"WHAT?!"

Barricade's right optic lens popped entirely out of its socket in apoplectic rage. Silently energon chips changed hands throughout the Nemesis.

"I said the reason Frenzy and Rumble can't dock with you is because you're generating a protoform. Blackout and Soundwave are having the same problems. Being near Shiftlock after she generated new sparks has set off your carrier protocols," Knock Out said, now looking for the optic lens on the floor. "And again, you have been ordered to stay away from Shiftlock, as she is now Lord Megatron's "mate"."

"Y-you mean to tell me," Barricade said, vocoder trembling in fury, "That after all this time, n-ot only do I not get to pay h-her back for rejecting me, b-but she's got me s-swollen with protoforms by WALKING PAST ME?!"

The other optic lens popped out.

Knock Out caught it in his open hand.

"Have you considered some kind of anger management download?" the medic asked, considering applying a forced stasis lock to Barricade to calm him down. "Your hydraulic pressure is off the charts right now. You've literally gone into a blind rage just now."

"It is not so bad, Barricade," Blackout said, the titan-class mech stroking his torso plates, his EMF radiating a happy glow. "We are making new life possible!"

Barricade just frothed incomprehensible profanities and flopped back onto his berth.

Knock Out recovered the other lens and stood back up, Soundwave, Barricade and Blackout occupying the row of diagnostic and support berths in front of him. "You're all on medical leave until your carrier bays finish the protoforms. You are to stay on those berths, drink your energon and get plenty of rest. You'll be back on your pedes before long, so just be patient." He carried Barricade's eyes with him to gather tools for a repair. "... I'm going to have to set up some kind of quarantine for Shiftlock on the ship. This is getting out of hand; with Soundwave down someone else is going to have to take over the communications duties." He wheeled the crash cart towards Barricade, the mech's lenses in a sterile dish as he considered who could possibly take over that chore. He could only think of one.

"I wonder where Starscream ended up."

...

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

The Air Commander blasted down the hallway screaming, having transformed into jet mode, leaving Drag Strip in the dust in his escape.

Frustrated and even saddened, Drag Strip moped against the wall, rejected a second time. Wasn't she sexy enough for any of these mechs? Didn't she drive them crazy with desire? Did this mean she was ... ugly?

It was almost more than the fembot Stunticon could take. Overly competitive by nature and driven with a desire to win and achieve her goals at any cost, she felt, for the first time, that something she truly wanted might actually be out of her reach. This left her distraught in a way that she never had been before. She had always gotten what she wanted, and Wildrider had made sure that if she couldn't get it, he'd get it for her.

She trudged down the hallway, crestfallen, considering where she might have gone wrong. The vast wall of NO she had crashed into was teaching her a painful and poignant lesson: Impulsive, aggressive, demanding might not actually work sometimes. Drag Strip was so busy wallowing in self-pity that she didn't notice Shockwave until she ran into him.

"Watch where you're-" she cut off her angry retort as soon as she looked up into that glaring red eye. Instantly she trembled, stepping back, drawing her hands to her chest, afraid there might be some kind of violent repercussion for so clumsily bumping into one of Megatron's Lieutenants. She was all too familiar with the sort of punishment that could be handed down from above for that kind of misstep, no matter how innocently it might have occurred.

It also occurred to her that Shockwave was ... well built. Maybe she hadn't noticed it until just now, but he was broad shouldered, narrow of hip, his legs powerful, and the cannon on his arm was, simply put, well-endowed. Her vents opened, fanning excess internal heat.

"You appear to be in distress," Shockwave pointed out nonchalantly. "And curiously aroused."

Lack of subtlety, thy name was Shockwave. Drag Strip nearly offlined in embarrassment.

"W-well y-yes," she stammered, covering her optics with one hand, wishing she could transform into something so small it couldn't be seen without aid of an electron microscope. It was like admitting to Megatron's face that you had berth fantasies about him. The fallout would be positively thermonuclear.

"Your drive to generate must have been activated," Shockwave stated as if he were reading a stock report out loud. "My sensors indicate that your core temperature is elevated. Do you desire to interface with me?"

He did not just ask that. He did not just ask that. Drag Strip felt like her brainmodule had been hit by the fist of an angry god. She tried to answer - you didn't not answer one of Megatron's Lieutenants no matter what horrifyingly frank questions they asked of you - but all that managed to pass her vocoder was a garbled, tiny squeak. Nevertheless, morbid curiosity and a desperate need to generate that wouldn't leave the top of her thought stack pressed her onwards. She swallowed and tried again, timidly answering in a tiny voice, "... yes?"

"Very well. Come with me to my quarters," Shockwave replied with a maddening, mind-breaking calm, turning around and walking towards the officer's deck, expecting Drag Strip to follow.

Her mouth hung open. She had to check to make sure her jaw had not fallen off and hit the floor.

She rebooted a few processes that had stalled with unexpected errors, quickly considering whether or not what she had just agreed to was actually, in fact, a good idea. This was Shockwave we were talking about here. Did he actually have a sex life? If so... what could it possibly be like? It seemed Drag Strip was going to find out. After all, she'd just agreed to interface with him, and she didn't think she could back out now even if she wanted to.

