Feminine Troubles 6

Happy Mother's day! Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Here, have some fic.

Megatron plotted.

He had kicked all of his troops out of his command center, and had monitors displaying a plethora of intelligence reports and surveillance videos of various Autobots, both before and after their recent reformatting.

He had been somewhat…distracted lately, but that was no excuse to forget his goals or stop trying to accomplish them. Things had changed, and his methods would have to change with them. Simple, really.

The Allspark was gone.

Cybertron was in shambles, its infrastructure destroyed and its resources depleted. The only possible way to restore their race was with the help of the Autobot femmes.

They could still bear young the ancient way, more like an organic species, much as it galled him to admit it. A femme could generate and carry a newspark, with energy and code input from a mech or several.

They would need energon, of course, a lot of it. Sparklings and younglings had heavy energy and materials requirements, as did breeding femmes.

It would be more than worth it though. They would be able to rebuild their race with the help of the changed 'bots. He would need to conquer Earth, or find another source of energy. His spies had brought information that the Autobot science team had tapped the geothermal power of Mount Saint Hillary, and had developed processes to turn this system's abundant solar radiation into energon. They even had eventual plans to build giant orbiting stations to produce usable energy using Sol's light.

Megatron would privately acknowledge that that was certainly an efficient way to go about it. Far more than relying on the primitive fleshbags and their nascent engineering abilities. The Autobots had an excellent group of scientists and engineers. He planned to prioritize their capture and domestication, secondarily only to the commanders.

He would need to make sure that Perceptor, Wheeljack and the others had mates who had enough scientific knowledge to monitor their progress. He wouldn't want them creating super weapons for use against their masters, after all. Perhaps the Constructicons? Of course, once the sparklings were born, they would be more concerned with motherhood than killing their captors. Or maiming them.

At least he hoped so. Otherwise he wasn't sure how this was going to work. The Decepticons were military. They were built to conquer, not to create or nurture. He had no slagging idea how to take care of sparklings or younglings. Once they were older, sure. He could make them into warriors. But unlike protoforms given life by the Allspark, those carried by femmes came into the world dependent and undeveloped. They needed a lot of care to survive.

Plus, none of his medics had a clue about non-combat related issues. Hook had absolutely no expertise with newsparks. He was going to need the Autobot CMO and her apprentices, plus whatever medics the femme contingent on Cybertron had.

One of the documents he had at his fingertips right now was an ancient one, which Shockwave had somehow found in a long- abandoned archive on Cybertron. It was actually a cost-benefit analysis of creating femme frames for the exploratory arm of the science services.

Reading the specs for the long- ago femmes frames which had been proposed and rejected by the council at the time, Megatron could only conclude that Prime's ancestors were short-sighted fools. Not that he hadn't known that already, but why in the verse had they discontinued a line of Autobots who were small, efficient, convivial, and had very, very high interfacing drives?

He was constantly having to bang helms together and impose brutal punishments on his troops, who had never fared well when in crowded environments without much personal space. Decepticon warriors had difficulty coping with small, cramped places where they were practically in each other's energy fields all the time. It lead to bickering, fights and general lack of discipline, as well as being irritating as Pit. The long-ago proposal for support staff, pilots and navigators, as well as medics who would have ameliorated such problems, and used energon more efficiently to boot sounded like a brilliant idea.

Back in his arena days, Megatron had noticed the way the volatile personalities of the gladiator mechs mellowed when they received femme attention, be it from a medic or an adventure-seeking groupie. When he had been trying to foment rebellion it had been annoying, and had blunted their necessary edges. Now? His Decepticons were nothing but sharp edges, and could use a little cushioning to keep their volatile tempers from constantly scraping against one another's neural networks.

He mentally imagined a version of the Nemesis where Starscream was using up his excess energy on pleasing femmes, not trying to backstab him. It was a beautiful thought.

Another science academy report had caught his optic. Apparently civilian frames and processors, like those in many of the Autobots, were also designed to function better in hypersocial situations, like a city, or in this case, a base. No wonder Prime had to deal with so much less treacherous interpersonal slag than he did.

And now the Pit-cursed Autobots were even more well-engineered social creatures than before. Assuming that their changed specs were anything like the ancient femmes. Smaller, more efficient, more interested in interfacing…They would have been lacking as warriors, but so were the Autobots, at first. They had adapted to war long ago, despite their smaller frames and original purposes as builders and workers and data managers…

He needed those things now, to rebuild their decimated species. Warriors could conquer, but now there was barely anything left of Cyberton to rule. No new sparklings, no new construction, no one to build or run civil projects.

