Chapter 25

-0-On the wing

Ironhide sat beside Springer talking softly about a number of commonalities in Cybertronian ... NeoCybex, the Cybertronian standard speech to be exact.

Prime sitting near the cockpit internally communicating with Silverbolt received the most recently updated intel from the Denver FBI office which was the communications hub for the mission. The local police were given only the sketchiest information so as not to jeopardize the mission.

They also wouldn't be part of the strike force but would provide security for the cordoned off areas once the miscreants were located and subdued. It hadn't gone over well when they were told just an hour ago. It reminded Prime of the overlapping jurisdictions of the many city-states on Cybertron. They had some things in common, Earth and Cybertron, after all.

Epps and his soldiers leaned against the bulkhead of the great vessel that flew them soundlessly through the gathering night sky. He marveled once again that it was a living being they were leaning against, a living sentient being. Across from him were ancient living sentient beings, Autobots who had forgotten more about his profession than he would ever live to learn.

This was the first mission since their altercation with Johnson and Hedges. He'd been deeply ashamed and embarrassed with the chaos they'd committed. In the aftermath, the three of them, Lennox, Graham and himself had sat their men and women down reading them the riot act. This kind of thinking would now be grounds for anyone to be scrubbed from the program.

But for the restraint of the Autobots, Sunstreaker's anger not withstanding, there could've been a massacre. They didn't have to like some of the parts of Cybertron that the Autobots lived, they didn't have to think their relationships were personally okay. They just had to shut the fuck up, be professional and observe. Maybe in the observing, maybe in the behavior of these most appreciated and respected strangers in their midst they would learn something and maybe change.

He had.

The first time he'd seen Ironhide hug Ratchet he considered them to be friends greeting each other. The human soldiers sometimes hugged each other. Lord knew, they swatted each others ass often enough. The Autobots did the same things, too. It was sort of the norm for both he thought, another commonality they shared.

But then he saw Ironhide kiss Ratchet and that had shocked him. He was used to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of his own army so the idea that robots could 'be gay' was so strange he had to stop and consider it. But then, he was also shocked that robots had personal relationships of any kind, let alone those that seemed as emotionally satisfying as their own and were maybe even 'sexual' in nature, however that went.

That part he didn't dwell on but he assumed if they kissed they did other things, too. How? He didn't venture. He just assumed. Then he found out they weren't gay, but androgynous. They only displayed 'gender' to make other species that had genders feel more comfortable around them. That took a moment to ponder especially when Arcee showed up.

They were alien with alien ways and designs, Cybertronian, not human he concluded.

Gender wasn't an issue to them, a concept he was still trying to understand. You loved who you loved regardless of gender and with the lack of femmes- the base itself had only Arcee- it would make sense. The need for love and closeness with another wasn't limited to humanity he'd come to conclude.

He found out that they didn't have genders unless they were around others who held to them. Only then did they speak about mech/male and femme/female. The rest of the time they were just … mechs. Or maybe, they were just … them. He wasn't that clear on it but the idea that there was only one gender was strange to him. No genders at all? Down right revolutionary.

It was also confusing.

He remembered a conversation about this that he had with Graham and Lennox early on in their alliance. They were sitting on the patio outside the officer's club sipping beer.

"I don't know what it'd be like living in a society where nearly everyone I saw was a guy," Lennox was saying. "Everyone single person with only a tiny percentage a guy. How weird would that be?"

They'd nodded in agreement as they silently pondered such a thing.

Graham picked up his sandwich. "I was talking to Ratchet the other day about that. I asked him outright what this meant and how we were supposed to address it. I was curious and I didn't want to transgress a taboo or something. He told me that they're basically without gender."

The other two looked at him, then Lennox frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Ratchet told me that they don't recognize gender among their species, among themselves alone because it doesn't exist. It wasn't a feature when they were created and came to be. They do so as a courtesy to other species with genders like us but between themselves, there's no gender identification."

Graham set his beer down. "I asked about Arcee and Ratchet told me that they're so few that a lot of their population has never seen one in person, someone who looks that different. He said its something to do with the shape of their processor that makes them 'different' in some way but they don't get treated very differently because of it. Something to do with someone called Solus Prime, but he didn't say more.

"He said that there are more obvious mechs than I could imagine who've never seen one like them in their lives. The femmes don't think of themselves as female. They think of themselves as Cybertronian and mech. I don't especially get it but it's what they think when they view themselves. I would say, it'd simplify things enormously."

