Starriors (1984 series) #3

The battle's aftermath finds Sawtooth addressing the assembled Destructors and warning them of the truth: the Protectors seek Man, the Starrior's creator, not to rebel against the Destructors but to restore the world. Slaughter silences him violently. A Destructor named Borer dares to question why they should not seek Man themselves — and Slaughter punishes for it, declaring Earth belongs to the Starriors. He then orders the renegades destroyed and the Transfer Ring recovered.

At the Protector camp, Thinktank rallies the group: the last skirmish secured them a Transfer Ring, and Runabout is scouting ahead for the Battlestation. When Motormouth insinuates Runabout is a traitor, she storms off alone, forcing herself beyond her fear programming. Navigating mutant monsters in the Forbidden Desert, she crests a hill and finds the armored Battlestation — the Citadel of Dreams. Its guardian, Stinger, greets her as a friend, the first visitor in lonely eons. Stinger reveals that Slaughter Steelgrave was there before them, deliberately destroying the timer that would have awakened Man and damaging the Guardians' collective memory. Stinger gives Runabout a Transfer Ring before she departs to warn the others.

Meanwhile the Destructor army surrounds the Protector stronghold. Slaughter sends Deadeye into the valley to drive the Protectors into a killing cordon, while Speedtrap is dispatched to hunt down Runabout. The battle is brutal. Geo is struck by a demolisher rocket — her face plate smashed and brain center destroyed, beyond any repair. Hotshot falls before Slaughter himself. Motormouth, captured by the Protectors and identified as Slaughter's spy, is condemned by Slaughter to lie on the battlefield conscious but unable to move, rusting slowly — a fate like Sawtooth's. Slaughter declares he will now destroy Man personally.

Speedtrap intercepts Runabout near the Battlestation, and the two clash violently, both crashing into boulders and lying as if dead. Speedtrap recovers first — but Runabout, drawing on hard-won courage, fights back. The battle ends with both tumbling into the earth. Runabout escapes, narrowly avoids Deadeye on her return, and encounters the broken Sawtooth in hiding, who urges her onward. She finds Crank among the fallen and uses Stinger's Ring to restore him. Together they take stock of the devastated Protector camp.

Hotshot, recovered, honors Runabout before the survivors: had she not found the Battlestation and returned with the Ring, none of them would have lived. But the losses are grievous — Geo is gone forever. Swearing over the bodies of the fallen, Hotshot vows that the Protectors will stop Slaughter and reach Man — for as Runabout learned, Man needs them now as much as they need him.