A week later, with still no word from Jazz, Mirage made up his mind. They had almost finished compiling the list of all of what Ironhide called the 'con fuckers, searching out the last few names they couldn't pin down to individual mechs. He could at least present the updated list in person to Prowl and take advantage of the opportunity to make a request.

The time spent with command had been optic-opening, to say the least. No one questioned his loyalties or beliefs. He'd been so removed from the constant questions of Cliffjumper and the rest that he no longer felt so self-conscious about not wanting to kill every single Decepticon on earth. And he had become painfully aware that no one in command was infallible.

Except Optimus. Optimus was still perfect. But even Optimus sometimes stumbled, and that was so much more inspiring. Even Optimus was trying.

So Mirage loaded everything into a single datapad, wrapped all the information into one packet, and left the base, taking Hound with him. Bumblebee shouldered his load of the work without comment, focused on chasing down the threads out from UMU. Beside him, Beachcomber and Rewind searched for the access times and ports UMU had used, trying to build a timeline to compare with attacks.

"You that worried about the prudes?" Hound asked, rolling alongside Mirage through the main corridor out. "I mean, Prowl's been out there with Soundwave for days."

Prowl isn't compromised in their optics by years of suspicion and doubt, Mirage said. Jazz always yelled at me for going out alone. If I'm riding out among that cheap crowd of mass-produced junk, I want backup I can trust.

Careful , m'lord, Hound said. Your nobility's showing.

Warmth enveloped Mirage's spark. Hound was already covered in dust and mud from earlier in the day—there was no putting on airs with this mech. Hound would have been a low groundskeeper or, if he'd caught Mirage's optic, perhaps leader of a cyberfox hunt. And yet...

At long as you put up with me, Mirage said. I need to talk to Prowl alone, though. Could you—

I'll just shoot the breeze with the twins, Hound assured him. Won't even know I'm there.

As they came out, they found that the landscape around the Ark had changed. Hundreds of rocks of all sizes, from pebbles to stones as big as himself, had been painted black. Or, as Mirage drove by and could see more clearly, the tops of rocks had been painted black. The bots outside were absorbed in turning the rocks over so that the unpainted sides were turned up.

Mirage watched five mechs struggling to push over a boulder larger than all of them put together. By the time he reached the top of the plateau, they were no closer to success.

He returned a salute to Sideswipe and Sunstreak, leaving Hound with them as he walked up to Prowl. As always, Soundwave stood behind him, quietly computing. Then Soundwave shifted, giving a deep vent that briefly revealed two of his internal heatsinks beginning to steam. Whatever they had him processing must have been particularly difficult.

"I've brought the updated list of who's who among the 'con-fu—" Mirage caught himself, wincing at Prowl's look. "—um, the cross-faction supporters."

Plus a few that I felt were too sensitive to put on a datapad.

Prowl raised an optic ridge, opening the datapacket even as he responded.

I am currently unassigned to information gathering , Prowl said. And all other major base calculations.

Do you want me to take the datapad back? Mirage asked innocently.

Of course not, Prowl said. You really are as bad as Jazz.

Mirage chuckled and looked over the sands as bots pushed heavy stones over. A single boulder finally gave way and toppled sideways with a great plume of dust and a loud cheer.

"If I might ask..." Mirage said.

"This morning," Prowl said, "I had the twins plant low grade incendiary charges under cover. There was a panic during roll-out as every single one was triggered. This will ensure they never again take the safety of the road for granted."

Mirage whistled softly. "How did you get them back under control?"

Prowl gave a small smile. "Panicked troops will rally instinctively to confident leadership. It is simply a matter of projecting your sense of command."

Mirage nodded as if taking in a lesson.

"Also, I asked Ironhide to come yell at them," Prowl said. "The right bot for the right job."

Down below, the closest autobots wondered what Prowl had said that made Mirage laugh.

A minute passed. Prowl glanced sideways at Mirage, wondering why the other bot had come out. The information could have been sent along without physically meeting. What would have been important enough for Mirage to come—?

"Have you heard anything?" Prowl asked suddenly. "About Jazz?"

