A/N: Egads! I've been loosing track of the days! That ain't good.

Whee! Over 300 reviews! You're all too awesome for words!

Now stop asking me about Sideswipe.

Disclaimer: Transformers is property of HasTak and some other companies whose names elude me.


'Til All Are One

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Overdue


Once more, Silverbolt had given up trying to control his two wing-mates as they rushed around the bazaar, laughing and exclaiming over various things like they were fledglings again.

They had spent a long time on that shuttle. Red Alert had tried his best to keep a tight ship running. The only problems were, the shuttle had been meant to hold only four and it could be run by three mechs. That meant there were still six other mechs dying of boredom in the back and three each crammed into each small quarters and trying to live peacefully with each other.

Silverbolt loved his brothers, but for Primus's sake, he could only take so much of them at a time.

At least Red Alert had given them two joors.

Silverbolt needed some time to think and he hadn't been able to get any of that back on the shuttle. He had felt like a parent; telling Air Raid to put a lid on it, keeping Slingshot from arguing with everybody, helping Red Alert police the fires and at the same time, wondering what had become of Fireflight and Skydive.

He had no doubts that they were alright, but he would hate to lose either of them. He didn't know what he would do if either of them died. There was already a slight pang in his spark since he had heard about what had become of Skyfire. The Valkyrie may have not been one of his wing-mates, but the Aerialbots had stubbornly kept an optic on the kid anyways. Silverbolt knew that Perceptor must have been hurting over it for a while. Out of any Autobot, the scientist had likely been the closest to the silver Valkyrie. It hurt a bit to remember that Skyfire had no one closer who would mourn him.

In the grand scheme of things, it might have been for the better. The Aerialbot commander thought, a little pained. Skyfire was never able to fit in.

How could he think something like that?

Remember who his friends were. I bet they don't even know he's gone.

It would be horrible to never be remembered.

And I bet they wouldn't even care.

"Perceptor to Silverbolt"

Thank Primus for distractions, but Silverbolt groaned. Red Alert was being paranoid and calling them back. He knew it. He could feel it in his circuits.

"Here..."

"I'm afraid we have a problem. Megatron is on this station."

Well, that was certainly unexpected.

"Here? Are you sure?" Silverbolt asked, trying to catch the optic of at least one of his brothers. "Have you seen him?"

"Mirage claims to have and he adds that the triple-changers are here as well. They have captured Hound and Bluestreak."

"Let me get the other two," Silverbolt said, already moving forward through the crowd. "And we'll be right there. Silverbolt out."

Primus, why did they seem to be getting further and further away?

A smaller life form darted right out in front of him and Silverbolt abruptly pulled up short. He overbalanced a little and was forced to take a step back. A small, bipedal organic shouted angrily at him and even kicked his foot, before a larger one came up and dragged it back, sounding extremely apologetic, and hustled the smaller one away. Silverbolt just blinked and then shook his head -- bold little organic -- and looked up again for his brothers.

They were nowhere to be seen.

And a remarkable feat given the average height of the crowd.

Okay, Slingshot was the shortest of all the Aerialbots and that he could understand, but Air Raid?

"Slag it all!"

"Air Raid, Slingshot! Where the slag are you two?!"

"I dunno." Air Raid said.

"I think I'm lost." Slingshot announced.

Silverbolt groaned.

"Look, just find a good place to transform and get in the air." Silverbolt said, semi-annoyed. "Red Alert's just called an emergency and I believe we know it best as 'Megatron'."

"Megatron? No slag?"

"Triple-changers too. They've got Hound and Bluestreak captured. Mirage laid a tracker on them--"

"So we get to fight Decepticons?" Slingshot interrupted excitedly.

"Uh... Yes."

"Sweet!"

In the distance, Silverbolt saw a Picayune jet rise up fast to the ceiling. Well, he knew where Slingshot was now.

"Get in the air." Silverbolt commanded, already looking for a place to safely transform as well. "And for the love of Primus, report to Red Alert before you do anything stupid."


Hound and Bluestreak had been thrown into a Decepticon's brig several times before to be familiar enough with the procedures, but Octane liked to actually physically throw the prisoners into the cell.

"Slag-head!" Hound shouted as he landed heavily on top of Bluestreak with an ugly crunching noise. Octane made a rude hand gesture and laughing cruelly, walked away, roughly shoving Blitzwing ahead of him.

"Ow! Hound! Hound, you're on my door-wings!" Bluestreak wailed in pain, trying to push the larger mech off with his elbows.

