An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

Warrior and Vampire certainly found the Main Foundry worth visiting, and could easily imagine the epic struggle between Megatron and Optimus Prime. The heat and the poisonous gasses didn't bother them since they were bots. They thanked the bot who told them all about the place and then walked out and wondered where to go next. "What if we were to look inside Ultimate's shop?," Warrior asked. "Is that wise? We are not gang members yet and certainly don't have enough money to afford anything. What if he throws us out or worse? A bot as rich as him is going to be one of the strongest bots around," Vampire replied. Warrior did the Decepticon equivalent of an eye roll. "Turn on your Bravery Up. As long as we don't attack him, cause any damage or try and shoplift anything he's not going to attack us, as if he did he would lose two potential customers of the future. Besides, his customers normally don't show up with the huge amount of Energon needed as it would attract muggers and be hard to carry so much at once." Although both bots had a Decepticon viewpoint, Warrior was very much the more Decepticon of the two. He was ready to activate Bravery Up if he needed it for a fight or a battle, but unusually for recent immigrants, at the moment he didn't even have it turned on. For normal circumstances, he didn't need it. The two had a good look at the rows of armour, blasters, computer games and the like, and tested a switch on the wall that turned on and off a certain piece of armour. They also had a look at Ultimate himself. Vampire had to turn up his Bravery Up at the sight of this huge blingy bot, luckily noone knew this or it would be at best embarrassing and at worst, dangerous.

Warrior left his Bravery Up turned off and gave a little polite bow to Ultimate. "You certainly have one of the best shops in the Empire," he told him.

*****
Distro told him "There is one other bot in the safe house, but it's certainly big enough to hold two bots, and if you don't bother him, he won't bother you. Maybe you'll end up befriending him, as he's in the same situation as you. He's solved a problem or two for as already and hasn't served his first Military stint yet. When you have served your first stint, you can go out on a raid or two with us and when you have enough money for one new body-you'll need it-you and the bot you'll be sharing with for the next few days-and do not tell him this unless you want trouble with him-will be duelling each other to the body for a place in the lowest rank-made man-in the ICC. The bot goes by the name of Violence."

When he went to the safe house, Violence gave DeathStrike a small polite bow. Depending on the situation it was given, the rank of bots and the depth of the bow, bows took the place of everything from handshaking to hugs to backslaps. He was slightly more built up then normal, an Energon-coloured bot who had spent much of the Energon he had earned already on a slightly stronger body. Clearly when he was rich he wanted to have a Scrounger-like body or one even stronger then that. "I'm Violence. And you?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

The two finally decided to go inside of Ultimate Mods, and saw plenty of high-end weaponry as well as the shop's actual specialty: Body modifications. Small models of bodies with amazing shapes and alt modes were on display in cases, as well as semi-censored spec sheets that advertised capabilities like "expands to hold 1,000,000 barrels of crude oil," or "includes molecular destabilization beam generator." They were amazed when they realized that the model with the massive oil-holding capability looked almost as small as a regular person when empty. The fact that the other model was of a scout body was less of a surprise.

Several other small model versions of bodies were also on display. While some showed off better weapons or armor, others were apparently done purely for cosmetics. These had things like trailing lights, fancy-looking wing styles, and similar visual improvements.

Yet some others had functional upgrades outside of the weapons/armor paradigm. One, which featured wings that could be held in three different flight positions, was said to be able to fly at 2x the usual FTL speed as well as easily achieve relativistic speeds within an atmosphere. This model also boasted "quick stop" technology that far surpassed typical retro-rockets, and of course, it had the necessary internal stability to avoid damage caused by coming to such fast stops.

Finally, there was a small row of "hyper efficient" body models. With Ultimate's prices, they would never pay for themselves in energy savings. Instead, the point was to be able to stay alive in situations where no typical fuel sources were available. "Just activate the solar panels as a 'third alt mode,' and you can function indefinitely as you work out how to fuel your flight back home," said the information near one of these. Its model showed both its normal robot mode, and one with huge solar panels coming from the shoulders and wings. The panels on the model were aimed as if to catch the sun from above. The rest of this body had the metallic shine of solar paint, which would reduce its fuel needs at all times.

Upon testing the switch on the wall, they saw that this armor included an anti-ballistic force field. Once turned on, a demo machine gun began to fire at it, and the bullets vaporized with electrical "bzzt" noises like bugs on a bug zapper. "With this armor, you'll never have to pay attention to RPGs again!" Its accompanying ad boasted. Apparently, the demo setup only had machine-gun fire because Ultimate didn't want to have bombs going off in his shop all the time, but the armor could vaporize far more types of incoming ordnance.

As they were looking at this, Ultimate came out from behind some shelving with a grin. The two turned to behold him, as his sequential lights continually formed and de-formed the words "Ultimate Mods" and other lights either stayed steady or blinked according to Ultimate's pre-determined pattern. Both of his arms were completely ringed by large blaster barrels, and a mini artillery battery adorned each shoulder. He grinned at their apparent feelings of being outgunned, in the process showing a custom teeth mod with a diamond-encrusted grille, and shining his eyes through red panels that seemed to be made of something better than the standard stuff.

Ultimate's legs were a bit shorter than average, but much stockier. It took heavier equipment to be able to stand up and move all of the weaponry, armor, and cosmetic bling adorning his body.

"So you decided to come in!" Ultimate said enthusiastically. "And thanks for the compliment. This is, indeed, the best mod shop in the Empire. And I, as you can guess, am Ultimate - the proprietor. You two seem new to the Decepticons. If you are extremely successful here, one day we will be able to do some business."

"As for how successful you should strive to be," Ultimate said, "...put it like this, that rig there is worth 100,000,000 Cubes of Supreme." He pointed at the demo model that said it could go 2x standard FTL. "And that blaster you were looking at is 10,000,000 Cubes of Standard. Needless to say, everything on display is just props. Otherwise, I'd get raided blind as soon as I dared to do something other than watch the store." He seemed only slightly irked at having to take such precautions. "When you're ready to actually order, I custom-make what you desire from scratch. I have no 'off-the-shelf' versions of anything. It's not at all 'ultimate' to merely run a mass-production line." He was obviously proud of his 100% unique, extremely high-end products.

Soon, he wished them well and gave subtle hints that it was time for them to go. They weren't paying customers, and they had seen enough to let them know that once they got rich, this was the best place to spend the money. Until then, though, Ultimate needed to get back to creating his latest orders for customers who were already rich - and paying.

On their way out, they passed a very unique-looking bot in paint that was just faintly yellow - an unusual color. His body was thinner than most, yet taller, and he walked as though he weighed almost nothing. However, by the sound of the impeccably-tuned engine, it was obvious that it was far more powerful than a standard one. The lack of apparent effort in the bot's walk was due to the engine's ability to easily handle what was surely an extra-heavy load.

Vampire and Warrior continued on toward home, soon taking flight to make the trip faster. Just as they were about to leave the main flight path, a cigar-shaped UFO-looking craft zoomed past them, avoiding collisions with incredible aerobatic skill. It had the same light yellow paint they had seen before. That explained the strange look of the body in robot mode - it was one of Ultimate's custom creations, and its alt-mode was this UFO-ish form! The two used their radios to talk about it with each other, with both wondering what else that customer could do thanks to Ultimate's skills.

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

At the safe house, DeathStrike introduced himself, and Violence showed him to his side of the place. "This is a duplex," he explained as he pointed down the hall to the door on the right. "We each get our own of everything. No common areas. That way, we don't have to fight about who's in charge of anything."

Violence was obviously a native Cybertronian, and sharing space was not done among native-builts. Trying invariably led to battles about who would be the boss of any supposedly-common areas. The ICC knew this well, and made sure to have as little area in common as possible. Here, only the hallway might have counted, but since it was only walked through to get in and out, those who stayed for only short times rarely battled about it. Of course, if someone misused the hallway, for instance by trying to store their junk there, even that area would be a trigger for battles. Fortunately, neither Violence nor DeathStrike had any hoards.

