In the vast wastes of intersteller space, on many thousands of planets around many thousands of stars, the traces of intelligent life appear. On the planets that evolve intelligent life, wars between each other become inevitable. Each race fights at some point in their evolution, first over land, and then over ideals. The end for many races come when weapons are introduced that destroy the population; those that survive realize eventually that there really isn't a reason to fight. Those that can develop space travel, along with an awareness of other planets and races among the stars. Some see beauty and adventure among the stars, and so explore and colonize unclaimed planets. Some see a chance to expand their territory and so set out to conquer other worlds. Some only see the planets and their inhabitants as raw materials.
One race, realizing the infinitesimal amount of cosmic time alloted their civilization was nearing an end, learned how to transfer their minds into robotic bodies so they might never die. As time went on, they began to run out of energy and materials needed to construct these bodies, and so devised a plan to drain the energy and technology out of planets of other star systems. They soon constructed a huge vehicle, the scale of which had never been seen before in the galaxy--it was the size of a large planet. They left their solar system, not before capturing the other planets in it and draining them, and began a quest to destroy the galaxy.
It was a relatively quiet day on earth. It had been several years since the last of the Cybertronians had finally left the planet to its own fate, as it was dangerous to consider what might have happened if they hadn't ended the great war that had decimated countless solar systems and nearly destroyed earth. Little did the earthlings know what danger lied ahead. Deep in space, past the orbit of the sixth planet in the solar system, a giant transwarp wormhole opened; a giant black sphere floated out of it and flew foward at tremendous speed. It had a target, and the mind of its commander had set that they would not leave until they had drained this system dry. It passed the largest planet in the system with some ignorance; they were after smaller prey. It passed through an asteroid belt, the remains of a planet that never was. It came upon a small planet, large enough to use. Two great doors slid open and a huge three fingered claw reached out and grasped the defenseless planet and pulled it in. Unknown to the inhabitants of the black sphere, there were colonists on this tiny planet. They sent a message to their home base on a planet only a few million miles away, and they instantly activated a message beacon to another planet much further away.
On Cybertron, a ship hovered and took off of its pad. In it was a group of new and more powerful warriors that was developed by Optimus Prime to protect other planets from more powerful races with the means to conquer them. As it lifted and flew up, a light on the main console began blinking. Jetfire touched a button and began recieving a message. "Optimus," he said, "we're recieving a distress call."
"What? From where?" Optimus asked, startled.
"Earth." Optimus came to the screen and looked. On it, a picture of Mars glowed against a starry background. A voice of an earthling began to speak, the fear was noticable in his voice.
"This is what we recieved from a Martian surveillance satellite just a half an hour ago." Stars in a section of the picture began to disappear. As sunlight dawned over the edge of the red-orange planet, light suddenly reflected off of a giant black sphere. It neared and then dwarfed the planet, as two humongous doors slid open, revealing a hideous red glow from the inside. A gigantic three-fingered claw slid out on a telescoping metal arm. The fingers opened, then closed around the planet. The claw slid back in and the doors slid shut. Where the planet was, there was now empty space. Suddenly, a small object shot out of the sphere and turned toward the satellite; it fired and the picture went static. "I can't tell you how horrible this is. There were ten thousand colonists on Mars at the time. They couldn't have survived. We monitored the object as well as we could, our sensors are, for the most part, ineffective. Another satellite photographed the object opening its doors again and releasing only a stream of asteroids. Mars is gone, Optimus, and I fear that we're next."
"Oh, Primus help us," gasped Optimus. "Jetfire, inform the Autobase and the Planetary Defense Fleet on Cybertron. We have to put all of our resources into this, or earth may not survive."
"Both are on alert. All other Cybertronian outposts have also recieved the message and are preparing ships and troops," said Jetfire. The ship flew out of the atmosphere and streaked into space.
"Optimus, should we put all of our resources into one strike?" asked Megatron, sitting near to him. "Is it a good move to risk leaving Cybertron undefended?"
"Megatron, we have to stop this thing, whatever it is. This thing is more powerful than anything I've ever seen. If we go after it, but it survives, it may want to find our planet next."
"And we'll simply destroy it with our superior defenses."
"And if we can't?" asked Optimus. Megatron didn't reply.
"Come on, let's get this show moving," said Hot Rod. He stood in front a row of troop-drop ships. Troops were running out of the Autobase and to the ships. "Spread out among each ship. We need to make sure that if one ship gets destroyed, it doesn't take out half the army. Optimus's orders."
