Chapter 15 - The Warrior Goddess
(OPOV)
Optimus sat silently, trying to untangle his processors. It had been a week since Mikaela had drawn the symbols in the empty hangar. Optimus had taken to watching her since. She truly did not stop moving, Mikaela wiped her hands on a rag and tossed it into the bin before carefully closing the hood on her final maintenance of the day. She looked up and saw the moon low in the sky.
Optimus could practically see her thought process as she rolled her eyes. A wry, 'last maintenance of the night, then'. She glanced around and stretched, even going so far as to sneak a peek at the recharging Auto-bots before she walked silently to the mats, taking her shoes off and taking a slow, deep breath before she sank into an opening stance. Optimus quietly onlined a secondary processor, Mikaela froze, listening.
"Go back to your recharge, Optimus," she murmured in an incredibly soft, soothing tone, moving... dancing through her stances again, "it's just me. Get your rest. If danger shows it's face I'll scream the roof down."
It was beyond him how she knew who had woken. Or even that he was awake.
"You should be sleeping," Optimus rumbled softly, onlining his holoform behind her.
"So should you," she shot him a wry smile, dipping into another stance. "I'm sorry I woke you."
"I was awake, too many processes," Optimus stated honestly, he couldn't help it, he reached out and laid his hands on her shoulders. For all that she was soaked in sweat, her skin felt like ice. Optimus frowned, turning her and reaching to cup her cheek. "You are exhausted." he rumbled worriedly.
"Just a long day," she gave him a weak smile, "Don't worry about me, Optimus, you have enough on your processors as it is."
"It is my fault you are here," Optimus rumbled softly, "You should not be working yourself so hard. You do not have to do all of this." he looked across the hangar at the rows of vehicles she'd been repairing. Mikaela turned to follow his gaze, looking at the work she'd completed.
"It feels better when it's done though," she murmured softly. "As though every time I fix something, every hour spent making sure that when these things are needed they won't fail. I know Ratchet scans them, making sure I haven't missed something. I'm glad for that. I just wish I could do the same, you know? Something more to keep everyone safe."
She laughed softly.
"To feel like I'm useful somehow, not just another liability." she reached up and idly touched the cube splinter now cradled over her heart in a utilitarian little vial. "I think I'll read for a while," she said quietly, turning to look up at his holoform again. "Something boring so I fall asleep and get out of your..." she trailed off with a frown, looking at his metal body.
"'Hair' does not precisely work, does it?" Optimus rumbled, looking down at her in amusement. He tentatively reached up and ran his fingers through hers, "Although I find I can understand why your species kept it, it is a remarkably tactile thing."
"I didn't know your holoforms could process tactile information," Mikaela said with raised eyebrows.
"To give you need to feel," he murmured gently, shrugging and looking into the middle distance.
"To feel you need to give," Mikaela murmured in return, looking out the open hanger doors and into stark greys of the night. "Give until it hurts and keep giving in the hope that someday... someday it will be enough."
"You're going to argue philosophy with an alien-" Optimus fought to keep his tone light and teasing as he wondered where she had come up with that. It struck close to spark.
"A person," she retorted, looking up with a frown and startling him. "You're not some cold machine, programmed to take specified actions based on strings of numbers and logic. A difference in molecular makeup has no bearing on the ability to think and feel."
"I dare you to convince Director Galloway of that," Optimus rumbled irritably, glaring at the middle distance as he spoke the problem that had robbed him of a proper recharge. Come to think of it, now was usually about the time that he would call the femme now standing in front of his holoform.
"Oi!" she frowned, she faced him fully and reached up, cupping his holoform's face in her hands. Optimus was shocked to find them warm despite the ice of her arms, immensely gentle for all that she held him firmly. "The mark of a man is not how he treats his equals, it's how he treats those beneath him. Only the shallow, the power hungry and empty try to belittle and shame those they perceive to be beneath them. There are always greater and lesser people than ourselves. Galloway is an empty shell of a human, he does not care who he ruins to take more.
