Chapter 11
Ultra Magnus took the news of Sentinel's death rather badly. Since he had been the one to be entrusted with the older Prime's continuing function, he considered the failure to be his even if he had been in the fighting at the very edge of Kaon's city walls with the few Enforcers he could gather up and nowhere near Sentinel when the seekers betrayed the Prime.
Nothing that Drax, Warcry, or Optimus Prime had tried had changed the large mech's processor. Giving up for the time being as the trine leader tried to argue the larger mech out of his current depressed slump, the SPARTAN CO turned his attention to his recently repaired subordinate and ensuring he was in good enough condition to continue as a SPARTAN.
Ratchet had nearly blown a gasket when Galeforce had reluctantly admitted to him that a 'SPARTAN system check' was actually closer to a full out spar.
Since most of the bots in the guild building of the Stonewall Defenders were fully repaired now, even the Head Medic of Iacon couldn't come up with a reason to forestall the so called system check. He muttered and grumbled in the corner of the main floor's only room, glaring at the back of the SPARTAN tank.
Warcry ignored the medic's ire, and concentrated on the simple warm-ups. "You know, you could wait for Trick' to get here, or spar with Gale'."
The red and black mech, stuck in his half demolished armor for the time being, simply shrugged in reply as he tested the limits of his limbs and ensured that they matched up with what was normal range for him before his near-deactivation. :I could also wait for three-four-one, but I won't.:
"Sure, if you wanted to get deactivated. I heard she's still annoyed with you." Warcry grinned at the wary expression on the defensive specialist's faceplate.
Chromia, having only heard half of what was said, spoke up from the side lines where she was watching with Ironhide. "She who?"
"Their XO, Shadowdancer." The burly black mech spoke for the two SPARTANs, who decided to start the spar at that very moment. "She's ah bit… mean, ah think."
Ironhide rubbed under his jaw plate as he watched the SPARTANs work their way up in speed, starting slow, and increasing the rate of hits when it was apparent that the pace didn't stress the red and black mech's system repairs.
"Not mean 'n she would deactivate ya for lookn' at her ta wrong way, mean 'n ya do sometin stupid 'n she'll beat da slag out 'o ya."
The blue and silver femme blinked at the mech standing next to her.
"She's coming here?" Chromia tilted her helm at the rather gleeful look that suddenly crossed Ratchet's faceplate. "Is that a good thing?"
"Depends on who you ask," the Autobot medic rubbed his hands together as he smirked at the back of the silent mech he was watching for any signs for something being wrong, "but I can get her to report on the others if they are still fragging injured, so it's a good thing for me."
"Can't wait to meet her." The femme weapons' expert crossed her arms over her chassis as she watched the spar with the two Autobots, wondering if she should be wary of such a femme.
\V/
Trickflip reached the guild building a bit ahead of Shadowdancer and her sparkling. The infiltrator slapped the defensive specialist on the back as he raced inside the building, causing most of the bots that turned out to see the SPARTAN-Bots' XO to stare after him.
Warcry shook his helm as the looks turned his way. "She's torqued."
"With 'force? Why?" Chromia frowned down the direction that the acid green and black mech had appeared from.
Silentforce held up his hands in a gesture of innocence and backed up a few steps. :Not with me, at least. Some other bot.:
"She's annoyed with 'force, not torqued. This is something else." Galeforce edged backwards, far enough not to be in the Praxian femme's line of sight when she finally got to the building. Jazz and Prowl looked at each other before retreating to the back of the group as well.
The black and electric blue Cybertronian that showed up in the distance, speeding her way through the empty streets without slowing, confused most of the bots that had never met the SPARTAN XO before. Shadowdancer didn't even slow as she approached the building, only hitting her breaks and sliding the rest of the way once she was nearly twenty feet from the bots that had turned out to greet her.
Transforming to her bipedal form, she snatched the sparkling that had been enjoying the wild ride out of her interior and delicately set the clicking bundle of wires and metal in Optimus' hands before drilling her fist into the side of Ultra Magnus' faceplate as the rest of the bots watched in confusion.
Kynaite clicked a happy greeting as the very confused Prime peered down at him, his adopted carrier now glaring at the now prone mech with her hands on her hip joints and her door-wings flared in irritation.
"If my soldiers said there was nothing to be done, there was no way for you to have changed what happened. Worst case scenario would have you deactivated along with Sentinel; in a better one you still would have still missed the seekers' betrayal. We couldn't do anything to change that, what makes you so sure you would have changed the ultimate outcome?"
Magnus gaped at the femme, still feeling the punch that dented the side of his faceplate. "We-I… I could have done something!"
"Even Sentinel was blindsided by the seekers. What is it that has you so convinced you would have made a difference?" Shadowdancer crossed her arms over her chassis, only sparing a brief look to ensure that Kynaite was enjoying himself in Optimus' hands before returning her attention to the Autobots' military commander.
Jazz skirted the current mini-confrontation in order to get a look at what the SPARTAN femme had set in the Prime's hands, beckoning Prowl and Ratchet over to see once he saw what it was. The medic's optic ridges drew together at the sight of the sparkling, casting a quick glare to the back of the Praxian femme as Kynaite squeaked at the strange bot that looked like his carrier.
Magnus started to get annoyed at the femme. Miraculous alien warriors or not, there was no way they could have any idea… he blinked as something new occurred to his CPU. The SPARTAN-Bots hadn't tried to cover up what they did as human SPARTANs, and it was conceivable that too they had also lost the individuals they had been responsible for.
"I… how many?"
"Three for myself." Shadowdancer huffed out a sigh as she held out a hand to the red and blue mech. "I believe it was five for 'force, and another scattering of handfuls among the rest of us."
Pulling the much taller mech back to his pedes, the Praxian took her sparkling back from a mildly bemused Optimus with only a quick glance to the other Autobots looking from her to the sparkling.
"I do hope you behaved yourself, bitlit." The sparkling squeaked as he was pulled out of the larger mech's hands, consenting to the handling with brief series of confused clicks.
Ultra Magnus rubbed at the dent the femme had given him as he gave bundle of blue and silver metal in the femme's arms a sideways look. "You didn't have to hit me."
"Would you have listened to me without it?"
The XO spared a glance in his direction as the sparkling proceeded to tell her exactly what he thought of being passed around, even if it had been funny to see a bot that looked like her.
"Yes, it sucks slag. It is incredibly unfair to a soldier to have to lose what they are to guard in such an underhanded manner, without even a fair fight for it. But, when he wanders off on his own, you can't blame any bot but him. It is also incredibly insulting to the rest of us when you question what we could have done better. If this Chromia femme could have somehow learned that the seekers were betraying Sentinel when she was assisting the injured bot, would any of the government bots, or even Sentinel himself, listen to her? If Silentforce could have retreated before the Decepticons reached him, would he then have had to sacrifice the other guild bots just to save one mech?"
Shadowdancer hefted Kynaite into a better position as she turned to the large Autobot.
"What ifs will only drive you and the rest of us mad." She frowned at the protesting bundle in her arms. "I need a room, a quiet one if you all don't mind. It's well past time for Kynaite's nap."
