Fic
Title: Borealis 68/87: Star Light, Star Bright - Part IV
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing(s): ensemble, Beachcomber/Perceptor
Warnings: fluff, OCs, light smexing
Summary: Wherein Hot Rod learns to swim, a theft is discovered, various new mechs decant and Perce and Comber start a new batch cooking. ;D
Notes: The vacuum bubbles and the terminology of "Outside Context Problem" were gleefully and shamelessly but respectfully stolen from the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks.
~5400 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
BOREALIS: Star Light, Star Bright - Part IV
2032 - January
For someone so large, Borealis could nevertheless move very quietly and unobtrusively when the need arose. She reached down over the heads of the mechs gathered around Hot Rod’s table and picked him up. “C’mere, Squidge.” Jazz’s nicknames were irresistible.
“Hey, Borealis!” Sideswipe said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in space?”
“Perceptor said I could come down to see you.” Or rather Perceptor had hinted strongly that he wanted to go down to see the new person, but that Borealis perhaps should go in his stead, in addition to her own reasons. He would want all of her observational files when she got back to the Oort.
She carried him out through the hangar, ignoring the curious looks from the human staff and visiting ambassadors, and outside into an unseasonably warm, blue-skied evening. She cradled him against her chest in such a way that he faced more or less outward. He wrapped his “tail” around her wrist; affectionate rather than nervous at being up so high.
Wheeljack had proposed building a wheelchair for him, except that there never seemed to be any shortage of mechs willing to carry him around; which Hot Rod seemed to enjoy immensely. Borealis mentally added herself to that list. Any time anywhere.
“Are we going flying?”
“Would you like to?”
“YES!”
Borealis grinned and shifted her engines to root-mode optimum thrust. Her feet lifted from the ground and they soared up above the Nevada desert, spiraling slowly so Hot Rod could see.
“WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!” he shouted, though he held onto her hand very tightly.
…
They followed a lazy arc over the Pacific, heading for Hawaii, where Seaspray was working on something for Beachcomber. “Care to try swimming next?” Borealis asked Hot Rod.
“Ooo! Uh, sure, why not?” He sounded only about 87 percent sure, but she nosed down anyway, rolling lazily and drawing her limbs and armor in tight, clasping Hot Rod to her chest with one hand and extending the other with wrist and hand covered by her forward chine. It wasn’t a bad dive for someone a hundred feet tall.
Hot Rod meeped and curled up under the protecting spans of her long fingers. He thought about pinching his central helm buttress as though holding his “nose” - Borealis would get the joke. But the clear, warm turquoise waters he could now perceive through the dispersing curtain of bubbles from their entry distracted him. There was so much sound! He could hear whales talking hundreds of miles away, and dolphins clicking closer by, and fish snapping and crackling and nipping bits off the nearby coral reefs - albeit much of the more distant sounds were obscured by human watercraft. Seaspray had been working with the US Navy and other groups - mostly non-government research facilities and a few shipping companies - over the decades, designing quieter engines with the technology the humans already had or were so rapidly developing with or without the Autobots’ help. It was in some ways a slow process. From environmentalists’ point of view anyway. Seaspray thought things were getting on by leaps and bounds and now understood Prime’s worry that the humans would soon outstrip their own remarkable ability to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
Um, how deep are we going? Hot Rod enquired, in what he thought was a delicate, very diplomatic tone.
Pacific floor is four to six thousand meters around here, Borealis told him, grinning, harmonics clearly amused. Well within our operational parameters. Gas giants are hazardous. This is just fun!
Will you take me up to space?
Not until your legs grow in, kiddo. There's too much hard radiation, might hurt you.
Okay. Well, later, then? When I’m finished?
Yes, Squidge, when you’re finished I’ll take you to space.
They met Seaspray at the Pele’s Pit vent of the Lo’ihi seamount, twenty-two miles off the southeast coast of the Big Island. In a hundred million years or so, the chain would have a new island. Beachcomber and Skyfire had placed small sensors there during their first visit several years previously, and Seaspray was checking their positioning and functions and adding a few more; necessitated by a couple of new eruptions.
Hi there, Lissi! Seaspray called, waving. They could see him by his heat signature as well as the glow of the downward-pointing lights he had on. So you must be Hot Rod!
Hi! You must be Seaspray. Is that fun?
Seaspray considered this. I guess so, in a way. It’s useful, scientifically. Maybe not for kicking Decepticon tailpipes but you never know.
So, doing something useful is fun? Hot Rod didn’t seem convinced. He looked up at Borealis, who schooled her expression just in time.
Yes, Seaspray said. That's a kind of fun, sure, if the work is interesting or if you're with friends.
Hot Rod struggled against her grasp so Borealis let him go, hoping he didn’t damage his aft end on the rugged lava, but thinking perhaps he might actually gain some mobility using his “tail” as a tail down here. The density of the water wasn’t quite enough, she calculated, to make him buoyant. Perhaps Seaspray would help him make vacuum balloons, which were what Seaspray used to keep himself neutrally buoyant.
Hot Rod sank to the seamount’s rough, sloping surface, clinging for a moment to the crater walls of Pele’s Pit. Seaspray watched him with a soft, almost sad look on his face.
I had a shape like that once, he said. For a while. A long time ago. Hot Rod looked at him. Move your tail like this, Seaspray said, demonstrating with one arm. Yeah, like that. It’s not a bad swimming shape, once you get the buoyancy worked out. Here, gimme a cable and I’ll give you the vacuum bubble codec. As they were doing that, Borealis settled on her ventral surface on a relatively flat ridge of sulfur-colored cooled lava, propping her chin in her hands, feet waving slowly behind her, ankles crossed. Seaspray grinned, intercepting her thoughtful glance.
There was a time when the Decepticons thought they had all but wiped us out, he said. So they went ahead with their plans of empire, conquering planet after planet. They were a great and terrible Outside Context Problem, like the Conquistadores were to the Aztecs and Inca. But we Autobots weren’t as defeated as they thought. And Megatron let his forces stretch out too thin, taking more volume than he could hold. There, Hot Rod, try that. Put most of them in your shoulders and…uh, where your hips will be when you grow them…yeah…and along your midline spinal strut if it can take the stresses?
His spinal strut isn’t fully formed or attached to anything at the caudal end, Borealis pointed out.
Seaspray waved his arms to catch Hot Rod’s attention. Wait, wait, Ratchet will disassemble me if you break… Just one, then, up in your chest. Fine. Now expand ‘em. Slowly!
Hot Rod’s torso expanded only a little before he began to rise, his tail whipping and curling as though trying to catch on to the rugged stone of the seamount, to keep himself from sailing off to the surface. He collapsed the bubbles slightly and remained where he was, effectively floating about three meters over the crater’s rim. The bubbles didn’t need to be very large, even to float a fifteen-foot long metallic robot. The difference in density between ocean bottom water and vacuum was quite energetic.
I can swim! Hot Rod caroled. The wild oaring of his tail swiftly settled down into an efficient lateral undulation, like a fish rather than a marine mammal. Seaspray and Borealis watched, smiling, as he swam circles around them, up and down, figuring out how to shift his buoyancy.
