E.S.S.

2388. Pitstop bowed his head and glanced down at his feet as the turbolift whisked him all the way to the top of Brave Maximus. The giant Autobot was stood at the north side of Ibex, towering over the spaceport below, called down to the surface by order of Star Saber. The lift doors hissed open and the Autobot medic walked slowly into the bridge – right in the centre of Brave Maximus’s head.

As usual, an array of panels and monitors were flickering with blue and orange light, chattering to no one and processing vital data.

“Anyone home?” Pitstop joked, trying to hide a certain sadness in his voice.

The central monitor screen (directly behind the bridge of Brave Maximus’ nose if you were looking from the outside) quivered into life and an image of the giant’s face appeared. “So why did Star Saber call me down to the surface?”

Pitstop stalled. “So, you must see a lot from up here?”

“Oh, this and that. There’s a group of Reductionists gathered at Ultra Magnus’ statue over in Praxus Square, Broadside’s search party for Optimus Prime has penetrated the borders of Tyrest, and Sideburn’s running late for a class… again!”

“He sure loves your stories! He was Gigatron this and Gigatron that last time I saw him.”

Brave Maximus chuckled and Pitstop paced around inside his head.

“And congratulations on your promotion to chief medical officer, by the way.”

Pitstop reached up and timidly drummed his fingers on the back of his neck. “Thanks. Means I have less time for racing these days. Which is a pity, really, and just typical since I promised Sideburn I’d race with him. He’ll beat me for—”

“Are you going to answer my question or what?”

“Uh, what question?”

“Why was I called down to the surface?”

Pitstop folded his arms for a second and then opened them again, pointing a hand to the ceiling. “You know I remember the first time I set foot in here.”

“Sure, we can play this game,” Brave Maximus said quietly and sarcastically.

Pitstop strode along the side of the chattering consoles, sliding his palm across the surface. “Me and Tow-Line spent the best part of a Vorn refitting you.” The medic then moved into the centre of the bridge and paused. He knelt down to the floor, tracing the outline of a panel with his hands. “We never figured out what was kept in here, though.”

“What makes you think anything’s in there?”

“It’s hollow,” Pitstop replied, knocking on the panel.

“It’s where I keep the fire extinguisher.”

“Very funny. We know it’s non-essential, otherwise we would never have got you started.” Pitstop rose to his feet, resting his hands on his hips. “So what’s down there?” he asked.

Brave Maximus paused for a moment. “I’ll show you what’s in there if you tell me what Star Saber wants.”

“Deal.”

With the panel removed, Pitstop could see two containers buried inside a deep chamber. One was about his size and the second was much smaller. He reached down and lifted out the small container. He reached down again, stretching his arms into the hole. “Could do with Tow-Line’s hook here,” he grunted.

“Leave that one for now.”

Pitstop sat back onto his heels. “Kinda glad you said that!”

The small box rested on the other side of the hole. There were no markings on its surface and its identity completely unknown. There was a lid, but it had been soldered shut. It contained a secret, hidden away from the Autobots for nearly a century.

“So you obviously want to open it then.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“If you promise to give me a chance to explain it.”

“Okay,” Pitstop assured, taking a methane torch to the lid.

With the solder melted, Pitstop grasped the lid and pulled it away from the box, peering inside. The box was full of a white chalky substance, solid with a rough surface. He pressed down on it lightly and it gave way under the pressure, crumbling around his fingers. “Weird,” he said.

If Brave Maximus had a heart, it would have jumped a little.

Piece by piece, Pitstop removed the soft white rubble from the box, keen now to see what had been kept from him.

Pitstop’s optics flared, instantly recognising, from his time on Earth, what the white packaging had preserved. It was a skeleton.

A human skeleton.

Pitstop glanced down at the skeleton inside the smaller of the two containers. “So time for me to put on the Reality Pod then?” he smiled.

“You said you’d tell me what Star Saber wants.”

“I want an explanation first.”

1988. In space station mode, Brave Maximus orbited the beautiful planet while his master journeyed to the surface. Plasma had come to Nebulos out of sheer curiosity, an extension of his obsession with Fortress Maximus, and maybe just to get a closer look at an organic species.

