Part 5: Call to Arms

"We still don't have any intel on where..."

Prowl let the thought trail off, his head cocked to one side.

What's that noise?

Outside his office, it sounded like there was some sort of scuffle going on.

"What that?"

Prowl cleared his throat and then turned back to the group of five Autobots sitting around the table with him.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Grimlock," he said, still frowning. "Probably just some tech drones crawling around in the air vents."

"You need to get ears checked, then. Drones don't punch each other. Someone beating up your secre-sere-scer...Nnnn. Someone beating up Fizzle." Rising from his chair, the Dinobot leader drew his sword and headed for the entrance. Springer followed, and the duo took up positions on either side of the door.

"Trailbreaker, cover Prowl with your forcefield," the Wrecker leader said. "Jetfire and Kup, take cover and get a bead on the door."

Prowl tried to object, but before the words could get out of his mouth Trailbreaker was dragging him towards a well-protected corner of the room. "Come on, boss," he said. "We can't take the chance that the 'Cons are trying to take a poke at assassinating our leader."

A resounding crash filled the room as Kup and Jetfire upended the table and took cover behind it. Even as they did, the door slid open. Both Autobots quickly took aim at the figure coming through, but held their fire when they recognized Siren. The brash Autobot only made it a few steps before he was tackled to the ground by Springer.

A second later, a decidedly shabby-looking Fizzle charged in. "I'm sorry, guys. I tried to stop hi-ah!" He broke off as Grimlock grabbed his arm, spun him around and pinned him to the ground.

"Enough!" Prowl snapped, finally managing to regain his composure. "Grimlock, Springer, stand down!" As the two field commanders unhanded their smaller captives, the strategist turned to Siren. "And you...just what do you think you're playing at?"

"Uhgh..." Siren groaned as he pulled himself off the floor. "You guys know Nightbeat has...er...had a bunch of contacts on different planets, right? Well, now that he's not here anymore, some of them leave messages with me. I got one today from a woman on Pz-zazz, a Ms. Fatale. We, uh...we met her when we went to the planet looking for the Matrix."

"This going somewhere?" Grimlock crossed his arms and stared down at the younger Autobot disdainfully.

Siren recoiled from the Dinobot's hostility, but continued. "Yeah, it's going somewhere. An army of Decepticons landed just outside their capital city this morning. She's heard rumours that they've gone after Cheyne, Pequod and Cameron, too."

"Bastards!" Springer's hands balled up into fists.

"Nnnn." Grimlock viciously kicked the tipped-over table, snapping off one of the legs. "Me say we go after them!"

"Of course we'll go after them," Prowl said in a placating tone. "But we can't do it by ourselves. Too many of our best warriors are on Earth with Ultra Magnus right now, and there's no way I'm going to entrust Iacon to a skeleton crew when Megatron is living half an hour away. We'll need to make a joint mission out of this." Tapping the comm panel built into his desk, he keyed in the code for the Autobase control room. "Blaster, this is Prowl. I need you to raise Soundwave. Tell him we have a Level 1 crisis. I want him and as many of his officers as he can get to meet us at Autobase Central in one hour."

Cutting the channel, he turned to his staff. "Trailbreaker and Jetfire, I want you to sit down with Siren and pick apart this message piece by piece. We're going to need every shred of tactical data we can squeeze out of it. Kup, gather as many senior staff as you can get on short notice. Grimlock and Springer, get your teams prepped for immediate deployment. Then go over the rest of the crew roster and draft anyone you think could be useful." The strategist took one last look over his command staff before letting out a minuscule sigh. "Dismissed."

As the rest of the officers filed out, Springer stayed behind. The Wrecker leader waited until he and Prowl were alone, then opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, Prowl shook his head.

"No."

Springer scowled, but soldiered on anyway. "You told us to draft anyone useful. Well, consider him drafted. I need him."

Prowl sighed much more powerfully this time. "He won't agree to come. You know that."

"Then order him." Springer crossed his arms. "You wanted me to build the Wreckers back up into a team that would strike fear into the sparks of our enemies, remember? You wanted us to be a symbol, 'a shining beacon in the dark', remember? We can't do that without good veteran leadership! We don't have the time to mess around with new recruits anymore, dammit!"

"Hot Rod and Splashdown-"

"Are good soldiers," Springer interjected. "But they're not heroes. Their names don't exactly inspire awe in our troops, you know? Neither do Broadside or Skids. And Carnivac...he's never really going to be accepted, you know that. But Whirl...he's exactly what we need. Brave, inspirational, a great warrior and just a touch crazy."

"He's like you, you mean." Prowl could only muster a weak, tired smile at his own joke.

If Springer noticed the attempt at humour, he didn't show it. "The Wreckers need him, Prowl. You know it and I know it."

Prowl's shoulders slumped. "I'll see what I can do."

