"What are your opinions on Uraya?"
"That it was a shit hole even before the war." Jazz replied.
With the Decepticons now clearly aware of the locations of both the Ark and their MacCadam's base, Optimus had understandably decided that the Autobots needed to find a safer place to call home.
Which was why Jazz was currently sitting opposite Prowl in the Head Tactician's office, a holomap of Cybertron projected on the desk between them with most of the cities being covered with big red crosses.
They had been debating over locations for so long that Jazz had nearly finished his army of tiny replicas of high command out of scraps of metal.
Thankfully as long as Jazz stayed on topic and didn't wreck his office, then Prowl put up with it.
"Polyhex?" Prowl suggested.
Jazz snorted as he twisted the top of Scrap-Prowl's head into its signature chevron points.
"As much as my old home town will always hold a special space in my spark, it was a city state through and through. Even in ruins there ain't enough space to park the Ark."
Jazz may have been omitting certain details about why he personally didn't want to go back to the place he had once run away from, but that didn't mean that his words weren't true.
For similar reasons, he wasn't even going to entertain the idea of suggesting Praxus to the former Praxian enforcer.
"Whattdya think about Iacon?" Jazz asked, changing the topic.
"It is well fortified and has the most remaining structures of any city left on the planet. However, as the previous capital for the Autobots, I fear it would be too obvious a location."
"The Deceptions could think it's a double bluff?" Jazz suggested, putting his feet up on Prowl's desk.
Prowl promptly batted them away.
"I will not be risking the safety of our faction on a bluff."
"Fair enough." Jazz shrugged, adding his now completed Scrap-Prowl to the line of sculptures standing to attention on Prowl's desk. "What about Kalis? The Ark should fit inside the arena."
Polyhex might've been known for its music, but Kallis was the real entertainment centre of the planet, home to the largest stadium on Cybertron which held the World Cube Championship every year. One of the few wonders of the world left standing.
"It would provide some protection." Prowl considered. "Unfortunately the construction was designed with quantity of seats of quality of fortification in mind. It would not be a suitable long term base. However-"
Jazz watched as Prowl zoomed in on Kallis.
"- Kalis' docks would easily provide enough space to hoke the Ark, with the remains if the city providing cover to the East whilst the Rust Sea would provide natural protection from the West."
"Looks like we've got a winner." Jazz grinned, glad that they had finally found themselves some new digs.
As Prowl started arguing that he still needed to run a few thousand simulations before he could confirm that Kalis' Docks really were their best choice, Jazz checked the time on his wrist screen. It was late, most bots would be in recharge by now and Red Alert's shift had finally finished meaning that there was a next to zero chance of random room inspections.
Absent-mindedly nodding along to Prowl's points, Jazz stood up out of the chair. He then slowly made his way around to Prowl's side of the desk, trailing his hand under the rim as he did so, thankfully finding no listening devices.
Jazz folded his arms and leaned against the edge of the desk, careful not to jostle any of his sculptures To any observing eye he would appear the picture of casualties.
He looked down at Prowl's face, a chiselled picture of focus which he could never capture the beauty of in a piece of scrap. As someone with an often erratic attention span, even when he once hated the guy's spark, Jazz had always admired Prowl's ability to put his entire being into focusing to complete a task.
Jazz hated to ruin such a sight but he needed to get what he was about to say off his chest.
"Hey mech, I got something to tell ya." Jazz said, his tone as casual as if he was asking the weather.
"Then say it." Prowl said, those piercing blue eyes giving him his full attention.
Jazz took a deep breathe. There would be no taking this back once it was out in the open.
"I think we've got a spy."
Jazz watched in trepidation whilst Prowl considered the bombshell for a moment. Then in the next that familiar calculating blank look vanished as the bot nodded.
"Yes, my calculations have come to the same conclusion."
Jazz let out a vent he didn't realise he'd been holding. Although with a brain as big as Prowl's he should have known that the tactician would already have had similar thoughts.
"Have you told anyone else of your suspicions?" Prowl asked.
Jazz shook his head.
"I ain't got enough proof to go to Optimus or Red Alert yet."
"Then why are you telling me?" Prowl asked, once again those brilliant blue eyes giving him his full attention.
"Because I trust you."
Prowl blinked, his optics flickering as they ran yet another set of calculations. This time they didn't appear to have come to any conclusions. At least one that they didn't share with Jazz. And well Jazz was a spy after all so he wasn't going to hold keeping secrets against the tactician.
"Do you have any suspects?" Prowl said eventually.
Jazz shrugged.
"All I can tell is that they know the current location of the Ark, which so far narrows to down to everybody on base."
"What about the circumstances of apparent self destruction of Head of Communications at the MacCadam's base?"
"I don't know Elita's crew well enough the narrow down anyone specific. And most of them know our location too so that doesn't help much either."
At this late, or rather early hour, the darkness of the room pretty easily captured the downer mood.
However, even in the dim light of the projection, Jazz could see the dark purple undersides of Prowl's optics that marred his usually handsome face.
"Well, looks like its time to hit the sack." Jazz said with an exaggerated yawn.
"I'll just finish-"
"Oh no," Jazz protested. "We need your big brain firing on all cylinders tomorrow if we want to convince Optimus that Kalis is our best bet. Besides-"
Jazz leaned over the tactician, their helms so close that he could see the reflection of his grin in those bright blue eyes.
"Even if you worked all through the night, you would to need my persuasive pizzaz to win him over."
For a long time, Prowl refused to speak, which meant that he refused to admit that his calculations had shown Jazz to be correct.
"Fine." Prowl conceded through gritted denta. "As long as we can work on this first thing tomorrow."
Jazz gave him a cheeky salute.
"Yessir!"
A/N: So sorry! I think this is the longest I have gone between updates for this fic! But I did post a bonus one-shot about Optimus and Bumblebee in this series called Connect This Space Between if you're interested in checking that out! And from now on we should be back to our regularly scheduled updates! Xxxxxxx
To anastasiavankova2: Thanks for your review! I hope you enjoy the new chapter! Xxxxxx
