Jazz followed the mech through the quiet streets of Praxus. He was alone, and appeared to be headed back home. It was a good time to break cover, but Jazz wasn't sure if this mech would want to talk to him. He might just run off, and Jazz didn't want to have to chase him. He didn't want to go too close to where the telepath was staying, and he didn't want to risk losing track of Wheeljack again either. He wasn't sure whether Blaster knew they were being watched, but Jazz wanted to keep his distance as much as possible just in case.

Wheeljack turned down another empty alleyway and Jazz crept after him. This city was a strange place. Even the dark alleyways were relatively clean and well-kept. It had its own problems, of course—every place had its own problems—but on the surface it was probably the nicest city on Cybertron.

The mech Jazz was following stopped and pulled a knife out of subspace. "Who's there?" he asked.

No point in hiding, since Jazz wanted to talk to him anyway. He stepped out into the open. "Just me, mech."

Wheeljack spun. "Jazz," he growled. "What do you want? I told you already I'm not going to join the Decepticons."

"Mech, I ain't a Decepticon," Jazz said, tapping the Autobot insignia on his chestplate. "And I'm sorry about last time. I was actually real glad when ya turned me down."

Wheeljack glared at him. "What do you want?"

"Just ta talk," Jazz said. "Got some news, though I don't want ya ta go get yourself killed over it, all right?"

Wheeljack's grip tightened on the knife. "How did you find me?"

So they didn't know Jazz was watching Blaster. Or, at least, Wheeljack didn't. "Doesn't matter," he said. "I thought ya'd wanna hear about this so I came and found ya."

The other mech seemed to relax a little, though he didn't put the knife away. "Alright. What is it?"

"The Decepticons found the Institute."

Wheeljack stiffened, and his expression darkened. "So… it's gone?"

"Pretty sure they didn't destroy it," Jazz said. "They might have discontinued it, at least, so that's something. We don't have a clue where Neurosis is. But Megatron didn't kill the mecha who were in there, he's got them all working for him now, including Shockwave."

Jazz waited. Slowly, Wheeljack looked down. "Shockwave's working for Megatron," he deadpanned.

"Yes."

"Doing what?"

"We showed his notes ta Perceptor, who seems ta think he's trying ta finish your spark energy research," Jazz got out a datapad. "Mirage is the one who was reading over Shockwave's shoulder and he didn't really understand what he was looking at, but he remembered enough of it to write it down afterward." He held out the datapad and Wheeljack hesitantly lowered his knife and reached out with his free hand for it. Jazz stood and waited as he read.

Breems went by. Wheeljack scrolled down, still holding the knife in one hand. His expression was unreadable.

When he was finished, he handed it back.

"We were wondering if ya could help us figure it out." Jazz said. "Cuz if we know what he's trying ta do, we might be able to stop him."

"He's stuck," Wheeljack said. "He only helped me with the beginning of the project. He doesn't have a way to safely collect the spark energy. He'll figure it out, though, given time."

Jazz nodded. "Ya know… if ya're willing, we could use—"

"No," Wheeljack said. "I don't know what you're asking me to do, but the answer is no. I'm not a scientist like I used to be, and I wouldn't give you my spark energy research any more than I'd give it to the Council."

"Okay, okay," Jazz said. "Just answer me this. If he figures out your research, what'll happen?"

"Hopefully, we won't ever find out," Wheeljack said, and turned away.

"Ya said he'd figure it out eventually."

Wheeljack hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder. "If he lives long enough."

"Don't go try and offline him," Jazz said.

Wheeljack was silent.

"Mech, ya won't reach him. Their base is well-protected, and Soundwave's there. Ya know he's a telepath, right? He'll know ya're there."

"I'll find a way," Wheeljack said. "Thank you for the information."

"Ya won't be able to kill Shockwave if ya get caught first." Jazz said. "There are better ways—"

"So you're an Autobot now, right?" Wheeljack turned around to face him. "You know you're not going to win this war. It's not possible. Not with everything stacked against you like it is."

