Chapter Text
…
bonds forged through battle—
i won't let anyone be hurt.
and when i open this clenched fist
i will find power there
…
RITES OF CONQUEST
Eternal starlight blinked in the sky over the First City, shining down on sleeping civilization.
The guards at the Dawn Basilica's front gates knew Optimus on sight. They waved him through without checking his IDs, a privilege few other mecha had.
The tall front wings of the Basilica stretched out on either side of the gate, funneling visitors into the heart of the complex. Lights glimmered behind windows at the tops of the vaulted towers at the tip of each wing. Gravel crunched underfoot as he hurried down the great central avenue into the palace which he had called home for as long as he could remember.
He came to a slow stop halfway down the pathway, shuttered his optics, and planted his pedes square on the ground. His electromagnetic field reached out, mapping the ground around him, the avenue, the verdant crystal gardens that lined the Basilica's wings, the opulent rooms beyond.
There, in one of the low halls on the right, a familiar signature.
“Still?” Optimus murmured aloud, and frowned.
He consulted his mental map of the Basilica. There was an open-weather arch leading through the first floor of the right wing a little way ahead. He relit his optics, and made for it.
Wind whistled through the ornate finials and flying buttresses that decorated the ancient temple. The air was cold, and tasted of ice.
According to the meteorological reports Optimus had been checking every quarter-joor, there was a big storm system making its way up the Rust Sea coast. He hoped to make his departure before it hit. If he couldn't, the future did not bode well for his plans.
The arched tunnel led him out into a small, crystal-garden lined courtyard. On the other side, a stepped series of flat terraces led up to a grand doorway into the conference hall. He crossed it, took the terrace steps three at a time, and scanned his access chip at the first door inside.
Cold air swirled in after him.
There was a brazier by the opposite wall. Optimus stood still a moment, holding his servos to the coals to warm them, letting the heat permeate his systems. Lamps cast warm orange light over the engraved reliefs on the walls, and the high corridor ceiling nearly disappeared into shadow.
Perceptor walked past, his optical array firmly fixed on the stack of slim datapds in his arms. The top pad's screen was lit, and he scrolled as he walked, so completely absorbed in the information it held that he did not seem to notice his superior in the slightest.
Scientists, thought Optimus. The knowledge that he could count himself thus was not forgotten; the mental voice which which he made the observation not unlike Megatron's aggrieved sighs whenever he found Optimus still at his studies joor after moonset.
Optimus shook his helm, and searched again for the thread of that familiar EM field. He found it in the direction Perceptor had come from.
He followed it to a half-open door near the end of the corridor. Bright light and low voices spilled out through the gap.
Inside were Sentinel Prime, the leader of all the Lowlands tribes, holding court over the larger part of Optimus' subordinates in the Science Division. They stood around a table piled high with datapads and hardcopy charts; empty cubes of energon punctuated the mess, lost styluses peeking out from beneath discarded sheets of hardcopy. Sentinel was speaking. Two scientists – Wheeljack and Harpax, Optimus thought, although it was hard to tell among the crowd – leant over the far end of the table, industriously writing down his calculations.
Optimus didn't bother listening to their discussion before he opened the door; he judged it highly likely that he would not have been able to decipher much of it in any case. Astrophysics had never been his area of expertise.
Sentinel broke off, half-turning to greet him. “Ah – Optimus,” he said, smiling. “I trust you are well?”
“Have you left this room at all since last orbit?” Optimus asked, skipping pleasantries. He leveled a meaningful look at the mech whom had raised him for good measure.
Sentinel's optics shone. “Perhaps not. This will be such a momentuous undertaking in our planet's history.”
“I do not disagree, but surely you will be better able to work toward that goal with a proper span of recharge behind you.” Optimus nodded a greeting at the gathered scientists, returning Wheeljack's friendly smile. “I may not be able to help you with the preparations myself, but this fact I know to be true.”
Sentinel reached across the gap between them and placed his servo upon Optimus' shoulder. “You have our gratitude for your support,” he said firmly. “I had thought you would follow your brother's lead in dismissing the idea.”
Optimus leaned into his mentor's touch. “Megatron does not dismiss the potential that we might gain a sun. He simply wonders whether we do not put ourselves in danger by doing so.”
“Your brother is a skilled and wise warrior, but he does not much comprehend hope,” said Sentinel. “Fortunately, what he lacks, you demonstrate ably.”