G.B. Blackrock sat across the table from Bumblebee, a scowl on his face.

"How long is he going to be?"

"Mr. Blackrock," Bumblebee spoke as diplomatically as he could, "Ultra Magnus will be here as soon as he can. You're an important ally, and if he could be here, he would be. But something important came up."

"This is important," Blackrock insisted, tapping the folder sitting on his lap.

"Not as important as the problem that we've got penned up in the brig right now, it isn't."

"What do you mean?" Blackrock's expression grew confused.

Bumblebee gestured down at his dented and dinged body. "I didn't end up looking like this by falling down the stairs," he said. "Last night, I was part of a search team scouring the Arctic for a couple Transformers we lost there a few years back. We found 'em, and one of them wasn't too friendly. He's locked up in the brig until Magnus decides what to do with him."

Blackrock's expression went from confused to shocked to enraged in the space of a few seconds. "What? You knew there were other Transformers at large on Earth and you didn't tell me?" His eyes narrowed. "Did you tell Hawk about them? Barnett? Anyone?"

Bumblebee suddenly seemed to be intent on studying his own feet. "No."

"And why the hell not?"

"Magnus decided-"

"I don't think I like this 'Magnus' character very much," Blackrock said darkly.

Bumblebee was taken aback by the tone in his voice. "G.B., what aren't you telling me? There's got to be something else wrong here to make you this upset."

"Damned right there's something else," he said. The industrialist tossed the folder to Bumblebee rather more roughly than he needed to. "Because your boss decided to gag you, this has been robbing my operations for the last month."

Bumblebee opened the folder, looked at the contents, then shook his head. "Impossible."

"Bullshit," G.B. said. "Something has been breaking through walls to steal experimental tech from my labs, and that's what the security tapes show."

"No, you don't understand," Bumblebee said, shaking his head. "I meant that literally. It's impossible." He dropped the folder back down on the table. "That picture...it's Ravage."

"I know that," Blackrock said impatiently.

"Ravage is dead," Bumblebee said, as if he was trying to convince himself. "Grimlock killed him on Klo more than four years ago."

"Obviously he didn't do a very good job of it."

"I was on the burial detail, G.B." Bumblebee's voice was brittle, showing how hard it was for him to remember that day. "He's dead. We made sure of it. Trust me."

Blackrock seemed to calm down a bit. "Then how is he here?"

"That's what we're going to to find out," Bumblebee told him. The small Autobot hit the room's comm panel. "C&C, I need Magnus down here."

"He'll be there in a few minutes, 'Bee. He's still interrogating-"

"Now, Groove. It's critical."

"I'll see what I can do. Groove out."

"Declaration: you have been standing there for five minutes and fourteen seconds without uttering a single word. Conclusion: your interrogation skills are deficient."

Ultra Magnus stood still for a moment longer, feeling a small spark of satisfaction that he hadn't been the first to break the silence that had existed since he had entered Autobase's brig.

"I'm not here to interrogate you," he said flatly. "I'm trying to decide whether I should let the Aerialbots disassemble you for spare parts."

"That would be foolish," Shockwave replied. "I have a great deal of information that could prove useful to your cause. Killing me would be counterproductive."

"Would it?" Magnus allowed himself to smile a little bit, of the off-chance he could make the logical Decepticon nervous. "Personally, I think it would be poetic justice after what you did with Ratchet."

"I have no idea what you are referring to." Neither Shockwave's voice nor his body language betrayed any hint of emotion. "Fact: before your search team reactivated me, the last event in my datatracks was a battle between myself, Galvatron and Megatron aboard the Ark. Fact: they rendered me unconscious and I awakened by your troops within a cavern system in what I now presume was the Arctic region of Earth. Fact: a medical scan of my memory systems will bear that out. Hypothesis: your comrade was wounded by whomever placed the two of us in that cavern."

"Hmph." Magnus had been afraid that Shockwave would make such a claim; he didn't look forward to addressing the new questions that it raised.

If not him, then who? And more importantly...where are they now? Unfortunately, it wasn't hard to take a stab at answering the first of those questions. Galvatron. It has to be. Dammit. Even though Fortress Maximus had defeated the insane Decepticon leader in combat shortly after the Ark crash, Magnus doubted Galvatron would stay down; he never had before. Recovering his body would have answered the question to Magnus's satisfaction, but Maximus was dead and no one else knew exactly where the battle had taken place, making the task much more difficult than it should have been.

Even if it wasn't Shockwave, that doesn't mean Galvatron was involved, Magnus tried to tell himself. Megatron and Starscream might have been behind it, and just not bothered to tell us about Ratchet when we formed the Alliance. It's not exactly something he would have been quick to brag about.

Unfortunately, the sick feeling in his combustion chambers wouldn't go away that easily.

