Third Party - part 2

[headlinefics]

Third Party
Part 2

The return of Soundblaster and the Predacons had changed much, not the least of which was the look of the High Council’s so-called open meetings. Once held, arguably naively, in the spirit of true openness, with minimal security allowing any and all who pleased to enter the Council chamber, meetings were now heavily guarded affairs. In this case, the door of the chamber was protected zealously by a mech I had never seen before.

The guard, liveried strikingly in red and white, made no effort to conceal his weaponry - a shoulder-mounted missile launcher and a pistol of some sort. He asked all who entered to identify themselves and appeared to check their names against a list. Even after watching me exchange a friendly greeting with Blurr, the guard blocked me from entering the chamber, sharply rattling off an order of “Designation and function.”

“Headline, journalist,” I replied somewhat less sharply. “And who are you?”

“I am the protector of the High Council,” the mech pointedly answered by way of refusal to give his name. “What is your business here?”

“Um… journalist,” I repeated with greater emphasis.

“That is your function,” the unnamed mech said, taking a step toward me and forcing me to backpedal away from him. “What is your purpose for being here?”

“Can’t an Autobot go to an open meeting of the Autobot High Council anymore?” I grumbled.

“Prove your affiliation, femme,” the guard challenged me.

“Have you seen the faction symbol?” I nearly shouted, pointing aggressively at my prominent Autobrand. I saw Bandit watching the exchange and pleaded my case most informally to the High Councilor. “B - a little help?”

Bandit smirked and approached the unnamed mech from behind, provoking an exaggerated startle response from the guard by clamping a hand on his shoulder. “Red, she’s fine. Let her in,” he laughed.

The guard - Red, apparently - stammered and spluttered his way through a defense. “But - but I’ve never seen - she’s not - I can’t just let everyone in the door! I have to know them first! To know they can be trusted!”

Bandit shook his head and turned the guard to face me. “Red Alert, Headline. Headline, Red Alert. There - you know each other. Now let her in.”

“And this is Hubcap,” I quickly added, introducing my colleague as he pulled up and transformed in a flurry of late arrival. “He’s OK too, right, B?”

Bandit nodded and gestured to Red Alert to admit both of us. I half-smiled at the jittery guard; he showed no expression in return. Privately, I wondered what he must have seen to render his processor apparently even more broken than my own - and what Sunstreaker, had he not been chasing Decepticon stragglers through Kalis, would make of Red Alert’s skittish bouncer act.

“You yanked me out of recharge for this. It better be good,” Hubcap teased me.

“Funny,” I said. “That’s what I said to Bandit when he called.”

I scanned the room and saw only a scant gathering. Phoenix, Woelffen and Gaidin took up what had become their usual position in the chamber, presumably attending in support of Bandit rather than out of any interest in the machinations of the Council. The only others present were Hound, Slag, Sludge and Swoop - and the presence of any Dinobot not named Grimlock was remarkable. The remainder of the operation in Kalis had claimed the attention of a few others who would otherwise have considered attending - Jazz, Arcee and Quartz in particular - but I wondered if there were others who had simply grown weary of the political process or doubtful of its importance in the face of renewed hostilities.

“So did he say it would be worth it?” Hubcap asked.

“I’m here, and I called you. What do you think?” I replied, quirking an optic ridge.

Eight High Councilors entered the room, prompting the small audience to stand. “Where’s Springer?” Hubcap asked me over the silent channel. I shrugged uncertainly.

Ultra Magnus answered our question. “Springer will be joining us on a comm-link from Kalis,” he said. The very fact that Springer could even listen in on the meeting implied that the engagement in Kalis was indeed in the clean-up phase.

“Here, sir,” Springer’s voice emanated from Magnus’ communicator as the group settled in at the table.

Bumblebee nodded. “That takes care of attendance,” he said with a smile. “Grimlock, you have the floor.”

The imposing Dinobot rose from his seat. “Me Grimlock have problem,” Grimlock announced, then quickly amended his announcement. “Them have problem too,” he said, pointing to his saurian cohorts. “Us like Autobots, but us not like Autobots.”

“Uh, I’m not sure we can help you there, big guy,” Bumblebee nervously chuckled. He backed his chair as far away from Grimlock as he could while staying within arm’s reach of the table. “We’re High Councilors, not relationship counselors.”

“It not like that!” Grimlock roared to cover his embarrassment. “Us Dinobots friends with Autobots, but not same as Autobots. Us not think or do things same way.” He turned to Ultra Magnus. “You Magnus know what me mean?”

“I believe so, Grimlock,” Magnus said with a half-smile.

