Ironhide stuck his helm into Orion's office. "You ready?"
Orion shuttered his optics, taking in a deep vent, and stood. He was anything but ready. Master Yoketron had made the Primal Trials sound unpleasant, and the fact that they took more than a vorn on average to complete also worried him. Most Primes got to spend all their time preparing to receive the Matrix. If it took them a vorn, then what chance did he have? He had to run an army on the side.
He followed Ironhide out of his office and they met up with Chromia at the elevator.
"You're coming?" Orion asked.
Chromia shrugged. "Maybe not for the whole time, and I've got some work to do while we're there, but yes, I'm coming. Is there a problem with that?"
"No," Orion said as the elevator started down. "It's good to have you with us. Um… how did training go?"
"Really well, actually," Ironhide said. "Less than half of the actual commanders were there because Red Alert locked himself in his office, and Mainspring said he had too many important things to do. We got a bunch of other mecha from the other departments, though. And everyone did well. Chromia and Elita will be able to hold their own in no time, and Moonracer's got the makings of a great sniper."
"I don't know," Chromia said. "She spent so much time laughing her aft off about Ratchet, I'm not sure how much she actually learned."
"You talked Ratchet into coming?" Orion said.
"Yeah," the elevator reached the ground floor and they walked out of the building toward Landquake, who was already waiting for them. "But I don't think he's coming back."
"What happened?" Orion wondered whether he should go talk to the medic after training with Yoketron. If it had been a bad experience for him, then he might need someone to talk to. "Is he all right?"
They climbed into the transport and Chromia and Ironhide grinned at each other, but didn't answer.
"What?" Orion asked.
Ironhide snorted. "Yeah, he's fine. Honestly, I think he only showed up to convince us to leave him alone about it, which is kind of pointless, because he could have just told us he already knew how to fight."
"Would you have believed him, though?" Chromia said.
Ironhide tilted his helm to the side. "Come to think of it, probably not. I'm still trying to process that..."
Chromia and Ironhide chatted for the rest of the drive. Listening to them helped take the edge off of Orion's nervousness, so he was glad both of them had come.
He told himself he was worrying too much about the trials, but that didn't really help.
They reached Landquake's apartment building, and the transport let them out, then led the way into his house, and Ironhide introduced Chromia to him and Petra.
"So," Orion said. "Prowl is already here, correct?"
"Yes," Landquake said. "I don't know if they'll come back in or if you're just supposed to go meet them."
"Meet them where?" Chromia asked.
"The garden," Petra said. "You want to see it? I don't think you've seen it, Ironhide, have you?"
"No," Ironhide said. "I thought it was like… I don't know, off-limits or something."
Petra shook her helm and waved a tiny hand for them to follow her. Ironhide looked a little uncomfortable, but he followed anyway as Petra led them down the hall and out into the garden. Yoketron and Prowl were sitting across from each other in the courtyard, apparently meditating, but Yoketron un-shuttered his optics and stood as they approached.
"Wow," Chromia said, looking around. "Yeah, this is pretty impressive."
"Nice high walls," Ironhide said.
"I meant all the crystals," Chromia said.
Prowl stood with a flick of his doorwings and turned to frown at them with his arms crossed defensively.
"Good orn," Yoketron said.
"Sorry to intrude," Petra said. "I just wanted to show them the garden."
"That's all right," Yoketron said. "Welcome Ironhide, and… I know I've seen you before."
"I'm Chromia," she said. "Ironhide and I are bonded."
"Ah," Yoketron smiled. "Wonderful. And you're also part of the command element of Autobot, correct?"
"Yes, over resources," Chromia said. "Whatever that means. And my two sisters are in the public relations department."
Yoketron nodded. "I believe I remember them as well."
"Yeah," Chromia said. "Moonracer's the loudmouth, and Elita's the one who was bonded to that mech," she jerked her helm toward Orion.