He steered Optimus around the table, dismissing the gathered scientists. “You look as though you have something on your mind, young charge of mine. Are you well?”
“I am,” said Optimus. “I would speak with you regarding my future, however.”
Sentinel gave him a measuring look, then released his shoulder. “I believe I have some time to spare you. Come with me.”
He turned away, and led Optimus to a recessed door at the back of the hall. It opened onto a low balcony, roofed with clear quartz sheets and open to the elements at the front.
“Oh, dear Primus,” Sentinel said at the first bite of the wind. “That storm must be nearly here.”
“The cloud shelf is still two hundred leagues down the coast,” said Optimus. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his former caretaker, taking the brunt of the wind on his own frame. He'd never much minded the cold, for reasons he did not quite understand himself.
Sentinel stepped further into his lee, flickered his field in gratitude. “Then we yet have a few joor of clear skies to enjoy.”
Optimus looked up through the quartz roof. The cut crystal was not quite so clear as glass; the stars appeared blurry, and static.
He wondered what the sky would look like with a sun blazing over the horizon. The light would surely drown out the stars already there.
Sentinel gently broke the silence. “What did you wish to discuss with me?”
Optimus vented, gathering his thoughts. There were a lot, and he still didn't quite know what to make of them. “With the majority of my colleagues invested in your project, I find myself with very little to do.”
“Aside from chase stubborn old relics off to berth, I see,” said Sentinel. His engine chuffed in subtle jest.
Optimus smiled despite himself. “Yes, when they need a gentle reminder.”
“And you have given some thought as to how you wish to occupy yourself?” Sentinel guessed.
“Yes.” Optimus looked down at his hands for a moment. “You know already that I have wanted to travel more broadly than my life has thus far allowed.”
Sentinel watched him evenly. “I observe often that you seem... envious, perhaps, of Megatron's travels. As well, your fascination with the maps in my library is well-documented.”
It was so very like him to give evidence in support of a statement that Optimus nearly laughed aloud.
“You told me that you believe me to be a descendant of the Primes,” he began, hesitantly, conscious of his mentor's attention. “I don't know how I can possibly be such, but you have never led me wrong and I cannot disbelieve you now. You told me that you wish for me to succeed you as our leader. I do not believe myself capable of that.”
Sentinel's field washed over his, calm and reassuring. “We seldom truly know what we are capable of before our hands are forced,” he observed. “You have performed admirably in your tasks thus far, but, to borrow Megatron's jargon, you have not yet been tested in the field. Therefore, while I trust your judgement in yourself and I will not force you to abide by mine, I do not think that you have yet become aware of your full potential.”
Optimus forced his gaze upwards, over the terraced garden that spread out below the balcony.
How could one tell one's mentor, “I think you are overestimating me”? He'd try his best, of course, but Megatron had always been the natural leader. Megatron knew instinctively how to make decisions and give orders. He knew what he was doing, and how he intended to go about it. Mecha were glad to follow someone like that.
Optimus? He was a historian, an archaeologist. He was most at home in the archives, among the back shelves where dust floated through the aisles from every disturbed file and even the air tasted of time immeasurable. Orders were alien to him, his own inclination towards collaboration rather than command.
But Sentinel seldom made observations without proof positive of his conclusions. Perhaps he in all his age and wisdom could see what Optimus could not, his vision clearer without obfuscating self-analysis and doubt.
“I need time,” Optimus said with a sigh. “Perhaps you are right; I may grow into it – but two orbits is hardly long enough to adjust.”
Sentinel nodded. “Then that is the least I can give you.”
Optimus gratefully flared his field. But he had something more to ask of his old caretaker, and this he foresaw would be the true point of contention.
“In that case, I wish to travel to Occidentalia.”
Sentinel frowned. His optics sharpened, and he half-turned to Optimus with a question in his field.
“Why there? More to the point, why so far?”
Because Occidentalia was the farthest-flung domain under Sentinel's control. Because Tyger Pax, the oldest and largest population center on the planet, was located along the way. Because he needed to get out and into the world, to experience its cultures and places before Sentinel's plans locked him into one place for the rest of his life.
Also because Occidentalia was famous for its ancient ruins, and Optimus had already exhausted every monograph on the subject available in the First City and beyond. But he doubted that Sentinel would appreciate that reason much.
“I feel that, if you want me to lead these people in the future, I should get to know them,” he said, quietly, hoping that his mentor would understand. “Megatron is on campaign near Occidentalia. I could meet up with him there, and we could come back together.”
