Note: Sorry for taking so long, and I know this chapter may be a little on the short side. Hopefully I'll be able to make it up with the next chapter. Oh yeah, nearly forgot: I do not own Transformers and make no money with this story.

Chapter Seven: Alarms

(Autobot Headquarters)

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" Teletran's voice rang out throughout Autobot Headquarters as Autobots and a few humans ran everywhere trying to cut down on the damage and find whoever was doing this. An explosion shook the former spaceship as Sparkplug hit the ground covering his head. Inferno ran over and started to put the fire out as Ratchet helped the human up. "What the blazes is going on?"asked Sparkplug dusting himself off, "One moment I was working on Silverbolt's fuselage and the next all hell broke loose."

Ratchet sighed and then said, "Someone placed explosives all over the place."

Inferno then added, "What's even funny is that even with all the explosions there isn't much damage."

Just then a bigger explosion rang out from the repair bay. "Damn! Silverbolt is still in there!"yelled Sparkplug as he turned to run but Ratchet stopped him as Inferno ran on into the blazing room to look for the Aerialbot.

(Outside)

Air Raid and Fireflight flew towards a cliff overlooking Autobot Headquarters after Air Raid swore he saw something. Transforming they landed with their weapons ready. "You sure you saw something? Because I don't see…"Fireflight started to say only to be interrupted by Thundercracker's foot at the back of his head. Fireflight landed face down on the rocky ground but Air Raid lifted his gun to fire only to find Skywarp's hand around his arm and then finding himself also face down with his arm wrenched painfully around his back. "Guess those lessons with Nightbird really do pay off, "commented Thundercracker as he lifted his arm to blast the Aerialbot under his foot.

(Behind Autobot Headquarters)

Skydive ignored Slingshot's mindless rambling on what he thought was going on as he carefully studied the area on the other side of the volcano thinking that perhaps the intruder might attempt an escape that way. A flash of light caught Skydive's eye and he said, "Did you see that?"

"See what?" answered Slingshot but followed Skydive as he went down to investigate. From some boulders another flash of light brought them in. Transforming as they landed Skydive carefully walked over to the boulders as Slingshot kept watch. Skydive snorted as he picked up was looked like to be a star shaped disco ball. He turned around to show Slingshot only to find the Aerialbot wasn't there. He dropped the star and raised his rifle looking around carefully

A growl filled the air warning Skydive in time to dodge Ravage. Ravage turned to attack again but had to dodge Skydive's shots. With his attention on the feline Decepticon he didn't notice Rumble and Frenzy until they were already crawling all over him. "Get off!" he said as he tried to knock them off. He then started to transform only to be brought down by the laser fire from three different directions. Lazerbeak and Buzzsaw flew over to hover over the now unconscious Aerialbot as Soundwave came out from behind another boulder dragging a similarly unconscious Slingshot. "Excellent, "he was all he said as Frenzy and Rumble high-fived each other.

(Dry Riverbed not far from Autobot Headquarters)

"Aw, come on Omega, "whined Powerglide as he stood with his hands spread out to the side.

"Negative. Orders Clear. Will remain…"Omega started to answer but then smoke and sparks started to come from the rocket portion of his base mode. The sparks then quickly spread down the tracks. Parts of him started transforming part way back and forth.

"Omega!" exclaimed Powerglide beside himself not sure what to do, "What's…"

The Autobot glider fell to his knees to reveal Nightbird right behind him. She stood there watching as the great Omega Supreme eventually stopped moving. "Kreemzeeeeek!" said her little pet as he flew out of the now prone pile of smoking metal and onto the ninja's shoulder as she reach down and grabbed Powerglides foot. Lifting up the smaller robot she stood there as if considering what to do to him. Her eyes flashed cruelly.

(Winhurst Castle's 'War Room')

"Understood, "said Optimus Prime into his communicator and then turned towards Tracks, Wheeljack and Blaster, "It seems that someone has decided to ground all our air forces. The Aerialbots, Omega Supreme and even Powerglide are either badly damaged or missing."

"Just great, "said Blaster, "Now we're stuck here in snooze-ville."

"You mean to tell me that all of your…flyers are out of commission?" said Winhurst in a monotone voice then more heatedly, "I can't believe this…I asked you to protect Snow Owl…you can't even defend yourselves."

"Where the heck did she come from? "mumbled Blaster.

Chip rolled up to the group and asked, "Is everyone else alright?"

Prime answered, "No one else was injured and actual damage to Headquarters although extensive nothing critical."

Chip released a sigh of relief and then said, "So what do we do now? The only flyer left is Stormlark and I don't think she's ready for a long distance wing guard flight. Her wings take up way too much energy; she is barely able to convert enough from the environment to keep air born and functional."

"Speaking of Stormlark, "said Wheeljack, "where is she?"

(Coastal Cave)

Skyfire groaned as his eyes flickered as consciousness slowly returned. The first thing he saw was…"an angel." A snicker caused him to turn his head to see Starscream leaning against the cave wall. Seeing that particular machine was proof that he was not in heaven and that meant that the female was…

"You should be repaired enough to travel a short distance, "the female spoke out. Skyfire turned to look back at the female, this time recognizing her.

"Stormlark?" he dumbly asked.

"Seems like you concentrated rightly on repairing his body and not his brain, "said Starscream, "What little there is of it."

