A/N: Yay, semester's finally over. No more online courses for me: what a never-ending nightmare that was! Anyway, things pick up from here!

XXV.

En Route, Tunguska

Some things were better off not discussed over comm. There was, of course, the worry that Soundwave could hack in—even through Barricade's Paranoiac-Plus rated comm security. But there was also the value of a face-to-face, especially, Barricade thought, when the face in question was Starscream. Damn jet wouldn't know how to feign emotion if he sat through a seminar on it. And even then he'd probably consider it beneath some sort of warrior or Seeker honor thing.

Wonder, Barricade thought, if Starscream's ever calculated how much trouble his 'honor' thing gets him into.

So, he'd grabbed a few damaged joints from the recycling outside Repair Bay Bravo as a bone to toss to the Russians. Let them spend some time figuring out joints and hydraulics as a 'good faith' token. He'd even taken the perfunctory step of contacting Megatron. Just to clear that objective. He'd been halfway through explaining the situation when Megatron had cut him off.

"These operations are your specialty, Barricade," Megatron had said. "I leave it to your discretion."

Any other bot would ripple with pride. FROM any other bot, Barricade would feel somewhere in the confident to ebullient range. Translated from Megatron to normal it went something like this: Frag this up and it's your processor on the line. In a Very Slow Painful Offlining kind of way. Well, if that's the way it was, that's the way it was. Barricade had hopped the next copter down—Vortex again—with a fresh shift of drones.

"Russians have been good since you left," Vortex reported, "but they are getting a bit restless."

"Starscream?"

"Last I saw him, bored out of his processor. Looked like he was contemplating goading the Russians into doing something."

"He can goad, when he wants to. Half the time I want to take a swing at him."

Vortex snorted. "Starscream? He can goad even when he's not trying. Seeker training apparently isn't charm school."

"Good point. Heard from Blackout?"

"Starscream's still behaving. Gotten quieter." Barricade couldn't figure if this was good or bad news. "He's ready to haul up."

"Tell him I'm not speaking to him."

"Any particular reason?"

"Set me up to look like a glitch in front of the fraggin' jet. TWICE. Let's just say his sense of humor eludes me."

"I'm sure he meant well."

Long silence. Vortex seemed primed for a bit of small talk. Too bad that that wasn't really Barricade's thing. Especially not at the moment. Barricade finally managed, "What's your read on Blackout, anyway?"

"My read?" A little suspicion.

"Come on, Vortex," Barricade said, soothingly. Almost relieved that the right voice, the right words, came automatically. "You've been doing this a long time—your opinion matters." Vortex's opinion hadn't really mattered, not for a long time. But Vortex deserved some claim to wisdom, just for having survived for so long, and while moderately sane.

"Blackout?" Vortex was choosing his words carefully. "Good mech. He doesn't pull any pride about getting missions like this. Just does the job. Good fighter, but loses focus sometimes. Nothing lethal, but….could get him fragged up."

"Cowardice?" Barricade had a few hundred tricks to deal with that.

"No. Aggression. Gets targetblind sometimes." Vortex seemed determined to get Barricade to understand that it wasn't cowardice.

"We can work on that."

"Not your job any more, Barricade."

"I know. Thank Primus. Still." Now his turn to add to the uncomfortable silence.

Vortex changed the subject. "Turnabout being fair play, what's your read on Starscream?"

A loaded question. Vortex had, thankfully, no idea how loaded. "You know what I know: Plenty smart. Think Megatron scares the smart right out of him at times, though."

"You'd be able to judge—how is he as a combat leader?" Barricade felt a whisper of something, like a cold wind on the back of his neck cables. Was Vortex feeling him out? Was this sedition thing growing? Under his watch? He stalled, delaying, he thought, the inevitable. Why was it that every mech he could even tolerate to be around suddenly seemed to be swirling with treasonous intent?

"Why'd you think I'd be able to judge? I'm not a flyer."

"You being former Combat Control. Figure you led enough missions to be able to compare. Highest CC mission success rate ever." Until…. Vortex delicately avoided mentioning that part. Didn't mean Barricade didn't remember. And after all, Vortex might not know.

"Completely different. Air/ground and present/nonpresent. Still, tactically, he's almost unmatchable. Doesn't waste troops on failing objectives, thinks fast on his feet in fluid situations." Truth, and nothing but. He'd say the same in front of Megatron. Probably take a beating for it, but it would be a beating Megatron would know he didn't really deserve. Wouldn't make it hurt any less. He waited for Vortex to go further. Surely what he'd said was encouraging, yet bland, enough.

"I think he's too hard on himself, sometimes," Vortex said. "Blames himself for things he can't control."

Barricade blinked. He'd been primed for some sort of 'come and join our coup d'etat'. This was…not that. Had he blown it? He replayed his response—no—if you were looking for a likely co-conspirator, Barricade had said all the right things to get the secret handshake. Go back far enough in history and he was a natural pick: who better than someone who owed his life to Starscream? Was he starting to imagine things? He hadn't gotten this far without an intimate relationship with paranoia, but had that even crossed the line?

"I know you're kind of having a bit of a tiff with him right now," Vortex added, hurriedly. The altimeter was showing they were nearing ground. "Just…keep that in mind."

Barricade jumped down as soon as Vortex rolled open his doors, clutching the parts he'd brought for the Russians. He looked back at the copter, spewing drones into the flattened grass. A tiff? Starscream was reminding him of fraggin' Saejon Three, possibly starting an overthrow, and wanted to kill Barricade for the interrogation—and that was a 'tiff'? Maybe Vortex wasn't as sane as he'd thought.