Once DeathStrike got settled into his side of the duplex, he heard a knock. It was Violence, who wanted to get to know him better. DeathStrike soon realized by how Violence talked that unlike himself, Violence was the Decepticon equivalent of a teenager (and physically, likely only 4 years old). He had just gotten old enough to be conscripted into the Decepticon Forces. Despite this, he had been mentally advanced enough to have been able to do some jobs for the ICC before he was even conscription age, showing him to be above-average in sapience development. It was also likely that his better armor had been provided by his Coder, since at his age, he hadn't been on his own for all that long.

[Vallermoore]

However well a Coder and offspring got on together (and there were many who got on very well indeed) because of Decepticon base code, adult Decepticons who tried to share houses would end up fighting over dominance. A few had tried it, and the results had not been good at all. Being composed of Decepticons from top to bottom, the ICC knew this well and didn't want random fights happening in their safe houses. So this house was a duplex so the two bots could co-exist with each other. Violence knocked on DeathStrike's door and asked to talk and given the situation, DeathStrike let him in. "My Coder gave me this body. Me and him get along very well, but when I turned four I knew I needed to leave home or I'd be turning my blasters on him, the bot who built me. I hope to get a really srong body one day. Enough about me, I don't want to bore you. How about you? I'd like to know more about you-although don't worry, I'm not going to pry into your secrets. But I am curious about you." He seemed nice enough, but DeathStrike was not sure if he wanted to admit to being an immigrant. Although outside the ranks of the Genocide Battalion or the sadistic staff of Mine#1 , most bots didn't hate biologicals (although it didn't seem that way to those whose worlds were raided out outright invaded) but some did.

*****

Soon enough the two bots left and flew home radioing each other to chat as they did. "That was an amazing body. Useful for disguise, for how fast it moves and more. What do you hope to buy from Ultimate Mods when we have our own syndicate?" Vampire asked.

Warrior replied "I want a really strong body, ideally, one as strong as that of a High General, although obviously not as strong as Megatron. A Guaranteed Winner Package like that model we saw in the store. And you?"

"I want the best mind-boards-not counting Megatron's of course-that could be found in the Empire. With a good strong body of course to house them, that can defend itself-or deal with enemies-well enough, but whose main special function is the mind-boards."

Warrior privately thought that if that was what Vampire wanted, he would be much better off and happier as a scientist for the Department of Impossible Physics then a syndicate boss. What was he going to do to his foes, think them to death? But he kept such thoughts off his voice chip, or he and Vampire would stop being friends and he needed Vampire's help at this time in his life. Two bots working together could achieve more then one bot by himself. He could not make Vampire into a foe yet.

[Victorious Decepticons]

DeathStrike was a bit evasive, but mentioned that he had prior experience with a syndicate "on another planet." He also congratulated Violence on being able to make it on his own soon after he turned 4, instead of having to wait until he was 5 like most others. "You must have very good sapience-producing routines," he noted.

Then, he talked a bit about what he'd done with the ICC so far, mentioning how his last target didn't see his attack style coming until it was too late, and how he enjoyed being able to cash him in as loot. He clearly enjoyed syndicate life, and admitted to hoping to join as a made man instead of just an adjunct. Violence, it turned out, was also aiming to enter the ranks of the ICC's true membership.

"I want to be an Enforcer," Violence said. It was a fitting position for him to want, for Enforcers were the ones whose main job was ass-kicking. DeathStrike realized that this could also describe what he had been doing in his earlier gang warfare assignment.

"Enforcers specifically go after those who have broken their contracts with the Commission," Violence explained. "It's not the same as the usual business stuff, Market Share and Asset Protection. Instead, the Enforcers basically shake down targets, demand cuts of profits...things like that. It sounds like a life of endless battles, which, of course, means endless fun!" His engine revved eagerly, and he even jumped up and down just a little in a not-quite-mature fashion. "What do you want to do once you're part of the ICC?" Violence asked.

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

Vampire noted the silence when he said he wanted the best possible mind-boards, and it was a good thing that Warrior couldn't see his facial expression while they were in plane mode.

"Mind-boards are the keys to victory," Vampire said. "It is intelligence that makes it possible to come up with the best plans and pull off the most complex schemes. In a raid, intelligence is what keeps you from getting SAM'd into a million pieces and lets you know which refineries are worth hitting and which ones are traps. What good is the Ultimate Winner Package if all your mind can use it for is hauling oil carts?"

Like Warrior, Vampire didn't want to make an enemy just yet. However, he was sure that he could outwit his current friend and become the leader of the gang they intended to form - especially once he used his military pay to upgrade his boards and processing power.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Only a few days later, the time would come for them to report for their first stint in the Decepticon Military, and while there, get the training that would take them from being good street fighters to experts in armed violence, among other things. The same was true for DeathStrike, who as of yet, had seen some unique things, but done no plain-old sightseeing. If there was anything else any of them wanted to see, now was the time to do it...

[Vallermoore]

Deathstrike decided that it was not wise to tell Violence that he had once been a biological but he did mention that he had been in a syndicate on another planet. "You must have very good sapience-producing routines." Violence grinned, his eyes shining bright, and said "My Coder wanted me to be one of the best, so he spent extra Energon on building me then he legally had to, so I exceeded the Minimum Design Specification." For a moment, Deathstrike noticed a look in Violence's eyes that he had seen once when he was "off duty" at a friend's house, and the friend had introduced him to his teenage son. It didn't last long, barely enough for Deathstrike to notice it, but it was the look of the love that an offspring had for a Coder when all went well between the two.

Deathstrike told Violence about the fight he had, and Violence very much approved. "I want to become a made man, and dedicate my life to the ICC. Maybe in a few centuries if I can make it to capo, I'll ask my superiors for a few years off to code an offspring." Deathstrike had briefly looked at the section on Coding in his SEDP and, unusually, it came with a warning-and when something in the Decepticon Empire came with a warning, it meant the danger was real.

WARNING-Some otherwise very successful immigrants who were former biologicals have coded a new Decepticon too early, and have as a result lost a body or even their own lives when their new offspring reached the age of four or five, because they carried on treating them like they would a biological offspring. Whilst Decepticon children can be treated like that safely, as long as their Self-Defence Mechanism is not triggered, doing that to one past a certain age, often 4 and always 5 will cause resentment and then trigger a battle for dominance. Those Decepticons who were built understand this from when they were young, but even so, one of the many reasons for the first conscription stint being at age 5 is to get offspring away from their Coders before their base code causes a fight for dominance that would otherwise happen even with very good Coder-offspring relations. Only Code when you have enough experience as a bot.

When Violence explained that he wanted to be an Enforcer and asked what DeathStrike wanted to do, DeathStrike said "I want to work in the ICC's Collections Department. Normally, no bot with any RAM would lend any Energon or anything else to another bot, but most bots fear the anger of the ICC enough that they can borrow Energon or other things from them and do pay up afterwards. When they decide not to pay-or can't pay up-Collections comes after them and deals with them, outright killing them in some cases to put off other bots from trying to cheat the ICC. For now I want to see Cybertron from orbit and maybe tour a few places before my first conscription stint begins. Would you like to sightsee too?"

*****
Vampire scowled, his plane-mode hiding it. "Mind-boards are the keys to victory. It is intelligence that makes it possible to come up with the best plans and pull off the most complex schemes. In a raid, intelligence is what keeps you from getting SAM'd into a million pieces and lets you know which refineries are worth hitting and which ones are traps. What good is the Ultimate Winner Package if all your mind can use it for is hauling oil carts?"

"Good point, Vampire, that's logical. Brawn by itself is not worth much if it is at the cost of a lack of RAM," was the reply of Warrior.

Both bots knew that now was not the time to fight. The rarity of true friendship on Cybertron compared to a human or pony world had the effect of making it much more valuable where it did exist.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Violence looked surprised, and then suspicious.

"Where are you from, that you haven't seen Great Cybertron from space plenty of times?!" He wondered incredulously. Apparently, this was something every native-built did for fun all the time. "And you need to tour lots of places? The only major place I haven't been yet is the Main Refinery and Connect's restaurant."