Sentinel rumbled deep in his chest. “You would be all but alone. I do not want for you to be hurt. I do not want to lose you.”
“I know,” said Optimus. “I won't take risks. I know several people in cities along the route I plan to take who are willing to help me.”
“I can't stop you, can I?” Sentinel sighed. “You wouldn't stay another few lunar orbits?”
“If I do, I'll be stuck for at least ten,” said Optimus. “There is a mechanometer of snow on the ground at Meridia already. I'd have to wait for it to melt and for the acid to neutralise before I could safely travel.”
“Hmph.” Sentinel folded his arms and looked down. “At the very least, take Ironhide with you. If only for my peace of mind.”
Relief blossomed in Optimus' spark. He'd made plans to go regardless, but it felt much better to have Sentinel's blessing.
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it more than you know.”
He'd been back in his suite for barely a minute before Ironhide arrived.
“Oh dear,” said Optimus, looking up from his last-minute preparations. “I hope Sentinel didn't get you out of berth on my account.”
“Nah, don' worry,” Ironhide replied with a dismissive flap of his hand. “Wasn't my berth, anyway.”
“You're surprisingly high-spirited, that being the case.” Optimus observed. Ironhide was an old soldier and seldom minded being woken, but it couldn't be easy on the mecha he took to berth.
Ironhide lifted his shoulders in an expansive shrug. “Ah figure, this way Ah get ta know what you've been up to, lately, don't try to tell me yeh haven't. And Ah get to make sure yeh don't getcherself into trouble.”
“I'm hardly a nymph anymore.” Optimus grabbed the closest chair and sat, chuckling. “How much trouble could I be?”
“Yeh really want me ta answer that?” Ironhide dimmed one optic in an exaggerated squint. “The two of yeh added vorns to my spark, Ah swear.”
He reached the middle of Optimus' living room and planted his servos on his hips. “So. What're yeh plannin'?”
Optimus picked his personal datapad up off the low table. “I'm going to Occidentalia,” he said.
“Ah,” said Ironhide. “Sentinel wants me along to make sure yeh don't get slagged, then?”
Optimus gestured to the ancient low-backed chair by the balcony doors, Ironhide's perennial favourite. “That would be my thinking, yes.”
“Huh.” Ironhide dropped into the chair with a thoughtful rev. “Haven't been up there in eons. It's a nice place.”
“If we get to Metrotitan within a few joor, we might be able to avoid this storm.” Optimus opened his personal account and checked his messages. The meteorological department had issued a pre-warning, informing all mecha within the First City and its hinterlands of the approaching storm system. “Though Elita tells me she's happy to host us if we choose to wait for better weather.”
Ironhide's field flared with pleasure. “Been a while since Ah saw Chromia, too.”
“In that case, perhaps we should impose on their hospitality,” said Optimus, deliberately not implying anything.
Ironhide gave him a look from narrowed optics, but did not comment.
Optimus opened the shuttle network page on the datapad's browser. The First City shuttle links to Meridia and Central City had already been grounded, but the inland route to Metrotitan was still running. Optimus booked two spaces on board the next flight, then withdrew a generous amount of credits to be uploaded onto physical card chips and picked up at the shuttleport.
Metrotitan was a little further south than he would have preferred to go, but the mountains of the Main Divide had been held by tribes allied against the Lowlands consortium for a long time. The dangers Sentinel feared were not at all uncommon; it had been a mere half-vorn since the last spy had been caught within the Basilica itself, prompting Sentinel to forbid the general public from entering. Thus Metrotitan was the less risky option by far.
From there, he could head north along the western edge of the mountains into Occidentalia. That road would have to be attempted on foot; there were no aerial links into Tyger Pax.
Optimus stood, sending a final message to Elita before shutting the device off. It went into his subspace, alongside the half-dozen datapads and the entrance to the second subspace, in which his falx and shield were stored. He planned to travel light – with any luck he would not need the weapons.
“The last shuttle leaves in a quarter-joor,” he told Ironhide. “We should go now.”
The old warrior levered himself to his feet. The cannons on his forearms spun idly. “Lemme stop off at th' armoury along the way, Optimus. I got something I want picked up.”
Curiosity scratched at Optimus' spark, but he pushed it down. “Don't take too long,” he said dryly, knowing Ironhide's reputation. “I'd rather not have to extract you.”
