A/N: Deadlines hit! ... which is why this is a day delayed and an interlude rather than an actual chapter. As it turns out, a brain full of statistics is not conductive to any sort of writing that's supposed to be even remotely lukewarm, much less actually hot. So for an update, it was either an interlude to get the plot moving a little again... or it was a 3k essay on the wonders of statistics with the occasional 'Ironhide' and 'Ratchet' and 'slag' thrown in for good measure *cough* And trust me, nobody wants to see that. So an interlude it is! Thank you for your patience and we return to your regularly scheduled updates soon.

A/N the Second: I haven't found Morshower's first name mentioned anywhere, so I picked one at random. Let me know if the fella's got an actual first name anywhere?

When General Morshower had first been presented with the Autobots, it had been right after the mess that was Mission City. While what remained of the Qatar survivors and the Sector Seven troops might have thought they were busy, Aaron Morshower strongly suspected that none of them had a clue about what sort of chaos had broken out in the higher circles of the military after that disastrous battle. There was a cover-up to handle, dead civilians, soldiers, aliens – good and bad – and a government agency so secret that it made Morshower's own black ops boys look practically legit in comparison.

He had been introduced to the concept of aliens in the middle of an international crisis and had dealt with that in the best way he could – he had nodded, mentally delegated it for later, and gone right on with his job. By the time he actually had time to deal with the fact that not only were they not alone in the universe, but their room-mates were giant, alien robots... by then, Morshower had found himself officially holding the reins of a military alliance with said robots that was only marginally less classified than the recently disbanded Sector Seven had been.

How anyone intended to keep alien robots the size of minor houses secret, Morshower didn't know, and he had expected said military alliance to end up on the front page of every media outlet in the world within a week. The fact that they had only shown up on the fringes, in between stories of possessed babies and alien abductions of national monuments, was a testament to the sheer skill and determination displayed by the so-called communications department that worked around the clock to deep-six anything that might blow their cover.

When NEST had still been classified information three months later, Morshower had finally started to accept just what he was dealing with and arranged for his first visit to the new NEST base on Diego Garcia. It hadn't been Morshower's first visit there but it might as well have been – the part of the base that had been claimed for the team and had been adapted for Autobot use, and the feeling of being very small and very, very insignificant had stayed with him for a long time.

Optimus Prime hadn't helped on that, either. He was respectful, he had presence, he was well-spoken – the sort of leader that could ask his men to follow him to the gates of Hell and expect to have them follow. Morshower couldn't claim to be unaffected by that, either, and he had made a mental note to keep a close eye on anything to do with NEST. He wasn't on the front lines but they were good people, good aliens, and he would do what he could to help.

There had been issues, of course – the Autobot Sideswipe all but going rogue had been one – but all in all it was a sensible alliance, led by sensible people, and Morshower had trusted them to do what was right. Lennox had proven himself and was allowed much more freedom in commanding the human NEST force than most people would have been, and Morshower could sleep somewhat more easily in the knowledge that between Optimus Prime and William Lennox, NEST would stay its course and not venture too far into the temptation of power that any sufficiently large secret organisation held. He didn't for a moment doubt that the NEST teams themselves would probably end up more loyal to the Autobots than to the mostly-faceless commanders in Pentagon – Sector Seven had first and foremost been loyal to Sector Seven, too – but he could live with that as well. He trusted the commanders, and the commanders trusted their troops, and that was good enough for him.

His suspicions were confirmed when said human commander had disobeyed direct orders and talked his pilots into going to Egypt instead, but Morshower had still trusted that decision and given his own support in the shape of the military back-up they had so desperately needed. It had taken some hard words and quite a legal team to get his young NEST commander out of that particular bit of trouble but Morshower had done it gladly. NEST had never been a normal organisation and more than a few debriefings had reminded him of just how bizarre their missions could get, too, and how much of a mistake it would be to pick apart a team that worked and replace a key member with someone untried and unknown.

