The Honor in Duty

Chapter 2

Just Fine

Hello everybody again! Call this what you will guys... This is either five days late or two days early depending on how you want to look at it, so I'm gonna declare it two days early, cause that makes me feel awesomer.

Also, I just want to take a moment to do some happy dances and pass out sugar cookies to everybody who read this. *passes out cookies* Because I kept all my readers! Yay! Hopefully with this story, I'll continue to see my favorite readers (which is all of you, by the way), and maybe even attract new readers to this series! By the way, if you're a new reader, please go back and read the prologue to this series, Ages Come and Ages Go, and most importantly, the prequel to this story, Duty and Deceit. Because otherwise, this will seem like a really random start to a story, and nothing will make any sense... So yes, definitely if you are new to my writings, please read Duty and Deceit before continuing in this one! Thank you!

Quick note and reminder: First of all, this chapter has more POV shifts than usual, but I think I managed to make it all flow together into a semblance of sense. And for my reminder, I've made quite an effort to make this clear, but it can be easy to forget: While Terabyte is on the Nemesis with the intent of bringing Orion Pax back to Primeyness, she still has Soundwave's implanted slave coding in her helm that means she is - for now - physically incapable of going against any direct order from Megatron. While she can sometimes stretch the interpretations of his orders, she is still very much not in total control of herself, so don't be surprised if she acts more Decepticonly than her 'cover' would normally require. I will continue to strive towards making it clear when she is and is not acting of her own free will though.

Review Responses: To AllSpark Princess: Hello, and welcome to the Honor in Duty! Thank you so much for reviewing, it makes my day every time! And yes, never fear, Terabyte always has a plan and a reason, except when she doesn't... Ha. Anyway, kudos for trusting in Terabyte - she and Skyquake both thank you too - and I have no plans on stopping this story any time soon - as you can see on my profile - so enjoy!

To GoldenEagle13: Thank you so much for your generous review! I really do try to keep my writing style consistent in each story and somewhat tuned to each character's point of view, which can be really hard... So it makes me really happy to hear that I've been successful! Now, I won't give away spoilers, but I can assure you, this story in the series of Terabyte's life will most definitely be exciting, and hopefully I'll have some nice little surprises to spice things up too... *rubs hands together in anticipatory glee, giggling maniacally*.

To redlinevcr: As always, thank you for reviewing! Your input really does keep me going. Glad you enjoyed the last chapter, and here's another feels'n'angst packed chapter for you to read and enjoy! All aboard the feels train!

She lifted her helm groggily, groaning as the action sent a spike of pain through the side of her face. Her finial tingled numbly as the sensory nerves realigned themselves and came the rest of the way online. The tired femme ran a hand over her mask and cycled a deep vent through her systems, forcing herself to sit up.

Datapads littered her terminal, which flickered in the dim light of her workstation. A few empty Energon cubes were stacked on top of each other in a lopsided pile, and she had several notifications flashing on her terminal informing her that she needed to meet Soundwave in his office in…

The femme snarled and bolted out of her chair, slamming it back against the terminal with more force than was necessary. An empty cube fell off the desk and shattered on the ground, but she didn't have time to clean it up just then. Growling in an inarticulate expression of her aggravation, she stormed out of her office and crashed right into the mech standing just outside her door.

"Dreadwing, I don't care what Skyquake made you promise, I don't want to see so much as a nanite-" She cut herself off and looked down at the just-barely-salvaged cube of Energon in the Vehicon's hands. Sighing heavily, she inclined her helm apologetically, "Good cycle Voltage, I'm sorry. Thank you as always for the fuel, but I need to get to Commander Soundwave's office. Go ahead and set it down with the rest in my office, I will get it when I return."

As she continued on her way to her commander's office, the femme couldn't help but smile appreciatively at the Vehicon's faithfulness to bring her rations. Though, she was somewhat puzzled as to how the mech was now in Kolkular, when she'd left him and the rest of his Comms and Intel unit at Kaon. Shrugging it off for the time being, her frame straightened, flared, and stiffened habitually as she entered the CI head's office.

"You summoned, Commander?"

The lean purple gladiator waved a hand and she sat down as requested. He tilted his helm at her in his ever silent way. Today however, she feigned lack of understanding and gave no response or acknowledgement of the query. She was fine. She hadn't actually been to her quarters since she was stationed here, so she didn't even know if she had any, but that was fine.

