Transformers: Alone and Unafraid

[SirNitram]

"That's the one." A nod to Farshot. "Comes from the sound I make when I engage my transwarp shunt in atmosphere. Nice big boom. Pity it's such a short range thing, but oh well." A shrug from the Decepticon Seeker.

"So anyway. They think I'm their god. Mostly just taking the authority they give me to set up better farming, mining, medicine. Not that I have much of a clue on medicine, but I remember enough from datatracks on organics to grasp sanitization and sterilization."

[LadyTevar]

"And the so-called Autobots?" Shimmer asked, tilting her head in curiousity. She had to admit it seemed the Decepticon was actually improving the planet's inhabitants, but he had still used the power of 'godhood' to do so.

It was a Grey area that most Autobots would feel uncomfortable with, the line between helping the natives and becoming a god/tyrant.

[SirNitram]

"Removed their combat capabilities. The hard way." Shunt spoke frankly and directly. "Ripped their weapons and reserve batteries out. Got them trapped in vehicle modes, doing work that would take a thousand locals."

[rhoenix]

"A working penance," Farshot nodded in approval, with a smirk. "Couldn't have happened to better 'bots, I'm sure."

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer's optics went wide as they could go at that pronouncement, and the moral code in her CPU went into overdrive.

IF Shunt was telling the truth, somewhere there were two Autobots (supposedly) trapped in their alt-forms and performing slave labour. IF Shunt was telling the truth, they were paying for the crime of raiding a planet. It was a merciful fate, similar to being 'jarred', removed from a body altogether. However, this fate had the guilty (were they guilty?) working off their debt to those they'd harmed.

IF they had been Decepticons and an Autobot had found them, would we have just slagged them and been done with it? Shimmer asked herself, and had to admit all the Wreckers would have, and then left the inhabitants to their own devices.

"That's... that's..." the stutter told a little of how hard her processor was working on this information. "... I don't know if that's cruel, or just punishment," she finally said, looking to Cutter for his take on the matter. She was still a Civ-bot at the core, even if her moral code had shifted from The War.

[SirNitram]

"I don't deal in justice. I am a Decepticon War Machine. I exist for one purpose: To destroy my foes so completely they never think of rising again. I just happened to administer it in the defense of a small planet of organics."

[frigidmagi]

Cavalier turned to say something to Counterstrike, stopped, and visibly forced himself to calm down, shutting his optics and clenching and unclenching his hands several times. When he opened his optics again, he was no longer raging, but still clearly unhappy.

"I am judge, jury, and executioner, Counterstrike. That's what I was built to be. It's what you were built to be too, and Breakout, and half the other bots on this station. I've killed Decepticons by the dozen whose names I never knew, whose crimes were unproven if even alleged, all because we were in the middle of a war and that's the way it is. I passed summary judgment on every one of the pirates and killers who did Axis, just like I did to Massacre, just like I did to Smother and Neutralize, and just like I should have done to Division. Breakout was right about that much."

This line of discussion not being conducive to maintaining his calm, Cavalier took another second and forced the fire out of his lasercore.

"You and Breakout and whoever else want to handle this different, that's fine. Before Deathstrike came barraging in, she told me that there was extenuating circumstances." He scoffed. "I don't know what in the pits could possibly extenuate this... but if she's got reasons, I'll hear 'em out."

Cavalier's engine growled from deep within his body.

"But if Breakout wants to make this his show, then I'm gonna be looking to him to make it right if this magic excuse of hers ain't up to par. Because the way I was programmed, Counterstrike, them that murder twelve million organics don't get community service."

Breakout walked in on the last part, metalhead in tow.

"I don't recall even having a community service option honestly. It doesn't matter however. Blastcap is prepared to come clean and I want you there to witness it Cavalier. You can weigh in if any punishment is required firsthand. Remember that's all you're doing, weighing in. This is my command, so it's my call. If you can live with that follow me." Breakout said and turned to go.

[General Havoc]

Cavalier was, at least, capable of recognizing a handout when he saw one.

"Sure," he said, "I'll weigh in." He turned to follow Breakout to wherever they were holding Blastcap. "Let's hope this little excuse of hers is Primus-inspired."

[frigidmagi]

Breakout led Cavalier to a small room and activated a screen showing Blastcap with Longshot.

