Family Affair
Chapter 1
Cadence Barrick
"Daddy!" Honeybee and Raven both ran at Sam and tackled his legs as he got out of Bumblebee to wait for them.
Sam had to flail his arms so he wouldn't fall over, "Hey, you two," he greeted them as he regained his balance.
"Daddy, guess what?" Raven smiled up at him as she let go of his leg.
"What?"
Honey answered for her sister, "We had art class today and we had to work in pairs. Me and Raven had to weave string together on this small wooden loom thingy."
Raven took off her backpack and pulled out the finished product. It had a black string background and part of the thing was puffed out slightly with golden yellow string stripes. Grey string for the wings and white string for its eyes and the stinger. It was a bee. "We made it for Bee."
"Aww… that was nice of you," Sam smiled before he opened the passenger side door to let them into the car. After he got them settled in, he closed the door and got behind the wheel, "You guys remember what day it is?"
"Um… Friday?" Honeybee looked at him in confusion.
Raven suddenly got the 'ah-ha!' look on her face, "Momma gets off work early today, huh?"
Sam beamed at them from the rearview mirror, "Yep! And guess where we're going after that?"
The twins exchanged glances and shrugged, "Dunno…"
"We are going to an air show this afternoon," their father said watching as their expressions changed from 'uh… to OMG?!' before explaining, "Your mom noticed that you two have been wantin' to go to an air show. So today's the day."
"SWEET!!" both twins whooped and pumped their fists in the air.
Bumblebee peeled away from the curb to head off to the downtown area.
***
"Stunt planes?!" Skywarp cried in horrified awe as he flailed his arms with exasperation, "What the frag?! Why stunt planes?"
Starscream pinched the bridge of his smell receptors as he began to feel a nasty headache coming on, "Do you really think the fleshbags are going to give us a job as fighters? Hello, have you forgotten who we are?"
Earlier that morning, the Seekers had tried to use the Registry to slip into the human military ranks but had been caught by a rather nasty firewall that they hadn't expected from the fleshlings. Instead of trying level the entire thing, he confronted the general who was in charge of the Airland Field on the far outskirts of Tranquility. Saying that General Stephen Rockinvolk was reluctant was a horrible understatement but however he had three pilots that were without jets and gave the three of them the position of stunt plane. The general had told them flat out that if he could trust them not to randomly eject their assigned pilots *cough*accidently-on-purpose*cough* he might allow them to be bumped up to fighter.
Now, Starscream had to deal with three irked wingmates. "But Screamer?! Even being a simple recon team would have been better!" Thundercracker shouted, fire red optics ablaze with annoyance.
"The only option they gave was stunt plane!" Starscream shouted back frustration reading out all over. He wasn't irritated with his wingmates but miffed at this entire situation as a whole, "We are to be back at the base in five minutes where we will be assign our pilots, and then we will begin warming up for our performance. The show will proceed in the next three Earth hours which will give us plenty of time."
"Fine… I'll do it…," Skywarp grumpled as his wings sagged slightly in defeat.
Their leader looked at the black and dark violet jet before smirking, "Good, because you don't have a choice."
Starscream transformed and flew out of the open doors of the abandoned hanger that he and the other Decepticons had turned into a base of operations. He could see the other two following close behind him on his radar. With a sigh Starscream radioed in, "Beside, don't forget why we are doing this."
There was a silence before Skywarp responded, "We know… It's just hard to accept that we have to go crawling on our bellies to those fraggin' meatbags."
Starscream chuckled darkly, "I know… Believe me, I know."
***
It was scorching hot in the savannah that day. The blazing sun beamed its intense glare down upon the inhabitants. Her black hair was tied back into two very thick and very long ponytails that stopped at her knees. The woman's skin which was usually quite pale was already sun burnt skin. She tried fruitlessly to cover it up with what sunscreen she had left. She let out a cry of frustration as she managed to get half of a squeeze before the bottle was empty. "Fuck!" she shouted as she pelted the bottle at a boulder which caused a loud clatter.
It was the drought season in the Serengeti and there was almost no water, if any at all, to drink. Private First Class Anakia Kora, or AK as she was called by her former comrades, just so happened to be caught in the middle of it. She had been stuck out in the plains of Africa, since she had fled from the base in Qatar after the attack for eight years and one month. She was lucky to get away with her life. When she had gotten far enough way that she was out of the line of fire, she turned back just for a moment when she spotted that thing. It obviously never saw her but she could see it as if night had turned to day right then. The thing was huge and had pretty much leveled the entire base. AK didn't like running away just as much as any other person but right then self-preservation had taken over.
Luck seemed to be in your favor for just a moment as she came upon some shade just big enough to sit cross-legged in. Anakia sat down under the tree while she pulled out a canteen from her pack that she had managed to grab before she left. Her faded black fatigue pants were worn but only had a couple holes in them. Her black army issue tank top was shredded in several places and the only thing that didn't look like it was going to fall off any second were her boots.