"Second floor, Shadow'." Warcry waggled his finger joints at the bitlit in his XO's hands as she calmly walked off. The tank looked around at the mishmash of bots that stared after her. "And yes, that was Shadowdancer, Executive Officer of the SPARTAN-Bots."
Galeforce snickered from his position behind Ironhide's frame. "Gotta love that femme's style, bitlit attached and all."
"And when, pray tell, did you slaggers intend to inform the rest of us that she has a sparkling?" Ratchet frowned at the dent the Praxian femme caused Magnus before confronting the three SPARTAN mechs, optics narrowing at the sudden panicked looks that crossed their faceplates.
Warcry exchanged a sheepish look with Silentforce as Galeforce spoke up for them. "Uh… just now?"
(ooo000ooo)
Kynaite took two joors for a nap. In the meantime, the SPARTAN mechs consolidated the plans they had made up and handed them off to the XO as she watched over the sparkling's recharge.
Eventually, she handed back down the corrected plans, which the SPARTANs and Autobots immediately got on implementing. When Shadowdancer appeared back to the main floor with Kynaite clicking in her arms, Ratchet demanded to know how she got her pointed claws on the sparkling.
"It's not yours, I can tell that from here. Where are his creators?"
"Deactivated," the XO set the now curious sparkling in the medic's hands, watching intently as the medic looked the bitlit over, "I investigated that before he bonded with me. The Enforcer we saw about his circumstances told me that."
She set her claws on her hip joints as the medic nodded for her to continue.
"There isn't much else to tell. The medics in Gygax told me he's a bit more advanced than normal, but overall healthy."
Kynaite amused himself by trying to nibble the paint off Ratchet's hands during his impromptu checkup, causing the medic to snort. "Well, they're right. But fr… uh, hmm."
The medic handed the sparkling back to his adopted carrier, trying to contain his more volatile vocabulary before the femme slapped him.
"Don't worry about it. He's probably heard worse from me." Flicking her door-wings, Shadowdancer looked around for a moment before turning back to Ratchet. "Where are the others?"
"Warcry left with Ultra Magnus and Prowl to see about fighting a hole through the Decepticon forces outside of the city with what's left of the Enforcers; Galeforce is with Ironhide, Chromia, and Optimus organizing the non-fighters so they don't get in the way; the trine is still out scouting; and Silentforce is with his guild members stripping down the building for anything they want to take with them." Still giving the femme a wary look, the medic pointed to the doorway. "Trickflip and Jazz left a little while ago, citing that he had to get to work."
"I suppose that means I have to get to work as well." Sighing, Shadowdancer considered the bit of metal and wires in her claws for a moment, then turned to the medic. "I need to see Optimus. Can you watch Kynaite for a bit?"
"Sure…?" The XO set the sparkling down and told him not to get in the way before leaving the building for Galeforce's location. Ratchet looked down as Kynaite looked up and grinned at him. "…aw, slag."
(ooo000ooo)
By the time Jazz got back from scouting around the city with Trickflip, Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus were almost ready to start the retreat with the Stonewall Defenders guild bots.
Shadowdancer was assigned a role in a non-combative position, much to her extreme disgust, even though she didn't argue about it.
The bots didn't encounter much resistance to their retreat; most of the way had been cleared already by both the fighters in the group and by the two sneaky mechs setting up traps for the unwary Decepticon scouts. Trickflip left them once the bots reached the walls, giving the officers a quick salute before he disappeared.
Once out of sight of the city, the group once again started making plans for what to do now that they were out. The few arguments were being carried out under Optimus' watch as the SPARTAN mechs and Autobot soldiers pulled guard for the group.
Since Kynaite wasn't the only youngling or sparkling in the mishmash group, Shadowdancer volunteered to watch them as the adult framed bots 'discussed' what they wanted to do. She stood with Chromia as Kynaite played with Jazz and the other younglings, as the saboteur tried to get Prowl to play as well with limited success.
With a fond grin on her faceplate, her sparkling was all but running the silver mech into the ground with his built up energy, the Praxian femme turned to the other. "What about you?"
Chromia started a bit, pulling her optics from where she had been watching the mechs pulling guard. Drax and Ironhide had gotten into an animated discussion involving something well within ogling range. "Err… what?"
"Plans for after you get where you're going?" The Praxian smirked when the other femme glared at her briefly, well aware of what Chromia had been doing under the pretense of helping her watch the younglings.
"I suppose I'll join the Autobots. My cohort sister is one, she'll help me out."
Shadowdancer frowned at Chromia, tilting her helm to the side as she took stock of the other femme's frame.
"Your sister is Elita One, isn't she?" She shook her helm with a smirk. "I should have seen it, you two look alike."
The weapons' expert smirked back. "Same frame and everything, just a different color. Yeah, you should have seen the similarities."
Their attention was diverted when Kynaite got the drop on Jazz, sending the silver mech crashing to the ground with the rest of the young bots giving a few gleeful and loud clicks of delight as Prowl quickly suppressed a small smirk. Chromia snickered at the surprised look on the saboteur's faceplate as the sparkling climbed on top of his chassis.
"Not bad, for a sparkling. Do… do you know Elita?"
"Met her a while ago." Shadowdancer flicked her door-wings once, Kynaite turned to look at her for a moment before getting off of Jazz with a pout. "Nice femme, she's under Magnus' command last I knew. She's in Iacon if she didn't get reassigned somewhere else."
"Huh… then I'm for Iacon." Chromia gave the mechs on guard duty one last look before walking off to talk to her guild masters. "I'll be seeing you later Shadow'."
\V/
The SPARTAN part of the convoy escorting the bots heading to Iacon broke off once they got close to Central.
The trine split off back to the ATHENS as the four adult frame SPARTANs and the little sparkling headed off to Holdout's living unit. Luckily for them, the tracker had just left to pick up Refit from the Academy, and Shadowdancer picked the electronic lock once Silentforce took Kynaite from her. They only had a few breems to wait until the two SPARTAN femmes joined the others.
Refit made a bee line for Silentforce and Kynaite, the little sparkling was fascinated by his silent uncle and sat in his lap while his carrier was out getting energon for the group with Galeforce. Holdout greeted Warcry, who was trying not to break her couch just by sitting on it, and gave a wave to the stoic mech currently under the fussing of the youngest two in the group. "Did ya all have fun?"
Silentforce gave the tracker a glare, trying to ignore Refit's loud chatter about the current state of his armor and systems and the sparklings attempts to get him to speak by poking at where his vocalizer used to be.
The tank shrugged while balancing on the edge of his seat, not too sure about how much weight the couch could hold without breaking. "A few good things came out of it, Ratchet found out what was keeping Silentforce so silent."
Holdout snickered at the optic roll that the defensive specialist gave at the crack. :Like I haven't heard that one before.:
"I think we've heard it, or a variation of it, three times on this trip alone." Shadowdancer held the door for Galeforce before turning back to the other SPARTANs. "It does present a problem though. What else didn't convert over when this slag happened?"
Refit squeaked and held her hands over Kynaite's audio receptors. "Ma'am! That sort of language is not something a sparkling should be hearing!"
