Things proceeded normally for a while after that. As more and more Decepticon troops were pulled out of their province to fight Thunderous and his Autobots in the Iacon region, the Tagan Heights patrols caught fewer groups of Autobots, which suited everybody just fine. Meanwhile, the Autobot canyon community stabilized at something of half its peak population, and then dropped a decacycle later to only a quarter. Star and Jazz were pleased to hear that it had been the twins that had worked the exodus. They were heading for Iacon, carrying news to the Prime and the next communication regarding their plan to take over the province. Hot Spot wasn't sure what they had said to turn so many mecha to the cause, but it had been very effective.

Their plan was working itself out steadily. They had all the details in place, except for a date to attack. They were waiting for favorable circumstances that didn't want to come. Still, things were happening. Thunderous was gaining ground, even if it was just inches.

And then disaster struck.

One mech came back, one from the group the twins had taken with them. He carried a single data pad and two data chips. He died only a joor after he collapsed in the tunnel Streetwise was patrolling. Hot Spot received the information he had been carrying, and reviewed it with his brother. They stared at the report for a long time. Then Hot Spot made a decision.

~0~

Verasuvius turned her helm, distracted for an instant. Ricochet capitalized on the moment, swinging fast and hard.

But not fast enough.

The dark femme twitched back, his fist breezing past her cheek. She grabbed his forearm, stepping away from his lunge. She rammed her hand into his abdomen. He flipped over and she slammed him to the ground. The troops in for training winced, oooohing at the mech's pain, and then cheered while Ricochet stayed spread eagle, trying to force his systems to function properly after the jarring impact. Vera stood, looking off toward the main base complex with a frown.

"That hurt." Ricochet commented, groaning as he started getting up.

The femme abruptly knelt. "Something's come up. Hold the fort." She ordered. He gave her a curious glance, but she was already igniting her engines, flying off to deal with the problem. Ricochet watched her go, and then rolled to his feet, shaking off the last effects of their sparring match.

"A'right, who's first?" he asked, grinning at the poor 'Cons lined up for punishment.

~0~

Star transformed as she passed through the window of her tower, landing with a light thump just as the door to her room opened to admit Streetwise with a datapad. He looked shaken, a frown across his face and visor dimmed. Something was very wrong.

Star felt her spark sinking quickly, fearing the worst.

"Delivery." Streetwise said plainly. "Dude that delivered it's dead already." He held out the data pad and she took it, activating it immediately.

"We'll be waiting." The security director said quietly, heading back to the elevator.

Star read the description of the attack, tanks churning in dread, and was relieved to find that Thunderous was perfectly functional, releasing some of her suspense, though she'd been fairly certain from the beginning that he was. She would have felt something if he'd been too badly damaged.

Then she got to the casualty, MIA, and confirmed POW lists.

She found the closest chair by the small table and sank into it slowly, optics glued to the screen. She let her hands fall slowly to the table and stared at the wall for a while, blankly disbelieving, before she turned almost automatically to the energon dispenser rising out of the floor. She had to know. She had to find them. She had to.

~0~

Almost three joors later, Ricochet was still waiting, and the ambassadors he was waiting with for their routine video conference were even less patient than he was. He tried to keep them calm, but it was difficult with Decepticons, and especially with these Decepticons.

"Is your commander coming or not?" Ratbat snarled, and Ricochet sighed.

"Alright, keep your armor on, I'll go get her." He said, quickly padding out of the conference room. He was riding the elevator up to her quarters a minute later, frowning at her off-lined comm and starting to really worry.

~0~

The energy gave her reach. It expanded her. Jazz thought it served as her version of high grade, but it was more than that. It let her search the planet without moving from her spot at the table. She started at the site of the battle, and she worked through the layers of the planet, hopping from location to location, places she thought it was possible they could be. Then she moved to less likely places, becoming more desperate and less hopeful with every area she explored that didn't have what she was looking for.

Eventually she ran out of ideas and she stopped searching, coming back to herself for a moment. She stared at the empty cube in her hands for several second, and then threw it with all her might. It shattered against the wall quite satisfyingly, so she threw the other four cubes as well, and still didn't feel any better. Star rested her elbows on the table and her head in her hands miserably.

"Primus." She whispered. "Why is it like this? It was never meant to be like this."

There was no answer, only a smothering quiet, so she let her mind spread out, resting on and around and through the planet and everything on it, letting the noise of a thousand living organisms thinking and doing and being absorb her awareness until she was no longer Star and she no longer felt anything, awash in the sea of emotion and cognizance that wasn't her own.

She didn't come out of it until someone was shaking her shoulder, and blearily she lifted her head out of the pillow she had made of her arms, focusing slowly on a familiar red and black figure. Jazz gave her a concerned look.

"What happened?"

Star turned away and gestured to the other chair, rather unsteadily. "Sit." She ordered.

Cautiously, Jazz sat, and when she pushed the datapad at him he stared at it, very certain he really didn't want to read whatever was on it. He looked back to Star, but her acid green optics were trained on the Hole. She'd been drinking a lot to have that shade of optics.

He definitely did not want to read this pad.

But eventually he took it and activated it and slowly began to read. Nothing was too bad.

Until he got to the confirmed POW list.

His face went slack in shock and horror, and then he started shaking his head. "No. No, they're wrong. They gotta be wrong."

Star dropped her gaze to the floor, still not looking at him.

"They're WRONG!" Jazz insisted, slamming the pad down on the table. "Not Prowl! Not Prowler." His optics fell to the screen, dancing over the characters that spelled out his friend's name, right next to Sideswipe's and Sunstreaker's. "Star," he said, lifting his head and grabbing her wrist so she would look at him instead of stare hopelessly at the ground. "You gotta find him. Please?"

