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Why do we all enjoy messing with Prowl then leaving it at a cliffhanger? ::sigh...patiently awaits next update:: ^_^

A/N Sorry for the delay folks been having computer problems. Hope you enjoy the latest update.

****

Inside:

“Take me to Prowl, Ironhide.”

“What?”

“I am armed with a null ray, it will temporarily paralyze him. It works in a similar way to a sensor block but at full strength would render him offline… dead.”

“Ratchet says he needs to stay online.”

“You did not let me finish, impatient Autobot,” Starscream spat the word as though it were the vilest insult he could summon. “His systems will be temporarily surged, but online. Unlike Barricade.”

“Can this work?”

“You seem open to ideas. It is an idea. I merely suggest it because his screeching is eating into my cortex.”

“He’s in front of you.”

“Point my left arm.”

Ironhide obeyed immediately. Aiming the weapon at Prowl, whose frame was wracked by spasms. Starscream paused, cycling down the power on his null ray to a mere ten percent, and fired. Prowl fell limp. They waited what felt like an age before Prowl’s optics came back on line. They flickered intermittently.

“Prowl?” Ironhide knelt gingerly beside him, allowing Starscream to rest his hand on his shoulder for balance. Prowl blinked his voice was barely a whisper.

“Ship… is … safe….virus… eliminated.”

“Not from you, you glitch-headed moron.” Starscream inclined his head slightly as the unfamiliar note of concern in Ironhide’s voice.

“Didn’t… know… you… you cared… so… m…much…”

Ironhide grunted in derision. “Don’t flatter yourself need the maps.”

The ghost of a smile crossed Prowl’s face. Starscream lowered himself slowly besides Ironhide.

“You are infected?”

“I… I am… counter… acting… effects…it’s painful… thank y...you… for null ray….”

Starscream’s face betrayed nothing. “I would have been most displeased to have been left here with just Ironhide and the humans and an unconscious Barricade. Should you have offlined I would have viewed it as most inconsiderate of you.”

Ironhide stifled a chuckle as he leaned over the still twitching Prowl. “See told you he liked you.”

“Though he is preferable to, say, YOU, that is decidedly untrue. Additionally, it is unwise to be stating such things that may cause Prowl to pass out again.”

“Got a… point.” Prowl tensed and without any warning his optics went black.

“Prowl. Prowl?” Ironhide yelled.

“It appears my warning was too late,” Starscream mused. The comm. line buzzed again.

Optimus’s deep voice filled the cave. “Sideswipe has reported that he has regained control of the Ark, he is going to have to perform an emergency landing, but we will all have a way off the surface, once Soundwave has been contained. Well done, Prowl.”

“I am afraid that he will be unable to bask in the glow of your praise, Prime. Judging from Ironhide’s silence, I believe things have taken a turn for the worse. And thank you once again for ignoring the considerable Decepticon contribution to this effort.”

“What’s happened?” Ratchet cut in.

Ironhide answered his voice cracking with concern. “Prowl’s gone into fraggin’ stasis lock.”

*****

Nadya was by Ironhide’s side as the big mech looked more worried than she’d ever seen him.

“What’s stasis lock?” Stokes spoke up as Ironhide swore for the third time loudly causing the human’s to wince.

“It’s where his body shuts down to try and conserve his energy so his spark can be protected.” Ironhide tried to explain.

“Like a coma?” Nadya asked calmly.

“Very similar, except if he stays like that too long, he will die; his spark can’t function like that for long.”

“Slag it all! What do I do?” Ironhide cursed to himself frustrated.

Nadya frowned, the comm. had cut off once again so they were without the aid of the medic on the surface. She thought quickly, their systems required energy, all of their systems used liquid energon that kept their bodies functioning. “I’ve got an idea!”

Ironhide stared at her. “What the slag can you do? You’re a fraggin’ human!”

“Nice, thanks no need to be rude. First of all you need to calm the hell down, I can’t help you when you go into a blind panic.”

“I’m not panicking.” Ironhide growled through clenched dentals.

“Stokes, I need your help. Ironhide’s hands are too big. Do you have a sharp tool?”

“We have a crow bar,” Stokes offered.

“That’ll do.” She looked at Ironhide. “Right I need to open his chest to get to his spark chamber.”

“Why?”

“Your bodies run on energon, he needs energy, the only way I can think of is a transfusion, giving him someone elses energon. Not all of it just enough to get his body back up and running until we can get to the surface, I mean he still has his own supply but the virus has probably messed some of it up right, hence the coma, I mean stasis lock.”

Ironhide opened his mouth and frowned. “My knowledge is limited but… but that might work.”

“Try not to sound too surprised.” Nadya frowned.

Ironhide lowered his hand and lifted Stokes onto Prowl’s chest. “There is a manual release for the spark chamber located beneath a small circular panel, normally only medics can access it, which is why it’s so small, you need to take it off.” Stokes searched briefly before dropping to his knees and lowering the crow bar. “It’s not getting in I can’t get a grip on the panel.” He strained as the metal bar slid off for a third time and scratched along the tactician’s chassis. “Ooohh sorry.” He winced.

“You’ll have to be aggressive, dig it in.”

Stokes gave a worried look to Ironhide, who nodded once. Standing he struck the panel sharply putting his weight behind it. The panel screeched and slowly bent out of place. Ironhide lifted the damaged panel clean off the frame.

“Alright he’s done it. Now what?” Ironhide looked expectantly at Nadya.

“You’re the robot I just came up with the idea.” She stammered slightly.

Ironhide shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know how to start a transfusion; I’m a weapons specialist not a doctor.”

“Oh uumm Ok then. Someone needs to get into his chest and find the in feed for the energon supplying his spark chamber.” She paused as both Stokes and Ironhide looked at her.

“Someone needs to open it the release is in that small hole.” Ironhide pointed.

“Oh right I’m the only one small enough.” Nadya muttered to herself. “Great, just great Nadya why’d you get yourself into this?” She was already climbing up on the chest before Ironhide could offer his hand, her soft Russian voice cursing viciously. Stokes lowered her down into the narrow chamber slowly. It was a cramped fit.

“What am I looking for?”

“A small catch, possibly just a recessed part of the armour plating.”

Nadya felt around the small chamber, her fingers brushed again something rough, she pushed hard. A faint click could be heard and the metallic scrape of armour plates sliding against each other sounded over her head.

“Whoa!” Nadya yelled as Stokes hauled her out of the small hole just as armour closed over the opening. The humans stared down at the gaping, glowing, blue hole in Prowl’s chest. His spark was pulsing weakly. Soft heat emanated from its core as energon fed into it.

“Wow.” Stokes mouthed in awe.

Nadya took a deep breath then took control of the situation. “Ironhide, he needs a transfusion of energy to help his systems reboot. Can you do it? Do you have enough?” She commanded.

Nadya worked at the connectors, pulling them gently to release them from the arm now resting next to Prowl’s spark chamber. Stokes had been lowered into the chamber itself and was busily unlatching in feed lines.

“Gah!!” He cried out as one of the lines split, covering his suit with darkened, virus-riddled energon.

“What… what is it?” Ironhide snapped peering down. His optics narrowed at the dark stain, letting out a soft growl.

“I am guessing it’s not supposed to look like this?!” Stokes shouted up from the chamber. His visor reflecting the blue glow, rendering his face unreadable.

“No, work quickly.”

Nadya lowered the connector cables from the offered arm. Stokes grabbed them as Nadya jumped down beside him. Kneeling she began to knit the ends of the cables together. Ironhide pressed one finger against the main in feed line to stow the flow of energon.

“Is it done yet?” Ironhide mumbled as he peered at the two humans wriggling around inside Prowl’s chest.

“No and if you don’t quit asking me it never will be!” Nadya snapped as her hands slipped against the energon slick cable. “Dammit!”

He grimaced as she tripped over a wire, knowing just how sensitive it was. “Prowl is not going to be happy about this be surprised if it doesn’t make him glitch.” He growled softly to himself.

“Would you shut the hell up for a minute?!” Nadya shouted from inside the spark chamber, her anger flaring as she connected the first cable

Ironhide shook his head in disbelief. Stokes frowned. “Why are you smirking?”

“She’s the human version of Ratchet.”

“There got it! Release now!”

Nadya stood back as energon began flowing into Prowl’s spark chamber. The spark flickered faintly before glowing white and hot. Its pulses’ growing stronger as the transfusion was successful.

“She did it!” Ironhide smiled, leaning over the mech as he slowly began to come back online.

“Don’t try to move.” He spoke softly, much gentler than the humans were used to hearing from the gruff, angry ‘bot.

“W…what… happened?” His head lifted slightly and his optics stared at his open spark chamber. “W…why am I … on dis… display?” Prowl’s voice was hoarse, weak and barely audible.

“You stasis locked you Primus cursed glitch having to do a transfusion of energon so don’t move until I give the word.” The weapons specialist chuckled lightly. “In this exposed state you risk either one of the ‘cons pouncing on you.”

Prowl’s optics rolled and he groaned faintly in response, dropping his head back onto the floor with a faint clang as his spark grew stronger.

Clever, clever Nadya! Very good chapter. ^_^

Amazing fanfic. Both of you are brilliant authours, and I hope you keep working together to make more fanfics this good.

It's Friday: have some Cave In.

Inside:

Starscream leaned back against the stone of the cave, one hand idly coming up to stroke Barricade’s head, draped across his broad shoulders. He could hear the two humans scamper around the fallen Prowl, trying to assist Ironhide. He would let no one near Barricade until the smaller mech on lined. For both their sakes. If the reboot had been unsuccessful in clearing Barricade’s hallucinations, he would be a terror to anyone around him. “I regret,” he whispered, “volunteering you for this mission. And for using your display to find Dead End.” He did a tally: Dead End, down. Barricade, down. Blackout?

He hit the comm., switching to subvoc. “Blackout?”

Blackout’s voice was shaky. “Starscream?”

“You are functional.” Hard to keep the relief from his voice.

“Freq mod is crispy. But yeah.” A hesitation. “And I purged. A lot. It was…really…colorful.”

“Please, Blackout, spare me the visual descriptions.” His own tank felt a little unsettled.

“Starscream?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell Barricade I volunteered my comm. for this, okay?”

“If you do not tell him that I had the chance to blow Prowl’s head off, assisted by Ironhide, and passed it up.”

“Ooohh, he’s gonna be mad when he hears that.”

“Hears what?” A thin, staticky voice, but unmistakably Barricade’s.

Blackout burst into a string of panicked syllables. Starscream talked over him. “Merely hear how much fun you have missed.”

“Figures. Wait ‘til I’m gone to have fun. Frag the two of you.” Barricade stirred across the back of Starscream’s neck. A soft yelp.

“Has the reboot helped?”

“Yeah. Fine. Except your damn engine mount reinforcement’s got me right in the—“ A pause. Barricade’s weight shifted across the jet’s shoulders. “Pretty sure I don’t want to know this, but…. How are we all talking?”

“We’re all dead and in the Pit,” Blackout suggested. “That would pretty much describe my day.”

“No,” Barricade said. “For this to be eternal torment that obnoxious Autobot Ironhide would have to—oh slag. There he is.” Starscream felt Barricade’s head move. His optics were probably cycling online. “Right. So we’re dead.”

“Actually,” Starscream said, “One of the humans wired our comm. together.”

“One of the—you mean you let them TOUCH me? When I was out?!” The hands moved weakly, trying to throttle the jet.

“Barricade, stop trying to kill me, please. It was necessary.”

“’M gonna soak in nondilute cleanser for a decacycle,” Barricade muttered. “So, I take it we’re still stuck. Why’s Prowl playing floormat?”

“He went into stasis lock.”

“There’s a story behind this you don’t want me to know, isn’t there?”

“Not at all. It is merely a very boring story.”

“Blackout, your story boring too?”

“Uhhh, even more boring. I purged though,” he said, desperately. “It was gross. Colors I didn’t know I had in me. Seriously.”

“Blackout!” Starscream barked.

Barricade snorted. “This is gonna make a hell of an entry in the mission log: Blackout barfed a rainbow of delights. Barricade has become the Seeker’s newest fashion accessory. And Starscream apparently blew Prowl right into stasis lock with his sexy charms.”

“Don’t forget Dead End,” Blackout said.

“Who?” Starscream and Barricade chorused and fell laughing. Barricade struggled to sit up, still laughing. “All right, jetboy. Time to put your mink stole down.”

“I shall lean back and you may climb off my engines. Hold on.” The jet inched his body forward, tilting his back against the wall of the tunnel until he was almost supine. Barricade climbed off, holding the thin wire to his audio as the jet said, excitedly, “Barricade!”

“What! I’m right fraggin’ here!”

He felt the jet’s hand reach out to pat him. “Yes, I know, but I have realized something.”

“Uh oh,” Blackout said. “A confession of undying love between two comrades stuck in a hopeless situation? I think I saw that on an episode of Seeker Cadets.”

“No! I am serious. This wall has been smooth-bored.”

“Oh, insert ‘bored’ joke here.”

“Barricade, you are not listening to me. Having felt an unpleasant amount of this mine with my hands, I can tell you that most of the interior has a very rough surface—where they discovered viable Neptunium and mined the sidewalls to get at it. This is smooth. Which means….”

“There’s no Neptunium here!”

“Uhhh, yay?” Blackout said.

“It means, oh rotor glitch that we can possibly blow a hole to the surface without blowing up half the fraggin’ moon as a bonus.”

“Oh. Yay!”

Oooh, Starscream! ::gushes in total fangirliness:: My hero!

Ark:

Sideswipe gripped the sides of the console as the ship shook violently, threatening to rip itself apart at the seams. He growled loudly as if willing the ship to obey him.

"Come on! You piece of slaggin' pit-cursed glitching excuse for a ship!" His voice bellowed across the Ark. They bucked as they hit the lower atmosphere, careening out of control.

"Cursing will not save your spark, Autobot." Soundwave uttered nonchalantly, Rumble sniggering in agreement.

Sideswipe snarled his optics flicking over the prone 'con. "Cursing might just save yours, 'con. So unless you can fly the Primus-damned ship with your freaky 'con brain... Shut up!"

Sideswipe returned to trying to regain control of the ship, the virus still raging through its systems. "Come on, Prowl." Sideswipe urged, having been informed of the plan on the surface. "Show me what that freakishly boring, scary, slaggin' logic-riddled cortex of yours can do."

He winced as the ship plummeted sharply. A whining pierced his audios from Teletraan and without warning multiple consoles exploded in a shower of sparks.

Sideswipe found himself on his back, again. This was getting to be a bad habit. A shadow loomed over him he froze in mid-crouch.

“Soundwave… what are you doing?” He stood slowly as the ‘con limped over to the console and snake-like tendrils shot out of his arm. His cracked visor revealed on red optic as he glanced at Sideswipe, who took a threatening step forward his weapon now in hand.

“I am attempting to use my… freaky… ‘con brain…to fly the ship as requested. In order to help you land it.”

“What…? Why… why would you do that…? You were the one who put your fraggin’ virus in there in the first place!”

Rumble pounced onto the console frowning. “I am confused… ‘Wave, why are you helping?”

Soundwave let out a faint sigh of frustration as his tendrils made contact with the console. He twitched and his deep, gravelly voice sounded distant.

“It would be highly illogical for me to allow the ship to crash, off lining myself along with you.” His optic narrowed at the Autobot.

“Are your limbs malfunctioning, Autobot? The ship requires landing gear to be deployed.”

Sideswipe jumped into action. “Yeah…sure.” He mumbled. “And could you do me a favour?”

“Unlikely.”

“Please stop sounding like Prowl there’s only so much logic a mech can handle in his lifetime!”

“Your request is… illogical.”

Sideswipe rolled his optics. “Landing gear is out. Taking us down…”

Rumble sat clicking his fingers distractedly. : Soundwave, I don’t understand I thought Megatron’s orders were…:

: I am well aware of our orders, Rumble; please try not to concern yourself. We do not want to crash and the nanovirus can be reprogrammed for much more efficient uses.:

: What are you planning?:

: I do not wish to spoil the surprise.:

Rumble glanced up at his guardian frowning, his optics widening as Soundwave’s visible optic gave him a subtle wink.

The ship shook violently as they approached the surface fast… too fast.

“Need to decrease speed… we’re coming in too low this is going to be bu…Uuunnngghh!!” Sideswipe grunted as his chest bounced off the console. Soundwave managed to brace himself as the ship slammed into the moon.

Dust and rocks were sent scattering in the wake of the ship as it carved a deep groove along the surface of the moon, grey cloud of debris coated the ship as it skidded along the ground, landing struts shattering upon a second impact as it bounced along the uneven rocky surface.

Alarms and smoke filled the bridge of the Ark. Sideswipe worked the controls as fast as he was able, while on his knees having been knocked to the floor by the impact. Even Soundwave clawed onto the console, looking rather undignified. The viewer showed a large mass of grey-black rock accelerating towards them. The ship whined and screeched as it slowed painfully. The massive shape was coming at them faster than Sideswipe could adjust. His optics stared at the viewer.

“Oh slag!”

The ship rocketed into the side of the mountain with a deafening crunch of metal, debris and rock showered the Ark as it came to a screeching halt causing a miniature landslide to come raining down on the shields.

On the bridge, lights flickered back on. Sideswipe groaned, picking himself up off the floor. He glanced around at the superficial damage and checked that the main console was still functioning; the ship was still space-worthy much to Soundwave’s quiet astonishment. Sideswipe did a celebratory jig on the spot.

“Damn, I’m good!” he gloated as Soundwave stared at him incredulously, removing his wiry tendrils from the console. The Decepticon’s optics flickered unnoticeably as his cortex deftly altered the nanovirus programming just prior to retrieving his connectors.

Deep underground of the small moon a small package of nanovirus was siphoned into Prowl’s cortex. The mech fitted violently as the already-attacking virus wrought new havoc with his systems.

The dormant package slipped by his weakened firewalls unnoticed as the tactician fell into stasis lock. Lodged deep in Prowl’s CPU the nanovirus deployed onto neural pathways and there it remained, unthreatening, dormant.

CP lost her computer for a while so...updateage has suffered. Damn real life. Anyway, Blackout experiences barfing.



Surface:

“Well?” Blackout turned to Optimus. “What do we do? Go to the crash site or go to help get our guys out from the tunnel?” Ratchet stared openmouthed at the copter. Blackout glared at him. “What? He wants to be Mr Bigshot Leader? Let’s see his chops.”

Ratchet opened his mouth to argue, but Optimus cut him off with a gesture. “Blackout is right, Ratchet. We have two vital priorities right now. And there are only the four of us.”

“Oh no,” Blackout said. “Do not dare say what I think you’re going to say, Autobot.” He wasn’t sure he liked being brought in as one of the ‘four’. He really wasn’t a team guy. Well, not this team. There was no ‘blackout’ in ‘team’. Though they both had an ‘a’. Wait, this train of thought was getting him confused. Damn crispy freq mod.

“What?” Ratchet said, “About time you contributed something useful.”

“Useful!? I purged! Three times! Did you see it? The puddle was bigger than Beelzebee over there!”

“How is that useful?” Ratchet smirked.

“It was GROSS! It happened because I was helping you glitching mechs get your ship back. From MY guy.”

Bee subvoc’d Ratchet, ‘He really seems kind of proud of the barfing thing.’

‘Cons are disturbed individuals, Bee,’ Ratchet replied.

“Blackout,” Optimus raised his voice. “You and Bumblebee go to assist the others. We are reasonably certain of their vital status. Ratchet’s skills may be needed at the Ark.”

“Oh no no no no nononononono. You are not sending me off with the Bouncing Yellow Wonder.”

‘I think he’s afraid of you,’ Ratchet winked at Bee.

‘I think he’s just upset he won’t be able to talk to me. He seems kind of lonely.’

