No Rest For The Weary

In all his years working for Sector 7, Agent Simmons had great dreams for his career. They often culminated with him running the entire sector and coordinating the efforts of the U.S. Military war machine to his will. Grand dreams, though he was convinced that most would call them insane at the very least. Though for all of his machinations, Simmons had never considered what he was about to do as a part of his plans. It was bold enough to secure his place within the hierarchy of the government and get most of his dignity back. Dignity he had lost at the barrel of a gun held by a rather rattled Captain Lennox. And backed by the Defense Secretary himself.

So when he extended his hand to the Major sitting next to him, sealing their deal, he naturally had no trepidation. The major had contacted several higher-ups within the Army, his wife, the Air Force; and had convinced several Generals and Commandants who were wary of the Autobot's presence that their welcome had officially worn out. Those Joint Chiefs sympathetic to Major Murdock's suffering had re-instituted Sector 7 as a high level intelligence branch of the NSA. All of this was done quietly. Not even the President or his advisers knew what was going on, and it would remain that way as long as Simmons was in command of the NSA's NBEC office.

It was this office who had suggested subtly to Def. Secretary Keller that the NBE Registration Act be passed into law. It was this secret office who had been keeping track of the Autobot's activities for well over a year. And it was this office that contacted the only mech sitting in on the meeting.

Most of the military personnel present were wary of Starscream. He looked like something out of a bad science fiction/horror movie. His entire body screamed killer. To Simmons, he was a work of art. All hydraulic and piston, not a micron of wasted material. Starscream was created for one thing, to hunt. All though at the moment, he had put his hunter/seeker algorithm into the background programs, instead devoting his CPU resources to watching the burly Major and his stoic wife. Both sat with ridged backed postures, their mouthes pursed into straight lines that made their expressionless faces seem somehow less real.

"I am very sorry to hear what has befallen your female offspring," Starscream soothed, bowing as well as he could in the confined hangar. "It seems that the Autobots are more desperate than I had believed them to be if they are resorting to changing humans into Cybertronians." His maw twisted into a rather frightening imitation of a sympathetic smile. "You must understand, Commander Murdock; Optimus' Autobots are a dying breed. There are less than fifty individuals with more joining our ranks each orn. Their young are intelligent enough to make the right choice when they are free of their creators' influences. Optimus calls this 'raiding the nurseries', however the young make their own choices, and are rewarded accordingly."

Simmons' mouth twitched as he heard the truth; from Starscream's point of view at least. Perhaps these robots were more clever than he had given them credit for. Through the corner of his eye he watched the two officers as they exchanged a silent glance. For them, their daughter had ceased to exist several months ago. No matter what the human-like robot would tell them, she would never again be their little girl. It was simply beyond their capability to understand how she could retain her soul without her human body. Robots didn't have souls. Period. They may have had intelligence, but nothing resembling a soul in their opinion. And what their daughter had become flew in the face of everything they knew and believed.

Commander Murdock's eyes bored straight into Starscream's optics, her mind imagining that the fires of hell were what gave them their crimson glow. But both her and her husband were beyond rational judgment. Their grief overrode their capacity for logical thought. Though Margie would rather dance with this devil than keep silent about what Optimus had done to her daughter. "What do you need us to do?" Came the question before she could stop herself, making the monster's smile crawl outward in a way that reminded the Commander of how a shark looked just before it devoured its prey.

"Perhaps it would be prudent for you and your mate to take a...vacation?" Starscream's suggestion brought chuckles bubbling up like a rotary saw suddenly plunged under water. "The Autobots, my dear Commander, are nearly extinct. There are more individuals in this room, than there are Autobots in the entire universe." That declaration seemed to have a bolstering effect on those gathered. "Though I would not underestimate their will to survive. It is just that will that had driven Optimus to use the last of the All-Spark to reanimate the corpse of his second-in-command." Starscream almost grinned at the reaction that statement garnered. "Oh yes, that same power was used to reanimate the bodies of your daughter, Sam and Mikaela after they had been killed by Optimus' own ineptitude."

