Chapter 1

Location: Jasper, Nevada (Outskirts)

Weather: Cloudy

Time: 11:56 PM (PST)

"Shouldn't you be in recharge by now?"

Ratchet looked up from his machine repairs to lock optics with Arcee. The motorcycle Autobot herself was leaning against one of the walls that made up the central command center, and while she was the smallest member of the team, only a malfunctioning Decepticon would think she wasn't as good as the rest of them.

"Shouldn't you?" he replied in a vain attempt to buy time, even though he knew what his answer would be.

"Optimus and Bumblebee are still out on graveyard patrol," the second-in-command shot back, rolling her optics at the obviousness of her riposte. "So long as they're gone, I'm staying up."

Once again, Arcee had demonstrated just why she was the right-hand 'bot. No matter how much she disliked some of her duties, the dark blue femme would carry them out to the best of her abilities, a trait that Ratchet admired. If he'd been charged to be the protector of the young human Jack, for example, the medic wasn't sure if he've been able to do so for a week before admitting defeat against his own exasperation. Granted, Jack and his friends had more than proved their worth against the recent Scraplet infestation, but before that – well, Ratchet was just glad he hadn't gotten saddled with it.

Besides, Arcee could blend in as a motorcycle Jack had supposedly purchased. An ambulance was a bit out-there by human standards.

"Repair work on some of the minor systems," he said, brandishing his current tool at the femme. "Residue from the Scraplets – they got their teeth into every system here."

The femme shivered at the memory of that particular day. Normally Arcee hated missing action, especially when the alternative was a slow death in the Arctic, but when it came down to a possible choice of death by Scraplets and death by cold … it shamed the warrior to admit it, but she would pick the Arctic each time. Fortunately, she had only seen the ending of the infestation, so she had gotten away with iced-over systems and a resolution to take a long trip to Hawaii whenever time allowed.

Before she could continue the conversation, the control center's screen began to flash and emit the sound they hadn't heard for weeks – an alarm that indicated their scans were picking up possible Decepticon activity. It had been relatively quiet since the battle over the Energon Harvester, giving the team some time to get in some training (and not accidentally haul their smaller companions into something bigger than anticipated, no matter how much that disappointed Miko), but everyone knew that wasn't going to last long when Starscream was in command.

Ratchet was quick to abandon his repair work and go to the center. His servos danced over the controls, finally pinning down on what the machine was freaking out over. "Here," he said, pointing to a map of the planet and zooming in on a place in the state of California. "There's a hotspot of activity in the Mojave. Strong Energon ore reading – I'm amazed that we haven't picked up on it before; it's so close to the surface of the crust."

"Definitely 'Con work," Arcee agreed. "But why is it showing it now?"

"Whatever they've been using to shield them from our probes must have been taken offline. I don't think they planned it, though," the medic added, pulling up another set of scans. "Look – the satellite images are showing fighter planes over the area, which has a mining facility on the ground. Some of them are Decepticons, but I'm not sure who the others are."

"Could they be government planes, or MECH pilots?"

"I'm not sure about MECH – they probably don't know enough about us to know we need Energon, or what Energon is. Agent Fowler might have engineered something, but he would've informed us if he knew about a location – we're better equipped to fight them than he is. I think we'll need to see it to know what's going on."

"I'll get Bulkhead out of his berth," Arcee called, already charging down one corridor. "Get the ground bridge ready to send us to the Mojave. Inform Optimus where we are once we make it to the other side."

As the sounds of her pede-steps faded into the distance, Ratchet wasn't sure what made him happier: the fact something was finally happening after weeks of relative Decepticon silence, or that – for however long it might last – he'd have the entire base to himself, with no humans running around underfoot.

XxX

Location: Mojave Desert

Weather: Rainy

Time: 12:01 AM (PST)

"Last one down!"

Slipstream looked up from the purple-branded 'Con she had finished stomping to oblivion at Lunarflash's triumphant cry, and was just in time to watch the jet straighten up and retract her Energon sword, letting the foe that had been impaled on it slide down onto the floor. She shivered slightly – while the Skyraider looked like she had a virus in her system every time she used her strut-knives, what the black and white femme didn't know was that she felt the same way every time Lunarflash terminated someone with her blade. Slipstream herself had a war club, which could crush anything that she swung it at, but there was something eerie about watching her friend nonchalantly turn what had once been a living Cybertronian into what Humans called a "shish kabob."

