Disclaimer: I only own Nightshade, my OC's, and medical procedures. :) PAW07 let me borrow her idea of femme in hiding while Okami-Chan let me borrow her idea of dancers.

RachelMNiner, the reason I didn't describe him as blue and cute is because he's still in protoform. Like I said in the last chapter, it will be a while before he's strong enough to be upgraded. (If he gets the chance.)

Litahatchee and I have been talking and we've found out that we'll be sharing a few ideas. Now, I don't know how Lita's going to use these ideas, so out of respect to her as an author and friend, I won't divulge what she's using or when. If you want to use anything in the upcoming chapters, please ask first. We've both been working super hard on our stories, and I don't want anyone to even think that either one of us would use an idea without permission. I don't know when Lita will be touching on these ideas, so if you're wanting to use any of the specific ideas that I'm using (and she hasn't touched on them), then you'll need to ask me first. I'll ask Lita if she's using them, and if she is, you have got to ask her. I'm not the only person using them. However,'carrying' and the carry chamber; as it applies to the way a sparkling is carried within the femme, near her spark, the way it is nurtured in this way; is and always will be sole property of Litahatchee from her story Night Fire (Litahatchee also owns all medical procedures in Night Fire) just as the medical procedures in When in Doubt belong to me. Thank you! :)

And another giant thank you to Lita for bouncing ideas with me and for all of the encouragement. :D

When In Doubt: What You Didn't Know has also been updated, so if you feel the need for some good fun after this chapter, go take a look. :)

Day Lily and Ratchet left the surgical room about an hour later – Day Lily needed the rest and Ratchet was going to retrieve a few holocubes and supplies for Nightshade. Red Alert left, too, leaving the femmes by themselves. The room was deathly quiet, even with their amiable chattering. Chromia shivered slightly. Where was Ironhide when she needed him?

She sent him a questioning nudge through their bond. No response. She frowned slightly, repeating the action. Then cold dread settled over her spark as she realized that she couldn't feel anything but his presence. Someone had set up a spark masking block. She repeated the action again and it confirmed her fear. Chromia got to her feet and began searching for a way out, frantically typing codes into the pad beside the door.

Nightshade awoke to the sound of Chromia pounding on the door.

"Wasamatter," she managed to slur out. She shakily tried to rise up on her arm but couldn't. The painkillers had effectively disrupted her systems. She became slightly nauseated, her stabilization and balance subroutines going haywire. The effects of the energon flush caused her computing center to become erratic, her thoughts whirling and disconcerting, leaving her unable to focus on any one thing.

"Someone's set up a spark block. We're stuck in here," Chromia said briskly, trying her best to fight down her panic. She began typing in every code that she could – basic public access codes, emergency override codes, anything she could think of. She busily typed away, deeming it as a faulty keypad or something of the sort, desperately hoping that it really was not a trap.

"Chromia!"

The femme turned around at Nightshade's terrified cry. A dozen drones were perched around the room. Chromia thought to look up. There were six very large drones were hiding in the rafters, their optics glowing eerily in the dusky darkness. Nightshade stared at them with wide optics – repressed memories of where Starscream had nearly taken her from Ratchet began surfacing, forcing her computing center to freeze up and further incapacitating her.

She weakly tried to scoot away from the approaching drones but fell back as her energy dwindled below fifteen percent. The poisoning and birth, coupled with the painkillers and sedatives, rendered her incapable of doing more than watching. Now she could offer no resistance as one particularly large drone hovered over her, its arms stretched out.

"Leave her alone," Chromia shrieked, throwing a scanner at the drone. Its head snapped to the side. It beeped quietly and straightened up, seeking its attacker. Upon seeing the blue femme, it stopped. With a whirring computing center, it tried to contact its master. No response. The drone had specifically been told to go after the blue femme.

But there were two blue femmes. Which one? The drone beeped again. A tinier drone leapt from its chest. It would take both. Its master would be pleased.

