This is to be a three-part short fic chronicling Dinobot and her father, Stahlhand, throughout the years as she grows up in honor of Father's Day this coming Sunday. It's kind of a sequel to "A Father's Pride," but can stand alone in the "Masters of Their Fate" universe.

Disclaimer: All Beast Wars characters except Stahlhand and Tripwire do not belong to me and are only being used on loan for the fulfillment of my neurotic writing habit. Don't sue me. Seriously.

Part One: Infancy

Stahlhand trudged down the corridor of his apartment tower, his footsteps heavy and slow. His entire body felt weighted to the floor he was so tired. It had been a long day. Despite the recent energon shortages plaguing the Predacon districts, Stahlhand's infantry unit was still expected to drill and train as they normally would. His unit - one of the luckier ones - usually managed to receive regular ration shipments from Central Command, but it was never enough to properly fuel everyone. Many of his men were so low on energon they couldn't even properly raise their weapons, let alone execute full practice drills. What rations they did receive would have barely been enough to sustain a desk-mech for a single solar cycle.

The energon shortage was steadily becoming a full fledged crisis. Many in the civilian sector were already teetering on the brink of starvation. Riots had begun to break out in some of the larger cities. As a commander in the Predacon army, Stahlhand received a larger ration of energon than the foot soldiers he commanded. But unlike many of his soldiers he had a family to divide that ration between, resulting in even less for him; his sparkmate, Tripwire; and his daughter apiece.

Stahlhand ran a weary hand over his optics. Under normal circumstances he would never allow himself to show such weakness. But here, in the empty corridor of his apartment tower with no one else around to see, the battle tank let his exhaustion and growing desperation seep past his stoic mask onto his facial plates. It was getting so hard to keep up a strong facade. His family was slowly starving and there was nothing he could think of to make it better. He'd never felt so helpless before. Many nights he would come home to the sounds of his small daughter, Dynamite, plaintively chirping for energon they didn't have. The sound of his daughter's hungry cries cut him to his very core. Having an energy blade twisted in his sparkchamber could not have been more painful than that. Several times, despite his own hunger, he'd slipped a portion of his own ration to Dynamite, knowing it still wouldn't be enough to completely ease the hunger pains in his daughter's fuel tank. She was so young. Not even a full stellar cycle. And still so very small.

Stahlhand's spark twisted with helplessness. How much longer could this energon shortage go on before his family joined the starving masses of Predacons already spread out across the planet? How much longer could they survive with so little before they joined the heaps of gun-metal gray corpses piled on street corners or left to molder where they lay because there was no one with enough energy anymore to drag their shriveled frames to the recycling center?

The door to his family's living unit finally came into view at the end of the hallway. Stahlhand forced his shoulders back and his head higher in a display of strength he didn't actually feel. If it wasn't for Tripwire and Dynamite he wouldn't have tried so hard to maintain a strong front. But they depended on him for sustenance and reassurance that he was still able to provide for them. For his sparkmate and daughter, he had to remain strong.

"Tripwire?" Stahlhand called as he entered the domicile.

"Here."

Stahlhand followed his sparkmate's voice into the main living area - a narrow room with spartan furnishings. The female espionage expert stood near the only window of their living quarters, staring out over the dirty city beyond. She turned towards him as he entered. Her optics immediately darted to Stahlhand's hands. Despite her best efforts to hide it, Stahlhand saw the disappointment and naked hunger in her optics at the realization that they were empty and held no cubes of precious energon. The dying sunlight seeping in through the window behind her somehow made the sunken contours of Tripwire's facial plates even more pronounced, the loose fit of her armor even more noticeable. Since the start of the energon shortage Tripwire had lost an alarming amount of protomass as her body degraded itself as a source of fuel the same way his own body had begun to devour itself.

The helplessness in Stahlhand's chest swelled. He felt his mask of stoicism involuntarily slip a little bit around the edges.

"The energon shipment was delayed," he explained in a hollow, weary voice. "The general says it should arrive within the next solar cycle or two."

"But what will we do until then?" Tripwire demanded. "We don't have any energon left. This is now the fifth time our rations have been delayed. What are they doing at Central Command? How do they expect their soldiers to fight and feed their families when they do not send enough energon to even survive?"

"I know. But there is nothing I can do to speed the shipments up."

