The four inch long insect landed on the mammal's limb with an audible thump. Finding the exposed flesh it was looking for it inserted its mouth about a half-inch into the skin an started feeding. The mammal watched with no expression.
When the critter's belly was visibly bloated with flesh and blood, Lancer pulled it off her arm and slammed it down on her wood pile with a red splat. Immediately, about ten others of the same species flew down from the trees and started cannibalizing the remains. She waited until they were well into their meal before taking a stick off her small firepit and frying the rest of them.
"Serves you right you dumb shits," she said, picking one up. She swiftly stripped it's legs of and shoved it in her mouth. She took the still-burning stick and seared the wound on her arm closed before going back to her morning chores.
"Oh eww!" KC said, "That was super gross! Maybe we should keep this crappy signal!"
"KC!" Perceptor cried, his voice muffled by the computer console he had his head buried in. "I need that power coupling to complete the connection! We can't communicate with the Maelstrom without it!"
KC sighed and handed the Autobot scientist the same coupling she'd handed him a minute prior. This time, he actually noticed and used it. Several things happened simultaneously when he did. The visuals on the screen cleared up considerably in spite of the distance and the fog in the region, their computers security systems got automatically upgraded, and another screen kicked on to reveal the slightly impatient faces of the Maelstrom crew. The Maelstrom itself suddenly appeared on their scanners as well, as if by magic.
Optimus Prime looked over the readouts and shook his head. The Maelstrom was nearly three times the size of the Autobot Command shuttle and was in synchronous orbit with them over this mud pit of a world. Up until this moment though, it had been invisible to every scanner they had. Even now, it scanned as an over-sized Autobot space cruiser, which was obviously not the case.
Perceptor popped up from under the console and checked the readings they were getting now. His optics flared erratically with excitement over their increased ranged and sensitivity. He and Robert engaged in a brief exchange of statistics and parameters involving how exactly the Maelstrom had found one small life sign it recognized among the torrent of them on the planet below.
It was an enthusiastic discussion of their capabilities that gave Optimus the surges. These weren't really their capabilities. They were stolen Jabez capabilities.
Optimus tried not to feel too much dread over it all. At least they had a bead on Lancer.
The fog hung around her camp every morning. Lancer liked it. It would burn off soon, and she knew it wouldn't do diddly squat to hide her from a satellite scan, but Lancer pretended it mattered. Given her general paranoia, even the thinnest of veils was appreciated.
Every morning she reviewed her strategy for laying low – not easy with a metabolism that called lightning from the sky and glowed on pretty much any scanner like fireworks.
If nothing else, her last stay on Cybertron had taught her that the Jabez had cast information on her metabolism far and wide. Out of action for nearly a year and bounty hunters had found her within days. She could make herself invisible to scanners when she was concentrating, but it wasn't something she could keep up full time. When she left Cybertron she'd left in a hurry. Certainly she'd never dreamed Optimus would try to stop her. If asked in advance she would have expected Optimus to throw her off the planet by force after discovering her relationship with Rodi. Instead he tried to force her to stay.
Moron.
Well, she counted on Rodi to keep his partner from following her. She did her best to keep her energy levels down, but she knew if any real hunters had her profile she'd be out of luck. All she could hope for was that no one would think to look for her here. The planet's swampy, steamy ecology made it inhospitable for colonization. It had few resources that couldn't be more easily obtained elsewhere - unless you wanted mud. It had plenty of mud. It was far off the trade routes and had no intelligent natives, unless you counted 2 foot-long bugs as intelligent.
She had run from Cybertron in a panic – heading for the nearest jump gate to throw off pursuit. Then she had cut the engines entirely to let the ship drift, chart a course to the Jabez installation she wanted to check on, and cry herself sick for a few days. She cried a lot. She puked a lot too. Sometime in there it had dawned on her she might have another reason besides grief for puking up almost everything she tried to eat.
Confirming that had caused two more days of crying and a change of course. Her options, at that point, were limited. Refueling the ship anywhere was not one of them either. So she'd gone to the navigation charts and found a few possibilities within range of the ship's fuel...and one not far out of it.
She'd taken the fuel reserves down to about nothing and then boosted the engines with everything her powers had to put the Lazy Sue within range of this world's gravity. It sucked her body down to nearly nothing and fried every system on board the ship. The ride down on a dark ship had been...interesting, but she'd made sure to fill her lovely sub-space linked pack with all sorts of nice, stolen medical goodies before she left Cybertron. She didn't feel too bad about stealing though – she'd paid for it by leaving one of the Primes a nice parting gift. Her Jabez scanner, her Jabez cloaking field, and her memory crystal with a copy of all the songs she and said Prime had killed time dancing to like idiots while they were marooned. Oh...and teeth. Really long, sharp, indestructible teeth. She'd stashed it all in his dusty, untouched quarters while she was testing Kup's worthless security systems. Fair trade. Hopefully he appreciated it.
Needless to say, once the Lazy Sue was done spinning out of control, burning nearly half of its hull up, and skipping like a pond stone over a few hundred miles of swamp, Lancer had been glad for some proper medical supplies just this once. Hurrah for mud though, because the safety harness she'd rigged in advance wasn't nearly enough to survive the ride if she'd landed on really anything else.
After patching herself up she set about stripping the ship of whatever she thought she could safely keep. Bits of metal and wire, seat fabric and cushions. Every last ration. Then she watched it sink. If anyone scanned this world they would see it, but hopefully the fact she had literally let it crash would convince the searchers it had crashed. She also hoped the fact that pretty much everything that scuttled and squirmed through the mud here tried to eat her would convince anyone suspicious of survivors that not only had she been eaten, but that they would be eaten too if they stayed to look around.
Hurray for nasty neighbors too. Vitamin and protein packed neighbors were important.
Shelter next. Her hut was designed with concealment in mind too. The roughly circular shelter was built around the trunk of a living tree - one of the largest in the region. The tree's thickly packed branches were cut off or bent down just above the roof. She'd done everything she could to make their fall look random and natural, killing as few of the limbs as she could. Some of the support structures she used were still living. She felt guilty about that. About 20 feet in diameter, her "house's" walls were made of branches and logs that she had split in half, sunk in the mud, and lashed with vines. The rough sides faced out which gave her a fairly even wall around the interior. Any gaps were packed with mud. The roof was a similar framework of lighter branches, layers of broad leaves and more mud. All the mud served to plug the holes but also encouraged vines and weeds to climb up the walls and snake across the roof. Her home was nearly invisible to the eye. The tree would shield her hut from a direct view from above and it was itself home to many local critters. She hoped all the other metabolisms would baffle a hasty search, and she did everything she could to keep her energy level within the ambient range.
She was proud of her "house". It hadn't been easy since she was afraid to use much energy. She'd done almost all of it by hand, although lasering the wood would have been faster. It would also have been like putting up signs reading "LANCER IS HERE!" She'd made tools out of bits of the ship and for the second time in two years, set up life on an uninhabited world.
