, identifying the emissions. " Fivestrike ..."

Part 6

High Lord Slag rules a frozen hell. Chill oceans thump at the ice plates covering them. The land masses are locked together in eternal winter. Furious storms constantly crack the barren landscape. The jagged ice particles can rip someone down to the bare mechanics instantly. Lost cities, civilisations are locked forever beneath the ice caps. And the liquid that forms this icy waste is a water so polluted and choked with foul substances that the very snow is brown. Acidic. Poison.

Landing is the only city on Khalhyer. It is mainly a penal colonel where political dissidents face their last days in a slowly grinding state. The elements tear them apart and frozen statues rimed with brown ice dot the plains surrounding the subterranean city. Khalhyer is home to the organic wastes of the Andraxus Empire. Here experiments are consistently carried out to produce cybernetic monsters for use in the arenas. Landing extends for thirty-four levels under ground, with the famous arena on the very last. Slag prefers the iceplates for hunting rogue pit-beasts. Without energy weapons of any kind. No, only the dependable sword for Slag, his own dire cunning and raw, brute strength. The climate barely effects him. Though the energy field that powers him and his fellow High Lords renders him invulnerable he despises the lack of challenge that it has left him with. Obsession ticks way within him. His scientists labour above their genepools smelting beast after beast that will pose him with disposable challenges. Life on Khalhyer is cheap. And quick.

Slag had little in the way of a staff. He was a jailer and his prisoners were low maintenance - they were shredded by the artic winds and chilled to useless, immobile lumps by the weather of the polar caps. Normally he kept everything inside, pent-up, feeding the rage that gave him strength and temper as there were few people in the Andraxan System he would confide in. One was the Lord Commander. Then there were the other members of his original pit-team, the Slashers, now enjoying their hard-won luxury on Andraxus Minor. Hun-grrr had joined the Enforcement Executive, Cut-throat and Rampage were pit-masters at a small, prosperous ring they had founded in the Northside and Divebomb had perished in the 60 345 AF uprisings.

Another he could trust was the quiet bio-engineer, Axefist.

Clean, gleaming chrome glittered with sterilisation fluids as the Flesh Master threw a screaming organism into the environmental tank.

" Look, my lord. " Axefist said dispassionately. " See how quickly they feed ? "

Slag watched, fascinated as the small organism was ripped apart by the latest biomech development: squat four-legged creatures bristling with hooked, metallic teeth and over-large claws sunk into a matted, silver pelt. Pit-beasts had to conform to strict standards and whole technologies had been developed to come up with the architecture defined by those narrow rules.

" I have introduced a pheromone into the tank. It is the only thing that stops them from devouring each other. " Axefist continued.

Suddenly in the midst of the feeding frenzy two of the beasts savaged each other. The resultant riot was volatile as organics were shredded and plastics crushed.

Axefist sighed. " Though there are some temperamental problems. " he noted as he adjusted the controls to the environment tank and soon the beasts were quietened to a dormant state, still clotted with gore.

Slag sighed and tapped his fists against his shank armour. There were quick-welded plates and patches and scarred dints and viscous pocks from his long years in the pits. It was a status symbol.

" Military party. Near viaduct, Sector 7/dfg. They nuked their base. Unknown reasons. Slag interrogated one. "

Axefist continued to re-configure a sequence to the environment tank.

" He tell Slag nothing. Neurolock. "

" I thought they were illegal. "

" Everything illegal. No. Neurolock not used for long time. Ineffective. Jams main clusters linked to metaprocessor. Expensive in terms of troops."

" They used it during uprisings..."

" The People's Revolution. " Axefist added dryly.

