(Also note the relative size of the puny human...)
IC:
A plane, in space.
Such a sight was nothing special to a Decepticon, and in fact, someone in the vicinity of Planet Cybertron could easily see thousands of them coming and going. When seen through telescopes by other planets, however, it seemed to be something highly unusual - so unusual, in fact, that an entire religion on pre-Invasion Decepticon Earth (Scientology) had been based on it. It was unfortunate that the true facts about Xenu, who was actually a Decepticon whose "space crimes" had not been genocide but the rather mundane activity known in legal circles as grand theft oil, had been hidden by that religion's founder. The fact that he was the plane, and not a pilot of it, had also been missed by the humans.
Since that time long ago, the appearance of a Decepticon has changed much, but the general idea had remained the same. Plane mode for flying anywhere, and robot mode for walking. But now, the personal FTL drive had been developed, allowing the Decepticons to range further than ever before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uncharted Planetary System, 100 Lightyears from Cybertron
A swirling, oblong glow appeared at a seemingly-random point in outer space, and soon, what appeared to be an F-16 materialized from it. The aircraft hung there in the zero gravity, and soon, transformed into robot mode and began looking around.
The view of a space vista was, as always, unique, interesting, and stark all at the same time. A few barren-looking moons were first in sight, and a bit further from them, a rather large rusty-brown planet was shrouded in a thin layer of foggy atmosphere. What interested him, however, was further away: One of the moons, a small one orbiting the planet further away from the other ones, appeared to have a mixture of small bodies of water - and land covered with some sort of orange growths.
That would be the one.
The robot returned to his plane mode, his transformation noise smothered by the vacuum of space. With a burst of flames, his engines fired and he headed to the orange moon.
Two sets of painted-on seals could be seen in the light cast by the planetary system's yellow star: One set of Decepticon Seals, one on each wing; and one set underneath those that bore the stylized Decepticon-tech oil rig icon of the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation. His background color was a dark blue, but its camouflage benefit was currently destroyed by his bright white wing stripes. In robot mode, he also had white hands. The Seals painted on him were a light gray, with red eyes for the iconography of his nation.
The Corporation, or Da Corpa'ration, as its boss called it in a put-on Sicilian accent, was Cybertron's largest syndicate - and a mafia, in the general sense of the word. Though it started out as an oil raiding gang, it was now involved in all sorts of activities, usually illegal, but surprisingly often, engaged in totally legit business as well. Its philosophy was simple. It would use whatever method would bring the most profit. If that method happened to be legitimate, fine - and sometimes, good, since legit deals didn't require investing in a bunch of arms and armor. However, if the most profitable method was a strongarm raid, a scam, or a smuggling racket, it had no compunctions in doing those things either.
Soon, the robot arrived at the strange moon, and began to circle ever downwards towards its surface. He also put his visual cloaking on, just in case something decided to start shooting at him on a whim.
With each loop, he dropped his speed. This was made easier by the fact that the organic satellite had an atmosphere, which created drag. His sensors reported that the atmosphere had a decent amount of oxygen, but was also high in nitrogen and included a bit of sulfur. Humidity rose as he descended, until finally, it reached 60% at ground level.
So far, everything looked great from a technical standpoint. All signs pointed to this planet being one covered with organic life - the precursor to the substance he was after.
He landed without incident on what turned out to be a carpet of orange plants, and immediately crouched down defensively with his blasters ready to go. Organic worlds were often full of oil...and almost as often, also full of creatures that very, very much wanted to keep it.
Of course, he was hoping that none of the life on this celestial body were advanced enough to care about him one way or the other, besides perhaps taking instinct-driven measures to avoid being stepped on, but one could not be too careful. Sometimes, what seemed to be a world of plants and animals from space turned out to be full of tiny men with particle blasters or some other such nastiness.
After several minutes of crouching like this with his cloaking on, and having nothing happen, he stood up and began to look around. First, he put on his magnification vision to better see what was at his feet. This revealed that the plants were some sort of symbiotes, most likely living with a sort of orange fungus inside their leaves, and that several hundred other tiny creatures lived around them - seemingly this moon's equivalent of insects. Fortunately, they didn't seem to be interested in using him as a nest, or surprising him by opening fire with some sort of blasters.
Next, he switched his optics to work like strong binoculars, and began to look out towards the horizons in all directions.
That's when he noticed the shape of a spaceship...