Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.

Starscream: Have we checked the med bays?

Wheeljack: *shakes helm* Not yet. We wanted to check the engine room before we checked those.

Starscream: That's right. Let's get that checked. The Authoress will pay for what she did to Pandimala.

Wheeljack: I'll help you string her up.

Authoress: *hearing this on cameras and crying* This is a nightmare. Those two are not supposed to be near each other.

Chapter 52: Thunder Rolls

Jetfire's 1st P.O.V.

What sort of mess did I fly into here? I decided to come to Earth to give Optimus and his team a servo in the fight against the Decepticons. Figured they could use some air support since we Autobots didn't have many fliers in our ranks. So, left the neutral group I was traveling within one of their escape pods and set its coordinates to here on Earth. The pod landed in the water, thankfully, and I was lucky enough to be met by one of the local ambassadors that happened to be in contact with Optimus' team.

And that was where the good luck ended. I get transported to the base with the human agent only to find out that Optimus had been radio silent for five cycles. I honestly thought I was going to have to argue with the two-wheeler when he brought up the fact that normally we had to wait for fifteen cycles before going against Optimus' orders. Was he a stickler for the rules? Well, I quickly realized that, technically, I wasn't under Optimus' order since I just arrived and pointed that out. When I turned to the two-wheeler, expecting him to argue, he simply held up his servos in surrender.

So, not a stickler for the rules. Just wanting to make sure that the correct procedure was followed. Not a bad habit honestly and, in every other situation, I would have appreciated it. But, Optimus' condition was unknown so I brushed the mech off in my processor as Ratchet was able to retrieve the coordinates...and rather quickly too. Optimus must not have put as many blocks on the location as the others thought he did. Once the bridge was opened, I hadn't wasted time in going through. With Optimus meeting with Megatron, and having been gone for so long, I doubted they were just sitting and having a sip of energon.

And I was proven right once I got to the other side of the bridge. However, instead of finding our leader in need of an assist in a fight, the area was completely deserted. The only way I knew the Prime was even here was the obvious signs of a fight on the ground. From the looks of it, it was a pretty intense fight too. There were many large gouges in the ground from where at least one of the combatants, if not both, and carved their way into the ground for extra leverage.

Once I was sure I had glanced in every direction and not seeing any signs of life, nor picking up any life signals, I had walked back into the base and informed the others that there was no sign of anybot there. In my processor, that only meant one thing; the Decepticons were able to capture Optimus. Frag it Prime, he knew better than to pull a stunt like this. Going alone to meet with the enemy without telling the rest of us where he was going to be going? Rookie mistakes. Not one that Prime would make.

Of course, I didn't know the whole story with this femme that was offline...Pandimala I think they said her designation was. Was there something special about her that caused Optimus to ignore his training and speak to Megatron alone and blocking off his backup? I needed to find out more about this femme. That might explain to me why Optimus put himself in this position.

One part of me wanted to ask Wheeljack since he seemed to have an emotional connection to the femme. That hinted that they were at least friends while she was online. However, I remembered the tone that the Wrecker took with Agent Fowler and I realized that he might not be the best to ask about the femme. Elita, while she had brought up the femme in the first place, didn't seem to know the femme that well, from the official tone that she had used to answer Fowler. But, since I was new here to the base, I wasn't sure who to ask about the femme who could give me some insight into her.

"You're wondering about Pandimala."

I about activated my thrusters as I jumped when the voice suddenly came from next to me. Once I was settled, I looked down to see the two-wheeler from the other solar. He looked familiar now that I was able to study him without an emergency, but I couldn't place him. "Frag do you always sneak up on bots like that?"

He shrugged. "It's just a habit these solars. I am a scout after all, and moving without other bots hearing me is a key skill in that." Fair enough. "But enough about me. You were thinking about Pandimala weren't you?"

How could the mech possibly know that? "How did you know that?" I mean, I didn't even know the femme. How did he assume that I was thinking about this femme during all of this? I mean, I was, but it wasn't the first guess a bot would give.

"I have the information. You are worried about Optimus and the fact that he is missing in action right now. The only unknown variable in this equation, for you that is, would be Pandimala's involvement in everything. Why her offlining specifically would cause Prime to break protocol to go and meet with Megatron alone. At least, that's what I would be wondering about." Frag, the mech was good. Real good.