Hound lurched to his feet immediately and Bluestreak let out a small whimper as the pressure came off his door-wings.

"Sorry Blue. You okay?"

"Sore... Definitely..." Bluestreak said, turning over and sitting up, rubbing his back. "I'll be okay."

He let out a hiss as his fingers encountered the slightly bent gears. Great, now his door-wings were going to be hanging at a weird angle until he could ask First Aid to realign them. Until then, they would cause him no small amount of discomfort.

"This is great." Hound muttered, seating himself in the bench that ran around the solid walls of the cell. Three of them were metal; the fourth wall was made of metal bars charged with electricity strong enough to deliver a jolt that would keep a few circuits rattled for about a joor.

"It'll be okay." Bluestreak said assuredly. "Mirage was right there, remember? I bet the first thing he did was go get help. He wouldn't just leave us hanging like this."

"At the risk of sounding like Huffer, Mirage doesn't know where we are." Hound pointed out. He didn't like sounding so pessimistic -- he much preferred the bright side of anything -- but it was, unfortunately, true.

Mirage knew better than to venture right into the lion's den and risk becoming captured as well before he could tell anyone else. Considering that Soundwave was in the area as well, Mirage would have had to have run all the way back to the shuttle in order to inform Red Alert and gather the others. And at that point, he wouldn't have seen where they were being taken.

"But we're on the Nemesis." Bluestreak interjected. "We saw that much. All Mirage has to do is find the ship and then he'll know exactly where we are." Then he brightened. "Or he just sticks a tracker to my ankle." he added, holding up his right leg for Hound to see. And sure enough, there was small, camouflaged tracker light blinking dimly on the back the gunner's ankle.

"Slagger." Hound said with a grin. "That annoying slagger. He doesn't pull those out nearly often enough."

Mirage's trackers had been specially commissioned to Wheeljack. They had a wide range, nearly undetectable due to their chameleon ability to blend in with whatever metal they were magnetized to and the signal could only be picked up on a few specific frequencies known only to the Autobots. Mirage rarely used them to track people down, mainly because he didn't like using them and then losing them. Wheeljack had blown himself up no less than twenty-three times trying to get the camouflage programming to work in such a small area. Mirage had requested no more than a dozen be made, because he didn't want Wheeljack repeatedly sending himself to the medbay on the account of the spy.

"Guess he figured the situation was serious enough." Bluestreak said, plucking the tracker off his ankle and subspacing it. He grinned. "Doesn't that make you feel really special Hound?"

"Yep..." said a dry voice before Hound could answer. "It makes me feel so slagging special I think I'm just gonna heave my fuel tank in joy." Then it took on an aggravated, long-suffering and slightly panicky tone. "Where the slag have you people been?!"

Hound stared at the solid wall on his right, behind which the dry voice was emanating from. He knew that voice and he knew it well. The only question was, who did it belong to?

"...Sunstreaker?"

"It's Sideswipe!" the twin shouted, aggravated. "It's just me!"

"You're sounding lot like your brother, actually." Bluestreak pointed out. "Y'know, you two really do sound a lot alike when you're both in the same mood. Has anyone ever told you that? Neither of you really look a lot alike, but you sound about the same. If Sunstreaker just stopped being so grumpy all the time, he would sound a lot more like you--"

"Bluestreak, please shut up." the lone red twin moaned. "I'm low enough on energy as it is and I don't want to waste it trying to figure out what you're saying. Hound, where are we?"

"Nemesis. Lyrika Space Station/security checkpoint." the green/gray scout replied. "How'd you get here?"

"I was trying to find my brother." Sideswipe replied vaguely. "Kept getting the feeling he was in this direction, so I just hitched a ride and hoped they were gonna stay on course. Jus' the 'Structies on board. I didn't think they were gonna catch me. Or notice me..."

"Why would you think they wouldn't?" Hound asked incredulously. "They have to do exterior checks every once in a while."

"Yeah... That's how they caught me." Sideswipe admitted.

"I'd hate to tell you this now, but it ain't just the Constructicons now. Megatron's shown up with some others. Triple-changers and Soundwave."

"And Barricade. Slag..." the red twin groaned. "So who's with you guys?"

"Other than Mirage, there's First Aid, Red Alert, Perceptor, and three of the Aerialbots."

"Yeah, Slingshot's been this complete slag-head lately." Bluestreak put in, scowling. "Then again, we're on a shuttle that isn't supposed to take more than four of us and there's nine of us and First Aid says we've all got cabin fever, which is the reason Red Alert actually let us go out. First Aid made up some stuff about how we would all kill each other if we didn't get away from each other for a while and it works, because, hey! Here we are!"