Battleburst saw that sign of weakness from her domineering companion, but paid it no mind: with sprawled 'Con shells carpeting the floor, including those of three Brutes, and the facility effectively under their control, a bit of recoil towards Lunarflash's methods could be excused. It had taken a few kliks longer to clean out the place, but not so long that they couldn't finish what they'd started – they just had to move faster.

"Thunderwave, Chromebolt, Quicksilver," she ordered into the comm. unit, "get the machines back online. Scatterray, come in. The plant is secure; prepare for landing."

Her closest compatriot's channel crackled a bit before his reply got through. "Understood; I'm making my approach now."

As the pilot finished his transmission, the lights that had been previously deactivated came back online. All three of the miniature mechs were geniuses with technology, but Thunderwave's very name emphasized his own specialty. His programming codes could override any machine's functions and simulate an EMP blast to them, and those codes would spread through interconnected machines. However, if he willed them to turn off, or one of his brothers did, they would deactivate and leave the machines as if they had never been tampered with.

Lunarflash and Slipstream had already begun what they had practiced so many times. While the Minicons operated machines, salvaged intelligence (and erased it), and reprogrammed the security systems, Lunarflash opened the docking bay and the Stalker began moving Energon cubes that had been pre-produced and meant to be shipped to the Nemesis, preparing them to be brought to their own ship. Once that was exhausted, the younger femmes would create empty containers to be filled with the precious material, and keep doing so as long as was safe.

Their jobs were being done, now she had to do hers: collect the weapons and munitions that could be found, and simultaneously watch their afts for any signs of trouble that were being reported.

Just the control center alone was carpeted with the true loves of a soldier; the commanders on the Nemesis had clearly been trying to keep the station under Decepticon control. They hadn't succeeded, obviously, but she still gave a mocking mental salute to them as she loaded several shipping containers with crates of ammo charges, sets of flak grenades, thermo mines, and even precious healing charges. Thermo Rocket Launchers, Energon Battle Pistols, Scatterblasters, and Magma Frag Launchers were pulled off the bodies of many sparkless shells, and the observations of the Minicons had promised even more in other rooms. This attack alone would fuel their efforts for a long time to come – and this had just been raid number three!

The whine of deactivating thrusters emitted from the open hanger doors as Scatterray brought the transport to another perfect landing, triggering the doors to the cargo holds as the ion engines deactivated. The light blue and green Transformer hopped out of the cockpit, polarizing his optics to compensate for the different light levels.

"What's the word up there?" asked Lunarflash as she ran in, beginning to help Battleburst hoist the containers of arms and ammo into one hold; behind her, Slipstream moved the first load of Energon out of the control center and started loading that too.

"There's a squadron of about twelve fliers inbound; I picked them up on my sensors while finishing the descent. They're about five kliks away."

The silver-indigo femme spared a few precious nanokliks to employ some choice curses – they were running short on time – then initiated the next step in their operation. "Scatterray, Slipstream," she ordered, "continue loading the transport, but be ready to leave at any moment. Minicons, set the security system to target any Decepticons, then prepare the heavy explosives. Lunarflash, you're with me."

Spark thrilling at the orders, Lunarflash finished loading the final munitions crate and followed Battleburst out of the hanger. The first two raids had resulted in the leader taking Slipstream out to fend off the reinforcements; this was the first time she had confirmation that she was respected as a good flier – though then again, Battleburst seemed to think Slipstream was older by some-odd solar cycles. The ebony-ivory femme wasn't sure how she figured that – the Stalker had the same amnesia hiccup in her CPU as the Skyraider – but at the moment, that didn't matter.

The room they entered was smaller, but taller; a perfect launch tower for flying Cybertronians. A small crate filled with silvery, twelve-faced polyhedrons was set on the side, and Lunarflash eagerly grabbed a set of three – she knew what these did. The pair got a running start, shifted into alt-forms, and then rocketed up to fight.

