The problem he was dealing with here? He had no choice.

The Covert Intelligence Operations division—long nicknamed Special Operations because acknowledging a covert division as covert was self- defeating—was too much of a hotbed to leave unguided, much too specialized to integrate back into the Army proper, and too defiant to accept leadership from anyone other than one of their own.

Special Operations needed to be helmed by one of their own; but he also needed someone experienced that he could trust.

Experienced mechs were hard to come by, especially ones with Jazz's particular areas of expertise. Autobots placed in Special Operations averaged about a quarter of the general life-expectancy of any other Autobot, almost entirely due to the fact that their missions had such a grotesque casualty rate—and it wasn't due to incompetence. The missions were tightly planned and tailored to the skills the bot executing it possessed. A suicide mission, however, was still a suicide mission. The accepted odds for a normal mission was 70/30. High-risk missions ran on 60/40 odds. 50/50 bumped it to one of Elita-One's specialist cells, or over to Ultra Magnus' Wreckers and Dynobots. 30/70 saw it scrubbed, or shunted over to Special Operations, who would either reject the mission outright, or retool it into one of their own operations, depending on the goal and potential gain. When you started out a mission with 70% odds of not returning, however, well...Special Operations had the worst mortality rate in the Army for a reason.

There were others that shared the same skill set as Jazz, other choices for Director, but they were nowhere near as competent, and only a scant few of themwould pass even a fraction of Red Alert's background checks. Bots in Special Operations tended to carry a bit of stigma as it was, given the first and third Directors' defection, the second's breakdown and subsequent desertion, and the fourth currently up on charges of dereliction of duty and treason.

The very nature of their work didn't help to endear them to the rest of the army either. Ops agents had no true hierarchy outside of the Director and his assistant, no true ranking, and operated on a need to know basis with the rest of their comrades. What little escaped the secretive division was hardly fit for public consumption—assassinations, infiltrations, espionage, the darker things 'proper' Autobots abhorred, but were necessary if they were going to have any hope of winning this war. They were the true elite of the army, but their hands were covered in energon more so than any other Autobot, and that fact alone had created a gulf between the Division and the rest of the army.

Moreover, Prowl had done the division absolutely no favors when he'd very loudly accused the former Director of failing to keep control of the bots in his division. His primary commander had gone on an out and out rant, verbally flaying the Ops Director at the scene of an all too familiar attempt at internal sabotage by another subverted Ops cell. Special Operations was completely out of favor, and the rest of the army knew it as well. They were mercilessly mocked, openly despised and blatantly mistrusted, and almost entirely shunned. The elite of the Autobot army, and they had become little more than pariahs.

Optimus groaned and leaned back in his chair. He had very few options this time. He could incorporate the Special Operations Division back into the army proper, which would be a complete and total horror-show. His Ops agents traditionally functioned as augments to the army, answering to no one but their own nebulous hierarchy. They were not traditional fighters, were not used to the protocol that governed his army, were far too used to doing things their own way. He was not one prone to self-delusion, and knew that none of his other officers would hesitate to come down hard on the Ops bots at the slightest provocation. Prowl himself would have most of them up on charges and court martialed within the first decacycle.

He could put one of his other officers in charge of the division, but it took a very special sort of bot to handle the Ops division. Prowl would cut his losses and disband the division right off the mark, Ironhide...no. Just...no. Elita might work, but she had her hands full with the femme division. Taking over Special Operations would mean a promotion, which meant Ultra Magnus was going to outright refuse. For all the mech clung to protocol and discipline, he'd never met a mech more resistant to wielding authority than Magnus. The mech was perfectly comfortable exactly where he was, and refused to move a single bit.

It was all for the best, anyway. Magnus didn't have the spark for the actions running Ops required, as attached to the Tyrest Accords as he was. 95% of the missions Special Operations ran were covert or black ops. Those were illegal by definition, and illegality was something particularly hard for Ultra Magnus to accept when it came to the Tyrest Accords. It would take longer than Prowl, but Magnus would have the entire division scrubbed, dispersed back into the army proper and whatever staff he could get his hands on up on charges.

Prowl would be elated.

None of his other officers had the experience or seniority to handle the complicated division, to say nothing of the complete lack of desire. It was a thankless job, and whoever wound up with it would be inheriting millennia of deep-rooted problems. No, none of his other commanders would suit.

His best option was to bump up one of the standing Operations bots. Most of them weren't officer material, a depressing number of the ones that were wouldn't pass enough of Red Alert's security checks (it seemed cleaning out that division was rapidly becoming even more of a priority than originally thought), and of the remaining number, only three of them would be any good. Roulette would be a decent Director, but the femme had already expressed a desire to transfer to Elita One's contingent after the latest scandal to erupt out of the Ops division. Redactor knew what he was doing, but was close to burning out. Taking over the division was not going to help that problem.

Then there was Lieutenant-Commander Jazz.

To be perfectly honest, Optimus would have handed Jazz the division a long time ago. Silhouette might have been the one with the rank and clout amongst the other command staff, but within the vague hierarchy of the Ops division Jazz was the true power. His plans were the most effective, he had the most influence over his comrades, and he had far and away the most successful missions. The Ops agents clearly followed his lead, had always been more concerned about pleasing him instead of their Director. The truth of the matter was Jazz was practically running the Ops division anyway. All this appointment would succeed in was granting Jazz the actual rank and authority he already acted like he possessed.

