Cascade was on her way to her room to recharge when there was an explosion that shook the ship. She glanced down the way she came, but there was no smoke coming from Wheeljack's lab. Mercury knew better than to make things explode while on the ship so she wondered what had caused the explosion?

"Attention," said Prowl over the general comm. "Endeavor was rammed by a small Decepticon shuttle in what could only be considered a suicide mission. None of the enemy made it onboard. I need group Delta A to section 24C for clean up."

"Cascade, I need you in the med bay," said Ratchet over the private comm.

Cascade vented and quickly headed to the med bay after acknowledging Ratchet. When she entered, she noticed that all the medics were in the med bay and that a dozen or so injured Autobots were on the berths.

"Cascade, over here," said Ratchet waving her over.

Cascade went over to where Ratchet and Jolt were working on Smokescreen.

"I can't stabilize him," said Ratchet. "I need you to take his spark."

Cascade pulled herself onto the berth with the help of Ratchet and transferred Smokescreen's spark into one of her carrying chambers.

"Ratchet, I'm losing him!" called First Aid from a nearby berth.

Ratchet rushed over to help First Aid work on Groove, but they were losing him as well. Cascade accepted his spark as well and the medics abandoned their bodies in order to patch up the lesser damaged troops. Cascade leaned heavily against the nearest berth and caught Sideswipe's optic. "What happened?" she asked.

"A group of us were playing cards in one of the empty conference rooms," said Sideswipe clutching a wound in his side. "Guess which room the Cons decided to crash into." Sunstreaker who was sitting next to him in a chair crossed his arms over his chest. From the condition of his armor, he had not been in the room with his brother.

Cascade pulled up a nearby chair and sank down into in relief. Carrying others' sparks was always a drain on her systems and the lack of recharge wasn't helping.

Hyperfall walked into the med bay and zeroed in on Cascade. Charger had taken light damage in the explosion and had reported to Hyperfall that Cascade was in the med bay. Nothing else mattered to him right now except for her condition. "Are you all right?" asked Hyperfall worriedly.

"I'm fine," said Cascade looking up. "I wasn't involved in the explosion. I'm only in here to hold sparks until they repair their bodies." She put her hands on her chest and vented. "I need some recharge that's all."

Prowl and Jazz walked in and talked with Ratchet briefly. They followed him as he returned to Smokescreen's frame. "It'll take awhile to repair all this damage," said Ratchet. "Cascade will have to carry Smokescreen and Groove's sparks until then. She needs to recharge however and I need someone to monitor her. She's smart enough to alert someone if a problem develops so there's no need for the bot to be awake. Prowl, you're going to recharge soon. Recharge with her."

"What?" said Sideswipe in surprise. "Why does Prowl get to recharge with her?"

Hyperfall snarled suddenly causing Ratchet to glance over at him in alarm.

Prowl didn't say anything and seemed stiffer than usual. Suddenly he started to tip over. Ratchet caught him with a scowl. "I didn't mean it like that Sideswipe," said Ratchet as he worked on waking Prowl back up. "Being close to another's spark would help keep her stabilized." Prowl started to come back online slowly. "Carrying other's sparks, pulls much of the energy that powers her own body into the carrying chambers in order to maintain them. She won't be able to move as well as normal while she has them."

"The bitlet can recharge with us," said Sideswipe smirking.

Hyperfall snarled again and Sunstreaker stood up sensing the threat to his brother.

"You, aren't leaving the med bay," snapped Ratchet. "And she needs somewhere more quiet to recharge." Ratchet took a step in Cascade's direction when Hyperfall unexpectedly went over and picked her up out of her chair in one swift move.

"Back up," snarled Hyperfall. "She's mine!"

Ratchet stopped in surprise and suddenly Hyperfall collapsed to the ground and Cascade dropped to her feet. "I put him out," said Cascade glancing down at the unconscious Hyperfall in concern.

"Are you two bonded?" asked Jazz looking at the unconscious mech.