"Metalhead, make sure Grind and Shellshock are on alert please." Breakout said to the smaller bot.

"Cavalier, you'll see everything that happens in this room. Don't leave, I'll come get you." Breakout ordered and with that left. He went straight to the room Longshot and Blastcap were in and walked in.

"Alright Blastcap, make it good. I got a war to run here." Breakout ordered.

[Lys]

Blastcap looked at Breakout, "I am pleasantly surprised that you came here yourself, but disappointed that you did not bring Cavalier with you. Could he be brought in? He needs to know the whole story, and I dislike repeating myself."

[frigidmagi]

Blastcap looked at Breakout, "I am pleasantly surprised that you came here yourself, but disappointed that you did not bring Cavalier with you. Could he be brought in? He needs to know the whole story, and I dislike repeating myself."

"He'll see it. At this point he'll have to. So I would recommend that you speak as if he was right here in front of you." Breakout responded.

[Dark Silver]

Grindstone was with Shellshock, about to leave for the cantina nearby, when Metalhead came over the comm frequency again.

Grindstone looked to Shellshock after hearing the orders, "It looks like the Energon will have to wait."

[rhoenix]

"I don't deal in justice. I am a Decepticon War Machine. I exist for one purpose: To destroy my foes so completely they never think of rising again. I just happened to administer it in the defense of a small planet of organics."

Farshot nodded to this slowly, patterns in his golden optics moving subtly and intricately. "That is one artifact of my programming that I held onto. If someone becomes my enemy, and there's no other way to resolve the conflict, then it can only be resolved through one of us being utterly destroyed. And if that's the case, then it becomes a battle like any other - restrict your enemy's resources and capabilities as much as possible while maximizing your options."

[Lys]

"Excellent," Blastcap actually smiled, "that will do just fine."

"First things first, I will explain things to the two of you," she began, adopting her customary deadpan. "At the root of this affair is the Axis Station Incident, which occurred 1019 standard League years ago, in what was at the time the Hanles Trade Confederation. The appropriately named Axis was the Confederation's major trade hub, orbiting above their home planet. The incident, in short, involved the deliberate sabotage of all the station's defensive systems, after which a group knowns as the Black Sun Pirates jumped in with their whole fleet and blasted Axis off its orbit. It crashed into the planet below, vaporizing a major city. The immediate death toll was between 9 and 13 million, with the most often quoted figures being 12 or 12.5 million dead. The subsequent chaos caused further death and misery in untold numbers."

Blastcap paused, thinking of how to best phrase the next part. She settled for bluntness, but her voice was tinged with sadness. "I was there the day the station fell. I lead the infiltration team, myself and three others, that disabled every defensive system Axis had. And Cavalier, he was there on unrelated business. He saw me - we saw each other - at opposite ends of Cargo Corridor 3b, while the station died around us. It was a shared moment of pure hell that ended when I blew that corridor in. He was dead of course, like everyone else who had not escaped by then, everyone save me. Or at least, he should have been dead. Today he walked into my life once more, alive against all odds."

"What was I to do?" she asked rhetorically. "Here was the only living witness to my presence on Axis, and though de did not recognize me, I could not take the risk that he eventually would. So I took him aside to a private conference room, and did my best to explain. I had just finished relating what I have said here thus far, when Deathstrike interrupted us in typical fashion. Really, Cavalier should be given more credit. Even burning with cataclysmic rage he was willing to give me one chance to justify my actions. Just one chance, but it was all I needed, all I wanted. Now, after much annoyance, I finally get to take it."

Blastcap's purple eyes became unfocused, as if staring past Breakout at someone standing behind him, and bitter venom edged into her voice. "Cavalier, what happened at Axis Station was not what I was hired to do. It was a botched job, a mission gone horribly wrong on a scale matched by few others, and surpassed only by the Alderan Disaster. My little team of ne'er do wells were hired by the Galactic Spanning Corporation for straight forward asset sabotage. The kind that kills economic sectors, not people. We were to infiltrate Axis and render it defenceless, then 'Practical Space and Orbital Solutions' would come in, cripple the station, and extract us. The damage was to consist of scuttling moored ships, destroying docks and loading bays, damaging life support, and stealing anything of value not bolted to the floor. Simple smash and grab, nobody dies. It looked legit: GalSpan had a good reputation as an employer, raids of that sort are not uncommon, and the boys at PSOS were known to be reliable types. GalSpan even paid us in advance!"

