An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

Decepticon Afterlife

GameDeck made a vow that if DeathStrike was ever killed-and Problem Solvers occasionally met a problem that ended up solving them instead, and DeathStrike ended up in the same level of the Neutral Realm as him, he would go after him and take an oilthirsty revenge. Indeed, he wrote DeathStrike's name on one of his blasters.

Cybertron.

DeathStrike knew he would most likely need to go on one or two more missions before he could buy that tail from Ultimate Mods that would make his body complete and update his deadlyness level at the same time. Assuming he did get his tail one day, he still wanted to be a Problem Solver for the rest of his days, however long they might be. Although only a few bots were de facto immortal-Megatron as a god, and a few bots because of their sheer number of strong bodies-the majority of bots had lives several centuries long, but Problem Solvers might well end up in the Room of Three Screens much sooner then other bots. For DeathStrike it was worth the risk.

The Realm of Punishment

Faux-Celestia, now a sapient pony-she would never get to be a bot again-found out too soon that she was in a slaughter pen. What was worse, was that the bolt sent through her brain left her aware and able to feel the pain as she was cut up and processed into horsemeat. To add insult to injury all the way through the workers made nasty comments about how stupid herd animals were. She was reanimated as a foal with three sweat drops as a cutie mark. Her mother was detached and didn't show any love, and after two months she was put to work in a mine pulling carts and whipped extra hard or gagged with a bit or both, if she spoke.


The Sorting of the Megatronists

Most of these Megatronists were indeed the real thing. About a fifth turned out not to be and were reenslaved, and a few turned out to be minor accidental heretics. Given the situation they had been in, rather then being killed or enslaved or even punished they just needed some light doctrine training. Most however were very loyal and knew Megatronism well. Later, one planet would be given to the human and pony Megatronists, many others would become resource worlds, and half of one of these worlds would become a Wilderness Preserve for General Carjack. First, there was some other sorting to do. Megatron thought that if even a single true loyalist to him was unjustly slaughtered or enslaved, that was one too many. On his way to the first other planet, in the privacy of his mind boards, he thought of when he had risked his life and soul to bring back Megatron from the afterlife and how Megatron was sure his name was not chosen as a connive.

When he reached his destination he met some Genociders that he had once trained and briefly served with, much to the then annoyance of their commander General Carjack who feared he would try and talk them out of genociding. "Anyone who fails, you send 'em over to OUR enclosure. We'll take care of 'em nice and quick." Megatron had no time for fake loyalists (something that Loyal Star most certainly was not) and no place but a pit for them either, in their case, a biological rendering pit. This time about eight out of ten failed the test.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The Realm of Punishment

After a few more reincarnations, during which she was always treated as some kind of slave, made to do tricks, or otherwise ordered around, there was a subtle change. The scenarios began to have a few very limited chances for escape. However, there was a catch: One would have to think as an individual in order to see them, and act as an individual in order to use them. Leader Megatron wanted to see if she would ever catch on and learn to actually think, or if she was so defective that she would always mindlessly go along with the crowd, even if the crowd was going along with some sort of rotten conditions.

Of course, if she did catch on to these new openings, she wouldn't get out of the Realm of Punishment any time soon. She would merely get a slight reprieve from her latest work, biological experiment, or other nastiness. Then a tracking party would come and find her. Still, Megatron hoped that when her time in that realm did eventually end, 1,000 or more years in the future, she would have enough practice at actually thinking to be able to function as a person and not merely a "main cog" in a nearly hive mind-like social structure. A main cog was still just a cog when it came down to it, and she would have to rise above that to be considered a sapient pony by Decepticon standards. As it stood now, she was just mindlessly identifying as one but didn't show actual signs of the "sapient" part.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatronist Sorting Area

Loyal Star performed his duties well, but he couldn't help but be a bit sad as he heard the sounds of short screams and blasts from the next enclosure, or the sound of the machine there beginning to strain under its load. If only there had been a way to convince the majority of the people to actually BE Megatronists, instead of just claiming it.

Alas, their culture had been extremely anti-Megatronist for so long that there was no chance of that happening for generations. They had been trained all their lives that Megatronists were inferiors and meant to serve them, and now, those same "inferiors" were being put in charge. Not only that, they were backed by genocidal robots from space, who most of the conquered people wished that they could throw into an ocean-sized slag pit. Loyal Star was actually lucky to get 20% legitimate Megatronists under those conditions. It was a clear sign that the former government had been failing a large percentage of people under it.

Eventually, General Carjack arrived to quickly check out the operation, and he could be heard grumbling in Binary about how the rendering pit wasn't keeping up. Not long after that, he took off, most likely to check on other rendering installations on the other newly-conquered planets.

Later, a couple of cargo-bots came with a kit that was quickly turned into a second temporary renderer, doubling the capacity of the location. These bots took loads of already-processed meat cakes with them. They would deliver this product to Carjack Agriculture, which would rehydrate the material and spray it on the crops as fertilizer via the massive chemigation systems that handled that and the application of other materials to the plants.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

DeathStrike quickly took his payment to his vault, keeping out just a couple of Cubes to exchange them for a single Cube of Supreme. He would drink the Supreme to celebrate another successful job. This one had been more difficult than expected, and he hoped his next assignment would be a bit easier. He also wondered if he would get a hit job from the ICC itself, rather than one of its customers.

[Vallermoore]

Megatronist Sorting Area

The time Loyal Star had spent with the Genociders (something very much against the will of it's commander, who was forced to allow it by Leader Megatron) had hardened his fuel pump which was vital to let him be a good Full Priest of Megatron. In different circumstances, it might have been a pony Loyal Star who was ground into fertilizer cakes. Meanwhile Pesticide was busy doing what he did best. He too had been a biological once, but he despised all biologicals, and for him, the Genocide Battalion was the perfect place within the Decepticon Empire for him. Loyal Star headed home and kept his radio open in case he got a call to be sent somewhere.

The Realm of Punishment

After a century or two of Faux-Celestia being made to be a slave worker, a circus pony, a pupil in a very nasty school for sapient ponies and more, she began to be given chances for a brief escape although it would take her another century to take advantage of them. When she did she would get a rest, or maybe get to eat some apples, before she was tracked down, beaten a little, and returned to her torment. It would be a thousand or more years before things got a little better for her by which time hopefully she would have got rid of her herd mentality.

Cybertron

When DeathStrike was called again, it was by a high ranking capo in the ICC, and he bowed politely. "You have been summoned because a capo of the ICC not only defected to the IOPC, which is trying to rise again under new leadership, but stole a large amount of our Energon as a gift to them to prove his worth. We sent three ICC bots after him but they were blasted and lost their bodies. We then sent a Problem Solver after him but he Solved the Problem Solver permanently. So we have decided to send one of our better Problem Solvers after him-you. If you defeat him, we will pay for that planned Ultimate Mods part of yours-that scorpion tail adapted to kill Decepticons if it hits in the right place. And Connect himself may well start personally sending you on missions as your deadliness will be a great asset to the Commission. His name, if he's not hiding under an alias, is IceBot, and he lives in the richest area of Steel City, with a couple of IOPC bodyguards. He has lived for five centuries, most of that in the ICC. It may be that you end up in the Decepticon Afterlife, but I think you will be the one who melts Icebot down."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

DeathStrike was incredibly excited at the thought of having his tail financed by the ICC, which would mean that he would not only get that, but be able to use the money he'd saved up for some other thing. Still, he made sure not to rush off half-cocked.

Instead, he first went home and made sure all of his systems and weapons were in perfect operating condition, filled up his Energon tank, and even put on a fresh coat of wax. Then, he made a couple of fresh Saves, hiding one in his safe and another under the couch. That would make it easy for the ICC to restore him if necessary.

Only after that did he go back outside and take to the air to case the place that the capo had mentioned. He expected to see something like a big mansion with a few guards, most likely with a wall around it. What he ended up seeing was quite different.

It didn't take much to figure out which place was likely the one IceBot owned. That was because outside, there was a huge bot about 150 feet tall who was built up so strongly that he looked like he could take out a gang of Scroungers all by himself. On each of his somewhat odd-looking wings was the original IOPC Derrick Seal, gleaming in glittery gold and silver speckles. Meanwhile, several bodyguard-looking bots were firing at this guy, and they also had IOPC Seals. It was clear that someone was not being accepted as "real" IOPC, though DeathStrike had no way to know which ones to consider legit. He did know, however, that if the old IOPC leader got wind that someone else was claiming to lead his group, he would likely send a Problem Solver of his own to make sure everyone still knew who was who and what was what. This giant bot was very likely to be that "emissary."

It didn't take long for DeathStrike to realize that there was something even more important about this situation: The defenders were all paying attention to the giant, angry threat standing on the ground in front of them. If he was careful enough, he thought, he might be able to sneak in the back and ice the IceBot before his bodyguards had any idea what was going on.

DeathStrike turned off his engines and put on his cloaking, and then coasted silently into the back yard. He landed as softly as possible, making just a dull thunk instead of the usual intimidating clang. As he did so, he could hear the voice of the giant as he shouted at the bodyguards. "Yous ain't gonna win! Give it up! Just tell me who t'inks 'e can use da Name a' da Corpa'ration and call himself da boss a it, and where he's at!! Who's dis fool who can't even come up wit' a new name fer a syndicate! Where is dis guy claimin' ta be da 'new boss' a MY orga-ni-Zation!? If ya don' tell me, I'm gonna HACK IT outta yer client an' send da resta him ta Dev/Null!"

Despite intense curiosity tempting him to hang back and listen, DeathStrike knew that he'd better ignore that and sneak in while he had the chance. He'd learned before that trying to just blast his way into a house would just set off every alarm and cost him the element of surprise, so he silently started trying to pick the lock of the back door instead...

[Vallermoore]

DeathStrike had a special tool that would open most doors, and managed to pick the door and slip inside-with his cloaking on and a short burst of his jets just in case there were any pit traps filled with water or something equally nasty. He then crept as quietly as a Decepticon could upstairs, expecting to meet one or more bodyguards at any moment. Finally he came to a room where Icebot was, a bot in the same color of paint as Megatron (but not looking like him, so his paint job was legal) with what were most likely fake IOPC seals. It was possible that the bot outside was Masher, or at least a very senior IOPC capo or underboss. Icebot was petting a Sapient CPU in the form of a pterodactyl with gleaming red eyes, that was splaying on it's back having it's belly gently tickled and stroked. Just as DeathStrike was thinking this was going to be easy, and he could just sneak in and blast his foe at point blank range in the vital areas to kill him (turning on his jammer a second or two before) the pterodactyl squawked and Icebot got up, no less then four fusion cannons coming out of each extra strong arm. *Oh exhaust, this will be harder then it seems* DeathStrike thought as his foe started pinging the area with radar. He backed out of the room before the pings could reveal his location, and IceBot spoke. "Fly, my Phoenix, and find the foe, and I will blast him into pieces of twisted metal and sparking wires."

