(no subject)
Title: Borealis 74/92: Sigh No More - Part V
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble/several
Warnings: Waff/fluff, attempted het, OCs, mild robot snuggling
Summary: Wherein Perceptor sings the Krebs Cycle lullaby, TC makes a pass at Borealis, Bee and Sam have a chat, the Preds attack the Oregon base, Nellis AFB puts on a special show, and the new kid in the big tank looks funny. ;D
Notes: Use of the apiologically pertinent name “Melissa” as a Witwicky kid gleefully lifted from sakon76 with permission.
~8100 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
BOREALIS: Sigh No More - Part V
2044 - March
“Succinate, Fumarate, Malate,” Perceptor sang, “with water and Fumarase, dear Malate dehydrogenase / Back we go, fast not slow, to Oxaloacetate!”
From her workstation, Dani watched him rock little ‘Lissa. She felt a strange kind of déjà vu; the voice, the tune, those hands, the warmth of living metal; she knew these things, had known them from her earliest days. Perceptor had sung the Krebs Cycle lullaby to her when she’d been a baby, and a toddler. It was part of her innermost comfort systems. She hadn’t understood why everyone else seemed to find the melody unpleasant until her early teens, when she’d had a couple of talks with Oratorio regarding musical theory. The main problem, she’d learned, was that the two interwoven harmonies were in ranges inaudible to unaugmented human hearing; and that it was a song usually sung by Cybertronians who’d had too much high-grade and was therefore tailored to the fluctuations of a slightly unstable vocoder.
Little Melissa watched the waving, curling sensory fins and vanes on Perceptor’s head with the same fascination Dani had at the same age. Perceptor sent Dani a feed, complete with three overlays of microbiological, metabolic and infrared data. Dani knew he’d removed at least another dozen layers, but was pleased he’d left the most pertinent three. Some of the other Bots pared their feeds down to audio and vid only when sharing with humans, but to Dani those feeds felt flat and bare. She liked having access to the swirl of data, liked being able to choose for herself which bits to ignore and which to enhance.
“Sure you don’t mind?” she asked Perceptor. She was supposed to make certain, not just assume and toss the kid off to somebot else whenever she felt like it. Dani’s cheeks reddened at the recollection of her mother’s lecture. As if Dani and Nate hadn’t been more than half raised that way. She had work to do. She was supporting herself and her daughter. Everyone else used some kind of daycare facility, yet she wasn’t allowed to without elaborate and useless rituals of conciliation because her daycare providers happened to be…what? Aliens? Whose primary function wasn’t daycare, certainly, but if they volunteered to help out where was the harm? Besides, they weren’t really aliens as far as Dani was concerned. They’d been on the planet longer than she had.
Perceptor cocked an accessory optic at her. Of course he didn’t mind, why in the world was she asking? He’d happily spend the entire morning watching cells divide. He needed to get out of the tower every now and then anyway. He’d had another row with Scrapper - more a continuation of the row they’d been having since they’d met, really - and even Scavenger was miffed at him at the moment. Perceptor wouldn’t allow any of the Constructicons within line-of-sight of the baby, snarling at Scavenger that he and his brothers had collectively taken enough fragile human lives, and that Perceptor wasn’t convinced the Structies even truly considered the humans sapient. Scavenger had actually yelled back for once. Then Ratchet and Hook had yelled, and Perceptor had stalked off in high dudgeon. Dani wondered what low dudgeon would be like. She approved of Perceptor’s protectiveness, but at the same time felt bad. Scavenger at least didn’t act like a sociopath, and he’d been keeping Perceptor company in a way that seemed to have been doing them both good. Hopefully they’d make up soon.
Hook and Ratchet. That had been an interesting thing. Dani replayed her own vid of their meeting outside Wheeljack’s tower. The two medical officers had engaged a long, mutually considering look. And then without so much as a flinch exchanged wrist cables to compare files or something. Everyone had expected commentary at least from Ratchet. At that point, though, the only one snarling had been Ironhide.
The code she was debugging wasn’t going to unsnarl itself. Dani resented having this kind of scutwork piled into her inbox, but she also hated inelegant code and felt the need to root it out and destroy it utterly. With the introduction of Cybertronian-influenced programming languages there was no excuse for this kind of garbage. Certainly not in any project Dani was involved with. The rest of her team might think they were punishing her for being the golden child - an understandable jealousy, as Roddy of all people had pointed out. It was irritating, but she was determined to not only not let it get to her, but to pull success and innovation through the others’ resistance.
Besides, it would be mortally embarrassing to let this program go out to beta with crunky code. Teletraan would read it!
...
Day to night. That’s what it felt like, driving into the cool, dim embassy hangar from the noontime desert outside. Well. Nate wasn’t old enough to drive officially, but since Arcee was in charge of that department, and as long as they stayed more or less on embassy grounds…or weren’t spotted by Highway Patrol…no one fussed too much.
He dismounted and peeled off his helmet - not even Arcee would let him bend that rule - and waved as Arcee transformed and strode off to the niche beside the med-bay for a quick refuel. Nate ran his fingers through his hair. This year he was trying out a longer style - fortunately he’d inherited his mother’s looser curls so was in no danger of resembling Weird Al or Carrot Top. He thought he looked rakish and daring. It was also possible he needed a few more years to grow into parts of his face, but there was nothing he could do about that. Until then, longer hair covered The Forehead.
Perceptor was singing. Some kind of Too-Ra-Loo-Ra thing, thank god. Nate glanced around the human scaled area. Yep, non-Witwicky humans about. Hence the melodious baritone rather than the more usual caterwauling. Nate regarded the caterwauling with just as much fondness as his big sister, but was not currently at a stage to be willing to admit it. Perceptor had a nice voice when he was singing human songs, though, rocking baby Melissa in one hand and typing across several keyboards in Glen’s Nest with the other. The bank of mist screens above were going nuts, but to Perceptor’s optics it probably was just a leisurely trawl. Channel-surfing with the robots was the worst. Nate found his sister in her usual VR-lensed hunch at her workstation.
“Dad still in the meeting?”
“Hey, Nate. Yep. Did you get your homework done?”
“Yeee-eees. Last night in fact, so shut up.”
“Okay, okay, just checking. Wanna grab a couple sodas and meet me in the lounge? Tel’s got the preview cut from Joss Whedon’s new movie in the queue.”
“Whoa, severe! Isn’t that pirate?”
“Mr. Whedon himself sent the file to me,” Teletraan said.
Was it possible for an AI to sound sniffy? Nate grinned. “The Jossman makes a robot movie and wants some C&C from you guys, right?”
“Correct.”
“You getting those sodas or what?” Dani pulled the jack from her occipital port and stretched.
“On it!” Nate did not scamper. He sauntered with great deliberationosity and dignification.
Dani snorted, then looked up. “Perceptor…?”
“Go on,” he said, in no hurry to relinquish the baby. “I’ve seen it.”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2044 - May
Sunlight unfiltered by atmosphere felt good on his wings. Thundercracker arched high, pushing rather the limits of his parole. Except he carried one of Prime’s battle gnats in a cache. From above the ecliptic he caught the first glimmer and flash of IFF and sensor-flick. A delta, coming in from the Cybertron run. Mmm. One of the young ones. Emplaced with a minicon this time, if Thundercracker’s recall was accurate. Prime and the others had run interference for the minicons for years, until Pulse had stalked up to Thundercracker and punched him hard in mid-tarsal. His traditional greeting. Thundercracker had yelped and called Pulse all the traditional names.
More and more people wanted this war over. Were sick of factions. Wanted their old friends back.
The dark blue deep-Seeker flattened his…no, wait, this was the one they were supposed to call “her” for some reason. Whatever. Flattened her insertion trajectory. Ah. Some of them did like to surf down the long way, getting their heavily armored hulls nice and hot. Perfect vector for the Nevada embassy. He decided to follow her down.
Landing on wheels? Really? he jibed as she lined herself up with the road. She hadn’t read like she was carrying much cargo.
With an irritated flick of wingtips, Borealis jinked to port and flared, dumping speed as she transformed and skidded, dragging two long trenches with her feet in the dirt just off the road. Thundercracker landed lightly on the road surface, flipping nose-over-aft in transformation and touching down with hardly a sound, his talons leaving no mark on the easily scratched asphalt.
She strode toward him, head held low and forward, wings rutched high. He grinned.
Her foot came up and pressed him into the road, pinning him; one rearward-pointing toe between his legs, the rest fanned out around him with talons sunk into the pavement. It hadn’t been so much a kick as a shove. She wasn’t leaning her entire weight on him, either.
“Mmmm,” he purred, stroking her lateral toes, drawing his claws along the metal with just the right amount of pressure to elicit a low singing thrum. Borealis shivered. “Delta-type foreplay.”
She goggled at him. “…What?”
He laughed. “When a delta wants to clang someone who isn’t also a delta. Or isn’t someone bigger, I guess. Sure way to get someone’s attention, and Seeker feet are sensitive.”
Borealis yanked her foot off him and backed away. “You…you suck! I’ll never be able to step on Slingshot again!”
“I’ll step on him for you if it’ll help.”
“Gah!”
This wasn’t going how he’d planned. She’d been revved up, at least somewhat, and now she was stalking off toward the embassy, wing segments angled down and back. Huh. She’d stopped. Ah, the minicon, Orris, was out on her helm, talking to her. She looked back over her portside shoulder at Thundercracker. He crossed his arms over his chest, spreading his wings in a rather fetching array. Flirting with deltas could be tricky, but it was worth it. He remembered Starscream’s consternation when Skyfire-
Bad thought. Never mind, never mind, never mind!
What’s your problem? came a lazy thought from Strake. He and Prowl were patrolling the Eastern Seaboard, looking for traces of Lockdown. The two alphas really liked it when Prowl was in hunter mode. Although that didn’t stop Strake from complaining about drag with Prowl sleeked on his dorsal hull.
Get slagged, Thundercracker replied. I’m coming up. Taking the western side of the Atlantic. He transformed and winged for the stratosphere.
“What fresh hell?” said Borealis. Orris was barely clinging to her helm, laughing his aft off. She ignored him. Shrugging, she resumed her stomp into the embassy to report to Prime.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2055 - September
When did 70 get to be six years away? How did that even happen? He didn’t feel a day over forty.
Sam wasn’t sure whether he’d retire when he reached 70, or not. He technically worked for the government of the United States in an unofficial capacity these days. More of a consultant. Younger people had taken up the mantle of US Ambassador to Cybertron. He could retire now if he wanted. He’d let Smokey make a few choice investments for him - it was still a gamble, but Prowl had vetted them as well, and put a pretty high percentage on returns, so Sam had felt confident about it. His portfolio was diverse enough now that things were rolling along almost of their own impetus. Dani and Nate and the grandkids would be taken care of if it was money they needed.