" Fivestrike. Thunderwing's special forces. They used it on lower operatives. We had to smash their datacores out to learn anything. "

" I cannot see the current administration reviving old Coalition technologies. "

" Then why now ? Ravage too smart to use such garbage. Not ASWP. They can't get past Enforcement. He say they want city. Under icecap. They drill. Drill and drill. We not register such drillings on monitors. Must have used FC-gate then. "

" I would not put too much faith in our monitoring section. "

" Course not. " Slag huffed. " Only good for gambling fraud. But Slag think if they use neurolock then they can't afford much drill equipment. That whole operation must run out of low budget. Low priority to someone. That they weren't expecting to find anything. Yet they did. "

" Do you think they got a transmission back then ? "

" Is doubtful. But possible. "

" Are you going to file a report ? "

" Will not tell ASWP. Maybe Enforcement. This Slag's world. On Andraxus they remember him. Slag could have be Lord Commander. Andraxus remembers that. Any who come to Slag's world without Slag's permission are felons. They die. Simple as that. "

Slag sent a vague report to Hun-Grrr in the Foreign Affairs department of the Enforcement Executive, based in Andraxus Minor. He would be there soon for the meeting of the High Council. All the heads of the Regional Seats would be gathered there: Khalhyer, the Strip, the Ring Worlds, the Far Worlds, River-Rock, Andraxus, Andraxus Minor. The usual discussions of policies, budgets, exports, imports, taxation he had to endure. It was off-season in the major pits but he could still enter a few home-brewed pit-beasts and watch them tear apart luckless gladiators and the condemned. He had fine eye for his beasts and knew which stock would prove better or worse in successive generations. One of the beasts, AH-X2, had proven diabolic in this years season at Landing and was going to go for its first blood in a major pit. Not that there was anything wrong with the pit at Landing but its low coverage and population qualified it for amateur status. But they'd think again after this year.

Part 7

Hunting Day. Slag paused for a while in the trophy hall. Spitted heads hung on massive chains to the rock-gouged walls, torn body parts and weaponry hung in grisly display. Ancient enemies, pit-beasts, friends and traitors stared back at him with cold optics and hollow eye-sockets. There was an empty space on the far wall. It was reserved for his oldest adversary and it was wedged right between the hateful countenances of Sludge and Swoop, both who had perished beneath his blade and horns.

Grimlock. Somewhere out there the Autobot Commander lived, beyond all the lies that they had told him. The Autobots were long gone, absorbed into Andraxus or dead with their dead world. Hah. They were out beyond the frontiers lurking and biding their time. To strike and ravish Andraxus and all of the Empire's achievements. And Slag would hunt him down give the killing strike and when the battered hand reached out for mercy there would be none.

They had left him to die. On Charr. Buried by lava and landslides he had dug his way out, only to find them gone. And he had called out to Grimlock as he fell and Grimlock had watched him fall. Finishing off a Predacon was more important than rescuing a comrade. Hah. He owed them nothing, not for the long years of service and bondage. He had travelled, a battered, smelted hulk from planet to planet, repairing himself with whatever scrap came to hand, living off scarped fuel and he had tracked them down, one by one and tore them apart with his blade and horns. Until the Reformation, the Final Judgement on Cybertron and he had knelt at the feet of the Lord Commander and pledged his vow of service. And he had been given life.

All that was a long time ago, however, and those oldest of trophies were neglected and covered with dust.

(But still Grimlock escaped him and still the raw spot on the wall glared back him.)

Slag moved to the weaponry room and selected his usual blade formed from stellar-alloy, a lighter one that could be drawn quickly, several throwing spikes, magnetic clamps and a number of keenly-edged stakes that would enter the tough hide of a rogue pit-beast with little trouble. He stuck by the pit rules that said no sophisticated projectile or energy weapons, only bodily might and strength. The pits had made him and he obeyed their mandates as being second-nature, unquestionable.

He had hung a number of trophies over his upright frame. He had a thick rings of metallic teeth on various chains, swollen, stinking heads around his waist and the scaled skin of a massive beast that hung around his shoulders and fell over his hood in wrinkled lumps. Most of them would be crushed if he changed to his secondary mode but there would always be more to hunt.

Slag had no idea where he was going. Normally he transported himself in a random direction and wandered about aimlessly until he came upon spoor or disturbed a beast into flight. Occasionally other things would be discovered his random jumps. Like the military party now dismissed from his mind or the strange construction up ahead.

Slag was tired of finding other creatures on his planet. The doomed military expedition, and now what appeared to be a base of some sort.