He’s got decent three-dimensional thinking, Seaspray murmured.
Uh huh, Borealis said, rearranging her wings and rolling over to watch Hot Rod’s antics. I take it that planet Megatron thought he could hold was a waterworld?
Yeah. Seaspray placed another sensor. The native sapients just about had their own rebellion started before we got there. Their obvious forms of technology had been suppressed, but they had some really nice nano-scale stuff, really clever. I don’t think they needed us, but we helped, gave ‘em a trigger.
The other galactic civilizations - both here and in M100 - were still only distant contacts to Borealis, but she had big chunks of the Cybertronian version of an “Encyclopedia Galactica” in her memory core, which she’d perused cover to cover so to speak, on the long flights back and forth between Earth and Cybertron. There were several cataloged liquid water planets, and all of them sustained life. The regret in Seaspray’s harmonics kept her from asking which one he’d left behind.
Whales! Hot Rod shouted, swimming back to them and waving his arms. One’s almost big as you, Lissi!
Seaspray’s optics brightened. Balaenoptera musculus! Don’t often see them around here like you do the humpbacks. He scanned in the direction Hot Rod indicated. Mother and newborn calf. 28 meters for the mom, seven meters for baby. 172 and 2.5 metric tons respectively.
Wow, said Borealis.
Hot Rod, who was only five and a half meters long, if he stretched his tail out as far as he could, swam near the surface, where the water was warm and sapphire blue. Mother and calf stayed close, up in the mirror-bright, satiny waves. Hot Rod wanted to touch them, but didn’t want to upset the mother, or get caught in the wash of a tail wide as Powerglide’s wings.
They’re looking at me! he whispered.
Listen at 10 to 40 Hz. They sing, too.
Whoa. What are they saying?
They’re calling across the entire ocean, keeping in touch with friends and family far away.
Like Prime does?
Yes, Hot Rod, Seaspray said. Like Prime does.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - April
He was tired. Not the kind of tired that went away after a thorough recharge, but a mind tired, an emotionally drained tired. The things people were doing to each other, had been doing to each other - in Somalia and other places - for longer than First Aid had been alive, were appalling. Even Defensor and Glyph together had been able to do very little to help. It was, Prime had said, perhaps the kind of situation where a culture had to kill itself, or almost do so, before things could get better. It had seemed a harsh judgment for about seven milliseconds until First Aid had realized that Prime wasn’t really talking about the humans. Or not just the humans.
Nevertheless, First Aid did the same thing he always did as he walked into the med-bay at the embassy in Nevada. It didn’t take long. It wasn’t a transscan per se, but he’d been programmed to be thorough, and Streetwise added another dollop of insatiable curiosity to their mix. So when he scanned the med-bay, meaning only to make certain he knew where everything was now, in case Ratchet (who liked to tinker, much like Wheeljack; though Ratchet’s reaction to said comparison was unpredictable) had decided to redesign something or Mikaela had moved something that maybe someone might need in a hurry - which she would do only because sometimes she needed it in a hurry and wanted it where she could reach it without going for the waldos. First Aid noticed that aside from the usual small changes (the air molecules weren’t going to be the exact same ones obviously, and dust accumulated; composed not just of human skin cells but out here in the middle of the desert the desert itself tried to move in pretty much all the time) there was something else different, which was a thing that had not been different before. Something that wasn’t supposed to be different. Something small. Something he would have missed if he wasn’t habitually thorough like this.
He paced the chambers, front and back, scanning and looking more closely this time. Even so, it was only because he was looking very carefully that he found it. And then he didn’t want to believe what he’d found.
Ratchet? Could you…come in here, please?
On my way.
…
Ratchet held the shard, turning it slightly back and forth, analyzing the microscopic scoring marks within the tiny scratch that had been made on the back side. “Vibroblade,” he said. “There’s a very faint energy trace. Not Autobot.”
“Lockdown.” Prowl bowed his head, riding a hot surge of anger the likes of which he hadn’t felt since finding Barricade. He wanted to hunt Lockdown down the same way, with the same disregard for anything or anyone else, the same singularity of purpose. It had been a relief to surrender to such a purpose, such a narrowness of thought. He did not, as had become his wont, hide this rage from the seekers.
You’re a hunter, like us, Thundercracker said, on what he was trying not to think of as their trine channel.
Yes, said Prowl, accepting this. I have become so. The recent interlude with Jazz had made Prowl more aware of his embodied life before the war. When he had not been a warrior. A civilian, and though living in socially complex times, nevertheless with in many ways what was a simpler life.
“How could he have gotten in here?” Bluestreak asked. “He’s not like Ravage! I think someone would have noticed!”
Teletraan and Red Alert were unwavering. “Unless Lockdown has Mirage’s cloaking net,” Red said, “there is no way a Decepticon could have gotten inside the med-bay, left just enough trace to make us suspicious, then got out again without anyone, even Tel and Metroplex, noticing. That only a small portion rather than the entire shard was taken suggests that whoever did this hoped the theft would go unnoticed for a certain length of time.”
“So it could have happened years ago, well, as long ago as when Ratchet got it out of Prowl, anyway?” Bluestreak asked.
“I don’t think it was years ago,” First Aid said. “I scan like that whenever I come back, and we’ve only been out a few months, just since after Thunderwing.”
“So it’s either one of us here on Earth or someone who just left with Ultra Magnus and the others.”
Prime shook his head. “I don’t want anyone making wild accusations. Nightbeat, Streetwise, this is, I believe, right up your alley. Please exercise restraint.” Prime didn’t like the direction his thoughts were taking. If someone - well, someone non-human; he could well imagine a human desiring a curious metallurgical specimen, for a collection or to sell; but how would an unaided human scrape a curl of spark chamber-hard alloy off the shard and then leave a faint energy trace that would point so clearly to a particular mech? Lockdown was a worry, but Prime suspected this was a frame. So. If a Cybertronian was the thief, it was possible it meant they wanted to reproduce the mechanism. And that wasn’t a fun idea at all.
“Understood,” Nightbeat said.
“We are the very soul of discretion,” Streetwise said, bowing.
“Oh dear,” said Tracks.
“We don’t know that Lockdown doesn’t have something like my stealth cloak,” Mirage pointed out. Lockdown, according to Prowl and the Lambo twins, liked taking trophies. There had originally been twelve mechs who’d had the pan-spectrum cloak installed. And twelve others with scanner suites like Hound’s. A Hound for each Fox.
“No,” said Jazz, shifting uncomfortably. “Only nine of the twelve were accounted for. …Well… Nine of the ten we know were killed.”
“Sleight is alive,” Prime said, at Mirage’s radiant look. “Alive and with one of the neutral colonies.” Mirage, unlike most of the other Autobots, had never asked Prime about the survival of old friends. He had observed from the experience of others that the vast majority of the time the answer was no.
Shall I contact Ultra Magnus? Red Alert tight-beamed to Prime. They might be willing to turn around and come back. At least until we get this solved.