"I'm not asking ya ta join the Autobots, and I don't care what side ya think will win or lose," Jazz said. "I just wanna know what we should expect if Shockwave finishes this research. The Council wanted ya ta build weapons, right? What kinda weapons are we talking about?"

Wheeljack was silent. Then he sighed. "Spark energy weapons are dangerous and difficult to produce. You could make guns that kill every time, but you'd have to upgrade all of your soldiers to shield them so that the guns wouldn't damage them too. The Council could have done it, but I don't think the Decepticons have the infrastructure. They could make some nasty explosives, though—bombs that leave structures intact, but kill all the mecha in their range."

That didn't sound good.

"I think the real worry, though," Wheeljack continued. "Isn't the weapons he'll make for the Decepticons."

Jazz waited, but Wheeljack turned around and started walking away again.

Jazz jogged to catch up with him. "What's that supposed ta mean."

Wheeljack sighed. "If I thought I'd just be making guns and bombs for the Council, I might have considered it. But… my research would have made other things possible too. Using spark energy, you can give mecha mods and upgrades that would normally offline them. You can make the mecha themselves into powerful weapons."

That really didn't sound good.

"So if you'll excuse me," Wheeljack said. "I've got to go visit an old friend before he gets that far in his experiments."

"Ya're just gonna get caught and offlined," Jazz said. "Play it smarter than that. I want him gone as much as you do."

"No you don't understand," Wheeljack rounded on him. "I can't sit around and wait. It was his last wish, his dying prayer, and I think it must be what kept him fighting the shadowplay for so long. I can't let him do what I know he's capable of. Primus kept me alive for some reason and I have to believe this is it." He transformed and drove away.

"Wait!" Jazz said, jogging after him, but Wheeljack sped up, racing down the alleyway.

Jazz was about to transform and give chase, but there was a ping on his comm. and when he checked, it was Red Alert trying to contact him.

Hooray.

Jazz sighed and answered it.

"Jazz!" Red Alert's voice shouted in his audios. "The mech in your department—Makeshift—did he have some sort of mod, like a hologram or something?"

That was a strange question. "Uh… no? Not that I know of."

"He impersonated Mainspring somehow! He lured Mainspring and Prowl into your office to kill them! I told you I needed cameras in there! I told you! But no, you had to have your privacy!"

"What?" Jazz demanded.

"Did you not hear me? He's a traitor! He lured them into your office and attacked them!"

Jazz's spark sank. "Makeshift… Frag I…"

"I need to see what happened. You said you still have your own cameras there, right? How do I access the feed from those? Please tell me you record what happens in there."

"Are Mainspring and Prowl all right?"

The hesitation at the other end of the line seemed to take eternity. "Well, I think Mainspring's just unconscious. I don't know about Prowl. Ratchet's not answering his comm."

Jazz took in a deep vent and let it out slowly. At least Mainspring was okay, but if Prowl was dead, the war was effectively over.

"I told you! I told you all something would happen while Optimus was gone, but did you listen to me? No! And now we have this great big mess…"

"Did ya catch Makeshift?"

"No, we didn't!" Red Alert said. "He disappeared!"

"How did he manage ta get them both in my office?"

"Well, maybe if I could see the camera feed from your office I might be able to tell you! All I know is Makeshift and Mainspring went in there, and Mainspring came out by himself and went to get Prowl, and Prowl went with him back into the office, and then Mainspring came running out after attacking Prowl, but it wasn't Mainspring, because Mainspring was still in your office the whole time, unconscious, so it must have been Makeshift, but we won't know for sure because he got away!"

"What!" Jazz said, then transformed and started driving. He needed to get to the groundbridge station so he could get back to Iacon. "Okay, run that by me one more time. I haven't got a fragging clue what ya just said."

"Just get back here!"

"I'm coming."