Obviously the pterodactyl was equipped to see through most cloaking, and two blasters came out of it's wings. It's armor was thin, but blasting it would reveal DeathStrike's location to Icebot. Despite the danger, DeathStrike stood firm. He was determined to destroy his foe and earn, as his fee, a wonderful Ultimate Mods made tail, a stinger fully capable of taking down all but the very toughest and strongest Decepticons. What was more, Connect would start personally sending him on missions as long as he was successful, and to be Connect's personal Problem Solver-how could one be better then that in his line of work? This was worth the risk of losing a body or even of the danger of death and the room that no sane bot ever wanted to end up in but most would some day, the Room of the Three Screens. DeathStrike knew that some day-hopefully not today-he would be Solved by a Problem rather then the other way around, but such was the normal fate of a Problem Solver in the hopefully very far future.

[Victorious Decepticons]

It didn't take long for Phoenix to home in on the sound of the foreign engine in the hall, even though DeathStrike was running as quietly as possible. He thought of switching to his electrical engine, but knew that if he did that, he would become significantly weaker - not a good move when someone was actively looking to blast him!

Phoenix immediately commenced a blasting run, firing away as he zoomed by overhead. His owner quickly came out of his room and watched to see where the blasts would hit something instead of traveling all the way to the floor. It didn't take long for his pet's blasts to make contact, and he raised his cannon-heavy arms into position to deliver the killing blow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outside, the sounds of light blaster fire could be heard intensifying. Finally, they were followed by the much louder noises of fusion cannon fire, and the muffled, unintelligible sounds of an angry person. Icebot kept his attention on the matter at hand, but he was disconcerted by what he heard next: Silence. He knew that meant that his main guard force had just been defeated. It probably wouldn't be long before the foe outside began to try to blast his way in...

[Vallermoore]

Phoenix flew down and blasted at DeathStrike, making contact. Although the blaster damage was relatively light as a Sapient CPU was small compared to a full size Decepticon, it did give DeathStrike's position away. DeathStrike was able to dodge the first blast of Icebot's mighty cannons, but that caused Icebot to pan with his cannons-something much harder to dodge, and ping with radar and various other things to find where DeathStrike was. DeathStrike blasted back, and managed to damage Icebot a bit, but all too soon the cannons made contact, blasting great holes in his armour straight away. Just when he thought he was doomed to lose a body and be down to his last one, the huge bot from outside blasted his way inside and Icebot was forced to turn around to deal with him. "Here's Masher!" announced the bot, and both he and DeathStrike blasted away at Icebot. Masher was furious that Icebot would attempt to use his syndicate's name, so he had come to deal with the so called IOPC bot the way any self-respecting Decepticon would-by turning Icebot into ingots. Icebot was tough, but he was up against one of the strongest bots on Cybertron and an experienced Problem Solver at the same time. Phoenix switched to attacking Masher, the much more deadly threat.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"Gimme da name! Who's tryn'a pretend he's da boss a' MY Corpa'ration?!" Masher began to demand of Icebot. He aimed two huge fusion cannons, one on each arm, at the "IOPC" bot as if he would deliver the killing blows if Icebot didn't spill the beans, and quick.

DeathStrike, meanwhile, couldn't care less about the internal business of the competing syndicate, so he continued blasting away. He found it much easier to deal damage now that Masher had "softened up" his target a bit. As he did this, Phoenix was blasting him, but the sapient CPU's firepower was too weak to do much. The pet would likely run out of fuel long before he managed to blast through DeathStrike's armor.

Icebot turned to return fire at DeathStrike, but kept his head turned so he could also watch Masher. It didn't do him much good, though...Masher had already decided that it'd be easier and faster just to deactivate Icebot from the neck down, and then rip the boards out of his head for code-reading in a more secure area. He knew that he was still a target as far as the Decepticon Government was concerned, so he wanted to get the data he came for and then fly far away before DomIntel could send the Military after him.

As soon as Masher decided this, his engine revved up to provide the power for a double-cannon blast. He also activated full jamming to make sure his target couldn't get away and take his data with him. He didn't just want Icebot to be deactivated - he wanted to code-read him and find out who was pretending to be the "new IOPC leader." It wouldn't do any good if he transferred all of his data to some unknown place! Masher figured that if he put jamming on, his quarry would be less likely to even try that.

Masher's activities and engine noise caused Icebot to turn to fully face him, seeing him as the greater threat - and to leave his side wide open to DeathStrike. DeathStrike didn't wait around when he saw this. He opened fire at full power, blasting through his target's side and taking out his motion boards. He then aimed higher, and managed to blast through the command cable that ran down his neck. Thanks to the force of the blasts, Icebot's now-paralyzed body was blown over to the side. His wing made contact with the floor first, and then he flipped onto his face with great force when the wing didn't bend.

Masher looked over at the assassin appraisingly.

"Not bad fer someone in a regular-sized body," Masher said, as DeathStrike finished up by finally deactivating the pesky sapient CPU that had continued harrassing him. "I take it this one had also run afoul of da Commission, since I don't recognize ya as one of ours. Hopefully ya don't need 'is boards ta prove ya did the job, b'cuz if ya do, yer gonna hafta go through ME ta get 'em."

Masher waited, engine still in battle mode, jammer still running and fusion cannons ready, for DeathStrike's response...

[Vallermoore]

Phoenix would find himself within the Room of Three Screens. It would be up to the Afterlife Administrators to decide where to send this Sapient CPU, which had a soul just like Decepticons did.

*****
Masher blasted his foe and DeathStrike lowered his blasters at once after deactivating Phoenix, not wanting to-at the very least, lose a body, and with jamming running, his life, to the genuine ruler of the IOPC. He didn't want Masher to see him as a problem to be solved. Much to his relief, Masher didn't blast him.

"Not bad fer someone in a regular-sized body," Masher said. "I take it this one had also run afoul of da Commission, since I don't recognize ya as one of ours. Hopefully ya don't need 'is boards ta prove ya did the job, b'cuz if ya do, yer gonna hafta go through ME ta get 'em."

Icebot spoke at that moment, his voice chip still working. "Masher? It is you, not many other bots could blast their way through my bodyguards and myself. If you are wondering who the boss is of the new IOPC that formed on Cybertron, it's...me. And when you send me to the Room of Three Screens, it'll be my underboss FearMe, but, as you know, you can take out a boss and an underboss and new members will just rise in rank to fill their places."

DeathStrike was not going to fight Masher, and get killed over it, but he hoped he could take a small part of one snapped in two mindboard as proof. He bowed politely to Masher and asked, hoping that what Icebot had said would help his case "Is it OK if I take half of one mind board back as proof? If not, I understand. I may be ICC, but I'm not willing to die over this. It's just that the ICC will make a really good new body part for me if I complete this mission." He took a few steps back from Icebot, like a hyena would step back from a carcass if a lion or a hippo turned up.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Masher laughed humorlessly at Icebot's claim. "There is no way that you are the leader of this fake IOPC that's been disrespecting me." He spoke with uncharacteristic clarity, not wanting his usual "Italian mobster" accent to get in the way of his message in the slightest. His voice was now icy. "YOU got on my radar because gangland radio chatter is abuzz with how you bribed your way in by stealing hundreds of thousands of Cubes from the Commission. Leaders do not bribe their way into groups. They become bosses by blasting the old bosses into oblivion."

"All of those rumors are what let me know that some interloper is pretending to have refounded my group. Meanwhile, the actual IOPC is doing quite well. WE have an entire planet of our own, unlike you peasants. But in no way does that mean that we are relinquishing our name, or the reputation that goes with it!"

With that, Masher activated a torch that had been hidden in a finger, and without any ceremony or grace, used it to cut the enemy's panels open. He then yanked the boards out one by one, ignoring his target's cries of how he was being honest as if he heard nothing. DeathStrike noticed that engine stopped running after the second board in the head was removed, and the vocalizations went silent after the third came out. Soon, Masher had all 9 boards neatly stacked on the target's belly area, and he got a cushioned bag out of his thigh panel to place the boards into.

"I hope ya got some otha' way ta prove ya did da job," Masher said, reverting to his usual speech style. "Cuz I gotta get da data outta dese, and it won't work if they're busted up! I'm sure ya don't always take board bits in as yer proof. But if dey're extra-worried about dis guy, maybe yous can get DomIntel ta verify fer ya!"

Masher carefully placed each board into the bag, being sure to place cushioning material inside each one to avoid causing any catastrophic errors.

"Don' worry about dis guy comin' back. He won't. I gotta nice, hot smeltin' cauldron waitin' fer dese once I'm done wit' 'em." Masher concluded as he put the last board into his bag, picked up the entire package, and turned to walk out of the hole he'd blasted in the wall.

Outside, Decepticon Military bots were flying to his position due to a hot order from DomIntel, but they were a little too late. Thanks to the presence of random people in the air around the area, they couldn't get a clear shot in before Masher put his cloaking on and disappeared somewhere. On the ground, DeathStrike heard his jets activate, but the sound soon became just another part of Cybertron's usual jet noise.

[Vallermoore]

Masher knew as soon as he spoke that Icebot had to be lying to try and protect his own boss, and he had been around too long to be fooled by that. Even a three year old Decepticon would have been unlikely to have been fooled by that.

DeathStrike knew that to try and fight Masher for the boards would be suicidal, and watched as he took them and left. He snatched up the body and flew back to the ICC place where he had got the contract from, hoping that his story would be accepted without the mind boards that were the normal proof of death. He would not blame the ICC capos at all if he had to pay Domintel for a report conforming what had happened. He was so close to getting that tail...so close. He could almost feel it like a phantom limb-a tail that would make him so much deadlier when it came to targeting over Decepticons, and so much more useful as well to the ICC that when some day he met a Problem he could not Solve, they would tell stories about him and his fame would outlive him. He hoped of course to live eternally, but he didn't expect it, as he had one of the most dangerous occupations of all Decepticons, and unless one was Megatron there was always a more dangerous Decepticon out there somewhere amongst the billions of bots. Life was good.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The capo who had given DeathStrike the assignment was quite surprised when he heard the story of what had happened during the hit. He was also a bit concerned. While he knew that the Decepticon government wouldn't just stand back and allow the real IOPC to become competition again, he also knew that Leader Megatron might allow Masher to go ahead and try to stamp out the pretenders to the name. After all, there was no need to send government personnel to do what Masher was clearly willing to do for free, and letting Masher do it would also eliminate the risk associated with sending government death squads against mobsters.

