The Honor in Duty

Chapter 4

The Weak and Weary

Hello, readers! Here is your next chapter, hope you all enjoy it! This one is a bit more feelsy than usual even, so I'm going to recommend a nice cup of tea and an opportunity to read it all in one go. Any how, hang on tight and get ready for the ride! This chapter was so much fun to write, and I'm sure it'll be just as fun to read, so I'm eager to hear your thoughts, opinions, and even just expression of feels.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Transformers, or the Prime tv series. And mass thanks to enmused, for being my amazing beta!

Review Responses - To Cashagon: Thank you for your faithful reviewing! As far as our dear, vain doctor goes, I can assure you that this will not be the last we see of KO's loyalties under question. However, like he said, he has something holding him with the Deceptions. What that is and if or when he will let it go and defect will have to remain a mystery for now!

To redlinevcr: Well, I hadn't been planning on letting Sky loose this chapter, but what can I say? The muses tend to be rather persuasive, if not downright feisty at times! Anywho, your wish has come true and the chapter was a joy to write!

To Allspark Princess: Oh boy, yeah, everything's leading up to a climax now and Megatron's plans are basically all going to the scrapyard, and fast. I almost feel sorry for the mech, y'know? If he weren't an evil warlord bent on galactic domination? A lot of stuff goes on in this chapter, and I'm looking forward to your feedback!

A tiny femme, alone in the dim lights of the training room pierced now and again with gold swirl of her Energon dagger, pretending the echoing silence wasn't killing her inside. The louder the echoes, the harder she pushed through the graceful battle forms her closest friend had taught her.

She pretended that every clash with a drone instead of Skyquake, or Nightracer, or even Thunderblast… she pretended it wasn't a repeated reminder of the fact that she was alone now. It was like Protihex all over again, only this time she had no one to blame. She was alone.

A quartex ago, she'd resolved to move on. To get on with her life. That resolution didn't make it any less lonely though.

The doors to the training facility hissed as they slid open, and the little Prussian blue two-wheeler tensed up, continuing more slowly through her forms so that she could watch the new-comer. She didn't recognize him. He was a medium-sized mech, painted mostly slate gray and black. He wore a visor that shone the same dark red as the accent strips on his abdomen, lower legs, and forearms.

Something about how he carried himself rang familiar to her, but she couldn't place why. When he seemed content to just lay against the wall and watch her with crossed arms and gleaming visor, she at last stopped what she was doing and walked over.

"Fancy seeing you here." The mech commented with a dry chuckle. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought he sounded the slightest bit bitter.

She kept her visible expression schooled, glad as always for her battle mask. His voice… she couldn't put it to a name, but she could have sworn she'd met this mech before. "Do I know you?"

"No. Might have met in passing. The name's Meister."

The little femme cocked her helm at the deep, rough-voiced grounder. Finally, she just nodded at him, "Terabyte. Are you a new transfer? From Kaon, perhaps?"

His casual stance didn't change, but she noticed his claws twitch. He grinned at her, revealing a bright, razor-sharp row of fangs. "Yeah. Got lost on the way to the mess-hall. You've got some good moves. Mostly just shoot stuff, myself."

"Well." She said awkwardly, not trusting the mech, "You're a long way from the mess-hall, Meister. I have the cycle free, I'll show you around, maybe get you a map. Given how lost you are, the mess-hall will be our last stop."

Meister huffed, standing up straight and following her out of the training arena. "Take it the mess-hall's on the other side of the citadel?"

She nodded, smirking at the dark mech. Her latest promotion had put her in a much more social position, making it her duty to make sure bots got where they were supposed to be and knew how to get around. Meaning most of her off-time was spent giving tours of the Kolkularan citadel.

This mech unnerved her slightly, but his relaxed demeanor was easy to get used to, and by the end of the tour, she was comfortable. She didn't trust him, not really, but he was alright.

Orion cocked his helm at yet another record mentioning the Decepticon Second in Command designated Starscream. Megatron had told him that the SIC had perished in battle. The time-stamp dated the record as just a quartex old. It seemed unusual that the crew of the Nemesis should have recovered from the termination of a friend and leader so quickly.