Gathering up her shattered notions of the purple mech's behavior from the floor, Drag Strip hurried along to catch up to Shockwave, watching the contours of his backside the whole way.

...

The hangar doors to the Nemesis opened as a black and violet helicopter left the open sky for the insides of the ship. Bay doors shutting down, Airachnid transformed and touched down on the floor of the hangar. Reporting in with the Vehicon quartermaster in charge of supplies, she made her request for more raw material and energon for Kickback, who was still back at the Insecticons' original hive location, tending his hatching pods. It was time to file the usual updates with Megatron concerning the hive master's progress in adding more Insecticons to the ranks, and since the spawning under her direction had been successful, she'd been cut a lot of slack. It didn't hurt that she was playing it safe, keeping ambition and attitude in check.

Making her way out of the hanger and through the halls of the ship, headed to the command center, she was passed by the female Stunticon Drag Strip, who seemed to be in a ridiculously good mood. The Formula-One racer's EMF was practically singing in a way Airachnid had never seen radiating off her before, not even when she'd beaten someone to a twisted mound of mesh or outraced an Autobot speedster. Was that a whiff of post-overload ozone she detected?

Airachnid paused, watching her skip down the hallway, beginning to suspect the cause for such an agreeable mood. She smirked and chuckled, continuing on her way. Good for the Stunticon! Maybe it would calm her down - though she suspected Wildrider would be tearing some poor red-painted glitch apart for it later.

"Knock Out, you devil," she laughed under her breath.

If only Airachnid knew.

...

"Starscream, you can stop hiding in your quarters," Megatron sighed over the comm channel. "Drag Strip has moved into the lower parts of the ship, and I need you HERE to handle communications until Soundwave can return to duty."

What a mess. Megatron slumped into his command chair, resting his chin against one hand, talons drumming against the arm rest of the other. Knock Out's suggestion of setting up a quarantine for Shiftlock and her offspring was something they should have done from the start. Admittedly Megatron's lack of interest in the intricacies of sparkling generation had left him woefully ignorant of the full ramifications of having a reproductively active female present in a closed environment such as the Nemesis. Phase Seven - the repopulation of the Cybertronian race after the war - seemed to be erupting into full swing around him even before the war was fully over.

The command doors opened and Airachnid stepped in, crossing the walkway over the lower weapons control and system deck and approaching the throne. She bowed and dropped to one knee, right arm crossed over her chest.

"Report, Airachnid," Megatron boredly addressed the fembot, his mind anywhere but on the day-to-day business of military operations.

"My Lord, the Insecticon repopulation project remains on schedule. We believe this batch may contain the revival of Hardshell and Sharpshot," Airachnid announced, raising her eyes to the silver gladiator enthroned before her.

Well, at least that was good news. "Continue the project, then," Megatron answered, sitting back up. "I must advise you, however, that there is a situation developing on the Nemesis that may have an immediate effect on you."

That wasn't good. Was she in trouble?

"Recently we engaged in a hostage exchange with the Autobots, and acquired one of their females, Shiftlock, and her two sparklings as our prisoners. Unfortunately her presence has had some ... unpredictable side effects on the rest of the crew," Megatron explained.

Airachnid raised an optic ridge. "What kind of side effects?" she asked almost a bit too bluntly.

"Shockwave informs me that a sparked female, or one who has recently given birth, can trigger a drive to generate in other females, particularly ones who have not borne sparklings for an extended period of time," Megatron continued. "Furthermore it can also trigger carriers to start producing blank protoforms. Our carriers have already been affected."

Airachnid couldn't help but laugh, though she quickly swallowed it under Megatron's withering glare.

"You are ordered to avoid contact or proximity to Shiftlock. Drag Strip has already been triggered."

"Of course, Lord Megatron," Airachnid agreed. Easy enough. This information explained to the spider why Drag Strip wasn't acting quite like herself as they passed in the hall. Though, if she was needy for generation, wouldn't she have been more irritable than happy?

Not having been dismissed, Airachnid looked up at Megatron expectantly, waiting on his next order or debriefing of the current events taking place within the faction. It was in looking at him a little longer than normal that she began to notice things about the gladiator she had not considered before.

His chest, so broad and strong and perfectly polished, accented by old battle scars that were a testament to his strength and virility. The power in his arms and legs, the perfection of his form that was beginning to tantalize her with its proximity. She began to smile slyly. Why try to get rid of Megatron when she could exert power over the Decepticons from beneath him?

The shift on Airachnid's features didn't go unnoticed. "... Airachnid, what are you doing?" Megatron asked, uncertain how to react to the feeling of being undressed by her violet eyes.

"Admiring my most perfect Lord Megatron," she purred. "Am I not allowed the privilege of basking in your presence?"

Megatron inched back on his throne, optic ridges raising away from crimson eyes. Such flattery was something he expected from Starscream after the fool had done something to cross him. Airachnid's words were usually caustic with venom, not dripping with honey. "I ... suppose you are so allowed," he replied cautiously.

Airachnid stood and sauntered closer to Megatron, intentionally swaying her hips provocatively in front of him as she knelt at his feet, placing her hands on his legs, just above his knees.

"My Lord, the itsy bitsy spider would like to climb your water spout," she whispered huskily.