He took a step closer in a "gotcha" sort of way. "You've gotta be a foreigner. You've GOTTA be! That also explains why you act like such an old person even though you've never been in the Military. So where are you from?" Violence concluded, having added all of the clues together. He didn't seem like he'd open fire on DeathStrike just for coming from somewhere else, but he wasn't likely to listen to any BS, either. As with anywhere else, local Cybertronians didn't need to "sight-see" for sights that they saw all the time, and Violence knew it.

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

Having seen everything they could think of at the moment, Vampire and Warrior decided it'd be a good idea to get a game they could play together. "We can run it on that big holovision in the living room," Vampire said. Two-player games were usually run on some sort of external console to ensure that there would be no hack attempts between the players.

"That or we could watch the holovision directly, and see what the programming is like here," Warrior said. In the end, they decided to do both. Before they went home, they landed at a video game store to check out the selection. Ultimate's software, it had turned out, wasn't games. Instead, it was actual training sims for various combat and flight situations, and like everything else in his shop, it was quite expensive.

The two made sure the new store they landed at had regular games, preferably at reasonable prices.

[Vallermoore]

Deathstrike decided to tell Violence the truth, leaving out only the fact that he had not had to carry out the survival test to become a Decepticon.

"I used to be a biological, a scorpion-person, and at the time the planet I lived on was forcibly added to the Empire, I was already in prison for various criminal activities. Despite having a Decepticon mindset, I was still enslaved and sent to a mine, where I got in a brawl with human slaves and stung one to death. All the scorpion people were going to have their tails cut off because of the brawl, so I escaped and sneaked out of the mine, stowing away on a cargo-bot which I guessed rightly was an enslaved Decepticon. His slave virus mistook me for legitimate livestock and wouldn't let him harm me, and I ended up in a Fascist country called Dominia Fascista. It was a world with humans and sapient ponies that thought aliens were deeply inferior and I quickly realized the entire country hated me for existing. Luckily for me Megatronism was legal and I asked for help at a Temple."

"Megatron Himself spoke through his Face and helped me escape, and I ended up on Vallermoore where I joined a gang of bank robbers, robbed a bank without getting caught, brought a spaceship, headed to Cybertron, and barreled through the atmosphere with raiders on my tail. When a biological appears at the Metal Planet even peacefully, it's like an ant's nest being poked. I managed to get to the Immigration Ministry, passed the first test, then passed my survival test, and then passed the code-read and became a Decepticon, and, after winning a couple of fights and wounding a third challenger, I became a problem solver for the ICC. I'm sorry for being cagey about my origins but I thought you might hate me for being born rather then built. There are bots like that who bitterly hate immigrants-not many, but they do exist. And I want to get on well, so we don't end up blasting at each other and angering the ICC in the process.You probably first saw Cybertron from orbit when you were just one year old, but for me, that first sight from orbit as a Decepticon-where I can exist without automatically being blasted for being there-will be amazing. "

*****
They were careful to make sure the games were legitimate , even though they were not running it directly, to avoid anything nasty happening to their computer. They got Conquer the Universe and one or two other fun games, and "pretended to shoplift", a common tradition, before paying for their purchases, going home and having a very fun time together. They also gave each other a way to contact each other when their first conscription stints ended in case they were separated. Although they had slightly different ideas on how to go about things, they were united on the important matters. Whoever lost the duel to command their gang would very likely stay as a member of it and remain friendly despite the duel.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Violence listened with great interest. It was the first time he'd heard of scorpion-people, or anything about what life was like on other planets. He had, however, heard of the mines.

"You're lucky you didn't end up in Mine #1," he said, and went on to tell stories of its zombies and bio-active enslavement chips. "Once you're in there, you never get out, not even as dead meat. And you're lucky to have been able to get that ride. It's a horrible thing, that some Decepticons are foolish enough to install enslavement viruses! The mines that buy them aren't that great either. I'm not surprised that they thought dismantling your kind was some sort of good idea, only to find out that their slaves crashed after they did it."

After hearing of DeathStrike's desired position, Violence's eyes glowed with some excitement. "That's actually part of Enforcement!" He said eagerly. "You'd specifically be enforcing the payment of funding contracts. Even though you'll have some Decepticon customers, most of that involves other planets. There, the people are less prone to trying to fly away with the money, so the ICC is more willing to lend. Still, there are a few around here who talk a good line, and then need 'motivation' to honor their promises."

"My Coder is one of the best contract-makers in the ICC. Those are the people who set up contracts in the first place. Very few of his customers end up needing Enforcers to motivate them to honor their ends of the deals. Other contract-makers are not so good at figuring who'll be a good person to deal with."

DeathStrike said some "ahas" and such at the proper moments, realizing that Violence knew so much about this syndicate due to his Coder being a part of it. That also explained how the Coder had gotten the Energon for his offspring's improved body, code, and mind-boards.

Eventually, Violence offered to accompany DeathStrike into near space to get a good look at the Metal Planet. "Some raiders may still target you," he said, "so it's probably a good idea to go as a pair."

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

Later, all three of the newcomers would report in at various times during the recruiting office's normal hours. Then, they would mind-transfer to their first Mil-Spec bodies and get set up for automatic authorization for transfer to the Main Save Vault if that became necessary. Their original bodies would be held in storage, though the recruiting officer noted that they might only want to use them as spares after seeing what a Mil-Spec could do compared to an "Immigration Standard" model.

As part of the intake process, they were all given psych tests to help determine where their military aptitudes likely sat. These were different from Immigration's tests, though the Military had a copy of those in their files as well.

"Today, get situated in your assigned room, and walk around to get a bit familiar with the base. You'll be starting at the Main Base since you're an immigrant and not attached to a specific city. Your assignment after basic training will depend on how you do, and on which types of things you do best at." Each was told. Each one was also assigned to a particular barrack and room number.

[Vallermoore]

As it turned out, instead of hating DeathStrike for what he admitted and wanting to kill him, Violence found what he had to say interesting. Whilst all Decepticons with properly working mind boards knew they were physically and mentally superior to biologicals, that didn't always translate into a 24/7 hatred of them. The few that did feel that way generally tried to join the Genocide Battalion, become staff members of Mine #1 or get certain positions in Biological Research.

"I'm very lucky I didn't get sent to that place or I'd be a mindless zombie slave by now. And hacking fellow Decepticons is a vile thing to do. By all means blast or outright kill a Decepticon foe, but to reduce them to the level of a helpless biological slave-ugh. Still, it does make sure people keep their antiviruses up to date, which must be why it's legal instead of treason. For the scorpion-people having their tails cut off most likely would have permanently crashed them, more so if they were just chopped and cauterized without anaesthetic of any kind, which meant that mine would have busted all it's new stock and wasted the Energon spent on them." When Violence told him that his Coder was in the ICC, he said "Like Coder, like offspring. That explains why your Coder was such a good Coder and had you built of superior materials to the average bot. He wants you to succeed in life like he did." The two bots were getting on well, to the point that Violence decided that he would fly up with DeathStrike as "Some raiders may still target you, so it's probably a good idea to go as a pair."DeathStrike thanked Violence and bowed for this very nice and unasked-for favour. Whilst Decepticons could view Cybertron in orbit without at once being set on by raider gangs, a few might try their luck, but only a very few gangs would attack two bots without a reason as they would pay out more in fixing their bodies then they could gain in Energon.

DeathStrike's first view of Cybertron from orbit where he had not been involved in life-or-death combat was amazing, as he hung in robot mode. Violence remembered the first time he went up there with his Coder. It was so common that it was almost a rite of passage-young bots freshly out of toddlerhood flying up here for the first time with their Coders at the age of 1 or so. There were also gangs entering and leaving Cybertron, the occasional soldier patrol or Cargo-bot convoy, and those who wanted to talk where it was harder for Domintel to overhear them. Six members of the Rust to Wealth gang were also hanging out here, and they were by now rich bots, having overpowered poor bots and the occasional middle-class bot to forcibly hack them and sell them to slavers, and had fine, strong, Energon coloured bodies.
One said quietly to the other bots "There are six of us-what chance to you think we have of overpowering those two bots?" meaning Violence and DeathStrike. He had, in this case, asked his fellow bots this rather then ordering an attack because he wanted his views on the risk level. If the other bots flying or floating around, found out that these were slavers, a lynch mob would be formed. Enslaving random Decepticons who were just going about their business was one of the few things likely to get said slavers lynched for preying on their own kind.

