~blah~ is comm-speak ; ; blah is Cybertronian

A/N: Just a small reminder that Pinpoint is an OC.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, places, etc. belong to HasTak and other copyright holders. I make no profit from this.

Chapter 13: Weathering the storm

Optimus opened his office door intending to tell Trailbreaker he was going out for a drive, but the tall black mech who was usually on duty at this time of the day was nowhere to be seen. Instead he found Warpath trying to hold back a furious and muddy Tracks; Seaspray and Cosmos arguing loudly with Air Raid; and Beachcomber dozing off at the comm panel.

"What is going on here?" he demanded.

His words startled Beachcomber who fell out of his chair onto Air Raid's foot, causing him to stumble backwards into Tracks who crashed to the floor, splattering mud all over the sensitive control panels. The noise brought several others running, adding to the confusion and he was about to bellow for silence when someone loomed over him.

"Omega Supreme?"

Since when did the former Guardian actually enter the control room, and... how exactly had he gotten here? Usually he stuck to the larger corridors and rooms around the cargo holds. To get here he must have had to almost crawl!

"This duty is unnecessary. I will not remain here."

"Here? By here you mean in this room...?" he began, confused.

"Prime! Prime, something's got to be done about this." Red Alert insisted, dashing up to him. "The roster is insane: I'm not having a Dinobot watching the security cameras!"

"The roster? That's what this is about?"

"Of course! Clearly Jazz is behind the whole thing - I've told you before he's untrustworthy, always sneaking about and breaking rules, and now he's driven poor Prowl mad. You'll have to do something."

Optimus was tempted to point out that at least two thirds of the crew had concerns about Red Alert's own sanity, but that would not help. Besides which, Jazz was supposed to have changed the roster. He didn't think the mech would have deliberately sabotaged the Ark crew's ability to function, but his idea of what might boost morale didn't always match with Optimus's own.

"It's not Jazz's fault, it's Prowl's." Cliffjumper argued back at Red Alert. "He's the one who's burned out his chips - have you seen Jazz lately, he looks like he hasn't charged in orns! Stress, I'm telling you, and if it doesn't get sorted then one of them'll kill the other, you wait and see."

"It might be better if they weren't sharing quarters." Cosmos considered. "Jazz did look tired when I saw him, and we wouldn't like an accident to happen."

"Or an 'on purpose'." Red Alert said darkly. "Never underestimate what that mech is capable of."

"Alright, that's enough." Optimus interrupted. "Beachcomber, collect up the concerns of everyone here and write it out as a report and I'll read it. Cliffjumper, take over the comm duty."

"But I only just came off duty in the maintenance bay..."

"And everyone else clear this room!"

The brief conversation with Jazz completed, Mirage watched as Prowl frowned at the comm unit and muttered to himself, then the tactician rose and grumpily stomped over to his recharge berth. It seemed an odd reaction until Mirage remembered the earlier conversation.

Prowl was supposed to be resting, not working. The whole point of him being here instead of in his office was so that he could not be observed breaking that rule, but being seen working here could lead to gossip which would break his cover. No wonder he was annoyed at Jazz, especially since the saboteur knew exactly why Prowl had wanted him to come himself.

Today had been an almost complete failure of a mission. He had learned nothing, and he had been trapped in here for joors. When Jazz and Prowl had left earlier he had planned to continue to follow Jazz until his meeting time with Bumblebee, but for some reason he could not get the door to open from the inside.

He had assumed that Jazz had recognised that he was there and was punishing him, and that the TIC would be back to 'talk' to him after awhile. Yet instead when the door opened it was Prowl who entered the room, and the mech's posture and large doorwings and quick step had prevent Mirage from making good his escape. So then he had had to wait again.

Why would Jazz not come to collect the datapad himself, Mirage wondered. They had been civil during their earlier discussion, with no sign of any other emotion. Certainly Jazz had teased Prowll but there was nothing new in that.

As an experienced spy, he knew that it took time to gather good information, but he was dubious at this point about whether there was anything here to be gathered. Jazz and Prowl had interacted in private no differently to how they did so in public. Unless Jazz had known he was there, which he might have. But all that meant was that the attempt was futile anyway.

