Insecticon presents:

CEASEFIRE

A Transformers Prime: Invasion Story

It was a brilliant, oppressively hot August afternoon the day the Nemesis touched down on the tarmac of Creech Airforce Base in Nevada. Thunderbirds and Predators had been scrambled to Nellis AFB just beyond to make room for the huge Cybertronian dreadnought that dwarfed anything humanity had ever put into the air.

Skywatch, military arm of the newly authorized UN-backed Earth Defense Force, was present and waiting as the Decepticon ship lowered itself onto the smooth, jet black asphalt. Crash suits - powered mobile armor frames the size of an average Cybertronian, retro-engineered from salvaged MECH and Decepticon technology, were lined up at the periphery of the tarmac, fusion cannons charged and waiting, just in case something should go wrong. This was supposed to be a ceasefire and a potential end to the alien conflict that had brought itself to Earth, but when one side called itself 'Decepti-Cons', it was still prudent leave trust secured in a safe location somewhere else.

Gusts of air from the Nemesis' engines blew torrents of wind in all directions, scattering dust and sand, bringing some relief to the human civilians and military personnel. The acrid stink of ozone from reactor exhaust left the dry air with a pungent taste of unfamiliar chemicals. Hazard teams in internally cooled suits waved geiger counters towards the ship, a thousand nervous feelers of the native ants circling the gigantic mechanical newcomers.

Agent William Fowler reached into the pocket of his gray suit jacket and wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead, the source of perspiration stemming from more than just heat. Having been involved with the Autobot-Decepticon conflict almost since their arrival on Earth, he was all too aware of what this ceasefire could mean if went right - and if it went wrong. Handling peace negotiations on Earth, where nations and cultures nursed bitterness against each other for hundreds of years at a time, often ended in abortive efforts that spiraled into yet more war. Extend the hatred, savagery and ideological divide of a civil war into the millions of years, and the notion of two ancient enemies actually coming to terms with one another seemed like an impossible drug-induced hallucination.

Standing at his side was Captain Marissa Fairborne, head of Skywatch. Her military record was impressive, extending back to her illustrious parents, who had been involved in a specialized global anti-terrorism force operating out of the United States. Her father's leadership capabilities and cool-under-fire persona had been indelibly stamped into her genes, allowing her shoot to the rank of captain despite her relatively young age. She was inscrutable, cool blue eyes focused on the bow of the ship, a few strands of coppery red hair whipping around her face in the wind. She carried herself with all the decorum and discipline that her digital desert camo uniform insinuated she had.

If anyone could get along with Ultra Magnus, it would be her, Fowler thought to himself, looking back to the Nemesis.

June and Jack Darby, Miko Nakadai and Rafael Esquivel were also present; they were now considered EDF attaches to the Autobots, the children as Autobot partners in specific. The notion of having humans working directly with the Autobots was one that the EDF high command had favored - ostensibly for the sake of human-Cybertronian relations, but more realistically, for the purposes of keeping the giant walking laser-toting robots in check through their obvious emotional bonds to the children. Suggestions towards partnering all of the Autobots with a suitable (read: hand-picked and trained) human partner had been tossed around among the higher-ups in the UN, but the notion had been presently stalled by arguments among member nations, who all wanted one of their people selected for partnering. Fowler was thankful that humanity hadn't gotten its act together yet in that regard. The last thing he felt either he or the Autobots needed to deal with were a bunch of government stooges all trying to foist their national agendas on the blessedly good-natured and upstanding Cybertronians among them. Especially after said Cybertronians had sacrificed any hope of their own homeworld's recovery to protect a backwater planet full of comparatively tiny, chaotic, self-destructive natives, some of whom were more interested in vivisectioning them than establishing good interplanetary relations.

The Nemesis touched down with a low, quaking rumble, landing gear pressing down into the asphalt, which, soft from the desert heat, cratered slightly under the massive weight of the ship. The blatting thrum of the ship's gravity manipulation field suddenly ceased, and the vessel seemed to sigh with the relief of a bird that had finally come to roost after a long migration. Hydraulic jacks and lift systems hissed and the engines whined as they powered down, the magenta glow of energy flowing in circuit-pattern power lines down the exterior of the ship dimming faintly as it went inert. The Nemesis seemed to have the same basic biological structures as its Cybertronian crew, and a question as to exactly how similar they were had always floated in the back of Fowler's mind. He never seemed to have the opportunity to ask the Autobots about it, and the Decepticons had not been likely to be forthcoming with answers. Until, perhaps, now.

Optimus Prime and his ranking officers (Ultra Magnus, his second in command, Prowl, his tactical commander, and Jazz, his special operations commander) were silently waiting nearby, a short distance from Fowler, Fairborne, Mrs. Darby and the kids. The rest of the Autobots that had rejoined Team Prime - and their one Velocitronian representative - waited behind their leaders. Ironhide seemed particularly uneasy, hand on his weapon, restlessly stroking the barrel. Fowler could hear his engine revving above the neutral idling of the others. The old soldier seemed unwilling to believe that a ceasefire was possible, that this day would once more end in weaponfire and his stone-faced grunt of 'I told you so'; Fowler sympathized. He'd seen enough career officers, veterans of several wars, that never seemed to be able to let the war in their minds finally end. Old tensions were curdling the air into a thick miasma of bitter disbelief marbled with the sharp tang of an anticipated firefight. Fowler took a deep breath, praying that today, Ironhide's gut feelings would be wrong.

