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Copperchip stared into the star that stood far away in the deepest of space. Brighter than the now dry smelting pits of Kaon and more alive than any spark he had seen getting extinguished.
His optics had probably taken permanent damage at this point but that was sitting quite well with him. He had long accepted their fate, and if partial blindness was the price to look at suns until the Energon had dried in his lines that was alright.
They were going to be alright.
"Welcome home. It is a pleasure to be receiving you."
The words were stuck to their plating, had drilled into their helmets and burned through their circuits. The air was dry and the lights were out and Copperchip was listening to the other two mechas, Grit and Sizzlegap, who had somehow found the energy to talk.
There was a fourth one, Razortop, but he had not given any signs of life for the last few planets and at this point they were too afraid to ask him if he was still alive.
"They are not Cybertronian, no, not Cybertronian. Something else. Underdevoloped." They were laying on their backs in a small ship. There was no energy left and so they had drifted through endless space for what felt like a servo full of lifetimes. The message had been caught by their long-range detectors - the first real sign of life since they had seperated from the main ship.
Copperchip didn't take his optics off the distant star. Yellow and orange he could almost make out the sunspots and the corona. His voicebox crackled as he spoke. "And you are sure you have the source fixed?"
"Small planet. This solar system. Not too far. But we won't pass it if we keep drifting." Grits voice was far too small for a mech his size and without looking Copperchip knew that none of them would make it much longer. They had been alive for too long and death was calling for them.
He had to ask the question nonetheless, the question that loomed over them and that had loomed over them in every klik of the past century.
"Would we manage?"
And it hurt to ask because even if the answer was yes none of them could get up and take control of the ship. There was nothing left of them, they had grown into one entity of exhaustion and hollowness.
"Yes", Grit anwered anyway. "We would manage."
Copperchip felt his digit twitch and he leaned closer against the small window that connected him to the outside. Dark and freckled with gigantically small suns.
They had called themselves alive once. Then, after the first imprint of conciousness they had found a sense of self. People around them had given them a name: Cybertronian. It had opened worlds, and mere seconds later it had taken them away again. "Constructed Cold". "Workers". "Disposable caste".
Ah, the anger, the betrayal. If he tried really hard Copperchip could still taste them in the husk of a spark he was dragging around.
They had stopped being "Disposable caste" when the war began. They had called themselves Decepticons once.
Now they were neither Decepticons nor workers nor Cybertronians. And most of the time none of them would dare to call themselves alive either.
The light of the sun reflected on a scratched panel and for a klik the inside of the ship was bright again. The starlight was trapped in their cell and engulfed their frames, laying dead and still on the ground as if their sparks had been extinguished without them noticing.
But the light lead the last fragments of emotion and sense together and let it collide for what might have been the last time.
Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, the need to exist ripped them out of their motionless trance.
"Do you believe that there is a species out there that invites other species to their planet without being afraif of the wrong people gettig the message too?", Sizzlegap mumbled with the barest touch of doubt in his voice.
Grit, whos servo was resting in that of Sizzlegap, would have shaken his helmet if he had had more energy. "Trap."
"You think? Doesn't sound like one."
"It's just two lines."
"They called it 'home'. 'Welcome home'."
Welcome home. A dream too sweet to have any resemblance with their reality.
"I want to go home", Copperchip said silently and the sun pounded through his helmet.
My burden. Something life can give me. It has nothing else to give.
And they all wanted to cry.
"Do you think they are still out there?" From Sizzlegap it didn't sound like a question but rather like a statement that searched acknowledgement.
"Don't worry. Cybertron is thriving again. I can feel it in my spark", Grit reassured himself. "They don't die that easily."
"What if they do survive?" Copperchip could have anwered that question himself, but he wanted to listen to them talk for as long as possible.
Do we really live eternally? Will we collapse under the weight of memories at one point? If we start dying from old age, will we try to keep the memories alive or let them vanish in the solar dust?
He'd like to have those questions answered by them too, but the fear that they would make it that far was overwhelming enough to keep him silent.
Grit send a carefully placed pulse over the bond to his mate, who answered with an equal pulse. "It will be alright. All will be fine in the end."
Copperchip knew that if he looked at them his newfound blindness wouldn't let him see anything, but he heard the round splinters of adoration in their voice and nothing in the world meant more to him that that, not even the suns passing by through eternity.
Even if he didn't notice, that was the moment he came to his final decision.
"If our kind dies, do you think it will be when the universe collapses? Or earlier? Maybe we are the last ones left", he said and set himself into motion.
Grit nodded in his helmet. "Imagine we found a way to survive past the collapse of the universe. Somehow - and Cybertronians would be alone in Nothingness. Imagine that."
From his side Sizzlegap chuckled dryly. "You can't exist in Nothing. It can't be a place. Wouldn't be 'nothing' anymore, right?"
And Copperchip had taken a step.
"An empty universe then. With nothing in it."
"Would you say the universe is simply the void? The room itself? Because I'd say that it is the planets and the nebulas and the stars too - they don't work without each other."
"Hey, when have you grown to be such a smartaft?"
The two of them giggled quietly.
Another step, then another.
"If there comes nothing after death, how do we even know we ever stop existing?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, how do we know that we won't just loose our frames and continue living as something else?"
"Well, first off: How did I not know you believe in ghosts? Secondly: I though that after all this you wouldn't be interested in something like "eternal life" anymore."
"I don't and I do not, it was just a question!"
Copperchip raised his voice. "Grit, can you send me over the coordinates? I'm curious."
"Sure. So, I don't exactly mean ghosts..."
While the two mechas kept talking behind him Copperchip had made his way though the tiny dark ship and closed his stiff servo around the edge of the control panel. It was easy to follow the coordinates, even half blind, and Grit had been right: It would be the last thing this ship would ever do, but itcould bring them to that little planet.
"I don't think I'll be able to say it enough, but Grit, you know I love you, right?"
"Sizzle... Don't grow all sentimental on me..."
With a tired huff Copperchip noticed his own dying energy resources. His systems started shutting down as he activated the ships last bits of energy. The lights around the control planet flamed up but the mech couldn't properly focus on them.
Humming engines, the promise of life.
The mechs behind him fell silent.
"Copper, what - What are you doing?" Grit asked with panic in his voice.
"I'm getting you two out of here. Hold tight. And guys..."
Copperchip turned around as the ship set itself in motion and as his joints locked up. His already dim optics flickered into the direction of the window one last time.
"Don't forget me, please."
Deep within his chassis the light of his spark died as the light of the sun seemed to shine brighter than ever.