"Let's say I believe you," the Autobot city commander conceded. "That doesn't change the fact that you murdered one of my troops, tried to kill several more and demolished a human settlement during your escape attempt. I'm still not feeling very charitable towards you right now."

"Your emotional reaction is illogical," Shockwave replied. "I wished no malice upon your crew or the humans that perished. However, we are at war. Casualties and collateral damage are a fact of life."

"If we were still at war, maybe." Magnus felt his slight smile return; he was going to enjoy dropping this bomb on the pedantic Decepticon. "The Autobots and Decepticons have been allies for nearly a year now."

"That is extremely unlikely," Shockwave opined. "Autobot and Decepticon values are diametrically opposed. Any such alliance would be short-lived at best."

"A lot can happen in five years. Things have changed."

Shockwave was about to speak, but before the Decepticon could utter so much as a word, Groove stormed in.

"Bumblebee needs you in the conference room, boss."

The Autobot commander sighed. "I asked not to be disturbed," he said curtly.

"Sorry," Groove said. "He says it's critical."

Magnus frowned. Bumblebee had developed into one of the Autobot army's most level-headed officers under Prime's tutelage; he wasn't prone to exaggeration. "Then it's probably critical," he said. "Tell him I'll be there in two minutes."

Looking back at Shockwave, he shot off one last comment, "There's a new order. I suggest you decide where you fit into it...before someone else makes the choice for you."

"How dare you?"

Prowl held up his hands pleadingly. "I understand you're upset, Whirl, but you have to look at the big picture on this."

"The big picture?" The gangly Autobot's transmission was shot though with static and interference, but there was no mistaking the contempt in his voice. "You can go straight to the Pit, Prowl. You wouldn't catapult any of your other senior officers out of their post at the drop of a hat, and we both know it!"

"Yes I would." Prowl's sympathetic demeanour evaporated like dew on a hot summer's morning back on Earth. The only emotion left on his face was steely conviction. "But I wouldn't have to. The rest of my senior officers wouldn't balk at orders to help four planets worth of innocent civilians fight off an unprovoked attack, dammit!"

The strategist slammed one hand down on the table for emphasis, and he was perversely amused when Whirl's hologram jerked back in surprise. One day I'll have to thank Grimlock for teaching me that trick...

Regaining his composure, Whirl carried on. "You can't just pull me out of here on a moment's notice! My people-"

"Your people, Whirl?" Prowl shook his head. "Last I checked the Protihex garrison was still crewed by Autobots. They're my people, not yours. And as of..." he made a show of checking his chronometer, "two and a half minutes ago, they're no longer your concern. I'll make sure that they're taken care of. You're back on combat duty, and nothing you say to me is going to change that."

"What's it like, Prowl?" Whirl was still fuming. "How does it feel to be able to reduce someone's life to rubble with the stroke of a stylus?"

"It's not nearly as fun as it sounds," the Autobot leader said with a sigh. "Your new unit will be expecting you by the end of the day. Iacon out."

Magnus walked into the meeting room and held a hand up apologetically.

"I'm sorry," he told Blackrock. "That took longer than expected."

The industrialist nodded. "I hear you have a prisoner."

Magnus shot a scolding glance at Bumblebee, but the smaller Autobot only gave him an unabashed shrug.

"We do."

"Anyone I know?"

"That's not important," Magnus said with a shake of his head. "You wouldn't have come all the way out here without a good reason. What's going on?"

"A dead Decepticon is burglarizing my operations," he said coldly. "And since my so-called allies didn't bother to tell me there were any Decepticons at large on the planet, I didn't take any precautions to ward them off."

Magnus sighed, then glanced over at Bumblebee. "Does he always make this much sense?"

Blackrock looked ready to spit fire, but the spy replied before he could say anything. "He's had several serious break-ins over the last month. Security cams at one of the crime scenes captured the culprit on tape. It was Ravage."

"Impossible," Magnus said definitively.

"That's what I said," Bumblebee agreed. "But the picture's pretty clear. Either Ravage is back or someone is going to a lot of trouble to make us think he is."

"Who would want to do that?" Blackrock asked sceptically. "What good would it do?"

"If this 'ghost Ravage', for lack of a better word, is working for our enemies, it's already done them a lot of good," Magnus said matter-of-factly. "Anything that causes trouble for your company is going to suck up resources needed for the rebuilding effort...and finding out that you're being raided by Transformers was bound to undermine your faith in us. If there's someone out there with designs for Earth, both of those could only be good for them."

"True," Blackrock said. "But isn't it just as likely that he's been repaired? You guys have a bad habit of not staying dead."

"Normally that would be true," Bumblebee conceded. A haunted expression crossed his face for a moment. "But we made sure the Decepticons we killed on Klo weren't going to be revived any time soon."