Most importantly, he trusted Jazz. Oh, there were times that he had to wonder if Jazz was more loyal to him personally than the actual Cause, but at least Jazz was a known quantity in his existence. Where he went Jazz would follow, and even if he perished, so long as the Autobot Cause continued to espouse his philosophies Jazz would remain loyal. Optimus had questioned the mech once about where his loyalty would lead him if there were no Optimus and a Cause changed from what he believed. Jazz had simply gestured skyward, hand lazily pointing at faint stars in the far, far distance. 'I will follow you and your ideals, or nothing at all'. An Autobot gone Neutral was infinitely preferable to Jazz throwing in his lot with the Decepticons if the Cause no longer swayed him. Optimus was content with the answer; that was the strongest loyalty any Operative had likely given, and was probably the best that could ever be expected to come out of the division, to say nothing of Jazz personally.

Outside of a few charges for insubordination—because the mech chafed under micro-management and strict formality and was not one to curb his vicious wit when roused—Jazz had a clean record. Even more telling was the fact that he and Red Alert got along. Red Alert was very particular about the company he kept, and Jazz was a known fixture in it. There were a few ugly rumors that Red Alert was using Jazz to spy on the Ops division, which was absolutely laughable. Special Ops had actually originated as the field branch of Intelligence & Security before evolving into its own entity. Many of the missions that were developed in Ops were for the sake of that division; of course Red Alert would know what was going on in Ops. Red Alert knew about what was going on everywhere, because it was his job.

Prowl had been well within rights to say that Silhouette should have kept a better check on his division, especiallygiven the four that had tried to blow the base, but what had yet to get around was the absolute terror Red Alert—then Prowl—then Red Alert again—rained down on the Intel agents that had been assigned as their handlers. Every mech in Ops had a handler, a partner so to speak, from the Intelligence & Security division. The handler was responsible for helping tailor assigned missions, clearing their Operative if they returned from a field mission, and splitting duties with them when they were on shift at a base. The handler shared clearances, so they had to be at least of equal, if not greater rank, and were expected to be the first to know if their Operative was compromised—be it physical, mental or ethical.

Jazz had been assigned to Red Alert after he enlisted, and in a move that surprised everyone, Red Alert hadn't gone into a fritz over Jazz. Jazz understood Red Alert and worked well with him; enough so that Red Alert generally kept Jazz very low on his watch list—low enough that Jazz was one of the few mechs that could claim to socialize with Red Alert. The only other two were Inferno and Firestar, and Red was interfacing with them. Besides, Jazz was Ops' foremost agent, so even if Red Alert weren't his handler, the mech would still have his clutches all over him—there was simply no one else with enough clearance or expertise to do what Red Alert needed, and no one besides Red Alert qualified—or really even able—to deal with Jazz, or what the mech routinely got up to in the field.

Jazz was a successful agent, proven loyal, already had the respect and admiration of his cohorts alongside the credentials, and even seemed to possess the knack of transferring a degree of his already infamous skill and luck onto his fellows; the last alone was reason enough to put him in charge—his Autobots were all devastatingly skilled, but Megatron still had them beat for sheer numbers, and any loss was felt keenly. That Jazz was suppressing the rate at which Ops cashiered its agents made him even more invaluable. He would also no doubt receive Red Alert's endorsement – something all his previous Directors lacked.

For Primus sake! He should have been appending the rankings to Jazz the same astrosecond Prowl cashiered Silhouette, but there was one insurmountable problem.

Prowl and Jazz did not, under any definition of the term, work well together. They hated each other. If Jazz were a lesser mech he would probably have planted a knife in Prowl's back a long time ago and blamed it on a Decepticon. If it didn't violate every ethic Prowl had, he would have busted Jazz down to a recruit, planted him on the front-lines and sent him on a headlong charge against Devastator. There were some megacycles, though, that he knew—he knew—they looked at each other, just imagining.

He couldn't very well sacrifice the well-being and stability of his army for his Second's sake, but Prowl was going to have a meltdown when he found out that his sworn enemy (and what a sad state of affairs that was, when his second loathed a fellow Autobot more than most Decepticons) was getting a promotion to Commander and a spot on the command staff. Optimus wasn't sure when Prowl's general dislike for the Division had become full blown-hatred, but his credits were on Sentinel's assassination

Sentinel Prime had been traveling with a small entourage of two tactical aides and three operatives in secret, transporting the Omega Keys from Tyger Pax to the Iacon Vaults. The only ones to have known were the members of his entourage, Ironhide and Prowl. Sentinel Prime had barely cleared Tyger Pax before he was set upon by a Decepticon assassination squad. Sentinel Prime stood his ground, and perished for it, along with the rest of his entourage; except Jazz.

By the time a ground-bridge could be opened in response to the emergency beacon that was triggered by the Sentinel's life-support coding, it was too late; the response team arrived to nothing but sparkless frames and scorch marks from heavy laser fire marking the area.

And Jazz, one of the members of the ill-fated expedition and the only one to survive.