She grimaced and spoke deliberately, "I would say that you can imagine our surprise when reality came crashing in, but I don't know if you can. There are no words to properly describe what I felt when the Black Sun Pirates jumped into the system, no words for when I saw those jagged black ships begin to fire indiscriminately on the station, the one I had gone and disarmed. We were so bewildered by the depths of the betrayal, so aghast at the monstrousness of what we had been tricked into doing, that for most of the attack we just watched in confusion. A failure of leadership on my part, perhaps, but in truth there was nothing else to do. It was only when Axis finally began to fall, when the Black Suns ceased firing and jumped away, that we could entertain thoughts of escape."

There was now real pain in Blastcap's voice. "You remember how bad it was in there: everything on fire, the air filled with smoke and the sound of screaming, bloodied organics running everywhere, passage ways blocked by debris or hard vacuum, multiple areas rapidly becoming depressurized or filled with toxic fumes. Worse, every docked ship had been blasted to scrap, and most of the life boat bays were just gone."

She shook her head sadly.

"Mercenaries are practical by nature, you know? We have to be, there is no room for idealism or nonsense in our line of work. When things go to the pits, we cut our losses and run. So my team was shocked when I told them we had stay, had to do something, anything. They reminded me that the situation was beyond salvaging, that it would take all we had just to escape with our lives. I disagreed, and they abandoned me. I will not begrudge them that, because in the end there truly was little that they could have done. It does not matter anyway, none of them survived."

A short pause.

"Though my comrades could not ameliorate the disaster, I could. That is why I did not run, because there was one thing that I could do, the one thing I do best. So I ran around Axis in a mad dash, rushing to set explosives every which way, scrambling to rig the whole place to blow, much like that damn lunatic Detcord. But there was method to the madness, for my desperation had hatched a plan. At first I thought I would blow Axis to pieces, and the smaller bits would burn up in the atmosphere. Not much of the total mass, but perhaps enough to make a difference below. Then as I viewed the station plans, I saw something: a weakness, a design compromise, and artefact of geometry. If I could first sever key support structures, and then arrange a perfectly timed sequence of large detonations, it might be possible to make a real difference. What I intended to do was demolition on a magnitude and complexity that normally took weeks to plan, days if given latitude, maybe hours in a rush. On Axis I had but minutes. There was no time to plan, no time to run simulations, no time to visually inspect the structure. So I ran on pure intuition, I had nothing else."

Blastcap took out her hand held holoprojector. She set the field to maximum size so all could see, and set the device on the table. It came to life, and a visual of the dying Axis plunging to its death played once more. As the station was about to enter the planet's atmosphere, it was rocked by a series of explosions, and about one third of it came free. The larger piece continued its fall at a steeper angle, while the smaller one drifted back up into orbit. The visual stopped and repeated itself.

"That right there, is a miracle that saved millions of lives," Blastcap said quietly, pointing at the projection. "I read the reports, I read every report, and what you see before you is the most baffling part of the entire Incident. Perhaps as much as 45% of the station's mass failed to reach the ground, the vast majority because of that explosion. The odds against it happening on its own are not just staggering, they are the next thing to impossible. Just to do it on purpose would have taken a team of their civil engineers a month to plan and execute. So the official story essentially says that they got lucky. The pirate attack just happened to mangle the station in exactly the right places. Then at precisely the right time, someone disabled all the fail safes in the core power plant and overloaded it. Never mind that that you cannot do that to Litex-type fusion reactor, literally can't, but someone did. In the end they decided it must have been the knightly Cybertronian, the one who tore a dozen paths through the broken station to the remaining life boats. They supposed that with his more advanced technology he had tried to destroy the station before it hit the planet, and by act of Primus it worked." She scoffed, "they might as well have said it was magic."

Blastcap shut off the projector, and her voice took on a strongly bitter tone, with no pride in it. "Cavalier, that is why there exists the fairy tale of the Unknown Hero of Axis. It was not because you saved hundreds on the station, but because they think you blew the thing and saved millions on the planet below. But it wasn't you who did it, it was me. It could not have been anyone but me. I call myself an expert, but that is just me being professional. The truth is, I am the best at what I do. Not among the best, but the very best. Nobody else could have split Axis, nobody. If I had been one iota less good that I am, it would not have worked, and millions more would have died. That is why I could look at you in the eyes and admit to letting Axis fall. Because I really did not let it. Because after being tricked into starting it, I fought the fall until the end."