She hadn't actually been to the mess hall since her tour of the citadel, but that was fine too. After all, Voltage brought her fuel regularly enough to keep her tanks at a satisfactory forty percent. Her processors ached constantly from not recharging well enough to get a good defrag, and she'd dropped in work efficiency by twenty percent, but she was still performing her duties to 110%.

Everything was just fine.

"Negative." Soundwave replied via voice records to the statement she wasn't aware she had voiced.

"With all due respect sir, I am fine. I have not failed in my duties, and last I checked I was performing all of said duties well above and beyond their extent. If you have summoned me in regards to my current work habits, I dare say that's none of your business. Sir." She snarled back obstinately, her tone bordering on disrespectful, a sharp contrast from her usual that even she couldn't deny.

The Prussian blue two-wheeler turned her gaze to her lap, watching her biolights flicker wearily. She could feel Soundwave watching her with that ever stoic, blank visor of his.

Several klicks passed in silence, and she wondered that she hadn't been reprimanded in the slightest for her disrespect. Finally she spoke again, once she could trust herself to show the proper stability and cool, calculating demeanor she was known for.

"My apologies, Commander Soundwave, sir. You are correct. With your permission, I would like to take a rotation's leave of duty, sir."

He responded in a recording of Knockout, unreadable as ever, "Take five."

She was slightly early. Maybe she could stop by the lab and take a light morning refuel with Orion first. But if she were to do that, she would be slightly late, which was not her intent. Of course, she'd owed the Decepticons nothing, she wasn't one of them anymore and this wasn't like the good old days.

It was something she found she needed to remind herself of far more frequently than she would have liked. That this was not who she was anymore. That all of this peace, this familiarity, this contentedness she felt as she allowed herself to slip back into her old routine, this was not what the Decepticons were really like. This was a ship-wide façade of decentness for the sake of Orion Pax; the reassuring calm and friendliness was all set up under a death threat from Megatron himself.

All of these facts were a lot easier for the two-wheeler to keep in mind just now, given why she was standing outside of Knockout's med-bay with a trembling frame disguised by stiffly flared armor.

"Spiders!" The door in front of her swished open and Knockout stepped through in an angered rush, almost crashing into her in the process. His disgusted scowl quickly morphed to an anticipatory grin that would have unnerved any mech in their right mind. "Ah, Lieutenant Commander Terabyte. How good to see you. Here for your appointment, I presume?"

Nodding an affirmative, the darkly colored femme followed the medic into his domain, her scarlet biolights casting their eerie glow in the dim. A large red-faced, one-opticked, cobalt mech emerged from the back of the medical bay, several tools in hand. She inclined her helm to the medic's assistant and likely only friend.

"Breakdown." Terabyte said in acknowledgement, noting the metal patch over where MECH had taken his right optic several months ago. "It is good to see you… mostly intact after your run-in with the humans."

He simply growled at her in return, his lip peeling up in a sneer as he handed Knockout the tools that were no doubt to be for the coming procedures. Nothing too horribly menacing there, just a few magnetic styluses of varying size and strength, a welder, and some life-En extraction units. That gave her little peace of mind however, knowing that the red medic was well-equipped with far more dangerous tools on his person.

"Now that we've had our exchange of… pleasantries," Knockout drawled, "Shall we get started?"

Now it was Terabyte's turn to sneer, though her mask hid it from view. "I do not really have a choice in the matter, now do I?"

The medic laughed, leading her to a medical berth and getting her situated, "No, not particularly. I assume Lord Megatron filled you in on the details of this little procedure?"

Muffling the growl of her engine, the femme nodded again, giving a summary for confirmation, "He wishes to develop a way to artificially replicate my deceased mentor's shape-shifting abilities, and I am the best and only candidate for such experimentation due to the fact that I am the only remaining source of Makeshift's CNA as a result of previous failed experiments to the same end."

"Quite." He agreed, still grinning in that maliciously eager way. He picked up the vials of sedatives and anesthetics and regarded them thoughtfully for a moment, "Breakdown, I don't think we'll be needing these today."

Terabyte vented quietly, laying down on the berth at the Decepticon medic's request, biting back a hiss as too late she felt the restraints locking her into place. Her processors ached at the very thought of resistance and she knew she could do nothing to fight. For Orion's sake, she could not resist, and even with that aside, the slave code would not allow it.

