Post War

::Incoming Message::

"Allow," Lockdown said, initiating the beginning landing sequences as he entered the planet's atmosphere.

"Greetings, traveler, and welcome to Nova 4!" came a cheery voice over his vid-comm, and Lockdown glanced up from his console long enough to register the face of the mech. He grunted in acknowledgement and continued concentrating on the docking protocols – it had been a long flight. He was not in the mood for chipper.

"If you could offer me some form of identification for both you and your craft, we'll get you on your way."

Lockdown wordlessly transmitted the information the customs officer had requested, and his screen flicked off as the officer put him on hold to review the paperwork in private. Lockdown kept his ship in a holding pattern above the docking port while the officer looked it over.

"Well, Lockdown," the officer said, coming back onto the screen. "There is good news and bad news. Standard conversational protocol dictates I give you the good news first."

"Alright, so what's the good news, officer?"

"You have been cleared to dock."

"Wonderful," Lockdown said, smiling slightly. He was waiting for the punchline.

"The bad news is, we're authorized to arrest you the moment you touch down."

"Ah," Lockdown said. "And I'm guessing you've been authorized to…encourage my touching down, safely or otherwise."

"Safely is the preferred," the officer agreed. 'However, several of our officers are prepared to use alternative methods to better acquaint you with the ground."

"I wondered what those guys were doing, hovering on my afterburners," Lockdown said casually. "You need to teach your boys a little more stealth, officer…?"

"My designation is Chase. And they were not attempting to use stealth. We had no reason to hide their presence from you. We simply wished to prevent your sudden departure upon learning that you are wanted for arrest on this, as well as several other planets for multiple counts of breaking and entering, manslaughter, kidnapping, fraud, murder - "

"Hate to interrupt you," Lockdown said unrepentantly, "but I have a feeling that list will go on until I've died of rust." He kept his tone conversational, like he wasn't out-flying a few aerial police-officers in his rather bulky-looking transport ship. "Be a dear and just shorten it to 'war crimes'. I promise, I know all the dirty little things I'm accused of doing."

"Very well, Lockdown," Chase said. Their entire banter had been nothing but pleasant and polite. "By the authority vested in me by the Order of the Primes, I hereby arrest you for various war crimes committed throughout the galaxy during the interval of the great Cybertronian Civil War. Your rights, should you be unaware of them - "

"You know, Officer Chase, unless I'm very much mistaken, you're supposed to say that after you've slipped the stasis cuffs on my wrists. As far as I can tell, I'm still free to move about the cabin."

"Do not distress, Lockdown," Chase said, smiling slightly. "I have the utmost faith that my deputies will be delivering you to my custody shortly. Have a pleasant fall." The customs officer cut the transmission, and Lockdown's screen abruptly went black.

"That's 'have a pleasant trip, see you next fall'," he grumbled. Due to Cybertron's present close relationship with Earth, many mechs had taken to trying out various human idioms. Unfortunately, most didn't completely understand the nuances of humanity, and their mangled attempts were rather painful to listen to for anyone who did.

"Damn," Lockdown added under his breath. "Blue boy is cute."

The pretty-boy mech, had been remarkably cool and well-mannered when talking to the hardened bounty-hunter. Most of the officers of the law he'd met had had a sudden shift in demeanor when they realized who he was and what he'd done. Chase hadn't even raised an optic ridge. It was surprisingly gratifying not to see that flicker of fear in Chase's optics and the tremor in his voice. The only reaction he hated worse than the fear was when officers blustered and puffed up, trying to make themselves seem angry and intimidating in an attempt to either impress Lockdown, or hide their fear. It never worked - Lockdown always saw straight through them. Chase's clear lack of reaction was refreshing.

However, getting distracted over a cop was perhaps not the best of ideas. Especially with a slowly growing host of mechs gunning his aft, him being totally unable to out-maneuver the officers who were smaller and lighter than his transport ship, and the officers in question having flown since they were basically sparked. Lockdown was relying solely on his own wits and superior firepower to even stay in the air. Luckily, Lockdown had plenty to spare of both.

As soon as he'd reduced every single one of the custom office's muscle to smoking slag on the face of the planet and was safely in orbit, Lockdown hailed the customs office, making sure his scrambler was up and running so his frequency couldn't be tracked.

"Hello again, Officer Chase. I wanted to thank you for that warm farewell party. Unfortunately for them, I think you may have underestimated me. Rather rude to do that to someone you've just met, you know."

"Perhaps I am a bit behind on my etiquette protocol updates. I've been in stasis for a few thousand years. Etiquette, much like fashion, changes rather often."

"Oh, speaking of, it's 'have a nice trip, see you next fall'."