Wait, I knew this mech. This was Zarron. I worked with him a few times during the heavy fighting of the war back on Cybertron. Wasn't as talkative back then though. Just said enough to get his job done. That's why I didn't remember him. Fragging amazing scout though, from what I remember of the missions I was on with him. Mech could pinpoint the enemy position with just a few pede-prints, the time, and the temperature. Scary mech to have against you.

So, I nodded. "You're right. But, I'm not sure who to ask about the femme and why she is so special."

Zarron smirked at that. "Well, hope you have some time. I can tell you what you want to know about the femme." He then frowned slightly. "You're going to need to know I think."

So, the mech then delved into the very complicated life of the femme Pandimala as he knew it, previously known as the human Lizzie Val. As he went into the information he knew, I was starting to realize why Optimus did what he did. She started as a human, who found out about us by being captured by the Decepticons. When she was finally 'rescued', as Pandimala, no bot here had the thought that the unknown femme could have been the human. At least not until Wheeljack figured it out. Might explain how he was acting now.

Anyways, he spoke about her strained relationship with her old boss after her retrieval, as well as the headway she was trying to make here at the base. Of course, he also mentioned the bots who seemed to have it in for the femme. And finally, he mentioned how they had found her the other cycle.

Now it made a little more sense as to why Optimus was taking this so personally. A human, who wouldn't have been involved in our war if we weren't on this planet, had been held captive by the Decepticons and changed so much before ultimately offlining in his care. He would want answers about what the Decepticons could have done to her to cause that feedback.

It even explained why he made sure we had to do some work for his coordinates. If he was hoping for a peaceful talk with Megatron about this, he wouldn't want any of the hot-helmed bots here at base sneaking behind him to take a crack at the Decepticon leader. Wheeljack was the bot that came to mind, given how he was acting about her offlining.

"Thank you for that," I felt like I needed to thank the mech after that much information

"Don't get used to it," What did he just say? "I don't usually give out that much information. But, you need to know what you're walking into right now. With everything that has happened in the past forty-eight cycles, we are going to need everybot as informed as they can be." He then walked toward the hallway to the training rooms.

What was up with that mech? While I did remember the mech now, I also remembered that I didn't know much about him. A mech that stayed in the background, though not quite to the shadows. He could be found if you knew who to ask. But, you had to know who to ask.

But, then what he said hit me. Something was building. He seemed sure of it. Of course, anybot could see that. But, it was the way he said it. It felt to me like he was thinking on more than just Optimus' disappearance and the offlining of the femme. No, that sounded much more serious than that...and this situation was pretty serious.

Shaking my helm, I turned to leave when the monitor dinged. Since I didn't know how to use it, I connected my comm to Ratchet's. "Hey doc, the monitor in here just let out a ding." I then stared at what the monitor was showing for a nano. "Looks like a communication request from near Earth's moon."

Predaking's 1st P.O.V.

I sighed as I looked at the femme in front of me. Her chassis seemed fine, just some old marks on it that could be buffed out given some work. The only mark that seemed fresh was a burn mark on the back of her neck cables. And even then that didn't seem to damage more than just cosmetically. Her condition just didn't make any sense. Nothing that I knew about would make a perfectly healthy femme like she seemed to be, end up in the condition she was in.

"Slag this all," I grumbled as I continued to run scans on the femme. For the past solar, that was all my time was used for. Talon was insistent that I keep a close optic on her. Had a strong feeling that the femme could help us.

Of course, the Decepticon insignia on her chassis meant that she could hopefully provide us with some long-awaited answers. Why were we forgotten about? Left to offline on this world? We were strong warriors, who could help the Decepticons in their fight...if we agreed with it anymore. Yet we were cast aside and abandoned. Talon and I deserved answers. And by the Creator, we were going to get them.

Even if that meant missing out on our regular movie for the solar. And we were supposed to be watching Land Before Time as well. This femme had better have some answers for making me miss that movie. It was one of my favorite movies that we watched.

A beeping on the scanner I was holding had me focusing on said device. It was a scan of her processor. I had been running scans on it once a cycle and, from the past twenty-four cycles since we found her, the femme's processor was improving greatly. I would even guess that she would be awake near the end of this solar at this rate. That was good. Talon would be happy at the femme's improvement. Unfortunately, she was already growing attached to the femme and said femme wasn't even conscious yet.

"How is she doing?" Speaking of my bondmate.

I turned to her before answering. "The femme seems to be improving at a fast rate. She may even be awake before this solar ends."

"Really?" And there was the possessive shriek I was waiting for.

