Keeping up a decent updating time, for now. :D
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, except my OC Ionette. Viper belongs to Dragonmaster789. The rest, Hasbro's.

"I don't know who you are, femme, and frankly I couldn't care less," Knock Out said as the two 'Cons exited the room. The flyer tilted her helm at the comment. "But a Bot turned Con? Give me a break!"

"Your last partner was one, is it so difficult to believe?"

"Don't dare bring Breakdown to this conversation! You…! Lord Megatron might find you trustable in the word's broadest sense but don't expect me to share his sentiment. You turned your back on the Autoscums without an optic twitch, who says you won't do it to us? And furthermore, maybe even give one of us as a present to Optimus as you did with the pretty tailpiper."

"You are threatening me, Doctor?" Ionette commented halting and turning to look at the red sports car.

"Simply pointing out that I watch my back."

"Oh? That's not what Viper told me when she took a few rounds with you in the desert."

Knock Out growled and tackled the femme against the wall of the corridor. "Don't act all innocent! I know you scratched my paint that night. So I'll scratch yours."

He delivered a blow to the flyer's abdomen before reaching for his Energon prod and plunging it at her stomach. The femme took the hit of the fist, but twisted her body to the side enough for the staff to miss its target and only scrape her rib drawing a small smear of Energon. She brought her knee up to meet the medic's chassis kindly enough not to even damage the finish and pushed the mech off.

"Scratch for a scratch, wasn't it?" Ionette stated calmly, flicking a sharp digit over the leaking Energon slit ignoring the small throb in her side.

Knock Out glared at the flyer before scoffing and retracting the prod: "We're even. Now hurry it up, there's work to be done." He started down the corridor again. "Lord Megatron won't be happy if you mess this up."

"If I mess up? That word describes one of the Decepticon officers' work habits, and trust me, it's not a 'Con with wings."

"Know this femme," the red medic hollered from the door of the Ground Bridge control room. "I'm going to bring back that Cybertronian artefact, so do us both a favor and stay out of my way." With that the grounder entered through the door, leaving the femme standing in the hallway alone.

'Self-adoring, egoistic mechs…' The black jet thought, mentally sighing, and headed towards the flight deck.

Clear skies. The femme liked that as she flew high over the Siberian tundra. No one could sneak up to her without her knowing and the visibility to everything was perfect. Of course, the downside of being able to see everything was that everything was able to see her. …Unless she flew in the sun.

Ionette noticed the green portal opening and a red car shot through with a squad of identical dark colored twins following. A flock of geese hurried to their wings as the group drove too close past their nesting area, a loud quaking filling the air along with a thousand white feathers.

'Well, he took his time', Ionette noted and descended nearer to the ground.

"No hostile forces detected," the jet commed the medic. "With current speed, you're coming up with the coordinates in three clicks."

"Are you crazy, lady? I'm not build for off-road! We'll walk," Knock Out commented transforming mid-drive the Vehicons following cue. "And besides, we aren't in a rush. The bots can't find us while our Energon signatures are cloaked."

The femme looped down a bit more. "I'm proceeding to secure the target, just in case."

"Fine by me, but it won't square you any extra points. I'm still going to deliver the victory trophy to the master."

"I'm not trying to square anything, medic, I'm following orders." With that she punched her engines to max speed and corrected her course towards a cluster of rocks on high ground.

Before acquiring a safe altitude over the designated location, she opened a secure data file on her memory banks. 'Note to private Decepticon officer files: Doctor Knock Out loves his own voice, almost as much as he loves his finish. Conclusion: weak spot, tactical advantage.'

A few clouds were gathering over the smooth-ish taiga.

"Almost there…!" Ratchet grunted between gritted denta, optics glued to the greenish screen in front of him. "Almost got it…! Gah!" He banged his fist against the console as the red X blinked on the screen rubbing his umpteenth failure in his face plates.

"No," the medic vented, shaking his helm, "I mustn't give up. There must be a way past their cloaking technology. A crack, a small ripple in the coating, anything!"

"Ratchet."

