Skyfire had only seen the space bridge closely once, during a fly-by back in his training days. He had never been into the complex itself, but back then he could see even from a distance that it had been a busy place, despite usage of the space bridge itself happening infrequently. Instantaneous transport across unimaginable distances was a neat trick that required an enormous amount of power and coordination from both this complex on Cybertron, and the one on the other end of the trip. As a result, maintenance and preparation was the vast majority of what actually went on in the complex. Actual use of the bridging capabilities had typically been restricted to political sorts, or the military, or immediately essential supplies, those such things.

Average mechs, like Skyfire and his wing, had to make do with warp-capable ships launched from the port on the second moon. Not that such travel was bad; warp was still no small feat itself. But it did give him a whole new respect for the earlier mechs who had traveled for vorns on less speedy vessels to map out their section of the galaxy, and plant space bridges on distant colony planets. His admiration for them had lead him to want to be an explorer himself, once he had completed his service with the army. Even if exploring meant being stuck with a team in a small ship for joors on end; even his own wingmates could become quite obnoxious in those circumstances. Even Starscream, who had also wanted to...

'Where is Starscream?' He shook off that line of thought. Surely Starscream was nearby. He had to be. He could feel him. He wanted to charge ahead, run to his beloved wingmate, but the eerie silence of his surroundings made him uneasy.

For all the space bridge's usefulness, it now appeared deserted as Skyfire and his wingmates approached. The three Seekers walked across the empty field up to the complex-why walk instead of fly, Skyfire couldn't guess-ignoring the ground that was torn up by explosions, glistening with stains that could only be old leaked energon and lubricants, littering with bits of metal here and there that surely were pieces of some mech's armor...

He peered at it all in silence. The war had started when they were stationed on the moon of Zel Samine. It had all seemed so distant, so unreal, that Cybertronians would be slaughtering each other, all because the Prime and the Lord High Protector were at odds. Clearly, it was very much real, and far worse than he could have imagined.

A soft creaking from up above broke Skyfire's attention away from the destruction. He turned his gaze to the top of the outer wall to see mechs standing up there as the repair drones scurried by, staring silently down at them with red optics. They were standing beside a rather fierce-looking piece of artillery that he could see was online, but not currently active.

Now that, he definitely did not remember from his last visit.

Then they were through the gate. It closed behind them heavily as they continued across the inner field. His wingmates swung to the left, around the first building in front of them. As they rounded the corner of the building, they entered another open space, one that struck Skyfire more as a cargo loading area than the staging field for Seeker wings that it was serving as now.

There were lots of Seekers. They were mostly just milling about, likely not currently on duty, but using the staging area as a way to be outside, somewhere with no ceiling above their heads.

Then he saw them. Coneheads. Lots of coneheads. They stood in clusters with their own kind, still and wary among the natives who were smaller than themselves, but far more numerous.

The Cybertronian Seekers looked over as they entered, taking note of Thundercracker and Skywarp and automatically shifting aside, before they even registered Skyfire next to them. When they finally realized he was there and yes, he was towering over them, their optics brightened intensely and they suddenly swung themselves around, well out of the way, facing him so they could watch.

Skyfire was used to that reaction to himself, but the obvious deference to his wingmates?

The coneheads had no such reaction or deference.

Skyfire had never seen so many coneheads before. In fact, he could only remember seeing a single wing of them on all of Cybertron. He had heard they were not exactly pleasant mechs, but had not had the chance to find out for himself.

The ones here seemed to be of the same disagreeable sort. The hulking creatures openly watched Skyfire and his wingmates approach, but only stepped aside, a small bit, when they had deemed it worthwhile to do so.

His wing held rank here, enough that even non-Cybertronian Seekers recognized it. This was certainly a change since he had last been awake. It had been the very fact that Starscream had failed to respect rank that had landed the wing on the icy Zel Samine moon to begin with.

'What's happened here?'

They may have held held rank now, but the coneheads were challenging this, pushing just enough to show that they were displeased, giving way only at the last moment to avoid an outright conflict. For now. Skywarp was holding his wing panels up, as if puffing himself up, as they passed the of the coneheads. A strange tension hung in the air around them, making Skyfire feel decidedly exposed.

They passed under an overhang as they headed to the entrance of the building. Sitting back in the shadows was another wing of coneheads, and these ones, Skyfire recognized.

"Keep your lot in line," Skywarp snarled to the largest, loudly enough that he could easily be heard by any other nearby coneheads.

