They called it the Neutral Zone, supposedly because it had been a no-fire zone and relaxation area even at the height of the great Cybertronian Wars of ancient times. Nowadays it was one of the premier nightspots on Cybertron, in large part because it had facilities scaled for both Minicons and regular Transformers, and thus humans and full-size Zentraedi as well, making it one of the few places on the planet where all four groups could get together and unwind. The eldest six of the seven Sterling sisters were crammed into a Minicon booth right up front on the mezzanine, overlooking the stage. They were pleased to see that the place was packed, the mezzanine overflowing with WDF refugees, Minicons, and travelers, the lower level jammed with Autobots and Zentraedi soldiers (the latter from both Xeralia's battlegroup and the Queltaadu City garrison).

Maia, Miranda, and Therèse had seen the least of the band Mylene had suddenly and unexpectedly joined shortly after the sisters arrived on Cybertron. Emilia, who had spent the most time watching them rehearse, pointed out each member of Fire Bomber as they took the stage: burly Ray Lovelock, the keyboard player; tall, green-haired Veffidas, the nearly unspeaking micronized Meltrandi drummer; and wiry Basara Nekki, the Neo-Japanese frontman, with his spiky black hair and little black shades.

Maia hadn't liked Basara much the couple of times she'd met him - he possessed a full measure of that temperamental artist schtick, and she found him tiresome - but Mylene seemed to know how to handle him, and Maia had to admit she looked good with the rest of them, even in that absurd leotard-like red stage costume she'd picked up someplace. More to the point, she looked happy out there, and that was a welcome sight to her sisters after they'd watched their youngest endure so much misery in the days after the SDF-17's fall.

While the band futzed around with their equipment and got ready to go, a figure emerged from the crowd at the edge of the booth and asked, "Any chance an old comrade can squeeze in here?"

Komilia, sitting at the end, turned and didn't recognize the speaker for a moment. He was a tall, tough-looking guy, Nordically craggy and sporting long blond hair in a jagged ponytail, dressed in a red T-shirt, well-worn blue jeans, and black sneakers. For a second or two, Komilia just stared at him, trying to remember where she'd seen him before; then it came together and she blinked in astonishment.

"Petersson?" she asked. He grinned. "Swede Petersson! What the hell are you doing here, I haven't seen you in... jeez, forever! Shove over, you guys."

"I'm not sure we can," Therèse said doubtfully, but they managed it, one way or another.

"So who's this, now?" Emilia asked, slightly puzzled.

Komilia made introductions, then explained, "Olaf used to be a WDF pilot - "

"Wow, yeah, a million years ago," Maia said, remembering. "You flew with the Crimson Crusaders, didn't you?"

Petersson nodded. "For a couple of years, yes," he said.

"And he was an Eight-Ball before that," Xeralia put in. "You filled in for Dave Ritchie when he went on one of his hunting trips, right? I was in high school then. What're you doing on Cybertron?"

"I live here," Petersson said. "Have since I left the WDF... " He trailed off, aware that Komilia was looking at him oddly. "... What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind." She looked down at the stage. "Looks like they're about ready to go!"

Indeed, Fire Bomber's prep was finished. Grinning fiercely, Basara grabbed the mic at center stage and said, "How's everybody doing in the Neutral Zone tonight? No time to waste, let's rock and roll! Yeah!"

Well, at least he doesn't waste a lot of time with big stage raps, Maia mused as the band threw down the pounding intro to their first number. "Awright Buffalo!"

"They're not bad," Xeralia observed after the first chorus.

"Mm," Emilia agreed. She didn't understand a word of the song (it was in Japanese), but Mylene sounded confident as she took over the vocal chores for the second verse. Then again, she knew what she was singing; unlike Emilia, Mylene had bothered taking a bunch of different language courses in primary school, including Japanese.

"Okay, that song's officially going to be stuck in my head for a week," Maia said when the first number was over.

They played for an hour and a half, hard rock and the occasional power ballad, and if they weren't the most polished band ever to grace the Zone, they probably had the most energy. Besides, they were remarkably tight given that they'd only been rehearsing together for a few weeks, and whatever mistakes they did make, they covered or got around with skill and sheer panache.

After the last number, Basara - who had barely spoken between songs, except to yell an occasional title during an intro - went back to the mic and said, "All right! I wanna thank all of you for comin' out and rockin' with us tonight - and especially for being such a good crowd for our new member's very first show!"

(Crowd noise, especially from mezzanine center. Mylene went a little red, but the stage lights mostly covered it.)

"She's got somethin' she wants to say to ya," Basara went on, "so say hello to Fire Bomber's new bass player, Mylene Flare!"