The disgusted murmur flowing through those gathered brought a silent smile to Starscream. If he had known how easily it was to manipulate these simple simians with a few choice words and a few references to Necromancy; which Starscream considered a rather wonderful past time, he would have opted for this strategy long ago. "And to make matters worse," the Decepticon continued, garnering the attention of the various military personnel once again. "another Autobot by the name of WheelJack is due to arrive in less than a week." The blank looks were enough to send a rather rueful sigh issuing from his vocalizer. "Your species has a name for his kind...Frankenstein. He is brilliant, do not mistake me. However his single minded pursuit for the next great invention has often landed this mech on dubious moral ground. He has very nearly gotten his fellow Autobots deactivated on several occasions because of his lack of situational rectitude." Starscream shook his head in mock exasperation. "The mech is as much a danger to himself as he is every living being on this planet. It would be like him to try to build a better mouse trap that goes after humans as well. Most probably with some thermo-nuclear device."

The entire room was already willing to declare war on the Autobots from that one tiny stretch of truth. Simmons however, had to fight to keep from having a rather inappropriate 'shit-eating' grin from smearing itself all over his face. "What do you require in exchange for privileges to neutralize this threat?" Simmons spoke up for the first time, attracting Starscream's attention. The same grin that Simmons fought to suppress, instead latched itself to Starscream's face. This was a little more than raiding the cookie jar and trying not to get caught. This was telling everyone how, when and where he would do it and triple-dog-daring them to stop him. If either being felt guilty for leading everyone else in the room on, they hid it with expert control.

"I require three things. First; the privilege to dispose of Optimus and his little band of Autobots personally. Second; I require fuel with which to do so. We mechs require sustenance as well. And third, by far the most important...we require the femmes." He stilled the murmur with an upraised hand. "The Autobots are not the only ones who have suffered losses in this war. I believe that I can convince the femmes that joining my cause will work out much better for them in the end. After all, Optimus seeks only to prolong this war. I, however seek to end it once and for all. After which we will take our leave of this planet. There is nothing here that interests us except for the Autobots. You need not fear having to pay for our way as well." Simmons gave a slight nod to Starscream as it seemed that his speaking had had the intended effect. He was to have all the available resources of the U.S. military represented at his disposal.

************************************

Ratchet walked around the rebuilt med-bay, examining his friend's choice of transformation. His right hand was stroking his chin in a gesture of deep thought he had picked up from John Keller. "Well, I approve. It is appropriate, at least now you will be able to clean up your own messes from now on." Ratchet chuckled as he did one last visual check of the large Haz-Mat van in front of him. Everything was perfectly disguised except for the Autobot symbol where the seal of the local Anti-Terrorism department would be. The mech in question transformed, putting his fists on his boxy hips, vocal indicators a rather irritating cyan marking his annoyance.

"If your still blaming me for that experiment with dry ice and water, it was not entirely my fault!" Wheeljack held up his hands defensively. "Sunstreaker got a hold of it and shook to see what would happen." His vocal indicators on either side of his head flashed a pale pink before returning to their normal blue. "How was I supposed to know he would throw it at you just as it exploded?"

"If you recall...it turned my paint...pink." The medic became even more irritated when WheelJack started vibrating with laughter, his vocal indicators turning a rather iridescent lime green.

"That..."WheelJack laughed into his fist. "that was because Sideswipe had soaked you in a phenolphthalein and lye solution." His laughter threatened to double him over at the dark look he was getting from Ratchet. "Had...'squelch' had I known that Sideswipe was as educated in chemical reactions as he was, I would have had him working on something else entirely."