And the climate had changed, he noted belatedly as he neared the base. The wind had dropped off. No razor-sharp shredding particles howled in mad circles here. It was quiet and deathly still. Slag liked the diabolical weather. He liked the constant whine of the winds outside Landing, he like watching others freeze into locked lumps of icicled metal, he liked the dangerous ways of his frozen world. And someone had dared to switch it off. He detected some sort of field generator. There would be several of these pegging out a specified area, generating a maintained environment within.

He critically examined the base as he plodded nearer to it. It had no visible weaponry and to be seemed a poor design for a military installation. There were the dishes spinning on top and other devices that linked in with the EM generators forming a rough five-thousand kilometre square area of climate-controlled territory around the base and there was evidence of terraforming occurring within those boundaries.

How dare they modify his world. He'd burn the lot of them alive and he'd cast them out into the cold and give them a few hours and then he'd hunt them down as their joints clogged up and their cooling fluids clotted and he'd spit them on the end of his terrible blade and carve off selected bits and put them on the lowest shelf in his trophy hall.

He grimly plodded onward, aiming for the obvious entrance to the base, a sealed door.

And then Slag's energy field began to manifest physically, flaming and crackling into a vibrant corona. It was registering the presence of another such energy field. That meant the presence of another High Lord, yet none had any reason to be here on Khalhyer. Slag growled. The field fuelled him, rendered him invulnerable, yet he knew next to nothing about it. It had come from the Matrix, when he had cupped his massive, spiked hands about it and then everything had started to burn. He knew that it reacted involuntarily at certain stimuli and this was one of them. Another High Lord.

The Council meddling about with his world. Hah ! He'd get stuck into the others at the AGM, he would.

He drew his blade and regarded the door. Once good slice should do it.

Without warning the entrance slid open.

" Please come in, Lord Slag. " a voice said quietly as he entered a small, low corridor and then, behind him, the door clamped shut.

Part 8

Slag judged that he was in a complex that covered five hundred metres square and went down a fair way into the crust.

Within the base, he noticed that it was a much warmer temperature than inside as the infra-red shift was dramatic. The corridor was blank and a continuos chrome colour. He followed the voice, analysing it in as much as one of his kind's voices could be studied. Vocal communication was rarely used except when it necessary to make an obvious noise, to draw attention. Like a pit-cry. Or the raucous static of the crowd. Yet the voice had neither been threatening nor challenging. Slag turned into a wider corridor which opened into a larger glowing with electronic activity.

The inhabitant of the base was standing at a computer bank. Emissions indicated that it was linked to the Well. He was average sized and appeared to be a civilian. He had no obvious weaponry. He had light plating and had a pale colour-scheme. Thick treads ran down his legs and arms and his torso was segmented, which indicated his second mode would be some sort of ground transport. The head was a stylised design, all most like an impressionist, streamlined rodent. The optics and speakers were a single plate, a reflective black.

" Well, well. Greetings, Lord Slag. " the stranger said politely. Slag's energy field flared as the stranger seemed to ripple, as if distorted by a heat wave.

" You have ANDRAX ! " Slag accused him. " Yet you not on Council. You think you claim Khalhyer ? Slag prove you wrong ! " Slag drew his killing blade and stepped into a low, gladiatorial crouch. The First Law of the Council said that two High Lords may not do combat with each other, ritual or otherwise. Behind it was the fear of two ANDRAX-boosted warriors battling together. Slag remembered Thunderwing's gibbeted mechanics dangling from the highest point in the Spires, he remembered the terrible clash as the renegade High Lord of the Strip battled with the Lord Commander and the unmitigated devastation. Yet Slag had been denied hand-to-hand combat as soon as he had set his hand upon that cursed matrix. This idiot was threatening his territory and would soon know what it was like to boil alive, to be sliced upon and hung upon a spike while
his internal clockwork ground down into chaos and disarray.

" I am no threat to you, nor to the world you govern. " the stranger continued. Relaxed, if he had every confidence into his andrax to protect him. " I am Ratshit. "

" Ratshit ? " Slag snickered. The [image] that the name represented was one who worked with organic materials, organic wastes and by-products.

" Some small joke of the Lord Commander who named most of us, although he never explained it to me. Something private, I thought, so best left unexplained. " the biologist rambled pleasantly.

The Lord Commander ! So he was behind this infiltration on Slag's territory. Slag simmered. " He not tell Slag ! You lie ! " he crowed hopefully.