"No," said Cascade shaking her head. "He's never expressed any interest in that sort of thing with me. His actions were surprising to me too. I know he keeps track of me, but he does that for all the members of his team. Ratchet, when you have time available, you may want to examine his processor."

"Sunstreaker, help me get him on the berth," said Ratchet. Together they quickly put Hyperfall on the one empty berth.

"What happened to Prowl?" asked Cascade looking at him in concern as he slowly began to regain his focus.

"Ratchet made him glitch," said Sideswipe laughing. "Usually it's us."

"When Prowl encounters something surprising or illogical," explained Ratchet. "Sometimes his battle computer and his processor conflict and send him into reboot."

"Doesn't he have a regulator?" asked Cascade raising an eye ridge. "My battle computer isn't in my processor, but even I have a regulator. Sure, using the computer suppresses my emotional circuits, but they don't conflict." Cascade pulled two delicate looking pieces of circuitry from her subspace. "These are two types of regulators. I have the bigger one, but maybe you could use the smaller one for Prowl."

Ratchet gently took the circuits from her. "I'll look into it and if he agrees we can try them out. In the meantime you still need to go recharge."

"Cascade can come with me," said Jazz offering his hand to Cascade. "I'm about ready to recharge as well. Ratchet, I'll let you know if anything comes up."

The room Jazz led her to held two berths. There were data pads and a few other odds and ends on the shelves. Blaster was in the room reclining on one of the berths while a Cybertronian tune played on his data pad.

"Hey Cascade," said Blaster in greeting. He sent a questioning look to Jazz.

Jazz explained why she was here and allowed her to settle onto his berth first before he climbed on. She chose to put her back to the wall and lay on her side after completely pulling in her wings. Jazz settled facing her and he pulled her closer so that her head rested against his chest. The lull of his spark quickly pulled her into recharge. Her systems made her recharge for far longer than normal and when she finally woke, she found herself being watched by one of Blaster's cassettes. It resembled a cat of some kind. Blaster and Jazz must have woken up long ago for they were both gone.

"Your designation is Steeljaw, isn't it?" asked Cascade getting the cassettes attention.

"It is," said Steeljaw raising his head from where he had it resting on his paws. "How are you feeling?"

"My systems are sluggish, but everything is still functional," said Cascade sitting up slowly.

The door suddenly swished open and Jazz entered with some energon. He passed a cube to her and she eyed the slightly different color.

"It's medical grade," said Jazz. "Ratchet added a few things to it to help keep your energy up."

Cascade drank the cube rapidly feeling her systems energize somewhat. "Any news on the repairs?" asked Cascade leaning against the wall.

"Groove's frame should be done by tomorrow, but Smokescreen will take longer," said Jazz. "Ratchet took a minute to examine Hyperfall. He had some weird coding that tripped his protective circuits to the max when it came to you. Ratchet thinks that your creators put the coding in place so that the oldest and wisest of the group would protect the youngest medic and ensure the defense forces survival. He's going to remove it so Hyperfall can function without us worrying that he's going to botnap you or attack another mech to protect you."

Cascade snorted.

"I guess this explains why he was so adamant about not leaving you behind," said Jazz sipping on his energon. "He did use you as bait for Switch though. That's kind of contradictory."

"No, I was still protected because he was right there with me when we went up against Switch," said Cascade. "What about Prowl?"

"Prowler's fine. It's not the first time this has happened, but he's agreed to have the regulator installed once we make it back to Cybertron," explained Jazz. "Doing it now would be too risky and Ratchet's too busy as it is."

The door opened again. "You're finally up," said Blaster retrieving Steeljaw from Jazz's berth. "You two were so cute," he said showing a picture of them cuddled together on his data pad.

"Really," said Jazz putting his hands on his hips. "You're going to use that against me in the future, aren't you."

Blaster merely laughed and turned his tunes back on.

"Since you both like music, do you want the music I downloaded from the Triananums. They studied several species and the songs were recorded in their databases," said Cascade.

"Yes, please," said Blaster enthusiastically handing her a data pad.

