Title: In Search of a Cause

Author: Dragon of Dispair (dragonofdispair)

Continuity: Bayverse (crossover with Guardians of the Galaxy)

Rating: T

Characters/Pairing: Bluestreak / Prowl, Sixshot, Irani Rael

Warnings: Nothing as yet. Violence and plug'n'play and/or spark interfacing may come up in later chapters.

Summary: In which Prowl and Bluestreak save the galaxy from both Decepticons and Unicron. You'd think the galaxy would be grateful, but instead Nova Corps keeps trying to arrest them for war crimes. Go figure.

OR: A buddy-comedy version of Indiana Jones IN SPAAACE! but with two giant alien robot war criminals instead of a gainfully employed archaeologist-looter. Because Decepticons are totally the same as Nazis and Bluestreak is still a morality pet.

Notes: So I got a comment that Prowl was an arrogant jerk (which I totally agree with; he is) but Bluestreak wanted to show everyone what he sees in Prowl. He then took over my brain and wrote over 2,000 words of them playing a car-ride game I found on the internet...

Then he wrote 2,000 more words about falling in love with Prowl; if your interested, and this chapter full of fluffy filler isn't enough for you, pop over to Love and Convictions.

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CHAPTER THREE

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Cybertronian FTL hyperspace drives are huge, massive things attached to starships the size of medium-large asteroids. In fact, some of the most primitive early ships in our history were hyperspace drives attached to hollowed out asteroids. Even shuttle-formers have extremely large FTL drives. We'd just never bothered designing smaller hyperspace engines. Why would we? Shuttle-formers still needed to be large enough to carry either a few of us around, or cargo, or both. Plus there was some techno-babble based reasons why they couldn't be downscaled very far that made my processors hurt. I'd dutifully recorded Perceptor when he explained it, but quite frankly, that explanation could go suck slag. I was never going to replay it ever again.

Sixshot was the smallest mech I'd ever seen with an interstellar alt form, and in that form he was almost entirely hyperspace engines, tucked into barely enough armor to withstand the rigors of deep space.

Most squishies made hyperspace engines based on the same principles. Which meant even the smallest interstellar craft were the size of a small shuttle-former.

Fortunately, before the Ark-31 was shot down over Iunides by Decepticons and consequently totaled, we'd found the remains of some techno-organic space-dweller. Much of its internals had been disgustingly squishy, but its exoskeleton had been hard, clean metal. So were its engines. Perceptor dissected the thing, and when we'd discovered that it (smaller than our cometary forms) had its own, self-contained FTL drives I'd immediately required all of us to add them to our cometary forms. Interpreting the navigation systems was more difficult than transcanning the drives. They worked on a principle of folding space that (again, not replaying that recording) made travel between the intervening space both untraceable and effectively instantaneous.

We weren't trapped within a system, but it didn't stop me from wanting the Ark-31 back.

These FTL drives were just glitchy as the Pit. Using them required a specific metallic fuel beyond the energon our converter produced. So when we found tyllium deposits worth mining, we did so, and currently about half of both our subspace was filled with the stuff. Refining it wasn't difficult, but it gave our energon a metallic tang that in large amounts clogged our tanks and messed up our electrical systems when we were in primary or vehicle forms. Beyond the fuel requirements, it was glitchy. They couldn't be kept on standby for more than a four or five breems without breaking, and it took just over two to spool up from cold to standby. The navigation calculations had to be extremely precise, and even when the calculations were correct, the drives sometimes glitched and dumped us someplace completely other than where we wanted to be. Usually one of us slaved our drive to the other's nav system to keep from being separated if that happened, it was that glitchy.

Which is why I made the statement, "Unfortunately we're going to crash into a star."

It wasn't that we were currently in danger of crashing into a star. It was just a possibility, something that would be very unfortunate, and thus in line with our current comm-line game as we searched opposite edges of the system for the trail that should be left behind by Sixshot's own, traditional interstellar drives.

"Fortunately our shields are impervious to solar radiation! We will be unharmed by the star and we'll have lots of fun surfing on the solid hydrogen sea of burniness!" He answered, also in line with the rules, even if it was ridiculous. This game was ridiculous. It was meant to be ridiculous. It wasn't so much an exercise in problem solving than it was a method of curbing Bluestreak's need for constant chatter while we searched the silent, empty system. Our FTL drives were instantaneous. Which sounds like an advantage, and it is - when we are the prey. We leave no trail to follow in the space between our starting points and our destination, so even the limited maximum distance we could cover in a single jump and limited number of times we could jump continuously without glitching our processors were less dangerous than just things that we had to deal with. But when we're the ones chasing, with no idea of where our prey was headed… it turned tracking Sixshot into a complicated affair of determining his exit vector out of a system, calculating his likely destinations (or at least where he's likely to drop out of hyperspace to change directions), then searching each of those destinations for his next exit vector until we catch up to him. Less complicated than tracking us, given that we leave no exit vectors, but still time consuming.

Eventually we'd catch up to him - instantaneous glitchy-aft bizzaro space-folding jump drives covered the distance faster, as long as we didn't make too many wrong guesses in following the trail he left behind - it was just taking a long time. And once Shiny had repaired and polished everything that could be repaired and polished, we'd stuffed it in its missile shell so that it was combat-ready in case we needed it, which left the open comm line as the only entertainment for either of us. Thus the game, at least in uninhabited systems where we didn't need to keep comm silence and pretend we were just two more space rocks in a system.

"Unfortunately the universe's reliance on the color blue means that all the blue paint is going to used up to paint everything in sight and we're going to be sucked into a blue singularity." See? Bluestreak equals ridiculous statements, I swear to Primus.

Fortunately, I was more adept at responding to his ridiculous statements, than I was at coming up with my own. "Fortunately neither of us are reliant on the color blue and thus can escape any blue singularity that forms nearby enough to be a danger. We'll change your TAG color if needed." I tried for a statement that didn't have to do with our current search. Prime's flashy blue and red pattern was the most ridiculous thing I could think of. "Unfortunately Prime's chosen colors scheme is just unfortunate."

Piling insults on Prime, the other Autobots, the Decepticons and the entire slagging war at the slightest provocation wasn't unusual for me, and didn't phase Bluestreak one bit.

"Fortunately we're out here, very, very far away from Prime and we don't have to look at him, right? I mean, it's nice, just you and me. You didn't like the other Autobots, and really, I can't blame you for that. They sure are loyal to Prime. Beyond reason, it seems. I like them well enough but I'm surprised you didn't just go neutral as soon as we were out of their sight, though."

"I swore an oath, Bluestreak. You know that."

"Yeah. Swore one to Megatron, too." his glyph modifiers were ones for continued loyalty rather than betrayal and can't trust a traitor. Had another Autobot said it, I would have ripped him to pieces the moment he brought up Megatron, but Bluestreak… The rough edges of this conversation had been worn off, like any annoyance I had once felt at the silly traveling games; he was the only Autobot who ever brought up my service to Megatron without suggesting that my loyalty to Prime was just as tenuous. "Only side to this war you haven't sworn to was Praxus, but since they didn't exactly ask whether we wanted to be part of their militaries I suppose that's just their oversight, huh?"

Because in fact my loyalty was anything but tenuous. The last command Megatron had given me, before giving Starscream all the encouragement he needed to kill me, was: There is no such thing as Neutral in this war. A command I still followed. A command I would continue to follow until both the glitch-spawn finally kicked it and and left whatever was then left of our race live in fragging peace.

Bluestreak's reasons were different, but in many ways he was the same. Loyal to a Cause both sides of a war claimed as their own, with nothing to really recommend one side over the other. Circumstances chose his side for him, just as they did mine. A different twist of fate, and the military-red optics he still had would be a declaration of loyalty, not a holdover from a past those around him would rather forget.

So anger at Bluestreak just never came into the equation, even for prodding at old, barely repaired wounds. "It's your turn," I gently reminded him, instead.

"Oh! Okay." The comm line gave a staticky giggle. "Um… Unfortunately there's a giant space tornado that's going to suck us up and spit us out in an alternate reality where you're an authoritarian rule-monger."

"I am an authoritarian rule-monger." Of course there wasn't much use for rules and regulations with just the two of us. Protocol had its place, but not killing each other was more important.

"Nuh-uh. In this alternate universe, you like being an Autobot."

I laughed. It was just so ridiculous. If I had to be stuck, alone with only one Autobot in the entire universe for company and back up, I was glad it was Bluestreak. Stupid games and all. "I suppose the alternate version of you likes being an Autobot as well?"

"Of course I do! And My favorite Autobot in the whole-wide universe is Jazz, who is the only 'bot who can make me laugh!" The best thing either of us had to say about Jazz was that he was a cold-sparked fragger, a chaos-bringer and murderer for the Cause, but he had not once ever pretended otherwise. For that alone, he was one of my favorites, even if we did not interact much. In truth, once my parole was over and they'd decided to stop wasting resources keeping tabs on me every breem of every orn, both Bluestreak and I had avoided the smaller silver mech. Being strung up in an interrogation cell was not something easily forgotten.

"Then it's fortunate that I have claws with which to rip our obviously glitched to the Pit and back counterparts to twitching metal shreds." Vicious amusement bled from my voice. I really would enjoy killing that version of me, if he existed. I wasn't sure I could follow through on Bluestreak's counterpart, but… it was just a silly game.

"But what about being stuck in an alternate universe?"

"What about it?"

"Oh… okay. I suppose we'll just live there and find someplace to settle down until Prime and Megatron have settled things?"

"We'll return to Cybertron and conquer a city-state or two, carving out a place for ourselves as Decepticon Warlords," I said blandly, stripping all of the glyph modifiers from the words, something that most interpreted as stating an immutable fact, but I'd often used to signify a statement that could not be taken so seriously. "We will amass such a power base that both Prime and Megatron will unite to destroy us, but it will be to no avail. I will take the Matrix from Optimus' cold, grey frame make you my Prime." I was rewarded with another giggle from my companion.

I stopped myself before I could suggest myself as his Lord High Protector. We weren't brothers; same model, different production lines. Different spark-batch. There was precedent for a - no. Bad Prowl. Not thinking that. And it was time to change the subject, before he caught on to exactly how many times I'd had that particular fantasy. I am a soldier. I am loyal. I swore an oath to Optimus Prime. "Unfortunately," I struggled to think of a statement that didn't have anything to do with our glitchy FTL drives, the continuing frustration of tracking Sixshot, or continuing to discuss the possibility of Bluestreak as Prime, "that -"

"Found it!" Blustreak called out, rescuing me from making some stupid-sounding statement about the lack of meteors in this system. He chirped the coordinates to me.

Immediately I vectored to his position. As I came closer, he sent me a data overlay, showing the barely perceptible trail of ions left behind by a Cybertronian space craft. Sixshot. We followed the trail for the two and and a half breems it took for our FTL drives to spool up, which also gave me the time to calculate both the three most likely target systems based on that vector and the jump coordinates to the closest, the Aguin Lir system. For short jumps within the system, Blustreak calculated jump coordinates faster, so if we needed to make a combat-jump I slaved my drives to him, but my calculations were more accurate over the longer distances. The last thing I felt before we jumped to the next system was Bluestreak's faith in me as he slaved his systems to mine, an act of trust few Cybertronians had ever engaged in… before.

JUMP

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(tbc…)

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So… it seems that I'm assuming that when Optimus so dramatically takes off at the end of AOE, he's headed to the Ark-1 or another Autobot ship within the system. Sentinel's old ship's still where it crashed, isn't it?

And yes, that was a Cylon raider they found and copied to get their FTL drives. Don't ask me where they found it. Tactician is apparently a code word for obsessive stockpiler.