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Command Deck

"You got it, Ironhide," came Windcharger's cheery reply. He was more than happy to have a new task to get his attention away from the mundane chore of collating data. Not that he really minded learning about their new environment, but he was a warrior and he needed action to keep him satisfied. If left at a computer console too long, Windcharger had a tendancy to jump around the database reading miscellaneous bits of data. He didn't retain the information like Skids would, but he did have a knack for trivial information.

Switching his computer console to tracking mode, Windcharger used Teletraan's complex topographic imaging and tracking system to monitor exactly what was going on with the twins and Jazz. It took but a few astro-seconds to get a lock on the twins. According to Teletraan, Sideswipe engaged with what must be Laserbeak and Sunstreaker was leaving his brother behind. For some reason Jazz's energon signature was not showing up on Teletraan's projected map. Maybe I need to widen my search grid.

Punching a few buttons, Windcharger began the scan of the surrounding area but still had trouble gettng a lock on Jazz. Clearly, something was wrong here. It seemed there was some kind of interference keeping Teletraan from getting an accurate reading. Windcharger rested his chin in his hand has he pondered the situation, then turned to his commander. "Ironhide, I can't get a lock on Jazz. Something's wrong with Teletraan's readings. Let me send out Skyspy to get a closer look at what's going on.

U.S. Interstate Highway - Near Lake Erie

Smokescreen followed Bumblebee onto the nearby highway and headed north towards the large human settlement called Detroit where the border checkpoint was located. As he drove along, Lake Erie became the Detroit River, and Smokey took the opportunity to study the map that his yellow companion had transmitted to him. The minibot was always very thorough in anything his did and this time was no exception. The map was very detailed and gave them a clear visual guide as to where deploying the new equipment would give the Autobots maximum coverage of the northern shoreline. All they needed to do was scout the area to find the perfect spots. Furthermore, Smokey felt that deploying equipment on the numerous islands within the lake was a good idea, as well.

“You can never have too much coverage,” Smokey said to Bumblebee as the traffic ahead began to slow. “Putting sensors on those islands will really give us a complete view of our surroundings. Decepticons could easily hide on one of those islands and since they mostly fly, they’d be able to get to them without much trouble.” Traffic then came to a stand still and Smokescreen was forced to slam on his breaks coming within inches of Bumblebee’s rear bumper. The diversionary tactician scanned ahead and detected a virtual parking lot for several miles. “You weren’t kidding when you said it would take a while to cross the border.”

Great, I finally get out of the ship and now I’m stuck in wall-to-wall traffic, Smokey thought as he sat idling on the roadway. In an attempt to avoid more boredom, the red and blue mech decided to do a little research on crossing the border. Accessing the internet, he discovered that they would need more than a friendly smile to get into the northern nation called Canada.

“Bumblebee, I did some searching on the human 'net and found that we will need certain paper documents and metal currency in order to cross the border. Specifically, our avatars will need them. First, we’ll need photo IDs. A driver’s license should do the trick. But, we’ll also need passports along with a form of money called ‘tokens’. I’ve already found what these documents and tokens look like. Our holomatter emitters should have no problem generating them for us.” Smokescreen transmitted the images to the yellow minibot.

“Also, did you know that the border crossing up ahead is actually a tunnel that goes underwater?” Smokescreen informed Bumblebee. “It’s called the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and it connects the large human settlement that's ahead of us with another settlement called Windsor on the other side of the river. Once we’re across, it should be easy to follow the river south back to the lake where we can then commence scouting the northern shoreline.”

Ark-19 - Computer Labs

Trailbreaker took the cap-like device from Wheeljack and closely examined it as he listened to the inventor describe it’s function. The device appeared harmless enough and it was more of what ‘breaker was looking for than a complete reworking of his systems. And the black mech should have no problem attaching this to his fuel pump, himself. He wouldn’t require Ratchet’s assistance.

“Okay, ‘jack. I’ll give this a try and let you know how it works out.” Trailbreaker then thought for a moment. “But, I think I’ll wait until I’m called upon for a mission. That way I won’t wear it out just loitering around the ship. It won’t do me much good if that happens,” he said with a chuckle. “Thanks, Wheeljack. I appreciate the help.”

U.S. Interstate Highway, Near Lake Erie

After listening to Smokescreen describe the required documents and tokens, and where the road lead to Bumblebee would of smacked himself in the forehead if he were in robot mode. He had been so focused on the topography of the lake he had totally forgotten to look into what would be needed to get across the boarder. Thankfully Ironhide had ordered Smokescreen to come along and he was able to discover the required items he would need his holomater generator to produce. Still he felt somewhat embarrassed about the slip up.