"And yet here stands before me the avatar of an 'alien,'" her eyebrow raised somewhat as she said it, scorning the very word, "a Prime who should be resting, but instead you're awake, trying to convince the least of us that I need my rest." she let loose a piercing, blue-green gaze, irrevocably catching Optimus' eyes. "Now tell me who is the better person." she finished firmly.
Optimus stared at her in shock.
"How do you know all of this? You have rarely seen or spoken to Director Galloway." Optimus rumbled, a third processor fired up, taking great care to memorize the feel of her hands on his face and unravel the puzzle wrapped in a tiny carbon unit that stood before him.
"I shook his hand," she smiled up at him. "There are thousands of languages, but not all of them require listening with your auditory receptors. Now get yourself back to your recharge cycle. I'm not the only one who's exhausted."
"At least lay down?" Optimus asked her softly.
"Alright," she smiled sadly, "I'll leave you be." she pulled away gently and made for the hanger doors.
"Kae?" Optimus rumbled softly, she turned around to look at him curiously.
"Optimus?" she murmured. He walked over and cupped her cheek, determined to give back the feeling of worthiness she had just so easily, and naturally instilled in him.
"Will you stay here tonight? I feel better when you are close by," he said softly.
"You shouldn't have to put up with me all the time," Mikaela murmured, looking down.
"There is nothing 'have to,' about it," he murmured firmly, tipping her face to look at him. "You claim to be the least of us, yet you manage to see through to the heart of a problem in seconds, a problem I have been grinding my processors over for a solid orn, you give peace of processors to rest." Optimus rumbled. "Now who is the least of us?"
"Still me," Mikaela grinned in a light tone, surprising him by winding her arms around his waist and craning her neck to look up at him. He was reminded once again just how diminutive she really was, on the phone a great deal of the time, he had had absolutely no issue visualizing her at his own size. "I am the littlest one here after all, even Chance outweighs me by a good twenty pounds."
Optimus stared down at her and began laughing, she loosened her grip slightly to pull away before he wound his holoform's arms around her shoulders, pulling her tightly into his chest and burying his face in her hair. His holo's frame still shaking with quiet laughter. It was an almost euphoric feeling, laughing with her tiny frame willingly trapped in his holo's arms.
"No," he finally chuckled into her hair, holding her tightly, "no you are just right, and bigger than all of us. Now get some recharge."
"You too," she smiled, pulling back and cupping his face again.
Optimus offlined his holoform with a small smile, closing down a last few processes and dropping into his recharge cycle, noting with final amusement that Mikaela was stretched out, sound asleep on the makeshift cot in the maintenance area with a book laying open across her chest.
He woke to hear her shriek.
"What the hell are you doing here you little freak!?" she shouted.
"Is that all you got! Huh! Is that the best you can do?"
There was a shout of pain.
"That's my eye you crazy bitch!" the unfamiliar voice shouted.
"You gonna talk now?" Mikaela ground out furiously.
Optimus was fully online and transformed in seconds, across the hanger and beside the work area in a few more as soldiers and auto bots scrambled after him.
"I seek knowledge from the cube, the Fallen demands me!"
"What knowledge?" Mikaela demanded.
"You got the shard I need the shard gimme the shard they're gonna whack me I'm gonna be dead without that shard!" a scrap drone reeled off in a terrified voice. Mikaela had him dangling in a pair of oversized tongs, backed against a work shelf.
"Agh!" Mikaela growled, Optimus could practically see the irritation rolling off of her.
"Easy warrior goddess, I'm just a little salvage scrap drone!" the tiny bot shouted. She leaned in close.
"And I'm your worst nightmare," she snarled.
"No, he is!" the little bot said suddenly, going limp and looking directly at Optimus, Ironhide and Bumblebee with terrified optics. Mikaela glanced around at Optimus; her face out of sight from the drone she... winked?