She was quiet for a minute, letting silence hang, and giving time for the others to process her words. It was clear from her posture and expression that she wasn't finished.

"The story doesn't end there. There is still one more part that must be told," Blastcap finally continued. "I made my escape as Axis was torn apart by my bombs. I had studied the emergency evacuation plans before the operation, and apparently the cargo pods were suitable for use as emergency plus size life boats. I jumped in one at the last moment, but nobody else made it out that way. I wanted to tell Cavalier when I saw him, wanted to spare him the agony of reentry, but it was less than three minutes 'till boom time, and that corridor was next to a major structural member. There was no time at all, not even for a word."

"I destroyed the cargo pod's transponder and set its course to another planet in the system. I wanted to avoid being linked to the Incident, and it was best if GalSpan kept thinking me dead. Interplanetary travel by slow boat is, well, slow, so it was a few months until I arrived. I spent most of it in standby mode, for I had no wish to be left alone with my thoughts in an empty can. Unfortunately my core thought otherwise, and my dreams kept coming back to Axis. I was just about sick of it by the time the pod arrived. I left it quickly after removing all traces of my presence. As far as anyone knows, the pod was knocked loose during the explosion and nobody had ever been aboard it."

She briefly looked directly at Breakout, then her eyes again settled on the imaginary Cavalier behind him.

"In my line of work someone is always out to kill you, and sometimes employers betray you. It happens; we don't take it personally. Everyone just keeps track of their own score and does their best to keep it even. It's all business," she said with a shrug. "I had no intention of going after the Black Sun Pirates. They were dogs doing their master's bidding, not worthy of my time. If I hunted down every two bit thug who took a shot at me, I would never be able to do anything else. Like I said, just business. Regardless, it was good when I learned that someone eradicated their infestation from existence."

"But GalSpan was different." Blastcap's tone became hard, and anger finally flashed in her eyes. "They made me betray my principles, they made me complicit in mass murder. That wasn't business, that was personal. So I called up several old friends of mine: old comrades and old rivals, I even dragged one out of retirement. At the time, these were some of the most skilled, solid, reliable, and professional operators in the galaxy, and I could trust them one and all. I told them everything, then hired them for a job. We were going to take down GalSpan, piece by piece."

"My new team set them up to fall from every angle possible: factories, mines, warehouses, docks, transshipment points, offices, research labs, and various other facilities. Those we slated for industrial sabotage. The main target, however, was GalSpan's Board of Directors and its Special Operations Division. They were the ones who had been party to the slaughter, and we were simply going to annihilate them." The last part she said with such coldness, the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

"It took a few more months to set it all up," Blascap said, with an icy predatory smile. "We moved very carefully, not just concealing our hand, but keeping GalSpan from knowing the game was afoot. Then, just before it was go time, they announced a grand new experiment in energon technology. They had built a full size prototype at Hephaestus Station, where their Special Operations Division was head-quartered. What's more, all of GalSpan's top officials would be there for the occasion: the CEO, the President, the entire Board of Directors. It was a chance I could not pass up, so I shifted the date of the operation to coincide with the experiment, and personally oversaw the preparation of Hephaestus Station for the big day. When it finally came, we shorted as much GalSpan stock as we could manage and prepared for the fireworks."

The smile vanished from her face. "I did not confront GalSpan's leadership with their crimes. I did not make them beg for their lives, nor did I make their deaths as agonizing as those of their victims. I am a professional, that is not how I do things. One moment their glorious experiment was spooling up, and the next moment everyone on Hephaestus was an expanding cloud of radioactive ash. A few days later my other assets moved in, and by weeks' end the Galactic Spanning Corporation simply ceased to be. As far as everyone knew, the explosion had been an accident. The subsequent attacks were written off as other corporations opportunistically kicking their competition while it was down. It's just that nasty out in there in The Fringe."

