Okay, things are starting to gear up to get going. The next couple of chapters will be when the action starts. (hopefully).

----------------------------------------------

A few miles from the Ark, a small mountain sat tranquily in the mid-morning sun. The top suddenly shuddered, and a pile of rocks slid loose, and tumbled off unnoticed. A pair of birds swawked and flew off, startled from their perch. a small panel slid aside, and a small sattelite sprung out, unfolding as it ascended into the sky. It became a small dot, then dissapeared into the atmosphere.

Deep inside the mountain, in a cavern that had been modified into a base, a pair of mechs stood at a large computer resembling Teletraan-1, the Ark's main comuter. Only this one was grey colored with a slightly smaller screen, and a wider console that extended past the main screens on either side. A smaller screen on each side of the main one displayed various readouts.

The mech on the left had green colored scaled armor, which had iridescent hues of yellow and blue, depending on how the light hit it. You could almost see how his alt. mode was that of a winged American dragon. The dragon head resting on his chestplate was a dead giveaway. His dark green almost black wings draped around his shoulders, hooked on by the small hook on the wingjoint, resembling a cape. His amber-colored optics scanned the information, then Scythe turned to regaurd the person next to him.

The mech next to Scythe on his right was a flier, but not in the Earthly sense. His alt. mode was a derivative of an anchient Cybertronian battle flier. Something never seen, and long since forgotten. His solid black wings were angled towards the floor, and tapered slightly towards the tips, which were angled almost 45 degrees inward towards the space between his wings. The six inch (relative to Transformer size) points were kind of like the points on a seeker's wingtips, but about twice as long. His green, reddish brown and red/blue highlighted color scheme seemed to accent his alt. mode, which was obvious because of the cockpit on his chest, kind of like a primitive version of a modern seeker. But there was nothing primitive about Razer. This mech was cold and calculating. And would stop at nothing to achieve what he believed to be his greatest goal. But that was another story, to be told a different time.

His face, completely covered by his vocoder mask and black-colored visor, betrayed nothing. He noticed the Dragone, called Scythe's sideways glance, but wasn't sure what it meant. An unspoken question of some sort, perhaps? Razer, the flier turned back to the computer, watching the view of the ground widen as the "Drifter" Sattelitte ascended, transmitting it's images from it's on-board camera. Various lines of text scrolled across the small screen to the right one, displaying energy signatures, electromagnetic fields, even some of the humans's radio frequencies were detected by the satellitte's watchful sensors.

Behnd the duo, The purple and tan jet, Windstriker, an A-10 Thunderbolt, paced restlessly.

They continued to discuss their plans for the mission ahead, and backup plans in case something should go wrong. All while keeping an eye on the "Drifter"s readouts for the energy signature that indicated the prescence of the Decepticon spacebridge. They were totally oblivious to her prescence, it seemed. "I'm gonna go see how the amor alterations and stuff are going." she announced. Scythe, the dragon, turned his head slightly and nodded, watching her reflection in the monitor screen.

Down the metal-plated corridor in the repair cave, Dusk was putting Bullet's armcannon back on his arm mounting, which had been moved to his other arm. The femme flier had the same alt. mode as Razer, except that Dusk lacked the visor. Her color scheme was pink and blue primarily, and her optics blue with the smallest hint of lavender in them. Bullet hopped off the repair table and stood. He noticed Windstriker frowning deeply at him. "She's probably remembering the battle with Megatron earlier." he thought. Adopting his best "I-am-Megatron" voice, he asked "What's wrong, my dear? You act like you've never seen the Decepticon leader before." There was a hint of humor in his voice. "Don't like what you see?" He looked over his arms, noting how funny it felt to have the weight of his armcannon resting on the other arm. Windstriker had just opened her mouth to make a snide comment about Megatron when Starscream's voice drifted through the cavern.

The seeker himself-er herself, rather, glided around the machinery. "I'm telling you, Megatron, your plan isn't going to work!" the seeker walked... no, strode? no, sauntered over to stand a few feet away, grinning. The smile vanished as the Starscream imposter tried to get herself into character. Jade had been right about sharing the same alt. mode and almost the same color scheme as Starscream. and dang if she didn't look just like him right now!
"Now I could come up with a much better plan than you ever could." the seeker taunted, smirking. Megatron ( who was actually Bullet in disguise) sighed. "Shut up, Starscream"
"Of course, oh wise and Mighty"
The smirk turned into a grin "Illustrious, powerfull, all-knowing"
"I said shut up!" Megatron turned and aimed his fusion cannon at the seeker's face. The smile he was wearing was anything but malicious, though.

