For The Race: Protection.
Chapter Four.
A/N: Not sure how often I'll be able to update after this, see my profile for a little more detail.
1 joor = about 6.5 hours.
Optimus was still reeling from the anger in that com, and the accusations Sam had made. Abandoning his beloved Elita? Never! Killing and cannibalising a sparkling? Even the thought had him almost backing up his fuel lines in revulsion.
Optimus, his head still ringing with the accusations, decided he had better talk to Ratchet, Ironhide, and Prowl, because they needed to find out where Sam was. In her vulnerable situation, she was susceptible to suggestion, and judging by that com, the Decepticons were already spreading lies about them. He was very concerned about Sam's state of mind, and the conditions she might be being kept in.
However, what really bothered Optimus was the speed with which Sam seemed to believe the Decepticons, and the accusations she had obviously got from them.
Just what had the Decepticons told her?
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When Sam came to, she was back in the recharge chamber. Remembering, and wishing to avoid repeating, the way she smacked her head on the canopy last time, she looked up through the glass bubble, as her memories came back to her. She remembered the accusations Starscream and Thundercracker had made about the Autobots in general, and about Optimus, and Bumblebee in particular.
She recalled her angry com, with some regret, because with a bit of distance between the telling and her awakening, she could think rather than just react, and thinking was telling her that she should have asked Optimus for an explanation. The old saying usually held true, there were generally two sides to every story, after all, and she had not allowed Optimus to explain his side. She winced as she recalled telling Optimus that she never wanted to see him or any of the others ever again. With the tone she had used, he probably felt the same, and she sighed as she realised she had cut her options in less than half with one angry com.
The sigh must have been audible outside the recharge chamber, for the head and shoulders of Thundercracker peered in for a moment before he lifted the canopy for her. As she sat up, Starscream himself stood to one side, standing in a most odd pose, one hand out, wrist bent down, one leg bent at right angles, and one foot in the air like some sort of cybernetic character from a futuristic Greek frieze. It only took her a moment to realise that the hand and the leg were both at perfect levels, the first for her to grab and the second to stand on to allow her a graceful descent from the recharge unit, and she took the opportunity, feeling grateful that her smaller size had been taken into account by the larger mechs.
"We trust you are feeling better after your rest, Sam?" Barricade, who also present, asked. As he was closer to her own height, she was oddly grateful he was there.
"Yeah, I guess, a bit clearer, I guess, and definitely less tired," she said.
"Were you shown how to refuel by the Autobots? Or use your weapons?" Barricade asked.
"Fuelling, yes, weapons, no, they were planning that when you arrived and attacked," Sam said.
"Okay, first, we get you fuelled, and then I will check your weapons," Barricade said. "Follow me."
Dutifully, Sam followed.
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Optimus had not only called Ironhide and Prowl in, but Ratchet and Bumblebee. The more processors could be set to the matter, the better, and surely adding a mech with negotiation training, and the Base's resident expert on Sam, at least as a human, could not hurt. One or both, he had hoped, might be able to shed light on the situation. So far, little progress had been made on working out what the Decepticons had told Sam, or how they might have persuaded her that Optimus had abandoned Elita, or that any of them had killed and dismantled a sparkling to repair one of their own adults.
"Elita came as we were blasting off, I did tell her she couldn't come, but only because I felt it was too dangerous," Optimus said. "My point was proved when our launch site was attacked, missiles coming in from all sides. Our ship barely escaped before the launch site went up in a blazing fire that looked as if it had erupted from the Pit itself. Nobody could have survived that, I thought. I admit I failed her by not finding someone to keep her occupied until we were gone. We deliberately launched earlier than we had planned, because we got wind of an attack coming, but none of us realised that the Decepticons had also planned to attack earlier than we thought." He paused to collect his thoughts before speaking again.
"Had I realised the attack was so close, I would have done what it took to get her aboard." He paused again. "It was later, much later, that I heard rumours that she had escaped, rumours that were later confirmed, but only after Iacon had fallen to the Decepticons, and the femmes had been trapped and cornered, and by the time I heard, were widely believed to have been killed by the invading forces."
"I can see how the Decepticons might have taken that one and twisted it, but the whole sacrificing a sparkling to repair our own?" Ratchet asked. "Where did they get that awful idea from, and why is Sam taking their word for it?"
"It's the second part of your statement that has me concerned," Prowl said. "I have read of a condition that can afflict humans known as "Stockholm Syndrome", where a hostage comes to sympathise or empathise with their kidnapper. There is a Cybertronian equivalent, but in both cases, more time needs to have elapsed for it to develop. If Sam had been held for even days, I would assume that this is what has happened, but this happened less than half a joor after her abduction. They must have fabricated something pretty convincing to get her to reject us all quite so thoroughly."
"I suspect the only answer lies with Sam and her kidnappers, and that the only way we may get answers is to go in there, capture Sam ourselves, bring her back, and find out," Optimus said.
One by one, each Autobot found themselves agreeing with Optimus' supposition.
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Barricade turned Sam's arm with a surprisingly gentle and precise touch, in spite of the claws.
"Yes, you have the usual weak arm cannons, but there are several points on your armour that would take weapons attachment, I can make any necessary modifications. I hate to say this, Sam, but if the Autobots attempt to steal you back from us, you may find yourself needing to defend yourself until one or more of us can assist you, and for that, you need more than that basic weak laser cannon."
