Duty and Deceit

Chapter 3

'Rescue'

She walked quietly into the shooting range, the sounds of gunfire filling the air. Skyquake was in the center, blasting drones, targets, and obstacles alike all into piles of charred debris. To the side, there were several drones that appeared to have been torn to pieces in hand-to-hand combat. The large army green jet didn't seem to have noticed her and continued firing his cannon in rapid succession. The cannon itself was nearly as big as she was.

Hesitantly, the little two-wheeler approached. Dodging a drone's disembodied head as it flew past, she briefly wondered about the wisdom of what she was about to do. What did she have to lose though? She had nothing left.

"Sir?"

No response.

"Hey! Sir! I'm trying to talk here, could you quit blasting for a minute?"

If he'd heard her, he was doing a fantastic job of ignoring her. She growled, frustrated. The golden energon dagger on her right arm released, extending a bit over a foot long. If he was going to ignore her, fine. She'd just have to be loud enough he couldn't pretend. She pointed the weapon at the wall, sincerely hoping her plan would work. Theories in action.

The near-silent crackling of her energy weapon gradually grew louder as she fed more power into it. Finally the pent-up energy could no longer be contained and it discharged as a hot yellow bolt, the sonic boom caused by it bringing Skyquake to a halt.

He slowly turned and looked at the black scorch mark she'd made on the wall.

"What do you want femme?" His voice, though still gruff and growling, held an undertone of new-found respect.

"I want you to teach me to fight. And I want an offensive weapon." She paused, considering all the things she wanted, but could never have again... No point dwelling on it, though. Her dagger was fried; the energy surge had blown the small generator that powered it. "I also want another energon dagger, to replace this one."

Skyquake's lips quirked up slightly. "It can be done."

Terabyte blinked several times, staring at Megatron as he boarded the Nemesis. Even once he was gone, she continued to stare at the lift that he'd taken. She hadn't expected him to take her evasive answer nor her subtle suggestion that he might be late so well. To be perfectly honest, Terabyte had half expected the Lord Protector to clobber her for daring to speak so boldly, though she certainly felt anything but bold.

Suddenly realizing that her mouth was hanging slightly ajar, Terabyte hastily shut it, grateful as always to her mask. Cliffjumper chuckled lightly, no doubt at her expression, what little of it he could see.

"Ole' bucket-head's got a point though. Why did you bring me down here? Pretty sure it wasn't for the scenery."

"You will address Lord Megatron respectfully." Terabyte ordered. "Besides, I thought I told you to shut up."

The Autobot didn't listen to her command and was soon talking and joking about every little thing that came to mind. Terabyte shook her helm in exasperation and tuned him out. Did he even care that he risked compromising his own escape? Nothing seemed to get through to the mech.

To speed up the Autobots' arrival, she disabled the portable damping field that had been placed around him; standard procedure for all prisoners, better that the enemy think their guy's dead rather than storming in and wrecking everything their self-righteous troops touched. Using her internal communications array, Terabyte also took the liberty of simultaneously recording and repeating Cliffjumper's spark frequency in sync with his own, making the signal nearly twice as strong as normal.

The enhanced signal apparently had caught the Autobots' attention, because only a few klicks afterward, four Autobot signatures -not counting Cliffjumper's- appeared on Terabyte's HUD, her long-range sensory network having picked up the different faction ID signals. Several danger warnings flashed across her HUD, as well as a few notifications informing her that her automatic defense systems had powered up. It was beginning.

As soon as the Autobots arrived, Terabyte began hearing weapons fire from inside the entrance tunnel. A group of fighter drones ran to investigate and provide reinforcements for the few that were guarding the area. Most of the miners were fleeing the battle, while a couple valiantly remained, only for their screams to echo in the cavern as they were injured or killed.

Terabyte glanced up at the red mech. He was fidgeting, whether in battle lust or concern for his friends, she was unsure. As an Autobot, she suspected the former to be far more likely.

"They're here. You need to go with them before someone shoots the Energon. It's highly unstable, if one crystal goes, then this whole mountain will explode."