Magnus held up his hand. "Now isn't the time for speculation. If you have a list of the locations that have been robbed, I'll have two of my Autobots look into things. Discretely, of course," he said, to assure the human that they would maintain their cover.

"It's all in the folder," Blackrock said. "I suggest you figure this out quickly. I can only keep things quiet for so long. The police got their hands on the surveillance tapes before my people could make them disappear. You know as well as I do how ugly this will get if they manage to put two and two together before you've made the problem go away."

The briefing room was barely half full, but the turnout was actually better than Prowl had expected. A cluster of a dozen or so Autobots were milling around an L-shaped bench on the east side of the room, murmuring amongst themselves. A smaller group of Decepticons stood around a similar bench to the west, watching their allies with stony silence.

Prowl took the in the sight in only a few milliseconds as he led his top advisors into the room. Kup, Jetfire, Trailbreaker and Springer all headed towards the group of confused-looking Autobots. As Prowl and Grimlock strode up the stairs towards the raised four-seat table set aside for the faction leaders, the strategist couldn't help but reflect on the utter disaster that had unfolded the last time they'd used this room for a cross-faction meeting.

Choosing this place must be someone's idea of a joke, he thought wryly. But at least Fangry isn't here this time. Nevertheless, he carefully scanned the table to make sure there wouldn't be any convenient oil cans for Grimlock to throw at the gallery this time around.

The Decepticons were already there, of course. Soundwave and Starscream were sitting in the two seats allotted to the Decepticon command staff, looking for all the world as if they were wholly bored with the situation.

That means they haven't heard what's going on yet. For a moment, Prowl let himself feel a modicum of petty self-satisfaction that his people had scooped the 'Cons. Then he pushed it to the back of his mind and got down to business.

Taking his seat, Prowl cleared his vocorder. When every set of optics in the room turned towards him, he smiled wanly and said, "Thank you all for coming here on such short notice. I wish I could have given you a bit more time to get ready, but unfortunately I had no choice in the matter. We have a Level One security threat on our hands."

Several of the junior officers were taken aback by that, and Prowl paused a moment to let them get over their surprise. "At 14:45 this afternoon Iacon Standard Time, we received a report from a reliable source that our Imperial cousins have assaulted the Cameron system. Troops have landed on Pz-Zazz in full force, apparently a full-fledged invasion. Rumour has it that the Imperials have pressed the assault at Cheyne, Pequod and Cameron itself, but so far that's unconfirmed. I suspect we'll find it to be accurate, though."

"Where did this report come from?" Prowl had to fight back a wince; Starscream's shrill voice grated at the best of times. In this case, it was made even worse by the sly self-satisfaction that shaded it. "You say the source is reliable, but how do we know this isn't a false lead sent by our enemies?"

Prowl pointedly ignored the shrill aerospace commander, addressing his response to the gallery of junior officers. They're the ones I need to convince. No one listens to anything Starscream has to say anymore. "Our source is confidential, but reliable. They've provided useful assistance in the past, and the supporting data they've-"

"That's all fine and dandy," Starscream interrupted him, "but how do we know we can trust your source if you won't tell us who it is?"

Prowl had to bite back a sharp response. Grimlock, however, didn't bother. "You think we going to reveal our intel sources to 'Cons? How dumb are you?"

The strategist fought back a smile. He'd worried that Grimlock would resent being passed over for command, but the Dinobot leader seemed a lot more comfortable with his field commander duties than he ever had when he'd been sitting in the big chair himself. He'd even gone out of his way to help Prowl adjust to the job (in his trademark brusque fashion, of course) on the rare occasions when he took a break from hunting Cybertronians to return to Iacon.

Before Starscream could get off a retort, Soundwave silenced him with a cold glare. "The source is irrelevant. If the Autobots think it can be trusted, then it can be trusted."

"Thank you," Prowl said diplomatically. Inside, he wondered why the communications officer was being so cooperative, but he knew better than to question his luck just now. "At any rate, we've taken steps to confirm the data. Cosmos has been dispatched to carry out a full sweep of the system, and we've put out feelers to other sources in the area as well. We should know for sure within the hour, but I for one don't doubt the veracity of the initial report. It would fit with the Imperial ship movements we've been tracking recently."

"Then what are we gonna do about it?" Motormaster shouldered his way to the front of the group of Decepticon observers. "We've got a good chance here to hammer 'em. We need to take it before they can slip away!"

"Agreed." Perceptor's clear voice emerged from the knot of Autobot officers. "We cannot simply stand idly by as these Cybertronians ravage an inhabited system, let alone one so close to our own borders. They must be stopped."

"Your haste is foolish." Every head in the room turned to look at Spinister. Many of them, even among his fellow Decepticons, reacted as if they hadn't realized he was even there. "Cameron is a well-defended system. They can take care of themselves." His optics narrowed. "If the enemy fleet can break their defences, we would be hard-pressed to fight them off ourselves."

