Bumblebee rolled into the NEST base, excited chirps barraging the passengers he had within his interior.
"We know you're excited to see everyone again, Bee." The young male pat the dash and smiled at his girlfriend. The yellow Camaro slid to a halt at the check-in-point and Sam, the male, reached out to swipe the card that NEST had sent them. The machine made a soft beeping noise, the gate before them slid open, and Bumblebee zipped forward.
Two cars swerved out to meet the yellow scout, one a large black Topkick holding Epps and Will and the second a dark blue Aston Martin that sent bright colours flashing along the pavement.
Bee beeped at them and the three vehicles skid to a halt. Ironhide's two front doors popped open and a dizzy looking Will and Epps stumbled out. The Aston Martin's passenger door flew open and let out a grinning Fig as Bee let out his two passengers.
The sound of metal against metal and turning gears made the humans step back. All three of the cars transformed and Ironhide grinned down at the yellow Autobot, who beeped at him in greeting before turning to the second bot.
Sam gazed at the new bot, which was obviously a femme. Her dark blue armour was shining in the sunlight as she smiled at Bumblebee. Sam and Mikaela lurched backwards as their guardian suddenly tackled the femme, and let out a string of beeping. The femme laughed.
"Good to see you too, Bumble."
Bumblebee pulled on her arm insistently and dragged her around the corner.
"Who was that?" Sam blinked as the two bots vanished.
"That's Nightbeat." Ironhide glanced down at them. "She's the First Lieutenant and the Commander of the Special Ops."
"I thought..." Mikaela frowned. "Wasn't that Jazz's job?"
"Since Jazz is offline," Ironhide's optics dimmed as he mentioned his old friend's name. "His Lieutenant had to take over. Nightbeat was his lieutenant. So, she's holding his job."
"Oh." Sam nodded, deciding that it made sense. "Why was Bee so happy to see her?"
"She's like what you humans call an...aunt. I raised Bumblebee, and Nightbeat is very close to me." The weapons specialist shrugged. "Enjoy your stay here. And come to the rec room tomorrow night."
"Why?" Sam glanced at Will, who shrugged.
"No idea. We're going though."
"Alright, calm down."
"But I can't!" Bumble whistled in Cybertronian to Nightbeat, who was striding through the base like she owned the place, arms placed behind her head. "I'm so excited, I just can't hide it!"
Nightbeat laughed, grinning over her shoulder.
"How'd you get here? Tell me, tell me!" The yellow Camaro jumped up and down like the youngling he was.
"Blaster and I crashed in the Grand Canyon, nearly got killed by a bunch of Eradicons, and then we were brought back."
"That's it?"
"What? Did you expect an amazing adventure story? Sorry, Bee." Nightbeat smiled at the 'bot. "But, I did pick up something before Starscream attacked us in the Zeta-Phi system."
She tossed him him a small silver box, and Bumblebee blinked at her before opening it. His already large optics grew twice the size.
"Just don't eat them all at-"
"ENERGON GOODIES!"
"So, what exactly is going on in the rec room on Friday?" Will looked at Ironhide as the weapons specialist, who was doing what he did best in his off time, shooting things. Funnily enough, that was what he was good at in his on-time too.
"What? Oh, Nightbeat is preforming."
"Huh? She's...preforming?" Epps crossed his arms, staring up at the black mech.
"Back on Cybertron, Nightbeat was part of the entertainment caste. Elita-One and Optimus thought if she preformed it would give the troops a boost. Or something like that."
"Entertainment caste?"
"Like the actors, actresses and singers here on Earth."
"Oh."
"Blaster," Nightbeat propped her hands on her hips. "As much as I love your...improvisations, could you please 'spin the tune' properly so I can practice."
"Aw, Nightbeat!" Blaster pouted at her, arms crossed over his chassis. "You're no fun!"
Nightbeat narrowed her optics at him, tapping one of her heeled pedes against the makeshift stage erected in the rec room. The door was locked at the moment, baring any who wished to come in unless they had the proper password.
"Blaster." The two full-sized Cybertronians glanced down at the gold Cassette-feline seated on one of the tables. "Let her practice."
"Steeljaw-"
"Rewind, what are you doing?" Nightbeat stared at the black Cassette climbing a chair. He'd been switching seats every ten minutes.
"I'm an archivist. I'm archiving. This could be an important conversation!" Rewind pointed the tiny camera on the side of his head at her. The bots shared looks and laughed.
"I will never understand you, 'wind."
"Let's take it from the top then." Blaster shook his head, amusement playing through his optics as he started the music in his DJ booth up again.
Unfortunately, the door opened and the group of Autobots inside stopped what they were doing. The opened door revealed Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, two of the more handsome mechs on base, standing with their arms crossed in the doorway.
"Why was the door locked?" Sideswipe asked.
"Ooooh~! More footage." Rewind muttered. "This is gonna be good."
"Excuse me?" Nightbeat's optics narrowed into slits and she folded her arms across her chassis as she strode towards him. "Doors are usually locked for a reason."