*****
Later, all three would report in and look around the Main Base whilst others reported in. Their proper training would start the next day. DeathStrike's tests showed he would do well in covert operations later, but for now, like the others, he was an untrained conscript so he looked around his barracks, wondering if he would meet any bot he knew.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Since they were in space, where there was no air to carry sound, Rust to Wealth had to "talk quietly" by using low-powered radio transmission. After some quick discussion, they decided that they'd better not attack the two bots they saw.

"They'd be easy to overpower, but everybody will see us!" One said.
"We can't have that!" Agreed another. "If they see us in action, they'll know what business we're in!"

It didn't take long to agree that letting every raider within view see that they were slavers would be a good way to lose at least one body each, and possibly more. Still, they watched predatorily, wishing they could catch these two and sell them to some mine or asteroid drilling operation. The stronger-looking one would be an especially lucrative catch. If only they were in a less-visible area...

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

Soon, Violence noticed the pointed staring, and gave DeathStrike the sign that it was a good time to go. They flew back down to Cybertron with Violence in the lead, and he made sure to stay in well-populated areas all the way back.

"I'm not sure what those guys are up to, but the fact that they didn't want to attack openly means that they're not just Scroungers," Violence said. "Whenever you see that someone has his eyes on you but is holding back, be sure to stay where there are plenty of people unless you want to fight it out. Coder taught me lots of ways to ambush guys like that, but there were six of them, and that's too many even with practice. One of these days, though, I'm going to get a body that's strong enough to win a 6-on-1 battle!"

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

At the Main Base, several new conscripts were milling around checking out how the base was laid out. It didn't take long for DeathStrike to see Violence. He also noticed two other bots walking together, but since they were all robots now, and even had different names, he didn't realize that they'd come from the same planet he did.

The next day, the first training sessions began. They started out with a basic drill. Several trainers stood at the sides of the training groups, ready to "correct" all of those who would think that insubordination would be a good idea. These sessions, as well as the next few, were typically accompanied by the sounds of crashing metal as the new conscripts were familiarized with the basic concepts of discipline and rank - the hard way.

[Vallermoore]

Luckily for the two bots, the Rust to Wealth bots realized that there were too many witnesses who would turn on them as soon as they found they were slavers of fellow Decepticons. It was not slavery that Deceptions opposed-it was hacking and enslaving their own kind. Blasting or indeed killing a bot was fine, but hacking was the closest robot equivalent of a severe sex offence for biologicals-and hated just as much if not even more. It really was not worth the danger of losing their bodies. Violence noticed them and given the odds of six to two decided that it was better to just get out of there. "We had better go. You see those six bots? I'm not sure what those guys are up to, but the fact that they didn't want to attack openly means that they're not just Scroungers," Violence said. "Whenever you see that someone has his eyes on you but is holding back, be sure to stay where there are plenty of people unless you want to fight it out. Coder taught me lots of ways to ambush guys like that, but there were six of them, and that's too many even with practice. One of these days, though, I'm going to get a body that's strong enough to win a 6-on-1 battle!" The two got back unbothered and soon enough started their military stints.

*****
Framebreak silently hoped for a few immigrants, because they were so easy to train. In the privacy of his mind boards, he wished for whole units of immigrants, but knew there was no way Megatron would ever allow that. Deathstrike was the only one in his particular military unit to obey orders from the start, whilst the other bots had to be violently dented into submission. At this time though, the full harshness of Decepticon military law was not invoked, as for an army to be any good , it's members needed to be alive. Even the trainers had once been mutinous new recruits once. At this time, bad behaviour was more or less expected as something unavoidable, to the point where it didn't even mar the trainee's military records.

[Victorious Decepticons]

After a day of drilling, the new conscripts were told to report to various rooms in a large training building the next day.

Once the next day came, they all eventually found the building in question - some right away, and others only after having wandered around lost for a while. They didn't realize that they were being observed and graded on this basic navigational challenge, but it would indeed factor into things like whether they would be considered for scouting or certain spying assignments.

Inside, they found several large classrooms. As the cadets filed into the ones they were assigned to, they were handed thumb drives marked "Military Codes of the Decepticon Forces," "Key Military Theories," and "The Value of Military Discipline." The latter data pack was new; the Military published it in hopes of getting new conscripts to not need as many dentings as usual. Whether the propaganda would help remained to be seen.

Finally, they got to sit down. Everyone was assigned a particular seat. For now, this was to prevent petty squabbles about where to sit, but later, seating would be rearranged according to performance. Unlike in many human schools, the worst students would be put up front so the trainers could pressure them to pay more attention. (Humans, on the other hand, usually put the best ones up front, which just gave the bad ones infinite opportunity to sit where they could barely be seen and goof off - thereby ensuring that they stayed bad students.)

Soon, the various classroom trainers began their introductory speeches. Some were a bit enthusiastic about it, while others acted like they'd said the same thing a million times. However, the speech itself was the same for everyone. There was an introduction, during which plenty of pro-military and pro-Decepticon rah-rah was given in order to try to increase everyone's morale about being part of the Decepticon Military. Then, everyone was told to install their Military Data Packs from the thumb drives. After that was done, introductory discussion about each Pack followed.

"We used to give this introduction before the first day's training," Trainers informed the cadets. "However, we are hoping that we will have your attention better doing it this way, now that you know that there are consequences for insubordination." Then, they discussed the Discipline data pack. They provided stats about how various armies, such as that of the Romans, were typically easily able to beat their undisciplined counterparts. "In order to have full military supremacy, there needs to be planning - and for planning to become successful action, soldiers need to be counted on to carry out those plans. Our large-formation attacks won't work if everyone decides to go off in little groups to chase oil. Small, raider formations also can't concentrate firepower or descend on an enemy city all at once for a nearly-instant takeover."

"All of you will be trained to operate in formations of various sizes, and some of these do involve small squads. However, these are not what make enemies realize that they really have no chance on a national level, and quickly surrender or have their armies rout. Instead, it is formations like THESE." A giant holovision then showed a scene of millions of Decepticons entering some hapless planet's lower airspace. The video was apparently taken by someone on the ground of a planet on the wrong end of an invasion, and included the sounds of appropriate gasps of fear from biologicals around the camera person.

"In order to get the proper effect, we must be disciplined. Everyone must fly as part of the ordered formation, and work together to move as a unified swarm. One false move creates a chain reaction that not only could knock hundreds of us out of the air, but that will create comedy gold for the defenders. Obviously, we need to create a sense of fear and hopelessness in our enemies instead - and that is done by having discipline!"

All of the trainers, even the originally-bored ones, got excited at this last part. It was not only a new addition to the "orientation" training class, but one that touched on something that hit a nerve with all who had to deal with new conscripts: Their lack of discipline and general unwillingness to change that. All of the trainers hoped that if the conscripts realized the importance of discipline right away, they would be easier to turn into real soldiers.

[Vallermoore]

Deathstrike did his first day of drilling fine, silently thinking that on the planet where he had been born, if a military unit of scorpion-people acted like that, even on their very first day, they would be on their way to the prison-mines for gross insubordination. He was one of those who found is way to the building relatively quickly, and today there was something new. As well as the normal rah-rah speeches to improve morale, there were new thumb drives about such important things as "The Value of Military Discipline." The trainers explained how the huge planet-swarming forces were only possible with well trained and well disciplined troops-and one badly behaved soldier could cost himself and hundereds of his fellow soldiers their bodies, as well as making Decepticons look stupid in front of biologicals. No Decepticon liked looking stupid, and even more so in front of the deeply inferior biological races. For the first time at this early stage in their training, many native-built Decepticons started paying proper attention. There would still be trainees goofing off, acting up, and generally being unmilitary, but in the next year or so it would be cut even in the very early stages by half. This was not enough to enable the full harshness of Decepticon military law to be put into practise from Day 1-if it was, it would cause so many executions that large numbers of Decepticons would end up draft-dodging and serious unrest would be possible-but it was a very good success and would make the work of trainers considerably easier.