Unlike most Decepticons, hardened mobsters from all of the well-established syndicates fought well against the death squads - and more importantly, many who were mobbed-up had few qualms about running their jammers in an attempt to make takedown efforts as costly to the government as possible. While the Decepticon Military was in no way afraid, they also weren't foolish. When someone else was willing to take the risk to do the same thing they would have done, it was generally seen as strategic to go ahead and let him. Then, they could just conduct mopping-up operations after the gang war was over, if any such operations were still needed.

While all of these things ran through the capo's mind, the first matter at hand was to confirm the termination of the target.

"You won't need to hire DomIntel for evidence," he said. "We will take care of that. We have contacts that we trust, while you don't yet have access to the preferred personnel. Once our contacts confirm what happened, and preferably also confirm the final disposition of the target's mind-data and boards, we will commission the upgrade. Until then, don't go too far. We're not going to send a search party so we can pay you!" The capo laughed, but he had indeed had situations in which someone who was supposed to be paid disappeared before the goods could be delivered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gendyne Labor Corporation

In Cybertron's usual traveling areas, slavery was done in the old-fashioned way. Areas were taken over, and their inhabitants put to labor. In most cases, the laborers would remain stationed on their own planets, if only because finding other worlds that were bio-compatible with them was a pain in the exhaust. Even here, though, everyone quietly knew that the easiest way around that was to use robotic laborers. However, these were few and hard to get, for most believed that the Decepticon was meant to be above that.

This was not at all how slavery was approached by the Gendyne Labor Corporation. Its headquarters were located in a galaxy a full 10 billion light-years away from Cybertron, but the massive conglomerate did business all over - including on planets much closer than the Decepticon home world. Its business, and it was most definitely a huge and thriving one at that, was the procurement and deployment of labor to any client that wanted it and was willing to pay. In short, it was one of the most successful slaving empires in existence. With over 10,000,000 client nations and trillions of slaves on its books, it could supply labor for any type of project or task, in any environment, anywhere within its seemingly limitless range.

At first glance, it would seem that it had little in common with the Decepticons beyond its approval of slavery. Even that was a bit different, for while the Decepticons thought of slavery as sort of a punishment for those who had opposed them, Gendyne was ALL for it. Its entire business was literally slavery, and the free-beings under its umbrella were rabidly in favor of it. In fact, there was only one thing that Gendyne and the Decepticons would be in full agreement of, if both sides were to be honest: Robots were the best slaves.

This one thing was about to become a big problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a platoon of about 100 genuine IOPC members made their way to Cybertron from Invisius, their cloaking not yet on, a tiny scouting ship silently took video of the group. A strange, shiny, rubbery-skinned, small gray humanoid emotionlessly dictated notes to a recorder, mentioning the size, overall condition, group formation capabilities, speed, and self-directed nature of the group that was observed.

Soon, the pilot received orders to follow the group from a distance, in the hopes of finding out their home world. What he didn't realize was that they weren't going to the place they now called home, but to Cybertron, to help Masher mash the upstart syndicate into submission. The tiny craft obeyed the order, staying far enough back that its presence was not even suspected.

When the pilot got within viewing range of planet Cybertron, he let out a whoop of delight. It appeared to have at least several billion robots on it, all - he thought - ready for the taking. He sent back video and observations coded as High Alert, and the messages went straight to the Labor Acquisition Department at the massive company-nation. The Department dropped everything and began to watch the video feed, grins on their death-gray faces and twinkles in their eyes.

"The entire planet is of metal, as are the inhabitants. They are robotic, and appear entirely self-directed, but capable of group activity. Many of them fly around just outside its atmosphere, some hostile, some clearly lollygagging. Most appear to be busy. They are very comfortable with flight and space. All bear logos, perhaps corporate. Some have multiple logos, but the main logo is always there and is the most prominent. Radio chatter is in a computer language, presumably a local form of Binary. They do not seem to notice me, but I am still very distant. Images are coming via telescope. On the planet, homes are sized for the robots. There is one very large mansion, easy to spot. Other homes are more average, with the exception of a few other mansions and what appears to be a slum. The owners of these constructs are not visible."

The Labor Acquisition Department directors broke out in cheers. An entire planet full of robots to steal!! Surely they would all be enjoying fat bonuses, each worth millions of NSD! One was so happy that he authorized a bonus for the scout on the spot. As with most companies, the bonus for the one who was actually responsible for finding this "mother lode" was far less than what the directors, who just sat and listened to the message, would get. However, they would spin it to make it seem like they made some important decisions, so most of their paid employees wouldn't want to revolt. It wasn't like they could do much anyway, though. After all, it was a company-nation, an entire country that was ruled entirely by the company for thousands of years. Now, it directly ruled more than one solar system. Trying to quit therefore meant traveling to a distant part of the galaxy...

What the directors didn't realize as they cheered each other was that the report they had just gotten could well go down in history as the report that would, at the very best, cost Gendyne Labor Corporation more than any other speculative maneuver it had ever done...

[Vallermoore]

DeathStrike was about to say something witty back when a siren was heard that only sounded when Cybertron was under attack. "As I'm a member of the ICC, I want you to send me to where my talents can best be used against the foe. The whole of Cybertron now has a huge Problem that needs Solving, and it seems my tail will have to wait" he told the capo. He looked forward to fighting the foe that clearly had a death wish.
******
Gendyne Labor Corporation

The Gendyne Labor Corporation had never encountered Decepticons before, or they would have stayed the heck out of the Decepticon Empire and away from the gleaming "Ball Bearing " at the centre.Only the Tavans had attacked the Metal Planet and survived. Megatron had not been divine then, and the Taverns had not being trying to capture Decepticons directly, and were a lot bigger then the Gendyne Labor Corporation was. The once mighty empire of Equestria had been wiped out after it's ruler tried to destroy Cybertron with a black hole, and many other planets in the past had gone the same way. Decepticons didn't have much love, but they did have a powerful patriotic love for the Metal Planet, perhaps the only thing that truely united all of them, even those that were secretly anti-Megatron. It was their pride and joy.

Marcus Crassus, the Supreme CEO of the Gendyne Labor Corporation, was very pleased when the news found it's way up to him that there was an entire planet of robots seemingly for the taking. They had once encountered a small and (relatively) unwarlike robot planet with twenty thousand or so bots and captured them with only a few capital ships and several smaller ships destroyed. First they had sent missiles into their equivalent of the Main Refinery, destroying it, then they had, in effect, zerg rushed the planet, using a mixture of blasters, and very strong lazers that targeted the internal boards of bots and jammed them. They then came with cargo-bot like piloted drones designed to catch and slave-chip bots. After only a week, they had destroyed or chipped the last bot. The last planet had been rather like a beehive in terms of attacking it, whilst Cybertron was more like, in such a situation, a huge wasp's nest.
It was decided to use one in twenty of the Gendyne Labor Corporation to do the same thing to Cybertron with only a very short scouting mission from high above Cybertron by small cloaked drones, mere minutes before the main attack was launched. Just as the Gendyne Labor Corporation had never encountered the Decepticons, it was the same way the other way around, so there were no Decepticon spies in the Company's ranks.

******
The first thing that let the Decepticons know that they were under attack was when missiles-giant air to ground ones-were launched at the Main Refinery. However, the bots there launched counter-SAMS that blew them up before they reached it, turned on the defenses to protect all that Energon from further attacks, and only then did the bot in charge radio Leader Megatron with the news. Almost as quickly, the alarm signal that meant a foreign attack on Cybertron was sounded, so that even as the attack began the Decepticons were ready for it. At this stage though the poor and middle class bots were vulnerable to attack. Thousands went down to the weapons of their foes and in most cases could not even mind transfer to their spares, but there were billions of bots left-very angry bots indeed.

Without waiting for orders from Megatron, High Generals and even base commanders-the equivalent of colonels in other armed forces-readied their soldiers for battle, whilst syndicates and gangs stopped whatever they were doing against each other as soon as the sirens were heard to fight the common foe. Even Problem Solvers temporarily abandoned their missions.

*****
Pesticide was enjoying a game of Conquer the Universe when the base sirens automatically jerked him back into the real world. Within minutes, the Battalion was in it's parade square with General Carjack-who had been woken up by the sirens and had blasted, involuntarily, his bedroom door as a result, in front of them. His engine was running almost at dangerous levels of roughness and his eyes had just a strip of red light in them, and even this was because of a long ago upgrade that fixed a problem that used to temporarily blind Decepticons that were angry enough as their eyes used to darken so much that they turned off entirely, which made them even angrier. "Genociders, some as yet unknown foes have both attacked Cybertron!!! and woken me up in the process!!!. Let's go out there and throw them out of the gene pool."
*****
Loyal Star was on his way to the weekly service in the local Temple of Megatron, when the sirens sounded and then a huge bot that was not a Decepticon decloaked and grabbed him up to try and chip him. One emergency prayer for fusion fire later, and the bot-as it turned out, a non-sapient one-had been roasted and melted down. Such was what happened when there was an unprovoked attack on a Priest of Megatron who was just minding his own business. His radio went off. "This is High Priest Warfire. All Priests are to stop whatever they are doing, and report to the Main Temple. Cybertron is under attack, and the attackers appear to be slavers of some kind."
*****
Lightning Dust was hit by a laser that would have paralyzed a lesser bot but only took out one motion board, and he blasted back and radioed SolarTempest with the news. SolarTempest ordered the entire Cybertronian Business Association to come to his house as a unit.

*****
As soon as Ultimate heard the sirens, he shut the shades with the customers still inside the shop. "OK everybody, out you go through the back door. None of you are banned-it's just I don't want you taking advantage and stealing anything from Ultimate Mods. I'll follow you out."

*****
Warrior, as in effect a junior officer in wartime, decided to report to the nearest Decepticon military base.
*****
A team of media bots were rushed to the Megatron Mansion so that Leader Megatron could make a speech to the Decepticon Nation. Megatron was clearly outraged, even before he said a single syllable of Binary. He began to speak on all the holovision channels.