Orion averted his gaze, aware that the blue femme was probably glaring at him. He knew she was still angry about that, and she did have a right to be.
"Really?" Petra said. "He was bonded?"
Orion wished they wouldn't talk about it. He shot a desperate glance at Ironhide, who nodded slightly, and cut of Chromia's response. "Hey, let's go back and talk to Landquake. Chromia, you should meet Petra's sparkling."
"Right," Petra said. "He's napping right now, but you can go in and see him. He's adorable, but he's only half a vorn old and he's already almost as big as me, it's awful."
Orion shot a grateful smile at Ironhide as the three of them went back down the hall.
"You were bonded?" Yoketron asked quietly.
Orion shuttered his optics. "Yes, but… not for very long. When I was appointed as a Prime our bond broke."
Silence fell, and Orion didn't want to see the pity in his instructor's optics, so he didn't look.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Yoketron said. "It must be hard."
Orion nodded. "I chose to accept my calling," he said. "But it's not fair to her."
Silence settled thick on the courtyard.
"Well, are we going to train?" Prowl said.
"Yes," Yoketron said. "Let's begin."
They trained together for almost a joor. Prowl was the superior fighter by far, which added frustration to Orion's nervousness.
"That will be enough." Yoketron said, after what felt like the hundredth time the Praxian had thrown him to the ground. "Good work, both of you."
Prowl bowed. "Thank you for your instruction."
"Thank you for your commitment," Yoketron replied. "You may go."
Prowl left, and Orion and Yoketron watched him walk down the hallway and into the building.
"So," Orion said. "Are we going to begin the trials?"
"Yes," Yoketron said. "If you're ready."
"I don't want to put it off."
"Then sit." Yoketron gracefully sank into a sitting position and Orion followed him.
"So," Orion said. "What exactly are the trials? You said something about viruses..."
"There are twelve trials," Yoketron said. "Each of them was developed by a member of the Original Thirteen Primes. The trials are designed to be very different from one another, and depending on your strengths and weaknesses, it will take a different amount of time and effort to complete each one. I can't tell you all the details of the first trial, in part because I don't know them, but there are a few things I can explain."
"All right," Orion said.
"First, this is Liege Maximo's trial. I believe it's some sort of maze that you have to get through in a certain amount of time. When the time runs out, the program will deactivate and you'll be back here."
"Okay," Orion said. "A maze doesn't sound too bad. Will I… remember that it's not real?"
"I think so," Yoketron said. "I know that for some of the later trials you won't."
"Wasn't Liege Maximo…"
"Terrifying?" Yoketron said. "Yes. I don't know why his is the first trial, or why any of the trials in the order they are, except for Prima's, which is last for a reason. Are you ready?"
Orion took in a deep vent and nodded, steeling himself.
Yoketron got up and un-subspaced a data stick with an adapter that looked like the ones on medical equipment that plugged directly into mecha's helms. "You'll want to lower any processor defenses or firewalls you have and download the file off of this," he said as he walked around behind Orion.
Orion flinched when he felt the Circuit-Su master's fingers touch the back of his helm.
"Can I insert this?"
Orion obligingly slid some plating at the back of his helm aside to expose the dataport there and then shuttered his optics when he felt the data stick slip into place.
"You'll be all right," Yoketron said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You'll have one joor in the maze, and then you'll come back. Remember that."
Orion un-shuttered his optics and took one more deep calming breath before accessing the file on the data stick.
Everything went gray.
For a moment, there was nothing but fog and then and then the world solidified around him. He was in a small, square room with one doorway. A deep, resonant voice spoke, but Orion couldn't tell what direction it was coming from.
"You are the master of your own processor. You choose what is real and what is fake. Your objective is to reach the end of the maze."
Then silence.
Orion looked around. The walls and ceiling were dull gray and unpainted, and the floor was plain metal as well. The whole place was illuminated, but he couldn't see a light source anywhere.