Cascade downloaded the music she had retrieved and passed the data pad back over to Blaster. Jazz joined him on his berth as they looked through some of the selections. Cascade leaned back against the wall, but soon started to drift toward recharge again. Suddenly she became aware of Jazz right in front of her and she focused on him.

"I knew you'd need a lot of recharge, but this is ridiculous," said Jazz supporting her shoulders. "You just came online."

"Can't help it," said Cascade shrugging. "I'm carrying two extra sparks."

"If she needs to recharge again," said Blaster. "We'll have to see who else is available. We're due in the monitoring room soon."

Jazz quickly made a private comm and the response he got made him smirk. "We've got to go, but Optimus will be here to pick you up in a minute," he said.

Optimus had been scandalized when Jazz first contacted him about recharging with Cascade. He had protested that he was sparkmated and that it wouldn't be appropriate.

"I'm not asking you to do anything, but comfort the youngling," said Jazz laughing. "She's carrying two of your soldier's sparks and it's not easy. Ratchet said being near another's spark will stabilize her own while she recharges. Help the femme out."

Optimus stopped by Jazz's room and carried Cascade back to his own. It wasn't like she couldn't walk, but she was halfway into her recharge cycle already. Awkward was an understatement. This wasn't an everyday soldier. This was the big boss, Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. Sure Cascade didn't usually care about the status of a bot unless they got in her way and was generally polite to everyone, but Optimus always seemed somewhat distant and unapproachable. Optimus placed Cascade gently on the berth, but stopped and hesitated before climbing on himself.

"So what's your sparkmate like?" asked Cascade trying to break the tension.

Optimus began to relax as he described Elita and how they met.

"She sounds lovely," said Cascade as she drifted off into recharge. Optimus followed shortly after.

This time when Cascade came online she found herself in the med bay. She was currently being held by First Aid. First Aid looked down as he noticed her waking. "Ratchet's just about finished with Groove," said First Aid. "I'd like to thank you personally for saving Groove."

Cascade knew that First Aid had a bond with the members that made up his combiner like the flyer pentad did. She was about to ask if all combiners had that, but she was distracted when First Aid picked her up and deposited her on top of Groove's repaired body. Under Ratchet's direction and after she did an automatic scan herself, Cascade put Groove's spark back where it belonged. The relief on her systems was much appreciated, but she still carried one spark within her. First Aid and Ratchet started to bring Groove back online while Jolt took Cascade and held her on his lap on an empty berth.

"How are you feeling?" asked Jolt running a scan on her systems.

"With only one spark now," said Cascade. "My systems are less stressed. I'll probably need less recharge which is good because I feel like I've done nothing but recharge since this began."

Jolt chuckled. "Smokescreen's frame should be fully repaired by tomorrow," he said. "Then you'll be back to normal."

Cascade looked over at the now online Groove. He was relaxed and didn't seem to be in a hurry to escape the med bay. "Those two and the rest that form a combiner have a bond like our flyer pentad," said Cascade looking up at Jolt. "I've never detected a bond between Hyperfall and his group or any of the others that combine. So does that mean that not all the members of combiners have bonds with each other or is it simply that the defense forces are unusual?"

"It is unusual," said Jolt after a moment. "Having the bonds between the members of a combiner allows them to react as one cohesive unit. How do your combiners work?" he asked curiously.

"Normally Hyperfall, Switch or myself would control the combiner's actions," said Cascade. "When all three combiners combined into one massive combiner, we split the actions between each other."

"You did this without bonds?" asked Jolt in interest. "That implies a complete trust in the leaders because the others would have to give complete control of their frames voluntarily."

"We knew what to expect from the others," said Cascade laying her head against his chest. "We trained in the simulations and knew how to predict each other's moves. At least in terms of combiners because your options are generally restricted. I don't know about trust. It was more like ingrained behavior." The sound of Jolt's spark under her audio was starting to lull her back into recharge. "Sorry," said Cascade softly. "I thought I'd be able to stay awake longer."

"It's fine," said Jolt allowing her to lie back on the berth. He snuggled up to her placing an arm protectively over her side. "Recharge as much as you need."

Cascade slipped into recharge once again.