Said sparkling looked at her weirdly before pulling the medic in training's hands off his helm while clicking at her in disapproval. That had felt odd.
The XO just raised an optic ridge. "We're living in a Decepticon held city; do you know the percentage of bots that will modulate their language files in the presence of a sparkling in Gygax? I'll give you a hint, it's extremely low."
Galeforce snorted as he handed out some cubes of energon.
"So, as to why the rest of us are here. Refit?" When the slighter femme looked up, the combat engineer gave her a small smile. "We already know about the nanites in our fluid lines, what else is different about us?"
Knightblade and Wheeljack had discovered that tidbit a megacycle ago. The sniper had some free time as Perceptor held a conference about something or another, and the two had used the time to investigate the strange liquid metal that leaked out of Knightblade's slit coolant line.
Wheeljack was fascinated, and a little put out that they could have guessed what the culprit was.
Biofoam, the old medical standby of SPARTANs everywhere, was another of the All-Spark affected items on the ATHENS. Instead of simply containing any fluid loss by filling up empty space and hardening in place, the foam was now a type of nanite gel that was produced somewhere in their frames.
The nanites bonded together when there was an injury, making a flimsy temporary patch over the damaged sections. This had been vigorously tested by Silentforce's near deactivation from fluid loss, something the rest of the SPARTANs were not anxious to test again.
The trine had recently discovered three drums of the stuff, and when Spotter cracked one of the drums open to inspect the contents, the blue liquid metal inside surprised him since the sniper had shared what she learned with the others. Knightblade had requested a drum to study, the drum that the recon scout seeker had opened had hardened too much to be useful, and the last drum had been sent to Xenon to see what he and Ratchet thought of it.
Refit shook her helm. "There isn't much that differs between a normal Cybertronian and our frames. There are the obvious bits; the blue tint to our protoframe, the carbide ceramic struts, the augmentations to both the neural relay system and the motor systems. There are some small differences between our optics, obviously some peculiarities with our frames and secondary systems, and our spark chamber."
She shrugged at the expectant looks.
"That's it so far."
Shadowdancer frowned at the slighter femme. "Our optics?"
"We are a bit sensitive to bright lights. Haven't found a reason why yet." The former AI picked up her nephew and cradled the sparkling in her lap. "So, how long are you staying?"
"Not long." The XO reached out and let Kynaite climb up to her arms before sitting down next to the tank. "I have to get back soon, but I thought you would like to meet him before that."
\V/
Starscream frowned at the records being displayed for him.
There was no file about any seekers that could 'disappear' from visual range, not even in the records held in Vos where the primary seeker Youth Sector had been for centivorns. The now confirmed Decepticon Supreme Air Commander glared up at the ceiling as he thought about what that meant.
Either some bot had hacked both sets of digital records, the one held by the Aero Space Division and the one held by the Vos Council, or such a seeker type didn't exist at all.
This was a problem the former scientist couldn't leave alone. Bonecrusher had smirked knowingly when the seeker had demanded his so called proof, and handed the vid the deactivated triple changer Blitzwing had transmitted to him for a hefty amount of credits.
The recording of the attack on Iacon was grainy at best, a poor quality vid that nonetheless was impossible to tamper with. Even with that detracting element to the vid Blitzwing had recorded the sight of the dark painted seeker, the same one that deactivated Thunderstrike, who flickered into view a split astrosecond before he collided with the triple changer… as well as some type of transport that bore alien designs on the side.
Starscream tapped his claws on the table next to him. The only lead he had, was the symbol painted on the left wings of the two seekers he had seen, and the left arm of that red and black mech that almost ruined Thunderstrike's plan to offline Sentinel Prime.
\V/
One optic shut, the other idly browsing through a digital catalogue from some bot in Praxus, Nitro barely twitched when a few Enforcers walked through his shop's front door. "Business related, or are you two just looking?"
When the two bots in his peripheral vision hesitated, the SPARTAN-Bots' demolitions specialist finally looked up to his visitors and looked them over.
They looked almost exactly like the Enforcers of Simfur did; they had the tan decals of the city's police force displayed on the upper part of their right arms, but something about the two seemed off to the SPARTAN. Nitro drummed his fingertips on the countertop that he had been leaning against.
Being visited by Enforcers wasn't an unusual occurrence, it happened every now and again due to the high rate of illegal upgrades happening in the mainly Neutral City. Usually, the Praxian would get some type of warning before getting visited by Enforcers on duty, and when they visited off-duty the Enforcers usually only came in by themselves.
These two gave no forward notice, not even a generic message stating that an inspection may happen in the next megacycle or two.
They were acting very strange, for Enforcers anyways. The demolitions specialist flicked his door-wings a bit higher than he usually held them, narrow optics looking the two over more carefully as they seemed to reach a silent agreement about something.
Enforcer decals, but theirs had faded or scratched away the serial number that would identify them in case a bot needed to file a complaint. As one bot walked up to the counter the tan and gray mech was against, the other seemed to wander the isles that held mockups of more popular items sold in the shop.
Nitro never displayed the actual pieces, figuring that to do so was inviting a robbery or something similar and the general marching orders given to the SPARTANs before they left Iacon stated that they were to stay peaceful unless actually threatened. He never did figure out if having his place of business attacked in such a way fell under 'personal assault' or not.
Straightening up, the Praxian gave the suspicious Enforcer in front of him a long look, a secondary processor tracking the movements of the other through the store. "May I help you?"
"I'm looking for certain… uh, chemicals." The Enforcer fidgeted a bit, then held out a datapad to the Praxian mech. "These. Got 'em?"
Nitro cautiously took the proffered pad and looked it over. He caught sight of rapid movement out of the corner of his optics, and snapped a hand up to rip the baton that the mech had swung out of his grip.
Tossing the startled mech the data pad to distract him, he definitely was not an Enforcer bot by his actions or reactions; he jumped over his counter and kicked out at the mid-section of the mech's chassis as the startled bot tried to catch the pad. The fake Enforcer smashed into a wall, alerting his partner that something was going wrong.
As that mech took off for the back of the store, trying to evade the shopkeeper, Nitro tipped one of the display cases over to crash down on him before he got too far.
With a sigh, the Praxian mech turned off his open sign before calling the actual Enforcers about his little problem currently sprawled out on the floor. This was going to cut into his bottom line.
(ooo000ooo)
The Enforcers that responded to the call, two sergeants and a trainee, were very impressed with the mess he had made of his store.
The femme sergeant, who introduced herself as Roulette, peered around at the sheer clutter of ripped up metal on the floor, trying to track the altercation as the shopkeeper explained what had happened as her partner showed the rookie how to take a bot's statement after the event being reported had happened.
Door-wings just barely twitching in agitation, the Praxian rattled off what tipped him off to the Enforcer's false identity to the ones currently standing in front of him and the actions that occurred after the bot tried to hit him. Nitro gave the two a copy of the security vids taken during the attempted assault, they couldn't call it a robbery since nothing had been taken, and shooed the three out of his shop while claiming that he had to clean up before next cycle.