Grimlock continued his unusually long speech. “Them Dinobots want me Grimlock in charge, but -” he appeared reluctant to admit his next point - “me Grimlock not good to be in charge of everybody. Just Dinobots, not all Autobots.” He growled lowly, in a posture of resignation rather than hostility. “You Magnus good to be in charge of Autobots. You stay. Me Grimlock just be in charge of Dinobots.”

“Grimlock,” Magnus said, his smile becoming wider as he reached to shake the Dinobot’s hand, “you’re a remarkably good diplomat and a better ally.”

Grimlock warily shook Magnus’ massive gauntlet with his tiny claw-hand. “Huh?”

Springer laughed over Magnus’ open communication frequency. “What he means, Grim, is the Autobots are proud to be the Dinobots’ friends.”

“Oh.” Grimlock’s handshake became less wary. “Us too.”

Bumblebee addressed the Council. “Nominations for Grimlock’s seat?”

Grimlock began speaking even as Bumblebee was still finishing the question. “Me Grimlock pick Hound,” he said, pointing to the scout surrounded by the three other Dinobots. “Him good mech. Him friend from Earth who know how Optimus did things. Us Dinobots not always think Optimus right, but him have honor. So do him Hound.”

Bumblebee smiled brightly at the nomination of his and the humans’ old friend. “I second that, Grim,” he said. “Discussion?”

“Yeah,” Bandit said with a wry smile. “Why didn’t we get him up here sooner?” Knowing the opinionated old warrior as I did, I chose to interpret his comment as a snarky reference to the disgraced Blitzwing.

“I believe the crusty one means to say, call the question,” Sky Lynx said in what almost sounded like an attempt at a joke. Bandit raised one finger and grinned broadly.

Ultra Magnus glared at Bandit, albeit with a hint of a smile. “Gentlemechs, I think this may be the least controversial vote we have ever taken,” he said. “Assuming Hound accepts the nomination, of course.” After a nervy silence of several kliks, Hound nodded sharply by way of assent. “All in favor?”

“Aye,” the entire Council, including the outgoing Grimlock and the remotely-patched-in Springer, pronounced in unison.

“I count nine in favor, sir,” Bumblebee said cheerfully.

Grimlock left the Council table, grabbed Hound by the arm and practically flung him toward his former seat. “You Hound have fun,” he invited his replacement.

Hound sat uncomfortably on the edge of his new Council seat. “I should warn you now, sir,” he said to Magnus, “I’m no politician.”

Bandit cackled gleefully in reply. “Good!”

“What the crusty one said,” Magnus added. The entire Council laughed at Bandit’s expense.

“Don’t look now, Hubs,” I said, elbowing my senior correspondent in the chestplate, “but I think they’re actually getting along.”

“So… we done here?” Bandit asked with all his typical formality.

“If that was a motion to adjourn, I second,” Springer said over Magnus’ communicator. “We still have plenty of work to do here.”

Without an official vote, the Council began departing from their seats. “Go,” I prompted Hubcap, pointing in the general direction of Grimlock and the Dinobots. “I promise they won’t eat you.”

“This time,” Hubcap appended my promise. In his defense, his addition likely made my promise more reliable.

“Congratulations, Councilor Hound,” I hailed the Autobot High Council’s newest member as he made his way past the memorial plaques lining the chamber. In response to his mock look of annoyance, I tilted my camera toward him and added, “You didn’t think you could get away that easy, did you?”

Hound allowed a resigned smile to cross his face. “A mech can try.”

“Bandit suggested you should’ve been on the Council a long time ago. I’m professionally obligated to ask you your thoughts on that,” I said, eliciting a wider grin from Hound.

“Like I said, Headline…” Hound began, then took a contemplative pause. “I’m not a politician. I know how to make judgment calls in the field - I don’t know how to make decisions in a fancy room.”

I chuckled at Hound’s spot-on description of the Council chamber and cheekily followed up, “So Grimlock knows how to make decisions in a fancy room?”

“Don’t underestimate him. Sure, most of the time he thinks with his teeth, but there’s a surprisingly fast processor in there.” Hound shifted his optics before adding, “Words and grammar are just useless to him, that’s all.”

I smiled at Hound’s balanced characterization of the Dinobot and then forced myself into hardened-professional mode. “Those few kliks before you accepted the nomination - what was going through your processor?”

Hound turned serious. “Truth? How much of a dim bulb I’d be if I accepted.”

“So what made you accept?”

Hound looked over his shoulder at the memorial plaque to his right. It was no coincidence, I recognized, that he had chosen to stop near the marker honoring his old friend Cliffjumper. “I don’t want to have any more reasons to question myself,” he sighed. “When I - well, you know, Headline. You were there. When we stayed behind, I was there because I thought it was the right call. I didn’t want to be involved in what I thought was a suicide mission.” Hound turned and traced the outline of Cliffjumper’s portrait. “I’ll ask myself if I could’ve saved him until my Spark goes out.” He faced me again, looking regretful but determined. “All I can do now is honor his memory by never leaving another one behind again.”