‘Bee, he’s a ‘con. Don’t forget it.’ Ratchet frowned. ‘Watch your back. I don’t trust him.’

“Come on!” Blackout was remonstrating. “You and I, we can go together. I can check out the ship. Or you can come help with the others.”

Optimus shook his head. “The ship is going to need an Authorization code to get Teletraan 1 operational again after Soundwave’s generous virus. The computer automatically locks down when attacked directly, to prevent any sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. Only I carry that unlock code.”

“And you don’t want a ‘con getting his hands on your ship and maybe helping Soundwave. Huh, I get it.” Blackout frowned. “Not stupid, you know.”

Actually, Optimus was more concerned that Blackout would be pressured by Soundwave to attack. Right now, Blackout was an ally. “We may need a flyer at the break-out site,” he said, gently. “You’re the only one who can do it. And I presume you’d rather go with Bumblebee than Ratchet.”

Ratchet leered, fingering his tools. Blackout recoiled.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Come on, Beeblebum, let’s go.” With a pained look over his shoulder, Bee trotted after the copter. “Hey, did I tell you that I threw up?” Blackout said. “It was totally gross. Seriously.”

Ohhh, LoL, Blackout was hilarious! I love his nicknames for Bee. Good stuff! And previous update: great Sideswipe/Soundwave interactions...there's an unlikely pair for ya.

A/N: I suck... sorry sorry sorry for dropping the ball on this one!!

Here's your next part, enjoy.

****
Ratchet helped stabilize Optimus as he stumbled a couple of times over the uneven surface, his injuries now sending strong pain signals across his sensor net.

“He could have offlined… permanently you know.” Ratchet broke the silence.

Optimus cast him a sidelong look. “I know.”

“You gave the order anyway…”

“Ratchet… please…” Optimus sighed pinching the plates of his nose bridge. “Prowl knew the risks… Primus he had probably figured out the risks and all possible outcomes before even suggesting it in the first place… I didn’t force him.”

“You could have ordered him not to.” Ratchet pressed, his tone becoming increasingly antagonistic. He had just about had it with this damned moon and ‘bots taking stupidly unnecessary risks.

“And he would have disobeyed me and done it anyway this is Prowl we’re talking about here. He will have prioritized the necessity of the ship over his own survival. You know that,” Prime finished softly, attempting to defuse his irate medic. He didn’t view his thoughts as insubordinate; Ratchet had always been one to openly speak his mind in private, and Optimus was normally grateful for it. But this time, he felt the medic had gone a little overboard.

“Beginning to think the mech’s got a damned death wish—a bit like you!” Ratchet snarked. “Might as well handed his stubborn spark to Primus himself… or better yet Soundwave… seeing as he was so intent on doing so himself.”

“Ratchet!” Optimus snapped loudly, stopping in his tracks. “Front and centre… now!” Ratchet was stunned at his commander’s tone as he stood to face him. He rarely ever treated him as a soldier—medic and friend usually taking precedence. “You are out of line.” Optimus continued his voice clipped, his optics hard.

That was it; the medic had finally had enough.

“I’m out of line?! What about you….? Keeping injuries hidden from me?! Letting your second in command get his cortex fragged beyond all recognition? Pandering to the damned petty insolent needs of the Primus damned ‘cons!? I’m out of line?! This whole fraggin’ mission has been a train wreck from the moment we let the humans collect the Neptunium for us! This would never have happened if you’d let us take in the Ark in the first place!”

“Have you quite finished?” Optimus replied calmly taking in Ratchet’s tirade.

The medic glowered in front of him, mouth clamping shut.

“Now… let me make one thing perfectly clear,” Optimus took a steady step forward until he was in Ratchet’s personal space, the older mech stepped back, now visibly intimidated at having the full brunt of his leader seething with barely repressed anger directly in front of him. Prime’s voice was thick with restraint.

“As one of my senior officers, I completely respect your opinions when coordinating missions but as it stands for this mission, you have been particularly difficult.” Optimus enunciated sharply. “You have questioned me in front of our enemy, argued with me publicly and resisted any decent attempt by the ‘cons to cooperate.” He glared fiercely down at his medic. “Now I don’t give a slag what your personal feelings are towards these particular ‘cons. They are not pertinent to this mission; I thought you—of all mechs, Ratchet—would have had the self-restraint to keep your damn opinions in check. As it stands your behaviour is something I would have expected from Ironhide!”

Ratchet opened his mouth to speak but was cut off harshly.

“You will not speak until I have finished!” Optimus’s tone betrayed a growl. “This is an official warning, Ratchet: if you EVER act in such a way again…. I will strip you of your rank and confine you permanently to your med bay, until you learn to act like the damned superior officer you’re supposed to be, rather than an energon-fueled youngling looking for kicks and a fight. And believe you me, I want a detailed report on why you’ve been acting so irresponsibly when we return.”

Ratchet stared at his leader in stunned silence. It had been a long, long time since he’d been deserving of a dressing-down from a superior. He dropped his head, his face plates burning with anger, frustration and guilt.

“Do I make myself clear, Ratchet?” Optimus snapped.

Ratchet stiffened visibly and stood to attention. “Yes Sir,” he responded meekly.

They continued for most of the way in silence. Ratchet supporting his leader whenever his injuries threatened to overwhelm him.

“Ratchet… tell me something…” Optimus finally spoke up, breaking the discomfort. “How can one mech produce so much variety in colour from simply off loading…?” He frowned. “Surely that isn’t normal.”

Ratchet actually smirked with amusement. “It is a uumm… long and rather… colourful… explanation.” He chuckled lightly. Optimus returned his grin.

“I am beginning to think I am better off not knowing.”

His amusement faded as they came into sight of the Ark. Standing on the crest of a hill, their optics took in the devastation. A deep scar scoured the surface leading into the side of the mountain. Protruding out of its side at a sharp angle was the grey, dust covered ship. Looking a little worse for wear.

“It doesn’t look as bad as I had expected.” Ratchet murmured.

Both mechs winced as a loud ripping of metal could be heard and a large chunk of plating detached from the ship’s exposed amber underbelly and crashed to the ground, landing in a cloud of grey dust. They glanced at each other. “I spoke too soon.” Ratchet grumbled softly.

****

OOhhHH, Ratchet got TOLD! I love it. OP was so leaderly. Great update.

Inside:

“Dammit,” Barricade muttered, unlinking his comm. from the jerry-rigged connection with Starscream. “Forgot I wasn’t speaking to that fraggin’ copter.”

“Near-death experiences will do that to you,” Starscream replied, mildly. “But it is for the best.”

“It is not.” He settled himself on the ground next to the jet, leaning on Starscream’s upraised knee.

“Barricade,” the jet sighed, “You cannot go through life holding onto these petty grudges.”

“Telling me what I CAN’T do?” Barricade snarled. Beside him, Nadya shrugged at Stokes, parceling the purer Neptunium samples into roughly equal-sized lumps. Barricade began measuring out the det cord, frowning.

“I am,” the Seeker said, calmly.

“Can’t make me talk to that rotor-brained glitch.”

“Really? We shall put that to the test.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” the jet said, innocently.

Ironhide sighed, loudly. “Don’t you two ever shut up? You’re giving Prowl a processor-ache.”

“I’m fine,” Prowl said, quietly, getting a glare from Ironhide for his trouble. Prowl shrugged, and went back to his calculations. He had finally rebooted from the stasis lock. He felt fairly confident that he had defeated the nanovirus. It was all up to Sideswipe now.

His more immediate problem was…here. This much Neptunium, with that much explosive power, and a desired blast hole large enough for them to escape…. “The best tactical solution,” he said, half-aloud, “is to cave in the roof.” If the jet could fly, a small tunnel would have worked, but, if they all had to climb out, collapsing most of the ceiling was the best option. It would require several charges, carefully placed. In the ceiling. He hadn’t wanted to tell the others this part, hoping his processor would eventually figure a way to get the Neptunium charges in place without…what he was seriously beginning to think as the only option. THAT was giving him a processor-ache.

Stokes set another bundle of Neptunium to one side, near Barricade. He paused, and crossed over to Starscream, head cocked to one side, studying the jet.

“I can hear your respirator,” the jet growled. “What is it you want, human?”

“Nothing,” Stokes said. “Just looking.” Truth was, he had gotten an intriguing glimpse into their audio when he’d wired the jet to Barricade, and he wanted more. He didn’t think of himself as ambitious, but that comm. equipment? Could revolutionize space communications.

“Look from where I cannot smell you, then,” Starscream said. “Barricade, how do you get rid of these pesky humans?”

The smaller mech looked up from where he was setting the detonation cord in a mass of Neptunium, bound together by rope. “Want me to point your weapon?”

“I would prefer it if you would dispatch this one yourself.”

“Lazy.”

“A good leader delegates the unpleasant tasks.”

“Since when am I an unpleasant task?” Stokes cried out, hotly.

“Presumably,” Barricade said, “ever since you spawned. I hear human birth is painful and disgusting ordeal.”

Stokes snorted. “You heard wrong. I was an epidural. My mom didn’t feel a thing.”

“I am certain you made up for it later.” Starscream fidgeted with the barbs on the backs of his hands.

“He’s making up for it right now,” Barricade snapped. “Don’t you have dangerous explosives to be playing with, human?”

Stokes looked over where Nadya was tying off the last of the Neptunium into a bundle, waiting for Barricade to add detonation. “Nope.”

“I hear,” Starscream said, in a showy whisper, “that Prowl might let you see his crypto array. But he is very shy so you must be…very persistent.” Barricade snickered. Stokes looked appraisingly at Prowl, sitting in the middle of the tunnel, staring at the ceiling. He moved slowly toward the Autobot leader, almost as if he were stalking prey.

“Did it work?” Starscream whispered. “I cannot hear his respirator any more.”

“Kind of heavy-handed, there, Starscream,” Barricade said.

“But it worked.” The jet sat up, smug.

Ironhide ambled over. “Bombs, huh?” He stepped between the prepared units of Neptunium and the two Decepticons. “Mind if I just keep an eye on them?”

“Bombs don’t grow legs,” Barricade snapped. “Not going to wander off.”

“I know. More concerned with you and your blind armored pie-wedge deciding on setting off the party a bit early.”

Barricade dropped his hands into his lap, frustrated. “Yes, that would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? Blow you all up now; wasting a charge we probably need to blow through to the surface, dooming ourselves as well. No, really, we ARE that stupid. Where did you get your intel from—some crappy cartoon?”

“Blackout has learned his social skills entirely from Seeker Cadets,” Starscream said. “It would not be without precedent.”

“One: yeah, and it shows, and two: stop talking to me about that fraggin’ copter!”

“I merely think you are being a bit…extreme.”

“He’s an extremely annoying security risk with a rotor on top. Whose best friend used to be a drone.”

“He misses Scorponok immensely. It is possible he is transferring his feelings to you.”

“Yeah, because I’m just like a Primus-damned DRONE? Is that what you’re saying? FRAG! I have half a processor to comm. the glitch just to tell him I’m not talking to him again. Ever.” Barricade snatched the last parcel from Nadya’s hands, angry.

“Barricade,” Nadya said, gently, “He is trying to be your friend. You should let him.”

Barricade jumped up, throwing the last bundle of Neptunium to the ground with force enough that the chunks shattered, flying out in all directions. “Has it occurred to anyone except me that the real fraggin’ PROBLEM here isn’t Barricade’s fraggin’ Friends List, but that we happen to be trapped under ground? Anyone else remember that? Anyone?”

“Me?” Ironhide said, “I’m too busy noticing that you just ruined one of our explosive charges. After giving me a lecture about how logical all your plans are.”

Barricade gave an inchoate cry of rage, his blade weapon bursting from its housing.

The jet lunged forward from where he had been seated, swiping horizontally with his talons, until he caught the other ‘con in both arms and pulled Barricade back against his chest. “No,” Starscream said, firmly, pinning the mech’s arms. “No, Barricade. Let it go.”

“Stop treating me like a sparkling!” Barricade twisted in the Seeker’s arms, metal grating on metal as he drove his spike weapon into the Seeker’s arm.

“I will as soon as you stop acting like one.” Starscream pinned the smaller mech’s head between his own and his shoulder.

“I…HATE…you!” Barricade tried to pound his elbow against the jet’s chassis to free himself, kicking at the jet.

“Is this what you want?” Starscream murmured. “You want to hurt me?” He lifted his arm, showing Barricade the damage—the deep gouges in his armor, the drip from a coolant line. Barricade froze, optics fixed on the wounds. Starscream bowed his head lower, closer to Barricade’s. “Do you realize you are giving Ironhide exactly the reaction he desires?” He felt the smaller mech go limp in his arms.

“All right,” Barricade said. “Can put me down.” Starscream knew better than to question him. He released his grip. The blade weapon slipped back into its casing. “Sorry,” the mech mumbled, optics carefully avoiding the jet’s injured wrist.

“It is fine,” Starscream said. “I should know better than to lecture you about friends.”

A dark snort. “Yeah, kind of heavy on the irony.” Barricade glared at Ironhide, who jutted his chin, aggressively.

Prowl stood up. “We don’t have time for this. Ironhide, stand down.” Ironhide glared at Prowl who held his gaze coolly. “If you put in as much effort in to helping the ‘cons as you do berating them the plan would run much more smoothly and you all…” He cast the two ‘cons a calculating glare. “Can return to hating and trying to kill each other to your sparks’ content.”

“Fine,” Ironhide grumped. “What do you need me to do?”

Prowl frowned. “We need to get your pulse cannon at very close range to the ceiling to blow small holes in which to plant the explosives.”

“And how we gonna do that?”

Logic, Prowl said. Everyone recognizes logic. Just be cool and calm about it and don’t give them time to over process. “Starscream shall hold you up while you blow the holes and then plant the explosives.” There. Clean, crisp, to-the-point, logical.

His audio burst into feedback at the combined protest of the jet and Ironhide. Starscream was louder and shriller, but Ironhide held his own in the profanity department. “It is the only way,” he said, which sent Starscream into another shrieking tirade.

Barricade grabbed the jet by his uninjured wrist, cutting off his tirade mid-syllable. “You’re going to do it anyway. The sooner the better.”

“But I do not want to—do you know where my hands will have to be?”

“Yep.”

“Do not even consider, Barricade, telling me that he will like it even less. In this case, that is statistically impossible.”

“Fine, I won’t. But we either blow our way out of here, with your help, or we all die together. Which is more distasteful?”

The jet hesitated.

“Starscream….” Barricade’s tone was warning.

“Fine. I shall do it. But I shall not enjoy it and the moment any one of you stoops to some vulgar joke I will drop him with no remorse.”

“Fair enough.” Barricade snickered, shooting a sidelong glance at Ironhide.

“YOU may not make a joke, Barricade. I see through your plot. Even though I am blind.”

“You are no fun at all.” The smaller mech pouted.

“What if I made the joke?” Stokes asked.

“Then I shall drop Ironhide…on you.” Starscream turned his blind eyes uncannily in Stokes’s direction.

“God, he really is no fun,” Stokes muttered to Nadya.

“Uh, no.” Ironhide said. “No way. Did that once already, and it sucked. Not doing it again.”

“Oh, come now,” Starscream said, tilting his head coyly. “I have been told that I am very good with my hands.”

Barricade made a choking sound, which he buried in one bunched fist.

“Surely you are…not afraid of me, are you Autobot? A big strong warrior like you?” The jet lowered his voice to a sultry tone. “I will be gentle….”

Ironhide boiled. “Shut the frag up, you stinking ‘con. Prowl, this is not happening.”

“Oh, come now, Ironhide,” Starscream inched forward on his knee joints, stroking Ironhide (when he found him) with teasing talons, “As they keep telling me, it is the only way….”

“Prowl!” Ironhide’s voice was more than a little panicked. “You can’t be serious.”

Prowl shook his head. “It IS the only way.”

“I hate you,” Ironhide muttered. Starscream moved forward, tugged by Barricade’s hand, scooping the Autobot off his feet.

Buaahahhaha, lovin' the snarky banter. XD Ironhide obviously isn't a fangirl. =P

A/N: Oh my!! I have well and truly dropped the ball with updates there didn't I... I am of course blaming the snow 0_o Anyhooo without further ado please read on for more fun and games with our bots and cons.

Surface:

Blackout kept checking against the locator grid. Bumblebee was proving, as he’d expected, an entirely disappointing buddy. He’d never realized how much he depended on Barricade to hold up his part of the conversation. The crabby grounder always had something to say. He didn’t know why he was surprised: All the Autobots had been pretty disappointing in the snark department.

Blackout looked over at the yellow freak with another sigh. As much as Starscream and Barricade yapped, he never thought he’d be sick of a mech who didn’t. Blessed, blessed silence quickly became annoying silence and then paranoiac worrisome silence.

The freaky yellow bot stopped suddenly, gesticulating wildly, flapping his scrawny arms up and down like he was trying to fly. No way. They were still a good half-cycle’s walk away from the site. Blackout made a rude noise and started walking again. He hated walking, he decided. Reason that Primus gave copters rotors. So they didn’t have to do this sort of trudging. He swore his toes were never going to be clean again. He had no idea how the grounders handled it. He looked up longingly at the sky, sorely tempted to rotor out on this annoying Autobot, who was now whining and bouncing in the low g after him.

“What?!” he yelled, finally, startling the ‘bot back a step. “Look, I am just about sick of your bouncing. Makes me nauseous just watching you. Bouncy bouncy bouncy. Making me fraggin’ crazy. Can’t you walk like a normal mech? Can’t you communicate? You’re the most boring mech online.” He stomped away, throwing over his shoulder, “That must be your secret weapon.”

A weight hit his shoulder as the yellow Autobot launched himself at Blackout, tackling him. Blackout sprawled face-first into the dirt, so startled he hadn’t even had time to throw a hand to catch his fall. He spun with all of his reflexes firing, pinning the Autobot under his bulk, swinging one arm around the mech’s head.

“Try and offline me when I’m not looking, will you?” he snarled. The yellow bot bleated in his strange mechanical sound, flailing his arms, but not trying to escape. For a long moment they sat there. Blackout pushed to his feet, tossing the ‘bot away from him in the light gravity. Couldn’t sit there all day. Barricade and Starscream needed him. He didn’t have time to mess around with the yellow idiot.

“Stay away from me, you yellow freak,” he hissed, as Bumblebee approached again, this time cautiously, from the front, showing his open hands. “Settle with you later.”

Bumblebee tapped his head with one finger.

“Yeah, slag right you’re mental. That’s why I want you to stay the frag away from me.”

Bumblebee shook his head, pointing first at his head, then at Blackout’s.

Comprehension. “No. Pit no. No fraggin’ way I’m giving you my comm. freq.”

Bumblebee squatted down, sweeping a flat spot in the light soil of the moon and traced a string of numbers. He pointed back at himself. His comm. freq.

Blackout sighed. Barricade would fry his circuits in public if he knew. He tapped the comm.

‘What?!’

Bumblebee winced. ‘You don’t have to be so loud. I’m not deaf.’

Blackout glared at him. ‘What is so fraggin’ important you’ve got to hold us up and try and murder me to tell me? Not to mention violate a few dozen security protocols on either side?’ He folded his arms. ‘This had better be good.’
Bumblebee hung his head. ‘Just lonely.’

Blackout rolled his eyes. ‘Cry me a river, Autobot. You think you know about lonely?’ Blackout started walking again. He was going to be there for the rescue.

‘You miss your friends.’

‘Stupid. Of course I do.’

‘Why? Barricade is mean to you.’

‘He’s mean to everyone. Part of his charm. And he’s the only one who can make Starscream stop acting like a hyper wrapped transistor coil. So what?’

‘Nothing. Just…sounds like you have a lot of fun together. We don’t talk like that to each other.’

