Crash Into Hello

“Oh my aching circuits,” Small Foot muttered, as consciousness slowly returned to her. “My head feels like Crasher’s been stepping on it.”

Her eyes darted around the bridge of the Command Center. Even without checking any of the diagnostics or having a complete view of the ship, she could tell they’d taken heavy damage. The viewscreen was cracked, and she could see Turbo slumped over the pilot’s station, not moving.

Leader-One opened his chest compartment, letting AJ out and getting carefully to his feet. His eyes fell on Turbo and he frowned as he moved over to investigate. He winced as he walked, clearly ingoring his own injuries. “Turbo’s been damaged,” he said worriedly. “Everyone else okay?”

“I’m okay,” Scooter said, for once not simply reporting the facts, without any of his usual pessimism. “What about you, Nick?”

“I think I left my stomach back in outer space,” Nick said, “but other than a few bruises, I think I’ll be okay.”

“A little banged up, but I’m good,” Small Foot reported.

“What about you, Matt?” Leader-1 asked. When no response was forthcoming, he asked again, louder. “Matt? Matt?”

Nick and AJ ran to Matt’s side. He was slumped back in his chair, bleeding from a head wound. AJ tore a strip of cloth from his jacket, trying to staunch the bleeding.

“Is he…?” Scooter began.

“He’s alive,” Nick said. “Looks like he hit his head when we crashed.”

Leader-1 didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Do you think we can move him? We need to get moving, see if we can find help.”

“I don’t know, Leader-1,” Nick said. “He’s hurt pretty bad…”

“Turbo too,” Scooter said. “I sure wish Res-Q was here.”

Leader-1 frowned again. “We’ll have to risk it. We don’t know what’s out there and we don’t know how damaged the Command Center is.”

Small Foot had gotten to her feet in the meantime, and tried activating the hatch. “No good,” she said. “The controls are still broken.”

In response, Leader-1 fired a bolt of energy at the wall, blowing a hole in the side of the ship. “Normally, I wouldn’t,” he said, “but I think we can right this Command Center off anyway.”

Carefully, he picked up Turbo. “Once we’re outside, Small Foot, I want you to transform. We’ll put Matt inside your cab for safekeeping.”

“Good idea,” she agreed.

“Hey, just think,” AJ said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice, “we’re probably the first humans and Gobots to ever set foot on this planet!”

“Whatever it might be,” Nick said.

The world they stepped out into was very much like Gobotron, a metal world that nevertheless was able to support organic life. Small Foot wondered if someone had built it, like they had theirs. Was it possible some other people had been foolish enough to destroy an entire planet in the course of their war?

“Holy cow!” AJ shouted, pointing at the sky. “Look at that!” Small Foot and the others quickly joined in with their own shouts of surprise and alarm.

Orbiting the planet, like one of its moons, was a head of unprecedented scale. Its eyes were gone, but it bore a permanent scowl, and it was topped with sinister looking horns. Had it been some kind of robot? Who could have built it? And more importantly, who could have destroyed it?

“I’ve got a funny feeling about this place,” Small Foot said.

“You don’t… you don’t think it’s looking at us, do you?” Scooter wailed.

“It’s got no eyes, Scoot,” Leader-1 said. “It can’t look at anything. But there’s a city due East of here. We should see if we can reach it.”

“Looks like the city’s reaching out to us,” Nick said. “Something’s coming!”

There were four vehicles, a burgundy, orange, and red truck; a greenish smaller trunk whose colors had long since faded from what they must have once been, a pink and white car, and a green and yellow helicopter. They were sleek, all curves and sharp angles, clearly the product of some alien environment. Each of them was emblazed with a strange insignia, a bright red combination of shapes which added up to an approximation of a face.

Instinctively, Small Foot put herself in front of everyone else, bringing her arms up, just in case she needed her blasters. She wasn’t nearly large enough to form an effective barrier, but with Leader-1 encumbered with Turbo and Scooter lacking blasters, she was the only one who could mount any kind of defense. With Matt and Turbo injured, they were in desperate straits. “Don’t worry,” she said, trying to sound brave. But they were far from home, hurting, and about to face unknown aliens. Maybe Scooter was right to be a little bit afraid sometimes. “If they’re not friendly, I’ll hold them off…”

The helicopter reached them first and, as though it was a Gobot, it began to change, the shift in form accompanied by a strange sound--TSCHE-CHU-CHU-CHU-TSCHE—and a complex rearrangement of parts. The changing being landed deftly on both feet, never once losing his balance. His arms were brawny, his pale face topped by a crested helmet, his chest broad.

“Relax, kid,” he said. “The cavalry’s here.”

He may well have been the most singularly amazing being Small Foot had ever seen.

And then the other vehicles arrived, and began to change as well. A tall, fire-colored being with a huge yellow fin on his back. A boxy robot with a well-lined face. And… a female? One who seemed to have entirely too many curves to have turned into that car.

The fire-colored one assessed the situation, his blue eyes falling upon their injured, then on Nick and AJ. And then he spoke. “You want me to call you guys a tow truck?”