[A.N. Transformers belongs to Hasbro and whoever they have allowed the rights to it, which certainly doesn't include me. No money has been made from this fanfic and no copyright infringement is intended. All I own are my Ocs.
WARNINGS: Wartime violence. Language. Suicide/suicide attempt. Mention of a past rape. Mention of mech pregnancy. This story contains religious and spiritual discussion drawn from various religious paths both real and fictional. Those who wish not to be exposed to religions other than their own should turn back now.
This is the tenth story in The Sidhe Chronicles series. Previous stories are "Swords and Jewels," "The Sidhe Chronicles 2: Dark of the Moon," and the first seven stories of "A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime." This is a separate AU from the "Come on up for the Rising" verse.
"Normal speech"
::Silent speech (Internal radio or through a bond)::
Scene Break: -Sidhe Chronicles-
Thanks to my beta and co-author, Vivienne Grainger. /A.N]
-Sidhe Chronicles-
A curious bot by nature, Jazz was not in a position to indulge that trait at the moment. What he could see right now was mostly miles and miles of miles and miles.
All of those miles were laid out in neat squares of cropland; sometimes circles of young plants within the squares were already well-started under the ministrations of automated sprinkler systems. Here and there, a dusting of adventurous volunteers greened the soil, though not for long; spring planting was soon to come to the croplands of Nebraska. The volunteers would be plowed under.
Jazz' ride did not know that. Jazz, hiding in Warp's processor, did not enlighten the youngling that he had a passenger beyond the three seated within his alt form. Had he done so, he did not know what Warp's reaction might be...but Jazz knew beyond doubt that the youngling was no more than a child conscript who would have come to the Autobots during the Christmas raid, were he not so terrified of Soundwave.
Warp had not been successful at hiding his wish to defect from the former Decepticon Communications Officer, who had made him watch that notorious clip of the Wreckers dismembering a Decepticon with their bare servos just before the raid.
Jazz wondered if Soundwave had not done that in real fear for the youngling's safety. The saboteur had not been there for the Battle of Chicago, and neither had Prowl. But Mirage and Bumblebee, who had, described an energon bath in which quarter had been neither asked nor given.
The Battle of Chicago was only the second time Jazz knew of that Optimus had ordered "no mercy." The other had been Tyger Pax.
The Prime's reason for both those orders was the same—no safe way existed to deal with prisoners, and any surviving 'Con posed an immediate threat to civilians caught in the war zone.
But Jazz knew Soundwave very well; knew that while the assumptions Sounders based his logic on weren't what most would use, they weren't the product of disordered processing, either. Jazz wouldn't have been surprised to find that his opposite number genuinely believed there was a great chance Warp would be killed out of hand if he defected.
Warp's abilities, though, meant that here and now Jazz had endured too many warp jumps for comfort, all of them timed to avoid energon detectors. Detectors straddled every state border, and they'd so far crossed four of them. Any time two interstates crossed, there were four more detectors; Warp had jumped halfway across Colorado to avoid the hot mess that was Denver and its four interstates.
Jazz had never enjoyed that mode of travel, and even without a body to be indignant about it, still did not. He felt as if he had to purge his tank, though he presently had no tank to purge, and he had a desperate need to keep that discomfort to himself.
He spared a thought for Rumble and Buzzsaw, back at base. What would they, once his symbionts, do when Soundwave was captured? Probably just what they had done to this point: continue to enjoy life, concentrate on earning greater freedom, and egg on Sideswipe and Sunstreaker in their pranks. Thank Primus they had no contact with Brains and Wheelie...yet.
The cassettes weren't younglings, but it was apparent to anyone who heard their stories that their sparklinghoods had been brutally curtailed. Not by Soundwave, whom they defended as a good host; for all Jazz knew, that was true. But they had still been very young when Megatron rose to power, and no one caught in that circumstance had a sparklinghood to call his own.
Still, it was their presence on base that was indirectly responsible for Arturo Melendez's current predicament. He sat in the back seat, not quite a prisoner: Wilburn was piled into the opposite corner keeping an eye on him, while Smith rode shotgun.
