When In Doubt In Which There is Optimus, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

Chapter 18: In Which Optimus has a Bad Day

Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all but Nightshade.

Optimus was having a field day trying to work things out with the human government. Oh, it'd been easy enough to ask for refuge for a few dozen mechs (few being a hundred dozen extras, if that made any sense). They'd expected no more than two or three dozen extra Transformers. Of course they didn't mind, they even started filling out the necessary paperwork. Then someone had the relatively bright idea to ask how many incoming autonomous organisms they should expect. Optimus went silent for a second before saying something along the lines of it only being a few hundred. The female on the other end of the line choked and asked again.

This time how many mechs, exactly. Prime steeled himself and spoke.

"I'm not sure how many exactly, but the number is well over two thousand. They'll be arriving over the course of a few centuries."

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone before the woman composed herself and tried to crack a joke.

"I guess I'll need more paper, then."

Optimus gave a nervous chuckle. Then the secretary of defense had called him mere minutes after his conversation with Maria Lopez, the head ambassador and liaison between humans and aliens. Mrs. Lopez was relatively new to the job - they hadn't known that aliens existed up until a few years ago, and the most certainly did not know or expect that they would be playing host country to a gaggle of displaced war refugees. Initially, the man was 'pissed off', to use human terms. Then Optimus told him.

John Keller was speechless after Optimus told him everything that had happened. Finally, after a few minutes he spoke.

"You said your world was destroyed?"

"Yes, by a blazar."

"Normally, I'd have to wait years for the paperwork to go through…and the President. Good Lord he's going to have a fit. Prime, you'll be the one talking to him. Not me. But for now, I'll grant you a mass green card. It's never been done before…but neither has there been a mass movement of aliens. But I'm not going to turn you away, not after what you've done for us, Optimus. That I will promise you."

Optimus had to give John Keller credit. He was calm and friendly throughout the entire conversation, even cracking a few jokes about sending some higher up's into cardiac arrest.

"Thank you, Mr. Keller. We are forever in your debt. There is no way I can show my gratitude for this," Optimus said, joy finally taking the place of sorrow in his voice. Keller only smiled. He knew how painful it was to move from one state to another and leave family behind – but to have your entire world destroyed in a single instant? Keller decided to do whatever possible to help Prime out.

Starscream came out of recharge that morning in a good mood. He had a full energon cube, his room was nice and dark, and he had some high grade stashed somewhere. Laserbeak and Rumble had proven themselves extremely worthy the previous day. That silly, bumbling Prime – he gave two casseticons a tour of their base!

Starscream came out of his room and was greeted with silence. There were eight mechs sitting in their command center, silent. No one was at their post. Shock Wave was sitting in one corner, his yellow optic roving around the command center.

"What is the meaning of this? Where are all of the others?"

"Gone," said Long Arm.

"What do you mean?!"

"They've defected," another mech said, pointing at the pile of decepticon insignias on the floor. Starscream felt rage bubbling inside of him and something snapped.

"I am going to hunt down every last traitor. I won't quit until I have their sparks in my bare hands," he snarled, his optics glowing bright as blood. Long Arm gulped.

Optimus was sitting in the command center when the alarms went off. The lights dimmed and red lights started flashing, indicating a mass attack by an enemy. Optimus and several dozen of his mechs were outside with their weapons drawn, battle masks down. Optimus very nearly dropped his rifle when he saw what was happening. There was a large group of decepticons outside of the base…except they no longer wore the decepticon insignia. Sound Wave was being carried inside of Astrotrain, his casseticons perched all around him. Ravage approached Optimus and put a paw on his massive foot.

"I formally renounce my ties with the decepticon army and its policies. I wish to become Neutral, or if you'll allow me, I would like to serve under you as an Autobot," the feline said eloquently, sitting back on his haunches. His tail swished from side to side. Rumble approached and perched beside Ravage. Optimus's optics were as big as saucers…robot-sized saucers, that is. He was as close to stammering as he'd ever been in his long life.