"That's nothing to be proud of."

"Who said I was proud of it?"

"There's just -- one thing I haven't figured out yet..." Sideswipe went on, sounding confused. "I've been locked up in here for probably a couple months now and Megs has come down to taunt me a few times and so have the 'Structies and Barricade once or twice... But Starscream is way overdue..."

"Starscream hasn't shown up?" Hound said. He pondered this for a moment. "Come to think of it, he should have turned up by this time to point and laugh at us."

"See what I mean? Something weird is going on." Sideswipe said. "I even asked Megs where the screaming one was and he tried to shoot me."

"He did?"

"Yeah, but that blast didn't make it through the bars."

"What about the other Seekers?" Bluestreak wondered. "Have you seen them?"

Sideswipe didn't respond for a very long time.

Hound rapped on the wall.

"You still with us over there?"

"Urrg... Sorta..." the red mech groaned.

"Go to recharge." Hound instructed gently. "The rescue squad will show up soon enough. Might as well save your strength."

A newer, lower hum began to sound through the brig.

"Hound?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't think I like the idea of having both Slingshot and Sideswipe stuck on that shuttle at the same time." Bluestreak in a very matter-of-fact voice.

Hound just laughed.


The Nemesis was by no means the largest ship in the Decepticons' army, but it was the one Megatron favored the most. As the flagship, it had the toughest armor plating and the strongest weapons and it was still a towering, bulky, cold menace that made the Autobots standing before it shiver before dashing away to hide in an alley and plot their infiltration attempt.

"This isn't going to be easy." Red Alert said in a low voice, forcing them to form a huddle to hear him properly. Surprisingly, he unearthed a datapad from subspace that had a full layout of the Nemesis on it.

"And just where did you get that?" Silverbolt asked.

The Security Director just gave him a Look and Silverbolt shut his mouth on any further questions.

"They'll be in the brig here." he said, jabbing a finger to one point on the pad. "The main entrance is one level above the brig. The cameras are bound to spot us and the alarms will go off." He looked up at the tiny contingent that had been unceremoniously dropped under his command. "I want the Aerialbots to run interference with any Decepticons we run across. Delay them in any way possible. We need all the time you can give us."

The Aerialbots nodded, glad to see some action at last.

"The rest of us will infiltrate the brig and rescue Hound and Bluestreak." Red Alert finished, looking at the others. "At that point, we need to sabotage the engines, particularly their transwarp drive engines. The more damaged, the better."

"And then what shall we do?" Perceptor asked. He didn't look too pleased about being here. "How will we return to the shuttle un-pursued? You don't seem to have figured out that part of the plan."

"I'm counting on them being too distracted by the sabotage." Red Alert replied. "Hopefully, it will slow them down long enough for us to escape."

"And if not?" the scientist pressed. He wanted every variable.

The Security Director appeared at a loss to give that question an answer.

Silverbolt crossed his arms. "You're leaving something else out of this suicide run."

Red Alert glanced over to Mirage.

"If everything that Megatron said has any truth, then Optimus Prime is somewhere in the next galaxy over." the spy said, watching five pairs of blue optics go wide.

"But that's impossible." Perceptor protested. "The Intergalactic Archives clearly state that the planets in the next galaxy are incapable of sustaining any form of life. The planets are either gaseous giants or merely spheres of rock a million degrees hot with no breathable atmospheres."

"I know; Bluestreak said the same thing." Mirage sighed. "But Megatron said that Prime is relatively nearby and when it comes to the locations of our troops, he doesn't lie to his own."

"That is a very good point." Silverbolt conceded, nodding.

"Let's do it!" Air Raid shouted, pumped. "Let's do it! Let's go and do this thing! I wanna bust up some 'Con heads!"

Silverbolt pushed down on Air Raid's head, forcing him down.

"Let's not rush into this..." he started.

"Yes, let's not." Perceptor agreed. "I have no desire to partake in your madness. We should go about this rationally. The odds of this actually succeeding in the way we want it to is--"

"Don't say it." Mirage slapped a hand over the scientist's mouth. "Seriously Perceptor, just don't."

Perceptor looked extremely miffed as he removed the spy's hand.

"Now hold on." Red Alert held up a hand. "Who's to say that Megatron wasn't trying to throw us off? What if he knew Mirage was standing there and spouted a lie to put us off the trail?"

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Perceptor, what do the Archives say about the next galaxy?" the Security Director asked.