Chromia barely had any time to react as the tiny drone leapt at her. She swung at it but it latched onto her arm, digging tiny, sharp claws under her armor. After a brief moment of struggle, Chromia managed to rip the drone from her arm and sling it against the wall. It let out a metallic shriek as its body impacted the wall, shattering into sparking pieces. It was then that she noticed the energon dripping from a punctured fuel line.

Not a full three seconds later, she began to feel the first waves of dizziness. Chromia managed to take a few of the drones out with a small EMP concussion wave. She sank to her knees, fighting the anesthetic as hard as she possible could. The last thing she saw was one of the larger drones silently wheeling over next to her. Nightshade frantically began relaying distress signals but failed, unable to penetrate the powerful masking blocks that the drones had set up. As a final, last ditch attempt to call for help, she used her codes to activate the rarely used emergency features in the medical bay. One of the larger drones that had escaped Chromia's EMP blast dropped down from the rafters.

A sigh of relief escaped her as the lights dimmed and an alert went through to the command center. Nightshade struggled weakly as the drone gently, almost tenderly scooped her into its arms, cradling her against its chest. It beeped once more and the rest of the drones moved into place. Another drone shielded the femmes from the sparks raining down from the ceiling. With mounting horror, Nightshade watched as the smaller ones began to make short work of dismantling a panel in the wall and hacking into the med bay security systems. Nightshade prayed that they wouldn't be able to override Red Alert's extravagant security codes and measures. The drone tightened its arms around her gently as one of the smaller drones blasted a hole in one of the windows. Nightshade turned on her tracking device, shuttering her optics as the drone climbed out of the hole and scaled the wall.

At least now they would know where to find her.

With that final thought, her energon reserves failed and her vision went dark.

…stasis lock in ONE breem…

The reaction to the security breach was instantaneous – Prowl and Barricade had both been playing cards, arguing over tactics, but before the red emergency lights had even finished dimming, they were in the armory passing out weapons to the assembled 'bots. Ratchet tried to contact Nightshade through their bond, but grimly realized that he could not contact her. This didn't surprise him too much. The medical bay was equipped to protect and hide the patients and medics within, even if it meant masking their spark signatures. But why would they run a drill now? It hadn't even been cleared with him. The only mechs on base that would know if it was a drill or not were Prime, Red Alert, Prowl, and Barricade, and none of them were handy at the moment, so he decided to investigate and find out for himself. Forcing down his fear and deeming it as nothing more than a prank, he made his way quickly to the medical bay.

On the way, he met Prowl and Barricade. Upon seeing the heavily armed mechs, he realized that it wasn't a drill. Nightshade truly was in danger. His spark leapt into his vocalizer. No, this couldn't be happening, not now. Not to Nightshade or their little Streak. Ratchet's hands balled into fists as he approached the mechs.

"Ratchet, you need to stay here until we've cleared the medical bay," Prowl said tersely, motioning for the mech to get out of the way. Ratchet faltered, torn between obeying Prowl and going in with guns blazing. Barricade made the decision for him and pushed him out of the way, leveling his weapon at the door.

"Barricade, those doors are reinforced," Ratchet warned, "You won't have much luck. Let me see if I can disengage the security mechanism."

"Very well, but you will not enter until we have cleared the room. Am I clear?" Prowl asked, glaring at Ratchet. It was more of a statement than a question. Ratchet nodded and hurried over to the keypad. Two escorts flanked him, providing cover should anyone dangerous be within. Ratchet typed in his security code. The keypad beeped quietly.

Override has been disabled.

Ratchet hissed in anger, slamming his fist into the wall. Out of desperation, he ran through every single access code that he knew of but was still met with failure. Prowl shook his cranial unit and put one hand on Ratchet's shoulder, pulling him back roughly. Ratchet growled quietly and shrugged Prowl's hand from his shoulder.

"You need to get out of the way, Ratchet. Go back to the command center and we will take care of the rest," Prowl said, eyeing the heavily reinforced doors. Ratchet growled.

