Chapter 28

Ratchet sat alone in his quarters, staring with unseeing optics at a fuel pump. He'd brought it home because rebuilding it would occupy his processor, but worry for Soundwave was overwhelming. Soundwave was so vulnerable, in so very many ways ...

And, at the moment, his new bondmate was broadcasting a feeling of simple irritation. He refrained from asking Frenzy what had ticked Soundwave off. Apparently, Soundwave's default emotion when dealing with Astrotrain's forces was 'annoyed' with a side order of frustration. At the moment, since he was not infuriated, things were probably going well.

Optimus pinged him from across the base.

:What?: He demanded.

:Come join me in my quarters?:

:Yeah, fine. Not getting anything done here.:

:You are off shift,: Prime said, with mild rebuke.

:Don't start on me.:

Optimus didn't deign to answer that.

Five minutes later, he let himself into the Prime's quarters. Optimus was not alone; Jazz, Prowl and Skyfire were there. The tall shuttle looked a little uncomfortable, and sat stiffly in a chair only slightly too small for his frame, with his optics alert and the rest of him almost motionless.

"What's up?" He glanced at the others. Optimus looked relaxed, Prowl had defaulted to his usual status of neutral dignity, and Jazz was sprawled loosely across a chair that was far too big for him. Jazz could manage to look half asleep in the middle of a battle if it suited him, and Prowl was far harder to read than Soundwave. Prime, however, had never completely mastered the ability to hide his emotions. That Optimus was seated casually, with a cube of high grade in one hand, reassured Ratchet that this was not 'serious business.'

"Just plotting," Jazz said, calmly.

"Frenzy says they're en route to a Decepticon moon base." He'd already reported that to Blaster, since both Prowl and Jazz were off duty.

"Yeah, I know." Jazz didn't elaborate how he knew, but Ratchet could guess, and it very likely wasn't due to Blaster reporting in on an expected enemy troop movement. He knew Punch was a spy; he'd helped design Punch's hardware and write his operating system, after all. In order to sneak Punch past Soundwave, they'd needed to create an alternate identity so complex and compelling, and backed up with core deep hard code, that even Punch believed he was a Decepticon. The little black ops bastard sent them a nightly data dump via secure quantum link to Blaster's communications suite during his recharge, and he was never aware of it.

"We were just wondering if you could bounce a question off Frenzy," Skyfire said, a bit hesitantly.

"Hnn?"

"Ask him if Soundwave knows human morse code."

"Pretty sure he does," Ratchet said, on optic ridge raising. He dutifully passed the question on, however. "I know morse code."

Frenzy's response took a second, and the kid sounded half distracted as he answered. ~Morse, yeah, or human binary machine language. They thinking of using some sort of pulse across the bond for communication between you and Soundwave?~

Ratchet slapped his hand to his face. "He says he knows morse, and human binary code, and wants to know if we're thinking about direct communication across the bond between me and Soundwave and that's so slagging obvious that I don't know why we didn't think of it before."

Jazz laughed. Skyfire and Optimus smiled. Prowl's smile was smaller, but he tipped his head in acknowledgement.

~Soundwave knows it, but he can't access that data directly. I'm on duty right now, but as soon as I get off, I'll run the idea by him. Really, he doesn't even need to know morse. If he repeats the pulses to his visor using power fluctuations, we could actually program it to translate the morse into letters. I can write the script for that in a few seconds.~

~What do they have you doing?~

~Rewiring Astrotrain's communications systems. They took a hit when they nuked Six Shot. Lots of fried components.~

Ratchet smirked. ~What kind of mischief are you getting up to?~

~Who, me?~ Frenzy's response sounded innocent, but the impression Ratchet got via their secondary bond through Soundwave was anything but. ~Astrotrain's gonna be incommunicado at the worst possible moment.~

~What do you guys have in mind?~

~You guys pick a fight with him at a point when he's out of line of site with Earth. Everyone with the capability of fighting in vacuum will exit the ship. That leaves Reflector on board, and I can deal with them. Him. It. Never did figure out what pronoun to use with that thing. And Punch, too, probably. He's not exactly designed for hard vacuum. Not sure why they have him stationed in orbit ... Anyway, we can disable Astrotrain pretty easy, and I'll take over his communications system and, uh, pretend I'm him, same way I pretend I'm Soundwave.~