Ratchet hadn't lost a patient yet, and he couldn't lose one now. He forced himself to be calm, to focus. Prowl was hooked up to every kind of spark support machine Ratchet had. The blade had dug deep enough into his spark chamber to be very, very fatal. If the assassin had pulled the knife out, or if it had taken half a breem longer to get Prowl to Ratchet's office, the Praxian would be offline right now.

As it was, he was barely clinging to life.

There wasn't much you could do to repair a spark chamber. They were so sensitive that the best practice was almost always to put the mech or femme on bedrest for a couple of decaorns, and let their self repair systems handle things.

But he didn't have that luxury. He had carefully cut away most of the blade, but there was still a piece embedded deep in Prowl's spark chamber. If he pulled it out, Prowl could offline instantly, but if he didn't pull it out, the mech would certainly offline within the next breem or so. Prowl would also certainly offline if there was a hole in his spark chamber, so Ratchet needed to patch it with something. He couldn't weld temp plating onto the spark chamber directly without damaging it further, but he had to do something quickly. He wished he had better tools, or someone who knew more about spark chamber surgery.

But he didn't.

He had to patch the wound with something. Temp plating wouldn't work. Even if you didn't have to weld it, foreign material in contact with the spark could cause spark failure.

Ratchet didn't have time to figure out some sort of nice, neat solution. He took a deep vent and reached into the wound with a scalpel. Carefully, cautiously, he scraped away a strip of metal from the outside of Prowl's spark chamber, trying to make it as small as possible, but still large enough he could use it to cover the wound. Cutting into the spark chamber went against everything he'd been taught, but he was careful to take the bare minimum of what he needed to patch the wound, and to avoid nicking any energon lines.

Then, once he'd cut off the piece he needed, he reached in with pliers and eased the end of the blade out. Fresh energon leaked from the wound, along with wisps of spark energy. Ratchet dropped the blade tip and reached in with the strip of outer spark chamber as Prowl's spark went critical again.

He pressed the spark chamber material over the hole as spark energy licked his fingers, leaking out of the wound profusely. Machines beeped insistently as Prowl's spark flickered and dimmed.

"No," Ratchet muttered, pressing firmly, sealing the hole off as well as he could. "No, don't you dare…" he could see the weakening glow of Prowl's spark, but he couldn't move. If he took pressure off of his improvised patch there was no way Prowl would make it.

Ratchet hadn't lost a patient yet.

He couldn't.

He couldn't do anything. He couldn't move, or look at the monitors. He didn't dare vent as he listened to the panicking spark support machines, bracing himself for the longer, deeper tone that would mean Prowl's spark had imploded and he was offline.

It didn't come.

Ratchet held perfectly still for more than a breem with his vents off and his engine on low so that his hands wouldn't shake at all.

And then the monitors quieted, angry alarm warnings fading back to the steady beeping that indicated a stable spark.

After another breem, he dared to move one hand, and then, as gently and carefully as he could, he welded the strip of spark chamber over the hole, sealing it shut. There were a few more close calls, and by the time he was done, Prowl's spark pulse was so weak as to be nearly nonexistent.

But he was online.

Ratchet backed away and sat on the other berth, shaking with relief. He looked down at his energon-streaked hands. He hadn't lost a patient yet. He wouldn't lose one this orn either.

"Are you all right?"

Elita looked up from the datapad she was reading and tilted her helm to the side. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I thought…" Orion sat down in the chair next to her. Their apartment was small and cozy and perfect. Much nicer than the one he'd lived in before they were bonded. "I thought I felt something earlier this orn. Like you were upset for some reason."

"You mean, through the bond?" Elita said. "I guess… it wasn't a particularly amazing orn at work, but nothing significantly upsetting happened."

"Hmm…" Orion said. He had been almost certain. It had been strange though—simultaneously weaker and stronger than the bond normally felt. And it had faded quickly. "Maybe I just imagined it. It was like… like an echo of something."

Elita frowned. "Hmm… I don't think anything upsetting happened at work. Are you all right? You've seemed distracted lately."

It was hard to put words to it. "I don't know. I should be fine. There's just… nothing wrong with my life. Everything's perfect."

