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Yes, we have heard the demands from our (one) fan and have decided to combine our fanfic writing might to be twice as awesome (if not as awesome-squared!) as before. It's unrelated to any of our ongoing storylines, but you'll see your favorite and familiar characters! Yay!

Carriemus wants you to know that there really is such a thing as Neptunium. She footnoted it for me and everything. We do our research here at the Carriekittyverse.

For extra interactive fun, see if you can figure out who wrote what!

Here's a first installment:

************************************************
The new ship had worked much better than predicted. It sailed easily into the vacuum of space, even with its new payload of Neptunium* Nadya Cherenkov was pleased as she worked the controls of their new ship. She and Philippe Stokes had been given clearance to fly the ship on its maiden voyage to Neptune’s largest moon Triton, to mine the new mineral, as they had been some of the only astronauts to have knowledge of their allies. Glancing out of the cockpit window, she gave a small wave. The small yellow Autobot inclined his head in a nod and waved back, he was joined by a much larger black and white mech who cast him a stern look. Bumblebee chastised, returned to escorting the shuttle back to Earth.

“How you holding up back there, Philippe?”

“I really wish you didn’t call me that.”

“It suits you.” Nadya laughed lightlyat the grumbling from the back of the reverse-engineered shuttle. Stokes glided up to join her in the cockpit.

“Shame they couldn’t figure out the artificial gravity from the Ark’s specs.” He sighed as he buckled himself in.

“You should be used to the zero g by now.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. How’s our taxi service doing?”

Nadya glanced once more out of the cockpit. “We have three escorts that I’ve seen. Bumblebee has already got the glare from Prowl; Ironhide is taking up the rear.”

“Man, Prowl doesn’t relax does he?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. I like it—he gets the job done.” Nadya chuckled, as Stokes pulled a face.

Their comm. system filled with static as they left the vicinity of Neptune.

“Optimus to the Intrepid.”

“Go ahead Optimus, this is Nadya.”

“What is your status?”

“We’re on our way back, ahead of schedule and we have enough Neptunium for you guys to work with for at least a couple of decades.”

“That’s good news, Intrepid; the Ark is positioned outside the asteroid belt. We willdock you with you in approximately 30 minutes. Optimus out.”

“Bet they’re pleased,” grinned Stokes. This mission had been planned for just over a year with the help of the Autobots after the first discovery of naturally existing Neptunium was detected by their very own ISS. The President had thought it fitting to provide their new allies with the means to collect energy to sustain themselves and potentially replace their dwindling energy reserves after what they had done to save planet Earth.

****

Blackout’s cargo hold recoiled as he fired his main gun. Dead End jumped, his eyes shifting nervously.

“Calm down,” Barricade said. He rose to his knees, fixing the attachment points of the booster pack under his fairings. “Means it’s about time.”

The smaller bot scrambled, grabbing at his own pack, running nervous hands over the pile of carry harness.
“I am calm,” he lied.

“Know your job?” Barricade grabbed for a handhold as Blackout swung wide.

“Yeah,” Dead End said, hotly. “Know what I’m doing.” He lost his footing and fell into the pile of plasmetal straps.

Blackout cut in. “Why we trust you with the explosives, Barricade.”

“Thought you were hoping I’d blow myself up,” Barricade said dryly.

“That too.”

“The love here overwhelms me.” Barricade frowned. “Hate these things.” He jerked on a lower attachment of the booster pack.

“Think you hate them?” Blackout groused. “Rotors pinned back so tight it’s blurring my damn optics. Don’t get me started on the heat.” Blackout notoriously hated space combat—his rotors could get no lift, and like Barricade and Dead End, had to don an awkward external thruster system. Starscream had thrust in any atmosphere, of course. Bastard could probably get lift in a black hole.

“Done chatting, ladies?” Starscream cut in sourly across the comms. “If you don’t mind, we do have a tactical situation that might prove diverting.”

“…divert you;” Blackout muttered, cutting his external comm. “Get ready. Taking you in now.” The interior chamber filled with the roar of Blackout’s added thrusters. The door peeled open. Barricade grabbed the explosive case, slinging the detonators over his shoulder, and jumped out. His light boosters carried him toward the steel-white sides of the human spacecraft. Behind him, Blackout swung around, his guns blazing in suppressive fire. Two of the Autobots came up from Blackout’s six. Blackout’s move fouled Dead End’s exit—the small red bot tumbled, the carry harness falling out of its tidy configuration. Great, Barricade thought: Dead End’s in his usual form.

He slung his explosive case against the side of the shuttle, hearing its magnets clang on. With one last look behind him, he got to work. Simple job: Blow the cargo hold free of the rest of the ship. Get the Neptunium; bring it back to the Nemesis. Secondary orders, according to Soundwave (muttered in Barricade’s private comm) were to blow the Neptunium. Deny the asset to the enemy if nothing else works.

Dead End squealed, recoiling back from the ship, his boosters sending him spinning wildly. Barricade cursed and shot off after him. He grabbed the smaller bot roughly by the ankle and thrust him back toward the cargo hold. “Squishy!” Dead End said. “In the ship!”

“Squeamish?” Barricade taunted. “Do your damn job.”

“Haste would be appreciated,” Starscream cut in. He was really overusing the all-comms channel. Apparently thought his every utterance was worth wide broadcast. “The actual fighters here are outnumbered. And they have called for reinforcements.”

“On it,” Barricade said, with one last glare at Dead End, and turned back to the shuttle.

****

Nadya noticed a little bit of commotion flash in front of the cockpit. “Whoa!” she gasped; Stokes glanced up. “What is it?” Without warning the shuttle was rocked violently, alarms sounded from the control panel. Smoke hissed above their heads.

“Fire! We got fire!” Stokes unbuckled himself and grabbed the nearest extinguisher. Another violent motion knocked the defenseless shuttle, sending it careering off course.

“I can’t hold position! Navigation is shot!”

“Take us back, reverse course it’s programmed into the autopilot!” Stokes yelled as he was thrown into the nearest bulkhead. Nadya struggled with the violently bucking ship. She could see the Autobots frantically yelling to each other outside. They were firing at someone. She saw Bumblebee take a hit and go spinning across her vision, barely missing the cockpit.

“We’re being attacked!”

“What?!” Stokes managed to crawl back into his seat and buckle in.

He stared incredulously outside the window, Prowl was firing rapidly after managing to grab a hold of Bumblebee to stabilize him. Ironhide’s cannons could be heard over the din of the alarms.

“Send out the distress beacon. Let’s hope they don’t blow it up.”

Nadya punched a red button in response. With expert dexterity she managed to punch in the ship’s Autopilot and the ship bucked to the right sharply in response.

****

Blackout dodged another of Ironhide’s cannon bursts. He let loose with one of his own missiles. Went wide, of course, as the recoil wobbled against his forward thrust. With these damn thrusters, he couldn’t shake his vehicle mode.

Next to him, Starscream spun agilely, swiping at Bumblebee as he zipped past. Ironhide rippled a salvo of shots after him, almost hitting his fellow Autobot. Even the Decepticons could hear Bumblebee’s squeal of outrage.

Where was the third? There were three. Blackout swung his thrusters, dropping below the shuttle. Unlikely the Autobots would assign a coward to escort duty. The third Autobot was around here somewhere. Where?

There. Crawling up the dark side of the ship, trying to flank Barricade. Barricade was engrossed in the delicate work of laying the detonating cord in the explosive gel, measuring the timing fuses against a calibration on his wrist. A light flow of the thrusters pressed him against the ship. Behind Barricade, Dead End scrambled with lengths of the carry harness; oblivious to everything except the mess he was unsnarling. Needing, of course, an actual warrior to save their baseplates.

Blackout roared his thrusters, swooping to snatch the Autobot off the ship. Before he could reach him, the Autobot made his move, firing at Barricade. The Decepticon leapt back, on pure instinct, the thrusters turning his leap into a spinning loop in the null g. Barricade flailed, detonators flying. Prowl launched himself bodily at Barricade. He pounded on Barricade’s head and face, the Decepticon unable to block his blows—his arms pinned against his torso. Prowl growled in Barricade’s audio’s as he forcibly tried to remove him from the ship; his voice was eerily calm and controlled. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to disembark.”

Beyond them, Starscream and Ironhide had engaged. The smaller Autobot had somehow managed to get in close with Starscream, bodily forcing his right arm upwards, out of the way. Starscream pounded him in the head with his free hand, knocking him off, closer to the body of the ship. As Ironhide stabilized his spin, he spotted Blackout, rising up over the shuttle, aiming his reticle at Prowl, waiting for the two bots to stabilize until he got a clear shot.

Ironhide fired, as Starscream laid into him from the side with his chain gun. The pulse cannon’s blast zipped harmlessly past the two struggling bots, and straight into the explosives case.

Blackout had time for one thought, and that obscene, before the black of space went white, roaring into silence.

so far, i really like this.

Oh, I'm totally stoked to read this. I really dig both of your imaginations so this should be pure gold!

Must read more Update another please

He he he it's cool to read it on here after only reading the word documents

Thanks for the kind comments, updates should be roughly a week apart so we won't keep you waiting for too long

Carriemus Prime wrote:updates should be roughly a week apart so we won't keep you waiting for too long

Good

I'm really liking it so far! =D gogo updates!

Bit longer than the last bit... I waited until at least 20 minutes past midnight here so in fairness for me it's exactly a week and I was bored. Here you go!

Part 2

The ship careened violently, the explosion sending the fragile shuttle into terrifying spin; alarms and smoke filled the cockpit as the two occupants tried desperately to control the inferno that now raged inside the metal hull. White clouds of oxygen vented into space, forcing the ship into an unstable tumble as it was caught in Triton’s gravity field. In one last desperate attempt the shuttle pilot managed to swerve the shuttle violently, forcing it into autopilot as it straightened and plummeted towards the surface. The gaping wound bleeding precious oxygen into space. The Autobots realizing what she was doing raced after the damaged ship letting out cover fire as they raced back to the moon’s dark surface.

Ironhide evaded Starscream, who snarled in frustration and chased after him, grapping hold of the smaller mech they tumbled towards the shuttle, casting off an orange glow from its nose as it hit atmosphere.

Bumblebee tackled Blackout, wrenching at the copter’s bound-back rotors. He found himself losing the upper hand against the bigger, stronger Decepticon although he prevented him from reaching Prowl and Barricade who were wrestling near the ship.

Barricade’s armour was blackened and scorched from the initial explosion, his booster pack had fused to his back plates and he was struggling to see clearly through the pain. He had inadvertently shielded Prowl from the blast and was now at a severe disadvantage; with a roar of agony and anger he clambered onto Prowl’s frame and managed to get a couple of punches to the black and white mech’s head.

“Having a really bad day!” He snarled angrily, in time with his punches. “This almost makes it worthwhile.”

Prowl shoved him hard into the side of the ship, causing Barricade to cry out in pain as he landed on his scorched, twisted back plates. “I’m about to make it worse!” Prowl answered, drawing his weapon and raising it at Barricade’s face. Without warning the struggling mass of seeker and weapons master slammed into Prowl, sending him flying into Barricade causing him to howl as the booster pack was forced into his back even further, at the force of the blow.

Struggling, Starscream managed to get clear of Ironhide who was closer to the nose of the cone, almost obscured by the leaking oxygen. Raising his weapons he sneered in satisfaction.

“NO!” All three mechs cried out at once as Starscream opened rapid fire at Ironhide; the oxygen cloud ignited and engulfed them and the ship, Starscream screamed in surprise and pain as they hurtled towards the moon.

****
Stokes dragged a limp Nadya from the cockpit, forcing her into one of the emergency space suits, the breach was venting fast. He struggled to get into his suit as the shuttle jerked against the thin atmosphere of Triton, clicking his helmet shut his eyes were greeted by a white hot glow of a secondary explosion. Shutting his visor he caught a last glimpse of the moon racing toward them, and then everything went black.

*****
Starscream hit the surface of the moon with a force hard enough to bounce. The oxygen had exploded on him, blinding his optics and blowing out the barrels of one of his chain guns. He was shrieking in pain, his limbs flailing wildly, casting clouds of dust and small stones into the thin atmosphere. They spread slowly in the low gravity, obscuring vision.

Sheer luck had Barricade turned so that Prowl broke his fall. Sheer luck and the fact that the first explosion had locked his booster pack into forward thrust. He heard a satisfying crack through his external audio before the top of his head jammed into Prowl’s faceplate.

Bumblebee’s attack on Blackout had torn the rotor-ties free. For which the Decepticon was grateful—as he hit atmosphere, he flared his rotors for lift, landing lightly on the surface, tearing off the thrusters with thinly disguised hatred. Starscream’s shrieking filled his audio. He tried subvoc to Barricade. Nothing. He’d seen the little yellow Autobot pest (redundancy) fall far to the delimiter side, spinning into shadow. Be a while before he even caught up enough to matter. And on solid ground, it would be a different story. First step—try to find Barricade. Starscream was easy enough to spot—somewhere in the middle of that rising cloud of grey-red dust. Just follow the noise.

Unfortunately, Ironhide found him first.

“You again.” Blackout said, as Ironhide’s first shot went wide. The low-g or possibly the fall had damaged Ironhide’s targeting system. He heard the Autobot curse. “Distance combat’s for cowards,” Blackout said, blandly, grabbing his tail rotor. He liked it better close in. No one could beat him in close quarters.

Ironhide took the bait, rising up from the berm he’d concealed himself behind and running straight at Blackout. “I won’t give you the chance to go the distance then!”

Blackout deflected the smaller bot’s punch with a backswing of his off-arm, and then brought his spinning tail rotor down, slicing through the Autobot’s pulse cannon. Sparks flew from metal. The Autobot flipped in the low-g, nailing Blackout squarely in the head with his sturdy, reinforced heel. Blackout fell to one side, his tail rotor spinning wide, slicing into his own armor, then careening off the ground to plant itself squarely in Ironhide’s leg. He howled in pain as he felt his knee joint crack, the rotor blade jammed itself through the tough wiring impaling him to the ground.

Barricade thrust his weight off of Prowl, digging his hands hard into the Autobot’s throat as he did, trying to use the jammed-on thruster to right himself. His optics blurred. No, that wasn’t it—a cloud of dust enveloped them. He tried comm. Starscream ran a litany of curses through his voc. Barricade pushed through the cloud, stinging as small pebbles hit his optics. “Starscream,” he called. A limb loomed out of the cloud, over his head, a giant claw slashing wildly. It knocked Barricade to his knees, scraping along his side. Shearing – thankfully – the thruster-pack off his back. “Starscream, dammit, it’s me. Stop swinging.” He staggered into the cloud, tripping over the jet’s torso. Starscream grabbed at him.

“I cannot see!” the jet’s voice sparked with panic. “Barricade: My optics. Are they damaged?” He jerked the smaller bot close to his face. “Tell me!”

“I will if you shut up and let me look,” Barricade said, twisting to free his arms from Starscream’s grasp. He sucked in a breath looking at the jet’s face. Black scorch marks covered him from shoulder to crown. The near eye was spider webbed with cracks. Gone. The right optic glowed only dimly. Marginally functional. “They’ll need to be replaced. And your right gun’s gone.”

“Again?!” The jet dropped Barricade to investigate the damage with his hands.

“Don’t worry,” Barricade said. “We’ll get you back to repair bay. It’s all fixable.”

“Easy for you to say,” snarled the jet. “Uninjured.”

“Really? You mean beyond the whack you just gave me? I still have thruster pack assembly force-welded to me.”

“Do you?” The jet’s hands leapt to investigate.

“Stop touching me,” Barricade muttered. “It’s weird.”

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something intimate?” Prowl appeared through the cloud, his weapons leveled on the pair.

“Where is he?” Starscream hissed, trying to aim his good arm by sound alone. He almost knocked Barricade down.

The dust cloud caught up in a whirl. “Actually I think I’m interrupting,” Blackout dropped down, pointing his weapon at Prowl. “Thought I’d find you doing your usual nothing, Starscream.”

“Shut up,” Barricade said, hitting subvoc. “He’s blind.”

“Not deaf,” Starscream cut in, acidly. “And bad news. We have clustered together like a nice easy target. And reinforcements have arrived.”

****

Prime shot off after Bumblebee, who was plummeting towards the moon at an uncontrollable rate. Ratchet and Sideswipe manned the Ark. Their weapons trained on the armed Decepticons in front of them. They sat in stalemate, unable to do anything other than watch the small human shuttle burn through the thin atmosphere of the dark moon.

“Can’t we just blast em?” Rumble sneered on Soundwave’s comm.

“We are out numbered and out gunned Rumble. Have patience.”

“Easy for you to have patience, all the way up there,” Dead End whined. “They’ve got a whole ship. We’ve got….you.”

“And we also have…you.” Soundwave said, acidly.

“That’s his way of saying ‘less talkie, more fightie’,” Rumble added.

Sideswipe shifted uneasily on the bridge of the ark, glaring out of the viewer. “Ratchet, the Ark’s weapons would disintegrate them: we should fire while we have the chance.”

“Those aren’t our orders, Sides, stand down,” Ratchet replied calmly. He spotted Prime returning in the distance trailing a rather shook up young bot behind him. Dead End and Rumble backed away slowly in the distraction, not bringing attention to themselves as they drifted subtly towards the moon.

“Ratchet, we have injured on the surface. You will join myself and Bumblebee, Sideswipe, guard the ship, maintain a high orbit. We may need you.” Prime’s deep tone filled the bridge.

“Understood.” Sideswipe grumbled as Ratchet exited the ship. “Hey where’d the ‘cons go?!” He yelled. Prime spotted them already entering the moon’s atmosphere. He cursed softly.

“Autobots, we have to move fast, before the shuttle touches down on the surface. Let’s move!”