Maelstrom had her patterns, but her friends had a whole universe to search, as long as no one remembered the time she and Malice had come here in search of those specimens for Jordan's medical kit... They probably never even looked for her. They would assume the teleport accident had killed her like it should have. It was also likely that Goldbug died before he could tell them he was an Autobot so there was no reason to think they would check on Cybertron.
Still, she nurtured a faint hope that Goldbug lived, even if it meant blowing her cover. She reviewed her choices every day, searching for mistakes or new options. Her escape plans, her bobby traps, all of it. Every day she hoped to think of a better plan. Every day she stuck with what she had.
Then she got to work making little piece of wood out of big ones.
"HAHAHA! That's our girl, all right! 'Lizzy Borden took an ax, and gave her mother forty whacks!'"
"Talon, you're weird."
Optimus paced, wishing this mission was his to run. If it had been they would already be looking for a landing zone and sending in a team of Autobots to simply pick Lancer up and bring her back for some common sense conversation.
He had shared this idea with the Maelstrom crew when they found this place. They had laughed at him and asked which of his Autobots he planned to bury. Then they had refused to share the coordinates of this world until he promised to let them run it without interference. He was gratified they seemed to take his word as good when he gave it, but was now sorry he'd given it at all.
Rodimus was on board. He thought he was there to help Optimus out with some touchy but vital trade negotiations. Supposedly Optimus and Elita would be practicing their speeches and ironing out all the tedious details that went into such negotiations here on the bridge. That was nearly a guarantee Rodimus would be repelled by the thought of coming up here. Still though, the senior Prime was worried.
"Calm down Orion," Elita murmured, taking his arm. Using that name was her way of telling him to control himself.
"So much depends on this Elita," he replied. He was desperate for this to work - if it didn't, he didn't have another solution. Not even the Matrix had any wisdom for him on this one, although that wasn't a surprise. The crystal no longer housed all the leaders of the Autobot's long, complicated past. Nope. It was just him and a much younger Rodi in there...and the shades inside had no better ideas than the real things.
"I know," Elita soothed, "but this is supposed to be a boring diplomatic mission. Relax. If he picks up your mood, he'll get suspicious."
Optimus ground out frustration. "He is already. It wasn't easy to convince him this mission needed us both. I pushed it telling him we needed to keep up appearances. He only agreed because I insisted his diplomatic skills need practice." Op let himself fall into the command seat. The room reverberated.
Elita shook her head and whispered into his audio sensor. "No. He agreed because he wants to check out their trade infra-structure...and see how much the Sponsors are involved with it."
Her mate drew back and stared at her. "Fantastic," he groaned. He looked up at the screen where the real objective of this mission was hewing logs like she bore a grudge against them, and wondered how much of Rodi's recent duplicitous behavior was her influence.
"Blitzwing will keep him busy Optimus," Elita said. "You were smart to ask him to help. Rodimus doesn't suspect him."
"Let's hope so," Optimus sighed.
He listened in on her friends celebrating finding her one ship over. They were obviously happy to see Lancer after almost two years. Prime understood their relief and hoped it wasn't premature. Nevertheless, joy didn't hamper their powers of observation.
"She looks tired." This from Claudia, the empathic avian alien. It was true. Lancer did look tired or perhaps even ill. Despite the physical strength she was exhibiting, there was an air of exhaustion about her. She paused every few logs to lean on her ax and rest. Optimus noticed worried looks exchanged among her friends.
"The girl is lookin' a might scrawny. Must be on fuckin' Weight Watchers with Malice. And the circles 'round her eyes look like someone's been knockin' her around," Talon grumbled. He and Pagan both threw the Autobots unfriendly glares. Optimus felt faint surprise. He knew some of the Autobots blamed Lancer for Rodi's condition. Apparently Lancer's friends returned the sentiment.
Optimus exchanged glances with his mate. The symptoms of extreme fatigue might be different for an Autobot but Rodimus was trying to hide them all. Re-energizing should have alleviated them but it never really did.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Lancer paused again.
Why is this taking so much longer than it used to? she thought. It's early. Why am I so tired?
Answers didn't come to her, but something else did.
Anger. Not hers. Not unusual either, given his job, but pretty intense this time. She shored up the wall in her mind and sighed, leaning on her ax with her eyes closed for a minute.
The anger, or rather her awareness of it, grew silent. Sort of.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Robert, a nondescript human (until you learned he ran the Maelstrom's technology), caught Prime's attention by turning his one good eye on Claudia. "Claudia? Why is she fanging?" Lancer was "fanging" as her friends put it. She had gone from carefully splitting her logs to severing them with single, enraged blows.
Claudia shut her strange, multicolored eyes, and looked distant. "I can't tell specifically," she said vaguely. "I sense frustration. She does not realized she is fanging. Odd. She is always so careful."
Pagan hissed something in her own dialect. Optimus wasn't familiar with Drazi as a species - very few outside their own kind were. Still, he was fairly certain that the flared fins and scale rattling indicated irritation.
Lancer finished her log stack, only taking note of her nails as she put the ax down. She frowned, shut her eyes, and the demonic features softened back to normal hands. The she heard something that made her head whip around. She smiled and went back into her shelter. When she returned moments later she was carrying the answer to all the theories about why she was still alive – proving every last one of them wrong.
"Good morning, Edana!" she said, smiling down at a human infant. No more than a few months old, the little girl had wispy reddish hair, and eyes such a pale blue they seemed almost white. Lancer sat on a stump by her doorway and let the child nurse while she played sadly with the thin red hair on the baby's scalp.
"Fucking A! A kid!" Talon yelped.
No one else to two bridges said a word. Mental overload had a similar impact on species from all over the universe apparently.
Optimus leaned back and Elita gripped his shoulders. The implications crowded his mind and traffic jammed his thoughts. He couldn't get a thought started before dozens of others tried to force their way to the surface. It was Lancer who finally freed him by smiling down at her daughter, and playing with her fingers. The infant smiled toothlessly. It was Rodi's smile. The cacophony of worries in Optimus' mind suddenly silenced and were replaced by confused happiness.
"New life," he whispered to Elita, his voice betraying joy and amazement.
Elita smiled. Op wouldn't consider the multitude of problems this presented as hardship; and that was part of why she loved him. No one noticed Kup's face twist with rage as the bridges of both ships erupted into chaos.
"Do you think she's blind?" KC asked Perceptor. Then the EDC cadet looked guilty.
Robert answered her from the other ship. "Let's find out...scanning now." There was a really long pause. "Um. No. No, she's not blind..."
Talon leaned over and read the screen over Robert's shoulder. "Holy shit..." he breathed.
"Now what are we going to do about Rodimus?" Optimus wondered aloud. Rodimus solved his partner's dilemma by barging in on them.
Rodimus had been holed up in Blitzwing's cabin for hours when he noticed the engines were down.
Optimus had assigned Blitzwing the monumental task of keeping Rodimus distracted and off the bridge. The elder Prime risked a great deal trusting the reformed Decepticon and Blitzwing knew it. The information Op gave him about Rodi's torture and training would have been devastating if Blitzwing betrayed them.