I shut down my camera and smiled wistfully at Hound. “I know you’ll do that.”

The new Councilor looked again at Cliffjumper’s plaque. I recalled Hound’s insistence on working through what should have been a few breems of pure free time. Bandit had struck the balance: he had been just relaxed enough, just gleefully embarrassing enough, and still able to regain focus and command in a fraction of a klik. Hound had once been the model for that mental equilibrium, but in his overactive remorse, his always heightened sense of duty had led him into an always-on approach that I feared would burn out my old friend’s processor if he could not find his way back to center. Having been skewed from center myself since Earth, I only worried more for Hound because of my experience.

He’s a warrior and a Councilor, I admonished myself. He’ll be fine.

***

“You Headline busy?”

It was the fifteenth time in the previous five breems that someone had interrupted me, but this voice - unlike the nearly constant voices of Rewind and Dayside - made me set aside one of my three simultaneous tasks. This voice spoke in a distinctively clipped pattern that identified the speaker as a Dinobot and in a distinctively screechy register that further identified him as Swoop.

“Swoop, what in the Pit are you doing here?” I asked with more irritation bleeding into my voice than I truly felt toward Swoop.

“Me not know you Headline’s wrist number thing,” he answered simply, substituting his characteristic cobbled-together language for frequency. I chuckled and shook my head, not yet looking up from my work. The ptero-mech, in ptero-mode as he nearly always was, slumped slightly in embarrassment. “You busy. Me come back later.”

“No - you already came all this way.” I leaned back in my chair. “You’ve got half a breem, big guy.”

“Only take half breem,” he promised, then related a story faster than I had ever heard the usually ponderous mech speak. “Me Swoop see big bad ‘Con with two puny friends. Beastie ‘Cons there too. Them go middle of nowhere, all together. Must be up to no good.”

“Okay… big bad ‘Con,” I thought aloud. “You mean Soundblaster? Looks like Soundwave with new paint?” Swoop nodded. “Puny friends - green bird and purple monkey, right?” Another nod; these were of course Squawktalk and Beastbox. I wondered where Rumble and Ravage, the former Soundwave’s former close associates by force, might have been. “And beastie - oh slag.”

“Not Slag!” Swoop corrected me, believing I had referred to his unfortunately named colleague.

“I know,” I chuckled. “I mean - that’s really not good if the Predacons were there too. They were all sort of red and orange, right?”

Swoop nodded a third time. “You smart.”

“You make a sharp lookout,” I genuinely complimented the Dinobot. He beamed proudly in response - if something with a long beak could beam. One unanswered question gnawed at my processor. “But… where’s the middle of nowhere?”

“Past base him Grimlock pick out,” Swoop vaguely elaborated. “By big crack in planet.”

“The Sonic Canyons?” I asked, referring to the first and best-known big crack in planet I could recall. Swoop nodded. Clearly, this was going to require some better armed and less civilian follow-up. “Swoop - come with me,” I said, leaping from my seat, grabbing my old pistol and camera and transforming on the way out the door with the Dinobot following slowly in flight.

“Where we go?” he asked.

“To round up some reinforcements,” I said. My first instinct was to drive toward the building that housed the Council chamber.

Dayside and Nightwatch called after me in near unison, “Do you need us?”

“Oh, no - you two are staying right here,” I emphatically instructed them. Not in a million vorns was I about to take the press corps’ entire defensive complement away from home base, not with the possibility that the Decepticons were attacking soft targets again. Engaging my communicator on a secure channel, I hailed the mech who had been designated my official superior in non-civilian matters. “Councilor Blurr, Headline and Dinobot Swoop on official business. This channel is secure. Suggest you encrypt responses, sir.”

“Acknowledged Headline channel encrypted whaddayagot?” Blurr responded in his customary rapid-fire run-on patter.

“Switching to silent encryption,” I advised, hoping Blurr’s messages would translate in normal speed on the silent channel. “I’ve got Swoop with me on the channel. He says he’s seen Soundblaster and friends near the Dinobots’ new home base. Advise course of action.”

“Quit talking to me take it to Magnus that’s an order!” The words transmitted in typical Blurr style. So much for translating in normal speed. Blurr’s intense message was followed by an immediate cutoff of our connection, even before I could acknowledge the order.

“We go see him Magnus now?” Swoop asked.

“You heard rocket ‘bot,” I affirmed, resurrecting an old and irreverent nickname for the speedy mech who was now my boss.