To Jazz' intense frustration, the other humans' mistrust of Arturo kept them from discussing anything that might have been helpful. In point of fact, they discussed nothing at all. Arturo napped, but the other two remained alert, if silent.
It made for a long seven hours, broken only by one twenty-minute rest stop.
At York, Nebraska, they left interstate 80 and turned north. "What are you doing?" Wilburn said to Warp's projection.
"Avoiding Omaha," Warp replied. "This way we'll pass only small towns, nothing bigger than about thirty thousand humans, and I can go faster without being observed."
Only Jazz knew that in the youngling's mind, the rest of that statement was, "...so I won't give Soundwave any surprises, which is to be avoided at all costs." And back of that was Warp's conviction that if Soundwave threw him out, he would have to go to the Autobots, who disassembled Decepticons with their bare hands, or starve.
The rubidium icing on the oil cake was that Warp wasn't looking forward to going fast on the back roads, which was totally contrary to any youngling Jazz had ever known (whether in an adult upgrade, vide Sideswipe, or not). This youngling needed to be taken to Mission City, where he too could get back his sparklinghood.
Jazz' new knowledge of Warp meant that now he had three beings to worry about getting out of this situation alive: himself, Warp, and Arturo Melendez, in rough order of least-to-greatest concern. Unless extreme bad luck intervened, it was unlikely Soundwave would even know Jazz was present; and as for Warp, the youngling had managed to stay alive since Chicago, so he had at least rudimentary self-preservation skills.
Arturo, though, was coming in as Soundwave's mole within NEST, therefore suspect. Arturo was human, therefore fragile. Suspect + fragile + Soundwave = very bad.
The other two humans seated in Warp's alt form could, so far as Jazz was concerned, take their lumps. James Smith and Tom Wilburn had willingly allied themselves to Soundwave, and were already complicit in the Beaverton murders of ten people, Smith's co-workers, eight months ago. Jazz couldn't find it in himself to give a single lonely frag about what happened to either.
By the time they reached Blair, Nebraska, it was five-thirty AM, and every farmhouse they passed had lights on. The speed limit imposed by the tiny town itself annoyed Warp, Jazz understood; he would have warped through it, but Soundwave forbade the youngling to use his gift where the humans might remark upon it.
Blair behind him, Warp turned onto a long, straight stretch of blacktop. Smith and Wilburn both relaxed a bit; they must, Jazz realized, be close to their destination.
The spymaster opened the bond link to let Prowl know where he was. He dared not keep it open longer than it took to transmit his location, but if they were found out, at least his mate would know where to start looking.
Warp made a final turn onto a two-lane road, and pulled off that into a driveway which penetrated the dense curtain of an evergreen windbreak; the trees formed a hollow square around a farmhouse and a large barn.
The driveway passed through the windbreak again, arriving at the grounds of a private airport. Human workers were unloading boxes from a truck and securing them inside a cargo plane.
From Warp, Jazz discovered that the cargo plane was Lugnut, hiding in plain sight. The human employees of the air freight company were not aware that it was a front for Soundwave's gang.
Warp rolled into the barn, and waited until Flatline closed the entrance behind him before he opened his doors: a pointed hint to his passengers to get out. Once they did so, he ejected their bags from his subspace with much more alacrity than caution, and transformed, shaking stiffened joints and stretching aching cables.
His warp generator was still running hot from that last jump, and his fuel indicator was edging towards red. But Jazz knew that a good stretch was the best the youngling could do for himself before reporting to Soundwave.
The side door opened and Jazz came face-to-face with his old adversary—he had wondered if would know Soundwave anywhere no matter what the Decepticon's formatting. He did.
Soundwave did not so much as greet the youngling before initiating a scan of Warp.
Jazz' own fault, the spec ops bot knew. The cassettes had always come back with a few of Jazz' little surprises whenever they broke into the Autobot's data systems, and Soundwave was accustomed to dealing with their unwanted additions when they came home. Hiding in a partition full of swap files, Jazz killed all his processes which monitored Warp's sensor suite, then prayed while the scan swept the partition. After a moment, the scan moved on, and Jazz carefully poked his helm back up by re-initiating those sensor monitors.