"They say very little. There is no life beyond this point." Perceptor answered, rather darkly, his arms crossed. "This the last stop before venturing into a wasteland, they say. You have to be completely fragged in the processors -- pardon my language -- to even consider exploring there. Many have been sent in, in an attempt to map it out; to understand and make the unknown known, but few return and most of those who do are too traumatized to chronicle their experiences."

He made the words sound ominous.

"Tell me that's just a story." Silverbolt requested slowly. "Tell me that we're not standing on the edge of something here."

Perceptor shook his head. "I'm sorry, but the Archives state very clearly--"

"We don't have time for this." Red Alert interrupted, pulling out his rifle. "We have comrades who are in need of a rescue and we won't get that done if we stand here arguing over sparkling tales. Now roll out."

Everyone stared at him.

"What?"

"Prime says it better." Slingshot told him.

Resisting the urge to hit the Aerialbot over the head, the Security Director led the way back to the ship.

It was Octane who was standing guard at the entrance, looking extremely bored and occasionally eyeing the passer-bys with no small amount of contempt; angry at them because they got to walk around and explore while he was stuck on sentry duty.

The Autobots couldn't very well mob him; not around so many witnesses, because then they would look like the bad guys. Judging solely from the total lack of reaction from the crowd, the faction symbols were completely unknown this far out.

Red Alert went through a series of hand gestures that was recognized by most Special Ops teams, only he did it badly, not being trained in Special Ops. Mirage knew what the Security Director was getting at, though, and he activated his electro-disrupter to turn invisible and snuck up to the Nemesis.

Octane never turned from his vigil on the crowd as Mirage crept past him onto the ship and into the cargo hold. It was remarkably sparse, but this was only part of it. There was a larger room behind this one and there was probably more stuff crammed in there.

Mirage walked over to a few empty crates that were piled on top of one another. He looked around, shrugged, and gave the stack a very hard jab with his finger. Predictably, the crates toppled over and clanged off the floor loudly and the invisible spy stepped back a little ways. Not a moment later, Octane came into view, walking warily towards the downed crates. He peered at them before poking them experimentally with the barrel of his rifle. Just to mess with him a little, Mirage gave the crate a good kick.

Octane jumped back when this happened, now staring at the crates very suspiciously. Mirage took the opportunity to adjust the setting on his rifle to "stun" and popped the Decepticon right in the back. He caught the triple-changer before he hit the floor and dragged him to some dark corner to get him out of the way. Then he went back to the entrance where he flickered into view for a few seconds.

The rest of the Autobots left their hiding places and walked across the platform, trying to exude the sense of 'yes, we belong here' and entered the Nemesis as casually as possible. Perceptor almost ruined it by looking very jumpy.

Once they were safely inside, Red Alert pulled out the datapad again.

"Down that corridor." he said, pointing to the corridor in question. "There should be a lift on the third right."

As he moved down hall ahead of the others, Mirage decided that Megatron was overconfident. There didn't appear to be a single camera around or motion-detectors or sensors, or anything to detect the presence of intruders. It was like he didn't expect that any Autobots had the gears to infiltrate his flagship.

One day, that overconfidence was sure to be his downfall

Mirage was certain of it.

However, they made it as far as the first junction when the alarms suddenly blared to life and drones automatically spilled out of panels in the walls and ceiling and began to fire on the intruders.

Well, so much for overconfidence on Megatron's part.

With a cheerful whoop, Air Raid dove forward into the largest collection of drones, already firing with merry abandon at anything that was small, silver and arrow-shaped. Red Alert, Slingshot and Silverbolt made short work of the drones and Perceptor predictably hung back, only moving when a drone came too close.

Being invisible, a few of the shots only skimmed Mirage and the rest missed him completely. He ran ahead of the team, taking out any of the drones that showed their ugly faces. He hadn't seen any actual Decepticons yet, but he imagined that they were on their way.

Sensing where the blasts were coming from, the drones clustered around his general location, firing away, almost recklessly. They only had a basic attack/defend program -- their design having been based off the much-larger Sweeps -- so those was their only thoughts. Mirage picked them off one by one, but then one got in a very lucky shot.

He yelped in pain as his electro-disrupter fizzled when the energy bolt hit it. The complicated piece of machinery short-circuited and shut down, rendering him visible on the normal spectrum again. Slag, this was going to take forever to fix.

The drones re-aimed their small cannons for a more accurate shot.

Clutching the malfunctioning piece of machinery as it spat sparks all over his insides, Mirage brought his rifle to bear.

They weren't taking him down without a fight.