****
Weapons fire rained on them from above, Prowl ducked and rolled out to avoid being blown apart by a volley of plasma blasts that burst onto the rocky ground. Starscream shrieked loudly, in panic.

“Who’s firing?!” He whirled around frantically; Barricade tried to restrain him and failed abysmally as the jet crashed into a crouched Prowl. Blackout couldn’t help but snigger at the sight of Starscream flailing. Barricade growled and hauled the jet from the stunned Autobot.

“Could help.” Barricade glared at Blackout who continued to snigger.

“Why? This is the most fun I’ve had all day.”

“This your idea of fun?” Barricade glowered at him, as Starscream tried to tear his arm free, almost sending the smaller bot sailing off in the low-g.

Starscream cut in: “I can still hear you, Blackout.”

“Yeah, you can still talk unfortunately too.” Blackout grumbled as he caught Starscream’s other arm. Dead End burst through the thinning cloud, his weapon pointed at Prowl who was still sprawled on the floor.

“Look who decided to show up,” Blackout said, acidly.

“Who?” Starscream swung his face around. “Who is it? What’s going on?”

“Dead End,” Barricade explained. “Covering Prowl.”

“You mean that he actually knows how to use a weapon? And I can’t see it?!”

A cannon blast shot out of no where, striking Dead End’s shoulder knocking his aim, allowing Prowl to scramble out of range. The gun flew wide.

“Guess no on that last one, Starscream,” Blackout said.

Prowl was greeted by an injured Ironhide. One of his cannons was virtually shredded and his right leg was dragging behind him, leaking vital oil and coolant. His optics widened in surprise, “You’ve looked better.”

“Save it, Prowl. We have ‘cons to deal with.”

“Ironhide, you can’t fight like this, you’re badly damaged, and your leg is leaking energon at an alarming rate.”

Ironhide turned on Prowl fiercely, “Try and stop me.” He limped to the group of Decepticons his remaining weapon raised as another volley of weapons fire burst through the atmosphere, followed by Prime, Bumblebee and Ratchet.

Bumblebee slammed into Blackout, he was small and quick and swiftly irritated the larger mech. He managed to get a hold of Bee’s leg and slammed him into the ground. “Hoping you’d run into me again,” Blackout said, his fingers denting the yellow bot’s armor. The younger mech let out a squeal of pain as Blackout lifted him once more and launched him into the approaching Prime, who grunted in surprise as Bumblebee landed awkwardly at his feet. Growling, the small yellow ‘bot charged his weapons and shot after Blackout once more.

“Oh good. Dumb, too,” Blackout snatched his tail rotor, crouching into a ready stance.

Ratchet managed to duck out of the way and found himself face to face with Barricade. Not a natural fighter, Ratchet hesitated for a split second; Barricade took his chance, his fist made solid contact with Ratchet’s helm sending him stumbling off balance, Barricade launched himself at the medic only to find himself colliding with a much larger, stronger force. Ironhide slammed into him, sending them crashing to the ground, skidding some way in the dust they collided with the legs of Starscream who yelped in surprise. “Stop!” the jet shouted. “Get away from me! I have you on targeting!” His targeting subroutines sent him target-lock information. He had no way to see what it locked on. Barricade scrambled back. “It’s Ironhide. Get him!”

Prime launched himself at the jet, just in time to send the jet’s missile firing wide. He landed heavily on the jet, who flailed on the ground, kicking his long legs into Prime’s body. “Get off! Get off me!”

He clawed at Prime’s arm, finding purchase he dropped his weight sharply, flipping Prime over his head, he grunted as he landed heavily on the rocks. Dead End wasted no time, raising his weapon he fired into Prime’s torso at almost point blank range. “Got him!” he yelled excitedly. Prime cried out in pain as the plasma burned through his circuits, barely missing his spark chamber, exiting through his back shattering some of his back plates. Lifting his weapon to fire at the fallen leader’s head the small red bot took aim for another shot.

Epic battle with a nice cliffhanger



Very nice!! Keep it up! =D

Wingz wrote:Epic battle with a nice cliffhanger



Very nice!! Keep it up! =D

Look HK we have a fan!! *hugz Wingz*

I can haz next part?

Because N_V requested, here's an update. We've got like 40 pages of backlog, so it's wrong for us to hoard all the fun to ourselves. We'll update 2x a week. We hope.

****
Stokes clawed his way to the cockpit of the violently shaking shuttle. Breach alarms filled the cabin. Smoke and fire was clouding his vision. He cast a swift look out of the cockpit window, bracing himself on the seat as the nose dive they were caught in, jerked viciously in the turbulent oxygen ignited atmosphere. He punched the damaged controls, the course was locked on. He stared in horror at the fast approaching surface; his eyes could make out figures fighting. Weapons fire, the robots became clearer as they accelerated ever closer. He quickly shuffled over to the science console and scanned the surface. It was mostly solid rock, laced with the odd network of caverns, carved over the eons by glaciers of ice. If they crashed into this they would crumple like a used tin can and take everything in the vicinity with them. The scanner bleeped it had found a thin layer of rock. His heart jumped into his mouth, ‘The mine!’ His head screamed at him.

He readied the small plasma cutter on the shuttle and aimed for the ground approaching rapidly in front of him. He could see the Autobots battling where he was taking aim, he bit his lip. Taking a deep breath he pressed the ignition of their measly weapon. Not really a proper weapon—a small plasma cutter designed to help clear the mine of rubble. Still, it was all he had. He had to do something.

The plasma bursts shot out from beneath the cockpit, he watched with growing dread as it blasted into the rock below him, impacting in a blinding blue flash. He could hear the Autobots and Decepticons now, their yells and curses of surprise as they were caught in the blast. Screams pierced Stokes’s senses as rock gave way beneath them.

Stokes closed his eyes and braced himself, the shuttle smashed into the rocky surface at full speed. Thanks to the plasma blasts the rock had weakened. The shuttle punched straight through, the sound of ripping, grinding metal filled Stokes’s ears, drowning out the cries from his allies and their enemies.

Some of the mechs didn’t stand a chance, the ground erupted beneath them and they found themselves caught in an avalanche of rock and metal. Others barely escaped with their sparks intact, clawing to the remaining surface, as debris rained down upon them, the sound was thunderous as the surface cracked and exploded.

After a few minutes the air cleared and the dust settled. There was nothing to be seen of the shuttle, or of the robots for that matter. Grey, black dust and rock littered the area; the landscape had been completely rearranged. A metallic hand was visible beneath a pile of rubble close to a large crater that now scarred the ground. Nothing moved.


****
Inside:

“Anyone else functional?” Barricade broadcast over comm. He did a quick inventory. Still had the force weld on his dorsal plating, but beyond a few new dents, he was okay. He sat up. Cursed. No major injuries, but that didn’t mean he didn’t hurt.

“I’m here.” Dead End. Great. Couldn’t get him crushed. Just Barricade’s luck to be trapped down here, perhaps forever, with the little freak.

“Have your weapon?”

Long pause, with the sound of scrambling. “No. Lost it.”

“Fantastic.” Rather have the damn gun than Dead End.

“Blind in the dark,” the smaller bot snapped.

“Ha!” Starscream cut in. “Now you all feel what it’s like to be blind.”

“Until we do this,” Barricade flashed on his headlamps. They were in some kind of underground cavern, large, pitted. A mine? A natural formation? Hard to tell. They’d brought so much ground surface and rubble with them. A few limbs stuck out of the rubble, and the bland silver fuselage of the human ship. Was that what had sent them down here?

“I hate you,” the jet muttered.

“Save it,” Barricade said. One of the buried limbs started to twitch. The rubble over it shifted to one side. “Not alone.”

“Autobots? There are Autobots here?” The jet’s hands clutched into claws.

“Damn straight,” Ironhide sat up, aiming his pulse cannon at the jet. “Watching you squirm is almost as enjoyable as it was pounding your face in. Now hold still like a good ‘con while I finish the job.”

“Not so smart,” Barricade said. “Could kill him—could kill all of us—then you’d be stuck down here forever. All by yourself.”

“My friends would find me. We don’t abandon our comrades, unlike you filthy Decepticons.”

“Find you…how?”

He pushed to his feet, gingerly, watching Ironhide test his comm. Watched the worried expression cross his face with some gratification.

“How many others,” Starscream stage-whispered. “How many Autobots with us?”

“Good question. Ironhide and…who else you got?”

The Autobot lowered his weapon, warily, not believing that Barricade wasn’t going to shoot. Barricade had another priority right now than dead Autobot frames, and that was getting the hell out of here. The Autobot looked around. “Looks like Prowl. You,” he waved his cannon at Dead End. “Dig him out.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Just do it,” Starscream and Barricade snapped.

The red car knelt and began digging out the Autobot. Prowl’s circuits came back online, he acted on instinct as the rubble was removed around him, reaching out and grabbing the small ‘con in front of him by the throat causing him to squeal loudly. “Ironhide?” He climbed from the debris, casting his gaze warily around the cavern taking in the unique situation. Ironhide replied, “I’m here, better drop the runt. Looks like we’re all stuck with each other for a while.”

Dead End squeaked, “Aren’t you going to do something? He’s hurting me.”

“I shall occupy myself lamenting that I cannot see him hurting you,” Starscream snapped. Barricade rolled his eyes. Just a few minutes ago he was worried about being down here alone. Now the peace and silence seem like the better choices.

Barricade crossed over to the fuselage of the human ship. Maybe had a comm. system they could salvage. Maybe, though, he didn’t need to. He hit his boosted comm., on subvoc. “Barricade, surface. Who the hell’s up there?”

“Me,” Blackout said, quietly, subvoc.

“Sitrep?”

“Not so good. Three Autobots. Compromised functionality.”

Barricade swore. “Down here, three of us, some Autobots and,” he peeled back a wall to where he saw two of the silvery space suits “two of the humans. May be useful to tell your new friends.”

“On it.” Blackout cut comm. His voice sounded a little thin. Weak. Unsettling. He must be in bad shape.

****
Surface:

Blackout hovered nearby to where Bumblebee and Ratchet were digging Prime out from under the rubble. Bumblebee kept glancing over at the injured ‘con nervously. Blackout was in the mood, but not in any shape to attack at this point. His frame was leaking energon from numerous places, part of his main rotor had snapped and he had dust in places he didn’t think were accessible without a wrench.

Prime groaned as Ratchet lifted him from the rock and debris. Sitting heavily Prime winced as he gingerly ran his fingers over the burnt hole scarring his midsection. Ratchet got to work immediately, managing to patch the wound with his small welding torch that he always carried with him, just in case. He stowed the flow of energon from Prime’s frame.

“Doesn’t look like you’re damaged anywhere else. Bumblebee, are you injured?” Bumblebee shook his head and pointed over to Blackout who was keeping his distance.

Blackout caught the movement, glaring at Bumblebee. He’d rather stasis lock than let an Autobot touch him. Last thing he wanted or needed was damn Autobot help. “Barricade is below the surface: your other two members are alive, the humans too.”

“How do you know their status?”

“Like I’d lie.”

“You might,” Ratchet said, neutrally. He also cast an unpleasant look at Bumblebee.

The copter shrugged. “See what you can find out, then. Don’t need you: you don’t need me. Fine.” He debated turning his back on them in a show of contempt but his stabilizing gyros didn’t feel up to the task. And who knew if the yellow bot could resist such an open target as Blackout’s back?

He watched as one after another they got the vaguely absent-minded expression of a bot checking his comm. frequencies. He couldn’t help but smirk.

Optimus said, finally, unwillingly, “How can Barricade get through?”

“Boosted comm. He’s the only point of contact we have with them.”

Bumblebee and Ratchet both looked at Prime, who stood gingerly. “Well, looks like we have to cooperate with each other then.”

“You have to cooperate with me,” Blackout said. “I have comm. Why should I cooperate with you?”

“Want help getting them out?” Ratchet snapped. Prime shot him a warning look, but nodded. “They are all in need of our help. The structural integrity of the mine has been compromised.”

Blackout had no answer for that. He grunted, folding his arms over his chest. He’d cooperate, but not willingly. And Starscream and Barricade would owe him for this. Big. He winced as the gesture opened another gap in his interior joint fluid line.

“You’re badly damaged; Ratchet can take a look at you.”

Both Ratchet and Blackout glared at Prime. Ratchet opened their internal comm. “Optimus, you want to help him? He’s a ‘con! He’d have left us to die.” Prime returned his glare.
“Won’t do us much good if he goes offline and he’s the only contact we have with our friends, Ratchet. Please do your job.”

Ratchet huffed loudly at the command and headed towards Blackout who jerked away sharply.

“What are you doing? I don’t need your help!”

Ratchet looked back at Prime with irritation.

“Blackout, you’re leaking energon, you won’t last long without treatment, let Ratc…”

“No!” In his frustration he charged his weapon. Its bore hovered halfway between the ground and Ratchet. An unmistakable, yet indirect threat.

Ratchet took a step back raising his hands in surrender. “I can’t force him, Optimus.”

Prime sighed. He thought the Decepticons believed in obedience. Blackout was almost as fractious as Ironhide. Who was trapped inside with three Decepticons. Prime’s capacitor plummeted at the thought. “Fair enough. What’s the status of the survivors, Blackout?”

“Three of ours, two of yours, plus two humans. All functioning.”

“Can you contact them? We need to come up with a plan to get them out of there.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Prime.” Blackout glowered darkly. Prime sighed a very human sigh. “Fine. Could you contact them…? Please?”

Blackout opened his comm reluctantly to Barricade.

You can never go wrong with pitting (OOOoooOo bad pun not intended) a third element against both factions, forcing them to cooperate and primus-forbid, actually get along with each other.

Great stuff! Can't wait to see what happens next.

Longish bit... hope you like it!

The two humans had now been helped from the broken shuttle by Prowl. Their space suits were undamaged, although the humans themselves were a little dazed and understandably unhappy at the three giant enemy robots close at hand.

“Need a plan of escape.” Barricade drawled absently directing his gaze at Prowl, who appeared the most functional besides himself and the one least likely to shoot him in the head. Always negotiate with the bot who doesn’t want to shoot you in the head.

Starscream spoke up in an attempt to assert control. “If we blow the roof of the cavern we are in, I can fly out.” Ironhide rolled his optics. “Starscream, you’re blind, you can’t fly. Also neither can the rest of us.”

Dead End muttered from the corner, his lights flashing. He’d more or less given himself up for dead.

“Not to mention the cave in that would result from that brilliant plan.” Barricade added, not masking his irritation. Unable to move easily with the thruster force welded onto his back, he was in some amount of pain. During the weld, metal had melted into his interior cabling.

Starscream waved his arm in a wide gesture. “I do not hear you coming up with a better plan!”

“Um… if I may interrupt?” All the mechs looked towards the tiny human female. She continued unabashed by the attention. “This is the mine where we obtained the Neptunium. If I recall correctly there are a network of tunnels leading off from this cavern. Some lead to the surface. The Intrepid has 3d maps of what we scanned when we were down here. It’s not much but if any of you can download it into your cortex, then we could use the information to find a way out.”

“It’s a good plan, Nadya.” Prowl looked at Dead-end.

“Nadya?” Barricade echoed, looking at the astronaut. “You allow females in battle?”

She shot him a glare. “You allow police cars in space?” she retorted.

Prowl continued, deciding it was better to ignore this little fracas. He said to the red Decepticon, “You’re the smallest, would you mind going in the shuttle and retrieving the data?” Dead-end looked towards Barricade who simply nodded in response.

“So polite,” Starscream muttered, snidely.

Dead End snapped at him. “Treat me better than you do!” Barricade silenced him with a glare.

Ironhide was not pleased. “You’re going to trust that useless piece of scrap metal with potentially our only way out of here?!”

“Trust us, Autobot, we are not thrilled with it either,” Starscream said. He pawed the ground toward Dead End, probably trying to slap him. Barricade was contemplating the same. He was just so…slappable.

“Ironhide, please. Now is not the time for grievances; we need to work together if we are to survive.”

“Why listen to the humans? It is their fault we are trapped here in the first place!” Starscream shrilled.

“Your fault you’re blind,” Ironhide said. Starscream whipped a claw toward the sound of his voice. Ironhide laughed as it whistled harmlessly past him.

“Best plan we’ve got.” Barricade uttered non-committally. “Dead-end, get the information. And get it right this time?” The red ‘con scrambled into the ship after Nadya. Prowl turned to face the dysfunctional group. Ironhide and Barricade had resorted to simply glaring at each other. Starscream was fidgeting nervously, tentatively trying to stand. He stumbled, slipping on some loose rubble. Prowl reached out and grabbed his arm. “You’re going to need someone to guide you.” The Decepticon tried to shake him off his wrist, but Prowl held firm. “We need to patch up our injuries as best we can before we attempt to traverse the tunnels. Ironhide, can you walk?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Barricade?”

“Not so good. Force weld on my back.”

Stokes spoke up cheerfully. “We can help you with that; we have a welding torch and a crow bar in the shuttle.”

Barricade didn’t much care for the cheer in the astronaut’s voice. He suspected that this welding torch and ‘crow bar’ was going to hurt.

“What is a crow bar?” Starscream asked curiously. “Why do you have one in a space shuttle? Do you keep crows in your spacecraft? Is this a human tradition?”

“Starscream, SO not the time for that.”

He turned blind eyes toward Barricade. “I am merely trying to relate to our enem—our new companions.”

Ironhide snorted. Prowl was confused. Stokes shrugged, “Never know when you’re going to need a crow bar.” Nadya came out of the shuttle clutching a small welding torch and a thin metal bar with curved forked ends, having heard the discussion. “Heard someone needs some D.I.Y?”

“Rather do it myself.” Barricade tried to figure out how he could use those tiny tools.

Starscream and Ironhide both laughed, caught each other’s laughter, and stopped. Hated doing anything together.