Soundwave's alt was the picture of a retired pilot who had done well enough to start his own business. Middle-aged, he wore jeans, cowboy boots and a brown work jacket over a white shirt and blue tie; his optics were hidden under a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses below a gimme cap that proclaimed "Mach 1 Air Freight."
He wouldn't have been out of place anywhere within a hundred miles. Like any good spy, he assumed the cover which let him walk down the street without anyone stopping to look at him twice.
"You are Sergeant Melendez."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you have any idea how illogical your story is?"
Jazz perked up. Soundwave had never concerned himself with learning to speak foreign languages before. Pit, his spoken Cybertronian was usually nothing more than a direct translation of the glyphs he transmitted. He had left most conversation to his symbionts, whose job it was to interact with the rest of the world on Soundwave's behalf. Jazz suspected his association with humans—Gould father and son, and now these two—had influenced the Soundwave Jazz had known for vorn, and that influence had changed Sounders. And there would be added unknown quantities; Jazz stepped on his curiosity and had to stand on it with both peds.
Melendez replied, "Logic went right out the window about four years ago, sir. The impossible happens every day now."
Soundwave's alt did not change expression. "You wished to report to me in person. Report. And, Sergeant Melendez? I advise you to be believable the first time."
"Yes, sir. The Autobots have Buzzsaw and Rumble. One of the Mexican cartels was going to auction them off, but Bumblebee took a team down there and extracted them." Very slowly, Arturo reached into his pocket and drew out two printouts. "I took these pictures with my phone camera while no one was looking."
Soundwave unfolded the printouts and stared at them, processing what still must have seemed impossible to him. "What is their present condition?"
"They seemed OK to me. I haven't had that much contact with them, sir, but I've seen them out several times and as far as I can tell, they're fine."
"What is their status?"
"Prisoners, sir. Under guard 24/7," Arturo replied.
"But they are allowed outside."
"Well, yes, sir, for about an hour every day. They let Buzzsaw fly around Excellion when the Aerialbots can watch him."
Jazz saw Soundwave's fields even out. "At what time?"
"Different every day, sir. I don't know why. I don't have anything to do with the prisoners, sir."
Soundwave pocketed the printouts. "Warp, you are about to redline. Go refuel and recharge. The rest of you, come with me."
Jazz cursed at losing his bird's-eye view of the debriefing, but Warp was too hungry to do anything except head straight for the energon as soon as he had permission to do so, and it would have been beyond suspicious if Jazz had influenced him to do anything else. The mechling happily consumed a couple of cubes.
Those cubes had been stolen from Jazz' own people. He put that thought, and the anger it generated, aside; it was not in Jazz, who had been a hungry mechling himself back in the day, to begrudge Warp his fuel. The rest of them, however...he wouldn't have minded seeing Sounders, Lugnut, Flatline, and Blitzwing on the short rations everyone at Mission City had endured for three long lunar cycles now.
Once his tank was full, Warp hit the washracks to get rid of the road grit, then headed straight for his berth.
Jazz fumed. There would be no more intel gathered until after the kid had recharged.
Blitzwing was nowhere in sight—out delivering freight, presumably. Flatline worked at a console on the other side of the barn, hardlined to it so Jazz couldn't tell what he was doing over there. But he was paying no attention to Warp.
The three humans followed Soundwave to the farmhouse, where presumably Soundwave kept an office.
Jazz seriously considered jumping from Warp into the power lines and finding his way into the farmhouse from there. He was worried for Arturo; one misstep here would net Jazz' agent a fifty-five gallon drum full of cement. But if the meeting went south, there was nothing Jazz could do about it, except make the situation worse if he revealed himself. He would have to trust Arturo's guts and good sense.
He considered what he had so far seen of Warp. Younglings possessed most of the capabilities that they would have as adults, but their power level was limited to that which their lighter, less powerful frames could safely tolerate. Warp should only have been able to jump short distances, and with little additional mass. He would also have had a cooldown period to allow his warp generator to rest between attempts, were things normal.
