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halfamoonTitle: Business Before Pleasure
Fandom: Transformers (Sunbow G1)
Character(s): Chromia, Firestar, Elita One
Rating: PG
Summary: Not long after losing the Ark crew, Firestar is keen to steal a few moments of fun. Chromia isn't so sure, especially when they find themselves suddenly under Elita One's scrutiny.
Notes: Also for "Chromia, Firestar and Elita One; business before pleasure" at fembot_prompts on Tumblr.
"Pst! Chromia!"
Despite the whispers that she'd announced herself with, Firestar came up to Chromia with nothing short of a swagger, radiating a self-importance that made her usual confidence seem downright shy. Her optics were shining almost too intensely and her grin was a promise of good things to come. She seemed a picture of a time before the war, when she might've been coming to steal Chromia from her responsibilities and pull her, feet dragging, into a good time she hadn't believed she needed until she had it.
The nostalgia gripped Chromia so completely that it was a moment before she realized that a stray memory flux had not glitched her optical input-- Firestar really was holding up a bottle of something both unlabeled and unmistakable. It looked right at home in Firestar’s hands but so out of place in the dingy hall of their ramshackle base that Chromia’s logistics subroutines nearly crashed.
"You did not," Chromia said. Back then, she wouldn't have been able to hide her anticipation in spite of herself. In the here and now, disapproval made her plating shudder and she gave Firestar the kind of look she normally reserved for Moonracer’s most insubordinate stunts. "Tell me you didn't distill any of our very limited energon stores."
"Of course not," said Firestar with such conviction that Chromia nearly relaxed. But her grin was already twisting into something mischievous. "I distilled some of the excess energon that I nicked off Nova Storm a while back."
"Firestar--"
"We've got plenty right now," Firestar said, waving her free hand like Chromia's concerns could be swatted out of the air. “Enough to go around, at any rate.” She was still buzzing with excitement, still overly pleased with herself, but she let some of that easy authority of hers into her subharmonics. "So, sure, I held a little bit back from the community stores." She leaned in, bumping Chromia's shoulder with her own, and rocked the bottle so that the shimmering liquid inside sloshed gently against the sides. "What's the harm, when I'm still going to share?"
"You know as well as I do that our supply is unreliable," said Chromia, attention rapt on the ebb and flow of the high grade. "And we can't be compromising equipment to build stills like we're back in the academies."
"I know how to build and un-build a still without breaking anything, you know that," said Firestar. She eased back, some of the enthusiasm going out of her at last. She shrugged and said, "If you don't want any, just say so."
Chromia had grabbed the bottle before she fully registered that Firestar had been about to tuck it away. She said, "If I didn't want any, I would've said so." She sniffed imperiously as Firestar's grin came back full force. "It's the principle of the thing."
Firestar laughed at her, then scoffed, optics flashing, when she held out a hand for her bottle and Chromia pulled it out of her reach instead. Gladly leaving her to fret, Chromia turned aside and held it up to the light, admiring the color through the glass. Such a small amount of fuel would've seemed laughable if she didn't recognize that particular hue. And--
"Are those additives?" she asked, recalibrating her optical sensors for a better look. There were definitely particles dancing within the liquid but she wasn't outfitted to identify them through the glass. Ironhide probably could’ve-- "Where did you even get additives?"
"Greenlight and Lancer," Firestar said. "Those mineral samples they were able to collect from that asteroid strike a few weeks back. Most of them turned out to not be good for anything but snacking on, remember?"
"I remember that I wanted to snack on a few of them but the storage was all cleared out by the time I made it to the commons."
"Well," said Firestar, smile wide and unrepentant, "here's your chance!"
Chromia wanted to say more. She should say more. This was irresponsible, inappropriate. Firestar had been greedy when she knew better.
But.
When was the last time they'd had the chance, taken the time, to really have fun? To do something frivolous? To relax? Not since they’d made base and hardly then. And now here was this little bottle, which must have taken weeks to fill, and the base clearly hadn't blown up. What was done couldn’t be undone. And if they didn’t enjoy the spoils now, while it was quiet, who knew when they’d have the chance again?
Just as Chromia was letting her lips twitch up at the corner-- only the one corner, mind, she had a reputation to consider-- she heard a familiar set of footsteps. A moment later, Elita One's eye-catching pinks appeared at the end of the hall. Chromia's struts seized and her plating slicked down so suddenly that it creaked. Even from the distance, Chromia could see the weary set of her leader’s jaw, the tension she was trying to hide in her shoulders. Elita One had always seemed to Chromia too old for her age but even she might've lit up to see this bottle in that nostalgic before-time Chromia had just been aching for.
That before-time wasn't now.