He stared at a pair of displayed images on a monitor. One was Optimus Prime, before his reformatting, supporting the small yellow Autobot after a battle. The little mech was damaged, and his leader was cradling his form in one arm, gun at ready in the other. The other picture was more recent, and showed Prime in all her feminine glory having her back plating scrubbed free of Terrestrial dirt by the femme version of that same mech. The leader had no fear at all of exposing her vulnerable back to one of her people, and never had. The only difference was that the back in question was more aesthetically pleasing these days.

Somehow, Megatron needed to make it so the Autobots were willing to work with his men to rebuild their shattered society. The way to do that was to somehow gain their leader's cooperation. If he had Prime, the others would fall into line, he was sure of it. Harming or killing the Matrix bearer would ensure that they fought to the last spark among them, but bending her to his will would bring them to heel.

Once, long ago, there had been a position called "Lord High Protector" on Cybertron. That mech had functioned as a sort of commander-in chief to the planet. The Prime had been the civilian leader, but the Protector had led the military. The role had disappeared prior to Optimus becoming Prime. The Lord High Protector during the reign of Nova had gone rogue, and been part of a civil war that resulted in the creation of the Autobots and Decepticons as separate groups.

Perhaps restoring that ancient order was the way to go. The Prime could be the leader of the femmes, and the one in charge of matters regarding sparklings, education and such. Perhaps also things like libraries and culture and all that slag. Megatron could declare himself Lord High Protector and concern himself with military matters and the larger picture. And ravishing a beautiful Autobot prisoner-consort or three.

He really would have to keep a close eye on his troops. If he was going to re-build Cybertronian society with Decepticon mechs and Autobot femmes, it could get messy in a hurry if the younglings felt that their spark carriers were being mistreated. And it wasn't like he was going to expect his troops to raise and teach sparklings. The thought of, say, Astrotrain or Vortex in charge of the next generation was enough to make him cringe.

Megatron tapped his talons against his console in thought. Femmes were fragile compared to warrior built mechs like him and newsparks even more so. He had seen a few sparklings, back when he became a gladiator of some renown. Mostly at a distance. They were tiny and breakable, and there was no way he or his troops would be able to keep anything that delicate healthy.

Fortunately, the soft-sparked nature that made the Autobots ineffective warriors would ensure that they were excellent mothers. Megatron would have no worries whatsoever about the health or safety of his progeny when they were with Optimus or her officers. She would cradle a sparkling even more carefully than she had that little yellow mech, and protect it viciously.

Megatron slumped in his command chair, scanning the data and images that surrounded him. His processor went back to Cybertron, long, long ago. He remembered the rage that had surged through his own circuits as a young mech when the apprentice medic Torchweld had been brutalized by one of the gladiatorial ring's owners. The mech had also harmed Steelforge, her femme mentor. The abuse of the medics had been one of the final catalysts for the gladiators' uprising.

When he had encountered the arena owner cycles later during the rebellion, Megatron had taken great pleasure in crushing that slag-sucker's spark chamber.

No, definitely wouldn't want his future new troops seeing their maternal units being mistreated. It was bad for morale. He would have to be firm. Fortunately he had a telepathic third in command with lots of experience with difficult younglings and plenty of spies to keep an optic on developing situations… Plus Soundwave had always liked femmes.

None of the seekers would be an issue after the Autobots were sparked up. The seeker model had strong protective programming protocols regarding carrying femmes. Any carrier that they came in regular close contact with would automatically fall under the aegis of the Guardian Protocols. He might have to put seekers in charge of any harem quarters that he ended up forming for the safety of the sparklings and carriers. The problem with that was, of course, the incorrigibly horny nature of seekers.

The only ones besides Megatron himself that he wanted to see interfacing with Optimus were other femmes. Preferably when he was present to watch. And maybe participate. He was NOT going to share her with a bunch of seeker mech-sluts. Well…perhaps he would be willing to allow Starscream to participate at some point, but only because he would sort of enjoy seeing the seeker writhe while Optimus stroked his wings…

Ideally, of course, he and his commanders would eventually gain the loyalty of their mates. He wondered exactly how one went about seducing a femme who used to be his mortal enemy. When he had been a gladiator, groupies had thrown themselves at him. Unfortunately, he rather doubted that Optimus was likely to do that.

(Megatron took a few clicks to explore that unlikely fantasy, then forcibly re-routed his concentration to strategy.)

He would give the Autobot second and third in command to Soundwave. Starscream couldn't be trusted, and his intelligence indicated that the two black and whites were a couple. Besides, any femme that he gave to his third would need to be able to deal with the cassettes. He was fairly sure that the Autobot officers could handle Rumble and Frenzy. After all, those psycho-glitch twin Lamborghinis were under their command.

