OOPS... I did it again! Sorry, but I have added a few mor details to the last chapter as the feedback I got indicated the reason for Soundwave to reject came across wrong. So you may want to re-read that part (Meg and Sounders in the vault in Ch9) - or not, it will surface quite often in future parts.

Ravage ran. He heard Soundwave's apology in the link but couldn't make himself comm back. Soundwave's cruel words were stinging him again and again and the technimal ran faster and faster, until he reached the transporter docks. The navigation subroutine must have used the last route he took from the TIC's room... The dock was deserted now, submerged in relative darkness, and Ravage holed up in an empty niche between some bulky mining equipment to think.

Ever since he got back online after repairs the feline refused to recall the events that preceded his deactivation. Now it would seem he had no choice - the files surfaced on their own accord.

In the heat of the battle it was hard to assess the situation. He eviscerated his opponent and located his host. Soundwave was on the other side of the valley, hacking through and Ravage moved to intercept, to help him...
/GET THE TWINS!/ - Soundwave's transmission was somewhat frantic, and Ravage located Laserbeak circling above a small ruin on the hill, and changed direction toward her. Laserbeak was shooting at advancing enemy and that meant she had something to protect there. Deducting, that one or probably both twins took cover there, Ravage sped up. The 'bots knew better than to approach the two minicons, their ability to cause madness and destruction infamous. Instead, they drowned the small ruin in fire. "Hurry!' he heard Frenzy shout. "Rumble's damaged!". There was no way Frenzy would manage to get his twin out of there and all the way back to Soundwave while keeping autobots at bay. Ravage ran, without even slowing down to kill his obstacles. He was nearly on the two Cassettes when the grenades flew in.
The blast was huge. He was blinded, hit... Falling... Failing

He had failed them.

Next thing he remembered was waking up in sort of a medbay, as Soundwave's feelers were working on his cabling. /I'm sorry. I wasn't fast enough/ - he commed trying to catch Soundwave's gaze, but the spy's optic were hidden behind a visor. /Not your fault/ - his host responded without slowing his work down. /84% chance to lose you too if you'd reached them earlier. Rest now/ - the last part was an order and Ravage slid back into recharge mode.

Had Soundwave lied then? Was he lying now? He was sent to fetch the twins, but it had been an ambush and Soundwave was shot out of the sky. His programming demanded he protected his host. But his mission was to evacuate the twins. He failed either way.

Ravage put his aching head on his paws. He felt an urge to heave and empty his energon tanks. It would hardly make him feel any better, so he suppressed this urge. He missed them both so much. They had been loud, mischievous little brats, obnoxious and annoying beyond measure, but Rumble's sence of right and wrong and Frenzy's inventive pranks made up for their shortcomings. If he could only talk to them...

If he could only talk to anybody for that matter. Ravage's voice box was capable of a very limited set of sounds. He could slur out a few words, but the effort it required made anything closer to a phrase impossible. The twins usually helped him out when he wanted to communicate with anyone, or he could use Soundwave's access to commlink. Now they were gone and there was no way he would reach out to his host yet. Ravage was isolated. Alone.

Most of the time if was cool to be Soundwave's cassette, but right now it slagged a big one.

/Ravage, I am sorry. I have no reason to believe they would survive if you had reached them in time. Have a shift off to yourself, if you need, but come back, OK?/ - came Soundwave's comm. Ravage felt his jaws tighten. Was it a lie? Was it true?

Did he have a choice eventually? Soundwave could order him come back any time. The host was giving him some freedom and that spoke more than any apology.

But still Ravage couldn't bring himself to answer. The cat rose. He needed to talk to someone, anyone, and there was only one mech other than Soundwave onboard at the moment who could hear him.

Doug didn't seem surprised to see Ravage at all. The cat looked up his current assignment and found him repairing damaged sliders in one of the corridors. At least one of the two vehicons doing it should be Doug.

As the cat stopped, deciding how to identify the one he needed, one of the eradicons looked up to see him and nudged the other : 'Look who's here'. The second took a split click to finish wielding whatever it was he was wielding at the moment and looked up too. "Hey!" - he said cheerfully, standing up. "Say, Steve, can you finish it up alone?"