He glanced down at his somewhat scratched red and blue plating, his three sets of tires spinning anxiously on their axles in his lower pedes. The femme that had helped in his rescue, something was terribly wrong with her, and she didn't seem to notice or care. Her condition had visibly deteriorated over the past orns, and it was only getting worse.

She had even gotten to the point of accidentally letting her guard down around him – which by his observation was not something that she did under any circumstance – as well as falling into recharge on the job. His spark reached out to help her, to keep this bot under his care safe and well, but she rebuffed his every attempt to aid her.

The door slid open behind him, but Orion didn't turn around, expecting to hear a cold greeting from the very femme he was thinking of. When he heard the clatter of a tall stack of Energon cubes shattering on the floor though, Pax left his work to look at the intruder curiously.

A click and a whirr registered in his processors, and the tall mech glanced down at the light gray seeker to find a pair of missiles aimed at his spark. The other mech's voice was unbelieving, shocked, and accusing, "Optimus Prime?!"

"Please!" He took a wary step back, holding up his hands in a placating gesture of surrender, worry flooding his thoughts, "I mean you no harm."

"Oh?" The somewhat spindly seeker scoffed almost hysterically, "Then what are you doing here?!"

Orion carefully indicated the terminal behind him, the Project Iacon files still up and running defragmentations on one screen and his latest decryption algorithm on another, along with Terabyte's declaring its completion of the last task she had set it to the rotation before. "Research. For Lord Megatron."

"I-Is this some kind of joke?" Starscream, for that was who the mech was, exclaimed, still twitching his servos as he held the missiles locked on his frame.

"I do not understand." The archivist said slowly, frowning at the seeker. It would seem he needed to speak with Megatron further regarding his SIC. Because Starscream was very much not terminated. "And why did you call me Optimus Prime?"

There was that name again. Terabyte and Megatron had told him that it was the evil Autobots' code name for him, but it made no sense for them to call him a Prime.

"Eh…" The seeker lowered his missiles, now looking genuinely befuddled. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because my name is Orion Pax." He replied matter of factly, giving a self-depreciative shrug and smile, "I am far from being a Prime."

Starscream spluttered for a handful of astroseconds before his wings flicked and he said, "You… reminded me of someone I once knew. That's all."

"You are Starscream." Orion stated, unable to keep the tinge of suspicion that his brother had been keeping information from him, in more than just this matter.

Outside the lab, voices and pede-falls passed by rapidly, saying something about an intruder, though their voices were too muffled by the walls for him to be certain.

"Yes?"

"Lord Megatron told me you had been terminated."

The smaller mech chuckled darkly, shifting to a more relaxed posture, subspacing his weapons properly now. "Lord Megatron says a great many things, only some of which are true."

"You do not suggest that our leader would speak… falsehoods?" He verified, wishing in his spark that these doubts and suspicions would leave him and he would be able to trust his brother and closest friend fully, as he had before.

Starscream burst out laughing raucously at the question, ending in a cackle as the mech pressed his servos together, "You truly are being kept in the dark, aren't you?"

"You speak in many riddles, Starscream." Pax rumbled, growing tired of every bot giving evasive answers and cryptic statements that brought more questions than they answered. He bent down slightly to be closer to the seeker's height. "Please, tell me what it is you know."

He almost thought the gray mech's engine purred faintly as the mech not-so-subtly urged, "And in return?"

Just then their conversation – and Orion's hopes of obtaining the knowledge he needed – were interrupted by the doors flinging open to reveal three identical Vehicons aiming weapons at them. Starscream squeaked in surprise and leapt behind the archivist as the team of Vehicons shouted, "Starscream! Surrender!"

"Hold your fire!" Orion ordered on instinct, stepping into a more defensive stance, holding up his hands as though that would stay their laser blasts should they ignore him as in his previous attempts to maintain order.

Before the Vehicons could respond one way or the other though, Starscream leapt over his helm and transformed into a jet, shooting off down the halls over all of their helms. The Vehicon leader glared at the scarlet and cobalt archivist accusingly, growling, "Remain in the lab."

