Disclaimer: I do not own GoBots nor its characters. Just this strange plot.

Command Center One entered the Solar System in the midst of all the commotion.

"Aurora! Massive ship detected near Jupiter! It's ROGUE STAR!" Scooter yelled.

Aurora dashed to the front viewing windows while Scooter did a systems analysis on the looming ship.

"It's inoperative and all systems failing. I--I think it's going to explode!" Scooter added.

"She's certainly listing. That planet's gravity must be pulling her in." Turbo added.

Matt and the other humans looked in utter amazement. There were holds, bends, and other weird oddities dotting the massive ship's hull.

"No Renegades detected within." Nick mentioned from another scan.

"They've abandoned ship. We'd better put some distance on it as well. Scooter, head for Earth. If there's no Renegades here, we can definitely guess where they went. I'm sure Leader-1 and the rest of Shadow Brigade could use a little help right about now. But first--- TURBO, fire two salvos into that ship! I want to make sure it goes down in pieces and has no chance of salvage!"

"Yes ma-am! Commin' right up!" Turbo exclaimed excitedly as he charged up the Command Center's main weapons.

On Earth...

"Jazzmin, shut down ALL systems! We cannot be detected until reinforcements arrive!" Leader-1 exclaimed as Thrusters appeared all over the place.

"Evacuation or attack?" Spinner asked.

"They're not in any known attack formation and are not firing recklessly. Looks like you succeeded in dooming ROGUE STAR. Congratulations team. Good job! Now, Jazzmin, keep only minimal communications lines open. When my Command Center hails you, respond with your coordinates. Do NOT allow either ship or Guardian to engage in combat until I give the order." Leader-1 finished as he headed for the exit.

"You're going out there!?" Spinner asked incredously.

"Just a little recon. I want to know precisely where Cy-Kill and his main officers are. Once they are properly disposed of, the rest of the Renegades will fall easily enough." And with that, the Guardian Commander departed.

Outside the ship, he converted to jet mode and shot skyward, but with very little altitude. He would hug the ground and use the topography to remain somewhat undetected. Though humans below would not be pleased at a military fighter jet skimming over their rooftops at breakneck speed. Using a technique Aurora taught him and a new piece of equipment the Last Engineer had installed in his new mode...he scanned for female Renegade frequencies. Usually, where Crasher was...so was Cy-Kill. There were very few female Renegades. If he got the wrong one, he could simply switch to the next.

His flight was fairly uneventful as he continued into ever widening loops. He was always going to doubleback towards the resting Guardian ship as he awaited reinforcements. Then, as he was crossing the Austrian Alps, something caught his optical receptors. A Renegade...in vehicle mode...by itself. It was Fitor, Cy-Kill's second in command! Leader-1 couldn't resist. He had the element of surprise from several aspects. Shooting upward, following the contours of a jagged mountain, Leader-1 prepared for a pounce from above...high, hard, and fast...before the Renegade had a single chance of detecting Guardian presence or rattling off a distress call.

Like a diving falcon, Leader-1 cutoff his forward thrust, allowed gravity to stall him, and shot downward back towards the mountain in nearly the same path he'd ascended on. He closed on the Renegade officer within seconds. Opening fire, Leader-1 shot several blasts into the stunned Renegade, destroying the other jet's flaps and ailerons. Fitor had no choice but to slam into the ground...hard...very hard.

Returning to his prey, Leader-1 hovered over the Renegade wreck. Fitor was alive...but barely and was unconscious. Converting to robot mode, Leader-1 placed a neural lock on him, just in case the Renegade came to, then returned to jet mode. Using his energy net, Leader-1 picked up the helpless enemy and headed quickly for the Star Ray. He remained low to keep from detection as he arrived with his prize.

Jazzmin and Spinner were stunned speechless as Leader-1 returned and placed the captured Renegade in the med bay.

"Jazzmin, do what you can with him as far as basic life-sustaining repairs. Nothing more. Once done, place him in the holding cell, but keep restraining bolts on him. If he babbles with nothing good to say, restrain his mouth as well."

Jazzmin nodded and did as commanded. As she left the bridge, Leader-1 hailed his Command Center on a private frequency.

"Aurora, do you copy?"

"Roger that, Raptor." Aurora slightly altered his name just in case any Renegades or humans were lucky enough to tap into this secret frequency. Leader-1 was still considered deceased afterall.

"What's your locale?"

"Approaching Earth's Moon now."

"Rendevous at these coordinates. Enter Earthspace from a blind window. You DON'T want to be seen by human or Renegade."

"Acknowledged. Aurora out."