“That happened once!” Ironhide protested with a laugh. “Besides, yeh might thank me for it later.”
The messenger bowed twice before entering Megatron's tent, a gesture of respect that marked her as hailing from the far southern rus beyond the borders of the Lowlands Consortium's influence.
Megatron took her messages with a brusque thankyou, dismissing his officers in the same moment. Rain drummed down on the water- and acid-proof roof of the campaign tent. He waited until the last warrior had gone, before retreating into the secluded rear of the tent.
The messages were hardcopy, sealed inside a travel case that looked the worse for its long journey. He keyed in the locking code, delicately plucking out the sheets.
The first was a message from the general he'd left in charge of the southern garrisons. Megatron skimmed the report, everything seeming to be in order, and discarded it in favour of the second, which bore his brother's seal.
My beloved brother, it read,
I am not surprised in the least to hear of your victories, which you will be glad to know seem to have only grown in the telling as the news has spread eastward. I do hope such success continues; it would be wonderful to receive you home in one piece for once.
Megatron's hands went to the new weld across his ventral armour, resting gently against the aching wound. “A sight late for that, little brother,” he murmured.
Optimus continued, describing the ordinary hustle and bustle of First City high society. He did have a talent for making it seem interesting – Megatron, who had little patience for the political maneuvering and social dictates of the Consortium's highest echelons, pillowed his chin on the heel of his palm and read onward.
Sentinel's ridiculous plan was apparently entering its final stages. Megatron still didn't know who to blame for that one; Optimus' Science Division bright sparks, or Sentinel himself. The old mech was going senile, clearly.
He is so excited about the project that he has not been getting enough recharge at all. I try to remind him that he will be far more useful when properly charged, but alas he does not seem to comprehend the necessity. Either that, or he is far more terribly stubborn than I had given him credit for. Either way, I hope that he will behave himself in my absence.
Megatron blinked. “What absence?” he asked aloud, and scanned the first few paragraphs again to make sure he hadn't missed something important.
He hadn't – Optimus explained himself in the next paragraph.
I write to you from the sitting room of the Opal Towers in Metrotitan. I apologise for this – I should have told you sooner, but my hand was forced by the arrival of a fierce storm from the north, which forced me out of the First City before I could send this letter. I have decided that I tire of pining for your return from the confines of home. You know of my wish to travel, and I have been very grateful for your support, of course, but I have recently come to the conclusion that I must make my move now, before Sentinel's plans for us trap me within the confines of the Basilica for the rest of my life to rely only upon your stories of places and people afar.
Which was a very long-winded (so like Optimus that it made Megatron's spark constrict in sudden uncharacteristic longing) and roundabout way of saying that he'd finally taken Megatron's advice and just done it.
I intend to base myself in Tyger Pax for the coming few lunar cycles – however long it takes to explore Occidentalia and the western foothills of the Main Divide.
Megatron's grin disappeared. Of course Optimus would choose the most dangerous of the Consortium's tribal heartlands to explore. Of course.
Scientists. He couldn't trust either of them to use their heads.
I am aware of the dangers, Optimus continued, like Megatron would take his word for it, and I have brought Ironhide with me for a little additional security. I do not know that you will approve of my choices, regardless, but please know that I am determined to do this, for my own betterment. I hope to rendezvous with you at the end of the campaign season, which if you should find yourself amenable to my company would mean that we could return to the First City together.
I look forward to our reacquaintance,
Optimus.
Megatron threw the hardcopy down onto his travel desk. “The next time I go off on campaign I will tie you to your berth and frag you until you can't so much as hobble,” he declared. “Then I'll put a charge damper in your valve and a drip in your lines and leave you tied up until I come back, because apparently I can't trust you to keep yourself out of trouble on your own terms!”
The rain drummed down outside, and the brazier that gave the tent light and warmth flickered, casting dancing shadows on the walls.
Perhaps he should take a page out of the high-society mechas' books and kindle Optimus instead. That would keep him inside for a few lunar cycles, in a method slightly more socially acceptable than the first.
The ground under his pedes was beginning to get a little damp. Their remote corner of Occidentalia had been besieged by the elements for several lunar orbits now; rainclouds spawned over the tropical Mare Occidentalis piled into the looming mountaintops of the Main Divide, rising and cooling until they let go of their moisture. Right on top of his army, as it happened.