When things started improving, Megatron and the High Generals would be pleased. It had been General Carjack, the former human, who had come up with the idea when Megatron had asked aloud how Decepticon soldiers could be introduced to discipline sooner without having to use such heavy punishments on so many bots that mutinies broke out on all the training bases. When not at war, Megatron and the High Generals, the pinnacle of the Decepticon Government, worked very much like a well functioning raid gang. Only once in living memory had a High General acted up-High General StarScream had paid for it with his life and a formal death by meltdown as a warning to the High Generals themselves about who was the toughest and that mutinous talk would not be tolerated even at the High General level.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The next drills were a bit dull, but everyone was learning the basics of how to do things in groups. Before this, they had never worked with more than a handful of people at a time, and when they did do things together, it was just raid games and similar activities. Now, the efforts were serious.

Eventually, they progressed enough to take part in their first 1,000-bot formation exercises. These were just the beginning of mass-formation practice. At the end of the "boot camp" phase, they would be practicing 100,000-bot formations, and by the time their first conscription stints ended, they would have at least some 1,000,000-bot formation practice.

Even the 1,000-bot exercises utilized multiple training groups, and gave the cadets experience with working with people who hadn't trained under the same person. This was to give them practice at adapting to the slightly different results the various trainers got with their groups, so that they could mesh together without crashing.

In the first exercise, all three of the immigrants were there, but they didn't realize it thanks to their new bodies and names. However, despite the greatly improved discipline the new program had brought about, their ready obedience easily marked them out as being from somewhere else.

As they took off into the sky to try the maneuver they'd just been ordered to complete, they noticed a couple of High Generals watching from the ground. Generals Soundwave and Carjack were the observers, and both watched with critical eyes to see how well this batch of conscripts was coming along. Soundwave looked especially interested; apparently, someone had told him that one in this group might be good at espionage or domestic MilIntel.

Later, they would learn about other aspects of the Decepticon Military, such as the Annual Military Raid, the Paranormal Division, the Genocide Battalion, and other specialized groups and activities. None of the raw cadets was eligible for these things yet, but once their "boot camp" weeks ended, they would be qualified to be low-ranking members of many of these groups. Only Paranormal didn't accept first-term soldiers at this time, finding that they were not yet seasoned enough to have good control over the magical weapons that were still limited to this division - or that they were too prone to using them for shenanigans against other Decepticons.

[Vallermoore]

(OOC-Sorry about the reply delay, due to rl.)

IC-Despite the initial boredom a lot of the time, Deathstrike could see the point of things. There was no point in trying to get a lot of poorly trained troops to fly in formation, or it would just cause an enormous crash and a lot of lost bodies and pings back to the Military Save Vault. He felt useful and thought to himself that even if Megatron were not divine, the Decepticon Military would still be able to conquer the Universe. If the Metal Planet was ever threatened he would be out there with his blasters destroying the foe. Even though he was on duty most of the time, it was still great being a Decepticon. Discipline got stricter-no bot in DeathStrike's unit was outright taken out and executed, but a few badly behaved bots ended up being hacked for punishment duty under the control of a virus, with an armband on to show their humiliating status to the other bots of their unit. The exercises grew bigger and more interesting and one was watched from the ground by the High Generals Soundwave and Carjack, Soundwave's eyes a somewhat warmer shade of red then Carjack's. Most biological armies seldom if ever saw their generals, but that was not the case with the Decepticon Military. This stopped important orders from going missing in the heat of battle or getting mangled, by accident or even deliberately, by someone in the chain of command. Even Leader Megatron Himself was not too hoity-totiy to directly order a soldier to do something if such a thing was needed to help win a battle-despite being divine.

Later they would learn about interesting aspects of the Decepticon Military and Deathstrike would hope to get the chance to serve High General Soundwave when he was fully trained. The Genocide Battalion was not his thing-he understood why it was needed but didn't want to join it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

As the boot camp section of their training neared an end, new-immigrant cadets were surprised to see various High Generals occasionally watching them, almost like doctors making rounds. Occasionally, one of the generals would watch a particular person for a while, but most of the time, they seemed to observe various training groups as a whole.

What no one yet knew was that each High General, with the exception of Generals Skywarp and Thundercracker, had been given the names and pictures of specific cadets of interest. Meanwhile, Skywarp and Thundercracker, whose specialty was commanding rank-and-file soldiers, were looking at the training groups as a whole to check their readiness and decide where to put the troops they'd be getting.

The more-specialized generals had full reports on some specific individuals. MilIntel, as well as the trainers, had been grading the cadets on various traits like how quick they caught onto new things, the attention (or lack thereof) that they paid to official procedures and methods, whether or not they got into any fights (and if so, how they went about fighting and what for), and things like this. All of this information would factor into where the cadets would be assigned once the boot camp segment of their stint ended.

~~~~~~~~~~

During the last week of their initial training phase, some of the cadets got knocks on their barracks doors. Upon opening them, they were handed envelopes with new orders. All who got a special letter were being specifically assigned to certain generals. Those who got no letter, which was most of them, would simply be randomly sorted between the divisions.

Getting a letter did not guarantee a position as anything but yet another regular soldier in a particular general's division. However, it did mean that they would likely be tested for something more unique, and associated with the general they'd been assigned to.

Throughout the barracks, random "yeses" and "what the hells" could be heard as various cadets opened their orders and read the news. In some cases, it was obvious where someone was assigned thanks to the reaction, but in others, it would be a mystery unless the cadet decided to be specific.

"I can't WAIT to rack up a SCORE!" One voice yelled out, letting DeathStrike know that there was a Genocider hopeful right down the hall from him. DeathStrike recognized the voice as belonging to one person who he'd always felt exuded a menacing feel, and who seemed like he was always just barely holding back from going postal.

"Finally I'll be able to upgrade these bodies!" Said another voice from downstairs. It was Vampire, who was itching to get into Shockwave's military engineer corps - and up the RAM that was standard for Mil-Spec bodies. His orders showed that he was now in the right general's division. All he'd have to do now, he hoped, was show that he had the right aptitude to be an engineer instead of a regular soldier.

DeathStrike got a knock on his door, and to his delight, he had been ordered to report to General Soundwave at the start of the next week. Like a proper espionage-oriented prospect, he didn't yell out the news, but he did smile broadly.

In another barracks building, Warrior didn't get any letter. While he had done very well at all of the fighting drills, he hadn't seemed to have special aptitude for any of the specialized battalions or subdivisions. However, even though he didn't know it, he had been flagged as one who would have potential as a squad leader for battlefield or raiding missions in active enemy territories. This meant that one of the generalist divisions would be the best location for him.

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

Once the time came at the start of the next week, all of the cadets who had specific orders reported to their assigned generals' areas. There, they would wait until, one by one, those without specific orders were given their assignments and arrived at these areas as well. About midway through the process, Warrior was assigned to General Thundercracker, who was known for leading one of the best generalized fighting divisions in the Military.

After everyone from the current group of cadets was finally at their proper locations, the speeches began. Each High General came out to a stage in their areas, gave an overview of their divisions, and warned that nobody was going to get assigned to anything specialized for a few more months. "We have to get you more up to speed, and then those who show the right promise will be given specialized testing," most explained. Then, they concluded with some generalized morale-boosting words about the greatness of the Decepticon Military, calling it the key to the Nation's goal of total universal conquest and getting everyone mentally ready to fly off right then and kick everything's ass. However, rather than doing that ass-kicking just yet, they were to go to new barracks rooms - these assigned by division as well as seniority - and get settled in.

[Vallermoore]

Although the Decepticon Military was an army of conscripts, it made very good logical sense to send them, once fully trained, to the regiment they would be best at. One or two of the more specialized units, like the Genocide Battalion, were de facto composed of bots who fully wished to be there, with only the occasional bot sent there for a short time to harden up their fuel pump, as had been the case for Loyal Star despite High General Carjack's extreme displeasure. By sending bots to the unit they would be best at, both the individual bot and the Military as a whole benefited greatly. Today Vampire was very pleased to get a letter assigning him to High General Shockwave's military engineers. This unit got given bodies with more RAM then the average Decepticon, as it was needed for their job. "Finally I'll be able to upgrade these bodies!" Getting a body with more RAM would be a big help once his first Military stint came to an end and he recontacted Warrior, so they could start trying to get a gang and then a syndicate together. It would also be a big help when he turned his blasters on Warrior-not to kill him but to try and become the gang leader.

Warrior meanwhile, although he had been a good soldier and quick to learn, seemed to have no special abilities and desires to qualify him for one of the many special divisions on offer. This didn't make him useless though. Although he didn't know it yet, he had the chance to become a squad leader-the battlefield rank equivalent of a trainer-to lead bots on the battlefield or during the raids. It would be High General Thundercracker that he would be serving in the division of.

Deathstrike heard from down the hall a voice saying in loud, excited and joyful Binary "I can't WAIT to rack up a SCORE!" and knew that that bot's eyes would be a blazing warm red at the thought of entry to the Genocide Battalion. That particular bot had always seemed a bit menacing even by Decepticon standards, as if he were barely holding back from randomly opening fire on his fellow bots. Now that bot's will to kill could be properly channelled to where it would be useful.

His own eyes went a warm red and he smiled and gave a little bow of gratitude when he got his own letter placing him in the division of High General Soundwave-which was just where he wanted to be. Perhaps he might end up as an assassin in an android body, or a spy or both.

Unlike the year when one Shadow of Death had been executed by meltdown, noone would be facing that from this batch of newly trained troops, although one particularly badly behaved soldier ended up as a janitor-something that was pretty rare. About 40% of the troops had a chance of a specialist position whilst the others ended up under High Generals Skywarp and Thundercracker. Soon enough every bot was sent to their proper barracks room, feeling pretty proud at being Military bots. Deathstrike thought to himself that whilst it might be a pretty dangerous world for Decepticons out there, the Military was a match for anything thrown at it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Once in their new divisions, the cadets found that each one had its own specialized formations and fighting styles as well as several that were meant to work with multi-division activities. This part of their first stint would therefore still involve plenty of training.

They also found that there was no immediate benefit to being assigned to one division or another. Shockwave's troops did not automatically get a RAM upgrade, for instance. (Vampire had realized this, and had been hoping to get into the engineering section so that he could design a better Mil-Spec body to make into the standard.) Meanwhile, DeathStrike learned that Soundwave didn't just randomly assign soldiers to do spying and assassination. Instead, there would be some drills and tests later on that tested such skills, and only the top performers would get into the espionage units. Finally, the one who had expected to be immediately joining the Genocide Battalion was sullen when he learned that he would first have to learn the tactics of Carjack's regulars and then pass some qualifying field tests.

