But every time he passed the eastern edge of the outpost, where the dust was thickest, he would slow for just a step. And in his processor, he would hear a laugh—a bright, clean sound from a time before the War.
He sat there in the dust, the storm howling around the transport’s broken frame. His mission clock ticked. He had two options: drag her back to Outpost Theta-9 for a court-martial and summary execution, or leave her here to fade alone.
He thought about the cargo clamps. About her laugh. About the way she had recalibrated the pressure seals with such care, even though no one was watching.
“7712,” she said. Her voice was a whisper. “You found me.” autobot-7712
Javelin hesitated. That was new.
“She left her post without orders. That’s the definition,” Javelin replied. “Bring her in, Zero. Or don’t come back.”
They had been stationed at Outpost Theta-9 for six weeks. The Decepticons were thirty klicks north, dug into a derelict spacebridge hub. Neither side had enough ammo for a real fight. So they bled each other slowly: snipers, mines, sabotage. But every time he passed the eastern edge
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Unit-512. Former designation: Petal .”
Petal. A small, bright-yellow femme who had worked in the same docking bay, back before the War. She had been the one who recalibrated the cargo clamps when they drifted. She had laughed—actually laughed—when he accidentally triggered the emergency purge and sprayed coolant all over her finish. He had not thought of her in vorns. He had assumed she was dead. Most of the dock crew were. His mission clock ticked
“You were a dockmaster’s assistant,” he said. “You recalibrated the loading clamps on Bay 7. You once saved a full shipment of high-grade energon by patching a leak with your own emergency sealant. Your designation was Petal. And you laughed when I made a mess.”
Her optics flickered once, twice. “I want someone to remember that I was not always a soldier.”
After forty minutes, he found her.
He was Autobot-7712. A logistics unit. A number.