Chapter Title: The Ship Who Sparked

Author: BlueLunacy7

Chapter Warnings: None

Pairings: Sam/Bee

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of The Brain & Brawn Ship series or any quotes or lyrics, or song titles in any way, shape, or form. Basically, nothing you recognize is mine.

This a collection of short one-shots of how Sam and Bee meet through alternate universes. Chap 1: The Ship Who Sparked. What if Sam was a Brainship?

Chapter Notes: I got this idea from reading The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey and The Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey with Mercedes Lackey.

Brainship: an interstellar starship created by inserting a human brain into a life-support system, and connecting it surgically to a series of computers controlling the ship, allowing the person to control the ship as their body.

Brawn: a human partner to a Brainship, specially trained to act as a companion or helper and perform actions they connate.

Brain/brawn partnerships can be short-lived and professional, lasting only as long as the mission, or they may be long, deep, meaningful friendships. In some cases, they may fall in love. Brawn obsession was formerly a serious concern, as a love-crazed brawn might have attempted to breach the life-support shell in order to get at the body entombed within, only to kill the person and go mad with grief.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face. -James D. Finley

Sam sighed, well mentally anyways.

It wasn't that he was unhappy with the ship he was housed in, far from it. No softperson could understand what it was like to actually be a ship. To have a body of a body of dual alloy wrapped around you, having powerful engines to blast through space at speeds no human could survive, to all ship's sensors acting as their own senses. It was a wonderful experience, even if he didn't have a Singularity Drive.

While he was newly installed and his ship was brand new, it wasn't top-of-the-line or medship, so a Singularity Drive was *not* standard. Which was fine, he knew how lucky he was to have been in the shell program at all.

Even though AH One-Oh-Three-Three, also know as Hypatia had done fantastically as a brainship and *she* hadn't been popped into her shell until she was seven, the shell program still preferred children under the age of one for schooling.

Sam had been six years old when he had been shelled, thank to a disorder that cause his flesh to stiffen and harden, making him a living statue. Since there was nothing wrong with his brain, into the shell he went and never looked back. He had gone through the schooling, the sensory-deprivation hell of being installed in his ship and his test flight had gone beautifully, if he did say so himself.

Now he all he had to do was choose a brawn, his mobile human partner, which was why he sighed.

Sam had rejected nine already, annoying his Supervisor Simmons to no end. But Sam was a simple courier ship and would be spending a lot of time in transit with only his brawn for company. He wanted a partner, true, but he wanted a friend as well.

He did not want to be like Mikaela, bouncing brawns so often that her buy-out had nearly tripled because of the fines.

The idea was that a shellperson could seek employment elsewhere after paying back the massive debt incurred by their earlier care, surgical adaptation and maintenance. In reality, brainships stayed in service until they died, which could be a long time thanks to the shell that housed their bodies, protecting them from deterioration. He heard of one shellperson who was four hundred and fifty years old.

"XS Two-One-Seven-Oh, your next brawn-candidate is ready," CenCom interrupted his brooding thoughts.

"Who is it?" he asked CenCom, lowering his lift so that the candidate could come aboard without having to climb the stairs.

"Bumblebee," CenCom replied after a moment. "From Cybertron."

That got his attention as he scanned the databurst. Cybertronian brawns were popular with shellpersons. His best friend Miles had a Cybertronian brawn named Jazz, who was very suave, even if he had a tendency to show off. Will, one of the military ships in the area, had one called Ironhide. Even Mikaela had Wheelie, though whether or not she kept him remained to be seen.

Sam's sensors alerted him to Bumblebee's arrival as he headed towards his lift. Oh but he was pretty one, slender with longish black hair streaked with bright yellow, a dusting of freckles across his cheekbones and big blue eyes.

Most brawns were quite handsome but there was something different about Bumblebee. There was a sense of anticipation in Sam at the sight of Bumblebee, as if someone had whispered in his ear, 'this is the one you've been waiting for', as Bumblebee came abroad.

The feeling crystallized before Bumblebee said a word. After boarding, he looked around and immediately faced Sam's column in which his body was housed, rather than one of his many 'eyes'.

"Greetings Samuel," Bumblebee said cheerfully with a British accent, "I am Bumblebee of Cybertron.

'Yes,' Sam though to himself, 'this is the one.'

"Greetings Bumblebee, you can call me Sam."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Author's notes,

If anyone gets inspired by any of the one shots, feel free to expand them but let me know so I can read them too!