She took a swig from canteen which was attached to her waist by a leather string. Anakia wiped the sweat from her brow, "I'll be lucky if I don't shrivel up before I can reach either civilization or the other end of the continent. Maybe, I should wait for the monsoon before I head out that way." Her voice crackle slightly from being under hydrated but other than that it retained its smooth tone.
AK sat there for awhile before her stomach gave a low growl. Hunting was a fairly easy task since she grabbed her favorite weapon, an AK-47, before she had ran. The only reason the Captain had allowed her to keep it was because it had been a present from her Company who decided it would be funny for AK to have an AK-47. She checked the gun to make sure all the pieces weren't damaged or warped by the heat and she lifted herself on to her feet to glance around her environment. She had to put on her black camo jacket so she could keep from blistering as long as possible.
Unfortunately, there was nothing left because all the herds had migrated and it was too hot for her to keep going. So with great reluctance, Anakia gave up the hunt and headed back to her currently dwelling which happened to be a cavern. The ceiling of the entrance had just enough clearance that it could've sheltered two female elephants. Past the entrance, the space narrowed into something of a passageway that led into another even larger part of the cave. This part is where she lived, safely tucked away from the sun and other elements. The other cool thing about this cave was it had a large body of water that was actually fairly deep that she was able to cool off and relax in.
Anakia would have made it to the spot by her sleeping bag to deposit her bag had she not tripped over something in her path. AK cursed as she caught the ground with her palms. The soldier rolled over to see what the obstacle was.
Its body was made entirely of metal and wiring. She knew it had wiring because of the frayed bits of metal sticking out of the gunshots all over its hide. The strange robotic creature kind of reminded her of a black scorpion. It had a huge tail but from the looks of it a large portion had been blown off. Anakia noticed there was sand that had turned into this hard crusty sludge all over its body.
Sighing reluctantly, AK got back onto her feet and made it the rest of the way to her sleeping bag, depositing her bag next to it. She took out a few pipe cleaners from her bag, along with a few wire caps which she put pocket before walking back up to the seemingly lifeless beast. When she tried to touch the metal it nearly burned her hands, "Ow! Damn, that's some hot stuff." After her comment to the unconscious scorpion, she retreated back to her pack and pulled out a pair of heavy duty work gloves. Anakia put them on before grabbed the beast by its broken tail and slowly dragged it into the pool of water at the other end of the chamber. Her eyebrows shot up in amazement at the amount of steam caused when the metal touched the cool liquid.
AK hoped that the creature was still alive as she began to scrape away all the grit and crud that caked its circuitry. "I bet its wires are all fried by now," she commented flatly to herself but kept working nonetheless.
Anakia didn't see the red optics flicker to life as the being returned to consciousness. In a sudden flash of movement the mecha scorpion leapt out of the water, waving and clicking its pinchers at her menacingly.
However, Anakia wasn't one to be easily impressed by bravado, "You know it's kinda hard to be afraid of someone who's got pieces of their body missin'."
Scorponok ignored the fleshling as he tried to send out a communication line to Blackout but all he could get was static. The scorpion cursed in his language which sounded only like a mixture spastic clicks. He looked back up at the human female who was now staring at him with a raised eyebrow. Her outer armor was strangely familiar to him; it looked much like that of the human military that Blackout had annihilated back in Qatar. She shrugged and retreated to where her stuff was and put the pipe cleaners bag into her bag.
Anakia strode back over to the edge of the water but on the opposite side that the robot was on and began to stripe off her outer armor. "If you're quite done staring me down, I'm going to get back to my agenda," she commented wryly as she lowered herself into the water. She hissed in slight pain as the water touched her burnt skin.
Scorponok blinked his optics and tilted her head at her in curiosity. Before turning his attention to the pack near her bedding and gave it quick scan, thanking Primus that his scanners still worked. He noticed that the majority of the content consisted of tools that would probably quite handy in a person who knew who to fix things. Then he realized that she was a mechanic and that she could probably fix his comlink.
The scorpion quickly scurried to the other side of the watering hole and prodded her with one of his pinchers. In return wasn't prepared for the response she gave, "Ow! Damnit! The hell is wrong with you!? Don't poke me!" she hissed painfully. Sighing heavily, she knew it probably poked her for a reason so she calmed herself before asking, "What do you need?"
"I need you to fix my comm.," he confessed with heavy reluctance because he knew he was probably going to have to come up with some sort of compensation. Come on let's face it. Who works for free? He quickly added, "I will be able to contact someone to get us out of here."
The scorpion was almost afraid that she would flat out refuse before her expression gradually softened into a smirk, "Fair enough. You have no idea how sick I am of this fuckin' continent."
As a Decepticon he felt rather embarrassed about having to enlist the help of a fleshling much less a female but as it stood he didn't really have much of a choice. He couldn't reach all of the components with his short arms and the pinchers were too bulky to handle the delicate wiring. And as much as he detested humans he had to agree with her on her view of their current location.
"Can grab my bag from over there? I won't be able to do anything without my equipment," Anakia all but ordered.
Not wanting this to take longer than it should, Scorponok complied and brought her things to her so that she could work. With that he let her work in silence.