Elita raised an optic ridge. "And that's bad because…?"

"I just get this feeling like it's all too good to be true."

Elita set her datapad to the side, looking thoughtful. "I guess I can see where you're coming from," she said. "But I don't think it's wrong to fully appreciate the good times. Hard times will come back, I'm sure."

Orion nodded "I suppose so."

She put her hand on his, smiling. "You worry too much."

He knew she had a point. Orion had the Hall of Records, and Elita, and his friends, and things were looking up in the world. There was peace and hope and a wide selection of interesting books to read, and that was all he needed. That was all he'd ever wanted. Why should he feel like he was missing something? Besides, the good times never lasted long enough. He'd hold onto this while everything was still perfect.

The entry request chimed and Blaster stretched his range out to see who it was.

…right that this is dangerous, but I have to. I have to find him and kill him—it's what he would have wanted.

Wheeljack. Wheeljack with bad news.

Blaster nodded to Keepsake, who opened the door and let the mech in. Breeze looked up from the datapad she was reading. "Good orn, Jackie. How are you?" He does not look all right. What happened?

"You should leave," Wheeljack said.

"Leave?" Keepsake was alarmed. "Why? What happened?" Are we in danger? Is Blaster in danger?

I have to find him and I have to kill him before it's too late.

Blaster jerked his range in when Wheeljack started thinking about the Institute, but he had already figured out what was going on. Wheeljack's friend—the one who'd been in the Institute—was in Kaon now, and Wheeljack was going to go find him.

"Wheeljack?" Breeze said. "What happened?" He's all worked up about something.

Curiosity overcame Blaster's desire to avoid listening to thoughts about the Institute, and so he extended his range again.

"The Autobots know where you are and if things go badly, the Decepticons might find out soon, so I suggest you get out of here. All of you. You can stay in the city if you want—in fact, this is one of the safer cities…" I'll have to make sure they don't tell me where they're going. If I get caught, I don't want to be able to tell the Decepticons.

"Maybe you shouldn't go then," Blaster said quietly.

Wheeljack shot him a sharp glare. "Stay out of my helm, mechling."

"What's going on?" Breeze said.

Cam came in from the other room. "What's happening?" he asked. "Did you say something about the Autobots knowing where we are?"

"Yeah," Wheeljack said. "So you're going to move. But you're not going to tell me where you're moving to, because I'm not coming."

"Where are you going?" Breeze said.

Wheeljack looked at her. I can't tell her. She'll try to talk me out of it. And I don't want you to tell her either, Blaster. There's no stopping me and you'll only upset them all.

Blaster frowned. "No," he said. "Last time you… you got innocent mecha offlined."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Wheeljack snarled, then turned to talk to Breeze again. "I'll hang around and make sure you aren't followed." I'll bet Jazz has spies around here. I can find them and take care of them…

"What are we talking about?" Keepsake said. Who offlined? I'm so confused.

"Bye," Wheeljack said and walked back toward the door, but Breeze jumped up and beat him there.

"No you don't," she said. "Not until you tell me what's going on," I haven't seen him like this for a long time. He's jumpy, argumentative…"You're angry. And that's good. It's better than not feeling anything, but please calm down so we can talk this out."

Wheeljack glared at her, and then suddenly all of his anger was gone, like a switch had been thrown. He took a step back, feeling panicked instead.

"Jackie," Breeze said. "Please calm down."

He started thinking about the Institute again, and Blaster flinched and pulled his range back in. Keepsake came over and put a hand on Blaster's shoulder, while Cam moved to stand between them and Wheeljack.

Wheeljack's back was to them, and with Blaster's range so small, he couldn't see Wheeljack's expression through Breeze's optics.

"I have to go," Wheeljack sounded sorrowful now. "Jazz showed up and talked to me. He told me the Decepticons have Shockwave. I have to go kill him."

"No," Breeze said. "You're not thinking—"

"I'm thinking fine."

Wheeljack's voice was emotionless now.