Her spark pulse sped up as the medic pulled out his electric hand-saw and fired it up with the familiar whine of a medical tool whose efficiency she knew all too well.

"Don't worry, Terabyte," He crooned, his smirk remaining firmly in place, "This won't hurt… much."

Omega Outpost One. Two Rotations Ago.

At last exhausted of thinking up all the things that could have gone wrong in their mission to Unicron, he had determined to trust that Terabyte could take care of herself. Whatever had happened, no one had yet come to see them, so in spite of his determination to not worry, Skyquake was quite understandably unconscionably worried.

Across the cell from him, Cliffjumper wasn't doing much better – Arcee had gone on that mission too after all. For the moment, the red mech was laying on his front on the floor, idly kicking his feet through the air, pretending to be deeply engrossed in the datapad in front of him. Skyquake saw no reason to point out to the mech that he realized the datapad wasn't even activated.

They heard the ground bridge open for a second time about an hour ago, signifying the team's return from the mission. No one had let them know how the mission had gone.

Skyquake stopped what he was doing for a moment where he was standing on his hands, balancing against the wall as he listened intently to the complete silence outside their cell.

Pushing himself up one last time and getting to his pedes, Skyquake turned up his audials, wishing he had Terabyte's extensive audial range granted by her finials. In any case, the sound he'd heard was in fact pedefalls. They probably belonged to a light-weight bot, but every step had a heaviness to it that made Skyquake's spark sink.

His armor shifted slightly and his shoulders fell. Sweeping gray optic ridges drew together in an anxious frown before he forced them down to a full scowl. As the pedefalls approached, the green jet realized that there were others following the first set, probably four or five. That was somewhat positive. Maybe the light-weight ones were Terabyte.

He silenced the hope, knowing her steps well enough to know that she was not with them. Cliffjumper at least would be getting some good news.

"We're about to have visitors." The jet said aloud, not really necessarily speaking to anyone in particular.

"Maybe they'll have fuel." Cliffjumper teased half-sparkedly, even he unable to maintain a light mood.

Arcee stepped around the corner and opened the cell, her armor slack and her movements as though she were carrying the world on her shoulders. She walked straight over to where the red warrior had sat up on the floor and set herself down beside him, not even making a noise when the mech wrapped an arm around her.

Dried coolant streaked the femme's face, sending another strong jolt of fear through the mech's spark. If whatever had happened was bad enough to make Arcee cry…

Bulkhead and Bumblebee came in next, each sitting down on one of the empty berths in the cell. Ratchet and Jetfire followed them in with Jack, Raf, and Miko. The scientist and medic sat down as well, Ratchet wrapping an arm around Bumblebee who looked uncomfortably close to tears.

"We've not lost him yet, Bee." The old medic reassured him quietly as the children sat down on the floor beside where Skyquake now stood, very confused and very, very troubled.

When none of them seemed too eager to explain what happened, the green jet's engine gave a low rumble, not quite covering the whine of fear. When the whole Autobot army is on the verge of tears after as many decavorns of war as they'd all been through… He had good reason to be apprehensive. "What happened? Where is Terabyte?"

"She and O-Optimus…" Bumblebee started before letting out a keen and burying his helm in Ratchet's shoulder, reminding Skyquake that the yellow scout was only a decavorn or two older than Terabyte.

Jetfire cleared his throat and began to calmly recount the mission as he'd received it second-hand. "Terabyte, Optimus, and Megatron went into Unicron's spark chamber, leaving the rest of the team on guard. The mission was a success: the power of the Matrix destroyed the Chaos Bringer's dark spark. However, after the fact Optimus Prime seems to have lost his memories, and he, Terabyte, and Megatron took a ground bridge to the Nemesis."

Skyquake glared at the white scientist, not believing his story for an astrosecond. He growled, "Terabyte would not have betrayed us."

"It wouldn't be the first time." Bulkhead countered, his tone harsh and accusatory. The green ex-Con snarled, his servos twitching as he contemplated drawing his machine gun.

"She would not have betrayed us." He repeated emphatically, his armor flaring in anger. The Pit-fighter's posture changed and he allowed himself to stand to his full size, anger glowing dangerously in his ruby optics.