He intended to drive them northwest as soon as the rain let up. The highlander tribes had disappeared as soon as the clouds appeared, no doubt familiar with the weather patterns. They had a city closer to the shores of the Mare, if his scouts' reports were correct. Sieges weren't Megatron's favourite, but if he could break down the city walls, it would be a major victory for his damp and tired Lowlanders.
If nothing untoward happened in the meantime. Like, say, his slow-clocked moron of a little brother getting himself kidnapped and held to ransom by the aggrieved highlanders.
Megatron lowered himself onto his berthroll and pulled his travel desk onto his lap. He'd try not to write a reply entirely composed of threats, though Primus knew Optimus richly deserved it.
My dear little brother,
When I find you I will kick your skidplate twice around the nearest Primal Temple and tan your aft until the paint wears off my hand.
'Try' being the operative word in that sentence.
They arrived in Occidentalia two days ahead of the festival of Cataclysm. Past the big iron siege gates, the streets of Tyger Pax heaved with activity.
Had Ironhide not been present, Optimus thought he could easily have gotten lost in the crowd. Where the central cities celebrated the festival of the cataclysmic end of the Dynasty of Primes with somber colours and chanted ceremony, the west met it with bright flags and lantern-lit dances, parades through the streets. Optimus found himself stopping to watch performances, inspect the wares peddles by opportunistic street sellers, and simply be amazed by the things he'd never seen before.
They made it to the cliffside residence whose keys Optimus had begged from an old Academy classmate in just over two joor.
Ironhide closed the door and leant back against it like a mech trying to hold off an invading army, cycling a resigned sigh through his vents.
“So much for you not bein' a nymph anymore,” he groaned. “I can't take my optics off of yeh for a second.”
Optimus stood by the massive bay window and stared out into the street. Even here, in a well-off and thus somewhat sparsely populated neighborhood, there were performers on the paths and half-grown nymphs running between them, strings of flags strung between the upper levels of the houses flying proudly in the wind. Bright blue and gold lanterns bobbed along at head height, tethered to the ground with ornamental braided wirethread. Musicians played at every corner. He could only just hear them if he pressed his audial to the glass.
“This is history at work,” he said, pressing his hands to the windowsill and leaning out into the bay. “It's incredible.”
“Would be nice if yeh'd let us get to where we're supposed to be before yeh go gawkin',” grumbled Ironhide, but not without a note of indulgence in his voice.
He dug in his subspace and produced a pair of small energon cubes. The liquid inside glowed a potent deep purple.
“Have a toast, kid? To a safe journey here, and a safe journey home.”
Optimus took the offered cube. “Primus willing,” he said, and drained it.
The energon burned like fire on the way down. Ironhide cackled out loud at his stricken expression.
“That's Paxi brew! Gotta take it slowly, savour th' taste.”
Optimus eyed his empty cube. He'd always liked the harsher tastes – as a high-charge frametype they tended to go along with the better buzzes – but that had been unexpected.
“I don't know about that. It could be good, given the chance to get used to it.”
“Yeah, but then yeh'd be wasting a good high-grade.” Ironhide slowly finished off his own cube. “So. Ah'm gonna settle in an' recharge for a while. Got plans of yer own?”
“Recharge sounds wonderful,” said Optimus. They'd been driving all orbit, and his suspension was collecting its debt. “I may explore the neighborhood afterwards.”
“Don't leave th' city until Ah can come with yeh,” Ironhide warned. “Border regions like this're tough, and I've been here before.”
Optimus nodded in acknowledgement. “I hope to visit the Psittacine ruins tomorrow after moonrise sometime. The site manager has invited me to look over her research.”
“Should be doable,” Ironhide grunted. “Yeh can poke around for info on the higher ruins while yer at it.”
Optimus nodded, already bending his mind to the task. He'd tried and failed to do so through official channels, so perhaps it was time for a little imagination.
Ironhide stumped up the stairway, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
The higher ruins were a group of ancient citadels built on mountainsides in the Main Divide, a couple of hundred leagues west of Tyger Pax. As a group, the name was misleading – they were barely related, separated by distance, culture and time of influence. The oldest had been dated to nearly eighty thousand vorn; the two youngest, at sixteen thousand, would have been at their peak just before the Cataclysm.
He'd been fascinated by them for centuries, ever since he'd come across the initial research as a student putting together his graduate thesis at the Academy of History in Meridia. Sentinel's theory regarding his origins had only added a more personal investment to his interest. These might have been his original people, had events turned out differently.