Jetfire nodded. "He has a point. The number of ships we observed massing at Grand Central over the last month...well, it's beyond anything we've ever seen. It's quite possible that many or even most of those ships have been assigned to other duties, but if even a quarter of them are at Cameron they would outstrip our ability to fight by nearly double."

"I've never been one to shy away from a bigger enemy." The group had to look down to focus on Big Shot; some of the Decepticons couldn't be bothered. "With the right tactics and the right people, we could pull it off."

"Gnnn...don't write off the natives, either." Hun-grrr seemed to be disgusted by what he was saying. "Drrr...they may be disgusting fleshbags, but if they can fight we only have to kill any enemies they leave alive."

"Assuming we decide to do anything, you mean," Snap Trap crossed his arms and turned to glower at Soundwave. "Megatron will have something to say about this. He's been very clear that we're going to fight the enemy on our terms, not theirs. We should leave this system to their own devices and hit them at a weak spot while they're distracted."

Soundwave shook his head. "Megatron is...indisposed. The decision is mine." He turned to Prowl. "Can I assume that the Autobots will be sending troops to Cameron?"

"We will," Prowl nodded. "The Dinobots and Wreckers are already prepping to depart, and we're mobilizing every other Autobot we can spare."

The communications officer seemed to take a moment to process that. "Then we will likewise contribute as many troops as we can spare," he said. Several of his subordinates erupted in protest, but the cold Decepticon held up a hand to calm them. "However, Jetfire and Spinister are correct. We can't hope to best the Cybertronians by force of arms. A covert operation of some sort would be a better choice in this scenario."

"Him right," Grimlock rumbled. "Me and Springer figure same thing. Some of us keep troops busy, others try to sneak onto enemy ships. If we blow up flagship and kill the boss, they probably give up and go home."

"It could work," Prowl nodded. "Do you have any idea how to get close to their ships?"

"No problem," Springer piped up. "On the way back from that last training mission I had my new Wreckers out on, we hijacked one of their gunships. We got 'em before they could get a message off, so it shouldn't raise too many red flags if we pop up there. By the time they figure out something's up, it'll be too late to do anything about it."

"Oh, we can do better than that." Starscream shot a smirk at Soundwave. "This sounds like a good chance to test out the Wraith, doesn't it?"

Soundwave spared him another cold glare. Prowl felt sure that the communications officer had wanted to keep this 'Wraith' secret. Who needs spies when the 'Cons are constantly betraying themselves?

"What you talking about?"

"You haven't heard of the Wraith, Grimlock?" Starscream's vindictive sneer deepened. "It's the new stealth ship that Soundwave had the Constructicons build." He turned to his fellow Decepticon. "You did tell them about it, right?"

"No," Soundwave said matter-of-factly. "I did not. Just as I am sure they don't tell us about every new vessel they build." He turned to Prowl. "The Wraith is, indeed, a new stealth ship. It could be useful on this mission, but unfortunately it hasn't been fully tested yet. We cannot be sure the stealth systems actually work." He shrugged. "At any rate, it isn't here. Astrotrain took it out on a testing mission two days ago."

Starscream shrugged. "Yeah, but they're actually closer to the Cameron system than we are, aren't they? We could have the Wraith meet our people there."

"We could," Soundwave conceded. His usual monotone was tainted with a little bit of annoyance now.

"Then do it," Prowl said. "Whoever we send will need all the help they can get."

"That would be me."

For the second time in five minutes, all optics turned to focus on Spinister.

"Wait a minute," Springer said. "I thought you said this whole thing was crazy. Why are you so eager to jump in all of a sudden?"

"It doesn't matter whether or not I like the mission," the gaudy Decepticon said. "I'm a soldier. I fight when and where I'm needed, and so do my people."

"And what makes you so sure you're the best ones for the job?"

"When I served under Thunderwing, I got to know the area well. So did several of my Mayhems. We carried out several successful strikes in the system." He ignored a loud harrumph from Grimlock. "Trusting an infiltration like this to someone unfamiliar with the system would be a mistake."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Prowl said, cutting off further debate. "If Soundwave agrees..." When the Decepticon commander nodded, the Autobot continued. "Good. That's settled, then. The Mayhems will spearhead the main attack. Grimlock and Springer, you two can take charge of the units we'll send to tie up the enemy's invasion forces. But you can't each engage the foes on more than one of the threatened worlds each. Cameron's army can probably be trusted to handle the invaders on the main world, but that means we'll still need to deploy one more squad." He turned towards Soundwave. "Can I presume you would like one of your people to command the last unit?"