"But I-"

"Lord Megatron's orders." The Vehicon snapped impatiently, slamming the door shut, effectively closing any further protests the mech might have had as well.

Next Rotation.

The navy femme sat up groggily, rubbing at her scarlet optics wearily and looking around her charred quarters, putting a few of the things she wanted to keep into her subspace compartment, including some old photos. They were a bit burned at the edges from Airachnid's explosion a bit over an orn ago.

She smiled a sad, fond smile at the image in her hands. Her, Shadowlight, Darkshine, and Thunderblast were laughing with empty buckets, all four of them splattered with confectionary-grade liquid nitrogen, and Nightracer in the middle, just soaked in it, from helm to toe, licking her servos. They were a great team.

Terabyte slid a couple of other things into her subspace from her display case and walls. For some reason, she had a feeling they would be leaving here soon. After all, it had been four months. A rescue operation had to be under way by now.

The two-wheeler watched her hands shake as she tried to pour herself a cube of Energon, spilling more on the counters than into the cube. When she finally got the cube half-way filled, she gave up with a sigh and started cleaning up the mess. She downed the cube quickly, trying not to think about what was happening to her.

A message pinged in her helm, and the femme checked her comms. Lord Megatron himself. He wanted to see her in the throne room immediately for a mission. Terabyte flared out her armor and stalked out of her quarters, making her way to the throne room as quickly as she could. She ignored the usual barrage of insults and snide remarks from various crewmechs as she passed them by.

She would have transformed, but her t-cog ached, along with the rest of all of her.

Walking into the throne room, she bowed before her master, the slave code still growing, and becoming almost too strong to fight. Her optics shone like burning embers of hatred. "You summoned, my lord?"

The silver warlord wasted no time, getting straight to the point. "Your traitorous mech-friend has seen fit to attempt to rescue you. Skyquake should be onboard the Nemesis in a breem or so."

She blinked her optics at the warlord, but didn't speak. Her spark was constricted in its chamber, an aching ball of tension in her chest. She had an idea of what Megatron was going to make her do, and it terrified her.

Megatron grinned, sending a shiver down her struts. His deep voice held almost a purr of cruel anticipation. "I want you to kill him."

The little femme's engine hitched painfully, her optics narrowing to prevent them from going wide and showing her horror. Afraid of making the mech add anything more awful to his orders, Terabyte merely bowed deeply and turned to leave.

She'd almost made it all the way out when her master's silky bass rang through the room, forcing her to stop in her tracks. "Oh, and Terabyte, do give it your best effort. You won't hold back."

Before her spark or processor could gather themselves enough to respond, the slave codes had her bowing again, saying, "Yes, Lord Megatron."

The femme rushed out of the throne room, leaning back on the doors as soon as they closed, her vents sucking in air as fast as they could. Her spark pulsed sporadically, as though it was afraid it would break itself if it beat any stronger than that.

Perhaps that would have been better than what she was being forced to do.

She walked through the halls of the ship, with no real purpose or goal except to get away from the 'Lord Protector'. The red of her biolights bathed the halls around her in an eerie glow of the hatred she'd associated the color with. She was going to kill Skyquake, and she had no choice. She wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it.

Her helm throbbed at even the thought of defying Megatron's orders, and her spark roiled at the thought of obeying them.

Floating like a ghost through the cold, dark halls of the Nemesis, Terabyte had no idea where she was going, and she gave direction no thought. Yet when her pedes came to a stop, she found herself in a familiar hallway, in front of an even more familiar door. Her hand slotted into place perfectly into the same spot on the door where she'd worn a handprint into its surface over the vorns.

Terabyte bit her lip-plates, grateful as ever for the coverage of her mask.

She rerouted the coolant flow from her optics just as red lights started flashing and the sirens began blaring. She bowed her helm, whispering, "So it begins."

She turned around, charging her cannon and extending her dagger slowly. A crunch sounded in the hallway beneath her, followed by a thud that shook the floor.

Skyquake.

