AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The moment you've all been waiting for (or perhaps loathing, I dunno) - the oft-threatened Transformers/Star Wars crossover!

This is my first multi-chapter foray into the live-action TF universe, and I haven't written a Star Wars fic in over a decade, so please have a little patience with me while I get back into the groove of things. Though in a way it's refreshing to revisit a universe I used to play in a LOT as a fledgling fanfic writer. And kind of neat playing around in the live-action universe too.

I'm using the 2007 Transformers movie as a basis for the main plot, and pretty much ignoring the concepts of the rest of the series save certain characters. I'll also be mostly ignoring the Star Wars Expanded Universe as I go, though Disney did most of that work for me by jettisoning most of that already...

Opening segment comes from Optimus Prime's opening monologue in the 2007 movie. Captain Niven and Lieutenant Crispin are named after science fiction authors Larry Niven (best known for Ringworld and The Mote in God's Eye) and A. C. Crispin (who, incidentally, wrote the Han Solo Trilogy).

Stay tuned for more! If nothing else, this should be a fun ride.

Before our time began… there was the Cube.

We know not where it comes from – only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That is how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony. But like all great power, some wanted it for good… others for evil.

And so began the war – a war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death… and the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space.

We scattered across the cosmos, hoping to find it and rebuild our lost home. Searching every star, every world… and just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called… Tatooine.

But… we were already too late.

Twin suns shone down on an endless ocean of rolling dunes with pitiless clarity, illuminating the red-gold sands and hard blue sky with such brilliance it was difficult to look at either for too long. Heat rippled the horizon in all directions, and an insistent wind burned more than it cooled, stirring the blazing air about without dropping its temperature by so much as a degree. A scuttling insect, the only sign of life in the blistering landscape, wriggled out of the sand and peered about with tiny compound eyes, then squirmed its way back underground as if deciding the action hadn't been worth the bother.

The searing tranquility was broken only minutes later as a gray-green beast hauled itself over a dune, bawling unhappily as its rider prodded it in the side. The dewback plodded over the crest and down the side of the frozen wave of sand, leading a squad of soldiers whose white armor had gone nearly tan from the sand and sun. Said soldiers fanned out and made their way down the shifting hill, sinking ankle-deep with every step, visored gazes sweeping the desert.

The dewback snorted and turned back the way it had came, as if assuming the stormtroopers had this matter well in hand and it wasn't needed anymore. Captain Niven prodded the creature behind one tiny earhole, and it grumbled irritably but continued down the slope.

"Spread out," he ordered. "Cover the entire quadrant. Report back with anything interesting, even if it's just a cactus that looks out of place. We're taking no chances."

"Copy, sir," Lieutenant Crispin, his second-in-command, replied.

Niven watched as Crispin and the rest of the group scattered upon the sands. He would never admit it aloud – not to his men, and especially not to his superiors – but he doubted his squad would find that wayward escape pod anytime soon. The coordinates they worked with had been maddeningly vague, giving them dozens of square kilometers of sand to tromp through. And without a life form in the pod to track and with metal detectors rendered useless by centuries worth of shipwrecks and abandoned vehicles and droids littering this husk of a world, that left searching on foot. Which could take weeks, even with multiple teams dispatched to comb the desert.

Not that we have weeks, he thought darkly, gaze flicking toward the sky. The Devastator would be long gone by now, but Lord Vader's specter still hung over them. He would know of Niven's failure, and he had no illusions as to what fate would lay in store for him if they didn't find the pod very soon.

The dewback had paused to nose something interesting in the sand – a pile of bantha dung from the look of it – but it honked and kept moving as he dug his heels into its sides. They would search diligently, even if the cause was hopeless. Perhaps they would get lucky and happen upon the pod and its contraband cargo. Perhaps Lord Vader would be understanding if they strove with all their might, even if the search came up fruitless.

Perhaps shaak will sprout wings and fly.

His cynical musings were cut short by a shout from the far end of the "valley" created by two massive dunes. "We found something!"

Niven felt himself perk up just slightly, and he nudged the dewback forward. Luck was on their side after all. Unless the idiots that made up most of his squad had just found a caravan of Jawas or something else inconsequential… but he doubted that even they would call his attention to anything unimportant.

His mount crested the second dune, and man and beast found themselves overlooking a flat expanse of sand littered with chunks of twisted, half-buried metal. A three-meter spear of pitted, corroded steel jutted out of the sand five meters away, like the fin of some predatory fish. Up ahead, several troopers were clearing silt away from a jagged wreck that gleamed dully in the twin suns.

Not the escape pod, then, he sighed. But then again… not any ship I'm familiar with. Not unless the Rebellion is in such dire straits that they're welding random scrap together to build their starfighters… and this thing looks ancient, as if it hasn't flown in decades…

The dewback bellowed and shuffled back from the wreck, spine arched like a tusk-cat confronting a rival pride. Niven cursed and whacked the beast with his prod, but it continued to back away, howling its displeasure. No amount of kicking or jabbing could coax it another step forward.

"Dumb animal," he growled, sliding down from its back. He managed to haul it as far as the steel spike, where he lashed its reins to the metal and left it there while he trekked the rest of the way on foot.

Lieutenant Crispin had a holorecorder raised, carefully taking images of the derelict, while other troops surveyed the wreck for any signs of life. Niven stood beside his subordinate officer as he took in the sight more closely. Dull silver and pitted with age and exposure, it looked like a motley assortment of metal scraps cobbled together into a rough approximation of a one-man starcraft. Oddly, he could see no sign of a cockpit, nor any damage to indicate that there had ever been one. And it bore no sigils that he was familiar with – not the Imperial crest or the Rebel phoenix, not even the outdated insignia of the Old Republic or the ancient markings of the Sith Wars. A private craft, perhaps?