Meanwhile the Gendyne Labor Corporation broadcast over their droids asking for bots to join them and be spared slavery if they helped enslave their fellow bots, but even the Rust to Wealth gang was not going to become traitors. Not one bot switched sides.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Those in the sky above Cybertron saw the entire planet's activity suddenly pause for just about a second, and then change. Faces looked skyward with glowering red eyes, and not long afterward, the robots they belonged to began to transform. Transformation of this sort was something Gendyne had not seen before. While they did have robots that "transformed," it was always from one industrially-oriented form to another. For example, a jackhammer-style bot could switch to being a mounted drilling arm. They did not expect millions of robots to transform into planes, and then fly up to engage them in battle.

However, once their presence was known, the space-based Gendyne ships immediately had another, more pressing, problem. All of those "busy" Decepticons going to and fro in Cybertronian Space turned their attentions to them. The sound of blaster fire connecting with Gendyne ship housings resonated throughout all of the ships, as well as the clunks of thousands of bots landing on the hulls and trying various methods to attempt to breach them. Each raid gang, and even some coalitions of multiple small gangs, knew that there would be a big bonus for anyone who managed to capture one of these attack craft - and preferably, deactivate any biologicals found inside. Greed and patriotism worked together to create a crew of very motivated, yet opportunistic, advance defenders.

It didn't take long for smaller Gendyne craft, such as scouts and communication hubs, to be overwhelmed by the vigorous attacks of the Decepticons who had happened to be in space at the time the assault began. Next to be targeted were the transports, which, like Decepticon cargo-bots, weren't too great at defending themselves. It took much longer to get through their armor, but the relentless targeted attacks were able to nail at least some of them before Gendyne managed to get the rest covered by their capital ships. One was even flown away erratically by some raiders who decided it would be fun to take it to the Main Foundry under its own power as its now-charred pilot's body was unceremoniously thrown out of the bridge area by the victors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the ground, Leader Megatron was both shocked and incensed by the attack - and by the reports coming in that the invaders were trying to capture his population. Some had even suggested that the attackers were slavers! He had nothing concrete to go on, though - in war, enemies tried to capture each other for all sorts of reasons. However, their goal didn't matter now. They had attacked Cybertron, so the first thing to do would be to kick them out and destroy their immediate forces. Then, they would be made to regret having come anywhere near the Decepticons. If they actually were slavers, Megatron figured, it would just make their own enslavement quite ironic.

Quickly, Megatron came out on his balcony, and his face immediately appeared on every running holovision set on Cybertron.

"Attention, Decepticons!" Megatron began. "As you are surely aware, we are under attack by some unknown force. It is not one that we have knowingly encountered before, so this is not a war of retribution - at least, not from their perspective. The most important thing for us to do now is drive them out. Everyone who is not already in the Military is to begin to take active measures to destroy them. The government will pay 100 Cubes for each deactivated biological body of their species that is turned in at a Raid Dropoff Point, as long as that body is collected from an enemy that is in Cybertronian Space. If there are any robots that work with them, they are worth 500 Cubes, deactivated. A small enemy ship carries a bounty of 1,000 Cubes. If you are able to commandeer a larger enemy ship, the prices range from 10,000 Cubes to 1,000,000 Cubes, with the highest price being for one of the largest of their capital ships. All bounties are only for ships currently in or directly attacking Cybertronian Space or Cybertron itself. Do not go to the origin source to raid them yet. We must remain here to defend our world! Now: Decepticons, ATTACK!"

With that, Megatron got off the air and flew to the Main Base as fast as he could without bashing into anything. Soon, a swarm of millions of troops was in the air, with him at the head of the formation. Similar formations rose from elsewhere on the base, and from other bases.

The Gendyne soldiers still in the sky started to think that they might have made a mistake when these huge swarms came billowing up from the ground below. They didn't have time to think for long, though. The Decepticon soldiers got within firing range very quickly, and once they did, heavy fighting immediately commenced. A variety of pinging methods were also detected by Gendyne forces, and soon after, ships under cloaking began to be uncovered and targeted - sometimes, by thousands of Decepticons at once.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Masher cursed violently when the alarm went off. He had only been here to destroy a would-be usurper and his gang, not fight a real damn war! Even worse, the leader of the planet was Megatron, who had driven him off after he tried to take over. Masher certainly wasn't thrilled by the thought of doing anything to help him. In fact, he sort of hoped that he'd eat a blast.

Still, despite this, Masher was a Decepticon, and he wasn't about to let some puny biological race come in and take Decepticons in the way that Decepticons would do to other species. In fact, that was entirely backwards! Decepticons were supposed to go to worlds inhabited by creatures like the small, gray humanoids that were currently attacking - and pluck THEM up as if harvesting a crop! Masher was disgusted at their attempt to turn things upside-down on the Decepticons, and he ordered his 100 on-site IOPC members to join him in teaching these insolent biologicals how things belonged.

DomIntel and the military death squads were no idiots. They knew that it was best for the war effort to have as many allied, heavily-upgraded, warriors on Cybertron's side as possible. All anti-IOPC activity was ordered to be halted for the duration of the war, with one exception. If Masher tried to use the fog of war for another takeover attempt, he would be treated the same as the foreign enemy by all Decepticon soldiers. However, they knew that it was unlikely that he would do that. He would not want to see his species fall to aliens, and he was smart enough to know that causing massive political upheaval during an active war would basically be handing the planet to Gendyne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gendyne thought that it would have it easy if it attacked a poor area first, and then move on to a lower-middle one. A large force landed in the slum that its scout had seen, intending to raid it for slaves. However, when it got there, it saw that these people were so poor that they were quite rusty and barely running. And then, they were found by the Scroungers.

"Hey, look! There's some of those things Megatron's payin' for! And they have some big, dumb bots with them, too! Let's deactivate 'em all, turn in the biologicals, and haul their bots to the foundry like we would with any other weak junk!!"

The Gendyne soldiers were, at first, happy to see groups of four and five obviously well-built, well-maintained robots coming in their direction with high confidence. Surely they wanted to take the offer of working with them, Gendyne assumed! However, their joy turned to terror when those robots began to open fire and disable their robotic slave-catchers with precise joint shots, and thanks to the element of surprise, getting the job done before they even had a chance to respond. An instant later, the next salvo came, this time deactivating the biologicals. After that, there would be a short brawl to determine ownership of the loot, but alas, these soldiers were no longer alive to see it.

The brawl was shortened by the fact that Cybertron was at war (which legally demanded unity), and not only that, nobody wanted to let any still-living loot get away while they were fighting each other. Soon, each Scrounger gang had at least one bot and a few biologicals, and they sauntered off to the local foundry while singing raider shanties. To them, the arrival of these ballsy aliens was like money falling from the sky.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ultimate let out a whoop of excitement once he had everyone out and he secured his shop. Whenever he had a conscription stint, he was forced to leave his extremely heavily-built, bling-up, and hugely weaponized body in a vault because "we need to be able to fix you if you get blasted on the battlefield, and that means using standardized parts." Currently, though, he was not active military. That meant that he could use his extremely customized body, and finally show it greatness in full! He roared into the sky using his hyper-powered dual-thruster jets, and once there, popped out six fusion cannons, 10 standard blasters, 15 or 20 smaller blasters, and from the backs of his thighs, two extra jets to counter all of the recoil that firing would produce. He also lit up all of his lights and set them going in eye-popping flashing and trailing patterns. These lights (or at least their patterns) weren't just for show. He knew them to be very dazzling and mesmerizing, especially to biologicals. That would give him a significant advantage against any susceptible species.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Cybertronian Business Association soon arrived at its headquarters, and after some hasty planning, decided on battle formations and took to the sky as a unit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the Main Temple, all of the priests soon got an order from Divine Leader Megatron himself. They were to quit hiding in the Temple immediately, and go out and kick ass! As Priests, they would have extra blessings for both their ability to hit their targets and their ability to avoid being hit themselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Gendyne didn't expect to encounter such strong defense, especially in the slums where they were currently getting absolutely slaughtered by Scroungers - whose business also involved going after totally unwilling targets - they didn't expect the robotic planet to be able to keep it up for very long. They persisted in landing, and attempting to land, many more troops and giant robotic slave-catchers, assuming that it wouldn't be long before there would be a surrender from the government.

Little did they know that the big white-painted robot at the front of the military formation that was giving them the most trouble was the government, and that he not only had zero plans of surrender, but also had plenty of plans of tracking where these invaders came from and taking the war to their own front doors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suddenly, a message came over the radio on all frequencies, addressed to the ships. It was in Binary, so they would have to translate it somehow, but Gendyne Labor Corporation was advanced enough to do so in a fairly reasonable amount of time.

"Who are you, what do you want, and what in the universe deluded you into thinking you could defeat us?!" The voice (Soundwave's) was fairly flat and sort of mushy, but despite that, the outright haughtiness of the speaker managed to drip from the Gendyne radio receivers as if he thought that the invaders were even less worthy of Decepticon attention than mere ants. Still, the silence following the message indicated that he was waiting for a response.

[Vallermoore]

At all normal times there were a lot of planes in the sky coming and going. Most were raiders going to and from raids, but there were also bots on missions, Military members on guard duty, Coders showing their newly-built offspring their very first sight of Cybertron from space, and a few bots who wanted to talk politics somewhere far away without Domintel listening in. As soon as the Gendyne ships made themselves known, before Megatron even knew about the attack, these bots in space started whaling on their biological foes who had committed the unforgiveable sin of attacking the Big Ball Bearing. A few seconds later, dark red eyes looked skywards all over the planet, and bots on the ground transformed and took off in a self-forming Raider Front. Not long after that, what looked like metal tornados of planes-the regiments of the Decepticon Military, flew up to join the battle. Individual Gendyne fighters and small craft stood very little chance, and transports were quick to fall. One ship ended up being flown under it's own power for a laugh by Decepticons who joyrided it straight to the Main Foundry. For now, the huge capital ships with their mighty blasters were able to fend off their Decepticon foes, as even the Decepticon Military would take time in this situation to get properly organized enough to take them down.

