Chapter 181 – Anxiety is the Last Minute

(BPOV)

Bumblebee didn't have much time, one week, the Iacon based Decepticon forces would be rendezvousing behind Jupiter in that week.

Megatron had sent the order, they wouldn't be late, their lives depended on it.

But he still had one last mission to accomplish on this planet, they'd be leaving soon, returning to Cybertron and renewing the war effort.

None of them were certain if they'd ever return to Earth, a few were certain that they never wanted to.

But that was a slim few.

Bee was absolutely certain there were a few more spark-mates hiding among the population here, his own spark sang it.

So he scanned, tucked into the corner of communications central he resumed his scans of the humans, waiting for the face of Soundwave's mate to turn up.

The playing field had narrowed, somewhat, mostly with the rapid-fire little innocent questions Bee had taken to shooting at Soundwave, attempting to startle the mech into fast answers.

It was a fun game in of itself, Soundwave was rarely startled.

Fraggin' telepath. It made startling him all the more amusing.

Bee was looking for a femme, of that he was eminently certain. Another femme's bio popped up in his processors and he put it with the list of the others.

It was the last femme, his scans were complete.

Bee grinned and looked back at his list, twenty femmes. A rapid sort and he grinned, if he could get carried by Soundwave, they'd be able to get within ten feet of every one of those femmes in the space of a day.

Now the main question, if he could pester the bot into doing it before the battle, he'd have a thread to follow afterwards.

Soundwave was in the air now, Bumblebee frowned about that for a long minute, he guessed he didn't really need to be with Soundwave for the mech to find his spark-mate.

::. Bumblebee to Soundwave.:: he sent calmly.

::. Soundwave receiving.::

Bumblebee silently sent the list of twenty, and their co-ordinates for both work and home.

::. If you get the chance, get within ten feet of them, if I'm right, one of them might be your spark-mate.::

::. Soundwave: acknowledges.::

Well, better than nothing. Bumblebee stood up and stretched.

"Last minute details?" Jolt murmured.

"Preparing for the future," Bee shrugged.

"Which future?"

"Future pool." Bee grinned.

Every single sentient being in the room turned to stare at him.

"On what?" Lena asked curiously.

"Who the newest human on base will be."

(SePOV)

Sentinel stood ramrod straight. Dignity be damned, he wanted his ship fixed. He'd been standing ramrod straight for the past quarter-joor, holding a primary strut in place while the rest of the supports were welded on.

She was almost finished.

On a regular basis, humans would walk as close as they dared to the Wreckers and just stare at the Ark in awe. She was almost space ready now.

As he stood he finally allowed himself to remember, remember his crew, valiant and loyal to the end. His spark gave a hard pang to remember his madness.

He remembered those he had chosen to accompany him, the bots most fiercely loyal to him, more than they were loyal to the Auto-bot cause. He would have betrayed them, but fate had prevented it. Sentinel pressed a little surge of energon into the frame, sending a prayer of thanks to Primus for his intervention of fate.

Sentinel stood and remembered his Ark as she had once been, remembered her graceful lines, the smooth, responsive way she could turn on the micro-unit, her gun stations pivoting and chasing after those who dared to try take her down. Her frame was recovering, the modifications by the Decepticons being slowly erased.

He remembered her final launch, her final battle. Throttle had summarily ejected him from the helm, and Sentinel had not argued, immediately ensconcing himself into the crash vault.

It had served a dual purpose. Nothing could destroy nor harm the contents of a crash vault, but it had rankled him none the less.

A captain, after all, went down with his ship.

"Righ' that's got it!" Roadbuster announced gleefully. Sentinel glanced at the Wrecker and stood back, allowing himself to smile to see his Ark again. That was more the ship he remembered.

"Who the hell designed it I want one," Epps stated flatly below him, Sentinel glanced down to see the human walking backwards toward his feet. Sentinel smirked somewhat.

"Try this vantage point," he rumbled patiently, idly snapping a levitation field around the human. He lifted the man up to his own optic level.

