The main problem with having only one person on staff who is completely reliable and is the only one who can be depended upon to perform a variety of vital functions becomes immediately apparent if that person ever calls in sick or gets hit by a bus. This is a problem which had never come up for Cybertronians, simply because someone of such vital import was seldom in the field and always more than adequately protected from any type of harm.
Among the Autobots, this was Ratchet, whose skills as a medic could not be valued too highly, and who could not be replaced. On the Decepticon side of things, valuable as Knockout was at times, this most irreplaceable person was Soundwave. It was he who ensured the ship itself ran smoothly and stayed unseen, and who decoded mysteries and ran scans searching for energy signatures of relevance and any number of other functions which were either too difficult or too dull for anyone else to handle properly.
Or that Megatron would trust no one else to manage. Megatron was not the trusting sort, and his Decepticons had never failed to be worthy of his endless suspicion of them. Except for Soundwave, who could always be depended upon, even when Megatron had no power (no any apparent hope of acquiring it) to stop anyone from doing anything they liked, or to punish them, or even to protect himself if they should decide to take him off life support.
Though he more or less immediately understood that the loss of Soundwave was detrimental to his plans of conquest, Megatron failed to take fully into account everything that Soundwave had heretofore been managing without aid or outside instruction. And so it was that nobody realized in time that one of Earth's military forces was running a radar scan in time to avoid it. Whether it was a test of new equipment or a routine scan or simply some technician getting bored and deciding to scan distant horizons for the heck of it wasn't relevant to anyone.
What was relevant was that Agent Fowler was informed almost at once. In addition to burying the report quickly, he put in a call to Optimus. While the Nemesis had been briefly spotted before, it had always left the area before Ratchet could get his more sophisticated scanners swung in that direction to take a closer look. But because Soundwave was not at his station, and Megatron had failed to immediately assign enough personnel to take over the various functions from that station, the Decepticons did not instantly realize they had been scanned.
A handful of vehicons were a poor substitute for Soundwave. They didn't really understand the setup, and realized that Soundwave had actually run some of the programs through his own systems to increase the efficiency of them. They were lost in menus and flickering blueprints and geographical images and energy readouts that were too numerous and strangely organized to make head or tails of.
There were secondary stations where the vehicons always were working, but they all received their instruction from Soundwave's station. Without someone properly manning the post, they dissolved into uncertainty. Without clear orders, they were afraid to act at all. If they made a wrong choice, Megatron would blast them to bits. Even if they made the right choice, but too late, the result could be the same. So they stood or sat at their posts, largely inert, waiting for instruction.
The Autobot incursion was inevitable. But their disadvantage was not knowing where the device they sought would be on the ship. Even knowing where on the ship they themselves would arrive was somewhat tricky. Optimus, Arcee and Bulkhead materialized in a hallway. Ratchet remained behind to monitor communications and to activate the Ground Bridge when they were ready to go home.
"I don't like going in without Bee," Arcee had admitted.
The Autobot Scout was swift, agile and an aggressive fighter. Almost regardless of the combat situation, his quick reactions, cleverness and ability to follow someone else's lead as well as take the initiative when necessary was more valuable than any of them would like to admit. Besides which, much of his training and experience on Cybertron was getting in and out of territory and buildings occupied by the enemy. He was the best they had when it came to finding places where objects, intel or prisoners might be found.
"In his present state, I fear Bumblebee would be more of a liability than an asset," Optimus said.
Optimus was, of course, right. Bumblebee couldn't be relied upon in his present state. His focus was too wavering, his enthusiasm was nonexistent and his efficiency was down to almost nothing. Besides which, the other Autobots saw what he'd done to the invention of Ratchet's before they left. They didn't need to discuss it to know why he'd crushed it. The temptation of using it was more than he could bear. He was vulnerable mentally and emotionally, and they could easily wind up having to tow him around and remind him what he was supposed to be doing, a distraction that could prove fatal.
Bringing Smokescreen wasn't even a question. Far as they knew when they arrived, he was still pacing around outside the base. He was in no condition to do anything useful on any level.