Prowl had automatically declared Jazz the primary suspect, not believing for a moment that Sentinel hadn't been betrayed by his own guards, especially when Jazz was left entirely unscathed; there hadn't even been so much as a scratch on the mech's finish. Worse still was the fact that they found the Matrix of Leadership buried in his plating.

Prowl had done everything possible to see Jazz convicted and executed for high treason, and the only thing to save the saboteur was the fact that Soundwave came forward with an uncovered mole who'd confessed to masterminding the attack-including the decision to frame Jazz after the squad had been unable to find the Matrix. Soundwave had retrieved a list of relics removed from Tyger Pax, and among them had been a phase shifter. The phase shifter explained how Jazz wound up with the Omega Keys inside of him, and Red Alert and Prowl had ripped into every detail—and the mole—until they were satisfied with the rest of the story. At least, Red was; Prowl didn't trust how neatly the whole fiasco wrapped itself up, and never stopped blaming Operations for their hand in the assassination—knowing or not. Soundwave's later defection only lent more fuel to his animosity, both towards Jazz, who's innocence was forever called into doubt (in his optics, at least), and especially Special Operations.

Jazz had eventually bounced back from the whole fiasco, not only salvaging his reputation but building it up to new heights despite Prowl's grudge.

Optimus knew Jazz, knew that he was the best of the Division and one of his strongest assets in the entire army, and he'd be a fool not to put the mech in place where he was seemingly meant to be. No, he didn't really have a choice at all.

Optimus heaved a weary sigh, bracing himself for the inevitable slagstorm as he submitted the orders for Jazz's promotion.

Almost instantly, his datapad erupted with chimes.

Incoming transmission: Elita One: Living dangerously, aren't we sweetspark?

Incoming transmission: Ultra-Magnus: It is…the best of your options, but are you sure, sir? Prowl will be… displeased.

Incoming transmission: Red Alert: Primus be praised! Finally , you take my advice! Though reluctant to accept any sort of actual rank, Jazz is the only good candidate for the position. Since you seem to be in an open-minded mood however, I would like permission to place a security lock on Prowl's office until his urge to kill passes. Because I assure you he will not take this appointment well at all.

Incoming transmission: Ratchet: Not a bad choice, but Prowl's going to snap. You know this, right?

Incoming transmission: Wheeljack: Nice! I like working with Jazz. Now, who do you have in mind to replace Prowl once he finishes blowing his processor? Because he kind of is…

Incoming transmission: Prowl: NO.

Incoming transmission: Ironhide: Prime, Prowl's swearin' loud enough to raise Unicron . 'Jack and I can hear it through the walls and everything. Now, I like the little scraplet n' all, but are ya sure about promoting Jazz? Because I think Prowl's about to glitch-out in there, and the XO is a lot harder to replace than an Ops director…

Incoming transmission: Blaster: Cool choice, but I don't think the Jazzmeister wants the gig, Boss-mech. I mean, he's up here on the command deck trying to hack Teletran and force his resignation through…

Incoming transmission: Red Alert: Prime, sir, if you receive a resignation from Jazz, ignore it. He's accepting this promotion even if it kills him ! I refuse to suffer through another incompetent Director!

Incoming transmission: Blaster: So, correction; Jazz did hack Teletran, but Red rerouted the resignation to the garbage bin and is sitting on him right now. Literally. Heh. Red's got him in a choke-hold and everything, and he just sent Inferno off to get Silhouette's old rank decals and a welder.

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Optimus Prime (+7 others): Prime sir, I resign! I won't accept that promotion! I don't want it!

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Jazz (+7 others): You don't deserve it! The whole lot of you should have been marched out to an execution squad vorns ago!

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Prowl (+7 others): Whoa, hold up now! Back the slag off Ops, fragger! Maybe if you crawled your aft out from behind a desk once in a while and actually lifted a finger out in the field instead of hiding behind us and the front-liners, you'd legitimately have something to say about Special Operations!

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Optimus Prime (+7 others): Prime, I refuse to let you make an officer out of this piece of trash Autobot—and I use the term loosely —it's unthinkable! Operations is already bad enough without infesting it with his brand of societal dysfunction!

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Prowl (+7 others): Say, why don't you come take a stroll by the command deck if you think you've got the struts? I got an "infestation" right here that - [Message truncated by Comms Officer Blaster]

Incoming transmission: Blaster to Jazz (+7 others): Cool it, Jazzy. Prowl? Just…lay off, okay? You antagonizing Jazz is just going to make things worse.

Incoming transmission: Elita-One to Prowl (+7 others): Blaster has a point, Prowl. I'd also like to remind you that you don't actually have a say in this anyway. It's an executive command. The only one who gets a say in this is Jazz.

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Elita One (+7 others): Well, in what might have been the first instance of anything to come crawling out of the Operations division doing something to benefit the rest of the army, Jazz turned down the promotion. We're done here.

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Optimus Prime (+7 others): Actually, Prime, I'll accept that promotion just to watch that piece of scrap suffer .

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Optimus Prime (+7 others): Prime, you can't seriously expect me to work with that…that thing masquerading as an Autobot! Putting him in charge of Operations will only net us more of the same problems we've been having!