~That ... sounds like a workable plan. I'll run it by Jazz and Prowl.~

~Yeah, better than trying to escape via jumping out an airlock.~ Frenzy's distaste for that idea came across loud and clear. ~Steelie and t' boss and I have been working on some ... creative sabotage ... anyway, we should be able to pilot the big dumbaft down to an airfield of the commanders' choice.~

Ratchet relayed this, and watched as Jazz's visor lit up and a small smirk touched Prowl's lip plates. Jazz said, with an amused laugh, "Damn, man, I'm glad he's on our side now."

Some intense discussion followed, with Prowl and Jazz collaborating on ideas and timing with Frenzy. The saboteur and the tactician were, respectively, gleefully appreciative and dryly amused by Frenzy's competence when it came to sheer malevolent mischief.

"Hey," Jazz said, suddenly, "Tell t' kid to go easy on Punch."

Ratchet and Prowl both gave Jazz a long, hard, skeptical look. Punch's cover was so deep that not even Punch knew he was a mole. It had been the only way to slip him past Soundwave in the first place. It wasn't like Jazz to so casually give up the identity of one of his operatives.

Jazz shook his head. "He's mine. I take care of my own. But just tell Frenzy that our preference for Punch is capture, not kill."

Ratchet relayed that message.

He was amused when Frenzy responded with giggling laughter. ~Tell Jazz we won't kill his spy. Might help if you pass on his codes, though. I can lock him in his quarters remotely, which will take him out of the fight, but it'd be helpful if he's on our side.~

Jazz, when Ratchet dutifully passed on Frenzy's response, facepalmed. Prowl groaned, then said, "I told you he was compromised."

Frenzy added, ~And tell Jazz that Soundwave knew for hundreds of vorns. Thanks for sending us such a good soldier.~

"Again, ah say, ah'm glad the little slagger's on our side now. They were using him to pass us bad intel. Ah knew it." Jazz pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, underneath his visor. "Ratchet, go ahead and give him Punch's overrides and safe codes. The way this might go, it might be Punch's best chance at survival, and they probably could use his help."

Ratchet, who as CMO knew the codes, hesitated for a long moment. Some of his instinctive caution must have transmitted across the bond, because he felt both Soundwave and Frenzy react. Soundwave simply felt concerned. Frenzy responded with irritation. ~Only t'boss knew. Ace up the sleeve, so to speak. We have lots of those.~

Jazz rolled his optics behind his visor, causing the gleaming strip of light to fluctuate tellingly. "Ratch', ask t'kid if he can give us a full report of all of those 'aces'."

Ratchet, who'd spent more than half his life keeping secrets, was still hesitant to share too much even with his bondmate's symbiont - perhaps particularly with his bondmate's symbiont. Frenzy, even if he trusted him with his spark, could be compromised in several ways. Among other things, Vortex was on that ship and Vortex had the clock speed and know-how to hack the symbiont, as Frenzy had implied. He could also be force bonded by another, hostile, carrier if anything ever happened to Soundwave.

~Nope. I like some of my secrets to remain secret.~ Frenzy's response was cheerful. When Ratchet growled at him, he laughed. ~Okay, I'll tell you some of them. Later, though. Vortex is calling me and I'd better go snarl back at him or he'll think something's up.~

~Be careful,~ Ratchet said. And when he passed on the answer to the others, he diplomatically didn't mention Frenzy's refusal to tell all he knew. The other Autobot officers might not understand. Soundwave and his symbionts had survived by being sneaky, underhanded, treacherous spies and some of the data that they'd collected over the eons would be best kept from the light of day.

~Ratchet, in all seriousness, if I didn't bitch at him, he'd be suspicious. I'm always a jerk.~

~No, you're not.~ Ratchet responded, automatically. Frenzy was about as far from a 'jerk' as he could imagine. He'd grown quite fond of the kid, who he found honest, tough in ways that he admired, and with a resilience that continued to impress him.