"They're not my lot," the conehead replied in his low voice. His own wing-panels and the spines curving back from his head and shoulders were lowered, but it was not in submission. Rather, he gave off the impression of a predatory beast coiled to strike. And with how his red-edged, mottled grey armor almost blended into the shadows, he could have very well been such a beast, lying in wait for his victim to come too close.

Before Skywarp could respond to that challenge, Thundercracker had swept him inside.

'Thundercracker, always the voice of reason.' Skyfire waited for the door to close behind them before leaning down to his wingmates. "What's with all the coneheads?"

"Megatron's idea, Shockwave's rather poor execution," Skywarp muttered. "We don't need those mindless animals here."

"They're not happy with the terms of their...employment," Thundercracker said. "Hence why so many of us got called here. I doubt they'll try anything again, but you'd be best leaving them alone."

Skyfire nodded, though he had no idea what his wingmates were talking about.

"Actually, no, go bother them all you want," Skywarp said. "Maybe Megatron will kill more of them for causing trouble."

"Skywarp!" Thundercracker hissed, clicking his sharp teeth together once. Skyfire just stared down at them.

'Megatron never killed Seekers before.'

"What? If Ramjet can't control them, that's his own fault. Maybe a few more public executions will change some minds."

"I'm not going to go around picking fights with anyone," Skyfire said softly. 'Certainly not if Lord Megatron will possibly kill me for it.'

"Pity," Skywarp said. "I'd like to see how they'd fare against you." He turned slightly to look up at him, optics squinting as it he was having to look against the sun.

They turned a corner in the hall, and a couple of grounder mechs came into view. They froze upon seeing the trio, then slid themselves to one side of the hall, almost pressing themselves against the wall, though the hallway was plenty big for Skyfire to walk fully upright and without risking so much as brushing them with a wing panel. He walked past them, hardly giving them a second glance. He had long ago given up trying to explain to non-Seekers that he wouldn't hurt them or step on them or accidentally squish them against the walls.

He found himself glancing down at them at the last moment. Like his own wingmates, both of these mechs bore the sharp-faced sigil of the Lord High Protector on their armor, a symbol once reserved for the Lord High Protector himself and his highest ranks, those who served and answered to him directly. Now, it seemed, all served him.

He wondered if Starscream wore it as well.

"I thought you were taking me to Starscream. Where are we going?" he asked at last.

"Our rooms, where else?" Skywarp huffed, as if that should have been obvious.

"Oh." He hadn't realized these were barracks.

"I'm sure Megatron will want to speak with you, eventually," Thundercracker said. "Figured you may want to rest first."

"I've been resting long enough."

Thundercracker gave him a tight-mouthed smile. "It'll take a bit to make travel arrangements, anyway. We may have the Autobots on the run, but that doesn't mean we can just go out for a friendly jaunt about Cybertron with someone as noticeable as you."

-And not without debriefing with the officer in charge.- This new voice, from one of the nearby comm panels, startled Skyfire enough that he stopped short to stare at the panel, his wing panels rotated upward in alarm.

Skywarp rolled his optics, but thankfully it was their older and more level-headed wingmate who once again stepped in. "You're in charge of the space bridge, Shockwave. Not troop security." Thundercracker kept his voice level as he addressed the comm panel.

"Yeah, stop messing with things you don't understand." Skywarp couldn't contain himself any longer. "We're already cleaning up this latest mess of yours, why don't you leave-" His rant dissolved into low growls and clicks of annoyance as Thundercracker landed a swift kick on his shin.

-You are to bring him up here immediately.- This Shockwave mech shut off the comm so abruptly that he had nearly cut off his own words.

"So..." Skyfire said in the ensuing silence. "Should I?"

"No," Thundercracker said, starting down the hall again. "You are a soldier, you report to your commanding officer."

Skyfire hadn't been a 'soldier' since...ever. Yes, as a Seeker, he had technically been in the Cybertronian army, but he and his wing had always been put in low-priority guard or scout positions. It had suited him just fine; he loved exploring, and that gave him the perfect opportunity to investigate new worlds when he was off-duty. By the time they had been stationed on the Zel Samine moon, he was so out of practice with actual combat maneuvers that he would have needed some retraining to be of any use in a battle.

He hoped he would be able to get that training before he got thrown into battle now, as he was getting the impression would happen sooner or later.

They stopped in front of what appeared to be an entrance to some sort of workspace or storage room, rather than barracks. Skywarp keyed open the door. "Our place," he said.

Skyfire's wing panels fluttered.