Mylene stepped to the mic and smiled, a little shyly, out at the audience. On her shoulder, Guvava seemed to accept the cheers and applause as his own, making Mylene's sisters giggle at the sight of the tiny rodent preening.

"Actually," Mylene said after the noise died down a little, "everything I want to say, our last song can say for me. I wrote it after... well... after last month. I hope you take away from it something like what I put into it. Thanks."

Jeez. Hell of a downer to end on, sis, thought Maia with a frown - but then the band slammed down another huge rock intro, complete with a get-up-and-jump keyboard line. Mylene leaned to the mic, still driving them forward with her bass, and sang:

Runnin' outta self-control
Gettin' close to an overload
Up against a no-win situation
Shoulder to shoulder, push and shove
I'm hangin' up my boxing gloves
I'm ready for a long vacation
Yeah!

The others joined in behind her, striking a harmony as they dove into the chorus together.

Be good to yourself when
Nobody else will
Whoa be good to yourself
You're walkin' a high wire
Caught in a crossfire
Whoa be good to yourself

Up on the mezzanine, Mylene's six sisters grinned at each other. Little sister's going to be all right after all, thought Komilia with a grin.

When you can't give no more
They want it all but you gotta say no
I'm turnin' off the noise that makes me crazy
Lookin' back with no regrets
To forgive is to forget
I want a little peace of mind to turn to

Be good to yourself when
Nobody else will
Whoa be good to yourself
You're walkin' a high wire
Caught in a crossfire
Whoa be good to yourself

Be good
Good to yourself when
Nobody else will
Yeah!

They spun the outro for a couple of minutes, just kicking the melody line around from bass to guitar to keyboard and back again, before finally bringing it together and knocking it down - and then the place went crazy.

After a couple of encores - Komilia thought their mother would probably kill them all if she knew they'd let Mylene participate in a cover of "Honky Tonk Women" - the show was really over. The Neutral Zone started to empty out a bit, but a lot of people stayed; the place was a long way from closing time. A few of the Sterlings drifted away from the booth, some mingling with the crowd, enjoying their first real night out since Sonfall and their last night, in a way, as themselves. Therèse went backstage to confer with Ray and the rest of the band. Komilia and Emilia remained in the now-much-roomier booth with Petersson, having a snack and a drink and chatting about the old days.

Eventually Petersson excused himself, citing the lateness of the hour. As he stood, Komilia stood with him.

"It was great running into you again, Swede," she said. "You take care, hey? Maybe I'll see you again the next time I'm back this way."

Petersson grinned, his blue eyes twinkling. Once again Komilia had the strangest feeling that she knew him, and not just from his brief tenure with the WDF nearly two centuries before.

"I'd say that's very likely," he said. Offering a hand, he shook hers firmly, then put his other hand on top of it. "I'm glad you're feeling a little more sure of yourself, Komilia," he added quietly, his words pitched for her alone. "Good luck with everything you're about to attempt. If you need anything... I'm always around."

"Uh... thanks," Komilia replied, feeling a hint of a blush creeping into her cheeks at the direct, intimate way he was addressing her. It was as if he somehow knew - not just guessed from context, as anyone might have, but knew - what had been going through her mind and heart for the last few weeks. It should've been a little creepy, given that the man was a comparative stranger, a casual friend she'd last seen almost 200 years ago, but instead it was just... reassuring. And that was, in itself, a little creepy.

Petersson smiled, patted their clasped hands one more time, then turned and walked off, pausing at the doorway to salute. Komilia stood staring at the mezzanine exit for several seconds, her face blank.

"Uh... Komi? You okay?" Emilia asked.

"Where do I know him from?!" Komilia demanded, of herself as much as Emilia.

Emilia looked askance at her sister. "You said he used to be a pilot," she pointed out.

Komilia shook her head. "No, it's more than that. I... there's something about him I know from somewhere else. Something in his eyes. His voice. He - ... !!" She went wide-eyed, completely astonished, as everything suddenly came together in her head, and then she was pushing through the crowd, taking the stairs down from the mezzanine three at a time, pelting full-speed toward the exit, with Emilia trying her best to keep up and asking what was wrong.

Komilia ignored her, rounded the end of the Minicon walkway at the end of the full-scale bar, and burst through the side door into the alley beside the Neutral Zone...

... just in time to see the tail end of a silver semi trailer disappear around the corner and hear the sound of a powerful engine heading up the street out front.

She stood for a second, hands on knees, panting - and then, as Emilia emerged from the bar behind her and demanded to know what the hell was the matter, she burst out laughing for the first time in more than a month.