Soundwave seemed to ponder that for a minute. "I believe I would, yes." He turned to Starscream, and the malice in his optics belied his flat tone of voice. "If you would care to—"

"Ooooh, no," the air commander held up his hands. "If you expect me to put my head on the chopping block, you've spent way too much time around these Autobots."

Soundwave's optic band narrowed. "Actually, I was going to ask if you cared to offer any suggestions. I know better than to expect bravery from the likes of you."

"Ah." Starscream calmed down a bit, although he seemed a little piqued by his fellow Decepticon's insult. "Well, in that case...I figure Sixshot would do a good job of things."

"My thoughts exactly," Soundwave said, turning a questioning glance towards the tall hex-changer.

"It would be my honour," Sixshot said, bowing his head curtly. Prowl couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the massive Decepticon at a meeting; he took his designation as a Solo Transformer Assault Group seriously and didn't like working with others. Hopefully we'll be able to convince him to take along at least some backup...

"Good." Prowl straightened in his seat. "In that case, this meeting is adjourned. The four of you," he indicated Grimlock, Spinister, Springer and Sixshot, "all of the resources of the Autobase war room are at your disposal. We should have the results of Cosmos' recon sweep any minute now. I want to see an initial battle plan in two hours. The rest of you..." he cast his glance around the room in general, "make sure your units are ready to deploy on a moment's notice. If you're being tapped for this mission, one of the squad leaders will let you know shortly."

The strategist tried to think of something inspirational to say...something Optimus-like. Nothing came to mind, though, so he just shrugged. "Dismissed, people. We've got work to do."

The conference cleared out fairly quickly, each unit commander heading off to pass word of the coming battle to their troops or to work out strategy for their oncoming mission. Within a couple minutes, the room was empty save for Prowl and Kup. The strategist was still rooted in place at his seat, staring down at a pile of datapads. The elder Autobot approached him slowly.

"How are you holding up, lad?"

"Hmmm?" Prowl looked up from his work, apparently surprised that he wasn't alone in the room. "Oh. Alright, I suppose." He seemed to consider Kup's face for a moment, as if making a decision: then he sighed. "Although if I had any doubts about how great a leader Prime was, they've disappeared. He's left a big void to fill."

"Don't try to be someone you're not, lad." Kup seemed to hesitate for a second, then clapped the other Autobot on the shoulder. "Prime was a great leader, but he wasn't perfect. Neither were Xaaron or Fortress Maximus, or any of the other commanders I've served under. They didn't need to be." The elderly Autobot cleared his throat, then dropped into the seat beside Prowl. "Now, Magnus...he tried to be exactly like Optimus. He couldn't do it, and he thought it made him a bad leader. He didn't realize that no one expected him to be Optimus. Just like we don't expect you to be Optimus."

Prowl's face was as impassive as ever, but the old Autobot could see in his optics that his message had gotten through. Good, he thought. The lad's got enough on his plate without having to worry about matching up to the marks that Prime or anyone else set.

"Well, I suppose I'll be on my way," Kup said, rising from his chair and heading for the exit.

"Kup."

The veteran Autobot stopped just short of the sensor that triggered the room's automatic doors. "Yeah, lad?"

Prowl rose from his seat with a newly-kindled fire in his eyes. "I think it's high time we found out what's keeping Megatron so busy lately."

Attaboy! There's the Prowl I remember. The older Autobot smiled broadly. "What do you have in mind?"

After Blackrock had said his goodbyes and been escorted out, Magnus let out a heavy sigh and buried his head in his hands.

"What are we going to do about him?"

Bumblebee frowned, not used to serving under a leader as insecure as Ultra Magnus seemed to be. "It depends, I suppose, on which 'him' we're talking about. Blackrock or Shockwave?"

Magnus looked up at the spy in surprise, seemingly having forgotten that he wasn't alone in the room. After a moment, though, one side of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

"I suppose that could apply to either of them," he conceded. "I was thinking about Shockwave, though. He's still thinking of himself as a prisoner of war, but once he's had a chance to mull things over he's going to start asking questions. If he finds out too much of what's gone on over the last five years, he's going to realize how slippery his position really is."

Bumblebee nodded. "If we send word to Cybertron that we've got him, Megatron's going to demand we turn him over so he can toss him into a smelting pool. If we refuse to hand him over, it won't be good for the alliance. And if we just keep him here and keep it secret, that's a whole other can of worms."

Magnus made an inexpressive noise. "That's not the worst of it, either. If Shockwave figures any of this out he might try to defect, or just ask for asylum."

Bumblebee didn't even want to think of how badly that scenario would play out.

"So what are we going to do about him?"

"For now?" Magnus shrugged. "Option three. We're locking him up, throwing away the key and not saying a word about it to anyone else. We won't call Cybertron, we won't give Shockwave a history lesson, and we certainly won't make any deals with him. What we will do is have Grapple build a special holding cell to secure him, because I'm sure he's got a half-dozen secret escape routes in this place. It was his personal headquarters for a long time, after all."

