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Truth is, dear readers, I have a miserable job and no life. So I writes da fanfix for yooooooo. Someone commented on an early draft of Break that that was it, I simply couldn't do meaner things to robots. That, I viewed as a CHALLENGE. Moreover, I decided to hedge my bets and bring in MORE robots to screw around with.

Lots of Autobots in this one. And a big fight scene. And robot pain and suffering. Oh, all the stuff (the only stuff, alas) I'm good at.

The key theme in this story is 'trust'. It's pretty obvious as the story goes along, but consider, who is trusting whom? Are they right to trust them? Why do they trust them and what do they stand to lose if they're wrong? There's another theme which I'll reveal later. Yeah, who else puts crap like *symbolism* and *themes* in their robot stories? I'm so special.

******

I.

Nemesis

“Hiding out here?” Blackout said, stepping through the doorway. The intel center’s lighting was even dimmer than Repair Bay. He could barely make out Barricade’s shape, picked out as gleams of light against the silver parts of his armor.

“Not hiding. Busy.” Barricade sat up from where he’d slumped himself over the terminal, and began tapping out a report, the very picture of industry.

“Right. Busy.”

Barricade dropped his hands against the console. “Do you have any actual business here? If not, security requirements require that—“

“See? Hiding,” Blackout cut him off. “Behind words.”

“Not hiding,” Barricade insisted, wincing at how childish it sounded. “See you finally got that rotor repaired.”

“Yeah. Tired of hearing your **** about it.”

“Really? I have a long list of other improvements, if I have that kind of power over you.”

Blackout snorted, only half in irritation. “Stop being a glitch, Barricade. Came to see how you were doing.”

Barricade blinked, surprised. His eyes narrowed in their cages. “Why?”

“Gotta be some nasty reason?”

“Normally is.”

“Sometimes isn’t. You just don’t seem as…happy as you should be.”

“What are you, the happiness fairy?”

Blackout laughed. “There’s an image for you.” He flexed his rotors. “Got the wings for it and everything.”

Despite himself, Barricade grinned.

Blackout stepped farther in. “Vortex reports initial assays of the Tunguska materials are promising. Air burst, so there’s a large scatter. Makes collecting it kind of like a hunt. Got drones scrambling out there like little repair bots playing ‘find the casualty’.” The drones he’d supervised had bleeped happily the whole time, as if it were a game. They’d had a right to be happy, he’d decided. They were doing the work to save all their lives.

“Good to hear.” Barricade said, without real enthusiasm. “Autobot interference?” He called up that report on his console, ready to input new data.

“Minimal. Two grounders. Easily overrun. We expect air reinforcements at any time, but until then, doing our best to haul up. Just brought up my second load, actually.” He watched Barricade update the report. “Not telling you this for your report. Supposed to be happy. Your work. Your results.”

“Hurray me,” Barricade said, dully.

Blackout stepped across the room, slapping a large hand over the console. “Talk. Now.”

Barricade tilted back in his chair, looking up at Blackout. “About what?”

“Look, I don’t have your fancy tricks. Just talk to me. What’s going on?”

“You seem more up on that than I am.”

“Stop being dense,” Blackout snapped. “As bad as talking to Starscream, sometimes.” He looked around the intel center. “Gonna have to leave this room at some point. Everyone’s talking about you, you know.”

“Figures.” But Barricade’s processor ticked over almost audibly. Blackout waited. Finally, Barricade broke. “What are they saying?”

“No way. You talk first.”

“Why’d you wait so long to get your rotor repaired, really.”

“Not talk about me, you slaggin’ glitch.”

Sigh. “What do you want me to talk about?” Forced patience.

“Want to know why you’re not celebrating. I would be. Megatron praised you publicly. Starscream’s ready to throw a piston in envy.”

“That would be worth seeing.”

“Can’t see it from in here.”

“Why aren’t you jealous?” Another point blank question.

“Not threatened by anyone’s success. I’ll prove myself on my own merits. Or not.”

Barricade looked at him, evaluating. Blackout added. “Not smart enough to run an approach, you know. Some of us really are that simple.”

Barricade sat back. “So you say.”

“So I know.”

“Bound to happen you’d know something,” Barricade said, acidly. “Sooner or later.”

“Why you keep doing that?” Blackout folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the console.

“Doing what? Talking? Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” Barricade’s eyes spiralled tighter, directly against the innocence in his words.

“Keep trying to make this unpleasant.”

“It’s supposed to be pleasant?”

“It’s an option.”

“I have to get back to work,” the smaller bot said, trying unsuccessfully to move the copter’s hip off his console. With amusement, Blackout watched him try, first with the back of one wrist, then with both hands, then bracing his whole weight against it.

“If I wanted to play your kind of game, Barricade, I’d probably tell you how much that tickles.”

Barricade slammed his fists against the edge of the console. “Leave me alone.”

“No.” Blackout lifted one of his large feet, and planted it squarely across Barricade’s legs. “And don’t think you’re going anywhere. Not til we have this out.”

“Something I would like to have ‘out’ is your foot out of my damn lap. Then you, out of my damn IC.”

“No, sorry. Try again.”

Barricade began poking at the copter’s foot, trying to find a sensitive sensor node. “Tell me if this tickles, too,” he hissed.

Actually a few of his pokes really hurt, but Blackout wasn’t going to give up this easily. “Only if you tell me if this tickles.” He wiggled his toes hard against the smaller bot’s armor. The smaller bot squirmed, shifting his effort to try to pry up the copter’s toes. Blackout started laughing. This was just…so ridiculous. Only Barricade was this annoying. When you were trying to help him. Starscream would have pulled rank but then run his mouth so long you’d beg him to stop. Or tear out your own audio.

Blackout stopped. “Come on, Barricade,” he said. “Talk.”

The smaller bot dropped his hands to his sides. “About what?!”

“Why you’re upset.”

“Not upset.”