~Yes I am. And don't make me laugh, because then they'll think something is wrong with me. Love ya, man, but yer worse than Laserbeak was for tryin' to make me lose my rep as a surly aftwit.~

Ratchet laughed aloud, even as Frenzy closed his end of the connection and - mostly - vanished from his awareness. His chuckles drew odd looks from rest of the officers, and Skyfire, and with a smirk he realized his own reputation from crankiness was almost as bad as Frenzy's. "Frenzy's a jerk."

Prime frowned; Prowl gave him a narrow-eyed look; Jazz smirked; Skyfire just appeared bewildered.

"We knew that, man, a long time ago. Yer in trouble if yah ain't figured it out yet," Jazz sprawled back in his chair.

"What's funny is that he isn't." Ratchet tried to explain, then gave that up as a lost cause. "Anyway. - Skyfire, are you here representing the Autobot air force?"

Silverbolt was down for the count for several days, in a medically induced stasis. Engineering needed to craft some specialty parts for the large mech to complete his repairs, and they didn't have all the raw materials that they needed. There were, however, several fliers among Autobot forces who outranked Skyfire, and definitely exceeded his experience and willingness to fight. Even Cosmos could probably outfight Skyfire, and could definitely out-strategize him.

"Skyfire is here as our resident expert on Starscream," Prime corrected, and it didn't escape Ratchet's notice when Optimus gently rested a hand on Skyfire's gleaming white forearm. "His insight is valuable."

"Yeah, Starscream'll be handling the assault on Astrotrain's forces. We'll confer with him about Soundwave's plan to incapacitate Astrotrain himself. Yer invited, doc." Jazz saluted Ratchet. "Given yer our resident expert on Soundwave and Frenzy."

"Ah." Ratchet snorted. "Skyfire, if you understand what's going on in that flitterbrained aft's cranial case, you've got one up on most of us."

"Unfortunately," Skyfire and Prime exchanged a significant glance, "I understand him all too well."

"Yeah, I've had a few exes I felt that way about." Ratchet shrugged easily. Jazz, having known Ratchet nearly as long as Prime did, and having seen him at his worst, snorted a laugh that he barely concealed behind his hand. Ratchet didn't think he was exactly trying hard to hide that snicker.

"Something that won't be a problem for you ever again," Prime said, voice teasing.

Ratchet stilled, because he was terrified that he would lose Soundwave in this mess. It wasn't like Optimus to tease anyone so tactlessly. He looked up at his leader, and best friend, unable to hide the sudden fear in his spark.

"Ratchet ..." Prime murmured. "I'm sorry."

"Well." Ratchet grumped, hiding his discomfiture with habitual crankiness. "I'm not. Soundwave and the brats are going to help us end this war."

Soundwave padded across the bridge, walking as lightly as possible so as to not disturb Astrotrain from his slumber. Vortex hadn't been kidding when he said Astrotrain was generally in a foul mood, and it was best to let him recharge as much as possible.

"What're you up to?" Vortex demanded.

All Soundwave heard was a fzzz-crackle-bwip of Cybertronian, but Steeljaw was quick to translate. He replied, "Repairs."

"Whatcha fixing?"

"Battle damage."

Soundwave knelt, and opened an access plate to reveal a neural circuit node. Vortex leaned over his shoulder as he worked, and commented conversationally, "I'm amazed that Astrotrain's recharging while you're working. He does know you're working on him, doesn't he?"

"Repair plans, filed. Astrotrain, able to review camera logs later to verify work done. Requires extra recharge due to extensive power demands for current life support mods and life support."

Vortex snorted. "You could offline him while he slept."

"Perhaps. Soundwave, trusted."

"Yeaaaah. More like, he's fried a few circuits and he can't conceive of you as a turncoat."

Soundwave rocked back on his heels and looked up at the copter. "Explain statement."

"Ah, nothin'. Just thinkin' aloud."

Soundwave said pointedly, "Soundwave, loyal Decepticon. Starscream, long term enemy."

"Huh." Vortex folded his arms and continued to stare as Soundwave worked on the circuits. Soundwave was tempted to order him away, but that would be too suspicious. He had wanted to sabotage these circuits by installing a deliberately flawed circuit breaker that would trip at random intervals when Astrotrain fired his guns. However, with Vortex watching, he confined himself to stripping out and replacing several sections of genuinely bad wiring.