Unaware of his guest, Prowl was now settling onto his recharge berth efficiently, no shuffling about to find a comfortable position, just sitting and lifting his feet off the floor, then laying down. The tactician did sigh though, which was out of character, and although he picked up the recharge lead he did not plug it in, instead toying with it idly as he stared at the ceiling. Mirage realised that this was the most relaxed pose he had ever seen from Prowl.

Did Jazz get to see this side of him, he wondered? Probably. It would explain how Jazz had put up with the long periods of sharing quarters with him. But then it made him wonder again about the evidence Bumblebee had gathered.

If Jazz wanted Prowl, and knew him in this way, surely he would find a way to slip into Prowl's berth? No-one else need ever know since they already shared quarters and everyone else only saw the stiff, professional Prowl who existed outside of this chamber so they would not guess. Why had he gone rushing to Blaster like that? And then rushing back? There was still something missing here.

A knock on the door brought his attention back to the situation at hand, and he saw Prowl stiffen in reaction, then sit up. Bumblebee was already opening the door, and slipped inside.

"Sorry, Prowl, I'll just be a sec. Jazz's really glitching over whatever Prime's just bailed him up over. Is this it? Great. Catch you later."

The door had been left open, and Bumblebee's cheerful chatter had covered any faint sounds he had made as he hurried out. He waited a little down the hall as Bumblebee closed the door again, then followed behind the minibot who looked down at the pad he was carrying.

"Right." the yellow bot said, as if to himself. "I have to drop this off at Jazz's office, then meet Mirage at the lookout. He'd better be there by now, or Jazz's going to be furious. He's already mad that Raj missed the briefing."

Mirage paced along with him for a few steps more, but then Bumblebee called out to Powerglide and started up a conversation. The message was clear, anyway: get up to the lookout. And, of course, there were no microphones on the cameras up there, so they would be able to talk without being overheard.

First Aid checked the connections again. He had checked them twice before, but he wanted to be sure. Since he did not have the exact schematics and circuit diagrams for Ratchet's CPU, he was having to work from the generic templates and that meant that some of this was guesswork.

Wheeljack had initially been helpful with that, once he had gotten past the first shock of what they were discussing, but then when they had actually started doing the work he had become... unstable. He had started agonising over every wire and connection, vacillating back and forth over whether it should be blocked or left active. And then there was that whole mess with the pain block.

Prime's solution had been to send Wheeljack away until they had gotten Ratchet online and functioning again, at least to a minimal level, which that meant he was working alone again. Hoist and Huffer were well out of their depth with this, and he no longer trusted Perceptor not to panic.

Sideswipe, of course, was not even a serious consideration. Not for this. He had been a stabilising presence during the crisis, and good as a gofer or watching the monitors or holding Ratchet still, but this was delicate work.

The connections looked right. Last time, they had only activated the central core, closing off everything else. This time he was permitting access to the main memory bank. It was a risk, but that area had not taken any damage and it would help if Ratchet could actually recognise people and remember the situation.

He had debated longer over the wisdom of reactivating the mech's optics, and in the end had left them offline. A couple of the connections had taken minor damage, and he did not want his patient panicking because he could not see properly when he was receiving feedback from the sensors. Better for him to just not have access for now. At least until they had established his condition and explained the situation.

Peering at one of the wires which was glinting as though damaged, he zoomed in on it. No, not broken, it was just the angle of the wire against the light. It was still fully sheathed in its transparent insulation. While he was looking, he made another search of the surrounding circuits, checking that no power could get to the damaged areas.

He was about to check each of the connections again in turn, just to be sure, when he heard the door open. Resetting his optics, he looked up to see Jazz.

"Prime said I should make myself available to ya." the black and white mech told him, pausing near the door. "You just let me know what you need and when; we'll get it done."

First Aid put down his tools, glancing back at the monitor to confirm that there had been no changes, then wiped his hands on a cloth.

"Actually, now would be a good time, if you have time."

"Sure. You wanna talk here?"

First Aid nodded.

"I need to keep an eye on him."

Jazz frowned, looking around.

"Where's Percy? Ain't he s'posed to be helpin'?"

"I... sent him away. Sorry, I know you probably went to a lot of trouble to drag him back here, but he just..."