"What?!" The red and white bot hollered swirling around, servos brought up in a defensive stance. "Can't you see I'm b- Oh, it's you Optimus."

The Autobot leader took a calm step towards his comrade, sparing only a minute glance at the computer screen before returning his full attention to the clearly recharge-deprived mech.

"Ratchet," he started, voice almost frustratingly steady, "you should rest."

To anyone else it would have sounded like a suggestion, one that could be shrugged off without bad conscience, but the older bot knew better. It wasn't quite yet an order, neither was it just a note.

"I can't, Optimus. I must find that blasted 'Con ship. I have put it off for too long and now it bites me in the tailpipe."

"And you will find it, I have faith in you, old friend. But it would be in all of our best interests to have you well-rested and sharp," the Prime stated and placed a servo on the smaller mech's shoulder. "Rest, I'll take it from here."

The medic's form slumped a bit, his knee joints budging under the prolonged standing, servos dropping to his sides. "Perhaps a moment to reboot my optics…"

A relieved smile formed on the Prime's face plates. "Good."

Ratchet nodded curtly and headed towards the tunnel entrance. Optimus turned to the computer and ran an average perimeter scan over the different continents, starting from the American continents, on the offhand chance of picking up Energon signatures. Finding a Decepticon, be it an officer or just a worker drone, could lead them to the enemy vessel –and to Viper.

The tall red mech would not show it, but he was deeply worried of the lavender-blue femme onboard the Nemesis. It was enough already that Viper's mother had to perish at the hands of Megatron, who knew what the Warlord had in mind for the bounty hunter.

The medic hadn't taken more than three steps into the tunnel leading to the 'Bots' quarters when a siren blared to life.

Optimus triangulated on the source of the alert as the red and white mech hurried back to the center room, optics franticly studying the green screen.

"What is it? A distress signal? Energon movement?" He asked the Autobot leader, who typed in some extra commands.

The map focused on the Eurasian landmass and zooming closer and closer to the area east of the Ural mountain range. Ratchet scrutinized the area known as 'Siberia'.

"The 'Cons don't have any mines there," he said confused.

"And it is not a comm link," Optimus stated.

"Then it must be a person," Arcee concluded, having heard the siren and entered the room with the two Wreckers and Bumblebee in tow.

The Prime nodded. "Can you identify it, Ratchet?"

"Yes, one moment." The medic pushed a few controls and a file popped up. "It's… Ionette's."

A surprised 'huh?' echoed in the cave.

"So she has a scrape," Bulkhead commented shrugging his shoulders. "Not uncommon when visiting the 'Con base of operations."

"I would've thought she has more smarts than to leave the cloaked ship with a leaking Energon wound. Now we have no difficulties in tra-"Ratchet stopped midsentence and looked at the Autobot leader disbelievingly. "We can track her."

Optimus nodded with a grim look. "Is there any other signals emanating from that area?"

The small red mech hustled over the console, checking all and every frequency he possibly could. "No, but there seems to be a mass of disturbance heading the same way as her. A squadron of cloaked Vehicons no doubt."

"Ratchet, lock on to the coordinates and open the bridge. Autobots, mobilize."

Ionette transformed mid-descent and landed silently on her pedes. She looked around; taiga, taiga, some more taiga, a few lemmings, Knock Out and his Vehicons strolling this way, taiga, taiga, rocks, taiga, a frightened arctic fox running with its tail between its hind legs, ground bridge portal, taiga…

The femme paused. She hadn't comm'ed for back up, they hadn't even secured the relic, a few tons of dirt being in the way. She eyed the green vortex before lifting two digits to her audio receptor.

"Doctor," the black jet started to her comm, "expect unscheduled patients."

"What? How did they-? Never mind, just make sure they don't check in."

"Understood." Ionette said and laid flat on her stomach, activating her laser and waiting for the bots to run through. They wouldn't know what hit them. A grenade in the vortex would be a decent plan of attack, too.

"Lady, optics up!"

The dark-colored femme snapped her helm up and rolled to the side, barely avoiding the missile that hit the spot she had just been on. Rising to a crouch she scanned the hostile plane ("Agent Fowler, here? How?") before returning her attention to the swirling green portal, out of which five Autobots had already exited.