Blastcap's voice became melancholy, with no joy in it. "I felt nothing when I saw GalSpan destroyed. The entire operation had been flawless, a true master work. I even made my operational costs with that bit of insider trading. I should have felt joy, pride, satisfaction, and yet I felt nothing. It was then that I understood what Old Jenks had tried to tell me, so many ages ago. It was after I had helped him settle his old score. I asked him if he was happy, and he told me that revenge was hollow. I did not believe him, because to me revenge was sweeter than the purest energon. He laughed, and said that one day I would learn. One day I would have something immeasurably precious taken from me, something I could never get back. One day I would learn the difference between getting revenge and getting even. As I wondered why I felt nothing on destroying those who had betrayed me, I finally understood."

She fell silent, finally finishing her tale.

[frigidmagi]

Silence reigned in the room, between Breakout, Longshot and Blastcap as she finished her tale. She had been tricked yes, but the deaths of millions still lay on her shoulders and her hands. Longshot was merely shocked, while a military bot with hundreds if not thousands of campaigns behind him, the vast majority of his experience was straightforward. See an evil Cybertronian, kill an evil Cybertronian. See abuse, kill the abuser. All done. The complexity before was something he did not often run into and frankly loathed. He was a artillery officer and a warmachine not a judge.

Breakout didn't have the luxury that his fellow headhunters indulged in regarding events like these. Nor did he consider his own hands clean, more then once he had led strikes at industrial targets, blown up strategic outposts, engaged in black ops. None of those were "clean" and all of them left his own hands marked in his eyes. Blastcap had been... less then wise in her choice of missions. But it could have happened to Breakout to, if the authority he was working for had given him bad intel and he hadn't discovered it in time, or if someone had flat out lied like they had to Blastcap. He found himself wondering... Is this me but for the grace of Primus?

But he didn't have that luxury either. The sakes of the war he led left him with little. He must win the war or doom species after species to torment and extinction under a heavy metal boot. He would not lose. He could not lose. He must not lose. He was sorely tempted to simply forget this whole ordeal. Send Cavalier to a planet on the front and leave him there for a while... Maybe somethings had to be forgotten or swept away for the greater good... Is this how Megatron started? If I did that where do I stop?

Breakout stood.

"This testimony will not become public knowledge. That much I can give you. Remain here for now. I will return." Breakout exited the office and headed towards Cavalier. He had promised Cavalier and would keep that oath. Breakout held to that and tried to keep from considering anything else.

[General Havoc]

Breakout found Cavalier quieter than he had left him.

Cavalier stood at the enormous one-way mirror that looked into the room where Blastcap had just spun her tale. His sword, so readily to hand recently, was at his side, and quiet, his shield folded up within his forearm, his optics muted now, the nuclear rage from before burned low once more. He could not have failed to hear Breakout's entrance, but he did not acknowledge it, at least not immediately, staring in silence at the bot who, explanation or not, was still responsible for far more death than even Cavalier had managed to inflict, in all his years of trying.

He did not move for some time.

"Tell me," he asked at last, without turning his head. "Do you remember your first kill?"

The enormous war machine's frame did not move, but his expression turned slightly more neutral, his optics losing focus, and carefully he folded his arms, one hand laying gently on the hilt of his sword. "Because I do," he said at last.

"It was on Cybertron. My first ever operation. Nothing but a skirmish really, but on the way back to base, I got separated from the others. Some rookie mistake, I'm sure. Trying to find my way, I ran smack into a Decepticon warrior, all by himself, save for an Autobot civie he had cornered and crippled. No idea what the con's name was, but he was about my size, same rough shape, similar mission profile. A hovertank. Had an ion cannon the size of your arm, and an energy axe that could've been Optimus'. We just... sort of stopped. Both of us. Stared one another down for a couple cycles. Sizing up maybe, or just... accepting what had to be. Pulled at the same time and threw down. Neither of us ever said a word. Didn't need to."

