His tanks pinged him for the seventh time that orn, a reminder he dismissed with barely a thought and no regard for what his systems were trying to tell him. Nothing was important outside of his calculations at the moment as he designed a mission that required the expertise of the Head of Special Operations – a mech that he was not going to risk any more than he absolutely had to. He sighed again, raising a hand to massage the center piece of his chevron to try and take some of his stress away unsuccessfully. If only he could give the saboteur Mirage's cloaking device and his own training in energy blades, it would be a much quicker and less risky mission. The length of time he was going to have to spend in the enemy base was what was making the mission so risky.

If only he had not been so good with tactics at the beginning of the war, he would be able to take the mission himself. He had better odds than Jazz did at that point in time, but asking Prime was absolutely out of the question. His request would be denied before he was even able to finish his argument. Apparently a tactician was too valuable to risk, even if he had all of the qualifications of a top ranked infiltrator and saboteur, though they were not kept up to date under his own designation. It was unlikely that even Jazz would know of his other identity – Barricade – as the mech's personality was so divergent from his own.

The door opening drew his attention from the calculations he was running and he on-lined his optics to a sleek, bright visor right in front of his face.

"Well, 'ello Prowler. Ya back ta tha land o' tha not almos' stasis locked?"

"I am not almost stasis locked, Jazz," he protested, hand lifting to rub his chevron mount again as his doorwings perked in joy at having his significant other paying attention to him.

"When was tha last time ya refueled?" the saboteur asked, moving around the desk and tugging the unresisting Praxian to his feet. "An' take inta 'ccount how hard ya been workin' those processors o' yers."

He hummed for a long moment, running through his memories to figure out the answer to the question asked. "The last time I had a cube was the end of last orn and I was unable to finish it as Sideswipe needed to be disciplined before Ironhide decided on appropriate punishment himself. Taking into consideration how much I have been working on this plan, I should have refueled at the beginning of this orn." He paused for a moment in speaking as he locked his door behind them. "What would you say if I would like to reactivate one of your agents for a mission?"

Jazz paused for a moment to contemplate his answer before speaking. "It would depend on the agent, Ah guess. Who ya got in mind?"

"Barricade."

The Head of Special Operations hummed as he searched his processors for the specs on that mech, sure that he had seen the file not that long ago and scanning it as they walked once he found it. "Ah'll have ta contact tha mech, but Ah don' see why not."

Their feet carried them out of the tactical division and to a nearby rec room on base – one reserved for the officers and for the mecha of the Tactical Department. They both needed energon and now they both had puzzles to solve. Jazz sighed. At least he had gotten the tactician out of his office and distracted him slightly even if he was unable to keep his mind entirely off of work. Hopefully that would change once the other black and white was off-duty.