Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. If you are a lawyer employed by any transformer-related company, check the meaning of that word and be on thy way. You won't earn your salary here.

Dedication: THANK YOU, Maximus Wheeljack and Lady Starscream, this chapter is for you :)))
As for the rest of you... /blows a raspberry at people who read but don't review/ May your own stories remain unreviewed as well. (I will lift that curse if you see the errors of your ways) ;)

A/N: There were some things that bothered me in the episode 'Guerrilla Warfare'- what made Optimus suddenly remember that they were explorers, how did Dinobot guess what the virus was supposed to be, and most of all, how come Megatron survived to see another episode? Come on, he and Scorponok had a bomb explode in their faces, and the only other Predacons still standing were Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia. Do you really see them dragging their "dear" leader to the CR tank? 'Cause I don't.
Spoilers:'Guerrilla Warfare'

-

Mission: To save Beast Warriors

Part four
A bee, a cat and a lab

Salvaging, hunting, and unconventional weapons. A typical day in Beast Wars. Enjoy!

-

-

Salvaging.

Rust tilted his head and regarded a piece of twisted metal with disbelieve. "It can't be this, can it?" Behind his back Terrorsaur snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised. It's just like Tarantulas to send us on a wild scrap chase." He flopped to the air, caught the hot wind under his wings and shot up almost effortlessly. His comlink beeped.
**Nice trick, flyer.**
If he didn't know better, he might think there was a note of admiration in wolf's voice. He looked around, and screeched. "This scrap is scattered all over the place! It will take us solar-cycles to sort through all this!"
**So? You're not missing Megs, are you? We have energon, no one will shoot us and no one will yell at us. What more do you want?**
"To get rid of that slaggin' sand grinding my gears, and to get out of this sun and to be away from your pestering!"
His comlink sputtered with Rust's laughter. **You do realize you will have to land sooner or later, and I'll still be here, don't you?**
The pterodactyl muttered something unrepeatable. Eight solars with easily bored and nosy wolf, who tended to turn aggressive when not kept amused had totally wrecked his nerves.
**Oy, bird! Now that we have something to do, I will let you stay silent, so you have one out of three, and after the sunset, it will be two out of three. Ain't that nice?**
"Have I mentioned how much I hate you?"
**No, today you didn't.**
"I hate you."
**Aw, poor negatively-minded dactyl. All right, tell me where the nearest most promising heap of scrap is, and let's get it started.**

A rhino roaming tropical plains is nothing special. A rhino chatting with a direct protoplast of Abyssinian cats curled on it's back is, on the other hand, rather unusual. Unless, of course, one knows that animals in question are, in fact, robots in disguise. Then the chatting makes sense.
Actually, they weren't exactly chatting, it was more like a scholarly dispute. The day before Kittar had raised the subject of possibility of using chemicals extracted from native plant life to enhance healing process of their beast modes, and since it didn't occur to anyone earlier, she and Rhinox ended up in a jungle, scanning and gathering samples. Now they were going back to Axalon, discussing some of more promising finds. The reason why the cat was getting a lift was that she'd declared she was tired, and Rhinox, having a van as an alt-mode prior to landing on this planet, was used to carrying things.
Kittar opened her eyes and scowled when they entered the shadow of Axalon (who stole the sun?), but brightened up immediately, hopped off rhino's back and darted forward cheerfully. Rhinox saw what was coming. "Kittar, don't--!"
/THUMP/
"I'm back! Missed me?"
"NO! Get offa me!" Rattrap scrambled to his feet, dusting off his front. "I didn't miss ya, I don't miss ya, an' I'll never miss ya so quit askin'!"
Rhinox maximized for the sole purpose of putting hands on his hips and staring down at her sternly. "Kittar, why do you keep doing that?"
She grinned at him and purred, very pleased with herself.
" 'Rrrrr' is not and answer, and you know that."
She purred even louder.
"Ah, don't waste yer time, Big Green, can't ya see this thing is dumb as a plank? HEY!"
The exclamation was caused by a set of claws swishing dangerously close to his face. Rattrap jumped back, grumbled under his breath and walked away. He hadn't yet developed a strategy to deal with someone who went from content purring to furious slashing with no stage in between. Even Dinobot was easier to handle, and he was a Pred, slaggit! Where was he anyway? Rattrap set off in a search of a personhe could annoy.
OoOoO

"I must ask you to stop pestering Rattrap, Kittar." The cat glanced at Optimus from her place on a round table. She didn't like the demand, so she ignored it, hoping it would go away. It did, if only because Optimus had more to say. He fitted her in their duty schedule and was reading it to her, explaining patrol routs and other details, when he noticed that her tail was twitching. "Something wrong?"
"Yes." And without further explanation, she jumped down the open lift shaft and ran away.