Prime considered. Voices murmured within the Matrix though he hadn’t enquired of them. No imperatives emerged from the susurrus, but he remained aware of the restlessness within. Yes, he told Red Alert. They’ll be in Chaar’s arc-volume by now. Code it for Magnus only. Conceivably this might be a prank. Let’s not get everyone up in arms.
Or at least let everyone think we’re not concerned yet, Red said, nodding and returning to the Security office.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - May
Powerglide circled around for another pass to be sure his optics weren’t playing tricks on him. Yep. There they were, doing what he thought they were doing. Yo! Trailbreaker! he tight-beamed. What gives?
Sitting on the side of the road, outwardly relaxed, his optics off, Trailbreaker’s peaceful little smile widened. If Prime really laid back in a bed of Earth flowers like this, he’d squish them. So I thought I’d give him a hand.
Only a slight shimmer gave the heavy duty force fields away. Prime lolled spread-eagled over the field of poppies and lupine, those beneath him bent slightly so that he seemed to be floating on a shallow, bright orange sea flecked with purple and green. He’d been doing nothing more strenuous than watching the clouds and had seen Powerglide’s flyby. He waved at the little aerobatics plane then laced his fingers behind his helm and crossed his ankles in as fluent a show of contentment as any bilaterally symmetrical humanoid could display. Powerglide laughed.
Have fun, Boss! He waggled his wings then resumed his course north to the Oregon base, feeling lighter than air.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - September
The pleas for their help in international rescue and humanitarian aid efforts were getting harder and harder to put off. First Aid, however, was adamant. They could run around the western half of North America for a while; there were things there that needed doing, too; but with the deltas gone so often to the limits of the solar system, Aid did not want them straying too far when Evac and Blades’ progeny was so close to decant.
The new mech had grown into a typical seeker-class zeta, like Skydive and Fireflight, peering and scanning curiously about from the tank, transmitting an occasional greeting or answer to one in a soft and, so far, uncomplicated tone. Tracks had pronounced him completely adorable.
“Welcome,” the Protectobots said, as they took the new jet’s hands and drew him into a six-way hug.
“Hullo,” the jet said, big, round optics glowing bright. “I’m Breakaway!”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2033 - July
Ratchet rechecked and re-calibrated and rechecked again. He was up at the Oregon base while Perceptor was still in space, (though Perceptor would return to Earth with Skyfire in time for the decantation. They hoped.) checking them over to put Hoist’s mind at ease and to visit with Catscan and Lifeline.
Perceptor, he tight-beamed carefully. Putting another two layers of encryption on just in case. Perceptor’s progeny were always too clever by half. And he’d had no idea what to expect of offspring from Vector Prime. Now he’d gotten a bit of a clue.
Yes, Ratchet?
Oh, slag you, Ratchet thought. Perceptor already sounded smug. They aren’t any forging I can identify. Not that Tessera had been entirely typical, but Perceptor had managed to dredge up a precedent from the most ancient files in the Archive copy. Gestalts and anti-gestalts. Ratchet had thought these four were going to be je like Arcee, and he’d been glad of it. But these four had wings. Even Tracks’ forging wasn’t this weird.
The get of a Firstforged; what were you expecting?
You’re enjoying this, aren’t you.
Oh yes.
…
Five days later.
Usually - or given the small sample they had so far - when a group decanted together, it meant they had chosen to be a gestalt, or were twins. Or in this case, quadruplets. Except these four had been simply kindled at the same time by the same progenitors. Their sparks had been formed independently, not split. Ratchet didn’t know what to make of it, but he was glad it was Perceptor up there in Oregon, handling things at the final stage, rather than him.
Catscan and Lifeline had observed the growth process with fascination from the beginning. They were pleased to be allowed to be present for the decantation as well, though Perceptor and Hoist assured them it was no different than watching anyone newly sparked come down off the kindling platform. These weren’t going to be altricial young, like humans had, even if they’d been made on the humans’ planet.
“Even so,” Catscan said gravely. “We have not seen new people made in a very long time. I am more glad than I can say that you here have found a way to do it, despite what happened to the Allspark.”
“It is a pity Vector Prime did not stay longer,” Lifeline said.
“Yes,” Perceptor murmured, his fins and vanes sinking for a moment against his helm. “No doubt he will meet them at some point in the future.” He grinned.
Four plex cylinders rose, four small, angular mechs stepped down, optics on Perceptor.
“Spark of our sparks,” they said, reaching up to touch his face as he knelt to gather them in his arms.
“Do you know your names?” Lifeline asked.
“Celaeno, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone,” they said. Furies.
They vanished with an inrush of air, reappearing on the mountainside, drinking in their first sight of the ocean. Perceptor, holding nothing but air, fell back onto his aft.
“Teleporters!” He murmured, regaining his feet only to lean hard on Catscan. “Oh dear.”
Skywarp’s gonna be fragged off, when he finds out, Thundercracker opined, flying in tight formation with Strake at 40 thousand feet directly above. He assassinated every other seeker with the ability.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2033 - August
“Hmm?” The sunwarmed hands on his chassis at first only vaguely impinged on Perceptor’s consciousness. Various subroutines linked to his sensors told him who it was. A bit of a surprise, since despite the nakedly geological landscape around the embassy, Beachcomber didn’t really spend very much time down there.
Beachcomber touched him often, but sometimes Perceptor got a clue that his smaller friend had more in mind than a simple hug. The wandering yet deliberate groping was pretty much a giveaway.
Hey.
Perceptor aimed the microfusor in a safer direction and leaned down to nuzzle Beachcomber’s helm. After the preliminary tests outside the Sol system, Perceptor had tweaked the design of the gate emitters a little more. Which meant he also had to modify the machines he and Wheeljack were building that would help make the machines that would manufacture the emitters on a more industrial scale. Most of the structural framework could be built thus, but some components were going to be fiddly and delicate and would best be at least calibrated by hand, as it were. Wheeljack still wasn’t happy about the unconventional design, but he could hardly complain too much when Vector Prime himself had approved of Perceptor’s innovations.
If we made more science-bots, Beachcomber hummed, They could help. You wouldn’t have to work so hard.
Oh ho! Is that what you’re after? Perceptor powered off his tools and turned in the loose circle of Beachcomber’s arms, bending lower yet to kiss the geologist properly.
Hoist and Grapple have more tanks ready, if you want to.
Hmm! How many, if I may ask?
Beachcomber laughed. He knew Perceptor wanted to try Vector’s ancient method again, if only to prove it worked with someone other than a Firstforged. Beachcomber was certainly game. Rutile had been on Mars for almost nine years. Aside from the brief visit afforded - unfortunately - by Thunderwing’s arrival, Beachcomber hadn’t seen him in the metal for most of that time, and he missed him. Well. Subspace comm was essentially lag-free, so they didn’t even have to wait the four minutes each way for a conversation. But Beachcomber liked bodies. He liked watching people’s optics as they spoke, liked watching how they moved, liked feeling their energies and warmth. It wasn’t an obsessive need by any measure; it was just nice. “Twenty,” he told Perceptor. And grinned as his friend’s head fins and vanes stood straight up for a second before waving about rather excitedly.
