Duty and Deceit

Chapter 28

Journey

Previously on Duty and Deceit...

"Sector Zero Six..." The femme whispered, faceplates resembling one who'd just seen the dead rise up. "But... that's Protihex..."

The rotation had passed in a tense silence between the three Decepticons. The small femme drove over the familiar plains of Sector Zero Six in a trance, memories of her long journey from the rubble of her home to Kaon filling her thoughts.

Those orns had been long, the youngling forced to travel on pede as she was still too young for an alt-mode. Many rotations she had been certain that she would die of lack of Energon, yet her fury and her rage gave her strength.

She often stopped in some kind mech's home for a night cycle or two, but she never stayed. She wouldn't even stay long enough to get the damage from the explosions repaired. Most would try to convince her to leave her vengeance behind, but her resolve was steadfast. She would make the Autobots pay for what they'd done, even if it cost her her life.

Halfway to Kaon, she had stumbled upon a small destroyed town in Uraya, where she stumbled through the rubble. Stepping on to another pile of charred debris, just like all the others in appearance, she screamed as it crumbled beneath her weight, sending her crashing down into the labyrinth below. Dazed and badly injured, the youngling had limped through the sprawling tunnels. Finally stumbling the main chamber, the yellow and blue youngling met an elderly mech by the name of Alpha Trion.

All around the lab, sheets of metal and spare armor and parts were scattered haphazardly on shelves, tables, and even the floor.

By this time, the child was quite a sight to see. Scorched, scratched, and dented all over, now limping, with one arm that obviously had not been usable for many an orn. The femmeling's golden optics were cold, betraying far too much sorrow, pain, and anger than her few vorns ought to have held.

"Child!" The purple and scarlet old mech had exclaimed, instantly sitting her down. "You look like you've been to the pit and back! What happened to you, young one?"

She had glared at him, faceplates tight as she ignored his question, demanding, "Can you upgrade me to an adult frame?"

"W-well, yes..." The mech sputtered, running a few scans over her, "but, child! You've hardly worn your current frame for a few quartex at most!"

"Oh, really?" She asked, batting her optics in mock innocence. Her voice turned bitter, "I hadn't realized. Will you do it or not?"

Alpha Trion shook his helm firmly, waving one servo at her sternly. "Now see here, young lady. I will not be responsible for robbing you of your childhood!"

She threw back her helm and laughed an empty, almost hysterical laugh. "Oh don't worry old mech, the Autobots beat you to it."

Leaping off the berth to land shakily and rather painfully on her pedes, the femmeling turned to limp back the way she came. "Well, thanks for your wonderful hospitality, Mister Trion. I'll be on my way."

As she'd expected, the old mech ran after her, shouting, "Wait! Child, wait!" When she turned around with a vaguely curious expression, he continued, "I will build you an adult frame."

"Oh?" She had asked innocently, "And how long will it take?"

"An orn at least." Alpha Trion replied, "In the mean time I will repair the most pressing of your injuries. And in return, you will tell me your story."

It was late in the evening when the spy was roughly jarred out of her trance by the act of walking straight into what, at the time, felt very much like a steel wall. She only vaguely remembered having transformed into bipedal mode.

Seeing through her optics for what seemed like the first time that rotation, the spy stared at the green abdomen that she'd just rammed her face into. How'd that get there? she wondered blearily.

"Terabyte?" Skyquake asked her worriedly, shaking her gently, "Are you okay?"

Slowly the femme dragged her optics up to his face. Which she then proceeded to stare at blankly.

Sounding miles away to her, Dreadwing laughed gruffly. "This is the femme you're so fond of, Quake?"

Skyquake groaned and muttered a quick apology. She barely had time to wonder what for before he slapped her across the faceplates as gently as he could. Stumbling backwards a little bit, the femme yelped in surprise, her mind now fully in the present.

"What on Cybertron was that for?!" She shouted angrily, her face stinging even under the mask. Then she looked around. "Uh... When did we pass the border?"

Behind her, she heard Dreadwing huff and mumble something about his dimwitted twin and being replaced by a two-bit malfunction.