Breeze shuttered her optics. "You can't," she said. "You can't go and kill your friend, even if it's not really him anymore—even if it's what he would have wanted. It is wrong. What happened to him is not your fault, and it is not your responsibility to correct it. Remember what you did before, when you were trying to hunt him down?"

Wheeljack didn't answer.

"Do you remember?"

"I killed mecha," Wheeljack said "Innocent mecha. I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel anything right now."

"You have to be feeling something," Breeze said. "Or you wouldn't care about going after Shockwave."

Wheeljack looked down.

They waited. Blaster kept his range small, covering just Cam and Keepsake. Both of them were worried. Both of them were afraid for his safety, and Breeze's safety. Wheeljack hadn't been like this for a long time. He'd been a lot worse when Breeze's friends had first found him. Blaster remembered Breeze remembering it.

"I'm sorry," Wheeljack said it so quietly that Blaster could barely make out the words. Then he pushed past Breeze and walked out the door.

Breeze grabbed his arm, but he shook her off and ran outside.

Blaster expanded his range again as Wheeljack transformed and drove away.

"Is he going to be all right?" Keepsake asked.

Breeze shook her helm, leaning out the door to watch him go. This is not good. He's going to get himself offlined, I can't believe this…

"I guess we'd better get ready to leave," Cam said.

"It's okay that the Autobots know where we are," Blaster said. "I've listened to their spies sometimes. They don't mean us any harm. They just want to keep us safe."

Cam rounded on him. "You knew the Autobots know where we are?"

Blaster nodded. "Don't be mad at me," he said. "Please."

Cam deflated.

"Wheeljack mostly wants us to move because he's going to try and kill Shockwave," Blaster said. "And he doesn't want the Decepticons to find us if he gets caught."

Breeze shook her helm. Maybe I should go after him—try to stop him. We can't let him do that… Primus, I don't want him to offline too…

"Breeze?" Keepsake said.

She shook her helm. "I'm… I'll try to contact him and talk him out of it. In the meantime, yes, it might be good if we found somewhere else to stay."

Jazz tapped his fingers on the desk as they watched the video feed on his datapad. He tried to pretend that Red Alert standing so close behind him wasn't making him nervous, but he couldn't help it. Mainspring sat next to him. The older mech had come back online just a few breems before Jazz had returned to the tower. They still hadn't heard from Ratchet about Prowl, which also made Jazz nervous.

They'd confirmed that Makeshift had escaped. He'd climbed halfway down the tower and had then been rescued by a seeker.

On the screen, Mainspring and Makeshift came into the room.

"Now what exactly are you looking for?" the Mainspring on the screen asked, approaching the desk. "I hope we can find it in all this—"

Jazz watched as Makeshift attacked, slamming Mainspring into the wall. The younger mech bashed Mainspring's helm in, then zapped him with some sort of energon prod for several astroseconds. Jazz heard the real Mainspring sitting next to him flinch, but didn't look away from the screen. That hit to the helm looked like it had hurt. Mainspring was probably still in pain.

The Mainspring on the screen slid to the ground, unconscious. Makeshift stood over him for a moment. Then a dim light emanated from him, running up and down the unconscious mech at his pedes.

"Did he just scan him?" Red Alert asked.

Makeshift hunched forward, and Jazz's optics widened as he started to transform. The mech's frame rippled, shifting in a complex, almost grotesque way. It looked like he was turning inside out. Jazz heard a quiet gasp from the Mainspring sitting next to him.

"What is that?" Red Alert breathed, and Jazz leaned forward, away from the security mech. Would it kill him to back up half a pace?

When the transformation finished, Makeshift looked just like Mainspring.

They watched as he dragged the unconscious mech around to hide him on the floor behind the desk, and then left the room.

"Well," Jazz said. "That explains that."

"What the pit!?" Red Alert said, finally backing away. "He just…. He just transformed into Mainspring!"

"Yep." Jazz leaned back and crossed his arms.