Ratshit shook his head. " I can assure you that my work has the full backing and support of the Lord Commander. I suppose I can show you various tapes and documentation, if you like ? "

" Hah ! " Slag scoffed. " But he on Andraxus. You on Khalhyer. Slag rules Khalhyer. "

" Indeed, it is my pleasure to make the acquaintance of my governor. " Ratshit said. " I can assure you that my work is non-threatening to your regime and has non-political motives so that your influence on the Council will not be jeopardised. I have many tapes of your famous gladiatorial career, Lord Slag, and we have watched them may times. The little ones love to see your style in the ring and you are the favourite. I always wondered how you managed to disarm Condor, in that Southside Title ? "

" He not look. "

" Ah, I see. " the biologist continued carefully.

" Must always focus attention on every part of body. Condor good, quick, strong but not focus attention. Slag used sidestep-right, stop, turn-left, upper-slash. Like so. "

A shower of sparks flew out of a bank of machinery that Slag was demonstrating on. He withdrew his blade and indicated the guttering bank of smashed machinery.

" I see. " Ratshit said, staring at the wreckage doubtfully. " Well, no matter. It was a superb demonstration of style and skill. "

Slag thought of the simpering, whining High Lord of Andraxus Minor, Raindance. With these types you had to endure the rubbish they carried on with, force them back to the main point.

" Why you have ANDRAX ? " he asked, fingering the spiked haft on his blade. If this was one of the Lord Commander's pet projects it wouldn't be in Slag's best interest to intervene. Yet he had gone ahead and built something on Slag's own world, administered it with another of the bureaucratic fops that the Homeworld was so rich in. There would be a price payed somewhere down the line.

Ratshit appeared to relax visibly. Slag grunted. He'd thrown the first round away, lulled the fool into position of false security. Soon he'd prove once and for all what happened when you tried to attack another ANDRAX.

" I used to be in the Engineering Executive. This was a long time ago, before the Uprisings, when Thunderwing was on the High Council and Cyclonus still ... "

" What year ? " Slag interrupted.

" Forgive my loquaciousness. I'm so used to telling stories in the same sort of style that I can't help it if a report comes out the same way ! Ah well, 37 834 AF. "

Slag snorted.

" Anyhow, I was on the Engineering Executive. When Thuderwing began his first coup all these agents surfaced among us and Enforcement began purging our ranks after the dispute was settled. I was put on some trumped-up charge of treason and was sentenced to either Trial by Combat or Trial by Matrix. That's ASWP for you, oh sorry, Lord Slag, I forgot... "

" ASWP full of scrap. But better than Coalition. Continue. "

" Anyhow, while it's one thing to watch the SuperPit, it's another thing to be a victim of it. I had no desire to be half-time entertainment for the masses and seeing that my data-core would wiped anyway, I elected to be erased by the artefact that created me in the first place."

" Better to die on feet. " Slag glowered.

" Depends whose feet they happen to be, Lord Slag. Mine were weak and trembling. There was a whole line of us in the Hall of Remembrance, and as I stood there surrounded by the statues our past commanders: Scorponok, Onslaught - I thought to myself," Well, this isn't a bad place to end it all, surrounded by our proud history. I'll be a regular trooper and I won't flinch a picometre. " So everyone drew lots and as luck would have it, I was last. I had to watch everyone walk up to the dais and touch the Matrix. You don't believe how small it is. Just an innocent little cube ..."

Slag snarled. " Slag knows what Matrix looks like. "

" Anyhow, they all touched it and went blank ... I don't know how to describe it. Once they were colleagues, friends, the next they were empty shells. Immobile, ready to be fitted with a more worthy personality core. They were hustled away by the guards. Just packed away and driven out. So it came to me, and I was more or less resigned to it. I walked up, climbed the steps, reached out and something happened. It was like ..."

Slag made a cutting motion. " Know all that. What next."

Ratshit sighed. " Well, they were all as shocked as much as I was. I was guarded and I went into a cell, thinking: " Well, that's our legal system for you. " I waited for a bit... "

" Why wait ? You could have got out. Easy enough. Everything easy with ANDRAX. " Slag said with black venom.