Stokes crossed behind Barricade, examining the damage. He also didn’t succeed in keeping a chuckle out of his voice. “Gonna have to bend over.”

“What? No. I’ll find a way to manage.”

Ironhide laughed again. “Come on, now, ‘con. Bend right on over.” He shot Ironhide a look of raw hatred. But he had no choice.

Barricade scowled. “Do they have to touch me?” He crouched down, but glanced behind him nervously. He couldn’t see what they were doing. This, he did not like.

Ironhide chuckled darkly powering up his cannon. “I have a quicker way if you’re xenophobic.” Barricade shot him a dirty look. Prowl interrupted before Ironhide could wind him up any further.

“If you want to get out of here, you’ll need it removing. We also need you. You’re the only point of contact we have to the surface.”

“Fine.” Barricade grumbled, “But they better not try anything.”

“Like what?” Prowl tilted his head. What was the ‘con’s problem?

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“I so wish that I could see this,” Starscream lamented.

“It is good,” Ironhide admitted, sitting down to get a better look.


“Barricade?” Blackout’s voice cut in, such a welcome distraction that Barricade would have kissed him if he could. With tongue. Blackout’s voice was no longer subvoc. Only two reasons: Either Blackout was that certain he was alone, or he was being forced. “Status?”

Barricade hesitated. “Testing comm.” He heard his own voice—also not subvoc on Blackout’s end. If there were Autobots nearby, they could hear the entire exchange. He’d have to be careful. “Comm test complete. Blackout?”

“Status of your party?”

“All functional.”

A muffled conversation. “More precise. They want.”

Yeah, Barricade thought, figured that part out. “Prowl appears uninjured. Ironhide has an injury to the leg and at least one of his cannons is out. The two humans are uninjured. And we’d have nothing to do with it if they were injured,” he added, pointedly, for Blackout’s eavesdroppers. “Dead End is, fantastically, entirely uninjured.”

“And?”

Barricade heard his sigh carry over the comm. “Starscream is blind. His other injuries appear minor, except his chain gun. I am…currently compromised in functionality,” He yelped as the astronaut’s torch bit into his side.

“Compromised?”

Barricade prayed that everyone down here would die, except perhaps Starscream, so no visual memory of this humiliation would exist. "Working on it. Status?”

“Prime, Ratchet and the yellow one.”

“Yes?”

He could feel rebellion building in Blackout’s voice. “Prime’s fragged up, but the medic’s been working on him. The yellow idiot is apparently their team’s Dead End.”

Barricade couldn’t help a chuckle—that morphed into another yelp. He suspected these astronauts were not trying very hard to be careful. Or they did not realize the sensitive bits they were prying against. “Don’t like him much, do you?”

“No, really; it’s a fraggin’ festival of friendship up here.”

“And you?”

“Less you know the better.”

The laughter died in Barricade’s vocalizer. “They have a medic.”

“Know that.” A little testy.

“You could—“

Blackout cut him off. ”Be in touch.” He cut the comm. line. Barricade swore, subvoc, then aloud as the astronauts pried again at the welded panel. The metal finally gave with a shriek. Barricade got a grip on the metal they were lifting, wincing as he pried it off.

“Thank Primus,” he said, straightening up. His plating was sore under the weld and would need some care, but for right now all that mattered was that the melted back plate wasn’t stabbing into his central line with every step.

“You could thank us,” Nadya said, pointedly.

He glowered down at her. “I could.”

“Um… we have another problem however.” Stokes spoke up again, his voice more serious. He handed the torch back to Nadya. He looked up at Prowl. “Our suits only have 8 hours’ worth of oxygen left.”

*****

LOL at 'Festival of friendship' and 'the yellow idiot'!

Just a little insight into our fantabulous writing 'process', for those who care. I'm more or less in charge of the Decepticons (or as I like to call them, 'my boys') and Carriemus handles the Autobots. We'll alternate writing a scene or two--email it to the other person, who generally shrieks in horror and says, my characters would never say it that way! And fix. So, if you want stats, roughly 95% of what the 'cons think/feel is my doing, and 95% of the 'bots--Carriemus's. In terms of actual plot, I think we're 50/50. Now you know who to blame. (Ironically, most of the 'plot' of this installment is Carriemus's--with my Decepticon upsnarking--and part of Friday's I wrote the base of. We're cool like that!)

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

Surface:

“Happy now?” Blackout switched off his comm. “Told you: your bots are fine.”

“Still trapped, though,” Ratchet grumped. “And if Barricade was telling the truth.”

Blackout turned to glare at the medic, but his servos overcompensated. He staggered, catching himself hard on an outcrop of rock.

Optimus approached, slowly. “Even Barricade wants you to have Ratchet look at you.”

“Barricade’s an idiot!” Blackout snapped. “But he wouldn’t lie.” He pushed himself back upright. “Just not used to this damn low-g. That’s all.” Prime and Ratchet shot each other a worried look over the Decepticon’s shoulder. ‘EMP’ the medic mouthed. Prime shook his head. Not yet. They needed Blackout functional right now.

“So,” the Decepticon snarled, “Any of you geniuses got a slaggin’ plan?”

Bumblebee spoke to Optimus and Ratchet, subvoc. He was gesturing to the crash site. Blackout frowned.

“He afraid of talking to me?”

“He can’t speak; his vocal processor was destroyed by Megatron.” Ratchet answered quietly.

“Hunh.” This bothered Blackout more than he let on. For such a small ‘bot to survive a direct attack from Megatron and only come out of it with a damaged vocal processor was pretty damn impressive. Blackout pushed that thought straight out of his mind, deciding immediately that the ‘bot simply hadn’t been worth Megatron’s time off lining. Or Megatron had gotten distracted. The little yellow runt didn’t look that tough.

“Is he saying anything useful?”

“It seems they crashed directly into the mine. There may be tunnels that lead off from the cavern under the surface; it could be a way out. He also thinks that they may not have crashed too far down and we could possibly dig them out.” Optimus answered patiently. He walked slowly over to the crater of the crash site, still in an obvious amount of pain. Blackout knew the feeling; he tentatively followed the Autobots to the crater and glanced down, flaring his rotors for balance. His stabilizing compensators were…not compensating. He tried to blame the low-g, but couldn’t. As soon as he could figure out which Autobot to blame for this, he’d make sure to return the favor.

“How far down?” Ratchet inquired.

“Bumblebee says possibly only a few feet.”

“We’d probably hear Starscream’s whining if it was only a few feet,” Blackout said, dubiously. Ratchet shot him a look.

“You don’t like him much, do you?”

“Like him fine. Just not blind to his obvious faults. Unlike you Autobots and your leaders,” His eyes spiralled at Prime’s back. Blackout huffed. “We could just blow out the roof of the cavern. We’re in no shape to dig.”

Optimus didn’t have an answer: Blackout was right, the four of them, with two badly injured couldn’t dig enough to free the others. Blackout, without waiting for a response, headed gingerly towards the crater, sliding down the dusty sides, cursing as the loose gravel caught his rotors. He paused just from the center of the crater and raised his weapon. A loud crack sounded beneath him, very slowly he looked at his feet. The unstable ground had cracked, he froze. His compensating servos fired wildly, involuntarily, half trying to guide him to a run, half trying to balance on the suddenly crumbling surface. Blackout felt zero g for a split second as the ground disappeared beneath him, he cried out in surprise.

The others could only watch as Blackout, along with rock and debris slid down to the precipice of the crater as it started to collapse in on itself under his weight. This was not just a few feet.

****
Prowl was the first to notice the dust spilling from the roof of the cavern. Dead End popped out of the fuselage of the Intrepid with a bouncy sense of self-importance. Barricade and Ironhide were too busy glaring at each other to notice anything. And the jet…he was useless. Glancing up, Prowl saw the rock face crack and start to crumble, directly above where Barricade and the humans were. Wasting no time, he tightened his grip on Starscream.

“We have to move now! The cave is going to collapse.” The others all looked up simultaneously. Dead End was the first into the nearest tunnel, following his lights Prowl guided a reluctant Starscream. The difference in their heights meant the jet had to walk half-hunched over, his legs frantic to compensate for the shift in his center of gravity.

“I can walk myself, Autobot,” he growled.

“You’re blind, Starscream. You won’t help much if you go straight into a wall. Or flat on your face.”

“Be funny though.” Ironhide shouted out behind them. He’d armed his cannon, as if he could blast the cave in into stopping.

Starscream tried to turn around as he spat out his retort. “Oh yes, we are all down here merely to provide for your amusement, Autobot.” He turned too hard, dragging Prowl around with him.

Prowl held him fast, and practically had to drag him down the tunnel after Dead End. “Let it go.”

Dead End went blank for a minute, his processor translating the human’s computer code to something he could understand. “This way!” He trotted down a tunnel to the left, his headlights bouncing over the mine walls.

Nadya’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “Prowl, wait!”

“What is it, Nadya?” Please, he thought, don’t be difficult. The ‘con is hard enough to deal with.

“The Neptunium, this whole thing will be for nothing if we don’t at least salvage one of the specimens.”

“It’s too dangerous I can’t let y…”

“I’ll not be long, don’t worry.” She ran back towards the cavern, passing Stokes on her way. He stared at her openmouthed for a moment, then shrugged. That was so…Nadya.

“Nadya?!” He heard Prowl call out. Stokes tried to go after her only to be stopped by Ironhide.

“What are you doing?” The Autobot clearly didn’t want an answer. He shooed the astronaut with his injured hand. “Rocks coming down in there bigger than you are.”

“It’s too dangerous.” Turning to Barricade Ironhide scowled at what he was about to ask.

“Spit it out.” Barricade drawled knowing full well what he wanted. He just wanted to make the damn Autobot ask for his help.

“Could you help her?”

“I could.” He stated blandly, unmoving. The rock started crashing down in the cavern. Shaking the tunnel. Prowl’s voice could be heard over the din. “We have to move, no choice. Now!” The others moved forward. Ironhide glared at Barricade who held his optics calmly.

“Slaggin’ help!” He snarled angrily.

“Please!” Stokes pleaded from behind Ironhide. “She helped you!”

Barricade growled softly. Stupid humans, he thought. This is what you get letting females into combat. “Since the human asked so nicely,” he said, ignoring the Autobot as he pushed by him. Ironhide ushered Stokes through the tunnel, as he headed back into the death trap of a cave.

Nadya had managed to grab one of the back packs and had thrown it over her back, filling it with as many samples as she could carry. Making her way out of the shuttle, which was ringing out with rocks smashing against its metal hull. She ducked as one landed just above her head, sending an avalanche of rock and rubble down upon her. She dived back into the shuttle. The hull of the shuttle buckled beneath the weight and started to close in around her. She cried out as the hull gave in. The electrical systems failed, plunging her into blackness. For the first time, she felt something a little like fear.

She heard the sound of wrenching metal, and then the flares of light picked out long silver talons tearing at the fuselage of the ship. “Prowl?” she said.

“Not…quite.” Barricade grunted as rocks pounded down on his back. “Come on.”

She hesitated.

“Wasting time we don’t have, female,” he snarled. Another rock cracked across his head, bending a fairing behind his neck. “Fine.” He reached in and grabbed her. She managed to snatch the pack with one flailing hand. “Stop struggling.” He held her against his torso, bent over so that she was protected from the worst of the rock fall. He could feel her leaking heat through her space suit, squirming against his armor. He wished she’d stop. It was…distracting. And she might hit something vital. He dashed unevenly toward the tunnel the others had taken, pausing and straightening up only when they were clear of the danger. His armor was coated with dust and grit.

Nadya shook herself free. “You did not have to do that.”

“Not my first choice.”

Nadya made a noise of disgust. Before cursing in her native Russian, a language Barricade hadn’t come across. She turned and stalked ahead of him after the others. He followed slowly not wanting to get too close to the woman. Something about her disturbed him. She stopped suddenly almost causing him to stand on her. Ah yes, the damned unpredictability.

She glanced at him, her glare was icy. “Thank you. For saving my life.” She spoke quickly before turning and rapidly tried to catch up to the others.

Barricade was nothing if not surprised.

****
Blackout was cursing his luck as he slid towards the sheer drop off into the crater. This is how it ends, he thought, bitterly. Not brave combat with the enemy. Not glorious victory. No: getting sucked into some slaggin’ sinkhole. At least there were no witnesses. None who mattered, at any rate. He was going to be off-lined, he glanced down, knowing there was no way for him to escape. Still he tried to grab onto anything to stop his descent. His bad arm caught on something, jolting to him to a halt with a force that sent a hot wave of agony through the damaged limb. He looked up sharply. No something had caught his arm. His capacitor fell as he stared up at the yellow bot gripping onto his arm offering his other hand.

“Frag…” He swore as Bumblebee continued to reach down for his other arm. “Had to be you, huh?” The yellow Autobot waved his other arm conspicuously, gesturing for Blackout to grab hold.

“Fine, you wanna play hero. At least I’ll get the satisfaction of taking you with me when you fail.” He couldn’t hold back the sound of pain as the smaller bot wrenched his injured arm, heaving him up. Other hands roughly grabbed him—someone grasping a double handful of rotor mount, causing the copter to howl in pain. Did no one know how much that hurt? He was hauled heavily to the stable surface of the crater. “Back more,” he heard a voice say, the medic, he thought. “Whole rim might be unstable.”

“Can do it if you’d let me get the slag UP!” Blackout twisted on the ground, trying to get his feet under him as the others continued to drag him forward, his torso-mounted gun cutting a long score in the ground. Oh, he was going to kill them for this. As soon as Barricade and Starscream were safe. Starting with the slagging silent wonder.

“Now?” Ratchet’s voice was tired. “Doesn’t have much fight in him.”

“Yes.” Prime’s voice.

Blackout rolled to his side. The medic was looming over him, prepping some enormous and painful looking tools over his frame. He flailed, hitting at the medic bot without much power. Still enough to sprawl the medic and send his tools flying. Ratchet swore angrily, and threw the tool he still held, at Blackout’s head, it impacted with scary precision. Blackout scrambled back, sliding against his rotors, until he hit something hard. He looked up. Prime looked down at him, his expression unreadable.

Before the Autobot could say anything, Blackout burst out, “Slaggin’ great plan that was.” He looked for the yellow bot. “You let that genius make all your tactical decisions?” He struggled to his feet, shaking off the hand that Prime lifted him with under his shoulder joint.

“That’s why he endangered himself to rescue you,” Prime said, mildly. “He was trying to make up for his miscalculation.”

“Just didn’t calculate how heavy the ‘con moron was’ Bumblebee commed him. He didn’t care for Prime apologizing for him. To this ‘con in particular, if he was sorry at all it was for rescuing the ungrateful ‘con. Prime shot him a warning look over the Decepticon’s head.

“Now,” Prime said, tightening his grip on Blackout’s shoulder. “Can you at least explain why you don’t want Ratchet to repair you?”
‘Because he’s probably a she,’ Bumblebee cut in. Ratchet gave a snort of laughter, which gave that game away to the copter.

“Stop subvocing about me,” he snarled. “I haven’t done that to you.”

“Answer the question,” Optimus said, but he tapped his head pointedly at Bumblebee. Be nice.

Blackout tried again to shrug Prime’s hand off. “Don’t need repairs.”

“You’re in pain,” Ratchet said, still gathering his tools.

“So?” No point denying it. Probably look like an idiot. Probably already looked like an idiot. But he could still show them how a real warrior coped. Ratchet rolled his optics at Optimus. He had very little patience for mechs who were too stubborn or stupid, in this case both, to get themselves treated. ‘Would help if Optimus let me do my fraggin’ job and offline the damn ‘con so I can fix him, at least to stop him leaking all over us.’ He thought, his frustrations boiling over, as always he was a medic first, a soldier second.

“Don’t know about you, but I’ve got better things to do than get stared at by you glitches.” Blackout walked forward determinedly. Prime either had to let go or get dragged along.

“Any idea where we’re going?” Prime asked, amused.

Blackout hadn’t thought that far ahead. He stopped, wobbling on his damaged legs. “Fine. What’s your next cunning plan?”

This update is a slightly longer section. No surface action here so most of the action this time was woven by HK, all of the humour is down to HK (I don't have a sense of one ), I just played with my 'bots . Just to reiterate each section that we post is written by both of us, 95% 'cons are HK, 95% 'bots are mine with more or less 50/50 on plot.

Inside:

“Anyone care to refresh my memory cache as to exactly how I ended up having to carry the humans?” Barricade complained. The female kept squirming on his shoulder and the male kept poking at his armor with a screwdriver. Big fun surprise for him if he managed to dislodge the plate he was sitting on.

“It is simple,” Starscream said, “I am blind, and, apparently, useless; Ironhide’s gait is so uneven even I can hear it; no one trusts Dead End with anything although we have to; and Prowl considers it beneath his dignity as our leader to the dirty work. That leaves you.”

“So glad I asked,” Barricade said, as the others boiled over in protest. He forgot what a dangerous weapon the jet’s mouth was.

“The humans will use less of their oxygen if they don’t exert themselves,” Prowl explained, though he glowered up at Starscream. ‘The slaggin’ jet can talk.’ Prowl thought to himself in annoyance. He’d never seen a ‘bot so anxious to avoid getting his hands dirty during the course of a battle. ‘Most I ever see of him is his tail pipes.’ He thought with disdain. “And I believe I am too preoccupied being a guide bot for blind ‘con leaders to be of much use to the Astronauts at this point, Starscream.” He reminded the jet sternly.

“Your choice,” Starscream muttered, but he tightened his grip on Prowl’s shoulder, as if afraid he’d leave.

“Plus they were slowing us down,” griped Ironhide.

The astronauts shot angry looks at the Autobot. Prowl turned under the jet’s arm and gave the other bot a warning gesture.