After a joor of doing just that in case the Enforcers were watching, the SPARTAN mech abandoned the still messy shop floor for the basement and let himself into one of the underground storage spaces under his shop.
The second bot, the one that tried to run from him, was hanging upside down with his hands chained to the floor and glaring at the blank wall.
"They'll figure out that there were two bots that entered." The mech only twitched when the door had finally opened, he had expected the strange mech a little sooner.
"I have no doubt about that." The Praxian took a seat on one of the crates in the tiny room he had cleared out to hold his new resident. "But the vid I gave them showed that you ran out just after I smashed your friend into the wall."
The mech shifted his glare at the tan and gray mech, who just crossed his arms over his chassis in response.
"Sneaky. If I didn't know better, I would say you wanted something from me." Tilting his helm to the side, the energon rushing to his helm was starting to make his processor ache, the mech tried to nettle the bot holding him hostage. "Or you could be one of those twisted freaks that get off by hurting their partners."
Nitro grinned internally as the mech tried a few other statements in order to get a rise out of him. That hadn't been a bad attempt, and if he knew what he was talking about it probably would have worked better. After a few other digs that didn't even get the Praxian's tan door-wings to twitch, the mech fell into a sullen silence.
The SPARTAN demolitions specialist waited a few moments before finally asking a question. "So… what's your designation?"
"…you're joking, right?" The silver and blue mech raised, or rather lowered, an optic ridge at the question. The tan and gray Praxian just looked at him with a blank faceplate, waiting for an answer. "'M Axel, why?"
"Cause that's all I need to know. Hang around a bit, Axel. I'll get back to you later." Nitro gave a low chuckle as the mech started up swearing at his back.
\V/
Clearsight carefully slipped an external drive out of her subspace and copied the data she had compiled on the subject that Shadowdancer wanted looked into. As the terminal she was using processed her request, the scout looked around at the empty Hall of Records, keeping an optic out for any bot sneaking around when they shouldn't be just like she was doing.
A quiet beep informed her that the data had been copied and she was free to remove the device. She snatched the drive and snuck her way out of the Hall, avoiding the security cameras with her stealth system.
On her walk home, she thought about why she was out at this time of the cycle.
The whole slinking around thing could have been avoided if she wanted to explain why she wanted the information to the superiors she sometimes worked for, but since she couldn't find a way to explain why she needed the information without having some bot look up either Holdout or Shadowdancer to see why they wanted to know, the SPARTAN scout had to resort to less than legal means of acquiring the data.
For some odd reason, the data files linked to the Quintessons had been locked under more than just a few security measures, requiring bots that wanted to look up the subject to report to the bots that ran the Hall in person. The general information about the strange and apparently half organic race was available to any bot, the files containing anything else about the race was almost locked away on a separate server entirely.
Apparently, the information was on the restricted server, but it amounted to the same ideal.
Not that Clearsight wanted any reason to be looked at suspiciously, but the orders handed down had been clear. Find any information on the subject, and if even some of it matched up with what the XO had speculated she was to get the information any way she could and send it off to Knightblade.
Admittedly, the subject matter gave the scout the creeps when she stopped to think about what she was looking into.
What little they knew about the Forerunners in the Milky Way Galaxy and what she dug up about the Quintessons in this galaxy didn't seem like they matched up in any manner, but the range of time when they were active in both galaxies did correlate in a small window of overlapping time. The Forerunners had just been on the losing edge of their conflict with the Flood when the Quintessons first showed up in the annals of Cybertron's history as a primarily organic race.
The Forerunners had been peaceful in a way, self-imposed guardians and guides to the still developing races that they had tagged as intelligent. Even the method of their extinction was noble in a way, to wipe out every bit of sentient organic life that the Flood could use in order to trap the parasitic race before reseeding the entire galaxy with the ARK Instillation could be seen as self-sacrificing.
Rather self-destructive, but somewhat noble.
The Quintessons, on the other hand, where a race of once-organic creatures that started to manufacture large numbers of the early Cybertronians for two reasons; personal household slaves to serve them and military units to protect themselves from something that seemed to terrify the Quintessons.
Both races were active in an age long ago, the precise dates lost to the scout as she didn't know when the Forerunners had been active and couldn't use that as a point of research.
Shadowdancer, after that first battle that they fought for the Autobots, had speculated that this Quintesson race could be a twisted off branch of the Forerunners that ran away in cowardice when the Flood became an overwhelming threat to the organic species. Such events had happened throughout the history of the human race, and it stood to reason that even the most noble of races would have some cowards seeding the lot.
None of the other officers of the SPARTAN-Bots, namely Warcry and Holdout, were very comfortable with the suggestion after the XO had shared it. Markmaker had proposed having one of them look into it, but Holdout had argued that none of them were in position to do so, so the task fell to another.
Namely her, as a data clerk Clearsight had access to a lot of data and could explain away any interest as simple curiosity.
The Praxian femme had no theory on why the Quintessons seemed to be so different from every mention of the Forerunners the SPARTAN knew of, leaving it to Clearsight to find out if the theory was true and find a reason for the differences. The scout had spent more than a few cycles on the subject, finally unearthing some ancient files that speculated on the possible sanity of the then techno-organic race.
She had the feeling of a voyeur as she looked up everything about the race that had manufactured the early Cybertronians as either personal slaves or military units. The files made mention that the Quintessons that had survived the Cybertronian uprising, the period of time when the terms 'Autobot' and 'Decepticon' had been first used to describe the differences between the household bots and the military bots, seemed to be paranoid and frequently searching for the guilty.
Guilty of what the bots that originally wrote the files couldn't or wouldn't speculate on.
When the scout had reported in with what she had learned to nearly all officers' meeting across the Praxian's data uplink, Spotter and Clearsight were the only noncommissioned officers that had been in on that meeting, Shadowdancer finally decided to expand the scope of the investigation.
What the SPARTAN tactician was looking for was still unknown, but in some more uncharitable moments the scout speculated that the Praxian had some kind of complex about the whole thing, blaming something that another race did they couldn't have helped on the race that was noted to be some kind of successor. Clearsight usually got over those moments rather fast.
Flipping the external drive through her knuckle joints, the scout took the last turn to her rented flat in Ankmoor's residential section nearly in the middle of the city. She had three joors to mail off the device to Knightblade and leave for work back at the Hall of Records.
If she wanted to squeeze in her early cycle fuel she would have to hurry.
\V/
On his late cycle break, the tank framed Enforcer in Vos took his time wandering in and out of oil bars and energon cafés next to the seekers' Youth Section and the ground based part of the Aero Space Division Headquarters.
Markmaker had been sticking to a similar routine during his off shifts ever since Silentforce reported the seekers as the bots that deactivated the older Prime. Not that any of the SPARTANs really liked Sentinel, but the mech had his uses and the loss was affecting the competence of the Autobots as a whole.
Optimus wasn't a politician, and it showed in his work with the councils of the varied city/states. The 2IC of the SPARTAN-Bots wondered how Warcry was handling Optimus' new position as the only Prime in the ranks, as the other tank framed SPARTAN had more experience with data work of managing the deployments of SPARTANs than the honest work of managing a planet wide military force and the expected friction with the civilian sections that caused.