The Autobots themselves would handle anything else. Bee especially. Sam leaned back in the driver’s seat, not even pretending to drive. Mid-life crisis? What mid-life crisis? He’d always had a hot car.
Sam?
Yeah?
Do you remember what I asked you, twenty years ago?
Twenty years ago? Sam couldn’t remember what he’d had for breakfast four hours ago. Bee’s tone was unusually solemn, though.
You said 44 wasn’t so bad. To ask you again in twenty years. And it’s been.
Forty…what…? Oh! Oh. I did say that, didn’t I.
Yes, Sam.
And you’re deliberately asking me now when Mikaela’s not around.
Yes, Sam. Bee wanted Sam’s answer for himself.
And you think I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, Sam thought. And twenty years is a long time. But Sam had spent a long time not thinking about it. It wasn’t a more comfortable thing to think of now, his own death. Now it was much closer. He knew he was on the downward slope and picking up speed. He didn’t like to think about that. Live in the now!
He was pretty darn healthy for a sixty-something, though. The Baby Boomers had thought they had it good. He was thankful Miles had proven an amenable and sturdy guinea pig. Not that Perceptor didn’t run thousands of sims first, checking for emergent properties of anything they wanted to try in a living human system. So far Miles had proven allergic to only two or three of the modifications, and each reaction had been milder than the one before as Perceptor fine-tuned his understanding of Miles’ physiology. The rest of the Autobots’ circle of human family benefitted most directly, and then Perceptor tended to set the data free. Big Pharma might snatch it up, but then they still had to go through years of R & D and government approval before marketing anything. Meanwhile the Protectobots put their weight behind Medecins Sans Frontieres (the Pbots were the literal poster children for MSF) and anyone else working on bringing innovations to the poorest. Developing countries didn’t have to follow in the superpowers’ wasteful, meandering path - they could (and did) bootstrap themselves fast forward, past generations of the worst mistakes to use better methods, including more advanced technology, but sometimes simpler answers were better. The “rising billion” were a market force to be reckoned with.
Okay, but Mikaela being or not being here right now doesn’t matter. If she finds out I gave you the go-ahead I’ll spend the next thirty years sleeping on the couch.
Sam…
And it’s not just that, okay? I’m not as whipped as you seem to think, thank you very much. I liked Daveed’s answer, all right? It’s enough that you’ll remember me when the sun goes red giant and incinerates the Earth. I’m good with that.
Is that your final answer? Levity aside, Sam could tell Bee would accept it if it was.
No. I’m not dumb. I could change my mind at the last minute. I’ll let you know, okay?
Okay. Hailing frequencies are always open for you, Sam.
Sam snorted. Thanks, Uhura.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - February
"Mmmmmmm! Oh, Hoist, what are you baking?"
Hoist looked up from the muffin tin he was loading with festive paper cups. Yasmina had appeared at the mouse-like hole in the kitchen wall at Hoist’s optic-height. In the Oregon base, the human passages wended their way through the walls as often as not. It was no place for a claustrophobe. This passage led to a small balcony with a decorative wrought-iron railing designed by Grapple and constructed by Hoist. Hoist had made the rest of his kitchen as well: all the appliances as well as the metal or glass "hardware". Much of the latter was in two scales.
"Hello, Yasmina. I was feeling nostalgic, so I decided to make pizza with asiago, provolone, jack, white garlic sauce, and artichoke hearts." Alton Brown - Hoist's culinary hero and guru - had passed away a year ago to the day.
“It smells divine,” Yasmina said.
“Three more minutes,” Hoist told her. “Cupcakes - obviously - for dessert.”
“I’m pinging Marcus now. How many are we serving?”
“There are ten humans in residence at the moment.” Hoist spun the wooden pizza peel in his fingers like a gunslinger spinning a pistol. He’d given in to the temptation to name it Emma. “I believe Juan and Dr. Okenedo are setting the dining room table as we speak.”
Yasmina had been a little jealous of Dr. Semele Okenedo at first. Thirty-seven years ago, Yasmina had been the young prodigy winning her chance to study with newly arrived alien robots. But Dr. Okenedo upon arrival had unabashedly and unreservedly fallen in love with Perceptor and Beachcomber and Seaspray, and it was difficult to maintain a petty grudge against someone like that.
The base alarms went off - flashing lights and whooping sirens covering the range of human hearing as the general lighting changed to crimson in critical areas.
“Predacons in the hangar,” Event Horizon announced. “Predacons in the hangar. Base lockdown engaging now. Travertine, Axon, shut that off and get to the perimeter, this isn’t a drill.”
“Go, Yasmina!” Hoist said, flicking a thought at the oven to shut it off and waving a hand at the human. Yasmina was already running down the passage to the nearest bolt-hole. Buried in solid granite and shielded, even if the Preds found the entry passages they were far too big to fit through, and a heavy door protected those within. Perceptor had created the encryption on the door locks, so hacking the mechanism was unlikely, and even a battleship-grade hull-cutter would take about half an hour to cut through, assuming one could be maneuvered into such a small space. The bolt-holes had been built to withstand a direct nuclear strike on the mountain.
Hoist ran from the kitchen when he knew she was safely on her way. Warpath was incoming, eager as usual to mix it up with the Cons, any Cons. For once, Hoist was glad most of the Water Babies were out assisting various human organizations with rebuilding cities and disassembling the no longer needed winter mitigation projects. Their numbers might have helped, but he didn’t like seeing them fight. Leave it to the old veterans, let them bear the brunt of this dying conflict until it was over. The Water Babies were builders, makers, askers of questions, seekers of answers. Hope and salvation with inquisitive fingers.
By the time Hoist arrived, the hangar resembled an industrial blender on puree. The blinding noise and tumultuous motion, spraying fluids from cut fuel lines, enraged roars, the reek of burning metal and plasma ionization. Hoist hated this; hated the violation of their secluded base and peaceful evening, hated fighting, hated watching Grapple come unglued as one of the Predacons yanked a length of wrought-iron railing out of its moorings and bashed Gears with it.
Hoist tucked his head deeper in his armor and barreled into the maelstrom. The five Predacons fought like twenty, and Warpath in a confined space was never a fantastic idea. Event Horizon had control of the crashed ship’s belly turret, but the AI rarely had a clean shot. At least she was keeping Divebomb busy.
Seaspray - who was no more fond than Warpath of maneuvers in close spaces, but was a canny, smart fighter despite - moved to Hoist’s side, barring the passage leading to the rest of the base. Grateful for the support, Hoist was thus able to focus on Razorclaw, pinpointing the gestalt leader amid the whirling barrage by his distinctive silhouette. Razorclaw’s optics were similarly focused on Hoist. Oh slag.
The world exploded.
Hoist collapsed, smoke and embers dripping from his helm. Across the hangar, Grapple - out of solid ordnance and rapidly draining his energy supply - screamed. Seaspray tried to cover the architect as he lunged toward his friend, but fire from Tantrum and Rampage knocked them both out.
Razorclaw smiled as he swung around, already calculating new firing angles. His guns fell into six pieces a moment before heavy plasma fire lit up his torso. He staggered back, snarling.
Skyfire had arrived, carrying Perceptor.
“Leave now or I’ll disassemble you and your team,” Perceptor said quietly.
Predacons do not surrender. Predacons do not give up a hunt once begun. Predacons are not defeated in battle. Razorclaw weighed a number of options. The light cannon on Perceptor’s shoulder whined, bits of armor flicked away from Tantrum, Divebomb, and Headstrong, leaving glowing orange lines of former attachment. Predacons are not stupid.
“Enjoy your respite, Seekerbane,” Razorclaw sneered. He signaled his team to pull out. They would wait. They would watch. The Autobots were careless, they always had been. Perceptor could be caught alone up on the mountain’s peak, stargazing. Skyfire could be taken by their gestalt form on open ground; he was slow at the bottom of gravity wells. The rest would be easy to pick off. They had all the time in the world, now that Bludgeon was busy squaring off with Starscream; and both of them, perhaps unknowingly, squirmed beneath the quiet hand of Soundwave.
The Predacons did not flee. They made a strategic withdrawal.
Perceptor leapt from Skyfire’s shoulder - scanning everyone. “Huffer, Cascade, check the entire base for Divebomb’s little surprises.” Triage list in place, he ran to Hoist first, plugging in to stabilize the mech’s systems and more fully assess the damage.
"Nice of you to join us, finally," Brawn growled. The pain of a severed leg made him testier than usual. Beneath his grump, he was glad and relieved to see both Perceptor and Skyfire. Their timing had been pretty good, considering the distance.
"I'm getting too old for this slag," said Gears. One of his knees had been dislocated, but Ryder had banged on it for him and gotten it back into proper alignment.
Warpath laughed and picked some of Headstrong’s teeth out of his arm. “Well,” he said. “At least it wasn’t boring!”
…
“Hoist!” Once Ven gave the all-clear, Yasmina sprinted out to the hangar mezzanine, Marcus right behind. Ryder and Warpath were carrying Hoist toward the repair bay. Yasmina followed.
“He’ll be okay,” Goldfish said, waving one of Hoist’s arms at her. Yasmina gulped. She wasn’t worried about the arm. It was the gaping, sparking hole in Hoist’s helm that bothered her. Brawn and Seaspray looked concerned, too. And Yasmina caught a glimpse of Perceptor’s face as Hoist was settled onto a repair table.
His optics paled to white for a moment, and the lionfish sensor array flattened against his helm. Then Skyfire moved to the other side of the table to assist, and his bulk blocked her view. She withdrew to the kitchen. The pizza was cold, and when she reset the oven to finish baking it the edges burned.
…
“Yasmina?”
She started from the doze she’d fallen into and Marcus reached out to steady her. Perceptor was there in the kitchen beside the human dining mezzanine.
“Hoist’s injuries were the most grave,” he said, “but I have completed what repairs can be done for now. I apologize if my mien earlier alarmed you. I’m afraid I know now how Beachcomber must have felt after I suffered a similar injury some time ago. In my case, the worst damage was to my memory core. In Hoist’s case, fortunately, his CPU has sustained the most serious damage.”
Marcus frowned. “What do you mean ‘fortunately’?”
“Oh dear, I was not impugning our worthy chef’s computational prowess! I meant only that as I have the specifications of Hoist’s CPU I can replicate or repair it completely. Loss of parts of a memory core cannot, by very definition, be recalled unless they have been backed up immediately prior to the injury.” He did not elaborate that they did not have the exact parts needed. He would have to nanoassemble some of them himself. A process he had in fact already begun. “The repairs may take some time, but I am confident that Hoist will be as he was once they are completed.”
“Thank God,” Yasmina breathed, and squeezed Marcus’ hand.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Hoist would be kept in medical stasis, Perceptor estimated, for about six months. Until then, Perceptor returned to Nevada to continue work on the space bridge emitters.
Perceptor, said Hook, in his slow, deep, rumbly way. I have specs for that kind of CPU. I can do the fabrication if you like.