"Oh yeah, I definitely want one," Epps stated firmly, crossing his arms and nodding.

"Epps! Get down from there and come grab this bit!" Roadbuster shouted the next moment.

"On it!" Epps shouted. He promptly began flapping his arms. Roadbuster, Leadfoot and Topspin were howling the next moment. Evidently an 'in' joke.

"Yeh're doin' it wrong!" Lugnut shouted at the man.

"I got up here didn't I?"

Sentinel snorted, he just couldn't help it.

::. If you intended to startle him, it won't work.:: Optimus sent with a low chuckle. ::. Kae used to levitate him around the hangars on a regular basis.::

Sentinel nodded and lightly set the human back down again, Epps nodded to him and ran back toward Roadbuster again.

"Sentinel! Yeh can get tae work on yer bridge platform now if yeh wan'!"

He didn't need second bidding. Immediately, Sentinel strode into the Ark proper and into the storage bays, where a half dozen of his pillars were waiting.

There was work to be done.

(LPOV)

Lena watched the screens, and smiled as her Jolt gently touched her face. She rose and pressed a kiss to her mate's lips as he sat in her place, his cables already reaching to hook up to the ports she had occupied moments earlier.

No words passed between the two of them, they didn't need it. Their sparks were bound, Jolt always knew how she was feeling, where she was, just as she knew where her mate was.

Patiently, she walked into the corridors, and then into the central, where Ratchet had finally fitted an energon dispenser to keep hungry and un-injured bots out of his med-bay. A cube was filled a few moments later, and Lena carried it to her spot in the central, powering down her processors somewhat as she sipped and relaxed in her moments of downtime.

Other bots were in the central, already, she nodded and smiled at those who recognized her presence, and ignored the bots deeply ensconced in their own tasks.

Prowl's optics were offline, and only the whirring of his battle computer indicated him even being conscious. It was quiet, so Lena rose and deposited her now empty cube in it's receptacle and moved to another corner, practicing her transformations.

First. I8. Then back to her root mode and to the Banshee-hawk. Then came the tricky part. Lena frowned in concentration and processed the coding Soundwave had given her.

She still needed to get it to mesh properly with her own programming. She tried again and grinned as her body shifted slowly, carefully from banshee-hawk to BMW I8.

Just doing it wasn't enough for her though, Lena promptly randomized her transformation sequences and practiced. Root mode, Hawk, I8, hawk, root mode, I8... on and on until her transformations were seamless.

Finally, hungry again, Lena stayed in her root mode and strode back to the dispenser, smiling at Wheelie, Brains and the other sparked drones that had slowly begun filtering to the Auto-bots as they teamed up to fill a cube.

"Did you want help with that?" she asked with a smile, holding a clean cube and waiting her turn.

Wheelie and Brains promptly grinned at her as the more recently arrived drones stared at her in shock. There were a dozen of them now, all grouped around the dispenser.

"They do that!?" Ding whispered hoarsely.

Lena chuckled softly and strode somewhat closer, lightly setting her cube down and activating the dispenser, filling the cube the drones had wrestled into place. Then, she picked the cube up in one hand and offered her other to the tiny bots, carrying them all to the mini-benches designated for their use.

Sunstreaker was scowling at her, as she strode back and filled her own cube. But for her spark Lena didn't know why. More often than not, Sunstreaker would enlist the aid of the drones for this that or the other thing. Lena sat back down in her place and sipped at the cube once more.

Sunstreaker kept scowling.

::. Why are you glaring at me?.:: she finally sent shyly.

"You changed your 'form." Sunstreaker stated flatly.

Lena blinked.

"Your paint isn't meshing with your hawk form." Sideswipe snorted, his twin eying her rather like a blank canvas...

Hmm...

Maybe now was an okay time to ask for another colour...

"Are you bored with pink yet?" Sunstreaker demanded. Lena grinned.

"Uh... a little, it's an incredible pink though.."

"If you were bored with it why didn't you ask to change it?"