Optimus then had to decide what to do with 42 odd ex-decepticons. Primus, Red Alert and Prowl were both going to have fits of epic proportions…

Optimus was exhausted beyond all belief. He'd tried to find quarters for his new additions and explain the situation to Ironhide, who'd nearly gone ballistic at the thought of ex-decepticons anywhere remotely close to his mate. Then, after calming Ironhide down, he had to go and calm down the other bonded mechs on the base. After that, he had to go and calm Prowl and Red Alert. When he explained what happened, Red Alert's CPU crashed and he ended up having to drag Red Alert to the med bay…where Ratchet was waiting. Then, after deciding that there was no way in Pit that he'd be able to find rooms for the ex-decepticons, he set out to convert an old airplane hangar into a rough shelter, until he could find the man power to build a second and third floor. Slag…they still had to finish the civilian half of the base!

Then, after his startling realization, he had to go and remove Sunstreaker and Sideswipe from the airplane hangar where the decepticons were rooming, because they kept teasing the minicons…and Shock Wave did not like it when mechs teased his casetticons. So in the end, he had to separate a group of about six mechs from fighting (Prowl couldn't separate them on his own and Red Alert was down for the count), dole out punishment, and have someone clean up the mess.

He'd then collapsed in his chair, trying to do something about the massive pile of reports on his desk when the phone call came through. It was the President. After two hours of arguing with the President, assuring the Secretary of Defense that the decepticons meant no harm, and telling him that they had a shuttle full of inbound colonists, he managed to make a little progress. The president was no longer spouting threats of removing the autobots (well, he couldn't have if he wanted to). They'd been given two weeks to settle everyone down. Then they would be having a detail of human inspectors scouring the base and ex-decepticons, to deem whether or not they were a serious threat to the United States of America. Then he had to deal with a ranting Ratchet, complaining that Red Alert had escaped from the med bay. Poor Prime then received a message from the department of Homeland Security – he was going to be receiving a shipment of supplies in three days and he'd have to have someone pick them up. Slag.

After the argument with the President (and Ratchet), Optimus then stretched back in his chair, hoping to have a breem to himself…when the door slammed open. Jazz and Bee were shouting something about Ratchet being broken. The words "Ratchet" and "broken" had Optimus's computing center in a fritz so he took off running toward the med bay, his spark twisting in apprehension. Upon his entrance, Ratchet jumped and dropped whatever it'd been in his hand.

"Ratchet, Jazz and Bee said that something was wrong. Are you sick? Do you need time off? Oh, Primus, don't tell me that you're actually broken, Wheeljack is still out of commission right now! How many fingers am I holding up-"

"I'm fine, Optimus, I'm in a good mood," Ratchet said, a small smirk on his face. Then Optimus realized the implications and he turned stiffly, muttering something about needed a case of high grade to get through the rest of the night. Once he'd made it back to his office (after being accosted by Prowl and Red Alert, wanting to know where their reports were) he sat down. Then the second call came through. It was Mr. Keller again and he sounded angry. He sounded very angry. Optimus very nearly lost his temper when he heard what the President had decreed – the inbound shuttles would be escorted by F-22s and searched by humans before the autobots could have access. Prime snarled that he would not allow something like that and he was not going to have his people prodded and poked like projects, nor detained. Last time the President ordered something like that, Bumblebee had ended up strapped down to a table, stuck full of sensors and needles.

"I know what you mean, Optimus. I can't do anything to change his mind, either." Keller was as flustered as he'd ever been in his life.

"I absolutely will not allow you to use military force on a shuttle full of Neutrals, they aren't involved in our war!"

"What are Neutrals?"

"They are not Autobot nor are they Decepticon. They do not believe in siding in this war. Most of them left before the war actually began and took refuge in other worlds."

"I see. I'll do the best I can to explain this to the President. Do you happen to know how I can get in contact with Mr. Lennox?"

"I've got him on call waiting right now." Prime put Will through to the Secretary of Defense. His voice rang out loudly over the communications line.

"Prime, what's going on, why is Sam in hysterics?! He called me screaming something about decepticons running all over the base-Oh God-"

"Captain Lennox-" "Mr. Lennox-"

"You haven't been taken over, have you Prime? Are you being held hostage? Oh, God, where's Ironhide? Is he okay! I'm going to come up there and kick some decepticon ass, Prime, you hear me?! Just hang on for me-"

"Mr. Lennox!" Mr. Keller's sudden outburst shocked the battle ready man (who was at that instant, unpacking a handy dandy rocket launcher out of the foot locker under his bed) out of his fuming rage.

