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hyper-accelerators achieved superb performance at sublight speeds and in hyperspace. Though the Ark’s main computer, Teletraan-1, wasn’t sentient, there were days Sideswipe could have sworn it was developing its own preferences—its own personality, however subtle. But Perceptor had assured him that was impossible and hadgone on to suggest that maybe Sideswipe should stick to driving and leave the deep thinking to the professionals.
    That rankled Sideswipe. So what if his job was being a pilot? He knew deep in his circuits that none of these other scrap heaps could do a better job. It was no secret in the ranks that some Autobots thought they were better than others, a factor that Sideswipe chalked up to the lingering effects of Cybertron’s once-rigid caste system. But back in those days all the Autobots were considered relatively unimportant. Now the business at hand was too important for distracting one-upmanship.
    Sideswipe glanced up as Optimus, Jazz, Ratchet, Bulkhead, and Perceptor strode onto the bridge. He grinned insouciantly.
    “Evening, gents, and thanks for flying Air Sideswipe.”
    Perceptor scowled as he strode past Sideswipe and activated the science station’s viewscreen. “Enough with the jokes,” he said. “We have serious business.”
    “Don’t you always?”
    “Show us what you found, Perceptor,” Ratchet said with some irritation. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a sense of humor, but the bickering between Perceptor and Sideswipe got old. Especially when there were more pressing matters to discuss. A green world appeared on one of the screens, planetary rings encircling it, holographed statistics scrolling alongside. Perceptor cleared his throat.
    “This is right in our path. And it wasn’t on any of the charts or databases we have.”
    “That doesn’t mean much,” Jazz said. “Much of our exploration data is millions of years old. Maybe somebody just missed it. Or a database got corrupted.”
    “A possibility, but I’m more inclined to believe that somebody deleted it.”
    Now
that
was interesting. “Deleted it?” Jazz asked. “When?”
    “Obviously not recently. The last update to the Universal Navigation Crystal was maybe two million back. The star charts weren’t well maintained during the civil war. But if you scan back far enough—we’re talking Golden Age or before—there
was
an update to this area of space, and I think that update might have been a deletion. I get the feeling somebody didn’t want us to know that this system was here.” He enlarged the magnification, filling the screen with a green hue.
    “Tell us more about this planet,” said Optimus.
    “It’s a ringed aquatic world, orbiting a K-class star.” Perceptor enlarged the view of the planet on the main viewscreen. “Weather systems cover most of the planet, but as far as we can tell, it seems to be almost entirely water.”
    “A water world?” Optimus mulled this over. “That’s a rare find.”
    More holographic displays blossomed. “Initial scans indicate robotic populations living under the water in highly concentrated areas.”
    “Submerged cities,” Jazz breathed.
    “Presumably. Unfortunately, the depth of the oceans precludes a more detailed analysis.”
    “What about the system itself?” Ratchet asked.
    “The central star seems stable,” Perceptor said. “They don’t have the same problem as Velocitron, at any rate.”
    “What do you think, Optimus?” Jazz asked. “Has the Matrix told you anything?”
    Optimus closed his optics, concentrated, and felt that fearful sense of being alone again. He had no idea why the Matrix would leave him in the lurch like this. But this was neither the time nor the place to bring it up.
    “It’s said nothing,” he said, trying to sound more casual than he felt.
    “Are you sure?” Perceptor asked.
    “All I’m sure about is that the Matrix said we take this heading. And that’s what we’ve been doing.”
    “For a long way,” said