"I know." The silver bot grinned, striding forward to meet her in the middle in the room. "I'm Sideswipe."
"I know. Get out."
"Why? Were you busy? We'll sit quietly in the corner, and not make a peep!" He grinned.
"Oh, boy." Blaster rounded the DJ table, and planted his hand on the Autobot's shoulder as Nightbeat's underglow darkened to black. "That there is an femme; one of the most dangerous creatures in all the universe. One hit and you're dead."
Nightbeat growled to hide her laughter. The show 'Crocodile Hunter' was one of the first shows Blaster had watched on Earth.
"She's angry! She's angry! Run!" Sideswipe took one look at the glower Nightbeat was sending him, before speeding out of the rec room on his wheeled pedes. "He didn't get to poke you with a stick."
"I'm rather glad he didn't."
Friday rolled around, and the heavens decided to open the skies and dump rain on the Diego Garcia Base. Wind lashed against the windows, and the leaves of the palm trees around the base slapped against the pavement and windows.
Any and all personal had hidden indoors, and no body was going any where, including the Autobots. Ratchet had warned them against rust, and if they didn't dry properly, then they would definably rust.
The door wingers -Bumblebee, Prowl, and Mudflap- were all in bad moods, sulking in their berth rooms, or in Prowl's case, diving helm first into the stacks of paper work on his desk.
However, in the femmes' case, they were lounging in one of the less used hangers they'd commandeered. It was leaking into barrels in the corners, and there was a tarp stretched across part of the entrance, as the hanger door didn't close all the way.
Inside, half the lights were busted, and all the windows had sheets of semi-transparent plastic over them. Prototype Autobot furniture had been distributed throughout the room and they'd been given large pillows made of coarse material. The couches were sometimes half mangled, and looked like pieces of strange art more than furniture, but for the femmes, it worked.
Their "secret club-house" was stocked with a small supply of Energon, as well as having it's own wash racks. Elita had issued the wash rack while the main racks were being constructed, and the femmes had built it without so much as an optic twitch from the mechs building the main rack. They were too busy arguing and showing off to notice the extra supplies vanishing and that the femmes weren't actually there.
The locking mechanism on the front of the hanger had a password only known by the femmes and Optimus.
This was where the femmes were hiding, laughing at several jokes and acting like immature young adults, which some of them were.
"-and then," Nightbeat grinned, taking a sip of her high grade. "The little tentacle organics came for him. Blaster screamed like the femling! It was so funny. The organics were super friendly, but they got a little touchy."
"How touchy?" Flare-up grinned, swinging her pedes against the bottom of her chair. "Creator touchy, or...?"
"Perverted spark-mate touchy." Nightbeat snickered. "And they preferred mechs!"
The femme hanger erupted into shrieks of laughter which drowned out pounding rain.
"What happened?" Chromia leaned against her leg, blue optics bright. Nightbeat stood and struck a very Blaster-like pose, before hopping around and screeching like a small sparkling seeing a harmless Cybider for the first time.
Elita snorted before she fell against the arm rest of her couch laughing. The femmes stared at their Commander in shock before Chromia started snickering and the femmes were full out gwaffing.
"I missed this." Nightbeat smiled as she sat make on her more-art-than-couch couch.
"Why were you screaming when you woke up in the Med-Bay, Beat? If you don't mind me asking." Flare-up bit her lip plating, looking at the older femme with curious, but nervous, optics.
Nightbeat flinched, before she propped her helm on her hands. "It's not something I like to think about, but I can give you a brief explanation. It was during the third vorn of the war, and yes, I'm that old."
"Well, I think you've aged quite nicely." Moonracer spoke up from her perch.
"Thank you, Moonie. Anyway, I worked under Jazz in the Special Operations unit, and I was on a mission. I was captured by the Decepticons. They did some pretty nasty things, and now I'm terrified of medics and Med-Bays."
"Thank you for sharing." Flare-up shuffled over and hugged the dark blue femme. Moonracer joined them, and soon there was a pile of hugging femmes. "It must have been hard."
Nightbeat smiled.
"Well, I'm with the Autobots now, and I'm working on my fear. Ratchet isn't the best person to do that, and I'd much prefer I had First Aid, but there's only so much I can do, right?" She shrugged.
And speaking of First Aid...
"Aid, that huuurts!"
"Please, Hotshot, hold still. I'm nearly done."
"Yeah, Shot. Hold still."
"Hound, you're not helping. Stop poking Powerglide. You're going to-"
"Oops. Was that important?"
"Hound, please leave the Med-Bay. Powerglide and Hotshot still need repairing. And who's steering Teletran II?"
"Right...I should probably do that, shouldn't I?"
"Hound, you're an idiot."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"The name's Hotshot."
"I know."
First Aid dropped his head to the metal of the berth Hotshot was laying on.
"I don't know why I bother anymore..."
Poor First Aid...
Hi, guess what?! I updated!