Youngling limiters adjusted themselves with growth and increased maturity, and if they hadn't become obsolete by then, would be removed when the youngling was ready for adult upgrades. Limit breaks were possible in life-and-death situations, but certain parameters set by the youngling's parents or cohort had to be met first.
Upon finding Warp, Megatron's first order had been to disable his limiter. Soundwave had done so, but had also taught Warp to recognize and prioritize alerts thrown by overstressed systems. To Warp's credit, he habitually kept things things out of the red zone, unless it was a matter of life and death, or he was under orders.
Last night, the three humans had not been a very heavy load for Warp to carry, but he had made several jumps in quick succession, including that very long bypass of Denver. Jazz observed as the youngling set his self-repair routines to run at the highest priority, and slipped into a deep recharge.
As a result, his sensors powered down, leaving Jazz cut off from the outside world as well.
Jazz turned his concentration inward. First, he made certain his firewalls were flawless. Then, he turned to his bond link. ::Prowler, you there?::
::I am. What is your situation?::
::Ah'm fine, but if the kid was in recharge any deeper he'd be in stasis lock, so Ah'm spinnin' my wheels right now. We got a child soldier here. Tag him as an unwilling conscript. Only reason he ain't jumped the fence is that Sounders showed him that vid clip of the Wreckers in action at Chicago.::
::Ah, I see. I will make certain that all our combatants are aware of his status.::
::We got Flatline, the two humans, and Sounders here right now. Blitzy's off someplace bein' a cargo plane, an' Lugnut was gettin' loaded when I arrived, so he may be gone too. The name of the outfit is Mach 1 Air Freight, by the way. Don't look like the air freight company's regular employees come over here. Warp don't think they know they're part of a front for Sounders.::
::Understood.::
Neither of them mentioned Melendez. If the situation soured, Jazz wanted to keep open the possibility of convincing Soundwave that he had hitched a ride without Arturo's knowledge.
Jazz said, ::Way I see it, we got two options, either hit 'em here or wait for them to hit us and lay a trap for them.::
::True. I will present the positive and negative aspects of both options to the Prime.::
::OK. I'll report in soon as I got anything to report.::
Some of Jazz' disgruntled boredom at being sidelined by a sleeping youngling bled through, eliciting a glyph of amusement from the cyberninja, who could sit quietly for joor without a sign of discontent.
Jazz closed the bond link; Prowl reported to Optimus.
When the young warper was securely in deep recharge, Jazz took just enough control of the mechling's frame to online a few of his passive sensors. He had to leave his optics dimmed and shuttered, but he now had audio and electrical field data. Not that there was anything to monitor, but at least he was no longer boxed, a situation that any conscious Transformer found disconcerting.
In fact, the Decepticons had sometimes tortured prisoners by boxing them but leaving them aware. Most bots could tolerate a few joor of that; Jazz had once endured a full orn before being rescued, but he freely admitted he had been able to do so and keep his sanity only because he had a bond link. An unbonded bot who was not a spark-split twin would have gone irreparably insane in that situation.
When the Autobots had to box a dangerous prisoner to keep him confined, Ratchet made sure that mech was in deep medical stasis first, unaware of his situation or the passage of time.
Yes, thought Jazz, Ratchet had his flaws, but cruelty wasn't one of them.
As the day wore on, Jazz waited patiently: patiently, anyway, for Jazz. He knew when Lugnut took off, but Blitzwing hadn't yet returned.
Most espionage missions consisted of quietly gathering intelligence―watching, listening, remaining undetected. It had been a difficult skill for an active, curious bot to acquire, but necessary for his chosen work. Jazz, practical mech that he was, had acquired it. Putting it to work while he was hitching along with Warp wasn't difficult; its exercise was somewhat unrewarding for a mech of Jazz' temperament, but so what, he thought. It was the result that counted.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Once Jazz damped the bond and returned to surveillance, Prowl took a moment to ground and center himself, returning from anxiety for his bondmate to a place of serenity. Then he left their quarters and crossed the commons to Admin.