"About two joors ago..." The jet trailed off, "Tera, are you alright?"

"Yeah." Her finial twitched tellingly. "Just got lost in a memory file."

Skyquake frowned at her. He knew she wasn't alright, but chose not to push it. "Why don't we stop for the night?"

Simultaneously both Dreadwing and the little spy growled, "Why don't we not?"

Dreadwing glared at her. She glared at Dreadwing. Skyquake put his hands on his hips and glared at the both of them. "Because I'm your ranking officer, and I say we stop here."

"Fine." She muttered, still annoyed with Skyquake for setting them up. Again, she and Dreadwing spoke in unison, "I'll take first watch."

They scowled at each other and both shouted in exasperation, "Would you quit doing that!?"

Throwing up her hands, the two-wheeler stifled an aggravated scream, settling for turning her back to him with her arms crossed. Ironically, Dreadwing had done the same.

Smiling sadly at his two favorite people, Skyquake sighed deeply, laying himself down to recharge for the night. This would either work and they would sort it out, or this would be a very, very long quartex.

All of Team Prime, excluding Bulkhead and the humans, looked around the abandoned city. As the night progressed the smog had dissipated completely and the full moon now shone clearly in the sky.

Arcee spoke first, her tone kind of annoyed, though Terabyte was unsure why. "No signs of life: human or Cybertronian."

Skating over to the road leading up to the volcano, Bumblebee bent over, inspecting the ground. There were clear tire tracks in the damp earth. "These MECH people must think we're blind."

"It's more likely to be a trap," Terabyte replied, about to finish her line of thought.

Instead, Skyquake completed her idea with one simple word. "Bait."

"Bumblebee." Optimus said calmly, "I believe you had your own mission to be completing?"

"Oh! Yes sir." Bumblebee buzzed, embarrassed at having gotten distracted. Cliffjumper tapped the scout on the elbow and pulled out an Energon scanner.

"C'mon, Buzz," the red mech said cheerily, "Let's go find some rocks to dig."

Terabyte pulled out her own scanner and a little bit away, Ratchet did the same. She glanced at the medic. "Medic... Are you able to differentiate between the Energon signal of a Cybertronian and a deposit? Because I'm reading two signals."

The red and white mech shook his helm with a groan. "One is the signal from before, the other is most likely Breakdown."

Arcee cut in grimly. "But we shouldn't have two readings unless-"

Returning the favor, Ratchet interrupted her sentence, ending it with firm confidence. "His life-En's been spilt."

"However, the question remains." Skyquake reminded quietly, his whole demeanor stiffened into 'public-safe' mode. "Which signal is which?"

The Prime spoke calmly, seemingly unaffected by the slight hiccup in the plan. "We have no way to determine that, Skyquake. However, both parties are capable of adequately performing both tasks, whichever one we find."

"So split up and be prepared for anything?" Arcee confirmed, a small frown growing on her face.

"We'll take southeast." Bumblebee volunteered quickly, not quite hiding his eagerness.

"Very well." Optimus replied, leading his team towards the northern signal.

Terabyte's sensitive finials just barely picked up Arcee's skeptical mutter. "Are you sure they wouldn't have been better off with Cliff in charge?"

To be honest, she completely agreed with the pink and blue femme.

After nearly a groon of tramping over the rugged terrain, Terabyte could smell the sharp, tang of ocean air. She, having been put in charge of the scanner, checked her readings again. Beside her, Skyquake's wings were twitching and he continually cast a glance of wistful longing towards the sky.

"I estimate we are about another half groon from the signal, sir." The femme told Bumblebee calmly, glancing at her painfully ground-bound friend. "Req-"

"Lieutenant!" Bumblebee interrupted her quickly, waving a hand in a rapid youngling-ish motion, suppressing her objection to the rank she thought she no longer held. "You're older than me and as far as I care, you out-rank me, so... at least act like an equal. Okay?"

"But-!" Terabyte had hardly started to explain that she was in fact younger than the scout when Cliffjumper cut her off.