"On the contrary, tiny Decepticon," she murmured in a frankly sultry tone, turning back to the drone. "The big guys back there are old enough to know the value of mercy, your death at their hands would be quick, painless. I, on the other hand, am still young even for my own species, and small enough to ensure that your spark does not go out until every piece of you is laying sorted on the table. Beginning with your hands I would think-"
A chill went through the watchers at her tone, the drone began crying.
::. Sweet Primus!.:: Ironhide silently exclaimed in shock.
::. She's bluffing.:: Bumblebee grinned, just as silently.
::. How can you tell?.:: Optimus asked curiously.
::. You saw her wink didn't you?.::
"Aw haa haa! I knew it! I knew I should have let him just crush me! Don't slag me ple-he-he-ease!" the tiny bot practically sobbed. Mikaela held him hanging for a second more before carrying him over to the workspace and setting him on her bench.
(MPOV)
"Oh calm down," I said in a slightly gentler tone. "Stay put. Optimus do you have any questions for him?"
I turned and began sifting through the boxes of spare parts.
"Why are you here drone?" Optimus rumbled.
"I need the shard from the All-Spark, I'll be dead without it, I can't go back without it. Let's face it, I'm a dead bot," the drone whimpered, sitting cowed.
"You live in fear, why would you go back?" I asked calmly, returning with a small optic and sitting in front of the drone. "Power down your eye, please."
The drone looked at me apprehensively but spotted the new optic. His eye went dark, I carefully removed the damaged lens and gently plugged the new one in. A tiny amount of energon seeped from my fingertips, causing the tiny drone to stare at me in shock as his nanites fed, repairing him.
"Oh god, oh Primus she's a healer!?" the drone shouted. "There ain't no way I can take you back there! I'll bet the shard has managed to bond to your spark already! They didn't say nothing about no All-spark healer!" he looked around then stared at my forearms, I looked down and stared in shock at the symbols painlessly burning themselves into my flesh. "Wait a second," he narrowed his eyes, "that ain't no human language neither! Oh I know that, that's the language of the Primes! Where the crap did you get that? Shit! How the hell'd the seekers not find you?" he looked at me incredulously.
"Seekers?" Ironhide rumbled dangerously.
"Seekers?" Will parroted him curiously.
"Yeah, seekers pal," the drone looked up, "oldest of the old, they bin here thousands of years, lookin' for something, I don't know what, nobody tells me nothing. Oh they can translate those symbols, that's for sure. And I know where to find them."
"Show me," I commanded.
"Yeah yeah yeah," the drone nodded, grinning and cracking his knuckles, he spun around and faced the map of the world, projecting laser points on it.
"They're everywhere," Will said quietly.
"Bah, they ain't doing nothing no more, run outta energon when the Fallen powered down din't they? Shit, look don't make me go back, I ain't spy material, you gotta hide me, I'll disassemble stuff for you, looks like you got a decent 'mount o' work to do anyway," the drone looked around at the shelves of twisted metal. He spied one and pointed at it. "Hey! Those're Demolishor's struts! When'd you take that asshole down? Oh I'd pay to strip that!"
I gave a low snort and looked up at Optimus.
"All yours," I smiled up at him, "I'm going to go take a shower."
"Oh god don't let them kill me warrior goddess!" the drone shouted, launching himself off the workbench at me. He caught hold of my shirt and began sliding down, scrambling to get a handhold. I rolled my eyes and caught him with my forearm, settling him on my hip easily.
"And how do you propose I do that?" I asked firmly, walking toward Optimus. "I'm not the one you need to convince, he is." I stood in front of Optimus and looked up at him, making my deference and respect for Prime obvious.
"Please Warrior Goddess," the drone whimpered, burying his face into my ribs. "the likes of him don't never have nothing to do with drones, they step on you as soon as look at you. I'll do anything you want just don't let them kill me."