"No one's saying she did." Cliffjumper said firmly, glaring Bulkhead and eyeing Skyquake carefully. "We don't know why she went with Megatron, and until we do, we are going to assume that she did not go of her own free will. Even if she did, I'm sure she has a very good reason for doing so."

The red mech met his optics and jerked his chin towards Skyquake's hand where his machine gun had come out of subspace, Cliffjumper's tone was final, "Put down the weapon and sit down, Skyquake."

Skyquake stood down subspaced the gun and sat down hard on the floor, wresting a yelp from a startled Miko. Cliffjumper watched him with understanding sky blue optics. "We'll get her back, Sky… We'll get them both back."

Miko crawled over him and perched on his shoulder, rubbing it consolingly. Soon after, Raf scrambled up and somehow nestled himself on Skyquake's chest, right on top of his pulsing spark and looked up at him with wide, worried brown eyes. He put one large hand gently over the spiky-haired youngling that Terabyte had taken such a liking to.

To his surprise, even Jack came up and sat in his lap, saying quietly, "They'll be alright. Both of them. Optimus and Terabyte will make sure of it."

Present. Omega Outpost One.

Optimus was gone. He was on the Nemesis with Megatron and the Decepticons and Terabyte, who may or may not have betrayed them all. Arcee was almost never at base anymore, always driving solo missions and patrols. When she was home, she usually refueled then got into a fight with someone and went on another patrol.

They had let Skyquake and Cliffjumper out of the brig and put their punishments on hold pretty much until they figured out what to do about Prime and Terabyte. The Decepticons had been pretty quiet since the Unicron thing, but Bumblebee had a feeling it wouldn't last. Even so, they were all glad for the two warrior-class mechs, because they still had a lot to deal with in the aftermath of the Earth being nearly torn apart.

Human environmentalists were putting the chaos to 'the wrath of Mother Nature' and pushing harder than ever for their reforms, but the government claimed it was a hush-hush mining experiment gone haywire. For the most part the cover stories were holding strong.

Ratchet had holed himself up in his facilities and hadn't come out much. Whenever he needed something, Jetfire would come out to get it, give everyone a brief update, then return to assist the medic. In short, morale was lower than the yellow scout had ever seen it. Not that that was surprising, what with their leader gone.

Bumblebee blasted at the target again, letting out a whirl of frustrated beeping as he missed by about a foot. Throwing the training rifle across the room, the yellow scout stormed back to his quarters. He curled up on his berth and soon after fell into an emotionally exhausted recharge.

/Cliffjumper, report to the med-bay./

The red mech growled, dropping the crate he was transporting with a huff, /Ratchet, now is not an awesome time for a checkup. I'll check in later, maybe when you and Arcee decide we're actually gonna do something about the fact that our friends are in Decepticon hands!/

Static buzzed in his helm for a few klicks before Ratchet replied tersely, /Just get your aft in here before I decide to bring it in myself./

Cliffjumper took in a deep vent and grinned at Agent Fowler's glowering expression, tuning out the man's angry rant about fragile equipment and useless alien robots. The friendly grin had more of a 'I'm gonna rip your squishy head off if you call me a robot one more time' feel to it, but the red warrior didn't care to alter it.

"Sorry, Fowl. Hate to ditch on you, but what can I say? Doc's orders."

Not bothering to stick around to hear the newest spiel of distaste from the oh-so-cheery agent, he transformed and shot off into the ground bridge provided with a loud roar of his engines, his tires kicking up a massive dust cloud behind him.

He flipped up into bot mode and sauntered into the med-bay as ordered, playing up his mood even more than normal. "He-lloo, doc-bot! You rang?"

He flung himself onto a medical berth and reclined on it with his back propped on the wall, kicking out his pedes in a relaxed manner, sighing in exaggerated relief. "So, what've I got? A check-up? A processor scan? Annual spark check and personality slash sanity test? If that's the case, you already know that I'll put down somethin' like my favorite color's forty-two and – oh by the way, did I tell you I like bananas? – and then the sanity test will tell you I'm completely off my rocker. At which point you'll try to take my helm off with a wrench for not taking you seriously enough."

Ratchet just looked at him, in such a way that Cliffjumper almost felt bad about it. His guilt was overridden by the instinct to survive. This was how he coped, so in a way, he was respecting his medic by doing all in his power to remain sane.