OoOoO

To say that Rattrap wasn't too happy would be a big understatement. "Find Kittar an' try ta brin' her back, he says. An' how should I do that, huh? An' why me? Was it my idea to brin' a cat onboard? I don't think so. She can run an' never come back for all I care, I'd be happy if she did that..." He continued muttering until he found his least favorite teammate. She was pacing back and forth in ravines not far from Axalon. Rattrap looked at her frowning. "Well? What's wrong wit' ya this time?"
She responded never stopping her pacing. "I hate it. I know it's stupid, I know it's unreasonable, I can't help it, I hate it."
"Hate what?"
"Taking orders." She finally sat down and looked at him. "I know I should, but it goes against every single instinct I have."
Rattrap put fists on his hips. "Well, ya better get used to it, sista', cause we 'ave a war here, even if miniature one, an I don' wanna get scrapped just 'cause of yer whims, ya know?"
"I know!" She snorted in irritation, and stared at him for a while. "All right, I know what I'll do. Come on." And she trotted back to base.
Rattrap blinked. "Well, ah, that was easy..."

OoOoO

**Yo, Fearless Leader, da fur-ball is goin' back.**
"Well, that was quick! How did you do this?"
**Don't ask me, I donno nothin' of insanity.**

OoOoO

"Hi Optimus!" Kittar jumped up on a table and sat there, with tail wrapped neatly around her. "So I know what to do. I will take every order when there will be an emergency, like Pred attack or some very important operation, but other times I shall do as I please." She said (with Rattrap's accent) and beamed at him. Optimus closed his eyes for a nano and shook his head slightly.
Why oh why have I ever answered that emergency alert?
"Of course. That is your right, Kittar. Though it would be much easier if--"

/beep/ ** Hnn, Where are you cat? You are assigned on a patrol with me.** Dinobot's impatient voice came through the comlink.
"Dinobot, there was--" Optimus started explaining, but Kittar's voice interrupted him. "Coming!" she called and disappeared in the lift.

Primal exchanged glances with Rhinox. "Did I miss something?"
Rhinox spread his arms. "Maybe she feels like going on patrol."

"Anything useful?"
"Can't you lift that thing higher?"
Rust hissed impatiently. The broken container was huge, heavy, and unwieldy, and he barely kept it as it was. "Move your skid-plate, slaggit, even I would fit under there!"
"Then maybe you should crawl under there," Terrorsaur muttered. He peeked in the gloom and to his displeasure, he noticed a seemingly untouched long-range comm driver. That meant he had to go into a small, dark, small, unsafe, small space to get it.
"Move it, my hands are slipping!"
Gritting his teeth Terrorsaur rolled under the sharp edge, grabbed his target, thrust it outside and rolled back. That was the plan, anyway. Only the driver hit the container's wall, and Rust's hold on it slipped completely. With a thud of metal on sand, darkness closed around the red bot.
No, no, let me out, where's the light, I can't breath, where're the walls, let me out, it's crushing me, I can't breath...

He woke up to the blue sky and a steady slapping on his face. He grunted and waved a hand to stop whoever was doing the slapping.
"Well, finally! Next time warn me before you decide to take a nap!" Rust's face appeared in his field of vision. "Feeling like getting up yet?" He shook his head, and Rust scowled. "Fine, so lie here and scorch, you good for nothing flyer. Just don't think you can trick me into doing all the dirty work myself."
He walked to the sledge and started rearranging pieces of equipment they'd salvaged so far. He glanced at the red motionless form lying on the sand. So... afraid of small spaces. What was it called? Closedphobia? Something like that.
He could have told me, slaggit. I wouldn't tell him to go under there if I knew. Stupid flyer.
-

"I'm hungry. Let's go kill something."
"We have an assignment, cat. Hnn. Keep your mind on the task."
Kittar pouted. Her main reason for coming with him was to see how good a hunter he was. But - and she brightened at the thought - she could also check his stalking abilities. And since they were suppose to find out if the Predacons came back to the area, he couldn't refuse that.

OoOoO

Dinobot was watching her out of the corner of his eye. He had to hand it to her, she knew how to stalk. If he didn't know where she was, he probably wouldn't spot her. And he certainly wouldn't hear her. But she was practically defenseless. She'd replaced her LSD with one of Rattrap's blasters, but her aim was less than poor. 'I'm a short range person' she claimed with irritation, when Rattrap fell over laughing during target practice. Then she challenged the vermin for a dagger-throwing duel, and after a mega-cycle Optimus called it a draw and took the daggers away from them. None of them was too pleased... Dinobot smirked. He glanced in her direction again and it took him a while to perceive a slight movement and a speck of red fur. Not at home with weapons, very good at stalking. Little use in battles, good for reconnaissance missions.