"And have that glitch addled creation of a fritzed-processor atom smasher blow the entire base to sub-atomic particles?" Ratchet narrowed his optics at WheelJack. It seemed that the inventor was here only a few days and he was already on his way to irritating Ratchet into a new processor. "I would rather have looked like Hello Kitty regurgitated on my armor." With a quick search of the Internet, WheelJack descended into a heap of laughing metal as Ratchet blessed the inventor with a rather large conical dent in his cranial armor.

*********************************

Sam sat on Bumblebee's foot, watching the three women of the base playing a one sided game of volleyball. Glenn had excused himself from the game nearly twenty minutes ago complaining about metal amazonian women showing him up. Mikaela was playing with Maggie against Ellie and Epps. Surprisingly, the game was evenly matched. Ellie was never one for sports in high school. The teachers were always afraid she would break her leg or scuff the floor up with it. Mikaela dove forward to save, digging a small trench in the concrete with her chest plate. Her protoform was not even scratched. Though she did have to fish a couple of pebbles out of some sensitive gears before they were pulverized into dust.

And dust was one of the many things that Ratchet would not tolerate getting into their armor. Even though they could just rinse off with the water hose, Ratchet did not like to take chances and would scan the three, threatening to weld their afts to the wall so he could keep an optic on them. It was one of the reasons they were forbidden from playing this game anywhere near sand. Even the mere mention of powdered silicon was enough to have Ratchet expel a cinder block from his rear end. And that cinder block oddly enough, would land no where near Bumblebee. Being the eldest of the three, Ratchet seemed to have it in his processor that Ellie could control where the three went and what they did. Even her exasperated protests to the contrary did not silence the medic. He was, after all, looking after their own safety, but that did not mean that he could be a pain in the butt.

Bumblebee would often get snarky with her when she tried her best to live up to Ratchet's assumption. 'Yes mommy...' he would reply, giving the older femme the urge to throw something heavy at the yellow scout. She threatened on more than one occasion to 'grab Ratchet by the ankles and beat Bumblebee senseless with his hard head.' Sam smiled as Ellie missed the ball entirely, the white sphere hitting her between the optics. At least the responsibility had taken her mind off of her parents, and their absence seemed to bolster this effect. If they weren't around, there was nothing to squash her high spiritedness. Though she would sometimes spend several hours on one of the rocky outcroppings surrounding the central barracks. She told everyone that she liked watching the sunsets, and it would sometimes be well into the night when she came back down.

She would sometimes keep to herself the following morning, and sometimes she would be vociferous enough to rival Bumblebee's almost non stop radio chatter. Mikaela started laughing herself stupid when she reached up to spike the ball and ended up literally 'spiking' the ball through with her thumb.The ball was slowly loosing air, making a hiss punctuated by loud 'pfffts' when Mikaela shook her arm to dislodge the ball from her fingers. Epps seemed to take pity on the ball and winced in sympathy as Mikaela grabbed it and ended up popping it with a careless twitch of her fingers.

This was the one thing that all three were getting still getting used to. They may have been roughly the same size as a human, but their strength was on the order of three to four times that of a normal human, making normal activities an exercise in precision and dexterity. Helping his parents move furniture, Sam had to watch himself with the fabric. One twitch of his fingers and he would either tear the upholstery or break the frame and have it resemble a wood filled bean bag with more splinters than a pin cushion. His dad's favorite armchair had not been so lucky. Sam had leaned against it after moving into the preferred spot and broke the support on the back of the chair. Fortunately Lennox dabbled in carpentry and was able to fix the chair with minimal fuss. Sam's mother enacted her 'no leaning on furniture unless you want to fix it yourself' rule. Which was fine by Sam because he had already learned his lesson. And ironically enough, how to turn down the sensitivity to his audio receptors when his mother flew into a tirade at the sound of splintering wood.