"Talon," I started with a warning look. "She isn't a pet like your polar bear was. Do not think we are going to keep her just because you found her." She looked like she was about to argue. "And I know that look. You know I am right on this. I will put my pede down on this." I then kept my gaze with her as she held mine as well. I knew if I looked away for even the briefest of time, she would take that as me giving up on my argument. I could not let her win this argument. We didn't know anything about this femme. She could be some rare collector that would take us and hang our offline helms from a wall for all we knew

Thankfully, Talon looked away first with a huff. "I know she isn't like Lancelot." Well, that was a good sign. "She isn't fuzzy like he was." And that wasn't. I had to bond with the most possessive femme in known existence. I knew she was the source of most human legends about dragons being hoarders. She saw something she liked and she had to have it for herself. But, it was one of her little quirks, and I loved her, quirks and all.

They just caused me so many helm-aches.

"Talon," I pushed, just to make sure she wasn't going to try and keep this femme.

Finally, Talon raised her servos. "Fine, I won't keep her. Maybe she'll keep us instead!"

I gave up. If she wanted to have her wishes about this, I wasn't going to say anything. The femme on the berth, when she woke up, would be able to put Talon in her place if she got too clingy. Hopefully. "Is there a reason you are in the medical bay Talon?"

My bondmate walked in while motioning to the femme. "Well, I wanted to see how she was doing, in all honesty. I just get a feeling from her. I don't know what it is, maybe it's my instincts. But, I want us to stay close to her. She's going to change things for us, and I'm sure it's going to be for the better."

"If she doesn't try to offline us when she onlines," I added with a smirk.

"Ugh," My bondmate let out before she smacked my arm. "Pessimist."

"Optimist," I shot right back at her before checking the femme's energon levels, the last scan for the cycle I was going to do on the femme. "She is doing better though?" Talon asked as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

"She is doing better. I thought I would have to watch her core temperature more. However, she must be used to this sort of temperature...or a temperature closer to this. It only dipped lower than I liked during the night cycle, and I just needed to put on a medium heater to get her chassis to a normal temperature level." I answered her.

I did not like the asking look that suddenly came to Talon's faceplate. "So what you're saying is she needs some extra love when she's in recharge. Can she recharge with,"

"No, and don't ask again," I immediately vetoed that. I was not sharing my berth and bondmate with this unknown femme. Plus, I didn't want another repeat Lancelot incident. When Talon looked to get huffy at my interruption, though, I figured I would give her a different reason. "We are hoping the femme is awake by the night cycle. Once she is awake, she will be able to regulate her internal temperature before she recharges, meaning we will not need a cuddle group."

"Fine," Talon sighed. "I guess I should have asked last night cycle." Thank the Creator she hadn't. I wouldn't have had the excuse I did this solar then. "In all seriousness, when she wakes up, she is going to probably be disoriented. I'll start checking up on her on the half-cycle that you aren't in here. Now, are you finished with your checkup of her?"

What was she after? I was nervous but I nodded once. "Yes, her energon scan just came back as level so she is alright for now. Why?"

Talon smiled widely and started to pull me out of the room. "Because I paused the movie when you left and I want to get back to watching it."

Now it was my turn to smile as I followed after my bondmate. Yes! I didn't miss any of the fight scenes. Thank the Creator I had such an amazing bondmate as I did. It was worth dealing with her collecting habit.

Starscream's 1st P.O.V.

I felt like a mess as I paced on the bridge. Not only did I have to deal with the fact that the Autobots said Pandimala was as good as offline, but we had not had any communications from Lord Megatron for just about a solar now and we were all getting worried. Half a solar, he had done that before when he needed to think, and I was sure he was going to need to think about Pandimala now that she was…

No, I couldn't think about that right now. If I did, then I couldn't lead the Decepticons like I should, in Lord Megatron's absence. I needed to keep my helm on straight. I needed to figure everything out one step at a time. And the first thing that I could work on was finding out what happened to Lord Megatron. "Soundwave, I need a bridge to Lord Megatron's coordinates from the other solar," I spoke on the comm.

"Good luck," Soundwave simply answered before, a click later, said bridge opened.

As I walked through the budgie, I allowed myself to think about Soundwave, he was almost taking this as badly as I was. I just couldn't show it as much as he was right now. While I might have known the femme for a few clicks longer than Soundwave, he had been the one that I had, and later Lord Megatron confirmed, assigned as her guardian. He had been in charge of watching her every solar, and he had viewed her as another of his symbiots when she was human. It was easy to see, what with how he used to interact with her back then.