"Never seen anything like it," Crispin noted. "Custom job, you think?"

"Would almost have to be," Niven replied. "No manufacturer in his right mind would design something so ugly." He approached what he assumed to be the bow of the craft, brushing his hand over the metal. Grime came away on his gloved fingers, revealing a sharp angular crest with triangular eyes glaring out of an almost beak-like face.

"Any idea how old this wreck is?" he asked.

Crispin shook his helmeted head. "Could be years, could be centuries. It's been buried a long time. I'm going to guess a recent storm uncovered it."

Niven nodded. "Have you reported this to Lord Vader yet?" It wasn't an escape pod, but it was definitely an unknown ship with suspicious markings. Better to play it safe and inform the Sith Lord, even if it amounted to nothing in the end.

"I was about to." Crispin thumbed the recorder back on, catching an image of the crest Niven had uncovered.

"Don't wait too long. This thing could save our necks if we end up not finding that escape pod."

"The tech inside is spectacular," Crispin noted, a hint of boyish glee in his voice even as he ignored Niven's warning. "You should have a look. Even as old as this thing is, its cutting-edge tech… whoever designed it was way ahead of their time!"

"In that case, Lord Vader's REALLY going to want this," Niven replied. "You know how he is about any new technology…"

The dewback howled and yanked at its reins, rearing up on its hind legs in agitation.

"For stars' sake, what's wrong with you?" Niven growled, turning toward the beast.

Crispin made a sound as if about to reply… but whatever he had to offer, Niven would never know. For the world shattered at that moment.

Stormtroopers fell back from the wreckage as it lurched, crusted dirt and rust falling from it in thin streams. Niven stumbled back, his gaze moving instantly to his feet. Quicksand? Sinkhole? Sarlaac? Probably sinkhole, sarlaacs were thankfully rare and there was virtually no possibility of quicksand suddenly springing up beneath a decades-old shipwreck…

The dewback screamed its terror to the skies as the ship lurched again, hauling itself upright. Niven and Crispin watched in horror as it split open before their eyes, unfolding like some hideous metallic flower. Plating and internal components shifted and reconfigured themselves, revealing limbs, digits, a lump of fragmented metal that looked almost like a head…

By the bones of the Whills, Niven thought, before all thought was flushed from his mind by a surge of panic.

Crispin, unlike his superior, kept his head. "Shoot it down! Now!"

The squad obeyed, and scarlet light flashed as they opened fire on the metallic giant. Bright red optical sensors flared to life as if in response, and the creature seemed almost to flinch as bolts of superheated plasma impacted against its plating. It hunched its broad shoulders, slabs of steel almost like wings folding low over its back in an effort to protect itself. Thin plates of metal peeled back from its face, revealing spikes of iron that looked almost like fangs in an approximation of an angry snarl.

Some new assassin droid, Niven thought, his brain scrambling to make sense of what he was seeing. Cleverly designed to disguise itself as a shipwreck. But who in their right minds would build a droid so HUGE? And so monstrous?

The droid – if that's what it truly was – slashed out with a clawed hand, knocking several troopers over. Two scrambled to their feet and kept firing, while a third writhed and gripped the gash that split the armor covering his torso, crimson spattering the dusty white. Two more lay still and silent.

"Get the cannon!" Crispin shouted, shoving at Niven. "Captain! CAPTAIN!"

Niven shook his head, trying desperately to slough off his panic. He turned and bolted for the dewback, angling for the heavy pack containing the dismantled cannon.

He never reached it. The mechanical giant raised one clawed arm, the limb's parts sliding apart and locking into a new shape – something a civilization still reliant on projectile weapons might call a gatling gun. The weapon rattled, unleashing a hail of metallic bullets… and Niven went down, the gold sand beneath him staining red.

Crispin lunged for the cannon, but the smell of blood and hot metal had finally driven the dewback into unquenchable panic. It snapped its reins and bolted, moaning in fear, leaving behind a trail of dust clouds.

The Lieutenant turned back to the creature… just in time to see a massive foot, split down the middle like a cloven hoof, come down on top of him.

Once the mech had dispatched the pests that had roused him from stasis, he wiped his claws in the sand and squinted into the sky. Binary star system, carbon-and-oxygen-based planet that somehow boasted life despite the harsh conditions… this was the world he had come for. This was his destination.

So close… he was so close. But victory was not yet within his grasp. It was one thing to narrow the search down to one world out of millions, quite another to actually search the many nooks and crannies on said world. What he sought could be anywhere… and worse, the natives could have found it by now. The thought of disgusting organics fouling the artifact with their greasy paws turned his fuel tanks.

But he had waited half a century for some foolish sentient to awaken him… he could be patient a little longer.

A gleam of sunlight on metal caught his attention, and he strode over the dune to investigate. A shuttle of some kind, no doubt the vehicle belonging to those armored pests. It was pathetically armed and hideously ugly by his kind's standards, but it would do for now.

It was the work of less than a minute to scan the shuttle, and to reconfigure his frame to accept it as an alt mode. At the end of the process, two identical shuttles sat side by side in Tatooine's sands, wings folded over their backs like gigantic metal butterflies.

But only one shuttle rose into the air and soared toward the horizon, leaving its brother to the desert scavengers as Starscream continued his search.