He figured he should probably get started. It shouldn't take too long. If he kept track of which way he'd gone and where all the dead ends were, then he could determine what the right direction was—unless the maze was different every time.
He stepped out into the hallway. Right or left?
Orion turned left and ran his hand along the wall as he walked. Other than the surreal lighting, this place seemed very real. He could feel the smooth surface of the wall under his fingers. He could hear his footsteps echoing quietly.
And… he could hear something else too, as he approached the nearest corner. It was a high-pitched grinding sound of some sort and it seemed to be coming from ahead of him. He slowed to a stop as the sound got louder. Something about it made him feel very uneasy. He had heard that sound before somewhere, hadn't he? Something deep in his core was warning him that it was a very bad sound.
Maybe that was part of the simulation, though, and he was meant to feel afraid.
He couldn't let a strange sound stop him, and he had to try and complete this trial as soon as possible.
He rounded the corner.
The hallway was filled with scraplets.
Orion took an unconscious step back as the swarm fell silent and the little round parasites turned to look at him.
Then they moved as one, launching off of the walls and the floor they'd been gnawing on to fly at him. He was paralyzed, unable to move for two precious astroseconds. After that, he found his motor functions and turned to run, but he was too late. Scraplets latched on to him and tiny pricks of pain spread across his back. Distracted, he tripped over his own pedes and was overwhelmed. The swarm covered him, gnawing at his arms and helm and faceplate. Orion tried to brush them off, thrashing wildly, but it didn't do any good. He screamed as the pain mounted, until he felt them chew through his neck and consume his voice box. He felt an arm separate at the shoulder. A scraplet crawled into his left optic, consuming it and burrowing deep into his processor. The pain seemed to go on forever, and he wished he'd just offline. He couldn't see, couldn't hear anything besides the horrible buzzing and the tearing of his own mesh.
And then it was gone and he was suddenly standing upright again.
He un-shuttered his optics and looked down at himself. All there. No scraplets.
He was back in the square room he'd started in.
Orion took in a deep vent and let it out slowly, clenching his trembling hands into fists.
Apparently that had been the wrong direction.
He took a moment to calm down, but he couldn't stay here—he had to get through the maze.
Cautiously, he left the room and turned right this time. He listened carefully for the sound of the scraplets, but couldn't hear them.
He went around the corner and then another, and nearly crashed into a giant, many-legged symbiot. It shrieked at him, and he leaped backward and ran. It chased him past the beginning room and down the other direction. Orion felt something hit him, and a biting cold started in his side and spread outward across his back but he could still hear the symbiot behind him, so he didn't dare stop. He skidded around the corner…
And into the swarm of scraplets again. The cold spread down to his legs and he couldn't move them anymore. He collapsed and the scraplets swarmed him.
He couldn't move. The paralysis stopped his screaming before the scraplets ate out his voice box this time, and he could do absolutely nothing but wait for it to end.
And then he was back at the beginning again. He couldn't feel the pain anymore, but he could still remember the feeling of the scraplets inside of him, chewing through his internals.
One way a swarm of scraplets, the other way a venomous symbiot.
He paced back and forth in the beginning room. There had to be another way to go. Or maybe he was supposed to fight these things somehow.
You couldn't fight a swarm of scraplets.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall of the small room. He would just wait here until the challenge was over. He didn't know how long he had, but he already felt like giving up. He'd just been eaten alive. Twice.
He shuddered.
He was probably going to have nightmares about that for decaorns. This really didn't make sense—he wasn't sure how simulations of being consumed by scraplets were going to help him become a stronger Prime. Maybe this was some sort of mistake?
Then again, from what he knew about Liege Maximo…
Orion put his helm in his hands. He could still remember that sound, that grinding, buzzing…
No.
It wasn't a memory.
He could hear it now.
Orion looked up with panic coursing through his core. The noise was still faint, but it was definitely there. He took in a deep vent. Maybe he could run into the maze and sneak past them somehow. Or maybe hiding would be better. He got up and pressed himself to the wall right next to the doorway, hoping that if they flew past it, they wouldn't notice him.