For Blitzwing, hearing that Rodimus had been through hell only cleared up how the young Prime had earned his trust. His loyalty to Rodimus, already borderline pathological, only increased knowing Rodimus had endured even more than Blitz had. Therefore Blitzwing was the one robot Rodimus wouldn't suspect, and his recent torture at Quintisson tentacles provided a handy excuse for a long, private conversation.
In the face of Rodi's worsening condition the ex-Con was eager to help.
All things considered Blitz didn't do badly. When they'd neared Lancer's suspected hideaway he'd asked Rodimus if he had time to talk. They were still two days from where they were supposed to be going, so Rodimus readily agreed.
Awkwardly, Blitzwing unburdened himself while Rodi listened. Blitzwing knew better than to lie to the young Prime who often knew what Blitz was feeling before Blitz did.
Still, at first Blitzwing talked just to keep Rodi busy.
As he went on though, he found himself speaking more from the heart. It was a relief to share his pain with someone who wasn't looking for weakness. Rodi's support and advice left him feeling stronger. It gave Blitzwing a unique insight into his past and the unavoidable collapse of the Decepticons. Decepticons inevitably exploited weaknesses, even in each other. Autobots healed them.
Blitz kept Rodimus occupied for almost four hours with all the hopes, fears, and pain of a suppressed lifetime. He noticed the young commander struggling to hide his anger when Blitz told him about the Quints' VR mazes, and the trauma they put him through. (Rodimus spent a moment fantasizing about splitting Quints apart with an ax.) Blitz was grateful. Some part of him wondered if Optimus hadn't staged this distraction for HIS benefit as well as Rodi's. Probably. Sneaky bastard.
Still, while Blitzwing was good at running his mouth, he did need a moment now and then to think of what to say. It was long silence between them that let Rodimus notice the engines had powered down to idle. Nothing Blitzwing could say would discourage the young commander from investigating. He raced up to the bridge and stormed silently in before the former Decepticon could even finish radioing Optimus that he was coming.
Coming through the door Rodimus developed an instant case of tunnel vision. The other Bots on the bridge – non-existent. The Maelstrom crew on one large screen – not registering either.
Only one face mattered. One pale, wistfully smiling face - and all the danger it was now in.
That registered.
Rodimus' optics went from Autobot blue to Jabez green instantly.
Planetside, Lancer gave a strangled gasp which ended in a growl. She shuddered and set Edana down with exaggerated care. Edana howled. The razor-like nails were gingerly maneuvered away from the baby's skin as Lancer put her in a rough-hewn, fur lined, split log cradle by the door.
Lancer turned away from her home with a snarl that ended in a desperate wail. She didn't understand what was happening and she was terrified. She took a single, stumbling step and then launched herself away from her baby. Twenty feet into the clearing she landed, crashing on her side and shrieking incoherently. She had just enough presence of mind to force the power down as her rage erupted in a blinding flash of wild energy.
The power surge buried the needles on the Autobots' ship and left a steaming crater in the swampy land. Debris fell back to earth for a moment or two. On the ships there was once again stunned silence. Further out in the system another ship altered course. One minute passed. Then two.
Finally Lancer's naked, trembling body crawled out of the crater which was already filling with ground water. She collapsed in the mud beside the steaming pit and curled up into a ball with her tail wrapped tightly around herself.
On the shuttle, Rodimus turned away from the screen and for an instant his face crumpled with grief and rage. Then he turned on Optimus with optics that could have frozen magma.
"Kup, Perceptor, and KC! Get out!"
"But..."
"That's an order Perceptor...Optimus and I have some things to discuss!" He waited until they walked reluctantly out to continue.
"You just couldn't leave it alone, could you? You couldn't respect her judgment or mine! And what is this...a party? How many people know she's here? Do you hear nothing I say about telepathy and Conversion?" There was more accusation in that soft voice than Optimus dreamed possible. Rodi's face might as well have been stone for all the emotion it showed. "We are leaving. Now. I'll deal with you when we are home." He made it sound like a death sentence, which, if anything happened to Lancer after they got back it just might have been.
*
Lancer bit her tongue to keep from snarling and to give herself a piece of reality to focus on. The blood ran out of her mouth onto the warm ground by the pit. She knew she needed to get up but it hurt.
*
He hurt. Hurt in places he didn't have. Tasted blood that wasn't there to taste. He couldn't ever remember being so furious outside of the torture chamber but he knew he had to get control. Some part of him was so happy to see her – whole, and smiling, and surrounded by trees and insects rather than Slavers or Jabez. Some part of him wondered why she was there because knowing her like he did it made no damned sense at all. Whatever it was though, if they could track her then so could others...or the others could have just followed the Autobots.
Damn them all. He threw a tremendous amount of energy at the shield in his mind and knew it wasn't going to hold. Her name was too much. This bullshit was way WAY too much.
*
"I've got to get control! I've got to!" Lancer whispered. She looked up at her daughter's terrified wails but didn't dare approach until she knew there would be no more explosions. She buried her hands in the mud and her body went rigid with the strain. Painfully, the visible aspects of her demon faded. Lancer tottered to her feet. She had the oddest moment of disorientation where she seemed to be looking at herself from above. She stumbled. Then Edana's cries cut through her daze. She sobbed once as she ran to see if her child was hurt.
Lifting the baby gingerly Lancer studied her from head to toe, somehow unable to believe there wasn't a mark on her. When she trusted Edana was fine she sank to her knees, cradling the infant and rocking her miserably. Edana calmed down and Lancer finally relinquished her long enough to go inside to find something to wear. She brought a skin rag back out with her to clean off the mud she'd smeared on her daughter.
*
It took Lancer's thorough examination for Rodimus to really notice his offspring. He sat down hard and fast. He just forgot to look for a chair first. From the floor he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The baby's chubby arms flailed around a head of wispy, deep red hair, highlighted with copper. The color was familiar enough. When she opened her swollen eyes he jumped a bit - Rodimus didn't claim to be an expert on human children but he'd never seen eyes like that before. Not that he cared – she was amazing.
"Oh wow, Lancer," he muttered to the screen. "We did it!"
Lancer pressed her forehead to Edana's and rocked them both.
"Little girl, I am so sorry, but we are gonna have to bug out of here. We're going to burn this place down and leave. Yup. It's gonna be a rough ride on the mech, and I'm not sure we're gonna make it at all. Be good and don't tell anyone Mom's scared OK? Something's up...something's up with Daddy and he's having a hard time holding up his end. Daddy is losing his shit. Maybe we should wait until he's done making Mom blow up things. That sound good to you? OK. Here's the plan. You stay here and I'll grab the bag, and we'll wait a few minutes until Dad's not quite so ready to kill someone...or until he's done killing someone and feels better. That's a good plan."
"I really am going to kill someone if we don't get out of here," Rodimus growled at Optimus. Of course the smart thing to do would be to blast the computer console with Lancer's image on it. The problem was, he was becoming cognizant of the Maelstrom crew on the other screen. Attacking them to get them out of orbit was an appealing thought, but he knew the Maelstrom could literally eat his ship, so he needed to figure out how to get them to leave too. Plus...he just wanted a bit more time to see her.