"Who would hold the door open for, say, my mom?" Epps asked with a grin. "I know that Arcee is called a femme but it isn't that clear to me. I guess that's because we're still learning about them now."

"I think so. I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of Arcee, femme or mech," Lennox said as he sipped his beer. On that, all three could agree.

His mother's voice filled his head as he mused on things. Epps smiled.

Hound who was sitting across from him smiled back. "You seem amused," he said shifting his big frame slightly.

"I was thinking of my mother," Bobby said.

Hound nodded. "Your genitors? Are they still living?"

Epps nodded. "They are. They live in Ohio. Same with my grandparents and great grandparents on my dad's side."

Hound scanned an internal map. "A very flat place, Ohio. I'd like to go there eventually. I'd like to add Ohio to my personal topographical map collection. I'd love to go with Trailblazer," he added wistfully. He smiled. "I love your planet."

"I can see that," Epps smiled as he remembered a small mission that the two had undertaken at the beginning of the Autobot-Human alliance. He and Hound had tracked a signal that had led them on a different path than the rest of their party. Riding in Hound, allowing his incredible skills to find the Decepticon they'd been after, they ended up at a drive-in where a movie was playing. The Decepticon had fled and was taken care of but Hound in his sweet naivete had asked him a question, still not getting it that not all the vehicles he saw on Earth were sentient like himself.

"I don't understand what that place was where we found the 'Con," Hound had said.

Epps looked up at the Autobot, getting him at last. Hound was a good soul, he loved the world around him and he wasn't a violent mech. They'd captured the con when it had been reasonable in Epps' mind that blowing his ass to the Matrix would have been easier. But he found that Hound had a good spark and he wasn't a shoot first mech if they could do it another way. "What, Hound?" he'd asked as they sat together guarding a battered, offline but very much alive Decepticon.

"What is that place, Robert? Is it a religious place?"

Epps frowned. "Religious?"

Hound nodded. "Are the cars gathered there for a religious purpose?"

Epps found in his heart a special place for Hound at that moment and among the Autobots he was probably the one that made him the most happy when he came into view. There was something so endearing and kind in that Autobot's spark that he just nodded. "Actually, Hound, there are plenty who find drive-ins a religious experience, not just the cars."

Flashes of the many times he'd gotten laid in the back seat of his Dad's Buick crossed his mind and many of them he considered religious. He smiled now. Then he made a common mistake. "What about yours, Hound?" The moment the words left his mouth he was sorry.

A slight cloud crossed the sunshine that was Hound's spark as he shook his head. "Gone. Probably gone in the war."

"I'm sorry, Hound. I'm sorry I said anything," Epps said feeling as low as it got.

"Don't let it bother you, Robert. It's just the way it is," Hound said sadly as he looked off to one side. "It can't be that way forever."

"It won't," Epps said wholeheartedly. "You have Earth and you have us."

Hound looked at Epps with affection, this human who was probably his favorite. "I know," he said softly. Then he smiled.

Springer watching Hound leaned back, his own thoughts filling his processor. Hound was his polar opposite. Hound didn't do more violence than he needed and he, Springer was a Wrecker, the last chance go-to mech for necessary carnage and the hopeless case. He didn't know even now how he, Kup and the others could still be alive. Too many Wrecker crews weren't but he and his comrades, the original Wreckers were still this side of the Matrix. And they were back, most of them, with Prime. He smiled slightly, too, as he thought about their prank.

Most of the humans were scandalized about it, finding it an almost incomprehensible thing that a dignified important mech like Prime would stoop so low as to prank another mech even if it was Ironhide.

Especially Ironhide, the slagger.

He glanced at Ironhide who was sitting beside him quietly lost in his own thoughts as he checked his weapons. They had no animosity about the prank, they were pros and they had a running tab on who was due to be slagged and who was ahead in the game.

It made war bearable.

But for Springer, himself no shrinking violet, there was a side to Prime he knew that others didn't. It had made the prank so much more to both he and Prime than it would others. It was the reason he had his role in it, the 'bond' and genitor with Optimus.

That kiss he'd given Prime outside the hangar when they sprang their little ruse on Ironhide was not the first one. They had an off and on again relationship borne of war and mutual neediness over the vorns that had served them both well.