Mirage lowered his helm. "Nothing yet. I—"

The shaky vent that came startled them both, especially that it had come from Prowl. Mirage stared at him, surprised not that Prowl could have such depth of feeling but that it showed so strongly on his faceplate. Mirage was struck by just how much of Prowl was a carefully composed mask. Prowl was a cold, logical calculator—everyone knew that.

"Is there a chance," Prowl said softly, almost a whisper, "that Jazz could have been killed before sending the message?"

It was good that Prowl was not looking directly at Mirage, who narrowed his optics. Mirage had a noble bearing he could hide behind, but he couldn't help glancing once at Soundwave, still locked within processing.

"Jazz will have it on a hair trigger," Mirage said. "If he dies, it sends. He just has it toggled to go on his command because...he'd want to do it himself."

Any movement, any twitch or circuit switch—Mirage tried to catch any change in Prowl. But Prowl was in control of himself again.

"Then Jazz must be alive."

"He's alive," Mirage said. "He's hiding and too busy to transmit. Or things are too chaotic for him to send a stable message."

"The calm center of the storm," Prowl agreed. "That sounds like him."

Another poumpf of dust and sand in the wind—the bots had finally turned over another boulder. Prowl turned his attention back on the troops before him, noting the team that had accomplished it and adding them to the top of the leaderboard.

Mirage scanned the desert and spotted Bluestreak in a small crowd. He was pressing his back against a rock beside a tank with smoke coming out of his treads and a minibot punching the stone in frustration. They didn't seem any closer than when they had started, and Mirage glanced at Prowl's datapad. The team was not dead last, but only because so many teams hadn't turned over a single stone either.

"Would you be able to spare Bluestreak tomorrow?" Mirage asked.

"For how long?" Prowl asked.

"Probably the whole day," Mirage said. "Maybe more, if he proves useful."

"'Useful'?"

"We're still trying to find out who UMU is," Mirage said.

"...it's been a week," Prowl said.

Mirage frowned. "Yes sir, I am aware."

"Do you require terms for a full search of the surnet?" Prowl asked. "I can create one in a moment if I do not have one on hand."

It had been years since Mirage had Prowl's full attention focused on him. He'd almost forgotten how much of an aft Prowl could be. "No, that will be unnecessary."

"A week to run a single search is beyond the farthest limits of what is usually required. Even if a single mech has used multiple aliases, they should not be so difficult to find."

Mirage ground his denta.

"I am aware of that—" Mirage started.

"Then I fail to see how one additional bot will aid in the discovery," Prowl said. "If the entirety of Spec Ops cannot find one bot, perhaps the focus of the search should change to something your team is capable of."

Prowl said more than that, but Mirage shunted everything to background processing, to be listened to and complained about later. For now, his programming had triggered a subroutine with Jazz's recorded voice sternly telling Mirage that he was not allowed to be mad. He could get angry later, but any leader of Spec Ops was specifically prohibited from showing anger at all.

Might as well paint a 'Con decal on you, mech. If you get angry, you just did the enemy's job for 'em, Jazz had said, scolding him so strictly that Ironhide would have been proud. That the dressing down had happened in private with no one else nearby was the only reason Mirage could still hold his helm up with any dignity.

But—! Mirage had burned indignantly.

But nothing, Jazz said. Getting angry means fucking up, and Spec Ops don't fuck up. You ain't allowed to die, you ain't allowed to fail, and you ain't never allowed to get angry—you are cold, you are ice, you are a tall drink of frosty in a hot, dry desert. Got it?

A long vent, a coolant cycle that he deliberately slowed so that he developed no condensation, and a calm stare out over the troops—Mirage even politely waited for Prowl to finish. He clasped his hands behind his back, tilting his helm to audibly pop the stiff joint. He was a cold-sparked noble with an arrogant streak a mile wide, and Prowl was a mere peasant raging about...whatever it was that peasants raged about.

"—and when I am cleared to return to duty," Prowl said, with the air of wrapping up, "I will provide your team with work that you might be able to accomplish until Jazz's return."

Mirage let the silence drag long enough to squash the noble accent from his voice. Bad enough that he was about to channel Jazz's sensibilities—if he did it with a high class drawl, he might find Prowl siccing Ironhide on him.