Before him was a large room, with seats and terminals arranged in the center. Surrounding the room, recessed into the walls, were three berths and at least as many storage panels. Seated at the central-most terminal, deeply contemplating whatever he was reading, and very much facing the doorway as he did so, was Starscream. Though he could feel their bond thrumming with life, Starscream did not so much as look up when Skyfire entered, half hunched over as he followed his wingmates through the door.

Starscream could be like that sometimes, absorbed in his tasks. But to ignore his wingmate, when they had been parted so unexpectedly all those vorns ago? To not even greet him as he approached the compound? To not even look at him as he entered the wing's personal space?

Starscream looked up at last, and their optics locked for a moment. Then he slowly stood and made his way over to Skyfire. "Normally you would be bringing your leader up to speed on what you've encountered," Starscream said. "Though I think this time, it'd be better to go the other way around." He stopped when he was standing right in front of Skyfire, and looked up at him.

It was the same way he had greeted Skyfire the first time they had met, the day they had been assigned as partners. Starscream had not hesitated to show his bravery in standing toe-to-toe with the Seeker who was nearly twice his size. He had looked up at Skyfire with defiance, and had been rather let down and confused when Skyfire hadn't taken the bait to start a confrontation.

Now, though Starscream's expression was hard to read, it showed nothing of the aggression of those many vorns ago. Instead, he raised himself up on his toes, lifting his head higher.

Skyfire's response was automatic, and full of relief. He crouched, lowering his head until the crests on their foreheads touched. "So," Skyfire said softly. There were so many things he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask... "What do I need to be brought up to speed on?"

Starscream stepped back, huffing lightly and waving his hand as if to brush aside the question. "Nothing. Unless you want to know the minutiae of battles and troop movements. Mostly we're just sitting here wondering why Megatron doesn't gather all the army and destroy the Autobot bases already. It's not like they'd ever survive a direct assault like that. They almost collapsed when Soundwave took his little team into their base outside Iacon." He was pacing, almost ranting to himself.

"Because only the Autobots know where the Allspark is," Thundercracker said, sounding like he had been over this with Starscream before.

"I know that," Starscream grumbled, not appreciating being admonished by his wingmate.

"What's happened to the Allspark?" This was starting to sound like it would take a while. Skyfire looked around for a chair to sit in, but there were only a few in this room, and none were big enough to support him. 'They accepted life without me, I guess.' He settled for folding his legs beneath him and half-crouching on the floor. He turned his longer wing panels back, so he could lean against the wall and support himself if he needed.

"Optimus took it," Starscream said. "He selfishly took it from its rightful and necessary place in the temples." His wing-flaps were twitching in fury, and he was scowling furiously.

"Why would he do that?" Skyfire blinked in shock.

"But it's still connected, somewhere," Thundercracker continued, as if he hadn't heard Skyfire. "There's not been any new sparks spawned since it was taken, but all the energon wells are still active, so it's feeding power to the planet somehow."

"I've been over and over the records!" This sounded like the Starsream he remembered, the one who loved to lose himself to researching some science thing or another, but would never admit he enjoyed it. "We've been to all of the temples, and all of the jacks elsewhere, I've stationed guards at all of them, and it's not there!" He pounded a fist on his desk as emphasis. "Optimus hasn't shown the first bit of interest in a single one since he first took it."

"So there has to be another one somewhere." Thundercracker had taken the other seat as Starscream returned to his. Skywarp hopped up onto the table nearby and sat there, dangling his legs like a bored youngling, which he more or less was.

"I'm telling you, Thundercracker, there isn't."

Skyfire couldn't help but feel that he had joined a conversation in the middle without all the relevant information, but right now his wingmates didn't seem terribly keen on remembering that fact. "Maybe he made one?" he ventured. "I mean, I don't pretend to know what Primes know, but if one of his duties is to tend to the Allspark, he's got to know something about how the jacks in the temples work, right?"

Starscream stopped scrolling through whatever information he had pulled up on his console to give him a severe look. "You don't just make temples or jacks. There's no way Optimus has access to that sort of tech, it's all accounted for in Iacon. Even if he knew how to use it. You can't just conjure a jack out of the ground when you're busy splitting your race apart with a pointless war."

The door suddenly slid open, and Skyfire turned to look. Framed by the doorway was a massive mech, perhaps not as tall as himself but certainly much more solid. A fan-like spray of fins framed the mech's narrow head, which was fronted by a single optic. One of his arms appeared to have been completely dedicated to weaponry, with odd cables and panels sticking out all along it. "You don't know what sort of tech Optimus has access to," the mech said. "Perhaps if you debriefed your wingmates correctly, you would have a bit more information in that regard."

Starscream was bristling; he was not a large Seeker, but he could make a threatening display like the best of them. "Don't you dare invade my personal quarters to tell me how to handle my troops."

"Or didn't you hear us earlier?" Skywarp was making to jump down from the table to confront the unwanted intruder.

Skyfire stood slowly, already moving to get between his wingmates and their latest attempts to pick a fight. 'Things really are tense around here.' "No, it's okay. What do you want to know?" He faced Shockwave who, to his credit, did not appear the least bit perturbed by a giant Seeker.

"Everything." He seemed almost gleeful that Starscream had been contradicted. He reached within the hold on his chest to withdraw a datapad though rather than prepare to write (Skyfire wasn't sure how he would have managed that with only one hand anyway), he simply had the thing start recording. "Your designation, for one."

"I...um..."

"You've forgotten how to give a report? State your name."

"Skyfire."

"Skyfire. Zel Samine is quite far away. How did you get back here?"

He couldn't imagine that many mechs knew about his wing being stationed there. He couldn't imagine many mechs even knew such a place existed. This Shockwave knew more than he let on. Skyfire eyed him carefully; Shockwave kept him in a steady single-optic gaze. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I was offline. For a long time. I was there, and then I was here." He briefly rubbed at a sore spot on his torso. There was nothing there, other than the faint ache, to indicate the blast he had taken from the cannon that had knocked him from the sky. At least the Autobot medic was capable.

Shockwave's head-fins slowly flexed downward, then up again. "What do you remember, then?"

"A medbay. I woke up in a medbay."

Finally, Shockwave seemed to show some true interest. Even Starscream's threatening display had softened.

When no one said anything, Skyfire continued. "They had me strapped down to the berth. I tried to break free but I guess the medic took me offline again."

"You 'guess'?" His lack of details was really irritating to Shockwave. Skywarp seemed amused, at least.

"I couldn't see much of what was going on." He slid his wing panels forward, in imitation of how they had been positioned while he was laying on his back. "Just the ceiling. They have light panels in their medbay." He tried not to smirk at giving Shockwave this useless detail.

"How then did you escape?" Shockwave was done playing this game, if his tone of voice was anything to go by.

"Well, when I woke again, the medic was there, and another Seeker. And a 4-Beta."

Skywarp shifted slightly, frowning. He had far more experience with the 4-Beta gladiators than he liked, though he had never discussed any details with his wing. He just always made an extra effort to cause trouble for any 4-Betas he crossed paths with.

"Should I just have Soundwave pull this information directly from you processor?" Shockwave muttered. "Who were the mechs?"

"How should I know?"

"Your optics are working, are they not? Describe them."

Skyfire hesitated. 'This isn't right. I don't like this.' But Starscream was looking at him expectantly, so he continued. "Um...the medic had yellowish armor..."

"Did he have two arms?"

"What? Yes, I think so."

Shockwave looked at Starscream pointedly. "So they have the resources to replace limbs, at least. They could have other tech." Starscream's facial plates twitched in a bare frown. "And the 4-Beta?"

"He had two arms." Nobody was amused by that. Skyfire personally thought it had been pretty funny. "He was white."

This seemed confusing to everyone present. "Not gold, or red?" Shockwave asked.

"My optics do, in fact, work." Another one! He silently congratulated himself on his sense of humor having survived his coma intact.

Thundercracker spoke up before Shockwave could say anything about that little bit of sarcasm. "And let me guess, the Seeker was a large one, gray with red and yellow striping."

Skyfire nodded.

"The gestalt," Shockwave said with obvious glee. "They're fools if they think hiding in an Autobot base will save them."

"Gestalt?"

"At least now I don't have to pretend to play nice with them," Skywarp added. He clicked his hand claws together in an ominous rhythm.

"What gestalt?" Skyfire looked around at the present mechs, but none of them were paying attention to his question. Was that Seeker in the medbay part of a gestalt? Or was he connected to a gestalt in some other way? What gestalt was it, even? It wasn't like there were many of those in existence, unless they were being cranked out now for the war.

He realized he had missed part of the conversation during his pondering, and he tried to act nonchalant as he looked around to figure out who held the topic now.

"I assume the Autobots did not simply release you," Shockwave was saying by the time Skyfire had rejoined the conversation.

"Oh? Oh...no, I broke out. There was this giant drone with a flamethrower in the medbay-"

"A drone with a flamethrower in the medbay," Starscream repeated slowly, his face expressionless.

"...Yes." Skyfire furrowed his optic ridge. It hadn't occurred to him how strange that was until Starscream had just pointed that out. "Well between the two of us, I think we demolished the medbay, and I got out. They didn't even try to stop me." Not even the Seeker who had been in the medbay, the only one present who could have followed Skyfire.

"Excellent." Skyfire couldn't tell what part of his statement Shockwave was referring to, exactly. The mech looked at Starscream, as if to say 'And THAT is how you get information.'

Starscream's wing panels lifted slightly at the silent taunt. "I believe we're done here," he said flatly.

For a moment, Shockwave appeared to want to disagree. Then he pointedly turned off his datapad, stowing it in his hold once more. "Yes, I believe you are correct, Commander."

"Then go report it to Lord Megatron so we don't have to, and leave us alone."

Shockwave looked down at Starscream in silence, only the fins around his head shifting slightly in what Skyfire was learning to be a sign of annoyance. Then he turned and left, the door closing behind him.

Starscream visibly relaxed. "Thought we'd never get rid of him. You didn't have to say anything to him, Skyfire."

"I didn't want anyone to fight..."

"Won't Megatron wonder why you're not reporting to him?" Skywarp said as he hopped down from his seat.

Starscream shrugged noncommittally. "If he wants more than what Shockwave reports, he knows where to find me."

Skyfire shuffled forward a few small steps, trying to get someone to pay attention to him, which was proving surprisingly difficult today. "Wait, why would Megatron care about us, I mean you, specifically? And 'Commander'?"

His wingmate looked at him, a rather ferocious grin on his face. "Oh, yes, congratulations, your bonded is second-in-command of the Decepticon army."

The first time he woke, he had the oddly clear realization that he was hooked up to the energon generator he had repaired for Ratchet what seemed like eons ago.

When he woke again, it was to the all-too-familiar screaming of the cyberhawks in his mind.

Wheeljack moaned at the sound. 'Giant damn Seeker,' he remembered. 'Primus, I hate Seekers.'

Who needs 4-Betas? Seekers are bigger, faster, stronger, better fighters, and they can fragging fly. 4-Betas are nothing but primitive, obsolete, unpredictable, and they can't even group-bond like Seekers, to tame their tempers. Loners. Not fit to be in society. Only good to train Seekers against. To throw into danger with not a care to them. To be torn apart, destroyed, culled before even hatching, until the Allspark decides enough is enough and stops making them...

The cyberhawks were louder now. He squeezed his optics shut, trying to push the noise out.

"Oh thank Primus, you're awake-no, Grapple, I need that space, got put those beams over there." The relief in Ratchet's voice was weirdly genuine. He heard the medic step closer. "You need to stop baiting mechs who'll do damage when they fight back."

"I wasn't..." 'Primus, the screaming.'

Ratchet was calling his name. He opened his optics to see the CMO's head hovering above his prone form, looking down at him, watching for something as he turned a knob on the generator. "Ah, there we are. Can't use the normal settings, since you so brilliantly drained your core nanites for that drone. You do realize how long it takes to regrow those, don't you?"

'Like that would have stopped me.' "Well, you didn't...Primus, make it stop." The cyberhawks' cries were boring into him, like the giant Seeker's screech had done.

"Make what stop? Wheeljack, you've got the highest pain tolerance of any mech I know. It'd going to take enough analgesics to knock out a Lunarian transporter to do anything for you and I just can't spare that right now."

"The screaming," he said in a low voice.

"Oh, that." Ratchet frowned, and he stepped back. "The Twins should have that under control, eventually. Once they decide to stop glitching around."

Wheeljack watched him warily. "What?"

"The cyberhawk." Ratchet nodded his head slightly to one side; out of the corner of his optic, Wheeljack could see the edge of a gaping hole in the outer wall, where Grapple and a few other mechs were working. Beyond them was visible the evening sky, already scattered with stars. He felt dangerously exposed, now that he could see the missing wall.

'Frag, is my lab okay?'

"Not sure where it came from," Ratchet was saying, "but it's trying to roost up on the east comm tower. Probably it's been hovering in the wastes around the perimeter for a while, and now it thinks it can get in here for some easy prey. Between you and that Seeker, there's certainly been enough holes blown in this place."

Wheeljack just stared for a moment. "So...it's real."

"Of course it's real. Fragging obnoxious." Ratchet was still frowning. "You never talked with Bluestreak, did you?" the medic said softly.

Before he had to answer, the cyberhawk screeched again, this time sounding rather annoyed. This was soon followed by the excited, though much quieter by comparison, shouting of the Twins. Ratchet watched for a moment, but his attention returned quickly to his patient. "They said it was demeaning, something about having to do it in Kaon, but they sure don't seem to mind doing a little pest control now. We wouldn't have had to involve them if Silverbolt's crew would have gone near it. Or if your drone had taken care of it, but it wouldn't even give the 'hawk a second glance."