In the split second before Elita One’s gaze settled on them, to Firestar's audible dismay, Chromia shoved the bottle into a compartment low on her side, so quickly the glass squeaked against her metal. She covered it up with a cough that blew dust out of her abdominal vents and a light smack against the panel, like it was just some internal component acting up. Firestar looked at her like she’d lost her mind but what had Chromia hiding a wince was the concern that pulled Elita One’s mouth down at the corners as she set her optics upon them.
Striding towards her like she was a problem to solve, Elita One flashed a look over her that she could feel and called, “Is everything alright, Chromia?”
Firestar stepped smoothly back and stood up at attention, greeting Elita One with a nod and a respectful, “Ma’am,” that Chromia couldn’t help sending her just a quick side-eye over, no matter that she reminded herself at the same time that she really, probably would not care for her old friend to treat her as their respective ranks implied.
On the other hand, if Firestar did have more regard for rank, she wouldn’t have put Chromia in the position she was in now, trying not to cringe under Elita One’s rapt attention. As if their leader didn’t have enough to worry about without worrying about her. Over nothing, no less. Chromia gave another little cough and assured her, “All’s good.” She patted her side again, closer to the vents this time than to the compartment panel. “I just haven’t taken a moment to really clean up since I got in from patrol.”
Relief softened Elita One’s expression and Chromia's spark jumped like a live wire.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Chromia,” Elita One chided, her hand heavy on Chromia’s shoulder. She squeezed and the bright light of her optics belied the lightness of her tone when she added, “We can’t lose you just yet.”
“To some dust in my vents?” Chromia asked on a scoff. Warmth tickled her frame from the inside out but in its wake, she was even more aware of the itch of her guilt. “Don’t count on it.”
“We were just headed to the washracks now,” Firestar jumped in to say, her hand sudden and tight around Chromia’s upper arm on the other side. She would’ve seemed collected even to Chromia if not for that point of contact, the nervous flex of her fingers. “She’ll be good as new soon.”
Elita One shook her head and indicated a datapad that Chromia hadn’t noticed tucked under her arm. Her optics dimmed again and her armor sagged on her frame. “I hate to keep you from it,” she said, “but I have intel to discuss with the two of you.”
“Something from the other squad leaders?” Chromia asked; even Firestar straightened up beside her.
“Nothing new,” Elita One said, obviously sharing their disappointment. “I’ve discussed our current situation with Alpha Trion.”
Firestar and Chromia shared a glance, the former’s optical ridges arched and the latter’s bowed. Elita One gave Chromia’s shoulder a parting squeeze before tucking her datapad against her chest and striding past them towards the big storage closet they’d repurposed as a meeting room. With a shrug, Firestar led the way. She made a false step to fall in line with Chromia after just a couple of paces, brushing her knuckles up against the panel hiding her illicit bottle in a move that was almost entirely natural. Chromia shot her a glare and Firestar returned it with a significant look and a gesture of her head towards Elita One’s back. They had just enough time before they reached the meeting room to make the swap without being noticed.
Chromia glared harder and elbowed Firestar’s hand away. Then, for good measure, she quickened, making Firestar jog a couple of steps to keep up. Firestar might have hissed, “Chromia,” just before Elita One reached the door of the room, keyed it open and stepped back so that her subordinates could precede her inside but Chromia was rather pointedly ignoring her and couldn't say for certain. Chromia marched smartly past and only through sheer force of her considerable will did she keep from shrinking or shuddering under Elita One’s eye. Firestar hurried at her heels and then pivoted so that Chromia was in between them, her optics steadfastly avoiding their leader’s. They each took a spot at the near side of the table that took up most of the room.
Elita One walked around so that she could face them across the table and settled her datapad into an access nook. A hard light screen blinked to life between her and them, displaying the information she was so keen to go over.
Firestar frowned at it, optics flickering as she took it in, then she focused past it on Elita One and said, “All due respect, boss, this looks like it could’ve been a remote communications packet.”
Jaw clenched, Chromia kicked her in the ankle and ignored the way Elita One’s optical ridges jumped at the clang. She’d thought the same thing once the screen had lit up, of course, but you didn’t hear her saying it. And she knew full well Firestar wouldn’t have said it either, if she hadn’t been so impatient to get that bottle back in her hands. Elita One might be young but she wouldn’t have dragged them in here just to brief them on what they already knew.
“It’s not just the information I want to go over,” said Elita One after at last, “it’s the implications.” She poked at her datapad, shifting the layout of the information presented so that a map of Iacon was centered. Then she looked at them both gravely and said, “We need to talk about leaving.”