So we have a total of twenty-five there, plus eleven here. Ratchet had given Metroplex a stern talking-to and there weren’t likely to be any more premature decantations. Hot Rod’s legs had indeed finally grown in properly, but it had taken almost another year for them to be fully developed and transformable. Hot Rod, despite all the scolding, didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you want to drive back?” Beachcomber asked hopefully. They could get Skyfire to lift them over, but the drive would be relaxing. Well. It would be relaxing for Beachcomber. Perceptor, if he was in the mood to fret over wasted time - which was most of the time these days - might find a few extra hours delay aggravating.
Borealis is bringing Rutile down from Mars, Perceptor said. Why don’t we drive?
Beachcomber did a little whirling dance he might have learned in the Sahara or from dervishes in India during his wanderings with Miles, and his smile shone brighter than a sun.
…
“Do you really think we should make enough to fill all twenty tanks?” Beachcomber stood in the center of the new circular chamber Hoist and Grapple had hollowed out of the mountain. The space was relatively spare and smooth-walled, but Grapple was in the process of carving bas reliefs and groined arches in the ceiling. Beachcomber had found the column of sturdy basalt in an old, choked off throat of the volcano, and he and Grapple had planned the structure carefully, taking the tectonic instability into account. The ceiling was quite high and already the fluted and crenellated shapes aloft were beautiful. Tanks lined most of the circumference, though there was room left for more, fitted snugly, if they wanted more in the future.
Perceptor had argued that perhaps confronted with a period of time when they couldn’t merge would induce more of his team to want to. Hoist and Grapple had had Theodolite back in the 20’s, but had not repeated the experiment. At least not with each other. Hoist had later produced Rollbar with Inferno of all people. Perceptor had no idea what that had been about, other than perhaps to see if two large mechs might tend to produce another large spark and hence large mech. Rollbar was smaller than both of his progenitors, though. Perceptor didn’t think it had anything to do with progression toward the mean - look at Metroplex and Groove, both were “Prime Kids” as some people were calling them, but though Prime needed to donate as much mass as possible for each protoform, the resultant size of the fully-formed mech seemed to have more to do with both the intentions and needs of the progenitors and the wishes and decided upon form of the newspark itself.
Or maybe the Allspark, having created all of them, was yet messing about with them. Perceptor might want to have a word with it later, if that was the case.
Beachcomber insisted that not only was Perceptor’s rather mean-spirited strategy not going to work, but that Gears and Huffer and the others knew perfectly well how happy merges and newsparks made Perceptor and wouldn’t take up a tank with their own progeny even if they wanted to.
“And if we have that many at once, we’ll have to do it down here,” Beachcomber pointed out. He didn’t mind. It was a nice enough cave, putting it that way, though he liked flowstone and travertine and the natural formations that filled many caves better. “Hoist couldn’t carry that many down from the mountaintop; he’d melt and they’d go bouncing off across the landscape and who knows what would happen?” He suspected that unbodied or otherwise unsupported sparks would burn out and die, but the image of little glowy spheres bounding about was nevertheless amusing. Except they’d cause fires and burn down the forest. That wouldn’t be as fun.
Perceptor drooped. “Oh, Hoist, I am sorry. You are correct, Beachcomber. We…we can have starlight some other time.”
“No, no,” Hoist said, “go ahead with a multiple topside, I have it sorted.”
“How, exactly?” Perceptor asked, pinning Hoist with an intent stare.
“You’ll see,” Hoist said merrily.
Hey, Hoist! I’ll give you a boost up and down, Powerglide offered, currently cruising at five thousand meters. Powerglide can do! And does!
“Very well,” Perceptor said, amused.
Hoist clasped Beachcomber and Perceptor’s shoulders and turned them around, propelling them from the chamber. Ven was already sequencing up the tanks’ systems, filling them with growth medium and drawing up the requisite amounts for each of protomass from the store they kept of that donated by Prime earlier. “Go on, have your starlight.”
They leaned in, hugging Hoist, and he kissed them and patted their helms.
To the summit, then! Perceptor called, running and leaping up the mountainside, Beachcomber keeping pace despite much shorter legs.
…
Stone beneath them, stars above, moonlight limning every edge, glowing in Perceptor’s lenses. Beachcomber, swimming the endless, dark sea of possibilities, illuminated by rafts of jellyfish spark-shades, now understood Perceptor’s complete and joyous love for these multitudes. How could one choose just one? Or twenty?
…
Perceptor tried to lurch to his feet, tried to keep the whirling sparks safe in his arms, against his own spark, but they seemed to want to orbit, and Perceptor's legs seemed to be offline somehow.
Easy, Perceptor, I have them, Hoist said, stealing a kiss as he scooped the new sparks one by one into something he was carrying. Beachcomber refocused his optics. It looked like some kind of metal tray, with …indentations? Cups? Just big enough to hold each spark, bubbling and bouncing or spinning thoughtfully, glows spreading over the edge of the whatever it was. Beachcomber was sure there was a name for it somewhere in his memory, but his systems were shutting down; he hadn’t tried Red’s trick this time. He wanted to rest, just rest on Perceptor’s comforting warm body.
…
Beachcomber came to laughing. “A muffin tin!” He rolled around on Perceptor’s chest, kicking his feet in glee. “Hoist made a giant muffin tin to carry our spark-babies to the tanks! That is totally awesome!”
Perceptor chuckled. “Ordinarily I’d say he watches too much Food Network, but in this case his culinary obsession proved most valuable.”
Awake at last, hm? Hoist said, replying to Perceptor’s query regarding their new progeny. One of them twinned, by the way. I had to put them in the same tank, but the protoforms have split properly and seem to be doing just fine.
Perceptor sat up, holding on to Beachcomber to keep him from tumbling off the crater’s rim. WHAT? Twins! Really? Have you told Ratchet?
Yes, I sent him the tank feeds. He concurs that they appear to be a perfectly normal set of spark twins. Not that twins are ever normal - yes I mean you, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! Hoist chuckled. The news was spreading fast around the cloud mind, bringing with it streams of congratulations and affection and laughter and teasing and running warm beneath it all Prime’s encroaching hope for their future.
…
You’ve just dropped four out of their cans, Brawn said, later, through the cloud mind, gaping in disbelief. Now you drag Beachcomber into tossing off how many more?
Sounds like an obsession to me, Cliffjumper added helpfully.
Yeah, and he’s hogging all the tanks! said Powerglide. Sheesh!
It’s those child-bearing hips, Sunstreaker chimed in. He can’t help himself.
Don’t let them rattle you, Perceptor, Prime said, placing a hand on Perceptor’s shoulder as they surveyed the twenty new tanks and their even newer occupants. After a week, the same jibes were getting old and Perceptor was trying not to succumb to getting into A Mood. “What you and Beachcomber are doing is wise and necessary. The Decepticon lines are wearing thin, and I grow weary of this war.”
Perceptor regarded him sharply, large optics very wide, mouthparts open slightly. “I’m afraid I’m not as reassured by that as you no doubt intended me to be.”
Prime chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning anything rash.”