"I will do nothing of the sort, Prowl. Nightshade is in danger," Ratchet snapped. Why couldn't Prowl understand that his mate came first? Why was he being so difficult? Prowl shook his head.

"No, Ratchet. Get out of the way," Prowl said, pushing Ratchet out of his way. Ratchet raised one hand in Prowl's direction, ready to give him a verbal lashing. Ironhide leapt into the fray and grabbed Ratchet's arms. They couldn't deal with Ratchet's hissy fit and two missing femmes at the same time.

"Ironhide."

"Shut it, Ratchet," Ironhide snapped, pulling up slightly on Ratchet's left arm. The mech hissed in pain but complied.

"You will calm down and you will move out of the way. We are doing what we can. If you cannot keep calm, we will sedate you and we will put you in the brig. Compute," Prowl snapped, seemingly unfazed with being swung at by the near-frothing CMO.

"Let me go, Ironhide. Nightshade is – "

" – is in danger. Yes. I know. Now be quiet and stay out of the way," Ironhide finished, letting go of Ratchet and dropping him on the floor. Ratchet only grumbled quietly and rubbed his aching wrist joints.

"Ratchet to Red Alert," Ratchet said, opening a communications channel.

"I'm on my way down there, don't worry about a thing. Elita has already told Prime about the situation," Red Alert said, heavily emphasizing the last bit of the sentence, "You and Ironhide are to take any measures necessary to get into that room."

Prowl and Barricade both noticed the heavy emphasis on the end of the sentence and gave Ratchet expectant glances.

"What about 'the situation'?" Prowl asked. Barricade remained silent, reading Ratchet's body language. The mech was obviously tense about something. That 'something' must have been extremely important if the normally level headed mech had attacked Prowl. Red Alert arrived on scene.

"Have you tried all of your security – "

"Yes, now get your aft over there and see if you can't make this thing open up," Ratchet interrupted. Red Alert hurried over to the door. As Chief of Security, he had access to everything in the base and city, even down to the locks on drawers, if need be. He typed in his master access code. After a second, the key pad made a strange noise and promptly fizzled out. Red Alert jumped back from the sparking keypad, clutching at his badly burned hand.

"If the keypad is gone, there's nothing more that I can do!" Red Alert cried out, panic rising in his voice, "How are we going to get that door open?! What if it's a trap, Ratchet, and – "

"Shut. Up," Ratchet snarled, "We need to get inside now."

"Ironhide, do whatever it takes to get that door open," Prime said through his comm. link, "Make sure everyone else gets to safety before you let loose. My ETA is in two minutes."

The others in the hallway made a hasty retreat to an adjoining hallway at the smirk of morbid glee that crossed Ironhide's face plates.

"With pleasure, sir," Ironhide drawled out, leveling his cannons at the door. He took a moment to seek out weak spots on the door before ducking behind a pillar for cover. Then he let loose a maelstrom of acid pellets, bullets, plasma rounds, energy flares, and just about everything he had in his subspace pockets. After a full thirty seconds of non-stop weapons fire, Ironhide shot off his last round and peeked around the pillar. He smirked with pleasure at his handiwork. The door had been blasted into the waiting area of the medical bay and slammed against the far wall. Twisted, glowing shards of steel twisted into the darkened room. Yellow sparks rained from the lights above. Whatever drones had been stupid enough to stay behind were now smears of silver metal on the linoleum floor.

Ratchet hurried inside, ignoring Prowl's angry reprimand. Ratchet brought his rifle up, cautiously looking around. His initial scans revealed no life signs. His spark plummeted as he took in the damage. He froze, unable to compute a single thought.

"What happened here," Prowl asked tersely. The medical bay was in pieces. The glass cabinets had been shattered. The glass and remains of drones were sprinkled across the floor like gruesome confetti, crunching under foot. Prowl's battle computer began whirring away – ninety five percent chance of mortality, four percent chance of finding bodies – and he crept down the hallway, his doorwings held low and out of the way.