Luckily Ratchet had missed the little display with the volleyball, being occupied with putting the finishing touches on WheelJack's lab. For some odd reason, the medic had insisted that the lab be shielded for anything short of a gamma bomb; from the inside. This had begged the question from Mikaela which in turn was answered by a long and exhausting list of all the things and mechs WheelJack had blown up, melted, fritzed, broken, shattered, bent, vaporized and sanitized other than his intended target. Which he had done almost exclusively to himself. Sometimes, however the mech actually got lucky and hit his target. Sometimes it hit his target and just about everything within arms reach of that target. And sometimes it just smote everyone within an umbrella of catastrophe.

"If you hear WheelJack ever utter the word Interesting," Ratchet had advised the three while the inventor was busy trying to convince Optimus that a nuclear reactor was perfectly safe in his lab. "run fast, and run far because it is a precursor to the end of your planet."

Watching Mikaela manage a pout was entertaining enough to forgive her for destroying their third volleyball this week. The first wasn't actually anyone's fault. When WheelJack found them playing with it a few days after he had arrived, he uttered the afore mentioned dreaded word and had sent Bumblebee tearing out of the area as though he were being chased by a chop-shop mechanic, flattening the ball with a muffled pop under his feet. The second was decimated by Sam when he spiked the ball over the net, through his barrack, into the mess hall and nearly fifty feet further right into IronHide's face, finely putting a stop to its path of destruction and existence. The only effect it seemed to have on the weapons master was the narrowing of his eyes in the general direction the ball had come from. Which had led him back to Sam, who looked sheepishly up as IronHide dropped what was left of the poor ball on his head. Without a word, the big mech had turned and left, though Sam could have sworn his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

And this now left them without a ball, making their game moot. They certainly could not play volley-pancake. They could have played Frisbee with it, but it would have looked like a pitifully flaccid ninja star trying to fly. Mikaela threw what was left over her shoulder, sitting next to Sam on Bumblebee's knee. The yellow Autobot had been looking upon the scene with some amusement. Both leaned back on Bumblebee, resting. They were tired. They had not done much other than play a little and spend the rest of the time in idle conversation. It was barely three in the afternoon and already the three of them were exhausted. They had been waking up at about the same time in the morning, but it seemed that they got tired earlier and earlier in the day until they were awake only five hours and in stasis for the other nineteen.

Ratchet had been keeping an optic on them as he promised (or threatened) he would do and had instructed Bumblebee to bring the three of them into his med-bay if their sleep patterns altered any further. The week previous they had stayed awake until five in the afternoon. Bumblebee put a quick text message through to Ratchet, and picked the three up to take them top the medic. He had only gotten half way, however when Ratchet text-ed back for him to get there as fast as possible. The medic also inserted something about what he would do to Bumblebee if he did not hurry his aft up. Most of the threat, Bumblebee was sure was not physically possible, but Ratchet knew how to rearrange things to make it possible so Bumblebee hurried. He certainly did not want IronHide's cannons shoved where Ratchet threatened to insert them.

When Bumblebee arrived, Ratchet had already set out several tools that the scout recognized immediately. He knew their purpose, and gave the medic a pointed look as though to ask why. Instead Ratchet ordered Bumblebee to close the doors, toggling his internal comm to IronHide's signal. The medic frowned, trying IronHide's comm again. The answer was the same as before; static. Ratchet called up Chromia, whom to his surprise answered.

'What is it, Ratchet?' Chromia did not seem the least bit perturbed. Ratchet was sure she would be with IronHide fooling around somewhere out of sight.

'Have you spoken to IronHide?' Ratchet asked, still examining the three in stasis on his exam table. 'I can not raise him on the comm.'

Chromia issued a puzzled grunt. 'That's odd. I just talked to him a moment ag...' Ratchet tapped the side of his head, but he was met with the same static as before with IronHide. He tried to raise WheelJack, Optimus and Jazz, but he was met with the same static. It was only then that things seemed to click into place. The intent was beginning to form in Ratchet's processor to lock the doors, but the last thing he remembered was Bumblebee sinking to the ground, a puzzled look on his face and a slender long barreled gun aimed between his optics.