Skyfire growled as he got up with Stormlark's help, nearly bumping his head on the cave's ceiling. "What are you doing here, old friend?"

"Just fulfilling my part of a trade,"Starscream said with a smirk, "Personally believe I'm getting the better part of the bargain…all she's getting is you."

Stormlark tossed something to Starscream as she tried to push Skyfire out the cave. Starscream smirked as his hand wrapped around the small unseen object as his other arm rose as he held his laser rifle towards the exiting pair and said, "Now its time to conclude our…" The rifle exploded knocking him back into the wall.

Skyfire turned in time to see the jet fall heavily to the ground but then heard the female say, "Funny thing about nanites…like sand they get into everything."

Starscream growled as he said up holding his damaged arm close to his body, "You planned to betray me from the beginning!"

"Nooooo, "answered Stormlark ignoring Skyfire's incredulous look, "The software that I gave you will do the job as promised. I just wanted to make sure you couldn't shoot me in the back."

Her wing bands then unfolded as she said to Skyfire, "Let's get out of here before the guards wake up."

(Castle Courtyard)

The castle alarms went off as a voice rang out, "Stormlark incoming with Autobot jet! Prepare for possible crash!"

Prime turned as he said, "Possible crash?"

"Oh man, "said Wheeljack seeing the smoke in the distant sky, "If that's Skyfire, he's hurt bad."

The Autobots all transformed, Blaster landing in Tracks front seat, and rolled towards where it appeared that Skyfire was going to attempt to land. "Morons, "mumbled Dr. Winhurst as she turned to walk away only to face an angry Chip Chase. Who only glared at her angrily before rolling his wheelchair in the same direction as the Autobots went.

In a familiar field not far from the castle, Skyfire crashed landed leaving a groove in the ground behind him. He groaned and didn't bother to waste the energy to transform. Stormlark landed not far from him, falling to her knees tiredly as her wings faded and their bands folded up around her shoulders. The combination of using her nanites to sabotage Starscream and repair Skyfire along with the flight to and from his hidden prison was almost too much of a drain on her resources. She looked up and noticed the cloudy sky, especially with no sunlight to convert. She shook her head as she shakily tried to stand up and then saw a hand being offered. Looking up, she saw it was Tracks who was offering his help. If she could, she would have raised an eyebrow but took the help.

Wheeljack looked over the large jet trying to figure out his injuries. The most obvious ones were caused by his recent landing, but some of the others were disturbingly familiar. "Please don't tell me that…"he started to say but Skyfire answered,"Kremzek…somehow Nightbird has it as a trained pet."

"No, no, no…"Blaster said in an almost panic, "Don't tell me that electric gremlin is on the loose again."

"Hmmm…,"Wheeljack thought as he continued to look over Skyfire's injuries, "Whoever repaired you did just enough to get you…"

The sound of stumbling interrupted that line of thought as everyone looked in Stormlark's direction. She was leaning heavily onto Tracks as if she herself was injured, but there didn't seem to be a mark on her.

(Computer Lab)

Chip Chase looked concerned as he read over the computer read out. Stormlark dangerously drained herself in her self appointed mission to rescue Skyfire. Why she took that risk he had no idea. She could have easily brought in the other Autobots into her rescue plan…better yet let them do the rescue after finding out where Skyfire was.

"Any word, "said Optimus Prime walking up behind the young man.

"She'll be fine once she's recharged, "answered Chip, "The nanites couldn't convert enough energy from the environment to keep up with her usage."

"Wheeljack mentioned that he believed she used her own nanites to repair Skyfire, "mused Prime, "But that's besides the point, I want to know what she gave Starscream."

"Huh?"

"Skyfire informed me that Stormlark gave Starscream something in trade for helping her, "answered Prime.

Chip looked thoughtful for a moment and then as if the room lit up an idea came to him. He started typing madly on the computer as he said, "I wonder…since I became Stormlark's 'tech', I got to look over some of Rachael's and Dr. Magess' work. There was one side project of Rachael's…Knew it!"

"What did you find?"

"It seems that someone made a copy of a disabling program, "answered Chip, "It seems that Nightbird's first defection gave Pendrake Industries the idea of creating a few safeguards and a means to recover their robots if they do go rogue, overcoming the built in controls. Something like a computer virus designed specifically to disable the 'free will' of the robot, making it almost impossible for her to refuse a direct order from someone on a specified list."

"Wouldn't this put Stormlark herself in danger?" asked Prime.

Chip shook his head as he said, "No, because Stormlark's programming is completely different then was planned for any of the robots. I'm not even sure if it will work on Nightbird since we can assume that the Decepticon altered her programming somewhat, but it's more likely to work on her than Stormlark since the base programming is still there."

"Hmmmm, "Prime said rubbing his chin, "Why is Stormlark so different?"

"Huh…well, "Chip fumbled as he scratched the back of his head, "She was never really…programmed to begin with."

Alarms suddenly went off; the flashing lights and blaring noise, driving the question out of Prime's mind. Chip reached over to a microphone and clicked at its base, "Chase here, what happened?"

A reply from the computer's speaker's said, "Someone has locked themselves in with the Snow Owl. All cameras and other equipment have been cut off."

Before Chip could say anything else, Prime was already running out of the room to the hanger where the Snow Owl was being stored.

The End…

Next Time on Flight of the Stormlark…

The doors the hanger suddenly froze over. Then cracks started appear across it surface just before it shattered to reveal…