We were all attached to the femme. She had been like family to me. I had known her for so long and interacted with her so much, that it had changed me. Hopefully, it was like I thought and for the better. She was there when I needed an audio to speak to. Even when she was with those accursed Autobots, she always tried to respond to any questions we might have. Most times, she would even risk discovery by sneaking out to the bar to meet us just to answer the questions we had.

She was kind, caring, and compassionate. She was intelligent, clever, and full of mischief. Pandimala was the best little sister that a mech could ever hope for. And she was ripped from us in an instant by those Autobots! Prime might have said he was sure it was because of us that her processor went out, but we knew better. We did medical checks often enough on her after the incident that we knew she was mentally stable, if not a bit tired from the patch she had gone through, when the Autobots had first taken her from us.

Shaking my helm before I down spiraled down those thoughts anymore, I lifted my helm to study my surroundings, since the bridge had already closed behind me. Definitely signs of a fight. Of course, we had heard part of that fight through the comm before the Prime must have damaged our Lord's comm unit. But, something more had to have happened. There was no trace of regular pedesteps outside of Lord Megatron's and the ones that seemed to belong to the Prime, and those were pretty faded given the time it had been since the fight probably happened.

Wait, there was another set of pedes on the far side of the canyon. Probably the Autobots. Though I couldn't say for sure why they were here. The prints were far away from the fight and seemed much newer than these. Maybe coming back to see what they missed from the fight? I wasn't sure. But, there was no indication that the Autobots might have captured our leader, so I moved that theory to the back of my helm for now.

I continued to walk around, looking for any signs of what might have happened here. However, as I walked, images of Pandimala kept threatening to appear in my helm. No! I couldn't think about that right now. Not when I had to focus on finding Lord Megatron. She would want that. But why couldn't I focus?

Of course, I knew why. My processor was trying to focus on getting revenge against the Autobots. Oh, I would make sure that there was revenge to be had. We had their base's location, and once we recovered Lord Megatron, I would risk mutiny and launch a full assault on their base to take my vengeance. The carnage I would reap on those Autobots would be legendary.

A large smirk pulled on my faceplate as I imagined it. Yes, I could practically feel their energon dripping down my servos as I carved each of their sparks out of their chassis. I would not hold back. Every single Autobot in that base would become energon puddles on the ground in front of me for this. They were supposed to protect her. They even knew of her human past. Yet they had to have caused this. And I would make sure that they knew why...why I was going to take such pleasure in offlining every one of them. Pandimala.

My processor paused in those thoughts as a memory came unbidden through it. Pandimala, laughing at a prank that she had just accomplished with the help of Skywarp. She had been so full of hope, so full of life. Nothing was going to keep her down. She had her bad solars. I remembered the solar she came to the bar after her wings had popped. I hadn't left her side unless it couldn't be helped. I had held my sister close as she suffered.

And she had accepted me.

That had to be the most surprising thing about the femme. Outside of the nervousness she had when we first met, she was open to trusting me. Given all the information she truly had in her helm, she had pushed through that and had gotten to know me, just as me. Not as the second-in-command of the Decepticons. Not as the air commander of the Decepticons. Not even as the backstabbing traitor that she had known me as from her dimension. Just me. Just Starscream. Not only was she the sister that I had never truly had, but she was my best friend. Somebot who was always ready to accept me for me, and help me through my troubles.

Before I could stop myself, a scream came out of my vocals. Maybe I was trying to relieve the pain that spark was now feeling. I had tried to avoid thinking about her, but now it was all my chassis seemed to know right now. I continued to scream as the pain stayed in my spark. Even as my vocals grew pained and my scream died down to silence, the pain was still there. It wasn't going away. I needed the femme.

Sinking to my knees, I let my servos fall to rest on the ground. She was gone. Pandimala was offline. And, without the Prime, we couldn't even go retrieve her chassis for a proper Decepticon burial as she deserved. No, she was going to rust in whatever location the Prime thought best to just dump her chassis like she was just some mangled scrap that didn't matter. But she mattered. "She mattered," I whispered, vocals still hoarse from scream.

I had to find the Lord Megatron and the Prime. Finding Lord Megatron might allow us to find the femme if he was able to get a semblance of the location of her chassis from Prime. If not, then finding him would maybe help us find Prime so we could find her chassis. She deserved that. Pandimala deserved the best burial that we Decepticons could perform for her.