XxX

Location: Mojave Desert

Weather: Rainy

Time: 12:10 AM (PST)

Hauling Bulkhead's aft out of his berth and into the control center had been much harder than most would assume – while Arcee was vice-commander, the ex-Wrecker was absolutely huge in comparison to her, and weighed as much as he looked. When she finally had taken him out of his recharge mode and dragged him through the groundbridge (much to the amusement of Ratchet), precious time had slipped away. As a result, Arcee wasn't in the best mood, no matter how many times her teammate apologized.

Of course, that all became a moot point when they actually exited the groundbridge and got a good look at their surroundings. The facility was tucked into the foothills of the Mojave's mountains, where the false promise of salvation had driven humans in past centuries to walk across the dried-up basin and die of thirst. A rare storm was rumbling above, but the flashes of lightning would briefly illuminate a dogfight above. The smoldering wrecks of several jets were on the ground already; even from a slight distance Bulkhead could recognize the Decepticon insignia on most of them.

The grey-green Autobot himself rose up his arm cannon and exchanged it for his Thermo Rocket Launcher, intensifying the power flow to his optics as he triggered their infrared function. It was hard for him to mark a target, as the some-odd jets weaved in their sky dance, but he finally managed to get a lock on someone with a purple device painted on their left wing and fired.

Rich satisfaction came as he watched the pair of rockets he launched race through the air; his target swerved and dove, but they couldn't evade it forever. They finally connected, and the Decepticon Seeker began to spiral to earth.

The two Autobots had been standing on a ledge when they had arrived on the scene; now Arcee jumped down and ran full-tilt towards the facility, pausing only to use her Energon Battle Pistol to offline a feebly-stirring Seeker that was in her way. Another Seeker noticed her mad dash towards what had been theirs and went into a power dive, opening fire as he went down –

Only to be hit from behind by another jet that burst out from the cloud cover.

Things get ugly when a Seeker wound up with three rockets up their afterburners, especially from point-blank range. Arcee had the somewhat dubious honor of seeing the results of such an attack as the Decepticon slammed into the ground and the attacker – a Sukhoi Su-35, if her optics were reporting correctly – soared in for a running landing, transforming into a bipedal shape.

The motorcycle found herself looking at another female Cybertronian; her body was slightly altered by the Earth alt-form build, but Arcee could identify it as a rough version of the Skyraider chassis, named after a Seeker caste from the days before the War For Cybertron. It wasn't those details that she focused on, or the black-white color scheme – it was the optic color.

This femme's eyes were blue, like the other Autobots. All Autobots had altered their optics to be varying shades of cerulean when the war had really got going, to help them identify each other when their insignias weren't visible. Was this femme an Autobot who hadn't made contact with their group?

Above, a second flier had begun to dive towards the ground, three Seekers in hot pursuit. The entrance Arcee had been running towards flew open as a few ground-based Decepticons burst out, shown through by a series of rockets that came from deeper inside. The door was flanked by a quartet of rocket sentries that instantly went online when the group crossed their electric eye beam; only one managed to run outside their range before it collapsed, fluids leaking from his crippled legs where blasts had made contact.

The Skyraider didn't pay much attention to the motorcycle Autobot; even when the heavy impacts of Bulkhead's running started getting more severe as he moved to join the vice-commander, she just formed an EMP Shotgun on her right arm, fired a point-blank shot at her victim, and then turned her focus on the jet that was surely her ally, now cartwheeling through the sky to avoid missile salvos. Her left servo subspaced a silver package that Arcee and Bulkhead both recognized as a disruption charge, which – when activated and thrown like a grenade – would force those in its blast radius to transform and then lock them in that form for two kliks.

For obvious reasons, the Autobots had utilized them whenever they could against the Seekers on Cybertron. As the disruptor charge was thrown directly into the V-formation of Decepticons and the pursued jet peeled off just before it was set off, both of the 'bots present cringed.

The trio had a very rough crash-landing, most likely ending up in stasis lock if not getting offlined.