"I not ready for battle. Must get weapons," yelled Grimlock.
"Fine, get as many guns out of the armory as possible. Distribute them equally. If this is what we're up against, we may need them," said Hot Rod. Perceptor ran toward him out of the crowd. "What have you got?"
"As much information I could get out of the earthlings' sensor logs. The object is approximately 10,000 earth miles in diameter, and the opening is about 8,000 miles wide."
"That will be a tight fit," said Hot Rod.
"Well, we don't yet know what weapons systems this thing has," said Perceptor.
"Let's move!" Hot Rod yelled again, "and hope we're not too late."
Kup came out of the nearest ship. "Boy, and we just woke up from our little forced nap. The bad guys sure don't waste time!"
"Get used to it." One ship hovered up and took off. "Alright, anyone still in there is getting left. We don't have time to waste!"
"Almost everyone is on a ship now," said Perceptor.
"Wait for me!!" yelled Grimlock from the door of the Autobase, now loaded with weapons.
"We'd never leave you, Grim, you're the life of the party," laughed Hot Rod. Two more ships lifted off.
"Everyone is now out of the compound," said Perceptor.
"Get on the ship now, we're going up," said Hot Rod. The remaining troops went up the ramp. The door closed behind them and the remaining ships lifted off. The flew out of the atmosphere and shot into space.
The black sphere opened a special bay. A group of small rockets were launched toward the planet it was approaching, now 250,000 miles away. They flew at it and plunged through the heavy atmosphere. Missiles were fired, but they each missed the fast moving stealthy targets. Each rocket maneuvered toward a specific target. One landed on the lawn of the White House in Washington D.C., another near the Kremlin in Russia, and a third near Winsor Castle in the U.K. Each split into four sections that folded down. The tail fins turned; metal plates fanned out and created a round disk on the ground. Each then fell silent. The humans moved cautiously toward these objects. They watched for several hours waiting for something to happen. It finally did.
As they stood, an energy beam charged up and a caped humaniod being appeared on the disk. It stood for a few moments holding a staff in one hand and looked at the crowd. It then pointed the end of the staff at the humans and incinerated them. In the chaos that ensued, tanks rolled in and fired at the beings, only to hit an energy field surrounding them. The disks were activated again and this time tanks appeared. They made short work of the human weapons, and proceeded to destroy each city. Another message was sent to Cybertron, an urgent plea to come as quickly as possible. This signal was received by another intelligence as well, sitting on the edge of the solar system, ands they knew it was their time to strike was near.
Optimus hit a button on one of the control panels on the ship. The message came through. The earth was being invaded. He looked out of the window and saw the vast battlefleet accumulating in orbit of Cybertron, awaiting his orders. This was it--the first time he would go into battle with an enemy not of his own kind. The first time that Primus's grand plan would be done as expected. What a waste. All those years, who knew how many planets were destroyed by this one enemy, and there were more like it all over the galaxy. Perhaps not this powerful, but destructive all the same. They could have stopped them, could have ended tyranny before it started, but he needed to end tyranny in his own race before it would work. He realized that if the Decepticons had not been defeated and had finally joined forces with him, nothing could be achieved toward this goal. Now, the planet that he had protected from the Decepticons only a few years ago was in danger again, and time was short. A transwarp wormhole opened in space and another one hundred ships came through. Now, he thought. "Hot Rod, glad you could make it."
"Come on, Optimus. There was a traffic jam near Sirrus IV."
"Yeah, right. All ships, make final preparations for transwarp jump. We've got one chance at this, let's get them before they can get us." He entered a numerical sequence into the computer.
"Transwarp drive activated," the computer read off.
"Input coordinates. Here we go!" Transwarp wormholes opened all around the space around them. Ships became streaks of light against the night and disappeared. Optimus watched as space became distorted in transwarp. Stars became streaks, then points again. One point flew out of the center of the screen and at the ship. The point became a hole, and they shot through it. They were there. Earth was only a million kilometers away, and they were closing that distance at near light speed.
"Where's earth?" came Hot Rod's voice. Megatron walked alongside Optimus and looked at the screen Hot Rod's face had appeared on.
"Probably behind that," he said, pointing to the giant black sphere obscuring a large part of the sky.
"Holy slag," said Hot Rod.