"Thanks for that Smokescreen. That never even crossed my mind to look into that, good thing you had the instinct to check... it would of been a very awkward situation if I reached the check point without that bit of information." The yellow minibot said as he inched forward a little bit. He had anticipated a long delay at the check point, but it appeared he had under estimated the traffic. "Hmm, seems my estimations for the human traffic as well as the location where this road takes us were off. Looks like we are going to be delayed. Oh well... nothing we can do about that now."

Time seemed to crawl by for Bumblebee as he sat in traffic, inching forward ever few minutes. The poor minibot thought he might go into stasis lock after his long wait, but he couldn't think of anyway out of the situation without risking blowing his cover. He wondered how the humans themselves could deal with it, and why two nations who were supposedly friendly towards each other could require such a strain. However, despite his irritation with waiting eventually he reach the check point.

"That is a good point about the islands Smokescreen and that is one I have considered myself. They would be excellent staging areas for Decepticon staging areas for air raids and recon missions. Also I a little worried that humans might be using them as well to try and find us. I know it sounds unlikely, but considering how many groups are obsessed with potential off world activity I am worried someone might have taken notice of us in some way. So I plan on placing observation devices on a few key islands that will let us to keep an eye on the rest of them.

A somewhat grumpy looking uniformed human male was waiting for him and asked to see the documentation Smokescreen had informed him of. His avatar presented the generated documents to the officer he studied them carefully. For a few nanoseconds Bumblebee was worried he had not generated the proper documentation as the officer seemed to be very carefully studying the information and then looked back at his sweetly smiling avatar. Though eventually he was allowed to pay the tokens and move on, but not before his audio receptors heard a conversation between two officers about the possibility of inspecting his vehicle mode. Fortunately they decided it was not needed.

"I can't slow down to wait for you Smokescreen," Bumblebee said as he drove away from the check point and towards the tunnel. "if I get to far ahead I'll find some place to wait for you on the other side of the tunnel."

Bumblebee soon was descending the road into the underwater tunnel as he kept an optic out on his rear sensors to watch his comrade for as long as he could.

Computer Lab

"It's not problem Trailbreaker, I try to help out as best I can, and that seems to be with cooking up little gizmos like that." He said gesturing towards the little cap held in the black Autobot's hand. "And keeping you in the field longer is always a good way to help out the team and keep to really through a wrench in the Decepticon works." The inventor said as he turned back to face his work station. "Though it is looking like I got work piling up."

Wheeljack now had at least two projects that he had to work on right away, and he always had a number of things on the back burner. He looked through his computer files to see what projects he had going on at the moment and began to organize them in order of priority. He placed repairing the frequency device for Skids and the new fuel caps for Trailbreaker at the top of least. Though that meant he had to bump down the new tracking systems and gyrojets for his own shells down.

He turned back to the damaged device he had set aside for Skids and began to work again on replacing the components that had burned out. It took him sometime to get a new device repaired, but in order to insure that it would work under the weight of the human com traffic he had to reduce its efficiency. Once done he stood up and walked over to where Skids was sitting and presented the repaired device.

"Here you go Skids. I repaired the damaged parts and modified the systems to work under the conditions Earth presents. But this means that it is only working at about 75% capacity, and might go down even further to compensate for higher volumes of communication traffic in order to prevent it from burning out again. I hope that helps."

Computer Lab

"Thank you, Wheeljack." Skids took the device back gratefully. "Don't worry about the reduced capacity... like I said, it's still a great improvement. Besides, I probably was really watching too many signals at once to pay real attention to..."

He set the device back on his station and brooded for a bit as it readjusted the signals again. The more that Jazz's mission was mentioned, the more curious he was about what was going on... he always found it hard to resist finding out some potentially interesting bit of information. A thought struck him as he killed some time fiddling with the controls.

"Wheeljack? How well can this device clean up signals, precisely? Well enough to pick up signals from the humans' personal transmitters?" Usually only the humans' stronger transmissions could be picked up with any clarity by their receiver, but it was worth asking now that things had been altered...

Computer Lab

Still hunched over his desk, working away on his project for Trailbreaker Wheeljack kept one audio receptor turned to Skids. As the other Autobot talked the inventor still focused on the task he had set before and worked away as he assembled the components he needed for the fuel regulator cap that Trailbreaker had requested. Although not large, it was a surprisingly complex piece of work as it was needed to interface with the fuel systems of a 'Bot and to alter the rate at which fuel flowed. Wheeljack was still concerned that the current design of the cap was not sturdy enough to keep working under intense environments such as a combat, and given that each cap was not usable once they burned out was also a drain on resources. Although he had problems working out the later of those faults he had never considered designing one for use in the field for a mech like Trailbreaker. However, he was working on a small supply to be used by the black Autobot in the mean time until he could work out those two problems. Though he figured he would only get the chance once he saw how well the cap worked under the conditions a mission would place on it.