She scoffed to herself and transformed to jet mode. The red sports car could deal with the enemy on the ground, the foolish human pilot was hers.

The grounder pulled against the chains, the rattling echoing in the otherwise empty room. Even the skylight had flickered off, most likely due to bad maintenance, which didn't surprise the lavender-blue femme at all.

She huffed and lifted her weight on her bound servos (her shoulder joints creaking opposing the action) before flipping her legs up, swinging her body as up as it could bend, and letting her muscles go limb, the bounty hunter crashing down onto the chains, and the clamps holding the binds to the roof wrung off.

Viper landed neatly and quietly on her pedes, kneeling instantly and twisting her hands to grab the falling chains before they clattered loudly against the floor, possibly alerting any nearby guards.

"Megatron should really look after his ship some more, this place is in worse shape than the Jackhammer and Scrappie in their current conditions put together."

She did quick work releasing her servos as she glanced up. "Wonder when that spy 'Con notices I'm free…"

Keeping her optics dim the grounder femme hurried to the room entrance, flattening against the wall, thoroughly surprised to note the door opening as she took a step closer.

"This got to be a trick," Viper furrowed and studied the empty-looking corridor from the shadow of the brig. The hallway lights were on, shining a bit into the dark room, casting not a single drone's shadow.

Taking a calculated risk, the femme scooted to the opening and stuck her helm into the corridor. Left; empty. Right: empty. Up: a camera, a recording camera.

"Scrap."

She darted out of the containment room and ran down the hall as fast as she could without her pedes clanging too loudly. Taking a quick left to avoid an approaching Vehicon (oblivious to the escapee) Viper moved swiftly, hiding behind a structural column as a pair of guards walked past and hurrying to the direction the Cons had just come from. Turning a corner the femme stumbled to a halt.

Just a few strides from her, Dreadwing took a battle stance and drew his sword.

"Here you are, little runaway."

On the Siberian tundra laser shots fizzled back and forth. Knock Out was currently driving his rims off trying to shake the Autobot scout and motorcycle off his tail. The team he had had with him was more or less scrapped but the Autobots still failed to gain the upperservo, highly due to the fact that they didn't know what they were fighting for, and either side not having time to dig the thing up.

"Knock Out to warship, request-"

"You better not be retreating, doctor." Came the menacing voice of Lord Megatron.

"Uh, no my liege. I was going to ask for back up, the previous troop having outlived their usefulness."

"Granted."

The red medic spun around (dirt annoyingly hitting his paint job) and fired at the Autobots. "Ionette, we have assistance arriving soon."

The flyer shot low past the ground, making the two Wreckers and the Prime dodge out of the way, who had just finished off the remaining drone. "Copy that." She said to her comm., lifting her nose and heading up to the skies to dispose of the lone human factor.

He was a formidable foe, decent at handling the jet and good in air combat but a separate pilot and machine would never out best a mind one with the machine. Nor would an Earthling defeat a Cybertronian.

Ionette looped behind the human plane and acquired target lock. The dark colored femme really wasn't one to dally around; she had never been.

"Goodbye, Agent Fowler." She said nonchalantly and fired.

"Soundwave, send in Dreadwing and two squadrons, so the doctor can focus on finding my prize," the silvery mech stated turning only minutely towards his TIC.

The slender Intelligence officer nodded and relayed the order, his digits remaining on the console to work on the side on the Iacon database. He lifted his helm up and hurriedly turned to face his master.

"What?"

Soundwave brought up Dreadwing's comm on the screen; a flat line.

A deep, furious growl echoed on the Nemesis' bridge as it shook by the force of the Warlord's steps as he made his way to the spy.

"WHAT!? My second in command dears not answer?! Go! Secure our troops' victory! I'll deal with Dreadwing's insubordination."

The addressed mech bowed slightly and ran out of the command center. The Decepticon Lord straightened his posture and faced one of the Vehicons working on the bridge and he roared: "Where is he?"

I was going to make this a longer chap, but decided on a cliffhanger instead. :3