"If you countermand Jazz's last order," Mirage started, "then we will of course obey, and I will notify him when he sees fit to contact me. Until then, I will request Bluestreak's temporary assignment to Spec Ops—"

"Why Bluestreak?" Prowl snapped. "There is a field of mechs in front of you. Why none of them?"

Mirage reset his optics.

"All of these mechs have strong feelings regarding any sympathy toward Decepticons," Prowl said, gesturing at the ground below, "but to surround Bluestreak with cross-factionists after a cross-cabling fiasco that led disciplining half the army—"

"Say it more accurately," Mirage said over him. "Bluestreak hates 'cons for good reason. And has never swayed in his loyalty to the Autobot cause."

Prowl halted his diatribe, stymied by the lack of argument and clearly waiting for Mirage to give him the ammunition to refuse the request.

"And the cross-factionists have retreated into their own forums and echo chambers,"Mirage said, "just as the anti-factionists have retreated into theirs."

Prowl narrowed his optics, still not sure where Mirage was going with this.

"Yes. This is accurate."

"Do you really think," Mirage asked, his consonants clipped as his noble accent slipped in, "that I will have the same access to anti-cross factionalist groups through Cliffjumper?"

Prowl twitched. His processor stung any time the probabilities snapped so quickly into the negative.

"Powerglide? Blades?" Mirage continued. "Will Tracks come down off his paint job long enough to explain their slang and jargon to us?"

Prowl still did not answer.

"We have cleared away the noise and mapped out every route we can find through the surnet," Mirage said, "but UMU, whoever he is, is an anti-cross factionalist just as zealous as the mechs down there, and they are all hiding from us. Please tell me, sir, which bot gives me the highest probability of success?"

Prowl straightened. Looked over the field. Watched as another heavy stone finally rolled over. The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, and heatwaves billowed on the edge of his vision.

"Ask Ironhide," Prowl said. "I have no authority over troop movements yet."

He made no mention that Ironhide would have sent Mirage here. His jaw throbbed from how tight he had clenched down, and he deliberately forced himself to relax. He would continue this ridiculous exercise until the sun fully sank, and he refused to look at the annoying arrogant pile of slag that still thought class rankings meant anything on a battlefield.

Was Mirage still standing there? Prowl felt another stab of aggravation. This reminded him of the first years of working with Jazz, then the unorthodox Tone who never showed anything but merciless grins over heavily redacted reports. Mirage wasn't using the same gallows humor, but the disregard for Prowl's sensibilities rankled just as much.

He turned, about to order Mirage off the field...and stopped.

Mirage had locked up tight, optics staring at nothing. His vents halted in his throat.

A download.

Mirage was receiving a download of information so huge that it took up almost all of his processing.

Prowl's first message went to Ratchet and Firstaid so that one of the could come out to ensure that Mirage didn't stall. Then to Optimus, with a promise to update him as more information became available. Then to—

Mirage coughed—his engines choked and he dropped to one knee, gulping down air as his systems threatened to overheat.

"—primus—ouch." Mirage knocked his hand against his helm. "Never warned me about that—"

"Mirage!" Prowl knelt next to him, ignoring the pain that flared in his pede. "Mirage, is Jazz—"

"—that shorted something for sure—"

"Mirage!"

The Spec Ops bot looked up, unfocused, seeing Prowl like a distant blur.

"It's jumbled," Mirage said, sorting the absolute piles of information suddenly dumped into his cortex. "No priority tags. They've been running—used the mines but they're on a straightaway now—"

"That means the highway in," Prowl said, already sending the information to Red Alert. Base defenses came online behind them, and numerous bots below found themselves issued orders to take up defensive posts. Pandemonium followed as bots drove every which way, shouldering each other as they scattered across the sand.

"Twelve jets—no, twenty jets—" Mirage winced. "Wait, no..."

He would only call ahead if he couldn't shake them, Ironhide said, coming onto the command level comm line. And if he couldn't avoid capture. Who's still alive?

Jazz, Counterpunch, Smokescreen, Bumblebee. Mirage hesitated. But...