Bumblebee's expression was quizzical. "Why not keep him on the Steelhaven? We have plenty of cells up there."

Magnus's expression darkened. "No, Bumblebee. I'm not going to let him within a hundred miles of a working starship unless I have no other choice." A change came over Magnus as he changed the subject. "Do you think you and Jazz can handle helping out Blackrock?"

"We could, sure," the spy said. "Wouldn't it make more sense to send Downshift, though? He's a security expert, after all."

"Downshift is indisposed," Magnus said tersely. "You two are just going to have to muddle through on your own."

Bumblebee frowned. "What's he up to, anyway? He got whisked up to Steelhaven last night with the wounded, and no one seems to know why."

"No?" Magnus stood up and moved towards the exit. "Good."

The door slid shut behind him before the smaller Autobot could ask what he meant.

Counterpunch stood in the dimly lit, trash-filled alleyway, tapping his foot impatiently.

He's late...for an unscheduled meet that he asked for! Whatever information he's got, it had better be good.

The Decepticon spy didn't like meeting face-to-face with his sources. It was bad security for an agent to risk being seen with their handler, and he only agreed to this meeting because his agent's request had come with Priority One codes attached.

If this is his way of trying to wring extra credits out of us, I'm going to have his hide for hull plating...

Even as he mused that, he saw a hooded and cloaked figure enter the alleyway.

"Can you spare a few shanix for a Unicron War vet?"

Counterpunch felt himself stiffen a bit as he heard the first part of the verbal check-phrase. "That depends on which side you were on."

"The right side, of course."

The cloaked figure was close enough now that they were speaking in low whispers.

"What the Pit is so important that you couldn't stick to protocol?" Counterpunch asked, the identifying exchange complete.

"This." The figure threw his hood back, revealing his face. The Decepticon spy was about to berate him for breaking protocol when he realized just who he was looking at.

Quick Switch! Dammit, our Iacon network has been compromised!

"What do you want, Autobot scrap?"

The sixchanger smiled. "You, I'm afraid."

"Oh, really? You'll have a fine time pulling that one off." Counterpunch's right hand edged towards the photon cannon holstered at his side.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The voice came from behind him. The spy risked a glance over his shoulder and saw another Autobot approaching with a shotgun levelled at his chest. He recognized this one as Getaway.

"How the hell—"

"I was hiding in the dumpsters," the Powermaster said. "Hands up. Now."

Disgusted by how badly he'd been outmanoeuvred, the Decepticon spy sighed and did as he was told. Then Quick Switch slugged him in the side of the head and the world went dark.

Springer didn't even see the left hook coming. He certainly didn't have time to avoid it.

One minute, the Wrecker commander had been walking from the war room to his office. The next, he was lying flat-out on the deck trying to remember his name. He didn't stop to ask questions, though; drawing his cyclone blaster, he leapt to his feet and took aim at his attacker.

"That's no way to greet an old friend, Whirl," he said smoothly.

"Friends don't do what you did, Springer," the normally jovial Whirl replied curtly.

"No?" Springer glowered at his ex-comrade. "You took the same oath I did, buddy. We're Autobots. We go where we're needed, not where we're comfortable."

Whirl scoffed. "And you just happen to know where I'm needed better than I do, is that it?" His single optic tracked towards the triplechanger's still-drawn weapon. "You planning on putting that away any time soon?"

"That depends," Springer lowered the blaster but didn't holster it. "Are you going to take another swing at me if I do?"

"Don't act so offended, 'old friend'," Whirl shot back. "You betrayed me, not the other way around."

"No, Whirl," Springer shook his head vehemently. "I did my job."

"No wonder you're so comfortable working with the Decepticons," Whirl spat out. "You think like one of them."

This time, Whirl was the one taken by surprise. Springer's fist took the gangly blue Autobot square in the optic sensor. He hit the ground even quicker than Springer had and lay there in a daze. Springer dropped to the ground beside him and planted his knee on the other Autobot's chest.

"You want to be pissed at me?" the Wrecker leader shrugged. "Fine. Be pissed at me. But you're not getting out of this that easily. We need you. You're coming with us. End of discussion." He frowned. "You know, none of the other Autobots we've called up for duty has complained about it. Not a one of them. Most of them don't want to be marching off to war. But they know that what we're doing is more important than their private concerns are. And the Whirl I knew, he would have felt the same way. He'd be ashamed of himself for acting like this. You should be, too."

Springer stood up and walked away without a second glance. Whirl sat there for a long time before he could drag himself to his feet and slink away.

Counterpunch was bound to a chair in a dark industrial-looking building when he finally regained his higher-level functions. The two Autobots that had kidnapped him were nowhere to be seen, but he could just make out the silhouette of a less-bulky figure moving in the shadows.