It would be too easy for Vortex to come back later and check the circuit breaker. The interrogator was just that suspicious.

:I'll get it later, Boss,: Steeljaw suggested, :When Vortex is in his recharge.:

:Plan, acceptable.:

Frenzy waited, crouched in a space so tight that few would believe that the small symbiont could fit.

Counterpunch walked past Frenzy's hiding place in a ventilation duct several times before no one else was in sight. Frenzy murmured a prayer to Primus that Astrotrain did not, in fact, have any security cameras or other sensors in this corridor before he dropped out of the duct and onto Counterpunch's shoulders.

Counterpunch yelled once, a quick and startled yelp, before Frenzy slipped a needle between two plates of armor and hit a main energon vein. A laser scalpel wasn't the only thing he'd swiped from the med bay - he'd taken assembled an array of medical supplies, with Ratchet's blessing. Most were genuinely intended for field repairs, but some of them had a dual purpose as weapons.

The anesthetic in the syringe worked nearly instantly, and Punch hit the floor with a crash.

"Counterpunch, you okay?" Onslaught called from a room somewhere down the haul.

Soundwave's voice wasn't the only one that Frenzy could mimic with uncanny precision. It was a talent that Soundwave had certainly encouraged, though Frenzy kept the ability secret. "Yeah, fine. Astrotrain has glitchmice."

"You yelped over a glitchmouse?" Onslaught said, with a snicker.

"It ran up my leg, okay? I hate those things."

"Ah, let him alone, Ons. Everyone hates those things," Frenzy said, in his own voice.

"Yeah, but I don't scream like a sparkling. Sheesh."

Frenzy waited tensely, hoping Onslaught wouldn't stick his head out of the room. His luck held. After a moment, he crouched and plugged a data cable into Counterpunch's neural port. The codes that Jazz had given him sliced through Counterpunch's firewalls like they didn't exist. He felt something shift in the core of the mech's programming.

Swiftly, he administered the fast-acting antidote to the anesthetic. It took a moment, but when Counterpunch's optics flickered back to life, they were ... different, somehow, in an undefinable way.

Counterpunch reached up and felt the data-cable connecting Frenzy's wrist to his neural port. Frenzy hastily disconnected before the Ops-trained, Jazz-trained, mech could try anything nasty. "Shh," he held a finger to his lipplates. In a very low voice he murmured, "Jazz says hi."

Counterpunch was clearly examining the codes that he'd received. They had woken his Autobot alternate ego, and he certainly remembered who he was, and his mission parameters.

"Get up," Frenzy urged. "Sorry I had to slip you a mickey, but I didn't think you'd cooperate with doing it the easy way."

"No slag," Counterpunch climbed to his feet and said, "C'mon. Astrotrain's audio sensors aren't working in engineering."

"... why?" Frenzy said, astonished.

"Because Ons and Vortex frag in there, and Astrotrain doesn't want to hear it."

"Really?"

Counterpunch shrugged as they ducked into engineering through heavy blast doors. The doors slid shut behind them. "Astrotrain's not the sharpest tool in the box, that's for sure."

"Heh. Yeah. So. Jazz said t' give ya your Manchurian codes 'cuz things are gonna get hot, an' he didn't want ya to get slagged. Plus, we can use your help."

Counterpunch scratched his jaw. "Who's 'we'?"

"Me, Soundwave, Steeljaw."

"Ah. You and Soundwave are really moles?"

Frenzy nodded. "More or less. It's recent. We can fill you in on the details later, but for now - you on board with us?"

"Only way you coulda got those codes is if Jazz or Ratchet gave 'em to you." Counterpunch frowned at him. "How long you two been moles?"

"Not long."

"Ah. Well, what do you need me to do?"

"You think you could get some sulfuric acid from medical without raising suspicion?"

"Probably."

"Trained by Jazz. Right. Okay." Frenzy pointed up at Astrotrain's main surveillance switchboards, which were over their heads. "We need a strategic application of a corrosive substance to the wiring, but disable the pain sensors first."

Punch nodded slowly. "Will do. Make it look like corrosion from bad maintenance?"