With a rueful chuckle, the Enforcer finally picked a bar to take in his fuel in, nodding to the vaguely familiar mech that was serving as bartender as he took a seat. Since Markmaker was frequently assigned patrol routes that took him close to the areas of the city that mostly held the seekers, he was accepted nearly everywhere in the sections that accommodated to seeker framed Cybertronians.
The impression most bots got when meeting the tank was of a laid back mech, one that was more amused that you wanted to speak with him than anything. The easy going personality made him the best mech on the force to deal with the frequently flighty seeker builds, since the tank could spend joors on end in their company piecing together what had caused the seekers to seek him out in the first place.
Markmaker's rueful grin widened as he thought about what the same bots that complimented him on his ability to hold onto his good nature would think about the slight fact he was a purpose built war tank with enough fire power to wipe out most of the city by himself.
Finally getting around to ordering a cube of energon, the SPARTAN mech didn't drink high-grade even if he wasn't on duty because he was the preferred one to take seeker calls and the bots on dispatch duty seemed to always know when he was free, he started to look around the bar he had only been in once or twice before. A good half of the bots inside of the bar were seekers, a few which knew him and gave the Enforcer a respectful nod of recognition. The other half were bots that had just stopped in for fuel like him and the few that helped whoever owned the bar keep it running.
The tank framed mech had a few breems of bot watching before some bot finally took the seat next to him at the bar.
The seeker framed femme was seated on his left, and while that alone wouldn't attract Markmaker's attention or give him a feeling of unease, the small fact of the matter was that she was inspecting the SPARTAN symbol painted on his arm plates a bit too closely for the SPARTAN trained mech to feel comfortable. "See something you like?"
Her optics darted up to his and then back to his arm. She hesitated a moment before bringing up one of her clawed digits up to trace the design.
"What is this?" The seeker femme apparently decided not to respond to the Enforcer's suggestion and concentrate on why she had took a seat next to the tank.
"Why do you want to know?" Warcry had vetoed the idea to hide the SPARTAN symbol, the silver eagle with wings spread under a gold star with gold arrows and lightning bolts grasped in its claws stood out easily against the gunmetal gray of the tank's armor plate paint. The SPARTANs had agreed not to cover it up, but nothing had been stated about whether or not to outright state what the symbol meant.
She pursed her lip plates. While that had not been a straight out dismissal, it wasn't what she wanted either. "I'm looking for a dark blue seeker with the same design painted on his wing panel."
Markmaker let out a laugh that startled her. "Drax? Why in the Pits are you looking for him?"
"It's seeker business." She informed him haughtily, giving off a burst of white noise that made up a seeker scoff to reinforce that statement.
"Fine femme, hold your turbines and stop that. You're going to give me a processor ache trying to listen to that noise." The tank shook his helm and glared at her until she lost the frequency of her turbines' in surprise. This was only the second ground bound bot she had met who had any idea what the noise meant. "Can I have your designation to pass off to him, or are you going to give me an attitude about that as well?"
"Uh… I'm Dawnglider." She stared at the tank as he nodded and sipped his cube again. "Well?"
"Drax and his trine are almost on the other side of Cybertron at the moment, give us a breem." At her confused look, the SPARTAN mech tried to explain. "There's this relay of bots that transmit messages in a secure method. From here it starts with me, goes through a femme in Central named Holdout, from her it goes to a mech in Yuss named Quickgrip before Spotter can get it. Spotter takes it to his trine leader, and then a message has to go back the same way."
Markmaker took another sip of his cube as the two waited silently.
"He wants to know why." The tank smirked as she jumped a bit at the sudden statement.
"Oh… umm, it has to do with Starscream, the third seeker of the trine assigned to Sentinel Prime before Kaon."
Dawnglider fidgeted with her wings for a moment before pressing on, most of the seekers still were uneasy about the fact that it had been a seeker trine that betrayed the Autobots. The seeker council wouldn't care if some ground bound bots were told as long as a message got to the strangely acting trine that didn't check in at all, right?
"And what he wants to do as the so called 'Supreme' Air Commander. Since this… uh, Drax seeker was the one to take down Thunderstrike since he was supposed to be the next Air Commander by supremacy in combat, but since he hasn't reported in to the Aero Space Division for orders, Starscream is trying to take the title by default."
The SPARTAN 2IC barely suppressed the inclination to start laughing. "I don't think Drax or the others in his trine ever reported to an Aero Space Division before."
He passed on the message anyways, knowing that all three seekers in the SPARTAN trine held a bit of a grudge against Starscream, if he was the last seeker that Tigerstripe missed.
Fidgeting a bit more in her seat, the seeker femme almost squeaked when the tank framed mech nodded suddenly.
"Drax said they'll come by sometime soon. When he gets here, I'm supposed to direct him to the Aero Space Division HQ, right?"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Dawnglider threw her arms around Markmaker, making the SPARTAN mech twitch in surprise. "Yes, the seeker entrance. Just have him ask for me, and his trine should show up with him."
She sat back in her chair, wings vibrating with excitement.
"He was a hard mech to track down, and risking a leak through you paid off." Slipping off the chair and back on her pedes, Dawnglider looked back to him with a smile. "Thank you again, officer. I'll be sure to mention that you were the one to help me this cycle to the council."
As she left the bar altogether, Markmaker had to chuckle. Unlike the SPARTAN seeker trine, she still had the hopping gait of a seeker abusing her anti-gravity thrusters. He wondered how exactly that meeting was going to go.
\V/
As Rook was cleaning up after her last class of the cycle, she had to bite back a fond smile as Bluestreak's hopeful faceplate popped into her view. "Sorry, Blue'. I have errands to run later, so I can't hang out this cycle. Next one I will definitely come with."
"Aw."
The merchant tried to give her a pout, but the saboteur was already on her way out the door.
"Hey, wait!" The gray femme gave him a look over her shoulder as she held the door open so he could leave. "What are you doing? Can I come with?"
"I'm afraid not, Blue. My errands will take a little while, but I promised my brother that I would look into something for him." Rook steered the merchant on when Bluestreak looked like he was going to stall in the doorway. "Why are you so insistent to come with? It will be mostly boring, trust me."
The gray Praxian kicked at the ground as the femme locked up her dojo. "Cause your always running errands now. It's been a whole megacycle since you came with me and hung out with Smokey and me."
Rook smirked as she threw an arm across the younger mech's shoulders.
"Like I said, 'm sorry Blue. But this can't be pushed off any farther than I have already." She held up the hand not on the other side of the merchant when he opened his mouth components. "No, I'm not mad at Smokey again, none of Blaster's cassettes have done something to annoy me, and yes I'm sure I can't push this off again. Next cycle, promise."
The mech gave her a beseeching stare, but Rook chuckled and hugged him with one arm before setting off. She felt the slight magnetization of her back plate as the merchant tried to stealthily attach a tracking chip to her lower back.
With a smirk, the saboteur slowed down behind him and casually reached back and slid the chip off, flicking it so it would attach to one of the bum bots that had attended her class that cycle.
