Picket Fences out In Space - Transformers Series

1. Gentlemen's Agreement

"I don't mean to sound braggadocios, my compatriot, but my internal radio antennae are prodigious, as should be expected for a proportional Cybertronian of my stature," Sky Lynx interrupted the music playing over his radio to to say to his single passenger.

"Number 1: Gross. Number 2: I don't know how to take that un-braggadocios-istically, Sky Lynx."

"That's not a word," the space-shuttle reminded Nightbeat.

"Why did you want me to know you have big antennas?"

"'Antennae'. I only meant to say that I am not entirely sure how you could hear a signal that I couldn't."

Nightbeat tapped his disproportional-and-therefore-more-prodigious-than-sky-lynx antenna. "These may not take up a lot of room compared to your 'internal sensors,' but mine are special. Blaster told me not to tell anyone, but I won a few shanix off him when he bet his ears were better than mine. We were listening to the Velocitron world cup at Maccadams. The poker wasn't going well for anyone so we tried a different game; whoever could announce the race winner first won the pot."

"And you heard them announce the winner before Blaster?"

"...Sure."

"I do say that is quite the accomplishment." Sky Lynx turned on lights on the exterior of his shuttle mode. They had now traveled 2 light-years from Cybertron's farthest satellite, and space had gotten dark. "And those award-winning ears told you the signal came from an uncharted rock."

Nightbeat didn't acknowledge the question, if it was a question. Sky Lynx had a bad habit of phrasing his questions in the form of non-interrogative statements. He's so used to people agreeing with him that he expects affirmation every time he pauses. Being a space-shuttle, you'd imagine that he'd have gotten used to the echo-y, mind-bending silence of space. And yet, Sky Lynx seems to fill every quiet moment with idle conversation, or his terrible music, or both simultaneously.

"Did you hear me, Nightbeat? Our point of contact is A-50-U." the space-shuttle-dragon pleaded to his passenger.

"Probably. At least, I have a high degree of certainty that's what the message said. It wasn't speaking Cybertronian, or any other language registered by the galactic federation. I haven't completely figured out the contents of the message yet. But I know spatial coordinates when I see them, and they pointed out here. It's not a planet, because then it would be on the maps."

"You told me it was a business venture concerning a historic site! Yet, now you tell me you don't even know what awaits us!" Sometimes his questions also end in exclamation marks. The chair that Nightbeat was sitting in suddenly went completely upright. Sky Lynx was making his passenger as uncomfortable as possible.

"I am in the business of discovery, and you are in the business of earning recognition. This transmission isn't in any known language, yet clearly it's intelligent. We might find a new race of creature! Or some tribe of our own race, speaking in some forgotten dialect! Who knows what these people would be able to share with us? And I suppose...any discovery we make that ends up in a history book will have our names in bold like vocabulary words."

The jab at Sky Lynx's character either went unnoticed, or wasn't seen as an insult. "Hrmph." Nightbeat's chair stopped trying to hurt him and went back to a relaxed reclining position. "Well now that the nature of our little romp has been made clear, I am inclined to agree."

Sky Lynx had achieved enough momentum to carry them the rest of the way, and shut off his jets. The shuttle and his passenger continued to slide across the invisible surface of space like ice cubes across a greasy linoleum floor.