But, to do that, I had to focus on my mission at servo. So, I was about to stand when I noticed something. Human footprints. Humans were involved with whatever happened to Lord Megatron. Now that could mean two options, though one was more likely. The least likely option was that Prime had been victorious against Lord Megatron and, with his comms possibly damaged, had found a way to contact his human military allies to take Lord Megatron to a separate location.

However, the option that seemed most likely, was that we were dealing with MECH. They wouldn't care about the faction of the bot in question, and if they were able...and given these tracks, they were able, they would have taken both Prime and Lord Megatron. However, DIGS had not detected any activity coming from MECH on their systems. It seemed almost impossible to pull off this kind of operation on such short notice without any sort of electronic communication.

I needed to get back to the Nemesis and discuss this with Soundwave and Shockwave. They would be able to piece this all together logically. Normally, I would just ask Soundwave, but given how close he was with Pandimala, he was probably taking her offlining like I just had. So, I was going to have Shockwave join us, given that he was normally level-helmed in these situations. "Soundwave, I require a ground bridge. Then, I need you to contact Shockwave so you can both meet me on the bridge after my return. We need to discuss my findings here." I spoke.

Instead of a verbal answer, I was answered by our ground bridge opening up next to me. Standing up, I started to move toward the bridge. While my anger at the Autobots was not forgotten, I needed to approach this situation one step at a time. Recover Lord Megatron, and hopefully Pandimala's chassis, and then create the most efficient plan for us to take our revenge.

But, as I walked through the bridge, I did know one thing. Revenge would be had.

Paul's 1st P.O.V.

"So, Prime's missing and we are almost certain that the Decepticons have him?" One of the three new Autobots that just arrived, Landmine, asked as he and the other two finally exited the bridge. If Pandimala were still online, she would compare him to his Transformers Cybertron iteration.

When I had come into the main hub with Ratchet, I had been talking to him about what might have caused Pandimala's electrical feedback, I was surprised to see that there was a communication request coming from the moon. Turned out to be three Autobots just getting to this planet in response to Optimus' call for aid he gave way back during the space bridge battle when Sentinel had first come to Earth. They had been on the opposite side of a galaxy two galaxies over so it had been some long traveling for them.

But now, they were here. I had a strange feeling that fate was gathering bots now of all times because something big was about to happen. Every time a large group of bots showed up, something either happened or was going to happen. And, given that Optimus was most likely a captive of the Decepticons, that seemed to lead to something big happening.

"Then why aren't we raiding the Decepticon ship to get him back?" Side Burn asked. He seemed to be just like his Transformers: Robots in disguise form and seemed to be just as excitable as that one was as well.

Also just as air-helmed. If we could find the location of their ship again, then of course we would be up there searching the ship until we found our leader. Or, at the very least, getting leverage to get our leader back from them. But, as the humans said, lightning never struck twice. Flamewar might have found their location when we had retrieved Pandimala, but we weren't going to get that lucky again. At least, I doubted that we would, given how my luck was lately. First Pandimala offlining, which had been a shock and a blow to me. I had needed her and now she was offline. Frag fate!

"Bam! It's not like we can just track them down mech." Warpath added, the third and final member of this group.

"Well, why not?" Side Burn tried to argue. "Even though they are using Cybertronian tech, they still have to have openings in their networks we can use. When ground bridges open, or when they communicate with other ships. Those are openings we could be using."

Wait...the mech was on to something. Maybe not with the ground bridge, or the Decepticons could have tracked us any solar. But, we could scan frequencies leaving Earth's atmosphere and seeing where the two points were.

"The ground bridge tracking isn't a bad idea," I jumped when Prowl said that as he walked in. "It's the reason that ground bridges aren't allowed to be opened for longer than necessary. It only takes five clicks for anybot to lock onto a ground bridge signature." I had forgotten about that. I had been thinking about Pandimala's offlining as well as Optimus' disappearance that I forgot about why ground bridges were only kept open for so long, outside of the fact that it also wasted energon.

This could work. Then, we could have Prime back and I could ask if we could give Pandimala a proper burial. In the way that she would have as a human. After everything that she had been through, she deserved that. I understood hiding her chassis now, given the Decepticon backlash we were now experiencing. Hopefully, Optimus would agree with me.

"Prowl, you and I can start working on tracking them," an involuntary shudder traveled up my spine as Pitch spoke up. I knew he was one of my children, and I was supposed to love them all, but he gave me a strange feeling.