Few knew about him and 'Faro', the name Prime used in some places when they met and they were not in a hurry for that to change. But change it did when it became clear to Springer that Prowl was the one that mattered to Prime. Circumstances had made further assignations impossible and now that Prime had made his move on the taciturn strategist and all-around Autobot tactical genius he was glad.

The two had clashed nearly every time Prowl had needed them and Prowl loathed the Wreckers for their anarchical chaotic tear up the plans approach to missions. It didn't matter that they won them to Prowl. It was the idea of it, probably.

Springer had shredded many a carefully crafted battle plan and even punched Prowl in the face now and again, but they had never failed and that held fire between them. They both had the same goal, just different paths to that same place.

"We're almost there," Prime said, his baritone confident and firm as it broke the silence. "Get ready to jump."

The men moved forward slipping on their parachutes and strapping them tightly. Guns were gripped, other gear sorted and fastened onto their belts.

The Autobots tensed, some of them checking their weapons before waiting to move forward toward the jump door of Silverbolt's fuselage blinking with a red light. Prime who was listening to someone off line nodded to Ironhide as the big mech stood up to walk to the door. He punched a row of buttons, entering a code and it slid down revealing the maw of a dark Colorado night.

Snow falling violently in the wake of the plane, silently blowing into a vortex of swirling cold greeted them as Silverbolt began to circle.

Ironhide looked at Epps and nodded. The soldiers rose as Epps led them to the door and looked down. A small dot of lights in the whirling haze laid down on the field below was the agreed upon jump marker at Coors Field. One-by-one, he tapped his soldiers and they jumped. Then he nodded to Ironhide and jumped himself.

Ironhide looking at the others nodded again. Springer with a grin on his face and his rifle in his servos jumped and was followed by a more serious Hound. Looking back at Prime, nodding to his closest oldest friend, getting a nod back, Ironhide jumped into the night.

Prime watched him go then rapped his knuckles against Silverbolt's hull. The door closed and it was silent again. Picking up a datapad, Prime reviewed it even as data poured in from Diego. He heard Prowl's calm voice directing traffic and intel as the jump team's whispers filled his processor.

-0-Diego

Ratchet carried his emergency gear to Cosmos who was waiting for them to go. Prime had ordered that they follow ten minutes behind. The human ground crew wouldn't know where they were going and the soldiers that were coming with them weren't telling. They had latitude in disclosure in the Autobot treaty as well as N.E.S.T. protocols and they intended to use it.

Those going walked out loaded and those not going took the burden from Ratchet and First Aid to help. First Aid was going for the mission as well because Ratchet 'had a strange feeling about this one', something that sometimes paid off as they hurried along.

Behind him slagging each other cheerfully, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Arcee herself came, too. They loaded up, the door closed and Cosmos rose into the air soundlessly. He was lost to sight almost immediately.

The Autobots watching began to walk back to the hangar through crowds of military and civilian spectators where the audio of the operation as standard procedure was broadcast. It was sent to the humans as part of N.E.S.T. governing protocols and they were using them. The video of the individual Autobots would only be broadcast in the Embassy Ops Center.

Graham, Lennox and three other soldiers were already gathered at Cosmos and were boarding their gear.

Autobots who weren't on duty lounged throughout the entire building complex listening and watching as ever. In Ops Center, calmly turning this way and that, giving orders and encouragement in his usual manner, Prowl held sway. Somewhere in this new world, this new reality, the best they had were going to war. He had their back and he used all his skills, ability and talents to make sure that they would come home alive again.

-0-At the drop zone

They gathered together outside of the pools of light that the tall overhead poles dropped around the field. The Autobots hit the target dead center and moved to join the others. A grid had been determined and the search would go accordingly. Hound would take Epps while Ironhide and Springer a soldier apiece. They'd all be linked to each other, to Prime and to Diego. They would follow the search order and adjust according to the ground situation and the direction of their commanders.

They transformed, loaded up and rolled to the exits that accommodated vehicles, briefly exchanging words with the F.B.I. agents that were there to let them out and guard the space as their field HQ and triage center. Nothing more could be added to what they already knew so they moved on pulling out onto 20th Street. At that point, they divided up and began to parallel each other, their sensor sweeps combing the area for signatures and Bumblebee.

There was no sign of either.