‘Yeah, fighting a war is real fun, Autobot.’ Blackout frowned. ‘We’re all losers on my side. You kind of bond about how badly you’ve fragged things up. Before and after joining. Besides. You don’t laugh at it, what can you do?’

Bumblebee looked suddenly very serious. ‘You seem really nice. Not like a ‘con at all.’

‘Don’t expect me to say the same about you. You’re all a bunch of smarmy sugar-coated glitches to me. Gack! Stop touching me!’ The yellow mech had taken his hand. Blackout recoiled. ‘Look, uh, we don’t have time for this. I mean, you’re nice for an Autobot and all but…’ Blackout’s eyes were frantic, as Bumblebee pulled him closer. Blackout liked the ‘bot better when he was trying to kill him. This was getting weird. Seriously.

He stumbled, looked down. And saw that the yellow bot had been steering him away from stepping on a shiny-slick patch of frozen gas.

‘Primus, don’t scare me like that!’

Bee snickered. ‘What? What did you think I was doing?’ He asked eyes pools of bright blue fake innocence.

‘Never fragging mind. Are we there yet?’ Blackout turned sheepishly back to their path, wincing at the mechanized giggling from the ‘bot following behind him.

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Blackout

A/N: Sorry for delay there folks, had RL stuff going on. HK knows but seeing as I'm stuck where I am for the time being, why not give you all something fun to read.

Ratchet and Optimus picked their way gingerly across the rocky landscape, now scarred horribly by the Ark’s not so conventional landing. Luckily from what they could tell, the ship was more or less in one piece. Bit of repair work and the ship would be space-worthy.

Optimus was wary as they approached the ship. There was no way to know who had been piloting the ship or even if Sideswipe was still alive. He gestured silently to Ratchet, who begrudgingly held back as Optimus headed forward, his weapon drawn.

His worse fears were confirmed as Soundwave limped painfully toward him from the ship’s rear hangar. The large ‘con stopped and glared at him as Optimus aimed his weapon.

“Wait!... Don’t shoot!” Sideswipe came scrambling out, almost running into Soundwave. He put his arms out and stood in front of the ‘con, who to his credit actually looked surprised and grateful.

Optimus stared at Sideswipe, confused and irritated, his wounds not giving him much patience. “Sideswipe… Step aside, he’s the reason the Ark has been grounded.”

“No you don’t understand--”

“What’s to understand!?” Ratchet growled standing beside Optimus. “He’s the fraggin’ reason we almost lost the ship and his damn virus almost killed Prowl!”

Sideswipe cast a quick frown behind him at Soundwave. The ‘con met his gaze, impassive. “I did not force anyone to try and remove the nanovirus.”

Sideswipe turned back. “He’s right… he was about to remove the virus before I ah… attacked him… this was just before Prowl linked with the ship…is he…?”

“He’s okay. We think. He went into stasis lock. We can’t be sure until they get back onto the surface, but he’s out of danger.” Optimus replied lowering his weapon slightly as he headed forward.

“He went into stasis lock…? Frag…”

“Frag indeed.” Optimus looked down at the smaller mech. “Last time I checked, Soundwave was trying to kill us all, including the other Decepticons.” He cast a wary look towards the ‘con before looking back at his subordinate. “You mind telling me what’s changed?”

Sideswipe shuffled uncomfortably. “Yeah… he kinda saved my aft.”

“That I find hard to believe.” Ratchet grumbled, ignoring the warning look from Optimus.

“I couldn’t control the descent… he got inside it…well the computer with that mind control trick he does.”

Optimus frowned and addressed Soundwave directly. “Why are you helping us?”

“Mission objective is to retrieve Neptunium. Impossible without a means to escape the surface. Mission success depends on cooperation.”

Ratchet huffed and folded his arms. “Oh yeah and what does your boss say about this?”

Soundwave shifted ever so slightly as he glanced at the medic. Rumble tapped his claws nervously against Soundwave’s thigh. “Megatron has ordered destruction of collaborators and the Ark.” No point in lying to them now; they’d find out soon enough. Honesty was sometimes Soundwave’s most useful policy.

“And you’re disobeying him? For you Soundwave I find that highly dubious.” Optimus answered quietly, still trying to figure out Soundwave’s purpose.

Soundwave straightened almost to attention. “I am loyal to Megatron. His orders however are…illogical and will result in mission failure.”

“So what ARE you doing?” Ratchet asked just as confused as Optimus.

“Improvising.” Soundwave answered blankly. “Collaboration is essential to mission success.” The foolish Autobots had no idea how true those words were. They would find out as soon as the others broke out of their underground prison.

“I suppose that will have to do for now. You are not to interfere with the repair of the Ark Soundwave, thank you for saving Sideswipe but… I can’t risk the Ark falling into Decepticon hands. I’m sure you understand.”

“Logical choice for a leader. I would have off lined the enemy on sight to prevent sabotage.”

Ratchet rolled his optics as Optimus blinked at the straight-talking ‘con.

“That is, err… comforting.” Optimus answered almost sardonically. “You stay with me, Soundwave. I need to inspect the damage to Teletraan and as it was your virus, if you’d be so kind?”

Soundwave merely inclined his head without a word and fell into step beside Prime as they headed to the bridge.

Ratchet stared after them shaking his head. “It’s like dealing with fraggin’ Prowl talking to that ‘con.” He muttered unhappily. Sideswipe snorted a laugh.

“Yeah you can say that again. I swear I was ready to shoot myself in the head to escape all that logic.”

Ratchet raised an optic ridge at him silently. “You youngling.”

“Hey, I’m no--”

“You? You are going to show me what kind of slaggin’ mess you’ve left my ship in.”

Sideswipe folded his arms cockily. “Since when did it become your ship?” he smirked.

“Since you decided to forget how to fly the damn thing and started making pacts with ‘cons. I swear you’re all going to be the death of me.” He grabbed Sideswipe’s elbow firmly guiding the silver mech back into the ship. Sideswipe could only groan and roll his optics.

“Come on Ratchet. Not the lecture! I’m beginning to think death by Soundwave was the lesser of two evils!”

Aww, Sideswipe, he's so cute. Yay for more bot/con alliances. ^_^

A/N: WARNINGS: Mild cussing.
There are some references to Barricade's time in CC in the early stages of the war as per HK's fic: Control. If you haven't read it I recommend you do. It's a good look into Barricade and others (in our little bubble of course) before we all got to know them.

Without much further ado: Have some snark!

Inside:

Prowl sat cross-legged on the floor watching Starscream and Ironhide fumble about each other awkwardly. He stared up at the ceiling, his optics blurred a little. Still feeling woozy from the nanovirus, Prowl bowed his head and rubbed his optics. When he opened them he was greeted by Stokes standing in front of him, arms folded with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Soooooo. Prowl. I hear you have an outstanding CPU ability to analyze pretty much any problem and come up with the best tactical solutions? Including producing code to counteract a nanovirus over a comm. Frequency, no less?”

Prowl simply stared at the small human, not entirely sure if he was actually being asked a question or being forced to make small talk. He did not do small talk.

“Your point, Lieutenant Stokes?”

The human shrugged and toyed absently with a tool he had used to fix Nadya’s suit. “Oh you know. I was just wondering if I could umm; take a quick peek or something for…you know research?”

Prowl’s optics widened. “I don’t think so.” Prowl remembered Optimus’s directives back on Earth-not to let the humans have access to technology they could weaponize. He returned his gaze to watching Starscream bicker quietly with Ironhide, they had still yet to reach up and blow the planting holes in the ceiling. He felt a faint nudge on his knee joint. Glancing down, he frowned. Stokes had now seated himself on his knee and was randomly tapping at his armour plating.

“What are you doing?” His voice was clipped: the processor ache was getting worse.

“Well, I just thought…. we’ve helped you in all of this, you know, getting the Neptunium, having our ship destroyed by you guys no less, and uumm, you know generally putting up with all the snarky comments and anti-human vibes around here.”

“We did not destroy your ship,” Prowl started to protest.

Stokes shrugged him off. “I meant you robots in general. Anyway. My point is: it’d be nice to come away with you know…something from this mission?” He smiled a wide smile at Prowl, which made the mech uncomfortable.

“Huh, wish we were that lucky,” Barricade drawled, his attention now drawn to the panicked expression on Prowl’s face.

“I did not ask for your opinion, Barricade.” He looked pleadingly at the ‘con who snickered as Stokes continued to shift absently up Prowl’s leg and continued his tapping now on his arm. Prowl rolled his optics with irritation.

“Phil Stokes… I must ask you desist with your tapping.”

“You going to show me then?”

“No.”

“Come on, Prowl…” Stokes was bouncing like a sparkling with excitement.

“I said no!”

“Prowl, you’re going to make the human cry. And then you get to be the bad guy.” Barricade muttered, sourly.

“I don’t care… you’re not helpi - aa…AAhh!” Prowl’s voice went up with a squeak as Stokes prodded some circuits with his small tool.

“See? There you go: more anti-human sentiment.” Stokes added blankly, shaking his head.

Prowl was indignant now. “I am not anti-human!”

“Sounds like it to me.” Barricade cut in.

“You would be the resident expert,” Ironhide snapped, from his vantage point above Starscream’s head.

Prowl squeaked pleadingly as Stokes poked at the circuits in his arm again. “You, stop doing that!”

“Come on, Prowl! We can go to a nice quiet part of the cave if you’re shy and don’t want the ‘cons to see.”

Prowl gawped at the human and blinked a few times not entirely sure how to respond. Barricade burst out laughing which earned him a glare from Ironhide.

“You better not be laughing at us, ‘con,” he growled, his legs dangling over Starscream’s head as the jet held him up, both looking distinctly unhappy.

“Believe it or not, you are not the focus of my attentions, Autobot.”

Ironhide risked another look over at where Prowl was getting harassed by Stokes. He snorted laughter of his own. “Yeah, might have known…”

“What is going on? May I remind you that I can not stand here all day holding your aft, Ironhide?”

“Relax, Starscream, just watching how Barricade has gotten the human to flirt with Prowl for him. You know, ‘Cade, you really should do your own dirty work.” He grinned and went back to work on the ceiling as Barricade glowered at him.

Starscream chuckled. “So the human actually listened to me?”

“Seems so.” Barricade shrugged.

“How is Prowl handling it?”

“Not well… he’s about to fritz again any second...Or kill him.”

“Oh.” Starscream actually sounded disappointed. “Perhaps you had better rescue him, then. In case this newest ridiculous plan fails-as it inevitably will-I would like both Prowl and the human online for me to kill.”

“No fraggin’ way. If anyone goes out here it’s Prowl. And you won’t let me have any fun with Ironhide.”

“Oh, believe me, Barricade, this is truly enviable ‘fun’,” Starscream muttered.

Barricade clamped his mouth shut as Prowl suddenly stood up and placed Stokes onto the ground not as gently as he should have.

“Hey watch it!” Stokes shouted up.

Prowl walked over to the slouched Barricade. “I know you had something to do with that.”

“Noticed how much you like attention. Besides. Why should the Decepticon cause be the only one to suffer under the probing tools of the vicious humans? Could always go back to harassing you myself if you like?” He winked as he stood.

Prowl just tensed and hissed, frustrated, his fists clenched. “You… you’re just insufferable!”

Barricade shrugged. “At least he wanted you for your mind.”

Prowl’s fists vibrated with emotion. He braced himself for a torrent of logic, to convince Barricade once and for all that these little pranks were illogical and obstructionist.

Barricade winced as a loud crash aborted the tactician’s mild tantrum. They both turned to stare at the two mechs who now lay in a crumpled heap on the floor accompanied by a shower of the grey brown stone of the mine’s walls. Starscream shoved Ironhide off his head and sat up. “This is intolerable,” he shrieked.

Ironhide grunted as he sat up. “Uumm yeah could someone pass me the detonator cord?”

“Only if you’re going to blow yourself up with it,” Barricade said, darkly. He moved to help Starscream back to his feet.

‘What happened?’ he asked, subvoc.

‘He did not warn me of when he was going to fire and the weapon’s recoil threw me off-balance.’ The jet sounded equal parts embarrassed as outraged.

‘You okay?’

‘My system alarms have not changed.’ Starscream pushed heavily against Barricade to get to his feet. ‘I suppose we shall have to try again.’

The Autobot was complaining loudly to Prowl about the jet’s inability to hold him steady. Barricade was already pissed off, and that, for some reason, pushed him over the edge. He grabbed the larger Autobot, hooking two of his talons under a chest plate and dragging the mech back until he hit the wall, Nadya and Stokes scurrying out of the way. “Listen,” he hissed. “You can do this your way or my way.” His eyes flashed white again. “It would be so worth it to me.”

“I’d fraggin’ kill you fi-“ Ironhide’s body jerked upright, as if yanked on strings descending from the ceiling.
“Really?” Barricade said, standing back. “’M a little rusty so I’d have to hack you for CYCLES to get the precision I need.” Ironhide found himself walking forward, stiffly; his joints moving slowly even through the red-lighted alarms from his injured leg, arms swinging in straight arcs like a toy soldier’s. He tried to protest, but Barricade had cut controls to his main vocalizer.

And just like that, he had control again. He sagged to the floor, gasping, not trusting anything to work.

“So,” Barricade said. “Your way? But maybe a little nicer this time?”

“Go frag yourself.” He got to his feet, shakily.

Stokes turned to Nadya. “Screw comm! I want to know how they do THAT!”

a/n yay some Cave In for you. Glad I posted because it cheered me up today

Blackout motioned Bumblebee to a halt. “We’re here,” he said, aloud. Here was a completely nondescript patch of moon surface, but the coordinates were right. “They must not have blown themselves out yet. Or something.” He hoped the former. Too many unpleasant options in ‘or something’. Especially with Barricade back online. He nodded at the yellow mech. “Guess we should call them, huh?”
Bee nodded, eagerly.

“Right.” Blackout tapped his comm. “Barricade?”

“What the-oh, sweet lady of used motor oil, it’s you.”

Blackout’s face fell. Guess he remembered that we weren’t speaking, he thought, sadly. “Yeah. We’re here.” Maybe if he went all-business, Barricade would warm up to him again.

“One, who the frag is ‘we’ and two, where the frag is ‘here’?”

“Me and the yellow Autobot, and right above you?”

“Move the frag back. We’re about to blow it.”

“How far back?” Blackout gestured frantically at Bumblebee, shooing him away.

“Away. You, all the way back to where I never have to see you again. Suspect you’ve probably spilled everything from our freq codes,” Blackout flinched, guiltily, “to the recipe for Megatron’s special external joint lubricant by now.”

“I haven’t! I swear!”

“Whatever. Just go. We’ll get ourselves out.” The comm cut. Blackout stood, numb. He would have stayed there for cycles if Bumblebee hadn’t come back and dragged him away by the hands.


*****
“You should be nicer to Blackout,” Starscream admonished, over non-subvoc’d comm. “He is doing his best.”

“I AM being nice to the fraggin’ copter,” Barricade snapped. “I told you to delay the detonation, didn’t I?”

“Wow,” Stokes said, “remind me never to get on YOUR bad side.”

“You permanently exist on my fraggin’ bad side, human.” How had he gotten stuck with the humans again? They had split up-Prowl with Starscream, Ironhide by himself, and Barricade with the humans-in separate areas, so that if one team got to the surface, they could dig out the other. And somehow, Barricade had gotten stuck with the damn humans again. If this was some Autobot gesture of trust, he thought, he could definitely live without. Still, he supposed it was something that Prowl didn’t trust the humans with Ironhide. Though…it wasn’t much of a ‘something.’ Not when Stokes kept creeping around behind where Barricade crouched toward the mouth of the tunnel, his pitiful little human flashlight scraping eagerly up and down Barricade’s armor. No. More likely Prowl was punishing him for having sic’d Stokes on him.

“Touch me and die, human,” Barricade snapped. “You think I won’t blame the rockfall and get away with it?”

“I’ll tell,” Nadya said, defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Kill you too, you know, female.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she challenged. He was going to be sexist? She could use it against him. “I’m a pathetic female, remember?”

He glared down at her, growling. “Just-just keep him away from me.”

“How much longer do we have to wait?” Starscream complained. “This tunnel is very narrow and I am getting cramps in my upper thigh servos.”

“You’re standing right next to him, ask Prowl,” Barricade muttered. “Got nothing to do with it. Only reason I want out, knowing that copter’s out there, is that he’s slightly better than these humans. Least he smells better.”

“He does smell good,” Starscream said. “Especially after a thunderstorm if he’s been flying in it. All…ionized,” the jet purred.

“Starscream?”
“Yes?”

“Too much information,” Barricade muttered. “And I suspect he smells like Autobot by now.”

“We can rectify that.”

“Too much information,” Barricade sang. “Prowl, can we please just do this already? Before we hear all the details?”

“I have enough problems with nightmares already,” Ironhide muttered. “So, for once, I agree with the damn ‘con.”

“Everyone stop bickering!” Prowl was just about at the last of his patience. “All right. Countdown in 10, 9, 8, 7….”

*****
The explosion shot a tower of pulverized stone into the moon’s low gravity, startling Blackout and Bumblebee where they crouched behind an outcrop of stone. They hadn’t gotten far enough away: the ground cracked under Blackout’s feet, and he had a sickening flashback.

No. Not this time. “Grab on, Booble!” he shouted, throwing himself skyward. His rotor engine wasn’t at 100%, and he was short one rotor, but he could grab enough air in the low-g to do some good. The yellow Autobot jumped up, snagging the copter’s frame just as the ground underneath them gave way. Blackout hovered, rotating, around the edge of the explosion. It took forever, it seemed, to die down. First the noise, and then the light, and then, last, the slow-falling debris. They could see nothing in the hole-it looked more like a hole, expertly punched in the crust of the moon-than a crater, though part of the roof had collapsed inward. For a long moment, they hovered.

Bumblebee whirred excitedly, pointing with one hanging foot. Movement in the hole-Prowl clambering over the lip, his white and black armor high contrast against the dull surface of the moon. Behind him, the larger shape of Starscream, using his jets to boost, walking his hands up the sides of the hole.

Then, nothing. The yellow Autobot whined again, and Blackout circled in for a landing, pausing to let Bee hop down. They moved to the pair, Bumblebee tripping over one of Starscream’s extended legs as he tried to race to Prowl.

“Who is this? Identify yourself or die!” Starscream’s operational chain gun target locked on the yellow ‘bot, who froze in his tracks.

“Stop it,” Blackout said. “It’s me.”

“This,” Starscream hoisted his weapon to indicate the Autobot, “is not you.”

“That’s Beebleboob. He’s okay.”

“Beebleboob? That has to be the most idiotic Autobot name they have ever struck.” Starscream lowered his weapon. Bee moved over to Prowl.

“No, I think that’s Drillnutz.”

“No, that is not idiotic: that is obscene. A key distinction. I take it you are well?”

“Been better.” Blackout helped Starscream to his feet. “Still blind?”

“Yes.” Starscream rested his hand on one of Blackout’s shoulders. “It is good to be with someone who is not a midget.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Where are the others?” Prowl interrupted. The climb had exhausted him-fighting the nanovirus had taken much of his endurance. Bee helped him to his feet.

****

Ironhide felt his intakes wheezing as the grey, fine dust clogged up his vents. Taking a moment he dared a glance back down the cave wall.

The ground loomed away from him. Letting out a faint groan, Ironhide clutched onto the rock face tightly. His optics catching sight of the pale blue trail of energon he’d left on the rocks as he’d climbed. Glancing at his leg he winced as the sharp stabbing pain returned. His wound was open again and energon now stained his black armour. He felt about ready to purge his tanks.

Voices hollered above him, he squinted his optics against the artificial light shining down on him. He could just make out the silhouettes of Prowl and Bumblebee.

The noise of shifting rock and cursing distracted him, taking one last look at the bottom, he saw Barricade hauling himself out of the gravel, two humans clutching desperately to his shoulders.