Perceptor bit off a reflexively sharp retort. ...Thank you, Hook. I've already begun the fabrication myself.
Oh. All right then.
Hook cupped a hand over the spot high on Perceptor's right side, where the nanoassembly of the CPU component was taking place. Perceptor felt the light scan, forced himself not to recoil. Hook shuffled closer, tipping his big, blunt head to one side.
"I believe," he murmured, "I have wanted to do this for 4.00056 million years."
“Only that long?”
“I didn’t like you either, at first. When we were young.” Hook smiled. Perceptor, one must never forget, knew perfectly well how attractive he was. He was so absorbed in his work that he simply didn’t consider the matter most of the time; and he did not, on the whole, consider it important. He was aware, but intrinsically not vain. Perceptor’s lovely mouth felt even lovelier against Hook’s lip components; fine and sensitive, responding with a half-exhausted, fevered anxiety. Hook pulled him close, meshing fields and thermal ripples. “You have been kind to Scavenger.”
“Wheeljack has been far kinder,” Perceptor said, shuddering. “To all of you.”
“Yes. But for him this is not difficult.” Hook blinked at him ponderously. “He is more interested in the work. You are…you are one who remembers too much.”
Perceptor jerked as though he’d been struck. No, he thought. No. I’m not. I’m not! I don’t remember anything of my own but running and hiding and killing and so many people dying, so many and I can’t stop counting them… He couldn’t say anything. Hook would tell Scrapper, all his brothers. The Constructicons couldn’t be allowed to know what Perceptor had given up, nor what he had saved. He covered his optics with his fine-hands.
What is it? Hook tightened his grip but forebore to shake him. What’s wrong?
Hook?
Prime? Finding oneself the focus of a significant portion of the Prime’s attention was…well it certainly served to focus one’s own attention.
Do you think you are able to comfort him without full knowledge of the source of his distress?
Palliative?
…Yes.
Very well.
Thank you, Hook.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - May
A hot wind billowed through the hangar as Skyfire came in, armor glowing from reentry, bringing with him the tang of hot metal, the sharp scent of sunlight on pines, and a faint zing of ozone. He'd come in on anti-gravitics; the only sound was the rushing of air getting out of his way. Yasmina levered herself out of her working couch and stretched, wandering over to the edge of the mezzanine to watch as Perceptor came down from one of the high ship-labs to meet the deep-Seeker.
Skyfire knelt, producing two small rods of something from a wrist cache.
“You didn’t fly all the way to Maderan for that?” Perceptor asked, optics wide. Skyfire chuckled.
“No. The Vega system has-” He stopped abruptly, giving Yasmina a pointed look. “Resources.”
“Tease,” Yasmina said, crossing her arms at him. She thought it was silly for the Autobots to still be so cagey about the other civilizations inhabiting the Milky Way galaxy. It wasn’t their call to make, according to the injunctions Prime had relayed, but she nevertheless felt that coyness at this point was ridiculous.
Skyfire elaborately ignored her. The first rod he fed directly to Perceptor, tipping Perceptor's chin up with a forefinger in what Yasmina could only interpret as a tender gesture. The second rod Skyfire ate himself as Perceptor chewed. The robots rarely ate in front of humans. It wasn't only because their teeth were quite terrible, designed as they were for ripping metal and mineral. Under normal, non-combat circumstances, the robots only had to eat four or five times a century. They ate more often when they were replacing ammo and mending damaged parts.
After some minutes, Skyfire removed the second rod - now glowing a dull orange - from his mouth and fed this as well to Perceptor. Mama bird, baby bird.
“Larger engine,” Perceptor explained, once he’d swallowed, glancing at Yasmina’s wide-eyed grin. “He can heat the sample more quickly and evenly.”
“So the cortex layers will form larger bubbles,” Yasmina said, remembering her lessons. Skyfire lifted an orbital ridge at her, then turned a rather more stern look on Perceptor. Clearly he thought humans shouldn’t know so much about how Cybertronian brains were made. “I’ll have one of my own eventually,” she said. Skyfire made a low chuffing sound. She wasn’t certain if it was a laugh or a disgusted snort.
“I suppose you have a frame type and alt mode picked out?” Skyfire asked. Whatever archness he might have spun into his tone was subtle.
“No,” Yasmina said. “I don’t know what that person will want or need to be.”
“Ephemerals are not entirely without wisdom,” Perceptor said, grinning. Skyfire flared a bit of helm architecture at him but didn’t rise.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - August
Cybertronian brains (usually) were roughly spherical, structured within somewhat like a pomegranate. Each jewel-like “seed” was capable of two to four hundred times as many operations per second as the average human brain. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of “seeds”, all linked via a hyperconductive support matrix. Instead of a handful of cranial nerves and a single spinal cord, each CPU was linked via a network of cables to a mech’s memory core, body and spark.
Yasmina, Marcus and Semele Okenedo watched from the observation level above the clean-room aboard the crashed ship as Perceptor installed the new component of Hoist’s CPU. Beside the humans’ gantry, Prime had driven up from Nevada (alone, to general consternation, but no one had taken so much as an idle pot-shot at him) and stood behind Grapple, hands resting comfortingly on his shoulders. Various and Sundry - the spark-twins generated by the merge 13 years ago between Hoist and Wheeljack - held hands and watched anxiously from the humans’ other side.
“Our beautiful friend likes having four hands,” Dr. Okenedo said, her perennial grin widening as Perceptor completed the delicate procedure with an unnecessary but graceful flourish. Hoist’s helm put itself back together under Perceptor’s intimately-cabled direction, and after another handful of minutes, Hoist’s optics lit.
“That’s it?” Dr. Okenedo looked up at Prime and Grapple. Grapple was already heading for the door. Hoist rose from the repair table, working his limbs to get energon and coolants moving, but seemed otherwise unfazed by six months spent in stasis. He and Perceptor exited the clean-room.
“The quantum-level Series 79 diagnostic takes approximately 539 seconds,” Sundry explained.
“If they’re not in a hurry,” said Marcus. Various snickered.
“I have done this before,” Perceptor said. “Many times, alas.”
“Good as new,” Hoist said cheerfully. He and Grapple embraced with a gentle clang, soon joined by Various and Sundry, the entire group engulfed by Huggimus Prime.
Accepting a lift in Grapple’s offered hands, Yasmina and Marcus wrapped their arms around Hoist's head, hugging him and laughing. Perceptor felt an odd stab of...something. Jealousy? Yasmina had been his particular human friend, hadn't she? How many years ago? Perceptor had spent most of his time for the past 19 years in Nevada, keeping an optic and cannon sight on the Constructicons. It hadn't felt like very long to him, but Yasmina had streaks of silver in her hair, and she moved up and down the ladders and stairs with a mindfulness unlike the youthful exuberance and haste he remembered. So fast, so fleeting! Perceptor took the shock of it in the spark. He felt cold and a little unsteady. He wished Beachcomber was nearby, but he and Tideline and Miles were taking a grand tour of China’s geological wonders.
Large, warm arms came around him, and he buried his face gratefully in Prime’s chest.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2057 - November
“Come on, Bee. Air shows are boring.” Sam had seen the Autobots in action for real. In space. Watching a bunch of human pilots crank around in ancient aircraft didn’t sound appealing.
“This one won’t be boring,” Bee assured him.
Sam leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Who’s setting this up; Jazz or Sideswipe?”
“Jazz.”
“Is Ironhide involved?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” protested Ironhide from across the hangar. Sam grinned at him.
“No,” said Bee, optics twinkling at Ironhide.
“All right, fine. I’ll go.”
Bee leaned down and nuzzled Sam’s chest. Sam squawked but patted his helm, then pushed him away. “Gah, do you mind? Not in front of the Prime Minister!”
…
The ads had said something about “special guests” but didn’t mention the Autobots specifically. Sam had identified quite a few supposed cars out in the parking lot as he and Mikaela had left Bee. Everyone’s chameleon mesh was sporting new “paintjobs” as well. The recent Predacon attacks had provoked a return to a level of disguise the Autobots hadn’t needed for a long time. Not to hide from humans this time, though.
Sam and Mikaela found Dani and her daughter, Melissa, and Nate and his girlfriend, Sierra, already in place on the VIP platform. Mikaela sat down next to Melissa after getting the requisite granny-hug. Even at fourteen, Melissa was a sucker for granny-hugs. Of course Mikaela was a kickass grandma.
What’s Hot Rod’s alt now? Mikaela tight-beamed her daughter.
He’s trying out the new Lamborghini, actually, Dani replied. In fuchsia. With aquamarine stripes. Someone shoot me. But I don’t think he’ll stay with it for long. He likes the Koenigseggs, Pagani Zondas and even some of the flashier concepts Mazda puts out better.
He’s so disco, Mikaela smirked. Dani laughed. She couldn’t disagree. “How’s the show been?” She and Sam had gotten there late, as Bee had insisted they needn’t watch the entire antique exhibition if they didn’t want to. Mikaela was consulting with a European cybernetics company and had appreciated some extra time before heading out.
“The old P-51s are still kicking over,” Dani said. “They had a B2 do a low flyover; that was pretty polar. They’re a lot quieter than I thought.”
Mikaela nodded. “Spy planes. They had specially designed engines to make them quieter. Any idea yet who the special guests are?”
Sam leaned closer to hear. The crowd was roaring over something or other. Blue Angels? No, those jets were blue, Sam knew that much. Thunderbirds? Who knew?
“Nope. I tried to corner Jazz about it earlier, but you know how well that works if he doesn’t want to be cornered.”
“Does Epps still have his pilot’s license?” Sam wondered. He’d had the thought that the guests might include some of the astronauts from the Mars and Lunar bases. Not all of humanity’s heroes had titanium torsion bars.
“I don’t think so,” Mikaela said. “Speaking of…”
Bobby and Theresa Epps climbed the stands toward them, followed by Sarah and Will Lennox. And was that Miles? With Maggie and Glen. It was. Sam stood to shake hands with the new arrivals. “Starting to look like old home week,” he said.
“Starting to look like we been set up,” the former Secretary of Defense (recently retired) said. Epps’ eyes unfocused as he spoke through his comm, not as quick as the younger set at fishing for channels. “This better be good, Mirage…”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Bobby,” Sarah said, patting his arm as they settled into their seats.
“Yeah,” said Will. “Ironhide, the Twins and Wheeljack are all in the audience, not hiding somewhere.”
“Is Prime here?” Dani asked.
Maggie shook her head. “No, we left him at the embassy. Tel’ll have feeds set up for him, I’m sure.”
“And now,” exclaimed the announcer, “in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Autobots’ arrival here on Earth; the Aviation Nation air show here at Nellis Air Force Base is honored and proud to present our special guests!” Piped in music swelled - Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem - garnering laughter from many in the audience, especially those old enough to remember the movie.