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh no need to apologize," Lockdown told the officer pleasantly. "Stasis happens to the best of us. I'm sure that, considering what a fine, upstanding officer you are, it was for perfectly legitimate reasons."

"I - " The police officer cut himself off with a deep sigh. When he spoke again, all the lightness had gone out of his tone. "Lockdown, I will ask you one more time to turn yourself in. After that, I will have no choice but to engage in pursuit."

"Since when do you customs officers have the authority to leave their cozy desks and come track down petty criminals like little ol' me?" Lockdown inquired sweetly.

"Since they're trans-Galactic Cybertronian law enforcement on loan from Iacon to handle the overflow of war criminals like you trying to sneak into Cybertronian colonies in order to reinvent themselves and duck away from the consequences of their actions."

"…ah."

"Indeed."

"So where does that leave us, then?"

"As I said," the officer said, moderately annoyed by this point, although if Lockdown hadn't been studying the mech's face on his vid-comm with rapt enthusiasm, he might not have caught it. "I am going to pursue you, I will arrest you, and I will bring you to justice."

"I see. So you're going to…chase me?" Lockdown asked cheekily.

The cop, to his benefit, managed to keep a straight face. "Affirmative."

"Well then," Lockdown said, grinning broadly and leaning in closer to the enormous screen that took up the majority of the wall over his console. "Catch me if you can, big boy." And with that, he ended the call.

"Why Special Agent Chase," Lockdown said cheerfully, his spiked helm appearing on the officer's screen, "what a pleasure to see you again."

"I presume this is your mess?" Chase asked, quirking a disapproving optic ridge at the ex-bounty hunter. He held up his portable vid-comm so Lockdown could see the smoking debris that littered the barren ground for miles.

With a genuinely curious glance at the mess, Lockdown said "I believe it is your mess now, officer," he said, turning to look at Chase and smiling sweetly.

"Your 'little' explosion could have caused untold damage and loss of life had this been a populated area," Chase said, sounding more like he was chastising Lockdown than actually angry with him.

"Chase!" Lockdown gasped. "You've learned to understate! Oh I am so proud of you! My, how quickly they grow." He took a moment to look appropriately nostalgic before his cocky smirk slipped back into place. "And anyway. It was your trap. Ergo, your mess."

"I've been catching up on my updates," Chase said with reference to the understatement, the tiniest trace of a smile on his faceplates. It instantly faded. "How did you even know that asteroid had a cage waiting for you?" he asked.

It was a simple fact that Lockdown, due to all his work as a bounty hunter, knew where the bodies were buried. A number of those bodies had loved ones who had survived the war. And one particular loved one was an agent under Officer Chase's direct command, in charge of rigging the booby trap in the first place. And Lockdown was nothing if not a shrewd businessman - all it took was the coordinates of the carcass of a certain mech to get the agent to tell him all about Chase's pretty little trap.

"I didn't," Lockdown said, straight-faced and lying through his denta. "Sometimes a guy just gets lucky." A light on Lockdown's console turned green, and Lockdown flashed a grin at Chase. "Well, it's been fun catching up, Officer. We really should do it again sometime." He made an exaggerated motion like he was going to offline the transmission when he said "Oh, and Chase?"

"Yes, Lockdown?"

"Thanks for the refuel. Really appreciate it." With that, Lockdown detached his ship from Chase's large transport, which had been cloaked and hiding just a few kliks from the trap when the cage had exploded seemingly without provocation. Some sort of cord was dangling from Lockdown's ship, and Chase frowned at it for a moment, unable to process what he was seeing.

"By the Allspark," he said under his breath and took off for the ship at a run, shouting at his men as he went to leave the debris, it was just a stupid uninhabited rock, and Lockdown was getting away.

Of course they wouldn't be able to catch up to Lockdown in time. But it wasn't until he reached the ship that Chase realized what the tube he had seen Lockdown retract into his transport was – a siphon. Chase had been wondering where Lockdown thought he was going, what with his ship not being able to support the kinds of fuel levels needed to travel this deeply in uninhabited space. As Chase approached his leaking ship, he saw that Lockdown hadn't stopped at getting fueled up, but he'd completely drained Chase's.

Chase redialed Lockdown's vid-comm frequency. "Was that absolutely necessary?" he demanded. "You knew there was no way I'd be able to scramble my men fast enough to chase after you anyway."

Lockdown didn't deign to answer face-to-face, but instead sent him a text in response: bttr safe thn sry ;*

Chase didn't even attempt to decipher the meaning of that message, as, at best, Lockdown was simply messing with him.

Again.

Chase killed the vid-comm and stared after Lockdown's ship as his men scrambled around, trying to be useful in some way. "Hail HQ," Chase said calmly, though his engine was audibly running harder. "Explain that we require assistance. More than that, a rescue." He continued staring after Lockdown as his men scrambled once more, and swore to himself that he would not rest until that deviant was behind bars.