Cavalier sighed almost wistfully, slowly turning to Breakout. "That Decepticon fought like the Pits. He fought like a caged animal. Tore my arm off, broke my shield apart, knocked my cannons all out of alignment, shot a hole through me a minicon could've walked through upright. Time it was over, I had more kinds of damage on me than I knew how to count. I've been hurt worse than that since, a couple times, but never by a single 'con. Not like that. And when I killed him..." he trailed off, staring through Breakout and into empty space. "He never said a word. Never spoke, never cried out, never asked for mercy, no threats, no insults, nothing. He never turned his optics away. He just fought. He never stopped. And then he was dead, and I wasn't, and that was the way it was." He drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword, shaking his head slowly. "I was green as the grass. Could easily have been me that was dead and him that limped away winner, and finished that civ-bot with a flick of his wrist, but it wasn't. Call it luck if you want, I never bothered calling it anything. There was... a purity to it. A simplicity. He was a Con and I was a Bot, and that meant enough to both of us to do what we had to. No crimes, no revenge, no personal business. He was built to kill me and mine. I was built to kill him and his. I won, and me and mine went unkilled, and so did the civ-bot. I never got his name either."

He turned his head back to where Blastcap awaited her fate. "But it never stays that simple, does it?"

Back to Breakout. "I've killed damn near every 'con raised arms against me since then," he said. "Not all, but damn near. And I've killed 'bots, or them that called themselves 'bots, for crossing lines they should have known not to. I've killed organics and mechanicals, I've killed automatons, I've killed beasts big enough to bite one of us in half. I've had people begging me for mercy on their knees. I've been cursed in every language in the known galaxy. I've watched people die by inches, with my sword or shells in them."

He stepped towards Breakout, his optics fixed now, his voice clear and calm.

"In all the killings I've done, Breakout, the fights and executions and summary judgments, in every death I've been complicit in, from that first con to Massacre and his lackeys, I have never, never in my whole life, ever killed someone I didn't absolutely want dead. Not once. Not ever. I'm not talking about collateral damage, I can't speak to that. I don't think I've killed by accident, but Primus alone knows that score. I'm talking about intent. I have never committed a killing that wasn't pre-meditated, by a second or a cycle or a thousand years, not ever. I have never committed one that I regret. I don't regret killing Massacre, and I don't regret killing that 'con who fought me to the bitter end. I killed four hundred of the pirate scum who shot Axis out of the sky. I remember every one of their screaming faces, and I don't regret ending a single one of their lives for what they did. Before you came in here, Counterstrike said that we're not judges and executioners, but that ain't so. Least not in my case. I am a purveyor of summary judgments against those I perceive to have transgressed against all common decency." He stopped in front of Breakout, watching the Autobot commander impassively. "And if that don't scare you, Breakout, then it should. Because it scares the hell out of me. But that is what I was built to do, and I know that if I don't do it, then the deaths I spare will be meted out on the undeserving and the defenseless a hundredfold. And I do not regret having done it. Not ever."

Slowly he turned his head, yet again, back to Blastcap. "And I stand here," he said, pointing. "And I look at that one. And I see the fires on the planet after Axis came down. And the clouds of nuclear winter. Organics starving to death in the streets, eating each other's children just to stay alive another day. And she may not have set it in motion, but she was a cause of that all the same. Maybe she's telling the truth about everything she did. GalSpan's collapse always smelled like wetwork to me. There were rumors that that little accident they had wasn't so accidental. And Axis did have enough mass to sterilize the continent, but lots of it burned up in re-entry, or so I always heard. Maybe she did everything she said. But none of that brings the twelve million back. Actions she took led directly to the deaths of countless innocents. Even if she wasn't a Cybertronian, that'd be damning enough, but she is one, and that makes it worse. We're the nearest thing the galaxy has to gods, the 'cons have that much right. We're the single most powerful species ever created. One of us is worth dozens, maybe hundreds, of even the strongest organic or mechanical species known. The 'cons think that power gives us rights. Rights to do whatever we want. I think it makes us the appointed defenders of all those species that can't stand for themselves. I think it means that those who aren't thirty-foot war machines should be looking to us to protect them from those that are. My sense is, Optimus thought that too, but I can't speak for him. We don't get more rights for being what we are. We get less. And anyone cares to argue that point is invited to walk the ground where Axis landed and tell me about how unfair the universe is. We do not have the right to race off to the end of the galaxy and play mercenary for hire because it makes us feel special. Not when the consequences of one of our accidents is a dozen million dead. We do not have the right to play with the lives of entire planets the way she did, and a whole host of others still do. It's bad enough when it's just some random 'bot stroking his ego by playing God to a primitive tribe. But when our casual mistakes can render sentient species extinct, then we lose the Primus-damned right to make them!"

His hands balled into fists as he snarled the last line, and he caught himself, and hesitated, and calmed down, turning back to Breakout.