"Don't push it, Short Stuff." The red mech said, his tone far less insulting than his words. A wide grin was on his faceplates, and he patted her helm playfully. "Bee's the boss here, follow orders."

In spite of knowing that he meant no offense, Terabyte simmered angrily for an astrosecond, feeling Skyquake bristle beside her. She grinned at her overprotective friend, only to have it fade away when she remembered that she couldn't have her mask down in the Autobots' presence.

"Y- Fine." She muttered finally, lightly touching Skyquake's arm so he knew she was okay with it. Forcing herself to make her words less formal, the Prussian blue and black femme said, "Bumblebee... I would sug- could Skyquake and I complete the journey by air?"

The scout nodded emphatically before whirring, confused. Like he'd just, in hindsight, processed what she'd just asked. "Uh... you can't exactly fly you know... In case you hadn't noticed: Motorcycles aren't incredibly flight capable."

Now the green jet beside her growled lightly, catching the slightly condescending tone. Skyquake snarled, muttering, "I'll teach you how to fly, Bug!"

Again she gently touched his arm, hoping to calm him. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Cliffjumper, who smirked knowingly.

Her tone frighteningly calm, dripped with sarcasm. "Thank you for such valuable intel, Great, All-knowing Bumblebee. I certainly would never have guessed that I lacked that ability."

Cliffjumper coughed rather overtly, in a failed attempt to mask his snorting laughter. Bumblebee, despite his huge, round, innocent optics, managed to shoot the warrior a withering glare.

"How exactly are you going to fly then?"

"I will 'hitch a lift' as the humans say." Terabyte replied plainly, her voice returning to a neutral, respectful tone. "Do we have your permission, sir?"

Glaring at Skyquake for a second, Bumblebee's expression softened. "Sure. Just keep within sensor range."

Transforming into his alt-mode, Skyquake revved his engines, eager to fly again. Terabyte climbed on, kneeling on one knee-plate on the top of the jet. She got the impression that the green jet was grinning mischievously.

She knew that look... "What are y- aaaiiee!"

Terabyte clamped her vocalizer off harshly, her frame thrown flat against the jet, servos clutching the edges of Skyquake's wings tightly, the sudden lurch of speed having caught her by surprise. Beneath her, the ground was already far, far away; the thick clouds above approaching fast.

Icy cold rain drops splattered on her armor, totally soaking the small femme in moments. She hardly had time to yelp in shocked, laughing protest before they had emerged above the clouds, the rushing wind ripping the water droplets from her frame.

The femme lowered her battle mask, reveling in the feel of the wind in her face, Skyquake's reassuring presence bringing her a strong sense of security. She let out a happy scream as the jet pulled into a tight corkscrew spiral, plummeting downwards at what seemed to be an uncontrollable speed.

True to his orders, the point of land rushing up to greet them at an alarming rate was still within visual range of Bumblebee and Cliffjumper. Terabyte adjusted her optics to zoom in as much as she could - which sadly wasn't all that much - on the red warrior's expression.

Raising one hand in a playful salute, Terabyte watched as the look of incredulous realization dawned on his faceplates, closely followed by a quick succession of shock, hilarity, and worry.

As for herself, she completely trusted that Skyquake wouldn't let her fall.

Shock, as he realized who he was looking at and where she was headed and wondered why on earth she was there. Hilarity, as he realized who he was looking at and where she was headed and no doubt made some joke of it. And the funniest expression of all being worry, as he realized who he was looking at and where she was headed and it finally clicked in his head that - as far as he could tell - his adopted little sister was about to become his adopted little grease stain on the ground.

All this she observed and speculated in just a few seconds. Chuckling at the mech's play of thoughts so clearly laid out in his face, Terabyte glanced at the ground below them and screamed, strengthening her grip on Skyquake's wings. Realizing that she'd forgotten to unzoom her optics, the femme did so, still screaming as the earth seemed to reach up for them.

Unzooming her optics hadn't helped! Instinctively, the Prussian blue Autobot spy pulled up on his wings, as if she could pull him out of the suicide dive.