In stasis cuffs.

Gagged, preferably.

Bound in energon chains.

In the bowels of a maximum security prison.

In isolation.

With Chase standing at the ready with a cattle-prod at all times in case Lockdown so much as twitched.

And maybe even a whip for good measure.

That would be enough to hold him, Chase decided as he watched the last glow of Lockdown's ship disappear. Probably.

"How'd you know it was me, anyway?" Lockdown asked, adjusting the stasis cuffs he had picked off of Chase and slipped around the cop's wrists as the two had been fighting.

"Please," Chase said derisively, then winced.

"Too tight?" Lockdown asked with concern, sticking his head around Chase's back to look with at the officer with a genuine expression.

"Just a bit," Chase admitted, and Lockdown loosened them ever so slightly. Chase may be a wily officer of the law, but Lockdown had learned that the mech was incapable of lying outright – it was too far against his moral code. He also hated showing weakness in front of the bounty-hunter, so if he was willing to admit the cuffs were too tight, they must be really hurting him. "Thank you," Chase said.

"Well you're going to be here awhile," Lockdown said. "Wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable as you're frozen in place for hours."

"That might almost sound thoughtful," Chase said. "Except for the fact that you have isolated and stranded me on every occasion where we have had the misfortune to meet face-to-face, often in uncomfortable positions. I am therefore skeptical of this remark."

Lockdown smirked as he finished with the stasis cuffs. Walking around so he and Chase could look each other in the optic, he gently held Chase's chin. Delicately turning it this way and that, as though to examine it under the light, he said "I don't know if I'd call those meetings misfortunes. The view's been pretty good for me," he added with a smirk.

Chase tugged his chin out of Lockdown's grasp. "Your smell."

"I'm sorry?" Lockdown asked, startled enough to let out a small chuckle.

"I have my olfactory receptors keyed into your specific nanite production. This is how i managed to identify you, despite your...modified appearance."

"Riiiight," Lockdown said, some basic anatomy training he'd received coming back to him. "Each mech produces nanites under slightly different conditions, and so the byproducts of that process releases a unique combination of the gases that all mechs produce." He shook his head. "Damn, cop, don't you think that's taking it a little too far?"

"It proved useful in this instance, I believe," Chase said. He could never be described as 'smug', he was too reserved for that, but there was a certain amount of pride to his tone.

"Yeah well," Lockdown said straightening. "Fool me once."

"I feel no shame with regards to my actions," Chase said.

"Riiiiiiiight," Lockdown said again, this time his voice dripping with sarcasm.

It was a diplomat's gala event, with emissaries from all over the galaxy. Lockdown, using a modified cloaking device and scrambler had disguised himself as a diplomat from junkion. He thought it fitting – his style had always been one that threw together anything useful he could find, with little thought to whether or not it actually fit together fashionably.

Chase had (somehow) managed to get himself invited and had danced with Lockdown for most of the evening. Lockdown should have considered that strange. Chase had barely left his side all night, and, in hindsight, had clearly been trying to get Lockdown isolated from these rich, complacent, idiots just begging to get robbed. If he hadn't known any better, Lockdown would have suspected he was being seduced. But Lockdown had merely been enjoying the night, and, if he was honest with himself, the company. They'd retired to a secluded salon to 'talk', and that's when Chase had jumped him. Literally.

Lockdown had expected some sort of embarrassment from Chase, but the officer merely cocked an optic ridge. "I was performing my duty as an undercover officer in attempting to bring a law-breaker to justice."

"I just love it when you play hard to get," Lockdown said, making his way towards the window and his getaway plan: A hovercraft waiting outside the salon. His subspace full of the spoils of the wealthy as they wined and dined each other, he'd actually ducked back there to leave when Chase had followed him.

By the Pit, there was a part of Lockdown that loved trying to get a rise out of the mech and failing every single time. Just like he knew Chase got a kick out of following his vapor trails all across the galaxy only to have him slip away every time.

"You almost got me this time, I'll give you that," Lockdown said, one leg through the window.

"I will catch you," Chase promised. "One of these days, I will see you behind bars."

Lockdown grinned. "You know I'm a sucker for the dirty-talk," he said. On a more serious note, he added "So long as you keep chasing, I'm gonna have ta keep running. Isn't there any way we could - "

"Never," Chase replied emphatically.

Lockdown's grin was broad. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He slid out the window and landed on the hover pad. Eventually, someone would find Chase, he knew. The butler, or a member of the clean-up crew. They'd let him go, and the game would start all over again.

Just keep running, he told himself as he sped away across the frozen landscape towards his ship. Pretty boy can't help but chase after you.

fin