"You want to know why I was on Axis?" he asked, his voice upset and bitter. "I was chasing a 'con. A 'con named Vaporize, who liked to kidnap organics from undeveloped planets and fence them to genetic research labs in exchange for Primus-knows what. Vaporize was a stealth model, had a holo-emitter, he could pretend to be an easy chair if he wanted to. I got to the planet, and my trail went cold. Almost left empty-handed, but I decided to ask the authorities on-planet. They were pretty advanced, enough that Vaporize never tried to mess with them, so they had no irons in his fire, no reason to care what he'd done, or who I was. No reason to get involved at all. But you know what they did?" He shook his head in disbelief. "They moved heaven and earth. They called down intel assets from every field office they had looking for any sign that a Cybertronian had passed by. Re-directed satellite feeds, swept the whole planet with scanners for weeks. They gave me shipping manifests, cargo listings, time on their planetary mainframe, an army of analysts to pour over the data. They held up star freighters until they could sweep them for stowaways. They put resources at my disposal that I didn't even know how to use. No hesitation, no request for payment, no bilateral political engine-waste, they just did it. All because this guy was hurting people they'd never met or even heard of. I met dozens of them, intelligence officers, space-traffic controllers, shipping magnates, forensic experts, sensor operators. They were the ones who finally found a trace, tracked it to Axis, and told me where to go get that piece of rusted junk."

His speaker grew bitter and his posture agitated. "And every single one of them died when Axis came down. And all their families, and their entire Megacity." He jabbed a finger in the air at Blastcap, gesturing angrily. "And all that happened, because one of us decided to go and have some fun playing mercenary games for a while."

Cavalier's entire frame jolted, as though he had just had a minor seizure, when what he had actually done was restrain himself physically from slamming his fist into the wall. Rigidly he stood, forcing down his temper, closing his optics for a few moments as he let the fire die out of his lasercore. And when he spoke again, his voice sounded torn between anger, sadness, and of all things, humor.

"And you know what the worst part is?" he asked, semi-rhetorically. "I stand here, and I look at that damn bot..." He opened his optics again, and shook his head almost helplessly. "... and even with all that, I... can't decide if I want her dead or not." He looked up at Breakout, almost plaintively, letting the confusion show, not just at what to do, but at the state of affairs in general. "That just doesn't happen to me. I don't get worked up about summary action. Someone does something beyond the pale, I handle it. Sometimes I find there's extenuating circumstances, or they didn't do what I thought they did, and I let them go. I don't agonize over this sort of thing. But this..." He shook his head helplessly. "I don't even know where to start. Was she responsible for Axis? Yes, unquestionably. Does it matter if she meant to be? Not really. Twelve million counts of involuntary murder is still a lot of stored up guilt. Is she any less guilty than the pirates I killed, or the corporate types she did? Maybe. But in a crime this big, I don't know if that matters. Knowing all the particulars... do I want her dead for this?" He shook his head, as though in disbelief, lowering his optics and staring through the floor. "I have no Primus-damned idea. I got a thousand reasons yes, and a thousand more no, but none of that's the worst bit. When I need to drop someone, I know instantly that they have to go. It's obvious. They make it obvious by their own actions. We're in a war, he's trying to kill me, there's a pile of dead organics and a smoking shoulder-cannon. Open and shut, and the thing gets done. Doesn't matter if I need to track him for fifty million cycles. Things like this don't get less unforgivable with time."

He shook his head again. "But I asked you for say in this case. I asked to weigh in. Because one way or another, I know how to handle questions like this. Or at least I thought I did. And now I'm standing here, and I can't make a call." He laughed hollowly. "All this crap about how decisions like this aren't easy. I always thought that was just politics clogging up people's senses. They knew that the scrap-sucking punk deserved to eat fusion, but it was too inconvenient for them to make that call, so they made up some engine discharge about how it was hard and they couldn't make their minds up... and now here I am, and I'm doing the same damned thing. What does that make me, eh? Some damned politician without the sparkcase to make a call? Any rational look, she deserves to be slagged for this. But here I am, not sure. And I've never killed anyone I wasn't sure about. And I don't much relish starting. Because I can guess where that one leads."

Wearily, Cavalier slowly sat down at a Transformer-sized chair at the side of the room. He did not look back up, nor say a word for some time, lost in thought.