Ironhide growled, he was not going to be beaten by a fraggin’ mountain. He eyed the next hand hold, having to brace himself on his bad leg he pushed himself up letting out a sharp holler as his injury screamed at him. Hissing through clenched denta he kept pushing up and up, he could do this. Looking up he snarled, reaching for the next outcropping, he stretched out his arm, tentatively reaching for the lip of rock that was the surface.

Without warning, his bad leg went numb and gave way. A cry of surprise escaped his vocaliser as the lip slipped from his fingers. He shuttered his optics as he felt the brief lurch of weightlessness grab hold before he plummeted. A sharp jolt in his arm snapped him to his senses.

His optics met the steady gaze of Prowl, who cast him a thin smile. He gasped as Prowl’s double handed grip on his arm tightened. He hauled him over the lip, Bumblebee reached down, helping to pull Ironhide onto the surface.

With one last yelp of pain as his leg scraped over the side, the three mechs fell back onto the moon’s surface.

Bumblebee bleeped wearily. “Primus Ironhide, did you put on weight?” Bumblebee chuckled on the open comm. as Ironhide let out a groan and flailed his arm out to the side weakly into Bumblebee’s midriff as they lay on their backs in the dust.

“Watch it youngling, or you’ll find yourself needing to learn to fly real quick.” He retorted out loud.

Prowl was the first up, perching in a crouch near the edge of the cave, he peered down into the black hole. “Ironhide I’m surprised to hear you’re sensitive about your weight.” He shot him a dry look over his shoulder, the tiniest of smirks on his face as Ironhide gawped at him.

“Frag off Prowl.” Ironhide wheezed, slumping back onto his back growling at Bumblebee’s incessant giggling at the impromptu joke from the unlikely Prowl.

Barricade muttered, shoving aside another mountain of rock chips. If the moon hadn’t been so cold, this would have melted into slag. Which would have presented its own problems, but he couldn’t help but think that it had to be better than gravel-removal. One great thing about life among the Decepticons: always something new to complain about. The humans crowded between his legs-like that wasn’t freaky-as he dug.

“Are we getting any closer?” Stokes whined.

“No, I am just shifting rock around for fun,” Barricade snapped. Ah! Right there-less pressure, less force crushing the stones against each other. He punched at it, and…the thin glimmer of light poured through. Stokes and Nadya hugged each other-well, Stokes hugged Nadya and bounced up and down holding her, and she didn’t punch him in the faceplate.

Barricade stood. Sighed. “Let’s go.” He scooped them up, kicking the rest of the way through the hole. Now, all they had to do was climb…the…pile…of…holy Primus’s used gaskets. That’s how much rock they’d had above them? No wonder no one else’s comm could reach. He saw Ironhide ahead of him, picking his way up the rockslope. Fine. That looked good enough. He’d just make sure he didn’t look up too often-Autobot aft not being his favorite view.

He made a noise of distaste. “All right, humans, climb on. Let’s get this over with.” His voice was impatient. Please, he thought, may no one see him toting the humans. They settled themselves across his shoulders, hands and feet braced in chinks in his armor.

He began the climb. The first few lengths went well-the larger rocks had fallen to the bottom, and his toe plates found easy purchase. The higher he went, the finer the stone, and his talons began digging out fine grit instead of finding handholds. If he’d had blunter fingers, like the Autobot models, he’d have been better off.

He slipped, twice, hearing the humans cry out in disgusting organic stereo in his audio pickups. Nadya leaned forward, offering her advice as to where he should reach next.

As if that wasn’t annoying enough (because, really, why put a quota on annoyance?) after a while he heard more noises, from above, and looked up to see Prowl and one of the irritating yellow Autobots looking down at him, helping haul Ironhide’s clumsy frame over the lip. The yellow one blurped at him.

He was almost at the lip himself when his foot slipped, tearing his hand out of its sunken grip. Stone showered down underneath him, a miniature avalanche, and Barricade found himself clinging with both talons to a large projection of stone, like a horn, about his own height down from the lip, his legs dangling in suddenly empty air.

“Right,” he snarled, “Humans, get off me.”

“Get off you where?”

“No real preference from me: not like you could cushion my fall or anything.”

“Up there!” Nadya pointed to the horn of stone. “Can we climb up your arms?”

“Shut up and do it already. This isn’t one of your stupid Autobot tea parties!”

They raced up his arms to the top of the projection. The yellow Autobot slithered down the lip’s slope, his ankle tires held firm by Prowl and…someone else, as he caught up the two humans.

Now, Barricade thought, only I am stuck. Great. He swung his legs, trying to make contact with stone. No such luck. He was suspended, midair. And, he noticed, with a sickening lurch of his gyros, his swinging had caused the horn of stone to rock, loosening it in its setting.

He felt something like panic, grabbing frantically to try to get a more secure handhold on the stone-as if that would help anything if they both fell tumbling…how many Barricade-lengths down into the hole? Noise roared in his audio-his auxiliary power kicking on, trying to supplement the force in his grasping arms. He felt something like regret. Mainly that his last act was to have saved two humans. He felt his talons loosen in the stone, sliding out of the piton-like holes he had jammed into the rock. He scrabbled, straining his shoulder servos, which failed abruptly.

And he fell.

And then, another roar, and a frame-jarring sound as he slammed against one of Blackout’s missile carrier arms. The copter slued sideways in midair, more or less throwing Barricade into his cargo bay. Barricade lay, shaking, in the copter until he felt the copter’s wheels touch ground and the rotor spin down.

“Barricade?” Blackout said, his voice full of remorse. “I’m really sorry. You know, about before.”

“Shut up,” he snarled, but his voice was thready. “So not the time for that.”

“I mean, I was just trying to help. And I felt really bad that you did that and then I couldn’t do my par-“

“Shut. Up. You’re ruining the moment.”

“Anyway, I just wanted…I just wanted to apologize.”

Moron fraggin’ copter. You saved my fraggin’ life, so you could apologize. Primus. “Fine,” he muttered, sprawling against the floor, letting himself feel, for a brief moment, safe. “Just don’t hug me.”

*****
Ark:

Optimus was wary of Soundwave who stood some way apart from him as he worked on Teletraan 1.

“Primus, Soundwave, what was that virus supposed to do? The entire system has gone into lockdown.”

“Virus’s purpose was to wipe mainframe and self destruct the internal CPU.”

Optimus’s mouth fell open beneath his face mask. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

A single red optic flicked towards him beneath the partially shattered visor. “Maximum destruction was warranted.”

Optimus turned back to the console. “Well, it’s always good to know where you stand, I suppose.” He muttered quietly. Louder; “What effect is it likely to have on Prowl?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the ensuing silence.

“Effect unknown: nanovirus is programmed for destruction. He should not have survived.”

Optimus allowed himself a hidden smirk at the almost perplexed expression on Soundwave’s face. Maybe not so hidden: the small cassetticon glowered at him, fists bracing as though he were going to take on Optimus all by himself.

“His CPU would require extensive analysis to determine why he is still online.” Soundwave continued blandly.

‘Because I’m going to let that happen.’ Optimus thought to himself as he ignored the comment. He was becoming increasingly frustrated with the computer. Teletraan was fire walling him at every attempt to input his command codes. This was not his area of expertise. His comm. buzzed interrupting his train of thought.

“Go ahead.”

“Prime, it is a relief to finally be able to contact you directly.”

“Likewise Prowl, what’s your status?”

“We have cleared the cave. We had a minor mishap with Barricade and Ironhide requires medical attention. We are due to head to the location of the Ark shortly.”

“Good. Will Blackout not provide an air lift for Ironhide so we can get him to Ratchet faster?”

Optimus waited as he heard murmurs of voices over the comm.

“That is to be discussed. Starscream also requires treatment; would Ratchet be willing to examine him?”

Optimus frowned as Starscream obviously muttered some objection over the comm. He listened to Prowl respond patiently.

“He will help you Starscream, it is only logical that you seek repairs before the damage becomes irreversible.”

“Problems?” Optimus interrupted casually.

“They are… manageable.” Prowl was guarded as he spoke, it was the closest Prowl ever came to complaining. “We shall be some time, Starscream requires guidance, he is blind.”

“I see.” Optimus winced at the unintentional pun. “What’s your ETA?”

“Approximately a half cycle.”

“Understood, I will have Ratchet prepare his med bay to receive two patients.”

“Thank you, Prime. Prowl out.”

****

“You did not have to do that, Autobot; I prefer to wait until we return to our own facilities to be treated.”

“Starscream, if your optics are not repaired or replaced soon your self-repair mechanisms will heal the neural wires without them and you will remain permanently blind. Ratchet is more than a competent medic; he will be able to help you.”

“If he doesn’t offline you first,” Blackout mumbled quietly. Barricade shot him a look.

Ironhide sniggered as he caught Prowl rolling his optics discreetly. It took both Prowl and Bumblebee to help him to his feet.

“I’m not goin’ in that fraggin’ copter. His damn rotor that damaged leg in the first place” He grumbled, obviously in discomfort and pain.

“No one’s asking you to.” Blackout retorted. “Not your slaggin’ taxi. Might want to consider how I lost my rotor?”

“I’m with the copter,” Barricade said. “Let the Attitude in a Can drag his sorry crankcase himself. What a shame if he didn’t make it.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“No idea how much, Autobot.” His eyes flickered white again. “OOORRRRRR, I could help you walk.”

“Fine.” Prowl uttered finally losing patience. “Can we please just head to the Ark now, without killing each other?”

“Can’t promise anything, Prowl.” Ironhide stated as he leaned on Bumblebee for support.

Starscream reached out gingerly for support, he took a couple of shaky steps forward and grabbed onto Prowl’s shoulder before he tripped over the uneven surface. Prowl winced as his clawed hand dug in with relief at the support. He patted it gently, allowing Starscream to loosen his grip before he moved.

“Blackout, I believe you have the location of the Ark’s landing.”

“I do, “ he answered smugly, setting off to lead the way.

“Stuck with the humans again.” Barricade muttered unhappily.

“Admit it, we’re not that bad.” Stokes grinned as Barricade let out a low growl of annoyance.

//I do not like this.// Starscream sent over mission commnet.

//The medic? Are you going to snivel as much as the fraggin’ copter?//

//Hey!// Blackout shot them a dirty look over his shoulder.

//I was referring to meeting up with yet more Autobots. Right now we are still evenly matched in numbers.//

//I thought you were the one who said we needed a ship to get off this fraggin’ moon. You want to jump them now?//

//No. I am in no condition to fight. I was merely suggesting that when we arrive, we keep our guards up. And stay together.//

//They’re not that bad. Well, other than the medic. Buzzybutt’s okay.//

//The yellow one?! He’s bouncier than Dead End.//

//He’s not so bad. The other two…. Guh!//

//Blackout, do not think you will be able to convince us that you have suffered more grievously than we.//

//Wasn’t trying to. Just sayin’, actually, Boob isn’t that bad. Y’know. For a slaggin’ filthy Autobot.//

//At least he is quiet.// Starscream said, snidely.


*****
The Ark

Rumble pulled Soundwave aside. “Boss, what are we going to do? The virus didn’t work.”

“Do not worry, Rumble. There is one last gambit to be played before we concede defeat.”

“You know I don’t like that word, boss.”

“I am aware. We shall do our best to avoid it, then.”

“Don’t like the big one. He’s got a smart mouth.”

“Rumble, you shall discover that a smart mouth often covers a not-so-smart mind.”

“Hey!” Sideswipe ambled over, a little too loudly. “What are you two chatting about?”

“Rumble is afraid. I am merely attempting to soothe his anxiety.” Rumble shot Soundwave a hot look, but subsided into a suitable ‘frightened cringe’. They’d used it enough times in front of Megatron that it was almost automatic.

“Yeah? What’s he so scared of?”

“Well, Autobot, you are all larger than he is. And we are currently outnumbered. It is not illogical to assume that you might take advantage of that fact.”

“We’re Autobots!” Sideswipe exclaimed. “We don’t do that.”

“Perhaps you have simply never been caught ‘doing that’.”

“Your friends are coming to join us. Be pretty dumb for us to try anything.”

“By ‘our friends’ you mean the other Decepticons.” Soundwave’s neutral voice made it sound idiotic. “And it would be entirely plausible to them to hear that Rumble had perished during the crash, or in some…related incident.”

Sideswipe looked disgusted. “We’re not like that,” he repeated.

Ratchet ambled over from where he had been watching Optimus try to get the authorization codes to work. “Not like what?”

“Not like them.”

“That’s for sure.” Ratchet glared at Soundwave. Infecting Teletraan. What was he thinking? He could have, at the very least, gotten them all killed. “We place value on life. ALL life. Including ‘cons.”

“That,” Soundwave said, enigmatically, “remains to be seen.”

A/N: We're nearly finished writing this ^__^ I am a day behind due to having a days holiday from work so here have an update.

“Frag it!” Barricade jumped out of the way as Ironhide collapsed in front of him. Then he cursed again as the low gee sent him spinning away. Then, just because apparently Primus’s favorite number was three, he cursed a third time, as the yellow Autobot bounced handily from the surface and caught him.

He shook the yellow freak’s paws off him as soon as his feet were on the ground. He crossed over to where Starscream hunched, without looking back at the yellow weirdo. “Me,” he announced. “What’s the excitement?”

“Prowl is trying to convince Blackout to carry Ironhide again.”

“How are you holding up?”

“I admit that the medic’s words alarm me. I do not wish to be permanently blind.”

“Our repair bots can fix anything,” Barricade said, confidently.

“There is, however, the matter of getting me to the repair bots.” A nervous flutter of his hands. “Or vice versa.”

Barricade stared at where Prowl was gesticulating patiently with Blackout, the yellow mech now kneeling silently over Ironhide. He didn’t give half a hard-drive about Ironhide. And Starscream was prone to…well, histrionics. But the jet had been fairly, well, for him, patient about it, and the prospect of being permanently blind…. Worse, Barricade thought, the humiliation he’d have to face being somehow towed or dragged back to the Nemesis.

“Hey, Blackout?” he called. “I know you’re all eager to make friends with Prowlie here, and we did kind of warn you he was irresistible, but maybe we could get this over with if we just gave in graciously, ONCE AGAIN, and you flew the useless pile of slag.” He shrugged. “You know, it’s up to you, though.” He felt kind of bad. The damn copter had saved his fraggin’ life, even after he’d treated him like rancid oil. And the fraggin’ rotor-headed moron always wanted to be so glitchin’ helpful all the time.

//You mean it?//

Primus, Barricade swore, watching Blackout’s face light up. Blackout, The Helpful Decepticon.

He couldn’t help a smile from crossing his face. Fraggin’ idiot copter.

****

Nadya and Stokes stood patiently by Bumblebee as he helped Ironhide sit up.

“Is he going to be alright?” Nadya asked Bumblebee softly earning a scowl from the black mech.

“I am going to be fine. Wish everyone would stop fawning over me.” Ironhide grumbled batting Bumblebee’s helpful hand away as he stood slowly, grimacing as more energon spilled onto the floor.

Prowl came over and held out his hand to the two humans. “Blackout has agreed to fly you to the Ark, Ironhide.”

“I’m not gettin’ in that fraggin’ copter and leavin’ you with them.”

Prowl narrowed his optics, features remaining stern as he tried to keep hold of his patience. “Ironhide I am tired of debating with you. Get on board please.”

Ironhide glared at the black and white who held his gaze impassively. Prowl was not going to back down and his clipped tone was more than enough warning for Ironhide not to argue. Grumbling he climbed on board the waiting ‘con and took hold tightly as Blackout soared into the air rapidly in the low g.

*****
Ratchet stood at the lower hangar as Blackout approached on the horizon. His rotors kicked up the steely grey dust as he landed. Ratchet sighed as he heard Ironhide’s cursing over the rotor hum. Making his way through the billowing dust Ratchet almost tripped over Ironhide’s splayed out leg as he lay face down in the dust. The medic opened his mouth and glanced up at Blackout who looked a little sheepish.

“He got impatient, tried to get out before I’d landed, he fell… I totally didn’t touch him.”

Ratchet grumbled. That certainly sounded like Ironhide. And it didn’t sound like Blackout’s style, anyway. Ironhide groaned as Ratchet relaxed into a snide snigger. Lifting the large mech up with Blackout’s help, they half carried, half dragged him back to the Ark. “Well, that serves you right doesn’t Ironhide? Never listen to the slaggin’ medic, it’s a wonder you still have limbs.”

“He’s worse than Barricade,” Blackout offered, figuring that anything that compared Ironhide unfavorably to the grounder was bound to get him riled. Blackout was a little miffed that the Autobot didn’t trust him to fly. The entire trip, Ironhide had been commenting about his altitiude, his groundspeed, his rotor vector…it got irritating.

“And worse than you,” Ratchet agreed, smirking as Ironhide’s face twisted with outrage.

Blackout snickered to himself; at least it wasn’t just him that befell to the medic’s snark. Even his own faction had to suffer his clearly defective programming. Ratchet guided Ironhide inside. Glancing over his shoulder he gave the ‘copter a quick nod. “Wait here for the others; they shouldn’t be long. Sideswipe should be out shortly.”

Was that a good thing? Sideswipe? Blackout shrugged. He did want to watch more of Ironhide getting the worse end of Ratchet’s ‘skills’, but didn’t trust Ratchet not to come after him again. Hanging out with Barricade made paranoia a bit contagious.

Blackout gladly obliged he did not have any desire to inflict the medic on himself any longer than he absolutely had to. He did not however relish spending time with yet another Autobot who was probably just as if not more so annoying than Beeblebore.

Sideswipe turned out not to look so thrilled to see him either.

“Where’s Soundwave?” he asked after a few moment of insufferable silence.

Sideswipe gestured back into the Ark. “He’s busy with Prime. You get to wait here.”

“What, afraid we’ll take over the ship?” Blackout snorted unaware of how very present that thought was on each Autobot’s mind. “Yeah, it’s totally a worthy prize right now. Thanks to your excellent piloting.” Grounders, he thought, should never try to fly. Look at the mess they made.

Sideswipe simply resorted to folding his arms and returning to uncomfortable silence.

Blackout sighed, the ‘bots really couldn’t take a joke, at least the yellow idiot had no aversion to talking to him.

*****

A quarter-cycle later, the wreckage of the ship hove into view. Barricade’s capacitor stalled at the sight. //Hey, Starscream? Abandon all hope of hitching a ride on this.//

A sigh and the jet tensed his hand against Barricade’s arm tires. //I had feared as much. Soundwave can be thorough. Where is he?//

//Must be inside with Ironhide. Blackout’s waiting for us.// Out loud, Barricade said, “Oh look, Astronaut Stokes, new technology!”

Stokes scuttled off toward the ship, dragging Nadya with him, burbling excitedly.

Blackout stood outside of the wreckage of the ship, exchanging mutually wary glares with Sideswipe. Barricade sidled over, dragging Starscream with him. Just to make a point. Sideswipe glared back.

“What’s up, Blackout,” Barricade said, conversationally.

“Won’t let me go talk to Soundwave.”

“Of course not!” Sideswipe sounded outraged at the idea.

“Why not? He let you talk to Ironhide?” Barricade crossed his arms over his chassis. Behind him, Starscream hissed. He could make an impression, when he wanted to: Barricade was gratified to see Sideswipe shrink back for a moment.

Sideswipe rallied, though. “Right, not afraid of you, Starscream. Especially blind.”

Starscream’s hiss turned to a dangerous growl. “I would show some respect, Autobot. We were instrumental in helping your friends escape."

“Yeah, let’s see. We had the maps, the surface comm., the geolocator, and the det cord. You provided the psychotic Ironhide and the…” Barricade trailed off, showily. “Huh. Starscream, what did the Autobots contribute?”