'Starscream' pouted. exaggeratedly. "But, I was just saying..." The pout vanished in that instant, and both broke imposters broke into chorused laughter. The whole fight had been fake, of course. Windstriker chuckled. "Do they really fight like that?" she wondered aloud. Bullet (Megatron) nodded. Jade (aka Starscream) added "yup. They sure do. All the time. heh." She looked at Bullet and pasted her hands on her hips. She stated (with mock sarcasm) "Well at least he gets to keep his vocoder box on it's original algorithm. Me, I have to deal with sounding like that rude, swawky, loudmothed, tin-foil plated kite-modeled two-byte..." Bullet facepalmed. Still sounding like Megatron, he said "Now you know why I'm so grumpy all the time." That sent the entire room into a whole new round of laughter. Starscream ceased his-er her tirade to join in the fresh peals of laughter the joke produced.

"Well." Dusk announced, still chuckling. I think they're ready to go"

'Starscream' smirked again. "Well, it could have been worse, oh-mighty-Megatron." the pretender waited for a round of curious looks before continuing "we could have painted you pink with sparkles." Dusk squeaked with laughter. Her vocaliser mask didn't allow her to show her mirth, but the flier's shoulders shook, imagining how it would look. 'Megatron' just chuckled and shook his head, going back to his regular voice. "Come on, let's go get this done and over with." he headed for the door. He adopted his Megatron voice, intent on practicing it as much as possible before the mission. "Let's see if they've found the spacebridge yet."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they walked into the main cavern, Mic, Needle, and Gobee had set up a table in the corner on the far side of the computer console, and were discussing how to make or where to find a Transformer-sized deck of playing cards. "Hey, we could allways sneak into the Ark and steal some of theirs. I'll bet they have a deck." Mic sniggered. The white camaro Z-28 looked over at Gobee, the minispy-sized black and silver BMW 530i next to him. The car didn't look impressed. He was just thankful he had his vocalizer mask to hide some of his apprehension behind.

He looked at Needle. The black, dark green and blue pickup truck looked back at Mic, who shrugged. Scythe glanced at the trio then at the computer. He spotted Windstriker and Dusk coming in. Behind them were none other than Starscream and the Decepticon leader himself. Megatron.

"I do believe it was a success." Starscream chirped from behind Megatron. The Megatron lookalike said nothing in reply. Scythe nodded. "Good. Now all we have to do is find the spacebridge, and we'll be ready to get on with this mission." he stated, turning back to the controls. Razer hit another key. "I think I may have found something." he stated. The group from the repairbay walked over to see. A small blip appeared on the screen, blinking red. The view of the grouond was overlaid with a grid outline, and the camera zoned in on the area. Sure enough, there in the middle of a clearing of trees, surrounded by forest, was a tiny circle of Metal. and standing around it were the winged forms of the Decepticon flier trine. Starscream looked at Thundercracker and pointed, saying something. Thundercracker was carrying a sheet of metal for the partially-plated spacebridge, halted and waved an arm, head jerking slightly as he made his no-doubt-cocky reply. The third jet, a black colored on came up and said something to Thundercracker. The blue jet and black jet walked away to finish their work on the spacebridge. Scythe blinked. "Well, it seems as though we have found them. Now all we need to do is wait for them to finish it, and wait for Starscream to leave." The others nodded.

--------------------------------------------------------------

At the Spacebridge...

Starscream glared at his trinemates as they left to continue their work. He was the Air Commander ! he wasn't suited for menial work such as this! Thundercracker walked up, holding a sizeable square of metal. "Hey screamer, ya gonna help, or just stand around all day?" he asked.