(ooo000ooo)
Bluestreak cautiously looked into the main floor of the living unit he shared with his brother. Smokescreen was glaring at the back of Blaster's helm as the communications expert fiddled with something on the desk. "I take it that it didn't work again."
The diversionary tactician gave his brother a glare as he stalked out. Blaster smirked at the back of his Praxian partner. "Nope. Rook found it in less than a breem, and tagged some homeless bot with the tracker. Nice try Blue."
Ramhorn and Steeljaw, under the desk the communications specialist was working on, both snorted in disgust. Smokescreen had been trying to attach a tracking chip to the gray femme for the last few megacycles, trying to keep an optic on her movements in the city.
Unfortunately for them, Rook was better at finding the tracking chips than they were at putting them on her.
Fortunately, she was more amused at the breach of her privacy than annoyed.
Bluestreak nearly blew a gasket at first when Rook told him offhandedly that he should inform his brother that the chip for that cycle seemed defective somehow, and the merchant cornered his Enforcer brother about what he was trying to do.
Somehow between then and now, it had become more of a game between the four bots and four cassettes. They would try to stick the femme with a chip, and she had a joor to find it and tag another bot with it. It had surprised the two Enforcers and the merchant that if Rook couldn't find it in a joor she would let the chip stay on for the cycle. That had only happened once so far, back before it had become a game to them.
For some odd reason, that cycle the femme's tracker signal had wandered around the slums district, only occasionally wandering off in different directions every so often. Why, Rook hadn't told them. The only comment she ever made about the whole affair was that 'it is so on now', when she had first clued in on the reason behind the tracker chips.
Bluestreak often wondered if Rook was trying to keep Smokescreen's attention. Blaster agreed with his theory, but his brother was less than happy about that turn of processing. "Well, she said she could hang out with us next cycle. Whose turn is it?"
"Smokey's, then me." Steeljaw low crawled his way out from under the orange and black mech's chair. "I'm at one, the rest of you still have none."
"Yeah, yeah. Rub it in why don't you." Blaster leaned back so that only two of the chair legs reached the ground. "That femme's got skill."
\V/
Perceptor gave Knightblade a small shipping container when the sniper finally showed up in the main room of the scientist's living unit for her early cycle rations. "I believe Clearsight, her involvement is speculated based on the location of the sender, has directed this object to your care."
"In other words, I have mail."
The blue gray femme smirked at the huff that came from her employer. Picking on the articulate scientist's vocabulary and method of speech was one of her favorite pass times when they were not up to their elbow joints with a project or two.
Opening one end of the container and tipping it, the sniper's optic ridges drew together as an external drive slid into her hand. "Huh. Well, that's weird, not even a note or anything."
Looking over the sniper's shoulder plates, Perceptor deftly slid the external drive out of her hands and took the few steps to a personal terminal on the wall. "One would perceive that the receiver has prior familiarity about what the sender has sent."
He connected the device and took a sip of his own cube as the two waited for it to upload.
The sniper snorted. "I haven't heard a word of this before. That worries me more than the fact Clear' found a good reason to send me this."
She finally picked up her own cube and watched the vid screen as the terminal scanned the drive for any virus before displaying the contents.
"Some files about 'Quintessons' and these files . . ." Knightblade accessed the files that had tags showing that they came from the ATHENS' library. In response to her prompt, the bare amount of Intel that the humans had compiled on the Forerunner race pulled up to the display vid screen. "The Forerunners? What the slag?"
She moved that file out of the way so she could see what else was on the drive. Skimming the short list, the sniper was amused to see that the scout had sent some secured files that obviously came from a Hall of Records in her city, she pulled up the shortest file, one labeled 'Directives'.
Knightblade set aside her untouched cube of energon as she read the XO's speculation.
"Fascinating theory," Perceptor had read the message over her shoulder, which included Shadowdancer's original musing, the orders Holdout had given in Clearsight's search for information, and the preliminary results of the scout's work, "but additional supplementary information is necessary before any decisive opinion is possible. Who are the individuals known as the Forerunners?"
"Are you just going to hang around up there, or are we going to work this cycle?" Knightblade snatched the drive out of the terminal's data port before stomping off for the in suite wash rack.
The scientist blinked after her, more surprised at the sudden show of temper than her pointed, half concealed suggestion that looking over a bot's shoulder plating was rude. This was the first time ever in their nearly half a vorn's association that the femme had shown even the suggestion of a temper, besides that first violent meeting between the two.
Somehow that was more reassuring to the scientist than the lack of aggressiveness that the femme normally gave off when the scientist kept the company of bots she didn't know. He looked down at the untouched cube of energon that the sniper hadn't done more than lift up, then back to the wash rack where he could hear the cleaners splashing around.
With a wry twist to his lip plates, the mech set down his own half-finished cube and looked into the terminal's history bank to see if it had temporarily saved the contents of that external drive.
Something about the data was upsetting his assistant, and he wanted to know what.
\V/
Silentforce winced as Refit poked around the hole in his neck cables where his vocalizer used to be.
"You were lucky with this, you know."
The medic in training blissfully ignored Holdout's snickering in the background as she ran yet another pass of her medical scanners over the still strained vocal systems of the mech's, the tracker had refused to explain why she would laugh when the younger femme fussed over their silent brother, and continued in the same tone that the medic instructors had informed her class was reassuring to the injured when being repaired.
"If you had put any more stress on that faulty bit of hardware, you would have melted a few of these wires and circuits, which would have been nearly impossible to fix outside of a very competent medic or a medical facility. Getting you admitted as something other than a war bot so the qualified medics could work on you would have been a processor ache and a half." Refit sounded disgusted as she rambled, the idea that some medics would refused to repair bots built expressly for war was distasteful to the SPARTAN's only medically inclined bot on the roster.
The SPARTANs hadn't chosen to be what they were, but as long as they were needed none of them would ever consider a reformat into a more normal Cybertronian frame.
:Yes, I know. You and Ratchet have already reamed me out for this before, remember.: The defensive specialist gripped the underside of the couch as the SPARTAN medic's finger tips traced each wire, feeling out any shorts or melted sections that would need to be replaced in the areas that Refit's student medic's scanning equipment could not reach. :I believe Ratchet also said a few things that are not best repeated in polite company as well about the overall state of my vocal systems. It can't be that bad, right? It didn't hurt until the slagging thing shorted out on me.:
He fought back the desire to twitch that Refit was causing him, the tickling sensation brought on by the feel of another bot's fingertips on his vocal wires made the SPARTAN want to attempt to pull away from the medic in training's hands. He knew better, though. She would just smack him upside the helm before continuing in a more forceful manner, one that would probably not tickle.
"It didn't hurt you because you're all desensitized to minor pains by now." The femme who had once been a human made AI sat back on her heel stabilizers, sitting almost on her skid plate and at the mech's pedes.
She insisted it was the best position to inspect slow auto-repair of the incomplete and damaged system, as she had the light from a nearby floor lamp and an unobstructed view up into Silentforce's neck cabling.