"Killing cyberhawks isn't his job."

As if he had been listening in, Wheeljack heard Grimlock's voice echo in his mind. More.

It gave him pause.

More what? Did he want something more to do, now that the giant Seeker was gone? The Grimlock-voice in his head hadn't used the sinister tone the drone usually employed. It sounded almost...forlorn.

Lonely. A loner who had just realized that being a loner meant to be by himself. And he didn't like that.

"Primus, Wheeljack. How many times do I have to tell you to stop thinking while you're in my medbay?"

"Don't let them destroy the 'hawk."

"Excuse me?" Ratchet sounded most exasperated.

"The cyberhawk. Tell them not to..." His vents shuddered without warning, and a moment later he felt a jolt of pain, from who knew where. He let his vents cycle normally for a beat before trying again. "Tell them not to tear the thing up. I think I can use it."

Ratchet stared at him with an expression that said he was trying very hard not to get too aggravated at something he didn't understand. "You...want the cyberhawk."

"The body. Yes. In as much of a single piece as those brutes can manage." Again his vents stuttered. "Unlike me, apparently," he muttered.

"Oh, you're in one piece. Just with a hole in the middle..." Ratchet trailed off, presumably to pass on Wheeljack's request to the Twins. "What the frag are you going to use a dead cyberhawk for?"

"Another drone. It'll save me having to build one from scratch, and I need one that can-"

The CMO came back into his field of view, optics narrowed. "No, no, no. We're not having another one of those things running around here."

"Grimlock...the Jhiasians...I need to make another one." He couldn't find the energy to explain why this was so important to the functionality of the drones, to their mental capabilities, to him.

"Not right now you don't."

"I will make one whenever I damn well feel-" He cut himself off, that final word triggering a dawning realization. "Why can't I feel anything? Turn my sensors back on."

Ratchet was silent for a long time, and with every astrosecond, a sickening feeling grew somewhere deep within him.

"Ratchet."

"They're on."

"Turn my sensors back on!"

"They are on, Wheeljack." He knew that tone of voice. It was the same one the CMO had used when that poor little demented Seeker had asked Ratchet to fix his processor, make him normal.

'Why is he using that voice with me?' He could see the yellow-green glow from his vocal resonators, tinging the edges of his vision in fear. "Then unstrap me from the berth."

"You...you aren't..."

"Stop fragging around, Ratchet!"

Ratchet snorted through his vents, snapping out of his unusually quiet state. "Right, 'fragging around', that's all I do around here." He muttered to himself as he moved away again, and out of Wheeljack's vision.

Wheeljack found he could not even move his head to follow the CMO's movements. "Ratchet!" He didn't care that Grapple and his crew could hear him. He didn't care that Grimlock was even picking up on the conversation, and growing upset without understanding why.

"Unlike some of us here, I don't rush a job just because someone's yelling at me!" Ratchet sounded like he had moved over to his office, or where his office used to be, then started back toward him.

"What job?"

"Making you a new spinal column. More of less from scratch, thanks to your drone blowing up half my rather limited supplies. Unless I could use the one from that cyberhawk you're so keen on keeping." The last statement was dripping with a rather self-focused bitterness that Wheeljack had not heard from the CMO before.

He wasn't able to fully comprehend those emotions just then. Wheeljack was too busy trying to process the meaning of the words he had just heard. "What happened to my old one?" he asked, thinking to himself a moment later that it really didn't matter so much the 'what'.

"A giant-aft Seeker claw, that's what." Ratchet was back in his vision, and the medic made a motion with one hand, hooking a finger and pulling his arm back sharply.

Wheeljack had to concentrate very hard on keeping his vents cycling at a slow, steady rate. When he spoke finally, he kept his voice just as even and deliberate. "You're telling me that a Primus-damned oversized Seeker ripped out my spinal column."

"I don't think he did it on purpose."

It was strange. If he had been able to move, he would have been shaking right now. The sensation of not trembling was extremely disconcerting. "That doesn't change the fact that I'm slagging paralyzed." He couldn't move. He couldn't make things. He couldn't help Grimlock.

"No," Ratchet said slowly, sadly. "Which is why I'm busy 'fragging around' making you a new one. Even if I did have the hospitals of Iacon at my disposal, this is no small task you've handed me." Now he sounded very much like the Council elder he had once been, one of the top medics of the entire Empire, a healer, researcher, inventor in his own right. One who was very tired of having to put those skills to use in a war.