Firestar and Chromia shared a glance, hardly more than a flicker of their optics, then both looked at their leader, who regarded them coolly through the display. Her optics seemed paler than usual but it might’ve been a trick of the screen’s light-- or maybe she hadn't been refueling properly again.
There was a beat of silence, then Firestar said slowly, “Is this a decision we should be making now, do you think? The last time we tried to leave wasn’t so long ago-- and it didn’t work out so well.” The intensity of her optics belied the calm of her tone.
A part of Chromia could appreciate that Firestar wasn’t being as blunt as she clearly wanted to be. That part was hard to hear under the rest of her, all but howling indignation that Firestar was being as blunt as she was.
“Elita One wouldn’t make a decision like this on a whim,” she snapped, cutting a glare at Firestar and flaring her plating.
“Not like last time, you mean,” Firestar said, not sparing her a glance.
Chromia’s engine revved and her hip knocked against the table as she moved instinctively to try to put herself between the two of them, forgetting the table. Firestar cut her that same hard look then, jaw set, and Chromia was just ratcheting up her vocalizer when Elita One synthesized a cough. Chromia’s plating rippled, ill at ease, but she did take back the step she hadn’t even realized she’d made towards Firestar.
Elita One’s steady gaze stayed on Chromia until she lowered her head under its weight, then slid over to Firestar.
“I’ve talked this over extensively with Alpha Trion,” she said. “The Decepticons are closing in on this location. They’ve been systematically wiping out our bases-- ours and our allies’. There’s still been no word from Outback’s team.”
She pressed her lips together and they all remained silent for a moment out of respect. They didn't acknowledge what this consideration, automatic and unspoken, implied.
“There’s nowhere safe left on Cybertron,” said Firestar, “but at least we’re established here. We know all the roads, all the hideaways-- scrap, we built most of the hideaways. What good will come of making ourselves more vulnerable trying to find somewhere new?”
“We don’t have to find anywhere,” said Elita One. She tapped at her screen and the projection shifted, one dot flashing with dissonant cheer to show their location, long familiar, and another, smaller dot lighting up. “Alpha Trion has managed to establish that one of Beta’s old bunkers is still intact-- and that it hasn’t been compromised. That’s where we’re going.”
Chromia reset her optics, zoomed out to take in the whole of the projection, then reset her optics again.
“Elita One,” she said slowly. Not slowly enough that she had time to decide how to word her question in a way that wouldn’t make at least one of them sound like a fool.
Firestar beat her to it, in the end, after a rapid flickering of her optics indicated a quick double-reset of her own.
“You want to move us closer to Shockwave’s tower?” she asked. She sounded just a little too eager for Chromia’s liking but her expression was still skeptical.
“We’ll slip through their defenses and camp out right under their olfactory sensors,” Elita One declared. Her optics flashed and her lips twisted into a grim smile. “As far as they know, that area is clear-- and they’ll be expecting us to be headed the other direction. The location of the base also means we’ll have better access to their supply routes and energon, which we sorely need.”
Firestar shifted where she stood, hiding an uncomfortable squeak of gears under a hum of contemplation as her gaze dropped to her own datapad. If Chromia didn’t know any better, she’d have thought that the bottle in her side compartment had just caught fire. She could almost see the smoke pouring through her seams, giving them both away to Elita One’s stern disappointment.
“As for this base,” Elita One continued, a wistful note in her subvocals making both Firestar and Chromia straighten up in surprise even before she said, “we’ll be blowing it up behind us.”
“Shouldn’t we keep it intact, in case we need it again?” Chromia asked. One hand danced across the console like a caress, not that she’d admit it.
“We’ve already lost so many bases to the Decepticons,” Firestar added. “Taking one out ourselves…”
“I understand your concerns,” Elita One said, “but I’ve run this plan by Alpha Trion and Strika, too, and they both agree with me. This entire sector is under heavy Decepticon watch-- they’re closing in on us. It’ll be an adventure just getting out of here and we have to assume that this place will fall into Decepticon hands once we're gone. This way, we can waste their time surveying the remains. And if we play this just right, we'll leave them thinking that they caused the explosion themselves, chased us out-- all the more reason for them to think we're quitting this city for good.”
Firestar and Chromia shared another look, heavy with nostalgia and understanding alike. That bottle seemed to burn for a whole different reason now. Chromia desperately needed a drink.
“How will we blow the place?” Firestar asked, a little quieter than usual. “What’s our timeline? We don’t have much in the way of ordinance and we shouldn’t waste it on that…”
“My sentiments exactly,” Elita One said. She tapped her screen again and the map was replaced with schematics of their base, a list of supplies displayed in the corner. It was a short list. “Since we’ll be moving in part to secure better access to energon, my plan is to ignite a portion of what we have on hand now, one cube per room, in lieu of traditional explosives.”