-0-Somewhere in the Four Corners area

Bumblebee who was racing at his top speed flying over the sparsely traveled road almost made it to Colorado. That he didn't was testimony to the figure chasing him. Clocking in some of the flatter sections of roadway at an astounding 430 miles per hour, he was losing the footrace.

A lucky hit by the pursuer's gyro-flight blades not only told Bee who was pursuing him but managed to carve a series of slashing injuries in his chassis that had been leaking energon for miles. He felt the pain and dialed down his receptors but he couldn't do much with the injury. He had to outrun or out think Barricade soon or he'd falter and be at the killer's mercy.

He barreled onward ignoring as best he could the warning messages popping up in his processor. It was a signature of his hard helmed mini-con toughness and overall escalating debilitation that he didn't call for help.

-0-Denver

20th Street was deserted and from the accumulation of snow falling would be slow recovering in the morning when people came back to the area. It was rising in increasing flurries which began obscuring the vision of the soldiers.

Epps who was sitting in Hound peered into the darkness, the splotches of illumination from street lights failing to be much help. The storm was increasing in magnitude making an already difficult mission harder.

They broke into three hunting groups, Hound and Epps rolling slowly down Blake Street, Springer and his soldier moving down Market as Ironhide drove off for another parallel street nearby, rolling down 20th. Hound and Epps, going against the one way traffic on Blake, a thoroughly deserted street this dark night moved along slowly as Hound's sensors stretched out searching for anything alien.

Springer rolled down Market going with the flow, his heavy duty green and yellow Ram Charger pickup truck alt vehicle form filling with falling snow. For a moment it was quiet, then a huge blast echoed, itself slightly muffled by the storm.

Springer stopped and tumbled his soldier out, transforming as he brought his rifle from subspace. He glanced at his soldier who was standing in knee deep snow in night vision glasses, his weapon ready. Signaling him to stay along the buildings and back behind his towering form, Springer moved swiftly toward Blake Street where the epicenter of the blast had originated.

-0-On Silverbolt

Optimus concentrated on the screens that played out internally as an assortment of information both visual, textual and audio flowing into his processor. A split screen allowed him to have two views of his divided team. The top three views were the visual picture each mech had in their field of vision. The bottom views were the readouts on their internal sensor screens. They had conjoined the information to their controller mech, Prime, and allowed it to be transferred to Prowl in Diego.

Prime could see what Hound could see. It was an enormous rush of a black shape swooping downward, then a missile launch. Unable to transform because Epps was riding inside, Hound swerved and when the missile hit the ground near to him he was thrown bodily off his tires into the building that was beside him, glass and bricks shattering on impact. Then his two screens went black. By the time they did Optimus Prime was already falling through the night on his way to Coors Field.

-0-Diego

"Prowl to Cosmos."

"Cosmos, Prowl."

"Hurry. There's injuries. Hound is down."

"Affirmative," Cosmos said as the line cut out.

Prowl who was holding a datapad by the command table handed to him by Red Alert glanced at it.

Red who was standing before him nearly quivering with tension turned to glance at it, as if to underscore the information in importance. "Aerialbots, Prowl," he said in his indomitable manner. "Three incoming and another two mechs as yet unidentified but Autobot."

"Red, contact them and tell them to get here as fast as you can. I want them scrambled immediately. You run them, get them the information they need to function straight off the ground and hurry."

Red Alert nodded then blazed out of the Ops Center for the beach side landing space the incoming Autobots used when they finally made the journey to Earth.

Prowl considering the Primus sent gift that it was commed Prime. "Aerialbots will be sent shortly," he said, his transmission clipped and tense. "It appears that Teletraan has picked up Seekers."

"Affirmative," Prime said. "Get the Med Bay ready to accept incoming. Have you heard from Bumblebee?"

"Negative. I'll re-position a satellite and scan the roadway from California."

"Good. I will keep you posted. Prime out."

Prowl heard the tension in his voice, the focus, and knew that it must be trouble in a big way for him to make the jump. He worried about Hound even as he alerted the Med Bay. Then he commed Ratchet. "Prowl to Ratchet."

"Ratchet here."

"There's going to be wounded. Hound fell off the radar. He won't respond. Triage at Coors Field."

"Affirmative. Ratchet out."

Prowl then walked to Teletraan and began to key in a very powerful long range camera to scan the highway with all its gullies and off roads between California and Colorado.

(Note: All information about gender and Hound is canon.)