He listened as the sound got louder…
And louder…
And then a scraplet flew into the room, followed by another. Orion backed away, but the room was tiny and bare and there was nowhere to run or hide. He collapsed to the ground, sobbing as the swarm surrounded him and started eating through his mesh. He didn't fight this time, just waited for it to be over.
And then he was standing again.
He took a few astroseconds to calm himself down, but he knew now that staying at the beginning of the maze wasn't going to work.
He had to get through somehow, without getting killed. There had to be a way to do this. What had that voice said in the beginning about things not being real?
Those scraplets had definitely felt real.
He checked his memory files. The voice had told him he could choose what was real.
So there had to be a way to stop the scraplets from being real.
He looked at the open doorway. If he waited here much longer, they would come for him. He had nothing to lose.
Orion stepped out into the hallway and turned left, because as terrible as the scraplets were, he wasn't sure he wanted to find out what it felt like to be killed by the venomous symbiot. His audios strained as he walked down the hall, and every echo made him jump. Then when he got near the corner, he heard the now too-familiar buzzing noise. Every instinct told him to turn and run, but he forced himself to keep going.
They aren't real. They aren't real.
He rounded the corner. The scraplets came for him.
Not real. They're just fake. Just an illusion.
Orion took a step forward to meet them.
And they disappeared.
The hallway was empty again.
It had worked.
Orion let out a heavy sigh of relief and kept going. Further down, he hallway split three ways. He turned right, and was confronted immediately by a mech with an enormous, glowing sword. The mech struck before Orion was ready, decapitating him, and the last thing he saw was his own body slumping to the ground.
And then he was in the first room again.
Orion shook his helm, trying to get the image of his own lifeless frame out of his processor as frustration welled up in his spark. He hadn't even had a chance to assess the situation before he'd been offlined.
He wanted to stay in the room, maybe try and find a way to barricade the door against the scraplets. But he knew what he needed to do. He didn't know how quickly he was running out of time, but he didn't want to waste any. He was going to have to walk through the scraplets again.
No. He was done with scraplets for now.
He turned right to go toward the symbiot instead. He met it around the corner and it hissed and shot a dart at him. Orion forgot to make it disappear and instinctively tried to dodge out of the way. The dart hit him, piercing his leg. Orion fell to the ground with a shout of pain as cold washed up the limb. The symbiot was coming at him now.
It's not real. It's not real.
The symbiot disappeared, but Orion still couldn't move his leg, and the cold hadn't stopped spreading through his frame. He tried to drag himself down the hallway, but didn't make it far before he was completely paralyzed. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't even do that. He was wasting time, and he couldn't move at all. After a few breems, he started to ache all over, as the pain mounted, he began to hope the symbiot's venom would kill him.
He wasn't sure how long he lay there, before he heard something coming down the hall, behind him. Not scraplets—something big, with at least four pedes.
He didn't even see what it was, just felt something hard and blunt slam into his back, crushing his spark chamber.
And then he was at the beginning of the maze again.
It happened again and again. He tried the symbiot a few times, but it always hit him before he could focus enough to make it disappear. Sometimes he'd get past the scraplets. Sometimes the scraplets started swarming him before he could make them disappear. And then after he did get rid of them he was forced to continue through the maze injured.
He never got very far.
On his nineteenth time, Orion dodged the swordsmech's first blow, and focused on him, pretending he could see through the mech to the other wall, pretending the mech wasn't there.
The mech disappeared.
With a tired sigh, Orion put a hand to his leaking arm, but that just made it hurt worse. There were deep trails in it that the scraplets had left.
Orion continued. The next obstacle was a black fog—some sort of gas that filled the entire hallway and billowed toward him
Not real. Not real.
Orion walked into it. His vents seized up, and he fell to his knees. It felt like acid was eating him from the inside.