Her face was so sad. "I tried, Jazz." She told him softly, pulling his hand off to hold it between both of hers. "And I couldn't. I'm sorry."

"But…" he sputtered. "But…" he looked back to the pad, stared at it for a moment, and then off-lined his optics and let his head hit the table. "But it's Prowler." He whispered, plaintively. "We can't do this without him…"

Star reached out to touch his shoulder. "I know." She murmured back. After a minute she put his hand down and stood. "Stay as long as you need." She told him.

On the way down in the elevator, she composed herself. Star Nova could be devastated, but Verasuvius could not.

"About time." Ratbat hissed as she strode into the conference room.

"Ambassadors." She greeted with her usual formality, taking her seat in front of the view screens.

"Where's Ricochet?" Staxx wondered suspiciously.

"Attending to something that requires constant attention from at least one of us." Verasuvius almost snapped back, irritation flashing across her face. "Something I would rather get back to as soon as I can, so if you wouldn't mind being succinct and quick, gentlemechs, you might get your messages through before I disconnect." She gestured for Ratbat to proceed, and he glared, but did so. They all knew better than to mess with the femme while she was in this sort of mood, and they knew she would hang up on them if she didn't feel they were being fast enough.

It was still two joors later when Verasuvius was able to head back up to her quarters.

The lights were off and the windows were tinted almost black, not that she needed light to see. Jazz was passed out on one of the couches, a few empty cubes on the floor next to his dangling arm. Star sighed and knelt down next to him, resting a hand on his helm.

"I am so sorry." She whispered.

The mech didn't stir, as she knew he wouldn't, and after a minute she set a small vial of clear liquid on the table between the couches and then headed for her room and the elevator.

They had a lot of planning to do to fix this. After all, nobody ever came back from being a prisoner of war. Not anymore. Never in one piece.

And rarely even recognizable if they did recover the body.

~0~

In the morning Jazz was gone and Ricochet was attending to his duties. Life went on, but not as it had before. Something was different. True to their skill, nobody else saw anything change in the Tagan Heights commander and her second, but they could sense it in each other.

They were done; done being here, done playing this game, done sitting snuggly at home and coordinating behind the scenes while the other Autobots fought and bled and died. Their inability to help any other way had always been a slow burn, tempered by the knowledge of how many resources they provided with their control of the manufacturing province, but now that knowledge wasn't enough and their fight roared to life. For Jazz, it was a constant struggle to contain himself, to not just up and leave. Star understood. She let him handle more of the contact with Hot Spot, sent him downstairs more often. She established more aggressive contact with Thunderous and she pushed for them to get the ball rolling on this. He responded, and worked his way closer to the Tagan Heights, but he was still cautious.

Jazz was not, and as time dragged on he became increasingly restless. More and more often he would stalk through the dark halls of the complex during the off-cycle, quietly walking it off, but it didn't help for long. He needed to get out there and do something—actually, physically do something. But he couldn't, he was stuck here. Even though it wasn't in Jazz's nature to get frustrated, he chafed under that restriction as he never had before.

Until one night, as he slunk down the hall trying to burn off some agitation, another shadow fell in behind him. It took him far too long to notice, and in fact he didn't until the other shadow reached forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

Vera stood back as her second spazzed, and then glared at her, a frustrated glower that was becoming all too familiar, though he usually didn't direct it at her. She nodded her head for him to follow her and he did, silent down the halls and up the elevator and into her quarters and to the small table by the window, where they both sat. She offered him a glass of bright blue energon—not quite high grade, but not normal grade either. She took one as well, and they sat there for a while.

Jazz wasn't sure if she had something to say or if she'd just been getting him out of the halls, so he tried to relax and sit back. Her gaze was trained on the light pouring out of the Hole, and Jazz wondered again, as he had many times before, what it was that she saw that fascinated her so, that could hold her attention for hours on end. All he saw was a bunch of light. Hardly entertaining, in his understanding of the word.

It didn't take long for him to start getting restless again, but still he waited.

Finally, the femme lifted her gaze to the dark sky. "I could make Ricochet disappear." She said quietly, and then turned to look at him, a little sad. "If he wanted to."

Jazz's optics widened as he sat up, a grin spreading across his face. "Really? You'd let me go?"

Star nodded, lips quirking into a lopsided smile at how he lit up. "If you want to."

Jazz was over both moons for all of ten seconds, and then his face fell. "Wait, what about you? You gotta stay."

The dark femme nodded, looking back out the window, trying not to show how hard this was for her. "I must stay until it's over. But I started alone. I can finish alone."

Jazz sat back, and found that the decision was difficult. He thought he would have jumped at the chance to leave and never looked back, but…

"What d'you want me to do?" he asked.

Star looked at him reproachfully. They both knew the answer to that question, of course, but Jazz wanted to see what she would actually say.

"I want you… to do what you feel you need to." She said, expertly shifting the entire decision onto him. She didn't want her feelings to impede him. She would let him go. Even though she wanted him to stay.

Something clicked back into place for Jazz and he leaned back, putting his pedes up on the table and his hands behind his head. "Nah." He grinned at Star's surprised expression. "I ain't leavin' you to go it alone in this livin' Pit. No way, no how." The grin left as the mech became serious. "You started this mission alone, Star, but we're gonna see it to the end together. I promise."

She relaxed and smiled at him, a relieved and delighted sparkle in her red optics. "Thank you, Jazz."

"No problem." He replied easily. "Thanks for givin' me a choice."

And it was the choice that healed him somewhat. It made life bearable again. Knowing he could go if he wanted to and making it his own decision to stay stabilized him. He started recharging regularly again, and threw his entire self into making sure everything would be as good as it could be for Thunderous when they attacked and took the province. He did it for Star and his Prime.

But mostly he did it for Prowl.