I looked up at Optimus with trust in my eyes. Trust that he would do the right thing. He narrowed his optics at us.
"You may stay for now," he rumbled finally, I could still hear the kindness behind the stern tone. "But be warned, any betrayal of the trust that Mikaela has deemed fit to award you and you will answer to me. Come. You will begin by telling us everything that you know of the Decepticons movements." Optimus ordered, extending his hand to us. "Mikaela, you may be excused if you wish."
"Thank you, Optimus," I smiled, I looked down at the drone. "What's your name anyway?"
"Name's Wheelie warrior goddess," the little drone stated, wrapping his tiny arms around my waist about as far as he could reach before I disentangled him and lightly set him in Optimus' palm.
"I'll be back in fifteen," I said with a smile before jogging toward the hangar doors.
Back in my room I snatched up a fresh set of clothing before walking down the hall to the showers. Already awake, I opted for a lukewarm shower rather than my usual icy blast of hell. A rapid shampoo and I stepped out of the water, smirking that I still hadn't managed to steam up the bathroom as I threw my clothes on.
"You use all the hot water again?" Jacobs asked with a grin as we traded places.
"No, but you might want to watch the cold, there's not much left." I retorted.
"Aw shit," he snorted. "Now what am I going to do with a perfectly hot shower?"
"Cease being a grumpy frikkin' muscle bound bastard?" I asked with a perfectly straight face. He burst out laughing as the door closed behind him. I grinned and tossed my clothes into my tiny hamper bag on the way past my room to the hangar again.
Wheelie was sitting on Epps' shoulder by now, surrounded by a few other men. Their postures suggested they were already shooting the shit. I grinned and walked to my workstation, moving onto the problem child I hadn't got to the night before. Optimus' holo winked in beside me a few minutes later.
"Go for a drive later?" he asked quietly.
"Of course," I said with surprise. "Whenever you want."
Optimus nodded, I saw uncertainty in his stance before he winked out again. I frowned and fired up the jeep. It sounded fine. I put it into gear and slowly drove out of the hangar. The second I got into third gear on the track the engine almost completely quit.
"What the fuck?" I muttered to myself, climbing out and opening the hood. A normal looking engine met my curiosity. I frowned, closing the hood and carefully driving back in first, parking it in my workspace and killing the engine.
I got out and leaned against my worktable, frowning at the quiet jeep. Idly, I pulled a pad of paper and pen toward me and began taking notes on what I'd already observed, flipping through the vehicle's service record and areas of operation.
A full ten minutes of leaning against the table, frowning with a hand covering my mouth and Ratchet came over, onlining his holoform beside me.
"Kae?" he rumbled curiously, "I don't think I've ever seen you so still."
"I'm stumped," I shook my head, "I can't hear anything wrong with it, but it completely cuts out in third! Listen!" I walked over and fired up the engine again. It ran well, even the timing was smooth.
Ratchet's holoform canted it's head to the side with a frown almost identical to mine.
"Problem child indeed," he rumbled as I paced around the gently idling jeep. Next to the gas tank I froze.
"Wait," I murmured. "Shit do you smell that?" I scrambled to turn the engine off, backing quickly away from the car.
"We gotta get this thing outta here!" I commanded sharply.
"Mikaela what on earth?" Ratchet looked at me in shock.
"Did you scan it?" I asked in a hushed tone.
He looked at the car.
"SHIT! Don't scan it!" I shouted, running toward him and covering his holoform's eyes. "you might set it off, use your olfactories." I dragged his holoform to the spot I'd caught the scent and sniffed, looking at him.
"There is a faint scent of explosives below your olfactory range... the burnt wiring?" he asked with a frown.
"In a well-maintained, two year old military jeep that last served in urban areas of Iraq?" I stated in a low, icily calm tone.
The holoform's eyes widened before he bodily lifted me, running toward Optimus on the other side of the Hangar.