"Yeah, well... somebody has to be in charge here!" the red and blue seeker retorted. Thundercracker snickered. "Yeah, well it sure aint you." he mutterred. Then aloud "If Megatron sees you standing around doing nothing, he's not gonna be happy about it." he said. Starscream glowered. "Unlike you, I am doing something useful. I am keeping an optic out for any enemy spies that may be in the area. And you..." he pointed. "Need to talk less and work more, or I shall be the one to tell Megatron about people not doing their assigned jobs, and it will be you recieving the punishment for not obeying Megatron's commands!"

Skywarp walked up. "Shut up, Starscream. There's no Autobots around. We're miles and miles away from their base. And besides, how could they know we're her? we're in the middle of a stinkin forest"

"I don't care if we're in the middle of a forest or the middle of the ocean! there's still the chance that one of their little spies is running around here. Maybe that tree-hugging one that's as green as forest he loves so much. You won't be laughing when they ruin our plans. And I'm not going to be the one to turn a blind eye and take the blame if they show up and trash our latest project. So shut up and get back to work!" he screeched.

Skywarp, the black jet, looked at Thundercracker, the blue one. "Come on, cracker. We got better things to do than stand around and listen to Starscream complain all day"

"Yeah, somebody's got to get some work done around here." the blue jet retorted. And the two jets went back to work placing the panels over the circuitry on the new spacebridge.

Thundercracker uprighted himself to look over the metal barrier at Skywarp, who was on the other side. "Don't worry. when Megatron finds out Starscream did nothing but stand around all day and watch for Autobots, we'll be the ones gettingthe reward for sorking so hard on the spacebridge." he whispered.

"yeah." Skywarp glanced at Starscream. "He's a little tightly wound today, don't you think?"

"Yeah." thundercracker nodded slowly. "Why, you have something in mind for after we get this job done?"

Skywarp smirked mischeviously. "Maybe"

Starscream turned and looked at him. He sounded less annoyed now, even humored, maybe. "Don't even think about it, Skywarp. You know how much Megatron dispises your pranks. If he catches you painting Ravage teal and purple again, He will surely dismantle you."

Starscream had caught his thoughts again.

Rats!

"Err-what was the positive side of being trinemates again?" Skywarp asked, smirking cheekily. He quickly turned his thoughts to something else he could to to pass the time. Skywarp snorted and shook his head.

"Don't you dare." he chided. Sure, fliers inside of a trine shared thoughts. It was something all seeker trines did, so they could communicate at the speed of thought. But thundercracker and Skywarp knew it also meant Starscream could hear and see it also. And that meant blackmail material later, if they carried out Skywarp's plans.

"Later." thundercracker quickly said, and went back to work. Skywarp just sighed and went back to work, wishing the constructicons would return with the rest of the materials so they could get this thing built and get back to the Nemesis. They were afraid of the Autobots finding out about their newest spacebridge, but they weren' about to tell Starscream that. It would just add more fuel to the afterburner, so to speak.

Thundrcracker looked over at him. "Aren't you going to help? even just little bit? yaknow, Megatron ordered you to help us build this thing, too." Starwcream tuned his back to them. "You don't want us to tell Megatron you didn't do anything but stand around the entre time, do ya"
"Somebody has to compensate for Megatron's oversights. It's not my fault he constantly fails to see the flaws in his plans." The seeker retirted.

"Okayyy..." thundercracker reached for his comm.

Skywarp's optics widened. "What're you-"

BLAM!

The laserblast came mere inches from the blue jet's arm. Starscream was glaring daggers, and his armcannon trailed smoke. "Next time. You won't be so lucky. I won't miss." he hissed.

Skywarp's face darkened. "No, but when the Constructicons get back, who's gonna let you then?" he retorted. Starscream harrumphed and turned away again, unable to come up with an adequate reply.

The sound of construction vehicle engines rumbled, and the Constructicons appeared. "It's about time you got here." Starscream stated, only half as inscenced as before. "I had to put up with these two boltheads all on my own." Hook transformed first. "Well excuse me, but we had a job to do here, and it's not our job to sit around and babysit you all." Behind him Boncrusher snickered. Mixmaster rolled up. "Yeah. We had a job to do. So why don't you do ours and leave us alone." Skywarp gave them a glance then looked at Starscream like "See? I told you so." Starscream grumbled under his breath andf snatched up a peice of metal, heading over to the contruct, and grumbling the entire time.