The other jet – a Blackbird Sr-71 – shot down to join the Skyraider and transformed into another femme, who was bigger and bulkier than the slender Skyraider. This one was silver and indigo, with green optics; a rarity amongst Transformers nowadays. Her body type didn't seem to fit any one caste-chassis – it looked like a hybrid between all of the six types Arcee knew, with another unknown type that she didn't thrown in there too. Her servo was swapped for an X12 Scrapmaker, and as both newcomers turned their attention and gun barrels to the Autobots standing some distance from them, Bulkhead and Arcee prepared to fight.

"Orders?" the black-white femme asked the larger one. Her voice seemed familiar to the high-ranking Autobot, but that was the least of her worries now.

"Standing," answered the other one; her own tones were soft, but scratchy, like there was something wrong with her vocoder.

The Skyraider shrugged and pulled out another disruption charge. "Sorry, mates," she said to the other Transformers without a hint of remorse as she activated it, then she deliberately tossed it at them as her companion opened fire.

Both the motorcycle and the ATV pickup dove as far away as they could from the charge just before it exploded, transforming as they did for greater speed. Bulkhead veered wildly around to try and charge them with his high-impact Ram ability, while Arcee got to higher ground where she could best utilize her Battle Pistol.

Bulkhead's high-speed rush towards the ebony-ivory femme didn't seem to faze her – on the contrary, laughter erupted from her vocoder like the whole attack was a big joke. She was having fun, and when she zipped to the side with the help of the thrusters on her shoulders and pedes, like a matador to a robotic green-grey bull, her servos flew out to dig into his side, lift him off the ground and – using his momentum to her advantage – spin and throw him aside, with the Autobot landing heavily on his roof.

Groaning, the ex-Wreaker transformed back into his robot mode, only to realize that he was on his side now, instead of on his back. Grinning maliciously, the femme utilized her thrusters again, dashing forward for the kill. Instinctively Bulkhead looked towards Arcee, but she wasn't available to give him some breathing room – the Blackbird femme had her pinned down with Scrapmaker fire.

The mech ran through his options, internally cursing as he realized how limited they were. His own Dash thrusters were of no use while on his side, and both of his weapons could deal more damage to him than to his attacker at this close range. Ditto with his Omega Missile: that'd take her out, but he'd be just a pile of parts. Mentally, Bulkhead promised himself that if Primus gave him and Arcee a way out, he'd swap the Omega Missile with the Shockwave tech that Arcee and Bumblebee had.

"Give Primus my regards," said the femme, a death-head grin on her helm as her shotgun barrel was waved in his face. Bulkhead instinctively started to try and gain his pedes, but before she could squeeze the trigger, a loud roar caught the attention of the combatants, giving him enough time to get back up

From the facility hanger rose a large transport, vertical thrusters powered up in its fight against gravity. Bulkhead recognized it as a modified troop shuttle from the War for Cybertron; the cockpit was well-lit, but he could only see the darkened silhouettes of the passengers; he thought one might be another flier, but he couldn't be sure. The Autobots saw it as another sign of trouble, but the two rogue femmes took it as a retreat signal.

"Come on!" cried the larger femme before she went into alt-mode and raced into the sky. The Skyraider looked back towards Bulkhead and winked at him before she kicked her foot thrusters into gear, dashing backwards before she got airborne and neatly avoided a cannon blast from the ex-Wreaker at the same time.

The two Autobots opened fire at the two jets, but their shots all missed as the pair raced up to the transport and boarded it through the side. Like the pilot had been waiting for them, the boarding panels sealed and the ship turned towards the facility, missile ports angling for the best shot at the building.

Arcee and Bulkhead realized what was going to happen the same time that the remaining Decepticons did. With a lot of panicked yells the last of them scattered, save the one that had been able to escape from the inside; with his crippled leg, he was now a sitting duck in the middle of the plateau. Instinctively, Bulkhead grabbed the soldier under his arms and hauled him to the place Arcee had taken refuge in – a gap between several rocks all clustered together, roughly one-fourth of a kilometer from the facility. She might have had something to say about him saving the enemy's life, but the actions of the rogues cancelled it out.

The transport unleashed a salvo of missiles directly on the center of the complex; from the resulting fireball, Bulkhead estimated that high explosives had been laid in that area to wipe it out. More, he guessed, had been placed in other areas, and the intense heat had triggered it.