However, it didn't seem like Prowl had that problem as he nodded and the two mechs started to work on the monitor. Maybe Pitch had some other tricks that could track the Decepticons. He certainly had the attitude that said he had some not-so-legal ways of tracking them. At this point, though, I didn't care if they had to do a ritual sacrifice to find the Nemesis. I wanted Prime back so we could move on.

The next chapter of this timeline had just started and, soon, we were going to be on a hunt for Predacon bones. We had to have Optimus back for that. Maybe this was how he got his upgrade? Tortured by the Decepticons and then repaired by our trained medics here. Of course, with how many bots we now had at the base, I was going to talk to Fowler once things calmed down about moving the bots to a large location. This space could not hold this many bots comfortably. With the arrival of these new three, we just had Pandimala's old berth room as a spare if we got any more bots. And I was still expecting one bot to show before everything was said and done.

"Agent Fowler, depending on what we can accomplish on the Nemesis," Elita started to speak to the agent next to me. All of us humans had stayed the night, given the situation and the fact that it was the weekend. "Do you think you can arrange with your government some land we can use for negotiations if needed? It might turn into a fight, though I hope it will not, and having a large area that has been evacuated of humans would be useful."

"I'll see what I can do," Fowler responded to her before he started dialing numbers on his phone. Well, at least one of us could be useful in this.

Even with my company, I didn't have much sway when it came to clearing large swaths of land for the Autobots to use. So, I was just going to have to watch for now. However, we would have to be ready. While changes were inevitable in this timeline, Miko and I needed to be ready to prevent any large changes. "Miko," I whispered to the girl.

She moved closer to me. "What is it? Do we need to do something?" She seemed excited.

I shook my head. "Not for now. But, we need to keep an eye out. While things are changing. We can't afford to let any of the main cast of Autobots offline. They need to survive everything that is about to come up. We need them to make it to the end of all of this. While I don't want you to sneak out during this mess, once we get Optimus back I want you to just sneak off with whoever you think you can get away with it. That is especially if any of the original bots are in that group. I'll be sneaking out when I can as well. We need to double our efforts to make sure that the Autobots get Cybertron at the end of all of this."

"You got it," Miko gave a small salute at that. To my surprise, she then seemed to hesitate. "Paul, how are you holding up?"

"How do you mean?" I asked her, honestly confused by what she was meaning.

In return, she let out an annoyed sigh, "I mean how are you holding up with Pandimala being offline? I know, before she got taken by the 'Cons, that you two were close. Are you doing alright?"

Letting out a sigh, I shook my head...but not in a negative per se. "Honestly Miko, it hasn't hit me that she is offline. Truly. With everything going on around us, I haven't even begun to process that yet. Ask me again once we get Prime back. That's when it will probably hit me." And that was the truth. I knew I should feel upset that she was offline, but right now I was barely even remembering that she was offline.

However, Miko was giving me a look like she didn't believe me. "Okay Paul, but remember that you can talk to me." She then moved back to mess with Jack.

"We got it!" I jumped when Pitch suddenly yelled that. "I used a program that I made to track algorithms that aren't Autobot-based and I picked up this signal." We all studied the signal and it was a perfect match to the signal that Flamewar had picked up on back then. Perfect!

Prowl nodded. "I want Elita, Bumblebee, Side Burn, Smokescreen, Blaster and your symbiots, Ratchet, and Wheeljack to stay here with the humans to guard the base in case the Decepticons launch a counter-attack. Everybot else, be prepared to bridge to the Nemesis in five clicks."

Interesting. He was having Elita stay behind, though she was Optimus bondmate. Was he worried that the Decepticons would use him against her if she came? Since she wasn't arguing, then I wasn't going to press it. It wasn't my place.

"Elita," Fowler spoke up as he hung up his phone. The femme looked to him before he continued. "I was able to get a ten-mile range centered on Cave Lake. It's in the center of Wild Horse state park here in Nevada. We can keep it clear for a week, but after that, we'll have to find somewhere else."

Elita smiled down at the human. "That should work perfectly. Thank you, Agent Fowler. I'll make sure to inform the others should we need to use the location. I appreciate your quick work."

Agent Fowler nodded back. "I want to make sure we bring Prime home just as much as the rest of you." She nodded toward him before she moved to talk to Bumblebee.