"Sky!" Terabyte screamed, beginning to wonder if he'd miscalculated and really would crash.

Finally he pulled up at just the last second, inertia continuing to drag him towards the earth so close that she felt the jet's underside just lightly scrape the ground before rising towards the sky. Around the almost-crash site, a huge cloud of dust and leaves fluttered in the air.

Catching sight of Cliffjumper before he saw them, still thinking they had crashed, Terabyte saw him standing there, mouth ajar. If he'd been a human, he would have been white as a sheet. Then he started running full speed towards the dust cloud, still not registering the scream of the jet engines above him.

Terabyte took a moment to appreciate the red mech's concern for her, before sending a two-word message, 'Look up'. Whooping with laughter, her spark pulsing rapidly, Terabyte grinned. Once her spark beat slowed, the femme lessened her death grip on Skyquake's sensitive wing panels. Where her hands had been, small, servo-shaped indentations marked the red rim.

"Sorry!" She exclaimed, working to smooth out the dents without losing her balance, knowing just how sensitive wings were. "I didn't mean to, but I honestly thought you'd miscalculated and we were going to crash!"

He laughed, the motion jostling her lightly. "I had miscalculated."

The femme froze, processing that statement. "W-what?!"

"I just forgot to adjust for your added weight." Skyquake continued nonchalantly just to annoy her.

"You could have killed us!" She shouted, not really upset at all. In fact, she was grinning, having thoroughly enjoyed the thrill.

Skyquake seemed to consider this possibility, his engine humming contentedly beneath her. "Hmm... that's not necessarily a bad thing... they say the Well's pretty nice this time a vorn."

Playfully punching him in the cockpit, Terabyte laughed, pulling on an almost stern tone. "Hey! No vacations to the Allspark for you, sir. I've already had to cancel enough unexpected vacation attempts on your part."

The green jet chuckled for a moment before his voice went deathly serious. "Yeah... Terabyte... I'm so sorry. What I did to you that day - that was unforgivable and unacceptable... I des-"

Gently laying a hand on his cockpit, she looked down at the fluffy clouds below them. "Sky... I'm just glad you're alive." She frowned minutely. "I... hoped you wouldn't remember that..."

Neither one spoke again for nearly a breem. Finally, Terabyte spoke up quietly. "We're arriving over the signal; we should probably go back to where the others are and land."

Wordlessly the mech began a slow decline. Raising her mask again, Terabyte stifled a sigh. The memory of that day would haunt her friend forever, she'd known him long enough to be certain of that.

"What on Cybertron was that!?" Cliffjumper roared, blazing with a fury Terabyte hadn't known the amiable mech was capable of. As soon as he'd decided that she was uninjured, the warrior had instantly turned on Skyquake. Both of his hands, transformed into blasters, were pointed at the jet's spark.

"She was perf-" Skyquake started defensively, but Cliffjumper ignored him.

"You could have got her killed!" He raged, also ignoring Bumblebee's orders to stand down. "You can go scrap yourself in the magma pits of Altihex for all I care, but I will not let you hurt Terabyte!"

He saw the jet's armor flare up angrily as his posture slid into a full offensive stance. He didn't really care.

Terabyte stepped between them, probably wanting to stop the fight before it started. "Cliff, it's okay! I was perfectly s-"

The red mech cut her off. "It's not okay! He tried to kill you!"

"I was in no danger of injury, Cliffjumper." She told him firmly.

The green Decepticon behind her growled. "I would never hurt Terabyte. Never! I would rather die than see her come to harm."

Cliffjumper glared at the 'Con. A grin spread over his face as he processed the jet's statement and he relaxed, transforming his blasters back into hands smugly, saying jovially. "Alrighty then!"

He watched Terabyte relax slightly, probably thinking the situation had been resolved. Too bad for Skyquake, she was wrong. Never, eh? Rather dangerous word to use, especially when it wasn't true.

Conversationally, he started walking again. "About three and half quartex past... that was some pretty nasty denting you got, TB. Funny, I don't recall you mentioning what happened?"