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Prowl (+7 others):I wouldn't throw stones too hard, Prowl, or I might be inclined to point out that Operations isn't the only Division with a less than stellar track record. Tactical's been running this whole organization into the ground faster than Megatron ever could, the way you lot just hand over Decepticon victories. Or are we ignoring the fact that Barricade and Strika raised the bar on selling the Autobots out a long before anyone in Ops got around to it?

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Jazz (+7 others): BURN IN THE PIT, YOU SPAWN OF A—[Message truncated by Comms Officer Blaster]

Incoming transmission: Wheeljack to Optimus Prime (+6 others): Anyone else hear that? I think Prowl just flipped his desk…

Incoming transmission: Ironhide to Optimus Prime (+6 others): Did Prowl just flip his desk?

Incoming transmission: Ultra Magnus to Elita One (+6 others): Where did that extra desk get off to? Prowl's going to need a new one, seeing as he just flipped his into my wall. There's a dent and everything...

Incoming transmission: Blaster to Wheeljack (+6 others): Oooh...That's what, seven? Eight? I'll tell Rewind; he's been keeping tally.

Incoming transmission: Elita One to Jazz (+7 others): We'll just table this for now, and hold a general meeting after the promotion ceremony.

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Elita One (+7 others): WE ARE NOT PUTTING HIM IN CHARGE OF OPS! I WON'T STAND FOR IT!

Incoming transmission: Jazz to Prowl (+7 others): Let me just remind you first and foremost that it's not your decision. Get over it, cop-bot. Or are you going to harp on this for the next stellar cycle and make a complete aft of yourself in the process? That's your usual modus, ain't it?

Incoming transmission: Prowl to Jazz (+7 others): How dare you —[Alert: User: Autobot Prowl (Cmdr.) blocked by Comms Officer Blaster]

[Alert: User: Autobot Jazz (Col.) blocked by Comms Officer Blaster

Incoming transmission: Elita One to Blaster: Thank you

Incoming transmission: Wheeljack to Blaster: Thank you

Incoming transmission: Ultra Magnus to Blaster: Thank you

Incoming transmission: Ironhide to Optimus Prime (+5 others): Well...that squares it. I'm going to go check in, make sure Prowl doesn't do anything he'll regret.

Incoming transmission: Blaster to Optimus Prime (+5 others): Regret? What makes you think regret's even going to be a factor in whatever he does next ?

Incoming transmission: Wheeljack to Optimus Prime (+5 others): Did I mention I love being an Autobot? It's exciting!

Incoming transmission: Red Alert to Wheeljack (+5 others): Tell me that was dripping sarcasm.

Incoming transmission: Wheeljack to Red Alert (+5 others): Practically soggy, Red. Practically soggy.

Inside his office, Optimus buried his head deeper into his arms, steadily banging his head against the desk.

It was, Ultra Magnus decided, like watching a transport crash. You didn't want to stare, but you just couldn't look away.

To his immediate right, Ironhide was watching the proceedings with a morbid fascination that mirrored his own, while to his left Elita-One had buried her face in her palms. Across from him, Ratchet had completely tuned the bickering officers out and was scrolling through his datapad while Wheeljack tinkered with one of his most recent projects at his left. On the opposite side of Ratchet, Blaster's optics were dim, and Ultra Magnus wasn't sure if the mech was listening to his music, monitoring the comm lines or simply in recharge; all were possible with the mech, and all had occurred at one time or another. It couldn't be recharge; Prowl was right next to him, and would have said something by now. Red Alert met Ultra Magnus's gaze with a long suffering look of his own, seated in between Optimus and Jazz, and quite obviously starting to question his decision to leave the security center for this meeting.

Prowl ended his speech (ranting diatribe) with a sharp rap of the edge of his datapad against the table as he turned to face Optimus. "It is in light of this recent incident that I recommend disbanding the Special Operations Division and incorporating the members into the Army—after a compulsory root scan."

An uneasy silence settled over the small assembly. Root scans were the deepest level of processor scanning, and notorious for being not only incredibly invasive but hideously dangerous. Ratchet rarely okayed them even though he was one of few mechs on all of Cybertron even rated to perform the procedures; he'd performed less than ten in all of the many centuries he'd functioned as a medic, as a matter of fact.

It was not something to be undertaken lightly, and to even suggest a root scan was the most drastic of measures, to say nothing of the grave insult delivered by even bringing it up. Running a root scan on a bot meant that they were fundamentally flawed—and grievously so—deep in their coding; so flawed that they couldn't be fixed by normal means. Root scans meant debilitating glitches or horrifically malignant coding that produced all manner of psychological flaws because something had gone horribly awry at the most fundamental levels of a bot's processor, making every single string of code suspect. Root scans were for serial killers and sociopaths; for bots gone so utterly mad and degenerate that society's only other recourse was either spark extraction and imprisonment, or death.

The scan toyed with the very essence of a bot's mind, after all. A medic examined hundreds of thousands of coding strings, some centuries or millennia old; that amount of work was enough to crash the bot's processor during the procedure (if not fry it outright). And even if a medic successfully examined all that code without triggering a crash or burn out, then they still had to patch the coding strings that were removed. Sometimes it was a few minor changes here or there. Sometimes it meant removing entire subroutines of a bot's personality. Sometimes the root scan revealed problems so deep that they wound up wiping the bot's processor altogether, assigning a new function and starting over with a blank slate

No matter the degree of success with the scan, the bot that went in was rarely the same one that came back on-line—if they did at all.