Jazz seemed to be just as anxious as Ironhide, but for entirely different reasons; the Decepticons had taken his spark-mate and children hostage. Giant transforming robot cars having wives and families had thrown off some of the soldiers assigned to Skywatch. Fowler was left to try to cobble together what little he knew about Cybertronian relationships and reproduction into an explanation for the green recruits that had been trained to see Cybertronians as dangerous, unfeeling robot Godzillas they might have to smash to pieces. The higher ups had threatened to kick him off the force for dangerously humanizing Cybertronians in the eyes of the Skywatch soldiers, but Prime had informed them he would not work with anyone other than Fowler. Unhappily, they had no choice but to let the paradigm shift happen, and several hundred human beings had sat through the clumsy explanations of spark bonding ("mystical robot soul-marriage"), generation ("magic glowy soul pregnancy") and the protoform process ("baby robots that grow up really fast but are still babies"). He wasn't even going to try to get into the whole semi-third-gender situation with Carrier types. No, that little mess he was going to hand off to Ratchet when the official debriefing on Cybertronian biology finally came due.

Fowler liked Jazz. Of all the Autobots that Fowler had come in contact with, Jazz was one of his favorites, right up there with Bulkhead in terms of "easy to get along with". The special operations soldier's affable, friendly nature and apparent fascination with Earth culture made him almost impossible for anyone to dislike. Fowler understood that Jazz's flexible, charming personality made him a perfect fit for his job, and under other circumstances, would have made him an incredibly dangerous con-man, but there was a stark, good-hearted honesty under all those layers of potential emotional deceit. It was for that reason that Fowler had allowed himself to be befriended by someone more slippery than a wet tadpole on a glass tabletop.

It was Jazz's mate that had triggered the scrapstorm of chaos aboard the Nemesis, which now, it would seem, was turning point of the Cybertronian civil war. The universe was funny like that; sometimes it was the actions of a single individual, intentional or not, that could end up changing entire civilizations. From what Fowler had understood, the whole lot of them - "Transformers" as they had been nicknamed - had collectively put on their chastity belts and swore off having children until the war was over. Their planet had started the notion by ceasing to produce new Cybertronians when the war began. It was the equivalent of God rendering the human race sterile until world peace had been achieved - or every combatant was dead. Had that actually happened on Earth, it would have been a sure bet that peace accords would have been signed in record time. Cybertronians, however, seemed to be just as doggedly thick-headed and stubborn as any human being.

Shiftlock - Jazz's mate - had spontaneously had babies. Or rather, she'd gotten sparked ("mystical robot knocking up") before the war had begun, and had discovered that her body had the unique ability to put the pregnancy on pause - just not indefinitely. Eventually nature took its course, and she needed protoforms ("magic robot baby dolls that the little glowy soul thing goes into") for the kids, which meant the Autobots had to steal them from the Decepticons, and in the process, get captured. Shiftlock had done what any good soldier would do, and gave up her freedom to save her friends, her mate, and protect her children. Autobots had the whole "noble sacrifice" thing down to a fine art.

For Megatron it had seemed like a slam dunk - hostages to keep the Autobots at bay for as long as he wanted, innocent new recruits for the ranks, turning the thumbscrews on the Autobots making them fight against their own children. It was sadistically brilliant, and Fowler would have believed it would have given the Decepticons an upper hand in both numbers and morale. Primus - their creator deity - seemed to have had other plans in mind.

Once Shiftlock had gotten on board the Nemesis, she somehow caused the Decepticon's collective biological clocks (did robots even have those?) to go off at once. Ratchet had said something about Cybertronians having electro magnetic fields which acted as an autonomic layer of communication beyond the five senses humanity used and proceeded to tell him about how that wave-field was related to understanding Bumblebee's random beeps as language, but it had gotten technical quickly and gone over Fowler's head. He mentally wrote "robot telepathy" over the discussion and left it at that. Nevertheless, that EMF of Shiftlock's had caused havoc among the Decepticon officers, and apparently resulted in some of the Cons getting families of their own. After millions of years of fighting just for their own personal interests, suddenly the tired notion of "children are our future" sounded like an alarm over their collective heads, making them stop and really consider whether or not a Pyrrhic victory was any kind of victory at all. Add to this the Vehicons being handed a copy of Megatron's original "little red book" on individualism and control of one's own destiny, and the resulting mutiny combined to bring about the situation playing out in front of Fowler right now.

"The ship's cargo hatch is opening," Captain Fairborne said into her communicator. "I want weapons locked and loaded. Be ready for anything."