"Earth?" Optimus wasn't expecting that answer. "Why?"

"We won't be able to find out from this base," Primal stated. "Come on... my internal scanners located a docking bay nearby."

The misplaced mechanical beings hurried and boarded the largest vessel they found, in an attempt to follow the unknown ship. "Something tells me they're not on a peaceful outing," Towline stated as he found himself an out-of-the-way place to occupy. "I don't like this one bit."

Rhinox was busy typing into his control panel, continuously launching new scans in the hopes of finding out who- or what- was piloting that ship. "Slag!" he groaned. "These scanners are beyond useless." A pattern of red and green lights reflected angrily off his optics. "If this is the best of the bunch," he growled, commenting on their consificated spacecraft, "I'd hate to see the rejected choices."

Optimus looked over at Primal and Fire Engine Prime. "I'd say it's a pretty safe bet this has something to do with all of us being here."

"I was thinking the same thing," Primal added. The ship rose from its platform and slowly entered into free space. "After the systems level off, increase our speed, Silverbolt- we don't want to fall too far behind in case we need to intervene."

"Increasing speed," Silverbolt acknowledged.

"The measurements we were able to record are gigantic," Primal continued. "I'd hate to see what would happen if Megatron and the Predacons got a hold of that technology."

Rattrap sat in his chair, eyeing the three commanders. His head slowly turned left and right, making sure he looked at all of them evenly. "Well, somebody knows what's going on, that's for sure."

"What do you mean, Rattrap?" Primal asked.

"For crying out loud, look at yourselves!" he said. "Somebody's playing Primus and we're his puppets... didn't you notice them?"

Primal was growing annoyed, listening to Rattrap babble and trying to keep informed of the other ship's progress. "Notice what?" he asked, his voice slightly raised.

Rattrap pointed towards what had grabbed his attention, the peculiar inclusion of a trio of seats the Primes had been occupying. He wondered how they, of all bots, couldn't have seen it for themselves. "There's three command chairs aboard this ship!"

Before any further comments could be made, Rhinox startled the crew. "Slaggin' finally!" he shouted excitedly as the sensors he had been at war with finally bore some fruit. "The energy plasma has degraded to near undetectable measurments, leading me to think the ship has stopped. Or vanished." He turned to Primal and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't look at me like that; the equipment aboard this ship is embarrassing."

"Okay, so the magic cloud of space gas has stopped." Wedge said. "So what? That doesn't mean they're out there... they could be long gone and we're just sucking up their fumes."

"Prime," Prowl said, "Should I raise shields?" Optimus motioned a 'not yet' signal in his direction.

"Raise shields?" Wedge chuckled. "Raise shields for what? There's nothing out there! Just black space and tiny dots of light... that's it."

Fire Engine Prime got out of his chair and walked over towards Towline. "Perhaps. Still, we should proceed as if they are within range of hearing us. Send a radio message, inform them we are simply concerned-" His voice was cut off by an explosion to the right of their ship.

"They're firing at us!" Rhinox yelled, excitedly stating the obvious. Optimus looked at Prowl and gave the nod to raise shields. "Hold on, here comes another one!"

"I've been known to be wrong from time to time," Wedge muttered in between blasts.

Brawn waited patiently for the order to return fire. His finger hovered over the release button. "The word, Prime? Do we return fire?"

"They're blocking our transmissions," Towline reported. "They're not in the listening mood." Another explosion, this time disrupting two stations on the bridge resulting in a pair of sizzling fires.

"I'm shooting back!" Brawn yelled. He pressed the release button and watched as two bright yellow lasers shot out from beneath the view screen. They had no effect, seemingly passing right through where the ship should have been. "Impossible," he remarked.

Ironhide was the first to comment on the situation. "It would seem when they're cloaked, our weapons can do nothing to them."

"You're quick, kid," Rhinox moaned.

Then, before their eyes, the 'ghost' ship finally became visible. It was even larger than their preliminary scans had estimated.

It was a dark, shadowy grey color, with literally hundreds of laser cannons covering virtually every square foot. There was no symbol proclaiming allegiance. There was no identification number. Nothing. Just the biggest and most well-armed ship anyone had ever seen. And it was staring right at them.

"I won't say it," Rattrap whispered. "Cause I know we're all thinking it."

"What are they waiting for?" Wedge asked. "Why did they stop firing at us?"

Optimus Primal couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Perhaps they didn't expect us to return fire."

"Whatever the reason" Rhinox started, "It's giving our scanners a chance to probe their insides...this can't be-"

Fire Engine Prime looked over. "What? How many are inside?"

"That's just it," Rhinox said in disbelief. "There's only one."

"What?!" Brawn yelled. "One bot in that giant piece of scrap? That's crazy!"

"No," Fire Engine Prime said, leaning over to read the results of the scan for himself. "Not one bot," he said, unsure of how this came to be. "One human."