"Well it is not really designed to enhance the reception of certain frequencies, instead the regulator was meant to shift through all those transmissions coming in and better help you review them. My concern with frequency is more related to the extra output given off by the device as it alters the way the receiver receives transmissions. So it can't help you there." Wheeljack told Skids without looking up from his work. "But if you like once I get this work out of the way for Trailbreaker I can see what I can do about working up a better receiver for you. Though I might have to run it by Bumblebee before we activate or test it. He might have to take a look at it first to make sure it would make our own communication traffic detectable to the humans."

Border Checkpoint

After what seemed like a million stellar cycles, Smokescreen had finally reached the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. He never realized before that he was capable of going so slow, but he had done it. Five miles per hour; Must be a record for me, he thought to himself, as Bumblebee made it through the checkpoint with little difficulty. Smokey then pulled forward and stopped next to the same uniformed human male who had just verified the minibot’s credentials.

With a wide smile on his face, Smokescreen’s avatar presented his “passport”, “driver’s license” and one “token” to the man. Like with Bumblebee, the human studied them carefully, looking back and forth several times at the holo-driver and then at the documents. The man then took a small step backwards, allowing his eyes to gaze at the side of Smokescreen, himself, before leaning in towards the artificial person behind the wheel.

“Nice custom job,” the human commented plainly. “You a racing fan?”

Smokey considered his answer carefully before responding. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing and risk exposing himself. “Thank you and yes, I am a racing fan.”

“So am I,” the human replied as he handed the credentials back to the avatar. “Enjoy your stay in Canada.” And with that, the uniformed man waved Smokescreen through the checkpoint.

The diversionary tactician then sped away, descending towards the tunnel, finally able to drive faster than a cyber snail. It soon dawned on the red and blue mech that once he and Bumblebee had driven far enough away from the checkpoint, the holo-tokens they had given the human would vanish. Of course, by the time anyone noticed this, the Autobots would be long gone. Astroseconds later, Smokescreen entered the tunnel and quickly caught up to Bumblebee.

Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

If he could breath Bumblebee would of just released a long held breath as he saw Smokescreen catch up to him. The minibot was greatly concerned that one of them would have been subjected to an extensive search by the human boarder guards. He wasn't sure what the humans would of done to search their vehicle forms, but he was certain they would have discovered that the two Autobots were certainly not regular human vehicles. He made a note to himself to pass along this information to the others once his current mission was finished. It might be very important in the future for the other Autobot's to keep in mind the proper procedures for passing a human boarder crossing.

"Well that was certainly close Smokescreen. I was worried there for a few nanoseconds that we were going to be stopped and searched. If that happened I wasn't sure what was happening." He yellow 'Bot said to his racing car disguised companion as they reached the exit of the tunnel. "Alright, once we are on the other side of the tunnel we will head east along the coast and drop our gear at these points."

Bumblebee sent Smokescreen an updated version of the map, marked with their destinations. Once out of the tunnel Bumblebee took the first road heading for Lake Erie.

Computer Lab

Skids looks slightly crestfallen at Wheeljack's clarification. "Ah, I see. Well..." He ponders. "If you wanted to work on it later, I would appreciate it. I would think perhaps Bumblebee might find it handy as well in some cases. I mean, news feeds are good for finding things out after they already happened, but personal transmissions from witnesses might help with what's currently happening."

Computer Lab

Flicking through his computer files to see what he currently had available to him to produce the needed gadgets to help out Trailbreaker, Wheeljack kept and audio receptor turned to Skids. Although he liked the other 'Bot, Wheeljack thought to himself that Skids spent way to much time down here in the lab, so far the other 'Bot hadn't left all cycle. However, like Wheeljack he probably got caught up in his work, Primus knows the inventor had spent very long periods of times without speaking to another mech just working away on some new weapon or gizmo. In that way he figured the two were more alike, which might explain why they got along so well, sort of kindred sparks.

"Well, I don't think I could improve on that device anymore then I already have. It would require something more powerful then that, and larger, to get what you are looking for. Earth is just way to overloaded on communication traffic to get something small and simple to work." Wheeljack offered a shrug. "Now, I can work on that once I get some spare time from these other projects, but given our security requirements I'm not sure if I could build something that wouldn't risk overloading our encryption programs."

Wheeljack sat up and thought for a moment, pondering something to tell Skids, he wanted to help the anthropologist, but in order to something working along the lines that he wanted would take more then just a simple tweak of an existing piece of equipment. He leaned forward and began working on something on his computer, working up specs for something and then transferring it to a data pad he had lying on his desk.