And perhaps it was a sign of how used he had gotten to the strangeness of the group that even watching an alien jet in an F-22 disguise in the distance and knowing that it had once been human still wasn't enough to make him speechless. Close, but not quite there.

"The big boys want a report on your new flyboy," Aaron Morshower finally said and turned to look at the massive Peterbilt-turned-robot next to him – and by God, if there ever was a day when he didn't feel that bit of awe, he'd hand in his stars and let someone else get the job. "We'll make up something nice and safe and they'll stay off of our backs for a while again. Imply that he's shy and scared of humans after what happened – I've got some bright boys working on it. He'll be safe."

"It is appreciated," Optimus Prime replied in that calm, commanding sort of voice that never quite carried over in the video debriefings and which never failed to make Morshower straighten a bit, no matter how many times he heard it. "He has drawn enough attention already as it is, and not just from the human military."

"The 'Cons are being obvious about their plans," Morshower agreed. "We know it, they know we know it, and they want us to know. If it were just a normal raid they had planned, they could hide it a whole lot better than that. He's the target?"

"He is a Seeker." A moment of pause, watching that alien jet in the distance as it turned too sharply for any human to have survived, and Morshower could have sworn he heard a sigh from the alien at his side. "Seekers are Decepticons by programming. Their personality, their instincts, everything in them serves the Decepticon cause well. There have been Autobot Seekers but they were but a small group of them. Seekers were the cause of Megatron's air supremacy. Even one Autobot Seeker in the skies would be one too much for Megatron's preference. He will lure the Major to his side or he will destroy him. In Megatron's world, there are no other options. Starscream has tried and failed twice now to accomplish that. Megatron will not accept a third failure."

It was silent as Morshower considered that. It was a messy situation any way you looked at it, and it wasn't made any less messy by the circumstances the former human Major found himself in. Once upon a time, back when that young commander had still been human, Morshower would have trusted him. Could have trusted him. Odds were Lennox would have ended up dead but he wouldn't have caved and he would probably have gotten in a few shots in the process. Aaron Morshower was familiar with his young commander's ability to beat the odds but he was also intimately aware of the number of casualties the human-alien alliance had caused, be they military, civilian, or allied aliens. He had demanded a list and NEST had obliged. Classified it into non-existence but they had obliged because like hell he was going to send young men out to die if he didn't have the balls to face that fact and he had been very firm in telling NEST that, too.

Lennox the human was someone Aaron Morshower would have trusted. Will the Autobot Seeker, with an alien name Morshower could barely remember, much less pronounce... he didn't know nearly enough about that person to say for sure that he'd trust that thing to have his back and that was all that was needed to make the answer a resounding 'no'.

"Which one is it going to be?" he finally asked. The human-turned-Seeker was still doing air acrobatics above the island and Morshower couldn't quite keep out the sudden, slight chill in his bones. Fast, clever, heavily armed, and with inhuman reflexes... no wonder they hadn't manage to take one of those things permanently offline yet. Three of them was bad enough. Adding another one to that collection...

"General..." Optimus Prime's voice didn't sound like it was something he felt like talking about but it wasn't something Morshower had the time to accept anymore. Not with the Decepticons mobilizing and one friendly combatant on the battlefield that could potentially turn on them at a moment's notice.

"I didn't get my stars by being a pencil pusher," Morshower responded, quietly and firmly. "We both know the kid. Before all of this, I know he would have flipped Megatron the bird with a rocket launcher, consequences be damned. Now? Frankly, I don't have a clue what I'm dealing with and I would very much like to change that before that thing out there decides Megatron offers prettier missiles than we do. You're a leader, Prime. We've both made decisions that weren't particularly pretty. Now, between the two of us... which one is it going to be?"

It was silent again as the towering alien stared into the distance, at the sky or the Seeker or whatever else alien optics could see beyond that, and then Optimus Prime made the sigh-like sound again.