"A mechformer," Mainspring muttered.

"Do you know what this means!" Red Alert shrieked, pacing across the room. "It means we can't be sure of anything! He could be anyone! He could be anywhere! He might not even have been Makeshift! He might still be here, posing as someone else!"

"A mechformer," Mainspring repeated. "And a Decepticon… I thought I'd been careful… I checked his record."

"Hmm…" Jazz said. "Ya can fake records. They probably made sure his was clean before they sent him… he was a circus performer, right?"

"Are you not listening to me? We have to lock the whole base down until we can make sure everyone here is who they look like!"

Jazz turned around. "Mech, he ran for it. The seeker flew off with him. We caught that on camera. He's gone."

"You could just be saying that because you're him! How do we know he's not impersonating you? You weren't on base when this happened!"

"I think he needs ta scan someone first," Jazz said. "If he'd scanned me, why would he have pretended ta be Mainspring, not me, when he lured Prowl inta my office?"

"Speaking of which," Mainspring said, gesturing to the screen.

Makeshift and Prowl came through the door on the camera feed. The door closed behind them as soon as they'd stepped into the office.

Then Prowl turned to the side slightly and put his hand to his helm like he was receiving a comm. The motion left his back exposed and Makeshift didn't let the opportunity pass by. The three mechs in Red Alert's office all watched silently as Makeshift slammed a knife into Prowl's back, right between his doorwings.

Alarm sirens went off in the recording almost as soon as Prowl hit the ground. Makeshift fled the room, leaving his knife sticking out of the Praxian's back.

"Frag," Jazz said. "That looks like it went straight into his spark chamber… have we heard from Ratchet yet?"

On the datapad screen, a pool of energon started spreading under Prowl's frame.

"No," Mainspring said.

"Yeah." Jazz felt vaguely ill. "He's probably dead. Pit…"

They waited.

Half a breem later, on the screen, the door opened again and Ironhide and Ratchet came in with a couple of other guards.

"No!" Ratchet knelt by Prowl, scanned him, and stood up again quickly. "Get him to my office! Now! Now!"

One of the other mechs picked Prowl up and he and Ratchet left the room. Ironhide stepped over the pool of energon and turned so he was facing the camera. Then he frowned and walked around the desk, probably noticing Mainspring there.

Jazz looked down. If they'd lost Prowl…

Hesitantly, he commed Ratchet, but there was no response. They needed Orion. Orion was probably the only one who could safely go talk to the medic if Prowl was dead. Ratchet and an offline patient didn't sound like a safe thing to interrupt.

"We need to know if he's…" Mainspring trailed off. The slight tremble in his voice reminded Jazz that this mech had been an archivist before this, and wasn't accustomed to mecha he knew personally offlining.

He seemed to regain his composure quickly. "Jazz," he said again. "We need to know if Prowl's gone, because if he is, we have a lot of work to do."

"Right," Jazz stood. "All right." He picked up the datapad they'd been watching on. "I think that's all the action. Show's over. I'm gonna go brave the medic's lair. If I don't come back, Mainspring, I'm leaving it up ta you ta avenge me."

Mainspring rolled his optics and shook his helm, then winced. Yeah, he was still hurting.

Jazz left Red Alert's office and jogged down to Ratchet's. He hesitated, but figured knocking might not be very effective, so he just hacked the lock program on the door and it slid open.

Ratchet sat, staring at the still form of the Autobot tactician. For an instant, Jazz thought Prowl was dead, but when he looked at the displays on the medical equipment Ratchet had him hooked up to, he could see that the mech was still alive—if barely.

"Hey, look at that," he said. "He made it."

"How did you get in here?" Ratchet demanded.

"Ya shouldn't turn off your comm. and lock your door," Jazz said. "What if somemech else got hurt?" He activated his comm. "Hey, Mainspring."

Ratchet glared at him.

"Yes?"

"Good news. Prowl's not dead. Wanna come down here and talk ta Ratchet? Ya got hit pretty hard yourself."