Accessing the ruins was the primary question. They were scattered along the border of Occidentalia, well within the range of the occasional raiding parties that spilled out of the foothills of the Main Divide. Several archaeologists had been taken by the highlanders already.
Optimus glanced past the stairway into the big dark kitchen at the back of the house. He reached into his subspace, found the entry of the second pocket, and drew out the falx and shield.
The blade glimmered under the warm entryway light. It was sharp, and showed no ill effect from the long ride in a very experimental mechanism. The shield likewise was fine, if a little warm.
He sighed through his vents, and went into the kitchen to find some proper energon. Recharge was beginning to sound like a very good idea.
The head researcher at the Psittacine site was a little mech called Glyph. She greeted Optimus the next orbit with a cheerful smile, barely batting an optic at the big black cannon transportation system grumbling at his heels. Ironhide hadn't quite gotten all the recharge he'd wanted.
Glyph was happy to oblige Optimus' professional curiosity. He had the sense that she would have done so even if he hadn't been the one holding her pay packet; her personality seemed skewed permanently toward the happy end of the scale.
She took four steps for every one of his, bumbling around his feet like a young nymph. Her team was doing good work, and she was rightly proud of it.
“We have a classic Paxi Culture layout here,” she explained, raising her work lantern and leading him over to a well-excavated stretch of the site. “The pilings beneath the site indicate a four-level structure at least, gathered around a central tower with left and right wings encircling a raised and terraced courtyard. Across the path, however, the next house shows Centralian influences in the portico and the underground storage area. We've dated remains found in the underhouse to twenty-two thousand vorn.”
She jinked around a pegged extension into the primitive roadway and gestured further down the hill. “Two blocks that way, we have a building, razed to ground level about twelve thousand vorn ago during the rise of the Tyger Pax proto-city. The site was overbuilt with an ornamental plaza not long afterwards, but thanks to the local erosion we were able to uncover the original floor plan – which looks very like a Classical Centralian Primal shrine.”
“Interesting,” said Optimus, and very much meant it. “Refugees, do you think?”
Glyph shrugged. “Perhaps. Whoever they were, they were readily accepted. We've found a similar blending of architectural styles in several places elsewhere, in a variety of social strata. Until the event which caused the city to be abandoned, there's no indication of segregation, or limitation to a particular level of economic status.”
Optimus looked into the gaping cellar of the second ruin Glyph had indicated. Holes in the concreted cellar wall indicated where crossbeams had once sat, holding up the floor above. The cellar itself was deeper than he was tall, and shadows clung to the corners.
“Crushed beryl in strata within the crete mix.” Glyph lowered her lantern into the hole. Glimmers of red sparkled on the pitted, ageworn surfaces of the wall. “That's not a local mineral. Whoever had this particular house built had a lot of money.”
“This is the mercantile quarter, is it not?”
“We're right on the edge of it. What do you think so far, sir?”
Optimus stared at the sparkling gemstone embedded in the crete. “This would indicate a longer relationship between the Centralian and Paxi basal cultures than we had previously recognised.”
“It's subtle, but the architecture has it,” Glyph said, looking pleased. “Of course, we've got to get down to the basement level elsewhere, but now that we know where to look, that should be quicker work.”
“Yes, indeed.”
Optimus moved away from the gaping basement, looking out and down the gently sloping hill. The ruins stretched onward for almost a full league.
Tyger Pax glimmered under the starlight in the distance. He sharpened his optical focus, and picked out the bloom of fireworks above the outer districts.
“Have you seen a Tyger Paxi festival before?” asked Glyph.
She too had come from the Central Lowlands originally, if Optimus heard that faint accent in her speech correctly. Metrotitan, perhaps down toward rural Simfur. Like Optimus she had a Meridian postgraduate degree, and the soft Meridian influence in her pronunciaton obscured her original accent.
“No, I have not,” he replied. “Ironhide tells me I have an education in store.”
The minibot laughed. “That sounds about right. When I first came here I went to the Landing Festival with a friend from Meridia. Somehow we ended up on the other side of the city to where we started. It took us almost two orbits to get back to our boarding houses.”
“Oh dear,” said Optimus. “How did you manage?”
“Lots and lots of semi-legal stimulants. Likely the Lords would have frowned on us, but we got home safe, and I believe that's what mattered most.”
Optimus chuckled. “Yes, I see your point.”