"... Komi? Are you okay?" Emilia asked, fearing for a moment that her eldest sister was cracking up completely; but when she looked more closely, she saw that Komilia was really laughing, laughing from deep within, as though she'd at last received the punch line of some very long drawn-out joke.

It was several seconds before she'd recovered composure enough to answer, at which point she put a hand on Emilia's shoulder, wiped at her eyes with her other forearm, and said, "I'm fine, Emi. I just... it'd take too long to explain. C'mon, let's go mingle a little."

As Emi opened the side door to the Neutral Zone and they stepped back inside, Komilia added conversationally, "Did I ever tell you I used to have kind of a thing for Petersson back in the day?"


Saturday, October 20, 2288

Komilia zipped up her new duffel bag (an anonymous one acquired at the Autobot PX), shouldered it, looked around the room that had been more or less her home for the last month, and sighed. Arrangements made, goodbyes said (including a deeply amusing, perfectly straight-faced vidphone conversation with Optimus Prime), everything as much in order as it could be, under the circumstances... check. Time to go.

All the planning and thinking and running around came down to this. The seven of them, scattering into a galaxy in upheaval, full of people who wanted them dead for no really good reason, where every value they held dear was scorned and the natural order of things sometimes seemed completely inverted. Goals: uncertain. Mission duration: unknown. Guarantee that things would be better someday: none.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us, she thought, picturing her mother's solemn face.

She sighed, turned, and left the room.

All of her sisters were waiting outside, on the plaza next to the road that led to the Iacon spaceport. Like Komilia, Therèse wore a generic flightsuit of a kind worn by itinerant spacers and mercenary fighter pilots all over the galaxy, and had an anonymous bag containing her few possessions on her shoulder. Maia and Miranda wore their black CVR-3, shorn of their identifying markings. Emilia had on a coverall that could've belonged to anyone from a starship mechanic to a freelance Destroid jockey. Mylene wore subdued street clothes and a leather bomber jacket. Only Xeralia really looked like herself, in her Meltrandi officer's uniform with its gold-edged scarlet coat.

"Everything's all set for us at Port Iacon," Therèse reported. "I took care of it with Ray last night."

"Our Legios is fueled up and ready to go," Maia said.

"And my shuttle's standing by," Xeralia put in.

"Well," Komilia said, "I guess this is it, you guys."

"I guess so," Emilia said, sounding subdued. "My Rifleman's already aboard. Captain Henriksen's raising ship as soon as I get there."

The others all turned for a moment and regarded the second-youngest sister. She was the only one of them who was going off into the unknown entirely alone, something that had weighed on all the others at one time or another over the last few days.

"You can come with us if you want, Emi," Maia said. "You know we'd be glad to have you."

Emilia cracked a slightly wan smile. "I don't think you guys could get Dangerous Dave in your Beta's bomb bay."

Miranda looked downcast. "I guess not."

"Hey, cheer up," Emilia said. "Didn't we just go over this the other day? I want this. Not that I wouldn't rather we were all able to stay together - but if we can't, then I think this is how I can do the most good. And if that means I have to be all on my lonesome for a while, well... that's the price I pay."

"Well, before we all go our separate ways, I have a little something for all of you," Therèse said. She took her bag off her shoulder, opened it, removed a few small objects, and handed them around. "I had them made by a machine shop in Sonplex."

Miranda held hers up and looked through it. It was a ring, a plain but well-made band of some dark-grey, lustrous metal, slightly heavy for its size. Looking around at her sisters, she remarked,

"Does this make us the Dwarven-kings?"

"By the time this is over, we may have cause to wish we had a hall of stone," Therèse remarked. "But no, no magic here. They're trithyllium steel. Practically indestructible. I thought they might make nice keepsakes. A little something to remember each other by."

"And not marked in any way that would give us away to outsiders," Komilia observed with approval in her voice.

"Right," Therèse said. "The significance is all internal. Safest that way."

Xeralia slipped hers on and admired it. "Handsome, yet understated. Very discreet. I like it."

Emilia regarded hers. "An unbreakable circle," she mused, then grinned and put on the ring. "Just like us."

The sound of an engine heralded the arrival of Hound, who came around the corner and pulled up near the group.

"Afternoon, ladies! Somebody need a ride to Port Hydrax?" he asked jauntily.

"That's my cue," Emilia said, putting on her ring. "Just as well, I hate long goodbyes. See you guys around, hey? Try to remember what Dad told you."

"You too, little sister," Komilia said, hugging her. There was a brief free-for-all of embraces and farewells, and then Emilia climbed aboard, Hound pulled away, and they were six.