"Even he does not know at this point. He is not one person anymore. He is two beings merged into one and while they have learned to compromise, there is still a large element of uncertainty in play. He is possessive, stubborn, arrogant, and while his temper is still reasonable when compared to an average Seeker, it is far more than he ever displayed before. Furthermore, Seekers are attracted to the company of other Seekers and Starscream is quite adept in capitalizing on that."

"So he's a ticking bomb and no one knows who's going to be the target when he goes off," Morshower summarised.

The only reaction he received was a small nod but that was all he needed to understand the seriousness of it all, too. Optimus Prime believed in the best of people. Morshower didn't always, he had dealt with bureaucracy for too long for that, but he appreciated the sentiment and recognised it when he saw it. Optimus Prime believed in the best of people and that meant that when he warned about something, NEST listened. Morshower wasn't technically a part of NEST but he knew damn well to listen just fine, anyway.

Another moment of thought and then Morshower's eyes hardened slightly.

"If it comes to that, take him down. I don't care what that thing in his head says. He wouldn't want to be used as a weapon against us."

Another small nod from the Prime at his side, and even if Morshower hadn't expected his alien ally to object, he was still relieved. Experience recognised experience but sometimes you could still misjudge people.

"He already asked Ironhide for the same promise himself," Optimus Prime said quietly. "It will be honoured."

Good kid, Morshower said silently and ignored the faint twinge of regret that accompanied it. War was brutal, war demanded sacrifices, and their side lost entirely too many people for every one of the enemy they took down. He felt the loss of all of them, whatever rank or nationality they had been, whatever planet they might have come from, but some struck closer to home than others. A lot of them had been little more than names and faces and a few exchanged words at the most – he hadn't been the one to recruit most of them, after all – but some he knew well; knew their personality and skills and families and grieved them as the friends they had been.

And speaking of which...

"His wife seems to be adapting. Better than I would have, that's for sure."

Sarah, she had once insisted he called her but he didn't think he had that right anymore, not with the kind of order he had just given regarding her husband.

"Humanity is a remarkably adaptable species," Optimus Prime agreed quietly. "That is especially true of the younger ones of the kind. "

"Like the Witwicky kid," Morshower snorted softly. "I doubt I would have gotten into that alien car on a whim, friendly or otherwise, never mind the rest of the stuff he's pulled off."

There was a soft sound of what Morshower could almost imagine was humour, and then that suspicion was confirmed when the towering alien spoke and he could all but hear the smile in its voice. "You underestimate yourself, General."

"Let's call it common sense instead," the human responded dryly. "I may not be a pencil pusher but I'm still an old fart and I'll leave the recklessness to the young and stupid. Let the kids handle the world-saving. I'm too old for that."

Amusement again. "For someone a mere half a century old, you do sound remarkably like Ironhide at times."

"He's got a point sometimes." A pause. "And I could use his cannons, but taking pot shots at Galloway and his breed would just make our headache that much worse. We'll keep an eye on the 'Cons and keep you updated, Prime. Give the word and you'll have back-up, too. Wings or not, he's still one of my boys and I'm not letting Big and Ugly get his paws on him if I can stop it."

"It would be appreciated," Optimus Prime responded quietly.

Morshower nodded and sure, he knew that they could manage just fine without human help, and sure, he knew that there were forces within more than a few governments who would rather see those aliens, good or bad, get the heck off of the planet, but that didn't particularly matter to him. It was a show of support as much as anything, added firepower in a battle that could turn nastier than usual at the drop of a hat, if intel was anything to go by, and if that meant sending his boys into a trap, then he would do that. He suspected they would do it with or without his blessing, anyway, and that meant it was easier just to have the legal side of it in order.

Silence fell as they simply watched the air acrobatics again, two leaders dealing with the kind of situation that neither of them had probably ever expected, and Morshower didn't even mind that. He had days of doubts, times when he wondered just what he thought he was doing, but when it all came down to it, this was what he wanted, what he had chosen and what he had stuck with.

The NEST boys would take on hostile, alien war machines on his words, and if he couldn't be out there helping them, he would damn well make sure they had the best back-up he could supply them with.

And for now, that would have to be enough.