Chapter Start A/N Section:

This chapter has a bit more OC stuff to keep the plot moving. Also, this may not be a universal term, so FYI, the term "person of interest" is legal phrasing for having a suspicion that a certain individual is guilty for something, but nothing concrete enough to be an actual suspect (usually police).

Unbeta'd.

After a grueling shift of mind-numbing boredom and a near-constant internal battle of not climbing his walls, Jazz was finally free. He was stuck on shift until Ironhide showed up, and it seemed that Ironhide decided to credit himself the extra time he spend on his last shift curtsey of Jazz, by showing up a joor late.

Jazz briskly walked to the Rec Room in search of social interaction. No one visited him in his office since there weren't any activities or complaints to file, or at least nothing worth a conversation with an on-duty officer. Stepping into the Rec Room Jazz searched around only to discover a few Autobots. At least one of them was Sideswipe. Jazz walked over to Sideswipe, who was sitting at a table with energon and watching the TV screen. "What's up?" Jazz greeted.

"Nothin' much. And I mean that." Sideswipe responded with a dry tone. "How I loathe monitor duty," the red twin grumbled.

"On the plus side, those who are on standby should be back by the time we start our next shifts. Then they're only off the regular shift schedule if they're needed on the project and that means a semi-regular schedule."

Sideswipe sarcastically chuckled. "Oh Jazzy, Jazzy – "

"Do not call me that."

"– you haven't heard the most recent word about this whole thing." Sideswipe continued, his voice perking up with fake happiness.

Jazz carefully watched him. "No, I've been alone in an office. ALL shift."

"Well then, let me fill you in!" Sideswipe said, continuing his fake cheeriness, complete with hand gestures. "Prime and his team didn't have the most bang up time working with the humans. Oh no, the humans want to keep progressing on schedule but then the humans asking questions keep make a full circle back to previous discussions for various reasons. That means half of those on standby are dedicated to the project for at least one Earth week because of the random repeats."

"Oh no. Who's covering security?"

"Dunno. Lucky for you, security is much later on the agenda. I'm pretty sure Prowl did that on purpose."

"Prowl's not in charge of that," Jazz pointed out.

"Nah, but apparently he did suggest the agenda and schedule and Prime just went with it and got the humans to agree with it."

'Well, I guess I can thank Prowl that I don't have to worry about extra shifts for a while. Although, it's starting to annoy me just how much I don't know what Prowl's been doing. I mean really, why is it so hard to mention any of this when I ask him how things are going? I mean, that totally makes me look like a bad – uh, um…' Jazz decided to abruptly halt the train of thought of "what are we?" and steer the conversation in another direction. "Well, at least with half of them joining the rest of us, that means we'll actually get to rotate and have an orn off."

Sideswipe nodded. "And a busier Rec Room, thank Primus. It is so dullsville in here. Hound had control of the TV and do you know what Hound was watching? A TV show about finding the cutest cat video! I mean, seriously, what is it with humans and cat videos?" Sideswipe shook his hands in the air exasperated.

"Aw, come on. You can't harp on it that much. Remember the videos flooding our internet before the war, back on Cybertron? Primus, the High Tower mechs and their turbo foxes. Even worse, their obsession spread to other cities. Worse than the humans and kittens."

"I totally disagree," Sideswipe returned. "I can't tell you how much kitten stuff I've seen when surfing their 'net. It's like number two to porn."

"Please tell me that you don't check the porn."

"Pit no! Ew!" The red warrior squirmed. "I'm not xenophobic or shy about a good interface, but their… no, just no." He shook his head to get the images out of his mind. "Back to the kittens. They show up everywhere because they're not censored, and now there's whole shows dedicated to them!"

"I'm sorry, Sideswipe, but you are so wrong. Ask Mirage and he'll tell you they had channels dedicated to turbo foxes. Channels!"

"The humans have what seems to be an infinite number of sites dedicated to the kittens." Sideswipe countered to defend his argument why the kitten video obsession was worse than the turbo fox obsession. Jazz and Sideswipe argued for half a joor about kittens versus turbo foxes until Mirage walked into the room. Both stopped and look at each other.

"I'm guessing we should drop the conversation before we make someone's feelings of homesickness worse?" Jazz quietly suggested.

"Yeah. 'Sides, all this conversation proved was that there's nothing to do." Sideswipe then added in a low, smug voice, "and my argument was winning. Kittens rule."

