Bulkhead scooped up another shovelful of ore. It felt like his two hundredth of the day.
"Tell me again," he said, "why hitchhiking was such a good idea."
Bumblebee stabbed his chisel into the side of the tunnel. Chunks of ore starred with glowing blue deposits fell at his feet and clanked against his manacles. "I didn't say it was a good idea. I said it was an idea. It seemed better than drifting through deep space in a ship with a burned-out engine."
"He seems to think the ship is still worth something. I saw him attach a tow cable while we were being cuffed." Bulkhead considered. "If he is a he. Hard to tell with this species."
"It's a he." Bumblebee's chisel stuck on the next swing. He planted a foot on the tunnel wall to pull it out. "He's probably going to melt our ship down and sell it in chunks."
"Or, he might repair the engine in order to sell it or use it himself. In which case we might be able to get it back."
"That would make Sentinel less mad, I suppose," Bumblebee grunted. He couldn't get the chisel out. Bulkhead leaned his shovel against the tunnel wall and lumbered over to help. Their united efforts - mostly Bulkhead's - freed the chisel and buried them to the knees in suddenly loosened ore.
"Well!" Bumblebee dusted his hands and surveyed their handiwork. "Looks like I can take the rest of the shift off - you've got plenty to shovel."
"If only we hadn't just buried my shovel."
"I'll help you look for it." Bumblebee whipped out his stinger and fired it into the pile over Bulkhead's protests. The resulting fireball blew them against the opposite tunnel wall and set alarms wailing all over the mine.
"I was trying to tell you." Bulkhead peeled himself off the wall, leaving a rock angel behind. "This is a type of energy ore. Cybertron uses something similar to catalyze the chain reaction inside a space bridge's -"
"Tell me faster next time!" Bumblebee flailed, still stuck inside his own rock angel. Bulkhead pulled him out just as the tunnel supervisor came huffing into sight.
"What happened here?" the supervisor snarled through his breath mask. He was vaguely humanoid, lumpy, and half the size of Bumblebee; it was the electric prod in his four clawed hands that made him dangerous, as Bumblebee had discovered when he objected to being manacled.
"A spark," Bulkhead answered quickly, "from Bumblebee's chisel against the rock. Blew the whole place apart. I don't know how one little spark could've done that."
The supervisor pulled his mask away from his piggish nostrils and sniffed, then snapped it hastily back in place. "Gas," he said, lowering his prod. "You metaloids aren't sensitive to it, or you'd be dead. Check the meter next time. We get a fan cart, blow it out topside before digging. Explosions waste fuel ore."
"Right." Bulkhead glanced at the meter strapped to his wrist. Either the mine owner made a habit of enslaving very large species, or he had a ridiculous assortment of meter sizes, because he and Bumblebee had been fitted for theirs as soon as they hit the ground. "Meters. We'll check them."
"Waste come out of paychecks." With that, the supervisor stalked away.
"I didn't know we got paychecks."
"I've heard of this on TV," Bumblebee said wisely. "It's called wage slavery."
"What's important," Bulkhead said, after making sure the supervisor was out of earshot, "is that he doesn't know about your stingers."
"Or your wrecking balls."
"Right. They cuffed us so fast we didn't get a chance to use them, but we will, when we make a break for it."
They spent the rest of the shift picking up the exploded ore. Bulkhead pointed out that the stars of glowing blue matter had shrunk or vanished entirely. "He wasn't lying. Explosions use up the fuel ore."
"So we're wasting our time clearing this mess."
"No, it's blocking the tunnel. If we don't pick it up now, they'll just make us do it after our shift ends."
"Wage slave," Bumblebee grumbled.
A different supervisor came down the tunnel to round up his newest workers and herd them back to their cells.
"Coming," Bulkhead said, hefting his shovel.
"Coming," Bumblebee said, hefting his chisel. Then he bent and, using his free hand, scooped the air around his ankle joints.
The supervisor sneered. "You malfunctioning already? If you need repairs after just two days, we'll put you in the smelter."
At first Bulkhead thought that Bumblebee had enough sense not to display his stingers. Later, after remembering the way the blank look on Bumblebee's face had turned to rage, he realized that Bumblebee had wanted the satisfaction of pounding the alien's face with his fists. It wasn't long until other supervisors converged on the fight, blowing their whistles. It took three of them to prod Bumblebee off the first supervisor. Bumblebee had had the upper hand from the start, but the supervisor had managed to rake him across the face, leaving claw marks on his cheek.
"Who's ready for the smelter now, tough guy?"
"All right, little buddy." Bulkhead held him back from starting a new brawl with the other supervisors as the incapacitated one was hauled away. "You proved your point. No smelter."
Bumblebee's shoulders drooped as he nursed the claw marks. "It wasn't that."
Bulkhead sighed. He had seen that movement countless times on Earth. Usually, Sari met it halfway.
"I know."