It was a slap in the face to the whole Division; Prowl was saying he would rather risk their lives and suffer the gross expenditures of time and energy to re-educate and re-train the operatives from scratch rather than deal with them as they were now.

Ratchet started to speak, but quickly realized he needn't bother. Jazz clearly had objections to Prowl's suggestion if the outright malevolent glare he'd leveled on the mech were any indication. The newly appointed Director of Special Operations had gone quiet early on in Prowl's petition to disband Special Ops, and while he hadn't actually done anything, the ill-intent radiating off the mech had created a very uncomfortable atmosphere at his end of the table. Red Alert shifted a bit in his chair, darting looks over at the newly-minted colonel as if Jazz might attack any moment and he would have to hold the mech back.

To be perfectly blunt, Ratchet rather wished Jazz would. Jazz in a blind rage was a more comforting prospect than enduring the mantle of cold malice draped over himself.

"I'm going to ignore the fact that you just implied I can't handle my own division, bypass the part where you just suggested doing an incredibly unnecessary and flagrantly detrimental procedure on my bots, and get straight to my point: Are your fragging chips corrupted?!"

Prowl sneered. "I assure you, that failing is best left to the dregs that comprise your division."

Jazz's engine rumbled lowly with menace. "I'm sorry, but you wouldn't dare be attempting to tell me that you would hold an entire division responsible for the actions of a few rogues. That would be like everyone blacklisting the Tactical Division because a few of your bots decided to trade orns of plans for safe passage off-planet. I notice that didn't happen last decacycle."

Black and white door wings went rigid as Prowl returned Jazz's glare. Prowl ran a very tight operation, and he wasn't sure what bothered him more—that two of his subordinates had turned traitor, or that he hadn't caught them out sooner. "Contingency and Gambler have been dealt with."

"And so have ours!"

"For all the good it will do!" Prowl banged a fist on the table in frustration. "There is something very wrong with the Special Operations Division. None of you put forth more than a token effort to integrate with the rest of the army, none of you have the slightest regard for rank or protocol and you all wear your hang-ups and maladjustment like badges of slagging honor! I pulled Rung and Smokescreen's psych profiles on each and every one of your bots, and it reads like the DSM-20 that was codified by Iacon Psychiatric Hospital!" Prowl took a moment to visibly reign in his temper. "Even if I was to overlook all that—and I swear to Primus I tried—the track record for treason is deplorable." Prowl folded his arms and glared down at Jazz, who met the look head-on with his own hateful rejoinder.

"Special Operations has always been more of a danger to the army than an aide. I have estimated that at any given moment there is a 40.17% chance that one of your bots will betray us. Two previous Directors were traitors, and your predecessor was so incompetent he might as well have been! The third Director actually was a double agent and managed to make it back to Kaon along with 15 other defectors! Its 20 vorns later, and we're still suffering the effects of Soundwave's treachery! "

"That doesn't make us all untrustworthy!"

"Oh please." Prowl's voice was a study in disdain as door wings hitched upwards to rest at a haughty angle. "I give it a vorn—a century at the outside—and you'll be following your predecessors' examples."

The stylus in Jazz's hand cracked as he shot out of his chair, visor flashing an intense, angry blue-white. "Spawn of a glitch! You didn't just accuse me of treason!"

Prowl was utterly unmoved, waving a hand in the air as if he could fan off the seething hatred aimed at him. "Not yet—but I'm hardly denying a lack of possibility. I'd rather let the root-scans stand for themselves."

"You're not getting anywhere near my bots, I can promise you that right. now."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about Prime. The Special Operations Division has been out of control for far too long. They don't police themselves, and refuse to let anyone else do what is necessary! We have no choice but to resort to this—or are we supposed to wait until another group of them decides to blow us up before we do anything?"

"Policing!? Root-scans!?" Jazz looked as if were ready to go crawling across the table and commence with throttling Prowl. "Prime, this is an inquisition!"

"It's not an inquisition if your division has nothing to hide." Prowl's reply was icy calm, but it wasn't too hard to read the barb in the tactician's statement. The fact that the Ops division answered to no one save themselves had long bothered the tactician, especially since the division operated in secret and rarely revealed more than just the bare necessities from their missions. For someone like Prowl, who functioned best when they had as much information as possible, it not only hampered his job but grated against his very core.

"Might I remind you that Special Operations focuses on covert assignments, and therefore any information regarding mission activities are heavily classified? Yes, we have plenty to hide, and with very good reason!"

"It shouldn't have to be hidden from command!"

"It's hidden from everyone because covert operations by their very definition operate outside—" Jazz caught himself, glaring flatly at Prowl, whose expression was alert and hungry; the tactician was all too ready to pounce on his admission, and Jazz didn't doubt that if he were so stupid as to admit they operated outside the Code—or even worse, the Tyrest Accords—Prowl would shred the entire Division to pieces. Or just let Ultra Magnus do his dirty work for him

The scrupulous commander had stretched his own moral core far past comfort already by refusing to examine just how Special Operations ran their business; so long as they didn't blatantly flaunt their less than savory activities in front of him, he was content to leave them be. Jazz was quite aware that Operations had effectively trampled all over Magnus' good will time and again, and he himself planned to rectify that immediately. The trick was making sure he still had a Division to snap back in to line. Prowl, however, was bound and determined to see Ops wiped out.