“Then how come you’re not out there rubbing Starscream’s arrogant face in it? Even Soundwave was impressed.”

“Not really a good idea to get on Starscream’s targeting grid right now.” Barricade shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t need to explain why Starscream wasn’t feeling particularly beneficent toward him right now—Blackout had seen the whole thing.

“Yeah? You think he’s going to forget if you stay out of sight for long enough?”

“Jets aren’t known for their long term memories,” Barricade retorted. “Attention span barely longer than a drone, most of them.”

Blackout grunted agreement. “You might consider how he sees it, though. While he can remember.”

“Meaning?”

“You think being labeled a ‘coward’ is such a hot idea?”

“Is that what he thinks?” Barricade’s voice got hard.

Blackout shrugged. “Think about it: you’re hiding from him. That’s how he sees it. Means he thinks you’re afraid of him.”

Barricade swore. Should have seen that. Any sort of intelligence bot should have run that head-line. Not as good at it as he thought he was. Only now, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be any good at it. “I’m afraid of him?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Can handle him,” he said.

Blackout lifted his foot from Barricade’s legs. “Then why don’t you?”

YES!!!

I have been waiting all day!... Stupid work...

Glad to see Barricade is a little uncomfortable with what happened at the end of Break... very, very much looking forward to up and coming Autobot ugly I can't wait... seriously...

Very nice start... I have very weird images of Blackout as the Happiness fairy now

Very good. Read Break all the way through, as well as Dead End. Can't wait to see all of this one. But being ugly to Autobots? I'm gonna cry!

One problem *I* have with writing Autobots is that I really hate the way they appear in a lot of fanfic--it's really hard to tell them apart. There are only a limited number of ways to write 'honorable, good and decent', and so you end up with bland vanilla 'good guys'. But if I screw up their lives too badly, they won't be recognizable as the good guys, which is also a no-go. Well, I've tried to split the difference, and make them good *and* not-sterling-perfect. We'll see if it works.

********

II.
Diego Garcia

Sideswipe and Cliffjumper bounded off the C-17 Globemaster in good spirits. Good night. Good mission. A few ‘cons would no longer be bothering the universe with their ugly presence. And no casualties on their side. Well, apart from MacCallum, who’d sprained an ankle. But even MacCallum had laughed it off. “Luck of the Irish,” he’d joked. Which Sideswipe thought he got until someone told him MacCallum was a Scottish name.

“So much for a hero’s welcome,” Cliffjumper said, looking around. Normally there were at least a few others around to greet a returning squad.

“Must mean there’s more action for us,” Sideswipe said, happily. “Hope we don’t miss out on all the fun.”

“Let’s head to Ops and find out.”

They crossed the sun drenched runway to Hangar A1, still chatting. “And did you see when I took down that one guy?” Sideswipe was saying. “He was like nooooo and I was like shazam!” he demonstrated with a spinning leap that sent his blades in a silvery dangerous arc. “Sweet!”

Cliffjumper stopped him with a hand on his chassis. “Someone die or something?”

“Huh?” Sideswipe looked around. The room was filled with bots, but it was deadly quiet. He could still hear the last of his exclamations echoing off the walls. “Looks like everyone’s here. Heeeeeey, who’s the new girl?” He pointed at a cycle bot whose back was toward them talking with Chromia, her armor painted in vivid purple glittering swirls. He raised his voice. “Hey, new girl! Hot paint job!”

The purple cycle bot turned. Sideswipe’s face fell. “Flareup? I—I didn’t recognize you.” Easy to do. That wasn’t her paint job. And what the hell had happened to her optics? One, he could swear, was Decepticon red.

“Glad you like the paint,” she said, poisonously sweet. “Decepticons did it for me.” Yes, her other optic was ‘con red. What the hell had happened? Last he heard there had been some foul up at that attack in Syria. He hadn’t paid attention, much, once he’d realized there was going to be no counterattack he could get in on. Maybe he should pay attention to these things?

“Uh, yeah,” he faltered. “Looks great.”

“They replated some of the armor, too, you know. Their alloy.” She shifted her shoulder plate at him, proudly. Even in the hangar lights, the swirls of paint glittered.

“They damaged you, first,” Chromia cut in. “Don’t forget to give them credit for that, too.”

“That’s what happens in battle,” Flareup said, stiffly. “Right, Sideswipe?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, again, feeling dumb. What the hell had he missed?

“Oh, come on, Flareup!” Chromia balled her hands in frustration. “You can’t be serious. You don’t even know what they did to you. For all you know they could have planted explosives in your armor. Or a transmitter. Or a cortical overloader.”

“If you’re so afraid I’m a rolling bomb,” Flareup snapped, “why don’t you stand farther away from me?”

“It’s not that. I just want Ratchet to check you out, that’s all!”

“Why? I’m fine!”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Damn right I’ve been through a lot. And thanks for your support,” she said, acidly. “You don’t ask Sideswipe here to go see Ratchet, and he’s been through a lot, too. Do you?”

“That’s different.”

“It’s exactly the same. I’m tired of being singled out because I’m female. I thought--” she dropped into her cycle mode, roaring her engine, “I thought you were too.” She roared out of the hangar. Chromia dropped her hands helplessly by her sides.

“I am so glad I am not a girl,” Sideswipe said, watching Flareup race down the runway.

“Shut up.” Cliffjumper spat.

Autobot tensions... excellent...

So many stories are afraid to put tension in the relationships and interactions between the Autobots... what was it you said?

You can't have a story without conflict otherwise where is it supposed to be going, what are they supposed to overcome or achieve?

I already like the atmosphere and the under current of conflict in this story. And thank you for not having Vanilla good guys!

Eagerly awaiting next installment.
(I promise not to review everyone)

Oh, dear...

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

Good storyline, though.

To force myself to write a story that actually has Autobots in it, I wrote it in alternating scenes, so...one Autobot scene, then one Decepticon scene. I keep this up until it becomes...untenable. And by that point, everyone's pretty much in the same place trying to kill each other anyway, so...that's my excuse.