"We can't leave," Optimus told him. "Malice is down there."
Rodimus' head snapped around and he rounded on the rest of the Maelstrom's crew. "You guys...who's idea was this? My idiot partner refuses to get it, but you guys KNOW what a risk this is."
Pagan flared her cheek fins and hissed at him. "We know the risks robot...it is you who is blind. We risk her life to save both of yours."
"This is ridiculous Pagan! Go back for Malice! Let Lancer go – if she wanted you she would have found you! We need to leave! NOW!"
"Oh for fuck's sake Rodi!" Lancer growled, clutching her head. "I need you to get a grip. We need to leave! NOW!"
She was packing fast. While the voice was obviously different and she wasn't shouting the repetition of tone and inflection was eerie. Claudia and Jordan began an excited discussion in their own tonal language, and Pagan gave a loud, disgusted *TK*. The look she threw Rodimus might have bothered him if he wasn't so distraught over other things. The obvious affect his emotions were having on Lancer terrified him. Their link was not diminished by their efforts to destroy it - they had just pushed it deep into subconscious levels where it was harder to control.
It was Elita who took Rodimus by the hand and pushed him into a chair. She silenced his protests with a finger to her lips and a firm "Shh!" She glared when he started to interrupt again. "Stop Rodimus. Just stop for a second. Will you look at her please? Just look at your mate and tell me honestly she looks well."
Anything he might have said at that moment was cut off by another voice from the woods beyond Lancer's hut. The mutant's head snapped in that direction.
Faintly, but unmistakably, Malice's voice called her from the trees.
"Lancer?"
The mutant's eye narrowed and glowed. First she blew up her yard, now this. Coincidence? Sure...and she could fly. She looked at Edana, looked back off into the woods, and then back at her daughter.
"Change of plans Baby," she whispered. "I...I have to check this out. If I don't make it back in time, you'll have an adventure all by yourself. You grow up...you give them hell." She dug around in her pack and pulled out the mechanical teleporter. She fiddled with the settings and then plopped it and Edana back in the rough hewn crib. She scooped Edana up, crib and all, and disappeared into the brush behind her hut. When she came back out she was alone. She rushed back across the small clearing in front of her hut and leaped into the trees on the far side like a leopard.
"This is not my day," Malice grumbled to herself. "When was the last time it was anyway? LANCER?! Where are you?"
The telekenetic was tired and wanted this over with. She'd trudged through the obnoxious swamps on this armpit of a planet and just loved every second of it. The last time they'd been here, Malice had proclaimed it was the nastiest swamp anywhere in the galaxy. Now that she was older and more experienced, her opinion changed not at all. Best of all, Pagan's teleport had dropped her off almost ten miles from where she needed to be - something about the lines not being favorable, whatever that meant. Even so, a ten mile slog was better than using the bloody mech.
Technically, a telekinetic of her rank shouldn't have trouble with trivial matters like flora, fauna, and mud. A nice personal shield and a little levitation and you just floated through all the muck without soiling your person. In her current state however she was too tired to keep up a shield for long, let alone levitate. She walked, got nice and dirty, and reserved her powers for pushing through vegetation too dense for her frail limbs. This little excursion wouldn't help her strength unless Lancer's safe return gave her one less thing to worry about. Between Shellshock and her ailing son Malice had precious little time for things like eating, sleeping, and hunting AWOL friends. In short, Malice was tired, filthy, and in an exceedingly bad mood.
Another who-knows-what flew into her face. Even Talon would have been proud of the curses she uttered. All this for a friend who wasn't likely to appreciate it. She kept trudging...and calling Lancer's name.
She finally broke into the clearing where Lancer's hut sat so snugly. Really, the assassin was about as good at making her home vanish as she was herself, because Malice would have easily walked by it if she hadn't already had the coordinates. Malice looked closely around...no Lancer. No surprise either.
"LANCER! I know you're here so just quit playing gam...upphhff!" Malice's call ended in a grunt when her so-called friend landed on her back from behind and ran those rough hands up the back of Malice's neck. Why someone who could scan brains for electronics always felt the need to feel people up was beyond Malice's understanding. Malice suffered herself to being groped for a second and then telekinetically flipped Lancer over her head and across the clearing a ways. Maybe she was only five foot even and 89 pounds, but that didn't mean she had to put up with any crap. Lancer landed on her feet.
"Hi Lancer. That was charming. Nice to see you too." Malice said irritably. (The crew watching from orbit exchanged hopeful looks. Three minutes with her best friend, and Malice was already showing more spine than she had in months.)
"I had to be sure it was really you. You know that," Lancer said. Her eyes glowed as she looked Malice up and down. "You, are a mess." Malice rolled her eyes but it was true. The telekinetic was thirty pounds underweight. Her muddy clothes swam on her body. She was pale, her eyes bloodshot, and the circles under them showed starkly on her wan face.
"Yeah. You look like shit too," Malice critiqued. Then she smiled. "It's good to see you anyway. We thought you and that Autobot got fried when the mech didn't bring you home."
"You...you know who he was...does that mean Goldbug made it?!" Lancer cried, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.
"Yeah. He made it," Malice said grimly.
Lancer's teeth bared a little. "Is it even good news he did?"
Malice shrugged. "He's calling himself Shellshock and it suits him, but he's joined us and he's good at it. I don't think the Autobots like it much that he's staying with us, but I also don't think he even intends to go home."
Lancer covered her eyes for a minute and nodded. "I...I think that's still more than I would have ever predicted. You guys are awesome. Thank you."
"You're thanking me for saving a guy you never met?" Malice asked.
Lancer shrugged. "He...meant a lot to the guy I saved. Sort of saved."
"The guy you saved? You mean Rodimus Prime, the guy you also fell in love with and are mind-linked to?"
"Optimus told you that?" Lancer hissed.
"How do you know it was Optimus?" Malice asked.
"Because Rodimus knows better than spread that shit around," Lancer said. She started heading back towards her house with long strides.
""Are you coming back to Maelstrom with me?" Malice finally asked.
"Not if the Autobots are involved."
"Why?"
After a long, sullen pause as Lancer glared at her. "I have my reasons. Here. I'll show you."
Lancer walked towards the back of the hut. About two hundred yards behind her crude little home there was a large, hollowed out tree with a tight sealing piece of its own bark covering a three foot hole. Lancer carefully pushed out the "door" and removed her whimpering daughter.
"Here...hold a reason for a minute," Lancer told Malice, handing her the baby. Reaching under the cradle, Lancer removed her mechanical teleporter and shut down the timer.
Malice held the little girl up by the armpits and she and the child stared at each other. Edana's stare seemed a bit perplexed, as Malice's face was the first she'd ever seen besides her mother.
"This is Rodi's child?" Malice asked. Lancer only arched an eyebrow at her. "Ah. Figures," the telekenetic sighed. "You set the mech to take her if things went bad with me?"
"Yeah," Lancer answered.
"Where were you sending her?" Malice asked.
"Central, on Cybertron."
"What...with some kind of note for Rodi giving him custody?" Malice asked sarcastically.