Turning around, he saw that Skyquake had stopped, his faceplates drawn. Jackpot. As the humans would say, you really never should say never. Unfortunately, Terabyte had assumed a similar expression, from what little he could see of her face.

She shook her helm, a slight pleading tone touching her voice. "Cliff... drop it, please. What matters is that we're okay. I'm sure Sky will be more careful next time."

"What?" He asked feigning ignorance, maintaining an even, mildly cheerful tone. "Oh, you mean the whole flying-almost-dying thing. I already said that was alright. I was just curious about how that had happened."

Terabyte looked ready to defend the jet, but Skyquake spoke first, his voice hard, untelling. "My processors were still scrambled from the recent deep stasis."

"Ah." Cliffjumper replied obviously not believing that. He guessed that the jet didn't believe it either. But he'd let it pass, having made his point. Skyquake really shouldn't have said never. 'Cause they all knew that wasn't true. But he'd made his point quite painfully clear, so he'd let it go for now. "Well, I'm glad you're okay, TB. Had me worried there."

"Your expressions were pretty funny though..." She pointed out, her gold optics twinkling.

Moments later, a small, condensed file came in through a comm-line. Opening the file, Cliffjumper couldn't help but laugh. It was obvious that she was just trying to change the subject, but it worked. She'd sent him a memory sequence of his face as he realized she was flying to her doom. He did look a little ridiculous. Maybe more than a little.

"Guys?" Bumblebee whirred quietly from where he stood at the top of the small hill they were climbing. "I think you might wanna come look at this..."

Terabyte, Skyquake, and Cliffjumper hurried to the top of the hill, curious. The femme cocked her helm. "Come look at wha-oh..."

"What in the world?" Cliffjumper muttered, staring at the unnatural sight on the beachside.

Skyquake just stared at the structure, a slight smile tugging at his lip-plates. He had a look of amused understanding, like he'd considered doing something like that.

The femme continued to stare at the statue. "Why would someone do that? What's the point?"

"Sheer boredom." Skyquake said plainly. "Be on your guards. There is a possibility that the sleeper stationed here is awake currently."

"A sleeper? Awake?" Bumblebee asked skeptically, "Who put you in charge anyway?"

Ignoring the last question, the jet continued to explain. "The sleeper code automatically wakes its host every vorn, preventing the mech from returning to stasis for a quartex. That way the sleeper may perform his duty to guard his sector. Or in the case of this small planet, his continent." A faraway look touched his ruby optics. "Those quartex are very long when you are alone on a primitive organic world."

"Whoa, hang on." Cliffjumper cut in, his attention having been drawn by one particular sentence. "Did you just say there's six more 'Cons on this rock?"

Bumblebee glanced over at Terabyte doubtfully. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Terabyte raised her hands defensively, slipping back into formality as though it would somehow help. "I was not aware of this any more than you were, sir. The sleeper project was kept quiet. I was not even told what planet Commander Skyquake was stationed on."

"So..." Cliffjumper trailed off, finally asking, "Any clue who this guy is?"

Even Skyquake looked over at her curiously. Odd. She'd expected the fighter jet to recognize the psychotic Decepticon. However, the situation could have been worse. It could have been Sixshot; luckily that particular walking army had been offlined. He'd singlehandedly leveled a whole city and half the Autobot leveled before Magnus and the Wreckers finally took him out. All things considered though, it could definitely have been better too.

"Unfortunately." Terabyte replied dryly.

She glared at the glowing blue Energon crystal statue. The jet turbine shoulder pads, twin missile launchers perched on the back, the tank treads on the pedes, large fighter jet wings... and the empty faceplate.

The triple-changer's three personalities must not have managed to settle on which face should be carved. But there was no doubt about who the statue was depicting.

"Who is it then?" The yellow scout buzzed.

Terabyte sent each of the mechs all the intel she had on the mech via comm-line. "One of the most dangerous mechs I've had the misfortune of meeting in the Decepticon ranks. You better hope he's asleep."