Leader Megatron was shocked and furious by this attack on Cybertron. The last time something like this had happened had been by a Raider Front of Coltani bots, but they had been quickly dealt with, but this fleet was bigger and more of a threat, and appeared to be made up of slaver biologicals who thought Decepticons could be turned into livestock. "Attention, Decepticons! As you are surely aware, we are under attack by some unknown force. It is not one that we have knowingly encountered before, so this is not a war of retribution - at least, not from their perspective. The most important thing for us to do now is drive them out. Everyone who is not already in the Military is to begin to take active measures to destroy them. The government will pay 100 Cubes for each deactivated biological body of their species that is turned in at a Raid Dropoff Point, as long as that body is collected from an enemy that is in Cybertronian Space. If there are any robots that work with them, they are worth 500 Cubes, deactivated. A small enemy ship carries a bounty of 1,000 Cubes. If you are able to commandeer a larger enemy ship, the prices range from 10,000 Cubes to 1,000,000 Cubes, with the highest price being for one of the largest of their capital ships. All bounties are only for ships currently in or directly attacking Cybertronian Space or Cybertron itself. Do not go to the origin source to raid them yet. We must remain here to defend our world! Now: Decepticons, ATTACK!"

Soon enough, Megatron flew up at the head of his own personal Regiment to personally kick some biological ass.

Masher might despise Megatron, but he was and had always been a Decepticon, and there was no way he wanted these biologicals to win and take over the Metal Planet. He and the 100 IOPC members joined in the war effort in the beat of a fuel pump.

*****
Those Gendyne forces that did manage to land, found themselves attacked on the spot by Scrounger gangs, who saw them as Energon Cubes fallen from the sky, and didn't survive very long before singing Scroungers sauntered off with them to the local No Hope foundry. Each foundry had enough bots still there to keep it running and process loot. In the middle class areas, they didn't last much longer either, as all the gangs acted as one big gang to reduce them to junk.

*****
After letting the last customer out and locking up the shop, Ultimate let out a whoop of excitement. Up he flew, and popped out all his blasters and fusion cannons at once whilst flashing his lights to dazzle the foe. He then went at them with great vigor, deactivating a large ship by himself. They blasted back, but their lasers were no match for his armor.
*****
Warrior was doing well as an officer and lead his men in an attack on a large ship.
*****
Lightning Dust replaced his damaged board before they left and decided to fly near SolarTempest to save him if the worst happened. Working as one, the CBA were formidable foes.
*****
Loyal Star flew out with the other Priests, Fire Eater on his left, and Warfire told them "Let's kick ass down here as a unit for a short time, and then see if one of their capital ships can stand up to holy fusion fire or not." It turned out that an entire unit of several thousand Megatronist Priests acting as one were able to bring down an entire space battleship by roasting it's engines and blasters, leaving it as a sitting duck for other Decepticons.
*****
"Yeeeeehawwwww!" The Genocide Battalion, with General Carjack at their head, was blasting anything fighting in the air that was not a Decepticon, busting up the ships of the would-be slave raiders. "Attack Cybertron, would you? Wake me up, would you? Eat blaster fire!"

*****
General Soundwave asked "Who are you, what do you want, and what in the universe deluded you into thinking you could defeat us?!"

The reply was " We are the Gendyne Labor Corporation and we are here to hack and enslave you, and then sell you for profit. Intelligent robots make the very best slaves."

Shortly afterwards the Gendynes launched twenty-two missiles that were designed to destroy cities at Cybertron and let off EMP pulses as they exploded. More then half were destroyed by Decepticon SAMS or holy fusion fire, and five more were wasted on the armored defenses of the Grand Refinery. One hit Titanium Town, one hit a deserted military base, and the rest hit non important areas, causing some small craters and a few hundred deaths, but doing nothing else except to destroy some houses and shops and make the Decepticons who saw the explosions even more angry then before. Cybertron had been damaged.

[Victorious Decepticons]

General Soundwave made a "huh!" noise when he heard the enemy's boldly-announced message.

"You have made a grave mistake. We are the Decepticons. We serve no one. Others are under US in perpetual servitude. Soon, you will be destroyed, and it will be an undeserved mercy to you if we allow you to be OUR slaves. Already you are losing your ships and personnel. Our next stop will be your planets."

With that, he cut off the radio - and immediately, contacted the Bureau of Propaganda and forwarded them a 100%-fidelity copy of the short discussion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In less than a minute, Soundwave's copy of the discussion was blaring from every government PA, as well as being broadcast on all channels (both holovision and radio) not only on Cybertron, but far enough into space for every Decepticon to hear it. Only the emergency military frequency was left clear.

It was as if the planet itself revved with anger when the message went out that some foreigners thought they could enslave the Decepticon race. The very panels Cybertron was made of reverberated with the revving, and the invaders who had managed to land on it and were still alive felt fear. Those flying within the atmosphere also heard the roaring sound. The aliens didn't quite understand what made the sudden, loud resonance, but they knew by instinct that it was angry, and that huge levels of violence were going to come.

The instincts of the Gendynes was correct. Starting a couple of minutes later, and continuing on for several more, they saw huge black swarms of robots coming out of their houses, most taking to the skies right after. Now, everyone was raging and there was no hesitation to go and display that rage through direct and violent action. Leader Megatron soon had to get on the radio and remind people that a percentage were to stay behind to provide adequate on-world defense. Reluctantly, a few turned around. It was about 5%, which was half the number that was recommended.

Gendyne's bombing also ensured that they would get more people trying to blast them. While some survivors in the bombed areas hastened to find the Saves of the fallen, many more took to the sky and started flying toward where the bombs had come from. Several of these had quickly strapped missiles of their own under their wings, as well as their usual welded-on blasters. These were air-to-air missiles meant to blast bigger holes in enemy ships than blasters could, or if the enemy craft were small enough, blow them up outright.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The GLC Subjugator was the largest ship on this slave raid, and it looked much like a capital ship. In reality, it was very different from a regular warship. It was visibly lightly-armed, yet it was armored as well as an actual capital ship. The thing was 1 mile wide and 2.5 miles long, and mostly rectangular and plain outside except for some communications equipment and currently-empty docking ports for small supply and recon craft.

Just under the hull, however, hundreds of giant robotic arms hid waiting to be deployed. They were able to suddenly reach out and grab whatever came close enough, after which they would quickly retract back into the ship. Whatever was captured would then be dumped inside into one of hundreds of huge, reinforced-barred, metal cages. It was the ultimate craft for capturing space-capable slaves.

Usually, what it captured were enemy spacecraft, and it would be the pilots and crew of the craft that were the real targets. Therefore, the entire hold was equipped with full life support. Not only that, it has thousands of smaller robotic arms, some with graspers and others with torches, in order to quickly and automatically dismantle the captured small ships and extract their crews intact.

It, its captain thought with smug glee, would be perfect for plucking these flying menaces out from space and making slaves of them. Each one would go right into a cage after capture, and then, he could use the robotic arms to cut open new ports in them and install control chips. He maneuvered his slow-moving ship into a visually-prominent position and waited for the Decepticons' inevitable attempts to attack it. At the same time, his crew took up positions at the many control stations that ran the robotic arms. Since chipping robots wasn't the normal activity of the ship, there was no automatic program for it. They would have to direct the arms manually. This would slow down the operation, but it would take even longer to write a program to automate it - and the battle was happening right now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Carjack and Leader Megatron, at the front of their respective divisions, both saw the huge and obvious ship pull to the front of its group at the same time. They also each saw the suspiciously-smooth, nearly-cannonless exterior, and were indeed suspicious. It was clear to them and their divisions that this thing was some kind of bait.

"What do you think THAT'S up to..." Carjack radioed over to Megatron.

Megatron responded as if through gritted teeth, "Whatever it is, it's no good. And it needs to be taught that you can't out-Decep the Decepticons."

Megatron scanned the ship telepathically, and quickly discovered its contingent of robotic grabber arms. Carjack did so too, but didn't stop there. He used a telepathic body to remote-view the interior of the ship, and in a slight surprise, soon bumped into Megatron's own spirit body doing the same thing. Rather than use the radio for further communication, they talked to each other this way, and soon decided that using Megatron's divine power and Carjack's magic to short out the whole works and permanently immobilize all of its equipment would "fix" Gendyne's big slave-capturing ship quite well. Unfortunately for Gendyne, even though some of them were telepathic themselves, nobody with the needed skill was checking the hold at the time. The invisible spirit bodies of the robots went unnoticed by the enemy - as did their conversation.

"Then we'll bring in the troops and chop this garbage into tiny little bits faster than they ever imagined was possible!" Megatron concluded.

Soon, the two spirit bodies returned to their respective physical ones, and they began the operation. Leader Megatron aimed his energy at the electronics controlling the smaller, but far more numerous, dismantling-oriented arms. Meanwhile, Carjack overloaded the grabber arms. First, they attacked each arm's electronics, shorting them one-by-one, and then as if to make absolutely sure they'd stay deactivated, they attacked the main electrical panel and blew out the circuits upstream.

At this point, the alarms went off in the ship, and the captain of the GLD Subjugator realized that he might have bitten off far more than he ever intended to chew. He didn't have long to think about it, though, for at that moment the multi-million-bot divisions of Megatron and Carjack began to swarm the craft in all of their numbers.

[Vallermoore]

The response of General Soundwave was to reply "You have made a grave mistake. We are the Decepticons. We serve no one. Others are under US in perpetual servitude. Soon, you will be destroyed, and it will be an undeserved mercy to you if we allow you to be OUR slaves. Already you are losing your ships and personnel. Our next stop will be your planets." He then sent the message to the Bureau of Propaganda-which didn't need to alter or censor it at all and simply passed it on to the Decepticon news media to broadcast as it was. A few seconds later, it was as if Cybertron itself was revving with rage and was about to transform into a planet sized Decepticon, as the metal panels of the outmost layer shook like a minor earth tremor was happening. This was a gross insult to the entire Decepticon race. Bots who had not been fighting up until now-mechanics and Debuggers, top scientists, those with damaged armor from fights with other Decepticons that they had not had time to fix yet, and those new Coders looking after Decepticon babies, and certain Domintel agents who were still on duty-now got involved. Base commanders who were leading reserve troops took them into the air without orders, expecting that they would be forgiven given the insult.

Where bots didn't rise into the air as planes, it was normally because they were dealing with those who had managed to land upon the sacred metal of the Metal Planet. Very few invaders managed to take off again. Most would end their lives there. The missile attack merely angered the bots further, and only delayed those who were looking under the rubble for Save Discs. Megatron had to radio the bots to stop all of them from taking off and leaving an empty Metal Planet behind, where any hidden fleet could temporarily occupy it.