Anyway, here's some fangirl swooneriffic Starscream for ya.

********

III.
Nemesis

Starscream paused the playback. Walked around the display, slowly. Frowning. What had he done wrong? What could he have done better? They had won, but he could have won…better. By more. It was an old battle, yes, and he liked to consider he had progressed beyond those clumsy tactics. But how far? And was it far enough? Had command dulled his battle edge? Had losing it to Megatron cost him more than respect?

He refused to think of the present—what he’d be doing now instead of whatever insanity Megatron was pursuing. It only bred fury and discontent—sure enemies of a warrior’s performance. No. He did not want to think of Megatron. Or of Bourzey, and the countless mistakes he had probably made there. Nor the humiliation of having been sent on such a mission, a punishment—what had Barricade called it? ‘One of Megatron’s little disciplinary specials’? Yes.

He didn’t want think about Barricade, either. So instead he stared at cascading tactical scans of battles that were to him ancient history. They might have been tactical or strategic disasters, but they were a time when he knew his place, felt sure and confident of his own power.

Unlike now.

He barely registered the whoosh of the ready-room’s door, or the approach of another bot, until the other stopped beside him.

“Blackout,” he acknowledged, curtly.

“Tyger Pax, huh?” The copter tilted his head to consider the elevation displays in more detail. “Going back to the bad old days?”

The jet snapped off the playback. The tactical scan vanished. “A warrior continually hones his mind,” he snapped. Those days were not so bad. Not like now.

Blackout stepped back, a little surprised. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just trying to make conversation.”

“If I desire conversation, I will initiate it. If I desire intelligent conversation, I will merely have to face my disappointment.”

“You know, Starscream,” Blackout said, “there’s a reason you don’t have any friends.”

“It is because I do not need any,” the jet retorted.

The copter gave a snort of contempt. “Yeah. Sure.” He headed back to the door, his shoulders stiff with frustration. “Have fun in here all by yourself, Air Commander.”

*****

“Ready Room Delta,” Blackout subvoc’d to Barricade. He leaned against the wall a few paces down from the ready room’s door.

“Fine. How’d I let you talk me into this again?” Barricade said, sourly.

“Pulled some macho bullshit line on you and you fell for it.” The copter’s smirk could be heard over comm. So much for Barricade’s continual put-downs about warriors.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart. Should warn you—he’s in a pretty ugly mood.”

“Makes two of us.”

“Want me to stick around in case things get rough?”

“No, but I might want you to stick around so I can kick your aft after this.”

“You can try.” A moment later. “You’ll be okay?”

“Fine time to care now, whirly-brains. Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Blackout heard him log off his IC console through his internal systems. “And if I’m not, I wish you a lifetime of guilt.”

“That’s what I like about you, Barricade—your perpetual optimism.”

“Really? I thought it was my devastating good looks.” Barricade was under no illusion he was anything other than…unattractive.

“You just keep thinking that, delusion-bot.”

“Just as well: I suspect my handsome face is about to get reconfigured.”

“Can’t get any worse.”

“Always looking on the bright side, aren’t you?”

“Good luck,” Blackout said, but Barricade had already cut comm.

*****

“Starscream,” Barricade burst with a jovial enthusiasm he didn’t feel. “What a pleasant surprise to find you here.”

“It is neither pleasant nor a surprise for me,” the jet replied. He’d cued up the Tyger Pax playback after the copter had left, adjusting the actual combat with simulated scenarios. What if they had flown in a reverse-V formation instead? What if they had kept their grouping looser? What if Blackout had arrived with reinforcements a hemicycle earlier? So many variables—which ones actually mattered? “I suspect that Blackout gave you my location. However, if I had been entirely certain of the pleasure of this visit, I would have called up Saejon Three.”

Barricade flinched. Starscream’s jaw gritted in satisfaction. Let the pain begin, apparently.

Barricade dropped the boisterous act. Ridiculous anyway. Blackout should have stayed out of this. Since he hadn’t, the least Barricade could do would be to keep him out of the circle of blame. “Small ship, Starscream. Sooner or later I’d run into you. Unless,” he drawled, “of course, you’d be hiding from me.”

“Me? Hide from you?” Starscream pretended to be engrossed in another combat scenario.

“That’s what I thought.” Barricade stared at the combat sim. The jet looked over at him. Back to the sim. Back at Barricade. Dying to know what the smaller bot was thinking—Barricade could feel it build up in him.

Finally, the jet snapped, “If you are waiting for my congratulations, you will have to wait longer than this.”

“Don’t want congratulations,” Barricade said, “Yours or anyone’s.”

“Well then, what do you want?” He gestured at the simulation. “As you can see I am busy.”

“So busy you’ve got nothing better to do than slag around with sims. Last time Megatron’s met with you?” Barricade cursed himself even as the words left his mouth. You were here to calm things down, not escalate them. Can’t you turn that damn thing off? Can’t you, for once, try not to run a slagging approach?

The jet’s eyes spiralled in tightly. “That is none of your business.”

“Actually, it is my business. Access logs. You haven’t met with him since returning from Bourzey.” Barricade squinted his eyes shut against himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid bot. You’re making it worse. Stop it. Now. Ego down. Way down. Forget the Saejon Three dig. Stop trying to power-over him. You know it doesn’t work. He watched the jet seethe. Come on, he goaded himself. You can do this. Pride/ego up. Stroke his ego. Say how great he is. You know he’ll respond to that. You know he will. He’s about 90% ego. Stroke it. Just stroke it the right way for a change.

Stop being the interrogator. Start being…whatever the hell you actually are under all the self-delusion. Under all the artificial sentiments, feigned emotions, under the ruthless processor. Dig under that. Let that speak for a change. What came out was…. “I’m sorry.” He winced, waiting for the jet to run with it, take his apology and tear it down. He felt Starscream’s eyes hard on him. Could almost hear the sneer on his face. Then, unreadable silence. Barricade looked up.

