Smugglers 3: The Beginning Is The End
Chapter 6: Flashbacks: Race
Bumblebee wasn't crazy, Bulkhead decided. He was. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," he moaned.
"Oh don't be such a worry bot," Bee's voice was slightly muffled but could still be heard clearly.
"Worried? Who said I was worried? I'm not worried; I'm petrified! What happens if we get caught? I don't want to go to jail!"
There was a clang followed by a very loud curse then Bee slid out from underneath his ship and looked reprovingly at Bulkhead. "Now, Bulkhead, when have I ever let anything bad happen to you?" Bumblebee looked extremely innocent but Bulkhead merely raised an optic ridge.
"Well there was that time when you led those police bots that were chasing you right to me and they thought I was a jewel thief."
"But I had to get away from them somehow," Bumblebee protested. "Besides any bot could tell just by looking at you, and no offence, you were just a little too big to have fit through that hole in the ceiling."
"And then you wrecked the ship that I was supposed to be using to get to space bridges so I could repair them."
"It was a piece of junk," Bumblebee said after deciding it was probably better not to mention the fact that the space bridge Bulkhead had been heading to had had explosives to it and was programmed to go off the next time someone touched it. Yeah, probably better not to mention that as he had been responsible for that one day when he had been very bored.
"I could go on for hours so give me one good reason why I should go along with this," Bulkhead crossed his arms and looked squarely at the yellow minibot.
"Why, Bulkhead," Bee pretended to look hurt, sniffling and blinking rapidly as if his optics were about to start leaking. "I'm hurt that you don't trust me. I would never intentionally harm you; you know that."
Bulkhead sighed and hesitated; true he knew Bumblebee would never let any serious harm come to him. He sighed again and said, rather reluctantly, "Okay I'll do it."
"Yippee!" Bumblebee cheered. "All right, let's do this!" He jumped to his pedes, grabbing his tools as he did so then zoomed into the ship, Bulkhead right behind him.
"I gotta bad feeling about this," the green bot muttered as he closed the door. He walked to the control room and sat down at one of the consoles.
"Are you sure about this?"
Startled, Bulkhead turned to Bumblebee who was sitting in the captain's chair, looking slightly worried. "What do you mean?" Bulkhead was genuinely confused.
"This race. If you don't really want to do it, you don't have too."
Bulkhead was tempted to say that he didn't want to do it but he resisted. He was doing this because Bumblebee wanted too and that was what best friends did. Of course if someone had told him seven years ago that he would be best friends with a smuggler and would be participating in illegal events and running away from police bots on a regular basis he probably would have blown a gasket from laughing so hard. "I want to," he assured his friend.
"Are you sure?" Bumblebee did not look convinced in the slightest.
"Yeah," Bulkhead nodded. "It sounds like," he was forced to stop and swallow before he could continue, "a lot of fun."
"Okay," Bumblebee still didn't look convinced but he grinned anyway.
There was a loud screech of feedback from outside causing the two friends to wince then a voice said," Welcome to the 1000th Annual Smuggler's Race. Remember there are no rules in this race so anything goes! Winner takes home three million credits. Racers, start your engines!"
The deserted area of space was soon filled with the revving of engines as all bots tensed and prepared to take off.
"Well this is it, Bulkhead," Bumblebee said. "Are you ready?"
"Let's go kick some aft," Bulkhead declared then immediately looked horrified.
"Bulkhead!" Bee exclaimed, pretending to be scandalized before smiling proudly. "I've corrupted you."
"Go!" the loud voice yelled.
Immediately all ten ships took off at the same time, Bulkhead gritting his denta as The Smuggler moved at speeds he hadn't thought possible…until now that is. Bulkhead risked a glance at the screen displaying their opponents and nearly crashed when he saw The Terror coming up behind them with no intentions of stopping or going around. "Uh, Bee,' he pointed at the screen.
"Slag!" Bee cursed. "Evasive maneuvers," he ordered.
Bulkhead nodded then hesitated, his servos hovering uncertainly over the buttons. "Which one do I press?" he asked, gesturing towards a row of identical red buttons.