"Yes, Mr. Keller?" Will asked, fidgeting with the safety lock on the trigger of the launcher.

"The Autobot base has not been run over by decepticons – Mr. Prime has just told me that the decepticons, well, most of them, have defected! Please calm yourself!"

"This is true, Captain Lennox," Optimus's deep voice rumbled over the line.

"Anyway, Mr. Lennox. I was wondering if you would come and debrief the president on our resident aliens. He believes that they're giant computers on legs…and that they aren't sentient," John said, sighing at the silence that hung on the end of the phone.

Will spoke softly, each one of his words trembling in barely suppressed anger.

"That sonofa-

"Mr. Lennox," warned Keller.

"He's going to have a few words from me, how dare he say something like that? Not sentient my ass-"

However, Keller and Optimus were both shocked at what happened next. They started laughing madly as they heard Sarah Lennox scream something at Will.

"STOP WAVING THAT DAMN THING AROUND OR YOU'RE SLEEPING ON THE COUCH!"

Then, with a hasty goodbye, Will had hung up and gone on his business. Optimus had chatted a few more minutes with Mr. Keller before hanging up. Then he'd looked at the clock. It was only 6 p.m. He let his head slam onto the desk.

After five minutes of blissful silence, he got an emergency call from Bluestreak. It seemed that the Twins had gotten out of the brig and had done something inappropriate. Bluestreak jabbered something about Rumble being hung from the ceiling by his foot. Optimus went upstairs to where Bluestreak had said, and lo and behold, there was Rumble, dangling from the ceiling, terrified out of his processors. Optimus then gently helped the casseticon down. Ravage was waiting, pacing nervously. Upon being set back down on the floor, Ravage pounced on Rumble and gave him a good going over.

"Rumble, I cannot begin to apologize for what the twins have done to you. I ask that you forgive them and their stupidity," Optimus said wearily. Ravage nodded and nudged Rumble toward Soundwave's quarters. Optimus had exactly two minutes of beautiful silence as he walked back to his office. Someone had found a stash of high grade and were now passing it around – while they were on shift. Prowl had just gotten off of his shift and Ratchet had found Red Alert (who'd been hiding behind a filing cabinet, trying to make a break for the med bay doors), meaning that Optimus's only back up was out of commission.

This had Optimus sprinting back the way he came from, all the way to the other side of the base where Ironhide and Jazz had just finished off their barrels of high grade. Jazz had looked up at his commander with a sheepish look on his face. Ironhide had simply offered the last barrel. Without thinking, Optimus had taken it and slugged it back. He was going to need all the back up he could get to just get through the day.

Then, after sternly reprimanding the both of them, he walked all the way back to his office and plopped down in his chair, staring at the pile of reports to go through. Was it his imagination or was the thing growing steadily taller as the day went by? He grabbed the top data pad and set to work on it. It was all that Optimus could do to keep from groaning in sheer frustration as Bluestreak brought in his reports – the slaggin' rookies were learning how to shoot – and there were quite a few of those reports. Some of the rookies had managed to tear a few holes in the ceiling, nick Sunstreaker's (why the slag was Sunstreaker in there, again?) armor, and the rookie had gotten his aft handed to him. Bluestreak then joined in the fray and hauled Sunstreaker's golden aft to the brig…where Prowl was waiting, with a stack of disciplinary pads to fill out…and then delivered them to Prime, who was about to blow a gasket. Prime sat down in his office, rubbing at his cranial unit, praying to Primus for a few minutes of rest -

Then all hell broke loose when Ratchet found out that someone had stolen his tray of medical supplies…along with his favorite welder. This left Optimus to track down the culprit (who ended up being Ravage, trying to repair minor damage to Laserbeak's wing) and bring them back to the medical bay. Ravage and Laserbeak both cowered under Ratchet's intense glare.