"Hot Rod, start monitoring the earth's communication frequencies. I'm giving you the job of testing the ground forces of this planet. Locate the invasion force and find their weapon's strength and their defensive strength. I want to know if we can beat them on the ground before we defeat them in space."
"Yes Optimus." He shut off the communication screen and turned to Grimlock. "He wants us to engage their ground forces."
"Good. Ground combat is what Grimlock does best!"
"From the sounds of it, you'll get a lot."
"...Our planet is being invaded by aliens from the large planetary mass that entered the solar system six hours ago and is now sitting on the moon's orbit approximately 250,000 miles away. We have not received any demands, or even deciphered their language. From this information, we can assume they only wish to destroy us much like they destroyed Mars. This just in--the Cybertronian battlefleet has just arrived to aid our efforts to combat this menace. We can only hope they can help."
"Screen off. Grimlock, Perceptor, let's go," said Hot Rod. The ship began entery of the atmosphere. It's shields glowed red against the friction created by the air shooting around it. After it passed through most of the atmosphere, its anti-grav units activated to slow it down. It hovered temporarily above the ground and finally landed in Washington D.C. The door opened and a handful of Autobot fighters came out. Hot Rod transformed and drove down a nearby street. "Grimlock," he radioed back.
"Yes?"
"I've got them in my sites. They're a few blocks away. Call in the troops."
"I Grimlock say move out. Follow me." He transformed into his T-Rex mode and stomped down the street. The other Autobots, most vehicles, transformed and followed him. They came around a corner and saw a group of the enemy firing at buildings. They turned to the newcomers and began firing. Their weapons, however, hit the Autobots and did no damage.
"You gotta be kidding me," said Prowl, who was on board the ship, with Bumblebee, Mirage, and Kup.
"Nope," said Kup. "I've seen things like this before. Their ship is impressive, but they haven't yet matched our technology."
"Maybe have good armor," said Grimlock. He opened his mouth and released a stream of flame at the warriors. Three exploded immediately. "Guess not."
Bumblebee took out a laser gun and fired. Another warrior exploded. "Well, this won't be much of a battle."
"Maybe not, but that ship up there has billions of warriors and weapons. We need a more efficient way to do this or we'll run out of ammo. They may be able to overwhelm us with projectile weapons," said Hot Rod. "Now, from what I understand, they don't need transportation. They use a type of teleporter pad to get here. We need to find it and take one up to be examined. There may be a way to stop them before they get there. The one here is on the lawn of the White House. First priority, take care of the troops here and stop these fires. Next priority, get that pad. Go!" The group of Autobots ran down the street, blasting the robotic warriors when they came to them. Hot Rod activated his communicator. "Optimus," he said.
"Report, Hot Rod," came the reply.
"I think we can handle them. Their weapons are ineffective and their armor is weak. Send down the selected strike teams to the other landing sites and tell them to take care of the enemy. Our main priority is to stop them from destroying the cities."
"I agree. You say they are easily defeated?"
"Yes, but there are large numbers of them, and unless we can prevent more of them from invading, we won't be able to stop them," said Hot Rod.
"Acknowledged. Optimus out."
The battlefleet flew closer to the black sphere. The first wave of ships began to fire on it. Their weapons met with a force field that encompassed the entire surface of the sphere.
"Optimus," said Jetfire, "our weapons aren't doing anything. The shield around the planet is too strong."
"Tell them to concentrate their fire on one area. Let's see if we can't open a hole in that shield." Optimus looked at the huge sphere filling the viewscreen. Probably too much power, he thought, the shield would be replaced before it could be damaged. All he could hope for was a weakness. If they could blast one shield generator, they would be in.
"Optimus, we're getting resistance," came the voice of Blades over the radio. "Multitudes of enemy ships coming out." Optimus looked. A tremendous number of black ships with pointed, curved wings were being released from the sphere.
"Counterattack. They don't have the technology to resist our firepower," said Megatron.
"Optimus, we're getting increased firepower down here," said Hot Rot from the earth's surface. "Tanks and jet launchers."
"Continue in your mission Hot Rod. We need data on their defensive capabilities," said Optimus. "We need the second wave now," he commanded.
"Aye, aye sir," came Starscream. Transwarp space opened and a large number of Decepticon ships and one-pilot fighters exited. Many began combat against the individual enemy ships. The ships ducked and weaved, flying out of the fire. The less manuverable Decepticon battlecruisers could not aim fast enough. The smaller fighters chased and destroyed the enemy with few problems.
"Jetfire, have you been able to discern the shield frequency," asked Optimus.