“I suspect that the constant irritation they provided may have kept us moving at some points. Beyond that, however, Prowl made a fairly good armrest.” He smiled. Even blind, he could imagine Sideswipe’s seethe.

“You shut up, ‘con,” Sideswipe said, unsheathing one of his energon blades.

They heard muttering from inside the ship. “Ratchet,” Blackout explained.

“You stay outta…EVERYTHING!” Ratchet’s voice echoed from the ship, “Fraggin’ human curiosity!”

“Ah yes, the Autobot honor, attacking a poor, injured, innocent Decepticon for merely stating a contrary opinion.”

Sideswipe, at the edge of his legendarily-short temper, lunged at Starscream, howling. Blackout caught him around the waist, swinging him high into the low gee. Sideswipe cursed, tumbling wildly in the air.

“Hunh,” Blackout grunted. “At least you didn’t get all the LECTURES. That’s why I like Bartleby: at least he’s quiet.”

“Quiet would be nice,” Ratchet grumped, appearing in the doorway. “I am trying to work in here. Also, who sic’d the fraggin’ humans on me?”
Barricade pointed at Prowl. “We brought you more business,” Barricade said, cheerily. “Bet you always wanted to paw the jet-ow!” Starscream swung at Barricade, his back-hand spines catching Barricade’s upper arm tires. “What?” Barricade said, rubbing his tire, aggrieved. “Everyone else does.”

“Barricade, try not to project your hopeless and unrequited attraction to me onto every mech. It is embarrassing.”

Blackout started snickering.

“Shut up, copter.” Barricade frowned.

Ratchet jumped down to the ground, looking up at Starscream. “Can you get down here?” He planted his hands on his hips, huffing impatiently as Starscream settled himself awkwardly on the ground. Ratchet pulled some sort of tool from his storage, peering into Starscream’s optics, shining a bright light at the optical sensor at the back. He grunted.

“These are not comforting sounds,” Starscream muttered.

Blackout chimed in, “I told you so. Repair bots? MUCH better.”

“Not a good idea,” Ratchet said, blithely, “to disrespect the medic who fixed you. And will shortly be up to his wrist servos in your friend’s optical relays.”

Starscream gave a terrified squeak, jerking his head back.

“Frag it!” Ratchet swore. “Gonna have to take you inside and offline you.”

“Off-lii--?” Starscream’s useless optics rolled skyward. He slumped heavily on his engines, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Barricade coughed at the dust. “Thought we went over this, Autobot. Offline?”

“Oh, right,” Ratchet said, sarcastically. “I forgot how sensitive you all are.”

A/N: Very nice long update for you now to make up for me dropping the ball on this one.
****

Sideswipe was promptly dragged inside the Ark by a now highly irritated Prowl who had observed his unprovoked attack from a distance as he arrived at the ship. He was in the process of giving him a severe dressing down as Ratchet stormed past, his grip firmly clamped around the arm of a gloomy looking Starscream. Despite the jet being a few feet taller than the medic, he had no choice but to go where the ‘bot guided him.

Prowl and Sideswipe just watched as Barricade and Blackout trailed behind, bickering amongst themselves, when Barricade noticed their gaze and pursed his mouth and blew Prowl a kiss, mocking the human gesture awkwardly at best. The two humans caught this as they hovered around and Stokes immediately began sniggering.

Sideswipe frowned in confusion. “Did he just?”

“Don’t.” Prowl interrupted shaking his head. “Just don’t.”

Sideswipe smirked and raised his brow in disbelief at the ‘cons continued bickering. “Are they always like that?”

Prowl let out a barely audible sigh. “You have no idea.”

Sideswipe cast a sidelong glance at Prowl. “You had fun down there then, I take it?” He grinned as Prowl gave him a dark look.

“Hardly.”

“Not what it looks like.” Sideswipe grinned. Prowl uncomfortable? Fun. He’d have to tell Sunny about this. As soon as he figure out what this was actually all about.

Prowl’s optics narrowed at the retreating silver mech. “What ever you’re presuming is greatly exaggerated, I assure you.” Prowl fell into step beside Sideswipe. “So much so that I realized I prefer spending time with you, although even that is debatable.”

Sideswipe’s grin faltered, shooting a look at Prowl he frowned at the faint smirk tugging at Prowl’s mouth. “Oh now you decide to grow a sense of humour? I think being around the ‘cons has mellowed you, Prowl.”

****
“So,” Stokes said, “He said we had to stay out of everything. He didn’t mean the ventilation ducts.”

“Ventilation ducts are a something,” Nadya said, crawling after him. She didn’t know quite why she was following him-oh, wait, because he’d get into trouble and would eventually need her help to get out.

“Something isn’t the same as ‘everything’, Nadya,” Stokes said, coolly, “Maybe your English isn’t so khorosho, da?”

She glared at his backside for all the good it did. “So, we have a plan, yes? Or are you planning on simply getting us lost forever in the ship?”

Stokes paused to shoot her a pained look. She bumped into his ankle from the sudden stop. “Of COURSE I have a plan. When have I not had a plan?”

As far as she knew, always. “So, you are going to tell me this plan?”

“Just waiting to build up a little mystery, you know. Anyway, we’re running low on O2. This is the ventilation shaft. We know they CAN generate breathable human atmosphere on their ships, so…”

“We trace it back to the main system and…? But how do we know we’re going the right way?”

“See, that’s what’s wrong with you Russkies. That whole pioneer spirit, exploration, boldly going where no man has gone before….”

“The last is from a television show, Stokes,” Nadya said. Russians were plenty good explorers. “We beat you into space, didn’t we?”

“Oh, that dog? Whatever.”

Nadya rolled her eyes. There was a reason he was a science expert and not a diplomat. “So we just wander, I mean, explore aimlessly?”

“No,” he said, derisively. “We wander and sooner or later this duct will run into a larger one. We follow the larger ducts to the core. Bingo.”

What if we’re going the wrong way? She wanted to ask. But she knew he’d just say something about turning around. Oh, she was beginning to see the police car’s point about Stokes. He was…hurtable.


****
Optimus was getting frustrated with the ship’s computer. Firewalls were being thrown up at every attempt he made to re-initialize the system. Soundwave wasn’t much help. The visored mech stood to one side, expression blank, stance un-threatening. That in itself had Optimus on edge. Soundwave was a difficult mech to predict in the best of circumstances. It didn’t help that his audio buzzed faintly with the tell tale signal of an internal comm.

Glancing over his shoulder he spied Rumble smirking in his direction. His concentration was broken by Sideswipe goading Prowl as they entered the bridge. He was glad for the familiar company.

“Prowl, it’s good to see you well. What’s the status?”

“Likewise, sir. The ‘cons are currently with Ratchet in the med-bay. Starscream requires extensive rep -repairs and Ironhide is…” Prowl frowned and shook his head, distracted. “He is…”

Optimus’s concern grew as Prowl reached up to grab his head. “Prowl, what’s wrong?”

Prowl grimaced, in obvious pain. His head was filling with a debilitating ache. Something had come online in his cortex; he could feel it. It was starting to break down his internal firewalls from the inside.

“Prowl?” Optimus repeated, placing a hand on the mech’s shoulder to steady him as he bent double.

Prowl let out a digitized whine, his optics shot up to glare at Prime. Optimus drew back sharply as they flickered from blue to red and back to blue.

“Run.” Prowl rasped.

“What?”

Sideswipe was beside his leader, his hand resting on Prowl’s other shoulder. “Prime, what’s happening?”

Optimus shook his head his gaze fixed on Prowl.

“Please go before I…I.” Prowl let out a cry that startled both ‘bots.

Sideswipe didn’t know what hit him when the tactician finally moved. He howled as cables in his wrist snapped. The ground flew away from him as he was hurled into the forward viewer. He landed heavily, grunting as his full weight collapsed onto his broken arm. He could hear commotion throughout the bridge. Optimus let out a holler of pain. A loud crash snapped Sideswipe from his daze. On-lining his optics he gasped in horror at the sight of Prowl ruthlessly attacking an already-injured Optimus.

Being the tactician, Prowl had already incapacitated Prime’s legs, driving him into the floor, and had thrown himself onto his back as the larger mech tried to crawl away.

Sideswipe felt a jolt of fear at the menacing snarl that escaped Prowl’s vocaliser. Scrabbling to his feet he launched himself at the SIC, only to hit the solid mass of metal that was Soundwave.

Rumble went in for the kill, clawing fiercely at Sideswipe’s chassis while Soundwave returned his attentions to the two struggling ‘bots on the floor.

Optimus was putting up a valiant fight but was weakening rapidly, Prowl had gone straight for his earlier injury and energon now pooled beneath him, spreading slowly over the metal plating. The back of his helm had been pried open by Prowl’s tapered fingers, exposing neural pathways.

Prowl’s optics were flickering deep red as the nano-virus became aware and took complete control. Soundwave could tell by the tremble in Prowl’s hands that he was resisting the control; he had no time to waste. Tendrils shot out from beneath his frame embedding themselves into Prowl’s cortex just as the black and white linked himself with a torn neural circuit in Prime’s head.

Prowl jolted upright with a yell as Soundwave took over. Optimus made a choking sound as Soundwave hacked into him, using his SIC as a buffer. He lost all feeling in his legs and arms as a dark weight descended over his consciousness. Using the last bit of energy he had, he opened the all comms.

//Ratchet! Help… Soundwa…aaacckkk!!//

He was cut off as Soundwave hacked past his firewalls. His vision went black and his audio whined in protest as the sound of screaming pierced through him. Sideswipe, Prowl he couldn’t tell who, he heard the startled sound of a voice vaguely familiar to him yelling to Soundwave.

The ‘cons had won, they’d beaten him. Optimus despaired as the weight in his cortex pressed down on him, smashing through his already weakened firewalls. He felt codes, passwords, defence tactics, all forcefully snatched from his innermost neurons. ‘I’ve failed,’ he thought as consciousness fled.


******
//Blackout!// the yellow Autobot’s voice sounded desperate over the copter’s comm freq. Blackout looked around: Ratchet was up to his elbows in Starscream’s head, grumbling about the impossible odds of finding anything like a cortex in there. Barricade was pacing between the repair frame on which Ironhide lay and Starscream, defying the black Autobot to make a move. Blackout knew that walk-Barricade had had enough and was about to go off like an explosive charge. And we trusted him with det cord?

//What’s up, Burbleburp?// He so didn’t need any more drama right now.

//Need your help, please!? Optimus is being attacked!//

//Not my problem, Burp.// He had a sick feeling he knew what was going on. But he wasn’t one of the smart ones who had plans and such. He just wanted to fight and get out intact.

//Come on! You have to help!//

//Why’s that? You guys weren’t very helpful to me. Talking about me all the time in front of my back and stuff. Seriously. Not cool.//

//I’m really sorry. Honest. Can you help? Soundwave’s doing something awful.//

Soundwave. Blackout considered himself a reasonable mech. And easy to get along with, well, if you could put up with his stupidity. He was one of the few mechs Barricade even pretended to like. Well, as much as Barricade liked anyone. But Soundwave…. Not his favorite mech. Sure, a lot of mechs were smarter than Blackout, but Soundwave seemed to take personal pleasure in making Blackout look and feel stupid. Especially in front of others. For no reason. //No promises, Blarf,// he said, as he slipped out of the repair bay.

Skidding to a halt, his optics widened as Soundwave was bearing down over Prowl who was himself restraining Prime. Tendrils had snaked from Soundwave, burying into Prowl’s helm. The ‘bot was shaking violently as the hack violated his systems attacking Prime directly through him, using him as a buffer to prevent Optimus from erecting any defenses. This was…uncool looking. And more than a little creepy. Seriously. It reminded him of the Vampire Cybersquid episode of Seeker Cadets. Burble was slumped in a corner, Ravage snarling over him.

Blackout froze, his optics darted over to Sideswipe who was locked into a wrestling match with the ferocious Rumble. Well, too bad. The silver Autobot was on his own. If he couldn’t handle a runt like Rumble, that was his problem.

Blackout cursed inwardly. ‘Think Blackout think!’ Creepy not-cool jerkwad Soundwave, or obnoxious pontificating (he thanked his word-a-solar calendar for that) Optimus Prime? Both kinda sucked in his book. And not in the vampire cybersquid way. What would Barricade do?

That didn’t seem like such a hot moral compass, but it was a place to start. Maybe he’d figure what Barricade would do, and do the exact opposite. Let’s see. Barricade would yell at him, first, about not target-locking and keeping his processor on his priorities. What were his priorities? The ship! The ship: they needed the ship to get off this stupid moon. Would Soundwave help them with that? Probably not. Soundwave would happily float in space until someone could pick him up. AFTER blowing the rest of them-moon, Autobots, ‘cons, etc-to frozen space-bunny chow.

Would Optimus help? Hrm. If Beezley told him to. Terrible leader, always getting pushed around by his own mechs. Sure. ‘Course that meant Beezlebuff had to be alive to testify. Well, Blackout could manage that. He was dumb, sure, but there was some stuff he knew.

Using his sheer bulk, he barreled into Soundwave sending them both crashing to the floor. They were virtually equal in size but Soundwave was no match for Blackout’s fighting skill. Soundwave was, after all, a satellite. Not exactly combat grade. On the first blow, one of his panels shattered.

His rotor cut through the tendrils eliciting a howl from Soundwave. Behind him, the ground mech Barricade hated so much collapsed onto the floor. Soundwave swung out at him. Blackout parried it easily, swatting the hand away as if it were nothing more than a bug. Heaving Soundwave to his feet by his throat, he bellowed across the bridge.

“Don’t make me do it!”

Rumble ceased his attack instantly, his optics darting between Sideswipe gasping on his back, to the limp forms of Prowl and Prime on the floor and up to Soundwave held in a merciless grip by Blackout. “You wouldn’t dare, traitor!” Beyond him, Ravage whirled, snarling at Blackout.

Blackout’s glare bore down onto the skittish cassettes. “I haven’t planned on blowing any of my guys into pieces, so who’s the traitor?”

Rumble growled and approached Blackout, his sharp claws scissoring in agitation.

“Just try me.” Blackout growled tightening his grip on Soundwave. His comm buzzed.

//Blackout. I suspect you will be able to elucidate the recent medic alert that has prevented Ratchet from finishing my repairs?// Starscream’s voice was a welcome distraction. //The Autobot leader is injured?//

//Yeah, he and Prowl are offline I think. Soundwave’s doing. Not mine, I swear!//

//No cookie for you, Blackout. You are a terrible Decepticon.//

//Uhhh, sorry about interrupting your repairs?//

//No matter. One optic is online and functional, and the other has been stabilized. If he had continued his ‘procedure’ with those disturbing tools of his, he would have had to replace the optic with an Autobot spare. I do not fancy having blue eyes. It would ruin my allure.//

He heard a flurry of cursing from Ratchet. At that moment Prime groaned and stirred weakly.

//Oh wait, Prime’s still online! Still you better get down here, got a situation.//

//Is the situation’s name Soundwave?//

//Yup.//

//Barricade will get there first. Follow his lead.//

****

Prowl felt movement beneath his legs and heard the low baritone of Prime groaning in discomfort. He activated internal systems checks before moving. He was on the floor, what in Primus’s name was he doing on the floor and why was Prime sprawled out beside him? He felt a deep ache throbbing in his head, no more like a pounding on his cortex with a hammer.

Why couldn’t he remember? He scanned over his memory files. The last thing he could recall was meeting Prime on the bridge. He let out a gasp as his memory files replayed an entirely different account of events.

The processor ache was getting worse. Prowl heard Prime shifting beside him, he could hear voices around the room, not Autobots. Something had gone wrong. He couldn’t bring himself to online his optics, he could feel the nano virus still coarsing through his systems and Prowl knew from his recovered memory that it was triggered by target sighting, he couldn’t risk attacking Prime again.

Parts of his processor which he’d managed to firewall began to red line across his HUD. Soundwave had torn through most of his defenses, ripping open his neurons in an attempt to hack into Prime through him; they were exposed and vulnerable to the persistent nano virus.

He could hear Blackout threatening someone, Prowl turned his head in an attempt to listen in on what was unfolding around him as he lay incapacitated on the floor. He was threatening Soundwave, no Rumble, but why? Why would a ‘con help them? If Soundwave had been successful in hacking into Prime the ship was as good as theirs. What possible reason could they have for suddenly showing them mercy?

Prowl let out a groan of frustration and pain, as the thoughts weighed on his processor, ‘thinking, bad idea. Don’t think about it, it will all go away, you’ve already crashed and are in the middle of a glitch right now, it’s the only logical explanation, just don’t think about it… frag.’ he lifted his hands to his helm, his cortex feeling as though it was about to explode.

****

Barricade decided that his hatred of Autobots had become, in the course of this adventure, entirely justified. Beyond that: hating Autobots was really the only rational choice. To know them is to hate them. The idiot Ironhide; the completely useless (save for entertainment purposes only) Prowl; THESE FRAGGING HUMANS; and then the team that had apparently been Stockholm Syndroming Blackout.

Which was sort of like shoving candy in a baby, or whatever the stupid human expression was. Blackout was primed to like everyone. Stupid programming glitch. Megatron always said they were all of them glitches and outcastes. Too bad that Blackout’s permanent 404 was terminal nice.

It wasn’t, alas, the first time that Barricade had had to rescue Blackout from his own worst impulses.

So he wasn’t surprised to round the corner and see Blackout against the wall of the room, one forearm hard in Soundwave’s throat, as the two cassetticons snarled at him impotently. This…would require careful handling.

Or not.

“Hey,Wavy-gravy, what’s up?” Barricade propped himself against the doorframe. Soundwave hated nicknames. Admittedly, his were even stupider than ‘Cade’.

“Your…teammate has gone rogue, Barricade. Recommendation: termination.”

“Let me do it! Touching the boss!” Rumble was nearly foaming at the intake with fury.

“Blackout,” Barricade said, coolly, “Let him down.”

“Barricade!” Blackout protested, “You know what he’s going to do! You can’t let him!”

“I know what he thinks he’s going to do.” Barricade swung into the room as Ratchet pushed by him, nearly throwing himself on the ground in his haste to aid the downed Autobots. He gestured. Reluctantly, Blackout released his grip. Soundwave tossed his shoulders, wincing as the action sprayed some fragments from one of his satellite reflectors.

“I know you shall not get away with this sedition,” Soundwave said, haughtily.

Barricade ignored him, along with the snarling Ravage. “And you know what else I know?” Blackout looked at him, nervously. “I know he’s not going to do it. Want to know how I know that?” He flashed a smile at Soundwave.

“Offline me? Is that your cunning plan?” Soundwave snarled.

“Oh, that would be far too easy. And besides, we might need…something in that vat of rancid goo you call a cortex. Lesson for you, Blackout, why you should always listen to the science officer. Who has, of course, studied science."

“Rather punch him in the face than science him,” the copter grumbled. Barricade knew he hated being presumed to be stupid.

Barricade smirked at Soundwave. He hated being this wordy but grinding Soundwave’s flat, ugly, mandibled face in it was something he just couldn’t resist. And he’d been so well-behaved this entire excursion. Well, well-behaved, for him.

“As would we all, I suspect. But you know this science, Blackout. It’s all about leverage. You see,” he elbowed himself off the wall, “why exert yourself holding down the big strong one with your whole body, when you could use your pinky finger and hold down the weak one?” Barricade’s eyes flashed white.

Rumble collapsed.

*****
“We do not seem to have made any progress,” Nadya said. She was beginning to get impatient. And her knees were hurting her from crawling on the metal plates.

“If we’re moving, it’s progress,” Stokes said, blithely.

“How do we know we’re not traveling in a circle?”

“Because that would be a complete cliché. The Stokes-man has made a career of avoiding clichés.”

Nadya began wondering if perhaps hypoxia had affected his brain. “Still,” she said, reasonably, “we should have made some notable progress by now.”