The rest walked in a subdued frame of mind across the bridge to Port Iacon, where they parted from Xeralia and watched as her shuttle lifted off to return her to her flagship, and they were five.

Their next stop was the hangar where Therèse had fixed up their fighters. Like their CVR-3, the Shadow Legios fighter belonging to Maia and Miranda had been stripped of its identifying markings. These had been replaced with a civilian registry code provided by Jazz, Autobot operative extraordinaire, who had connections in all sorts of interesting ministries and bureaux around the galaxy. The two Valkyries brought in by Komilia and Therèse had also been repainted, their distinctive (and now very dangerous) Eight-Ball markings replaced with an equally distinctive black and red color scheme featuring a crimson and gold eagle crest.

" 'Southern Cross Crusaders' ?" Mylene remarked. "That's what you're calling yourselves now?"

"It seemed safer than 'I Can't Believe It's Not Eight-Ball Squadron'," Therèse said dryly. "That's what we'll be sporting as we're escorting your band around the galaxy. Just a couple of hand-to-mouth mercs earning their way by providing security for a touring rock band."

Komilia reached into her flightsuit's top pocket, took out a Velcro-backed name tape, and stuck it on in the appropriate spot. "Remember," she said to Mylene. "As soon as we leave this hangar, I'm Libby Jenius, and this is Erin Chao." She gestured to Therèse, who was applying her own name tape. "We're not related - to you or each other."

Mylene eyed Therèse's pink hair, then her own, only a few shades lighter.

"... You really think anyone's gonna buy that?" she asked.

Therèse smirked, pulled back a cuff of her flightsuit, and pressed her thumb against a pressure point on the inside of her wrist. After a few seconds, her hair began to darken, then turned abruptly brown.

"Isn't science wonderful?" she remarked. "And speaking of science, I've got something for you, Mylene." With this, she went to a tarp-shrouded object sitting between the two Valkyries and whipped off the cover, revealing a bulky, gleaming scarlet motorcycle. Mylene's green eyes went wide.

"Wow!" she said. "Is that - "

"It's a Bahamode Garland," Therèse confirmed, nodding. "A Veritech battlemover. Brand new, made right here on Cybertron. I know Mom gave you some Garland training; think you can handle it?"

Mylene grinned. "I'll sure try. Thanks, Ter - er, Erin, who I'm not related to and don't even know that well," she corrected herself with a roll of the eyes.

"You'll never be able to get her back home by bedtime if you give her something like that," Maia remarked with a smirk. Mylene shot her a look, but saw that she was kidding and said nothing. "Anyway, I guess it's time for me and Mir to hit the trail too. You guys watch out for yourselves."

"You too, Maia," said Komilia. More hugs, more partings; the twins mounted up, fired up their Legios, taxied out, and vanished into the starry black of Cybertron's eternal night, and they were three.

"You better get going, Mylene," Komilia told her youngest sister. "Ray's raring to go. He hasn't had his own ship to fly since he left the WDF."

"Basara's kind of ticked off about that, by the way," Mylene said as she swung into the saddle of her Garland. The bike was practically a car to a girl as small as Mylene, but she handled it with assurance, and for all its size and potential speed, the Garland, with its computerized controls and automatic emergency systems, was well-known as a forgiving ride.

"Only Basara could manage to be ticked off about getting a free starship," Therèse grumped.

"He's got some hang-up about accepting charity," Mylene said. "I told him it was my way of thanking him for giving me my big chance with Fire Bomber. That seemed to satisfy him." She shook her head and thumbed the Garland's starter. "Men."

Komilia laughed. "You have no idea, baby sister," she said. "All right, get going. We'll join you in orbit and we'll all head out. See you on Earth."

Mylene looked momentarily subdued, as if reaching the moment of departure had made her fully confront the strangely shifting axis of her world; then she shrugged it off with the resilience of a teenager, revved her Garland, said, "Hang on, Guvava!" and zoomed out of the hangar, and they were two.

Therèse and Komilia stood side by side and watched her ride across the spaceport toward the revetment where Fire Bomber's new ship was parked. Then Therèse sighed and put a hand on Komilia's shoulder.

"Are we doing the right thing, Komi? Any of us?" she asked.

Komilia sighed.

"I don't know, Terry," she said; then, with a wry grin, she added, "But if it turns out to be wrong, well, we'll try something else."

The two sisters shared a smile, then turned and went to their fighters.

Next stop, Earth.

"Partings" (Part 5 of Patience, an Exile Mini-Story Serial) by Benjamin D. Hutchins and Philip J. Moyer
Patience Plotted by Philip J. Moyer
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© 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited