Merry [early] Christmas, everyone! For once, I'm pretty happy with how this came out overall- and I'm finally going to be able to get onto a particular part of the story that I've been anxious to start (and it only took 14 chapters pfft). But there will most likely be a considerable gap between this chapter and next, since in January I'm starting some important exams (and then there's final ones in May *whimper*) so I'll have to put aside a lot of time for studying (and Primus knows I'm not gonna get any done over the holidays). I do have a very good idea of what the next chapter will contain though, so when I start it it shouldn't be too much of a challenge to get it finished.
As for this chapter, it takes place during Crossfire (with some modifications to account for Airachnid's absence this time around). Some of you might recognise the name that comes up at the end, and those who do will also have some idea of what the next one will be like...
xx
"Uh, Knockout?" The medic held back his groan at the sound of Breakdown standing just outside the med-bay's doorway. Better him than Megatron, at least.
"Be quick about it, Breakdown, I've got bolts to buff."
"You haven't seen Airachnid anywhere, have ya'?" Knockout paused his buffer pad to throw an incredulous look back at him.
"Where have your audios been for the past few days, Breakdown?" Trust him to not listen to comm line gossip. "She's long gone."
"Gone?! W-where?" Knockout only caught a glimpse of the worry blooming on his faceplate before turning around, brushing down a shining chestplate.
"Primus knows and only cares," he sighed, wishing everyone would just shut up about it already. "Apparently she was carrying and-
"Wait wait, carrying? As in, sparkling carrying?!"
"Ah, your audios are malfunctioning," Knockout said in irritation, wishing for just one moment to himself on this Primus-forsaken ship. "Didn't you see Megatron chipping his paint over it? The murderous glare in his optics usually gives it away."
"I was busy!" Breakdown protested, leaning on a table laden with data pads. "Can't expect me to know everything that's going on..."
"Hmm." Knockout threw aside the buffer, deciding to just do it all again later. "Anyway, it's all been dealt with. Megatron killed the sparkling and Airachnid has more than likely perished. Nothing to worry about." The line of worry on Breakdown's faceplate only deepened at Knockout's words. A sudden thought drifted past the medic's processor, something that would explain Breakdown's worry about Airachnid aside from his so-called 'crush'...
"Say, Breakdown, you didn't... interface with her, did you?"
"Wh-what?" His surprise at the question was answer enough for Knockout- Breakdown wasn't smart enough to pull off a lie. "No! No- I mean, not that I... couldn'tve if I wanted to-"
"Yes, yes, just... no chance of you being the sire, right?"
"No!" Breakdown insisted, sounding offended at the accusation. "Sure, I like her, but I ain't letting my firewalls down for just anyone!" Knockout was tempted to remind him of that one pleasure drone he knocked up back on Cybertron, but thought against it. He wasn't a fan of getting any more dents to bang out.
"Just don't let Megatron catch you talking about her," the medic advised. Once he mentioned Starscream's name a few days after his desertion, and for once it was himself who had tubes in every data port in his own med-bay.
Breakdown seemed to only barely hear him, a digit under his chin. "Maybe... maybe she's got some other organic-y way of sparking..." he mused.
"Excuse me?" Knockout deadpanned, a drill dangling from his digits and frozen in the air.
"What if she's got eggs stored somewhere?" Breakdown continued, one optic going wide and his joints stiffening in sudden fear.
"Eggs?" Knockout swore he could see a processor command called 'roll optics' across his HUD."Right, that is the last time I let you tag along to my drive-in theatres."
"I'm not crazy, Knockout!" Even with the defence in his voice Breakdown was still shivering. "What if... what if she's putting them in our spark chambers while we recharge?!" He started pacing by then, servos gripping his head as he felt a thousand possibilities crash down on him."They could be anywhere on the ship, or inside us! Waiting to burst out of our chassis' and suck on our plasma energy!"
"You're an idiot."
xx
Soundwave had recently noticed he'd been spending much more time in Nemesis hallway corners and drains of darkness than he usually preferred to, but he didn't have much room to complain. Or do anything other than stand and observe.
Right now he was well acquainting himself with the western side of the med-bay, inches away from Knockout and Breakdown's bickering. As soon as he'd heard the mention of 'Airachnid' through the surveillance feeds, he'd went to investigate. Even if Lord Megatron was so confident that the spider's spark was gone to the Pit, Soundwave was not so easily convinced- if she was able to survive Primus knows how long on Archa Seven, then Earth would be a walk through Helix Gardens to her. And if Megatron ever discovered the part he played in her escape...
Wandering thoughts. He wiped them from his processor, ending his recording as Breakdown departed the med-bay with paranoia sparking his circuits. Knockout bade him farewell with a disgruntled hmmph, not even turning to where Soundwave was leaving through the second doorway. By the time the medic would have registered the thud of the panels closing, Soundwave was already on his way to Megatron.