“No. You wouldn’t. Just something permanent.”
Table of Contents
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Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing(s): ensemble, Beachcomber/Perceptor
Warnings: fluff, OCs, light smexing
Summary: Wherein Hot Rod learns to swim, a theft is discovered, various new mechs decant and Perce and Comber start a new batch cooking. ;D
Notes: The vacuum bubbles and the terminology of "Outside Context Problem" were gleefully and shamelessly but respectfully stolen from the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks.
~5400 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
BOREALIS: Star Light, Star Bright - Part IV
2032 - January
For someone so large, Borealis could nevertheless move very quietly and unobtrusively when the need arose. She reached down over the heads of the mechs gathered around Hot Rod’s table and picked him up. “C’mere, Squidge.” Jazz’s nicknames were irresistible.
“Hey, Borealis!” Sideswipe said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in space?”
“Perceptor said I could come down to see you.” Or rather Perceptor had hinted strongly that he wanted to go down to see the new person, but that Borealis perhaps should go in his stead, in addition to her own reasons. He would want all of her observational files when she got back to the Oort.
She carried him out through the hangar, ignoring the curious looks from the human staff and visiting ambassadors, and outside into an unseasonably warm, blue-skied evening. She cradled him against her chest in such a way that he faced more or less outward. He wrapped his “tail” around her wrist; affectionate rather than nervous at being up so high.
Wheeljack had proposed building a wheelchair for him, except that there never seemed to be any shortage of mechs willing to carry him around; which Hot Rod seemed to enjoy immensely. Borealis mentally added herself to that list. Any time anywhere.
“Are we going flying?”
“Would you like to?”
“YES!”
Borealis grinned and shifted her engines to root-mode optimum thrust. Her feet lifted from the ground and they soared up above the Nevada desert, spiraling slowly so Hot Rod could see.
“WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!” he shouted, though he held onto her hand very tightly.
…
They followed a lazy arc over the Pacific, heading for Hawaii, where Seaspray was working on something for Beachcomber. “Care to try swimming next?” Borealis asked Hot Rod.
“Ooo! Uh, sure, why not?” He sounded only about 87 percent sure, but she nosed down anyway, rolling lazily and drawing her limbs and armor in tight, clasping Hot Rod to her chest with one hand and extending the other with wrist and hand covered by her forward chine. It wasn’t a bad dive for someone a hundred feet tall.
Hot Rod meeped and curled up under the protecting spans of her long fingers. He thought about pinching his central helm buttress as though holding his “nose” - Borealis would get the joke. But the clear, warm turquoise waters he could now perceive through the dispersing curtain of bubbles from their entry distracted him. There was so much sound! He could hear whales talking hundreds of miles away, and dolphins clicking closer by, and fish snapping and crackling and nipping bits off the nearby coral reefs - albeit much of the more distant sounds were obscured by human watercraft. Seaspray had been working with the US Navy and other groups - mostly non-government research facilities and a few shipping companies - over the decades, designing quieter engines with the technology the humans already had or were so rapidly developing with or without the Autobots’ help. It was in some ways a slow process. From environmentalists’ point of view anyway. Seaspray thought things were getting on by leaps and bounds and now understood Prime’s worry that the humans would soon outstrip their own remarkable ability to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
Um, how deep are we going? Hot Rod enquired, in what he thought was a delicate, very diplomatic tone.
Pacific floor is four to six thousand meters around here, Borealis told him, grinning, harmonics clearly amused. Well within our operational parameters. Gas giants are hazardous. This is just fun!
Will you take me up to space?
Not until your legs grow in, kiddo. There's too much hard radiation, might hurt you.
Okay. Well, later, then? When I’m finished?
Yes, Squidge, when you’re finished I’ll take you to space.
They met Seaspray at the Pele’s Pit vent of the Lo’ihi seamount, twenty-two miles off the southeast coast of the Big Island. In a hundred million years or so, the chain would have a new island. Beachcomber and Skyfire had placed small sensors there during their first visit several years previously, and Seaspray was checking their positioning and functions and adding a few more; necessitated by a couple of new eruptions.
Hi there, Lissi! Seaspray called, waving. They could see him by his heat signature as well as the glow of the downward-pointing lights he had on. So you must be Hot Rod!
Hi! You must be Seaspray. Is that fun?
Seaspray considered this. I guess so, in a way. It’s useful, scientifically. Maybe not for kicking Decepticon tailpipes but you never know.
So, doing something useful is fun? Hot Rod didn’t seem convinced. He looked up at Borealis, who schooled her expression just in time.
Yes, Seaspray said. That's a kind of fun, sure, if the work is interesting or if you're with friends.
Hot Rod struggled against her grasp so Borealis let him go, hoping he didn’t damage his aft end on the rugged lava, but thinking perhaps he might actually gain some mobility using his “tail” as a tail down here. The density of the water wasn’t quite enough, she calculated, to make him buoyant. Perhaps Seaspray would help him make vacuum balloons, which were what Seaspray used to keep himself neutrally buoyant.
Hot Rod sank to the seamount’s rough, sloping surface, clinging for a moment to the crater walls of Pele’s Pit. Seaspray watched him with a soft, almost sad look on his face.
I had a shape like that once, he said. For a while. A long time ago. Hot Rod looked at him. Move your tail like this, Seaspray said, demonstrating with one arm. Yeah, like that. It’s not a bad swimming shape, once you get the buoyancy worked out. Here, gimme a cable and I’ll give you the vacuum bubble codec. As they were doing that, Borealis settled on her ventral surface on a relatively flat ridge of sulfur-colored cooled lava, propping her chin in her hands, feet waving slowly behind her, ankles crossed. Seaspray grinned, intercepting her thoughtful glance.
There was a time when the Decepticons thought they had all but wiped us out, he said. So they went ahead with their plans of empire, conquering planet after planet. They were a great and terrible Outside Context Problem, like the Conquistadores were to the Aztecs and Inca. But we Autobots weren’t as defeated as they thought. And Megatron let his forces stretch out too thin, taking more volume than he could hold. There, Hot Rod, try that. Put most of them in your shoulders and…uh, where your hips will be when you grow them…yeah…and along your midline spinal strut if it can take the stresses?
His spinal strut isn’t fully formed or attached to anything at the caudal end, Borealis pointed out.
Seaspray waved his arms to catch Hot Rod’s attention. Wait, wait, Ratchet will disassemble me if you break… Just one, then, up in your chest. Fine. Now expand ‘em. Slowly!
Hot Rod’s torso expanded only a little before he began to rise, his tail whipping and curling as though trying to catch on to the rugged stone of the seamount, to keep himself from sailing off to the surface. He collapsed the bubbles slightly and remained where he was, effectively floating about three meters over the crater’s rim. The bubbles didn’t need to be very large, even to float a fifteen-foot long metallic robot. The difference in density between ocean bottom water and vacuum was quite energetic.
I can swim! Hot Rod caroled. The wild oaring of his tail swiftly settled down into an efficient lateral undulation, like a fish rather than a marine mammal. Seaspray and Borealis watched, smiling, as he swam circles around them, up and down, figuring out how to shift his buoyancy.