"Did anyone else get hurt?" Ratchet asked.

"Okay, I'm coming."

"Uh, yeah," Jazz said. "Mainspring did."

"Isn't he the one who did this?" Ratchet gestured to Prowl.

"No," Jazz said. "It was Makeshift."

"Who the pit is that?"

"One of my mecha. Or, I guess he's not really, since he was a double agent. Kind of unfortunate."

"I thought Red Alert said…"

"It's complicated," Jazz said. "Ya want me ta explain or…"

"Just get out of here!"

"Sure thing." Jazz backed out the door. Mainspring came around the corner and Jazz passed him going the other direction. "Good luck," he said.

Mainspring rolled his optics.

Jazz headed to his office. He needed to change the passcode on the door, and start working on this mess. They were vulnerable with Prowl out of commission, and the 'Cons probably knew it. On top of that, everything that Makeshift knew, the Decepticons knew now. Jazz had sent the traitor on several recon missions to various cities. Fortunately, he hadn't ever sent him to watch over Blaster. Only three mechs besides Jazz and Optimus knew where Blaster was.

But Makeshift had been granted access to the tower a lot. If you were listening, you could hear plenty of important information that way.

Jazz got to his office.

Oh, yes, and there was a great big puddle of energon on the floor.

Jazz stepped over it. He'd clean it up later. Right now he had other things to worry about.

Mainspring couldn't recharge, and he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one.

They were all tense, on edge. It wasn't healthy at all, and being overworked would make them slower to react if something bad happened. The events of the orn ran through his helm again and again as he worked late into the off-cycle. Red Alert had been right. Somehow, they'd let a Decepticon spy slip into their ranks. And there could be more of them.

Mainspring knew that letting the stress overwhelm him would be counterproductive, but he wanted to re-check everyone's background, looking for danger signs. Makeshift had been from Kaon, but his circus troupe had traveled all over. Upon further investigation, now that Mainspring knew Makeshift was a mechformer, he'd found some criminal activity that could probably be linked to the infiltrator.

Of course, that mystery wasn't the most important thing to worry about right now. Right now, they needed to be preparing for a Decepticon attack. Megatron almost certainly knew that Optimus was away, and he probably thought that Prowl was dead.

They didn't have anyone who could replace Prowl, even temporarily, because the tactician hadn't done anything to build up his department. Mainspring had sent him a list of mecha who had either experience or talent with strategy, but it seemed Prowl hadn't contacted any of them. He'd been trying to run the whole department by himself.

Mainspring wasn't sure what to think about that. It seemed like a very foolish, risky thing. He understood that Prowl liked to do things himself—to be in control. The young mech also didn't seem very confident about his ability to work with other mecha. Furthermore, he'd been very busy, so something like putting together a tactical team had probably been easy to procrastinate.

But those were still not valid excuses, and at this point, it was too late.

Sometimes Mainspring questioned the wisdom of letting all of these mechlings run an army. Optimus, Prowl, Jazz, Red Alert, Ironhide, Ratchet, Mirage… He could see the potential in all of them, but they were still so young. Brilliant, talented, and noble, but also careless and inexperienced.

And Megatron, despite being very young himself, had already built up quite a bit of power and influence. He was allied with Quantum now, and he had acquired the Institute, and he had a telepath…

Would the Autobots really be able to defeat him?

Mainspring shuttered his optics. To a certain extent, it didn't matter. If the Autobots lost, then Mainspring would just lose with them. He'd picked his side, and he knew he'd picked the right one.

He forced his optics open again and looked down at the datapad he was reading. He was too tired for this. He needed to get some recharge. He checked his internal timepiece, and shut off his datapad. Just a few joors, and then he'd get back to work.

He had scarcely reached the door of his office when alarms went off and Red Alert's voice came over the PA.

"The Decepticons are attacking Tesarus! Everyone to the command center! The Decepticons are attacking Tesarus!"

Never mind.

Mainspring left his office and headed for the central room, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that they weren't going to win this one.