Tripwire gave an angry growl, her dentals bared in agitation. "I can only assume that those higher in the chain of command who could do something about the shipments like General Sytran or High Commander Bombshell are not suffering the same shortages we are, and thus feel less of an urgency about the matter. I bet they are not in want of any energon. They make sure they have enough energon to keep their fuel tanks full, and only then worry about supplying their troops! To the Pit with us if we must slowly starve while they luxuriate in their towers and eat energon candies!" The bitter anger in Tripwire's voice was rattling. The former securities specialist rarely let her emotions get the better of her like that. Across their sparkbond, Stahlhand felt the despair and growing panic stewing inside his sparkmate.

"Tripwire," Stahlhand murmured, struggling to keep a calm facade. "There's nothing we can do but wait. The shipment will come. But we must be patience."

Ignoring his platitudes, Tripwire took a step closer to Stahlhand and speared him with a desperate look. "I have heard rumors of low-grade energon available on the black market. But it is expensive. Two hundred credits for one cube. It is not of any notable quality, but if we bought a supply it could sustain us until this energon shortage ends."

"We can't afford that kind of price. Not on my pay grade. The military subsidizes a large part of my pay with guaranteed energon rations, and we have no savings at our disposal. We would be destitute within weeks if we bought energon at that price."

Tripwire shook her head, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "We cannot afford such a cost on your military pay. But I have also heard on the wind that there might be a position opening on one of the factory lines in the manufacturing district. It is hard grunt labor but the pay would buy us enough energon to survive. I have already put in word that I am interested in taking it."

The battle tank wearily shook his head. "They will never hire a femme. You remember how hard it was for you to find even freelance work after you were forced to retire from the military. They do not believe femmes are capable of performing such physical labor."

"Then what are we to do?" Tripwire snapped. "We have to think of something! We can't keep going on like this. We'll starve to death by the end of this deca-cycle if we do not find some other source of energon. The military has already proven how untrustworthy it is providing us with their 'guaranteed energon rations.'"

"We must be patient," Stahlhand said. "We have survived hardships like this before. We will survive them again."

"And what about Dynamite?" Tripwire snarled. "She is but a sparkling. She is constantly hungry and I have nothing to give her. She is too young and fragile "to be patient" anymore. She hasn't been online long enough to have survived hardships like this before. She is already so weak she barely has enough strength anymore to cry for fuel. She will not survive this energon shortage if we don't do something. And soon!" Tripwire moved closer to Stahlhand until she was standing directly in front of him, desperately staring up into his optics. "I cannot stand to see Dynamite suffer like this anymore. I cannot bear to watch my daughter slowly starve to death in front of me. She cries for fuel and the most I can do is try to soothe her until she finally falls back into recharge from sheer lack of energy." Tripwire's voice became strained. "I do not want to lose our daughter, Stahlhand. I could not bear it if she was taken away from me now."

Stahlhand froze, his spark clenching at his daughter's name.

Dynamite…

That single name was enough to put the entire situation into sharp, simplistic, painful focus. Tripwire was right. Despite deca-cycles of patient waiting, the energon shortage still showed no signs of improving. In fact, all the signs pointed towards the crisis becoming even worse before it got better. Alone, he and Tripwire might have been able to ride out the shortage and survived on the increasingly unpredictable shipments of energon rations from the military. But there was no way Dynamite would survive that long. She was too young. Too small. Too frighteningly weak. And all because Stahlhand could not provide her with the basic sustenance her tiny body needed. What kind of father was he if his only answer to his daughter's hunger was to be patient and wait?

"Where is she?" he demanded. He had to find Dynamite. He had to hold her in his arms and reassure himself he wasn't yet too late. The desperateness of his need to hold her and feel the reassuring pulse of her thumb-sized spark against his own was almost crippling.

"On the berth." Tripwire motioned with her chin towards the door on the other side of the room. "I finally got her to fall back into recharge about a mega-cycle ago."