“It was…unconscionable, what you asked of me.”

“I know.” This, he decided, did not feel good. It felt, altogether, too much. He wanted numbness.

A flare of anger. “Then why did you ask it?”

“I thought it was necessary. I thought it was the only way.”

The jet grunted, folding his arms over his torso. His eyes were on, but not seeing, the combat sim. “There is never only one way, Barricade.”

Barricade felt his hands tighten into knots of shame. “It seemed like it.”

“It always does.” Starscream froze the sim. “Why me? Why did you ask that of me? Do you hate me so much? Was Megatron’s punishment not enough for you?” The jet’s talons dug into the console, gouging the bare alloy.

Barricade blinked, surprised. Had he been entirely wrong in gauging the jet’s head-line? “Asked you because I trust you. Only one I know who’d stop it in time.” Had the jet really thought he’d made him do it out of hate? Of all the bots who had a reason to trust the jet? Was Starscream questioning that?

“And is your trust supposed to be worth more to me than my honor?”

“Everything’s a damned ‘matter of honor’ to you, Starscream.” Damn these stupid warriors and their spark-cursed honor! Such a thing as getting the job done. He felt anger simmer in him. Forced it down. No. He wasn’t going to defend what he did. Couldn’t. Hot anger felt better than shame…but it was still not what he wanted to feel. It was still too much.

Starscream’s voice was soft, somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. “What else is there, Barricade? Don’t tell me you still believe in the Decepticon cause? As smart as you tell everyone you are?”

Barricade’s central core went cold. “That’s dangerous talk.” Why would Starscream be talking sedition to the chief intelligence officer? Did he want to be offlined?

“Which is why I do not say it very often. But you seem to think there is something more important than coming out of this with honor.” The jet rocked back against the console, arms over his chassis again. “I would like to know precisely what you think that is.”

Barricade had no answer.

I love your Starscream and your Barricade. They're such multi-dimensional characters, far better than the atypical Decepticons that float about the ether of fan fic dom... it's good to see interpersonal relationships between them all and I am glad I have read 'Control' to pick up on the subtle hints to their past.

Great update I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wow. Just, wow.

Sooooo I just sat down and read all the fic in this story arc, and I am now eagerly awaiting more.
I love your Decepticons. I was fairly disappointed by the movie 'cons, because there wasn't enough time for any of them to get any depth. Now I know that next time I go back and watch the movies, I'll be seeing them the way you've portrayed them here. I love that they're not all "lolol let's go kill ****, kay?" but instead have distinct, complex personalities.
I mean, it's possible that I'd just eat up anything with significant amounts of Starscream in it, but no. This is different. I like this in a more genuine way.

Please continue. ^_^

Monday morning's going to suck for me, so, here, enjoy your Optimus a bit early. And your educational content for the story.

IV.

Aircraft Carrier USS Indomitable

Optimus felt several dozen hostile pairs of eyes turn toward him as he entered the impromptu briefing room set up on the wide deck of the carrier. Some of those seated stood in acknowledgement of his entry, but there was none of the ‘glad you could make it’ chatter like before. Only stony silence. “Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, politely, feeling a pinch of nerves. He wasn’t a diplomat. This was never his strong suit. He’d been staggering along enough with human/Autobot alliance before when things were easy. Now everyone had heard Ironhide’s hostile and defamatory words. What could Optimus do? Apologize. Apologize again. He wasn’t making any headway.

Assistant Secretary Galloway stood up at the front of the hastily-erected hut. “All right, gentlemen, now that we’re all here,” he looked sharply at Optimus as though he had been holding things up, “let us begin.” He gestured to a figure in the back of the room, nearly standing alongside Optimus. The figure, in DCUs, strode forward, sweeping a beret off his head as he advanced.

“Sergeant Major Sternburgh,” Galloway announced. Apparently the name was impressive to some of the humans. Optimus debated accessing his processor’s search function, but didn’t want to do anything right now that would jeopardize his attention. He shifted on his feet, listening to some of his new joints creak. They still needed finer machining, but Ratchet had done his best to get Prime presentable and mobile enough already. It hurt, but Prime wasn’t going to complain.

“Afternoon, gentlemen, ladies,” SGM Sternburgh said, nodding pointedly at the females, highlighting Galloway’s rudeness. “DoD called me in to take a look at the footage, as you may know. My task—my team’s task—was to verify the authenticity of the transmission and the statement. If you have any questions, please just shout ‘em out.” He picked up a clicker. The screen behind him burst to life. “I presume by now you have all seen this footage, so I will keep the volume low for the moment. We have it on loop.”

Optimus had seen the footage—how could he not?—but still, the damning film drew his eyes. Ironhide, betraying everything Optimus had worked for. It hurt. It had to. He still didn’t know what he was going to do, or say, to Ironhide. He still had this to deal with. He hoped he was picking the correct priority. He tore his attention back to the human.

“Our first task was to verify if the sentences themselves were authentic. That means, not a cut and paste, like a YouTube mashup. Our sig-int experts assure me that while the tape is edited—obviously—it’s at the end of utterances. The sentences themselves are entire.”

He paused. The transmission ran behind him. “Our next task was to determine if perhaps he had been forced to read off of some kind of script. As you know, this happens frequently with hostages in the Middle East. They are expected to read some statement about the evils of the society in which they live.

“That is not the case here. This is no script.”

A hand shot up. “How do you know?”

“All right. The scripts normally include the speaker apologizing and renouncing his former life, at the very least, and extolling the power and rightness of his captors. That,” he shook his head ruefully, “is not this.”

“You said ‘normally’.”

“We have to consider the purpose of the recording. And the quality of the performance as well. In our usual scripted scenarios, the captives do not try particularly hard to be convincing. Why, then, would this Ironhide give what amounts to an Oscar-worthy acting performance?”

“Depends on what they were doing to me.”