Avoiding the mech's optics, she pulled the key to his cuffs out of subspace. Every wire in her frame protested to what she was about to do. Her ethical subroutines spewed a long lecture on loyalty, dragging buried images of the results of Autobot 'assistance' and 'moral superiority' from her data-banks to the front of her processor. Attempting to cover the pained expression that engraved itself onto her face-plates, Terabyte set him free.

"What about you? Your buddies will turn you to slag for helping me." She would have thought he was actually concerned for her well-being, if it weren't for the longing -the cause for this longing still not totally verified- glances he kept shooting in the direction of the approaching battle sounds.

Terabyte tried to ignore the continuing screams of mining and battle drones as the rescue team extinguished their sparks. Typically, they didn't seem to have noticed that the mining drones only had defensive capabilities. All they cared about was getting their one team-mate. Who would care if they each sent a dozen sparks to the Well in the process? Under all their lies, Terabyte had seen what they really were; the cause they claimed to believe in meant nothing to them. They only wanted Cybertron to themselves and as far as they were concerned, anyone who wasn't one of them could rust.

"My punishment will no doubt be severe…" Terabyte replied, and, forcing her thoughts back into playing her role convincingly, put a hopeful gleam in her optics, her Prussian blue mask effectively concealing her contempt. "You wouldn't… I mean, I'm a 'Con… Your friends won't want me to come with you."

Cliffjumper looked into her optics for a moment, and then shot another glance at the approaching battle; she could now see stray laser-fire coming from the tunnel. Coming dangerously close to the raw Energon.

"You can come with me or stay here and get scrapped. Either way, I'm outta here... I've got the world to save." Flashing a grin at her, he ran towards the tunnel, guns raised and ready.

Before she could follow, the battle came to a momentary standstill, the drones sent in earlier must have all been incapacitated. Terabyte saw the Autobots sneak into the main chamber and then more drones filed in, firing on the team. A small femme about her own size; Terabyte guessed it was another two-wheeler by her slender frame, leapt over the boxes they were hiding behind and ran straight for Cliffjumper.

A Vehicon had snuck up above and behind the two Autobots and had a clear shot at Cliffjumper's back. Terabyte watched him power up his weapon and take aim before she raised her mini fusion cannon. The ledge the drone was standing on was relatively small; shooting it would take care of the drone without off-lining him. She sprung on the opportunity, killing one of her own hadn't... appealed to her much, and Soundwave had wanted as few casualties as possible.

She fired, her aim true, and the drone fell several feet to a platform below, the impact knocking him senseless. Shouts rang out from the troops. Terabyte picked out a few words: traitor, Autobot, weakling, coward. Her audio finial twitched angrily, this mission was an insult to her loyalty.

Cliffjumper and the Autobot femme were now running back to their Prime, not having noticed the danger they had just been saved from. Running after them, Terabyte had to dodge a flurry of weapons' fire. As far as the drones were concerned, she'd just become yet another target. Starscream had come back and was tossing something onto several large Energon deposits. He spat some insult or other at the Prime, though Terabyte didn't quite catch it, then flew out of the mine spinning in the air as he went.

"The joint's gonna blow!" A green mech yelled. He was just about as wide as he was tall, Terabyte couldn't help noticing.

"Autobots, roll out!" The Prime ordered, transforming into a large scarlet and blue semi.

Terabyte transformed and shot off down the tunnel, the Autobots ahead of her, seeming to have forgotten about her. Not that it mattered. She didn't need them to like her, just accept her. In fact, her mission would be a lot easier if she didn't get tied up in friendships. Terabyte could feel the heat from the explosion close behind her, licking at her back wheels.

"Ratchet! Bridge us back. Use the arrival co-ordinates, now!" Prime shouted into his intercom.

A portal opened up directly in front of them, and with no other options, Terabyte drove in after them. Transforming as soon as she was through, Terabyte glared at the red and white mech controlling the bridge. She had only just gotten through when it closed, if she'd still been in the portal… Terabyte cut off that thought abruptly, suppressing a shudder. The images she'd seen in records of such space-bridge accidents were enough to give any mech nightmares.