Thankfully the Command Centre was empty when the officer entered. He stopped beside Megatron, staring out across the cloudy expanse before them, and played a snippet of the two mech's conversation to him. He was silent for a long moment after the recording finished, and eventually sounded a harsh bark of laughter.
"Let them speculate," he decreed. "Even if they discover the true father, I see no possible threat to come with the knowledge."
'Of course you wouldn't...' Ever since he'd let Dark Energon into his spark, Megatron's decisions as leader of the Decepticons had become more and more dubious. And then came the day Airachnid returned, and the night she'd been shoved into Megatron's quarters.
Was that why he chose to let her go? Was there some unwanted emotion, some pity that he let slip through his spark that night? He had chosen to not think of the incident at all in the few days since it occurred, turning his attention to more important things. Not at all until... yesterday. When Dreadwing had voiced his intentions to terminate Optimus Prime, and he'd let that attention- that vital, dangerous attention- drift. He'd been thinking of what Airachnid had cradled in her servos, so close to her hammering spark. What she'd kept hidden, what she thought she'd kept hidden, from everyone else until they both spilled out of her chamber. How only one of them survived. And how she'd asked him, begged him, to spare what was left. Not just herself. It was her survival and maternal instincts working in tandem with each other, and it struck at something buried deep in Soundwave's mind.
What, exactly?
He didn't allow himself to think about that.
Megatron was suspicious enough as it was.
Realising how long silence had stretched on for, Soundwave let Breakdown's recorded voice play from the modulations on his visor. "Whoever that kid belongs to... he's one sorry glitch to let them go."
Megatron grumbled another chuckle. "I doubt our Decepticon broodmother is even still pumping energon. Such a shame." A sick sort of curiosity was curdling in his tone. "I might have enjoyed seeing more of my fruit from her spark chamber." And like cracked ice, Megatron's voice gained jagged edges as he glanced sideways to Soundwave.
"But of course, you'd know all about yearning for children, wouldn't you, Soundwave?"
He didn't deign to give a reply, other than the solitary twitch of his digits, almost forming a fist.
xx
Optimus didn't know what life on base would be like with Ratchet knowing where he went off to every evening, but he never could have prepared himself for the glares that burned into his back every time he made for the Ground Bridge. Even when he was certain that he was asleep, or working on something vital, Ratchet would always appear behind him with optics narrow and servos crossed (admittedly Optimus guessed that last part, but he had known Ratchet for over a millennia).
As for Wheeljack, it had taken all of Optimus' reasoning, Ratchet's protests Airachnid's own objections to not have him staying with her and Scorpia permanently. Optimus had already seen what damage Wheeljack could cause unattended, and he wasn't about to have Scorpia anywhere near it, and Airachnid had furiously insisted that she could take care of herself (it was bad enough that she had to rely on Autobots for energon, she had muttered). The Wrecker settled for leaving a grenade with her, should any threats stumble upon them, and he wasn't far behind when Optimus made his own routine visits. Airachnid was almost silent during them, accepting her energon without comment and letting the mechs hold Scorpia after she'd been fed. She huffed her goodbyes when the moon made itself known and they left her in the faint light.
But in the end, everything seemed... peaceful. Far from ideal but... peaceful. That was all Optimus could really ask for.
All until Optimus went on patrol one unassuming sunlit day.
Bumblebee kept his weapons out and trained on the retreating horizon behind them as Optimus led the way, over and down cliff edges and across bare patches in sprawling forestry. Airachnid had made her camp not far away, and Optimus couldn't help stealing glances at the familiar distant rocky ridge where she slept.
One glance lasted one second too long as he almost stumbled helm-first into a cave opening. Bumblebee's panicked whirrs were muffled from the sound of his own gasp. A few loosened stones skipped down into the darkness below, scraping into oblivion.
"I'm fine, Bumblebee," Optimus said to him, taking a cautionary step back. The scout arrived at his side, optics wide at the black expanse yawning open before them.
Beep beep, chirp. "Should we... check it out?"
Optimus thought a long while before answering. "Underground would be a likely place for a Decepticon operation to be hiding itself." 'Or a Decepticon'.
The rough descent was only helped slightly by the light of their optics, one pair wide and whirring with the other narrow and alert. Darkness and uncertainty lay heavy on them, every step of metal-on-rock amplified in the twisting cavern corridors. Optimus winced as his armour scraped against the stones, forcing himself through a narrow gap and into a wide chamber. He stretched his cramped callipers as Bumblebee emerged behind him, shying back as a sudden screech echoed through the rocks.
Lamplight optics widening as they both recognised the sound from Cybertron's past.
And further in, cautiously creeping, what they found wasn't so much an operation as it was an 'impending murder scene'.