Meanwhile

"Orion!" Megatron greeted him fondly, stepping into the lab and glancing at the terminals to judge his younger brother's progress. He hid a flash of displeasure when he saw that very little had been done since his last visit. Starscream's arrival on board put all of this at risk.

The Matrix's retreat from his brother's consciousness would not likely happen ever again, and it was even less likely to be a permanent situation. It was an opportunity that he could not allow to slip from his grasp, and that fool of a SIC could have ruined everything.

"I apologize for the recent commotion," The silver warlord told Orion, his statement and spark behind the words genuine enough.

He had never thought that his brother would ever stand by his side again as he had for the past four and a half Earth months. It had been decavorns since they had been on the same side of a battle, and for the briefest of periods, it had put a warm glow of undeniable happiness in his spark that reminded him that he actually still had one.

Not that that changed anything. He would still cyberform the Earth and from there continue his quest for galactic domination.

Trust Starscream to sabotage his plans, intentionally or not.

"You were not harmed in any way, were you?"

"No, Lord Megatron. But," Orion Pax answered, his soft baritone more solemn than usual, bringing suspicions to rise in the warlord. "Why did you tell me Starscream was dead?"

Megatron growled from his engine, purple optics and biolights flaring with displeasure. Perhaps too harshly than strictly necessary, he snapped, "Because he is dead to our cause!"

Forcing the anger with which he was well acquainted from his voice, the silver mech made his tone soften as he went on gravely, "Starscream was my most trusted lieutenant." He clenched his fist around the air, picturing said lieutenant's whimpering neck in his grasp, "Until he turned traitor and joined the Autobots!"

He altered his tone to sound hurt, "Never have I witnessed such a profound act of deceit." With that, Megatron sighed heavily, "He did not do or say anything troubling to you?"

The younger pre-Prime archivist hesitated before firmly answering, "No."

His violet optics narrowed a fraction, but he smiled at his long lost friend, "Good." Crossing his arms behind his back so that he could clench his claws into fists, shrugging lightly, "Perhaps it would be best to forget the entire incident and return to your project."

"As you wish, my lord."

The silver warlord had a sudden thought and turned back to face Orion before leaving, knowing the young mech would be getting his spark in a knot over his other… project. "And Orion? Terabyte won't be joining you, perhaps for a rotation or more. But you needn't concern yourself, she is merely taking some… time off with friends."

Elsewhere aboard the Nemesis

Even a floor away, she could hear his roar, "WHERE IS SHE?!"

The femme shuttered her optics briefly and started running towards the nearest lift as fast as she could. She didn't bother calling the lift, just blew a hole in the door and swung down to the next level, landing in a battle-ready crouch. The burn in the back of her helm grew exponentially when she didn't lunge immediately.

"S-Sky?" Terabyte called, her voice pleading as the pain got to the point where she could barely keep her vents cycling, much less think clearly. Her frame slid down into preparation to attack with ease of vorns of practice.

"Tera?" Skyquake asked, turning around and taking in her stance with a quick sweep of his perfect optics. She took in the sound of his voice, the way he stood, his face-plates, trying to ingrain everything about him into her mind.

He noticed that as well and looked at her in confused worry. He shifted his plating so that he was smaller and more like his usual self, rather than the angry war-mech willing to do anything to get his best friend back. "Terabyte, what's wrong? I'm here to get you and the Prime out of here."

"I-If you love me, Sky, run." Her voice shook, and in spite of her best efforts, coolant was spilling over her cheeks and sliding down the edges of her raised battle mask. Her helm felt like Soundwave was still in there, tearing her apart from the inside out. "Run. Leave the Nemesis. Just take Orion and go!"

"Terabyte…" His soft tone was quickly gaining a determined edge, "You know I won't do that."

She choked back a cry as he stepped closer, close enough for his calm, strong EM field to brush against hers. The femme snapped her field in, pressing it against her frame even tighter than she was holding her trembling armor. The closer he got to her, the more her helm ached as she fought the slave codes with every fibre of her being.