“Oh my god,” said Mikaela, pointing. A little red aerobatic plane was doing literal cartwheels fifty feet above the near runway. Sam burst out laughing. Prime had been forbidding Powerglide from entering air races for years. The gung-ho little jet-glider was finally getting his chance to show off for an appreciative audience.
And show off he did. Digitally precise twelve-point rolls. Snap rolls that would have snapped a human pilot’s neck. Ridiculously tight Kulbits. Eight-sided loops that would have made Euclid cry. Rolling turns and Cuban Eights in three perpendicular planes. Then he moved on to Cybertronian maneuvers that would break human aircraft, let alone human pilots. More like dancing than simply flying, Powerglide hopped and skipped and spun; yawing at vertical attitudes in weird, complex ways. Big screens set up at the foot and sides of the stands showed a video feed that must be coming from one of the Autobots in the parking lot, because Sam doubted even the newer TV cameras on computer-guided gyros could have followed Powerglide’s antics.
“Squirt’s good,” Epps murmured, with a level of understatement that would make an Aerialbot proud.
Powerglide pirouetted above the runway with one more flourish before ceding the show to the next performers.
From out of a cloud-bank to the north came the Aerialbots with the low, eerie screaming roar of Cybertronian engines. If Powerglide was the virtuoso of solo aerobatics, the Aerials were prodigies of formation flying. The human record was sixteen inches from wingtip to canopy. The Aerialbots, being alive, feeling every length of wingtip and canopy, flew the same maneuvers in full physical contact.
“Laws of inertia still apply,” Epps muttered. “They screw something up at that speed, they’ll bust themselves in a million pieces.” Next to her mother, Melissa sat up straighter and watched the screens with renewed attention.
Wings stroked tails, tails brushed canopies. Before things got too racy, another set of jets dove from out of the troposphere to join them. The Technobots were also air-frames, though Afterburner and Nosecone were triple-changers with ground forms as well. The doubled formation spun in looping arabesques, then broke apart, agile as seals, into a complicated three-dimensional pattern involving what Sam thought were an awful lot of near-misses. The two gestalts peeled off to opposite ends of the sky.
They returned, 200 feet from the ground, and commenced to dogfight in ultra-slow-motion, weaponsfire meshing the air with incandescent rain, punctuated now and then with actual lightning thrown from Silverbolt’s wings. “Slow so us squishies can follow what they’re doing,” Epps laughed. He wondered how the top secret drone pilot training program that the Aerials were helping with was going. He wasn’t in that loop any more. Wishful thoughts of humanity engaged in beyond Top Gun flying were driven from his mind as the dogfight sped up. Faster and faster the jets swooped and dove, until they reached “normal” Cybertronian combat speeds; a glittering snarl of deadly intent no longer visible to the unaided human eye as individual aircraft. This part scripted or are they just brawling at this point?
Umm… said Bumblebee.
“Are they…using live ammo?” Glen asked, looking nervous.
Lennox pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. They are.”
Giving the robots due credit, though, none of the ordnance was getting anywhere near the stands. OSHA might have collective apoplexy, and the mechs involved would get a talking-to. In fact Lennox could well imagine the I Am Disappoint sighing from Prime that was probably going on via private tight-beam. Yep, there went Silverbolt, running an interference pattern between his team and Scattershot’s.
Eventually the ten jets settled down and vacated the local airspace; the older (sneakier) Aerials herding the much younger - and vociferously complaining - Technos.
Three Seekers streaked through the air from behind the stands. Not a few in the audience ducked. Two alphas and one zeta, in full Cybertronian ceremonial polish. All three had once had Earth alt modes, but far be it for the alphas in particular to disguise themselves as outmoded vehicles. Instead of keeping up with the optic-blink pace of human innovation, Thundercracker and Strake had simply reverted to their native forms. Breakaway, smaller and even more maneuverable, had taken on a mode similar to Skydive and Fireflight, benefiting from their experience and upgrades.
“Oh my god,” Maggie said, following them with her lenses on telephoto. “Is that Blue?”
Bluestreak stood on Breakaway’s dorsal hull, looking more like a surfer than a wingwalker. From the speakers rolled the theme to “Hawaii Five-O” by the Ventures. Laughter rippled through the audience, mingled with oh’s and ah’s as Bluestreak leaped and dove from Seeker to Seeker in an air-dance the denizens of the embassy had often been treated to via Teletraan’s satellites. Prowl keeping his Cons amused. Or bonding with his trine, if one believed the rumor-mill.
Why Blue and not Prowl? Sam asked Bee.
Prowl’s upstairs in the Ark, Bee replied. Watching our backs.
Sam nodded, suddenly feeling both a lot better about the situation and disquieted all over again. Still at war, dammit. And he was willing to bet the rest of the Autobot fliers weren’t hanging around acting like targets once their part in the show was over.
Whether because the music in its original cut was only a couple of minutes long, or the authorities weren’t keen on having a pair of Decepticons - even former Decepticons - buzzing around so close to so many unarmed humans, the wing-dance was over far too soon.
Mikaela clasped her hands together in front of her mouth. “I hope they let Blades come. He’ll be so sad if they left him out just because he’s a helicopter.”
Sam blinked. “Yeah, but…helicopters don’t do fancy flying stuff like this, do they?”
“Oh yes they do,” Epps snickered.
Mikaela stood up, shouting and waving her arms. “GO, BLADES! YOU SHOW ‘EM!” The sturdy rescue copter had indeed appeared, scooting low from around a far hangar, travelling at a hundred miles an hour one foot off the ground. He came around for a second pass. Inverted. Epps joined in the shouting.
“No way, man! No way! You crazy-ass mech!”
Blades came to a dead stop, still inverted, then rose straight up about fifty feet. Turning on his side, he stayed that way as Groove skated out with a section of concrete pipe. Setting his burden on the tarmac of the far runway, Groove scooted well out of the way, shaking his head.
“Oh no,” said Epps.
“Oh yes!” crowed Glen.
Blades dropped until the tips of his rotors struck sparks from the tarmac. Epps crossed his legs and hunched forward, muffling a groan with a hand clapped over his lower face. With a smoothness belying the precarious altitude and angle, Blades darted toward the concrete pipe, and along it, his rotors cutting it neatly in half longitudinally. The two half circle pieces fell aside and rocked jauntily as Blades righted himself and lifted. Groove jogged back out and nested the two pieces, carrying them off the runway.
“That probably needed cutting in half anyway,” Maggie giggled. Trust a Protectobot to get a little work into his play.
Mikaela laughed. “Aid’s probably beside himself.”
“Yeah.”
Swooping and slithering, Blades rolled through the air, smooth as glass, waving his tail around saucily. The audience clapped in time to the music, provoking an even livelier display from the copter. As the samba ended, Blades performed a last pirouette not unlike Powerglide’s, bowed and exited vertically to make room for the finale.
Sam felt Mikaela catch her breath. The hair on the back of his neck rose in a delicious shiver.
Their approach was silent. Gliding in from the desert on their AG drives, six deltas swirled into a radial formation three meters above the runway. Noses pointing inward, they rolled on their longitudinal axes, wingtips nearly touching, the entire circle rotating as well, sunlight glittering on their complex surfaces and alien curves. After an initial gasp, the audience was silent, too. Even the music had become quieter, something haunting and choral at a volume audible only because there was no engine noise. A video feed - probably from Blades - showed the formation from above as the circle of starships lifted another six meters and widened, opening out like a flower to give them more room.
Pitching now on their lateral axes, they flexed and extended their wings, deploying sensor fins and solar sails meant for deep space use, fluttering slightly in the air. Every motion slow and graceful, as though underwater; surreal nine meters off the ground, involving beings larger than any but the largest blue whales. Lifting their noses skyward, standing still and straight on their tails, they hovered motionless for a moment, their bodies reconfiguring slightly, armor shifting, rainbows throwing from their shields. Then the transformation began, slower than Sam had ever seen it, a leisurely dance of sliding, whirling metal as starships became bipedal robots, feet never touching the ground. They turned in the circle, facing outward, hands touching, and began to rotate the circle again. Tilting their heads upward, with a sudden shout of engines and blue columns of fire they shot into the stratosphere.
The feed from Blades shifted as they spiraled past him, curving outward in a vertical break, looping back down and crossing six ways, to loop again before transforming and heading toward the ground. They resumed AG drives, eerily silent, halting dead three meters from the runway. Their stillness lasted only a second - not enough time for the watching humans to catch their breath - before they streaked heavenward again, toward their natural habitat.
They wove their trails in a braided column that curved only as it approached the limits of sight from the ground. Blades’ feed followed them farther, where the sky grew dark and the stars came out. Sliding into the triangular delta formation, they engaged their interstellar engines, computing for interplanetary speeds. Bending their way around the planet took them only a few minutes. They slowed for reentry and came down hot, displaying the glow of their hulls for a final pass before splitting off in a fleur-de-lis and disappearing over the horizon.
The audience surged to its collective feet, cheering wildly - the Autobot-accustomed humans in the VIP box no exception.
“They’re so beautiful,” Maggie said, eyes bright.
How the hell did they convince Skyfire to join in? Mikaela wondered on the private local channel Maggie had established for the enabled humans and nearby Autobots. She could see Borealis and the other youngsters going for it. Maybe Silverbolt, if it was put to him as a morale-building exercise for the Cybertron-Earth alliance. But Skyfire?
You can ask Jazz, said Hound, but only if you’re sure you want to know the answer.
“Oh god,” Sam muttered. Randy robots.
…
On the far side of the moon, dancing in starlight, six ships drew their circle in. Hands, wings, sleek helms, dark blue optics, shoulders touching.
They embraced Skyfire’s longing, the edges of his tolerance. A knowledge each of them would journey to in their turn. The wide reaches and warps of spacetimelove sang to them, sirens in the deeps. Excepting Silverbolt, they would go. One by one, they would answer.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2057 - September
Is it an incomplete twinning? Prime asked, via tight-beam. The protoform in the big tank had pinched about a third of its mass off into a not-quite-separate entity, nestled against the belly of what seemed to be the primary body. The spark had also formed a smaller orb, connected by a tendril of sparkmatter through the, for lack of a better term, umbilical.
Slag if I know, Ratchet sighed. I don’t suppose you know what Powerglide was thinking when you two…?
Prime scratched an imaginary itch on his cheek guard. Hmm. Well. You know Powerglide. He was very…enthusiastic.
Fear not! the protoform declaimed. Ratchet hadn’t been certain its communications systems were fully online yet. Apparently they were. My excellent chosen form may be unusual, but I can assure you that I will be of the greatest service to the Autobot cause once I decant.
“Er, thank you,” Prime said. “I’m glad to meet you…?”
I have been contemplating appropriate designations, Optimus Prime, and in the interests of elegant simplicity - my further reasoning shall become elucidated once I take on my alt modes - I have decided that my nom de guerre shall be Sky-Lynx.
“Very nice,” Prime said, smiling. “Pleased to meet you, Sky-Lynx.”
