Betrayal.

Epilogue.

In the end, just over three-quarters of the Earth's population were saved, for although the Harvester was on full power, it still took it three weeks to put the Sun out entirely, and within that time, the Autobots and Decepticons alike evacuated as many as they could.

Between them, Sam and Jetfire – who had already started when they arrived – were able to transport shipping container loads of people to a nearby uninhabited planet Jetfire had found which had food and water and not too many predators. Although not suitable for long-term habitation and colonisation, it could support them for weeks or months, which vastly improved the amount of people they could remove from Earth in the first place. Once the situation was explained, plenty of people were willing to pile into a shipping container, be spacebridged to the planet, file out, and let Sam or Jetfire go back with the empty crate to the Earth.

They met plenty of people who did not wish to leave. Some had relatives in different areas of the globe, and wanted not to leave until they had contacted them. Still others could not conceive of living on any other planet except Earth, and refused to go, although many of these changed their minds when the Earth began to react to the Sun's destruction with earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunami.

Many of those who chose to stay were elderly, and did so for altruistic reasons. "Take some of the younger ones, people who have not had as long a life as we," was a common response. Others begged them to take their families in their stead, although when Sam and Jetfire told them they could take them and their families, they were usually happy to go.

Wealth and power and position suddenly became obsolete: neither Sam, Jetfire or any of the Autobots or Decepticons were impressed or influenced by being told that this was General So-and-So or Prince of such-and-such, or that Person X would pay millions or billions of whatever currency to be saved: it was first-come, first-served. Transport vessels took on people at different locations while Sam and Jetfire spacebridged those in remote locations who would come to their crates or one of the ships.

The three vessels also took on as many people as they could, the transport vessels shuttling them back and forth only ceasing when all three vessels were so full that no more could be taken on board, and then they packed themselves full of humans, and they and the three mother vessels began the long journey back to an uninhabited but colonisable world the humans could make their own, stopping off where needed for food and drink for the human refugees.

Of course, the architects of the Sun Harvester Conspiracy had no desire to stay, and after a bit of argument, both factions agreed they had the same rights to rescue as other humans. However, it was agreed by both factions that the humans who had been involved in the conspiracy to use the Harvester to wipe out the Cybertronians would be asked to account for their actions, and then left in the hands of the Government of one of the human-owned planets of their choice. There they would be freed or face trial as that government saw fit. Condemning the conspirators to die on the Earth might have been seen as poetic justice by many, but both factions had agreed to let humans deal with human matters as long as humans let the Cybertronians deal with their own.

Where possible and practicable, the vessels did not restrict themselves to human life only: the Ark lived up to its name by taking on several pairs of animals, and putting them into cryo-sleep in a hold, webbing them to the walls so the floor space could be reserved for humans. Frozen ova and sperms were also taken and stored on board,

Jetfire and Sam were able to transport some of the aquatic species to nearby alien seas, although there was no guarantee they would survive being transplanted. Plants were reasonably easy: seeds and spores were small and easily transportable. However, they could not save them all, and Sam knew that the loss of the brown bear, the snow leopard, the giraffe, and others would be keenly felt by some of the refugees.

Only when their scans revealed no more human or animal life forms on the Earth did Jetfire and Sam themselves spacebridge back towards the ships, and then Jetfire showed Sam how to transform into cometary form, and they joined up with the three mother vessels and the twenty-four smaller escort ships. The vessels would deposit the humans on whatever suitable planets there were and then go back for those Jetfire and Sam had rescued: they could sort out which planets with what rulers or religion or philosophy they wanted to live on once everybody was safe.

Sam wondered if, once the pace slowed and he had time to dwell upon his transformation, he would cope as well as he had been so far, but then he shrugged the concern off. He was sure Mikaela and his parents would cope, although it was a big change to get used to, and Bumblebee, Ratchet and most of the other 'bots he'd been working with had already got used to it, were well on their way, or hid well any surprise or concern they had. It was himself, he thought, who would need to learn to get used to it, and he would, at some time, need to find out if his transformation had been the AllSpark's last gasp, its last action, or whether the power was still in him, waiting to be tapped.

But that, he decided, could wait.