"Exactly. Err. If anyone questions what you're doing in engineering, tell 'em Soundwave said you're supposed to be fixing the surveillance cameras in here."

"... should I?"

"Can you do it so that Astrotrain gets a helluva feedback screech at random intervals, until his internal sensors short out?"

"Trained by Jazz," Punch said, with a shrug.

"Great. He's been bitching about lack of recharge. Make it loud enough to startle him awake, and make the problem hard to find so nobody can fix it."

"Swindle."

Swindle jumped, armor clamping flat, optics narrowing, as Frenzy approached. "I didn't do nothin'!"

"Oh, I haven't forgotten." Frenzy grinned. "You torqued me off, slaghead. But I need something, an' it might mean I'll go easy on ya if ya can get it."

"Err, what?"

"High grade."

"... your boss let you drink?"

"Not a matter of letting. I am not a youngling."

Swindle gave him a skeptical look.

"Anyway, 's not for me. I sorta lost a bet with Steeljaw an' I owe him some cubes."

Swindle sighed. "Okay, fine. But we're even, get me?"

"Works for me." Frenzy shrugged easily. He was still ticked about Swindle drinking his ration in front of him, but revenge was low on his list of priorities. In another time and place, he might have chosen to get even, but not now.

Skyfire sat at the table in his quarters, and frowned at the lump of dented and corroded circuitry. It was no bigger than his thumb, yet contained billions of neural synapses. Once, it had been representative of the pinnacle of Cybertronian science. Now, it was just a useless bit of silicon, copper, and assorted other trace elements.

He was no cerebral engineer. He was a specialist in organic chemistry and zenobiology, with subspecialities in astrophysics and engineering. However, he'd also studied medicine, mostly because he was, at spark, deeply curious about the world around him. Skyfire was not a young mech, and like many of his long-lived species, he had many interests and the lifespan to explore them all.

And Soundwave's telepathic mod was fascinating.

Soundwave's solid weight held him down to the berth, comforting and powerful, as the taller mech kissed him with passion and possessive desire. Ratchet arched up into Soundwave's frame, crying out his name, clinging to him, feeling the firm and confident thrust of Soundwave's spike into the slick heat of his valve ...

ANGER

Ratchet jolted out of recharge, systems booting hard and fast. Energy from what had been a fiercely erotic dream was shunted ruthlessly to combat protocols. He was on his feet, bristling with weapons, before his processor was fully online.

~Frenzy, talk to me!~ Ratchet stood in frustrated, impotent helplessness in the middle of his empty quarters.

No answer. No response. One minute he'd been dreaming dreams like he hadn't had in eons. The next Soundwave's fury had woken him out of heavy recharge.

:Blaster, wake up!: He commed the communications specialist.

:Yeah, what?: Blaster sounded half asleep. :Mm' off duty.:

:Ask Steeljaw if he knows what's going on. Soundwave feels like he's ready to kill someone and I can't get Frenzy to answer me!:

:Pit.: Blaster suddenly sounded like he'd fully booted all his processors. :Umm. Jaws says he doesn't know, but Frenzy's not answering his comms.:

Helplessly, Ratchet quivered with contained terror and fury of his own. He wanted to tear whatever had enraged his bondmate so badly to shreds.

:Jaws was recharging. He's heading up to the command deck to see what's going on now.:

:Frenzy was on the bridge?:

:Last he heard.: Blaster's response was curt. :Soundwave's not answering Steeljaw's texts, either.:

:Soundwave's conscious, he's just furious.: Ratchet had not realized that Soundwave was capable of such raw rage.

:At a guess, somebody messed with Frenzy.:

:Duh, Blaster.:

:If Frenzy was badly injured, you'd be picking up a lot more than just anger from Soundwave,: Blaster said, sounding a bit calmer. :He's probably just going all Mama Bear on someone. Won't be the first or last time you get the backlash - nothing pisses off a carrier worse than messing with someone they consider theirs.:

:He's just infuriated, not hurt,: Ratchet would have relaxed at that realization, except that he still couldn't sense Frenzy at all. Fury was a long way from the sort of angst he'd expect to feel if Frenzy had been injured badly. :But Frenzy's not answering.:

Terrified, Ratchet sat alone in the dark. He'd never felt more helpless in his life.