"No. It keeps changing. They rotate on a random frequency generator. Our only hope is to weaken it."
"Keep trying. We have to turn them back."
On earth, Hot Rod's troops were being slowed down. "There's just too many of them! We need reinforcements."
"Affirmative," said Optimus over the communicator.
Bumblebee flew past Hot Rod and crashed on the ground. "Bumblebee!!" Hot Rod ran to him. "You hurt?" he asked.
"No, but those tanks pack a whollop!"
"Perceptor," he yelled over the communicator, "any progress?"
"We're almost to the telepad," he replied. Grimlock fired continuous rounds at the oncoming enemies just feet away from Perceptor. More waves were coming in.
"Me tired of this," he said and transformed into his dinosaur mode. He opened his mouth and flamed the oncoming troops, clearing a path down the street to the telepad. He ran and transformed; he reached down and ripped the telepad out of the ground. He ran back and handed it to Perceptor. Perceptor examined it; he opened a small panel on it an severed a few wires. The telepad was rendered inoperable. They headed back to the ship.
Swindle was commanding a light cruiser in the middle of a dense battle. "Status," he said to one of his underlings.
"Shields holding. No damage yet. It appears Megatron was correct: they can't hurt us."
"There are ways of damaging even without heavy weapons," as he said this, a damaged enemy fighter tumbled out of control and impacted the ship. The shields flashed and the ship shook from the force of the impact.
"Shields down to 30%. Now we're in trouble!"
"Evasive manuvers! We may be vunerable now. On more of those crashes and we're finished!" yelled Swindle. The ship turned around and discovered a line of enemy fighters behind them preparing to attack. They opened fire.
"Sir, shields are gradually weakening. Enough hits and they'll go out!"
"Send a distress call. We need help, now!" yelled Swindle. Suddenly, a small fighter plane came streaking out of the main battlefleet. A white energy sphere came on surrounding it; it sped up and charged the enemy ships. It smashed through each one, vaporizing them; it then streaked out of sight. "What was that?" gasped Swindle.
"I don't know, but it was a Cybertronian vehicle. I've never seen it before."
"Well, it has provided us with an opportunity for escape. We'd better use it." The ship turned to a break in the fighting and sped out of earth space.
"Optimus," Perceptor said over the communication link, "after examining the telepad's circuitry, I have determined that a delta band scrambling signal will block any incoming teleports. The telepads would be rendered useless."
"Good work, Perceptor," Optimus turned to Jetfire, "Tell the rest of the fleet to begin emitting delta band scrambling signals in between the object and earth."
"Yes sir." Within moments the Cybertronian battlefleet began firing blue beams across the front of the black sphere. The ground troops began reporting a halt to teleporter activity. "We did it, Optimus!!" said Jetfire excitedly.
"We won the ground battle, but the threat remains. The next step is to take the battle to them, the object itself."
"How are we going to do that?" asked Jetfire.
"I don't know."
Deep inside the black sphere, the dark lord sat on his throne. He watched as his troops were being defeated in massive numbers. He looked to the battlefield commander angrily and yelled in his binary computer language, "We are being defeated; our troops can no longer teleport to the surface! I thought you said they were weak!!"
"The natives of this planet, yes. But the battle is being fought by aliens. They are strong, and have more advanced technology than we do."
"We must defeat these aliens, at all costs!! We cannot defeat them on the ground, then we will destroy them in space!! Prepare the planet blasters. We'll see how well their ships stand up to them!!"
Lines appeared on the black sphere; two huge panels, stretching thousands of miles along the sides of it were being opened. As they folded down, two huge cannons appeared and rotated.
"What in the name of Primus--" said Optimus in shock.
"Alert, energy build-up detected," rang out the computer.
One cannon fired. Its blast smashed into one of the heavy battlecruisers in the Cybertronian fleet. The blast passed through it, breaking the ship in two. As if flamed out of control, it crashed into a smaller ship and exploded. "NOOOO!" yelled Optimus. The shockwave from the explosion hit his ship and shook it. He looked at the status screen on the control panel: the shields were damaged. "All ships attack those cannons!! They have to be destroyed!!" The cannons began firing at multiple targets. The ships scattered to avoid the blasts. Optimus watched the battle pitch out of control. Ships flew in every direction; tremendous fireballs were fired again and again. The enemy had finally shown their true power, and it was devastating. They could only hope for a miracle to save them all from complete destruction.