“Good: as long as I’m not the only one not thrilled with this turn of events,” Barricade said, mildly.

“I am less thrilled about our navigator,” Ironhide said, trying to put some distance between himself and his last comment.

“At last,” Starscream said, sarcastically. “Something we can all agree on. Lasting peace is just around the corner.”

Stokes absently prodded a tool into Barricade’s exposed neck wiring, the engineer in him fascinated by the complexity of his circuits. The ‘con flinched. “Would you STOP tha--!” He stopped himself as they all piled to a stop, Starscream unable to check his momentum, fell to his knees. The jet took Prowl down with him. Prowl landed more heavily than Starscream, the jet was larger and heavier than he was and he’d put all of his weight onto his frame in the stumble, this sent Prowl into the floor. He grunted as his head impacted the rock floor, having not managed to get his other arm out in time. He lay there for a moment and sighed wearily. “Starscream, I would appreciate not being an arm rest if at all possible today.” His voice was muffled by the rock in his face.

“Bad news,” Dead End said, looking up at a wall of rock.

“Oh fan-fraggin-tastic,” Barricade said.

“What? What is it? Why have we stopped?” Starscream clawed his way to his feet. He absently righted Prowl, probably in some gesture of apology, patting the smaller bot’s head. Prowl twitched away.

Ironhide slapped his hand to his forehead. “Your little red friend can’t read a slaggin’ map.”

“Can too!” Dead End said, hotly. “This isn’t on the map!”

“Got something else that’s not going to be on the map soon,” Ironhide said, charging his pulse cannon.

Prowl turned sharply toward Ironhide, letting go of Starscream who wobbled, a little unbalanced by the sudden movement. He stalked over to Ironhide, who took a step back startled at the fierceness of his stare. “Ironhide, if you don’t cool the aggression I am going to off line your cannon,” he hissed, fiercely. “You are not helping an already difficult and tense situation and I would appreciate some slaggin’ support if you can manage to climb down off of that chip that you’ve grown on your shoulder. Now I am in command here, it’s not particularly a position I am relishing, but if you can’t handle who you have to work with then stay here. At this point I will gladly leave you behind myself.”

He glared at Ironhide, using the full force of his rank and taller stature, daring him to argue. Ironhide was stunned at the outburst, Prowl rarely ever lost his cool which was why he was second in command to Prime. Prowl turned sharply away from him before he could answer, making his way back to where Starscream was gingerly feeling for the wall of the tunnel for balance. He took the jet’s arm with a reassuring pat.

Barricade snaked past Ironhide allowing himself a snigger within earshot of the stunned bot. The humans wisely remained silent. Ironhide shot a threatening glare at Barricade’s back but held his tongue, his pride a little too dented to verbally spar against the astute ‘con.

Barricade eyed the wall in front of them. Nadya was the first to speak up. “It looks like it’s been caused by the cave in. Dead End, does the map say there’s tunnel on the other side of this?”

The small ‘con nodded, pathetically glad to be taken seriously. “It opens up into a small cave a few meters in.”

“I say we blast it then.” Stokes suggested, still far too cheerful for Barricade’s liking. He felt the screwdriver prod his wiring again. In one swift move he snatched the screwdriver from the Astronaut’s hand and drove it into the rock up to the handle.

“Hey!” Stokes whined in surprise.

“Lucky I didn’t stick it in YOUR neck,” Barricade growled.

“Someone’s touchy.” Nadya muttered. Barricade glowered impatiently. Nadya simply resorted to glaring at him coldly.

Ironhide spoke up quietly, making his way to stand beside Prowl. “I have one working cannon; it can blast through this wall no problem.” Prowl glanced down at him. “Plasma is too volatile a blast. It could collapse the entire tunnel.” Ironhide shifted uncomfortably at the dismissal. Prowl pinged his subvoc. ‘Thank you Ironhide.’ Ironhide didn’t respond, merely allowed himself a slight smile and a nod at the reprieve.

“I have the largest functional weapon. Missiles are direct fire, and will not ricochet around the cavern. It is more contained than a plasma blast. And more reliable.” Starscream interjected confidently.

“Great, so we all get small holes blown out of us rather than big messy ones.” Barricade grumped. “At least the slaggin’ plasma would cauterize.”

Starscream snapped, “I could just throw you at it.”

“Have to catch me first.”

The jet took a swipe toward the sound of Barricade’s voice. The smaller bot jumped back, causing the two humans to cry out in protest.

“Need me,” he said, warningly.

“For the moment,” the jet retorted. “Remember, I know where you recharge.”

“Flirting with me now, Starscream? Didn’t know I was your type.”

Stokes burst into laughter.

“We don’t have time for this,” remonstrated Prowl. “We have no choice. I can target for you Starscream. Everyone else move back a few meters.”

“What? I don’t need you to target for me, Autobot!” Starscream shrilled. Prowl rolled his optics at the objections.

“Look, Starscream you’re just going to have to accept the fact you need help to get out of here. There’s no shame in that.” Prowl reached towards Starscream’s weapon to help him target, Starscream jerked at the unexpected touch throwing his arm away sending him stumbling into the wall. He stood his stabilizers struggling with lack of a point of reference; he stumbled and fell to his knees. Prowl was once again by his side and heaved him to his feet.

“I do not need your assistance!” He pushed the Autobot away.

“Dumb idea, Autobot.” Barricade tsked.

“His missile is the only thing that could work,” Prowl responded, though he didn’t much like having to go with the larger ‘con’s suggestion.

“Meant that telling him he needs your help is dumb. Not like you’d get out of here without us. We need each other’s help. Stop trying to power-over. Especially with Starscream.”

Prowl looked at the smaller bot, then up at Starscream, who was muttering commands to his targeting system, trying to locate the correct wall.

“I do not need you giving him pointers in how to manipulate me, Barricade,” Starscream growled. “I am sufficiently irritated. And I can hit this wall without assistance.”

Prowl gave up. He muttered stubbornly, “All right Starscream, take aim at the obstructing wall.” Prowl folded his arms and waited. His stance looked very human. Starscream wobbled slightly as he raised his weapon. Pointing it straight ahead, he grinned. “See.”

“Walk forward; see if you can feel it.” Starscream’s grin disappeared he ventured forward his arms outstretched grasping at air; he almost toppled over Dead End who was waiting further down the tunnel.

“Wha…?!” Starscream felt Prowl’s hand pulling him round, turning him 180 degrees and guiding him forward. He cursed in Cybertronian. “Fine.” He muttered. Prowl took hold of the weapon as Starscream braced himself against the tunnel wall. Prowl aimed carefully, he didn’t want to blow too much out in case the roof of the tunnel collapsed. Steadying Starscream’s arm he gripped slightly, the ‘con tugged a little throwing his aim.

Barricade muttered to himself. “Stupid. Stupid Autobot.”

“Why?” Nadya asked. “He’s proving a point. Starscream needs his help. At least right now.”

“It’s a warrior thing. Humiliating Starscream? Not such a good idea.”

Prowl tugged back. “You need to hold still.”

“Me? I am steady. You are the one who is fidgeting.”

Prowl took aim again, only to have Starscream slip on the wall, his arm knocking into Prowl’s shoulder.

“Starscream!” Prowl looked over his shoulder at a new crease in his armor. That wouldn’t buff out.

“You are taking too long!”

“Wall’s not going anywhere,” Ironhide observed, dryly.

“I would have made the shot by now if you’d hold still.” Prowl retorted impatiently. “And Ironhide, not helping.”

“We’re not going anywhere either,” Stokes observed. Barricade nodded. Without the screwdriver, the human was becoming considerably less annoying. Though he kept staring at Barricade’s audio receptors in a way that was downright creepy.

“When you’re dealing with Starscream,” Barricade murmured to the humans, “it’s easiest just to take the blame for everything. Stuff gets done a lot quicker.”

“Oh, certainly,” the jet sneered. “It is easy to blame the blind Decepticon to make up for your failings, Autobot. At least I know when to swallow my pride,” he added smugly.

Prowl huffed at the irony and pushing slightly against Starscream’s larger frame; bracing them both against the wall he took aim again. This time Starscream was tense, being this close to the ‘bot was uncomfortable at the best of times but to be wedged between him and the wall was just mortifying. He was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Practically a couple.” Barricade mused absently at the scene in front of them. Ironhide huffed. “They sure argue like one.”

Stokes piped up, “Did I just hear you two agree on something?” Ironhide tensed at the statement, Barricade remained very still, unwilling to validate the remark.

“You are as stupid as you are irritating, fleshling.” Barricade growled with half hearted menace. He decided he no longer liked the male astronaut. Who was still staring at his audio. Creepy. He turned his attentions back towards the bickering mechs in front of him.

“Fire now.” Prowl ordered. Willing it to be over quickly Starscream fired his weapon. The rock exploded outward, showering the two in debris. Starscream spun and ducked at the sensation of being pelted with rocks and dust, inadvertently crouching over Prowl, who was now trapped under the jet’s large form, pressing him against the floor.

The dust settled, a small opening was visible and more tunnel on the other side. The others joined them. Barricade’s optics widened in amusement at the position they found the two mechs. Much to his enjoyment it was the human woman who spoke first.

“I didn’t know you two had gotten so close,” she quipped teasingly as Barricade sauntered past them. Ironhide couldn’t help but chuckle out loud, which was joined in by the others. Starscream was confused.

“What is so funny?” he demanded. The others just burst out laughing, annoying him even more. Then he felt a faint growl beneath him. Feeling tentatively towards the floor beneath his crouched body, his hands fell onto Prowl’s back and head. The slightly smaller ‘bot had been forced into a crouch beneath him as Starscream had curled away from the explosion and was now practically trapped in what looked like to the others, an embrace from the seeker. Starscream pushed himself away suddenly landing squarely on his aft. Prowl stood. Barricade could have sworn a look of embarrassment crossed the normally stoic, composed mech’s face.

“Be glad he didn’t get too handsy, Prowl. Lucky he can’t see.” Barricade stated with a wry grin. Starscream muttered under his breath as Prowl had to help him to his feet. The others were still caught up in their amusement when Prowl turned to face them.

“All right! I think we’ve had enough fun for now. Let’s keep moving, you can all fall about laughing like sparklings when we reach the cave.” He half dragged, half guided the still smoldering seeker through the opening and headed down the tunnel. Dead End bounced on ahead, gleeful that his map reading had been proved right.

“Touchy, isn’t he?” Stokes stated mildly, his voice laced with amusement. Ironhide put on a serious face. “Prowl doesn’t like public shows of affection.” The others including Barricade sniggered at this, before an irritated voice interrupted their moment. “I could just get Starscream to blow the tunnel and leave you all there if you’d prefer.”

“What, and leave you two alone?” Ironhide cracked.

Barricade ducked through the opening. “Didn’t know you were on such close terms already.” They burst out laughing again as the two mechs in front of them audibly swore with irritation.

“For the record,” Starscream said, loudly, “I despise this Autobot.”

“Someone doth protest too much,” Nadya added, hesitantly. This was almost novel for her—to be in on this kind of group teasing. Barricade gave a soft chuckle.

Stokes whispered to Nadya across the back of Barricade’s head. “I never thought this day would improve, turning out better than I expected.” He smirked.

“Must have low expectations,” Barricade muttered. “And don’t get too comfortable.”

“Ooohh, I don’t think he likes you,” Nadya teased.

“Don’t like anybody down here. Far as I’m concerned, we can all offline. Long as I offline last.”

“This one’s just a killjoy isn’t he?” Nadya returned Stokes’s smirk.

“Can think of better ways to describe what I am using those words. Care to allow a demonstration?” Barricade retorted threateningly. He raised his hands to his shoulders, the fingers flexing steely and sharp. “Which one of you volunteers to be ‘joy’?”

Stokes pulled a face at Nadya and winked. “Looks like you get the love, Nadya. I think he likes you.” Nadya glared at him, he merely shrugged enjoying the discomfort. The robot shifted uncomfortably, almost a stumble.

Barricade growled as he felt Stokes chuckling on his shoulder. Primus help him, if he had his way the human would be dead before they saw light again. He mused at several possibilities for making it look like an accident to prevent backlash from the ‘bots. As for the human female well he would show her, teach her to disrespect him.

****

This is a good section! I am posting for HK today and she will be posting for me on Friday. Yup we're getting in your heads and mixing it up Hope you like this section there were giggles for us when writing it.

Surface:

“Comm ping is getting farther away,” Blackout muttered. “While you sit here nattering at me.”

“Where?” Optimus asked.

“Don’t know. It’s not a bloody targeting vector, it’s a comm. ping. Only does relative distance for time lag,” he explained, impatiently.

“Find out where they are.”

“Excuse me?”

Optimus sighed. “Please. Contact them. If you would. If it’s not too much trouble.” Behind Blackout, Bumblebee rolled his eyes for Optimus. Stupid Decepticon. Just do the job, already.

“Fine. But keep him away from me.” He gestured menacingly at Ratchet. Ratchet raised his arms in surrender. Whatever it was, the ‘con had a thing against him. Not that he really minded, but it did damage his professional pride. And those injuries had to hurt. “Barricade?” He over pronounced, so that the Autobots could tell he being legitimate.

The voice came through clearly. Blackout could tell the other bot was on subvoc. Why? Oh well, the Intel bot knew what he was doing. Most of the time. And better safe than sorry. “On. What’s your status?”

“Well, we’re just finishing cocktails and the floor show is about to begin….” What did Barricade slaggin’ think his status was? He was surrounded by three hostiles. Barricade should be glad he was even online. He caught the alarmed look on the Autobots’ faces. “No,” he said to them, “That’s not some weird sinister code. Primus, you mechs take yourselves so damn seriously.”

Concern crept into Barricade’s voice. “Be careful, Blackout. The Autobots have not yet evolved our highly sophisticated sense of humor. Hate to see you offlined because they don’t understand a joke.”

“You know we can hear everything you say,” Ratchet snapped.

“Proving my point. Greetings to all above-dwellers,” he said mockingly. “And how are we this fine…whatever the hell time it is? Kind of hard to tell down here, being pitch-slaggin’ black and all.”

“Can it,” Ratchet said. Optimus cut him off. “Barricade, we really need to know your status and location.”

“No one’s killed anyone else, yet. Though these humans are sorely tempting me to acts of xenocide.”

“Told you they were annoying,” Blackout said. “Should have seen the little tizzies they threw in Qatar.”

“Barricade,” Optimus said, warningly, “Do not harm the humans.” Beside him, Bumblebee bobbed his head earnestly in agreement.

“Oh, you are no fun at all. But I can fantasize, can’t I?” Blackout could hear the joking tone, but it seemed like the Autobots couldn’t.

“How’s the Whining One?” the copter asked. Ratchet mouthed ‘who is the whining one?’ at Prime. Bumblebee gestured wings with his arms. Oh. Starscream.

“About how you’d expect. Didn’t help that the stupid Autobot tried to pull some sort of power/ego down on him.”

Blackout winced. “And you said everyone’s still alive, right?”

“Yeah. Not for lack of trying. If Whiney-jets wasn’t blind, not sure we’d be so lucky.” A pause. “Did I just say lucky?”

“And the loser?”

A groan. “He’s…bouncy.”

“Why aren’t you debouncing him?”

“Ah, because I have been selected to be pack animal to two humans, aforementioned, annoying, and one pack of highly explosive Neptunium. My day is awesome.”

“What about Ironhide.” Optimus cut in. They’d mentioned Prowl already.

“He exists. Still. Scattering sunshine in his wake, as always.”

Blackout snorted.

“Do you mechs do this all the time? Don’t you ever have an actual businesslike conversation?” Ratchet was upset. How the hell did they run a war if their comm. was filled with ridiculous chatter like this?

“Blackout, did I hear that aright? Are we getting a comm-chatter lecture from the pacifist?”

“It has been a weird day,” Blackout admitted.

“Your turn.”

Optimus shifted impatiently.

“Real quick, because the ‘bots are giving me the nasty optic: The yellow idiot’s first plan nearly got me offlined. Think we caused a cave in.”

“Should have known that was your enormous aft that caused all that.”

“Yeah, it was even more fun on topside. I just hope they don’t let him make any more plans. The medic keeps trying to sneak up on me with his freaky tools, and el Primo here keeps telling me what crap my plans are, without coming up with anything else. So. Here we STILL are.” Oh, it felt good to get that out of his system.

Optimus stood merely staring at Blackout with complete disbelief at the conversation he was having. Ratchet pinged his sub voc. ‘It’s a wonder they ever managed to fight a war isn’t it, never mind fraggin’ start one.’

‘Now Ratchet, I am sure that they don’t always procrastinate this much.’ If they did there was hope for the Autobots yet, despite being outnumbered two to one on Earth by Decepticons. He heard Ratchet huff out loud at his comment. His thoughts got cut off by Barricade’s flippant reply to Blackout’s rantings.

“One: you’re still not repaired? Stop being such a shorted glitch. And two: what’s your plan?”

“One: I’m not a glitch—have you seen these things he uses? Size of your damn head. Try to cut me open like a tuna can. No way. Two: trying to nav by your comm. ping. If we can overlay those maps to your location maybe we can find, or blow, you an exit.”

‘Does he even know what a medic is?’ Ratchet pinged Optimus again, bemusement belying his tone. Bumblebee butted in, ‘Are you kidding he’s a ‘con! They think everyone is against them, including their own. He’s so paranoid that he probably locks his recharge berth every night, just in case one of the others wants to get friendly.’ Ratchet smirked at this comment, Optimus managed to keep a straight face. ‘Bumblebee, views like that don’t help our situation.’ He rebuked him mildly. Bumblebee looked at him with mock defiance. ‘Don’t see you arguing the point.’ Ratchet cuffed the yellow Autobot across the shoulder for his flippancy; he whined and rubbed it frowning at the medic who didn’t even flinch from his glare. They continued to listen in on the conversation at a loss as to how to intervene.

