The Wrecker

Chapter 4: Where once was life

This has been flowing so I'm letting it come to me.

Wheeljack's POV first

Prowls POV second

written as always as POV should be written from first person point of view.

When my optics come online I feel him pressed against me. His helm is a welcome weight against my torso plate. I close my optics once more and just lay in his presence. I'm worried, about Alexia, my crew, and my ship: everything.

Prowl stirs in my arms, and I open my optics to view him. His helm is so defined by shape that I can't take my optics off of the red chevron that sits on his helm. It's a splash of color in a sea of white and black. I shift slightly and frown when his optics open and light. I wasn't trying to rouse him. "Hey." I'm surprised at how quietly it comes out and how simple. I mean to say so much more that I cannot at the present moment express.

"Oh..." He takes in his surroundings and looks up at me. "we must have..."

I nod at this. "Yeah...you kinda fell into recharge after the second cube." I'd snuck into the common area, well I didn't sneak it's my ship, but I pilfered a few cubes of high grade for us. We'd laid in my berth for a long while just talking before recharge took him. Not wishing to disturb, I closed my optics too; I was too content to move.

"I did not mean to be inconvenient." he states as a sort of apology, I suppose. He shifts sitting up beside me taking me in. His hand moves idly along my upper leg armor.

"You." I state drawing him closer to kiss him again. "Are no such thing." I insist, because he's anything but an inconvenience. He's a welcome distraction from everything.

He smiles into anger kiss when the room's silence is broken by Sideview's voice on the intercom. "Commander?"

"Yes." We both answer in tandem. We blink looking at one another as if this is both humorous and mortifying.

"Go ahead Sideview." I can only smile as Prowl runs a hand over his face in mortification.

"We're on final approach to Alexia Prime." Sideview announces, as he seems to be holding in his amusement. "Drift believes that we will make planet fall in approximately twenty clicks."

"Thank you Sideview." I say calmly. "Wheeljack out." I hear the communications cut with an audible click. Looking at Prowl I smirk. "Caught." I utter.

"I highly doubt he will say anything." Prowl returns shifting back slightly to stand off the berth. "It would be highly in appropriate to call out his senior officers." Though I know for a fact it may be in a report somewhere, and that gossip will spread like a circuit fire if Drift heard it.

"Well, he'd be right to call us out." I remind Prowl with a charming smile. "You did write the rule book on fraternizing within the ranks." I jab softly reaching out to pull him down across my lap. He hadn't even tried to protest merely melted against my frame his helm inches from my own.

"I did, didn't I?" He smirks playfully and our lips come closer to touch. Such a chaste kiss but so worth every moment.

"Sir?" Sideview's voice breaks into the room once more. My optics roll and Prowl only shakes his helm quietly. "Sir you need to get down to the bridge."

"What's going on Sideways?" I ask my hands running over Prowl's door wings eliciting a soft gasp from the cruiser in my arms.

"It's Alexia Prime sir...the outpost; it's gone." Sideways voice cracks, and Prowl is up out of my lap before i blink. I'm standing up as he straightens out our armor plates; first his own and than mine. "There's nothing left sir."

"What do you mean gone?" I ask. "What's happened?"

Prowl puts a calming hand on my arm and begins to speak. "Please Sideways elaborate on the current status of Alexia." Prowl rubs his hand over a scratch on his torso idly as he waits a response.

"Commander Prowl...um well there's a huge crater where the settlement should be." Sideways utters. "And this was no small settlement. 10 thousand Cybertronians at a minimum sirs."

Prowl looks panicked. "Life signs?" His optics are focused to the floor and I see him running the plays over in his mind.

"None sir." Sideways says with a regretful tone. "It's been completely wiped out…reminds me of Stanix after the war started." That one sentence brings back haunting memories for us both. I shake my helm and turn to my console.

"We're on our way." I click the comm button beside my berth. "What now?" I ask quietly. "Ten thousand…that's a lot of sparks."