OoOoO

Hmmm. His colors were to his advantage, as well as smooth movements. But he was too loud. She'd heard his breath and rustle of leaves more than once. And his smell was too strong, he'd had to keep downwind to stay undetected. So, all in all...
I'm better at this. She smiled.

Unconventional weapons.

A gas dissolved in a liquid well enough, the specially programmed nanites, according to his equipment, were doing their job, and the only problem was a side effect revealed in one of tests. The virus was disrupting energy flow on a subwarp level, and that meant it was potentially lethal. That was not what he was aiming at!

"Any progress, Scorponok?"
He jumped. "Not yet, Megatron, I doing, am doing, did..." he tangled himself in tenses, for the umpth time cursing his protector. The crazy old bot had lived in a separated fleshlings' community, and was so obsessed with their culture, that he never allowed to use other than their language in the house. After few decades Scorponok's internal computer labeled unused data with his native language as unimportant and deleted it. As a result, he was a rarity: A Cybertronian for whom Cybertronish was a foreign language. He'd never caught a full grasp of grammar, and it was getting worse whenever he was nervous. Like now.
"It not work as I want," he managed. Megatron narrowed his eyes. "And how does it work?" His voice was calm, and Scorponok calmed down as well. "I think it affect behavior as I wanted. But a problem is with it, it my affect spark as well. Fatally maybe. I'm not sure." Megatron stroked his dino-hand. "Well then, if you are not sure, I suggest testing it. We do have few test subjects eager to help, don't we." He smiled evilly. "But, I think a little... upgrade may be in order. Yess"
Scorponok groaned inwardly. Just what he was afraid of...

"I know this smell!" Kittar was sniffing at the broken scanner vigorously. "The spiders smelled like that!"
Dinobot snarled. "Not surprising. They are Tarantulas's creations."
"So this was Tarantulas?"
"Correct."
"And the other one?"
"Scorponok."
She sniffed around for a while, to remember the new smell. "But all traces are old. We've searched the entire area, and there was no sign of Predacons.Now can we go hunt something?"
"Hnn. Go ahead, cat. I will make sure no one shoots you while you play."
She hissed at him. That was not how she wanted it! Stubborn lizard! She stared at him, twitching her tail, and then turned and run away. Who cares about him anyway?

Hunting.

Not a single straw quivered. Not a single sound was aroused. No gust of wind brought the scent of warning to unsuspecting victim. It was a perfect trap. Except...
She knew she'd made a mistake the nano she lunged. The antelope was simply too big for her; it screamed and bolted, with Kittar still clinging to its neck. She sank her teeth and claws deeper, but her prey only ran faster, until something big and brown hit it from the side.
"Amateur," Dinobot snarled with contempt. Kittar hissed, then inspected the way his talons had torn through the animal's side, and rubbed her muzzle angrily.
He's better than me. No fair.
Dinobot started ripping off pieces of meat. She eyed him, then very gently put a paw on antelope's front leg. When he didn't react, she moved a bit closer. After a moment she started eating as well, and he didn't protest. Well, as long as he was sharing food she could live with him being superior.

This time, Rattrap managed to turn around in time, but regretted it immediately.
"Missed me?"
"EWWWW! What in da Pit ya ate? No, don't answer that." He pushed her away with disgust and got up. "I thought ya were goin' to scout, lizard-breath!" he said, glaring at Dinobot's bloody face. The raptor grinned, perfectly aware there were still chunks of meat between his teeth.
"YUCK! yer disgustin' the pair o' ya! Go an' clean yerselves!"
"Hnn, I dare say you could use a cleaning yourself, vermin. Your stench can be felt miles away."
"Oh yea? Well at least I'm not a mindless carrion-eater!"
"As if the garbage you devour were any better!"
Kittar sat down and listened, moving her gaze from one opponent to another, like a tennis-match spectator. Finally Dinobot snarled. "I will not honor that with response, rodent. Let's go, cat."

Aww. And it was such an enjoyable show... She followed Dinobot to the cleaning facility. It was a perfectly normal bathroom, with four basins full of cleaning liquid.
"Rhinox made sure the liquid is oxygenized, so you can breath with it," Dinobot informed her, stepping in one of the basins and sinking under the surface. She watched him, feeling her fur rising slightly. She knew perfectly well how it all worked.
You get in the basin, the liquid starts to flow around you, and the mixture of chemicals removes and washes away everything that is not a part of you.
The fluid was also a good coolant, one that wouldn't short-circuit bot's air intakes the way water would, and Rhinox's modification to it meant it would provide the beast mode with oxygen. So a bot could just lay back and wait to be cleaned, not worrying about anything. Nice, easy and relaxing. There was only one, itsy-bitsy problem... She stepped to the smallest basin, gingerly dipped the tip of one paw in it, and jerked it back, shaking it violently.
Wet!
She stared at the liquid angrily. She circled the basin and touched the surface at the other end, and jerked her paw back even faster.
WET!
She stood there for a moment, her fur alternately raising and falling back, and then she just bolted. Stupid cleaning!