The other waved him off "go, lover boy, I'll manage". Doug thanked him and walked toward the technimal, who continued just looking at them and made no attempt to come closer. As Doug approached he noticed tension and something kin to despair in the feline's pose and the way his audials, usually proudly standing, now slumped down and his tail was touching the floor. Ravage's optics were wide and slightly unfocused and a little darker than last time they'd met.

"Hey.." - he repeated softly, kneeling down on one knee before the cat "what's wrong?'

Ravage looked into eradicon's inexpressive face plates and commed /Can we.. talk?/

"Sure. What about? Are you OK, Ravage?'

Ravage shook his head negative and started walking off back to the transporter dock. It was deserted and a place as good as any.

Doug followed him making small talk that Ravage wasn't really listening to until something in eradicon's speech caught his attention:

"... somebody must have neglected it, so no one really noticed how but the thing started up and just rolled off drilling randomly. And I stopped it! Everyone was just "A!" and "Oh!" and barely managed to get out of the driller's way, and I thought "Doug! That's your chance to prove you're not just anyone!" So I rolled after it and I jumped up it and switched it off! They said I got my nets fried by you guys, but ever since... you know... my nets are better than anyone's!... Though the shift chief thinks I managed to react so quickly because I had been the one responsible for it to cut loose in the first place. So he made me repair the doors." - Doug seemed genuinely happy and proud of himself despite being wrongly punished, and Ravage didn't interrupt him untill they were in the docks and it got clear that they've reached their destination.

"So..." Doug glanced around - they were alone, "what's on your mind?"

Ravage hesitated a moment before spurring /he blames me for their death/.

"Who blames you for whose death? Soundwave?"

Ravage ex-vented and looked up at the con with embarrassment. /Could you just... hold me?/

Doug just stared at him for a moment before sitting down on the floor carefully "Sure"

Ravage got on his lap and leaned against the vehicon's chest plates. Even though it was just the eradicon, and Ravage didn't really trust the guy, it was nice to feel the other's warm metal pressed to his.

"..So whose death?" - Doug asked softly.

/twins/

"Oh, you mean... Frenzy and Rumble, right? They've read they had died heroes." When Ravage looked up at his plates, he explained "I looked it up in the archives. Battle for Regulon, right?"

Ravage nodded.

"Why would he blame you?"

/My mission was to evacuate them. I failed/ And slowly, with long pauses Ravage told him about that busted cycle. For some time they were just sitting in silence. Then the eradicon spoke up

"... you know, not every mission is successful. I'm sure, your host knows you did everything you could." And Doug finally dared to stroke Ravage along the spinal strut. Ravage let him do it two times before stopping the vehicon

/Don't. You are triggering my battle protocols/ Doug removed his servo hastily. /I just don't get why he lashed out at me like that.../ Ravage commed.

"Does it have something to do with the package you left me?"

Ravage glanced at him /... a package?/

"Last time we fragged? You swapped me a package for safekeeping - don't you recall?"

The feline moved away from him and turned to face him /"Last time" implies there had been numerous occasions./

"Well I hope there will be. You didn't seek me out to just talk, did you? And you will have to get your deposit from me" Doug felt bold enough to ghost his hand along the feline's tail, which, he knew, contained his 'facing cabling.

Ravage moved his tail away. /I don't recall you being this shameless before. Do you know what's in that package?/

Doug laughed softly "I'm not gonna lie, I've tried looking into it. But you know yourself how well it's encrypted"

/Ri..ight/

Ravage was thinking rapidly. He didn't remember this and his 'facing logs were predictably scrambled. One could only assume he deleted this info. Or Soundwave made him delete it. Should he get it back now? His host was unstable. There was no telling when he would make Ravage go through another logs sync. Yet... maybe it could explain his creator's behavior? The cat hesitated.

/I want it back./ - he finally said.

It took some time and a lot of awkward explanations to make Doug beep the binary of the encrypted archive. The eradicon had presumed it would take another interface for Ravage to take the package back, but there was a disappointment in store for him: being a cassette, Ravage was single-ported. Sometime during the conversation the cat realised he was alright - the feeling of disorientation and loss of purpose that engulfed him before had dissolved. The more Ravage thought about it, the more obvious it became that his host was malfunctioning and it was up to him to fix him. After all, it had been his primary duty.