"Do you know how often normal Cybertronians visit the medics? Once or twice a decacycle a normal Cybertronian visits the medical stations regularly for a system check; a basic look over for leaky lines, cracked support struts, and checks on the state of lubricants and fluids. Once a stellar cycle they go in for a complete maintains check of all of their systems. That's not counting any emergencies or stopping by for anti-viral software upgrades."
Silentforce raised an optic ridge and nodded slowly, not too sure what point the medic in training was trying to make. Refit pulled a face at the SPARTAN mech as she stood up, hands on her hip joints in a frightening parody of both Ratchet and Shadowdancer, and prepared herself to yell at the mech until he understood.
Holdout got to her pedes quick when the ex-AI took up that particular stance.
"It's almost time for us to leave for the cycle, 'fit. Let him think that out while we go." The tracker made enough fuss to distract the still easily diverted femme from what she had been doing. :I hope you know what she's angling for, three-three-seven, cause I don't.:
With a grimace at the femme, who just gave him a small smile back, the defensive specialist mentally compared the rate of system checks so called 'normal' Cybertronians got against the checks he had gotten in Kaon.
He could see the former AI's point, given that the SPARTANs tended to avoid medics and the like as bots that could out them as war bots, none of the SPARTANs ever did more at a medical station than hurry past it.
What he didn't know, was what she expected him to do about it.
(ooo000ooo)
In between classes at the Cybertronian Academy, the student body liked to drift into the quad to socialize or to the Hall of Records to study. The quad was a courtyard of benches and tables that were open to the sky and the Hall of Records had every bit of information that any bot would ever need to know.
Refit like to split her free time between researching more about the Cybertronian physical form and errors or malfunctions that were common and sitting in the quad and watching the bots that passed her by.
This current cycle saw the former AI sitting in a dim corner of the Hall of Records, looking at the cases of data pads and servers that made up the west side of the Hall.
By tradition, the west side held the data files that pertained to Cybertron as of now, the east side held the files of past ages. North had files on alien worlds and species, south dealt with scientific theories and the supporting evidence.
The slim SPARTAN femme was looking for something a bit different, having thoroughly depressed herself in looking into common maladies of sparklings and younglings for the XO. Apparently if Shadowdancer had refused to take in Kynaite, there could have been severe consequences, such as the sparkling could have become withdrawn and refused to accept another bot as either a Guardian or Caretaker or he could have shut down and died.
The thought that the little mischievous little sparkling that she had met when the XO had escorted Silentforce to Central could have suffered such a thing was enough to make the femme wonder if Cybertronians could cry like the humans could.
Wandering the files that contained works of fiction, she was amused to note that Cybertronians had about as much of the data cases and servers dedicated to that as any human University Library, Refit traced her finger joints over the data pads neatly sorted on the shelves while trying to decide on if she should check one or two out.
Not really watching where she was going, the SPARTAN's medic in training turned a corner to see the other side of the data case and promptly ran into some bot's chest plates and was knocked back onto her skid plate. Scrambling up to her knee joints, she almost started to babble apologies but was beaten to it.
"I'm so sorry, femme. I was trying to find this bot named Refit, and wasn't watching where I was going." The bright blue painted mech held out a hand, giving the femme a concerned look when she gaped at him. "Are you alright?"
"Err… yes. Umm, I'm Refit." Giving the mech a sheepish smile, the tan and black femme grabbed his hand and let him pull her to her pedes.
He blinked at her in surprise before grinning. "Well, lucky me. I'm Jolt, and the instructors told me to tell you that you have a package from Ratchet, the Head Medic of Iacon."
Refit smiled brilliantly, more than happy that the replacement part that Silentforce needed was in, and took a step forward only to realize that Jolt had failed to release her hand. She tugged herself free before he remembered.
"Sorry, but umm…" He walked with her out of the hall, casting a quick glace around before finishing his statement, "…why do you have a package from the Autobots?"
"What makes you sure it's from the Autobots?" Refit gave the bright blue mech a sidelong glance as they made their way down the halls to the administrative wing of the Academy.
Jolt snorted at her. "Ratchet's an Autobot; he wasn't exactly quiet when he joined up."
He slowed down when the offices came into the two's view, mildly pleased when the femme slowed her pace as well.
"So… can you answer, or is it some big secret?"
The ex-AI concealed her smirk at the wistful tone of the mech's vocalizer and turned to face him when they both slowed to a stop. "It's a replacement vocalizer module for my brother. His shorted out and he needs a new one."
A raised optic ridge was all that he did in response to her statement.
"It's true!"
"Then why not get a part ordered from a manufactory somewhere? You're getting one from one of the highest respected medics on Cybertron." Jolt gave the suddenly sheepish looking femme a frown. "In that case, why not get the manufacturer that made his in the first place send him a new one?"
Refit opened and closed her mouth components a few times before she could even think up an excuse.
"It… uh… that factory no longer exists, too many faulty parts." She looked around a bit desperately before all but bolting for the office door. "Sides, Ratchet is a kinda family friend. He was just… um, concerned. That's all. Bye Jolt! It was nice to meet you!"
(ooo000ooo)
Refit got the rest of the orn off, the half true story about her package being from a concerned family friend made her medical instructors sympathetic to her 'brother's' plight. They promised to send another training medic along to her living unit with the work she would miss.
Holdout expressed some concern about the ex-AI walking home by herself, but Silentforce agreed to meet her halfway to keep the tracker from worrying more than she should.
Wheeljack had gamely made up another armor set for the defensive specialist, and the very hefty package the inventor sent along to Holdout's work address nearly made Sandstorm tail the femme home. Half of the mech actually wanted to help the tracker with the heavy load and half of him wanted to know what it was for.
The SPARTAN femme had to resort to some of the more creative threats she had heard the XO make in order to get the Wrecker to back off that orn.
That had meant that Silentforce was no longer stuck in the half destroyed armor plates that survived his near deactivation in Kaon, and sporting a new coat of paint ensured he didn't stand out as he walked the streets on Refit's normal route to and from the Academy.
Refit had one hand gripping the package Ratchet had sent to her, the other perusing a data pad as she wove her way through the mid cycle traffic when Silentforce spotted her tan and black frame. With an amused smirk, the mech took up a position that would result in the ex-AI blundering into him.
Three steps away, Refit stopped short and smirked up to her 'brother'. "Sorry, 'force. But I have already run into the required number of bots for the megacycle."
Snorting, Silentforce steered the slighter femme on down the crowded street to reach a back way to the tracker's home.
:That's not really an awe inspiring thought.: He gave the package in the medic in training's hands a long look as the two walked back to the living unit they all shared. :So… that's it?:
"Yep, Ratchet made this one up himself." She turned the shipping container over and listened to the muffle clink as the contents turned over.
:You do realize that this may not be the only malfunction wrong with me, right?: Silentforce gave both the package and the medic a sideways look as he reached for the door controls.
Refit huffed at him as he unlocked the living unit. "If it was, I would be surprised. A simple, even completely, malfunctioning vocalizer shouldn't have shorted out like that."
Following the defensive specialist into the flat, she set the package on the only table in the main room as walked to her room and pointed at the couch.