He’s got decent three-dimensional thinking, Seaspray murmured.
Uh huh, Borealis said, rearranging her wings and rolling over to watch Hot Rod’s antics. I take it that planet Megatron thought he could hold was a waterworld?
Yeah. Seaspray placed another sensor. The native sapients just about had their own rebellion started before we got there. Their obvious forms of technology had been suppressed, but they had some really nice nano-scale stuff, really clever. I don’t think they needed us, but we helped, gave ‘em a trigger.
The other galactic civilizations - both here and in M100 - were still only distant contacts to Borealis, but she had big chunks of the Cybertronian version of an “Encyclopedia Galactica” in her memory core, which she’d perused cover to cover so to speak, on the long flights back and forth between Earth and Cybertron. There were several cataloged liquid water planets, and all of them sustained life. The regret in Seaspray’s harmonics kept her from asking which one he’d left behind.
Whales! Hot Rod shouted, swimming back to them and waving his arms. One’s almost big as you, Lissi!
Seaspray’s optics brightened. Balaenoptera musculus! Don’t often see them around here like you do the humpbacks. He scanned in the direction Hot Rod indicated. Mother and newborn calf. 28 meters for the mom, seven meters for baby. 172 and 2.5 metric tons respectively.
Wow, said Borealis.
Hot Rod, who was only five and a half meters long, if he stretched his tail out as far as he could, swam near the surface, where the water was warm and sapphire blue. Mother and calf stayed close, up in the mirror-bright, satiny waves. Hot Rod wanted to touch them, but didn’t want to upset the mother, or get caught in the wash of a tail wide as Powerglide’s wings.
They’re looking at me! he whispered.
Listen at 10 to 40 Hz. They sing, too.
Whoa. What are they saying?
They’re calling across the entire ocean, keeping in touch with friends and family far away.
Like Prime does?
Yes, Hot Rod, Seaspray said. Like Prime does.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - April
He was tired. Not the kind of tired that went away after a thorough recharge, but a mind tired, an emotionally drained tired. The things people were doing to each other, had been doing to each other - in Somalia and other places - for longer than First Aid had been alive, were appalling. Even Defensor and Glyph together had been able to do very little to help. It was, Prime had said, perhaps the kind of situation where a culture had to kill itself, or almost do so, before things could get better. It had seemed a harsh judgment for about seven milliseconds until First Aid had realized that Prime wasn’t really talking about the humans. Or not just the humans.
Nevertheless, First Aid did the same thing he always did as he walked into the med-bay at the embassy in Nevada. It didn’t take long. It wasn’t a transscan per se, but he’d been programmed to be thorough, and Streetwise added another dollop of insatiable curiosity to their mix. So when he scanned the med-bay, meaning only to make certain he knew where everything was now, in case Ratchet (who liked to tinker, much like Wheeljack; though Ratchet’s reaction to said comparison was unpredictable) had decided to redesign something or Mikaela had moved something that maybe someone might need in a hurry - which she would do only because sometimes she needed it in a hurry and wanted it where she could reach it without going for the waldos. First Aid noticed that aside from the usual small changes (the air molecules weren’t going to be the exact same ones obviously, and dust accumulated; composed not just of human skin cells but out here in the middle of the desert the desert itself tried to move in pretty much all the time) there was something else different, which was a thing that had not been different before. Something that wasn’t supposed to be different. Something small. Something he would have missed if he wasn’t habitually thorough like this.
He paced the chambers, front and back, scanning and looking more closely this time. Even so, it was only because he was looking very carefully that he found it. And then he didn’t want to believe what he’d found.
Ratchet? Could you…come in here, please?
On my way.
…
Ratchet held the shard, turning it slightly back and forth, analyzing the microscopic scoring marks within the tiny scratch that had been made on the back side. “Vibroblade,” he said. “There’s a very faint energy trace. Not Autobot.”
“Lockdown.” Prowl bowed his head, riding a hot surge of anger the likes of which he hadn’t felt since finding Barricade. He wanted to hunt Lockdown down the same way, with the same disregard for anything or anyone else, the same singularity of purpose. It had been a relief to surrender to such a purpose, such a narrowness of thought. He did not, as had become his wont, hide this rage from the seekers.
You’re a hunter, like us, Thundercracker said, on what he was trying not to think of as their trine channel.
Yes, said Prowl, accepting this. I have become so. The recent interlude with Jazz had made Prowl more aware of his embodied life before the war. When he had not been a warrior. A civilian, and though living in socially complex times, nevertheless with in many ways what was a simpler life.
“How could he have gotten in here?” Bluestreak asked. “He’s not like Ravage! I think someone would have noticed!”
Teletraan and Red Alert were unwavering. “Unless Lockdown has Mirage’s cloaking net,” Red said, “there is no way a Decepticon could have gotten inside the med-bay, left just enough trace to make us suspicious, then got out again without anyone, even Tel and Metroplex, noticing. That only a small portion rather than the entire shard was taken suggests that whoever did this hoped the theft would go unnoticed for a certain length of time.”
“So it could have happened years ago, well, as long ago as when Ratchet got it out of Prowl, anyway?” Bluestreak asked.
“I don’t think it was years ago,” First Aid said. “I scan like that whenever I come back, and we’ve only been out a few months, just since after Thunderwing.”
“So it’s either one of us here on Earth or someone who just left with Ultra Magnus and the others.”
Prime shook his head. “I don’t want anyone making wild accusations. Nightbeat, Streetwise, this is, I believe, right up your alley. Please exercise restraint.” Prime didn’t like the direction his thoughts were taking. If someone - well, someone non-human; he could well imagine a human desiring a curious metallurgical specimen, for a collection or to sell; but how would an unaided human scrape a curl of spark chamber-hard alloy off the shard and then leave a faint energy trace that would point so clearly to a particular mech? Lockdown was a worry, but Prime suspected this was a frame. So. If a Cybertronian was the thief, it was possible it meant they wanted to reproduce the mechanism. And that wasn’t a fun idea at all.
“Understood,” Nightbeat said.
“We are the very soul of discretion,” Streetwise said, bowing.
“Oh dear,” said Tracks.
“We don’t know that Lockdown doesn’t have something like my stealth cloak,” Mirage pointed out. Lockdown, according to Prowl and the Lambo twins, liked taking trophies. There had originally been twelve mechs who’d had the pan-spectrum cloak installed. And twelve others with scanner suites like Hound’s. A Hound for each Fox.
“No,” said Jazz, shifting uncomfortably. “Only nine of the twelve were accounted for. …Well… Nine of the ten we know were killed.”
“Sleight is alive,” Prime said, at Mirage’s radiant look. “Alive and with one of the neutral colonies.” Mirage, unlike most of the other Autobots, had never asked Prime about the survival of old friends. He had observed from the experience of others that the vast majority of the time the answer was no.
Shall I contact Ultra Magnus? Red Alert tight-beamed to Prime. They might be willing to turn around and come back. At least until we get this solved.