Jazz grunted his agreement before checking his chrometer. Those on the project were finally off, including Prowl. 'Well, Prowl will be leaving soon,' Jazz silently corrected himself, knowing that Prowl wouldn't leave until everyone else was done and he could read up on their post committee hearing notes.

Within two breems the Rec Room became a lot busier and Jazz could feel the atmosphere of the room rapidly rising. Eager for some fun, Jazz got up as he grabbed his energon and started mingling with the group.

\~'~'~\

Defilade watched over the north wall's main entrance from his seat up top. As the dedicated Special Ops sniper, he usually had posts in the higher levels and away from everyone else. There were times the job was lonely, but luckily Defilade didn't have a strong need for company.

He snapped to attention when a perimeter sensor alerted him to an oncoming vehicle. Defilade crouched down and activated the targeting system built in his overlying visor. The view zoomed in a few times before Defilade could get a clear view of the approaching vehicle. 'Oh, it's just Blue Bark.' Defilade relaxed and leaned over his perch as Blue Bark pulled up to the entrance and stopped to transform. "Hey, Blue Bark," he called down.

The white mech looked up, his pale optics locking onto Defilade. Unlike Defilade, Blue Bark had no colored highlights and his paint job was largely intact. Currently his paint job was several different shades of matte white.

Like Defilade, Blue Bark was somewhat slimmer than other mechs, but not as slim as Defilade. As a sniper, Defilade needed to be able to fit into tight spots for potentially long periods of time. Blue Bark was a little bit different though. He needed to hold positions for a while, too, but his skill set and special capability gave him more flexibility for picking his positions.

"How's it going up there?" Blue Bark called out.

"Fine. I haven't been up here for too long," Defilade said back.

"You know that your definition of 'long' is a lot longer than most mechs," Blue Bark reminded him.

Defilade shrugged. "Not my fault if others have a shorter attention span than me, or can't handle lengthy solitude."

"And that's why you're a sniper and not them. Anyways, I gotta go talk to Vesicant. Later." Blue Bark gave him a small wave and started walking through the entrance but Defilade stopped him.

"Hey! I'm off in a few joors. Do you wanna join me for some training exercises then?" Defilade asked hopefully as he leaned far over the perch, trying to maintain optic contact at Blue Bark.

"Sure."

"Okay, I'll come find you then."

Blue Bark walked to the command center and found Azimuth at one of the monitors. He casually walked up to the monitor and leaned against it, looking at Azimuth. The multi deep-red and black colored mech ignored him as he typed away. Blue Bark waited until Azimuth stopped and looked at him. "Yes?"

"I'm guessing Ves already has you working on modifying those files Jazz requested?"

"Yeah?" Azimuth waited for Blue Bark to continue. When he didn't, Azimuth gave him a small glare. "What is your problem?"

"Nothin'. Just wanted to see if I was right." Blue Bark used his hip to push himself off the monitor. "I also need to talk to Ves and I figured whoever was working here would know where he is."

"Where in the pit do you think he is? He's in his Panic Room." Azimuth replied snippily before returning to his work and ignoring Blue Bark entirely.

'Whatever.' Blue Bark walked away and moved towards the quarters section, or, as he liked to call it, "The Shambles of Living." Blue Bark lived in the High Towers before the war and while he'd adjusted fairly well to living in war, he found living in quarters built from the crumbled remains to be sub-par even for war standards. The "Panic Room" was what he and the few others privy to knowing the real Vesicant called the extra room off of Vesicant's quarters. The room was basically a glorified walk-in closet but with a desk.

Blue Bark entered Vesicant's quarters after the 1LT's approval and walked into the Panic Room. It was Vesicant's space to work on whatever worried him without risking other mechs seeing it. Currently Vesicant was standing and leaning over his chair, intently looking at whatever was on his screen.

"What were your findings?" Vesicant demanded.

"Nothing that's going to help you. I can't find anything to suggest he told someone here what he knows. It looks like whatever Smokescreen knew he took with him on the Ark. That wouldn't be a big deal, except – "

"Except Jazz is with him and we know that he likely learned something from that Praxian," Vesicant finished for him with a growl. Vesicant straightened his back and cracked his neck. "That combined with the fact his report was a bit vaguer than I realized isn't helping." Right after the attack they determined that the original report didn't contain any key evidence involving Blacksmoke that could compromise Vesicant's activities. He kept the original report in a ghost directory but never give it a second thought after filing it away.