Without a reply, Stahlhand covered the distance separating him from their apartment's sleeping quarters in three long strides. Inside the dark room on the berth in a makeshift nest of thermal sheets Dynamite lay on her side, her body curled against itself as if she were trying to conserve heat. The battle tank strode up to the berth and leaned down over the side. He studied his daughter for a long moment of hesitant silence - counting the seconds in between each new intake she took - before carefully reaching into the pile of thermal sheets and extricating his daughter from them. The tiny blue femme warbled weakly in her sleep but almost instantly fell silent again. Stahlhand wondered if it was because she no longer had the energy to fully wake up and cry for fuel. Her body instinctively curled against the warmth of her father's chest as he settled her in his arms. Her head fit perfectly into the dip between Stahlhand's chest plate and neck cables. The battle-toughened mech gently cradled the back of her head in the palm of one massive hand and hugged her closer to him with the other. Only with Dynamite did this softer side of him ever come out.

So small, Stahlhand thought with a pang of almost physical pain. Dynamite was so small. She'd barely gained any mass since her birth. The energon shortage had seen to that. He could barely feel her spark-pulse through his armor anymore it was so weak. He now knew without a shadow of a doubt that what Tripwire had said was correct: Dynamite would not survive this energon crisis if something drastic wasn't done soon.

Stahlhand knew many of the other mechs he served with would have long ago declared a daughter nothing but a financial drain and immediately disposed of her or just let her starve to death. He, however, could never do that. Not to his daughter. Not to Dynamite. It was because of her that he had reevaluated their race's view on female children and their place in Predacon society. He no longer cared what others thought of him for deciding to keep Dynamite instead of discarding her. She was his daughter. His child. His! He had made a vow to her on the day of her birth that he would do everything in his power to protect her. And he intended to keep that vow.

Holding Dynamite close, Stahlhand went back out to the main living area of the domicile. Tripwire was once again near the window. Outside night had fallen and blanketed the city in starlit darkness. Tripwire's dark red optics were empty from hunger and defeat as she stared out through the dirt-smeared glass. She listlessly looked up at Stahlhand as he strode up to stand next to her at the window.

"You will never get that job at the factory," Stahlhand said. He stared past his reflection in the glass towards the bright-lit downtown area of the city half a dozen klicks away. Dynamite was limp in his arms. She didn't even warble in her sleep as he rearranged her tiny body into a more comfortable position against his chest.

"I assumed as much even when I expressed interest in it," Tripwire emptily murmured. "What company would hire a femme when there are dozens of unemployed, hungry mechs to chose from? But… I had to at least try."

"You do not need to explain yourself, Tripwire," Stahlhand said. He focused on the curled blue form of his daughter reflected in the glass. "I understand perfectly what you were trying to do. But it was ultimately unnecessary because I intend to take that position myself."

Tripwire startled, staring at Stahlhand in open shock. "But… your position in the army…"

"I can earn the same salary in the civilian sector as I do in the military, if not more. As you said, we cannot continue on like this. We can no longer afford to rely on the army for fuel. I will take that factory job. It is the only thing I can do to assure that we survive this."

"But if you quit you will never be able to reenlist. Your military career will be over."

Stahlhand knew he would miss the army. He would miss the excitement, the thrill of battle, the regimented structure of daily life, his men's respect and the privileges of his rank. It was all he had ever known. But no amount of nostalgia or personal honor could make him ignore the worsening state of his family. His sparkmate and daughter were more important to him than anything the military could offer. For his daughter's sake, he had to leave and try his chances somewhere else. Dynamite's life depended on it.

"I will hand in my letter of resignation tomorrow, then go speak to the factory's foremech. My severance pay from the army should be enough to buy us a few week's worth of energon from the black market."

Tripwire numbly nodded, still stunned by her sparkmate's sacrifice. "I will go speak with a mech I know tomorrow who has connections to those with energon supplies. He will get us a few days' supply to start with."

Stahlhand nodded. With Tripwire's acceptance, his decision was made final. There was no turning back now. In his arms, Dynamite warbled softly in her sleep. She shifted, nuzzling her face deeper into his throat cables. Stahlhand held her close, willing her not to wake to the hunger pains that constantly plagued her every waking moment. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow he could make his daughter's hunger pains nothing more than a memory.

For you, child, he silently whispered to the sleeping sparkling, for you I would give up everything I possess and everything I am. For you I would do anything and everything…

Happy early Father's Day. Give your daddy a big hug for everything he's ever done for you.

Signing out
-LAXgirl

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Reviews, as always, are greatly appreciated.