"Third one from your left," Bee replied. "But whatever you do, don't press the button in the middle or else something very bad is going to happen," he warned.
"Gotcha," Bulkhead pressed the third red button from his left then shrieked in alarm when the ship suddenly jerked to the left, just barely avoiding Short Circuit. When he looked up he frowned. The area of space directly ahead of them was completely empty; there were no ships, nothing except for a small scattering of stars which, Bulkhead realized when he tilted his head a certain way, looked exactly like a small cyberbee. "It's beautiful," he whispered, his voice filled with awe.
"I know," Bumblebee said, rising from his seat and coming to stand beside Bulkhead. "This is one of my favorite areas of space. I like to come here sometimes and just look at it because it's so beautiful yet empty. Despite whatever goes on around it, no matter how many ships come through here it always remains the same." Suddenly his voice turned businesslike once again as he re-claimed his seat. "Come on, Bulkhead, we've got ourselves a race to win. Press the sixth button from your right."
Bulkhead did and instantly the ship was surrounded by a cloud of smoke. "What the slag was that?" he asked, not caring that he had just swore.
"A smokescreen," Bee answered. "The other compeititors won't be able to see a thing so we'll win by a landslide," he bragged.
Bumblebee's prediction came true; to a certain extent that is. The others couldn't see but still another ship made it through the cloud of smoke, emerging next to The Smuggler. The other ship was aptly named The Terminator. Bulkhead already felt nervous and sent a quick prayer to Primus. The Terminator bumped into them, cuasing Bulkhead to land on the floor with a loud thud. Bee's optics narrowed and a wicked smile spread across his faceplate. "You wanna play rough?" he muttered. "Fine; we'll play rough. Let's make this a little more fun shall we?" He walked over to one of the consoles and, entering a series of commands, hit the other ship, no doubt leaving a dent on it that would take weeks to pound out.
"Why don't we have a dent?" Bulkhead asked curiously as he rose rather unsteadily to his pedes.
"Re-enforced shields," Bumblebee didn't bother looking up as he continued to enter commands. "They're very useful when you get sideswiped but they like to malfunction when you're getting fired at."
"Well let's hope that they don't start firing," Bulkhead said nervously then cringed when they were hit again.
"Primus, don't they ever give up?" Bee grumbled. "I didn't want to do this but apparently I don't have a choice; Bulkhead, I want you to press the middle button."
Bulkhead looked startled even as he began protesting. "But I thought you said that something bad would happen if I did."
"It's an emergency so push it and hold on to something," Bee advised.
Bulkhead sighed and closed his optics as his digit pressed down on the button. The ship jumped forward so fast that Bulkhead almost blew two gaskets then, just as suddenly, it came to a stop. Bulkhead hesitantly cracked open an optic then, once he had determined that he wasn't off line, opened the other one as well. "We did it, Bee," he said happily. "We won!" Silence. "Bee?"
A groan came from the other end of the room then Bee said, "Now I remember why I don't press that button more often," he groaned again as he managed to stand up.
Bulkhead grinned in relief. "I'm glad to see that you're okay, little buddy," he said happily.
"Little buddy?" Bee raised an optic ridge. "Hmm, not bad. Not bad at all."
They exited the ship, Bumblebee in the lead, bowing and making obscene gestures at the bots who had lost and were just now arriving. Not liking the looks they were shooting his friend, Bulkhead picked Bee up and placed the little bot on his much larger shoulder strut. As he looked up at the grinning minibot Bulkhead decided that maybe illegal races weren't so bad after all. In fact, at the moment, everything was just perfect. It was a shame that he had no way of knowing that in less than forty-eight hours he would be in a hospital anxiously waiting to find out whether or not his friend was going to survive.
A/N: I did put in the synopsis 'Character Death' but it might not be Bumblebee; it could be one of the others but you'll have to keep reading to find out.
A/N/N: 15 reviews, will accept 10. Sorry this chapter was so late but I just got home and then had to type it up. It might be late tomorrow too, I'm not sure. Thanks for all the reviews so far.