"Blind window?" Matt asked the female Commander. He was not familiar with this.

"Yes. We detected several uh, blindspots in Earth survelliance into space. Your telescopes and satellites are rather limited."

"And you Guardians never told UNECOM of this?!"

"Perhaps Leader-1 is slipping in his age? This is his turf, not mine. I only knew of it because of one of his reports Xemon had shared with me for use in one of my own missions." Aurora explained. In reality, it was for the protection of Guardians entering and exiting Earthspace. While some humans could be trusted, the species as a whole could not. Leader-1 had given Scooter the mission of finding these spots shortly after Cy-Kill had managed to control nearly the entire planet of humans once. Leader-1 was a GoBot that lived by the saying, 'once burned, twice learned.'

Around Antarctica...

"Cy-Kill, Fitor does not respond! His last communication said something about his Thruster losing power and having to ditch it somewhere over the Himalayan range." Crasher spoke as she tried to hail their second in command.

"This can't be happening! I need him to coordinate the Asian front in this attack. Crasher, take my Thruster and head for his last known coordinates. Report back any findings."

"Yes Cy-Kill!"

"Oh and Crasher?"

"Yes, Cy-Kill?"

"No attacks of ANY kind. Understand?!"

Crasher pouted, but nodded in agreement.

Back at the Star Ray...

Command Center One landed with a powerful whoosh of snow. Once there, Aurora immediately headed for the Star Ray. She missed her ship...and her teammates.

Leader-1 stood stoically upon the bridge monitoring and listening to all the goings-on. Jazzmin and Spinner were busy giving him reports and updates from monitors when Aurora casually strolled in.

"Ahhh, good to be back in familiar grounds again!" she sighed. Leader-1 turned and gazed upon her approach. Sight of her still sent vibes surging through his system.

"My Command Center wasn't comfy enough?" Leader-1 teased.

"Oh, quite comfy, but large and well, seemed the essence of work, work, and more work."

"Guess Scooter didn't give you the FULL tour of it then." Leader-1 winked.

"Perhaps after all this, you can PERSONALLY give me one then hmm?"

Jazzmin and Spinnner exchanged looks and stifled giggles. It was quite obvious now...the two commanders had it bad for each other. It would be interesting to see where it led when and if they all got through this alive.

"Aren't there a couple of monitors you two should be occupied with?" Leader-1 asked the two other Guardian females who were still preoccupied with the conversation of their commanders.

"Uh, oh, sorry Leader-1! Right on 'em!" Spinner replied with a slight tone of embarrassment. Leader-1 was indeed sharp as a tack when it came to work or the slacking of such.

With a whisper only Aurora could hear, Leader-1 said something that made her giggle like a schoolgirl before he exited the ship and returned to his Command Center.

"WHAT was that all about Aury?" Jazzmin asked her commander and dear friend.

"Nothing. Just that there's more to that jet than we think we all know." Aurora replied as she assumed command of her ship once again. "Ahem, now, back to business."

In the Command Center...

"Welcome back Leader-1! Boy, it's good to see you back on this ship again!" Turbo exclaimed. All the others nodded.

"Ship just doesn't seem to be the same without you." Nick stated.

Leader-1 nodded and gave them a grin in thanks. "Guardians, we have work to do! Scooter, link up with Star Ray's systems. We will only be able to communicate with them via typed words. No vocals. We will ALL be on radio-silence until further notice. Turbo, check all weapons systems and artillery inventories. I want to know exactly what we have on board and how much! Nick, A.J.-monitor Renegade frequencies and movements. Anything unusual or within 5 clicks of our position here...let me know."

"ROGER LEADER-1!" they replied in unison. Yep, everything felt routine once again.

"Matt?"

"Yes, big guy?"

"Come with me, I need to speak with you personally."

"Uh, sure." a surprised Matt replied as he followed the Guardian Commander towards the Command Center's Conference Room.

Meanwhile...

Crasher was cruising about the country roads of the Austrian countryside, seeking out Fitor's last known coordinates. The last signal she had received from Fitor's Thruster was leading her towards the looming mountains before her.

"This sucks. What a boring job. When I find Fitor I'm going to be sure he fully realizes how much I HATE being bored and all because of him." she muttered to herself. Converting to robot mode, she launched herself into the air and into the massive mountain range. Scanning for anything Renegade, she picked up his failed Thruster...or at least what was left of it. It had smacked hard into one of the mountains and shattered into millions of tiny pieces. Fitor had to have evacuated before this as this crash was definitely not survivable. Touching down near some of the larger wreckage, she looked about. Why wouldn't Fitor at least check in to say he had survived? Did he survive? The idiot certainly didn't ride this ship to its doom, he wasn't THAT stupid afterall. Something seemed amiss...out of place. It was time to follow one instinct she rarely used...female intuition. Firing her foot rockets once again, she took flight...towards the east and out of Austria, yet deeper into the craggy massive mountains of the Himalayas.