Not real.
Not real…
The mist vanished, but Orion was shaking hard. His vents coughed, still burning, but Orion struggled to his pedes and continued on.
He'd only gone a few steps before the walls of the maze went blurry and he fell to his knees again, suddenly dizzy.
Then he un-shuttered his optics. The crystal garden was almost blindingly bright compared to the gloom of the maze. Yoketron was seated across from him, watching him in silence.
Orion shifted. He felt stiff, though the pain was gone.
It was over.
"Orion?" Yoketron said.
Orion put his faceplate in his hands, trembling, venting hard. He shuttered his optics for a moment, but images of swarming scraplets played in his processor so he sat up instead, looking around, grateful for the light.
"Orion?" Yoketron said again, sounding concerned.
Orion forced himself to relax. "I don't think I did very well," he said. "Around every corner of the maze there was something that would kill me. I had to pretend they weren't real, to make them disappear…" He could feel himself shaking, despite his effort to calm down.
Yoketron was watching him carefully.
"And then every time I offlined, I had to start over."
"How far did you get?"
"Not far at all. I could only get past three or four at the most. That felt like forever. Are you sure it was only one joor?"
"It was only one joor," Yoketron said.
"Do I… Do I really have to do it again until I get to the end of the maze?"
"I am afraid so," Yoketron said. "If that's what the voice at the beginning told you."
"Was that Liege Maximo's voice?" Orion said.
"Yes."
"And that… that is the first challenge. As in the easiest?"
"Not necessarily," Yoketron said. "Some trials are easier or harder for different mecha. I think this is one of the most unpleasant trials, but they will all challenge you in one way or another."
Orion vented a sigh and sat back. The scent of the crystal garden was comforting, and the cool tiles he was sitting on felt nice against his plating as well. He would rather never ever do that again. But he didn't have that option. He took one more stabilizing vent and sat up again. "Do I have time to do it again this orn?"
Yoketron looked surprised. "I don't know if I would suggest that, but… you have time to do it once more." They made optic contact. Orion wanted Yoketron to protest. It wouldn't take much to dissuade him from trying again.
But the Circuit-Su master just nodded.
Orion shuttered his optics, trying to brace himself. He had to do it, and he had to do it quickly. Not only did they have limited time, but the sooner Orion made it through that maze, the sooner it would be over. Once he made it through, he'd never have to go in again.
Yoketron must have removed the data stick from his helm while he was in the trial, because he had to come around and insert it again.
Orion accessed the file on it.
Everything went gray.
Jazz waited until he was certain Soundwave was off-base, and then left his post and headed to his quarters.
He hadn't said anything in the meeting this orn, though he'd wanted to. He had a very uneasy feeling about Megatron's plans, but he knew he had to be careful and stay loyal, because the telepath was almost certainly watching him.
He was so angry at himself. He kept picking the wrong side, over and over. Why the pit was he a Decepticon?
He had no idea.
But he knew there must be a reason.
He locked himself in his room and made sure the security camera above his door was turned off. Then he pulled open his middle desk drawer. Deep in the back, under a collection of random junk he'd picked up over the last few decaorns, was a small datapad that supposedly had answers.
He found it and set it on the desk, turning it on.
He'd written a message to himself on the lock screen, in a code that he'd come up with when he was a sparkling.
[Hack into this datapad if you ever start to question your loyalty]
And the weird thing—the really weird thing—was that he remembered writing those words, but he couldn't remember why. He was missing bits and pieces—his memory files were full of holes.
And he was pretty sure they weren't random holes.
He set about hacking into the datapad. It was tricky—almost too tricky—and it took him nearly a joor to get it unlocked. Hopefully all this work was worth it, and this wasn't some stupid prank his past self had decided to play on his present self.
He wouldn't put it past himself.
Finally, the datapad screen lit up with another message in the same code as before. He leaned over the desk as he read.