Swoop began circling aimlessly above me. “So… you know where him at?”

I braked. “Good point.” Trusting against my better judgment that I would figure out the content of my message on the fly, I opened a silent channel to the Autobots’ commander in chief. “Ultra Magnus, this is Headline on an encrypted channel, on Blurr’s orders. Request you encrypt and acknowledge, sir.”

“Acknowledged, Headline,” Magnus responded almost immediately, as though he had been expecting me - and perhaps he had. A few kliks would certainly have allowed Blurr enough time to alert him and, at Blurr-speak-speed, quote our entire conversation verbatim at least twice.

Despite the fact that Blurr had likely done so, I summed up my original report. “Swoop’s with me, sir. He’s got a report on Decepticon leadership you should hear. Advise location for a face-to-face meeting.”

“Council building, situation room,” Magnus again responded almost before I finished my message. He answered my next question before I could even ask it. “Through the meeting room, behind the stage, follow the corridor to the left. Red Alert will let you in.”

I stifled a groan at the prospect of dealing with the Council’s new security mech again. The idea of seeing the situation room, though, filled me with morbid anticipation. No civilian since Slamdance - no civilian alive - had seen the center of Autobot tactical operations.

“Where we go now?” Swoop asked.

I accelerated and continued toward the destination I had chosen by instinct. “Council chamber. Magnus is waiting for you.”

Swoop’s reply sounded almost starstruck. “Him Magnus want see me Swoop?”

“Yep,” I replied simply, trying not to sound too eager.

Swoop grunted appreciatively. “Me Swoop important!”

“That you are,” I agreed. And indeed he was. The Dinobots’ significance had not changed; nor had their alignment as staunch - if odd - allies. Only their official faction designation was different.

Swoop and I arrived at the Council tower and transformed to walk through the doors and past the general seating in the meeting room. We both hesitated just a bit before climbing onto the stage. Though I knew most of the High Councilors well, I still found daunting the idea of being in the intimate yet public space in which the Council debated and set the course of the Autobots.

“Who him?” Swoop asked in the most inappropriately loud volume possible, adding an unsubtle point at him for good measure.

“Swoop!” I chided him in a whisper before answering his question. “That’s Red Alert. High Council security.”

“And you are?” Red Alert queried the Dinobot in what passed for a menacing tone.

I stepped between the two mechs. “Magnus is expecting us,” I said.

Red Alert quirked an optic ridge, looked over both of us as though he were memorizing our every seam, and glowered at Swoop. Despite his evident reluctance, he opened the door to the classified war staging area.

Swoop, too focused to be impressed, strode directly into the situation room. I, on the other hand, was too impressed to be focused. I stood in the doorway for a few kliks, taking in the organized-chaos busyness. The walls were covered with maps and diagrams and schematics; the lone, large conference table was punctuated with brightly lit, blinking screens that provided the bulk of the illumination in the room.

“In or out, femme,” Red Alert sharply ordered me. I abruptly chose in with an ungainly stumble through the door; Red Alert slammed the door behind me, nearly striking me in the process.

“I thought the door was supposed to hit me in the aft on the way out,” I quipped, only then remembering protocol and snapping to attention by way of greeting Magnus. “Sir.”

“At ease,” Magnus said impassively. “Swoop, what do you know?”

Swoop related his story to Magnus in the same distinctly concise words he had used with me. I paid little attention, instead satisfying my curiosity about the situation room by looking at everything that had not been removed as top secret, until Magnus began carrying out his plan of response. Even then, I only vaguely heard him calling Jazz and Bumblebee and informing the two special-ops mechs that orders were forthcoming. It took another name to trigger my concentration.

“…And Sunstreaker will meet you there,” Magnus finished his sentence to Swoop.

“Sunny?” I blurted.

Magnus groaned in mild exasperation. “He happened to be within aural range of Jazz.”

I chuckled at my mate’s eagerness. Truth be told, it was always a bit of a relief to hear him spoiling for a fight. Many times since the loss of Sideswipe, he had put aside his usual brashness in favor of quiet reminiscence; the more he jumped at the chance to enter battle, the more I knew he was returning to his old self.

Of course, being cocksure could also get Sunstreaker into plenty of trouble if he wasn’t careful… and he didn’t exactly have a long history of being careful.

“Dismissed,” Ultra Magnus said to Swoop and me at once. Red Alert opened the door to emphasize the point that we should, in fact, leave, and despite the fascination the situation room still held for me, I could not leave fast enough.

“Lead the way,” I invited Swoop.

“You come too?” Swoop asked, looking surprised.

I laughed mid-transformation. “Someone has to make sure your boss doesn’t eat my bondmate.”

To be continued...