"Cliffjumper…" The red and white medic sighed, sounding like he'd been to the Well and back in the last two days. "I have something to ask you."

He raised an optic ridge, straightening up on the berth just slightly, "Yeah? Shoot."

"Well, Jetfire and I have been working with Blitzwing's corpse, as you know…" Ratchet trailed off for a klick, before taking a deep vent and continuing. "Before we bury him, I… well, Jetfire and I believe we can salvage enough parts from him to replace your pede… Properly."

Cliffjumper's outward expression didn't change, but his frame stiffened notably, his spark stopping in its chamber before giving an excited flutter which he quickly stilled. To not have spikes of pain up his side with every step he took, to feel his pede again, to walk normally, without an oblong, unshapely wreck of this excuse for a limb. He should have said yes in a sparkbeat.

But he didn't.

Instead, he cast a sidelong glance at the limb, which he'd painted as much as he could to match the rest of him, though it was still primarily that shiny silver of free-standing gears and pistons, axle and tire. He flexed the strange foot that extended the same distance backwards and forwards with triangular layers.

The memory of Terabyte sneering down at him – her mask had been up, but he could see her sneer in her blood colored optics – right before she blew his pede to slag for the second time in as many weeks. Then Blitzwing's fading optics with the feel of his spark spluttering out in his hand.

Cliffjumper clenched his jaw briefly before grinning bitterly at the medic before grunting discontentedly and with some difficulty, letting his face-plates shift to a natural expression, which in this case was a cold, flat expression with clenched jaw and a faint scowl.

"No." His lips twitched up in a flash of a half-sparked smirk that quickly fled his face, his optics dark with guilt and pleading. He shifted the pede under both his and Ratchet's scrutiny, "This? I deserve this. And even if I didn't deserve this, he doesn't deserve to be melted down to scrap to become a pede for his killer. I won't do that to the mech. That's just… that's just wrong, Ratch."

Ratchet cocked his helm at him, raising an optic ridge and smirking like Cliffjumper had just passed some sort of a test. A part of the red mech's mind hummed smugly: the doc did have him in for a personality test. "You've changed a lot over the vorns, Cliffjumper, especially since Arcee and Terabyte, and even Skyquake. I'm proud of you, mech."

"Yeah. Most pride-worthy slag-heap you've met, I'm sure." He snorted, shrugging off the praise with a scornful wince before grinning again, leaping off the berth and dusting off his hands, his tone bright again, "So, that all you wanted me for, doc-bot? Cause I really need to make sure Jetbrain's not blown Fowler to Cybertron in my absence."

He paused before leaving the med-bay, "Oh and Ratch? I'm sure Prime and TB wouldn't mind a rescue op sometime in the next vorn. Y'know, before ole bucket-head accidentally tortures them to death?"

A Week Later

She raised her blaster and ran around the corner of the cement building, waving Bulkhead on. As the large olive Wrecker rounded the next building, she heard the clang of his wrecking ball on somebot's helm and darted after him with Bumblebee.

Firing after Knockout and Breakdown who were making off with the military satellite station's power-core, Arcee shouted, "Drop the power source!"

The red Decepticon turned around to sneer at her, his accented tone ever-so-polite, "Aren't you missing someone?"

The two-wheeler let out a rage-strangled snarl, forgetting her blasters completely and lunging at him with her forearm blades drawn. How dare he?! Casually bringing up their loss of Optimus as though they were old friends discussing a missing datapad.

"Ready for that bridge!" Breakdown hollered, right as the 'medic' swatted her aside with his electric spear.

Arcee moaned as she crawled to her pedes, her helm ringing from the electricity that had just been jolted through her. The Decepticon bridge opened with a flash and Knockout saluted to her jauntily, "We'll be sure to tell the Big O you said hello!"

"Arcee!" Bulkhead roared, but she ignored him and transformed, speeding after the medic and his assistant.

She hit a slab of rubble and soared through the bridge, landing hard on her wheels in the halls of the Nemesis. She transformed and leapt onto the first Vehicon she saw, slamming him into the wall with a blade in his shoulder.

"Where is Optimus?!" She shouted into his visored face, "Answer me!"