"Don't be stupid. Of course not, but they find abandoned kids around Central all the time, and I'll take their system for finding foster homes over anything on Earth – especially for mutant kids. At least I know Rodimus was starting to set up scanners for Slavers."
"So...putting her under Autobot protection without actually telling her father she exists? That's a good idea...I guess," Malice mused. "Sort of dumb and desperate but it could work."
Rodimus smacked himself in the face. He could just see how that scenario played out in his mate's mind too. You're so unbelievably stubborn! The lengths you'd go to to keep her secret when you know I'd want to know her!
"That's a terrible idea!" Robert exclaimed vehemently. "That would never work!"
Talon nodded vigorously.
"Are you sure she's a mutant?"
"Yeah...the place we were marooned had thunderstorms on a really regular basis, so considering I had no place grounded to go I'd say she'd have to be able to handle some serious juice from the moment she was conceived," Lancer said. "You know they told me I couldn't have kids because I'm always running some level of current."
"Oh hell yeah she's a mutant!" Robert announced, pulling his hair with both hands.
Talon turned his body straight towards the monitor. "Rodimus...Sir. Lancer can't do this. Maybe...maybe it would've worked with some kid, but not with this one."
"What do you mean? I'm not happy about this so-called plan of hers, but my people are trained to handle abandoned kids. It's been a problem ever since we opened the new space ports..."
Talon and Robert were vigorously shaking their heads in unison.
"Respectfully Sir, they'd never get to her in time," Talon insisted.
Robert started reading off his screens. "Borderline Class Two or One Empathy...hard to say since she isn't even a year old yet. That's bad enough, but she's also showing a strong potential for developing some form of pyrokenesis. The channels aren't open yet, but as strong as the lines are I'd say she's almost a sure thing to develop them when she hits puberty. There's something up with her eyes too, but I have some translating to do before I'm going to get what this thing is telling me."
"She's got class One potential?" Rodimus asked, standing up very slowly. His flat voice scared Elita. She put a hand on his arm which he jerked away roughly.
"She's got Class One potential in TWO areas Sir," Talon corrected. "Which puts 'er somewhere 'round the price of a small planet on the Slave Market. Some day that little nugget is going be able to defend 'erself, but until then Lancer can't just 'port 'er any old place and think she's gonna be fine. Ain't no way that's gonna end well."
The rest of the Maelstrom crew started talking and arguing all over each other. The Autobots sat silently.
"Lancer, you need to come back with me," Malice was insisting.
"Not your business Malice. I don't recall you appreciating us pressuring you to come back after you ran off with Kendall," Lancer reminded her friend.
"Different situation completely," Malice said.
"Yeah. Your situation had a prayer of working out," Lancer snapped bitterly. "You had a nice price on your head and a guy you barely knew, but at least you were both the same species. Rodi and I aren't even the same...substance."
"Yeah well, I grant you that your thing for a thirty foot tall robot is...awkward...even if he is sort of cute. Here's the problem. Rodimus is sick and you don't look so hot either. I don't claim to understand what's going on, but this isn't the answer."
Lancer paled and her eyes lit briefly.
*
On the Autobot's shuttle Rodimus threw his partner a nasty look. "Who told her I'm sick? We're...I'm not sick!"
"Rodimus, are you blind? You won't acknowledge your own illness, but can you deny it in her? Will you look at her? Really look at her and tell me there's nothing wrong!" Optimus commanded.
Rodimus refrained from snapping, and defiantly did as Op asked, fully expecting to be able to defend his position. He studied Lancer's face and drew back in shock. He had done everything he could to block that face from his memory for nearly a year but... She was thin...even gaunt. The Lancer he remembered had no fat to spare, but you couldn't call her thin. She was too muscular, too solid...but now... There were lines on her face he didn't remember, and even when dragging him day after day through desert dunes and craggy scrub he'd never seen her look so tired.
"Well...?" Optimus' voice was just a little too insistent for Rodi's liking. He didn't answer but felt the first stirring of doubt, even as he struggled to prop up the faltering shield. Optimus accepted his silence with a triumphant snort. The Maelstrom crew watched this exchange with interest.
"Sick? Malice, don't play me. You can't even apply that word to a Transformer," Lancer sneered. "I'm not exposing him to my demon and I'm not exposing Edana to anything else! Considering that the Jabez think I'm a favorite target and her father's a favorite project you could almost say they were her grandparents now couldn't you? After what happened to Evan you should get that more than anyone."
*
On the Autobot shuttle, Rodimus crushed the arms of his chair as he flashed. The torrent of images which flooded his mind were his memories, but this time it was Edana he saw instead of Goldbug. Lancer's fear suddenly, violently, became his as well. That tiny, distant life must never fall into the spidery hands of their enemies.
He came back to his senses to find Elita had both hands on his cheeks. Her optics were bright with worry.
"We've got to let them go! We can't protect them!" he begged. "Please Elita! Let them run!"
Lancer hissed and clutched her head again. "What the hell is going on? This shield is a joke today!"
"That shield the reason your both sick...and don't throw Evan back at me. Lancer, your past makes it impossible to avoid the Jabez; your own body will betray you! You're making their job easy! Besides, don't you think she needs a real home? What kind of life will she have running? What are you going to tell her about her father? Lies? Tell her he's dead? Are you just going to cut him out of her life? What about Rodimus? Don't you think he deserves a chance to know her?"
Lancer seemed to wilt somewhat under this barrage, but she shook her head. "Yes. I think he deserves to know her, but he deserves lots of shit I couldn't give him. Little things, ya know. The ability to scream, a night without nightmares, his mind. Nothing important or anything. I can't go back. I'm not strong enough. When the demon finally takes me I don't want him with me."
*
"Same old song," said Robert with a worn-out sigh. They hadn't seen Lancer in nearly two years but were sick of this already. No one even needed to consult Claudia's empathy. Lancer had been trapped in this viewpoint since her possession. She refused to accept evidence to the contrary, even Kain's telepathic scans and Claudia's empathic therapy.
"That's crap!" Malice snapped. "Even if it's true it's not going to get your minds apart. It's too late! You've got the baby; you've got the mind link. Instead of bothering each other from a distance, you can bother each other up close and work things out!"
Lancer lowered her head. Rodimus threw up as many mental shields as he could.
"Uh-oh," said Talon.
"Work things out?" Lancer murmured, her voice deepening and reverberating. "Just like that, eh?" she went on, snapping her fingers in Malice's face. She fanged. "What's this? A hangnail?"
Malice merely rolled her eyes and cocked a sarcastic eyebrow. Lancer pretended not to notice.
"This isn't something you work out! It isn't going to go away! You can't seriously think I'm good for him! Even if I don't somehow corrupt him, I'm still human! I've got maybe what, four decades left in me if I don't bite it in a fight first? Damn it! The baby will die of old age while he's still a young Autobot! Malice, I think it's more cruel to him if he knows he has a child! He'll hang his heart on her - and he'll get to watch her grow old and die. It won't work! He's practically immortal! Not to mention how strong our link still is after all this time trying to break it! What will happened to him when I die? It's not worth it!"