"Well Skids I think I can more then likely build you something to suit your needs, but it is going to be more complicated then what you need. The problem is like I said before, Earth is just to overloaded with communications traffic to get something simple to work. We need something bigger, and it will take time to create, it will also need Ironhide's approval. See, my primary concern is that in order to get the signal strength that it want might weaken our own ships encryption programs, obviously leaving us open to detection." He picked up the datapad and passed it to Skids.

"If you want to run it by Ironhide here is a list of the equipment I need, nothing fancy or special, but not exactly stuff I have lying around my workshop. I have also included an explanation of how this machine will work. Basically it will send out a receiver pulse at pre-designated intervals until the gap between pulses is lengthened or shortened or deactivated by the operator. This pulse will essentially download every communication signal it can detect in about half an Earth solar-cycle. Though in order to get his to work the pulse will be incredibly strong in its signal intensity, so much so that I am uncertain if our encryption programs will be able to keep it hidden. Additional considering how much data that pulse will collect and download to us the link to the ship will also be very strong."

Wheeljack turned back to his own work station and began to tinker with Trailbreaker's fuel caps again.

"I can build it, and I am confident that the humans might not be able to detect signals with the sophistication of ours as I don't know what sort of equipment they have. My concerns are the Decepticon's detecting us, since a output of that intensity will be detected by them. Though I am not sure if they will be able to trace it back to us, though if they have some good over there looking for that sort of stuff they will certainly be able to track us down. Sorry I can't do better then that Skids, but that is all I can do at the moment."

Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

The deafening roar of car engines echoed around him as Smokescreen sped through the tunnel towards the Canadian side. He followed closely behind Bumblebee and only exceeded the posted speed limit when his minibot superior did so. Otherwise, he maintained a constant speed that would not attract any unwanted human attention. This was very hard for Smokey to do, especially after crawling along at a near standstill for hours. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to zoom at top speed down the highway, feeling the air passing over his sleek form and leaving all others in his dust.

Unfortunately, Smokescreen could not do that, not with Bumblebee around. Primus knows that his little yellow companion would probably inform Ironhide if Smokey got out of line and broke any traffic laws. Then the red and blue mech would end up in the brig for sure. I’ve got to ditch him somehow, Smokescreen thought, If only for a little while. I’ve got to run off some of this pent up energy.

Then the diversionary expert received the latest version of the map showing where Bumblebee wanted to set up the new equipment. There were almost a dozen locations spread evenly across the entire northern shoreline of Lake Erie. Each would only take approximately a half-cycle to properly set up and calibrate. Factoring in the time allotted to transverse the distance between locations, Smokey calculated that the job should take no more than ten cycles maximum. Of course, at the rate Smokey drives, he could have it done in half the time if only he was alone. Then the racing ‘bot thought for a moment, an idea generating in his processors. That’s it!

“Hey Bumblebee, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we split up when deploying the sensors? We could cover more ground that way and get the job done in half the time.” Of course, Smokey really didn’t care about completing the mission faster. The longer he was outside the Ark the better. He just wanted some alone time so he could let loose and go for a real joyride. “If you want, you could take the western half of the northern shoreline while I drive ahead and handle the eastern half. We can start deploying the observation equipment at either end of the lake and then make our way towards one another until we meet somewhere in the middle. Then we can head on out to those islands you were talking about. Sound good?”

As the diversionary tactician finished his sentence, he exited the tunnel in Windsor, Ontario and took the first road that followed the Detroit River back to Lake Erie. Hopefully, his plan would work and Bumblebee would agree to let Smokescreen on his own for a short while.

Ark-19 - Hallways

Having just exited the labs, Trailbreaker strolled down the corridor examining the capping device he had just received from Wheeljack. I hope this thing works, the black mech thought to himself. He knew that Wheeljack didn’t always have success with his inventions and they more often than not tended to short out or even explode. Although, he didn’t foresee something like that happening with a simple device such as a fuel cap. At worst, it would simply stop working or burn out if overused. But, then again, you could never really tell with one of ‘jack’s gadgets.

Placing the device into subspace storage until it was needed, Trailbreaker headed for the ship’s Armory, where he had an important task to do. As the defensive strategist, one of ‘breaker’s duties was to take inventory of the Autobots’ weapons cache on a regular cycle to ensure that his comrades had enough firepower to protect themselves when out on a mission. It would do them no good if they ran out of ammunition in the heat of battle or if they didn’t have enough functioning weapons to adequately defend themselves.

Ark-19 - Armory

Entering the Armory, Trailbreaker pulled out a data pad and immediately began the slow process of taking a detailed inventory of every weapon, warhead and laser cartridge that was stored within. It was a tedious job to be sure, but a necessary duty that ‘breaker took very seriously.