"Ya do realize this is disgusting."
Kittar stopped licking herself clean, looked at Rattrap thoughtfully, then she raised her paw and stretched her fingers. Five sharp claws gleamed in the sun.
"Yea, yea, sure, kill da messenger. Lizards an' felines an' Preds. I wanna pay rise, ya hear me, boss-monkey?"
"I'm trying not to. Have you fixed that auto-gun already?"
"I would've done it, if I weren't knocked to da ground every five cycles. Are ya sure we can't trade 'er for Blackarachnia?"
"Yes, Rattrap, I am positive about that."

Kittar finished the ablutions ignoring the male's voices, and stretched on the ground, exposing her belly to the sun. She was starting to doze off, when someone stole the sun again.
"Hey, what do you say we race to the trees and back?"
She didn't even bother to open her eyes. "Don't feel like it."
"Aww, come on..." Cheetor poked her upturned stomach in a friendly manner. Kittar shot up almost vertically and punched him upon landing.
"OW!" Cheetor rubbed his nose. "Why d'you do that?"
"Never touch my belly." He wriggled his nose to check if it's still working. "Why not?" "Because. It's an animal thing."

The young bot sighed, and then he remembered something. "Hey, I've thought of something. Remember how you couldn't find anything on pods in our computers? "
"Yes." She yawned.
"Well, then, maybe you could just go and see the pods yourself?" She livened up at once. "You have the pods? I thought you've launched them?"
"Only the occupied ones, the rest--" She was on the lift before he could finish. "Well, show me!"

OoOoO

The stasis hold was a big room, with a row of clamps running along all its walls, and an emergency hatch on the ceiling. Seven pods were still secured to the wall. Kittar took one look on them, and information exploded in her mind.
"Basic procedure for long cruise vessels is to have onboard the number of stasis pods equal to number of crew members, plus blanks and spare pods, quantity of both equal to 10 of crew members number." She smiled at Cheetor. "So what your crew members number was?"
He blinked, surprised. "Er...thirty two."
Her optics dimmed for a moment, as she calculated. "That means three spare pods." Looking at the seven containers, she frowned. "One less than it should be."
"Er, no, actually, the four for standing crew and three spares. Er, 'cause Dinobot wasn't with us. Er. He was, kinda, Predacon. But he joined us the first day we've landed."
Kittar looked at him with unblinking optics, thinking it over. "Oh." She said finally, with a casual tone of voice. It didn't make any difference to her, really. She moved to the nearest pod and opened its panel. She looked at the modules, and dozens of blueprints and diagrams flashed behind her optics. She brightened up. "Ah-ha!"
"What?" Cheetor moved closer and looked over her shoulder.
She started to point various parts of machinery enthusiastically. "See this? This is a very old model, and it stores different kind of data in separated modules instead of creating complete virtual core model. Here, this is a behavioral chip, it determines what basic programmin' ya have, Pred or Maxi kinda thin'. An' here is where they download yer datatrax, only they hafta sort it by complexity, ya know, an' da knowledge an' skills goes in here, but da personal data, like memories an stuff, that goes in here, 'cause it takes slaggin' complex structure ta store datas like that, an' that module is Pit damn fragile, an' if anythin' is to malfunction, that is what goes first. An' that must be why me an' Tigatron don't have no memories from before here; that module musta been scrapped in our pods." She beamed at Cheetor.
"Oh," he said faintly, recovering from the shock of hearing a lecture said in Rattrap's accent and manner. Why Kittar was talking like that when Rattrap didn't hear it and therefore couldn't be annoyed by it, was beyond him. "That explains it, I guess..." He thought for a while. "What's a blank?"
"Just a protoform without a spark. For spare parts, mostly. And in case..." she stopped talking, looking at him thoughtfully. Somewhere in the back of her CPU there was an annoying feeling that she shouldn't be talking with him about that. Something about the young age... She wrinkled her nose. She could try and figure out what was that about, but she didn't feel like it. "Ah, never mind," she finished. And since the pods held no further interest for her, and she wasn't sleepy anymore, she challenged him. "I bet I can beat you to the trees." She beastmoded and took off.
"No WAY!" Cheetor exclaimed and followed.

Scorponok welded one more wire in place and sighed. He'd run few more tests, which confirmed that his virus was indeed lethal, but Megatron wanted to know if it would also affect behavior the way Scorponok claimed. He didn't want to wait for a scientist to remove the flaws, though, so he came up with a partial solution. The cyber bee that was initially intended to be only a carrier for the virus, was to be modified to keep the infected unit on-line for one solar-cycle.