" As I said before, Lord Slag, I'm not one to stand and fight. No, I was content with whatever justice they would serve on me. I knew I was innocent but the system is as the system stands. I was in my cell for a while and then the guard said over shortwave that I had a visitor. I was expecting an attorney or another legal parasite, but who should walk in but the Lord Commander ? I was on my knees in a second, but he said to get up and not to bother with all that rubbish - you know how he is. He said that I was now his equal or the equal of anybody in the Council. That stumped me. How could anybody be equal to him ? He asked me if I wanted a Seat and I said, no, I wasn't much into governing. I'm not too good at giving orders. Then he asked me what I wanted to do. I couldn't very well go back to the office. So I said I wanted to clear my name and I explained how unfairly my case had been treated and my defence had been ignored. We talked for quite a while and he said he'd look into a few legal reforms. And then he asked me again, at the end of it all, what I wanted to do ?

" Well, I couldn't think of a single thing. And then I told him that I had wanted to be a biologist. My transfer to Bio-wastes was all lined up and I'd only a few months to wait when those purges had started... The Lord Commander thought about it for a few minutes, and said if I wanted to administer a special project for him ? I'd be directly responsible to him and no other. Well, that got me. He said it was on Khalhyer, the prison planet, that it'd be hard work and I'd have little company or support. But it was vital, he said. That got me.

" So, I said that I would work on the project and here I am ! Just loving it. Absolutely. They're such a delight to work with. It's my whole life, getting them to a stage ... "

" What ? " Slag interrupted, tired of the endless monologue.

" I think it's best if I show you. " Ratshit said.

They entered a lift and went down many levels.

Part 9

After a while, they entered the viewing room to small cavern. Slag stared, aghast at the display. It was filled with greenery. Small ferns nested in the walls, lichen-covered boulders, thick trees and fruit-filled shrubs. Small waterfalls ran down the sides of the cavern to interconnect at a small lake in the centre of the chamber. Small lamps set into the ceiling gave a diffuse stream of yellow light.

" Look." Ratshit pointed eagerly. " Here they come."

The bushes rustled and then a squat, hairy creature loped out. It sniffed the air with a flat nose and then cautiously made its way down to the lake. It appeared to be carrying a sharpened stick in one hand. The creature made a series of undulating clicking noises in the back of its throat and then more of the animals appeared from the foliage.

" Humans... " Slag said, disgusted. He had not seen any of them for eons. They were a failed species, irrelevant. They had been superseded. And yet the Lord Commander had been funding a research base aimed at their protection and continuation.

" They should be destroyed. They all dead. Should stay dead. "

Ratshit gave him a quiet look. " It's a miracle we've even gotten them to this stage. The cell samples we have are riddled with cancers and the amount of time it takes to create a decent genetic matrix is enormous. They live only a short time, even in comparison to the lifespan they had when they actually were capable of civilisation. And only one in ten young survive. Right now they are capable of feeding themselves and have a rudimentary language. "

" So ? " Slag grunted. " What you do with them ? They were threat once. Must not be again. They must be destroyed. Only practical solution. "

" I was hoping to get them to the stage where I could release them to the wild. I've already set up a reserve that has the basics to sustain them. They couldn't escape from that because of the conditions of the ice cap. And they have nothing to become a threat with. No tools, no weapons. The reserve is devoid of materials. I have been authorised to terminate them if they grow beyond a hunter-gatherer stage. But all I want is to see them in their native environment. "

" Too risky. " Slag snarled. " Slag would destroy your base now if you did not have official sanction. And he must question the Lord Commander on this. Very improper. "

Ratshit stared at him. No thought could be gathered from those unreflecting optics.

They moved into another area. Here were open pens. A human lay on its side as young suckled it and Ratshit gently scratched its diminutive head. The animal leaned into the scratch and made a series of chirping grunts, which Ratshit responded in turn.

" She is asking me when she can be returned into the main enclosure, with the rest of the family group. I have responded that when the little one is older. She does not understand that they would attack her. Poor thing. "

Slag grunted. He'd seen enough of this sentimental moron to know that his kind should have all perished in the Reformation. Like the humans, there were some species that the Lord Commander should not have brought back.