*****
The flagship, the GLC Subjugator, had a hidden weapon-hundreds of metal grabbing arms meant for spaceships that came too close, and it's admiral decided to use that against the Decepticons, but the relatiive lack of blasters gave the secret away. Even if Megatron had not been divine, General Carjack could still have deactivated the arms, but together they could do it quickly. The admiral and a handful of other officers managed to escape in a small ship just before the GLD Subjugator was subjugated by the Decepticons and sliced open.

Other capital ships had a few grabbing arms and managed to grab a few Decepticons that got too close. SolarTempest and Lightning Dust were grabbed, but the slave chip didn't work on Lightning Dust, and he was able to pull SolarTempest's slave chip out very quickly. The two bots then blasted everything within easy reach including the internal jammer running in the room that they were in and escaped.

A couple of arms on another ship grabbed High Priest Warfire and Fire Eater but Loyal Star was able to fly in with them and set them free before they could be chipped with his holy fusion fire. Again, they damaged everything they could see and flew out. Warfire and Fire Eater were very pleased with Loyal Star for the rescue.

Not every bot was able to escape and perhaps a couple of hundred were grabbed with success and chipped by the much smaller array of arms on the other ships before the Gendyne fleet decided to leave whilst a large part of it was still intact, leaving the raging robots behind. A few Gendyne aliens had been taken prisoner alive and were forcibly mind read and their bodies thrown into smelting pits afterwards, so the Decepticons could find where the home world of this slaving nation was, both to rescue their fellow bots and slaughter or enslave everyone living there, with an exception for the ambassadors of friendly nations who happened to be based there. Cybertron had a few craters in it, a large number of bots had lost bodies and/or homes and businesses, and a few had been killed or captured. It would not be long before revenge would be taken, and Megatron and his High Generals, met to decide what to do next. Skywarp was missing. "Where is General Skywarp? Was he captured or is he just slightly late for some reason?" asked General Soundwave. They knew that there was a possibility that he might have been captured by the Gendynes, however unlikely it was. He would have been fighting in the front rank, and might have got grabbed by an arm on one of the capital ships, that had about a dozen arms each.

******
The Gendyne fleet flew to Tarqon, their home planet, a world twice the size of Earth, with plenty of slave markets on it. Only two non-Decepticon slaves were Megatronists, a human and a sapient pony, both of them acolyte missionaries. When they heard the news of the raid, they knew that they would most likely not, as true Decepticon loyalists, be enslaved for much longer, as it would be days at most before most of the Decepticon Nation came to kick Tarqon's collective ass. The captured and chipped Decepticons were mainly sent to mines, except one who was ordered to tell the Gendynes anything useful that he knew about his race and not to lie.

[Victorious Decepticons]

When the Gendyne fleet entered FTL, it expected to leave the furious robots that it had not captured behind it. However, their attempt to fly away scot-free failed almost instantly, as most of the Decepticon Military also activated their FTL drives and came right after it. The rear flank of the Gendyne fleet, made up mostly of smaller craft meant to deal with low levels of harassment, was quickly wiped out due to the element of surprise that came with this. The next rank of ships then had to continually fire in an attempt to keep the Decepticons from destroying them, as well.

So far, things looked bad for the financial ledgers of the Gendyne Labor Corporation. It had lost its hugely expensive flagship, the GLC Subjugator, as well as several others. Not only that, a few thousand landing personnel were now dead or missing. And now, it had a very furious organized army literally on the tail of its excursion fleet. It was clear that soon, they would also have to fight a major defensive war.

Back on Cybertron, it didn't take long to hack the location of Tarqon out of one of the invaders. This was radioed not only to Megatron, but also to everyone else on Cybertron. Megatron informed the communications officer of the path he and the troops were currently taking, and this information was relayed to Cybertron's general population as well.

The Raider Front immediately formed up, but most of the gangs decided not to follow the same flight path as the Military. Using the same route would put them right in the way of whatever Gendyne sent up to try to stop the troops, and not only that, the highest chance for loot lay in NOT going where everybody else was. Instead, it was far better - both strategically and financially - to take some unexpected route and show up at some less-defended part of the target planet.

This, of course, was also strategic for the Decepticon Military. Even if they were held up by whatever defenses Tarqon threw at them, they could rest assured that raiders would be "leaking" around the defensive line from all directions, and then, wreaking chaos and destruction on the target. If the target decided to redeploy troops to counter that, it would weaken the main defensive line, at which point the Decepticon Military could barge through. In short, Gendyne would be screwed no matter what, assuming it didn't have any sort of unexpected defensive capabilities.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron was also informed of something disturbing: Gendyne had control of three solar systems, and not only that, they had fully populated every planet their species could survive on without life support. This ended up being a total of 14 different planets, all of which had their own militaries consisting of millions of troops. Typically, each one also had two fleets of space battleships, though there was a larger one with three, and a small planet with just one.

Gendyne also had control of 20 planets that their people could not live on without space-suits. There, special sealed buildings and domes provided homes for the controlling forces, and the military presence was limited to what it took to keep the natives of these planets following orders. The natives there were all enslaved, and many forced to extract resources from their own worlds to be used by Gendyne to increase its own power. A few "lucky" ones were given the "privilege" of working as personal servants, sex slaves, and other such things. Most of them, however, had been turned into Gendyne's main product: Slaves that were rented out, or less often, sold to clients on other planets. These often never saw their home worlds again.

Leader Megatron was not dissuaded, but he did instantly change his plans for what to do with Tarqon and the other Gendyne-inhabited worlds. Before, he had planned to delete most of the enemy population and enslave the rest, as was commonly done after Decepticon invasions. Now, however, he knew he wouldn't have time for that before the other 13 Gendyne planets sent forces over. Instead, the only strategic thing to do would be to quickly delete all of the Gendynes from Tarqon, as well as their military equipment, and then move to the next Gendyne-filled world and do the same there. This would be repeated until at least the last Gendyne-inhabited world, and possibly, be done there, too.

Megatron quickly communicated this to all of the troops, and then had the message relayed to the raiders. There was to be no capturing of Gendynes. They were to be summarily wiped out, instead. This would be a "bare sand raid" of all Gendyne-inhabited worlds. As for the planets merely controlled by Gendyne, they would be taken next. They didn't have the military capacity to help with the overall defense, so unless they suddenly militarized, they were not priorities. Of course, they would be taken over as well, but they could wait until the actual war had been won.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the slaving fleet got to Tarqon, they expected to find a couple hundred docile Decepticons ready to be ordered about. After all, no robot would try to mind-transfer with jamming obviously running, the Gendynes thought!

What they DID find was a couple of hundred deactivated robots. No attempts to reactivate them worked. If they had a chance to examine them, they would have found that each one had run the Fatal Command on himself, deleting his own files, and thereby committing suicide rather than be submitted to subjugation by an "inferior" species. The Gendynes, never expecting this sort of behavior, had not programmed their enslavement chips to prevent it.

Of course, for most if not all of the captives, this was not the drastic move that biologicals thought it was. They knew that there would at least be a *chance* that someone on Cybertron would use their Saves to reinstall them into new bodies and bring them back to life. However, even if they knew there was zero chance of it, they would have made the same move. Spending eternity as some inferior's piece of equipment was seen as a fate worse then death, so death would be chosen if escape seemed to be impossible or nearly so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only one of the robots had not taken this option. It was a large, well-armored one with two very-powerful blasters, a predominantly-purple paint job, and a thin gold stripe highlighting his regular-paint one on each wing. The Gendynes quickly ordered him into an interrogation area, not realizing the meaning of the gold stripe - including the fact that a bot who had such a decoration was also very likely to have advanced anti-hack programming, if only for reasons of national security.

General Skywarp obeyed the order to go into the building, using his freeze-face to prevent a big grin from showing on his face. Inside, he was ready to break up with laughter as he thought of the extreme levels of destruction and chaos that he would wreak when the time was right. Before long, he had the chance to do so, but at this time, it wouldn't involve trashing up the nearest city by acting like a cross between King Kong and Godzilla. Instead, he was now being asked to tell some dimwit about the Decepticon Race. He knew that the right lies would cause Gendyne to make all kinds of strategic mistakes...

First, he told them that the Decepticons were great loyalists of Leader Megatron, who was "that big white bot with black fists, who turned your flagship into scrap while insulting the alloys it was made of." This much was true...

Then, he went on to say that "the Decepticons are very respectful of protocol and order, and only attack in the most orderly of fashions. They always wait for the command to attack, and for orders on which military formation to use." His fans spun as his Freeze Face and Advanced Lying Module both worked hard to keep him acting like a hacked and truthful droid, instead of doubling over laughing as he imagined the Raider Front about to arrive whooping and barrel-rolling through the skies like a bunch of undisciplined yahoos. The Gendynes, unfortunately for them, misinterpreted the fan noise as an attempt to not tell them anything, and figured that their hack program was mighty indeed.

"The Military is notoriously underpaid. It has little morale, and must draft poor people to swell its ranks. Most have little experience or training," he continued to lie. Of course, the reality was that poor people were constantly trying to sign up early in order to ditch their broken-down bodies and get new mil-spec ones, and everyone thought very highly of it thanks to practices like this.

"One thing the Decepticons never want to do is cause mass casualties on a planet during war. We believe that all life is sacred, down to the last little ant. Therefore, we are very open to peaceful overtures. The stuff our spokesman said to you about being slavers is just for show. He was hoping you would go away." This, of course, was a bald-faced lie just like the rest of what he said. He knew that when the true Decepticon Military showed up, General Carjack's full division would be flying right behind Megatron's, with Carjack and the Genocide Battalion being in the first ranks of the overall division - because Megatron's direct intention would be to genocide every single Gendyne on this rock and he would want those who were specifically trained to do that to be some of the first to land.

Unfortunately for the Gendynes, this was their only source of information about the Decepticons. Only a few minutes later, they would find out that not only had the Decepticon Military followed their fleet home, they didn't match what their captive had said at all.

When they would approach that captive to complain, they would find out that the physical control aspect of their hack chip was no match for the Decepticon Military Officer-Grade Anti-Malware Suite either.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Relatively far behind the Decepticon Military, and 1,000 light-years to one side, the Cybertronian Business Association flew in formation. With their FTL, the large detour was a fairly trivial delay, and it ensured that the flying was easy. It soon got within telescope range of Tarqon, and decided on a specific target: A fairly large nuclear fuel facility. Here, rods of nuclear material, for use in Gendyne's spacecraft engines, were stored in big lead and concrete containers. Interfering with this facility could possibly interfere with the Company's ability to field its space warships, or at the least, diminish their levels of emergency stock. Not only that, breaking open the containers would be a physical "denial of service attack" on the entire area, assuming the Gendyne species was not radiation-proof.