The Autobots were prepared for a firefight, but the corridor they arrived in was empty. They weren't sure what to make of this. What they didn't know was that almost every available vehicon had been dragged up to the bridge to try and achieve a level of functionality that was comparable to that which Soundwave managed to acquire with evident ease. What few vehicons weren't on the bridge were monitoring Soundwave's condition or attempting to aid Knockout (or at least keep him focused on his job). There were also several scattered about the ship in security locations. That left Dreadwing to wander the halls, but one Decepticon chancing to be in the very location on the Nemesis where the three Autobots had appeared was very unlikely. Luck was, for the moment, on the side of the Autobots.
"I don't like this," Bulkhead murmured, "It's too quiet in here."
"Let's hope it stays that way," Arcee replied.
Optimus did not make a comment of his own, instead motioning Arcee to take the lead down the hall. She was the quickest of them, and presented the smallest target, and was therefore the logical choice to scout ahead. He had decided that they would check Knockout's laboratory first. It was a place aboard the Nemesis they were uncomfortably familiar with.
The quiet of the ship continued to unnerve them. The absence of flashing red lights and klaxons was highly suspicious.
"Shouldn't they have realized we're here?" Bulkhead wondered, "The Ground Bridge should have sent them right into an alert."
Up on the bridge, a flashing light appeared at the corner of all screens, an alert demanding someone pay attention to it. But the vehicons were deeply mired in the complexities of the world wide web, and trying to decide whether or not hashtags were something they should be concerned about. Megatron was fuming, but he was so busy yelling at the vehicons that even he failed to notice the alert at first.
The Autobots had reached the door to Knockout's lab by the time the alert sounded. The doors in front of them burst open, and a contingent of vehicons poured out. The fight was joined at last.
"Smokescreen, don't you think you should at least try to do something else?" Jack asked, feeling as if he himself would also lose his mind if he had to watch Smokescreen's pacing for another minute, "Maybe Bee and I could introduce you to video games. How about that?"
A pause, just for a beat, like the loading icon on a computer when you click to open a new program and it processes the request. Then the pacing resumed, the computer had overridden the idea of new input with the existing program, the start-up attempt failed.
Jack shook his head, annoyed to be thinking of the mechanical aspects of Cybertronians at a time like this. But it was difficult to think of anything else, with Smokescreen's own behavior decidedly repetitive and mechanical, without consciousness or intent, just set on a course, doing the same thing over and over regardless of its effect (or lack thereof) on the environment. Like a hung up computer, just doing the same thing over and over, not trying anything new, having no imagination or ability to come up with ideas of its own. That's how Smokescreen was acting.
But, evidently, he could hear Jack, was still willing to receive input. But he seemed to have rejected Jack's suggestion. Jack tried to think of another, but the truth was that he didn't really know Smokescreen all that well and the only thing he could think of was going for a drive, which seemed ill-advised just at this time so he didn't mention it, in case that proved to be the one thing Smokescreen had any interest in.
"Alright, no video games," Jack said, "What about a board game?" no response, "Watching television?" nothing, "Listening to music. You like music, don't you?"
Nothing. Just the steady, rhythmic clanking of a massive robot pacing around in an unreasonably small circle, taking interest in nothing, effectively doing nothing. Jack had seen Smokescreen's initially high aggressive state at the start of this, not the attacks on Bumblebee, just the raised hostility towards just about everything. That was gone now, and the last of Smokescreen seemed to have gone with it.
Suddenly, without any apparent provocation, Smokescreen stopped. He looked up from whatever nonexistent point he'd been staring fixedly at, turned his head and looked out at the desert, as if seeing the vast stretches of reddish dust and low, gray-brown plants for the first time.
"It's so empty here," Smokescreen observed.
