Hoist hadn't been lying, Hound came out of recharge and gingerly stood up. He was sore, various groups of sensors were still complaining, and his chassis was sore in places from where the boulder struck him, but he noted that Hoist had done a good job in patching him back up, though he'd looked better. Feeling the need to have a few moments to gather his thoughts before he faced the others, he stiffly made for the Secutor's rec room, working on the assumption the others would be working aboard the Anaxagorus. Reaching the rec room he sat down, careful flexing a few joints trying to work some of the stiffness out of them as he thought about the terrain outside, the sudden increase of the wind and what this could possible mean for their rescue mission. What he wasn't ready for was Sideswipe.

He almost audibly groaned as he noted the mech who'd come in the door wasn't the red of Perceptor. Whilst he wanted to thank Sideswipe, he didn't want what he knew would go with it.

"That was stupid."

"Thanks." His vocal processor was working, but his voice had a tinny sound to it.

"What? I'm telling you like it is."

"No, I mean thank you. For coming to get me."

"What the pit else was I supposed to do? You're our commander and it would leave us one 'bot down. Besides, it's not like I'm gonna leave you out there to rust, damn tempting as it was."

"Not much chance of me rusting out there," Hound said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"No, it would have just stripped you down to your framework in a matter of cycles and within a megacycle or two there would have been nothing left to find." There was no sign of the annoyance in his voice abating.

"Sideswipe. I was nearly back, no one could have foreseen the wind picking up that suddenly."

"That's not the point. The point is, is you left yourself vulnerable. If I'd have gone in the wrong direction, by the time I'd have found you it would've been too late." He folded his arms across his torso as if a demonstration of how pissed off he was. "You were too damn near stasis lock as it was. As it was, we both got lucky."

"I think you're blowing this out of proportion, Sideswipe."

"Really?"

Hound ignored the sarcasm. "Yes. Put yourself in my position. If you were the only one who could go out there and get the information that I can, what would you have done?"

Sideswipe's arms unfolded, he stood up and slammed his hand down on the small table. "You're still missing the point!"

Hound sighed. "Then what is the point?"

"You could have been off lined permanently." He glowered at Hound and walked out the room.

A few second's later Hoist walked in. "Sorry to intrude, Hound, but how're you feeling?"

"Slightly stunned maybe," he laughed, "But good enough to get back to work."

"Ummm, yes. I was coming to check on you and pick up some equipment, so I had little chance of not hearing Sideswipe's outburst."

Hound absentmindedly rubbed at a scratch on his forearm. "I know Sideswipe can be a bit volatile at times, but any idea what's got him this riled up?"

"In terms of action, it's been pretty slow around here. We are getting a lot done, but as it doesn't involve running around shooting at things, it's a bit frustrating for him." Hoist grinned.

Hound laughed awkwardly. "I suppose so. He never has been one for sitting still when he thinks he should be on the front lines. Maintenance and preparation for a mission isn't his strong point."

"Talking of maintenance, we've made some headway in modifying the shuttle and Perceptor's had some idea's on how we can use the shuttle to get to the alien ship."

"That's good news." Hound stood. "Let's get going then."

There was a general air of excitement on the main bridge of the Anaxagorus when Hound got there. Most of which was coming from Perceptor. Hoist was looking pleased with the latest Perceptor had told him, having gone on ahead and arrived shortly before Hound. Sideswipe was still looking mildly irked, but less so at the hint of something finally happening.

"What's our status now?" He asked as he walked in the room.

"Very good news, Hound." Perceptor informed him. "We have modified the shuttle to withstand communications interference so we should be able to communicate between the shuttle and the ship, though it will work over a longer distance than before, the more distance there is between the ship and the shuttle the more chance there is of interference. I'm afraid unless we can move the ships closer, at the distance of the alien ship it won't work at all."

"We'll take whatever advantage we can get at the moment, Perceptor."

"The better news is, that while you were incapacitated, I took the opportunity of using this moons weather and the geomagnetic interference to our advantage. I tested a theory out on the shuttle's shields and luckily it paid off. While not as good as our unknown friends, the shields should now provide us with a certain amount of cover, rendering the shuttle nearly invisible. I'm currently making the same changes to our shields on both ships. Maybe whatever is responsible for Jetfire and Skids' disappearance will miss us."