Prime considered. Voices murmured within the Matrix though he hadn’t enquired of them. No imperatives emerged from the susurrus, but he remained aware of the restlessness within. Yes, he told Red Alert. They’ll be in Chaar’s arc-volume by now. Code it for Magnus only. Conceivably this might be a prank. Let’s not get everyone up in arms.
Or at least let everyone think we’re not concerned yet, Red said, nodding and returning to the Security office.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - May
Powerglide circled around for another pass to be sure his optics weren’t playing tricks on him. Yep. There they were, doing what he thought they were doing. Yo! Trailbreaker! he tight-beamed. What gives?
Sitting on the side of the road, outwardly relaxed, his optics off, Trailbreaker’s peaceful little smile widened. If Prime really laid back in a bed of Earth flowers like this, he’d squish them. So I thought I’d give him a hand.
Only a slight shimmer gave the heavy duty force fields away. Prime lolled spread-eagled over the field of poppies and lupine, those beneath him bent slightly so that he seemed to be floating on a shallow, bright orange sea flecked with purple and green. He’d been doing nothing more strenuous than watching the clouds and had seen Powerglide’s flyby. He waved at the little aerobatics plane then laced his fingers behind his helm and crossed his ankles in as fluent a show of contentment as any bilaterally symmetrical humanoid could display. Powerglide laughed.
Have fun, Boss! He waggled his wings then resumed his course north to the Oregon base, feeling lighter than air.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2032 - September
The pleas for their help in international rescue and humanitarian aid efforts were getting harder and harder to put off. First Aid, however, was adamant. They could run around the western half of North America for a while; there were things there that needed doing, too; but with the deltas gone so often to the limits of the solar system, Aid did not want them straying too far when Evac and Blades’ progeny was so close to decant.
The new mech had grown into a typical seeker-class zeta, like Skydive and Fireflight, peering and scanning curiously about from the tank, transmitting an occasional greeting or answer to one in a soft and, so far, uncomplicated tone. Tracks had pronounced him completely adorable.
“Welcome,” the Protectobots said, as they took the new jet’s hands and drew him into a six-way hug.
“Hullo,” the jet said, big, round optics glowing bright. “I’m Breakaway!”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2033 - July
Ratchet rechecked and re-calibrated and rechecked again. He was up at the Oregon base while Perceptor was still in space, (though Perceptor would return to Earth with Skyfire in time for the decantation. They hoped.) checking them over to put Hoist’s mind at ease and to visit with Catscan and Lifeline.
Perceptor, he tight-beamed carefully. Putting another two layers of encryption on just in case. Perceptor’s progeny were always too clever by half. And he’d had no idea what to expect of offspring from Vector Prime. Now he’d gotten a bit of a clue.
Yes, Ratchet?
Oh, slag you, Ratchet thought. Perceptor already sounded smug. They aren’t any forging I can identify. Not that Tessera had been entirely typical, but Perceptor had managed to dredge up a precedent from the most ancient files in the Archive copy. Gestalts and anti-gestalts. Ratchet had thought these four were going to be je like Arcee, and he’d been glad of it. But these four had wings. Even Tracks’ forging wasn’t this weird.
The get of a Firstforged; what were you expecting?
You’re enjoying this, aren’t you.
Oh yes.
…
Five days later.
Usually - or given the small sample they had so far - when a group decanted together, it meant they had chosen to be a gestalt, or were twins. Or in this case, quadruplets. Except these four had been simply kindled at the same time by the same progenitors. Their sparks had been formed independently, not split. Ratchet didn’t know what to make of it, but he was glad it was Perceptor up there in Oregon, handling things at the final stage, rather than him.
Catscan and Lifeline had observed the growth process with fascination from the beginning. They were pleased to be allowed to be present for the decantation as well, though Perceptor and Hoist assured them it was no different than watching anyone newly sparked come down off the kindling platform. These weren’t going to be altricial young, like humans had, even if they’d been made on the humans’ planet.
“Even so,” Catscan said gravely. “We have not seen new people made in a very long time. I am more glad than I can say that you here have found a way to do it, despite what happened to the Allspark.”
“It is a pity Vector Prime did not stay longer,” Lifeline said.
“Yes,” Perceptor murmured, his fins and vanes sinking for a moment against his helm. “No doubt he will meet them at some point in the future.” He grinned.
Four plex cylinders rose, four small, angular mechs stepped down, optics on Perceptor.
“Spark of our sparks,” they said, reaching up to touch his face as he knelt to gather them in his arms.
“Do you know your names?” Lifeline asked.
“Celaeno, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone,” they said. Furies.
They vanished with an inrush of air, reappearing on the mountainside, drinking in their first sight of the ocean. Perceptor, holding nothing but air, fell back onto his aft.
“Teleporters!” He murmured, regaining his feet only to lean hard on Catscan. “Oh dear.”
Skywarp’s gonna be fragged off, when he finds out, Thundercracker opined, flying in tight formation with Strake at 40 thousand feet directly above. He assassinated every other seeker with the ability.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2033 - August
“Hmm?” The sunwarmed hands on his chassis at first only vaguely impinged on Perceptor’s consciousness. Various subroutines linked to his sensors told him who it was. A bit of a surprise, since despite the nakedly geological landscape around the embassy, Beachcomber didn’t really spend very much time down there.
Beachcomber touched him often, but sometimes Perceptor got a clue that his smaller friend had more in mind than a simple hug. The wandering yet deliberate groping was pretty much a giveaway.
Hey.
Perceptor aimed the microfusor in a safer direction and leaned down to nuzzle Beachcomber’s helm. After the preliminary tests outside the Sol system, Perceptor had tweaked the design of the gate emitters a little more. Which meant he also had to modify the machines he and Wheeljack were building that would help make the machines that would manufacture the emitters on a more industrial scale. Most of the structural framework could be built thus, but some components were going to be fiddly and delicate and would best be at least calibrated by hand, as it were. Wheeljack still wasn’t happy about the unconventional design, but he could hardly complain too much when Vector Prime himself had approved of Perceptor’s innovations.
If we made more science-bots, Beachcomber hummed, They could help. You wouldn’t have to work so hard.
Oh ho! Is that what you’re after? Perceptor powered off his tools and turned in the loose circle of Beachcomber’s arms, bending lower yet to kiss the geologist properly.
Hoist and Grapple have more tanks ready, if you want to.
Hmm! How many, if I may ask?
Beachcomber laughed. He knew Perceptor wanted to try Vector’s ancient method again, if only to prove it worked with someone other than a Firstforged. Beachcomber was certainly game. Rutile had been on Mars for almost nine years. Aside from the brief visit afforded - unfortunately - by Thunderwing’s arrival, Beachcomber hadn’t seen him in the metal for most of that time, and he missed him. Well. Subspace comm was essentially lag-free, so they didn’t even have to wait the four minutes each way for a conversation. But Beachcomber liked bodies. He liked watching people’s optics as they spoke, liked watching how they moved, liked feeling their energies and warmth. It wasn’t an obsessive need by any measure; it was just nice. “Twenty,” he told Perceptor. And grinned as his friend’s head fins and vanes stood straight up for a second before waving about rather excitedly.