~~~~~~~~~

Eventually, after all of the generalized division training was completed, each one who had showed the right aptitude was given the chance to try to get into a specialized division or other group.

Vampire found that his first test was to create a circuit board and code that could control an android-shaped janitorial unit so it could autonomously mop a large room complete with obstacles. One of the catches was that this unit was to remain non-sapient.

There were only about 100 bots taking this test, and each had to build and code his janitor's board in a soundproof, solid-walled cubicle to reduce the chance of cheating. Of course, everyone spent the first couple of minutes of their test trying to find a way to circumvent the security, only to find that Shockwave was well aware of how Decepticons thought and how their bodies worked, and had designed his anti-cheating systems accordingly.

Later, they would all go into a large, arena-like area with furniture and other obstacles, and the boards they'd made would be put into one of the waiting large-scale android bodies for testing. Each one would then be set to the task of mopping the area, and scored according to whether it worked or not and how well it completed the task.

DeathStrike was surprised to find that the tests for espionage took place on Decepticon Earth, but boarded the military cargo-bot there with excitement just the same. There, he would face slightly different tests than the last one to go through this process. Varying the scenarios ensured that one group of troops couldn't sell working "answer keys" to newer arrivals. The process had been streamlined, too, since actual training was now complete at the base.

Warrior didn't expect any specialized testing, but one day, his entire division - millions of bots - was ordered to report to a new building. They would arrive in large groups rather than all at once, but the process was still fairly swift. There, Warrior and a large group of others were presented with simulated battle scenarios. "You will be acting as a squad leader in your scenarios," a trainer informed them. "Your objective is to reach the goal on your screen without incurring any casualties."

In this case, the term "casualties" only referred to damages to their own side. They could kill or maim a million of the sim-enemy, and none of those would count as casualties by Decepticon reckoning. Warrior found that the difficulty of the simulations was random rather than ramping up predictably, most likely because real battles didn't follow a linear curve either.

[Vallermoore]

The bot who was so pleased to be under High General Carjack would soon have dim red eyes when he discovered that for now at least he would be in Carjack's regular division for more tests. He would, however, eventually earn his way into the Genocide Battalion where he would be happy and content. Vampire knew that he would not automatically be getting extra RAM, not at first anyway, but knew that finding his way into the engineering division would raise the chance of this happening. The Decepticon Military, and to a far lesser extent, even the makers of civilian bodies, upgraded relatively often to ensure good health, good virus protection, and proper strength. Megatron wanted a healthy population, not one where most bots were broken down unhappy rust-buckets.

Vampire took good care with building and coding his cleaning bot mind-boards so that after a certain time they would wipe all the non-job information, thus hopefully stopping them from generating enough lines of code to become sapient and alive. Like every bot he tried to cheat at first, but High General Shockwave had made that impossible.

DeathStrike wondered what his tests would be like and looked forward to them.

Warrior tried having most of his unit in the simulated battle fly in pairs in a line, with a certain amount flying ahead to blast anti-aircraft guns, cannons and other threats to the unit.

[Victorious Decepticons]

At Shockwave's arena, it wasn't long before everyone had some boards programmed and ready to go. One by one, each person's attempt was installed into one of the waiting androids, and they were set off not in batches, but one at a time. Vampire wondered why there were a few bodies instead of one, since the testing went one-at-a-time at this point.

Most of the androids did their jobs well, including Vampire's. They mopped the floor carefully without bumping any obstacles, tripping, or ending up in loops.

Then came the first failure. It started out fine, but then mis-saw a "dining room table" as more flooring. It hopped up on the tabletop, mopped it well, and then fell off one side when it backed up too far. Once that happened, it started looking around confusedly until a trainer came and manually shut it off.

Finally, near the end, another android was performing seemingly fine, until it stopped suddenly and held the mop straight up and down. It then looked up at the audience as if trying to figure out what they were. Quickly, a trainer rushed to shut it down. It had already gotten just a glimmer of sapience, and with its developmental speed unknown, there was a risk that it'd have to be tested for potential citizenship if allowed to progress further.

A few other androids simply performed poorly, causing bad grades as well as insufficiently-mopped areas.

Vampire was among those who passed, though this project wasn't involved enough for it to qualify anyone for more than further tests. The two who made outright failures were immediately consigned back to the general infantry tract, and they looked quite disappointed when their androids didn't do well.