"The target will be Optimus Primal." Megatron said. "When he's infected, his troops will either remove the bee - thus killing their leader, - or will be forced to negotiate with us in order to acquire the cure." He smiled evilly. He knew exactly what he'd demand in that instance.
"They could also attack us," Tarantulas noticed not looking at him. He was busy searching data for one specific blueprint. The information on the machinery Megatron was interested in was fragmentary and scattered. Some information here, some diagrams there, some references somewhere else... Piecing it all together was a monumental task, and he'd still have to fill the gaps by himself. And even if he managed to make it all work, Megatron would probably do something stupid and waste all his efforts. Tarantulas was annoyed, and, going along with the best of Predacon traditions, was trying to spread the mood. He didn't succeed.

"They could try, of course. But with their leader hiding at the bottom of their ship, and the tiger wandering more than two solar-cycles away, they will be no threat to us." The Predacon leader smiled at his scientists. "Even with Rust and Terrorsaur gone, we won't have troubles defending the base against four Maximals, noo."
Tarantulas chuckled at that.
Megatron raised an optic ridge. "I'm glad you find this amusing, Tarantulas. Or maybe you have any... suggestions?"
The spider-bot smirked. "Indeed I have."
You should keep better account of your enemies, oh Mighty One.
"You could enclose a bomb to Scorponok's cyber bee. That way you could take down more than one Maximal, if they will be stupid enough to remove it." Megatron for a few nanos just watched him in silence, trying to determine if he'd really heard a note of mockery in spider's voice. Then he smiled. "An excellent idea, yess. Scorponok, see to that."

Scorponok put the tools down with an irritated sigh. He was almost finished, and now he'd have to redesign the whole thing completely. He was sure the spider did it on purpose.
"It will take a few solar cycles Megatron. My cyber bees weren't designed for such tasks."
"Well then, it is your job to re-design them, I believe. Yess. Oh, and Scorponok..."
Scorpion was heading to the exit to bring new components, but stopped and turned around at his leader's voice. "Yes, Megatron?"
"If our 'test' gives satisfying results, I'll want you to supply us with a bigger amount of that virus."

Scientist shifted uncomfortably. That was the tricky part. "I... I'm not sure if I can Megatron. I was updating records on it when we've lost power, and..." he reset his vocalizer. "All data was lost. Beyond recovery."
Megatron growled. "NOW you're telling me this?"
Scorponok bowed his head in shame.
The purple bot tapped his fingers against the armrest, glaring. "Proceed with your current task," he said at last, making a mental note to rip Rust's ears off for that. Who knows what other damages his incompetent meddling had inflicted!

"Stop meddling with that, you'll break it!"
"You'd prefer if I broke something else? Someone's big red beak for example?"
Rust's tone of voice was rather playful, but Terrorsaur moved to the safe distance nevertheless. You never know with those psycho-types...
Rust chuckled and put a small integrated circuit down. After all, he didn't know if his bad electronic karma wouldn't strike again. No point in damaging anything when resources were so scarce. "So, you think we've got everything?"
"Huh. Everything that was retrievable. If the spider wants anything else, he'll have to move his fat thorax and get it himself."
Rust laughed silently and beastmoded. "All right. Backpack, please!"
Terrorsaur heaved the container with a grunt, put it on the wolf's back and activated the clamps. Rust wriggled a bit to adjust to the weight, and took a few experimental steps. The floater stirred and followed, but its content didn't shift. "Whaddya know, you really know how to secure a cargo."
Terrorsaur made a face at him, and he chuckled again. Questioning Preds' competence was a sure way to tick them off. It hadn't yet failed him once.
"Well then, let's go. You can ride the sledge, but," and here his voice almost froze the air, quite a trick considering it was a midday on a desert, "if you'll start singing again, I will tear you apart, no matter how hard I laugh."

drip...drip...drip...
A pair of amber optics followed the drops' progress through the series of spiral glass tubes. If her calculations were correct, the extract's concentration would--
"Ya know, that thing is a perfect model of yer mind. All weird an' twisted."
Kittar snorted and turned to Rattrap. Her optics gleamed when she saw what he was doing. "Where do you think you're going with my feeder?"
"Yer feeder?! It's Axalon equipment, everyone can use it!"
"You can use it, you just can't take it outside."
"Because?"
"You'll break it."
"Wha--? I've been usin' feeders long before yer spark ever came on-line!"
"But they weren't MINE feeders!"
"They are not yers! I need to refuel, an--"
"You can very well refuel right here."
"No I can't."
"Yes you can."
"No I can't!"
"Yes you can."
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Rattrap turned and started to the door. A red cat leapt above his head, landed in a doorway and maximized, blocking it.
/hissssssss!/
Oh-oh. Hissing. Bad news. Very bad news. How can a bot argue with something that's hissing? Rattrap glared at her, putting in his gaze as much hostility as he could manage. She returned the glare. The red opticed dislike, liberally mixed with experienced cynicism, clashed with the amber opticed sheer, fiery stubbornness. Truly, it was a clash of titans.
Rattrap gave up first. He didn't have all day to waste on some cat's whims. He sat on a box in the corner. "Here. Ya happy?" She smiled triumphantly, walking to him and pulling the feeder out of his hands.
"Hey!" he protested. "What do ya--? Oh for bootin' up cold, I can do this myself!" She purred, hanging the feeder up and hooking it to Rattrap's arm.
"Rrrr yerself," he murmured under his breath, resigning himself to his fate. "Preds an' lizards an' cats. An' now she's our chief medic all of a sudden." He shook his head sadly. "We're all gonna die."

