Chapter Text
“Mission Log, Stardate….. honestly I’ve forgotten. It’s day 1475 of the mission though, only 16,787 days to go!” Hot Rod tried to force some optimism into his voice, but it was always a failure.
He was not doing well.
For the past however many years it was he’d been trapped on this tiny ship, scouting out the backwaters of the galaxy for any new signs of Decepticon activity.
Ultra Magnus, the current Autobot leader, had received intel reports stating that they were planning on moving into this sector at some point over the next millennium, so he’d sent out his best and brightest in scouting vessels to map out this place. Find any useful military targets so that the Autobots can claim them first.
He’d never really seen the point though. Despite not wanting to be rude to any of the locals, Hot Rod couldn’t see this entire area of space as more than an interstellar backwater. Dull and boring were the two words that came to mind first. Not even the galactic freeways went out this far, and the Vogons had built those damn things everywhere.
He still recorded regular status updates though. He never heard back, but he knew how much he’d be chewed out by Kup if he ever missed one.
Primus, he missed the old fool. He missed everybody.
He’d never regretted anything more than signing up to this mission. Kup had told him he would, but Hot Rod had just wanted to stick it to his old man and joined the military regardless.
He was right of course. He was always right.
The only way Hot Rod knew how to keep himself sane these days was by recording his ships log. Here it continues:
“It doesn’t matter what stardate it is anyway. Onto the report. Today there’s a class 3 comet 600 kilometres off the starboard bow, and an M-class star system 4 light years away. Long range indicate an organic population on the third planet, but it doesn’t look like anything to write home about. They’ve barely even achieved spaceflight, looking at these readings. Far too soon for a first contact.”
An annoying little yellow light started bleeping on his monitor as he was speaking. Hot Rod tried to ignore it, but the flashing little shite kept on pulsing along.
“Hold on, I gotta check this reading.”
Hot Rod swiped around to clear his controls of junk before he could see exactly what the problem was.
“Shipboard computer says it’s picking up a very faint distress signal from the planet I just mentioned. It’s old, really old. Several million years old at least. It says it’s from the…” Hot Rod had to double check the reading, this was unbelievable. “It says the distress signal is from the Ark? That’s impossible, the ship went missing millennia before I was even brought online. I need to go check this out. Hot Rod, signing off”
Grabbing the controls, he maneuvered his ship with actual gusto for the first time in what felt like forever. Hot Rod finally felt like he had a mission worth pursuing, and he was going to carry this out with all his might.
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Maruzensky looked up at the sky with a sad smile on her face. The night sky was gorgeous tonight, and the expected meteor shower tonight promised to be even more spectacular. She lay back on the picnic blanket she’d packed especially for this and she put an arm around the shoulders of Sakura Chiyono O.
She’d noticed her young friend was shivering from the night’s chill and offered some familiar warmth as recompense.
“Are you cold, darling?” she asked with a smile. “I can grab you a blanket from Tata if you need it.”
Chiyo blushed at this like the cute little thing she was and stuttered out what sounded like a yes, so Maruzensky got up and went to fetch her the blanket. It wasn’t far, her car was parked just a little way away, so she was back in a couple of minutes.
“There, sweetie, do you feel better?”
“Much, thank you Maruzen.”
She smiled down on her young protégé. Maruzensky was so proud of the progress she had made over the past few days in the leadup to her debut race, which was why she’d driven her up here tonight as a special treat.
The beauty of the night sky, however, could not fully conceal the troubled thoughts she was trying to hide away deep inside of her.
Maruzensky had had a superb career as a racer, winning every single race she had entered herself into.
All Except one.
The Japanese Derby.
A race an umamusume could enter only once in her entire career.
Maruzensky had not even been allowed to enter.
The URA had certain rules regarding the Japanese Derby, particularly the fact that no foreign-born umamusume could enter. Maruzensky had lived in Japan her entire life, was born there even, but the fact that her parents were American immigrants had barred her from entry before she was even born.
People had objected, of course. The press tore the URA a new one with their coverage, but ultimately nothing was done. The Japanese Derby came and went, without her participation.
Maruzensky had forced herself to accept this, but it never sat well with her. Her unfulfilled dream festered within her for a long time.
Festered, that is, until she met Sakura Chiyono O.
Maruzensky saw a lot of herself in the young racer. The same drive, the same potential to be an amazing racer. So she had passed on her dream to her.
Winning the Japanese Derby was Chiyo’s dream now, not hers.
That being the case, why did she still yearn for that race?
Looking up at the falling stars, Maruzensky made a silent wish. “I wanted to I could have seen if I could have won.”
As they cuddled together under the dark sky, one meteor seemed brighter than the rest.
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Cursing silently to himself, Hot Rod pulled himself from the burning wreckage.
A slight miscalculation upon entering orbit had resulted in the unsalvageable pile of garbage he’d just dragged himself out of. How could he have known that his ship wasn’t designed for atmospheric re-entry? That was never mentioned in the mission brief.
At least he wasn’t as badly damaged as his ship. He was covered in scorch marks, making his magenta finish more of a dark grey. He’d run a damage report subprogram three times only to find that that had broken too, so he had no idea how much more he had been hurt beneath the surface.
He just had to find a place to hide, rest and recuperate. Finding a new alt mode would be perfect, he’d hate to interfere with the development of a Level 3 civilisation.
Thankfully a lake was nearby that he could wash himself off with, and as he dove in he got to thinking about the distress call he’d picked up before. The Ark was located a fair distance away from where he had crashed, a full quarter of the way across the entire planet, but Hot Rod was certain that he could drive there easily. It’d not like he was on an island or something.
A little while later, he surfaced, still wiping the soot off with some lakeweed. There, now he looked good as new! He’d have to come back here later, Hot Rod made a mental note, there was a lot of large fish here he’d love to cast his rod into.
After he was dried off from his bath, he got to finding himself a new alternate mode. Keeping it as it was would be a horrible idea, he’d stick out like a sore thumb. A brief survey of the surrounding area found a road, made of some kind of tarmac. That was a good sign.
A brief walk down the road lead Hot Rod to what he had been after: a vehicle. Reminded him strongly of the alt modes his friend Sideswipe would prefer, but it wasn’t far off most of the forms he had taken in the past.
Sleek, red, and most definitely fast, it would do.
Hot Rod smiled.
It would definitely do.