Sam remembered with a pang that the Autobots had planned for it to be Ironhide who was to have been making this same sort of assessment of her, and quickly pushed the regret aside. She had to concentrate on the here and now, not on what Optimus and Ratchet had been telling her. She guessed she had figuratively burned any bridges back to the Autobots with that com, after all, she had received no attempt at communication back from any of them, not even Bumblebee. Either they had taken her request at her word, or were too ashamed or maybe has no proof to offer her that they had not done what Starscream and Thundercracker had claimed.
If it was the former, then they had left her with whom they assumed she had chosen. If the latter, maybe she really was better off without them, although the more she tried to convince herself of that, the less convincing she sounded, even to herself.
"Shoulder cannons, or even a pair of rocket launchers might work for you, although you don't want to end up top-heavy," Barricade said, breaking into her thoughts. "And we can power up your arm cannons so even Optimus would feel it if you fired at him."
Sam imagined shooting at Optimus, and then him bringing that fearsome cannon he could transform his arm into to bear upon her, and shuddered.
"With all due respect, I hope it doesn't come to that, his return of fire could atomise me!" She squeaked. Barricade gave a brief laugh.
"I doubt that would be something you would need to worry about, at least at first," Barricade said. "He would still want to convince you he has your best intentions at heart, and maybe at first he would, but even the most incorruptible-seeming mech can justify what they see as the best for the greater good. 'The needs of the many', and all that. Never mind the needs of the few that might be sacrificed."
"But - would Optimus do that? I thought that Primes were meant to be like, well, the best of the best?" Sam asked.
"Sentinel Prime did, Sam. As his name suggested, he started out as a guardian of the Autobots, and their values, a noble calling and with noble plans for our world, but the rot set in well before then, and he was a product of that system," Starscream said, moving into view.
"He betrayed half of the planet, because they were not Autobot, and they did not follow what he believed. Why would Optimus not, with the same upbringing, turn out the same? 'The needs of the many' was Sentinel's personal catchphrase, but he only included Autobots in that number, and he sacrificed many Decepticons to help prop up the corruption of the Autobot-dominated Senate. At one time, Sam, Primes were the best of the best, it was why we had two Golden Ages, but it only takes the greed of the few privileged to ruin it for the rest of the population. When the Primes first became corrupted, the world slid into a Long Dark Age. We recovered, partly due to a courageous Decepticon femme, and were fortunate enough to enter a second Golden Age."
"You would think that we learned from it," Barricade said, as Starscream stepped aside, "but no, Sentinel began our race's plunge into our second Long Dark Age. That is where we stand now, and we will continue to keep sliding down, unless we can do something to change things. Sam, I have heard nothing to convince me that your Optimus Prime is any different. Same rearing, same faults, and same greed."
"He's not, and never has been, 'my' Optimus Prime, and, well...he never seemed like that," Sam said weakly.
"They never did, Sam, that was sometimes their advantage. They could deceive better than those they named 'Decepticons', but nobody found them out, nobody with the power to make a difference, at any rate." He paused, and took a breath. "However, we were discussing Optimus Prime, and that his intentions might be good, but I believe even you humans have a saying about good intentions, because intent does not always translate into the correct actions."
"Yes, I believe the road to a very hot place is supposed to be paved with good intentions," Sam said. Barricade nodded.
"We have our own saying, Sam, that good intentions do not always result in good deeds."
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"Optimus, should I first try to contact Sam? Maybe she would talk to me?" Bumblebee said. "I was the first Autobot she met as a human, and I saved her - well, him at the time - from Barricade,"
"No, Bumblebee, she seemed adamant that she didn't want to talk to any of us, and she named you in her com. She could raise the alarm, which would lose us the element of surprise," Optimus pointed out.
Bumblebee visibly drooped, but he did understand the situation. If Sam's one angry and anguished com was anything to go by, the Decepticons were managing to be exceptionally persuasive. This meant, as Ratchet had earlier pointed out, that in the two joors they had spent planning this raid, Sam might have since become a fully-signed up member of the Decepticon faction. This did not, of course, automatically make her their enemy, but it did mean they also could not rely on her being their friend.
"We still do not know what they told her, and how they convinced her of what she accused us of so quickly," Prowl pointed out. "We are going into a potential battle situation with nowhere near the amount of facts I would prefer us to have, but we are going because the longer we wait is potentially the more chance the Decepticons have to turn Sam against us, possibly irreversibly. We need all the advantages we can get, and Sam's loyalties are currently suspect. Maybe Soundwave is influencing her, or maybe they have another persuasive mech putting pressure on her, or even a morpher who can imitate her, while she is continuously reset, or held in stasis. No, Bumblebee, until we have more facts in our possession, I suggest that we stick with the in-grab-out plan we all came up with. You're a Captain, if you think the situation changes enough to take the risk to change the plan, you can do so, but I caution you, be very sure that the risk is worth it before you commit to it."
Bumblebee bobbed his head in understanding: he knew how close he had come to being dropped due to his previous contact with Sam, only Ratchet, Ironhide, and Optimus Prime's personal recommendations stopping Prowl from replacing him with Sideswipe.
"Okay, radio silence from now on," said Prowl, who then used hand signals to wave the Autobot team inwards towards the earlier-confirmed location of the Decepticon base.