"Our mission still stands." Prowl gave a curt nod and met my Optics. "We need to find out what is going on." he turns to the hatch. "Perhaps the moon will have some answers but I'd like to get in touch with Optimus just to make sure.

"Of course." I smile softly. "I agree we'll start with the moon." I open the hatch and he exits first out into the common area.

As I look upon the crater that was once an Autobot/neutral settlement I am filled with dread; there is simply nothing left of it. I close my optics for a moment and pray Primus opens the well to them. That they are creeped into his warm spark with open arms.

"Set course for Mortra." Wheeljack orders standing over Sideview's shoulder pointing to their navigation charts. "I want answers." he says. Wheeljack has never lacked the courage of his conviction not in all the years I've known him, and his fear of my feelings is the first time I have ever seen him filled with doubt. He looks back and his worried optics meet mine. "Any ideas?"

"I will need to send a sub-space message to Prime." With a sigh I step forward to look at the images. "He may want to scrap this mission." I hate to admit this because I know Wheeljack is already dead set on finding out what happened. I have to try to follow protocol, procedure; if I do not I'm just as culpable if anything goes wrong.

"Absolutely not." Wheeljack says darkly. "They killed all those mechs, femmes, and the hatchlings." he shakes his helm. "I won't let that stand. Ten thousand Prowl." He reminds me, and for a moment I merely gage him; to see what he might do, or say next. There is a look in his optics that is pleading with me, and I don't have to be bonded with him to see it either.

"Sub-space communication isn't possible sir." Drift says from the co-pilots chair. "Communications are being jammed." He looks at Sideview. "Can you boost our signal output Ways?"

"No, unfortunately, not." The pilot sighed. "And it's not on our end…it's something out there." He points out the screen. "That's blocking all long range communications."

Turning to the fore I speak. "As Optimus Prime's XO, I'm giving e Wreckers clearance for a rescue mission to Mortra. With long range communications down it is paramount that we reestablish those communications." Wheeljack is smiling at me. "Perhaps we'll also find answers as to what happened on the surface.

"Thank you commander." Wheeljack smiles. " Once we make moon-fall I want everyone in the common area." He pulls me to the back of the bridge quietly. "I want to split us into two teams... one to investigate the inside of the compound, the other the outside."

I think on this and nod. "I will take the team within the compound to secure the data banks in the hopes we can find some command logs that will give us a sense of what's going on."

He smiles at me. "Sure you don't want a reassignment?"

I have to smile at that. "I am XO to the Prime, I'm sure he won't give me up." I shrug. "Though it is a very tempting offer Wheeljack."

"Guess I will just have to come back to home base more often." He says under a whisper.

I lean in near his audio. "I'd like that...your berth is uncomfortably small. I have command quarters with lots of room…" I smile and pull away from him to move to sit in a chair behind Drift. I do not look back and don't hear foot falls for 10 solid clicks before he comes to take the chair beside mine.

"Landfall in thirty nano-clicks." Sideview announces over the comm ship wide.

"Strap in hatchlings...no injuries this time." Wheeljack says following up Sideways announcement, and I cast him after full glance. I am curious as to what apparently has happened before that would have caused injuries.

I grasp onto the arm rests of the seat I'm in, as the ship clanks down on the planets surface, plates and panels begin to rattle and shake thought the landing. It's not the worst landing I've been through, but it was definitely not a smooth landing, but Sideways and Drift seem to have the hang of it, new ship and all I'm sure there are plenty of bugs to work out.

The ship settles on it's landing gear, and I let out a vent I didn't know I had been holding. Landings always made me nervous. Especially ship landings. I'd rather fall to a planetoid in my protoform travel mode than land with a ship, I'm not sure why, but I'd prefer it.

Wheeljack stands and motions me back to the common area. "Break room lets move it." He looks at Sideways and Drift as they shut down their consoles and stand.

I stand and wait as Drift and Sideways shuffle through the back of the hatchway. Once we're alone Wheeljack pulls me to him and kisses me hard, he pulls back after a few clicks and there's one, final, chaste kiss.

Pulling back I nod and we move into the common room without saying a word to each other.