Now that cavalier attitude was coming back to bite him. Smokescreen stated that he was there to support another mech – one that he never specifically named. He said that his companion and he spoke to Blacksmoke once before the attack but the nature of the conversation wasn't given in great detail; the only detail, in fact, was that Blacksmoke was looking for an old friend who'd already passed. Vesicant initially didn't care since it sounded like Blacksmoke was dead before he could tell anyone anything, but apparently Blacksmoke told Smokescreen something because Jazz now knew something.

"So…" Blue Bark started, letting it hang there to get Vesicant's attention. Finally, Vesicant optics focused from internally contemplating his options back to the field specialist. "So, knowing you there's already a few plans you got up your wrist armor."

Azimuth joined them as he walked into the room and announced, "We've got a new problem."

Vesicant glared. "What now?" he snapped.

"I was going over Blacksmoke's profile to make sure there wasn't anything that could cause us future trouble," the red mech began, "when I noticed a small inconsistency. You know the 'Family' section in everyone's profile? The field is empty and it has been ever since I looked into it when Blacksmoke died, if not well before." He waited a moment to make sure the other two were following along. "However, upon digging deeper, I found that there's just the smallest bits of data that doesn't quite match in that section."

"Meaning?" Vesicant asked, his impatience growing.

"Meaning that someone modified a field that's never modified after the original information is added. Well, unless the operative looses or gains a family after joining, and we all know that didn't happen."

"And?!" Vesicant demanded.

"And that conflicting code indicates that something was there and now isn't. I can't quite pin down the 'who' and 'when' it was changed, let alone the 'what.' Whoever did it was damn good. I have an idea on the 'who,' but he's dead so it's a mote point."

"What, you think Blacksmoke did it?" Blue Bark questioned. "He wasn't exactly known for his administrative abilities."

"No, but I seem to recall his very good friend, Jazz's first First Lieutenant, being an excellent hacker," Azimuth responded scathingly.

Vesicant huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "So let me see if I'm understanding our every-accumulating problems correctly: Blacksmoke had data in the 'Family' section that's now gone and can't be retrieved – which must mean something critical because there's no reason to hide such mundane information, and during PEM he killed his operative partner and abandoned their undercover mission for unknown reasons that lead to his death. Before he died he had at least two conversations with Smokescreen that we originally dismissed as irrelevant, but now Jazz's is back in touch and the first thing he does is ask questions. Questions that imply he knows something about our secret mission and cover up. Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah, they're on a distant planet and there's nothing on Cybertron to help us figure any of this out. Well, nothing I'm finding anyways. He was Praxian so maybe the 'Family' thing can be solved." Blue Bark looked at Azimuth.

"Do you really think the Praxian family records survived when the city was leveled? Wow, no wonder your Vesicant's field mech and not in any position that requires a high-level of thinking." Azimuth retorted.

"Hey, ever called of 'backing up'?'" Blue Bark shot back.

"Yes," Azimuth taunted, "and like all cities before that orn, they kept their backup city records on the other side of the city since they figured the worse that could happen is partial damaged to the city. Not total annihilation."

Immediately the two began to bicker. Vesicant tuned them out and looked back at his desk, datapads sprawled out with all the information he could gather. After a couple of breems, Vesicant turned back towards the pair. "Will you two shut up?"Blue Bark and Azimuth immediately ceased their bickering but Blue Bark gave Azimuth a small shove.

"Sparklings!" Vesicant admonished. He waited a moment before calmly continuing. "We don't have as much information as we need, but we know that those who have it are not the mechs we want to have it. We know that at least two of our… 'mechs of interest'… are on the planet Earth and we don't have the means of reaching it. We know that Jazz knows that Blacksmoke was running away from something. Here's the plan: we need to discredit Blacksmoke and make sure it looks like he was running away to cover his skin plating. That way if Jazz survives, the evidence points to Blacksmoke being the culprit."

"What do you mean if Jazz survives?" Blue Bark asked.

The barest hint of a smile showed on Vesicant's face as he told them his plans. At the end of it, Blue Bark and Azimuth looked at each other and then back at Vesicant. The 1LT could see some hesitation on Azimuth's face, but he knew Azimuth's sense of loyalty and guilt would keep him in check.

