Prologue
10 mega-cycles (hours) ago
The youngster awoke with a startled cry, flailing wildly, and falling off the berth. The resulting thud was loud enough to catch the attention of his guardians. The door opened as he untangled himself from the thermal-blanket. One of his guardians - a tall red and black mech with white accents - crossed the room and crouched in front of the youngling.
"S-s… S-sid…" The silver youngster choked out, shaking slightly.
"'Nother bad dream?" The mech asked calmly, reaching out to stroke the child's helm.
"Y… Y-yes." The youngling sobbed, arms reaching for the other.
"Come here," The red mech scooped the youngling off the floor and sat down on the berth, placing the youth on his lap. He rocked back and forth murmuring softly, calming the child down. It wasn't long before the youngling's optics began to close, as he slipped into recharge.
The red mech stayed there for another cycle or so, before placing the youngling back on the berth, adjusting the headrest and tucking him in. Only when he was certain that the youngster was deep in recharge did he leave the room, pinging the motion sensor built into the door keypad on the way out, just in case.
"Did he have another nightmare?" A gold and black mech asked, as the red walked into the control room of the shuttle. The red nodded in confirmation, taking a seat next to the gold.
"Did he remember it this time?" Gold prodded further.
"Dunno. I didn't bother asking him. It shook him up good, whatever it was." Red replied.
Golden sighed, allowing the room to fill with a tense silence. It only lasted a few cycles, before Red asked,"Do you think we'll be able to find the others?"
"I don't know," his companion replied, "but I'm hoping so. It'll be good for him too." Gold jerked his head back towards the door, in the general direction of the youngling.
Red snickered. "What? We aren't good enough role models for him?"
"Hardly! And even I can see that." Gold snorted.
The room once again fell into silence as the two focused on the monitors in front of them. It was a whole mega-cycle until a ping resounded through the room. Two sets of optics turned up towards the flashing monitor. Red got up from his seat, hitting several commands and bringing up a report.
"Aw, frag." Red moaned after quickly scanning the report.
"What?"
"Looks like the energy reserves didn't last as long as we thought they would." Red grumbled, swearing under his breath.
"Really?" Gold got up from his seat, taking a look at the monitor for himself. "Slaggit."
"Looks like we're gonna have to make a stop within the next… Oh, I'd say, ten mega-cycles." Red humphed, plunking down into his seat.
Gold sat down, quickly bringing up several controls. Blue glowed from several monitors as graphs and scans were brought up. "I'll see if I can find a planetary body we can land on safely, without using up the last of the reserves."
After several agonizing cycles Gold sat up with a triumphant smirk on his face. "Ah, HA."
Several more commands popped up, and Gold began punching coordinates into the main console. "Go make sure the energon converters are working. I'm not getting any deliberate signals from the planet, so I highly doubt that the people there are advanced enough for space travel… if there are any people at all."
"Alright, alright." Red grumbled, getting up from his seat.
He crossed to the back of the room and was opening the door when Gold spoke up again. "And don't break them this time!"
"I won't!"
"You said that last time."
Red responded by turning around and sticking his glossa out at the gold mech.
Gold just snorted, effectively brushing him off, before turning to look at Red. "And, Sides,"
"Yeah, what?"
"When we reach the planet, don't go poking 'round the wildlife. 'Cause if I have to hear from Bluestreak 'bout the incident with the "'bot eating flowers" one more time…"
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say Sunny." Sideswipe shook his head, heading off towards the converters. "Whatever you say."