"It's cool." Jazz assured him, leaning casually back against a nearby berth. "You're the medic - if he was in the way, he can get out. For the record, though, I ain't really got the time or int'rest t'be a medic so I hope y'ain't thinkin' o'trainin' me up as a new assistant."

First Aid smiled, caught up in the infectious grin.

"That's okay. I just wanted to talk to you about some things. I need to figure out how to handle Wheeljack. I need his help, but he's so stuck on the guilt of what happened and the idea that it's Ratchet who got hurt that he just gets these sudden crazy ideas."

"Jack's always been full of crazy ideas." Jazz pointed out. "What makes ya think I can help?"

"Well..." First Aid hesitated, a little embarrassed and looking down at his hands. "Blades suggested it. He said you knew a bit about gestalts, and how we're different, and everyone knows you don't have a long-term sparkmate, so I thought you could help me find a way to understand why he's being so irrational.

"I mean, he's not part of a gestalt, he's not linked, but sparkmates act like they are, right? Like they're bonded, even though they aren't. I don't get that. I don't understand why anyone would want to pretend that they couldn't share with anyone else even if they wanted to, when actually they can. It's not like there's any sense in getting bonded in the first place. I mean, what if you choose the wrong mech? You're stuck with them for the rest of your lives. What if you don't get on anymore after a couple of vorns? Or if you fall for someone else? It all so..."

He caught a glimpse of Jazz's blank expression and winced.

"Sorry. I rant a bit sometimes when I have a strong opinion on something. I've never understood bonding. It just doesn't make sense to me. And maybe it doesn't to you either, since you don't have a long-term mate. But you've been around for vorns longer than I have, and I just can't have this conversation with Prime!"

Jazz seemed to have gotten over his shock now, and shook his head.

"You'd be surprised. Prime's got a sparkmate himself. But he thought you wanted me to hack some more files for you, not chat about romance."

"Well, I might need that, too." First Aid admitted. "There's nothing in Ratchet's open file about his CPU, and I thought there might be someone else whose CPU he'd worked on that I could base my work on. It's a pretty rare thing, though."

"I'll think about it. For now, lets find some comfy chairs and some energon an' have a talk about handlin' overwrought sparkmates. Inventor-types, in particular."

Prowl stared at his subordinate, trying to decide whether Pinpoint's excuse about the mech on comms duty not updating the roster the way he had submitted it made any relevant difference to the current situation.

On the one hand, given the mecha who had been in the control centre today - and the twins were at the top of his suspect list - it was entirely feasible that someone was playing a prank by exacerbating the situation. It would not be difficult to confirm this and identify the culprits.

On the other hand, it was Pinpoint's creativity which had started this whole mess in the first place. If the mech had simply recycled an old schedule for the interim there may have been a few minor tweaks required. Instead, he had played creatively with a core element of the Ark's functioning during the time it was least appropriate to do so.

Pinpoint was not a bad mech, he knew, just inexperienced. He had been raised in a Neutral camp, sheltered from the war, but had been eager to help fight against the Decepticons. Unfortunately his core programming was pacifistic - something many Neutrals did to prevent the Decepticons from abducting their sparklings and making use of them as soldiers - so there was little he could do that was actually useful in their current situation. It wasn't just a matter of changing a little surface programming, as it had been for most of the civilians who had become Autobots, he was effectively hardwired to eschew violent action.

He had been brought aboard the Ark to work as an archivist's assistant but by fortune had been one of the few survivors of the crash. He was not unintelligent, and Prowl did need to make use of every mech with their depleted forces, so it had seemed that an administrative role was the best solution.

This was a decision he was beginning to question.

"I changed it just as you asked." Pinpoint repeated, obviously uncomfortable with the lengthening silence.

"But you did not enter it directly into Teletran One." Prowl responded.

The mech wilted.

"No, sir."

The problem was what this mech would do if he were not under Prowl's command. Red Alert didn't trust Pinpoint and wouldn't have him in the security office; Ironhide wouldn't have him because he couldn't shoot a rifle at anything that mattered; he had not even bothered asking Jazz if he could use him in the ops team and Ratchet wouldn't have him because he said he didn't have time to be training a complete novice when he was busy enough keeping First Aid's training on track.