"This mission," he said at last, "helping the FWA fight the 'cons off. It's good money that not one of us will be coming back from it." He did not sound like he was inviting comment on that statement. "That many 'cons, with that large of a resource pool... I can read odds as well as anyone else, even if I pretend not to. And that's all right. That's what we're here for. But... given that," he grimaced for a moment, but swallowed it, "if you were to decide to send her off on this suicide mission of yours, under the assumption that it's as likely as not that it's the last you'll ever hear of her, if you were to decide that's the best course for her, as well as for any other..." he gestured at himself, "... 'problem' bots you've got that you don't know what to do with." He sighed. "I won't speak against it."

He fell silent, but chimed in after a time with one last comment, shaking his head slowly as he did so.

"And if, somehow, we both survive. Then maybe by then I'll have figured out what in the Pits I want to do about this."

[LadyTevar]

Shimmer shook her head at Farshot and Shunt. "I'm going to plead insufficient data," she admitted ruefully, taking a sip of her Energon. "I still see no reason why any Cybertronian would want to set themselves up as ruler. To me, it's the one big Glitch Megatron had, and then he laid it on the rest of us like a virus."

[Armaina]

It had gotten later than she had liked, but she had arrived nonetheless. Shimmer had seemed pleasant enough during the brief meeting, so she decided to see her about sharing a drink. One would need to get to know one's team after-all, that's how you made things function.

Once she had her own drink, she sought out her potential companion, eventually finding her easily seated near the other two mechs. Now, she had not often spent time with those that weren't autobots, but they were all in this for the same cause, one would hope they could find common ground in that.

She gave a slight wave to the seated femme as soon as she knew she was in viewing range.

"So, room for one more?"

[Cynical Cat]

Deathstrike waited for the Autobot melodrama to be resolved. Hopefully it would leave him with a functional team, but that was out of his hands. He began running diagnostics on his system and deep space interception scenarios.

[LadyTevar]

"Always!" Shimmer said, happily. She was surrounded by three Cybertronians, Cutter and Farshot from the meeting, and another 'Bot with clearly marked Decepticon branding, despite the rest of him being mere primer. "Did you meet Shunt? He's the one that Deathstrike had to go rescue."

[frigidmagi]

Breakout sat. He remembered his first kill alright, it had after all involved him driving off a cliff. Like Cavalier he was not quite sure what the right thing to do was. That said, he was fighting a war. The lives of everyone in the galaxy might depend on his victory and his victory could turn on a single Cybertronian. Did he dare dispense of one? There were limits clearly, Breakout would not take bloodthirsty murderers into his army but given his reputation those were unlikely to sign up.

"I'm sending her. Given that we're fighting for hundred of billions of lives, I'm sending her. After the war, we'll decide what to do. There will be time then." Breakout decided and stood up. Maybe this was his Megatron moment. Maybe this was the wrong choice. But he had entire civilizations to protect and precious little to do it with.

"If you want to talk to her go ahead Cavalier. Otherwise you're off duty for the rest of the rotation." Breakout said and left the room heading back towards Deathstrike.

[rhoenix]

"Always!" Shimmer said, happily. She was surrounded by three Cybertronians, Cutter and Farshot from the meeting, and another 'Bot with clearly marked Decepticon branding, despite the rest of him being mere primer. "Did you meet Shunt? He's the one that Deathstrike had to go rescue."

Turning his head to look Merka in the optics, Farshot nodded once in recognition, and moved his chair over to make room for the female Autobots to sit next to one another.

He was still somewhat disquieted by how much Shunt's experiences in the past mirrored his, despite their different points of view - though he was careful to not show it on his faceplate. "Welcome, Merka," he said in a calm voice.

[Armaina]

"I haven't met him formally."

Farshot's gesture was met with a polite nod from Merka, as she sat down next to her fellow femme. When seated she offered Shunt her hand in greeting.

"Name's Merka."

[SirNitram]

"A pleasure." A smile from the Decepticon. "I'm guessing you know more of this little deployment, but I think I still register as security risk."

[rhoenix]

Shunt's comment caused Farshot to smirk. "Well, of course you are, Shunt - nobody trusts someone who can teleport."

He turned back to look at Merka again, nodding once in recognition. "I am Farshot - it is good to talk with you."