"Please! Skyquake-!" Her cannon-arm rose to be level with his spark, her dagger pulling back, ready to strike the final blow. She felt her frame bend down to a pre-leap crouch, a threatening growl rumbling up from her engine against her will. "I don't want to hurt you-"

Skyquake touched her shoulder gently, cupping her helm in his huge hand. "I know you don't. And you won't, because you can beat this. Megatron does not control you."

"YES HE DOES!" She shrieked at him, and the next thing she knew, Skyquake was on his back with his life-En dripping from his wing and her blade.

Her spark seemed to turn to ice, stopping still as she stood quivering in shock as he stood up with no more than a mostly hidden wince and a surprised flick of his injured wing. She gave a convulsive shudder and lunged at him, her processor and vorns of training controlling her deadly grace as she attacked him, using every bit of knowledge she'd gained in the whole war. Each attack was measured, utilizing all the fatal skill she'd never allowed herself to use before.

Because it made her a monster. She had the potential to be every bit as evil as she had once thought the Autobots were. Coolant continued to streak down her face, and she was hurting Skyquake, just like she'd been ordered to. Without restraint. She flowed through her motions in a blur in which she could barely process her own motions.

He wasn't fighting back. He was hardly even blocking, or dodging her cannon shots.

Her tactical and logical processors were spinning in overdrive with her battle processors. In her mind, the calculations were complete, and unless something changed, he'd be dead in less than a breem.

She swallowed a sob as she knocked him to his back again and pinned him to the floor by her dagger through his wing. Her diamond-shaped knee dug into his chest and she held her cannon to his face. Her coolant supply ran dry and she glared at him with dry optics and tear-stained face.

"Fight! Scrap, Skyquake, stop me! FIGHT BACK!" She twisted her dagger, knowing just how much it would hurt, hoping to make him angry, make him keep her from killing him like her coding was urging her to.

"No." He replied simply, brushing her hand that was plunging the blade into his wing, "Stop fighting, Terabyte."

"I can't! If you don't stop me, I'll kill you. I don't have a choice." Terabyte begged him, unwilling releasing her firm grip on her EM field, letting the massive green Pit-fighter feel everything.

Her terror, her hate for Megatron, her pain, and the most prominent emotion, which was her hate for herself for doing this to him. She'd rather die than see him hurt, much less hurt him herself, but she couldn't make herself stop. She wasn't in control of herself. For the first time in her life, she had absolutely zero control of her frame, and she was terrified.

Skyquake smiled at her. She had just beat him to the ground and done everything she knew how to hurt him in every way she possible could, and he actually smiled at her. "Terabyte, if you've taught me anything since I met you, it's that you always have a choice to take a life or to save it. You always have a choice."

She stared at him, searching those ruby optics that showed his spark. Those optics that never lied, even when his words did. Her shoulder sagged and he gently pulled her dagger from his wing, standing up and setting her on her pedes. The smile never left his face, and his expression lilted into an unspoken 'told you so'.

"Are you alright?" He asked tenderly, constantly watching their surroundings in search of trouble. The big green jet asked her that like she was the one that had been sliced, stabbed, and blasted relentlessly.

Nevertheless, she laughed coldly, "No… Skyquake, you need to leave me here-"

"They're hurting you." He objected, radiating anger, "Did you think I hadn't noticed? You don't weigh anything, and you move like you've been through the Pits."

Terabyte averted her gaze, her jaw set. "The lies are thick here. Orion Pax isn't ready to come home yet. The Matrix has receded with his memories of Prime-ship, and until he has them back, he won't come willingly yet."

"I won't leave without you."

Footsteps echoed through the halls, and a moment later a group of Vehicons walked around the corner. "The Autobot! Kill him!"

"Sorry." She whispered, retracting her dagger and pulling her fist back and punching him hard in the face. Loud enough for the Vehicons to hear, she sneered at Skyquake. "You're a traitor and a fool to think I would ever join the Autobots. Vehicons, stand down, the matter is under hand, and Lord Megatron wants this one alive for interrogation. Send for Knockout, tell him he is to meet the prisoner in the brig."