Blue Bark just looked awe-stricken and voiced his thoughts. "Wow that is evil. I mean, that is Shockwave-worthy evil, which is appropriate given it involves him, albeit without his knowledge. It's going to terminate a lot of sparks. The nicest thing – and I'm using that term as loosely as possible – about this plan is that you aren't deliberately planning to terminate Jazz; it's just likely he might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have, like, THE worst sense of hero-complex I have ever seen. Not to mention this is all because you have cover your aft because of what you did and because you despise the idea of losing your own unchecked power if he starts regularly working with Cybertron again." Blue Bark privately added, 'Control freak.'

"I do not have a hero complex." Vesicant huffed icily, to which Blue Bark quietly disagreed. "Now you both have assignments. Azimuth, keep working on those reports and make sure that the files are well modified. Jazz may not have your level of skills to figure out what you've done, but there's no telling if he can and will bring in someone who does. Blue Bark, retrieve the target from Blacksmoke's last mission."

\*'*'*\

Smokscreen walked into the Rec Room towards the energon dispenser but he was stopped a few steps short when Jazz grabbed his attention. "What's up Jazz?"

"I take it you're all done?"

"Yup. We're all done for the evening. Prowl and Prime are wrapping up the final stuff now so we can get things done a lot more quickly at the next meeting, which is in roughly 18 Earth hours. They don't like the idea of regular duties operating at 63% capacity, with the remaining 37% on that project. Prowl wants us to reduce the number down to 25% sooner rather than later."

"Well, let them know that if there's anything I can do, just say it. The more mechs we have on the regular schedule, the more fun I get to have."

"I will, but I highly doubt the Head of Special Ops can do anything on a project that doesn't have a single offense strategy or secret mission."

Jazz shrugged, not letting on that he actually was working on a secret mission of sorts. "Wanna sit down and chat?"

"Sure, but I got a game with Sideswipe in a joor."

"Uh huh." Jazz said with a small laugh and Smokescreen merely grinned as he finished his original task by grabbing some energon.

"So got anything in mind?" Smokescreen asked as they sat down.

"Actually, yeah. Prowl and I were talking a little while back and Blacksmoke came up. I know you said that he was looking for someone and was kind of freaked out when he was told that Juniper was already dead. Was that all of it?"

Smokescreen shrugged. "I told you everything. He was staring at Prowl, I tried to get him to leave, it led to a trash talking contest between him and me, me initially thinking he was stalking Prowl, and then it ended in a fight. He was pretty freaked out when I said Juniper was dead, like it was the worst thing he could've heard right then. He didn't say why, but if I had to guess, he was short on either time or options."

"Or both," Jazz added sourly.

"Yeah, could be any and all of the above," the strategist agreed. "It ended when Prowl intervened and separated us. Blacksmoke couldn't bring himself to actually say anything to Prowl. Next thing I know, he saves Prowl's life and dies saying 'at least I didn't fail my son.' Not really sure what he meant. Prowl and I finally talked about a deca-orn ago and he wasn't sure either. He figured that Blacksmoke probably meant that at least Prowl didn't fall apart after Blacksmoke left the family. Although Prowl admitted that doesn't entirely make sense. Could just be the semi-incoherent ramblings of a dying mech."

"I doubt we'll ever really know," Jazz said absently as he thought about what his search. It really was strange behavior, between Blacksmoke's reaction to learning about his long-lost friend death and his final words. Maybe if he kept those questions in mind, something would leap up at him during his research when he got those reports. It was still a shot in the dark but maybe it would stick to something that could paint a faint picture.

Prowl emerged from the door and appeared to be deciding whether or not to partake in the festivities or just leave and head back to his office. Smokescreen saw on his brother's face a resolution to head back. "Yo, Prowl!" Smokescreen yelled before the tactician had a chance to escape. His hand shot up to flag his brother. "Grab a cube and tell me all about it!"

Jazz leaned over. "Psst… what's 'it'?"

"Dunno, but there's always an 'it.' I get so much info from mechs by simply asking about 'it.'"

Prowl hesitated but ultimately decided to make his way over to them. "I don't require any," he stated in lue of a normal greeting. "I refueled during my last break and I don't require additional energon in such a short time span."

"Yeah, okay," Smokescreen said without particularly caring. "So how was it?"

"The post committee recap showed that the accepted agreements between the humans and us were largely beneficial. However, much remains due to the frequent circling back. I'm not sure why they insist on this manner of proceeding."

