1982

[not_toothfairy]

It's a long slagging way to Earth from where Cybertron used to be. Most of the trip is in the past by now. When you're an organism that measures its lifespan in numbers that require scientific notation by human standards, a couple of decades left hardly mean anything at all.

Or they shouldn't mean anything at all, anyway. Nobody ever makes it to the

Comments

[mend_and_defend]

The storage sector is yet another featureless box, empty except for Bob himself. The Guardian was sealed inside mere moments before--or so it seems to him.

"...I'm sorry, run that by me again?"

[not_toothfairy]

"Ten years- Cybertronian ones, anyway. Dunno how they measure up to Earth years."

We're going to assume they're a pretty close match. It's easier.

[mend_and_defend]

"You're joking. I just got in here..." Bob shakes his head. "You said we were thirty-five years away from Earth. Why are you waking me up now? Is something wrong?"

[not_toothfairy]

"That's why they call it stasis lock. Total suspension. And the only thing wrong is I'm slaggin' bored. I can't even raise a sensor ghost from the Decepticons on my screens..."

[mend_and_defend]

"Oh." A beat. "You, uh, wanna talk or something?"

[not_toothfairy]

"Might as well," says Ironhide. "Think you could tell me anything worth knowing about Earth?"

[mend_and_defend]

This isn't the first time Bob's been a guest in someone else's brain. But before it was with someone he knew and trusted. Ironhide is still, to him, an almost-total stranger, and Bob is acutely aware that the Autobot could delete or rewrite him with a thought. He can, perhaps, be forgiven for being a little nervous.

"I'll tell you what I can. There's a lot of stuff I don't know for sure, though."

[not_toothfairy]

"Still gonna be more than what I've got now," grumbles Ironhide. "I'll trade you afterwards for stuff about Cybertron, long as you don't mind it all bein' about a place that's been destroyed."

[mend_and_defend]

"Your homeworld's been destroyed?"

Bob didn't catch that fact when talking with Optimus in the bar.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea..."

[not_toothfairy]

"Yeah," says Ironhide quietly. "That's what happens when someone like Lord Megatron goes bad on you. Got it into his processor that he ought to have power over life itself, not just the defense forces, and a war that starts from that kind of thinkin' can't ever end well."

[mend_and_defend]

"Has there ever been a war that has 'ended well'?"

[not_toothfairy]

"Better than a peace where everything's corroding to pieces 'cause nobody's willing to get out there and fight for their freedom, you mean?"

[mend_and_defend]

"Why would they need to fight if there's no one threatening them?"

[not_toothfairy]

"There's more than one kind of threat," says Ironhide. "Cybertron'd been peaceful a couple million years before Megatron went bad. Stayed peaceful a good long while after that, too- if you can call watching the resources that should've gone to production being moved into the military, and the justice system getting harsher and harsher by the year with no end in sight, anything like peace. I dunno where we'd be if Prime hadn't called him on it, but it wouldn't've been anywhere good."

[mend_and_defend]

"And they actually kept him in power while this was going on? Couldn't you, like, have a recall election or whatever?"

Ah, poor, naive Bob.

[not_toothfairy]

"... election?"

And then Ironhide starts laughing.