"At least none of you blew up your androids or otherwise destroyed them," one of the judges said to the group. "Sometimes, we use up a few of these bodies before this event ends."

~~~~~~~~~~

On Earth, DeathStrike didn't have to wait long to get his first assignment. He was called into a private meeting with a trainer, simulating the secrecy that would surround a real MilIntel deployment.

"Sometimes, we need to take out an enemy strategist or even a tactician to make our way easier," a trainer told him. "For this first test, it doesn't really matter if the enemy knows you're a Decepticon. What DOES matter is that you deactivate the target." He pulled out a photograph of a 3-star human general surrounded by many bodyguards, walking through what seemed to be a military base. Then, he got out a picture of that base, which was taken from space. It was clearly surrounded with advanced SAM batteries and other artillery.

"As you can see, flying in there as-is is mostly a good way to get your wings blown off. You're going to have to come in from the ground. Your choices are to try to do it in your current body, or attempt to sneak in with an android one. Beyond that, you'll be on your own..."

[Vallermoore]

Vampire could feel pleased with himself that he had passed the first test to get where he wanted to go, although it was only the first step. At least one bot had to be in effect aborted before it developed proper sapience and in effect gained the privilege to exist as a new Decepticon. The two utter failures would spend at least the rest of their current stint in the general infantry. Vampire wondered what the next test would be.

"There are certain Changeling Hives on worlds that have yet to fall to Decepticon conquest that Forintel, for classified reasons, wishes to infiltrate, but for that a body is needed with more then one alt mode, the more alt modes the better. An utter failure in this test is-if the bot starts gaining sapience-we don't want any Coding on Military time! And also if it jams up when it transforms, falls apart when it transforms, and/or blows up when it transforms. The winner of the test will in effect have a major boost towards getting into the Engineering Division, and will get a single Cube of Energon Supreme and the knowledge that his body design will be used by Forintel when spying on Changelings. The utter failures will get kicked back to the general infantry for their first stint, although on their next stint they can have another try at getting in if they want to. It's only those who fail three times who spend the rest of their military service in the regular troops for good, and they have a chance of becoming officers if they do well enough there."

"The more things, for example, ponies and humans, it can transform into the better, but the bigger the chance is of a catastrophic failure, so by trying too hard, you might fail. You will have an entire month to make the body and all the good quality parts.When it is time to test the new body, make a Save Disc of yourself first and then mind-transfer to the new body. If it goes boom, you'll be downloaded from the Military Save Vault. If the other bots start laughing as it jams up utterly, it'll be you who gets laughed at. Please refrain from blasting at any laughers whilst you are still in the Military. You will have a whole month for this test as it cannot be hurried."

*****
Deathstrike chose an android body, mind-transferred to it, cloaked himself and soon found himself on the outskirts of the base. By timing when sentries were near, he was able to use his foot jets to blast himself over the ten-foot barbed wire fence. He quietly walked through the outer base, dodging sentries rather then killing them, so the alarm would not be raised.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vampire grinned at the expected difficulty level of the next challenge, but knew he would have to think hard to make it actually happen.

He went back to the barracks with his head slightly down, imagining various pieces and how they could fit together in several different modes without any of them showing in their "off" modes. Most Decepticon bodies didn't try to hide bits that didn't perfectly blend with their alt-modes, and these extra parts were sometimes derisively referred to as "kibbles" by those who would pretend to be engineers. However, he knew that it should be possible to design bodies not to have any of those, and that doing so would be essential for stealth missions of the sort the trainer mentioned.

Maybe he would figure it out later, he thought, as he activated defrag mode and lost consciousness back at the barracks.

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

DeathStrike was finding his first task much easier than Vampire's second one, and he easily made his way through the enemy base. Unfortunately for him, the targeted individual wasn't out walking the roads like in the introduction video. Instead, he was in his office, which had two sergeants standing guard outside the door.

The "assassin" thought of just blasting his way through these two human-like droids, but then got a better idea. He sneaked around the building in hopes of finding a window. Sure enough, there was one, and the general had its curtains open to let the light in. He sat at a desk, while another soldier stood as if being given orders.

In an instant, DeathStrike made his move. He popped his two blasters out of his android body arms, and opened fire. Both of the "people" in the room went down in a somewhat realistic burst of blood and steam, and the thuds of their bodies hitting the floor brought the door guards rushing in. By the time they got the interior door open far enough to see, DeathStrike was already running gracefully toward the nearest fence. He hopped it easily, and soon, was reporting back at his training center to log his success.

Now, he would await a new challenge - one which, hopefully, would not be as difficult as the one Vampire had gotten. Like all preliminary tests and challenges, this one would take place at a mock location rather than in actual enemy territory.

[Vallermoore]

When he had defragged it turned out to be not quite as hard as he thought. All the same, even though they were allowed to download Data Packs with the information they needed for free, it would still not be easy to make these new changelings. Seven bots failed to make their changelings in time, which counted as a fail. Twenty-three including Vampire's completed them, but not all would preform according to plan. Before transferring to them, each bot made a Save Disc and handed them to a Military Debugger for safekeeping. That way they knew he would not be tempted to change their Save Discs to take advantage of them at best and de facto enslave them at worst. In an otherwise deeply corrupt Empire, there were certain jobs that needed honest bots, Debugging being the most important. Such bots were not disliked or thought of as Autobots, as every bot knew how important mental healthcare was in the long term. In fact, mental healthcare was seen as so important by the Decepticon Government that it even provided it for free! Insanity plus Standard Blasters was a Bad Thing, after all.

The first changeling fell apart like a hunk of junk when it tried to transform, as it's maker had tried to be too clever and put six different transformations into it. The second and third worked, but could only turn from changeling to pony and back again. The fourth exploded into shrapnel, causing minor damage to the paintwork of those who got too close. The fifth jammed up mid transformation, an embarrassing mistake and a fail. The next five worked well but had only one alt-mode, either a pony or a human. When the eleventh bot mind transferred, he started thinking he was a changeling and started flying in panicked circles until a trainer shot him down.
Vampire's turn was last, by which time half the changeling-bots had failed in some way outright.

He transformed flawlessly into a pony, a human male, a rabbit, of the right size too, and an alligator, and then mind-transferred back to his own body. "In gator-form, it can swim without shorting out," he boasted.

The trainer bowed in a way that trainers didn't normally do to soldiers and gave him a cube of Energon Supreme. "It seems that your body will be the one used by Forintel. You have not only passed but won the whole competition."

******

DeathStrike was congratulated when he came back, both for his success and for not doing it in a full size body. Only five bots had failed, but their next task would be harder. "You will be invading a replica of a fortified villa using android bodies. Without fully alerting anyone, you are to kidnap-without killing-the nan at the centre of it so Forintel can replace him with a double. For the double to be effective, he needs the memories of the real one, and we have not yet learned how to read the minds of the dead. There will be a bonus if you get him out by binding and gagging him rather then knocking him out, as we don't want that brain damaged until we can read it and send it to dev null. If he dies, you fail, if his guards are alerted, you also fail."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vampire was very glad to get his Cube of Supreme, and what seemed to be a sure slot in the engineering division. Still, he hadn't yet achieved his goal of getting better mind-boards to be made into standard parts for the Decepticon Military. He would have to lobby for that later. It might actually be harder now that he'd proved that the current ones obviously supported a good amount of intelligence!

"You did quite well in that last competition," a trainer said after seeing him as he went to a drill location the next day. "But don't think your testing is done. There is one more test, which will help determine which types of situations you do best in when confronted with an issue that requires this sort of skill. Before that, though, you need to do 10 days' worth of drilling. We don't want you forgetting how to be a soldier!"

The next 10 days struck Vampire as being very boring, but he plowed on through until he got his next orders. Now, he and those who passed the prior contest were to report to a new scientific building that was in an out-of-the-way part of the base.

Once there, a fancier-looking trainer introduced the new challenge. "You have all passed the scenario in which you have a decent amount of time to work. However, in war, there are often situations in which we need solutions ASAP if not sooner." He waved his hand, and a holograph of a huge capital ship appeared in the middle of the large, empty area behind him.