Jazz visibly reigned himself in, reminding himself that if he wasn't doing himself any favors if he let Prowl get him worked up—and he didn't doubt the fragger was doing it deliberately, anyway. Prowl liked his opponents off balance and reeling, and the tactician's usual opening move was to do just that. Jazz sank back down into his chair, heaving a deep sigh that he was quite certain the others present wanted to release as well. "Look, Special Operations functions on a need to know basis. What your division needs to know—or any other division, for that matter—will be promptly reported."

Prowl fell quiet, and Jazz almost, almost relaxed. If it were anyone else but Prowl, he would have. Prowl, however, was keeping an army afloat and holding their own in a war that by all accounting they should have lost millennia ago. You didn't get those kind of results by not pressing any advantage you got, and Prowl was already under Jazz's plating and obviously intent on goading him into doing something stupid, thereby making his case for him; the saboteur didn't doubt for an instant that Prowl was going to go for energon yet again. It was what he would have done, after all.

Jazz braced himself.

"And who's going to decide that? You?" A probing strike.

"Historically, the Director of Special Operations does decide who gets what information." Jazz paused, visor glittering with malice. "Though the way tactical has dropped the ball so many times, it's become practice to wait for them to approach Intel for specific things rather than offer everything up on a platter; for a group so greedy for information, it's a shame none of you seem to know what to do with it. Your division has refused to factor in or simply overlooked information that would have turned the tides of five different battles within this last century alone." A block and parry. Try that game on someone else, fragger.

Prowl's gaze soured. "It would be less of a problem if tactical could trust the intel we get; historically , Operations has been a hotbed of treachery, deceit and gross casualty. The scraps of intel we have to fight for are vague suppositions and heavily redacted reports that stem from completely untrustworthy or unverifiable sources. If you cared anything at all about the Cause, you'd disband Operations yourself right here and now and turn over all available information! There's a 42% chance you personally defect or die trying, a 65% chance of you losing over a fourth of your current operatives within the next vorn—with a 37.4% chance of that loss being defection to the Decepticons, not death—and a 28.1% chance that you kill one of us!"

A critical hit. Prowl's expression went smug as Jazz's mouth dropped open in total affront.

"And let me remind you that your precious little division already managed to take down Sentinel and two of his commanders. Because the numbers paint an ugly picture Jazz, and we're right on schedule for another dead Prime-would you like the exact odds? They actually just doubled after factoring you in!" Prowl's expression turned ugly. "The only mech to survive Sentinel Prime's assassination. Somehow it left you—the only one skilled enough to even pull off something like that-completely unscathed and no killer in sight. Hundreds of different stories and theories, but the only constant was you. And now you're sitting in the inner circle of yet another Prime in charge of the most dangerous and morally bankrupt organization to see the light of day! I'm honestly astounded you've made it this long without trying anything! The temptation must be torture…"

"Frag you, Prowl!" Jazz was out the chair again, and seemed halfway ready to go charging across the table while he was at it. "Where in the slag do you get off, you scroungy excuse for an abacus?!"

"Enough."

Both mechs went quiet, snapping to attention as Optimus' commanding baritone filled the room, his considerable bulk dwarfing them both as he loomed over them, radiating a deep disappointment and stewing frustration of his own. "Things are tense enough without two of my officers going for each other's neck cabling right off the mark! Jazz, Prowl is right." Jazz stiffened and looked ready to protest, but was silenced by Optimus's narrowed gaze before he could say a word. "It might seem unfair and I'm certainly not saying it's your fault—I named you Director mainly because you were the exception to the rule—but something has to be done about the Special Operations Division. The track record warrants it. Even if it didn't, Prowl is still your superior officer, and this is still a command meeting, not a free for all in the barracks; I expect you to comport yourself accordingly and tame that glossa of yours."

"Sir." Jazz's voice was quiet, thoroughly shamed by Optimus' chiding. Never, but never , had there been a more potent weapon than Optimus Prime's disappointment. He'd seen hardened soldiers all but break down at the thought of looking the Prime in the optic, being measured, and found wanting. Jazz decided then and there he didn't ever want to be on the receiving end of that again; what made it all the worse was being dressed down in front of Prowl. The fragger was going to get so much mileage out of this, he just knew it—a mech would have to be completely senseless to not feel the smugness radiating from the Commander.