“One: good to know it’s just you being a chickenshit baby glitchling and not some idiot warrior code ‘must tolerate pain’ thing that’s standing between you and repairs, and two: not a half-bad plan.”

‘Hey the ‘con actually came up with a plan! I may offline in shock.’ Bumblebee was being deliberately cocky as he listened to the mechs chatter inanely to themselves. ‘Bumblebee!’ Optimus shook his head gently. Bumblebee ducked his head, hiding his grin as Ratchet interrupted. ‘At least Barricade is seeing his petulant attitude towards me for what it is.’ He mused smugly. Optimus gestured towards them both, slightly frustrated and bemused at the situation. Ratchet shrugged. ‘What someone had to tell the ‘con the truth. Better it come them, than us.’

“One: smile when you say that, and two: great. Where the frag are you?”

“One: I always smile when I think of you in pain, and two: did you hear an explosion about fifty kliks ago? That was McScreamy blasting through a wall. With Prowl aiming.”

“One: Stop flirting with me—you know how shy I am, and two: hope you got optical scans of that. I want a copy.”

‘I heard that explosion; it’s about 30 meters over that ridge behind us.’ Bumblebee gestured in the direction. He glanced at Ratchet questioningly. ‘Are they actually flirting with each other?’ Ratchet shrugged now smirking at the ‘bot’s innocent, confused question. ‘Who knows Bee? They are ‘cons after all, the thrill of actual battle and war may just not be quite enough for them.’ He replied sarcastically. Optimus clearly amused himself, reprimanded them both. ‘You two are not helping.’

‘Looks like they’re getting all cozy without our help Optimus.’ Ratchet grinned as Bumblebee sniggered, ducking behind his back to hide his amusement from the distracted Blackout. Optimus sighed and brought his hand up to his face. Shaking his head into his palm. He glanced up as Blackout finished the conversation.

‘Good thing we’re not, if Blackout’s reluctance to get repaired is anything to go by, he might start shrieking like a sparkling if we had to help them get all cozy as well.’ It took all of Bumblebee’s effort’s not to burst out laughing as Optimus joked, his expression perfectly dead pan. Ratchet was all but trembling with barely controlled laughter. Blackout looked up at the Autobots. Bumblebee pointed, signaling he’d heard the explosion. “Got your vector,” he said into the comm.

“Fantabulous. You get us out of here and I’ll give you full audio and visual. Barricade out.”

Blackout turned and found all three ‘bots looking at him, Optimus was perfectly stoic as usual; the other two had weird expressions on their faces. Bumblebee was trying and failing to look far too serious.

“What, what the frag are you all staring at?”

Yikes! Longish section for your weekend reading! Thanks to Carriemus for posting Tuesday's update. Someone (cough gasp me) lost her flash drive for a few hours!


*****
Inside:

Ironhide limped some way in front of Barricade. Prowl was in no mood for talking after their little joke and neither was Starscream. He observed the forced distance they had put between each other. Prowl was walking ahead of the jet, with the jet’s hand on his arm keeping him almost at arm length. This amused Ironhide. He’d been kind of surprised that the jet had covered Prowl, even if it was sheer instinct. Not quite as self-serving as he’d thought. He slowed slightly, noticing that Barricade had fallen behind. Idly he tried to engage him for no other reason than he hated tense silences.

“Looks like those two are as uptight as each other.” He mused absently, Barricade merely grunted in response. Ironhide glanced at him, surprised he hadn’t come back with some witty retort. Barricade’s head was lowered; he was staring at the floor ahead of him, his optics not really focusing on anyone or anything. Ironhide frowned. “Barricade, are you even listening?”

Nadya chuckled. “I don’t think he’s ignoring you; he may have just been irritated into a partial shut down by Stokes’s engineering questions.” Ironhide glanced at Stokes, who had draped around the ‘con’s neck, his arms flopping at every stride the bot took.

“Uh, how irritated? Did he…?”

“No!” She laughed again. “He probably wanted to but he just ignored him instead and then went completely quiet; been like this for around five minutes. Maybe I should tell him that Stokes has fallen asleep.”

“Why don’t you?”

She shrugged. “It’s too much fun to watch Barricade be all uncomfortable.” Ironhide couldn’t help but smirk at the woman’s fearless audacity. Irritating a ‘con wasn’t a good idea, even a small one not known for his fight like Barricade.

The tunnel opened up into another cavern smaller this time. The rock had a smoothness to it, as if it had been carved by water. Glancing round the cave, Ironhide noticed the only other tunnel was a few meters above Starscream’s head. Him being the tallest, at over 31 feet. That was pretty damn high. He looked around at the others as they milled around absently. Barricade still off with the fairies. He’d come to a stop, but was still looking blankly at the ground, smiling. These ‘cons were crazy. This was proof.

“Prowl, looks like we have a problem.” He pointed to the tunnel. Prowl followed his gaze; he watched his shoulders slump slightly as he realized the predicament. Not another obstacle.

“What. What is the problem?” Starscream had sat on a flat piece of rock, his optics scanning the cave uselessly. Dead End spoke up. “Map says the next tunnel is over 40 feet above us. We’ll have to climb.” He tilted back almost far enough to fall over, trying to see into the darkness above.

“I can’t fraggin’ climb, you dumb ‘con.” Ironhide swore impatiently.

“Oh yes, Autobot: Dead End has specifically arranged this for your inconvenience. He has that kind of ability,” Starscream snarled.

“The humans would also have a hard time. We’ll all have rusted by the time they make it up there,” Ironhide added sullenly.

“Thanks for the faith, Ironhide.” Nadya retorted. “It’s heartwarming to know you care,” she added sarcastically.

Prowl scanned the cave, scouting the area leaving Starscream perched on the rock. “There doesn’t seem to be any other way up.” He made his way back to the small group. Nadya was fidgeting on Barricade’s shoulder, attempting to climb off his frame. She stretched one foot downwards, trying to reach the top of one of his arm’s armor plates.

“Barricade, could you put me down please?”

Prowl glanced at Barricade who appeared dazed. “Barricade?” He asked. Ironhide grunted, “He’s been like that minutes now.” They all stared at him incredulously and at once yelled at him.

“BARRICADE!”

Prowl felt his patience wearing thin. Reaching out he gently tried to lift Nadya from Barricade’s shoulder, a silver talon gripped his wrist suddenly actually making him jump a little. Barricade glared at him.

“What are you doing?” He growled suspiciously. Prowl glared back at him.

“Glad you could join us ‘con.” Ironhide grumbled. “Go somewhere nice?”

“Anywhere is better than being here with you, Autobot.”

Ironhide growled threateningly, his cannon still charged. Prowl withdrew his arm. “What was wrong with you?”

“The list of what is wrong with Barricade is too long for the humans’ oxygen supply,” Starscream said. “But specifically, he was on subvoc to the surface. Even I could tell that much,” he finished smugly.

“Usually one doesn’t daydream when on subvoc.” Prowl replied still staring at Barricade questioningly.

“You do not have our kind of conversations.” The jet grinned. Barricade grinned back. “Blackout is still online, I take it?”

“Online and avoiding repairs. Again. Still. Lost track.”

“You could have told us you were in contact,” Prowl said, accusingly. He hated being left out of the loop. Was he in charge, or not? Bad enough Starscream didn’t like his leadership—at least the jet was overt about it. Last thing he needed was this ‘con to start his own passive-aggressive command bid.

“Couldn’t speak out loud. No fun if you find out my plans to offline all of you when you weren’t looking,” he answered dryly, smirking slightly at the frowning tactician.

“Can I interrupt, boys? Barricade, let me down.”

“Magic word?”

“Put her down, ‘con, or the magic word will be ‘pulse cannon’,” Ironhide snapped.

“Fine.” Barricade lifted the woman and placed her gently on the floor. Ironhide raised his brow at the Decepticon’s movements he was almost as gentle with the humans as Prime was, either that or he really didn’t like touching her. Ironhide decided to poke him about it later. If the ‘con was afraid of humans….

Barricade righted himself, not noticing Stokes’s still limp body draped around his neck like a silvery boa, and glanced around the cavern.

“See I missed nothing.” He said with a feigned cheerfulness. All the other ‘bots groaned with mild frustration. Ironhide sat heavily on the rock beside Starscream. His leg which was leaking energon badly was starting to bother him. He elevated it, gingerly. Starscream tentatively reached out assuming it was Prowl. “Get your claws off me, ‘con. I’m not your guide.”

Starscream snapped his hands back sharply. “I would not touch you even if you were.”

Ironhide chuckled darkly. “Won’t Prowl be just flattered that you’re so picky.” Starscream growled quietly, clicking the barbs on the backs of his hands, nervously.

Dead End squealed excitedly. “I didn’t know they could do that!”

They all followed his erratic pointing. Nadya was already half way up the rock face having procured a rope and climbing axe from her back pack she was nimbly scaling the rock face with surprising ease, considering she was in a space suit. Granted not the traditional bulky space suit, more of a jump suit really but not ideal for climbing.

“Nadya, what are you doing?” Prowl inquired with obvious irritation and concern for her safety. She didn’t turn to answer him, continuing her climb. “Finding a way out while you ladies bicker. Don’t worry this slow, annoying human will come back and save you eezveeneetyeh ossli.” She grinned to herself as she heard Ironhide mutter to Prowl. “What did she just call us?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Barricade muttered. “Slaggin’ human females. Serve her right when she falls.” He crossed over to Starscream, taking one of the jet’s hands. “Come on, princess.”

“Where are we going?” The jet stood uneasily, testing the ground in front of him with his toes as Barricade pulled him forward.

“Going to show these idiots how it’s done. ‘Less you’d rather the female succeed?”

“I cannot fly, Barricade. As you have told me. Repeatedly.”

“Don’t have to fly. Just have to stand still. Can manage that, right?”

“I do not need your condescension, Barricade,” the jet muttered. “I am blind. Not stupid.”

“Okay, fine. Bitch about it later. Raise your arms.”

“Raise my--? Why?” The jet obediently lifted his arms over his head.

“What do you feel?”

“Now you inquire after my feelings? I feel like an idiot.”

“I meant feel with your hands.” Ironhide snickered, surreptitiously pinching down on his leaking energon tube. Prowl observed quietly, his arms over his chest.

“There is a brief vertical, followed by a horizontal floor off to the right.” He tapped the stone with one hand.

“Fine. Now, lock down for me.”

“Lock down? Why?”

“Stop asking so many questions.”

“I would if you stopped making ridiculous demands!” Nonetheless, the jet locked his joints into position.

“Primus,” Ironhide observed. “Worse than the jet and you.”

Prowl frowned, then smiled, faintly.

“I hate this already, Barricade,” Starscream muttered.

“I hated this long before that.” Barricade circled around the jet, looking at him evaluatively. “You’re about to hate it a whole lot more.” He reached up, and wrapped his hand around the long strut that marked the side of the jet’s torso, heaving himself up so that his feet rested on the jet’s heel-joint. His other hand was already reaching up for one of the ailerons. The jet shrieked in outrage. “Get off of me! I am not a ladder! You are not permitted to climb me! I am your superior!”

The jet’s noise woke Stokes, who saw that he was tilting and about ten feet higher from the ground than earlier, he clutched at any handhold he could find on Barricade’s shoulder.

“Stay locked,” Barricade said, halfway between a threat and an entreaty. “Almost there.” He crawled his way onto the jet’s shoulders, his compensating gyros whirling to keep his balance. He reached over and grabbed a handhold of the jet’s chain gun. One of the barrels snapped off in his hand. “Oops,” he said, “Sorry about that.”

“Not half as sorry as you are going to be, Barricade,” the jet hissed. “That was painful.”

“Oh, come on,” Barricade said, repositioning his hands, “You warriors are into that kind of thing, right?”

“One day I will give you advanced instruction as to what I am ‘in to’—oof!” Barricade’s heel plate struck the side of the jet’s face as the smaller bot pulled himself onto the ledge.

Barricade looked around. “Tunnel continues this way. Drilled. This on your map, Dead End?” he called down.

“Yep!” The red bot was already at Starscream’s feet, readying himself.

The jet unlocked his joints and stood up. “A question, before we all proceed to humiliate the jet. When you have all climbed up…ME…to safety, how will I get out of here?”
Prowl came forward. “We can pull you up. Once we’re all up there.”

“That’s going to be difficult if he doesn’t want to touch us filthy Autobots.” Ironhide grumbled sarcastically, wincing as he tried to put weight on his severely damaged leg. He was starting to feel weak from the energon leak, he was praying to Primus he didn’t off line or stasis lock in front of the damn ‘cons. He glanced up the rock face: impressively the human female was already three quarters of the way up, she latched herself to the rock and swung across to grab a ledge and hoist herself toward the ledge where Barricade was watching.

‘Come on, Starscream,’ Barricade subvoc’d to him. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘I am not speaking to you,’ the jet said, petulant.

‘We’ll get you up. Or I’ll stay with you. Won’t leave you alone.’

The jet’s voice trembled, even on subvoc. ‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

“Fine,” the jet said. Dead End clambered up eagerly. Prowl followed more slowly, trying not to injure the jet.

“That is everyone,” Starscream said. “Now, assist me.”

“Forgetting Ironhide.”

“I am endeavoring to.”

Barricade and Prowl sighed. “Gonna have to lift him up.”

“Oh, disgusting. You are fortunate you did not mention this part of our arrangement beforehand.”

“Just do it,” Prowl sighed, frustrated.

Barricade shot him an exasperated look. Damn Autobot. He’d told him how to handle the jet. Didn’t listen. He bent over the lip. “Starscream, please. You’re the only one who can do this. We need your help.” The jet frowned, but bent down to reach to where he thought the Autobot was. “Just think how much Ironhide will hate it,” Barricade teased.

“That,” the jet retorted, “is extremely minimal compensation.”

“Ok, so Prowl, when Prime asked how I was off lined you can tell him it was your brilliant plan to get me lifted up a cliff face by Starscream,” he growled as Starscream’s claws gripped his waist reluctantly.

“If you do not stop squirming I might not be able to resist the temptation of dropping you.” Starscream muttered. He heaved the heavy Autobot up the cliff face, luckily for Starscream he could not see Ironhide’s limp leg almost kick him in the face as he tried to scramble up the ledge. Barricade was the first to grab his arm.

“Could throw you back down,” he teased. Ironhide managed to hoist himself up further and grab onto Barricade’s shoulder, making the smaller mech brace himself and grunt under the strain.

“Could take you with me.” Ironhide growled a smirk on his face. Prowl lifted his shoulders and hauled him over the ledge. Ironhide’s leg scraped against the lip of rock; he cried out in pain as his energon line was snagged again leaving a trail of blue fluid on the dark rock.

“What? Did he fall?” Starscream inquired almost too eagerly.

“No such luck.” Barricade smirked as Ironhide glared at him with tired loathing.

In the meantime the agile astronaut had expertly lifted herself over the ledge and had to avoid getting knocked back down by the flailing legs of Ironhide as they stumbled back into the tunnel. She had barely even broken a sweat.

Stokes grinned at Nadya. “See you took the hard way up. Me, I did the easy way.” He gave an affectionate punch to Barricade’s shoulder, as the bot bent over to reach down and help haul up Ironhide. The Decepticon glared at him. “Can take the easy way down, too, you know.”

“He just doesn’t want to admit he’s impressed.” Stokes’ winked at Nadya who frowned at him slightly. Barricade growled softly. “Not that easily impressed, human.”

Nadya sighed as Barricade scowled at her and quickly changed the subject, choosing instead to dig at the injured Ironhide. “So who’s holding who up now, Ironhide?” She grinned at him her hands on her hips. Ironhide stared at her before glancing at Prowl. “Can we just throw her back down?” Prowl rolled his optics. “Ironhide,” he warned.

“What? She can climb the frag back up. Let’s see how well she does with a broken leg,” he muttered more to himself than anyone. Barricade caught on to his mood.

“Unrest among the allies? I thought you bots never disagreed on anything.”

“Yeah, well at least I’m not afraid of touching them,” Ironhide retorted.

Barricade was taken aback. “As usual, Autobot. you’re mistaken.” His tone was lower, more threatening this time. He glared at Ironhide, who grinned seeing that he’d touched a nerve.

Prowl leaned over the side to the nervously waiting seeker. “We’re ready for you, Starscream.”

The jet placed both of his hands on the rim of the tunnel’s floor. He heaved himself up, but the lip of the tunnel crumbled. He fell, hard. ‘Barricade!’ he subvoc’d, panicked. Everyone scrambled back from the ledge. Nadya dropped sharply off the edge in front of Stokes who wasn’t fast enough to grab her. She gasped as all the air was knocked out of her lungs by the rope still fastened around her waist. It jolted against the axe jammed into the rock face, slamming her into the rock. She hung there for a moment staring at the ground, her heart pounding. She felt dizzy from the shock of almost falling to her death. She heard her name being called as a tug on the rope pulled her back to the ledge. Barricade lifted her gently and placed her in the tunnel besides Prowl, with a pointed look at Ironhide. See? Not afraid of touching them.

Prowl stood up from where he’d crouched, protecting Stokes. “That’s not going to work.”

“I say we just leave him,” Ironhide muttered.

Barricade thrust the Autobot against the wall of the cave. “He could have left you. He comes.” His eyes glinted dangerously.

Prowl parted them. Barricade backed off at Prowl’s touch, controlling his irritation while Prowl faced Ironhide. He managed to restrain Ironhide’s initial instinct to attack, but was too slight a mech to stop the angry, sturdier weapons-master from shoving him back. He almost teetered off the ledge, spinning only to land on Barricade who fell onto his back with a growl. Ironhide stumbled as the force of his retaliation forced him to put weight onto his injured leg, which collapsed underneath him bringing him to his knees. Prowl scrambled up quickly muttering an apology and helped Barricade to his feet.