Sternburgh turned to face his questioner. He seemed, Optimus thought, to stumble a bit. Or maybe Optimus was just projecting his own injury on the human. It had been…a lot to process. Ratchet had warned him. “That’s just it. Torture, right? We all think under torture, we’ll say…whatever necessary. While that has been demonstrably proven with physical torture, it has never been conclusively proven with any other sort of pressure. Even setting aside how well you could practice your actorly craft while someone was ripping off your fingernails.”

“There was that kid who confessed to murder once.” A woman in a skirted suit said, sitting forward.

“Ah, the Allen Chesnet case. Yes. He produced a written confession, you’ll remember. That’s really more to do with false memory and sleep deprivation than this. Neuroscience and adolescent brain plasticity, you know? Neither of which apply to this scenario. I could go into that later, if you like. But I find the more convincing evidence is here.”

He clicked his controller, and the transmission skipped to a blank screen. “Microexpressions, ladies and gentlemen. Brief, fraction-of-a-second facial expressions; hundreds of times more reliable than lasting expressions to determine mood and motivation. You’ve heard of these? If not, I have a bibliography at the back of my report. I suggest you begin with Ekman.” He gestured, and a female soldier in DCUs, with two slim chevrons on her sleeves and blonde hair pulled into a tight braid, began handing out paper packets. She handed one to Optimus as well. The Autobot held it with clumsy fingers. He would have one of the smaller bots look at it later.

“Well, we decided to operate on the presumption that our Cybertronian….” For the first time, he seemed to reach for a word, “guests have entirely consistent body language. Meaning, they react exactly as you or I. On a macro scale, this is obvious—they can look happy or sad or surprised. We have mutual intelligibility of these expressions. Based on that, we decided to presume that microexpressions might occur as well. Going back to the notion of is this robot ‘acting’, well…if he is, he’s acting in ways that directly fit human facial expressions. How and why these Decepticons would coach him on these….?” He let the question dangle. It did seem unlikely, even to Optimus. The Decepticons did not seem to care much for the humans. Definitely not enough to train someone to out-act their best actors. And Optimus couldn’t think of a less-forthright bot than Ironhide.

The clicker moved the transmission. It crawled into slow motion. “You can see the transcript of this, this is Microexpression Exhibit Alpha, on page 29 of your packet, if you want to follow along with the words. You can see here,” he froze the crawling tape. “Contempt. See the curling lip? The wrinkle at the bridge of the nose? Like a bad smell? Classic.” He sped the transmission up. Prime heard Ironhide’s angry voice, “Slaggin’ useless humans. Come along just to keep the illusion that they’re still in control.” He saw the features that the Sergeant Major described numbly. He absently rubbed the new, unprimered plating of one wrist.

Sternburgh commented, “The contempt is for the humans.”

“How do you know it’s not toward his interrogator?”

“Good question.” Sternburgh beamed at the questioner. “He doesn’t like his interrogator. That’s,” he fumbled with his copy of the report and the clicker. “Here. Exhibit Echo.” The transmission skipped and then picked up. Sternburgh froze it. “See the difference? The exposed teeth and the flare of the base of the nostrils, here the nasal plate lifting out. This is a textbook snarl.”

“Can’t he feel both—contempt and snarl—at his interrogator?”

“Extremely unlikely. The psychodynamics argue against it. Contempt is for something that you feel is not a threat. A snarl is for something that is, quite clearly, a threat. The interrogator threatens his self-concept, thus, the snarl. The subject of the humans’ ability in combat is no threat to his self-concept. Complete disdain.”

Director Galloway looked pointedly back at Optimus, crossing his legs. The creases of his trousers seemed to point accusingly at the screen.

“He’s obviously upset,” someone added. “Duress.”

“First, you blurt in duress. Probably statistically more likely to blurt the truth than to make up something on the spot.” He turned to his script again. “As to what’s upsetting him, it’s totally unrelated. Watch.” He played another clip. Froze it. “See this upside-down U shape of the lower lip? With the forward thrust of the lip? We call that ‘Heartbreak Ridge.’” He laughed. “It’s a cheezy title, sure. But tells you everything you need to know. He’s not getting pressured by rage. He’s getting pressured by sorrow. Whatever this interrogator’s using on him is not affecting his anger controls. This is him. And his anger.”

Galloway shifted, riffling through the report. “We need to move along. Conclusions?”

The Sergeant Major looked crestfallen—he was clearly just warming to his favorite theme. Optimus could respect the soldier’s enthusiasm, even though every word he said made Prime heartsick.

“The report is thorough. Only one aspect we were unable to investigate is, of course, the original language. We have the raw feed in Cybertronian as well as several dozen translations into Earth languages. Impressive translation protocols they have, by the way. There is apparently a human expert in the Cybertronian language, but we have been unable to acquire her for our team.” He shot a pointed look at Galloway, who pinched his lips. “This is a faultless translation as near as we can tell, which we have had to get from the Autobots.” He looked unhappy about having to rely on them. Made sense, Optimus thought. Why trust the Autobots when you were investigating them? “The vocal modulations even match.”

Galloway gave him a hostile eye. Sternburgh sighed. “In conclusion, then. Everything this bot, this Ironhide says, is exactly how he feels. He is not reading a script. He is not being forced to say this. The interrogator himself,” and he paused for one last clip. Optimus heard Barricade’s calm voice, again asking such a reasonable question, “is clearly not using overt or illegal tactics. This is who the bot is and how he feels. End of discussion.”

“Anything else?” Galloway asked, standing up to shoo Sternburgh back.

“Yeah. I want this Barricade guy on my team. Yesterday.”

Wooo!! Yay Optimus!!... I know, I know he hasn't done anything... yet

Last line is ace!! Got me smiling at that bit... can't wait for more I still say poor Ironhide... kinda... ish...

I feel bad for ol' Ironhide! Poor 'bot! I think, deep down, he might actually like humans. But not enough to keep from saying something like that. Still, under pressure, you say lots of things that you mean, but don't want to say...like this...