All together, it created an explosion that turned most of the complex into a skeleton of what it had once been. The fire ripped over the area that the two had been fighting the rogues, to say nothing of where the Decepticon grounder had been stranded. Seemingly satisfied by the destruction they had wrecked, the rogues turned away and roared into the atmosphere, quickly becoming invisible in the clouds.

It was a while before anyone in the crevice – the Decepticon or the Autobots – could speak, out of shock over the whole ordeal. When the fires finally began to dim down, dampened and controlled by the storm, they emerged from the cramped space that had saved their lives – and immediately got back to business as usual. Bulkhead slammed the reddish-purple 'Con down on the ground, letting the rain patter down on their chassis' as he pinned the other mech with one servo and pointed his arm cannon directly into their enemy's face. Arcee – knowing the power of that weapon as much as the other grounder did – moved to a position where she could look into the captive's red optics. She didn't think he'd be so foolish as to try and escape with Bulkhead's cannon half a foot from his helm, but she kept her Battle Pistol ready.

Just in case.

"What's your name?" the motorcycle asked – she hated not knowing her enemy's designations. The Decepticon momentarily appraised their weapons and stances, seizing them up like he wondered if they were prepared to carry out the silent threat. Seemingly convinced that the best way to conserve his existence was to start talking, he loosened his mouth plates. "Swerveback."

"Alright, Swerveback, who were those fliers?"

The 'Con shook his helm, but not with the panic the two warriors had seen before in some of the younger enemy soldiers. He was a battle-hardened mech, who did not fear deactivation. "We don't know. For the past three Human weeks, they have attacked our mining facilities across the planet, deactivating our soldiers inside and destroying the buildings when they retreat. Starscream and Soundwave have been trying to pin down on their base of operations, but they always wipe the security footage clean before they leave." His optics narrowed in suspicion as a thought occurred to him. "One is a grounder like you two, but three are fliers, not counting their Minicons. One looks like a Skyraider. Just what do you Autobots have in this?"

Neither of the "grounders" in question bothered to answer that question – if this Decepticon was convinced they had something to do with these attacks, they wouldn't have much of a chance of persuading him otherwise. Decepticons were stubborn in that way. Instead, Arcee's servos grabbed a certain metal fracture point in a move she had picked up from a Crystalocution practitioner during the War For Cybertron. While she didn't make one of Swerveback's limbs fall off, like the practitioner could have done, she was successful in temporarily off-lining their enemy just long enough for them to leave the area.

Back in their vehicle modes, both Autobots contacted Ratchet and had him place their ground bridge in a location further away from the mining facility. Swerveback, once he came around – which wouldn't be long – was bound to contact his commanders and share his new "intelligence" with them, which was almost a guarantee that more Decepticons would be on the site. Whether they were there or not would not refute or confirm the claim, but neither felt like waiting for Starscream's crew to arrive.

"Arcee," Bulkhead said as they drove towards the ground bridge's location, like the notion had just occurred to him, "Swerveback said that one of the rogues was a Skyraider, right?"

"Right, and I fought her. You don't happen to know of any other Skyraider femmes with black and white paint, do you?"

"Negative."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"Bumblebee's not going to like this."

"I already don't like it."

XxX

A/N: Since I have a feeling I might've confused a few people (or more) with my designations of some of the characters, here's the method to my madness. Since I drew a lot of the lore I'm using from Transformers: War For Cybertron and Transformers: Exodus, I decided to assign the chassis types from WFC's Multiplayer as sub-castes to a larger caste. For example, the given caste name for fliers is Seeker (or Aerialbot for the Autobots), but the chassis types for them in WFC are representative of sub-sects within the larger caste. Here's the shorter version of that convoluted explanation:

Caste Name: Seekers

Autobot Aerialbots (sub-caste names and examples)

Air Defender (Jetfire)

Skyraider (Air Raid)

Interceptor (Silverbolt)

Decepticon Seekers (sub-caste names and examples)

Energon Seekers (Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker)

Stalkers (Slipstream)

Retaliator (Shockwave) (Decepticon fliers have a thing for names starting with S, don't they?)

I'll add more examples for other castes if needed. =)

-Inferna