"However," Optimus turned the full brunt of his ire on his second in command, and Prowl visibly wilted, door wings hitching downwards until they were almost flat against his back. "You are out of line, Commander. What you're proposing is an inquisition, Prowl. You've made no secret of your agenda to see Operations entirely done away with, nor of your dislike of working with any of them—and Jazz in particular. Compulsory root-scans are only going to send any potential security leaks into hiding and further embitter the agents that are innocent, whether Ratchet even agrees to run them or not! For Primus' sake, if you treated any of them the way you have Jazz since this meeting started, the innocent ones would likely go rogue too! You're doing absolutely nothing to stop the problem, and everything you can to make it worse! I brought Jazz on to get Ops back in line; I expect you to work with him to reach that goal, not do everything in your power to cut him down because you have a vendetta!" Optimus's stern expression hardened. "Furthermore, what occurred with Sentinel Prime was a tragedy, and Jazz has long been cleared of any wrong-doing; bringing that up now serves no purpose whatsoever except to further wound and divide us. Using it as a vehicle for your pettiness dishonors his memory, and lessens you. I never want to see something like this again, is that clear?"

"Yes, Prime." Prowl's reply was even softer than Jazz's, and the executive officer went totally quiet as he sank down into his chair, all of the wind knocked out of his proverbial sails by Prime's lecture.

Prime held his gaze a moment longer before glancing around at the rest of his officers, who were all in various stages of frustration or shock. There had been little room for anyone one else to get a word in, the way Prowl and Jazz had instantly gone after each other. No one really wanted to, more than likely; it was rare to see Prowl so worked up about anything, and the mech had been dangerously volatile since the whole mess began. No one quite knew what to expect out of that corner, so they'd avoided putting themselves in Prowl's sights. Jazz had gone for his own measure of plating as well, and the saboteur was not one to welcome others into his battles. Everyone else had just cut their losses and stayed out of it until it was absolutely necessary; it had seemed the wisest choice, no doubt. "All of you are dismissed. We'll pick this back up later, when we've all cooled down some." There was no mistaking who he expected to cool down as he sent quelling looks to the two combatants. For their parts, Prowl and Jazz traded equally vicious glares before pointedly ignoring the other as they led the exit from the room .

By the end of the mega-cycle, Prowl had cooled down sufficiently enough to show up in the officer's mess and interact with the rest of his comrades. Jazz had yet to make an appearance, which was absolutely fine by him. The only ones currently in the mess were Wheeljack, who was working on a 3-D blueprint of what looked like a massive beam canon, while Ironhide helped.

"You cooled down yet, Prowl?"

Ironhide hadn't even bothered to turn around, spinning the blueprint around so he could look at it from different angles. Wheeljack did glance up, waving Prowl over with a genial flash of his helm's indicators. "Grab a seat. We saved you a cube."

Prowl paused at that, a wary look crossing his features. He'd been under the impression that almost all of the command staff was less than thrilled with him at the moment. Ironhide and Wheeljack were up to something, obviously. "I do apologize for my ill conduct earlier. Unfortunately, I have other matters demanding my attention. I'll just—"

"Siddown." Ironhide snapped, still not looking up from the display.

Prowl considered being stubborn about it, but Ironhide and Wheeljack obviously had something to say. If he ignored them now, the two would probably end up trapping him in his office later on anyway.

Prowl sat down at the table with them, sliding the third cube of energon on the table towards himself.

Wheeljack scratched lightly at one of the faded scars across his mouth plating, not so much a nervous habit as it was an indication of him thinking. That was always a bad sign; Wheeljack was a blunt spark, so anytime he took the moment to measure his words meant something was seriously weighing on his mind.

Ironhide merely quirked an optical ridge at him, which Wheeljack returned. A tense staring contest broke out between the two mech's while Prowl tried his best to ignore it, drinking his energon and wondering if he could perhaps finish it quickly enough to escape before either of them got around to saying anything. Prowl briefly considered draining the cube in one go, decided the resulting system upsets he would endure later were not worth it, and stuck the awkwardness out as Engineer and Weapon Specialist held a silent argument over who apparently was going to speak first.

After another excruciating astrosecond or two, Wheeljack threw his hands up in the air. "Oh, scrap it all! Prowl? You're an aft."

Prowl sighed, his door wings flicking in irritation. "So I've been informed multiple times today."

"Well, ya are! You know good and well today was less about being productive and more about grinding that axe you've been wanting to use for a while now." Iron hide finally looked up from the blueprint to frown at the tactician. "I ain't gonna rehash everything because Prime already did a good job of setting your crazy aft straight, but really? Root scans? I'dda come across the table after you, too."

Prowl's expression soured. "He didn't actually—"

Ironhide cut him off with the wave of a hand. "Oh, he's been wantin' to do it since you started in on him immediately after Prime promoted him, but Jazz ain't stupid, Prowl. The mech knows you're just waiting for the first good reason to frag him over. No way he'd hand you an openin' like that. No matter how much you deserved it."

"Pit, I almost knocked you one myself." Wheeljack leaned back in his chair. "You seem to have forgotten this, but I'm cross-departmental. So's Red Alert. And Blaster too, for that matter. All three of us have got official ties to Ops, but you were so busy gunning for Jazz you would have had taken us all down with him."

Prowl didn't quite wince. "I hardly intend to target you all. I was rather more interested in cutting out the source of all the problems."

"The source of the problem? It isn't the whole division." Wheeljack looked weary to be back in the same territory they'd all been stuck in earlier. "And it certainly isn't Jazz. The sooner you realize that, the better off we'll all be."

Prowl frowned, plunking down his empty cube of energon. "The sooner you realize I'm right, the better off we'll all be." Prowl stood up, obviously intending to leave.