Very good.

Woooo...and Barricade just became that much MORE badaaaazzzzzzz!

You know how I said I alternated to make myself write more Autobot scenes. Yeah, well I blew it. Twice. So here's another Autobot scene. Friday, we check in with Blackout. What? You want perfection? For *free*?! And yeah, Max's last name is Plank. It's a science geek joke. His parents thought it was funny.

V.

Diego Garcia Hangar Delta 1

Ironhide had no real reason to be in the repair hangar. Compared to Flareup, or Chromia, or even Prime, he’d come out of the whole Bourzey nightmare unscathed. The Decepticon repair bots had repaired all of his battle damage—so well, so faultlessly, that Ratchet frowned in something like professional jealousy. “And they did this in how long?” he’d asked. Ironhide had stretched the numbers considerably. A lie, but it seemed whenever he spoke the truth, someone got hurt.

His only physical damage were a few scrapes from the plasmesh carry harness, and his pulse cannons, which sat in the corner, waiting to be reinstalled. Waiting, apparently, for Prime’s approbation. Which, Ironhide thought, would be a long time coming. Long time before Ironhide would be trusted armed. Or at all.

He hated the sudden ripple of silence whenever he walked into one of the other hangars, or worse, the strained courtesy that only a few even dared. Always a little too loud, a little too chummy. So false even Ironhide could tell. He couldn’t blame them. They were Autobots—they weren’t hypocrites. Even if he just sat by himself, he got the distinct impression he was killing the atmosphere. Or worse: that they were talking about him—either with contempt or pity. He couldn’t decide which he’d hate more. It was infuriating to be there and hear any part of it. Not infuriating—some nauseating half mix of fury and shame.

So he hung around, (like a coward, he berated himself), in the repair hangar. Ratchet’s kingdom. Ratchet tolerated his presence, possibly because Ironhide stayed the hell out of the way. Ratchet certainly didn’t invite conversation, instead spending hour after hour updating supply lists, or, if nothing else was more pressing, organizing and reorganizing his tools, resetting his emergency packs with supplies. All the tedious garrison work a bot normally hated. Ironhide couldn’t blame him. Probably wouldn’t go out of his way to be friendly to himself, either.

Ironhide almost envied the medic bot—at least Ratchet had some distraction. He debated asking if he could help, but decided that Ratchet might banish him from the repair hangar altogether. Better to be quiet, and have this safe haven, even if it meant being locked in his own thoughts. Better to be quiet, period. Look at what happened when he opened his damn mouth.

Oh, why had he said that? He was just so angry, and Flareup’s injuries were burning into his optical processors and he couldn’t think straight. Had he honestly thought his anger at the humans would force that stupid ‘con to back down? What had he been thinking?

Obvious: he hadn’t been.

He sighed, looking down with despair at his too-naked forearms.

Ratchet looked over, caught Ironhide’s pose. “Don’t worry. He’ll give the word as soon as he gets back.”

“Huh?”

“The pulse cannons. Just a formality, you know. He’s just been really busy since your return.”

“Really busy trying to run damage control on my damage.”

“Busy,” Ratchet said, as if it was pointless to go further. “Things’ll calm down and you’ll see.”

Ironhide watched Sideswipe and Cliffjumper swagger into 1 Alpha. Should be his self-confident stride, his triumphant return. “I don’t know if I want to see.”

“What’s that mean?” Ratchet put down the wrench he had been inspecting for picocorrosion, pointedly.

Ironhide sighed. “I’m too old for this. Done this too long. Lost my…” (damn mind) “perspective.”

“You said something…,” Ratchet’s turn to reach for a word, “infelicitous. That’s all. It happens.”

Ironhide had to run the word through is translation protocol. He snorted, bitterly. That’s the best Ratchet could come up with? ‘Infelicitous’? “I single-handedly blew the entire human/Autobot alliance,” he retorted.

“Now,” Ratchet said, soothingly, “If you’d actually done that, that might be impressive. But all you did was speak your mind. These American humans, at any rate, value that. ‘Everyone’ they tell me, ‘is entitled to their own opinion.’ Surely they can’t hold yours against you.”

Ironhide wasn’t convinced. He shook his head.

“Besides,” the medic bot continued, “I’m sure there are hundreds, if not more, humans who would say exactly the same things about Autobots.” Slight pause, correction, “Not exactly the same things. But I’m sure they have xenophobic humans, too.”

“I’m not xenophobic!” Ironhide snapped. Dammit, that hadn’t been the point of what he’d been trying to say at all. Did no one understand him? “I’m not afraid of Megatron: You think some pathetic walking plasma bag frightens me?”

“Boo,” said a voice. Ironhide whirled around, to see one of the human engineers standing in the doorway to Delta 2. It was one of the graduate students. The one who had been most upset at Miss Silver’s injury. Even Ratchet cringed.

“Just came to get my stuff,” the human said, blandly. “Be out of your way in a minute.”

“What stuff, Mr Plank?” Ratchet asked, “Why?” First the linguist gone, but she was injured. And now the engineers? Why?

Max shrugged. “Pulling us out of here, didn’t you hear? Since apparently all of you are so grossed out by us touching you.” His voice was bitter.

“Mr. Plank, that’s simply untrue. We are immeasurably grateful for your assistance.” Ratchet gestured at Ironhide, ‘say something’.

Max crossed over to a red-enameled toolchest, and began tossing tools—wrenches, clamps, and various meters—into a canvas satchel. “Not my call.” He yanked open a drawer at the toolchest next to his, showing its insides empty. “Last to leave, that’s all. Lovely parting gift I got: debriefing by the Colonel.” His face flushed red with repressed anger.

“Look. Max, right?” Ironhide faltered. Ratchet encouraged him with a gesture. “Didn’t mean that, what I said. Really. It just came out wrong. Or something.”