It wasn't long before the rest of the base was ready for the raid on the Decepticons. We would be outnumbered, given the number of drones on the ship, but we would succeed. We had raided their ship before, and it would work again. I just had to believe that it would work again. Once everybot as through, and Ratchet shut down the bridge, an air of unease seemed to hang in the air.

"So, now what?" Miko asked everyone, effectively breaking the tension.

It was Eject, who was standing next to Raf, who answered. "Now we got to wait for this to play out. In the case of the other big bots, they need to be ready to act as backup just in case anybot needs help retreating when they need to."

Fowler's phone going off caused me to jump slightly. That was strange. Maybe his superiors were calling to say that they had to change the location that they had just set up. But, as I watched his facial expression as he listened to whoever was talking, he seemed to just grow bored. Maybe just a regular phone call?

"I'm not even surprised by these calls anymore," Fowler responded to the person on the other side before he hung it up. "Ratchet, I need you to open a bridge to Unit E. Seems like one more of your ilk has shown up. Came in cloaking his ship and caused a bit of a stir at the base. But, the mech seemed to think that was where you all were given that it's the only military base in the area...and he was able to break into our servers to see all the local bases." He then shook his head. "Might as well think about moving you all there with how many of you there are. This place is getting too small for you all."

As Ratchet opened the bridge, I waited with anticipation. I was hopeful that this was the one mech I needed it to be. As heavy pedesteps echoed through the bridge, I felt even more confident that this was the mech that I needed it to be.

Starscream's 1st P.O.V.

"We have a situation," Shockwave spoke as soon as the bridge closed behind me. Great. I wasn't able to get a word out about what I had found at the battle before something came up.

But, this might be important. "What sort of situation?"

Shockwave moved to monitor. "I was surveying Decepticon frequencies when I picked up two signals heading toward this planet. The further of the two seems to only be a cycle behind the other and has not opened communications with us. However, the closer signal has sent a request for docking here on the Nemesis."

"So, it is a ship then. Could mean more than one Decepticon." I responded to that as I stared at the two signals. Backup at this time? It seemed too good to be true. However, the Decepticons could use good luck at this point. With Pandimala's offlining and Lord Megatron's disappearance, any help we could get would be great.

However, I was hesitant about one point. "No verbal communication from the first ship?"

Shockwave shook his helm. "No, they sent a text message stating that their communicator had been damaged due to the local asteroid belt. They did say that there were two of them on the ship in question, though they haven't revealed who they are yet."

And without verbal communication that was for the best. We could identify a bot's vocals without names being said, hopefully saving their identity if the enemy was listening in. If they sent their designations over the text communication, then we risked the enemy learning of their designations and losing a potential ace.

So, as acting leader in Lord Megatron's absence, there seemed to be only one choice for us to make. "Give them clearance to dock on the Nemesis. With the storm that seems to be brewing, we could use all of the assistance we can receive."

Shockwave nodded and typed the necessary information into the Nemesis before the three of us started to move to the docking port that Shockwave had sent them to. While we walked, Shockwave turned to me. "Starscream, why did you call us to the bridge?"

That's right, I needed to report my findings to them so we could all work with the same information. "I went to the coordinates that Prime sent Lord Megatron. As we suspected, the area was deserted. While there was evidence of an Autobot ground bridge, that evidence didn't support them taking anybot through. The pede-prints by that bridge were too new compared to the ones that were obviously from the fight."

"So, if the Autobots do have our leader, they didn't take him through their bridge." Shockwave gathered from the first part of my report.

"Precisely," I agreed before I continued. "However, as I continued to study the area of the fight, I found something strange. Human tracks that were close to the same age as the ones from the fight. I have two theories about what could have happened, and I wanted to run them by you both."

"Your first theory?" Soundwave asked, speaking for the first time during this talk.

Well, better get these out. "The first, but honestly least likely scenario I came up with, is that that Prime was able to overpower our leader, but was unable to contact his Autobots. So, he made contact with his local human allies and they moved our leader to another location."

"As you said," Shockwave started, "The least likely of your theories I hope. If Prime wasn't able to contact the Autobots, how would he contact the humans?"

"As we have said, that is my least likely theory." I agreed. "The most likely scenario, though, was that both Prime and Lord Megatron were in the heat of their fight before they were taken by surprise by the one human agency that we have been watching closely. MECH."

"That is the most logical conclusion given the evidence," Soundwave agreed. Good, at least he was talking more.