"But what?" Prowl demanded, almost ready to plug in and download the information himself.

He didn't take anyone else, but he's listed Spasma as critical, in need of medical aid. Afterburner is injured. And four more bots are listed with them.

Still reeling from the download, Mirage began to compare the list with his own record of designations, but the orders were already pouring in from Ironhide, who rode out with the Aerialbots scrambling behind him. The Autobots suddenly organized to him into recognizable patterns and prepared to receive incoming fire.

You'd think the 'Cons hadn't been coming for cross-cabling before, Brawn grumbled, broadcasting his irritation on the main line.

These aren't cross-cablers, Prowl said, latching onto the slang. They are defectors—

They're all that's standing between Jazz and several jets— Mirage broke in. I'm sending out their designations—do not shoot these specific 'cons, do you hear me?

There was no response, but there were dozens of pings acknowledging that they'd received the names. No time to talk. The fight was on its way toward them. The sound of engines rumbled out of sight followed by the distant thunder of missiles.

Prowl stood and watched the direction Jazz would come.

"Seawing, Snare, Deadend," Prowl said. "Spasma, Submarauder, Afterburner...no officers this time. Regulars."

Behind him, woken up out of recharge, Soundwave followed his gaze, trying to catch the first glint of light off of steel.

"Those names, unsurprising."

"Cross-factionists?" Prowl asked.

"Rare pair kink shipping," Soundwave clarified.

"What?"

At Prowl's mystified expression, Soundwave began to explain, then thought better of it and simply nodded. Yes. Cross-factionists.

"Doubled his team," Mirage said, flipping through images of the long escape. "They...they shot their own teammates to join with Jazz."

"Sir—" Sunstreak broke in. "Red Alert says to bring you and Soundwave inside right now."

Cursing that he couldn't remain on the field, Prowl began the trek down to the Ark. There was a crackle of electrical static, and Mirage vanished, with tiny puffs of dust following beside Prowl. So he had an additional escort inside, and then Mirage would probably return to the coming battle to bring Jazz in.

The first echoing explosion of a mech reached them as they came to the door. Prowl turned, one hand on the Ark's wall as he looked back, only to find Sunstreak and Sideswipe standing in front of him. A second later, Soundwave was also blocking him in.

"This area," Soundwave said, "unsafe. Prowl should retreat further—"

"Should but won't," Prowl said. "Sideswipe, Sunstreak—"

"We're not to leave your side," Sideswipe said. "Ironhide's orders."

Prowl clenched his fists.

"I'll stay with him." Mirage's voice came from the air. "You'll keep him safer by bringing down 'cons and keeping them down."

The twins frowned, their attention drawn by yet another crack of gunfire. The line of Autobots moved down the road, almost a mile of vehicles spread too thin for bombing, all of them listening to Blaster's broadcast of heavy metal.

"I'll keep Ironhide off your aft," Mirage promised.

The assurance was all they needed. The twins transformed and sped out, easily catching up with the front line that opened up to accept them.

Prowl didn't argue, but he couldn't help commenting. "Ironhide won't like that."

Mirage turned off his invisibility for a moment, stepping aside so that they could all clearly see the road.

"I just asked him," Mirage said with a smile. "Since you were safely inside, after all. Have you ever watched those two work?"

Prowl shook his helm. He had the battle statistics on every mech in the Autobot faction, but he had never tried to watch the fighting. Even of the battles he had been in, he had scrupulously kept to analyzing the fights from a top-down perspective, moving his resources like chess pieces. If he watched, he would crash. His cortex simply could not keep up calculating the infinite actions and reactions of frontline fighting.

As the first dots of jets appeared on the horizon, following the growing plume of dust, Prowl realized there was a chance that watching this fight could also bring him dangerously close to a crash.

A hand alighted gently on his shoulder. Prowl looked up at Soundwave, who gave a quiet nod and nothing more. The understanding passed between them. If Prowl crashed, Soundwave would bring him out of harm's way.

"Will you be fine here?" Mirage asked. "If I can help Jazz—"

"Go," Prowl said. "I have a warbuild here."

Mirage raised an optic ridge, but he vanished without a word.