Max squatted by the satchel, looking up at Ironhide. “Don’t worry about it. Makes sense. I’d be grossed out if something a quarter my height started poking at my guts, too.” He snapped the satchel shut and stood up, slinging it over his shoulder. “Well, Ratch. It’s been real.” He gave a mock salute and headed to the door, turning his back squarely on the other Autobot.

“Mr Plank,” Ratchet called out to him, “Please pass my greetings to Miss Silver, if you should see her.”

Max stopped, turned on his heel. For the first time there was real anger in his gaze, directed at the bots. “Don’t think so, Ratchet. None of you were here to protect her. And I think she’s finally figured out how cheap and empty words can be.”

He turned his glare to Ironhide. “And sometimes how much they hurt.”

Oooh I like this chapter very much! I quite liked Max in this too, good to hear him speak his mind.

It's really decent of Ratchet to try and smooth things over, despite the obvious consequences of what Ironhide's said staring him in the face. Humans are all jumpy around the 'bots now and pulling them out, it's going to make for interesting relations.

You can't help but feel for Ironhide, we've all said something/done something that has backfired and hurt people, I think you capture this tension and atmosphere really well...

I am completely hooked on this story and I can't wait until Friday!!

Awww, poor Ironhide. But I knew I liked Ratchet for a reason. Good for him, being all friendly'n'stuff.
"Max Plank" made me giggle. I guess I'm a science geek.

I am not envying Ironhide one bit. Excellent work with building the tension around the base.

Let's check in on Blackout! Because everyone could use a little aerial copter vs jet combat for their weekend!

And no, I don't think real helicopters use vortex rings as an attack technique. But it would be totally cool.


VI.

Tunguska

“Something on your six, coming in low and fast,” Blackout heard Vortex’s calm voice across his mission commnet. He checked his proximity systems and then his hemi-scan radar. There it was. There they were.

“Blood bag flyboys, looks like,” he said.

“Soviet,” Vortex said. “Haven’t had much contact with them. You want me to abort lift and help?”

Blackout got them on visual. Three of them. Su-27s—fighter jets, his armaments-database told him. Air-to-air; two guns, 150 rounds max. High top speed—he couldn’t beat that. But he could outwait them, run them out of ammo. “Think I can handle them. Slow ascent til I get these drones off?”

“You got it.” Vortex who had been lifting his latest lode of energon nodules up to the Nemesis, paused his ascent, letting himself drift high-ceilinged towards the approaching planes. Blackout swooped down, a little rough, but the drones only jostled against each other. Their dronemaster quieted them quickly, and herded them off Blackout’s doors as soon as he pushed them open.

The dronemaster slapped Blackout’s fuselage as the last exited. “Need me?”

“Need you down there in case the drones need to ground assault.” With a brisk nod, the dronemaster leapt out himself, landing on the hard dirt in the clearing the two copters had been using as an LZ. “Ready, Vortex.”

Vortex resumed his climb, but he shot out two magnetic scramblers as the planes zipped under him. “Parting gift. Hope you don’t mind if it takes some of the fun out of it.”

“I’ll manage to make my own fun.”

“Always do,” Vortex said. “Only, this time, give the enemy most of the pain?”

Blackout winced, hating to be reminded about that. His good mood dissipated. “Oh, they’ll get plenty,” he hissed, and cut comm.

The first of the jets blazed over him, turning in a tight roll and rocketing up after Vortex. Underestimate me, will you? Sorry you won’t have a chance to learn from your mistake. He raced after it. He couldn’t touch the jet’s top speed—Starscream could beat it handily, but he wouldn’t lower himself to escort work unless under extreme duress. Like, Megatron-beating duress.

He opened up with his boosted .50 cals, punching a line in the air toward the Sukhoi.

Vortext buzzed him—not over mission commnet but over private comm. “Don’t have to worry. I’m out of his range.”

“Not the point.”

“Don’t waste yourself, Blackout.”

“Not the point!”

Vortex sighed over the comm and spun around, opening up on the jet with his own guns. One of the engines exploded. The jet spun frantically toward the ground. “Save it for someone worth it,” he said, resuming his lift. Blackout cursed, but at himself or Vortex, he couldn’t tell. He let his main rotor snap him in a sharp 180 and headed toward the other two jets who were looping around to figure an assault vector on him.

One scraped the nap of the earth, its guns tearing through the forest at the drones. The drone master clicked open his mission comm, in case Blackout had any words of wisdom, but did a respectable enough job getting the drones to scatter and cover. A few picked up their master’s example and fired back. Uselessly, of course, but it was enough to cause the jet to bank sharply and claw for altitude.

Blackout did a quick combat calc, and tilted his rotors to create a vortex ring. He plummeted through the sky, flaring the rotors just enough to stay upright, until he slammed through the fuselage of the other jet. The kind of intercept they never saw coming. Especially from a copter. He shifted his angle, his rotors pulling out of the vortex ring and biting the air, his straight descent turning into a glide, and then, slowly, into an uplift as his rotors bit the air. The jet exploded behind him fantastically—he could feel the heat on his tail.

Vortex’s scramblers made short work of the air-to-air missiles. Though they read to the remaining pilot as target-locked, they careened harmlessly off course. Nice, Blackout admitted, grudgingly. Going to have to start carrying those. He hated admitting Vortex was as good as he was—mainly because Vortex underplayed it himself. For megacycles Blackout had hated Vortex’s attitude of ‘do the job and come back alive.’ Now, it was beginning to make sense, but Blackout didn’t know if that was wisdom or cowardice.

He’d figure that out later. Right now, he knew he had some wisdom to share with a certain pilot. He felt his good mood coming back to him. This he could handle. In fact, this was just what he needed. “My turn to say hi,” he said, opening up with his larger cannon.

some pretty cool action going on here! The aerial combat is really well written and easy to follow. I liked this section quite a bit... hope to see much more of Vortex and Blackout

Awesome! I enjoyed getting into Blackout's mind during the heat of battle.