"Starscream!" The former Decepticon was scuttling backwards towards them, away from the Insecticon chittering hostility at him. A terror-written faceplate turned towards them, still scrabbling on the rock beneath shaking claws.
"P-Prime?" Starscream almost bit his glossa off in his haste to shovel the stutters out. "What are you do- I mean, praise the Allspark!" His tone changed just in time as he lunged towards Optimus' leg, grabbing onto the wheels and still looking at the stalking beast. "You've come to save me from that brute over there!"
Mandibles clicking, secondary arms raking the air and claws scoring into the gravel, the brute obviously did not appreciate the sentiment.
"An Insecticon..." Optimus' shotgun was out even before he finished the word, stepping backwards and dragging Starscream along with him. Bumblebee's angered whirrs at the sight of the Seeker changed to worry when the Insecticon tracked the pair's movements.
"You'll kill it, won't you?" Starscream begged, optics locked on the drooling mandibles that almost tore his wings off. "I-I mean, such a creature being loose on Earth would be a danger to both bots and humans, wouldn't it?" His bargain was as thinly veiled as his praise for Optimus, but the Prime saw his point as clear as the ion shells he loaded into the creature's carapace. Bumblebee followed suit with his blaster, peppering the black hide with hot wounds. The cries were drowned out by the release of the rounds, and eventually one of Optimus' shots caught the vocaliser. The Insecticon went down in a gush of energon and smoking exoskeleton.
Optimus winced again at how hot his shotgun was as it retracted back into his servo, and at Starscream's claws digging into his leg armour.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, Prime! Truly you are as worthy a warrior as Megatron hims- AAGH!" His applause was interrupted as he was dislodged from Optimus' leg in a kick, sending him skidding into the gravel.
"Don't let me find you here again, Starscream." Optimus didn't look back as he made the threat. The seeker watched the Autobots leave in confusion.
"D-don't you want to take me prisoner? Give me s-some chance for redemption?" The desperation in Starscream's optics might have tugged at Optimus' spark, if he didn't know what he would do to Airachnid and Scorpia if he ever found them. Bumblebee was the one who answered.
"Get over yourself, 'Scream. We have better things to do than sparkling-sit you."
xx
Ratchet had more than one reason to be grumpy when they returned to base.
"Taking on an Insecticon... are you both lagging in your processors!?" he exclaimed while examining Bumblebee's chipped paint, ignoring his insistence that the creature never even touched them. Optimus basted in his own thoughts, praying that Starscream heeded his warning and stayed away from Airachnid. In any other situation he would have taken him prisoner, but the risk of him somehow finding out was too great. If Megatron even thought she was still alive, there was nothing they could do to hide her.
"And it's a miracle that it didn't touch you!" Ratchet said with a flourish of his servos at Bumblebee's protests, still mumbling about 'new wave Well-born punks'. He sent Bumblebee off to his quarters with a slap of his servo, pretending not to hear the chirped curses behind him. The medic's face reformed as he stood before Optimus, waiting for his own report of what happened.
"We found Starscream and the Insecticon near her camp." They'd both agreed never to mention Airachnid by name inside the base. Ratchet's optic ridges twitched up.
"How near?"
"Judging from the length of the underground tunnels, I'd say they were right underneath the surrounding forest."
A weary mutter of "Scrap," whistled under Ratchet's vents as he pressed two digits to his helm. "Is there any chance of Starscream going back there?"
"I can't say. Starscream is the most unpredictable of all the Decepticons." Optimus paused before venturing further. "Our safest option would be to move them to somewhere safer, more secure."
"And where exactly might that be?" Ratchet asked skeptically, looking expectantly up at his leader. Optimus took a plaintive moment before making for the base's main computer, tapping in something on the keyboard.
"Haven't heard from you in a while, Prime."
"We have been rather busy as of late, Agent Fowler, but I apologise for my silence." Optimus said, standing back to see the human's comm-image. "I am calling to request a re-issue of the list of possible home base locations that we received upon our arrival to Earth."
"What for?"
"With the Decepticons no doubt working on finding our current base location, it would be wise if we had a back-up base to relocate to at a moment's notice." Ratchet tried not to be impressed at how smoothly Optimus lied, even if it was a half-truth. Fowler sighed as he thought of all the file-digging he'd have to do for this errand.
"Fair enough. I'll send it over when I find it."
"Many thanks, Agent Fowler." Optimus clicked off the comm line, and felt a familiar burning on his back.
"How do you recharge at night, Optimus?" Ratchet muttered, a tut obvious under his disapproval.
'As of recently, I don't...'
A beep from the computer broke the tension, and both bots scanned the too-short list, making it even shorter as they automatically dismissed locations passing under their gazes. Too many humans, too close to Decepticons- and knowing Airachnid, she'd refuse to be anywhere indoors. As they reached the fringes of the list their hopes were tapering out- until one particular name caught onto their vocalisers.
"North Sister Island."