They moved on through pens where the humans were blind and mutated. Ratshit talked to them carefully, and lingered a while before moving on. The humans slobbered and howled as they past, their idiot faces pressed to the clear plastic.

" Look ! " Ratshit told the breeding males excitedly as they entered their pens.

" This is Lord Slag, the gladiator !" The thickly-haired creatures grunted and pounded the walls.

" I've tried some simple vids with them. Question time, engineering documentaries, military histories, even those awful gung-ho war sims. They like the Pit Championships best of all. " said Ratshit, seemingly with a trace of sadness. " It's shame that a race destroyed by war should be so attracted to it. I hope they don't fight as they once did when I release them out onto the reserve. But it is their world, after all. "

" Khalhyer Slag's world. " Slag growled.

" Now. But once it was home to these creatures. I can't imagine it. Millions of them building cities, mating, living their lives..." Ratshit said wistfully.

" Slag was there when the Lord Commander gave orders to destroy it. He nuked from space. We all watched. "

" So he did. " Ratshit said, expressionless.

" Slag could destroy this place. He leave you alive, to watch. But humans die. All gene-stocks die. Slag can set up pit-beast breeding facilities here. Much better use. "

Ratshit stared at the floor. " And I suppose it's too much to appeal to your better senses ..." he said with a faint sneer.

" What you know of Slag ? " Slag retaliated.

" Only that you are without mercy, a killer without compunction. I'm surprised I got you this far. "

Slag grasped the blade. There would be no warning.

" And I know that if you so much lay a hand on me or my property the Lord Commander will know and you shall be stripped of your rank and title and you must stand before him and fall. Must I remind you of Thunderwing ?"

Slag snarled. His aura flamed and smelted the tiles beneath his feat.

" Well, Lord Slag ? Shall the humans die ? " Ratshit asked him quietly.

Slag was about to move when his ANDRAX flickered and did something to his head. It did that sometimes, as if it were attempting to re-organise the damaged parts of his mind and meeting with no success. There was too much wreckage, too little thought for it to draw everything together. Almost as if it were sentient, attempting to guide him as well as protect him. That was why Slag hated the ANDRAX in turn. He gave it nothing but loathing and distrust and yet it nourished and healed him, continually attempting to repair the mashed circuits and jilted recollections that formed his pool of logical thought. It was learning how to bridge gaps, cut channels, make it easier to remember. It had no instinct except for its own preservation. To prod him when he was confronted with his own doom. The Lord Commander had told him once that his own ANDRAX had let him see the future. Sometimes Slag saw the past.

Part 10

Slag remembered the long years. Squashed into a small chamber, unable to turn because he would hit Divebomb or Hun-grrr or Rampage or Cut-throat, all who were canned like sardines into a narrow space. The pit-master gibbered outside, taunting them with old spiteful transmissions, yet he was too stupid to understand. Only that he must fight when the bars lifted. Must rend and rip and tear. If his enemies were smashed, that was good. He got fuel then. And armour was welded on in crazy plates and patches, making him stronger. But later he noticed how the crowd cheered when he held the guttering, sparking limbs aloft. He noticed that when he flamed a target they screamed with him. When he crushed opponents they roared their approval. When he was hit, they jeered his enemies.

Soon the Slashers were out of the amateur rings into the major pits. And the bad times started. The rumours ran that the Lord Commander had gone insane. The armies stopped leaving from the ports as all tours of duties had been terminated and confused troops wandered in destructive patterns over the city, only to be hunted down by Enforcement and sent to the Strip, to mine and dig.

And still they battled their way through competitions, leagues, tournaments. While Divebomb and Hun-grrr discussed events in nervous whispers he was scraping his horns sharp, getting his tanks checked and cleaned, running sequences of his own combats so he could memorise where he had went wrong in case it happened again. He had fought all his existence. He knew nothing else.

He let the others handle his winnings and the bets. They were there to fight or fall beside him. They had no other purpose. He ignored all Hun-grrr's attempts to dominate him, and had brutally smashed Divebomb for withholding credit.

" Where Slag's credit ? "

" Look, look it's tied up right now. I'll have it doubled, just wait and I'll get it..."