Smokescreen laughed. "Not everyone is continuously looking for the most effective and efficient manner based on on-going performance. Usually most look back to make better decisions for the future."

"That's an illogically inefficient approach."

Smokescreen snickered as he caught Sideswipe waving him over from the corner of his optic. "If you'll both excuse me, I have a pre-existing arrangement that decided to move up the time."

For a moment Jazz thought to ask him but he decided against it in favor of turning his attention to Prowl. "So Prowl, how ya feeling? Tired yet? I know you prefer military issues over political ones."

"Yes, but they overlap," Prowl said with slight exasperation. "This is Prime's area, not mine. There were times I felt completely bored while other times I wanted nothing more than to leap forward and throttle the ignorant committee member asking questions clearly meant to show he/she had power, at least in his/her mind."

"Yeah, I hear you there," Jazz said, eager to use his phrase code for spending time together in his quarters.

Prowl gave him an incredulous look but remained silent since he couldn't say exactly what was on his mind. Instead he gave a weak response, "I don't think you do. You stay away from these types of affairs."

'Oh no you don't,' Jazz secretly challenged. "No, I think I know exactly what these things are like. You've never seen me in action during… heated… meetings," Jazz said with a small trace of seduction in his voice as he reached out and lightly brushed Prowl's hand under the table. Prowl reciprocated by jerking his hand away just enough to smack Jazz's hand down. Jazz turned the tables back on Prowl buy using the reaction to his advantage. "I'm sorry, Prowl. I'm just a bit jittery with lots of energy. I haven't been able to do anything since the start of my shift. I have so much energy to burn off but I need to have some fun, too. Prowl, can you think of anything fun that could burn off energy?" Jazz struggled to hide his coy smile but he could feel the corners of his mouth failing.

There was one major problem when Jazz played these games in a public area, however. "Hey, Jazz!" Bumblebee called, startling Jazz. The Porsche turned around to find the yellow bug standing behind him. "Why are you asking Prowl that? Some of us are planning a video game tournament. Care to join?"

"Oh, that does sound fun, 'Bee…" Jazz rapidly searched for an answer that wouldn't raise suspicious nor hurt the young mech's feelings. He could see Prowl smirking. "But I need to burn energy after being cooped up at a desk for so long. A video game tournament just isn't enough when you have enough energy to climb the walls and dance on the ceiling. Sitting around so I challenge someone for a breem at a time won't entirely solve my problem. Thanks anyways." He patted Bumblebee on the shoulder as an added effort to not hurt the mech's feelings.

"It's okay. Another time, 'k?" Bumblebee headed back to the group waiting to start.

Jazz turned back to Prowl and raised an optic ridge to say 'well?' Prowl smiled pleasantly as he spoke, "Like Bumblebee said, why are you asking me?"

Jazz stared at him and huffed before getting up and walking away. A few steps later he heard Prowl remark, "Me, I could use a quiet evening, but you enjoy your energy-burning, fun-filled one."

\~'~'~\

Ten breems later Jazz was standing quietly by his door, waiting for Prowl. He wanted to surprise Prowl and jump him, for once more literally than sexually, for doing that to him. Prowl knew that Jazz was struggling a bit with their pace, maybe not as much as Jazz was struggling in reality, but that was just cruel. Letting Jazz get all fired up before rejecting him, followed by using his code for accepting Jazz's offer while the saboteur was stomping away. 'Absolutely cruel. I'll get him back – right now.'

There was a faint knock on his door and immediately Jazz gave the command for the door to open as he crouched in the darkened corner. He kept the lights very dim. Prowl expressed as much as he walked into the room and the doors closed. "Jazz, why is it so dark?"

"Because of this!" Jazz leaped and jumped on Prowl's back, contorting his body as he landed to avoid the doorwings, and used his weight to force Prowl to fall forward.

"Omph! What the pit, Jazz?" Prowl tried twisting around but Jazz used his legs to pinch Prowl's torso's sides so he couldn't rotate. He used his full body weight to pin Prowl face down and leaned into Prowl's audio receiver.

"What do you think? Don't mess with me, Prowl, because I'm like this close to using a combo of high grade energon and seduction on you."

"I'm noticing that," Prowl said carefully. Jazz paused and realized how his voice had started turning sultry and that his engine had started revving up beyond what it should've been if was only a simple game. Jazz rolled off to keep it from getting worse.