Optimus inhaled deeply and smiled. It was a lovely day, there were no arguments amid the crew for a change, and the Predacons hadn't been causing troubles for solar-cycles. It was a perfect moment. He laughed out loud suddenly.
Rhinox moved one ear and glanced at him curiously.
"I just though how lovely this day is, and the next thing that popped in my mind was that there are sure to be some troubles before the sunset." Optimus answered the unasked question and laughed again. "Rattrap's pessimism is contagious."
Rhinox smiled at the comment. "Are you sure it was Rattrap's influence?" He motioned toward Dinobot, who was checking if auto-guns were functional at the moment. "The longer Predacons are quiet, the more jumpy he gets."
"That's true. Maybe a little field trip would lighten him up?"
This time the rhino chuckled. "I very much doubt it."
"Well, it's worth a try. I was going to do some exploring anyway."
"Good luck. You're gonna need it."

Hidden behind a boulder, Scorponok peeked out carefully. Optimus and Dinobot were debating over some plant, and he felt a pang of envy. Not that he was particularly interested in plants, but he'd much prefer to be in his lab inventing - or at least, improving - something, than lurk here, with a cyber-bee full of a deadly virus. The idea of viral warfare always made him nervous, and this time it was worse than usual - because it was his creation hidden in that bee. And it was so very different from what he wanted it to be... With a sigh he stepped from his hideout and took aim.

The screen lit up with diagrams, graphs and numbers, but it was all not enough. Kittar growled. "This CR sucks!" Her fingers danced over the keyboard, bringing up more info. "This is a viral mine of some kind, but not only that. The virus is disrupting energy flow in his spark, but the bee is stabilizing it. So it had infected him, but is keeping him on-line at the same time. The virus must have some other effect as well, but I can't make analysis until he's out of this piece of junk." She snorted impatiently. "I could hook him up to life support and remove the bee, but here--" she displayed fragment of a diagram, "--is something weird." Rhinox narrowed his optics. "It is a bomb. Give me a 3D image."
Kittar typed in some commands and the required image appeared. Rhinox and Rattrap studied it, frowning.
"A spot bomb. I hate this things. They're unpredictable!" Rattrap complained.
"And it is set to explode when the bee is removed," Rhinox put in.

Cheetor shook his head in confusion. "I don't get it. A viral mine with life support and a bomb? Why? What for?" He looked at Kittar, who shrugged. She was a medic, not an enemy psychology specialist. It was Rhinox who answered.
"Maybe they hoped we'll just yank it and kill ourselves."
Dinobot snarled and shook his head. "Megatron wouldn't go to all the trouble if he hadn't something else in mind. Hnn... You said it's a viral mine. Scorponok used to mumble about a virus he was thinking about - the one that would turn warriors into cowards!"
Kittar swiveled in her chair to look at him. "Behav-virus? Then we have nothing to worry about."

In a sudden silence, a distant chirp of crickets could be clearly heard. She shrugged. "What? Behav-virs are extremely tricky things to make. There are only two that actually work, and they are not working the way their creators had initially in minds. The others don't work at all."
Rhinox coughed. "So you're saying..."
"That the bomb is our only problem. I can handle the rest." She looked at Rattrap. "Explosives are your specialty, right?" Before he could respond, the CR was blasted apart from the inside. Two fiery optics flared in the smoke.
"All right! Who wants some?!"

Rhinox sat down with an exhausted sigh. Dinobot leaned against the wall. Rattrap winced, rubbing the back of his head. Cheetor sunk to the floor, hunching dejectedly.

Containing their suddenly violent leader hadn't been an easy task. Kittar looked at them with a smirk. "My heroes." She raised a syringe to the light and inspected the mech fluid within. Rhinox blinked. "When did you manage to get this?"
"When he was busy strangling you. Now excuse me, gents, but I have a counter virus to make." She departed to the Med Bay.
Rattrap scowled. "When he was busy stranglin' ya. Ain't she sweet? Are ya SURE she ain't a Pred?"
"Shuddup, Rattrap," Cheetor murmured, letting his head hit floor.