[Congratulations!
You are the smartest mech in the whole fragging world. You've just won a ten billion credit prize for hacking this datapad, which can be collected the orn you finally decide to stop paying attention to random notes you leave yourself.]
And that was it.
"What?" Jazz said. "What the frag, mech?"
He put a hand to his helm, shuttering his optics. He was talking to himself—talking to himself retrospectively. "I'm going insane."
When he looked at the datapad again, the words had been replaced by another, longer message.
[Ok, sorry about that, I couldn't resist. I'm sure you'll forgive me, because after all, I know for a fact you'd do the exact same thing in my position.
Guess what? You're not a Decepticon. You're an Autobot double agent. However, because that's something a certain symbiot-loving friend of yours would have noticed real quickly, I've come up with this amazing plan to keep you undercover.]
"Aw, pit," Jazz muttered, not sure whether to be relieved or horrified.
He kept reading.
[As soon as I'm done writing this message, I'm going to erase all of my memories that have to do with choosing to become a double agent. I was actually going to join Megatron for about an orn before I reconsidered, so hopefully that'll stick. It's a lot easier to fake something if you don't know you're faking it.
But I'm also counting on realizing every once in a while that Megatron's a maniac, so I've written this note to the future me. Every time you read it, write up a quick report about whatever evil thing Megatron's doing and send it to Prowl. I'll include his message codes at the end.
Once you've done that, you need to reset the datapad and erase everything negative you ever thought about the Decepticon cause. Make sure that right before you do that, you leave yourself a mental reminder to stay loyal, and to read this datapad if you start to wonder why that's so important.
Good luck,
Jazz]
Jazz shook his helm as the reality of his position hit him and everything suddenly made sense. He was insane. This was insane.
But apparently, it had been working.
And he hadto tell the Autobots what Megatron had revealed in the meeting earlier this orn. It was a good thing that had pushed him over the edge, because there wasn't much time.
Conveniently, the datapad with his note on it was capable of sending messages, so he typed up a couple of paragraphs. He made note of Megatron's plans, and the current state of things in Kaon, checking his facts a couple of times with one of his other datapads, so he could give the Autobots accurate numbers.
Then he sent the message to Prowl, and reset the datapad.
The first message reappeared.
[Hack into this datapad if you ever start to question your loyalty]
"Okay," he said to himself. "Here we go."
He stuck the datapad in the very back of the middle drawer of his desk and started marking memories for deletion.
Orion was dragged from recharge by his comm beeping loudly in his audios. He sat up with a start, looking around the dark room.
Then, once he realized nothing was trying to kill him, he checked his comm. It was Prowl.
He answered. "What is it?" This was the third time he'd come out of recharge this off-cycle, and his chronometer said there were still several joors before the next orn officially started.
"We need to have a meeting. Just us and a few others. Conference room. Five Breems." Prowl cut the comm.
Orion sighed and dragged himself from his berth. He was tired enough that he would almost choose more nightmares about being eaten alive than a meeting with Prowl. Did that mech ever recharge?
He shouldn't complain. Things would be much harder without the former enforcer. It was very fortunate that he'd decided to join Autobot. Orion reminded himself as he crossed the room that Prowl had saved their organization when the Council had tried to arrest them. For all his apparent arrogance and pride he never brought it up in arguments, but he had literally risked his life to save them, even before he'd joined them.
Ironhide was sitting outside Orion's door. He started online when Orion passed him.
"What... where are you going?"
"Ironhide, I told you, you can recharge in your own quarters if you want."
"I'm your self-appointed bodyguard," Ironhide stood up with a yawn. "Until you either learn some common sense or that old ninja teaches you how to fight. You can't just wander around..."
"I have a meeting."
"At this joor?"
"I suppose. Prowl called it."
Ironhide yawned again. "Okay, I'm coming."
He followed Orion to the main meeting room. The lights were on, and Prowl and Mainspring were already sitting there, looking grim. Had something happened to Jazz?