“Jeez! You sound just like my mother. ‘Are we there yet?’ ‘Where are we?’ You think by now she’d know how far it is to the mall and the grocery store!”

“You drive your mother to the grocery store?”

“Hey, don’t judge me!”

“I was merely wondering if this was American custom.”

“Yeah right.” They crawled on for a few minutes in silence. “Okay, fine,” he said, as if they’d been arguing. “Next vent we see, we slip over and take a look.”


****
“Prime don’t try to sit up just yet. I’m still working on your helm.”

“What? What happened?”

Ratchet huffed quieter than usual. “Prowl happened, well to be more accurate Soundwave happened, through Prowl.”

Optimus winced as Ratchet helped him into a sitting position, leaning him back against the console as he moved to help Prowl who was gripping onto his head like it was about to fall off.

“What did Prowl have to do with it?” Optimus frowned at his medic.

“I… incapacitated you.” Prowl rasped, wincing as Ratchet attached a small tool to his helm.

“Why?”

“No choice… nano virus, sorry Prime.”

“What are you apologizing for you glitch? It wasn’t your Primus damned fault!” Ratchet growled resisting the urge to throw something heavy at the accursed ‘cons on his ship.

Blinking and rubbing his head gingerly Optimus struggled to shake off the weight that had settled on his cortex from the hack. “It’s alright Prowl, Ratchet’s right, not your fault.” Optimus really couldn’t think of a more leader like response and turned his attentions to the surreal scene on his bridge.

Blackout stood next to Soundwave who looked distinctly more perturbed than usual. Rumble was on the floor twitching and Barricade was… well what he saw could only be described as something plucked from a human’s horror movie. His optics were white, his expression bland, eerie. Optimus frowned his optics glancing between him and Rumble and it clicked. He’d heard about Meta controllers back on Cybertron in the early stages of the war, he had never thought that Barricade could be one. Then again he never thought he’d see the ‘cons turning against each other to defend them either or them working together on this Primus forsaken moon.

Ratchet finally managed to get Prowl stabilized and flushed the majority of the nano virus from his cortex. “You’re still going to get remnants of bad code from the virus. If you feel anything odd, a glitch anything report it to me immediately.”

Prowl nodded absently as Ratchet helped him sit up.

“Don’t just nod at me and pretend you’re listening, Prowl. SIC duties or not, I want to know the second anything feels remotely wrong. Got it?”

Prowl blinked at Ratchet after warily on lining his optics. “I understand completely, Ratchet; I am not a sparkling.”

Ratchet grumbled under his intakes. “For how difficult you make my job, you might as well be.”

The three Autobots fell silent as Starscream stopped at the doorway of the bridge, a vague look of amusement as he took stock of the situation before strolling confidently onto the bridge.


*****
“Well,” Starscream said, “This scenario certainly looks…interesting.” His one optic glowed red, though the lens was cracked. The other was covered in stabilizing foam.

“Oh,” Barricade muttered, distractedly, keeping his eyes focused on Rumble, “celebration. Starscream is here with his keen battle analysis.”

“Hey, Starscream,” Blackout said, still shaking his arms loose from where they had tightened gripping Soundwave, “Nice eye patch.”

Barricade risked a glimpse. Rumble had time to shift his shoulders back to swing, before Barricade caught him up in his control again. “Why do I feel like I should be saying ‘matey’ to you, now?” Barricade asked. Just to teach Rumble some manners, he had him punch himself in the face.

“Ratchet said this was the best he could improvise with the damaged medical supplies. I think I look rather…dashing.”

“More like...piratical.” Blackout considered. “Yarrrrr.”

“MIGHT I remind you,” Ratchet groused, “Sort of a hostile situation on the bridge here?”

“Only one being hostile is you.” Barricade had Rumble flip Ratchet an obscene gesture. Oh, this was almost too fun. Made better, of course, by Soundwave’s white fury. Well, that was the problem when you had Achilles heels that tended to wander off and get themselves in trouble.

Ratchet snarled in frustration. Sideswipe, who had been anxiously swinging his blades, trying to cover Ratchet while he worked on Prowl and Optimus against ALL of the ‘cons, added, “Kinda got a point there, Ratch.”

“So,” Blackout said, “What do we do?”

“We see what is salvageable: If not the ship, then perhaps they have some rescue pods. Something here can get one of us to summon help.”

“Why don’t you?” Sideswipe said, feeling a little ruffled. It felt somehow like the ‘con was blaming him for the condition of the ship. It wasn’t his damn virus! “You can fly!”

“Ah, yes, unfortunately, some of the higher level repairs were” he coughed, delicately, “above Ratchet’s skillset.” Ratchet fumed. Starscream continued, blandly, “My optic functions but only as input a/v. My astrogation and other flight-essential visual overlays are offline.”

“So, you can’t fly.”

“I can. Just…not interplanetary at the moment.” Starscream sounded stung. “If it comes to that, I shall try. Which is certainly more than any of you have to offer.”

Optimus looked at his mechs and nodded. “It’s a sensible plan.” He rubbed the plates of his nose bridge and sighed. "However, the question remains who do we send to get help?"

"I think we can all agree that it wouldn't be in any of our best interests to send Soundwave." Ratchet added with a glare at the satellite 'con.

"I vote we send Blackout." Barricade piped up, still focused on Rumble.

"What? Why me?"

"You're the one always eager to help. So, now you get your chance you complain?" Barricade huffed. "No pleasing some people."

"I do concur with this assessment." Starscream spoke up ignoring the 'copter's gaping stare. "You are the least abrasive choice of the mechs we have at hand to represent our interests."

Ratchet snorted in disagreement. “What about Prowl? He's the least aggressive mech here."

"Where that maybe true, he is not a Decepticon and as our remote platfore is closer it is only logical to gather help from there before your precious pet humans run out of oxygen."

Ratchet had no argument there and pursed his lips in reluctant agreement. Optimus glanced at his second. "What do you think Prowl?"

"Blackout is the most logical choice." Prowl stated simply, his optics dim in thought. "And I am in no condition to currently be sent anywhere."

"Oh now the mech acknowledges he has limitations." Ratchet huffed with a roll of his optics.

"Blackout it is then." Optimus agreed upon the reassurance of his SIC.

"No way I'm not being squashed into one of those pods. Do you even know what confined spaces do to my rotors?" Blackout grumbled.

Sideswipe protested, “We gonna let ‘cons come in our own ship and tell us what to do?”

“We gonna let cons come in our own ship and tell us what to do?” Rumble’s voice echoed. Barricade snickered.

“Coooooooool,” Blackout said, “Now make him do Megatron!”

Soundwave snarled in fury, “Barricade, you will suffer for this.”

“Ooooooh,” Barricade said, “Think Soundwave beat me to it. However, I don’t think Soundwave, OR Megatron; can pull off…the Macarena!” Soundwave howled in protest as Rumble found himself forced through the absolutely humiliating steps of the dance. “Huh,” Barricade said after a moment. “Need to work on those pelvic circles there, buddy.”

“Maybe the music would help,” Blackout said, helpfully.

Starscream sighed, “I see that once again you live up to your reputation of prisoner-abuse, Barricade.”

“Abuse!? He was getting vital cardiovascular activity! And we know you can see now so stop using the verb in every fraggin’ sentence.”

“Is this what it was like for you?” Ratchet whispered to Prowl, who was still, blearily, clutching his processor. Prowl nodded. “Surprised you only glitched the once, then.”

“We know,” Blackout said, “Soundwave intended to blow up the ship or something, right? And then he attacked Octopus here. What for?”

“Probably access codes,” Barricade said. He was getting bored with Rumble. And even he admitted that a bored Barricade was a bad idea. “Why he’d want those, and why he’s even here when our mission was a simply S&D, beyond me.”

“I was acting on orders,” Soundwave said, stiffly.

“Yeah? Have the feeling you went a little…beyond the orders with the tentacle act.”

Soundwave glowered, subsiding into stubborn silence.

"Wait just a Primus damned minute here!" Sideswipe swung round to his leader, his blades still drawn. "Are we really going to let the fraggin' cons dictate things around here Prime?"

"Watch your tone, Sideswipe." Prowl warned eyeing the fidgeting silver mech shifting agitatedly on his wheels.

"I'm sorry but if we let them get help we'll be outnumbered and they will take the ship from under us and more than likely strand us on this moon." He glared at each of the 'cons in turn, he didn't care what had happened on the surface as far as he was concerned they were still the enemy and none of them had done him any favours.

Blackout scoffed. "What, and you won't?"

"No!" Sideswipe retorted.

"What? You think you think any differently from us, freakyfeet?" Barricade chirped up, his concentration still on Rumble.

"I wouldn't try to blow you out of the sky when you're trying to help us or plant viruses in the very ship we all need to get off this rock!"

"In case you hadn't noticed Autobot, we are still helping you." A low growl rumbled from Starscream's chassis his working optic returning Sideswipe's glare.

"Cool it, Sides; Starscream has a point." Ratchet interrupted quietly as he got to his feet.

"You're defending them now?"

//Defending them against what? They haven't done anything except help save Prime.// Bumblebee's head inclined with a frown at Sideswipe. He quite liked the 'copter who had helped when he could have helped Soundwave finish the job.

"Sideswipe, you weren't down on the surface. And despite their misgivings with us," Optimus glanced at Starscream who watched him with a calculating optic. "they did work with us willingly."

"But Prime?!"

"Let him finish." Prowl commanded softly. "We have no other logical choice but to trust each other." Prowl remained seated on the floor, attempting to gather his thoughts through the increasing processor ache.

Optimus took a step forward after being helped to his feet by Bumblebee. "I agree with Prowl, we need to work together." He narrowed his piercing optics at Starscream. "But let me make one thing perfectly clear: this is our ship and I do not want to have to fight for supremacy here."

“Well,” Starscream said, “Fine. It is your ship, I suppose. Presuming we can trust you not to abandon us or slag us, simply on reputation of your…sterling nature, what would you have us do, Optimus Prime?”

A/N: Ok I suck more than I sucky thing that sucks... I started a new job and so have let things slide. Getting back on top of things now though. Very nice long update for you.

****

Nadya was now entirely sick of being in the ventilation shafts. Her back hurt, her knees were aching and their space suits as cumbersome as they were, were just not made for crawling around in. It was hot, sticky hot, and her oxygen meter read low. She tried to ignore the red flashing light on her wrist where the LCD readouts were attached: she'd already calculated they had a couple of hours at best, but at the rate they were using it up perhaps not even that much.

She glanced up to see Stokes's backside disappear around a corner. "Stokes, hey wait up will you?" She shuffled along faster. "Stokes?!" She hissed when she turned the corner and found the vent shaft empty. Cursing under her breath she continued on. Stokes had been quiet, too quiet for a short while now. He was never quiet unless he was concentrating on his research or he was wrong and didn't want to admit it. Despite his frat boy attitude he had a knack for coming through in a crunch. Nadya sincerely hoped this was one of those times, a quiet Stokes was just unnerving.

"Phillippe Stokes, what the hell are you playing at?" She glared at his silver suit shimmering in the light cast through a vent. He frowned at the use of his full name she only ever used it when she was either teasing him or was pissed. From the dark look on her face he was going to go with pissed, something to deal with later no doubt. He grabbed her suit sleeve and pulled her close putting his finger to his visor to stop her talking.

Nadya was about to protest loudly when he pointed through the vent onto the scene below them. Stifling a gasp Nadya stretched out, lying flat against the cold metal leaning as close as she could to the narrow gaps. Stokes lay beside her and opened their internal suit comm.

"Looks a little tense in there- you think we should do something?"

Nadya shook her head, forgetting he couldn't see the gesture. "What exactly do you suggest?" She couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice. "Giant alien robots vs the humans? Sounds like a bad American B movie."

"Hey I'll have you know we make some good bad films. There was this one film based in space right and the monster was a--"

"Not the time, Stokes." Nadya interrupted.

Both humans froze as a deep voice vibrated through the shaft.

"That's Optimus." Stokes stated.

Nadya rolled her eyes. "Great. Do you want a cookie?"

"I was just..."

"Shush: trying to listen." She glared intently at the vent just in time to catch Ratchet's typically gruff tirade describing the ship's current dilapidated condition.

"In short, Prime," Ratchet was saying, "while I can fix most of the outer plating, especially with extra hands, without the Catalyser the engine won't turn. Engine doesn't turn we don't fly."

Optimus moved into view of the humans watching above. Stokes whistled silently at the damage he appeared to have suffered since they last saw him.

"Could you get one, Blackout?"

"What? A catafratalizer-thingie? Yeah I'll just stroll into the base and demand Hook remove one from our ship." The copter shifted uncomfortably.

"So, your side can't really help," Ratchet said, arms folded over his chest.

"Just that, well, they're not just going to hand it over. Someone's gonna ask some questions."

"Bring Hook back with you." Starscream spoke as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world. Blackout wondered if the hit to his optics had shaken something in his cortex: Hook wasn't exactly a terrific traveling companion.

Blackout, along with the rest of the bridge turned to stare at Starscream. "Have you finally snapped, Starscream?" Sideswipe growled. "You think we're dumb enough to let a constructicon on board and frag up the systems for you so you can slag us all in the back and take everything you want?"

"It will not damage the ship any more than you and Soundwave have already managed." Starscream replied with a bland smile as Sideswipe once again glowered at the accusation.

"I like to see any of you glitches land a fragged ship any better." Sideswipe lifted his blades defensively, daring any of them to argue with him.

"Now who's being hostile?" Sideswipe jumped as Prowl rested a firm hand on his arm coming to stand between him and the 'cons. Sideswipe glared at his SIC whom he hadn't even heard move.

"We can't just let them take over, Prowl." Sideswipe hissed.

Optimus interrupted. "Sideswipe, you need to put your grievances aside for the moment. You are not helping the situation."

Bumblebee bleeped in agreement with his Prime earning a cold glare from a highly agitated Sideswipe. Optimus turned back to Ratchet. "What do you need us to do?"

"Well, first thing that needs repairing is the outer hull. We have breaches all over and without that we can't create atmosphere. Which means the humans will suffocate."

"Oh wouldn't that be a shame," Barricade muttered.

"We need to get back up computer running: the planetary thrusters are computer controlled."

Ratchet frowned at Prowl. "What the frag are you talking about?"

Prowl's tone had returned to his unflappable calm. "We need to utilise the thrusters to get ourselves out of the side of this mountain. If you repair the hull before then the movement will shred the new plating."

Ratchet raised his brow in surprise. "Ok, brownie points for you." He grumbled, ignoring the quizzical quirk of Prowl's supraorbital ridge.

"How long will that take you, Prowl?" Optimus glanced at his second.

"The back ups weren't damaged by the nano virus but I will have to access them directly via the mainframe in the engine room. I estimate around one Earth cycle."

*****

Nadya felt her last shred of hope smash against the rocky despair of Prowl's words, she understood enough of the lingo to know a cycle was roughly one hour. That only gave them around one hour of breathable oxygen. She closed her eyes for a moment quashing the rising panic. She was trained to deal with this: keep calm, think clearly and most importantly don't panic, it only used up more oxygen. She felt a sharp tug on her arm.

"Look." Stokes whispered. She followed his gaze back through the vent the large red visored mech was shifting, subtly. They hadn't seen him before, but they were pretty sure he wasn't playing for the Freedom Team. His movements had gone unnoticed by the rest of the bridge. Ratchet was currently recruiting Sideswipe and Blackout's help to fit the plating where he was unable to reach, Bumblebee was covering Ravage avoiding the swishing barbs of the angry cat's tail, while Prowl, Starscream and Optimus were engaged in quiet discussion.

Not one of them had noticed Soundwave approaching a distracted Barricade who was still toying with Rumble, muttering to himself about pointless drones and liabilities. Barricade didn't stand a chance when Soundwave made his move. His panels flared out his reflective surfaces sending the glare of the artificial lighting shielding him from view. Rumble dropped to the floor with a choke and scrabbled back to hide behind one of Ravage's legs. Barricade let out a howl as Soundwave tried to hack into his cortex by prying off his helm plating. Blackout and Bumblebee rushed to help but were immediately attacked by the cassetticons. The bridge erupted into chaos.

The two humans watched open mouthed as Starscream and Prowl dragged a snarling, furious Soundwave off a twitching Barricade. Sideswipe went to slice through the tendrils snaking out from the larger mech's frame only to be stopped by Starscream grabbing his wrist.

"He will create a feedback loop more quickly than you can cut through them all, and simply fry Barricade's cortex."

Sideswipe looked horrified. "Slagger."

"Now you will suffer the fate you inflicted on so many others." Soundwave had gained control of Barricade's motor functions. Barricade's spokes came flying out, lashing into a nearby Starscream who hissed in pain before Ratchet dragged him out of danger, energon spurting from a wound in his thigh.

Barricade's optics were desperate, pleading.

"We've got to do something!" Nadya whispered urgently.

"I'm all ears."

Nadya shifted in the cramped space and started kicking at the vent. "You remember when Barricade opened up Dead End's head in the cave?"

"Yeah..."

"Think you can do it?"

Stokes frowned. "I think so..." A grin spread across face. "The bomb in the head. Such a cool idea. Man, I want one."

Nadya flashed him a desperate look. "Little help here, genius."

They kicked hard and the vent creaked loudly, metal shrieked and whined. The humans lurched as the vent jolted. Staring at each other they grabbed hold of each other's arms. The vent gave way with a crack. "Oh ****!" Stokes hollered not expecting the drop they were faced with. They plunged into the bridge, sending the other mechs staggering back in surprise. The heavy vent landed with a crunch onto Soundwave's helm. He dropped to his knees, his concentration broken.

"Now, Stokes!" Nadya yelled.

The astronaut scrabbled over the jagged helm and pried open the back of Soundwave's helm with the crow bar he'd kept strapped to his back pack. Soundwave howled as the determined human jammed the sharp edge of the crowbar into the node directly above where he'd seen Barricade attach the link into Prowl's head and where he'd deactivated Dead End's internal bomb.

"Now I suggest you put a stop to this squid look you got going on. It ain't fun and it ain't a pretty look for you."

Soundwave growled and withdrew the tendrils from Barricade's head, reaching up instead to swipe at the human.

"Nuh - unh." Stokes dug in the crow bar and wrenched it hard. Soundwave screamed and fell on all fours. The cassetticons howled as they felt the pain through their connection. "I think we've had just about enough of you." He lifted the crow bar and smashed the node in a crackle of sparks and Soundwave fell unconscious.

Stokes got to his feet looking rather smug. Every optic in the room was focused on the unlikely rescuers.

"So 'Cade." Stokes grinned and patted the thin slip of metal into his gloved palm. "What you say about me getting a closer look at your comm system now?"

Barricade glowered with embarrassed ire. Saved by a fraggin' human. Worse saved by what was probably the most annoying human who ever lived. "Try it and see what inventive things I can do with that crow bar."

"Now Barricade, that is hardly the way to respond to your saviours." Prowl quirked an optic ridge at him, clearly enjoying the reversed discomfort. "I believe the appropriate response is thank you." He added dryly the faintest of smirks pulling at his face plates, even Starscream let out a grunt of amusement.

Barricade just gave them his most loathsome glare. "Hate you all." //Sorry,// he subvoc'd to Starscream, who was wincing as Ratchet worked to seal the damaged hose. //Didn't mean to.//

//I know,//Starscream said. //Do not worry about apologies, Barricade. Though in the future, you might ruminate on the reason he chose to attack you and not one of these Autobots.//

Barricade frowned. //Gonna have to offline me again. Long as I was using the CC I was good. Now…// he hunched over, his frame shaking.

//I shall take care of it.//

"Seriously? Uncool." Blackout was squinting into the dark confines of the Autobot rescue pod. "Seen CR pods bigger than this."