The lights were ruined. Embers and sparks poured from the ceiling, dropping to the floor and glowing brightly before extinguishing. Ratchet hurried to Nightshade's room. Something popped underfoot with a gruesome squelching noise. Ratchet jumped back and looked down. He had stepped on one very tiny drone. Its legs twitched pitifully before its green optics went out. Barricade picked it up and subspaced it as evidence.

Ratchet continued into the room, his spark flaring uncomfortably. The lights above flickered slightly, illuminating the destruction within. There was a path of charred metal, singed by the electricity from Chromia's EMP blast, leading across the floor and against one wall. The drones that had been in the way were partially melted to the ground, their bodies melted like ghastly wax statues. Ratchet ignored them and hurried over to the berth, ignoring the energon he stepped in.

The berth where Nightshade had been resting was overturned and covered in energon. The sight of the pink fluid was a slap to Ratchet's processors. His anger dissipated quickly and fear took its place.

"No…"

The delivery and medications, coupled with the poisoning and energon flush had rendered Nightshade completely defenseless. Chromia may have been one Pit of a warrior but that did not mean that she was able to fight off a dozen drones in a surprise attack and protect Nightshade at the same time. He stared in silence at the slightly congealed pink energon, his intakes heaving.

"No…Primus, please no," Ratchet whispered quietly, shuttering his optics. Ratchet had never been much of a believer – his role as a medic turned him bitter against the idea of a deity that allowed innocent mechs and femmes to die, to die without a fighting chance or retribution. But now, he found himself believing that Primus did exist, if only to punish him for his lack of belief.

They had taken Nightshade and their little Streak. Ratchet sank slowly to the ground, struggling to fight back the unbidden questions from running rampant in his mind. The amount of energon in the berth did not bode well for Nightshade or their sparkling. Ratchet let out an anguished cry and slammed his fist into the ground beside him, his entire frame shuddering as he struggled not to lose control.

Was Nightshade still alive? Was little Streak still alive? He was barely aware of Ironhide lumbering into the room, so lost in his fog of anguish was he. Upon seeing his friend kneeling on the ground, Ironhide sank down beside him with a groan of gears and put one massive hand on his shoulder. Ratchet didn't give any indication of having even noticed the mech. Ironhide shook Ratchet's shoulder gently, trying to break the mech from his anguish induced stupor.

"What's goin' on, Ratchet?" Ironhide's voice was surprisingly gentle, his touch comforting. Ratchet shuddered as he tried to speak.

"Emirate took Nightshade," he managed to whisper, "And he took my sparkling…"

His words made Ironhide jerk back in surprise and shock. Nightshade had been carrying? And she had already delivered? Why hadn't he said anything?

"When did she…"

"Less than an hour ago," Ratchet said, his voice trembling as his spark twisted in absolute tortured agony. He'd lost Nightshade and his little Streak. This was his fault – he should have stayed behind to keep an optic on her. He shouldn't have let Red Alert give her those painkillers – this was all his fault. He shouldn't have gone back to the apartment; he should have stayed by her side until she was strong enough to do defend herself. He was a terrible mate, unworthy of her dedication and love. And now he was paying his mistake dearly. He never even got the chance to hold his son.

Prowl and Barricade finished clearing the medical bay and joined the mechs. Ironhide got to his feet, his thoughts whirling. Things were getting very ugly, very quickly. They had to get the femmes back before the situation escalated.

"Don't you dare blame yourself, Ratchet. There was nothin' you coulda done," Ironhide grunted softly, hefting the red-and-white mech to his feet, "Now if you'll excuse us, Prowler, we've got a mech to dismember."