Not that Ratchet would be training anyone if First Aid didn't pull him through.

He could, theoretically, send Pinpoint to work with the maintenance bots, but the former Neutral was scared of Gears and Grapple.

Under the circumstances, perhaps it was best to divert the mech on to less potentially disruptive tasks.

"Jazz has taken charge of resolving the issue with the rosters." Prowl dismissed the matter. "For now I want you to focus on collating the field reports from the last battle. It's imperative we know precisely which of the Decepticons were absent."

It was make-work of a sort, since he had already done an analysis on the reports that had been submitted with only a few outstanding, but it would prove that Pinpoint was working honestly. Once that was re-established, there were other things he could do.

Bumblebee dashed up the stairs as quickly as he could while still pretending outwardly that he was just stretching his legs with a run, aware that he was fast running out of time.

Jazz had ordered them to stay in sight of as many as possible at all times, but he had to talk to Mirage and there simply could not be anyone listening in which meant it had to be before Mirage's current shift ended. Most times he knew Jazz would not care about a bit of rule-bending, but today the officer seemed completely out of sorts and Bumblebee found himself wondering uneasily about the kind of punishments Jazz would mete out if he even suspected he was being disobeyed again.

The threat of Prime throwing him in the brig paled in comparison.

Reaching the top, he cast about and did not initially see his target. He put on a quizzical expression for the benefit of Red Alert's camera and wandered over to the lookout post, all the while hissing Cybertronian curses subsonically. Where was he? There was no time for this.

"Good thing no-one else is up here to hear that kind of language from innocent little Bumblebee." a disembodied voice commented from his left, and he turned.

"Raj!" He pasted a broad grin on his face. "For pit's sake get rid of that cloak and act nice for Red's surveillance."

The spy complied, but frowned at him.

"Not very much in character." he pointed out.

"Too bad. Jazz's about ready to throw you to the Cons for missing his briefing. What the slag were you doing in there with Prowl when you were supposed to be watching Jazz? And how did he know?"

Mirage moved to answer, then hesitated at the last question.

"I don't know. He didn't seem to notice when I was in the room with him."

"Well he knew where you were." Bumblebee grumbled. "And I said we were just practicing sneaking around him but I don't think he was buying it: he's definitely gonna come after us both later, he was just in a rush. No time to talk about that now, though. You missed out on the briefing for our latest assignment, and you're not going to like it one bit."

"He's decided to infiltrate the Nemesis after all? Who's going?"

Bumblebee stared at him, then slapped his forehead in exasperation.

"Oh slag me, Prime is right! Jazz is planning a class 1 op! Of course he is. Well never mind that now. All missions are off, so forget whatever you two are planning for the Cons. Prime's gotten suspicious, and he's right on Jazz's bumper. We're to make sure we're accessible at all times. And he's got special orders for you: starting next shift, you're on comm duty every alternate shift, and in between you are only allowed in your room to recharge, otherwise you have to be in the rec room and visible. Watch tv, surf the net, clean your lasers, whatever but you don't go anywhere but there. Prime wants to be able to find you any time he chooses to. And if he can't, he's going to put us all in the brig."

"For what?"

"Disobeying orders."

"No, what will he tell the others?"

Bumblebee huffed.

"Whatever he fragging well likes! I've never seen Jazz so fritzed, I swear I could almost hear the solder melting on his circuit boards. He'll come down on all of us like an angry Guardian if you step out of line. We've got to do this his way. I've already missed a concert with Spike and Carly: I don't need to be trying to explain to them why I've been incarcerated."

"Prime wouldn't put you in there." Mirage shook his head. "You're too cute. There'd be an uproar."

"He mightn't, but Jazz would. Or worse. You didn't see him. We are really slagged, this time." Bumblebee began to warn him, then jumped as a reminder came up on his HUD. "Slag, I've got to go. Quickly - was there anything odd? Did we get anything for all this hassle?"

Mirage looked at him inscrutably for a moment, then shook his head.

"No."

Bumblebee groaned.

"Naturally. Alright, never mind, I'll see you after my shift. In the rec room."

Turning, he hurried back down the steps without even saying goodbye. He needed to get back to his own duty before Jazz or Prime came looking for him; there was no point making anything worse for himself, things were bad enough as they were.