"And you expect me to just lay here and wait for that kind of slagging miracle?"

"I'd be rather surprised if you did anything else."

"Take me offline until it's fixed." With that, Wheeljack close his optics. 'This isn't real. This isn't happening.'

"Too risky," the medic said. "No telling if I could wake you back up again."

"I'm okay with that."

The clang that immediately followed that was the tell-tale sound of Ratchet smacking the slag out of whoever had just contradicted him. The medic's expression afterwards was one of a mech who remembered, just a moment too late to avoid embarrassment, the futility of doing that to a someone who couldn't feel anything. "You know we're both too stubborn for either of us to give up that easily," Ratchet said after a moment.

"Fine." He said it with as much finality as he could muster. "Either fix me, or kill me if you can't. Let me know when you decide which it's going to be." He stared pointedly at the ceiling, as if he could do much else, and ignored any further attempts at conversation, folding his vocal resonators back under his helm for good measure.

'And if Ratchet can't fix this? You really think he'd let you go, even then?' He could not ignore the conversations from his own mind. The medic would fix things. He had to. Or Wheeljack would find some way, somehow, to personally kill him. He would have Ratchet kill him first, and then he would find a way to bring his spark back to go after Ratchet. He would haunt the CMO to death.

No. He didn't want to die.

But what if Ratchet can't fix this.

He didn't need Ratchet to fix anything. He could fix it himself.

But to fix anything, he needed his hands.

And he still had to work on more drones. And the hyperdrive engines. And...

'Should never have left Etraum.'

He shuttered his optics again, feeling as if he was floating away in the darkness. From somewhere far away, he could hear the cyberhawks-the ones in his mind, the one outside, what did it matter?-and Grimlock's answering call, challenging, inviting them.

The sentry had been correct. Someone had come through here, but they were long gone by now. Their group would probably have had more luck pursuing the Seekers that had made Outer Simfur their gathering place not so long ago. There really was not much point in coming here now, except that once their Prime decided that something bothered him, he wouldn't let anyone rest until it had been investigated to his satisfaction.

Whoever had come here had made a very careful but intent approach. They had come, they had investigated, but they had not disturbed anything, had not taken anything. They came, and they left.

The Prime was bothered by this, but he was also cautious. Very cautious. Many of them found his caution annoying and unwarranted, but no one could argue that it hadn't preserved them thus far.

They could, however, certainly argue that it had allowed this trail to run as cold as ice by the time they were allowed to investigate it. The Prime had wanted to wait to make sure there would be no more visits to this area before allowing his flock in. They could not risk discovery. Apparently they could also not risk discovering anything themselves, either. How could they be expected to know what the mechs had wanted here when so much time had elapsed?

Amoika knew. And he had done nothing to stop the Prime from making them drag their heels with this investigation. He knew, and he said nothing.

Their team was silent as they made their way into the vast underground bay. They did not activate the light panels, but nonetheless confidently made their way to the starships.

The Aeternitas and the Ark were roughly the same age as the Axalon, the ship that had taken them on their ill-fated mission, and brought them back vorns later as beings changed by the experience. Compared to their current technology, which had been rapidly developed in a short span under those dire conditions, the ships were laughably antique. Even compared to what little the Cybertronians' own technologies had advanced in that time, these ships were old.

Someone still thought they were worthwhile.

Amoika knew it was the Cybertronian Prime. Megatron would not have come here and then just left the ships as they were, hidden and silent. At least, he didn't think that would have been the case, with what he had observed of the Lord High Protector over the vorns.

He passed beneath a landing arm of the Ark and looked up along the curved structure, to the golden hull that gleamed so dimly in the near-blackness. His whiskers fanned forward, searching for any quiver of air, any spark of electricity.

-Nothing,- Romy, the team leader was saying. Amoika lowered his head and looked in the mech's direction. There was nothing to track visually. Romy was covered in dusty grey scales, mottled with darker patches, hard to see among anything on Cybertron, even in broad daylight. But Amoika was not paying attention to the visual spectrum down here anyway. He, like others of his kind, saw in the spectrum of spark-auras. His leader's spark-aura was brilliant in the darkness, rippling through the mech's body to show the bright silhouette of a creature that walked on two short hind legs, braced by longer front limbs that folded multiple times, concealing large wings that were powered by the motion of his arms, rather than the jets or turbines that flighted Cybertronians relied on. His short muzzle was framed by large ears, which were turning constantly as he listened to their surroundings.

Romy snorted irritably again, swiping his clawed hand at a piece of debris and sending it skittering across the ground.