"Since I'm not dead, I figure you have something to say to me. Get it over with."

"Not much for small talk, are you?" The Decepticon recognised Kup's gruff voice even before the Autobot moved close enough that he could see his face. "Fine. Have it your way. Activate protocol aleph-17."

Counterpunch frowned, confused by the seemingly nonsensical quip. However, before he could fire off a retort a burning sensation started to spread from his extremities. It built in intensity as it moved inwards; by the time it hit his brain module, he felt like his entire body was melting.

This is turning out to be a first-rate bad day, the Decepticon spy mused just before everything went black again.

"You in there, Punch?"

The words were like four sharp, frozen needles being jammed into the fiery hell that had engulfed the spy's neural nets. It took a few seconds before he could even manage a weak groan in response.

"Come on, lad. We've got a bit of a time factor to worry about here."

"Nnnn..." Punch tried to focus on the source of the words, but his optics weren't cooperating. "Painless switchback mechanism, my waste extractors. Next time I see Wheeljack I'm going to pull his ears off."

"I'll let him know you're thinking about him," Kup replied, deadpan.

"If nothing else, it'll make my Decepticon counterpart think you worked us over. That's probably a good thing," Punch said as the agony started to recede. Finally managing to bring Kup's aged face into focus, he asked, "You have new instructions for me?"

"Just one, actually." Kup frowned slightly. "We haven't seen or heard from Megatron in months, and the boys upstairs are starting to wonder why. We need you to dig up anything you can get your hands on about what he's up to."

"Sounds dangerous," Punch noted calmly. "The 'Cons might start getting suspicious if I ask too many questions about the big Megs."

"I know," Kup nodded. "But this one is important. Don't break cover unless you have to...but if you have to, don't hesitate."

Punch was at a momentary loss for words at that; until now, maintaining his cover had been the double spy's number one priority. "Gotcha." His head cocked to one side for a moment, then he nodded. "I've written the new instructions into my Decepticon counterpart's shell program. I don't know how long it'll take to find out about this-"

"Let us know as soon as you have something," Kup said.

"I will."

"Good luck, lad." The security chief's face seemed to fill with regret for a second. "Activate protocol bravo-3."

Counterpunch woke up on the rough concrete floor of the warehouse, his entire nervous system burning like the inside of a smelting pool. As the pain slowly withdrew into the back of his mind, the Decepticon managed to push himself into a sitting position.

What the Pit did they do to me? As his mind started to clear, he scowled. We're supposed to be allies! Megatron will hear of this!

That thought brought him up cold.

Where is Megatron, anyway?

Counterpunch started towards the door as soon as he was able to stand again. The spy wasn't sure why it was suddenly so desperately important, but he knew that he had to find his leader.

Epilogue:

The captured Imperial gunship that the Wreckers had dubbed Impactor hung in space one tenth of a light-year outside the Cameron system. Inside, her crew was starting to get restless.

"Me think your ship got lost," Grimlock grumbled to the two Decepticons sitting at the small vessel's controls.

"It didn't get lost." Divebomb didn't bother to look up from his console. After nearly a week jammed onto the tiny ship with over sixty other Autobots and Decepticons, he'd gotten used to the Dinobot leader's nonsense. "Astrotrain said he'd be here. He'll be here."

The Dinobot leader made a big show of looking out all of the bridge viewports. "Funny. Me no see big scary Wraith ship anywhere."

"It's a stealth ship," Divebomb sighed. "If we could see it that would defeat the whole point, no? Now why don't you go aft and harass Fangry for a while?"

"Nnnn." Grimlock turned on his heel and stalked off. "Know-it-all 'Con scum..."

Once the bridge door had slid shut, the Predacon's head fell into his hands. "As much as I hate Grimbo, he's got a point. If we have to sit around waiting for our backup much longer, I'm gonna get out and walk."

"At least we've got something to do," Needlenose shrugged. "Monitoring a bridge post is better than sittin' around the mess all day tryin' to teach Weirdwolf how to play cards, isn't it?"

Divebomb sighed. "Marginally, I guess..."

"Hanging around the combat sim room watchin' that creep Sixshot kill drones?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Being cooped up in the cargo bay listenin' to Sky Lynx and Trypticon practice their phoney British accents?"

"You've made your point," Divebomb grumbled. "Now, why don't you just—"

The Predacon's likely rude comment was cut off by a loud alarm issuing from the ship's sensor boards. "What the Pit?"

Needlenose stared at his console in a barely-controlled panic for a minute before he realized what the data was saying. "Looks like the Wraith is here."

"About bleeding time," Divebomb barked. "Bring us in on a docking trajectory. Then call the boss. It's time we got this show on the road."

← Part Four | Index | Part Six →