Optimus made it out of the medical bay just as Ratchet launched into a verbal lashing, reminding the casseticons that he was the chief medical officer, and if they had any problems whatsoever they came to him, and they didn't touch his things, or else he would be very, very angry. Optimus then wearily staggered back to his office and sat down. The giant pile of reports looked bigger than before. It took Optimus a few seconds to compute that it was bigger – Prowl had finished his reports on the twins and some of the new additions to the base, along with damage reports from the firing range, sparring room, rec room, and…the med bay? Ratchet must have snapped.

Three hours later found Optimus half-way through the massive pile of reports. He had just finished adding his remarks to it when a familiar bell chimed on his computer screen. Great, another mech with a problem. What, was he supposed to drop everything he was doing to take care of them? Ignoring the sarcastic thought, Optimus went ahead and dropped what he was doing to see who it was on the other line. It was Defensor, who looked extremely upset.

"Yes, Defensor? How may I help you?"

"Optimus, sir, it seems that we will arrive sooner than expected. One of our crew is deathly ill and we cannot treat her here," Defensor said, the smallest twinge of panic creeping into his voice. Optimus nodded.

"By all means, do what you can to get here faster. I'll have my CMO look at your patient. While he's waiting, do you mind sending your patient's information?"

Optimus blinked in confusion as the door behind Defensor opened and shut without warning. Defensor clicked softly and something climbed into his lap.

It was a small green youngling.

"By Primus, is that a sparkling, Defensor?!"

"Yes, her name is Evergreen. Her twin is very sick."

"Just what ship are you piloting? I was under the impression that you were a group of colonists. How many crew are on your ship?"

"Eight mechs…and these two younglings. These two were the only ones that survived," Defensor said sadly, "However, the ships that are inbound are carrying at least twenty sparklings, if not more-"

"T-twenty?" For the first time in his life, Optimus stuttered. His optics were wide. Not only did they have to build a ship bay, more space for the additions, and somehow find a way to provide energy for all of them, they now had to build a nursery. Slag. This meant another phone call to Mr. Keller, who would most certainly be unhappy. This also meant another massive stack of data pads and paperwork to go through, and soothing an upset William Lennox, who would have to deal with Banachek and the President. Then he'd have to actually acquire the materials to do all of that with. Damn, and here he was, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could do this without his computing center imploding.

Nope, he was fragged up the exhaust.

"Yes," Defensor said quietly, stroking the now recharging sparkling's head.

"Primus. I'll do what I can to get a makeshift nursery set up for your arrival," Optimus said. Defensor smiled and they bid each other good bye.

Optimus then immediately called the mini-bots and Construction panel and told them to do whatever was necessary to have a small nursery built by the time the shuttle arrived (which originally would arrive in three weeks, but was now due in less than one. The next shuttle, which carried the twenty or so sparklings, would be due in a year, so there wasn't much to worry about…for now). Optimus groaned and grabbed a second barrel of high grade, slugging it back in one shot.

Then he grabbed another data pad…

It was four-slaggin'-o'clock in the morning and Optimus had finished the last report in his massive stack of datapads. How he made it back to his quarters without crawling the entire way was beyond him. Somehow he managed to type in the code for his door and somehow he managed to collapse on the berth beside Elita. She instantly awoke to tend to her mate.

"Oh, Optimus, you're over-working yourself again," she said, pouring as much comfort as she could into their bond. Optimus weakly rumbled his approval and turned a bleary optic toward Elita.

"But it's worth it, Elita."

"Why is that," she asked softly, running a hand down her mate's chassis. Her optics met his and he grabbed her hands in his, giving her a genuine smile.

"They're carrying sparklings, Elita, they have little ones," Optimus said, his voice joyous once more. Maybe they had a chance to rebuild…but only after he had a proper recharge. He was due to be up in less than three hours.

Slag.

Starscream smirked at the information that he'd been sent. There was a small shuttle of Neutrals inbound toward the Autobot base. If these Neutrals were anything like the ones he'd dealt with back on Cybertron, they wouldn't be carrying weapons. The thought of finally having a ship to travel among the stars was wonderful. Toss in the fact that there were femmes left…it was enough to make him light headed. They could take over this mud ball and rebuild Cybertron…

Poor Optimus is having a bad day. :(