Table of Contents
.
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble/several
Warnings: Waff/fluff, attempted het, OCs, mild robot snuggling
Summary: Wherein Perceptor sings the Krebs Cycle lullaby, TC makes a pass at Borealis, Bee and Sam have a chat, the Preds attack the Oregon base, Nellis AFB puts on a special show, and the new kid in the big tank looks funny. ;D
Notes: Use of the apiologically pertinent name “Melissa” as a Witwicky kid gleefully lifted from sakon76 with permission.
~8100 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
BOREALIS: Sigh No More - Part V
2044 - March
“Succinate, Fumarate, Malate,” Perceptor sang, “with water and Fumarase, dear Malate dehydrogenase / Back we go, fast not slow, to Oxaloacetate!”
From her workstation, Dani watched him rock little ‘Lissa. She felt a strange kind of déjà vu; the voice, the tune, those hands, the warmth of living metal; she knew these things, had known them from her earliest days. Perceptor had sung the Krebs Cycle lullaby to her when she’d been a baby, and a toddler. It was part of her innermost comfort systems. She hadn’t understood why everyone else seemed to find the melody unpleasant until her early teens, when she’d had a couple of talks with Oratorio regarding musical theory. The main problem, she’d learned, was that the two interwoven harmonies were in ranges inaudible to unaugmented human hearing; and that it was a song usually sung by Cybertronians who’d had too much high-grade and was therefore tailored to the fluctuations of a slightly unstable vocoder.
Little Melissa watched the waving, curling sensory fins and vanes on Perceptor’s head with the same fascination Dani had at the same age. Perceptor sent Dani a feed, complete with three overlays of microbiological, metabolic and infrared data. Dani knew he’d removed at least another dozen layers, but was pleased he’d left the most pertinent three. Some of the other Bots pared their feeds down to audio and vid only when sharing with humans, but to Dani those feeds felt flat and bare. She liked having access to the swirl of data, liked being able to choose for herself which bits to ignore and which to enhance.
“Sure you don’t mind?” she asked Perceptor. She was supposed to make certain, not just assume and toss the kid off to somebot else whenever she felt like it. Dani’s cheeks reddened at the recollection of her mother’s lecture. As if Dani and Nate hadn’t been more than half raised that way. She had work to do. She was supporting herself and her daughter. Everyone else used some kind of daycare facility, yet she wasn’t allowed to without elaborate and useless rituals of conciliation because her daycare providers happened to be…what? Aliens? Whose primary function wasn’t daycare, certainly, but if they volunteered to help out where was the harm? Besides, they weren’t really aliens as far as Dani was concerned. They’d been on the planet longer than she had.
Perceptor cocked an accessory optic at her. Of course he didn’t mind, why in the world was she asking? He’d happily spend the entire morning watching cells divide. He needed to get out of the tower every now and then anyway. He’d had another row with Scrapper - more a continuation of the row they’d been having since they’d met, really - and even Scavenger was miffed at him at the moment. Perceptor wouldn’t allow any of the Constructicons within line-of-sight of the baby, snarling at Scavenger that he and his brothers had collectively taken enough fragile human lives, and that Perceptor wasn’t convinced the Structies even truly considered the humans sapient. Scavenger had actually yelled back for once. Then Ratchet and Hook had yelled, and Perceptor had stalked off in high dudgeon. Dani wondered what low dudgeon would be like. She approved of Perceptor’s protectiveness, but at the same time felt bad. Scavenger at least didn’t act like a sociopath, and he’d been keeping Perceptor company in a way that seemed to have been doing them both good. Hopefully they’d make up soon.
Hook and Ratchet. That had been an interesting thing. Dani replayed her own vid of their meeting outside Wheeljack’s tower. The two medical officers had engaged a long, mutually considering look. And then without so much as a flinch exchanged wrist cables to compare files or something. Everyone had expected commentary at least from Ratchet. At that point, though, the only one snarling had been Ironhide.
The code she was debugging wasn’t going to unsnarl itself. Dani resented having this kind of scutwork piled into her inbox, but she also hated inelegant code and felt the need to root it out and destroy it utterly. With the introduction of Cybertronian-influenced programming languages there was no excuse for this kind of garbage. Certainly not in any project Dani was involved with. The rest of her team might think they were punishing her for being the golden child - an understandable jealousy, as Roddy of all people had pointed out. It was irritating, but she was determined to not only not let it get to her, but to pull success and innovation through the others’ resistance.
Besides, it would be mortally embarrassing to let this program go out to beta with crunky code. Teletraan would read it!
...
Day to night. That’s what it felt like, driving into the cool, dim embassy hangar from the noontime desert outside. Well. Nate wasn’t old enough to drive officially, but since Arcee was in charge of that department, and as long as they stayed more or less on embassy grounds…or weren’t spotted by Highway Patrol…no one fussed too much.
He dismounted and peeled off his helmet - not even Arcee would let him bend that rule - and waved as Arcee transformed and strode off to the niche beside the med-bay for a quick refuel. Nate ran his fingers through his hair. This year he was trying out a longer style - fortunately he’d inherited his mother’s looser curls so was in no danger of resembling Weird Al or Carrot Top. He thought he looked rakish and daring. It was also possible he needed a few more years to grow into parts of his face, but there was nothing he could do about that. Until then, longer hair covered The Forehead.
Perceptor was singing. Some kind of Too-Ra-Loo-Ra thing, thank god. Nate glanced around the human scaled area. Yep, non-Witwicky humans about. Hence the melodious baritone rather than the more usual caterwauling. Nate regarded the caterwauling with just as much fondness as his big sister, but was not currently at a stage to be willing to admit it. Perceptor had a nice voice when he was singing human songs, though, rocking baby Melissa in one hand and typing across several keyboards in Glen’s Nest with the other. The bank of mist screens above were going nuts, but to Perceptor’s optics it probably was just a leisurely trawl. Channel-surfing with the robots was the worst. Nate found his sister in her usual VR-lensed hunch at her workstation.
“Dad still in the meeting?”
“Hey, Nate. Yep. Did you get your homework done?”
“Yeee-eees. Last night in fact, so shut up.”
“Okay, okay, just checking. Wanna grab a couple sodas and meet me in the lounge? Tel’s got the preview cut from Joss Whedon’s new movie in the queue.”
“Whoa, severe! Isn’t that pirate?”
“Mr. Whedon himself sent the file to me,” Teletraan said.
Was it possible for an AI to sound sniffy? Nate grinned. “The Jossman makes a robot movie and wants some C&C from you guys, right?”
“Correct.”
“You getting those sodas or what?” Dani pulled the jack from her occipital port and stretched.
“On it!” Nate did not scamper. He sauntered with great deliberationosity and dignification.
Dani snorted, then looked up. “Perceptor…?”
“Go on,” he said, in no hurry to relinquish the baby. “I’ve seen it.”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2044 - May
Sunlight unfiltered by atmosphere felt good on his wings. Thundercracker arched high, pushing rather the limits of his parole. Except he carried one of Prime’s battle gnats in a cache. From above the ecliptic he caught the first glimmer and flash of IFF and sensor-flick. A delta, coming in from the Cybertron run. Mmm. One of the young ones. Emplaced with a minicon this time, if Thundercracker’s recall was accurate. Prime and the others had run interference for the minicons for years, until Pulse had stalked up to Thundercracker and punched him hard in mid-tarsal. His traditional greeting. Thundercracker had yelped and called Pulse all the traditional names.
More and more people wanted this war over. Were sick of factions. Wanted their old friends back.
The dark blue deep-Seeker flattened his…no, wait, this was the one they were supposed to call “her” for some reason. Whatever. Flattened her insertion trajectory. Ah. Some of them did like to surf down the long way, getting their heavily armored hulls nice and hot. Perfect vector for the Nevada embassy. He decided to follow her down.
Landing on wheels? Really? he jibed as she lined herself up with the road. She hadn’t read like she was carrying much cargo.
With an irritated flick of wingtips, Borealis jinked to port and flared, dumping speed as she transformed and skidded, dragging two long trenches with her feet in the dirt just off the road. Thundercracker landed lightly on the road surface, flipping nose-over-aft in transformation and touching down with hardly a sound, his talons leaving no mark on the easily scratched asphalt.
She strode toward him, head held low and forward, wings rutched high. He grinned.
Her foot came up and pressed him into the road, pinning him; one rearward-pointing toe between his legs, the rest fanned out around him with talons sunk into the pavement. It hadn’t been so much a kick as a shove. She wasn’t leaning her entire weight on him, either.
“Mmmm,” he purred, stroking her lateral toes, drawing his claws along the metal with just the right amount of pressure to elicit a low singing thrum. Borealis shivered. “Delta-type foreplay.”
She goggled at him. “…What?”
He laughed. “When a delta wants to clang someone who isn’t also a delta. Or isn’t someone bigger, I guess. Sure way to get someone’s attention, and Seeker feet are sensitive.”
Borealis yanked her foot off him and backed away. “You…you suck! I’ll never be able to step on Slingshot again!”
“I’ll step on him for you if it’ll help.”
“Gah!”
This wasn’t going how he’d planned. She’d been revved up, at least somewhat, and now she was stalking off toward the embassy, wing segments angled down and back. Huh. She’d stopped. Ah, the minicon, Orris, was out on her helm, talking to her. She looked back over her portside shoulder at Thundercracker. He crossed his arms over his chest, spreading his wings in a rather fetching array. Flirting with deltas could be tricky, but it was worth it. He remembered Starscream’s consternation when Skyfire-
Bad thought. Never mind, never mind, never mind!
What’s your problem? came a lazy thought from Strake. He and Prowl were patrolling the Eastern Seaboard, looking for traces of Lockdown. The two alphas really liked it when Prowl was in hunter mode. Although that didn’t stop Strake from complaining about drag with Prowl sleeked on his dorsal hull.
Get slagged, Thundercracker replied. I’m coming up. Taking the western side of the Atlantic. He transformed and winged for the stratosphere.
“What fresh hell?” said Borealis. Orris was barely clinging to her helm, laughing his aft off. She ignored him. Shrugging, she resumed her stomp into the embassy to report to Prime.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2055 - September
When did 70 get to be six years away? How did that even happen? He didn’t feel a day over forty.
Sam wasn’t sure whether he’d retire when he reached 70, or not. He technically worked for the government of the United States in an unofficial capacity these days. More of a consultant. Younger people had taken up the mantle of US Ambassador to Cybertron. He could retire now if he wanted. He’d let Smokey make a few choice investments for him - it was still a gamble, but Prowl had vetted them as well, and put a pretty high percentage on returns, so Sam had felt confident about it. His portfolio was diverse enough now that things were rolling along almost of their own impetus. Dani and Nate and the grandkids would be taken care of if it was money they needed.
The Autobots themselves would handle anything else. Bee especially. Sam leaned back in the driver’s seat, not even pretending to drive. Mid-life crisis? What mid-life crisis? He’d always had a hot car.