*
"It was to me..." Rodimus whispered, although only Elita, still kneeling by his side, heard him. She knew what it was to love someone and have them out of reach. She took his hand and squeezed it. He didn't look at her but his hand tightened over hers.
*
Malice gave her friend a long, searching stare. "So this is your answer? Running away?" Malice's voice was flat and tired. This day had seen a lot more exertion than she was used to.
"What choice do I have?" Lancer retorted. "I'm holding on to my sanity by my fingernails! All the time I've spent fighting for control, and just part of Rodi's anger this morning blew up my yard! I completely lost it! After what the Jabez did to him he doesn't need me to help him over the edge - he's teetering there already. The thing I pulled out of the lab was five kinds of crazy. It was months before I could trust him to not try to kill himself or me! He even tried to torture me once or twice. I don't think anyone realizes what he'd be capable of. With what I taught him, if he ever decides to abuse his position...it gives me chills thinking about it."
"Rodimus...is that true?" Optimus asked.
Rodimus looked over his shoulder at his partner and smiled cruelly. "No. She's lying. It was way more than once or twice."
"Lancer, it's too late! You're linked! Deal with it together - this separation isn't working! Claudia says it's going to kill you both!"
"Claudia exaggerates! What's good for us isn't as important as what's good for the Autobots. I wouldn't change that if I could. They are the only reason we came back at all. I think we were both actually happy for a while there...I won't do it."
Malice pulled herself scant height up a little higher. "Claudia does not exaggerate and you know it! There's more." She closed her eyes and quoted. "'Links that remain unaffected by distance are rare and sacred bonds. They indicate an irrevocable change in both minds and are impossible to sever without extreme, most likely fatal, damage. If they don't stop trying, both of them will die.' That's Kain talking by the way. We sent the both to Cybertron to look Rodimus over when Optimus told us what was going on. Do you think that bastard Drazi is exaggerating too? If we all died he'd be just as happy."
"He hates me even more than most – why would I trust a word he says?" Lancer asked.
On the Maelstrom, Claudia whistled in distress, and the humans groaned in frustration. Pagan got up to pace.
"Girl," Talon snapped at the screen, "You are the most stubborn, frustrating piece o' work ever!"
Optimus answered with a sympathetic snort. "That's probably why they ended up like this. They're one and the same." He tapped the top of Rodi's head with a finger and got a hell of a glare out of it. Optimus crossed his arms and failed to look sorry.
*
Malice threw her hands up. "Fighting this link may be what tips him over the edge. He's exhausted and he's SICK. Their word – not mine! Optimus is concerned about his stability. He told me that personally even though he doesn't trust us completely. That should tell you something." Malice knew the Autobots were listening in, but she didn't realize Rodimus had crashed the party.
*
Rodimus threw his partner an accusatory stare which Optimus met unashamed. It was true. He was worried and he felt his worries were justified. Rodimus didn't have to like it.
*
Malice continued, "So, if you really want to protect this guy you need to find another way to work this out. KILLING him is not really what you mean by protecting him right?"
Lancer scowled and started with, "That's the lamest excuse of an..." her voice trailed off.
Malice stared, annoyed, at her friend, and waited for the rest of whatever Lancer was about to say. As the moment wore on, however, she realized Lancer was not only silent, but completely still. Her eyes were fixed open, but they weren't seeing anything or blinking. Malice rushed over and tried to get her attention.
Shaking Lancer didn't work but it wasn't until Malice gave her a hard smack on the face with no results that Malice began to panic. She forced Lancer's stiff legs to bend with her telekinesis and got Lancer to sit. Malice fumbled for Lancer's pulse and after found it weak and very slow. She counted at least 20 seconds between each of Lancer's lazy, shallow breaths. For nearly five minutes Malice watched as Lancer's face lost color and her lips turned slowly blue. Just when Malice was about to try something more drastic and those in orbit were getting ready to rush down to the surface, Lancer snapped out of it.
"...argument I've ever heard!" Lancer snarled, and then blinked in surprise to find she was sitting. She frowned, then shrugged. "What!? What are you staring at?!"
"You...You..." Malice stammered, and then felt her anger erase her fatigue. "You nearly died! This is insane! You can't keep this up!"
"Oh come on Malice, now you're getting sad. Lying isn't going to convince me!"
Whatever frayed remnants of patience Malice possessed were obliterated by that remark. "LYING?! I didn't come here to lie! I look like shit, I feel like shit, and you are treating me like shit! I'm not lying! This is EXACTLY what's happening to Rodimus! The Autobots think he's dying. He shuts completely off, loses every ounce of color, and when he wakes up he refuses to believe it's happening! They are frantic! You have got to stop before you both just shut off! This isn't healthy!"
"You, the walking skeleton, are telling me what's healthy? Have you looked at yourself recently Dr. Malice?"
"SHUT UP!" Malice shrieked with the whole force of her tiny form and her hands clenched. Lancer's hut and the surrounding area began quaking. Edana wailed like a siren.
*
Rodimus was on his feet, although he didn't remember standing. When Lancer stopped breathing, he'd been ready to throw all his promises aside to get to her. He was still frightened. Every pair of optics and eyes on two bridges were fixed on him. Was it his imagination or did some of them look just a little smug? He shuddered.
"Is...is ..um..is that what's been happening to me?" he asked timidly. The Autobots looked at each other then at him again.
"YES!" Rodimus flinched as they shouted at him in unison.
"Does it really...er...last that long?"
"YES!" Again in unison.
"oh," Rodimus said, sinking into his seat. He stared, stunned, into space. Malice and Lancer continued to shout ever nastier insults at each other. Rodimus was aware of Lancer's pain as she fought desperately against her best friend and her own desires.
The greater part of his mind was reeling with the now undeniable fact of his own exhaustion. He surveyed the damaged barrier between their minds and took stock of what it would take to bolster it. The cost was too high. He left it alone. His optics flared as Elita took his hand again.
"We really are killing ourselves, aren't we?" Rodimus asked his worried partner.
"Yes, I think you are. Right or wrong you are a part of each other now. You can't keep pouring your lives into a fruitless division. Please, Rodi," Optimus whispered, "we need you to live."
"I can't break my promise not to invade her," Rodimus mumbled, "but I won't do anything more than hold the wall."
Optimus laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know how hard this has been for you. Do what you can. Maybe it will be enough." They turned again to watch Malice and Lancer continue their verbal warfare. Lancer tail was lashing, and Malice's runaway telekinetics rocked the region.
"Something's gotta give," Rodi whispered.
"Maybe it already has," Optimus thought, with the first hope he'd felt in a long time. He handed Rodimus an energon cube. "Drink it."
"I recharged last night."
"Drink it anyway."
*
"Stop shaking my place! You're scaring my kid," Lancer snapped at Malice, frustrated. The little telekinetic flushed and didn't answer. Malice was startled to find she could still move objects of that weight. The exhaustion hadn't dampened her powers as much as weakened her control. Too tired to come up with an excuse, Malice didn't apologize but went on with a losing battle. Whatever points Malice made, especially the valid ones, were being dismissed out of hand. She was trying to use logic to argue an emotional conviction and she couldn't find a way past Lancer's stubborn fear.