So we have a total of twenty-five there, plus eleven here. Ratchet had given Metroplex a stern talking-to and there weren’t likely to be any more premature decantations. Hot Rod’s legs had indeed finally grown in properly, but it had taken almost another year for them to be fully developed and transformable. Hot Rod, despite all the scolding, didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you want to drive back?” Beachcomber asked hopefully. They could get Skyfire to lift them over, but the drive would be relaxing. Well. It would be relaxing for Beachcomber. Perceptor, if he was in the mood to fret over wasted time - which was most of the time these days - might find a few extra hours delay aggravating.
Borealis is bringing Rutile down from Mars, Perceptor said. Why don’t we drive?
Beachcomber did a little whirling dance he might have learned in the Sahara or from dervishes in India during his wanderings with Miles, and his smile shone brighter than a sun.
…
“Do you really think we should make enough to fill all twenty tanks?” Beachcomber stood in the center of the new circular chamber Hoist and Grapple had hollowed out of the mountain. The space was relatively spare and smooth-walled, but Grapple was in the process of carving bas reliefs and groined arches in the ceiling. Beachcomber had found the column of sturdy basalt in an old, choked off throat of the volcano, and he and Grapple had planned the structure carefully, taking the tectonic instability into account. The ceiling was quite high and already the fluted and crenellated shapes aloft were beautiful. Tanks lined most of the circumference, though there was room left for more, fitted snugly, if they wanted more in the future.
Perceptor had argued that perhaps confronted with a period of time when they couldn’t merge would induce more of his team to want to. Hoist and Grapple had had Theodolite back in the 20’s, but had not repeated the experiment. At least not with each other. Hoist had later produced Rollbar with Inferno of all people. Perceptor had no idea what that had been about, other than perhaps to see if two large mechs might tend to produce another large spark and hence large mech. Rollbar was smaller than both of his progenitors, though. Perceptor didn’t think it had anything to do with progression toward the mean - look at Metroplex and Groove, both were “Prime Kids” as some people were calling them, but though Prime needed to donate as much mass as possible for each protoform, the resultant size of the fully-formed mech seemed to have more to do with both the intentions and needs of the progenitors and the wishes and decided upon form of the newspark itself.
Or maybe the Allspark, having created all of them, was yet messing about with them. Perceptor might want to have a word with it later, if that was the case.
Beachcomber insisted that not only was Perceptor’s rather mean-spirited strategy not going to work, but that Gears and Huffer and the others knew perfectly well how happy merges and newsparks made Perceptor and wouldn’t take up a tank with their own progeny even if they wanted to.
“And if we have that many at once, we’ll have to do it down here,” Beachcomber pointed out. He didn’t mind. It was a nice enough cave, putting it that way, though he liked flowstone and travertine and the natural formations that filled many caves better. “Hoist couldn’t carry that many down from the mountaintop; he’d melt and they’d go bouncing off across the landscape and who knows what would happen?” He suspected that unbodied or otherwise unsupported sparks would burn out and die, but the image of little glowy spheres bounding about was nevertheless amusing. Except they’d cause fires and burn down the forest. That wouldn’t be as fun.
Perceptor drooped. “Oh, Hoist, I am sorry. You are correct, Beachcomber. We…we can have starlight some other time.”
“No, no,” Hoist said, “go ahead with a multiple topside, I have it sorted.”
“How, exactly?” Perceptor asked, pinning Hoist with an intent stare.
“You’ll see,” Hoist said merrily.
Hey, Hoist! I’ll give you a boost up and down, Powerglide offered, currently cruising at five thousand meters. Powerglide can do! And does!
“Very well,” Perceptor said, amused.
Hoist clasped Beachcomber and Perceptor’s shoulders and turned them around, propelling them from the chamber. Ven was already sequencing up the tanks’ systems, filling them with growth medium and drawing up the requisite amounts for each of protomass from the store they kept of that donated by Prime earlier. “Go on, have your starlight.”
They leaned in, hugging Hoist, and he kissed them and patted their helms.
To the summit, then! Perceptor called, running and leaping up the mountainside, Beachcomber keeping pace despite much shorter legs.
…
Stone beneath them, stars above, moonlight limning every edge, glowing in Perceptor’s lenses. Beachcomber, swimming the endless, dark sea of possibilities, illuminated by rafts of jellyfish spark-shades, now understood Perceptor’s complete and joyous love for these multitudes. How could one choose just one? Or twenty?
…
Perceptor tried to lurch to his feet, tried to keep the whirling sparks safe in his arms, against his own spark, but they seemed to want to orbit, and Perceptor's legs seemed to be offline somehow.
Easy, Perceptor, I have them, Hoist said, stealing a kiss as he scooped the new sparks one by one into something he was carrying. Beachcomber refocused his optics. It looked like some kind of metal tray, with …indentations? Cups? Just big enough to hold each spark, bubbling and bouncing or spinning thoughtfully, glows spreading over the edge of the whatever it was. Beachcomber was sure there was a name for it somewhere in his memory, but his systems were shutting down; he hadn’t tried Red’s trick this time. He wanted to rest, just rest on Perceptor’s comforting warm body.
…
Beachcomber came to laughing. “A muffin tin!” He rolled around on Perceptor’s chest, kicking his feet in glee. “Hoist made a giant muffin tin to carry our spark-babies to the tanks! That is totally awesome!”
Perceptor chuckled. “Ordinarily I’d say he watches too much Food Network, but in this case his culinary obsession proved most valuable.”
Awake at last, hm? Hoist said, replying to Perceptor’s query regarding their new progeny. One of them twinned, by the way. I had to put them in the same tank, but the protoforms have split properly and seem to be doing just fine.
Perceptor sat up, holding on to Beachcomber to keep him from tumbling off the crater’s rim. WHAT? Twins! Really? Have you told Ratchet?
Yes, I sent him the tank feeds. He concurs that they appear to be a perfectly normal set of spark twins. Not that twins are ever normal - yes I mean you, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! Hoist chuckled. The news was spreading fast around the cloud mind, bringing with it streams of congratulations and affection and laughter and teasing and running warm beneath it all Prime’s encroaching hope for their future.
…
You’ve just dropped four out of their cans, Brawn said, later, through the cloud mind, gaping in disbelief. Now you drag Beachcomber into tossing off how many more?
Sounds like an obsession to me, Cliffjumper added helpfully.
Yeah, and he’s hogging all the tanks! said Powerglide. Sheesh!
It’s those child-bearing hips, Sunstreaker chimed in. He can’t help himself.
Don’t let them rattle you, Perceptor, Prime said, placing a hand on Perceptor’s shoulder as they surveyed the twenty new tanks and their even newer occupants. After a week, the same jibes were getting old and Perceptor was trying not to succumb to getting into A Mood. “What you and Beachcomber are doing is wise and necessary. The Decepticon lines are wearing thin, and I grow weary of this war.”
Perceptor regarded him sharply, large optics very wide, mouthparts open slightly. “I’m afraid I’m not as reassured by that as you no doubt intended me to be.”
Prime chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning anything rash.”
“No. You wouldn’t. Just something permanent.”
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