All the stations were fully staffed. Optimus stood in Admin, with Lennox, Graham, Zain, Glasco, Sideswipe, and Ironhide. All of them were studying satellite data for the area of Nebraska where Jazz now...did whatever Jazz was doing. Prowl realized he didn't know what that might be; being trapped inside Warp's frame would necessarily limit his bondmate, but probably not stop him.
"Prowl," Optimus said, for the humans' benefit. "Report."
"Jazz is on-site, a guest of the warper, who remains unaware of his presence. Jazz' host is in recharge after the trip, so Jazz' activities are limited at the moment. Sergeant Melendez is presently being interrogated by Soundwave. The area in which Soundwave's headquarters is located is just as deserted as the satellite pictures show. A battle staged there will have far less collateral damage than will be accrued if we allow him to attack us here."
Lennox nodded curtly. "No word on how the interrogation is going?"
"No, as Jazz is outside Soundwave's office."
Lennox nodded once more, sharply, and turned back to the satellite pictures. "That runway...is it too short for the Aerialbots?"
"No," said Optimus, "not at all. They can transform as they land, if need be, but they all have VTOL capability as well."
"A HALO drop of the Pretenders might make more sense for first insertion," Lennox said.
Prowl nodded. A HALO parachute insertion (High Altitude, Low Opening) was practically made for Pretenders. They were nowhere near as prone to debilitating damage as a human.
Zain said, "I don't know how many of my guys have jump training. Since we can teach each other by sharing a file, though, all we'll need is a practice jump or two."
"What do your guys weigh?" Lennox asked. "They might be too heavy to parachute safely."
"It's not weight alone," said Graham, who had never told anyone that he sometimes went skydiving on weekends. "It's being able to fit the straps. I don't see any problems with that; we might be able to use tandem chutes for Zain's men."
"Yeah, and while all of our guys have jumped except Michael, only five of us have had HALO training."
"I'll make a call to Nellis and see about some jump refreshers and HALO training for both S-14 and NEST," Lennox said, making a note to himself among his doodles; he remembered his own HALO training and quoted his instructor: "Nobody's first HALO should be on a mission."
Optimus said, "So right now we have three possible insertions: ground, HALO, and fastrope. It's true that the farmhouse is surrounded by a thick windbreak of trees. Could they provide cover, provided Soundwave does not sweep the area regularly?"
"If we had full-body RFID shields," said Zain, "we'd be safe from even that. "
"One my size will be prohibitively expensive."
Graham grinned at Optimus' deadpan delivery. "Truly, no, sir. It would require only several thousand yards of aluminium foil." He waited for them all to stop laughing. "However, stealth is very likely out of the question, I fear; time-on-target planning renders it unnecessary as well."
"Yes, I think so. NEST, the Pretenders, and our frontliners can carry the day, if we all arrive at the same time."
"Essentially," Prowl said, "we become a Rapid Response Unit. We will need the Aerialbots to deal with Lugnut and Blitzwing, the Sisters can come in by road with the rest of us...we'll need to scan farm equipment, but that can be done more easily when we are at Offutt."
"Say, twenty-four hours after landing at Offutt, to get the job done? I will also talk to the tractor gestalt; they might be willing to share alt-scans with us." Optimus smiled.
Prowl said, "We cannot all go in as tractors. That will cause talk."
"Yes. We will be quite busy during our diurnal cycle at Offutt."
However, he held the title of tactician for the Prime, and so Prowl said, "Lugnut and Blitzwing are formidable fighters. It would be wise to deploy some full-sized bots with the same time-on-target as the Pretenders."
"Yes," Optimus agreed.
Lennox and Graham exchanged a Look, as did Glasco and Zain. "That's best, I think," Graham said.
Ironhide said, "Chromia claims her right to Flatline."
Zain asked, "What does that mean?"
"Flatline once dealt the Sisters an unforgivable insult. As he has already been convicted in absentia of a very long list of capital crimes, it is their right to administer justice out of hand," Optimus explained.