Plasma could not be held by the boundaries of the Cybertronian Empire. The Liege Maximo himself forbade interaction of any kind, particularly after the Phoenix incident. But Plasma could never understand why Autobots such as Fortress Maximus held humanoids in such high regard.

A short distance outside the capital city of Koraja, Plasma hid himself in the dense forest area and watched. He watched the Nebulans as they went about their day-to-day life. There was no fighting or domination, no treachery or struggle for power. It was really quite pleasant when all said and done, and Plasma was absolutely disgusted.

The Dominator had seen enough and was ready to order Brave Maximus to obliterate the planet, when he saw the figure of a young woman walk towards his position. Her name was Uvam, she was short and her dark brown hair gnarled itself around her head in an untidy mess. She saw Plasma and screamed.

Plasma leapt to silence her but stumbled upon the opening of a Vespteran nest. A swarm of massive wasp-like creatures erupted from the sandy mound. Uvam, a dedicated Vespteran spotter, dropped her note pad and ran.

The wasps flew up from their underground nest and swarmed at Plasma, attacking him with their venomous stingers. The girl hid undercover and remained still, knowing that they wouldn’t attack an inanimate object. Plasma thrashed his arms wildly into the air, growling at his attackers.

The robot fell to the ground, and the creatures stung, bit and gnawed at his armour. Plasma writhed in the sand, sinking his hands into the soft surface and clenching his fists in pain. The wasps buzzed ferociously into his audio receptors sending him mad. Plasma’s vision began to cloud. It was either from anger, or trying to fathom how such creatures were able to inflict such pain, or a combination of both.

Uvam could hear her heart in her ears as she tried to maintain composure. The alien noises of the screaming robot scared her more than the wasps. Her ears pricked, and she noticed the screaming becoming quieter and more muffled.

The Vespterans slowly pulled Plasma down into the sand and into their lair below. The grit scratched at this optics and filled his vocal aperture. He stopped screaming and was buried alive.

Circuitry crackled and the picture of Plasma’s time on Nebulos disappeared. “Hey, that was just getting interesting,” Pitstop protested.

“You can get more later,” Brave Maximus said sternly,” after you’ve told me about Star Saber’s request.”

Pitstop lifted the Reality Pod from his head and walked back over to the two containers. “Well, I’m guessing that this skeleton belongs to that girl.” He then noticed Brave Maximus’ scowling visage on the monitor screen. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop stalling,” he said.

The Autobot medic cupped his elbow with one hand and tapped his cheek with the other. “Star Saber has started to embargo Autobot interstellar missions, claiming they’re a waste of time and resources and weakening Cybertron’s political position in the galaxy if many of the Autobots are off-planet.”

“Hmmm.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy that either, I reckon he just wants to keep a closer eye on us.”

“So he wants to keep me on the surface?”

“Well, it’s not as simple as all that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Star Saber reckons that with the Barricade fully-functional again and with increased security measures, there is no longer any need for a Cybertronian Defence Force.”

“Am I getting the sack? What’s going to happen to me?”

Pitstop changed posture and emitted a sighing gesture. “The other thing is—

“The other thing is that Star Saber feels a robot your size is too… too costly to keep running, and that you’re using up valuable resources that could otherwise—“

“Pitstop?”

“E.S.S., Brave Maximus,” Pitstop said, his voice wavering. “Star Saber wants Entire Systems Shutdown, effective immediately.”

Nearly thirty breems passed before Brave Maximus spoke. “Pitstop, how well do you know me?”

The Autobot looked up from his thoughts. “I don’t know. Pretty well, I guess. I did help rebuild you after all.”

“Then you know how lonely I get, and how my size keeps me apart from the other Autobots.”

Pitstop cocked his head in sympathy. He hated himself right now, and he hated Star Saber even more for what he was making him do. “I know, my friend, I know.”

There was another long pause.

“So I want you to do it, to shut me down. I’m tired of living in solitude. Up here, when you’re all down there getting on with your lives, and I drift alone without one.”

Reaching into his medical kit for the tools needed to shut Brave Maximus down, Pitstop couldn’t say another word.

“Pitstop?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll miss you.”