"We have been through this, Blackout. We need someone to go. We do not know whom you shall run across and in an Autobot ship, the Autobots will hesitate to fire upon you."

"Your side, though," Sideswipe said, "Pretty likely to blow you on sight."

"That's not it," Blackout said. "Why can't Barricade go? He's smaller."

"Barricade," Starscream explained, as if straining against patience, "is abrasive. He would manage to irk even the Autobots into uncivilized behavior. Plus," he glanced down the corridor where the smaller 'con was kneeling in front of an open panel, the Autobot leader leaning over him, directing his smaller hands. As he watched, a small tremor ran through Barricade's frame. "he is indisposed and needs monitoring at the present time."

"Think he always needs monitoring," Ironhide grumbled. He moved stiffly on his bad leg, but his weapon's muzzle never drifted off Soundwave. He'd been dragged from the medbay to help. Fine with him: he hated lying there feeling useless. Now if only this slaggin' con would try something and give him an excuse to blow his processor out, this day would have at least one bright spot.

Blackout shifted uncomfortably. "Just gonna be…awfully tight in there. Don't know why you want to send the biggest mech, that's all."

"Your inability to grasp this simple concept is merely a reflection of your claustrophobia, Blackout," Starscream said. "Now, you know your mission. Be thankful that you are escaping the company of these odious Autobots and go."

Blackout grumbled, but began, gingerly, folding himself into the small pod. Bumblebee sidled over, his own cannon still pointed at the captives he was guarding along with Ironhide.

//Thanks for doing this,// Bee subvoc'd to the larger 'con. //I think you're very brave.//

"Really?" Blackout settled himself behind the small control panel. "Thanks a lot, Barbarella."

Barricade froze, then turned his head slowly toward the pod. "How did you know what the little yellow freak was thinking?" he asked, his voice tight.

Oh frag, Blackout thought. Busted. "Uhhhhnnn, I'm psychic. It's in my personnel file. Right, see you guys later, gotta go!" He hit the door release and the pod self-sealed for launch.

*****

"Don't touch that!"

Stokes peered over his shoulder at Prowl his hand reaching out once more to poke at the console switches in front of him. "What... this?" He asked innocently.

"Yes that." Prowl responded placing his hand in front of Stokes's curious fingers.

Prowl turned back to his panel, his other arm buried deep into the wiring of the console, his concentration focused on trying to reboot the back up computer.

"What does it do?" Stokes idly, brushed over another panel, his crow bar too close to the circuitry for Prowl's comfort.

"It is the central coolant panel; it regulates flow through the engine." His optics narrowed as he watched the human explore sensitive circuitry beneath the console. "Please don't touch that." He repeated.

Stokes fell silent for a few moments, while Prowl returned to his work. "Why what happens if it doesn't work?"

Prowl frowned at the break in his concentration once more. "The engine will explode." He stated blandly quirking an orbital ridge at Stokes who snapped his hand back sharply.

"Well thanks for the heads up." He muttered shooting Prowl a sullen glare.

"You were told not to touch anything." Prowl replied, wishing there was something he could distract the ever curious human with, something as far away from him as possible.

"Is there something we can be doing you know... to help?" Stokes continued trying very hard to peer into the paneling from beneath Prowl's arm.

"You could get out of the way."

Stokes glanced up at Prowl who looked down at him, unable to retract his arm while Stokes stood on his leg. "Alright, alright, no need to get your panties in a twist." Stokes leapt from Prowl's leg allowing the mech to retrieve his arm. "I mean it's not like we saved your asses from the big bad Decepticon or anything."

"While your actions were commendable if foolhardy, it isn't a prerequisite for tampering with our engines."

"Spoil all my fun why don't ya?" Stokes grumbled rolling his eyes at Nadya.

"We're not here to have fun." Prowl ignored Stokes's muttered retort. "Nadya may I have your assistance please?"

"Me? What do you need me for?"

"The wiring inside the panel is too far for me to reach, you have shown a great deal of competence in repairing our systems and you are sufficiently small enough to fit inside without being injured."

"Now that's just sexist, I am just as competent!" Stokes managed to pout as Nadya gently pushed him aside and climbed onto Prowl's hand.

"It is not sexist Lieutenant Stokes, she is the smallest and so is the most logical choice."

"Oh yeah? Well if you're not sexist, why do you call her by her first name?" Stokes folded his arms and quirked a smirk up at the Autobot SIC.

Prowl tipped his head back and vented a heavy sigh. "How is that relevant?"

"Just sayin' you know. You use her first name but not mine, respond to me with my rank and surname... kinda sexist and more than a little impersonal." Stokes couldn't help but grin at the confused expression on Prowl's face, before Nadya interrupted his enjoyment by peering over Prowl's hand and glaring at him.

"That might have something to do with the fact you introduce yourself to everyone as 'Stokes' and told them if they used your first name you'd demonstrate number 56 of 101 things to do with a crowbar."

"Hey, whose side are you on?!"

"The side that's actually trying to fix the damn ship BEFORE we run out of air!" Nadya turned back to Prowl who managed at least not to look too smug at Stokes's sullen glare. "Can we get this done please? Before you find anymore tight spaces for me to crawl into?"

Prowl helped her into the small opening of the panel, using his headlights to give her visibility. He waited patiently, his brow furrowed with concern when a scraping sound reached his audios followed by soft Russian cursing. "Are you alright Nadya, are you injured?"

"Give me a damn minute will you?" came her muffled reply.

"Better watch out Prowl." Stokes fidgeted beside the seated mech. "She bites, too."

"All right, I'm in! What do I do now?"

"There should be a bundle or wires directly in front of you."

"Yes, I can see it."

"It is connected to a circuit panel above you. It requires disconnecting from that and joining to the wires to the left of you."

"All right. Give me a few minutes: need to climb about a bit in here."

Prowl sat back, keeping his light directed at the small opening. Stokes sighed and plonked himself onto Prowl's leg to get his attention.

"So what do you do for fun ,Prowl?"

"I don't see how that is important."

Stokes snorted, the answer was so typically Prowl. "Humour me... if you're capable of it."

"I enjoy problem solving, logic puzzles, tactical games."

"Huh. That is actually cooler than I expected." Stokes raised his brow in excitement. "Hey, do you play chess?"

"Chess?"

"Yeah-human game, tactics, lot of patience."

Prowl paused his optics dimmed as he searched the reference through his data banks. "Ah, no. I have never played. It does appear intriguing."

"Bet you're just a giant super computer aren't you? No flaws, rigid, predictable moves?" Stokes goaded cheerfully.

"I am not devoid of emotion Lieutenant, nor am I flawless with my tactics."

Stokes grinned, Prowl almost, ALMOST seemed insulted. "All right. I'll play you a game when we get back."

"I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"Why because I'm human, you think I can't beat you?" He folded his arms in indignation.

"I didn't say that."

"But you think it?"

"No!"

"Then play me!"

Nadya poked her head out of the panel before Prowl could respond. "Have you boys quite finished?" She climbed back onto Prowl's offered hand and smiled. "It's done. Give it a kick."

Prowl placed her on the floor and stood. He pressed a few commands into the console and was rewarded with a low rumbling throughout the engine room.

//Prowl to Prime. The thrusters are operational. I will re-route power to the bridge console.//

//Acknowledged, Prowl. Good work.//

//It was thanks to the humans, Sir. Prowl out.//

Stokes was practically bouncing in his suit. "That's good then, we're going home?"

Prowl hesitated, not wanting to pass along false hope. "With any luck Blackout will return with the necessary component and we will be able to return to Earth." He cast them a tiny smile as Stokes engulfed Nadya in a surprising hug.

"Great! I'll be beating you at chess before you know it." Stokes grinned while Nadya simply shook her head in bemusement; there was just no end to the man's positivism.

"So what now... we get to... to... fly the... oh crap..."

Prowl frowned crouching before Stokes as he slumped to his knees. The human peered through his helmet visor, eyes wide and fearful. "I can't breathe."

As if on cue Nadya mumbled incoherently before falling to the floor. Prowl turned back to the console and swiftly input a command. In one swift motion he gathered up the two astronauts and sprinted from the engine room. Reaching the med bay he skidded to a halt, placing the humans into a chamber, he began to work on the adjacent console.

Ironhide spun startled, straining his leg, his cannon whirring at the intrusion. "Primus, Prowl! I almost blew you back to Cybertron!"

Prowl ignored his grumbling and headed to a nearby berth. Bumblebee and Ironhide glanced at each other, worry etched on the yellow mech's face. They had to guard Soundwave and his Cassetticons . They were in the dark as to Prowl's urgency.

"What... you doing?" Stokes tried to reach out, his voice faint, strained.

"Putting you both into stasis; it's the only way to keep you alive." Prowl glanced worriedly over the humans' vitals, frowning when Stokes grabbed his hand.

"Have a game with... me... when we get back...please?"

Prowl frowned at the completely illogical request. "I can compute 800 different courses of action on a battle field in less than a second, I don't think it would be a…."

Stokes managed a short laugh. "Something...to look forward to...."

Prowl ceased his protest and gave Stokes a quick nod in affirmation. "When we return." He closed the chamber as Stokes threw him a grateful grin. Activating the stasis pod the two humans fell into a comatose but alive state, their vitals clearly displayed on the screen.

//Prowl to Ratchet.//

//Kinda busy here, Prowl. With repairs, demented Decepticons, and Sideswipe.//

//The humans have almost run out of oxygen. I have placed them into a stasis chamber in the med bay. How long can we keep it running on minimal power?//

//Slag... couple of cycles maybe more if we divert power from non essential systems.//

//Thank you, I'll inform Prime.//

Prowl took one last look over the humans in stasis and turned back to Ironhide. "Have they been any trouble?"

Ironhide shrugged. "Sleeping Beauty over there just woke up, others are too scared of getting slagged if they so much as twitch. I got it covered, Prowl. What was that all about?"

Prowl remained impassive, activating his internal comm. //Humans have almost run out of Oxygen. Please ensure that Soundwave or the others don't learn of their vulnerability. Keep them away from the stasis pods, I have no doubt that he will not hesitate to kill them.//

Ironhide gave him a terse nod, both his cannons armed and pointed at the 'cons. Bumblebee glanced fretfully between them, his optics wide. He liked the humans and always felt more concern than most when they were at risk. Prowl noticed his restlessness and placed a hand on his shoulder in reassurance before turning on his heel and heading for the bridge. He could only hope that Blackout came through for them.

***

Starscream tried to make a reasonable excuse why he should stay near Barricade without making it too obvious. He suspected Prowl had figured it out from last time, but had, after one last sidelong glance, gone with the humans to the engine room to repair the thrusters. But in the end, he was needed outside to hold up newly fabricated external plating for the ship. Which, if you asked him, was a complete underutilization of his skills, but then again, what else did one expect from these hateful Autobots? And perhaps, he had decided, it was good not to have them know his true potential.

"Right," Sideswipe said. "Now, just hold it steady…. Just like that."

"You do not need to give me instructions on how to hold a piece of metal immobile," Starscream snapped. "Unlike you Autobots, we Decepticons have basic skills."

"Oh yeah," Sideswipe retorted, "Basic skills like what? How to kill each other in your sleep?"

"We have much more entertaining things that we do when we catch others in recharge," Starscream smirked.

"Oh, gross."

"I suppose you tedious Autobots simply sit around and tell each other how impossibly virtuous you all are, especially your Prime."

"You leave Prime alone, you filthy 'con!" Sideswipe threw down his riveter. It bounced off the hull of the ship and off into the low gravity.

"Oh, too close to home, Autobot?" Starscream said. Sideswipe shot him an angry look and scrambled off the hull to retrieve the tool. "And it appears you Autobots do need basic instructions. That is not how one uses that tool."

"Things would go a lot more smoothly," Ratchet snapped back, "If you'd both shut up and do your jobs."

"He started it," Starscream muttered. Ratchet made him uncomfortable. He hit his subvoc. //Barricade?//

//What?// Barricade sounded…annoyed.

Starscream hesitated. //Are you well?//

//Oh just fantastic. Stuck on the bridge with the Autobot Idol. I am truly unworthy of his perfection.//

//You are unworthy of me as well, but that has never stopped you,// the jet teased.

//Ha ha.//

Starscream frowned, but he didn't want to push Barricade. Not yet. Barricade would tell him if his symptoms were getting worse. //How go repairs?//

//WhatEVER.//

That…did not sound good. Was this Barricade melting down again? Starscream looked down, trying to conjure an excuse to go back into the ship. //Barricade?//

//Hey, jet, you gonna tell me about the copter?//

//What about Blackout?//

//Know that coy act doesn't work with me, right?//

Starscream sighed. //I am merely inquiring what precisely you wish to know.// He shifted to one side as Sideswipe climbed up alongside him. Sideswipe glared at him, as if daring him to start something. Starscream shrugged. And noted that even his refusal to engage with the Autobot irked him.

//Want to know how he knew what Soundwave was up to?//

//I do not think that he does. He simply saw an opportune moment and inferred that Soundwave did not have our interests--or survival--at heart.//

//You make him almost sound like a Decepticon.//

//Do not underestimate Blackout simply because he chooses to be more personable than you.// Starscream winced as Sideswipe lost his grip on the riveter, driving it, accidentally, into the jet's hand. If Starscream hadn't been so preoccupied, he would have slapped the Autobot. Sideswipe looked up, muttered an apology, and bent back over the panel.

//You know what I mean--he was helping the enemy.//

//He was helping us get off this blasted moon. Aiding them until that goal is achieved is the only logical choice.//

//Slag. We could have worked around Soundwave ourselves after he did…whatever he did.//

Starscream heard his own shoulder gyros release some tension. Barricade sounded…sane. For the moment. He only had the mech's abrasive nature to deal with. And Sideswipe. //You sound confident that Soundwave's plan did not liquidate us.//

//Just asking--the copter's too innocent to think like that.//

Barricade had a point. //You suspect he was called there by an Autobot.//

//It's a possibility.//

//Barricade,// Starscream went for a clumsy deflection. //Say that were true--why did you help him?//

A long pause. //Not Soundwave's biggest fan.//

//He was attacking Prowl. You saved Prowl.//

A groan. //Shut it.//

//If that was not your motive,// the jet said, //then you were motivated either by friendliness to Blackout// another groan, as if in physical pain, //or you too decided to help the Autobots.//

//I-uhhhhh, decided that he would be less likely to face charges of treason if I did it with him.//

//Why, Barricade, how very noble of you.//

//Seriously? Why you doing this to me? Not bad enough I'm stuck here holding motherboards for Primetime here?//

//It behooves me to have the mechs under my command to be amiable with each other. The better you get along with Blackout, the more smoothly my life runs.//

Another long pause. //How you think he's doing?//

Starscream's turn to hesitate.

Barricade grunted. //That bad, huh?//

Optimus worked quietly at the main bridge console, he had sat down in an attempt to prevent further injury and not to frag up Ratchet's temporary patchwork. He cast a sidelong glance at his unlikely companion. Barricade appeared outwardly calm, controlled, which was odd in itself. Gone was his notable snark and distinctive sneer, he merely responded when Optimus instructed him to adjust the computer controls and occasionally he would twitch, glance around the room suspiciously before forcing him to stare blankly at the console.

Prowl had given him a quiet heads-up on Barricade's (what he could only call a) condition. He had confirmed Prime's own suspicions that Barricade had indeed been a combat controller. He dreaded to think how many mechs had been under his direct control. He was uncomfortably aware that Ironhide had been one of those of mechs. Something he put aside for a later discussion with his weapons specialist. Right now, Optimus felt himself pretty much clueless in how to handle this unexpected situation.

"Taking a picture will last longer." Barricade muttered, his optics never leaving the console.

Optimus shifted uncomfortably, he hadn't even realized he'd been staring. "I was wondering, as you seem rather... uncomfortable after what happened with Soundwave and Rumble. Ummm..."

'Be nice, tactful, best not to rile him while he seems to be on your side.'

"What does it do to you, when you have to take control of another mech? I mean is it painful for you... for them?"

"Why? You looking for a change of career?"

Well at least his abrasive sense of humour was intact, Optimus thought dryly. "No. Just you know, if you're in any discomfort... I can get Ratchet to..."

"Save it Autobot." Barricade growled. "Don't want or need your charity." His optics narrowed. None of your business, Autoboob.

Optimus turned back to his console, deflated. 'Outstanding, alienated with one sentence. And not even a coherent one at that. Excellent.' Optimus rolled his optics at his own inability to approach such a personal topic. He was rarely caught in such instances where it was necessary. It wasn't that he was an unapproachable leader just that the title alone gave him a certain distance. His mechs would never trouble him with personal issues, they would consider it the height of disrespect due to stellar cycles of ingrained programming spanning from before the war, back to a time when Cybertron was a class dominated civilization.

"It doesn't hurt."

Optimus was surprised at the interruption. He glanced at Barricade who was scowling, probably regretting even sharing that tiny bit of information.

"Can be painful for the mech being controlled, especially if they resist or are hacked. Like what Solar panels kindly did to me, Prowl oh and you." Barricade met Optimus's gaze and sneered. "Doesn't make you a resident expert, so don't plan on writing your autobiography. Ironhide's got you way beat on that."

Optimus's optics widened, he REALLY wasn't used to that brand of cutting sarcasm. Deciding the best tactic was to ignore it, he changed the subject. "Well I am sure you're glad the humans dropped in when they did then." He said innocently, oblivious to the dark look crossing Barricade's features.

"Ecstatic." Barricade muttered his scowl deepening. His optics snapped up to Prime as his comm. buzzed.

Out of courtesy Optimus activated the speaker on his comm. Prowl's voice came through clear and direct. Barricade cursed inwardly upon hearing that the humans had proven useful yet again. There was just no end to his humiliation; did they have to keep rubbing his face in it?

"'Bout time the fleshlings made themselves more useful than fashion accessories."

Optimus raised an orbital ridge at him in vague amusement. "They did save you from Soundwave, Barricade."

"What? Do they want a fraggin' medal? Had it covered." He turned back to his console, inputting the commands to bypass the incessant firewalls as Optimus had instructed. "Right where I wanted him," he muttered ignoring Prime's bemused gaze.

The console flashed and the bridge suddenly lit up in an array of bleeps and lights. The cracked forward viewer blinked and the mountain wall came into focus, blurry but visible all the same. Optimus turned to him his optics narrowed with a hidden smile.

"How's your piloting?" Optimus asked, his smirk widening at Barricade's surprise.

Blackout hated to admit he hated small spaces. He wasn't really very fond of hating anything. That was more of a Bonecrusher thing, really. Between Bonecrusher and Brawl, the hating thing was pretty well covered. But he wasn't very cool in the small confines of the Autobot pod. It didn't help that the Autobots put everything in different places. He ran through the list of items he might have to find real fast several times: hailing freqs, defense shields, booster jets, attitudinal adjusters. And hoped that was good enough.

He was picking his way through an asteroid field, trying to concentrate on dodging the larger pieces, more worried than he wanted to admit that one of the chunks of stone would damage his comm array, leaving him more or less commless. Which would suck no matter who he ran into first.

He wasn't fond of the idea of running into Autobots much more than he was of making it back to the orbital platform. But he had to do this right or else Barricade would…slaughter him.

Blackout didn't like that he was chosen, even though he got along with just about everyone. He kept checking the farscans for any contact, hoping he'd get just enough notice to prepare himself.

"Wow," a voice cut over the ship's hailing comm. "Aren't you a lost little 'bot?"

"Thundercracker?" The proximity alarms fired, the large jet appearing from behind an asteroid.

"Blackout?" A pause. "I probably don't want to know why you're in an Autobot pod, do I?"

"Don't really want to talk about it."

"My idiot trinemate in trouble?"

Uhhhhh. "Kind of."

