Exiles by Alex Irvine

were being torn between two speeds, not just of thought and motion but of existence and time themselves. Calling out to Clocker, Optimus realized that whatever he said would not survive the transition across the barrier. The sound waves would bunch and accelerate beyond the normal range of any bot’s audio sensors.
    He burst through the invisible boundary and reeled for a moment as his perceptions adjusted to the sudden whirl of existing in real time again.
    “Optimus Prime!” Clocker cried out, drawing his attention to the mouth of the narrow canyon where they had come down from the nearest road.
    Clocker was at that moment ducking away from a plasma beam that tore into the canyon wall over his shoulder. Optimus Prime deployed his ion blaster and tracked the source of the plasma fire. There were threebots grouped near the canyon entrance, laying down covering fire for a fourth, who at that moment was closing in on Clocker’s flank. The young Velocitronian, in a panic, fired wildly at the three and had lost track of the fourth, who was raising a vibrosword and leaning into a final charge to get within melee range.
    Optimus Prime calmly shot that bot down with his ion blaster and approached Clocker at a steady pace. “I am here, Clocker,” he said.
    “Optimus Prime!” Clocker called out again, almost as if he hadn’t heard. “They just came out of nowhere!”
    And that is where we will send them again
, Optimus Prime thought. The bot closest to Clocker tried to get to its feet, and Optimus Prime shot it again, the ion bolt blasting away pieces of its head and neck. It went down again, this time for good. Answering fire from the three at the canyon’s mouth staggered him momentarily. He reached Clocker’s side and dragged the Velocitronian back and around a knob thrust out from the canyon wall. “Clocker,” he said. “You must not panic.”
    “They came out of nowhere!” Clocker repeated.
    “No, they came from the road, just as we did,” Optimus Prime said over the impacts of what sounded like both slugs and energy fire against the sheltering rocks. “Now there are three of them. Ready your weapons.”
    Optimus Prime’s steady demeanor rallied Clocker. “Yes, Prime,” he said. His engine-blaster ratcheted back into place. “Orders?”
    “I am going to come out and go straight for them,” Optimus Prime said. “They will fire at me immediately. When they do that, you step out and focus on whichever of them is farthest away. That will prevent them from keeping up a covering fire. Understood?”
    “Yes.”
    Optimus Prime charged around the knob of rock andfound himself within striking distance of one of the attackers, who was hugging the canyon wall near Clocker’s original position. The bot raised a long energy rifle, but Optimus Prime closed so fast that by the time the bot got off a shot, he was knocking the rifle barrel upward with one hand while with the other he manifested his ax and crunched it sideways into the bot’s midsection. It slammed back into the canyon wall, wildly firing its rifle. Optimus Prime heard shouts from the other two bots and heard the roar of Clocker’s engine-blaster as its double-barreled fire chewed across a location at the mouth of the canyon. With both hands on his ax now, Optimus Prime severed the closer bot’s rifle arm and with the return stroke lashed his foe back into the wall, fatal gouges in its torso spitting sparks and leaking Energon. Optimus Prime was already turning away as it fell.
    The mouth of the canyon was obscured by smoke from engine-blaster impacts as well as a dust storm that roiled just beyond and set up swirls of dust inside the space nearer the ancient beacon. As the swirls reached the boundary, they slowed incredibly, keeping their shape even as their rotational velocity diminished so much that Optimus Prime practically could see each grain and mote.
    The impact of a studded club rang down his shoulder and arm, jarring Optimus Prime back into