"In this scenario, this thing is coming toward Cybertron with war in mind, and is expected to arrive in just one day. Its weapons systems are such that if we attack with our usual swarm, it can shoot everyone down with ease. As you can see, it has 100,000 energy blasters of sufficient power..." The holograph zoomed in a bit, and blasters could now be seen sticking out of its sides like cactus spines. There would be no safe angle of approach. "It also uses a large fusion reactor for power and has plenty of fuel, so it can fire millions of times before running out of material. And, it can not only see through all forms of standard cloaking, but will blast in all directions if someone does manage to simply sneak up and get a shot in."

"Your mission is to figure out a system we can not only use to either get past that or brute-force it, but to make sure that it is one that we can quickly mass-produce in our military factories. We want to upgrade 1,000,000 troops to be able to successfully attack this ship. Whether you find a way to let our troops just plow through, circumvent the enemy system, steal its energy and send it back...whichever means you use will be fine, as long as it works and we win. The results of your designs will be run through the Military Supercomputer as simulations since we don't have a ship like this to practice on for real. A passing score is an 80% success rate, but you should try to go beyond that. The winner will be the one whose simulated division suffers the fewest casualties, assuming that number includes at least 80% survival. If none succeed at having at least 80% Decepticon survival, there will be no winners of this part of the testing."

"Oh, and it goes without saying that if you don't have your design in with enough time for it to be implemented, you will fail. The implementation time will be projected as part of the simulation, and will depend on the details of your designs. Some will surely be faster to put into effect than others."

Of course, since their ideas would be tested via simulation, there would be no physical building involved. Instead, the details of all designs would be submitted to the trainer for processing.

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

Meanwhile, Warrior was finding out why it might be a good idea to put some more effort into using his RAM. As his double-file flight of troops went towards the target, it did indeed have no trouble blasting artillery batteries and such that were in front of it. However, it got into trouble quickly when two different groups of enemy fighters approached, one from each side. Warrior's group soon had to abandon its nicely-lined-up formation and engage in chaotic dogfights. While his troops eventually won against the enemy air force, the other units had gotten far ahead thanks to using formations that allowed them to maintain progress while firing in all directions.

"As you have seen," his trainer told those in the group who only had "passable" results, "it takes more than an overarching strategy to win. You must also pay attention to tactics, and anticipate things our opposition might do. Get ready for your next scenario..."

In this next scenario, the soldiers' holovisions showed an opening scene of them all on the ground at a massive oil field. Around them, pumpjacks continued to work - at least, the ones that hadn't yet been replaced with Decepticon ones. It was clear that this field could bring them a huge haul. With Decepticon technology, it was probably good for 10 billion barrels before they cleaned it out. A quick note on the visual said that it'd take a bit less than a week for the troops to drain it all if they were running unopposed.

The catch was, they were not running unopposed in this sim. The rightfully-owning nation would be constantly trying to drive the Decepticons off so that it wouldn't lose all of its oil. This nation was very motivated, because its entire economy was based on crude, and this field was its only major source of the "black gold." It was not only willing to kill to keep it, but even for its soldiers to die trying.

Almost immediately, missiles started to come into Warrior and his sim-unit's position. While these would be little more than annoying if only the Decepticons were in the way, they threatened to blow up both local and Decepticon-built oil pumps and ignite already-gleaned stocks. If too much oil was lost, or any Decepticon casualties occurred, Warrior's unit would be considered to have failed. He had to counter this onslaught - and then, anything else the enemy threw at them!

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

DeathStrike figured it would be no problem to capture this target. He chose an android body, and had it set up to look like the ethnicity of those guarding the villa. While he intended to get in using cloaking, he figured that he should make his de-cloaked version look legit just in case something went wrong.

As he approached the targeted location, he activated his cloaking. He also went through several scenarios for how he could go about capturing the man at the center. If that man had really been a biological, he'd be able to shoot him full of knockout serum, or perhaps choke him unconscious. Once either was done, he'd be able to bind and gag the guy and haul him out like a big sack of potatoes. But would Soundwave's androids respond to that?

One thing he did know was that gagging him while he was conscious wouldn't provide enough quiet. A human, when his mouth was full, could still make a helluva racket - it'd just take the form of mmphs and urmps instead of words. That's because the human noisemaker was in the throat, not the mouth, so as long as he could get air, he could sound off.

Soon, he was almost in view of the villa. He put his cloaking on, and when he arrived at the tall concrete wall surrounding it, he leapt on top with a subtle jet-assisted boost. Then, like a ninja, he leapt down inside the courtyard and looked for an entrance. Soon enough, someone went in through the large, mansion-like doors, and DeathStrike managed to follow. The door only hung open for a little bit extra - not long enough to draw attention.

Once inside, DeathStrike managed to make his way almost to the interior, but then he stopped. Instead of going through to his quarry, he got out a small cylinder of Energon and spread it across the inner room's doorway and into the hall. After that, he gave it a quick, unseen blast, and immediately took off running.

Very quickly, he turned down another hallway and then another, and just as the fire alarms started screaming, he arrived at the other door of the inner sanctum. As expected, his quarry ran out, perfectly playing the part of a human panicked by the unexpected blaze. Now, with the fire alarm making plenty of cover racket, he brute-force captured the "human," shoved a shop rag in his mouth and a piece of tape over it, and tied him up.

From there, it was a matter of getting the loudly "mmmphhing" human out of the place. He dashed with him over his shoulders, from one siren location to the next, until he was out on the back porch. The sirens drowned out the loud mmmphhss all the way. Then it was a simple matter of firing his foot jets to jump down, cross the large lawn, and clear the outer wall.

Since he wasn't given a special dropoff spot for the man, he proceeded to take him back to his dispatch building and deliver him to his assignment-giver with a smile. The "man," actually one of Soundwave's training agents, no longer bothered to make any noise. Instead, he used his own android strength to easily break the ropes and stood up.

"Pretty good, recruit," the agent said, ignoring the gag material entirely as he spoke unhindered with his voice chip. "A fire and its alarms provided excellent cover. And, you got me out before the smoke inhalation would have deactivated a human. It's nice to see a creative would-be agent in the pipeline." He calmly removed the tape and packing from his mouth, gave a little nod, and walked out.

"Mission accomplished," said the usual trainer. "DrugLord there will give his full report as to how you did it, and of course, we'll be checking all of the real surveillance that's on that place, as well." This surveillance was from MilIntel, and would have picked up the cloaked DeathStrike - unlike the surveillance that would be found there if it had been a real target.

"If this was a real mission, our replacement agent would soon be getting into position, using the fire you started as an excuse for his short-term absence. Take a rest for now. I'll have a third mission for you later."

[Vallermoore]

Vampire felt very pleased indeed with himself. When Forintel went on classified missions into changeling hives, they would be using bodies designed by him and he had earned a Cube of Energon Supreme for it that he could either consume later or spend later. "You did quite well in that last competition," a trainer said later. But don't think your testing is done. There is one more test, which will help determine which types of situations you do best in when confronted with an issue that requires this sort of skill. Before that, though, you need to do 10 days' worth of drilling. We don't want you forgetting how to be a soldier!" Vampire put up with ten days of military drill and then he and the other bots in his new unit got a new test. In this one a vast warship was approaching Cybertron, and there was only a short time. Vampire came up with a way of reflecting energy blasters so that they would ricochet back on the firer, blasting up enough guns over time to give the Decepticons a way of getting close and either breaching the hull, something generally fatal to biologicals, or landing on it and busting up enough guns for the ship to be swarmed and taken in the normal way.

What was more, if it worked, it would take as few as 30,000 troops equipped with it to destroy enough of the ship's energy blasters for the rest to get close enough to land on it and start doing serious damage, so even if they could not equip a million bots with it in time, they would have enough to hopefully stop the ship in it's tracks. It would take just seven hours to churn out enough plates of this reflective armor to equip a great many soldiers with it and it had magnets that were strong enough to keep it on but not so strong that it could not be taken off by the wearer. He wondered how well the test would go for him.

*****
Warrior found his plan only worked for a short time in real battle.He won, but came last. In the next scenario he ordered his troops to blow up the missles whilst he watched the ground for opposing troops and saboteurs.

*****
DeathStrike managed to cause a fire, capture, bind and gag his target, and use the fire alarms to cover the loud mmmppphhhing sounds perfectly. He had certainly passed this test. Once it was over the android broke the ropes with ease and said he had done well. He was able to go to his room in the barracks, rest and enjoy himself with a game or two, feeling pleased with himself.