"You won't be much good to your kid if you die and he won't be a real big help to the Autobots either."
"You're exaggerating."
"No! I'm not! And you can't afford to take that chance!"
Lancer's taloned hands clenched in fury. She took comfort in rising rage that could save her, even as resolve abandoned her. Malice wasn't raising new arguments. Lancer had been over them all on long wakeful nights alone. Hearing them from the lips of a friend she loved gave them a new validity she wasn't prepared for. She pushed her talons through the skin and muscle of her left palm, letting the pain activate her last line of defense. Blood seeped between her fingers.
*
Claudia rushed to leave the bridge and seek refuge in her heavily shielded quarters. Rodimus shuddered again, and stared down at his own clenched fist. It took an effort of will to release it. He forced it open.
*
Lancer's hand shot open - splattering blood. Too shocked by the rebellion in her limbs to protest, she allowed Malice to staunch the punctures while Lancer took stock of her mind. Rodimus was still holding the wall but she sensed a change. It frightened her. When she refocused on the outside world, Malice was in full swing.
"...does it! You are going back and we are going to straighten this out! You are messing up yourselves AND each other!"
Lancer lost the very last shred of her control. She shoved Malice away from her forcefully as her full demonic features manifested. The underweight telekinetic barely managed to keep from falling. "THIS AIN'T NO FUCKING FAIRY TALE MALICE!" Lancer's roar was so distorted she was barely understandable. "You and Optimus can go on preaching until you die, but don't expect me to buy it!" Lancer simpered, "'Work it out! Stay together! Blah blah BLAH!' LOOK AT ME! I won't condemn him to this! Leaving was the best thing I could do! I love him! I had my time with him but it's over and it's more than I deserved!" Lancer paused, panted, and curled her lip defiantly as she awaited an answering assault.
Malice had none to launch. She was defeated, deflated. Lancer suddenly stopped seeing her as an adversary and saw her withered, grief haunted friend instead. Malice's eyes gleamed with unshed tears.
"You idiot," Malice finally whispered. "I had what you are denying. You may think it was a fairy tale, but it sure didn't have a happy ending. Kendall would have given anything to see his child grow up, just as I would have given anything to save him. I couldn't. Yet here you are. Rodimus is alive, but you're going to throw it all away. You won't even let him know that you're all right, or even that he's a father. Everyday you stay apart, you deprive him of part of her life. You're worried he'll outlive her? So? He wouldn't be the first parent to bury a child...how many of them would tell you they would rather have never known their daughter? I don't care anymore. Do what you want. Call me when you've made up your mind." Malice turned and headed straight for the swamp. Lancer stared after her as she retreated.
Lancer leaned on the rough walls home - pale, shaken, and tired. Once the shouting stopped, Edana took it down from screaming to snuffling, and Lancer felt calm enough to pick up her daughter to comfort her. Finally, she set the baby on the grass and watched her crawl around. Edana was already trying to stand. She gave it a few goes but her legs weren't quite ready to cooperate. She plopped down on her rump. Lancer scooped her up before she could make up her mind to cry.
"It's called gravity, Kiddo. You'll defeat it soon enough," Lancer smiled as she spoke but it faded almost at once. The smile felt selfish. She stared at her child, realizing how soon Edana would be walking, talking...
The battered floodgates to Lancer's emotions finally ruptured, and she set Edana back down, and clenched her eyes against the tears. It didn't work. Waves of pain were coming at her through the shield too and she couldn't stem the flow.
"Rodi you fucking suck today. What the hell is going on? Why are you so sad? Or are they going after you too? A coordinat..." she trailed off...going pale and still again.
On board the ship, Rodimus did the same. Edana crawled off a good ways and the occupants of both ships were starting to panic again. She was heading right for Lancer's cooking fire.
"..ted assault," Lancer finished. "That sounds like them...Edana?! Get away from the fire-pit!" Lancer ran over, grabbed the little girl, and looked around wildly. "How did you get all the way over here?" she asked. "Oh...shit..."
"Oh shit is right," Rodimus told the screen. "Now who are you gonna protect - her or me? …. It better be her or I'm going to be seriously pissed."
"Fuck," Lancer growled. "Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckandfuck."
Rodimus laughed weakly. The Maelstrom crew joined him. The Autobots looked confused.
"That means we're winning," Rodimus explained.
Lancer finally ran out of expletives. She was tired. She was confused. She was lonely. She needed strength, advice, and solace. Unfortunately, the one person qualified to give her all three was the one she was afraid to approach. Her tears fell silent and unchecked as she watched Edana tumble over herself. Finally, Lancer closed her eyes and trembled. When she opened them, they were clear. She called out for Malice.
When the little woman returned, her eyes also showed evidence of tears but she stood silently in front of Lancer-waiting.
"I'll go," Lancer said curtly, "but only for the baby. Anything more than that is not in the deal, but I'll go. OK?"
Malice was too tired to even smile at her victory, "That's all I wanted."
"Fine," Lancer growled, still not believing she was going through with this. "I have a few more things I need to get together." Malice offered to help but Lancer refused. "It's all right, I did most of it this morning anyway." She didn't add that Malice looked ready to collapse. She picked up Edana, and stared down at her. "The things I do for you," she smiled. The smile faded as Lancer suddenly remembered why she'd been in such a hurry to pack in the first place.
She felt the energy surge of multiple mech-teleportations.
"NO!" she (and Rodimus) screamed. Lancer twisted her body to protect her baby. There was a dull, damp thud and she found she couldn't move. Lancer was vaguely aware of Malice's piercing cry. At the back of her mind she heard Rodimus scream her name, but her foremost thought was how close they'd come to hitting her baby.
Blood on Edana's face, but not Edana's. She clutched the infant on her right - her left was useless now. There was a four foot shaft clean through her left shoulder into the thick wood of the hut behind her. She looked down and saw a fairly clean entry wound where the inch wide shaft was pinning her, but she knew the exit wound was an explosion of meat and bone coming out the other side. The burning in her body was more than shock, and Lancer noted traces of slime coating the shaft. She cursed - these hunters hit her with physical weapons. They knew her. Drugs on the shaft meant they wanted her alive, but were professional enough not to take chances. She saw them pounding uselessly on Malice's telekinetic shield - six armed men - one calling for a backup in the form of a telekinetic CV. Lancer saw the strain on Malice's face and knew her shield would never hold against a direct challenge. Dimly, Lancer recalled times when Malice could have thrown these goons into orbit...literally.
"Pagan can't get to us!" Malice shouted at her, "The nearest jump point is miles off!"
"Take Edana!" Lancer grated. "Use the belt and go!" Malice grabbed the mech from where it rested next to Edana's crib and took the screaming, blood-splattered baby from Lancer. Malice met her eyes silently in despairing farewell.
Unable to just leave, Malice hesitated, "Lancer..."
"While I can still think, Malice!" Lancer snarled between clenched fangs.