“New plan,” Barricade said, shoving Prowl away from him. He glared at the others. They didn’t want to help? Fine. “You do have thrust, right?”

“You have told me that I cannot fly.” Starscream’s voice from the cave sounded thin.

“Come on. I’ve seen you. You can hover, can’t you? Bet you can even do that blind?”

“I suppose.”

“Hover and I’ll get you.”

The jet fired his turbines. The cave below lit up with the ignition, the sound roaring an echo through the tunnel. The astronauts covered their helmets’ audio pickups. Slowly, the jet rose into view, his hands pawing the air, trying to find the cave. “Here,” Barricade shouted. He reached out, balancing on a thrust of crumbled floor. A long agonizing moment as the jet revolved, slowly, hands probing out. Then, Barricade managed to slap the jet’s wrist. “That’s me!” he yelled.

The jet adjusted his thrusters and pushed slowly into the tunnel, crawling with his hands along the floor until he could no longer hear the echo of his turbines over the edge. Accelerating a little too hard he shot away from Barricade’s grasp and landed with a crash of metal on top of Ironhide who yelped loudly once again in pain as Starscream’s legs kicked his lower body. Summoning the last of his fading strength Ironhide shoved him off onto the tunnel floor. They both collapsed onto their backs, side by side groaning with the shock, Starscream was shaking. “I hate not seeing,” he muttered.

Very, very funny! Starscream's situation had me laughing the whole time. Also, Barricade's fear of humans is interesting, and Dead End's unfair treatment just makes me want to laugh out loud! Every time he gets some self confindence, Starscream tells Barricader to tear it down!

Great story, can't wait for the next update.

Here is the week's first update.

Surface:

“Optimus to Sideswipe, can you read me?”

“Sideswipe here static… read you, are you … unintelligible… anyone hurt?”

“Sideswipe, we can barely read you, move to a closer orbit.”

After a long moment: “Better?”

“Much. We’re all right down here--couple of injuries, nothing too severe.” Behind Optimus, Blackout snorted. “We have a situation: some of our mechs, including the humans, are trapped beneath the surface of the moon. I need you to use the ship’s scanners to do a geophysical analysis of the tunnels that they’re trapped in.”

“On it. Prime, Soundwave hasn’t budged since you left. He’s just sitting there. How do you want me to proceed?” Optimus cast a glance at Blackout who shrugged. “Don’t look at me,” the copter said, “I expected him to run to Megatron as soon as he lost contact with us.”

“Can’t you contact him?”

“Barricade has the boosted comm. And in case you forgot, he’s indisposed.”

“Sideswipe, contact Soundwave. Let him know of the situation.”

“Prime, what’s going on?” Sideswipe sounded distinctly unhappy.

“We are cooperating with the Decepticons; we have no choice if we want to get everyone out alive. Contact Soundwave to see if he can help. Tell him to contact me if he doesn’t believe you. I will be able to put Blackout on comm. Let me know when you have those maps. Prime out.”

“Now what?” Ratchet asked.

“We follow the breadcrumbs.” Blackout answered.

“Breadcrumbs?”

“The comm. ping. Do you need everything explained to you?” Blackout half-shuffled, half-limped away from the Autobots.

“I thought you said you couldn’t use it to track them?” Optimus asked quietly.

“I can get an approximate fix on their vector based on where the dumb yellow one says he heard the explosion. We know the basic way, I can tell by comm. lag if we’re getting hotter or colder.” Bumblebee emitted an electronic whine, and gestured at Optimus. “What is his problem now?” Blackout grumbled.

“He does not like being referred to as the ‘dumb yellow one’.”

“Like I give a frag what he likes. Sure he’s got some great terms of endearment for me.” He shot a hateful glare at the young bot, who suddenly clamped up.

“His name is Bumblebee.” Optimus continued mildly, his gaze was stern but not commanding. Blackout caught his gaze, his unspoken request. He growled impatiently.

“Call him that when he tells me that himself,” the copter snarled. “Now are we going to stand around all day, or actually get something constructive done?” He continued walking, his leg servos beginning to whine under the coolant strain. His systems had started flashing up warning signs, which he promptly ignored. The moon’s cold atmosphere, he figured, would sink most of the heat and prevent a heat-seize.

Optimus appeared by his side, startling him a little, despite his injuries, he could move pretty damn quick. Either that or his proximity sensors were starting to fail. Either way, unhappy-making.

“I wish you’d let Ratchet look at you, Blackout.” His tone was sympathetic, which annoyed Blackout even more. He did not need pity from Prime or anyone.

“Really wish you’d self-offline for me, if we’re going to swap favors, Autobot.” He shot a look back at Ratchet, who met his eye evenly. “Don’t need him to look at me, touch me or come anywhere near me with those freaky tools of death he wields.”

“Now you’re just being insulting.”

“What and I wasn’t before? Gonna have to try harder.” He pushed ahead of Optimus for a few strides, trying to ignore the new alarm yellow-lighting his display. Ratchet snarled in irritation. Keeping his distance.

“Please Blackout, before you go into stasis lock.”

He looked back at Optimus who was looking at him intently now. “Those puppy dog eyes don’t work on Decepticons, Prime. I will call your mute droneling by its name but don’t push your luck.” He muttered. Optimus stopped suddenly, hitting his comm. in reply to a buzz.

“Sideswipe here, can you read me? I have someone who wishes speak with you.”

“Put Soundwave on.” Optimus answered.

“State the condition of the Decepticon force on the planet.” Soundwave’s monotone rumbled through the comm. Blackout out sniggered; he of all mechs would hate being left out of the loop, he who usually was privy to all information. “Didn’t know you cared, Soundwave. Surprised you haven’t called Megatron.”

“Blackout, Megatron’s presence would be inadvisable considering the circumstances. He would offline all of you for even considering cooperating with the enemy.”

“Had no choice. Death or dishonor. Not that you’d know anything about either.”

“I will contact him only when I have no choice, Blackout,” Soundwave replied, smoothly. “What is your status?”

“Functioning.” He ignored Bumblebee’s snort.

“The rest?”

“Trapped: Starscream’s blind, Barricade is functional though he’s got some injuries. Along with Prowl and Ironhide and the two humans.”

“Understood, will monitor your progress. Soundwave out.”

“Well, thanks, I feel much better now,” Blackout muttered at Optimus’s dead comm.

Ratchet was surprised. “Where was all your ridiculous banter that time?” Blackout huffed. “Soundwave doesn’t do ridiculous. Need a sense of humor for that. Why I don’t try it with you, either.”

“I see. Prime, does Sideswipe have the maps?”

Optimus nodded his optics slightly glazed over. “He’s compressing them and sending them via the comm. Carrier signal.” His optics brightened. “All right, we have a map of the tunnel network, now we need to figure out where they’re going.”

His pressed something on the side of his head and a 3D holographic image of the tunnel network appeared in front of them beamed from his optics. Blackout took a step back as he analyzed the image. He pointed.

“The explosion was there, we were here--need to head that way.” He ran his finger along the image. It faded as Optimus nodded. They moved out, Bumblebee went ahead keeping his distance from Blackout. Ratchet frowned as both Blackout and Optimus struggled to walk with any kind of ease. Blackout stumbled as one of his legs gave out a little; Optimus caught his arm as he fell into him. Righting himself, he gave a short nod to Optimus who then released his arm. Ratchet snorted derisively as he sauntered past them.

“You two make a right fraggin’ pair. Both as bad each other. I hope you both fall on your afts. Will teach you a damn lesson in humility.”

Blackout’s optics widened at the medic’s tone. This, he decided, was why he didn’t like medic bots. That kind of attitude he was going to let near him while sensor blocked? No. Fraggin’. Way. Casting a look at Optimus he noticed he was just as surprised. “What’s he pissed at you for?”

“I have no idea.” Optimus answered wearily.

‘What’s bothering you Ratchet?’ Bumblebee asked innocently.

‘Sick of the ‘con, insulting me.’

‘When did he insult you? I thought he was just doing that to me.’

Ratchet grunted. ‘He’s insulting what I do, Bee.’ Bumblebee nodded, he knew Ratchet took pride in his work as a medic. ‘Why you angry at Optimus?’ Bumblebee glanced at him questioningly. Ratchet was stony faced as he answered out loud.

“Because that fraggin’ stubborn leader of ours won’t let me offline the damn ‘con so I can do my job. Which would 1. Stop him whining so much and 2. Allow me to concentrate on his injuries so he doesn’t go into stasis lock as well.” Bumblebee smirked at the medic’s anger. Optimus actually looked contrite behind him.

“Ratchet, you were the one who said you couldn’t force him.”

“Humph, you’re lucky I don’t relieve you of your command under medical grounds and offline the both of you.” He grumbled.

Blackout’s capacitor ticked. The only word he heard from the whole exchange was ‘offline.’ Repeatedly. He’d been right: damn medic was going to offline him. Blackout frowned. “He can’t do that can he?” Optimus glanced down in amusement at the ‘cons apparent fear of the irate medic. “No… he wouldn’t….”

“Like frag I won’t! You just keep leaking energon, both of you; you’ll soon find out what I will and won’t do.”

“And you want HIM to look at me?” Blackout’s optics were wide with horror and disbelief.

Optimus merely chuckled, surprising the ‘con. “His bark is much worse than his bite.”

“He keeps threatening to offline you? You tolerate that?” His visual display lurched. He grabbed for a projecting boulder to steady himself, hoping the damn ‘bots didn’t notice. Of course, the yellow idiot—what was his name? Bumblebore? Tweedlebee?—snickered mechanically. Saw the whole thing.

“Better than your insubordination,” Ratchet said. “At least I have the good of the team at heart.”

Optimus stopped, gesturing impatiently for the bickering to stop. “We’ve arrived at the location of the explosion. We need to contact Barricade find out where they headed. Blackout, would you mind?”

Blackout did mind, but he desperately wanted to hear a friendly vocalizer just now. And he had no energy left to argue. He hit Barricade’s comm. tiredly.

“Barricade, these morons up here miss your melodious voice.” His voice sounded thin, even to himself.

“On,” Barricade replied. “Tell them the feeling’s not mutual.”

Blackout’s vision flickered, breaking into horizontal stripes. He sat down, hard, on the surface. “Where are you?”

“Somewhere beneath the surface of this fraggin’ rock. Where else?” A moment later, “You don’t sound so good. Those damn Autobots do something to you?”

“What’s your status?” Optimus asked patiently, his supraorbital plating raising in concern as the copter gathered his knee joints to his chest, like he was trying to curl back into a protoform.

“Still trapped, but in new and exciting ways. Your trigger-happy friend is not doing well, I am pleased to report. What’s wrong with Blackout?”

“Know that feeling.” Blackout mumbled. His head dropped to his knees. He jerked it back, wincing as it struck his rotor mount. He made a small whine in the back of his throat.

“Slag it! Blackout!” Barricade’s voice held a note of something that startled even Ratchet. “You spark-cursed stupid glitchling. Talk to me.”

“’m fine,” Blackout said, blurrily. He tried to focus on Ratchet, to keep him away. Needed to keep the medic away. Medic would offline him. Said it himself. And Barricade and Starscream would be trapped. Or worse, by the other Autobots. Had to stay online. Had to pull himself together.

“What’s wrong with him?” Barricade nearly yelled. “Listen, you bloody stupid Autobots, if you’re responsible for this….”

“We didn’t do anything,” Optimus said. “He has still refused repairs.”

“Well, fraggin’ repair him, you glitch-headed idiot! You outnumber him by how many? Blackout. You with me?”

“Told you, I’m fi--…. They….maps….or…. Contacted Soundwa—“Blackout’s eyes spiraled in, the red lenses irising in to blankness. He fell back on his rotors, hard enough that even Bumblebee winced.

I think sometimes I overdo the 'whiny G1' style Starscream, but he's so much fun!!

**********


The comm. suddenly went dead. Barricade tried to buzz Blackout again to no avail. Again. Silence. Priority cut-through. Nothing.

“Frag,” he swore. Not good enough. He switched to Low Cybertronian, tearing off a string of curses so foul even Ironhide stepped away.

“Impressive,” Starscream said. “Is this merely a general commentary on our plight or has something especially noteworthy occurred?”

“Fraggin’ Blackout,” he spat.

“Ah,” the jet said.

Prowl and Ironhide exchanged confused looks. “Have you been speaking with the surface again?” Prowl asked.

“Other way around,” he snapped. “Your damn Prime put Blackout on so I could hear them offline him.” Starscream hissed, flexing his talons. “Is this how you Autobots do it?”

Ironhide laughed. “Right. You ‘cons are crazy-paranoid, you know that? You should listen to yourselves.”

“Crazy-paranoid’s how I survive,” Barricade muttered.

“How we survive,” Starscream echoed, his claws, curving dangerously around Prowl in an obvious threat. Prowl knew better than to move, but he gathered himself. If need be, he could extricate himself. But tension was a little too high right now—last thing he wanted to do was add to it. “Barricade,” Prowl said, keeping his tone soft, diplomatic, “What did you hear from the surface? Exactly?”

“Comm died. Blackout said something about Soundwave. And maps.”

“None of them can contact Soundwave,” Starscream mused. “His comm. freq cycles too rapidly.”

“He must have contacted them.” The two ‘cons frowned at the implications of that.

“But where is your evidence that the Autobots have offlined Blackout?” Prowl asked. He didn’t believe it for a minute, but right now, he needed the ‘con to start talking sense again.

“Let’s see—they made him comm. me, and then the comm. went dead as he was trying to tell me something. You need help with math?”

“Barricade.” Starscream patted the air toward the smaller ‘con. “It is Blackout.”

Nadya looked between the pair. “What does that mean?” she asked Stokes.

He shrugged. “Could be anything.”

Barricade snarled, but then, “You’re right. Slag it.” He started walking, pushing ahead of the others.

“What’s the matter, Barricade?” Ironhide sneered. “You upset about your boyfriend?”

The smaller bot stopped. “I am upset,” he hissed, “because we have lost surface contact. And all that passes for reasonable conversation down here is you.”

Starscream released his threatening grip on Prowl with another apologetic pat. “If your Autobots had had any part of it…,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Never mind,” Prowl said, tiredly. “Did they say anything else?”

“No,” Barricade spat. “Comm died. With Blackout.”

They walked on in silence for a time. Starscream subvoc’d the smaller Decepticon. ‘Do not be upset. Blackout is well-designed. He will reboot. And then you can kick him into unconsciousness. I shall help.’

‘Like to see how that fraggin’ Autobot would act if one of his own offlined on comm. with him.’

‘I suspect he would not care.’

The smaller bot shrugged eloquently. The humans riding on his shoulders noticed the movement, but didn’t know what to make of it.

Prowl called for a halt.

“What is it now,” Starscream asked, wearily. “What is our next improbably annoying obstacle that will no doubt end in my humiliation and torment? Another climb? Another wall I shall have to be guided to shoot? Perhaps a tunnel so small I must be disassembled and carried through piece by piece?”

“Does he ever stop whining?” Stokes asked.

“No,” Barricade answered. “That’s how we verify he’s still functioning.”

“Just thought we’d take a rest,” Prowl said, looking down the tunnel from which they’d come, seeing Ironhide’s headlamps slowly approaching.

“A rest? I do not need a rest. You Autobots are weak. How you have managed ever to conduct a war with all of these ‘rests’ defies logic.”

“Stow it, Starscream,” Barricade said, lowering himself to the floor. The humans bailed off. He rolled his shoulders to loosen the stiff gyros. Those plates were not meant to be load bearing. “Cannons-for-brains is all gimpy. We’re waiting for him to grace us with his presence.”

“I imagine it will not be worth the wait.” The jet squatted closer to the ground, locking his leg joints out in front of him.

Ironhide limped painfully to the others, too weak to grumble, too close to stasis lock to go any faster. He reached the cavern and paused. Barricade eyed him coldly.

“Glad you could join us.”

“I’m not.” He growled, alarms flashed across his sensor net, the energon leak had become too much. He took a step and wobbled slightly, took another.

Everyone jumped as metal crashed to the ground unceremoniously.

“What has happened?” Starscream shrilled his arms outstretched defensively.

“Ironhide has offlined.”

“Really?”

Prowl growled as he made his way over to the collapsed mech. “Try not to sound too cheerful about it.” He retorted his voice tense. In fact all of him was tense, he would actually crack up if he had to stay down here much longer with the paranoid ‘cons and aggressively irritable Ironhide. Prowl ran his fingers over Ironhide’s unconscious form. He felt internal relief that he wasn’t in stasis lock, yet. Wouldn’t be long though. He re-activated him and attempted to stem the flow of energon from his leg. Noticing a blue puddle beneath the ‘bot he frowned. “You’re leaking.”

“Thanks for stating the obvious, Prowl; it’s good to know you’re on top of your game.” Ironhide’s voice was quiet, low, weak. Barricade hid his surprise at just how weak he sounded before shuttering his optics involuntarily. Prowl pushed Ironhide onto his side. “No you have a secondary leak. From the battle. Chain gun.” He stated plainly.

“Oh a kindly present from Starscream. Might’ve guessed.”

“If it were kindly, I would have shot you in the head and spared all of us the misery of your company.”

“So generous.” Ironhide snarled.

“I do what I can.” Starscream answered sardonically. Prowl ignored them as he patched the wound on Ironhide’s back. He left him on the floor to fix his leg and stood, walking some way into the cavern setting himself slightly apart from the others wearily.

Prowl was the first to notice the tremor in the ground beneath his feet. A slight tremor. Like standing on a launch platform when an intersystem ship launched. Just a tiny vibration, just enough to set his ear finials singing.