"You painted me by hand! It looks incredible, I didn't want to offend you by saying I'm bored with it now!" Lena immediately protested irritably.

Sideswipe fell over. Laughing his tailpipes off.

"Femme if you feel like gettin' painted have the decency to ask Sunstreaker so he's not going after me with those slagging brushes." Ironhide grunted from the other side of central.

"You look good in pink," Jazz snorted, ducking the swing the Weapons Master aimed at him.

"What colour do you want to be this time?" Sunstreaker snorted in amusement. Lena smirked and stood up, striding toward the frontliner before he could beckon for her to follow.

"Surprise me," she grinned cheerfully.

Sunstreaker stared at her.

"What? I trust you to make me look gorgeous," Lena grinned.

Sunstreaker was staring at her with the strangest expression in his optics, it was almost... humble.

::. Good answer, femme.:: Ironhide murmured. Lena turned somewhat and beamed to see the Weapons Master grinning at her.

"Not simply gorgeous, you're already gorgeous," Sunstreaker murmured finally. "I will find you the colours of a warrior to make your Banshee-hawk spark proud."

(OPOV)

Optimus wound his arms around his mate, she was scheduled to leave soon.

~No matter where we are~ she whispered to him. ~I will be waiting for you~

Optimus smiled somewhat and leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss to his Kae's lips.

~Just as I will search the heavens for you, my mate~

His Kae kissed him back, then cupped his face in her hands for a long moment. It was then, and only then did she turn and take a few running steps down the runway, blasting herself into the air.

Optimus watched as his mate receded into the sky before turning and catching hold of the strut that swung toward him.

An explosion rocked the area. Alarmed, he looked toward the source of the noise and grimaced.

There was smoke billowing out of Wheeljack's temporary workshop.

Again.

::. Okay... that didn't work.::

Optimus rolled his optics. Wheeljack was deeply engrossed once more in coming up with weapons.

::. Was that another full size, or a scale?.:: Ironhide sent grumpily.

::. Scale, I killed my holoform, again...::

::. What are you building this time?.::

::. A bomb? I'd call that successful.:: Sunstreaker snorted.

::. No, it was supposed to launch, not explode.::

Optimus spared himself a shake of his helm and directed the strut to rest where Roadbuster pointed. Standing still, and waiting to be indicated move again, he directed a secondary processor to go over their assault plans once more.

His beloved Kae would be accompanying the fliers, carefully disguising their signals they would rendezvous first behind the fourth planet. Already, the air-scouts and full seekers were silently flying, attempting to locate and watch Megatron's movements.

Soundwave was already in the air, silently observing the various grounded Decepticons as they meandered toward their own rendezvous co-ordinates.

Once the co-ordinates were properly located, everything was in place. It was to be a simultaneous assault; the moment the fliers engaged Sentinel would bridge them to those co-ordinates and hopefully catch the remaining ground force by surprise.

Prowl had been crunching through those battle calculations for a half orn now, modifying his assault tactics with every byte of information sent directly to his battle computer by Soundwave. The enforcer had glitched several times during that interlude, Ratchet bringing the mech around and Soundwave patiently going over the reasoning behind the information that had made him glitch in the first place.

Mostly it was the tactics Soundwave himself had devised. They worked for one reason alone: it defied calculation by the logical systems of a battle computer.

More accurately?

They were Soundwave's tactics for the Decepticon forces that had been designed to make Prowl glitch.

Optimus couldn't help but feel that once the battle was finished, assuming they survived, that he would be rescuing his mate's advisor from the brig...

He shook his helm somewhat and vented a sigh.

Every Auto-bot was on high alert, waiting. Waiting for the signal to rendezvous at base to bridge into battle.

Optimus glanced around and cracked his spark chamber open somewhat, sending a silent prayer to Primus once more.

The prayer of a Prime begging for the lives of his people.

(MPOV)

The Decepticon forces were due to arrive in one week. Half an orn. It was all hands on deck now, the fliers were up in arms, pacing, bickering among themselves. My grandfather had called me away from helping the Wreckers as they scrambled to fix the last minute systems that always showed up on a retrofit.