"Hunh. Kind of. And you're here in a pod. Heading back to the station. You bailing on him?" Thundercracker's voice got sharp, and the pod registered a target lock.

"No! He sent me to get help. We're stuck on a fragging moon."

"We?"

"Starscream and Barricade. Soundwave too." Well, he'd find out sooner or later.

"I take it that S&D went horribly awry."

Blackout grimaced, even though he knew the jet couldn't see him. "You have no idea."

"Been there." The blue jet appeared on his view screen, shifting to his robot mode to hover. "What help do you need?"

"Some catalyzer thingie for the Autobot ship." Blackout relaxed a bit.

"Starscream…can't fly?"

"Damaged. He, uhhh, lost an eye too." He hesitated. "And we gotta cooperate with Autobots, too."

"Frag, that really redefines 'horribly awry'." Thundercracker grinned. "Right. You want a catalyzer. We can do that."

"And…uh, someone who might be able to jerryrig Autobot tech to install it."

"Hook'd be best, but…slag. He's a pain to work with." The blue jet turned. "Follow my vector in: we'll get you in undiscovered."

Blackout boosted the weak thrusters on the pod to follow Thundercracker. Maybe this wouldn't be that hard.

"Why is Hook a pain?" He'd heard so much bad about all of his fellow 'cons that he consciously ignored all of it. Still, if this was going to be a problem, he should know. Barricade would probably not only know, but have a great strategy to get around Hook's issues. He missed Barricade. And hoped he was okay. "Uh, he gonna rat us out to Megatron?"

Thundercracker snorted over comm. "Not likely. Problem with Hook is 'jerryrig' isn't in his vocabulary as anything other than an ultimate cuss word. He'll fix the damn thing forever."

"Oh." Frag, Blackout really didn't want to be stuck on that moon much longer. Barricade was looking…squirrelly when he left and Starscream…well, he must be about crazy from the strain of being surrounded by so many Autobots and not able to slap any of them. Not that Blackout thought himself a stellar example of cooperation. The Autobots creeped him out, hard. That medic, no way. The one that Barricade said had freaked because they were flirting with him? Weird. Ironhide was one big mess of unstable. The only 'bot he almost tolerated was Bingbangboom. "Think we should get him?"

"He's the best. The rest of that stuff, we can sort out later." A hum over the comm line as Thundercracker kicked on his reverse thrusters to shed speed, coming in for a light landing to the open hangar. Blackout did a less elegant job of it with the alien controls of the pod, which ended up skidding against the deck flooring, tearing up some plating, and coming to rest, finally, against the far bulkhead. Blackout crawled out of the pod, turning to give it one last kick, his capacitor racing. Fragging thing! From now on, copter did his own flying.

Starscream and Sideswipe were ushered from the hull plating by Ratchet, who looked angrier than usual. He muttered under his breath, leading them some distance away before turning and staring back at the ship. Starscream stole a glance at Sideswipe who caught his optic and shrugged looking as confused as he was.

"We're ready now, in position. You're clear for maneuvers." Ratchet suddenly spoke out loud, startling them both. "Primus help us having a 'con at the helm."

Starscream's one functioning optic stared at Ratchet. "Barricade is piloting the ship?"

"It looks that way yeah."

Considering Barricade's current potentially unstable condition this did not fill him with a sense of comfort. //Barricade, how is the situation?//

//Can't really talk, playing chauffeur and got Prowl whispering sweet nothings in my audio.//

//While I am sure that is only appealing for you, why are you piloting the ship?//

//Prime time is too focused on getting the main computer up and running. Prowl had only just decided to grace us with his insanely cheerful presence. He's navigating.//

//I see... are you...?//

//Can manage, jet. Don't need you joining the ranks of the skeptical right now. Already had to listen to cannons for brains tearing 'let's be friends' a new audio for asking me to take point.//

//Just keep it intact, I am certain you can do a better job than the inept Autobot that crashed it in the first place.//

//Brimming with fluffy warmth and love over here. Right got to fly, loverbot here is giving me the optic.//

Starscream smirked discreetly his comm falling silent. The three mechs watched as the small thrusters fired up. A low rumbling filled their audios and the ground began to shake as the ship slowly pulled away from the mountain side. Ratchet hissed and cursed as the screeching sounds of ripping metal scarred the air. The ship shuddered and trembled in the low g, debris, dust and hull plating spinning off into the almost non-existent atmosphere. With a loud scream of strained thrusters the Ark finally broke free and began to steer away from the mountain. Optics remained fixed on the ship, navigating its way slowly back along the path it had carved upon landing. It whined and hissed before slowly lowering to the uneven rocky ground. With a sudden crack the engines stalled and the ship dropped the meter or so to the surface of the moon. The small audience grabbed onto each other for balance against the quaking ground.

"Oh for spark's sake!" Ratchet bellowed racing off towards the ship followed closely by Sideswipe. Starscream was about to follow when a familiar voice stopped him cold.

"Haven't seen such fragged flying since our academy days."

Starscream turned slowly. He glared at his trine mate. "Thundercracker, what are you doing here?"

Thundercracker's lip components curved in a knowing smirk. "A little bird told me you were in trouble. Thought I'd come for the after show. Glad to see I haven't missed anything."

A/N ahh things have settled somewhat now so I'm sorry for the absence. Please have some fic and enjoy!

Blackout was about to give up. Hook was…harder to deal with than Thundercracker had let on. Not that he'd expected it to be easy. Just…not hard this way, is all.

Hook had no problem with doing something sub rosa. Don't tell Megatron? No problem. (Which boggled Blackout's mind, speculating how many things the engineer had done before without Megatron's knowledge.) Had no problem coming back to repair.

But the Fratalyzer was a problem. Hook wanted to know all sorts of stuff Blackout had like no idea about. Charge capacity. Cubic volume. Desired output measures. Blackout got really tired of saying "I don't know" and "Maybe." He felt dumb. And stupid. And useless. And big. Hook was barely the size of Barricade, but even, if that was possible, scarier.

"Surely," Hook said, blandly, "Someone knows."

Blackout frowned. "Can't comm them-mine is fried," (saving Autobots o frag don't ask how) "and anything ship-originated would be traceable."

Hook had eventually thrown up his hands in frustration and ordered a list of items to wait for them in the hangar. Which had made Blackout think…oh frag. How are we getting back to the moon? Apparently Hook had decided a small jumpshuttle. Blackout considered-not that he was given any say in this or anything-but the shuttle was just big enough to get he, Starscream, Barricade and possibly Soundwave off the moon. If need be. Maybe they could just dump the Fratalyzer and go. You know, with Barricade NOT sitting right next to him to tear off his audio. Barricade didn't forget why he was mad.

Blackout had tried to contact Thundercracker on the ship's comm, but…he was out of range. Huh. Guess he didn't care so much.

Hook plopped himself in the back of the shuttle with a bag of equipment. "You fly," he said.

"Uhhh, don't really think you want that," Blackout said. After his less-than-ace piloting skills with the Autobot pod, he wasn't eager to get behind the stick again.

"I don't know where we're going," Hook said. "I'd have to activate the astrogation and…"

"Trackable. Right." Blackout sure was tired of feeling dumb. It didn't help that Hook had…even less interpersonal skills than Barricade. At least Barricade was funny. Hook was just…creepy. But, whatever. A mech never got anywhere by complaining, right? Well, unless you were Starscream. But everyone else, complaining was uncool. Or Barricade. He complained a lot, too. But it was hard to take him seriously because his complaints were funny. Okay, come to think of it, Blackout was the only mech he knew who didn't complain. And he didn't want to start. He sighed, frustrated at himself, and settled himself behind the jumpshuttle's controls. Hook was…was he talking to the fratalyzers? Sounded like it. Weird. Hook was just straight up weird.

Blackout didn't mean it in a bad way, though. Everyone was a little weird, right?

He powered up the throttle and lifted the ship off the hangar floor. He hated to admit he was kind of looking forward to seeing the others again. Even if it meant Barricade ripping his arm off.

Barricade muttered to himself, shaking off Prowl's hands. "Can get up just fine."

The main console blinked angrily. Right. Like it was his fault. Fraggin' Autobot ship. Fraggin' bad landing into the side of the fraggin' mountain. He glared at Optimus, pretty sure the all-sterling Autobot leader had only let him fly because he knew this would happen. Set up to look bad. Barricade snarled.

"Hey!" a voice came through over the ship system comm. "Anyone going to tell us what happened?"

"Sorry, Ironhide," Optimus said. "We pulled the ship out of the mountain so that we can begin repairs to the navigation system."

"Yeah well you did an excellent job navigating us right onto the ground. Which idiot did the flying? Was Prowl's cortex fritzing again?"

"Barricade did."

A long silence. "Well, that explains everything, really," Ironhide said. "Only surprise is he didn't manage to blow us up in the process."

"If I still had some neptunium," Barricade snapped, "Be sure I'd've tried."

"Ironhide, Barricade!" Optimus barked. "We must work together."

"Yeah, I am working together," Ironhide muttered. "Just offering my new teammy a little constructive criticism about his flying."

"That's IT!" Barricade glared at the audio speaker. His optics flashed white.

A crashing sound over the speaker, followed by muffled cursing.

"I'm gonna fraggin' offline you, you filthy 'con!" Ironhide swore.

"What?" Barricade asked, innocently.

"Ironhide?" Optimus asked. "What happened down there?"

"Fraggin' defibrillator attacked me. ATTACKED ME."

Barricade shrugged. "Sounds like someone's a little delusional."

Prowl frowned. "Barricade, you forget that I saw you in the mines."

Barricade sighed. "Fine. You didn't mind when I did it to Short Stack back there to save your aft."

"I was incapacitated."

"Sure. That's your excuse."

"Barricade!" Optimus barked. "We are cooperating. We were wrong in not warning Ironhide that the ship would move. He has a right to be upset." He raised his voice to the comm pickup. "Ironhide, I regret that we forgot to warn you."

"Oh slag, seriously? You Autobots are pathetic. No idea how you carry on a war with all this sensitivity nonsense. We sure don't worry about it on my side."

"Nonsense," Prowl said. "I saw you and Starscream in the mines. Both of you were extremely considerate of the other's plight."

"You," Barricade said, "shut up. Before I'm forced to remind you how sexy you are."

Optimus cleared his vocalizer. He did not want to revisit this. Maybe later-he suspected it would be a good laugh later. But right now, they had bigger priorities.

Starscream frowned, feeling Thundercracker's eyes take in his damaged face, and more, register the concomitant lack in his capabilities. No depth perception meant he was more or less ground bound. "It has been," Starscream said, "an exceedingly trying mission."

"Yeah, I gathered as much from the copter."

"Has he made it to the base yet?"

"Flew him in myself, so his beacon wouldn't register. That pod, though…we're going to have to explain it sooner or later."

"Scavenger," Starscream said. "He is my explanation for many things that look like junk. Just as I blame everything that looks too crazy on Wildrider."

"That must be some mental rolodex you have there, jet," Sideswipe muttered. "I take responsibility for my actions. Keeps it simple."

"Simple is as simple does," the jet retorted.

"Will you PLEASE stop arguing?" Ratchet looked more than usually aggrieved. Probably because he couldn't decide which of the mechs in front of him deserved to be hit with a wrench first. "We have a ship to fix." He turned to Thundercracker. "Any word on a catalyzer?"

"I told Blackout to get Hook. He'll know what to bring."

"Eugh. He'll bring it in three different sizes."

"Well, the good news is it'll be fixed forever."

"That is NOT good news, Thundercracker: we are talking about an enemy ship."

"Frag." Thundercracker turned to survey the damaged vessel. "Not sure even Hook can get this thing going again." He turned back. "I can help you with astrogation if it needs to happen," he offered.

"That would not help Blackout and Barricade," Starscream said. "Nor Soundwave, though I am still unsure of his status. Would you be able to pull his mission specs?"

"Not without the right codes. In a bit maybe." Thundercracker shot a dark look at Ratchet and Sideswipe.

"I suppose I shall once again act as the natural leader that I am," Starscream said, abruptly. "We do no good to the ship from here." He trudged across the grey-brown rubble of the moon's surface.

Thundercracker frowned, shrugged, and turned to follow Starscream-their longer legs outpacing the Autobots. "Want to tell me what's bothering you?"

"The time is entirely insufficient to catalog the series of indignities and disasters I have suffered through on this mission."

"Brief update as to what we still face."

"Soundwave is..unreliable. Barricade requires handling-please allow me to do the handling. And we are forced to collaborate with these Autobots."

"Why forced? I told you, you and I can jet out of here whenever. If you want, we can grab Barricade: though I seem to recall he kind of hates being flown. Chances are we can intercept Blackout and the catalyzer and head off on our way, leaving these losers to their loserdom."

Starscream sighed. "We, alas, cannot. They know too much."

"So…we're waiting for a double cross?"

"I am hoping instead that we find out enough about them that they find it worth their while to forget what they found out about us."

Thundercracker blinked, slowly. "Oooookay. But sabotaging the ship would be easier."

"There is easy, and then there is," they both spoke the last part, like a secret joke, "the Decepticon way."

Barricade shivered, the first of the hallucinations floating just out of range of his optics. Ha ha, he told himself. Hope it was worth it, that little prank on Ironhide, because you're going to pay for it now. He looked anxiously between Prowl and Optimus-both of them were elbow deep in the main computer. Barricade took a few steps back, hoping it wouldn't look too obvious if he let himself slip, slowly, to the floor. He hated this. He could call the jet to knock him out again. He hated asking for help. No. He could pull himself through this. It wasn't that bad. This wasn't stronger than him. Bigger than him.

He fought, pushing the hallucination further away, like trying to blow away a mist or fog. It skirled around his edges of control, tendrils reaching in. No. He pushed back harder. Frag, Blackout, where are you? He felt a chilly premonition: they were all going to die here. Soundwave would try something again. Soundwave didn't like losing. Liked it even less than Barricade did. The fact that he hadn't tried anything, even during the defibrillator thing, confirmed to Barricade that the satellite was Up To Something.

A whine tried to claw its way out of his vocalizer. He stifled it.

Optimus looked back over his shoulder. "Barricade? Are you all right?"

"M fine," he muttered. The words didn't come out as angry as he'd wanted. Didn't have that 'back the frag off' punch he was hoping for.

Prowl looked back at Barricade. His optics were a little too discerning. Barricade summoned a sneer just for him. Special gift, just for you, Prowlypants, he thought. "Optimus," Prowl said, slowly, "Being underground, none of us were able to use solar recharge. Perhaps we all could use some energon."

"Yes," Optimus said. "Probably all of us could use a break. We need to make sure that those in the med bay get some energon as well." He nodded Prowl off to the task. He turned to Barricade, dropping to one knee in front of him.

"Barricade?"

Barricade glared at the visage of the concerned Autobot leader crouched awkwardly in front of him, this was the last thing he needed, false niceties. "Didn't think our relationship had progressed that far Prime." He growled his optics flicking over to where Optimus was knelt down on one knee.

Optimus shifted and knelt down completely in front of the acerbic 'con. This was going to be difficult. His joints ached and from what he could tell there wasn't a part of his armour that didn't hurt in some way, not to mention he hadn't recharged since the mission began. That and the combined energon loss and attempted hack of his cortex had worn him down. He now felt he was on the last teetering edge of his patience as well as his sanity.

"Look I know this is difficult for you."

"Got no fraggin' idea."

Optimus sighed, Barricade was going to have an answer for everything no matter how hard he tried to play nice. Right now he didn't see that he had any other choice. "I just want to help. Is there… anything I can do?"

"Can stuff yourself in a smelter." Barricade decided that would be both entertaining and a good riddance. Was the Autobot going to take him up on his suggestion, not fraggin' likely.

Optimus dropped his gaze and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "Look Barricade." His voice took on a more commanding note, despite the lack of authority he was feeling at that very moment. "I didn't do this to you. I am genuinely concerned for your well being while you're on my ship and errr not trying to hijack it." He added hastily.

"Charmed." Barricade shot back with a glower.

"Just can you tell me what it is, that's wrong. What I can do?"

"Already given you a suggestion: you didn't fancy turning yourself into a tin can for me."

"That would be rather counterproductive to our current situation, don't you think?" He sincerely wished Prowl would hurry back with the energon. His SIC at least seemed to have some inkling of what was wrong with Barricade and he, as usual, was getting nowhere.

He moved a short distance away from Barricade and sat himself down gingerly. Barricade watched him suspiciously, not entirely comfortable with the whole 'let's be friends' vibe Prime was giving off. A small part of him wished that Prowl would return sooner rather than later, he at least didn't ask impertinent questions about things that weren't any of his slagging business.

"I honestly sometimes wonder how we've managed to fight for so long."

Barricade was taken aback by the random statement. "Mutual dislike and boredom." He stated blandly, not really wanting to get into a debate about the finer points of a war that no one really remembered the cause of in the first place.

Optimus laughed quietly. "You're probably quite right." This was better at least he could engage in pointless conversation when he had to.

"How you've managed to command that bunch of miscreants you call an army for so long is probably the more fascinating question." Barricade shot back, suddenly wanting a distraction from the hallucinations that were beginning to plague him once more.

"Patience, practice and not without making an example out of one or two along the way." Frag, GO AWAY. Stop staring at me. The energy of trying to appear all…normal was really starting to wear on him.

Barricade huffed at that statement. "Sounds like a Megatron tactic."

"Ah no, luckily I have Prowl to set the examples for me." He smirked. "He is far more… creative than me when it comes to appropriate reprimands."

Well, that sounded just lovely. Barricade forced himself still as a shudder wracked his frame. "Way to delegate." Barricade spoke even quieter now, his optics focused on the floor with fierce intensity.

Optimus noticed the tension in Barricade's frame and continued the menial chatter in a hope that it would distract him from whatever it was that was bothering him. He carried on talking until Barricade relaxed again a few moments later.

"You ok?"

Barricade just glared at him and was thankful when a cube of energon was held in front of his face. He glanced up to see Prowl standing over him holding out the energon cube. "Fine."

"You need your strength."

"M' fine," he repeated, irritably.

"The slag you are." Prowl snapped thrusting the cube into Barricade's hands before turning on his heel and handing the other cube to Optimus.

"Gettin' under your plating sexy bot?" He summoned up a burst of strength to inflect his voice. Wasn't going to show weakness in front of these slaggin' Autobots. What they don't know…they can't use against me.

Prowl shot him a dark look and vented a cycle of air. Optimus frowned at him, noticing for the first time the newly formed dents in his armour plating, and the faint splattering of energon contrasting his monochrome paintwork.

"Prowl what happened?"

The black and white mech met his leader's frown with a weary; - I'm-on-my-last-fraggin'- nerve - glare. "There was an incident in the med bay."

"What?" Optimus winced as he pushed himself to his feet. "Why wasn't I informed?"

"There was no time." Prowl held out his hands to placate his increasingly agitated leader, at least he wasn't the only one losing his last shred of patience on this Primus forsaken mission. Prowl swore silently to himself that he wasn't ever going to volunteer for any more missions and was going to lock himself in his office for the remainder of their time on Earth. "Ratchet has been informed; he's on his way to the med bay to tend the injuries now."

Optimus's optics spiraled outwards in sheer disbelief. "Injuries? What in Primus's name is going on Prowl?" And why was he suddenly being left out of the loop?

"Please Sir I can explain."

Barricade chuckled darkly as he sipped at his energon. It made a change to see the unflappable Autobot, well flapping. Certainly more entertaining than feeling the wet haze grasping at his cortex again. Suddenly, drinking the energon seemed like a bad idea. Fueling his systems. He needed a reboot. But he would NOT stoop to asking them. He put the cube aside.

Optimus towered over his SIC, his hands firmly planted on his hips. He had, had enough. Either they were going to learn to cooperate for their mutual benefit or he was going to off line the lot of them in a fit of temporary insanity when he finally snapped.

"Well you better start."