He walked back over to the others and looked: Starscream sat quietly—not whining, for a change—doing a manual inspection of his legs and feet. Not heavy enough to make the vibration. His turbines weren’t even spinning. Wasn’t him. Beside him, Barricade leaned against a rock, his head tilted back; eyes solidly shuttered closed, face illuminated harshly from below by his headlamps. Wasn’t him. And it wasn’t Ironhide either, sitting at his feet where he’d tied off the energon line in his leg as best he could. Bad news.

Nadya came over to him, gesturing back at the two Decepticons. “They’re out of it right now,” she grinned. “They were the ones who said they didn’t want a rest.”

“Could kill them right now,” Stokes said. “Wouldn’t even see it coming.”

“One,” Barricade’s voice floated over to them coldly, “I’d like to see you try, plasma bag, and two: go ahead. Don’t even care anymore.”

“Shhh,” Prowl said. He didn’t need any more of this right now. On the brink of a breakdown himself. And…there it was again. A solid tremor. Building this time.

“Starscream,” Barricade said, dully, “Stop cycling your fraggin’ turbines.”

“I am not doing anything with my turbines,” the jet said, offended at the cursing, but confused.

“Shut up. You do it all the time when you’re upset. Probably don’t even notice it. You’re making my aft vibrate.”

“It’s not him,” Prowl said. He circled the chamber warily, trying to find where it was coming from. Not above. So, not anyone trying to drill down and rescue. Sort of below.

The chamber shook, violently. Some stone, dislodged from the ceiling slammed down between them. Nadya and Stokes took cover with Ironhide. Prowl barely managed to throw himself behind a small outcropping before a chunk of rock almost as large as he was landed where he’d just been standing. A sound like thunder—like being under an interplanetary drive on a launch platform—ripped through the room, drowning out anything else.

A moment later, it was still. Frigid blasts of air pushed through new cracks in the tunnel wall, with small hissing sounds. Prowl stood up. “Everyone all right?”

“Fine,” Ironhide said. “Two humans, too.”

“’Cons? Barricade? Starscream?” He flashed his headlamps to discover a new pile of stone right where the jet had been sitting.

Ironhide caught the spot-lit pile. “No great loss there.”

The stones moved, thrown violently off the jet’s broad back. “There is no loss at all, save of my dignity. Once again.” He pulled away, revealing Barricade clutched in one arm. He had thrown himself over the smaller bot when the rocks began falling.

“I am not your slagging teddy bear,” the ‘con muttered.

All surface this time! Is that concern from Barricade?! He he he...

Surface:

Ratchet didn’t need any command, he was by Blackout’s side before Optimus had even realized what had happened. He laid him out flat on the ground gently. It didn’t matter that he was a ‘con, Ratchet’s first duty was to heal and save where he could. Scanning him he frowned. Optimus came to crouch by his side.

“Prognosis, Ratchet?”

“He’s in stasis lock. Frag. Optimus, be somewhere else, let me do my damn job.” He growled impatiently. Optimus nodded and took the hint. Ratchet was a genius at what he did, wouldn’t do any good to be looking over his shoulder. He walked over to Bumblebee who was hovering anxiously. “Bumblebee, are you all right?” He nodded meekly. ‘Didn’t know he was that bad.’ He glanced up at his leader. ‘My fault.’

“Not your fault,” Optimus was touched that the young ‘bot actually now felt compassion for one that he not so long ago would have tried to kill on sight and judging by Blackout’s injuries actually attempted to. “Bumblebee, we all do what we have to do in war. Its times like these that remind us, we’re not so different.” He cast a sad look towards where Blackout was lying with his medic diligently working on him as if he was one of his own.

Optimus’s comm. buzzed. “Prime, you have a problem down there. I am detecting some geological instability coming up from beneath the surface. Soundwave’s scanners are more powerful than ours: he says there are active geysers all over the area in which you’re currently located. Optimus, you’re smack in the middle of a fraggin’ mine field.” Sideswipe finished somberly.

Right on cue Optimus felt the ground shaking. Bumblebee grabbed him as he almost stumbled and fell backwards. The ground cracked beneath them. They shot a look towards Ratchet; there was no way he would leave the injured ‘con now. The ground vibrated hard before the rock erupted with a white flash of steam. It shot up into the atmosphere to incredible heights in a white plume. Bumblebee dove, knocking Optimus to the ground out of the way of the giant geyser shooting from beneath the surface. The sound was thunderous, screeching. After a long moment it faded to a mere whisper, leaving a gaping hole in the ground which then promptly collapsed in on itself.

“Optimus!? Optimus??” Sideswipe’s increasingly frantic voice sounded on his comm. Optimus groaned as he sat up with Bumblebee’s help. His wound was leaking again. Not good. He placed his hand over it to disguise the energon flow from Bumblebee who was too busy looking for Ratchet to notice.

“I’m here, Sideswipe.” His voice was thin, ragged. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Sorry Sir, moon doesn’t come with alarms.” Optimus chuckled then checked himself as the movement sent shivers of pain through his body. “Can you predict when they are to occur and where?”

“I think so, only with Soundwave’s help.” Optimus rolled his optics. Typical. “Do what you can.”

“Optimus, another thing. When the geyser erupts it leaves a temporary tunnel cutting through the surface. It can link the underground caverns with the surface. It could prove useful.”

“Good thinking, Sideswipe. However the tunnel doesn’t seem stable enough to be of much use to mount a rescue.”

“I’ll investigate options. Sideswipe out.”

He turned sharply as he heard Bumblebee’s electronic signal, frantic. He forced himself to stand. He couldn’t see Ratchet. Boulders of rock were being shifted at some pace by Bumblebee, before they moved with a groan. Ratchet pushed the rocks off his back; he was lying flush to the inactive ‘con. His armour was dented and scratched; he’d protected the larger ‘con with his own body.

‘Blackout is not going to be happy about this,’ Optimus mused to himself. “Ratchet?”

“Still functioning.”

“Blackout?”

“Just barely, thankfully none of the fraggin’ rocks hit him.” He continued his work.

Prime approached the limp bot’s head. “Can you activate his comm.?”

“I think so, but why?”

“Need to make sure they’re still alive down there.”

Ratchet tinkered with something and then a loud static buzz filled the air.

“Barricade, can you hear me?”

“Prime? Where’s Blackout? What have you slaggin’, glitching Autobots done to him? And how are you even talking to me? This is a secure freq!”

“Barricade, Ratchet is working on Blackout as we speak, he went into stasis lock.”

“This is your fraggin’ fault, Prime! If you were any sort of real leader, you’d’ve ordered him repaired and we wouldn’t be in this fraggin’ mess!” Barricade was more than a little perturbed from the sounds of it. Optimus frowned impatiently. Ratchet placed a hand on his arm.

‘Just think how you would feel if one of us was trapped up here outnumbered by ‘cons and then we went offline.’ Optimus stared at him. Before turning back to the comm.

“Barricade, calm down, please. I understand how you must be feeling… I…”

“You don’t understand a damn thing, Prime! Got rocks coming down round our afts, fraggin’ geysers trying to crush us and you offlined our only link to the surface. Going to come up there and offline the lot of you,” he snarled. Ratchet made a funny expression. Optimus finally got annoyed.

“Barricade, so help me if you don’t calm down this instant I am going to come down there and forcibly remove that paranoid circuit that you have wound up your aft. You can’t come and offline anyone without our help, so shut the slag up and listen.” Ratchet raised his orbital plating questioningly, amusement flickering across his face at his leader’s rare loss of cool. Optimus frowned, shrugged and shook his head. He continued before Barricade had a chance to recover from the verbal lashing. “Now I need to know your status, there’s been a geyser erupting onto the surface.”

“Functioning,” Barricade answered in a low growl.

“Sideswipe is going to try and predict when and where they are to occur with Soundwave’s help.”

“Soundwave doesn’t help. Period.”

“Things change Barricade, get over it.” A low growl rumbled through the comm. “We will try and give you a head’s up when we know more information.”

“That all?”

“No actually, I have a question.” Ratchet interrupted. “What exactly does ‘offline’ mean to you ‘cons?”

“What the slag do you think it means? You’re the medic! Bad enough I have to put up with your damn leader finally finding his gyros—now I have to give you language lessons?”

“Well to us it means temporarily shut down. Sensor block a mech so they can be operated on.”

“Oh.” The note of surprise was evident in Barricade’s tone. “That’s dumb.”

“I take it, it means something more permanent to you guys huh?”

“Yeah, genius. We call sensor block, ummm, well, let’s see, oh yeah, SENSOR BLOCK. Could see how that’s an alien fraggin’ term for you. So much easier to call it something like death.”

“Would explain why this stubborn Son of Unicron freaked out whenever I came near him.” He spoke more to Optimus now than Barricade. The ‘con beneath him stirred slightly. “He’s coming ‘round.”

“Could do with having your bed side manner realigned, medic.” Barricade replied tersely. “Though I doubt anyone’s willing to get that close to you.”

“Barricade, Ratchet saved Blackout’s life, you could at least be grateful.” Optimus’s tone had softened as he watched Blackout’s optics flicker faintly.

“Grateful? For Blackout? Barely even like him. Just need him right now.”

“Sure, Barricade, I’m certain you don’t care a bit.” Ratchet poked sarcastically. His tone became more professional. “Blackout, speak to me.”

“What the… FRAG! Get off me you crazy slaggin’ ‘bot, you’re not off lining me!” Blackout shrieked as he came to, unable to stand he crawled in an attempt to get away from the bemused ‘bots. His arms flailed in front of him, in a feeble attempt at defense.

“Blackout, stop whining, the ‘bots actually did something useful. Course, it’s only going to be useful ‘til the jet and I can kick your skid plate personally.”

“Barricade?” Blackout glared blearily at Optimus. “You hijacked my comm.? Explains why I thought everyone was yelling at my slaggin’ head.” Optimus shrugged contritely, still vaguely amused at his panic.

“You stasis locked, you slaggin’ whining, glitching idiot mech!” Barricade reeled off a string of abuse at the dazed ‘con. His tone softened a little. “Medic might’ve saved your pathetic spark.”

Blackout stared at Ratchet who was now standing, putting his stash of tools away.

“Still don’t trust him.”

“Wouldn’t either; he’s got anger issues like Megatron. Still need them. Prime?”

“Yes Barricade.”

“Grateful,” he said, grudgingly.

Optimus smirked. “You’re welcome.”

“What are you doing? I don’t need you thanking them for me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Not the point.”

“Shut the slag up, Blackout, and do something useful. Let them know their hired gun is fading fast. Looks close to stasis lock. Humans have half their air supply left. Need to find a way out and soon.”

“Think you just took care of that for me. Comm.’s still wide open.”

“One: you better fraggin’ fix that, and two: good to hear your voice, you stupid moron warrior glitch.”

The comm. went dead. Blackout glanced up at Optimus, who was frowning at Barricade’s report. His systems were not 100% but he was functioning much better. A few systems were still lit on yellow, but nothing was red screening him anymore. The medic wasn’t such a demon after all. His optics glanced down to where Optimus was clutching his side absently. He noted the blue energon that seeped from beneath his hand as he turned to face Ratchet. “We need to get moving. This way.” he commanded.

“Not going to thank me, is he?”

Optimus smiled wryly. “We should count ourselves lucky to get one ‘con to thank us, Ratchet.”

Bee bobbed up to Blackout, who lumbered steadily to the east, one hand near his audio receptor to test the distance ping. “What do you want?” Blackout narrowed his optics at the yellow bot. Bumblebee felt a little touched—the stupid ‘cons were still stupid, but something sincere and real held Barricade and Blackout together. He respected that. He made a sympathetic whine, patting the larger bot’s arm. Blackout jerked away. “Don’t touch me,” he said, but his voice wasn’t as venomous as before. He walked on for a few more strides, trying to ignore the yellow bot bouncing along beside him. “Hey,” he said, finally. “Tell your freaky medic bot of death that your fearless leader’s about to drop.” Bumblebee bleeped curiously. “Leak. Chest. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me. ‘Cause I’d totally make this up.”

The yellow Autobot looked over his shoulder at Prime. He did seem to be walking…slower. As if his left side were slightly numbed and unresponsive. He frowned, and dropped back to Ratchet.

“Good,” the copter muttered after him. “Don’t want the slaggin’ ‘bot to slow us down.”

have i chimmed in on how much i like this story lately?

i really really like it.

“I henceforth claim the right above all others to complain,” Starscream announced. “I suspect that if humiliating me were not the primary objective here, some other solution would have been found to transport this disgusting Autobot.”

“Don’t think I’m enjoying it either,” Ironhide snarled, slung between the jet’s two engines with the remains of the humans’ climbing ropes.

“Starscream, you’re the only one big enough to do it,” Prowl said. “Ironhide is far too big for Barricade to manage.”

“Huh?” Barricade said, looking up.

“What did the surface have to say this time?” Starscream asked. “I am wracked with envy that I have no one to talk to save these cursed Autobots. Who are heavy and poorly balanced.” He jostled his jets. The Autobot kicked back with his good leg, ringing off one engine’s housing.

Prowl frowned. “You were in contact with the surface again? And you didn’t tell us?” This was getting frustrating. How many times did he have to tell the ‘cons about this? He could sure use some of Prime’s calm advice right about now.

“They were in contact with me,” Barricade said. “Had no choice. They hijacked Blackout’s comm.”

“Prime wouldn’t do that.” Ironhide said.

“He did. Beginning to think he has a crush on me the way he keeps calling.”

“My sincerest condolences,” Starscream said.

“Blackout?” Prowl asked. “Still offline?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.” Barricade growled. Nadya brushed one of his cheek plates.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” she said.

“He’s fine,” Barricade growled. “The slagging moron.”

“I told you so,” Starscream said. “He is simply too stupid to die.”

“Did they say anything this time?” Prowl had so many questions—so many strategies he wanted Prime’s feedback on. He was getting frustrated that he couldn’t seem to get answers to any of them. Couldn’t even get a word in.

“Helpful? No. Funny, yes. Get this: they think they can collaborate with Soundwave to help predict when the next geyser will try to drop a few megatons of moon on our crankcases.”

Starscream laughed. Not a small chortle like usual, but a long, deep, almost hysterically edged sound. He managed to recover himself after a long moment. “These Autobots are clearly delusional.”

“Tried to tell them, but you know how Autobots are. They’re right, no question.”

“You know, we’re right here.”

“Unfortunately,” Starscream snapped. “It is rather difficult to forget with you hauling on my engine mounts.”

“Hey, isn’t this Soundwave guy supposed to be on your side?” Stokes asked.

“There is a difference between fighting under the same insignia and caring if we die.”

“Not for us,” Ironhide said, smugly.

“Another Autobot obligation that serves no useful purpose. Such as allying yourself with these pathetic creatures,” Starscream gestured toward Barricade’s voice, where the humans were.

Prowl snapped. “Would all of you stop it? There’s plenty of time for resuming the war after we’re on the surface.”

“And can kill each other without caving the roof in on ourselves,” Barricade added, warningly. He’d seen Ironhide move to charge his pulse cannon.

“Come on,” Stokes said, “You don’t really hate us, do you?”

“Sure do.” Barricade said, cheerfully. “Especially how you’re straining my medial shoulder assembly.”

The ground shook ominously underfoot. The jet squeaked, staring uselessly toward the ceiling. The ground heaved. Starscream crouched to all fours, trying to keep his orientation using all of his limbs. Ironhide bumped awkwardly against his verniers. Prowl dropped into a low crouch. Barricade spun to his right, his hand coming up to shield Nadya on his shoulder. “Hey!” Stokes shouted, when the quake stopped and Barricade straightened up. “Shut up, fleshbag,” Barricade snarled. “My right side has sensitive comm. nodes. That’s all.” He looked around. All of them were staring at him, even Ironhide, peeking around the jet’s rib strut. “That’s all!” he snarled.

“Thank you,” Nadya said.

“Shut up. Just didn’t feel like picking squishy bits out of my secure signal amp for the next decacycle.”

“What about me? I could have squished into something too, you know,” Stokes joked.

“You, I would leave. You simply could not smell any worse rotting into my hydraulics than you do now.”

“Barricade,” Starscream said, regaining his feet, “Am I to infer that you have just protected one of the humans?”

“By accident!” He looked around wildly. Even Prowl was having a hard time stifling a laugh. “All right, that’s it. I’m done.” He crouched to the ground. “Fleshbags, get the slag off me. Let Mr. High and Mighty Prowl carry you. Or the fraggin’ jet, who apparently likes to hug things—really, Starscream, that’s a sickness, you know, and you should get your programming looked at and if you touch me again I swear I will not be responsible for my actions—or, how’s about this, you can walk.”

The astronauts scrambled down off his shoulders. He rolled his gyros showily as he straightened up. “Thank Primus!” he said, “Stupid females. Shouldn’t be allowed into combat. Shouldn’t be allowed into space. Possibly shouldn’t be allowed to talk.” Nadya shot him a dirty look.

Stokes leaned over to Nadya, “He’s got such a crush on you….”

Prowl and Barricade stared each other down. “Fine,” Prowl said. “I’ll take the humans. It’s only fair. You, however, have to lead Starscream.”

“Uhhh, bad idea,” Ironhide muttered. “You sure you want to glue them together like this?”

“You think I’m letting that damn jet paw me some more you’re crazy. Maybe I’ll try to manage Ironhide. Least I know he’d hate it as much as I did.”

“I am targeting something,” Starscream said, blandly. His operational gun aimed at Prowl. “At this point I have no idea whom. Nor do I care to know. Please do not ruin the surprise. If we do not get moving and soon I will have no qualm about firing.”

“Fine,” Barricade said, snatching the jet’s right hand. “See you’re already picking up on Ironhide’s diplomatic skills.”

“Only, however, I do them better.” His hand curled around Barricade’s. Prowl scooped up Stokes, and extended a hand to Nadya. She shook her head. “I could use a bit of a walk.”