"Finally might be able to get something done around here." Sideswipe piped up.

Hound raised a hand to silence him. "That's better than I hoped for, that may just give me the answer I was looking for. While we're here, can you take a look at this?"

"Of course." Perceptor took the sample of dust from Hound and transformed. "Mircroscopic analysis shows everything you would expect to find within the surface elements of an organic planet, though these metal shards are puzzling."

"How so?"

"They appear to be an alloy, though I cannot isolate the base materials. These shards are also distinctively marked, scored with microscopic lines. They follow the same shape and pattern you would expect from filings." He transformed back and carefully placed the sample to one side for further analysis later.

"Filings?" Hoist asked, intrigued.

"Indeed."

Sideswipe put it together. "So you're saying it's been drilled from somewhere?"

Perceptor nodded. "It would appear so. It raises the questions: What? And from where?"

Hound shook his head softly. How on earth did a simple rescue mission become so complicated? "Until we know otherwise, our priority is to get our 'bots back. Anything else is secondary to this." He turned to Sideswipe. "Sideswipe, you'll come with me, we'll take the shuttle out to the alien ship and see what we can find."

Sideswipe nodded and left the bridge to get the shuttle fired up.

"Hoist, Perceptor, you will remain here. I want you to find a way to improve our long range communications, or watch for a window in the solar activity. We need a way of communicating with home, we may need back up." Hound grabbed the data pad that held his reports. "Get the information in these back to Cybertron. Disconnect the ships and take the Secutor up if you have to."

"But what if you need us?"

"Don't worry about us, Perceptor. It's a reconnaissance mission, I've no intention of letting Sideswipe bust the doors down without some idea of what we're up against. But we need an open communication to Cybertron. And if we don't return in what you believe to be a reasonable timeframe, get out of here. Because if we don't come back, there's something bigger than all of us going on here."

The shuttle was ready to leave as soon as Hound reached the bay. Taking the co-pilot seat next to Sideswipe in the small cockpit, he signalled to Perceptor to open the bay doors. They left the ship, Hound noticed that Sideswipe looked more at ease than he had for a while.

"You up for this?" Sideswipe asked.

"I'll be fine. I'm a bit stiff, but nothing I can't cope with."

They sat for the next breem in silence. Sideswipe eventually broke it. "We've got another problem."

Hound resisted the urge to let out a tired 'now what?'. Instead he just asked. "Let me guess. Energy reserves?"

"Yeah. We've got them, but either there was an oversight with the higher ups or they were expecting this mission to be dealt with quicker than we were. I'm not sure at this rate how long they'll last." then Sideswipe chuckled.

"Want to tell me what's so funny?"

"You know you sound like someone's replaced your vocal processor with a tin can."

Hound turned his optics to the sensor readouts. "At least I don't sound like that all the time."

Sideswipe found he didn't have a smart reply. "You spent too much time with me, you know that? And I don't sound like a tin can."

"I don't remember specifically saying you did." Hound smiled. Innocently.

Sideswipe gave a grunt of amusement. "You've gotta way to go before you can match me."

Hound turned his head to look at him. "Nothing personal, Sideswipe, but I hope I never do."

"Probably best." He paused. "Got enough with Sunstreaker." he muttered quietly.

Hound said nothing. The tone said that Sideswipe didn't want to talk about it, but Hound couldn't help but be curious. After all the stunts, going above his head and general grief that Sideswipe caused him trying to get to Earth to find Sunstreaker during the war when they were serving together, he wondered what had happened to change Sideswipe's unswerving loyalty to his brother or whether it was really just a general throw away comment. The problem with Sideswipe was that sometimes you couldn't tell.

They passed the time quietly, Hound watching the sensors, Sideswipe piloting the shuttle, avoiding the larger objects that flew at them. They were heading directly into the direction of the wind, hoping that the layout of the terrain they'd got from the long range sensor scans originally were accurate. They were now coming out of Hound's mapped area. From this point on it was mostly unknown.