"Well, here." Ironhide tossed Prowl an old datapad that was deftly plucked out of the air. "Since you were so keen on draggin' Sentinel into things earlier, figured you could have one of his old journals I'd been holdin' on to."

"I…" Prowl turned it this way and that, an odd expression on his face. "Thank you."

Ironhide waved him off with a dismissive noise. "Don't go getting' all soft on me; it don't suit ya. Just read it. Maybe it'll do you some good."

Prowl shook his head at the barb, and started walking away after nodding goodbye to Ironhide and Wheeljack. The latter waited until Prowl reached the door before speaking back up. "Oi! One more thing."

Prowl paused, glancing over his shoulder to find two patently unamused expressions aimed at him. It was by sheer strength of will that he managed to not take a step backwards, such was the force of the glares.

"If I ever hear tell of you using Sentinel's death like that again, I'll knock the lubricant out ya. We clear?" Wheeljack's indicators had dimmed to a muted red as he let some of his buried ire at the whole debacle leak out.

"Crystal." Prowl murmured softly. Wheeljack didn't rouse easily, but he had been close to Sentinel—both he and Ironhide, actually—and even now, bringing up what happened to Sentinel was a quick way to bring out the mech's worst. Nothing about the last deca-cycle qualified as one of his best moves—and especially the earlier meeting. Probably the only thing keeping the two from really letting him have it was the fact that they all knew he'd been equally appalled with himself once he'd had a chance to settle down.

Ironhide and Wheeljack held his gaze a moment longer then nodded, turning back towards their work once they were left to themselves again.

The silence lingered for another breem, then Wheeljack looked skeptically at his companion. "You think he'll understand?"

"What, the journal?" Ironhide scoffed. "Slag no. He'll probably miss the whole point and concoct something entirely fragged up out of it, but …it'll be a start, ya know?

Wheeljack nodded. "Anything, so long as we don't wind up scrubbing saboteur or tactician chunks off the ground."

"Where is Jazz anyway?"

"Still getting ripped a new one by Elita and Red, probably. They had him hemmed up in his office last I saw."

"Yeesh." Ironhide muttered, not envying the saboteur for one moment.

Prowl stared down at the datapad Ironhide had given him as he strode into his office. Sentinel Prime had not started out as a popular Prime at all; he was considered too reserved, too formal and much too strict by all and sundry. The fledging Autobots had looked upon him as a throwback to the traditionalists whose actions had sparked the civil war in the first place, and the Decepticons had immediately portrayed him as a shining example of everything they stood against.

It was no stretch of the imagination to say that the Sentinel had almost no close confidants or associates, but what the Prime did have was a particular talent for strategy and pragmatism that had enabled him to turn things to his advantage. It had won him over, after all.

Prowl glanced down at the datapad again, practically hearing the rich depths of Sentinel's dignified voice in his mind as he scrolled through the rest of the journal entry.

Alpha Trion asked me which was better—to be feared, or loved. I am neither, but I can lay claim to some respect. Still, I have thought on the matter and decided that a Prime should be loved by those he leads—I would cross this distance between myself and my soldiers before it becomes truly insurmountable; too late and to his sorrow did Zeta Prime learn the lesson. I will not mimic that folly.

Therefore, I have resolved to take matters into my own hands. The old saying is to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. I have no friends amongst the ranks, but already enemies aplenty I have found, and that will serve me well. After all, they are first and foremost the enemies of our common greater enemy—the Decepticons—and I have long held that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I will use that common ground as a starting point to begin to endear myself to my soldiers. Zeta did not try, and Nominus never even cared in the first place; I do. My Autobots will see that much, and it will make all the difference.

But I am also no fool; if the enemy of my enemy is an enemy still? Then they will not pass the advantage ingratiating themselves to me will afford; I will watch them as they no doubt watch me, keeping them close so that I will be further prepared for the knife aimed at my back, and can avoid it, or at least mitigate the worst effects. And mayhap the closeness will work in my favor, and I will sway them away from the enmity they harbor. Do I not destroy my enemy by making him my friend?

I will meet my end in by treachery, as Zeta Prime before me, and Nominus Prime before him. I do not doubt this, but it is my hope that my actions now will make the difference between a century and mayhap millennia.

Prowl closed the entry and sub-spaced the datapad after a brief moment of silence for Sentinel; the Prime had fallen to treachery, but he had been loved by the Autobots he led at the end of things.

What did Ironhide hope to accomplish with the entry? Did the weapon specialist think that using Sentinel's own methods would solve the breach between he and Jazz?

Was it even worth trying?

No matter what the others said, he could view Jazz as nothing less than an enemy. At the moment, Jazz's greater enemy was the Decepticons—he had not fallen prey to his predecessors' trend just yet. Would Sentinel's solution work? If so, he could hardly deny that having Jazz firmly in pocket would be one of the greatest boons he had; if not? If Jazz fell away, and Operations was not tamed? The next time would surely do irreparable harm. But at least he would have a better chance of anticipating things; the trouble was that Operations so often had the element of surprise, and it was a powerful bonus. Befriend Jazz, or let him draw in close enough that he could take advantage of the affectation.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…

Prowl sank down into his chair, weighing the concept in his mind.