Monday looks like another suckgasm here in hellkitty land (can I say 'suckgasm' here?) so...here's some Fallout a bit early. Yay. Flock to read. And there was much rejoicing.

This week, to give you a tease: Optimus today. Wednesday we check in with Barricade, and then Friday, let's see how Flareup's doing.

And yeah, EVERYONE hates hum-int.

*****

VII.
USS Indomitable

Optimus waited near the flightline watching his transport helicopter approach. In a way he wanted it to get here now, as soon as possible, so he could get this ugly work over and behind him. In another way, though, he wanted it never to arrive so he wouldn’t have to take another step down this road. This needs to be done, he told himself. Then stopped. He was getting tired of saying that to himself. If he allowed himself to think about it, he hated being the leader. He was flattered, of course, that his fellow Autobots respected him and took his opinions for wisdom. But they didn’t see, sometimes, the burden it placed on him. To be perfect, to be calm and in control. All the time. To have to think three moves ahead and from a half-dozen different perspectives.

He did it, of course, because he was the only one who could do it. That wasn’t arrogance or narcissism. If Sideswipe were in charge, they’d have rushed suicidally, but gloriously, into battle long ago. They would all have died, but they would have died, as Sideswipe would say, ‘looking cool.’ He almost smiled thinking that. And if Ironhide—the smile died. He didn’t want to think about Ironhide right now. It opened a gaping hole near his spark chamber.

This whole meeting…. They’d brought him here—why? To go back and answer the questions no one ever questioned—that Ironhide said those things. And then merely to dismiss him so they could talk about the ‘repercussions’ and ‘implications’ of Ironhide’s xenophobic comments. Without him. As if he no longer mattered. He took it. What else could he do?

He heard the thunder of the approaching helicopter and looked up into the fading light. He couldn’t help but think back to the Decepticon’s approach, Ironhide dangling limply from one of the carry-harnesses the ’cons used. Even then something about Ironhide’s—flaccidness—had bothered him. His optics caught a movement to his right. He looked down and saw the Sergeant Major from earlier, standing next to his assistant.

“So, Yee,” Sternburgh was saying. “Looking forward to getting back?” He grinned.

“Oh yeah,” the blonde joked, “Much rather be with you stinky bastards than with my husband.”

“Naturally. Who wouldn’t be?” He squinted at the copter, just becoming visible in the thin cloud cover. “This our hook?”

“Ours or his,” Yee jerked her thumb at Optimus.

Sternburgh looked around, and caught sight of Optimus’s blue shin. “Oh hey!” he called up. “Sorry. Not used to looking this far up.” He laughed, clapping one hand on his head to keep his beret in place. “Crazy that I couldn’t see you, huh?”

Optimus struggled for something to say. Something that couldn’t offend. Something that wouldn’t make the situation worse. “Your presentation was most interesting, Sergeant Major,” he managed, finally.

“No big deal. The exciting part is that there’s so much similarity. If you think about it statistically—now I’m not great at math, but I’ve asked a few of my sig int guys who are—it’s pretty astronomical the odds that two species without common origin would share so much implicit body language. You know, we have more in common like that than we humans do with chimps!” Yee slapped him on the arm. “Oh, sorry. Get kind of hot to my theme, you know?”

“It is fascinating,” Optimus agreed. Honestly—no politics or feigning aside. The odds were almost statistically incalculable.

Yee probably thought it was empty praise. “He’ll go on all day like this if you let him. Terrible leader.” She grinned cheekily at Sternburgh. “But he overpowers us with his example. Works harder and better’n any of us. We hate him.” There was real respect in her teasing. It was obvious to Optimus that she didn’t hate Sternburgh at all. That she found him inspiring. Followed him implicitly. Optimus felt a stab of something like envy. He bet Sternburgh hadn’t had to deal with Jazz’s well-meaning insubordination—that probably got him killed—or Bumblebee’s borderline desertion to stay with the Witwicky boy. Or Ironhide. He sighed, audibly.

A sympathetic look crossed Sternburgh’s face. “That’s your guy we were talking about in there, wasn’t it?” Optimus nodded, bleakly. “Sorry to have to do that. My job.”

“I know, Sergeant Major.”

“We all have bad apples from time to time,” Yee cut in, sympathetically. “You just have to weed them out.”

Sternburgh hushed her with a hand. “You can’t control someone’s thoughts,” he said. “Actions are all you can really deal with. And I haven’t heard that this Ironhide’s ever acted on his opinions.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” Optimus said, “both of you. I don’t understand, however, why you should be sympathetic. He said hateful things about your kind.”

Yee laughed easily, squinting in the wash of the arriving chopper. “We’re hum-int,” she said. “We’re used to being hated.”

“You learn not to take it personally,” Sternburgh added over his shoulder, heading for the opening doors. Optimus watched as Yee bent to help Sternburgh in.

How could he, he thought, not take it personally? Not just the humans’ new distrust of him, but Ironhide’s…betrayal. He hated to use the word, but that’s what fit. Autobots did not hate. They especially did not hate those who were different or who depended upon them for protection. Such an attitude—anathema. Betrayal. He could dredge up a half-dozen impressively long English translations for it. None fully seemed to fit the emotion he was feeling, thinking of the attitude behind Ironhide’s angry words. How long had Ironhide felt that way? Why hadn’t he seen it coming?

Optimus watched the chopper take off, another one, his ride, hovering in the air waiting its turn. Is this…the thought came to him, slow and horrible as though it were crawling out of the approaching darkness…is this how the warrior class on Cybertron felt before the war? Had they felt similarly alienated, feared, despised, by those they had sworn to protect?

Nice... seriously... well done... OP is not an easy one to get right... *rushes back to email*

I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter... you get into robots' heads better than anyone else. Yes even the Autobots

Really nice.

Can't wait for more 'Cade.

Excellent work with OP. You do him justice. I also love how you acknowledge the sheer unlikeliness of human/bot similarities. Great observation!