The mech didn't answer, but after a few seconds, his visor went dim as he no doubt received an internal comm-link. Moments later the trembling Vehicon fainted. The femme growled and dropped the mech, whirling around with an almost crazed look in her indigo optics. She locked optics on the bot across the hall from her and her face went slack before twisting into a snarl as she noticed the familiar red glow of the fusion cannon levelled on her spark.

"Terabyte." She hissed, raising her blasters. "I vouched for you."

The other femme's optics were wide and Terabyte reached out with one hand towards her, "Arcee! Wait- I don't have a choice! Tell Ratchet Orion Pax is-"

Whatever Terabyte was trying to say was cut off abruptly as Arcee charged, only to find herself suddenly freezing in the middle of the Arctic, firing blaster shots at a now rather indignant looking polar bear.

"Scrap."

Ratchet looked at her probingly, having already decided she wasn't going to collapse or glitch out. "You weren't able to determine the Decepticons' location, or if Optimus was even aboard ship?"

"…I couldn't confirm." Arcee muttered, rubbing a bit of snow off her arm, "Terabyte was onboard. With a Decepticon insignia. Said something about an Orion Pax."

The crash of something being pulverized rang through the base and both bots looked over to see Bulkhead hovering over a crushed spanner. Jetfire was staring at the Wrecker with his mouth agape.

"Bulkhead!" Ratchet complained loudly, only to be cut off by a furious olive Wrecker.

"What? You needed that?!" He roared, lobbing it at the wall to shatter into even smaller pieces. "Only thing I need is our head honcho back!"

Cliffjumper came out of the rec room where he'd been mindlessly playing video games with the kids. Arcee's spirits fell even more as she noted that he'd left off of the façade of cheer as he said quietly, "It wasn't your fault, 'Cee."

She levelled him with a challenging glare, cocking a skeptical optic ridge, "If any of us needed rescuing, Optimus would have found a way. I didn't. Simple as that."

Beside her, Bumblebee whirred in a reassuring, yet simultaneously depressed way.

"And Optimus was wrong about Terabyte." Arcee finished tonelessly, internally kicking herself for how betrayed and angry she felt. She should have known.

"We all were." Ratchet said softly, sounding the way she felt.

A low growl rumbled through the base, growing into an echoing clamor that shook her to her struts. Turning around, the blue and pink femme shuddered as the towering jet stomped in, his immense frame standing taller even than the Prime, reminding everyone present of how normally he purposely held himself in an unintimidating manner.

Now though, Arcee felt like a bug on the wall, about to be squashed by the gladiator jet. Her spark trembled in its chamber, and for the first time in vorns, she was reminded of what it felt like to be truly terrified in the face of certain annihilation. The mech radiated fury.

"She has not betrayed us!" Skyquake bellowed, storming straight towards her and Ratchet. "You dishonor her by such accusations! You dishonor us both!"

Her armor shrank close to her frame, and the Autobot two-wheeler rose and stepped back warily, the medic following her movements. "No offense, but the insignia on her waist and the cannon aimed at my spark made her intentions pretty clear."

His massive gray hand enveloped her abdomen as he picked her up like a doll, slamming her into the wall with a snarl. "I have known her from the joor she stepped into Decepticon ranks! SHE IS NO TRAITOR!"

Jetfire stepped in and laid a large white hand on Skyquake's chest, using his free hand to pry the jet's servos from around her waist. His rich tone was calm and soft, "You are correct, Skyquake. I believe Terabyte is a good femme, and she is an Autobot at her core and spark. She has not betrayed us. If she has warned us that Optimus Prime is now Orion Pax, then she understands the severity of the situation. I believe that we may trust her judgement, and in that trust, we should assume that she is doing all in her ability to help our Prime. This arguing and speculating accomplishes naught. The topic to be discussed is their rescue, not their loyalty, and to think otherwise is to be a fool."

Everyone in the room fell into silence.

"We are Autobots. We are bots of honor; seeking peace, equality, and freedom for all. We are more than our Prime, we are more than an army, we are a family. A family at war, but a family nonetheless. Our cause is not lost with our Prime and it should be our goal to ensure that he sees that when we do bring him, and Terabyte, home."

Arcee, now back on her pedes rubbing her sides, felt her frame deflate in guilt. What was wrong with them? Had they truly grown so used to the War and the routine of having a Prime that they needed a newcomer who had been in stasis for the whole entire course of the War to teach them how to be Autobots?