Malice quickly reset the mech's destination. The Maelstrom was much closer than Cybertron, and shorter 'ports were safer. While her friend fiddled, Lancer blasted off most of the spear-shaft. She heated the remaining few inches until they glowed and steamed where her blood ran down them. Malice teleported out with the baby, and Lancer could only pray they arrived on Maelstrom in one piece. As the shield fell, Lancer braced her left foot against the wood. She thought she heard Rodimus' frantic protests to what she was planning. He seemed to be telling her that help was coming, that they'd be there soon, that she didn't need to die. Ridiculous notion. Obviously she was already delusional. Who was near enough to help her? Even the Maelstrom's sub-ship was too big to land in this swamp. She certainly wasn't about to be taken alive. She ignored Rodi's denials.
"Goodbye," she thought at him, (even though she knew it wasn't really him) and pulled herself off the heated shaft.
She heard flesh sizzle and caught the scent of charred human meat. The heat seared and partly sealed her wound, even as berserker fury seared and sealed her sanity. She forced more energy through her body, hoping to counter the drug's effects for a while. Reaching back almost casually with her right hand, she pulled the spear-head free of the wall, and whipped it into the throat of a CV as it closed in. One.
Two of the others came at her so she just blasted them to ashes-vaguely glad it had been so long since she'd really used her powers. It was a chunky blast - she was too out of it to aim neatly. Good thing she was too enraged to be embarrassed about it. Two. Three. The bastard with the tranq-spears tried to nail her again, but she leapt over the projectile and landed on him. She didn't remember exactly what she did to him, but he ended up in several nice chunks so she was satisfied. Four.
More bastards were teleporting in, although she had the satisfaction of seeing one of them turn up with his insides out. Mechanical teleporters...such a shame about that. One of the remaining two of the original group took advantage of her excessive mangling of his companion to snare her in an energy net. She had faced these before, but this was different. It wrapped tight around her and shocked her system with rapidly changing frequencies of energy. Her drug-fogged mind couldn't keep up with the variations as it drained her. Her captors prepared to teleport away with her.
DRAIN IT! LANCER! We're almost there! PLEASE try!
Now where did that come from? Not that it was a bad idea. She decided to give it a go and pulled the net into herself...then she poured all of her remaining energy into a single burst. The mangle nerves in her shoulder shrieked in protest but she didn't care. The net, and its operator, exploded nicely. That made...hmmm...four? Five?
"Where's Edana?" she suddenly wondered in panic. "Where is she?" She snarled, finding herself surrounded by men with weapons she wasn't coherent enough to identify. She imagined she saw a rain of lasers pour down on them from a diving shuttle. She knew she was imagining it because it was an Autobot shuttle and because no sane person flew a ship that way. Her body absorbed the blasts that hit near her automatically. Lancer barely felt them but they did seem real enough to turn her attackers into damp, smoking smears. They also blew up her little hut. The imaginary shuttle landed nearby, taking down a few trees as it did.
"EDANA!" she shrieked, having forgotten Malice's visit. She was positive the baby was somewhere inside her shattered hut. Her left arm got in the way as she frantically searched the rubble. She callously shoved it in her belt, ignoring the fact that she was bleeding profusely. A figure suddenly appeared in front of her, and she attacked automatically-slashing its face from just below the left eye to the jaw-line. The voice that cried out was vaguely familiar, but she didn't worry about it and lunged for the throat with her teeth.
STOP! STOP! LANCER! THAT'S MALICE! DON'T KILL HER!
Who could that be? Who was calling her?
Rodi?
Confirmation didn't come as words, but as love and strength that held her, soothed her. Through his optics, she saw the "enemy" in front of her become her hurt friend. The shock gave Lancer a last, lucid moment. She took stock of what she'd done, and how much she was bleeding. She was dying and she knew it. Rodimus sent back such stubborn denial she was terrified.
Don't cling to a corpse! she ordered. Get out Rodi! Let me go! She made sure he knew everything she meant by that - she didn't want him to die with her, and she didn't want him to waste his life grieving. She felt an overwhelming determination that he wasn't going to let her die, and felt him wrap himself that much closer. He ordered her to shut eyes to avoid hallucinations. An enormous hand gently scooped her up and placed her – somewhere. Curious, she opened her eyes, and found herself surrounded by Jabez.
"NO! Bastards! I'll kill you all! DON'T TOUCH ME! EDANA!" Strong arms pinned her down, and she screamed in terror and anguish. She fought with all her strength - not having the energy to lance anymore.
Rodimus was literally rocked back on his heels by the clarity of her hallucinations. Optimus caught him. Rodi felt his grip on reality slipping; what she was seeing touched on his memories and deepest fears. Pain on a human scale was something he hadn't felt in a while, but their flimsy mental barrier had ruptured the moment she'd been hit. The pain had knocked him right out of his seat. He'd run for the controls before he'd even really registered what was happening, and hardly noticed when Pagan and half of the Maelstrom crew suddenly appeared on the Autobot's ship.
The dive he'd put the shuttle through was just shy of suicidal - just barely within the trajectory tolerances. Strangely, no one had protested anything he did until he activated every laser on board to shoot the men surrounding Lancer. In his panic, Optimus forgot that Lancer wouldn't be harmed by energy weapons and had made a grab for his crazed partner. Rodimus didn't remember shoving Optimus away, but he did remember feeling a bit guilty when Op hit the wall. He made a mental note to apologize later. They'd all rushed out to get Lancer when she'd panicked thinking the baby was still in the ruined hut. Lashing out at everything, she'd wounded Malice badly. Four ragged tears cut through Malice's thin flesh almost to the bone. Pagan was attending to the telekinetic now.
He'd just handed Lancer to her friends when the hallucinations really hit. Rodimus shuddered and grabbed his head, trying to get his vision to clear. Optimus gripped his shoulders firmly, and the pressure helped Rodimus focus on reality enough to get a look at what was really going on. Robert, Jordan, and Talon were sitting on Lancer; struggling to hold her as she tried to bite and slash her way to freedom. She wasn't making it easy and they had to be careful not to traumatize her worse.
"HOLD HER!" Robert shouted.
"What the hell do ya think I'm tryin' to do? Crochet?! You fuckin' hold her!"
Pain turned Rodi's vision black and he swayed again. Again, he felt Optimus supporting him. Lancer shrieked again in terror and fury, before suddenly collapsing. Her friends took advantage of her unconsciousness and began a frantic attempt to save her. Rodimus barely noticed. All he could really see or feel was the numbing grey void Lancer had escaped to. He concentrated on keeping her - and himself - from slipping further. He turned dim optics on his partner.
"I need a lifeline, Optimus." He knew his partner would understand. Rodimus sank back into Optimus' arms, and shut down his optics. Optimus started talking. What he said meant little to Rodi, who couldn't follow it anyway. What did matter was that Op's voice became a homing beacon for Rodimus. It stood for reality and life, just as it had when Galvatron had ripped our Rodi's chest years prior. Rodimus held on to that steady voice even as he held on to Lancer's life by sheer will. His efforts, combined with her friend's desperate measures and a massive transfusion of Lancer's own blood from the ship's long frozen supply, got the injured woman back to Cybertron.