There was an awkward silence between the two of them before Prowl finally spoke. "Perhaps high grade wouldn't be so bad."

"Seriously?" Jazz stared in disbelief at the usually uptight, high-grade-banning mech.

Prowl focused hard on not fidgeting. "Listen, Jazz, this isn't even close to being my first time, but it has been a while since I've had any interface and even longer since I've been with someone who mattered. Interfacing just to get it out of your system is one thing, but interfacing with someone who means something is entirely different."

"Yeah, I see where you're coming from." Jazz propped himself up while Prowl sat up straight. They hadn't had truly discussed either issue Prowl brought up. It was leaving Jazz uncomfortable since he never had to have either conversations; things just sort of fell in place for him because his partners were always like him and they synced together without needing words.

Jazz considered the possibility. 'I could easily get a hold of Sideswipe's or Smokescreen's high grade. Primus, if they ever knew the reason why I was grabbing it. Still, even if we involve high grade…' Jazz looked at his berth before absently speaking aloud, "… there's still a problem with the berth."

"Excuse me?"Prowl asked, thrown off from the lack of spoken transition.

"Uh? Oh sorry. I was just thinking that unless you're cool with the floor, it's going to hard to have some fun while sober on a standard issued berth, let alone drunk. Same problem with the couch. Sometimes I curse your doorwings."

"Then you need to get on that, especially so you can stop cursing my doorwings and liking them." Prowl said with a little bit of a teasingg undertone, pushing himself. It was all too easy for Prowl to put the brakes on, but harder for him to hit the gas pedal.

Jazz chuckled before leaning in and giving Prowl a heated kiss. "I'll get right on it."

\~'~'~\

A filthy and tired Blue Bark returned after what felt like deca-orns, but in reality was only slightly over half an orn. He dragged himself towards the North entrance, carrying a package tightly tucked in his arms.

"Blue Bark!"

Blue Bark looked up and saw Defilade looking over the North entrance perch. He gave the sharpshooter a quizzical look. "Weren't you off a while ago?"

"Yeah, but there's nothing to do so I figured I'd stay here longer and now someone owes me a favor."

"What about the training exercises?"

"That's only so fun by yourself and I thought I'd wait for your return so you could keep your promise."

"Oh, uh yeah." Blue Bark looked himself over, originally planning on a trip to the cleaning racks. 'Ah, screw it.' Blue Bark tilted his head back up. "Yeah, sure. I'm already filthy anyways. Meet you at the South end when your shift's over?"

"Works for me. There's only a little over a joor left."

"Cool." Blue Bark headed into the building, once again searching for Versicant. Although he was already tired and hungry he decided to grab some energon on his way out to meet Defilade. It would be nice to put his mind elsewhere and stop feeling anxious about carrying a package he was deathly afraid to drop.

"Got the target, or rather targeted object." Blue Bark announced as he entered Vesicant's room. "Please tell me you have an area to work on this so if you screw up, the entire base doesn't die. Aerosol chemical warfare isn't exactly easily contained after it gets free."

Vesicant rolled his optics. "Yes, I updated my lab for exactly this."

"You have a lab? Here?"

"I always have a lab. My specialties are rendered useless without one."

"True. I just didn't know."

"That's kind of the point," Vesicant drawled. "I prefer my labs to be low profile, and that's why no one will know who's involved in this because a secret lab pretty much nullifies any chance of someone putting this together. If anyone comes across it then it won't mean much because everyone knows my specialty is in chemicals, and the lack of attention I've brought to it, combined with my lack of work beyond my office, indicates that I'm not using it. Plus no one will dare walk into my chem. lab and snoop because, well, it's a Special Ops chem. lab."

"I know I wouldn't. Should we head straight there?"

"I'll head straight there by myself. There are items in there that I wouldn't want you to bump."

"Geez!" Blue Bark exclaimed at the idea there was already secret deadly chemicals in the base. He looked at the package briefly before eagerly passing it off to Vesicant. Relieved that it was no longer his responsibility to not drop it, he grumbled at Vesicant, "You know, there was a reason why we left it after Blacksmoke demolished the only way in and out."

"No, I've always wanted it but I didn't know if it had been released."

"Hold up – you ordered me to go into a confined area without being certain I wouldn't die?"

"I was mostly certain, if that helps. I knew enough time had passed that, if it had been released, it would've dissipated and probably returned back into its liquid state. Either case you could bring it back."