"Ratchet!" A familiar angry voice hollered from the terminal, instantly making the whole team grimace. "What happened out there? Reports indicate at least a dozen wounded! The hit's on me to provide some explanation." Fowler said in his accusing, demanding manner, "You bots better get your act together, or the Pentagon will make me shut down your base."

With that pleasant statement, the man closed the connection. Miko, who'd come over with the rest of the kids when everyone started yelling and Jetfire gave his speech, looked up at them all with worry in her eyes. "But where would you go?"

Ratchet, his expression hard and furious, threw up his hands in exasperation, "Who knows? Maybe they'll ship us out to some island, or fire us into space! Wouldn't that be a welcome relief."

"I don't blame Fowler." Arcee spoke up, surprising herself with those words. "Optimus would have evacuated all humans in the area before engaging the 'Cons."

Bulkhead glared at her, his tone hard, "We don't actually know what Optimus would have done because he's not here!"

"Way to go, Bulk!" Cliffjumper cheered sarcastically, bowing in mockery whilst clapping his hands in applause, "Hail, King of the Obvious! Anything else you'd like to add?"

"Nothing I can say in front of the kids." The Wrecker muttered darkly, clenching his fists tightly.

Jack stepped in at that, looking offended by their collective moods, "Hey, aren't we overlooking one positive? Nobody's talking about what the Cons just got their claws on."

She rolled her indigo optics at her charge. Great Jack. Just great.

"Oh yes," Ratchet drawled, sitting down with a huff on a box of cargo that had yet to be put in storage. "We managed to allow them to finally acquire a power source for their space bridge!"

"And that's good news how?" Bumblebee put in with another dejected string of bleeps.

"We let them finish their space bridge." Jack said, as though that was the most obvious good news he could come up with.

Arcee snorted, "Why, so they can bring more zombies from Cybertron?"

"No." The oldest human boy explained patiently, "So we can commandeer it. And send me to Cybertron."

Miko gaped at him for a moment from where she had sat down on the floor, leaning on the cargo box Arcee was sitting on. "Whoa. That's a pretty good idea."

In spite of her better judgement, the blue and pink warrior femme laughed humorlessly, throwing up a hand and shaking her helm at the absurdity, "Oh, well, if Miko thinks it's a good idea!"

For the first time that afternoon, Raf spoke up encouragingly, "Nobody's saying it will be easy, but you guys have seized a space bridge before!"

"You blew one up." Skyquake corrected dryly, still looking horribly scary in Arcee's opinion. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone ever in her life. While she was being brutally honest with herself, she had no idea how Terabyte could be so constantly at peace and more relaxed with him than any other when he was basically on of the scariest 'Cons she'd met short of Megatron.

"That's a whole lot different from seizing and holding one." Ratchet pointed out in agreement.

"None of which matters anyway, while we don't know where it is." Bee noted.

Miko looked at them all like they'd lost their processors, jumping to her feet so that her black and pink hair bounced. "He-llooo? It's a space bridge, isn't it?"

Jetfire laughed at the girl, in a condescending sort of 'discussing this new specimen in my lab, it's so fascinating' way. "The term 'space' does not refer to its physical location, 'Miko', but rather its transport range."

"And we've been monitoring Earth's orbit since the last one, we'd know if it were there." Arcee added, now picking at the peeling stickers on the top of the crate she was seated on.

"So the space bridge could be anywhere here on Earth?" Jack confirmed, his fleshy features twisting into a musing frown.

"Like trying to find a servo in a scrapyard." She replied, sounding awfully unenthusiastic even to herself.

"Or a warzone." The green ex-Con said from where he stood glaring out at nothing with his back to their group.

Miko, Raf, and Jack all shared a glance before looking up at them all expectantly, chorusing, "Then maybe we better start looking!"

Nemesis.

"Arcee! Wait- I don't have a choice! Tell Ratchet Orion Pax is-" Terabyte watched as, too late, Arcee disappeared through the bridge portal to who-knew-where. She snatched down her hand and straightened stiffly, feeling a familiar field brush up against her own.

"Tell Ratchet I am what, Terabyte?"

She repressed a keen as she received a warning ping from Soundwave, something that was happening more and more frequently as the amnesiac Prime asked more and more questions. She could feel the Matrix stirring in him, yet she knew that it would still be orns before he was Optimus Prime again. In the meantime, that made life rather difficult for her.