From another direction, Ultimate was coming in with his lights off, while towing a fairly huge empty loot tanker behind him. He soon spotted a high-speed freight rail hub. The trains were far more advanced than those of old Earth, able to travel at 500 miles an hour and using some sort of maglev, but they still needed rails. Unfortunately for Tarqon's ability to move goods and industrial equipment, those rails looked like they'd be perfect for forging into a wide variety of modification parts, so Ultimate intended to steal the lot of them - as well as all of the train cars he could get. Of course, train cars were relatively big, but he also knew that most of them would be empty. They'd fit into his trailer just fine if he had the chance to stomp on them and flatten them like cans. If any turned out to be full, he'd just take them as-is since full ones would be nice, convenient loot containers.

[Vallermoore]

As it turned out, like wasps swarming from a smashed nest, most of the Decepticon Military followed the Gendyne fleet right where it had come from, destroying any ship that could not get away in time. With Cybertron not only attacked but damaged as well, the Decepticon bots were not going to let their foes get away that easily. The location of the attacker's home planet was made public to everyone, and the Raider Front and Military were soon after them, to wipe out every free person on Tarqon. After a quick check for any genuine Megatronists, those slaves who meekly surrendered could be made into Decepticon slaves, if they had not been wiped out in the war.



*****
When the Gendynes went to order their new robot slaves to mines, they found their slave chips and jamming had been unable to stop the captured Decepticons from committing suicide by running the Fatal Command and taking their chances with the Room of Three Screens, rather then be the helpless equipment of biologicals. In such a horrifying situation, with no chance of escape, suicide was acceptable. Many, probably most, possibly all, would be brought back by Saves anyway by one of their Line or raid gang members. One, High General Skywarp, had not done this as his anti-hacking software had deleted the slave chip's power, and was only pretending to be hacked. He would tell all kinds of lies that would help weaken the Gendyne response before, when they came to complain, blasting and stepping on them, killing several of their senior commanders.

After a matter of hours, the fleet that had raided Cybertron was no more, and raiders, Genociders and various units brought hell to Tarqon. Pesticide was in his element as he blasted every alien that he saw. Megatron decided to raid the CEO's palace in the hope of taking him alive-but only so he could execute him on interplanetary holovision, most likely by crushing him in his hand or under his feet and send him to the Realm of Punishment.

The nuclear fuel factory was well guarded against most aliens, but not giant angry war robots, with only a pair of large ack ack blasters being any real danger to the Cybertronian Business Association. These were quickly blasted and the factory was taken apart, with radioactivity being no danger to the robots. Meanwhile Ultimate systematically deactivated the rail system, and all over the planet bots slaughtered every Gendyne in sight and many of the slaves as well. The two Megatronists decided their only chance of survival for now was to remain as well hidden as possible.

The war was not over as there were several other planets in three star systems to take over, but it would not be long before Tarqon had been utterly conquered. Here and there the white flag was raised in hope of some sort of mercy, but mercy was the last thing in the mind boards of the Decepticons right now. Cybertron had been raided for slaves and damaged and a High General had been briefly kiddnapped, so revenge would most certainly be taken.

[Victorious Decepticons]

As the Decepticons were busy turning Tarqon into a wasteland of burned, stomped, and otherwise destroyed Gendyne bodies, the Gendynes on the other inhabited planets were racing to ready their starfleets. They had received the urgent "SOS" from the home world, along with the information that had been obtained from Skywarp. However, before they could get an update that Skywarp had misled the Tarqon interrogators, Tarqon's communications centers had been destroyed. This left the remaining planets with the misinformation, and this was what they were going on as their fleets took to space and raced to join the fray.

Unfortunately - or perhaps, fortunately - for these other fleets, it takes a decent amount of time to get troops, stock like food, and other materiel onto warships. It also takes time to get them all fired up and heading in the right direction. This made it so that most of them would not yet be within range of Tarqon when Leader Megatron declared that planet to be totally neutralized, and gave the coordinates for the next target. The Decepticon Military would be flying to the next-nearest Gendyne planet, one more away from the local sun than Tarqon was.

The new target was a dimly-lit world, with most of its light blocked by thick clouds. There, Gendynes had a grim and austere local culture, no doubt brought on by the generally lousy outdoor appearance and the fact that it sleeted, rather than snowed or rained, for much of the year. This was a bad place to live, and through the ages, those who could afford to move had almost all done so. The remaining population focused on heavy industrial work, though just like the rest of the Gendynes, they forced other species to do the majority of the actual labor. Still, even supervising the slaves at the work sites took a type of physical fortitude not found, or needed, on planets with better weather and climate conditions.

Here, most of the population had not heard the news that Tarqon was under attack. They were too busy cracking whips at various work sites and factories to be sitting around listening to the news! Therefore, they were oblivious that a war was even taking place, let alone that they had just been marked for deletion.

In the sky over this planet, however, the scene was much different. Their own fleet was now in the air, and it had intended to head to Tarqon to take on the "rigidly disciplined, yet low-morale and poorly-trained," enemy force that they had been radioed about. Behind that fleet was another, arriving from a space-base two planets further out. Both of these fleets were in for a surprise when they ran headlong into the arriving Decepticon Military, which turned out to be highly (but not illogically rigid) disciplined, with high morale and excellent training.

Immediately, the Decepticons had opened fire, and were surprised to get energy-blaster fire in return. This caused a few of the robots to get damaged, and some even deactivated, but the adjustment to the enemy capabilities was swift. Every Decepticon soldier began to fly in complex, hard-to-hit patterns even as they kept up their own assault.

Behind and around the Military, the first of the Raider Front began to arrive. Though they were marked pretty much the same as the troops, they flew in entirely different ways. The Gendynes assumed that they were part of the Military, but meant to attack in squad formations. Because of this, they made the mistake of assuming they would have the same type of discipline and the same battle tactics as the larger army. This was a big mistake, as raiders had no qualms in breaking off from their groups to attack everywhere they saw an opening or apparent Gendyne weakness, often with no apparent regard for the danger to themselves. Some of the raiders even began to land on the new fleet's scout ships and began to chop them up, intending to take their pieces back to Cybertron as loot. Those that succeeded had no qualms in just tossing any Gendynes they found into space, considering them too low-value to bother keeping.

Making matter worse for Planet #2, soon, its fleet's ship-based communications were overwhelmed with the noise of Decepticons hooting and hollering over all frequencies (except the Decepticon Military one, but Gendyne had no idea which one that was). The Decepticon Military joined in, yelling insults and even outright gibberish meant only to make Gendyne's ships unable to talk to each other. It wouldn't matter if Gendyne did the same thing back - the Decepticons were using attack formations and tactics that were learned during peacetime, and could run them just fine without further orders. Of course, as long as the Decepticon Military Frequency remained clear, adjustments could and would be ordered if need be. It just wouldn't be a catastrophe if Gendyne figured out how to block their comms as their own comms were being blocked. It would also be harder for Gendyne to do that since they couldn't communicate with each other to coordinate such an effort.

The first hint of the war that most of those who were on the planet's surface got was the falling of burning chunks of Gendyne warcraft from the sky. At first, they were few and large, but as the Decepticon war machine churned through the latest opposition, the chunks became smaller and much more numerous. Several chunks hit both Gendyne overseers and their property, deactivating or maiming them, while the rest landed like litter all over the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a modest house on the outskirts of a medium-sized town, an old and wrinkled Gendyne looked out with knowing eyes.

"It has finally come," he said to his son, who himself was a bit past middle-aged. "They have attacked the wrong planet, and now it is over. I tried to tell them years ago, but~~"

His sentence was cut off with the bright light of Decepticon blaster fire, and soon, his house - along with all of the others in the neighborhood - disappeared into ashes. The Decepticon Military had made it through the space defense force.

[Vallermoore]

The misinfomation would help destroy at least one of the remaining Gendyne fleets, and the others left their smaller, weaker planets and prepared to defend their core worlds whilst sending out requests for help to other planets, promising free slaves in return. Many of these requests were met with laughter and "Serve you rights" from worlds who were either anti-slavery or had been raided by the Gendynes in the past. One message got to Vallermoore and Clever One replied , whilst his tail flicked and twitched around in the air "You did WHAT? You invaded Cybertron and damaged it to try and enslave the Decepticon race, and now you wonder why they want to wipe you from the face of the universe? It sucks to be you. We are Megatronist anyway, but even if we weren't, we wouldn't get involved." Other worlds had done buisness with Gendyne before and were sad to see them go, but could not do much to help other then send a few denyable mercenaries, or offer somewhere to live for any survivors. The dimly lit world went down in hours, and several moons and other such places followed. At Tarqon II, the remaining fleets were ready to make a stand, at least long enough to try and get enough Geyndes to other planets to ensure their race's survival. They offered at the same time to give the Decepticons enough free slaves to fix Cybertron, including all their robot slaves, but they were now dealing with a matter of honor and didn't really understand the Decepticon's love for their Metal Planet. The Metal Planet was made for bots, and it's hard metal planetary panels felt to Decepticon feet the way soft grass did to human feet or pony hooves. It was what they had before there was any such thing as a Decepticon Empire, and it had been attacked and hit with missiles. So their heralds were not going to have a nice reception, even under a flag of truce. Decepticons were predators, not prey, and were happy to demonstrate it until the Gendyne star systems had been annexed with great violence. It was very likely that all the offending planets would be utterly destroyed, and any surviving Gendynes reduced to the stone age.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Thanks to General Soundwave's division, scouts quickly spotted that the Gendynes were leaving their smaller worlds and congregating on just one of the planets. This information was quickly relayed, first to the Military, and then passed on to the raiders by Leader Megatron.

The raiders soon split up, deciding that it would be a good way to reduce the level of competition as well as being better for a somewhat-stealthy entrance by each gang. Meanwhile, Megatron ordered the military to stick together. They would attack each now-undefended (or lightly-defended) planet as a unified swarm, one after the other. With so many troops, Megatron figured, their chances were best if they stayed as a group so that they could be an overwhelming force everywhere they went.