Glyph looked up at him, a glint in her pale blue optics. “Now, I hear you're interested in the higher ruins.”
“I am,” said Optimus diplomatically. “I wonder how possible it would be for me to visit perhaps the closer ones.”
Glyph thinned her lips and hummed. “Possible,” she hedged. “It's dangerous up there. Probably more than my job is worth to take you myself.”
Optimus waited for her to continue. That had sounded like a sentence with a 'but' tacked on.
The little archaeologist fished a datapad out of her subspace and turned it on, frowning down at the glowing screen. “There's a supply team going up soon. I'm sure they'd be happy to have a little extra firepower at their backs,” she hazarded, and glanced over her shoulder at Ironhide.
The old gunner had climbed a small rock outcrop, and sat like a shadowy sentinel at the top, looking out over the ruins.
Optimus smiled. “Perhaps I shall have to speak to Ironhide about expanding his horizons.”
Glyph laughed. “He looks as though they've already been thoroughly expanded!”
She continued at Optimus' soft chuckle. “Well then, which sites were you wanting to see? We've got studies going on Bonedry Ridge, Low Falls and Lotus Creek Valley. Sunda wants to have a go at the Horn Peak site as well, but it's been difficult to get funding.”
“Everything we have is going into the Daylight Project,” Optimus sighed, shifting his weight onto the other foot. “I have seen some of the reports coming out of Lotus Creek Valley. It seems an interesting prospect.”
“That one's quite far north, almost into the Western Arm of the Divide.” Glyph hesitated. “We... have been seeing some strange phenomena in that region.”
“Oh?” Optimus said, intrigued. “What sort?”
“Inexplicable bursts of light, distant booming noises. We'd say the latter were due to avalanches out of sight, but they are much shorter and of a slightly higher frequency than is normal with such geological events. Also, one of my junior assistants swears blind that he saw a group of large creatures crossing the bare flank of a mountain on the other side of the Needle Valley Pass several orbits ago. I'm not certain I believe him completely, but I am also not about to discount the possibility that he saw exactly what he thinks he did.”
“How large?”
Glyph gave Optimus a considering look. “Larger than you. Quadrupedal, or similar. He guesses that the largest was around thirteen mechanometers long from head to haunch. Its construction apparently included a tail, but he wasn't as clear on that.”
Optimus looked down his six-mechanometer-tall frame. “That is very large. Has anyone else seen them?”
Glyph paused again. “No,” she said eventually, drawing out the syllable, “but we do have images of what might be tracks.”
She pinged him a copy. He opened the file: a bare sloping layer of clay on the side of a mountain somewhere, someone's headlights shining on the faint indentation of a large plantigrade footprint.
“They couldn't be mechanimals, could they?”
She shook her helm decisively. “The largest mechanimals in the area are voltaic elk, down in the valleys, and spring chamois. There's a large species of predatory feletta in the area, wingspans around four mechanometers – and watch out for them, they're eminently capable of bringing down the biggest warframes – but they're the wrong shape.”
“I see.”
Optimus looked up at the outcrop on which Ironhide perched. The old warrior's optics gleamed in the dark.
A databurst landed in his inbox.
:: Sounds like an interestin' mystery. If yeh still want ta go, Ah'm happy ta lend my cannons. ::
“Would you send me the files?” Optimus said, lowering his voice. A party of excavators had appeared on the path several blocks ahead. Glyph's demeanour had changed as soon as she had noticed them, her enthusiasm curbed.
She nodded, somewhat stiffly. “The supply party leaves from the east gate at moonset two orbits from today. The guide's name is Risingwind. I'll talk to him about an extra guard.”
“Two,” said Optimus.
Glyph looked up at him. “I thought Megatron was the warrior?”
“He is. But we both received martial training once we had the armour for it. I too have the upgrades.”
“Oh.” Glyph blinked. “Well. That explains why you only have the one bodyguard.”
“Ah'm good, but not that good,” said Ironhide, approaching from behind. “We're good ta go, Optimus? Only there's that energon bar yeh asked me ta make a reservation at.”
The guilt of a forgotten appointment crept up onto Optimus' shoulders. “My apologies,” he told Glyph. “I hadn't remembered.”
“It's fine,” she said cheerfully, turning to walk back up the hill to the site headquarters. “If you're not busy with the festival later on, feel free to come back. We've found a lot of interesting artifacts in these later digs, but the field work keeps calling me, and I need an excuse to catalogue them all.”