"Whoa…"

Terabyte turned her helm sharply at the sound, which her audios informed her had come from somewhere near her feet. Hesitantly she looked down and stared at the three human children. Soundwave hadn't mentioned anything about the Autobots having pet organics.

"Is that a Decep-ti-con? Cool!" The small, rather colorful, human exclaimed, staring back up at Terabyte with an expression of awe. She seemed to lose interest in her rather quickly though, and the human ran up the stairs to hang over the rail. "What was that explosion? Was there a fight? Can I come with next time?"

Terabyte was looking around at the Autobots' base, trying to figure out just where it actually was, not used to travelling by bridge, whether space or ground. They were using human computer technology, so she assumed that they had little of their ship left, if any so they couldn't be there... There was nothing in the room that indicated any specific location. The Decepticons already knew that though, that's why she was here in the first place.

Just then her attention flicked over to Cliffjumper. All the Autobots had finished greeting him and the red and white one, obviously their medic, had gone over him and declared him undamaged. Now the blue and pink femme was glaring at him and looked ready to attack him.

Which she did. Storming up to him, she slapped him hard on the face-plates. She then started yelling at him about 'not needing backup' and being a self-confident idiot for attacking half the Decepticon army single-handed and making them waste time and energy to drag his sorry chassis back to base. Somewhere along the way her furious ranting gave way to her collapsing into Cliffjumper like a deflated balloon.

"Cliff', when your life signal went out… we thought… I was afraid I'd lost…" She whispered brokenly.

"It's okay Arcee, I'm here now and I'm perfectly fine." Cliffjumper returned the hug gently before lightly pushing her off. "You're the last one I expected to go all mushy on me though. Anyone else want to hug their favorite guy?"

The medic snorted and rolled his eyes in disgust. Meanwhile Terabyte, using Arcee and Cliffjumper's reunion as cover, had casually walked around and was about to pick up a broken medical claw on the floor nearby to examine when the medic turned on her.

"Don't touch that!" His response seemed to be automatic, confirmed by how he then paused and gave her a quick look-over, his gaze settling on the Decepticon insignia welded to her abdomen on a piece of armor best described as a belt buckle, though it served no such purpose. "What is a Decepticon doing in our base anyway?"

Terabyte instantly snatched her hand away from the device, resting it instead by her side, energon dagger ready to shoot out if necessary. Her armor flared and the decorative silver plating that half covered the dull gray preliminary armor of her abdomen jutting out as her posture shifted to indignant defensiveness.

'You're not supposed to fight.' She rebuked herself mentally, Terabyte shifted her posture to one of resigned submission, however, she left her defensive systems at full power just in case. 'Just act like you expected this, which you did, and are willing to accept anything they want to do to you.'

At least she could be fairly confident that the Prime would make sure they left her alive. So far as the records had shown, the Primes were the only Autobots that actually cared about their cause and morals. Mostly. Zeta Prime, Nova Prime, Amalgamous Prime... All had shown an excellent example of the true Autobot ways.

Surprisingly, at least to her, Cliffjumper spoke up in her defense.

"So Ratch', you just gave me a clean bill of health right? Right. Well you can thank her for that. Everybody meet Terabyte, she fixed me up and just helped me escape."

"And just because of that, you trust her? Just because of that you risk bringing a Decepticon to our base?" The medic was on the verge of hysterics. "Even you, dimwitted pit-spawn that you are, even you should know better than that!"

Terabyte studied the old medic. He might get in her way, she noted wryly, though she had to give him credit; at least one of the Autobots had a shred of common sense.

"Look, Ratchet. We should at least give her a chance. She let me go, not even expecting me to bring her back with us. Ratchet, she was prepared to just let me go, and suffer whatever inhumane torture Megatron decided was fitting 'discipline'. Does that sound like something a 'Con would normally do?"