For now, the planets that only had space-suited Gendynes were still ignored. These had no space fleets, and only a relatively minor military presence. They would be picked up after the war itself was already over. To the native inhabitants of these worlds, it would seem like there was little change - at least at first. Instead of having small, gray humanoid masters, they would now have giant robotic ones. Later, once each planet had been fully secured, the Decepticons would institute their Slave Raising System and make genetic edits as they saw fit, but the bottom line would still be that the natives of these worlds would remain mere property; expendable laborers for another alien species.

It took a few days to confirm that there were no longer any serious Gendyne soldiers left on the worlds that they had only recently considered their core planets, and then to leave enough troops strategically placed on each one to ensure that they became, and remained, Decepticon territory. Leader Megatron had ordered the soldiers who usually saw no action, such as military factory workers and the like, to deploy and take on the duty of maintaining control of these places. Then, another few days were spent making repairs to the soldiers who had been damaged during the prior fighting. By now, everyone was a bit on edge due to the ominous lack of Gendyne action.

Soon enough, everyone was as ready as he could be, and those who were too damaged for adequate repairs were sent back to Cybertron on the cargo-bots who had brought repair parts for the others. Now, it was time to take on the Gendyne fleets that had assembled at Tarqon II, or at least, that was the original plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When a white-painted ship appeared with the logo of the Gendyne high command, radioing that it came to try to negotiate peace, the Decepticons laughed. Yet, Megatron allowed it to land on the planet where the Decepticon Military was preparing to take off from, if only to hear their pathetic mewlings before ordering the extermination of their species.

"You try to offer me slaves, when I can avenge Cybertron and send a powerful message to the rest of the universe by exterminating or enslaving the species that dared to attack us instead?" Megatron sneered. "I know which one is most beneficial to us: the option that ensures that you will never attack us again! You mistook us for some kind of meek constructs. That was a fatal error. You now know that what you were told about us being peaceful and life-loving was disinformation. That's what you get for attacking a planet you know nothing about. We are the Decepticons, and our High General, Skywarp, deceived and connived you from the moment you made the mistake of thinking you could hack him. In reality, we are a warrior society, and by thinking you could attack us out of the blue and win, you insulted our warriors' honor. Not only that, we know all biological life to be inferior to us, yet you had the nerve to try to set yourself as our masters! Now, we must destroy you to ensure that the record is forever set straight."

The emissaries looked horrified as they realized that there would be no backing down from war. Not only that, the giant robot in front of them had mentioned outright exterminating their species, and not only that, it was the first option out of his mouth, with the possibility of enslavement being a mere afterthought. The robotic leader had even emphasized this idea by stating that he had to "destroy" them, not just defeat them, to set the record straight. Even so, Megatron allowed them to leave, so they could go back to their last planet and deliver the news to whatever remained of their government.

As they flew away quickly in their little craft, Megatron looked a bit grumpy. When he had attacked the CEO's palace on Tarqon, he had not found the person in charge. Only some maids and butlers were still around, along with several fancy-looking hovercraft that appeared to only be capable of flying just above the road and one small low-atmosphere craft that could fill the same role that a helicopter would. There was one large blank space, which likely held whatever kind of aircraft or personal spacecraft the boss had left in. Perhaps Megatron or some other Decepticon would find the CEO on Tarqon II...

Soon after the emissaries left, Megatron gave the order to deploy, and all of the fighting forces took off toward that last Gendyne-inhabited world. He ordered the various divisions to come in from different angles, in hopes of being able to intercept not only the CEO, but any Gendynes trying to escape.

[Vallermoore]

The Gendynes had not been idle all this time. Around 1% of them who had not yet been killed had managed to flee the area entirely to try and ensure the survival of their race, whilst the rest except those who were too young or much too old had turned the industry of Tarqon II to making starships and weapons. One of the admirals was given a message written on paper rather then sent electronically to make it harder for the Decepticons to find out about it, and it was to get around the Decepticons and attack Cybertron again, to give the others time in the hope that the Decepticons would go back to their core world again if only to make sure it couldn't be occupied. As fast as they could make blasters and other such weapons, these were passed off the production lines or fitted to starships. Slave ships, luxury liners, all the private starships that had not already escaped or been destroyed, cargo vessels, and new somewhat badly made vessels all blasted off into space after being given blasters, some hiding behind a nearby scarlet gas giant. Even Gendyne criminals were freed if they would join the fight against the Decepticons, drills were done against some deactivated Decepticon bodies whose owners had run the Fatal Command when captured, and the robot slaves were made into slave soldiers piloted by Gendymes. The only ones of Tarqon II not to be armed were the slaves, who the Gendynes feared would just start a big slave revolt if they were armed, even if they were freed first.

When the offer of slaves and the help with repair of Cybertron was refused, the Gendyne fleet that was ordered to attack Cybertron flew away from it and then doubled back under cloaking aiming for the Metal Planet, with the aim of trying to destroy the Main Refinery or just cause as much trouble as possible. It was unlikely, however, that they would be able to take the Decepticons by surprise again, even if it's garrison was relatively small.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The ability to fly under full cloaking was usually a boon to whoever had it. Sometimes, however, it led to rather deadly results. Such was the case as the makeshift Gendyne attack fleet took off from Tarqon II, only to fly smack into some of the cloaked spies of Soundwave's Military Espionage division at extreme speeds. Before either side knew what happened, a large Gendyne craft had exploded into pieces due to such a collision, and tiny bits of some unfortunate Decepticon also littered the orbital space of the slaving company's final inhabited world.

While this was a tragedy, especially for the Gendynes, it also served to give away the fact that their fleet existed. That, it would turn out, would be the far bigger tragedy for them.

Immediately, all of the Decepticons in the area knew that Gendynes were flying large craft under cloaking. The Decepticon spies began pinging over the secret Decepticon military frequency, letting everyone know where they were so that the sure-to-come salvos of blaster fire would - hopefully - not hit them. Some Gendynes did happen to pick up these pings with their sweeping radio scans, though, and they sent blaster fire of their own in the directions of the sources. Of course, this further gave away their positions, exposing 10 or so of their ships to immediate return fire. Other Decepticons began blasting the surrounding areas "on spec," sometimes hitting and exposing an enemy craft.

"Don't let them get away! DESTROY THEM!" Megatron's voice came over the Military Frequency. He didn't know that their goal was to try to attack Cybertron, but he did know that if they were in space, they might escape destruction only to try to come back and kill the Decepticons later. The only safe enemy was a dead one, so he wanted them to be dead just on general principles.

Meanwhile, other Espionage Battalion troops were radioing in that private craft were escaping in decently large numbers from the other side of the planet. General Carjack responded by flying after them with 5,000 Genociders, and before long, they were busy chewing through the rear flanks of the fleeing civilian ships. While they likely would not manage to catch and exterminate every Gendyne, they would ensure that there would be far fewer alive than had left Tarqon II.

On Cybertron, the few who remained were on high alert and kept their eyes on the skies, whether they were active soldiers or not. They would not relax until they got the all-clear from Megatron himself.

As these took place in the space around Tarqon II, the rest of the Decepticon Military - including the other half of the Genocide Battalion - began to make their way to the surface of the target planet. To their surprise, many beings of myriad species began to cheer when they saw the robots. Everyone realized that these must be the slaves of the Gendynes, and the thought crossed their mind that these beings would be very disappointed when they learned that their stations in life would not be changing after the invasion was over, except for any Megatronists that might be around. For now, though, they had to contend with a now-armed Gendyne population, which was currently busy trying to shoot down the invasion force.

On the ground, some of those cheering made a point of separating themselves from the others. At first, it was a subtle movement, but as the minutes passed, it became obvious to those in the sky - still fighting the remaining Gendyne opposition - that a group of the unarmed population was intentionally making itself obvious to them. Then, a somewhat worn-out sheet was brought out - apparently, it was the highest quality these creatures could obtain on short notice. Finally, someone began to draw on the fabric. A crude Megatronist symbol soon became visible, and now, the separated group stood around it to make it plain that they were followers of the Cybertronian religion.

The Gendynes were not pleased about this at all, but currently, they had far bigger things to worry about than a group of followers of the religion that was the most associated with violent slave revolts, escapes, sabotaged slave-worked projects, and stolen private spacecraft. For now, they had the real Decepticons arriving in huge waves of millions of soldiers per charge, and the Gendynes were quickly losing their last stand.

[Vallermoore]

As it turned out, the Decepticons thought that they might try a trick like that, and had blocked off the most likely routes to Cybertron that they thought that the Gendynes might use. This was unfortunate for at least one luckless Decepticon soldier of General Soundwave's Division who pinged back to the Military's Main Save Vault after his body was smashed into bits by a collision with a large Gendyne ship which was also smashed to bits. With their fleet revealed, the Decepticons started pinging so as not to lose bodies to friendly fire, which attracted Gendyne fire. "Don't let them get away! DESTROY THEM!" Megatron ordered, and soon enough that fleet of Gendynes was reduced to wreckage and dead bodies floating in space.

*****
Pesticide was having the time of his life chasing down and destroying various private spacecraft with his fellow bots of the Genocide Battalion, not that far behind General Carjack.

Loyal Star privately thought that many of the Megatronists down below would end up being fakes and would end up being handed over like earlier to bots of the Genocide Battalion, but if there was just one genuine Megatronist amongst them, he or she deserved to be saved from such a fate. Doing horrific things to loyalists, after all, would be a very good way to prevent future loyalists.

Warrior had needed to have a new arm put on by a battlefield medic, and he and the bots under him were doing well.

Ultimate had lost a few of his scrolling lights, which were the weakest part of his body, but was otherwise hardly scratched when a lower bot would have lost a body by now.

DeathStrike was doing his fighting embedded in the International Commerce Commission, which at times like this when Cybertron had been attacked stopped whatever it was doing and went after the foe. As a Problem Solver, he was particularly good at it.

SolarTempest, in the body that had once defeated no less a bot then General ThunderCracker, and his syndicate , were destroying one of the last capital ships of the Gendynes. minus a few who had pinged back to their spares after losing bodies.

It took another full day and night to break the resistance of the Gendyne forces, and another day and the use of the Genocide Battalion to slay the last free Gendynes, except a few who had escaped earlier. Megatron very much wanted to find the Gendyne CEO to make a personal example of him, and found him piloting a dead Decepticon, one of those grabbed earlier, that had been adapted to be flown by a biological.

It would soon be time to free any genuine Megatronists, slay any false Megatronists, and take any so far unlooted loot and slaves, before holding a celebration and then returning to Cybertron to clean up the mess that had been caused.