There was something else. Ravage realised that he didn't answer Soundwave's last question. He sent him an "ok".

Beeping was stupid. But Doug did it anyway. As the package was received, restored and decrypted, Ravage's optics rounded. "So what's in there?" - Doug asked impatiently, looking at the stunned technimal.

/This is not for you to know/ - Ravage responded before taking off in canter.

"Wait! This is all I get? You sprint off and we don't fragg?!" - Doug called out. /Later. I'll find you/ came the answer.

Soundwave came online earlier than usual. His circuits were still ablaze from what happened in the vault and even the chilling guilt from lashing out on Ravage didn't cool him down enough for a peaceful recharge. If Megatron really was seeking to 'fix' him, he wouldn't stop until he got him 'fixed'. Decepticon leader wasn't fond of half-measures and unfinished business. Soundwave couldn't let him know of his weakness. Weak was inferior and Soundwave could not be inferior. The weak had no place among the decepticons, not to mention so high up the chain of command. Not to mention so close to Megatron himself...

There was nothing Soundwave would want more than to take his leader up on his offer. There was nothing less likely to ever happen to him. The whole situation was descending into madness so quickly! He was losing control. He had to find a way to stop it.

Soundwave weighted his options. The only way to stop Megatron from messing him up any further was to convince the warlord that he was "fixed". Unfortunately, he knew only one way to do that. He would block his telepathy and deactivate his fine sensors. It would render him numb and somewhat disoriented, but he didn't really have a choice.

Having met this decision, Soundwave settled more comfortably to complete his recharge and his wing clang against Ravage, who was curled up beside him. The technimal onlined one optic and looked at his host. Soundwave felt a surge of guilt.

/I'm sorry, kitten. I didn't mean what I said/

/I don't know what exactly you're apologizing for, Boss, but there's no need - I have erased whatever you said/

/Oh. Good/

Ravage closed his optic and returned to his feline dreamland and Soundwave suddenly wished he could join him. He only had two and a half orns of his off-shift left and it still felt as though he hadn't powered down at all. He commed to Megatron: /Soundwave to Megatron: Query. Permission to extend off-shift? Additional recharge time required/

Megatron's answer was dry and short: /Granted. Three orns/

Soundwave smiled warily behind his visor /Thank you, my Liege/

By this time Megatron had suspected that it was one of the fundamental laws of the Universe, undiscovered yet due to his own and other cons criminal neglect only: strange things happened on Nemesis when Soundwave was away from the bridge. Last time when the TIC took a shift off (which the spy did rarely) Starscream's clones tried to assassinate the warlord and they might have prevailed if not for Airachnid choosing the same time to exact her vengeance. Megatron had won the day, as usual, but this things just didn't happen when Soundwave was on his post.

When Soundwave rejected him (which Megatron still found difficult to fit into his processor - he would need to think about it later), the warlord suspected that it was just the beginning of strange occurences that were coming his way. Knockout, stuck in a wall, surely counted as a strange thing. So, Prime's new recruit wasn't that rookie after all..

Furious at the loss of mysterious, but obviously treasured by the autobots, artefacts, Megatron deemed it necessary to punish the vane doctor. Let him hang a little.

The warlord didn't know what these things could do, but if autobots needed them so badly, they had to capture them first.

Few orns passed and no more strange things occurred. Dreadwing insisted upon troops inspection, which was reasonable considering it would be his first inspection as his first lieutenant and military commander and it would do good to boost morale among seekers.

As Megatron and his SIC were returning to the bridge, the warlord checked his internal clock and was glad that less than three orns were left of Soundwave's off shift. It wasn't that he missed the navy mech, but he's had enough surprises for today.

Turns out, the universe wasn't done with him yet.

There, at his command console was Starscream with all four artefacts. Soundwave chose this very moment to ask for more off time and this was also new. The spy had never asked for additional personal time before.

"Granted. Three orns" - and Megatron returned his attention to his former SIC. Three orns should be enough for this to fully play out.