"So, how are you doing?"
Kittar rubbed her face impatiently. "I've separated the virus and I'm working on a counter right now. Yes, I did say it before, and yes, I will repeat it the next time you ask. It takes TIME."
Cheetor sent her a hurt glance and left. He just couldn't stand to see Optimus - his commander, his hero - in this state. He trudged around the base, with his head bowed, not paying attention to his surrounding. He cringed at a sudden roar of rage. He looked up to discover that he somehow ended up outside the brig. "Optimus," he whispered, touching the clear panel.

Rattrap got up and brushed himself off. He took a look at the demolished control room. "Good work, genius. Really great work. Couldn't ya just wait till Kittar fixes a medicine for 'im?"
Cheetor's optics were full of guilt and despair. "But it was taking ages! And it wasn't right to lock him up like that! He was hurting himself in there!"
"An whaddaya think he's gonna do now, huh? Attackin' da Preds' base, that's what he's gonna do. Ya think he won't get hurt there?"
"That's enough," Rhinox rumbled, heading for the lift. "We just have to back him up. Now." He looked at Kittar. "You work on that anti-virus. We'll try to get it from the Preds, but in case we don't succeed..."
She nodded. "Good luck."

"Home sweet home!" Rust's bright voice shook Terrorsaur out of a light recharge.
"Huh?" The pterodactyl looked up and brightened. The form of a black ship was outlined against the sky. "Finally! One more day with you and I'd go crazy."
The wolf stopped so suddenly, that Terrorsaur was catapulted forward from the overloaded floater. He flopped his wings madly, and managed to land on his feet. "What's with you?!"
Rust perked his ears, his body tense. "Gunfire." He transformed twice and dashed towards the base, leaving the cargo behind. After a moment's hesitation, Terrorsaur followed. He didn't hear anything, but-- An explosion shook the air.
OK, so there was some fighting. He kept at Rust's tail, since the wolf obviously knew where he was going. Rust reached the base, darted inside, found what he was looking for and stopped, transforming to bot mode. Terrorsaur came to a halt behind him, looked down at two bodies lying in a crater, and laughed. "Ha! Our beloved leader and his loyal second in command!" He started toward them. "Let's throw them into lava!"
/Cli--click-clong/
--and Terrorsaur's universe suddenly froze, divided in two overlapping realities.
In one there was a ship, a crater, and Rust, still looking down at Megatron, his left arm outstretched toward Terrorsaur.
In the second one, there was a long, dark tunnel, with a searing light at the end. The light was humming softly, and seemed to be calling to him...
And what it called was:

Hi there, Terror! Remember Rust's blaster? The one as big as your arm? You're looking into its barrel, pressed to your right optic. And that light you see - pretty, isn't it? - means that he'd already pulled the trigger almost all the way, and now it's only a twitch of his finger that's between you and decapitation. Have a nice day!

Very, very slowly, trying not to breath, and even not to blink, Terror raised his hands in surrender, praying with all his might for Rust to accept it. He could survive having his head severed, not disintegrated...
Rust's finger relaxed, and the light disappeared, but the blaster reminded in place. "You were saying?"
Hundreds of thoughts came running through the flyer's head as he restarted his air intakes, and one pushed to the front before he could stop it. "WHY are you so slaggin' loyal to him?"
Rust laughed. "Because I choose to be that way. Now, are you going to help me take them to CR-tanks, or would you rather join them?"
"I'll help."
"Good choice."

When Megatron and Scorponok landed in the tanks, Rust did... something. His optics glazed for a few nanos, and then he headed straight to the first level, where--
"Holy slag, spider!"
Tarantulas rolled his head. "...en?" he mumbled unintelligibly.
Rust was at his side in an instant. Terrorsaur only gaped. The scientist was pinned to the wall with his own projectile, and his arms where hanging limply at his sides, due to large holes blasted in his shoulders. That was... well, not so horrible, he'd seen worse at the arena, but who could have done this here? Surely not the Maximals?
Rust looked at him over his shoulder. "Go outside and check how the rest are doing." Terrorsaur obeyed. After a close encounter of the third kind with this blaster, he was in no mood to argue. Once left alone, Rust inspected Tarantulas's wounds. "It's gonna hurt," he warned, grabbing the projectile and pressing one foot against the wall for additional leverage.

OoOoO

"It...nna...urt," said a voice, and then the pain he felt increased rapidly. Tarantulas barely stopped the cry that tried to escape his voice box. Some weird noise nearby, and a sensation of being carried. Pain subsided a little. And a voice again. "Yo...gon...al..ight. I...akin...to...CR..." Whose voice was that? He didn't recognize it. It continued talking, giving him something he could focus on, till he was laid on a cold metal, and a darkness of off-line claimed him, as cool fluid of CR-tank covered his body.