The darkness reminded Pitstop of his first encounter with Brave Maximus, when he and Tow-Line were assigned to refit the dead husk of a giant. It sent a chill down his central strut then, and it did the same now. The Autobot medic’s footsteps echoed coldly around the insides of Brave Maximus’s lifeless head, and he felt like a lone bat trapped inside a disused belfry.

The silence fuelled his regret; the lack of chattering consoles enhanced a new lack of self-respect. He was a doctor after all, a benevolent entity that should be preserving life no matter what, not carrying out the misdeeds of a coward like Star Saber.

Working by the light from his own headlamps, Pitstop slowly packed his tools away. He paused, noticing the Reality Pod that Sideburn was so fond of. He picked it up, juggling the lightweight alloy frame in his hands. He considered for a second, wishing to learn a little more of Brave Maximus’ unknown past, and plugged the apparatus into his own power circuits and replaying the rest of the memfile.

But to be honest, whether alive or not Pitstop felt a strange comfort inside Brave Maximus, away from Star Saber’s Cybertron. He didn’t want to leave.

1988. In an attempt to destroy the attacking Vespterans, Plasma had self-destructed. Shards of burning armour were blasted through the insects like bullets, perforating their exoskeletons. Those that didn’t die fled the lair, leaving Plasma to die. He clutched the gaping, sparking wound in his chest with his left hand. (His right arm was on the other side of the cavern; the force of the explosion responsible for that.)

Uvam dropped down into the underground chamber with a thud, the fall knocking the air from her lungs. A surge of excitement lanced through her stomach at the sight of the fallen Transformer. Since the likes of Scorponok and Fortress Maximus left, the Nebulans had eliminated all their weapons of mass destruction, and the Council of Peers had asked the planet’s top scientists to devise a way to prevent any more Transformers from returning to the planet. The girl knew of Hi-Q’s plan to poison the planet’s fuel supply, but it was still being tested and a couple of months yet before being fully realised. And here in front of her, a forbidden fruit of sorts lay; a dying robot that needed her help, but one that was banned from her world.

Weeks passed and eventually Uvam had recovered the equipment she needed from Arcana’s old laboratory and installed it inside the cavern. The transfer had been painstaking, but she was sure it would be worth it. The explosion had ripped into at least seven of Plasma’s primary cranial circuits, and without immediate attention he would die for sure. Uvam worked solidly for hours -- soldering, circuit etching, and welding. Arcana’s notes on the Binary Bonding process provided her with all the information she needed on the anatomy of a Transformer’s brain.

Plasma returned online to see her smiling up at him sympathetically. A brief scan of his own memories revealed all the she had done to save his life. He knelt down in front of her, secretly amazed at the skill of an organic lifeform, and for an instant he questioned his conditioning on the subject by the Empire.

Pitstop cough-laughed as he removed the Reality Pod, considering the irony and the effort the Nebulan had gone to save Plasma. Pitstop walked over to the two containers. The larger one remained unopened, and Uvam’s skeleton rested where it was revealed in the smaller one. In many ways, the situation seemed to mirror his own; and if that young girl had the guts to go against the wishes of her planet’s leader, then—by Primus—so could he.

Pitstop opened the larger container.

Brave Maximus leapt back in surprise at Pitstop’s proffered hand.

“What’s wrong?” the medic asked. “It’s a human gesture that—”

“No, I know,” said Brave Maximus. “Just the first time I’ve ever shaken hands with someone the same size as me.”

The two Autobots smiled with the glimmer of juvenile mischief in their optics and shook hands. Pitstop was so pleased on so many levels. Brave Maximus had kept Plasma’s body in that larger container, and Pitstop had simply transferred his friend’s brain module to it. After all, a Transformers cerebral circuitry was the same size no matter the size of his body.

And then there was Star Saber. He would be furious that Pitstop hadn’t performed an E.S.S. on Brave Maximus, and that he’d cleverly worked a way around his fuel shortage excuse, and kept the behemoth alive without breaking the law.

“That’s one right up the aft for Star Saber,” Brave Maximus joked.

But best of all, and this pleased the ex-giant as much as it did Pitstop, was that Brave Maximus was no longer alone, detached from his fellows. He was at last on the same scale as the rest of the Autobots and able to interact, make friends, and truly live his life.

It was all Brave Maximus had ever wanted.