"Am I invited to this one?" Ironhide asked.
"No," Prowl said.
"I'm sorry," Orion said to him. "It's not that I don't trust you..."
"I know," Ironhide said. "Mech, I worked for the Council. I get that not everyone should know every secret."
Orion didn't like to be compared to the Council. "It's not something—"
"I know, I know," Ironhide said. "It's fine. I'll wait outside." He stepped backward into the hall and shut the door behind himself.
"What's going on?" Orion sat down.
Mainspring looked to Prowl, who nodded and spoke. "We've received word from Kaon. Megatron plans to attack another city-state in nine orns. Tarn, to be precise."
Orion's processor spun. "He's… already?"
Prowl nodded.
Orion slumped over on the table, putting his helm in his arms. This was too much. On top of everything he'd endured the past on-cycle, Megatron was gearing up for an attack.
"Prime, sir?" Mainspring said.
"I can't do this. Not right now. It's the middle of the off-cycle and I've barely had any recharge." As soon as he said the words, they sounded immature and selfish. The fate of a city-state—hundreds of thousands of lives—and he was complaining about being tired.
Silence fell around the table.
"We should make a decision about what to do," Mainspring said. "As soon as possible."
Orion pushed himself back up and met the older mech's optics. "You're right," he said. "I apologize."
"To state the obvious," Prowl said. "We're not prepared for an attack."
"No," Orion said. "How many soldiers do we have?"
"The latest count is almost four thousand," Prowl said. "But even if we bring them all in next orn, they'll only have eight orns of training before the attack. A small, well-trained force can win, even when outnumbered, but our mecha won't be well-trained."
And some of them would offline.
Orion felt cold.
Earlier this orn, he had learned what it felt like to offline.
"Our army won't be able to stand against Megatron's," Prowl said. "Not after just nine orns of training."
"Then what do we do?" Orion asked. "We can't let Megatron take the city."
"It's possible Tarn will be able to defend itself," Mainspring said. "After all, the only reason Megatron was able to take Kaon was because there were so many mecha on the inside ready to fight for him."
"If we warn them," Prowl said. "They should be able to muster enough of a militia to defend themselves, but a lot of them will offline."
"What if we warn them and then send our soldiers to support them?" Orion asked.
"That might be our best option," Prowl said.
"There are only two drawbacks I can see to that," Mainspring said. "The first is that to stand and fight against Megatron's army will lead to many casualties. The second is that from the report we received, Megatron has only told a few mecha about this plan. If we reveal that we know it, we risk jeopardizing our friend in Kaon's cover."
Orion looked down at the hexagonal pattern on the meeting table. Those were both good points. He didn't want to risk the lives of his mecha already, or the lives of civilians in Tarn, not to mention Jazz.
"Another thing," Prowl said. "We don't have groundbridges yet, and while Elita has managed to secure permission for operating them, it will take more than nine orns to build a station that's up to code."
"That is also true," Mainspring said.
"And we don't know exactly how large this attack is going to be," Prowl said. "It would be insane for Megatron to try and take the entire city-state. It's a forty-sector metropolis, with a population comparable to Polyhex. It's possible he's just testing the strength of his forces."
"But that doesn't mean we should sit back and let it happen," Orion said.
Prowl nodded.
"Honestly," Mainspring said. "We don't have enough information to make an informed decision."
"Maybe I can help with that," Mirage appeared off to the side of the room. Orion and Mainspring both jumped, but Prowl didn't react.
"What…" Mainspring said with disappointment evident in his voice. "Mirage…"
"This is my tower," Mirage pointed out. "And I know everything that goes on in it, thank you very much."
"I was wondering if you'd say anything," Prowl smirked.
Mirage glared at him. "You couldn't have known I was there."
Prowl's doorwings flicked forward. "Couldn't I?"
"I don't make any noise when my mod is activated. You couldn't have heard me."