"Yes, ma'am!"

They all stomped off back the way they came. Skyquake cocked his helm at her, wonder in his optics and tone, "It never fails to amaze me how good you do that."

She quirked an optic ridge at him as she stuck his arms in a fully restrictive servo-to-elbow stasis cuff. "How good I do what?"

"Lie." He replied simply, looking forward into the hallways as she escorted him to the Nemesis' brig with her cannon held just behind his back, though her foreign coding fought against her every second of it. The big mech sighed, "Bots don't doubt you for even a moment, even when they don't trust you in the slightest."

Terabyte bit her lip hard, suddenly all too aware of the crimson glow from her own frame, powered by her spark. A symbol of when, memory wipe or not, she had willingly become everything she'd spent her whole short life fighting. A continually plaguing reminder of how she had failed everything she had believed in, of how easily she could step over that line between good and evil, of every mistake she'd ever made, summed up in a simple change of hue and paint job.

For the first time in a very, very long time, the spy was alone with Skyquake, and she was more appreciative than ever of her battle mask.

"Yes, well, as Arcee said, once a Decepticon, always a Decepticon."

Somehow she held the bitterness out of her voice. A sharp stab of guilt pierced her when it occurred to her that she hadn't been this stiff with him in vorns. Her walls were up and she felt strangely cold inside, but she stubbornly maintained a neutral tone, giving no sign of how she felt in her frame posture or field. The aches and exhaustion accumulated under Knockout's care were forgotten in favor of holding the slave codes within her at bay as they screamed for Skyquake's life-En.

"If the deception keeps you alive and well, I will gladly maintain it." Terabyte said crisply, flaring her armor just a little bit more and warily scanning the halls.

She could feel Skyquake's pained optics in her back as she marched in front of him. He had hidden the sum of what the Decepticon's and their entire cause was for five vorns. Five beautiful vorns, in which everything she'd known was an intricate lie to keep her loyal.

She'd killed for that lie.

And now he was going to judge her for saving his life? She was a spy. Lying was her job, of course she was good at it.

Behind her, Skyquake's EM field flared out towards her in a subconscious grasp for her presence – he never could control his field, not like she could. It was strong as always, but riddled with doubt and remorse. Just by the feel of it, she could picture the look in his optics and the apologetic lilt of his still-leaking wings.

"I know all that, Terabyte. You're right, I lied to you for vorns, and the sparks you took in that time are my fault, my responsibil-." He clamped his mouth shut as a team of Vehicons passed them by.

"I would have done far worse if it weren't for you." Terabyte objected softly, not having meant to have said all of what she'd said out loud, nor truly even meant it. She laughed humorlessly, turning around to look him in the optics, her gaze fond in a fierce way, "I would have killed my best friend today if it weren't for you."

Not only would she have, but if she let her mental guard down for just a moment, just a brief moment to relieve the building agony in her helm, she still very likely might.

She opened a cell and motioned him into it, setting up the sound block around them, and sealing the cell behind them. For sake of the guard, the femme shoved Skyquake onto the chair and stood over him in an imposing manner.

Skyquake flicked a wing in grateful acknowledgement. "You're the best of us, you always have been. The point is, Terabyte, I don't deserve you. I've done horrible things, I grew up in the Pits and enjoyed it. When the Pits ended, I joined the Decepticons, because I could keep living the gladiator life. We were Megatron's prize killers, and proud of it. We had honor, but that was it."

"I taught you to fight, but you taught me to live for more than the next battle." The green jet smiled with the one side of his face that the guard couldn't see, his gravelly voice low and rough with emotion. "You're the best of us, and all I've ever wanted was to keep you that way. To keep you happy and beautiful and alive and all the things I'd never thought I could be."

All for the show, Terabyte extended her dagger and began circling the mech, sliding the blade over his neck plating, in all reality, just toying with it. Soundwave's coding was both enraged and slightly abated by her actions, and it took far more effort than she cared to acknowledge to keep the dagger steady.