OoOoO

Rust turned from CR as Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia brought in Waspinator.
"Slaggin' Pit! What hit him?"
"Rhinox's chain guns."
Rust shook his head and activated yet another CR-tank. Good thing they had enough of those. "And you told me the Maxis here were wimps." He made sure every piece of his roommate landed in the tank, and then herded the remaining two bots to the control room. Once there, he checked the damage reports.
"Well, we have some repairs to do. You," he looked at Blackarachnia, "will take care of electricity, while Terror and me patch up the outer wall."
The femme snorted. "And why should we do anything you say?"
Rust smiled, walked up to her and slammed her to the wall. "Because I'm bigger and nastier and I will break your legs if you try to point them at me." He smiled again. Blackarachnia lowered her machineguns she'd started to raise, and her dark optics flickered to the side. Rust knew perfectly well what she was looking at. Or whom, to be more precise. Terrorsaur was now behind his back, and she was seeking help from him. He didn't turn. Instead, he stared at the shiny metal of her face. Terrorsaur's silhouette was reflected in it clearly.

The red bot didn't even stir. She could be as attractive as she wanted, he wasn't feeling heroic today. You're on your own, lady.

Blackarachnia narrowed her optics. Coward!
"Oh, whatever!" she gritted and pushed past Rust. He laughed silently, turning to face Terrorsaur. "Well, let's move."

Cheetor was frantic.
"Why is he off-line? He was fine just a cycle ago! Have something gone wrong?"
Kittar quickly went over the scan results and shook her head. "He's just recharging. He's had a hard day." She subspaced her monitor. "Just take him to his quarters and let him sleep it off. I'll be there in a moment to set up an energon feed."

Rattrap sat down, putting his feet up at the table. "Well, we didn't die today. Ain't life full of surprises, Chopper-face?"
"For once, I must agree with you, vermin," Dinobot snarled. Rattrap shut his mouth in the middle of a yawn. "Well, ah, now I know yer tired. Hey, where are ya goin'?"
"I have... something I must attend to," the warrior answer from the lift.

OoOoO

"It's just like Dinobot said, we have to hit them hard, fast and right where it hurts!" Optimus had screamed just before he blew up the roof hatch and stormed out of the base. It was...strange, to have his own words thrown back at him like this. And somehow, they didn't sound so wise anymore. To admit a mistake was something that Predacons weren't good at. Dinobot knew he probably would never force the right words out. But--
He crouched beside a small plant.
--perhaps there was a different way.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I really don't know which one of you I hate mo-/yawn/-re", Terrorsaur stated, leaning heavily against the wall.
The blue bot chuckled. "I'll take it as a compliment."
Blackarachnia muttered something un-lady-like, suppressing a yawn. Rust shook in silent laughter. Actually, he was just as tired as they were, but he was not going to show it. It would take all the fun out of it. "I really don't understand why are you so exhausted. One would think you've never worked full time before."
Two smaller bots shot him hostile glances. He grinned.
A small beep came from the CR tank. Rust turned to face it, keeping his hands behind his back. It was his version of standing to attention. "Welcome back, sir."

Megatron shook his head, stared at three bots in front of him, and terrorized, out of normal predacon paranoia. Then he looked at them closer, and determined they weren't a threat. Then he sorted through the memories. The most recent one included a bomb on his neck. He winced, checking the time. Twelve mega-cycles. Well, not so bad. He jumped down from the platform. "I see you've come back."
Rust nodded. "We've brought parts Tarantulas told us about. They're now in hold #3. Here's the list." He handed Megatron a data-pad. "Terrorsaur made it, 'cause I couldn't recognize half the staff. And we have repaired damages to the base while you were off-line, sir"
Megatron raised optic ridges. That would explain why the other two looked so exhausted. "Good. Where's the rest of the crew?"
Rust gestured to the CRs behind him. Megatron turned and scowled. Three tanks were active. The panels on two of them told him that the repair cycles were almost complete. And somehow, he had no doubt that in the one that was only halfway through repairs was a certain wasp. He growled quietly, before turning back to Rust.
"The three of you are off-duty for now."
"Thank you, sir." Rust saluted, properly for once, did a perfect turnabout and left. Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia stumbled after him.

Once in his room, Rust let the long suppressed yawn escape him. He inspected his bunk tiredly. Was scrambling up there worth the effort? He felt his optics shutting down. Nope. Not worth at all. He beastmoded and was deep in recharge even before his head touched the floor.

In a dark lab a shadow moved, and a computer was switched on.
The codes, diagrams of nanites and chemical formulas scrolled on the screen. The results of months of work and dreams.
Wasted.
A few keys were hit.
Delete folder Vir-027
Confirm/Abort ?
The words were blinking on a screen.
Confirm/Abort ?
A claw touched the button.
Confirm

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End of part four

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Chapter edited on 28.02.2008