"That's beside the point," Prowl said stiffly. "You were about to offer us your assistance?"
"Well…" Mirage said, looking unsettled. "Yes."
"Go on then."
"First off," Mirage said. "We can avoid blowing our friend in Kaon's cover with some clever strategy. If Megatron starts preparing his army for battle, he won't be able to hide that. So as soon as it looks like he's gearing up to attack, you should contact all of the city-states near Kaon and offer to help them make defense plans."
Prowl nodded. "That might work."
"So we wait?" Orion said. "And do our best to get ready, and then move as soon as Megatron does?"
Prowl nodded.
"Without letting him know that we know where he's going to attack."
"It won't be as good as warning Tarn right away," Prowl said. "But it might be less risky overall. I can try to calculate the odds, but not with much certainty since we don't have enough information on what Megatron intends to do."
Orion looked down.
"Mirage?" Mainspring said.
"Yes?"
"I'm not happy that you were here listening in on this meeting. You aren't cleared to know some of the things we've been discussing."
"What, that Jazz is in Kaon playing double-agent? I've known that for a long time. And if I wasn't trustworthy, I wouldn't have spoken up," Mirage crossed his arms. "I would have let you talk things out and then I would have taken that information to Megatron. You wouldn't have known I was here."
"Actually, we would have," Prowl said. "And you would be in some serious trouble the next time we saw you."
Mirage frowned.
"In any case," Mainspring said. "Since you already know about the attack on Tarn, I'm giving you an assignment."
"If I go to Kaon, I risk Soundwave—"
"I don't want you in Kaon, I want you to go to Tarn and assess the situation there."
"I was going to offer to go," Mirage said. "You don't have to order me around like a common soldier."
Mainspring put a hand to his faceplate.
"I'll be back in an orn or two," Mirage said, and disappeared again.
They waited in silence for several astroseconds. The door opened and closed again and a few moments later, Prowl nodded.
"Well, there goes that secret," Mainspring said.
"Do you think we can trust him?" Prowl asked quietly.
"I'm not sure," Mainspring said. "I think so, but you can never be certain, not when it's so hard to tell where he is at any given time."
"I think we can trust him," Orion said. "Why is that a question? Is there some reason not to trust him?"
"You can't be too careful," Mainspring said with a sigh. "If you knew he was there, Prowl, why didn't you stop the meeting?"
"I wanted to see what he would do," Prowl said. "Honestly, if he's a traitor, we're done for. We're dependent on him for just about everything right now. I didn't want him to know I could tell he was there unless he proved he wasn't just spying on us."
"How did you know?" Orion asked.
Prowl shook his helm. "If I tell you, then I risk him figuring it out and doing something differently."
That was fair.
"So," Mainspring said. "Should we tell anyone else about this? There might be things we can do to get ready. Elita should probably know, and maybe Ironhide…"
"I think we can have a meeting early next orn and announce that we believe Megatron is going to attack somewhere soon," Orion said. "But we don't need to give them details. The less we profess to know about the situation, the less we risk exposing Jazz."
Mainspring and Prowl nodded.
"Was that all?" Orion asked.
"Yes," Prowl said.
"Then we'll reconvene when Mirage returns," Orion said.
They murmured their agreement, and then Orion led the way out of the room.
Ironhide walked with Orion down the hall in silence and Orion went back to his room and lay down on the berth.
But he was too troubled to recharge. It didn't feel like this should be happening yet. It was too soon for Megatron to be attacking somewhere. Could Orion really defend a city-state? Was Mirage's plan really worth it, just to keep Jazz's cover? What if that made things worse in the long run? What if they tried to defend Tarn, but everything went wrong and all of the mecha who'd enlisted into his army offlined? He wished there was some sort of easy answer—something that would make it so no one needed to put their lives in danger.
But he couldn't think of one.
Notes:
1. There will be a spare parts chapter about what happened with Ratchet during training.
2. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!