"That sounds...medieval," Zain said.
"Flatline received that sentence many years before your medieval era began." Optimus, stately, folded his servos on the desk in front of him.
"He's bad news even compared to the rest of them, then?" Zain asked.
"Very much so. His list of war crimes may not have been as extensive as Shockwave's, but it was not for lack of trying. Many of the Decepticon medics chose the faction in order to have free rein in their laboratories. Some of the incidents reported from the concentration camps of your Second World War compare to what those medics did—and compare favorably, I may say. The specific crime which led to his death sentence was the kidnapping of a group of newsparks for purposes of experimentation. He was already a marked mech, and had been so for several vorn, when he ran afoul of the Sisters."
Lennox said, "You don't have to worry about us getting in Chromia's way, then."
Zain took his cue from Lennox' tone of voice. "I'll give my boys orders to leave Flatline to the Sisters unless they get attacked, or it looks like the 'Con is going to escape. Even then, if possible, they'll leave his final disposition to them."
Ironhide smiled: not a cheerful smile. "He won't escape."
"All right," Prowl said, "Flatline is the Sisters' lawful prey, and thus we will not concern ourselves with him. Ironhide, would you convey to the Sisters, please, that I am available should they wish to consult with me."
There was an intense silence on Ironhide's part, and then he said, "Done, Prowl. They thank you."
Prowl nodded, and changed the subject. "Blitzwing concerns me. As we know, he has at minimum three personalities. I believe that a medic should accompany us, not merely to treat any wounds incurred on the battlefield, but specifically to treat Blitzwing, and to sedate him if need be." He gave another nod to Lennox. "Some humans seem to suffer from Blitzwing's malady. I believe it is labeled 'dissociative personality disorder' or 'multiple personality disorder' among you."
"Lord," Lennox said, quite irreverently. "Who might we meet, under his plating?"
"One personality is very random. If that personality surfaces during our raid, Blitzwing may well dance, or even pull his strateka board out of subspace and offer one of our troops a game. That is why I wish a medic to be present; I can't justify taking aggressive action against someone who..."
"Isn't playing with a full deck," Sideswipe offered, and sent the other bots a definition of that expression.
"Yes. The next personality is filled with rage, and because of it, a formidable opponent. Ironhide and Prime working together might take him down, or either of you with Superion. That personality, even once subdued and shackled, is quite dangerous, and another reason to wish for a medic's presence.
"The third personality is brilliantly logical, and very cold. That seems to be Blitzwing's core personality, as before the war, he was a very well-thought-of scientist."
"And in those last two phases," Optimus said, "he is extremely dangerous. I do not believe that you are wrong in your assessment, Prowl. We should treat Blitzwing as the most physically dangerous among Soundwave's crew. He is second in our priority to capture, Soundwave being first."
"And Lugnut?"
"Lugnut," said Prowl, "is capable of inflicting a fair amount of collateral damage on human structures, and his sheer size makes him dangerous to humans. By himself, he will require double-teaming by our frontliners. Because he is sane, however, he is not as dangerous as Blitzwing."
"He was almost too much for me alone when Diarwen and I met him on our journey to Washington from Chicago," Optimus said. "Certainly, two of us will be required to take him."
"As for the warper," Prowl said, "Jazz tells me he is a conscripted child soldier, who has had his youngling limiters removed."
Lennox growled at about the same time Ironhide did. Prowl smiled at them both, and continued, "To ensure his loyalty, Soundwave exposed him to the footage of the Wreckers tearing that Decepticon to pieces in Chicago. Otherwise he might have defected during the Christmas raid. He'll be very frightened of us, and that might compel him to be dangerous. But he seemed to go out of his way not to hurt anyone during that raid, so when we encounter him, we should work very hard to reassure him."
"And Wilburn and Smith?" Lennox said.
Zain's servo, obeying orders he did not know he'd given it, tightened on the paper cup of coffee he was holding. It developed a catastrophic leak. He really had to stop drinking that stuff, he thought to himself; it didn't taste like anything much, and it did nothing for a Cybertronian nervous system. He mopped up after himself.