A couple hours later...on the Command Center

Nick burst into the Conference Room, interrupting Matt and Leader-1's conversation of battle plans. Both officers looked up from their maps at the noisy teenager that just charged in.

"Leader-1! Crasher's been detected approaching our area! She's only about ten minutes out!" Nick blurted quickly.

"Matt, stay here and continue formulating this operation. I'll go out and deal with Crasher."

"But big guy..."

"I already have Fitor. Crasher's their third in command. This must be my lucky day." Leader-1 replied with a smirk before dashing off.

Before he launched however, he returned to the Star Ray to inform them. Normally, they would've detected Crasher way before now, but Leader-1 had them locking all scanners on every single Thruster rather than individual Renegades.

"You're going alone? Shouldn't I do this just to keep your 'presence' a secret a little longer?" Aurora asked.

"I WANT her to see me. She was obviously sent by Cy-Kill to look for their wayward second in-command. So, she knows exactly where he is. She babbles when she's surprised. Plus for whatever reason, she responds to me better than anyone else."

"Careful jetbot. You might make me jealous." Aurora spoke seductively.

"Hardly Aurora. Crasher's a Renegade. I don't take kindly to Renegades."

"Oh really? I seem to recall a certain Renegade jet that stoked your afterburners."

"Only for the challenge in the air. Nothing personal whatsoever."

"Whatever you say, oh great Casanova...errr...Commander." Aurora coughed into a chuckle. "I look forward to adding her to our growing Renegade collection." she then replied as Leader-1 raised a brow, smirked, then shook his head and departed with a blast of high powered engines when he converted to jet mode just outside their ship.

Utilizing his scanners, he picked up Crasher's presence almost immediately. With a high speed swoosh, he arced for a direct intercept. She was flying low and slow over the crags and crevices...obviously searching and scanning for something. Leader-1 adjusted his course for a high speed flyby that would take him only mere feet above her. There was a quick crack of sound as Leader-1 went supersonic. Crasher heard it, but had no idea where it came from. The sound echoed through the entire mountain range. Human jets were known to do such as well so she shrugged it off and continued her scanning.

Suddenly, a huge swoosh of air sent her careening downward into the nearest mountainside with very hard thud. She slid down the side until landing on a flat ledge a few hundred feet below and less than twenty feet from a crevasse that seemed more like a bottomless abyss. Stunned, she tried to gather her bearings before another crack of a sonic boom erupted and shook the snow and rock walls. She could hear the thunderous roar of avalanches nearby, but looking up, did not see any placing her in immediate danger.

Leader-1 had completed his loop and returned to subsonic as he returned to Crasher's position. Using the sounds of the avalanches and whistles of the powerful winds aloft, Leader-1 dove beneath the mountain ledge Crasher rested on and slowly rose up in a hover. His nose cone was nearly touching her face when he finally spoke to the stupified Renegade.

"Freeze Renegade! You're my prisoner." Leader-1 spoke as his blasters lit as a threat to his intentions if she didn't.

"Who--who ARE you?" Crasher asked, feeling as if she were speaking to a ghost. Sounded like Leader-1, but didn't look nor act like Leader-1.

"Whatsamatter Crasher...forget me already? So much for a crush eh?" Leader-1 spoke...trying to make it a little more obvious without having to totally spell it out for her.

"Lead--Leader-1? But you're dead. We...we..."

"Yes. Now are you going to come quietly or shall I demonstrate this new form upon your worthless chassis?"

Crasher couldn't straighten out her spinning mind. Everything was happening too fast from Fitor's disappearance to the reappearance of a supposedly dead Guardian to, well...she'd had enough. "I yield Guardian. Have it your way. I surrender."

With that, Leader-1 converted back to robot mode just long enough to place restraining bolts upon her. In GoBot mode, her mind could see it was quite true...Leader-1 was alive and well. But his new vehicle form was amazing. She didn't detect it nor expect it and that was just speaking in a general sense of standard Gobotic scanners and defenses. This would not bode well for the Renegade cause. She was shaken out of her private thoughts when Leader-1 converted back to jet mode and she felt her body being incased in an energy web and hoisted into the air. Cy-Kill was not going to like this...not at all.

to be continued...