Terabyte grinned widely under her mask, sincerely hoping her glee didn't show too much in her golden-yellow optics. There was no way she'd even dared to imagine that she would get in this easily. As much as she despised the position her mission put her in, the information she could gather at this rate would further the cause substantially. Skyquake would be proud.

"Cliff', a 'Con is a 'Con. She's probably just acting up to gain our trust so she can relay all our plans to Megatron. We can't afford to take that risk." Arcee said, standing next to Cliffjumper.

Freezing in her thoughts, Terabyte tried to hide the flash of fear that swiped over her face-plates. The slightly taller femme's suspicion was so accurate, Terabyte wondered if her previous conclusion was made too soon.

Ratchet looked like he had more he wanted to add, and the black and yellow mech was whirring and beeping indignantly in Cybertronian, arguing that Cliffjumper was right that at least she deserved a chance to defect, following the normal procedures, but Optimus held up a hand to silence them.

"We are indebted to you for your assistance in Cliffjumper's rescue, Terabyte. However, do not expect us to trust you. Our trust must be earned, and until such time, your actions will be monitored at all times. I will personally escort you to the brig shortly, where you will stay until other arrangements can be made. An interrogation will be performed as well. Direct, honest, and detailed answers would make it a much more pleasant procedure."

"Um. I'd give you any intel I had, but I'm just a low-rank. They don't tell low-ranks much." Terabyte lied smoothly. The only thing that signified her dishonesty was the slight backward twitch of her left finial. Terabyte still couldn't get it to stay still, even after vorns of effort.

"Optimus, I hate to bug but, no bars." The tall human mechling interrupted, holding up a small device that Terabyte was quickly able to identify as a portable telecommunications device. Primitive compared to the intercom, but effective enough seeing as the fleshies' helms were incompatible with the technology.

"A security precaution." Optimus replied, "The silo walls isolate all radio waves." That would explain why her constant scans were always fruitless; wherever they were, they would be invisible to Decepticon sensors.

"Well, if I don't call my mom, like now, I'm pretty sure the cops will be out looking for me."

"Have you broken a law?"

"Um... Curfew. It's after ten pm." the mechling said, sounding rather embarrassed.

"I better get home too, or I'll be grounded for a year." the smallest human with the strangely spiked hair agreed. Terabyte cocked her helm at the organic, confused by his words. She was unaware the squishy bi-peds had flight capabilities to be removed. Only fliers could be 'grounded', anyone who couldn't fly lived 'grounded'.

"Earth customs, I hadn't considered." The Prime was actually apologizing to the organic younglings. "But the issue of your safety remains. Bulkhead, accompany Miko home-"

"Awesome! My host parents will freak!" 'Miko' exclaimed, bouncing excitedly.

"-And maintain covert surveillance in vehicle form."

"Curbside duty. Got it." The large olive-coloured mech, 'Bulkhead', confirmed.

'Talk about a fitting name.' Terabyte thought cheekily as she made a mental list, joining each person to their proper designations.

"Aww..." Miko whined, obviously disappointed that Bulkhead wasn't going to be able to transform and most likely traumatize all of her neighbors.

"Bumblebee, you'll watch over Raf."

The yellow mech exchanged a glance with the small human, 'Raf'. Terabyte frowned, the Autobots' names were rather boring... and the humans' names were just plain weird. That just left one human to be guarded.

"Ratchet-"

"Busy." The medic interrupted instantly.

"Arcee, you'll accompany Jack."

"Uhh... Can't Cliff'?"

Optimus just looked at her. He said nothing, just looked at her almost blankly, but she nodded and walked grudgingly over to the child they called 'Jack'.

One by one, each mech and their assigned human drove off to the humans' homes.

"Terabyte, if you would come with me." It was phrased politely, but very clearly an order.

Terabyte nodded and fell into step behind and to the side of the Prime. This mission was going to be extremely long term. She had avoided thinking too much into just how long this mission was going to take. The Autobots' trust was going to take quite a while to gain, before she could really even start. She could be stuck with these mechs for vorns... The idea was daunting, to say the least.

A.N. And there you go! I hope you all enjoyed the read. As always, I love every review I get and look forward to more!