Yessss, Soundwave could monitor the Autobot officers, and make sure the special ops head wasn't conducting any internal covert operations against Megatron's forces. Having the tactician and the music lover in his clutches would also make his 3IC very happy. The stoic communications officer was due a reward for his loyalty.

Soundwave had a surprisingly strong nurturing instinct towards his symbiotes, and that instinct would easily spread to new sparklings and their mothers. He would make an excellent sparking guardian. The cassettes, on the other servo, would make trouble if he didn't find a distraction for them. Well, he'd think of something before too long…

Speaking of difficult mechs, that shuttle scientist might actually help to blunt his air commander's temper. A nice calm, solid, intelligent femme, unlikely to plot against anyone. Yes, Skyfire would go to Starscream, and should provide the screechy seeker with a balancing influence. As a bonus she was a pacifist, so she wouldn't ever try to frag Megatron in the back.

Plus, it would both make Starscream owe him, and should distract the fragger from always trying to take over. If the screechy flier was busy with baby seekers and vulnerable carriers, he would be much more focused on them than on Megatron. It would be a very nice change. And hopefully, their offspring would be fliers. More air support was always worthwhile. If he was really, really lucky, they would have Starscream's aerial talent and Skyfire's personality.

Now he just had to figure out how to make it all happen.

"Status on your project, Perceptor?" The regal leader of the Autobots asked. She was meeting with the head of her science team in her office, the late afternoon sun streaming in the small window and touching both of their armor with gold.

The slight scientist resisted the urge to bounce in excitement. "Almost finished, Sir! I mean Ma'am. The delicately-built microscope seemed inordinately cheerful.

Optimus smiled behind her mask, optics twinkling. "I am hardly going to object to being called "sir", Perceptor." She said. "I am quite used to it, in fact. You could even say that it is much more within my comfort zone than Ma'am. Do you think you will have a working communication device for reaching Cyberton before your original time estimate?"

Perceptor beamed at her leader. "Oh yes. You see, Skyfire and Wheeljack and I had an all- nighter a few days ago, and the three of us just had a lot of ideas click, and we were able to put together a working prototype shortly thereafter. The three of us are wonderfully productive together. I can hardly recall ever having worked in such a well-balanced team."

The little scientist graced Optimus with a benign smile. "Plus, the interfacing is amazing."

"Of…course, Perceptor. I am very…happy for all of you. It is, ah, good to hear that your Change has not adversely affected the science team." Said Optimus, She fiddled with one of the items on her desk. It was a river-smoothed stone that Hound had brought her, from a mission to the Ganges in India. She realized that broadcasting a nervous tell was possibly not in keeping with her image as the unflappable Prime, and made herself put it down.

The scientist was regarding her with gentle sympathy. "Are you concerned about speaking to Elita-One, Sir?" she asked softly. " I know you did not have a chance to see her, when you had to evacuate from the ruins of the Temple of Primus after the Change."

Optimus hesitated. Airing her personal uncertainties to members of her crew was less than leaderly, after all. On the other hand, she iwas/i worried about it, for all that both common sense and the soft voices from her Matrix both told her that her long-time lover was not so shallow or inflexible as all that.

She slumped slightly in her chair. "How would you feel, if your partner, who you had barely seen in eons, suddenly acquired a whole different frameset? Not to mention programming and hardware? I feel that I hardly know myself, some days."

"And, if I may be so bold, you are concerned about the physical aspect of your relationship."

"Frag it, yes! She's accustomed to me being able to satisfy her in the berth! What if I can't do that any more?"

One of Perceptor's scientist-delicate servos came to rest over Optimus's larger battle scarred one. Her wide blue optics were serious. "Prime. Optimus. I hope that you will forgive me, if I overstep, but I believe that we are good enough friends to have this conversation. You can make love to a femme the way you are now. You can even penetrate her with a spike, if that is what she desires. It is natural for us to be attracted to the opposite gender, but we are hardly humans, to be so inflexible. Elita loves you, and will continue to love you, and to make love with you in the future."

The Prime looked wryly down at her hand. Its proportions had changed, and it was smaller now, but it still dwarfed that of the microscope.

"I hope that you are right, my friend. I suppose that only time will tell."

Perceptor gave her a sweet, slightly naughty smile. "Perhaps it would help if you conducted a few small experiments, to see if you can please a femme in the berth with your current frame. Have you taken any of us since you changed? Doing so might allay your concerns somewhat."

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