Shockwave then picked up on that. "However, as likely as that situation is, DIGS has not reported any activity from MECH lately. If they were on the move, they must have kept this information to either personal communication or to just one of their units."

"It wouldn't be the first time," I reminded the mech. "We didn't find out that they had completed their Project Chimera until after it had been used against the Autobots and the Autobots took care of it."

"That is true," Soundwave spoke. "Once we see who is coming, we need to meet with DIGS." Thank the Allspark that Soundwave was talking again. And he wasn't even reverting to his clips. That was a good sign for the future.

A few clicks later, we arrived at our destination and this ship had already linked up to the airlock. Now, it was just a matter of the two bots leaving their ship and properly introducing themselves to us. It took a few more clicks, but eventually, we could see the seal on their ship open. From what I could see, the two bots were roughly the same height, though one had a base plating color of black while the other was the same shade of purple as Shockwave was. Finally, the seal to allow them on the Nemesis opened and the two bots stepped out.

"Well, this is quite the welcoming committee," Lockdown, the bot with the black base color, said as he looked between the three of us. The previous bounty hunter moved his only servo over the hook that replaced the other before continuing, "though from the looks of you all, we came at the right time to off assistance." Lockdown had stopped his bounty hunting after Cybertron had gone dark. Instead, he would go from planet to planet and help our fights on those planets if the Autobots seemed to have the advantage. With him here, we were sure to move forward.

Then, that just left the other bot. "Little brother how are you doing?" The femme yelled before jumping on Shockwave and giving him a big hug.

"Thunderblast, this is neither the time nor the place for this," Shockwave informed her as he tried to dislodge her.

It was not hard not to laugh as the femme stayed attached to the scientist. "Ah, you don't mean that. I flew this entire trip with captain grumpy over there for stellars to get here to help you! You know you missed me."

Thunderblast, unlike her brother, had two yellow optics and both arms were normal with servos at the end. However, that did not take away from her ferocity. She was a terror when she got serious on the battlefield. The femme even had anti-air weaponry that she could attach to her servo that she kept in her subspace.

"I can assure you Thunderblast, if you do not dislodge yourself from my chassis, I will weld your glossa to the roof of your mouth for a whole solar," Shockwave spoke, and, dare I say it, I could hear the sound of annoyance in his vocals.

Thunderblast let out a gasp as she finally released Shockwave. "You wouldn't!" The quiet stare she got back told all of us what we needed to know. "You would! You're so mean Shocky," I couldn't help but let out a soft laugh at that.

Of course, I grew worried when Shockwave started to turn to me. However, before the mech could say anything, the alarms started to blare throughout the ship. I turned to Soundwave for an answer and, before I even asked, he spoke. "Autobots have infiltrated the ship."

"You speak?" Was Lockdown's immediate reaction to Soundwave's response.

Of course, as acting commander, I needed to get the troops mobilized. So, I moved to the closest console. "Attention all Decepticons. The Autobots have infiltrated the Nemesis. Use whatever means you deem necessary to drive them back. I repeat, the Autobots have infiltrated the Nemesis and you are cleared to get rid of them however you best see fit."

Wheeljack: *frustrated* She's not in the med bays either! This search is becoming pointless.

Starscream: *shakes helm* You can't give up. That would be giving the Authoress exactly what she wants.

Wheeljack: *nods* You're right. Plus, until she is given clearance to ban us, she will be living in terror, as she should.

Authoress: *terrified* Since when did they switch personalities like that?

AN: And here is the next chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it! Oh boy, are things getting crazy. Another raid on the Nemesis, and with new bots arriving to boot. Three more Autobots, with a mysterious fourth on the way, and two more Decepticons with an unknown amount only a cycle behind them. Yes, I am having Thunderblast and Shockwave be brother and sister. There are three to this sibling group but that sibling won't make an actual appearance in this story. However, that sibling still plays an important part in one of the upcoming chapters. One of my secrets will be revealed through it.

Now, since this is the new chapter of a new season, you all get chapters back! So, here are the next couple of chapters!

Chapter 53: Lightning Strikes Twice

Chapter 54: Neutral Fyre

Chapter 55:...(You are back to finding it out next time, but I will say that this one will be action-packed and should be a long one, (unless my muse poops out))

And that's all for now. Please leave a review, or say hi. I appreciate both of them so much. Again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope to get the next chapter to you by tomorrow at the latest, but no promises. Well, that's all I have for now. Until next time, TTYL! *getting inspired by Peyton Parrish*