"What happened, exactly," Optimus asked, finally arriving on the scene. Elita jogged up behind him and promptly froze upon seeing the state of the medical bay – and Ratchet. The mech was staring into the room with gaunt, glazed over optics. His entire body sagged, almost as though someone had ripped his entire world from beneath his feet. Prime had a sinking suspicion that if Ironhide had not been holding Ratchet up, the mech would be on the floor. Elita shoved past him and raced to the door. She cried out softly, gathering her hands over her mouth as she took in the state of the delivery room.

Not a second later, Elita's face hardened and her posture changed. It was then that the mechs in the room understood why she had been given position as Commander – her posture was rigid and unyielding, Prime's smaller but equally deadly counterpart. Her optics brightened as she gazed around the room. Barricade felt his spark stutter at the lethal, icy calmness that radiated from her body. She spoke quietly, but her voice carried over the noise in the room, reminding each and every mech in the room that she was a seasoned warrior, more than capable of holding her own against even Prime.

"I'm taking my platoon to Emirate's ship, Optimus. If you and your men wish to come along, you have one breem to be ready and at the entrance. Anyone, and I mean anyone that stands in my way will be dealt with accordingly," Elita said quietly, her voice growing deadly toward the end. Prime approached slowly, raising two placating hands.

"Elita, we don't know for certain if they are in Emirate's ship," Prime said gently, putting his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened at the contact. Her bright blue optics were serene and gentle, but Prime could see the tempestuous anger swirling behind the falsely calm exterior.

"Where else would they be? Two of my femmes and their sparklings are in danger, and I will be damned before I let you stand in my way," she hissed quietly, jabbing one finger into his chest plates, "Now get out of my fragging way before I decide that you're assisting Emirate and shoot you."

Prowl and Barricade could not hide their surprise and shock when Elita said the word 'sparklings'. They shared one shocked look before turning back to Optimus.

"Elita, calm yourself. I've already sent out a message to my men. We will meet your platoon in the entrance," Prime said gently, radiating his presence toward her spark, "after we discuss tactics." She rebuffed him angrily.

"No."

"Elita," he said quietly, his optics narrowed, "I need you to act like a commander, not a femme or a creator. I know you're upset, but we can't just go in with guns blazing. We don't know what Emirate is going to do. We can't risk any kind of retaliation from him."

Elita nodded, bowing her head and shuttering her optics. Optimus was right. She had reacted instinctively, wanting nothing more than to protect the femmes and their sparklings. Elita reigned in her irrational anger and put it aside. She couldn't afford to act like a femme right now. Her role as Commander was more than that – she was a warrior first, femme second. Prime gripped her shoulder gently, conveying his gratefulness through their bond. She gave him a tight lipped smile before turning back to the assembled group.

"Prowl, get Jazz, Bluestreak, and Mirage. You will be responsible for scouting the ship and disabling security measures. Ironhide, Sky Lynx, and Brawn will be on stand by if we need the firepower," Prime said quietly, "Soundwave, his cassettes, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Elita and her platoon, and Inferno will be the main group. The aerialbots need to be on standby if we need them. Ratchet and Red Alert – you two may come along. We don't know if we will need you two. Barricade, you will stay here and man the base in my absence."

"Yes, sir" voices chorused from around the room. They scattered instantly, not wanting to anger Prime any more than he already was. Ratchet was still standing in the middle of the room, his entire body slumped.

"Ratchet, I promise that we'll find them," Optimus said quietly, "But for now I need you to act the part of our CMO, not as a creator or mate."

Ratchet gave a long, shuddering sigh before nodding.

"Thank you, Ratchet. Now let's go," Prime said, gently guiding the mech from the room. Prime shot one last look over his shoulder and felt his spark harden at what remained of the medical bay. He was capable of infinite kindness and compassion, but what Emirate had just done was nearly unforgivable.

Prime shut the door behind him, one hand between Ratchet's shoulders. Ratchet was visibly struggling to keep his composure and Optimus couldn't help but to draw Ratchet into an awkward, one-armed embrace. Ratchet needed someone strong at the moment. His sparkling and mate were gone, the both of them presumably dead.

:P