The small femme winced as he set his hand on her shoulder, sending shooting pains down her arm and struts. Truth be told, her whole frame ached like nothing else from Knockout's latest experiment results. But at the same time, while she felt like the action would kill her to repeat, he had almost succeeded. For just a fraction of a klick, she'd Shifted into his image.

"I… I merely meant to tell her that you were now ours and under Decepticon protection." The spy's left finial jerked back painfully, reminding her again of the experiments of the past several days. Grimacing behind her battle mask, she led on towards her living suite where she and Pax had grown accustomed to taking their fuel, since going to the mess hall had ended so poorly.

Once in her quarters – she'd taken the time to put together a more long-term solution to gaining their privacy – Orion shook his helm at her, smiling wistfully. "It grieves me to see that you do not trust me, Terabyte."

For a while she said nothing in response, simply serving Energon – taking the liberty of a small splurge and dumping a somewhat excessive amount of silver shavings into it. It was that sort of a day. At last she sighed heavily, "I do trust you, Orion Pax… The issue is not my trust of you; it is the Decepticons' trust of me."

"Because of your past with the Autobots?" He asked, frowning and nodding, "That is… logical. However, that does not excuse the fact that you are still lying to me consistently." He smirked as she opened her mouth to object, holding up a restraining hand as he took a seat on her sofa. "Please, do not patronize me. I am without memories, not intelligence. Your left finial flicks back every time you tell a falsehood."

Terabyte shifted her optics away from the Prime's piercingly disappointed gaze. She swirled her silver-infused Energon and took a long sip, her mask splitting to admit the fuel and snapping back with the skill that belied vorns of habit.

She cycled another deep draft of air through her systems, knowing full well that every suspicion Soundwave had about her would only mean more punishment via the surgical table. Every joor she spent on the Nemesis had her plagued with regret. How had she ever gone so long without seeing that this was what the Decepticons were? Had they ever been better than this, or had her hate simply run so deep for so long that she hadn't cared enough to notice?

"You do not understand, Orion." She said quietly, the foreign codes in her mind making her helm ache as she walked the fine line of obedience and rebellion. For now, she chose obedience, sitting down and shutting down her sensory array to force her finial still for the moment. "I have a duty to fulfill. I am not lying to you; I am trying to protect you from knowledge that at this time would do you more harm than good. It is in your best interests that we break things to you gradually. Allow you time to process."

Inclining her helm faintly, she gave a wry smile behind her mask, trying not to picture Knockout's grinning face as he delved into her internals once again in his search for a complete, flawless artificial Shifter. "I apologize if this miscommunication has led to your feeling untrusted, for that is not the case. Megatron merely wishes the best for you, I'm sure, and we ought to trust our leader."

When the mech nodded in agreement, his brooding expression returning to the bright and trusting one that she'd come to identify with Pax, she reactivated her sensory network, feeling a wave of nausea at the returned input. The naivety of a mech who hadn't had to see the decavorns of war. Of a mech, of her Prime, relieved of the burdens of leadership that he bore alone.

She smiled at the mech from behind her mask, rising abruptly to her pedes. As they left the suite and went their separate ways – Orion to Megatron, and herself to Soundwave – Terabyte shuttered her optics, trying to sort the confused thoughts in her helm.

She liked this side of the Prime. When the Matrix returned, would Pax again be listed among the casualties of their war? Or would he remain in the Prime's mind and cause the Autobots to accuse her of changing their Prime? And this new mess with the Shifting… If she were prone to superstition, she'd say it would take a miracle to work her way out of all of this.

Terabyte shook her helm and continued towards Soundwave's office, still deep in thought. She needed to contact the Autobots, somehow. Especially since she'd seen Arcee. The Autobots were probably in chaos right now, and Skyquake. Skyquake would be absolutely livid, because Arcee would have gone back and declared her a traitor, and the green jet would blow up in a massive rage and then probably he and Cliffjumper would start planning some stupid, half-baked rescue mission that would get them both killed.

She needed to let them know she was okay. If you could call tortured and experimented on while constructing a mountain of lies over the helm of the mech she was supposed to be helping 'okay'.

If that could be considered 'okay' then she was perfectly, one-hundred-percent okay.