"Sit. I'll be right back."
Smirking at the medic's tone, he sat where she pointed. A few breems of listening to her rummage around for her own medical tools that all the SPARTANs had chipped in for, and she eventually came back into the main room with a few screwdrivers, a pair of pliers, some clamps, and wire cutters and set them next to him.
"Okay, given the directions that Ratchet sent along with it, this will not be pleasant."
:I refuse to be pulled offline.:
She flapped a hand at him as she started to pull the shipping container apart. "Not like I was expecting anything else, but splicing the wires will feel like… I really have no idea what it will feel like, but I'm sure it's not going to be good."
The mech raised an optic ridge as she finally pulled the new vocalizer module out and set it next the tools before reaching a hand in for the extra lengths of wire in the same gauge as the other SPARTANs had their own vocal systems wired with.
"So, that being the case, any idea on what you want to do now? Shadow' said it was your choice."
:It's more like three-four-one gave me a list and told me to pick something.: His systems hiccupped, much to her amusement, as the femme reached in and began to snip out some wires. :I've got the option of helping another SPARTAN, or enlisting as an Autobot early. She even said that if I wanted to I could help out with the Covert Ops team, excluding one-nine-six since he's now in Kaon.:
Silentforce gave a wary look at the number of wires Refit would have to splice to hook the new part into his systems.
:I think I'm going to go help out zero-four-six. Ratchet can't still be torqued with me, right?:
"Yeah… good luck with that." Putting down the cutters next to her and sitting much like she had earlier in the cycle, she picked up the new vocalizer and the few nuts and bolts that would hold it in place. Delicately setting the new part in place, she slotted the bolts home and loosely screwed on the nuts. One of her medical upgrades included some basic tools in her finger joints, and she used them to tighten the nuts in place. "Right, here's the second part that's going to suck slag."
She took up the new lengths of wires, which on closer inspection showed that one end was already attached to the connectors that would link the new vocalizer to his vocal system, and used the cutters again to shorten them to more manageable lengths.
:What else is new?:
The two fell into silence as the medic in training attached and spliced the wires in. As Refit was finishing up with the final solders to seal the connectors into the vocalizer, the two could hear Holdout's voice from outside. "Who the frag are you?"
"Err… I'm Jolt. Does… uh… Refit live with you?"
The former AI abandoned her work for the moment, the newly melted wires had to cool off before she could finish after all, and bolted to the door. When she hit the controls, she nearly groaned at the sight of both Sandstorm and Holdout giving the brightly painted blue mech a once over.
"Uh… hi Jolt! I didn't know they were going to send you… and so soon. Hold' this is… a friend from the Academy."
The tracker gave her a flat stare, not believing her but unwilling to start an argument over that when Sandstorm was still hanging over her shoulder.
"Right…" She looked back to her Wrecker suitor with a weak smile.
Both femmes had endeavored to keep the triple changer from discovering Silentforce's presence for different reasons. Holdout because she didn't want to deal with a jealous mech hanging around her all cycle; and Refit because she didn't want the tracker to put her pede down and flatly refuse to see the mech anymore.
"So, you were saying?"
Sandstorm brightened considerably at the sudden attention from the bronze and black femme. "Some of the other Wreckers are getting together at a bar, would you like to come with me?"
Even if femme normally turned him down on invites after their work shift, the Wrecker was nothing if not persistent.
:Three-three-seven isn't able to move quickly at the moment, is he?: The tracker pursed her lip plates as she waited for the ex-AI to respond.
Refit was almost giddy as she replied, watching the orange and black mech stare at the SPARTAN femme hopefully. :Nope. I'm only halfway done soldering the last connections into his systems.:
"Well… sure, why not?" Holdout shrugged a bit uncomfortably. The things she did for her fellow SPARTANs. :Tell him he owes me big for this.:
Sandstorm had a big grin on his faceplate as he offered the femme of his dreams his arm. The bronze and black femme gave her 'younger sister' a stern look.
"Behave, and ensure you lock the doors after your… friend, leaves." She pinned the bright blue mech with another glare. "You… I hear any complaints, and I will hunt you down and beat you with whatever is handy. Understood?"
She only took the Wrecker mech's arm after he nodded a bit too fast and let herself be led down the street.
Refit fought back the desire to trill as she watched the two disappear.
"Finally. I was starting to think that maybe Holdout preferred femmes." She had to snicker at the rather shocked look on Jolt's faceplate. "Oh, don't worry. Every bot I've met so far has had the same threat levied against them."
He blinked at her as she beckoned him to enter the flat. "She's scary. I've heard some rumors about a tracker femme that worked for the Autobots here as a supply bot and what she did to the last supply bot, was that her?"
If it was, Jolt was going to be on his best behavior. Ticking off a femme of that caliber would be like shooting himself in the pede.
"Erm… maybe? I really didn't ask about that when I moved in." Refit picked up the soldering tool she had dropped in her haste to save the mech from the unfriendly attentions of her protective 'sister'. "I do know she did get in trouble for violence against a civilian bot when Warcry visited not too long ago."
Jolt opened his mouth components to ask another question, only to snap his components shut when he got a good look at the mech that was still sitting on the couch. Silentforce raised an optic ridge at him as Refit knelt down to finish what she had been doing. "Who… err… Refit? What?"
Silentforce snorted as Refit carefully made the last adjustments to her work in his neck cables.
"I told you that package was for my brother, right? Well, meet my brother, Silentforce." She stood up and gave the seated mech a hopeful look. "Well?"
The red and black mech grimaced before shaking his helm. "No-t-t q-qu-i-i-t-te, 'fit-t-t."
The defensive specialist started to wonder who he fragged off to deserve this as he rubbed at the now scorched feeling radiating in his neck cables.
Refit's shoulder joints slumped at the static laced vocal response. "Well, at least you can talk again. Maybe Ratchet can fix the rest."
Jolt almost jumped when the mech responded over the public comms instead of trying his vocal system again.
:Possibly. Thank you for trying 'fit. Tell Hold' that I'm sorry I can't stay for a farewell, but clearing out before that mech stalker of hers gets back is the best I can do.: The mech patted the rather depressed medic in training on the helm before giving the still silent mech standing nearly in the doorway a glare of his own. :You try anything, and I will come back just to beat you into scrap metal.:
Like with the tracker, the defensive specialist only moved on when he regained enough processor power to nod franticly.
Silentforce left the flat, leaving two medics in training behind. Refit kicked despondently at one of the leftover lengths of wire before starting to clean up the mess she had made in attempting to fix the mech's vocal systems.
Sorting out her tools and the scraps of metal left over, she was mildly surprised to see blue painted servos gathering up the longer bits of wire in a neat bundle. Once the two had cleaned up the main room, Jolt looked over to where the tan and black femme was storing her tools and the more salvageable bits of wire.
"So… can I ask, or is it something you would have to shoot me for after telling?"
Refit twisted her lip plates in a smirk. "There isn't any rule about asking, but I can't tell you a lot."
"Fair enough." He looked to the door where the red and black mech had disappeared to, then back to the slim femme. "About these siblings of yours…"