Jack, a life long resident of this place, knew that was the general impression most people got upon their first look at the desert, which upon first glance seemed to contain almost nothing but strangely intricate rock formations and dusty plants resembling tumbleweed, for the perfectly good reason that a lot of them actually were just that (or a part of that, anyway). It looked like nothing could possible grow, or survive in any fashion in this desolate region, particularly around where the Autobot base was.
Having grown up in Jasper, the town that time forgot, where the most exciting thing that happened was that certain teenage morons skipped out without paying for their fast food, and never having even been outside of Nevada (or even very far outside of town) prior to meeting the Autobots, Jack was inclined to agree with Smokescreen. But he suspected saying that would only make things worse, so his mind scrambled to think of something, anything, that might contradict Smokescreen's statement.
To his surprise, his mind was quick to retrieve a veritable plethora of memories of various animal species that thrived here, and the way the desert looked after one of the great rainstorms that were a rare but definite feature of all deserts. He'd seen scorpions, Gila monsters, hawks, falcons, coyotes, jackrabbits, mule deer, chuckwalla (a disappointingly ordinary looking lizard, far less interesting than its name suggested), tortoises, various kinds of snakes (most of which were deadly poisonous), quail and -once- an eagle. He even remembered seeing tracks when he was little that he'd been excited to think might belong to a cougar, but had really been the work of a bobcat (which was really just as cool, but at the time he'd been sort of obsessed with the elusive rarity and size of cougars, and the tracks had really looked quite large to him).
"It isn't really," he said, thinking of all these things.
"It sure looks empty," Smokescreen said.
Jack wondered, not for the first time, what Earth must look like as seen through Cybertronian eyes. He'd actually been to Cybertron once. Though it was a dead husk, he could see that it had once been a living, pulsing planet, covered completely with machines... or perhaps it was itself a machine, rather than an organic world like the Earth. To humans, the Earth seemed to be covered in machinery and man-made objects. From space, the planet was lit up like a Christmas tree, or so certain satellite images seemed to show. But, in comparison with the completely mechanized Cybertron, Earth must seem terribly... empty. The thing Jack had noticed most about Cybertron was its lack of trees, water, even dirt. There just wasn't organic life, or any evidence such had existed. Perhaps, looking at Earth, Cybertronians felt equally out of place and alone in this organic world.
"It only seems that way," Jack persisted, "You just have to look a little closer here than you do some other places."
Smokescreen continued to stare out at the desert, as if hoping to see something of what Jack was talking about. He said nothing for a long moment, then shook his head in a ghost of frustration.
"I've had enough," abruptly, he transformed, though it was slow and seemed to be more labored than a normal transformation sequence.
"Wait, where are you going?" Jack asked, alarmed by this new development.
"Away," Smokescreen replied, then shifted gears and roared away, leaving a thick cloud of dust in his wake.
For a long moment, Jack's only concern was that Smokescreen was leaving the base and would be hard to track down once the other Autobots returned. But then the utter bleakness in Smokescreen's voice penetrated. And too, Jack remembered the comparisons he'd drawn earlier with caged animals and a hung up computer. Caged animals, once they graduated from mindless pacing, often wasted away, or began to bite themselves as if to alleviate the boredom by self harm. A hung up computer, unable to resolve its difficulty, almost invariably crashed.
Jack stood still, not sure what to do. Then he began to run back into the base.
"Bumblebee!" he shouted, "Bumblebee, Smokescreen's run away!"
He found the Scout slouching in the main room, staring off at nothing in particular.
"Bumblebee!" Jack picked up a small stone on the floor and threw it.
It pinged harmlessly off the Scout, but roused him. Buzzing something Jack couldn't understand, he turned to look at the boy.
"Smokescreen ran away," Jack explained, "I think... I think he's going to hurt himself, or something. Bee, you've got to stop him. You've got to bring him back."
Bumblebee didn't react for a moment, then a spew of harsh buzzing came forth and he transformed. He didn't so much as wait for Jack, but immediately charged off after the wayward rookie.
Only after he was going did Jack realize that he had just dispatched the hopeless to try and talk the hopeless out of hopelessness. It was rather like the blind leading the blind. Only worse.