" Where Slag's credit ?"

" I said I don't have it ! I can get it for you. You'll have to wait..."

" Where Slag's credit ? "

" I don't have it ... I "

Slag had skewered him with a snout-horn. He rarely used his bipedal mode. " Rampage say you spend all Slag's credit. Slag hurt you. "

It took the other three to drag him off the battered wreck. Rampage snickering all the while.

After that he made sure he put all of his winnings on himself. At first it was annoying to have to worry about it so much but then he discovered credit meant better armour, more claws and vibrating spikes, better quality flame. They left him alone after that. He kept fighting, as he had known nothing else.

And then the last professional fight. The Deathscabbers. Normal five-member tag-team rules.
Brawl. Harrow. Deathmix. Wierdwolf. Quickfist. It was the normal strategy, Cut-throat and Divebomb in
the air, Rampage and Slag flanking in and Hun-grrr hanging back. They were slaughtered. Harrow rammed Cut-throat down, Deathmix, Brawl, Wierdwolf smashed into the file and Quickfist wheeled around from behind. The Deathscabbers were relentless and violent, not an ounce of cunning or finesse. They were out only to wrack as much carnage in the quickest amount of time. It was like looking into a mirror.

And as Slag pounded and smashed and burned he saw Divebomb fall. He had transformed to base mode and was crouching over the assault tank which had crashed into the walls of the pit. " Brawl..." he was saying softly. " Remember me ? "

He must of snapped under the tournament pressure. Hah !

The fool had deserved to get charged from behind by Harrow.

Only it had happened so quickly...

All were crunched into the ground except for Deathmix, leering, stomping towards him. Slag looked around and saw all his compatriots grounded and unable to rise. Hun-grrr was stuck between his modes, gyrating on the ground, Rampage had had his head spiked to the steel floor.

As Slag turned to face Deathmix he had neglected to watch out for Harrow. He was seized and jerked into the air as Deathmix charged into his underbelly. And then he was lying on the ground and the crowd was screaming and the pit-master was announcing the winners as the Deathscabbers.

Slag snapped. Images jerked across his processor.

A fall of rubble, a dead Predacon. covered in oil, Swoop burning, trying to fly as a sword
stabbed him open.

Sludge greeting him, he is saying I thought you were lost forever, come we must tell the others, and as the lumbering idiot turns away he is boiled and struck so quickly...

I knew all their weaknesses. I had been with them so long I knew when how they thought and meshed together and how Swoop could be struck there and here and he would fall and I knew how to get through Sludge's armour. I knew their death. Over and over again. I knew that I must dispose of their frames so no one would find them and bring them back to life.

Swoop cries, mercy Slag what ever did I do to deserve this.

You lived, I answer him. I died. In that instant we were both lost.

Grimlock has fallen, no he turns and rises, did you think you were a match for me - I am always your superior, I hunted you, I answer, I am the victor now, and we grapple over the platform and outside the light gathers illuminating the surface of Cybertron in a thermonuclear holocaust. And I run, far away from Grimlock to where the new era burns.

It is the day of judgement. I fall before his feet. I would come with you than stay here and rot. They have
betrayed me. And he says that I am forgiven, that I will come with him to found the city beyond the stars and its name shall be Andraxus. Black fire radiates from him as he holds up the Matrix and I am leaving Grimlock behind, running, but I shall kill you shall kill you yet and Grimlock watches as I am buried beneath the rock and the dead Predacon stirs and I am hunting Sludge and Swoop, fighting Grimlock and kneeling before the Lord Commander and fighting Grimlock shall kill you shall kill you yet.

He lumbered into life, there, on the floor of the pit. Old rage coursed through him and his processor flickered and moved smashed limbs as he caught Harrow from behind, stabbing him open and at the same time he flamed his tanks out, causing all sorts of internal damage, but coating Deathmix with a blaze that ignited internal fires. Long after the crowd had gone he was crashing and burning things, moving blindly. It was something that the technicians were unable to repair.

Part 11

Slag did not fear the cowardly scientist, nor his charges. He came from a race that had no concept of pain. But there was fear.

And Slag feared the Lord Commander.

" No. " Slag said reluctantly. " Let them live. "

The End