Because it was the final half-orn.

We were getting into position. Soundwave was working overtime, in the air and mapping the Earthbound Decepticon stragglers as they quietly massed together.

They were waiting to be evacuated along with Megatron before the Decepticons destroyed the earth, by all indications, the former Lord High Protector had been pushed to the end.

There would be no prisoners this time, no mercy, no slaves.

By all indication, he fully intended to leave a broken husk of planet, if not a shattered one.

::. Frequency update.:: my advisor-primary announced over the Primary.

::. What are they saying?.:: Ironhide growled softly.

::. Decepticon ground force in-betting: probability of destruction magnitude.::

::. What are their bets now?.:: my Optimus rumbled in a dangerous tone.

::. Decepticon odds: Fifty percent state enough of the planet will remain for metal harvesting. Fifty percent betting new stellar-dust ring to be formed.::

::. Over my dead body.:: I growled softly.

::. OUR dead bodies, granddaughter.:: Jetfire rumbled comfortably.

::. As if they're even going to get past us.:: Starscream snorted.

::. What's your ETA granddaughter?.:: Jetfire sent patiently.

::. Landing now.:: I replied calmly, even as I brought my speed right down and de-cloaked, patiently transforming and using my boosters to land beside him on top of the Nevada Aerial-bot monolith.

"Righ' on time," Grandfather grinned at me.

"You expect any less?" I asked airily, grinning and dodging the light-sparked swat my grandfather aimed at me. We were family, none of the fliers even considered their elder swatting at his granddaughter odd. Prime or no Prime. It was a nice feeling.

I glanced over as another bickering argument broke out between fliers of different clans, Jetfire glanced over at them the second the sound of screeching metal was to be heard. Starscream was in between the combatants the next second, the command trine dragging the two apart.

"Save it for the inbound!" he snapped at them. "Even if the all-spark healer is here, she will need her strength far more after the battle, not repairing your sorry afts before!"

Silence reigned across the monolith.

"Air commander."

"Air commander."

The two fliers promptly turned their backs to each other and strode to different sides of the monolith. The conversations changed after that, the various fliers surrounding me quietly calling dibbs on certain bots should they be spotted.

I stood in silence, watching the fliers around me doing final weapons checks and testing their armour. Occasionally, one would dive off of the monolith, fly a rapid circle and land again.

Their movement made it all the harder to remain still.

::. Stretch your wings, Granddaughter.:: Jetfire sent comfortably. You are a flier, we are not made to stand and wait.::

I vented a sigh and stretched my wings out, idly working the kinks out of my armour.

Much better.

The sunshine was warm across my metals. I blinked, memorizing the still, perfect moment and feeling of the sunlight dancing down my frame.

::. Soundwave to Lady High Protector.:: Soundwave sent on my private comm. Immediately I touched my helm, no few fliers looking over at me expectantly.

::. Archangel receiving.:: I sent immediately.

::. Megatron located: exiting atmosphere. Grounder forces: amassing. Windrider: shadow Megatron.:: my advisor-primary reported. ::. Megatron: passing lunar satellite and increasing velocity. Recommend: immediate flier departure.::

::. Acknowledged.:: I replied flatly, looking at my grandfather seriously in the sudden, deathly silence.

"Time to go?" Jetfire asked flatly.

Every flier turned to look at me.

"Let's fly," I nodded grimly.

Silence shattered.

The air was full of the screeching battle-cries of the various flier clans, trines diving from the monolith edge and into the air.

I cycled one last sigh and watched the fliers taking off before my grandfather gently touched my back.

"Time to go, granddaughter." he murmured gently. I nodded and joined the swarm, circling in the atmosphere and blocking our signals.

Then, bot by bot, clan by clan, we boosted ourselves to escape velocity, switched to spacer charges and shot for the moon, hiding within the natural sensor interference of the celestial body.

The jumping off point before flying into battle.