"So long as I wasn't dead," Blue Bark said with some bitterness.

Vesicant sighed. "I don't have time for this. I knew you had a very high probability of not being effected at all, and even if you did it would've been early on enough that you would have enough strength back to block it off and call for help. Now excuse me, but I need to get to my lab and work on this quickly."

Blue Bark allowed Vesicant to leave, giving him an angry look behind his back. He left and grabbed some energon as he waited for Defilade's shift to end.

\~'~'~\

Jazz stepped into his office so he could make a call to Cybertron and discuss matters with his Cybertron-stationed team. This time it was Vesicant who answered himself. "Hello, Jazz."

"Hi Vesicant. I thought I might be speaking with Defilade, given that's what I ordered. I haven't received any of the information I've requested. You know, the files on the Pathway: Echo mission and the operative. I wanted Def to provide them to me."

"He should have it ready well within your two orn deadline," Vesicant said matter-of-factly. "The facility sent us the file just a few breems ago so we're putting it all together in a comprehensible file."

"Alright, I'll accept that if you're right. In the mean time, let's discuss the other issue. How's the mission going with the medical equipment?"

"Largely successful. There's only one item on the list left to retrieve."

"That's great," Jazz praised. He was glad to hear things were on schedule to returning back to normal for the Ark, which was the as-soon-as-possible schedule. "Do you have an expected delivery date? Or rather, do you have a delivery plan and when do you plan to execute it?"

"I have a few plans, but I need an extra two orns to finalize the plans. Hopefully then we can send the equipment to you within the following orn," Vesicant stated.

"Three orns? Is there any way to cut that down without risking anyone's safety?"

Vesicant considered the request. "I can probably have everything finished and ready to go in an orn and a half, but that's as fast as I'm comfortably willing to cut down to. We may be able send the equipment at the end of the second orn."

"Alright, that's acceptable. Not ideal for us here, but neither is losing anyone over there. Do your plans have anything that would help if I knew it now?"

"Yes," Vesicant answered. "The only real option is to use Shockwave's space bridge. You may want to have plans in motion that allow your team to quickly mobilize when we do, because any bridge activity will be met by the Decepticons on your end."

Jazz's mouth twist in disappointment, but not at Vesicant. He was uncertain how he'd go about preplanning an attack without letting the wrong mechs in on it – aka the mechs who'd tell Prime, who might bring everything to a halt and order them to follow the safer, significantly slower route instead. Some mechs would agree to help Jazz and maintain the secrecy, but not enough to quickly mobilize a team to stop Megatron and save the equipment before it could be stolen. It was a matter he'd have to deal with no matter what happens since Vesicant was right about it being the only true option. "Alright. Keep me up-to-date."

"Will do," Vesicant promised before cutting out his transmission.

Jazz considered his options of who he could tell. There were a few mechs who'd do anything under an officer's nose, and a few officers had already expressed frustration with the process. Ironhide and Ratchet would be easily persuaded to take the quicker option to a finished Medbay. Prowl would agree to help since he's the one who suggested finding an alternate source, although Prowl wouldn't be happy about forming a plan completely contingent on someone else's plans. 'Maybe some high grade will help,' Jazz thought cheekily. 'Oh, and that berth. Now let's see who's holding down the fort in supplies… please be someone I like or someone I can work with. Hmm, Bluestreak. Well that makes things easier – well, if he doesn't feeling blabby.'

\~'~'~\

Vesicant withdrew from the console and Blue Bark stepped out from behind the computer. "Why the extra time?" Blue Bark asked. "I thought you said your modifications to the chemical's atomic structure were complete."

"They are complete but there needs to be a trial run. Do you recall your mission to far ruins of Kaon's outer limits?"

Blue Bark's optics widen, both with shock and excitement. "Yeah, but it's heavily guarded and it's always been beyond our capabilities of launching a potentially successful attack. Are you planning to use your new creation to eliminate Shockwave's crew for his backup spacebridge? If that's the case, why don't we just use that to send the medical equipment and circumvent having to make a run on Shockwave's home turf?"

Vesicant chuckled. "I do plan to test the chemical there but you know that I ultimately need Shockwave. I have another plan for the backup bridge."

Chapter Start A/N Section:

1) Cutest cat video is a real show.

2) My sequel summary may say Prowl's life is in danger, but I never said only Prowl's life would be in danger :P I'm just building up to it.