"Without direct orders from me, my troops will not open fire on a human unless the life of another human is at risk. Ordinarily, humans are no threat to us, and in most cases where they do present a danger, it is politically expedient for us to leave them to NEST." Optimus looked around the room and continued, "May I remind everyone that these men are facing ten counts of premeditated murder? They committed those crimes in Oregon, which presently endorses the death penalty. If they are not given that penalty, they will certainly spend the rest of their lives in prison."
"I'll put it to my boys that it might be kinder to shoot them," Zain said, "and then tell them what they did. That way they'll survive."
"Okay. Good, in fact.—If Smith and Wilburn are using their holoform masks, we'll need to have Jazz to transmit their current appearance to everyone's comm units, and we will prioritize capture over neutralization," Lennox said. "Do we know whether the other humans on the site are complicit?"
"Jazz says not; he has not observed them entering into Soundwave's office or otherwise having anything to do with Flatline or Warp," Prowl replied.
"We should probably wait for further intel from Jazz before doing much more," Optimus said. "And for hearing back from our director, of course. Any more issues?"
No one had any, and the meeting broke up.
Some persons, having duties in Admin, returned to their usual places; the rest dispersed to their duty stations. Optimus took a last look at the maps of the airstrip and its surrounding area, but there was little more they could accomplish without more intel. He sent a ping to Sam Witwicky's phone.
A couple of rings later, his brother Prime picked up. "Hello, Optimus."
"Sam, I must ask to borrow Bumblebee for a mission."
"OK, this is a thing I need to ask him myself, right?"
"Yes. It is a necessary favor, but a favor nonetheless. Whether or not he can grant it will depend on his ability to arrange security for you and your family while he is away."
Sam juggled the phone briefly; Optimus could hear Danny fussing. "I won't give him any trouble with that. Whatever he thinks is best."
"Thank you, brother."
"No problem. Oh, crap, Danny! Talcum powder everywhere!"
Optimus chuckled. "I will leave you to your son, then."
"Thanks. I'll talk to Bee just as soon as I get Danny squared away here."
Sam was as good as his word. As soon as he got Danny powdered and diapered and settled in his crib, he told Brains and Wheelie, "I need to go talk to Bee for a minute. Keep an eye on Danny until either Carly or I get back, OK?"
Brains jumped up on the table beside the crib, transformed to his laptop alt mode, and started playing what looked to Sam like a screensaver consisting of tumbling, brightly colored geometric shapes. The repetitive video amused very young sparklings. The small bot had discovered it that it had the same effect on Danny—after Carly explained that Brains would have to adjust the contrast because tiny babies' eyesight did not fully develop until they were about three months old.
Sam tiptoed out of the nursery, then caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror and groaned. He looked like a refugee from a powder factory.
Whatever Optimus had wanted sounded important, so he satisfied himself with going outside and shaking himself free of as much of it as possible, then found Bee in his usual spot at the curb in front of the apartment.
Bee swung his door open as Sam approached. "What...is it...Sam?"
"Optimus wanted to know if you would be available for a mission."
"Is this what...you wish?"
Sam phrased it carefully. "It sounds important. I don't think Optimus would have asked if it weren't."
"Of that...I have no doubt. Still, it is...very soon...after...Carly...returned home."
"Yes. Dr. Parker is keeping a very close watch on her, and she sees her OB/GYN regularly as well. We'll be fine."
"Yes. I know. It was still...very frightening. I...find...I hesitate...to let...any of you...out of my sight. It is...unreasonable...I know. But...for the...war...to be over...and then...to almost...lose...any...of you...anyway?"
"Believe me, Bee, I feel the same way. But Carly isn't going to like it if we put our lives on hold because of what almost happened, you know?"
"You are...right, Sam. I'll...find someone...competent...to watch over you...while I am...on assignment."
"I know you will. You wouldn't settle for less."
"No," said Bee, and there was no hesitation in his speech at all. "I would not."
End Part 1