Sam?
Yeah?
Do you remember what I asked you, twenty years ago?
Twenty years ago? Sam couldn’t remember what he’d had for breakfast four hours ago. Bee’s tone was unusually solemn, though.
You said 44 wasn’t so bad. To ask you again in twenty years. And it’s been.
Forty…what…? Oh! Oh. I did say that, didn’t I.
Yes, Sam.
And you’re deliberately asking me now when Mikaela’s not around.
Yes, Sam. Bee wanted Sam’s answer for himself.
And you think I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, Sam thought. And twenty years is a long time. But Sam had spent a long time not thinking about it. It wasn’t a more comfortable thing to think of now, his own death. Now it was much closer. He knew he was on the downward slope and picking up speed. He didn’t like to think about that. Live in the now!
He was pretty darn healthy for a sixty-something, though. The Baby Boomers had thought they had it good. He was thankful Miles had proven an amenable and sturdy guinea pig. Not that Perceptor didn’t run thousands of sims first, checking for emergent properties of anything they wanted to try in a living human system. So far Miles had proven allergic to only two or three of the modifications, and each reaction had been milder than the one before as Perceptor fine-tuned his understanding of Miles’ physiology. The rest of the Autobots’ circle of human family benefitted most directly, and then Perceptor tended to set the data free. Big Pharma might snatch it up, but then they still had to go through years of R & D and government approval before marketing anything. Meanwhile the Protectobots put their weight behind Medecins Sans Frontieres (the Pbots were the literal poster children for MSF) and anyone else working on bringing innovations to the poorest. Developing countries didn’t have to follow in the superpowers’ wasteful, meandering path - they could (and did) bootstrap themselves fast forward, past generations of the worst mistakes to use better methods, including more advanced technology, but sometimes simpler answers were better. The “rising billion” were a market force to be reckoned with.
Okay, but Mikaela being or not being here right now doesn’t matter. If she finds out I gave you the go-ahead I’ll spend the next thirty years sleeping on the couch.
Sam…
And it’s not just that, okay? I’m not as whipped as you seem to think, thank you very much. I liked Daveed’s answer, all right? It’s enough that you’ll remember me when the sun goes red giant and incinerates the Earth. I’m good with that.
Is that your final answer? Levity aside, Sam could tell Bee would accept it if it was.
No. I’m not dumb. I could change my mind at the last minute. I’ll let you know, okay?
Okay. Hailing frequencies are always open for you, Sam.
Sam snorted. Thanks, Uhura.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - February
"Mmmmmmm! Oh, Hoist, what are you baking?"
Hoist looked up from the muffin tin he was loading with festive paper cups. Yasmina had appeared at the mouse-like hole in the kitchen wall at Hoist’s optic-height. In the Oregon base, the human passages wended their way through the walls as often as not. It was no place for a claustrophobe. This passage led to a small balcony with a decorative wrought-iron railing designed by Grapple and constructed by Hoist. Hoist had made the rest of his kitchen as well: all the appliances as well as the metal or glass "hardware". Much of the latter was in two scales.
"Hello, Yasmina. I was feeling nostalgic, so I decided to make pizza with asiago, provolone, jack, white garlic sauce, and artichoke hearts." Alton Brown - Hoist's culinary hero and guru - had passed away a year ago to the day.
“It smells divine,” Yasmina said.
“Three more minutes,” Hoist told her. “Cupcakes - obviously - for dessert.”
“I’m pinging Marcus now. How many are we serving?”
“There are ten humans in residence at the moment.” Hoist spun the wooden pizza peel in his fingers like a gunslinger spinning a pistol. He’d given in to the temptation to name it Emma. “I believe Juan and Dr. Okenedo are setting the dining room table as we speak.”
Yasmina had been a little jealous of Dr. Semele Okenedo at first. Thirty-seven years ago, Yasmina had been the young prodigy winning her chance to study with newly arrived alien robots. But Dr. Okenedo upon arrival had unabashedly and unreservedly fallen in love with Perceptor and Beachcomber and Seaspray, and it was difficult to maintain a petty grudge against someone like that.
The base alarms went off - flashing lights and whooping sirens covering the range of human hearing as the general lighting changed to crimson in critical areas.
“Predacons in the hangar,” Event Horizon announced. “Predacons in the hangar. Base lockdown engaging now. Travertine, Axon, shut that off and get to the perimeter, this isn’t a drill.”
“Go, Yasmina!” Hoist said, flicking a thought at the oven to shut it off and waving a hand at the human. Yasmina was already running down the passage to the nearest bolt-hole. Buried in solid granite and shielded, even if the Preds found the entry passages they were far too big to fit through, and a heavy door protected those within. Perceptor had created the encryption on the door locks, so hacking the mechanism was unlikely, and even a battleship-grade hull-cutter would take about half an hour to cut through, assuming one could be maneuvered into such a small space. The bolt-holes had been built to withstand a direct nuclear strike on the mountain.
Hoist ran from the kitchen when he knew she was safely on her way. Warpath was incoming, eager as usual to mix it up with the Cons, any Cons. For once, Hoist was glad most of the Water Babies were out assisting various human organizations with rebuilding cities and disassembling the no longer needed winter mitigation projects. Their numbers might have helped, but he didn’t like seeing them fight. Leave it to the old veterans, let them bear the brunt of this dying conflict until it was over. The Water Babies were builders, makers, askers of questions, seekers of answers. Hope and salvation with inquisitive fingers.
By the time Hoist arrived, the hangar resembled an industrial blender on puree. The blinding noise and tumultuous motion, spraying fluids from cut fuel lines, enraged roars, the reek of burning metal and plasma ionization. Hoist hated this; hated the violation of their secluded base and peaceful evening, hated fighting, hated watching Grapple come unglued as one of the Predacons yanked a length of wrought-iron railing out of its moorings and bashed Gears with it.
Hoist tucked his head deeper in his armor and barreled into the maelstrom. The five Predacons fought like twenty, and Warpath in a confined space was never a fantastic idea. Event Horizon had control of the crashed ship’s belly turret, but the AI rarely had a clean shot. At least she was keeping Divebomb busy.
Seaspray - who was no more fond than Warpath of maneuvers in close spaces, but was a canny, smart fighter despite - moved to Hoist’s side, barring the passage leading to the rest of the base. Grateful for the support, Hoist was thus able to focus on Razorclaw, pinpointing the gestalt leader amid the whirling barrage by his distinctive silhouette. Razorclaw’s optics were similarly focused on Hoist. Oh slag.
The world exploded.
Hoist collapsed, smoke and embers dripping from his helm. Across the hangar, Grapple - out of solid ordnance and rapidly draining his energy supply - screamed. Seaspray tried to cover the architect as he lunged toward his friend, but fire from Tantrum and Rampage knocked them both out.
Razorclaw smiled as he swung around, already calculating new firing angles. His guns fell into six pieces a moment before heavy plasma fire lit up his torso. He staggered back, snarling.
Skyfire had arrived, carrying Perceptor.
“Leave now or I’ll disassemble you and your team,” Perceptor said quietly.
Predacons do not surrender. Predacons do not give up a hunt once begun. Predacons are not defeated in battle. Razorclaw weighed a number of options. The light cannon on Perceptor’s shoulder whined, bits of armor flicked away from Tantrum, Divebomb, and Headstrong, leaving glowing orange lines of former attachment. Predacons are not stupid.
“Enjoy your respite, Seekerbane,” Razorclaw sneered. He signaled his team to pull out. They would wait. They would watch. The Autobots were careless, they always had been. Perceptor could be caught alone up on the mountain’s peak, stargazing. Skyfire could be taken by their gestalt form on open ground; he was slow at the bottom of gravity wells. The rest would be easy to pick off. They had all the time in the world, now that Bludgeon was busy squaring off with Starscream; and both of them, perhaps unknowingly, squirmed beneath the quiet hand of Soundwave.
The Predacons did not flee. They made a strategic withdrawal.
Perceptor leapt from Skyfire’s shoulder - scanning everyone. “Huffer, Cascade, check the entire base for Divebomb’s little surprises.” Triage list in place, he ran to Hoist first, plugging in to stabilize the mech’s systems and more fully assess the damage.
"Nice of you to join us, finally," Brawn growled. The pain of a severed leg made him testier than usual. Beneath his grump, he was glad and relieved to see both Perceptor and Skyfire. Their timing had been pretty good, considering the distance.
"I'm getting too old for this slag," said Gears. One of his knees had been dislocated, but Ryder had banged on it for him and gotten it back into proper alignment.
Warpath laughed and picked some of Headstrong’s teeth out of his arm. “Well,” he said. “At least it wasn’t boring!”
…
“Hoist!” Once Ven gave the all-clear, Yasmina sprinted out to the hangar mezzanine, Marcus right behind. Ryder and Warpath were carrying Hoist toward the repair bay. Yasmina followed.
“He’ll be okay,” Goldfish said, waving one of Hoist’s arms at her. Yasmina gulped. She wasn’t worried about the arm. It was the gaping, sparking hole in Hoist’s helm that bothered her. Brawn and Seaspray looked concerned, too. And Yasmina caught a glimpse of Perceptor’s face as Hoist was settled onto a repair table.
His optics paled to white for a moment, and the lionfish sensor array flattened against his helm. Then Skyfire moved to the other side of the table to assist, and his bulk blocked her view. She withdrew to the kitchen. The pizza was cold, and when she reset the oven to finish baking it the edges burned.
…
“Yasmina?”
She started from the doze she’d fallen into and Marcus reached out to steady her. Perceptor was there in the kitchen beside the human dining mezzanine.
“Hoist’s injuries were the most grave,” he said, “but I have completed what repairs can be done for now. I apologize if my mien earlier alarmed you. I’m afraid I know now how Beachcomber must have felt after I suffered a similar injury some time ago. In my case, the worst damage was to my memory core. In Hoist’s case, fortunately, his CPU has sustained the most serious damage.”
Marcus frowned. “What do you mean ‘fortunately’?”
“Oh dear, I was not impugning our worthy chef’s computational prowess! I meant only that as I have the specifications of Hoist’s CPU I can replicate or repair it completely. Loss of parts of a memory core cannot, by very definition, be recalled unless they have been backed up immediately prior to the injury.” He did not elaborate that they did not have the exact parts needed. He would have to nanoassemble some of them himself. A process he had in fact already begun. “The repairs may take some time, but I am confident that Hoist will be as he was once they are completed.”
“Thank God,” Yasmina breathed, and squeezed Marcus’ hand.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Hoist would be kept in medical stasis, Perceptor estimated, for about six months. Until then, Perceptor returned to Nevada to continue work on the space bridge emitters.
Perceptor, said Hook, in his slow, deep, rumbly way. I have specs for that kind of CPU. I can do the fabrication if you like.