Hound seemed to studying the sensor readings intently. "Sides, stop the shuttle!"

Sideswipe slammed the engines into reverse then slowed them down. He wasn't sure what threw him more, Hound's urgent tone or the more familiar use of his name. He put it down to lack of time, Hound had never called him anything other than 'Sideswipe', well to his face anyway. He was sure Hound probably called him a few choice things within the privacy of his own head.

"Cut engine power to minimal, just keep the shields up."

Sideswipe did as he was asked. "You seen something?"

"I'm not sure, it's more what I can't see."

"We've got company then."

"It would look like it. It's the same as was reported in the data recorder."

"Whatever it is, you think it's spotted us?"

"I don't think so. Its moving away from us." Hound couldn't keep the relief completely from his voice. Given a few orns longer he'd be alright, but he didn't think he could face a possible confrontation just yet unless there was really no choice.

"What direction?" Sideswipe asked.

"It's okay, the 'non-entity' is moving in a different direction from the ship. Radio silence is going to be no choice regardless of anything by the looks of it." Hound checked the readout again. "It's out of sensor range. But I would suggest we proceed slowly and with more caution now."

Their journey to their destination felt painfully slow. Hound's optics never left the sensor readouts, there was numerous stops every time something suspicious showed up, Hound knew there was a danger of jumping at shadows as they couldn't detect what it was they were trying to avoid. He just had to hope that even though not as well camouflaged, the 'shadows' couldn't detect them either.

Even though the moon wasn't large, to get almost halfway across it at the pace they were forced to set took long enough to put Hound's almost infinite patience on edge, Sideswipe was faring worse but was controlling his impatience well. Hound figured when it came to picking things up, influences went both ways. It was only when they had to stop and Sideswipe started to grind his dental plates whilst glaring at the dust clouds that Hound found he really started daydreaming about gently taking Sideswipe's cranial casing in between both hands and head butting him into sweet stasis lock.

In what felt like a deca-cycle, and even more frequent stops, they were close enough to read the energy fluctuations around their target. They kept the shuttle out of visual range, hoping to get what they could from sensor scans until Sideswipe pointed out the obvious flaw in this plan.

"It's not going to do us any good, Hound. The shuttle's sensors are not much more sensitive at this range than those on the Anaxagorus are from orbit. The only way we're going to find anything substantial out, is to get out there and look."

"I agree. But we leave ourselves wide open to being detected. We can't mask our energy readings like the shuttle's."

"It's a risk we're going to have to take. If we stay here we achieve nothing, if we turn back now we achieve nothing. If you want, I'll go then if something happens to me, you can go back and do what you've gotta do."

"No. We go together. This is not the time for heroics or self sacrifice - save it for when it's needed. While the wind level's up, I'll see what I can get from the sensors, a direction to go in if nothing else."

"Okay," Sideswipe shrugged. "You're the boss."

Sideswipe kept occupied by tinkering with equations, deciding that accurately working out how much they were using to how much they had, to how long everything had before they needed more energy would probably come in more useful than a rough estimate. It didn't take him long enough so he climbed back into the cockpit next to Hound. "Any ideas yet?"

"Possibly. Just south east of here, I'm picking up some strange readings. In fact it seems to be where the wind's coming from."

"where the wind's coming from?"

"Strange, eh? I can't get any fix on the ship itself, but I can get readings from the area around it. The ship itself initially didn't seem too big, but then I scanned a little further and came to the conclusion it is far larger than I first thought. Then on a closer look I realised that there was a break in between. It's not one ship there. It's two."

"Two of them? Like searching one wasn't enough."

"That's what I thought initially," Hound pointed to the readout on the small screen in front of him. "Until I noticed that."

"There's no wind on the far side."

"Exactly. And I have no idea what that means. Beyond that there's something going on here and though I get the feeling I don't want to know what, I'm going to find out anyway."

Sideswipe nudged him. "Ah, we haven't had the chance of a good aft kicking for a long time. If we're lucky, we might find a few Decepticons."

"I hope you don't hold it against me if I don't share your enthusiasm." Hound said.

Sideswipe's mouth twisted into a slightly perverse grin. "Never did, just means more fun for me."