Still somewhat displeased with him, the femme's engine rumbled, somewhere between an angry growl and a touched purr. Her tone was still harsh though, "And all of this was brought up by a relatively minor, insignificant little lie that happened to keep you more or less intact after the beating I gave you and feel awful about."

He shook his helm faintly, his optics gleaming with something she was too exhausted in frame and processor to recognize, "I know Megatron, I know how he works, and I feared what he would do to you to punish me. And I know how easily he can break bots. What has he done to you?"

The question came out in a murderous growl, and she looked down at her pedes, then at their surroundings. At last she punched him in the face again and stormed over to the cell entrance, indicating for it to be opened. When the guard did so, she snarled, "The prisoner is unwilling to impart with the intel I need. Getting that intel will take time. Take the shift off, Crossfire, it seems I will be here awhile."

The larger Vehicon flier looked at her in surprise, but she knew this mech. He was very quick to trust and had always seen her as a friend to Vehicons. One of the few bots on this ship that didn't throw insults with the rest. Crossfire nodded respectfully, his visor flashing briefly at the idea of an entire shift off.

"Sure thing, Lieutenant Commander." Quietly – probably in the hopes of Soundwave not hearing him -he added, "Thank you!"

Behind her dark mask, the femme smiled sadly. He'd lasted a long time for a Vehicon. Honestly, she was surprised to see that he was still around, not recycled for parts. Trying to convince a Vehicon to switch sides would be next to impossible. Not when their lives were already worth so little to Megatron.

She turned back to Skyquake, sitting down across from him, still not relaxing her stance. She was still trying to hide just how much of a toll her time here was taking on her, and besides that, Soundwave was still watching her every move. She tossed an idle glance around her. Why he hadn't informed Megatron of her failure to comply remained unknown to her, and frankly, frightening. "Did you come to rescue us alone?"

His engine rumbled, "Cliffjumper was supposed to join. The others detained him."

Terabyte nodded minutely, not at all surprised by that. She stifled a sigh and dismissed another recharge activation warning from her HUD, forcibly keeping her biolights and optics their usual brightness. "You're going to have to stay here for a while. Maybe an orn, maybe a quartex, I don't know. When Orion is ready, the three of us will break out."

"And until then? You were ordered to kill me."

"I will… give Soundwave a logical reason to keep you alive." She said tentatively, her weary processors already attempting to tackle the dilemma as once again she resisted the implanted urge to blow his helm right off his shoulders.

Skyquake glared at her, knowing her well enough to know that she had no real plan. He let it slide for the time being, instead watching her with disapproval in his optics. "You didn't answer the question. What has he done to you?"

The little femme shifted awkwardly, knowing she couldn't come up with an evasive answer or a distraction that would satisfy the mech. She stayed silent, the majority of her computing power consumed with worrying over what Soundwave had in store for her, and calculating how soon she'd be able to go back to her berth.

"Terabyte." Her friend rumbled in a warning tone, jerking her from her recharge-oriented thoughts for a klick, "You weren't fighting at your best, and you haven't stopped looking over your shoulder since I've been on board."

"Bots aren't exactly happy to see me back." She mumbled, her optic shutters feeling so, so heavy. Her scarlet optics dimmed against her will.

Skyquake's EM field was tight with concern for her and held just about as much frustration as concern. He slammed his fist into the table, startling the dozing femme awake again as her systems attempted to force her into recharge.

"What are they doing to you?!" He roared at her.

His loud voice and slamming fist registered wrong in her worn out state, and Terabyte bolted out of her seat, backing away from him with a faint, frightened whimper. Skyquake… shouldn't be yelling at her. What had she done to make him mad?

"I-I need t-to go…" She stuttered, sounding as confused as she felt. She needed to find Orion and somehow try to reignite the Matrix within him. Knockout had succeeded in lessening the pain in her systems during the Shifting, but it would seem his solution – whatever it was – had some adverse effects long-term…

She kept backing away from the large, army green jet, not really seeing the worry, remorse, and fear in his own optics as he watched her trembling retreat, listening to the frightened whine of her engine. Terabyte shook her helm minutely, "I-I need to go… I-I'll come back, l-later…"