Perceptor bit off a reflexively sharp retort. ...Thank you, Hook. I've already begun the fabrication myself.
Oh. All right then.
Hook cupped a hand over the spot high on Perceptor's right side, where the nanoassembly of the CPU component was taking place. Perceptor felt the light scan, forced himself not to recoil. Hook shuffled closer, tipping his big, blunt head to one side.
"I believe," he murmured, "I have wanted to do this for 4.00056 million years."
“Only that long?”
“I didn’t like you either, at first. When we were young.” Hook smiled. Perceptor, one must never forget, knew perfectly well how attractive he was. He was so absorbed in his work that he simply didn’t consider the matter most of the time; and he did not, on the whole, consider it important. He was aware, but intrinsically not vain. Perceptor’s lovely mouth felt even lovelier against Hook’s lip components; fine and sensitive, responding with a half-exhausted, fevered anxiety. Hook pulled him close, meshing fields and thermal ripples. “You have been kind to Scavenger.”
“Wheeljack has been far kinder,” Perceptor said, shuddering. “To all of you.”
“Yes. But for him this is not difficult.” Hook blinked at him ponderously. “He is more interested in the work. You are…you are one who remembers too much.”
Perceptor jerked as though he’d been struck. No, he thought. No. I’m not. I’m not! I don’t remember anything of my own but running and hiding and killing and so many people dying, so many and I can’t stop counting them… He couldn’t say anything. Hook would tell Scrapper, all his brothers. The Constructicons couldn’t be allowed to know what Perceptor had given up, nor what he had saved. He covered his optics with his fine-hands.
What is it? Hook tightened his grip but forebore to shake him. What’s wrong?
Hook?
Prime? Finding oneself the focus of a significant portion of the Prime’s attention was…well it certainly served to focus one’s own attention.
Do you think you are able to comfort him without full knowledge of the source of his distress?
Palliative?
…Yes.
Very well.
Thank you, Hook.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - May
A hot wind billowed through the hangar as Skyfire came in, armor glowing from reentry, bringing with him the tang of hot metal, the sharp scent of sunlight on pines, and a faint zing of ozone. He'd come in on anti-gravitics; the only sound was the rushing of air getting out of his way. Yasmina levered herself out of her working couch and stretched, wandering over to the edge of the mezzanine to watch as Perceptor came down from one of the high ship-labs to meet the deep-Seeker.
Skyfire knelt, producing two small rods of something from a wrist cache.
“You didn’t fly all the way to Maderan for that?” Perceptor asked, optics wide. Skyfire chuckled.
“No. The Vega system has-” He stopped abruptly, giving Yasmina a pointed look. “Resources.”
“Tease,” Yasmina said, crossing her arms at him. She thought it was silly for the Autobots to still be so cagey about the other civilizations inhabiting the Milky Way galaxy. It wasn’t their call to make, according to the injunctions Prime had relayed, but she nevertheless felt that coyness at this point was ridiculous.
Skyfire elaborately ignored her. The first rod he fed directly to Perceptor, tipping Perceptor's chin up with a forefinger in what Yasmina could only interpret as a tender gesture. The second rod Skyfire ate himself as Perceptor chewed. The robots rarely ate in front of humans. It wasn't only because their teeth were quite terrible, designed as they were for ripping metal and mineral. Under normal, non-combat circumstances, the robots only had to eat four or five times a century. They ate more often when they were replacing ammo and mending damaged parts.
After some minutes, Skyfire removed the second rod - now glowing a dull orange - from his mouth and fed this as well to Perceptor. Mama bird, baby bird.
“Larger engine,” Perceptor explained, once he’d swallowed, glancing at Yasmina’s wide-eyed grin. “He can heat the sample more quickly and evenly.”
“So the cortex layers will form larger bubbles,” Yasmina said, remembering her lessons. Skyfire lifted an orbital ridge at her, then turned a rather more stern look on Perceptor. Clearly he thought humans shouldn’t know so much about how Cybertronian brains were made. “I’ll have one of my own eventually,” she said. Skyfire made a low chuffing sound. She wasn’t certain if it was a laugh or a disgusted snort.
“I suppose you have a frame type and alt mode picked out?” Skyfire asked. Whatever archness he might have spun into his tone was subtle.
“No,” Yasmina said. “I don’t know what that person will want or need to be.”
“Ephemerals are not entirely without wisdom,” Perceptor said, grinning. Skyfire flared a bit of helm architecture at him but didn’t rise.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2056 - August
Cybertronian brains (usually) were roughly spherical, structured within somewhat like a pomegranate. Each jewel-like “seed” was capable of two to four hundred times as many operations per second as the average human brain. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of “seeds”, all linked via a hyperconductive support matrix. Instead of a handful of cranial nerves and a single spinal cord, each CPU was linked via a network of cables to a mech’s memory core, body and spark.
Yasmina, Marcus and Semele Okenedo watched from the observation level above the clean-room aboard the crashed ship as Perceptor installed the new component of Hoist’s CPU. Beside the humans’ gantry, Prime had driven up from Nevada (alone, to general consternation, but no one had taken so much as an idle pot-shot at him) and stood behind Grapple, hands resting comfortingly on his shoulders. Various and Sundry - the spark-twins generated by the merge 13 years ago between Hoist and Wheeljack - held hands and watched anxiously from the humans’ other side.
“Our beautiful friend likes having four hands,” Dr. Okenedo said, her perennial grin widening as Perceptor completed the delicate procedure with an unnecessary but graceful flourish. Hoist’s helm put itself back together under Perceptor’s intimately-cabled direction, and after another handful of minutes, Hoist’s optics lit.
“That’s it?” Dr. Okenedo looked up at Prime and Grapple. Grapple was already heading for the door. Hoist rose from the repair table, working his limbs to get energon and coolants moving, but seemed otherwise unfazed by six months spent in stasis. He and Perceptor exited the clean-room.
“The quantum-level Series 79 diagnostic takes approximately 539 seconds,” Sundry explained.
“If they’re not in a hurry,” said Marcus. Various snickered.
“I have done this before,” Perceptor said. “Many times, alas.”
“Good as new,” Hoist said cheerfully. He and Grapple embraced with a gentle clang, soon joined by Various and Sundry, the entire group engulfed by Huggimus Prime.
Accepting a lift in Grapple’s offered hands, Yasmina and Marcus wrapped their arms around Hoist's head, hugging him and laughing. Perceptor felt an odd stab of...something. Jealousy? Yasmina had been his particular human friend, hadn't she? How many years ago? Perceptor had spent most of his time for the past 19 years in Nevada, keeping an optic and cannon sight on the Constructicons. It hadn't felt like very long to him, but Yasmina had streaks of silver in her hair, and she moved up and down the ladders and stairs with a mindfulness unlike the youthful exuberance and haste he remembered. So fast, so fleeting! Perceptor took the shock of it in the spark. He felt cold and a little unsteady. He wished Beachcomber was nearby, but he and Tideline and Miles were taking a grand tour of China’s geological wonders.
Large, warm arms came around him, and he buried his face gratefully in Prime’s chest.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2057 - November
“Come on, Bee. Air shows are boring.” Sam had seen the Autobots in action for real. In space. Watching a bunch of human pilots crank around in ancient aircraft didn’t sound appealing.
“This one won’t be boring,” Bee assured him.
Sam leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Who’s setting this up; Jazz or Sideswipe?”
“Jazz.”
“Is Ironhide involved?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” protested Ironhide from across the hangar. Sam grinned at him.
“No,” said Bee, optics twinkling at Ironhide.
“All right, fine. I’ll go.”
Bee leaned down and nuzzled Sam’s chest. Sam squawked but patted his helm, then pushed him away. “Gah, do you mind? Not in front of the Prime Minister!”
…
The ads had said something about “special guests” but didn’t mention the Autobots specifically. Sam had identified quite a few supposed cars out in the parking lot as he and Mikaela had left Bee. Everyone’s chameleon mesh was sporting new “paintjobs” as well. The recent Predacon attacks had provoked a return to a level of disguise the Autobots hadn’t needed for a long time. Not to hide from humans this time, though.
Sam and Mikaela found Dani and her daughter, Melissa, and Nate and his girlfriend, Sierra, already in place on the VIP platform. Mikaela sat down next to Melissa after getting the requisite granny-hug. Even at fourteen, Melissa was a sucker for granny-hugs. Of course Mikaela was a kickass grandma.
What’s Hot Rod’s alt now? Mikaela tight-beamed her daughter.
He’s trying out the new Lamborghini, actually, Dani replied. In fuchsia. With aquamarine stripes. Someone shoot me. But I don’t think he’ll stay with it for long. He likes the Koenigseggs, Pagani Zondas and even some of the flashier concepts Mazda puts out better.
He’s so disco, Mikaela smirked. Dani laughed. She couldn’t disagree. “How’s the show been?” She and Sam had gotten there late, as Bee had insisted they needn’t watch the entire antique exhibition if they didn’t want to. Mikaela was consulting with a European cybernetics company and had appreciated some extra time before heading out.
“The old P-51s are still kicking over,” Dani said. “They had a B2 do a low flyover; that was pretty polar. They’re a lot quieter than I thought.”
Mikaela nodded. “Spy planes. They had specially designed engines to make them quieter. Any idea yet who the special guests are?”
Sam leaned closer to hear. The crowd was roaring over something or other. Blue Angels? No, those jets were blue, Sam knew that much. Thunderbirds? Who knew?
“Nope. I tried to corner Jazz about it earlier, but you know how well that works if he doesn’t want to be cornered.”
“Does Epps still have his pilot’s license?” Sam wondered. He’d had the thought that the guests might include some of the astronauts from the Mars and Lunar bases. Not all of humanity’s heroes had titanium torsion bars.
“I don’t think so,” Mikaela said. “Speaking of…”
Bobby and Theresa Epps climbed the stands toward them, followed by Sarah and Will Lennox. And was that Miles? With Maggie and Glen. It was. Sam stood to shake hands with the new arrivals. “Starting to look like old home week,” he said.
“Starting to look like we been set up,” the former Secretary of Defense (recently retired) said. Epps’ eyes unfocused as he spoke through his comm, not as quick as the younger set at fishing for channels. “This better be good, Mirage…”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Bobby,” Sarah said, patting his arm as they settled into their seats.
“Yeah,” said Will. “Ironhide, the Twins and Wheeljack are all in the audience, not hiding somewhere.”
“Is Prime here?” Dani asked.
Maggie shook her head. “No, we left him at the embassy. Tel’ll have feeds set up for him, I’m sure.”
“And now,” exclaimed the announcer, “in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Autobots’ arrival here on Earth; the Aviation Nation air show here at Nellis Air Force Base is honored and proud to present our special guests!” Piped in music swelled - Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem - garnering laughter from many in the audience, especially those old enough to remember the movie.