They walked along in sullen silence. Only Dead End seemed completely untouched by the sour mood. He bounced ahead, checking the map with local features. “Should be,” he said, excitedly, “a ground exit coming up.” The pace picked up. And then….

“Dead End, I suspect that even blind, I would navigate better than you have managed,” Starscream said, stumbling into a pile of rubble.”

“It’s not his fault,” Prowl said. “Another cave in. No telling how far away the actual surface is.”

“SOMETHING is TOUCHING ME!” Starscream shrieked. “Get it off! Get it off!” He looked pointlessly down at his ankle. Barricade sighed.

“It’s the female.”

“Tell her to cease molesting me.”

“Yeah, like she listens to me,” Barricade said. “Get over it. I had two of them crawling all over me.” He scooped her up and deposited her on one of the jet’s ailerons. Nadya squeaked with surprise at the motion. “Here. Get the full experience.”

“We can find another way,” Dead End said, even his perkiness damped a bit. “There’s a turn off a bit back. It’s a bit longer, but it also has a ground exit.” The mood was even less cheerful this time, but it seemed no one had the energy to snipe. For that, at least, Prowl was grateful.

Barricade stiffened. He tapped a node on his neck. “On and hot,” he said.

They heard Blackout’s voice. “Sky-eyes telling us we’re getting a tectonic shift roughly in your area.”

Barricade looked at Prowl, expectantly.

“Optimus can you hear me?”

“Prowl, good to hear your voice. Sorry to cut this short but Soundwave has reported that there will be another geyser eruption in approximately one minute.”

“Noted, are there any further developments on getting us out of here?”

Optimus’s tone changed. “I’m sorry Prowl; we’re doing all we can, hang in there. Optimus out.”

‘Doing all they can, that’s all he had to say.’ Prowl thought dejectedly.

“Great. Now we at least can see it coming.” Barricade said, cutting off comm., trudging forward again, dragging the jet by his hand.

They had no other warning. Unlike before, where the ground shook first, here, it cracked, loudly enough to damp audio processors. A white jet of super cooled gas sliced the party in half. Barricade lunged, as the split tore beneath his feet. He caught the far side, where Prowl hauled him up. Starscream jumped back, blinded, hearing only the noise and feeling the beyond-icy blast near his face. He fell back, rolled, and regained his feet, shaking. “Barricade?” he called out, over the roar of the geyser. “Prowl?” He groped blindly. “Anyone?”

“I’m still here,” Ironhide muttered. He’d tumbled out of the improvised sling, and had managed to pull himself up to his own equally shaky stand, balancing hard on one leg.

“Me too,” said Nadya, clinging desperately to the jet’s neck cables. Somehow she’d managed to stay on—half wedging herself between the jet’s body and his armor plate.

Starscream whipped his hands downward in a gesture of frustration. “I could not be stranded with two more useless creatures.”

“You’re not the picture of handiness yourself,” Ironhide snarled.

“Wait,” Nadya said, “He is. He can get us to the other side.” The ground shook under their feet again. They all jumped. The air hissed with the up thrust of the gas.

“And how do you propose to do that? Shall I make myself a land bridge?”

“You fly.”

“I cannot see. I am equally likely to fly into a wall as anywhere else.” He explored the area with his hands. “Statistically, more likely to fly into a wall. Or the floor. Or the ceiling.” He dropped to his aft, despairing. “And I shall die here. With you.” As if that somehow made it worse.

“Knock it off,” Nadya said, but she didn’t say it harshly. “You turn into a plane, right? Those piloting controls work?”

A look of horror grew on the jet’s face. “I am to let you touch me? FLY me? That is out of the question. I am a Decepticon warrior, not a human taxi.”

The chamber shook. A piece of rock dislodged itself by the jet’s right hip. He flinched. “Rethinking that?” Ironhide goaded. “It’s the only way!” He raised his voice to be heard over the sound of whistling, pressurized gas.

“I am exceedingly tired of hearing that phrase,” Starscream said. “When I rule the Decepticons, I shall reprogram anyone who uses it.” Another tremor.

“Come on,” Nadya said. She remembered Barricade’s muttered advice. Stroke the jet’s ego. “You can do this. Only to get us across. And just think how it will bother Ironhide that you have to rescue him.”

The jet snarled, but climbed to his feet. “Fine. But we shall never speak of this…abomination again.” He fell into his vehicle mode, grumbling while Nadya climbed up to his cockpit. He was already idling his engines. Just like Barricade had said—when he was upset, Starscream cycled his turbines. He must have been plenty upset.

“All right,” she said, checking his equipment. A HUD flared in front of her. “Ready?”

“I am ready for this to be over with.”

“It’s been a long time since I sat in a jet,” she mused absently. Starscream whined a little.

“I am going to be offlined.” He groaned wearily.

Being used to the standard Russian air force jets which were seriously outdated; she put too much pressure onto his throttle. Starscream jolted forward sharply with a shriek. “Whoa!” Ironhide yelled and swung his arm out catching the jet’s nose prompting Starscream to halt before crashing into a wall.

“Ooops,” Nadya stated sheepishly.

“OOOPS?!” Starscream shrilled.

“Let’s try that again shall we?” she said, nervously.

“No. I have changed my mind: this is a stupid human plan. It can only fail!”

“Have a little faith. I’ve had lots of practice.” She shot a wink to Ironhide who frowned dubiously. “About fifteen years ago,” she added under her breath.

She put a hand on the throttle again and eased it forward. He made a gagging sound, but moved forward. “Can you reach down from this mode to pick up Ironhide?”

“What if I tell you no? Does that mean we would leave the cursed Autobot here to rot? Forever?”

“Please, just do it, if you leave him here who will you get the satisfaction of blaming for holding us up when we all die down here?”

He growled, but she felt the drop in thrust as he picked up the added weight. He was more maneuverable than any plane she’d ever flown before—able to hover, and turn in a radius that was aerodynamically impossible. She overcorrected a few times, the jet complaining every time she adjusted his angle. “Stop poking me!” he griped.

“One more. All right.” They were pointed directly at the geyser, which still blew a wall of whitish-grey pressurized gas in front of them. “Here we go.”

“Death and dishonor,” Starscream muttered. “I can hardly wait.”

She punched the throttle. He shot forward, pushing her back into the seat. As he hit the geyser’s blast, he shrieked, and initiated a sharp barrel roll, still shooting forward. They rocketed through the gas. Rocks pummeled the jet, shaken down from the ceiling. She eased off the throttle as soon as she couldn’t hear the geyser behind her. They should be safe from falling rock. Her own heart was pounding and could feel him shaking from the geyser’s icy contact through his fuselage. “Okay,” she said. “We’re through.”

He dropped to his robot mode, expelling her unceremoniously from his cockpit. ‘Where,” he gasped, “Where is everyone?”

She looked around. “We must have overshot them.”

“Maybe,” Ironhide said, shaking a little from his own, but more limited exposure to the geyser, “we took a wrong turn. None of us knows what was up ahead of us when it blew.”

Ok I am late on the update... I'm sorry... I am rubbish! Lots of things going on this time round. Some pretty good bits if I do say so myself. Enjoy

****

Space:

“Come on,” Rumble said from his position inside Soundwave’s chest. “They’re sitting ducks down there, Soundwave. We can blast ‘em easy. What are you waiting for?”

“We are tasked with providing assistance in locating seismic disturbances that may endanger the sparks of three of our forces.”

“It’s just three of them. And face it—no great loss, any of them. Compared to five Autobots? Including PRIME?”

“I am acting under orders,” Soundwave said. He didn’t express emotion much, but Rumble could tell he was unhappy.

****

Surface:

Optimus hated to cut Prowl short but the geyser was imminent. He attempted to herd Bumblebee and Ratchet behind an outcrop of boulders and beckoned to Blackout.

“We need to take cover,” he stated.

“Aware of that,” Blackout grumbled as he moved, still gingerly, towards the Autobots. Not a minute too soon as the icy plume burst through the surface right where he’d been standing, whistling with high pitched howls as it went.

They were all thrown to the floor in the ensuing quake. Optimus cried aloud with pain. Ratchet was the first to his feet and almost dragged Bumblebee to the rocky outcrop before heading back towards the plume of escaping gas to help Blackout up, who gestured at the prone form of Optimus, frowning at the yellow ‘bot crouched beneath the rock shelf wincing as rubble was thrown at them from the erupting surface.

“Might want to drag your leader out of the way, Bumblebore, before he gets stoned beyond all recognition!” he yelled over the sound of the geyser and heard Ratchet huff beside him as they dodged the falling rocks to reach the shelter of the rocky outcrop. Another tremor sent Ratchet to his knees; Blackout hoisted him up firmly by his arm, dragging him to the fallen Optimus. Ratchet stared at him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t want to carry him myself,” he answered off-handedly. “Besides your friends,” he looked meaningfully upward, “would never believe that it wasn’t me who offlined his dumb aft. Thought the yellow idiot was going to tell you about this.” He pointed at the now gaping wound in Optimus’s side.

Ratchet grunted as rock pelted his helm. “I knew about it, serves the slaggin’ ‘bot right for thinking he can try to hide his injuries from me. Look where it got him. Will think twice about doing it again.”

Blackout stared at Ratchet feeling a little something like respect building inside of him. With this attitude, the bot could almost be a Decepticon. He’d always thought the Autobots were full of love and hugs. Ratchet’s hard attitude was an almost pleasant surprise. As long as someone else was the target.

Optimus groaned. “I can hear you Ratchet…” His voice was strained. Ratchet, crouched beside him managing to duck out of the way of yet more rocks being hurled at them from above as they were lifted high into the air by the strength of the geyser.

“Doesn’t mean you ever listen though does it?” He nodded to Blackout. They each grabbed an arm and heaved Optimus to his feet, dragging him to the outcrop before planting him down firmly. Blackout glanced at the now sheepish Bumblebee. “Glad you’re here, being all useful,” he goaded.

Ratchet was currently giving an earful to Optimus; they could hear a little better now. Blackout stole a glance at the white tower of gas piercing the ground, unrelenting.

He turned back to the severely chastised Prime, as Ratchet continued to complain. Blackout was amused. Prime being spoken to by one of his subordinates like a sparkling. He made sure to record the details for posterity and further amusement. He felt his comm. buzz.

“Blackout, this is Soundwave. Are you uninjured?”

“Functioning, Soundwave, much to your disappointment. Not too sure about the ones down below.”

“The Autobots?”

“’Fraid they’re still functioning too, Soundwave. Surprised you haven’t fragged us all from your perch in the sky.”

“Not my orders. Soundwave out.”

Blackout frowned as the comm. shut off abruptly. He took the opportunity to contact Barricade.

“What? What is it now?” Barricade snapped.

“Hey there, sunshine,” Blackout said, tartly. “Checking in, making sure you’re surviving the mine field.”

“I’m touched.” Barricade growled sullenly. “Doing just great, freakin’ party down here.”

“That bad?”

“Lost the big guns, both of them. Entire fraggin’ chasm opened up. On the plus side, the human female’s finally gone, too. Will have to thank him for that later.” Barricade’s voice trembled, it sounded like he was shaking.

“You okay?”

“You’d better not,” Barricade hissed, “even think about lecturing me after you stasis locked.” A whine forced its way through his vocalizer.

“Barricade, what the frag happened?” About twenty different scenarios crossed Blackout’s mind. “Which Autobot do you want me to offline for you?”

“All of them, preferably.”

“What happened to you?”

“Got caught in the blast, legs frozen. The amazingly uninjured, ever superior Prowl is defrosting them.” Blackout heard Prowl’s low tone of indignation sound through the comm. “Only, of course, so we can continue this voyage of joy and discovery.”

“We’ll compare notes later. Just because we can see sky doesn’t mean it’s been a non-stop fiesta up here, you know.”

“What you remember of it, you stasis-locking moron,” Barricade snapped. “You probably missed the part where you were the pinata.” Blackout snorted. If Barricade was up to this level of snark, he couldn’t be that badly off. “What’s up top?” Barricade asked, ignoring Prowl’s complaint. “Prime is down. Doc of Death is slowly torturing him.”

“Each to their own, though I’m surprised they find the time for such tender romance at a time like this.” Barricade muttered. “Any genius plans yet?”

Blackout didn’t respond.

“Thought not.” Barricade sounded glum. The comm. fell silent. Blackout glanced up as the geyser began to fade. Finally he could hear the sound of his own voice. A faint tremor vibrated through his feet. This wasn’t over.

****

Optimus winced as Ratchet prodded his wound. He wasn’t the gentlest of mechs. “Where did you think it was going to get you hmmm? Covering up a wound as severe as this. I thought you had more sense than a youngling. As dumb as that damn ‘con, you know.” Optimus rolled his optics as Ratchet continued to rant.

“Optimus?”

“Yes Sideswipe.”

“Been looking at those openings created when a geyser shoots through the surface.”

Optimus waited, “Yes Sideswipe…” He prompted when Sideswipe seemed to get distracted.

“Oh yes! Well depending on where the geysers erupt, the tunnels they create to the surface are of varying degrees of stability. The harder the rock, the more it shatters. However the softer the rock the more stable the openings are.

“What are you getting at?”

“Well using ship’s scanners I have managed to create a map of the sort of rock consistency you should be aiming for and overlay it over the pre-existing tunnel network.”

“In aid of what, Sideswipe?” Optimus was rapidly losing patience.

“Well they would only have a few seconds but I was thinking if my calculations are correct they can ride one of those babies to the surface.”

Ratchet butted in, “The temperature of those geysers is below absolute zero. If a mech gets hit by that he could go into system wide shock. It can cause tremors, circuit failure. If the energon freezes and reaches the spark chamber, the spark chamber would destabilize and their spark would shatter.”

“You’re just a ray of light and hope for us all aren’t you?” Blackout commented sarcastically. He hadn’t told the others that Barricade had been hit. He hated the gnawing little nanovirus of worry that started chewing on his attention span. Barricade would be all right, wouldn’t he? He’d sounded okay. Kind of okay.

Ratchet merely frowned. “Stating the facts.”

Optimus was dubious. “How about the tunnels they’re in now?”

“From what I can tell, those tunnels only have a couple of surface routes, none particularly stable. With the tremors what do you think the chances are of either being open and not subject to a cave in?”Sideswipe spoke somberly as Optimus thought over his options. He spoke up once more. “Optimus, Ratchet would have his work cut out for him, not to mention what the temperatures would do to the humans, but this could be their only shot to the surface.”

****

“You know,” Prowl said, “we are trying to help you.” He waved a handheld thermal unit over Barricade’s legs. The paint had gone greyish and vague.

“Save me for a fate worse than death,” the con muttered.

“FROM a fate,” Stokes corrected. He was applying the small point of an acetylene torch into Barricade’s knee joint.

“What?”

“You mean ‘save you from a fate worse than death.’ That’s how the saying goes.”

“Know what the saying is, fleshsack. Consider being dead preferable to being stuck with you and Prince Perfect. And the only reason he’s ‘saving’ me is because he needs my comm.”

Prowl growled audibly this time. “You know Barricade you could at least just accept that some of us don’t want to blow your sorry spark to the pits and be silently gracious about it, rather than griping on about how we’re all out to get you and I’m just using you for what you can do for me. I have been nothing but civil to you, I don’t expect any respect from you that would be too much to ask of your limited social skills.” Barricade growled softly at the remark. “But could you at the very least, shut up. If you don’t have anything useful or civil to add—before I stop resisting the urge to throw you in the path of the geyser.” He glared furiously at Barricade’s legs as he ran the thermal unit across the frost-bitten metal.

It was a few minutes before anyone spoke; the tension was thick in the air.

“By the way,” Barricade asked, “You enjoy that conversation with your estimable leader, Prime? Was it everything you expected?”

“He trusts me to handle things,” Prowl said, stiffly.

Stokes tried to redirect conversation. “So, what’s up with you and Nadya, Barricade?”

“Up? Nothing’s up, down or any way. Disgusted you allow females into combat, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, no one tells Nadya what to do.” He laughed to himself before continuing, much to Barricade’s irritation. “There was this time at NASA, when we were training. She is one of the best pilots we’ve got right. So they put us into this simulation which was actually being tested it was our final exam before the mission, we fail that and we’re grounded and they threw everything at us and I mean everything. So of course we failed.”

“Is there a point to this? Or am I supposed to take comfort knowing you’re both failures?”

“Well, Nadya didn’t like this no win scenario crap, she’s one who thinks there’s a solution to all life’s problems but only if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. Anyway she goes to the flight director and voices her concerns. It turns into an all-out tantrum on his part, but she stood there and took it—didn’t even flinch and I mean this guy was big, and loud and as dumb as they come but he knew how to fly and he never let anyone question his methods. That is until Nadya. She waited until he’d finished, walked over to him slowly and I have no idea what she said to him but that guy went white as a sheet. We got to do the test again, but I tell ya that woman, has some weird Russian vibe about her, you don’t want to get in her way when she’s on a mission to do something and you can’t tell her, she always does it her way.”

“Noticed.”

“Besides, the Autobots let females fight.”

“Emulating their ideas is not exactly a winning argument, plasma bag. Autobots do a lot of stupid stuff.”

“Stupid stuff,” Prowl said, frustrated, “like saving your sorry crankshaft.” He shut off his thermal. “Try it now.”

Barricade heaved himself to his feet. He took a few gingerly steps forward. The servos whined, and he winced, but he could move. And the shaking had stopped. “Seems okay.” He picked up the sack of Neptunium from where it had gotten thrown. He looked at the other two. Waiting, no doubt, for gratitude. Fat chance. Barricade had already used his allotment of gratitude for the solar cycle. They’d seen the jet rocket through the geyser and overhead to the left. Once again, the planet had to go to Unicron. “What? Are you coming?”