-Shhh!- Mus immediately admonished. His small, long-limbed form, shimmering against the blackness with a bright spark-aura, shot across Amoika's vision as he rushed across the open ground and scrambled up the Ark's landing arm. -They went into the ships,- he said to the team a few moments later.

-Do they think they can escape their war on these derelicts?- Romy was looking in Mus' general direction.

-Let them.- The team member who said this, Melie, was somewhere behind Amoika, and he could not see her from where he stood. -Let them take their poison with them. Cybertron will be ours.-

-Not without the Allspark,- Amoika rumbled.

Romy snorted again. 'The Allspark abandoned us. We don't need it. We'll abandon it.-

Amoika's mouth twitched into a tight grimace, and he turned away, moving through the bay on large, silent paws, from which glittered sharp metallic claws. -Let's just finish up and report to the Prime. I think he'll want to post more sentries here.- Romy was not wrong, though. Their kind did not need the Allspark, but Cybertron did. Could they survive a dead planet any better than the Cybertronians?

Most of their kind thought they were better off for not relying on that ancient artifact for their needs. But Amoika couldn't help but feel that some piece of them had been lost, some basic part of their inner beings torn away when they were severed from the Allspark, and they had never been able to reclaim that piece even after returning home. Their ancestors, their elders, had been reviled and turned away from the temples, their race shunned and pushed into the darkest recesses of the planet, all because they had been forced to become something that no other Cybertronian had ever endured. Few of them remained who had ever been into the temples, few could remember those days before their expedition, when they were part of the Cybertronian race. Few could tell stories of standing face-to-face with the Allspark. Amoika himself had never seen the Allspark until-

He glanced over at Romy, who was now pacing the length of the Aeternitas. Would he feel differently about things if he too had seen the Allspark, if he knew where it was, who protected it? Would he embrace the task and become a protector himself? Or would he turn protector into destroyer, as Unicron had once been turned?

As Megatron had also been turned?

Were they themselves really so different from those Autobots and Decepticons?

"Psst."

Amoika stopped short as Mus dropped down in front of him, hanging by his prehensile tail from a small half-broken panel on the Ark's hull. The tiny mech's dark eyes stared unblinkingly at him. "What?" Amoika kept his voice to the barest of whispers, so the rest of their team would not pick up on their conversation.

"At least try to look like you're doing something constructive." Mus hauled himself back up and into that small hole in the hull.

Amoika drew his whiskers back in a silent sigh. Mus was right. No one suspected him of being in the pro-Cybertronian crowd. But they had every reason to suspect Amoika, what with his none-too-private veneration of the Allspark, and his friendship with Naka, the champion of pro-Cybertronian policies. He could not afford to give them more reasons to distrust him, or he would never be able to go on missions like this one again.

More to the point, he would find himself far too closely monitored to perform his true duties, which the Cybertronian Prime relied on him for, to protect the planet and preserve its children.

He paced forward smoothly until he came to an external sensor array. Tucking his back legs beneath him, he rose up on them until he was able to press his forehead again the smooth metal hull. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening. The Ark seemed mostly unconcerned with the mechs who had visited it earlier, and mostly unconcerned with the techno-organics here now. It more or less just wanted to be left alone to sleep, if no tasks were going to be required of it. Amoika felt this was further evidence that it was the Cybertronian Prime, not Megatron, who had visited. Megatron was the type to make a strong impression on anyone he crossed paths with.

A sudden sound made the team pause, except for Amoika, who dropped back onto all fours. Their heads all whipped around to find the source of the noise. Techno-organic optics did not glow in these forms, so they were nearly invisible in the darkness. Whatever, or whoever, had made the noise would be highly unlikely to ever see them, unless it was one of their own kind. But they would have sensed another of their kind, or any kind, long before they could have gotten this close. Right?

Amoika's whiskers trembled. It was just a glitch-mouse. Or a piece of old metal finally collapsing under its own weight. Or an underground draft shifting a bit of dust.

They could not take the chance. As one, they turned back around and silently fled. Amoika gathered his legs beneath him, muscle-like mechanics bunching and releasing beneath his striped pelt as he launched himself forward. His leap was not as graceful as others', as his heavier body took more effort to move, but he nonetheless easily cleared the mound of debris before him and landed with barely the whisper of a thump on the other side.

Mus streaked past him, keeping close to the ground as he shot around obstacles, almost out of his sight before Amoika could get himself up to sprinting speed. His vision warped, automatically overlaying with a different view of his surroundings, mapped out against the darkness to guide him to one of their many unseen escape routes.