“Oh my god,” said Mikaela, pointing. A little red aerobatic plane was doing literal cartwheels fifty feet above the near runway. Sam burst out laughing. Prime had been forbidding Powerglide from entering air races for years. The gung-ho little jet-glider was finally getting his chance to show off for an appreciative audience.
And show off he did. Digitally precise twelve-point rolls. Snap rolls that would have snapped a human pilot’s neck. Ridiculously tight Kulbits. Eight-sided loops that would have made Euclid cry. Rolling turns and Cuban Eights in three perpendicular planes. Then he moved on to Cybertronian maneuvers that would break human aircraft, let alone human pilots. More like dancing than simply flying, Powerglide hopped and skipped and spun; yawing at vertical attitudes in weird, complex ways. Big screens set up at the foot and sides of the stands showed a video feed that must be coming from one of the Autobots in the parking lot, because Sam doubted even the newer TV cameras on computer-guided gyros could have followed Powerglide’s antics.
“Squirt’s good,” Epps murmured, with a level of understatement that would make an Aerialbot proud.
Powerglide pirouetted above the runway with one more flourish before ceding the show to the next performers.
From out of a cloud-bank to the north came the Aerialbots with the low, eerie screaming roar of Cybertronian engines. If Powerglide was the virtuoso of solo aerobatics, the Aerials were prodigies of formation flying. The human record was sixteen inches from wingtip to canopy. The Aerialbots, being alive, feeling every length of wingtip and canopy, flew the same maneuvers in full physical contact.
“Laws of inertia still apply,” Epps muttered. “They screw something up at that speed, they’ll bust themselves in a million pieces.” Next to her mother, Melissa sat up straighter and watched the screens with renewed attention.
Wings stroked tails, tails brushed canopies. Before things got too racy, another set of jets dove from out of the troposphere to join them. The Technobots were also air-frames, though Afterburner and Nosecone were triple-changers with ground forms as well. The doubled formation spun in looping arabesques, then broke apart, agile as seals, into a complicated three-dimensional pattern involving what Sam thought were an awful lot of near-misses. The two gestalts peeled off to opposite ends of the sky.
They returned, 200 feet from the ground, and commenced to dogfight in ultra-slow-motion, weaponsfire meshing the air with incandescent rain, punctuated now and then with actual lightning thrown from Silverbolt’s wings. “Slow so us squishies can follow what they’re doing,” Epps laughed. He wondered how the top secret drone pilot training program that the Aerials were helping with was going. He wasn’t in that loop any more. Wishful thoughts of humanity engaged in beyond Top Gun flying were driven from his mind as the dogfight sped up. Faster and faster the jets swooped and dove, until they reached “normal” Cybertronian combat speeds; a glittering snarl of deadly intent no longer visible to the unaided human eye as individual aircraft. This part scripted or are they just brawling at this point?
Umm… said Bumblebee.
“Are they…using live ammo?” Glen asked, looking nervous.
Lennox pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. They are.”
Giving the robots due credit, though, none of the ordnance was getting anywhere near the stands. OSHA might have collective apoplexy, and the mechs involved would get a talking-to. In fact Lennox could well imagine the I Am Disappoint sighing from Prime that was probably going on via private tight-beam. Yep, there went Silverbolt, running an interference pattern between his team and Scattershot’s.
Eventually the ten jets settled down and vacated the local airspace; the older (sneakier) Aerials herding the much younger - and vociferously complaining - Technos.
Three Seekers streaked through the air from behind the stands. Not a few in the audience ducked. Two alphas and one zeta, in full Cybertronian ceremonial polish. All three had once had Earth alt modes, but far be it for the alphas in particular to disguise themselves as outmoded vehicles. Instead of keeping up with the optic-blink pace of human innovation, Thundercracker and Strake had simply reverted to their native forms. Breakaway, smaller and even more maneuverable, had taken on a mode similar to Skydive and Fireflight, benefiting from their experience and upgrades.
“Oh my god,” Maggie said, following them with her lenses on telephoto. “Is that Blue?”
Bluestreak stood on Breakaway’s dorsal hull, looking more like a surfer than a wingwalker. From the speakers rolled the theme to “Hawaii Five-O” by the Ventures. Laughter rippled through the audience, mingled with oh’s and ah’s as Bluestreak leaped and dove from Seeker to Seeker in an air-dance the denizens of the embassy had often been treated to via Teletraan’s satellites. Prowl keeping his Cons amused. Or bonding with his trine, if one believed the rumor-mill.
Why Blue and not Prowl? Sam asked Bee.
Prowl’s upstairs in the Ark, Bee replied. Watching our backs.
Sam nodded, suddenly feeling both a lot better about the situation and disquieted all over again. Still at war, dammit. And he was willing to bet the rest of the Autobot fliers weren’t hanging around acting like targets once their part in the show was over.
Whether because the music in its original cut was only a couple of minutes long, or the authorities weren’t keen on having a pair of Decepticons - even former Decepticons - buzzing around so close to so many unarmed humans, the wing-dance was over far too soon.
Mikaela clasped her hands together in front of her mouth. “I hope they let Blades come. He’ll be so sad if they left him out just because he’s a helicopter.”
Sam blinked. “Yeah, but…helicopters don’t do fancy flying stuff like this, do they?”
“Oh yes they do,” Epps snickered.
Mikaela stood up, shouting and waving her arms. “GO, BLADES! YOU SHOW ‘EM!” The sturdy rescue copter had indeed appeared, scooting low from around a far hangar, travelling at a hundred miles an hour one foot off the ground. He came around for a second pass. Inverted. Epps joined in the shouting.
“No way, man! No way! You crazy-ass mech!”
Blades came to a dead stop, still inverted, then rose straight up about fifty feet. Turning on his side, he stayed that way as Groove skated out with a section of concrete pipe. Setting his burden on the tarmac of the far runway, Groove scooted well out of the way, shaking his head.
“Oh no,” said Epps.
“Oh yes!” crowed Glen.
Blades dropped until the tips of his rotors struck sparks from the tarmac. Epps crossed his legs and hunched forward, muffling a groan with a hand clapped over his lower face. With a smoothness belying the precarious altitude and angle, Blades darted toward the concrete pipe, and along it, his rotors cutting it neatly in half longitudinally. The two half circle pieces fell aside and rocked jauntily as Blades righted himself and lifted. Groove jogged back out and nested the two pieces, carrying them off the runway.
“That probably needed cutting in half anyway,” Maggie giggled. Trust a Protectobot to get a little work into his play.
Mikaela laughed. “Aid’s probably beside himself.”
“Yeah.”
Swooping and slithering, Blades rolled through the air, smooth as glass, waving his tail around saucily. The audience clapped in time to the music, provoking an even livelier display from the copter. As the samba ended, Blades performed a last pirouette not unlike Powerglide’s, bowed and exited vertically to make room for the finale.
Sam felt Mikaela catch her breath. The hair on the back of his neck rose in a delicious shiver.
Their approach was silent. Gliding in from the desert on their AG drives, six deltas swirled into a radial formation three meters above the runway. Noses pointing inward, they rolled on their longitudinal axes, wingtips nearly touching, the entire circle rotating as well, sunlight glittering on their complex surfaces and alien curves. After an initial gasp, the audience was silent, too. Even the music had become quieter, something haunting and choral at a volume audible only because there was no engine noise. A video feed - probably from Blades - showed the formation from above as the circle of starships lifted another six meters and widened, opening out like a flower to give them more room.
Pitching now on their lateral axes, they flexed and extended their wings, deploying sensor fins and solar sails meant for deep space use, fluttering slightly in the air. Every motion slow and graceful, as though underwater; surreal nine meters off the ground, involving beings larger than any but the largest blue whales. Lifting their noses skyward, standing still and straight on their tails, they hovered motionless for a moment, their bodies reconfiguring slightly, armor shifting, rainbows throwing from their shields. Then the transformation began, slower than Sam had ever seen it, a leisurely dance of sliding, whirling metal as starships became bipedal robots, feet never touching the ground. They turned in the circle, facing outward, hands touching, and began to rotate the circle again. Tilting their heads upward, with a sudden shout of engines and blue columns of fire they shot into the stratosphere.
The feed from Blades shifted as they spiraled past him, curving outward in a vertical break, looping back down and crossing six ways, to loop again before transforming and heading toward the ground. They resumed AG drives, eerily silent, halting dead three meters from the runway. Their stillness lasted only a second - not enough time for the watching humans to catch their breath - before they streaked heavenward again, toward their natural habitat.
They wove their trails in a braided column that curved only as it approached the limits of sight from the ground. Blades’ feed followed them farther, where the sky grew dark and the stars came out. Sliding into the triangular delta formation, they engaged their interstellar engines, computing for interplanetary speeds. Bending their way around the planet took them only a few minutes. They slowed for reentry and came down hot, displaying the glow of their hulls for a final pass before splitting off in a fleur-de-lis and disappearing over the horizon.
The audience surged to its collective feet, cheering wildly - the Autobot-accustomed humans in the VIP box no exception.
“They’re so beautiful,” Maggie said, eyes bright.
How the hell did they convince Skyfire to join in? Mikaela wondered on the private local channel Maggie had established for the enabled humans and nearby Autobots. She could see Borealis and the other youngsters going for it. Maybe Silverbolt, if it was put to him as a morale-building exercise for the Cybertron-Earth alliance. But Skyfire?
You can ask Jazz, said Hound, but only if you’re sure you want to know the answer.
“Oh god,” Sam muttered. Randy robots.
…
On the far side of the moon, dancing in starlight, six ships drew their circle in. Hands, wings, sleek helms, dark blue optics, shoulders touching.
They embraced Skyfire’s longing, the edges of his tolerance. A knowledge each of them would journey to in their turn. The wide reaches and warps of spacetimelove sang to them, sirens in the deeps. Excepting Silverbolt, they would go. One by one, they would answer.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2057 - September
Is it an incomplete twinning? Prime asked, via tight-beam. The protoform in the big tank had pinched about a third of its mass off into a not-quite-separate entity, nestled against the belly of what seemed to be the primary body. The spark had also formed a smaller orb, connected by a tendril of sparkmatter through the, for lack of a better term, umbilical.
Slag if I know, Ratchet sighed. I don’t suppose you know what Powerglide was thinking when you two…?
Prime scratched an imaginary itch on his cheek guard. Hmm. Well. You know Powerglide. He was very…enthusiastic.
Fear not! the protoform declaimed. Ratchet hadn’t been certain its communications systems were fully online yet. Apparently they were. My excellent chosen form may be unusual, but I can assure you that I will be of the greatest service to the Autobot cause once I decant.
“Er, thank you,” Prime said. “I’m glad to meet you…?”
I have been contemplating appropriate designations, Optimus Prime, and in the interests of elegant simplicity - my further reasoning shall become elucidated once I take on my alt modes - I have decided that my nom de guerre shall be Sky-Lynx.
“Very nice,” Prime said, smiling. “Pleased to meet you, Sky-Lynx.”
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