Chromia winced again, nearly slapping herself in the face with her datapad as she brought it up to hide behind. What Firestar had taken had been such a small amount, really, in the grande scheme of things, but every drop would count if they were planning to blow half of it up.
"It'll necessitate a raid almost before we're fully settled in," Elita One went on, "in order to restock our supplies. But we're fortunate that we've managed to stockpile enough to go around, at least for the purposes of this mission."
“Yeah,” said Firestar, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. She flashed a look at Chromia, first looking at her side compartment before looking her in the eye. Chromia glared back, trying to say without words what she thought of the position Firestar had put them into. Firestar, as was her wont, failed to look suitably impressed. If anything, she seemed more eager than before to get Chromia alone. “Okay, well. Good talk, boss. Good plan. Me and Chromia will go take a final inventory and--”
“Hold on,” said Elita One, looking disgruntled for the first time since the meeting had begun. “We have a lot more to discuss. We need to narrow down the best routes, make plans for formations, allocate responsibilities over carrying equipment…”
“I’m all in on whatever you think is best,” Firestar insisted, smiling a little too brightly. “You’re better off conferring with Alpha Trion. That way Chromia and I can get a jump on getting everything together and we’ll be ready to move on your mark.”
Chromia did not kick Firestar again but only because she wanted to so badly that she knew there would be no hiding it. Her anger burned in the core of her spark, so hot that she wondered if it might not truly ignite that bottle. She could imagine the disapproval, the disappointment, if they were caught out. If she were caught out. Even if it hadn’t been her own idea, hadn’t she been about to go along with it? Wasn’t she planning to go along with it still, if only to dispose of the evidence without having wasted precious resources for nothing?
“Maybe Firestar is right,” Chromia said, optics on her datapad so that she wouldn’t have to see the look of betrayal that surely was marring Elita One’s fine features. It was deserved, she knew, but she couldn’t stand to spend another astrominute under Elita One’s eye with the high grade tucked away beneath her armor. “We may not have much but there’s plenty that we should be taking with us. And we need to consider what can be sacrificed, on the other hand. We should get started now--”
“Chromia,” said Elita One in a voice like the crack of a whip. "Firestar." They stood at attention on instinct and shared a guilty look, then looked as one to their leader. The hologram disappeared, leaving the view unobstructed. Her optics didn't look so pale anymore. Elita One was standing tall with her hands on her hips, staring them down as she might stare down Megatron himself. "If I didn't know any better, ladies," she said, tone as chill as the void, "I'd think you were planning to drink that high grade without me."
There was a moment where neither of them spoke. Chromia just stared in mortification while Firestar's jaw dropped and she reared back as though from an explosion. All the while, Elita One regarded them with a quirked optic ridge and something like a smirk playing about her mouth.
"How did you--" Firestar sputtered, cutting herself off with a burst of static when Elita One laughed-- short but so sweet, so rare.
"Well then?" she said instead of explaining herself. "How about it? Weren’t you planning to share with your commander?"
"I-- that is, we--" Firestar shot a panicked sort of look at Chromia.
"Don't drag me into this," Chromia hissed, fully aware that she was deep in it already. Then, barely able to look into Elita One's expectant face, she reset her vocalizer and, not without bracing herself, popped open her compartment to pull out the high grade, holding it up as if to be inspected.
And inspect it Elita did, taking it smoothly and holding it up to the light as Chromia had. Her optics dimmed in appreciation and a low whistle sounded from between her lips. "Additives and everything," she murmured. She sounded just a little eager, almost young. "And it's an even better color than I thought I saw from down the hall."
Firestar swatted Chromia's elbow, so quickly it had to have been instinctive, and Chromia snapped back, "Don't you start with me." Elita laughed again, hardly more than a huff. This time, the sound seemed to shake Firestar back to her usual self and she perked up, smiling without caution.
"Well!" she said, leaning forward to reach for the high grade. "Since all of us here can appreciate a good drink, what say we share one?" She deflated a little when Elita One just kept looking at her, bottle held steadily aloft, both optic ridges quirked now. With reluctance, Firestar finished, "Once we're done with our meeting, of course."
"Once we're done with our meeting," Elita One agreed. She set the bottle on the table-- her side of the table. Her smile was warm but wan. "I think we'll all be up for a drink after that."
Fandom: Transformers (Sunbow G1)
Character(s): Chromia, Firestar, Elita One
Rating: PG
Summary: Not long after losing the Ark crew, Firestar is keen to steal a few moments of fun. Chromia isn't so sure, especially when they find themselves suddenly under Elita One's scrutiny.
Notes: Also for "Chromia, Firestar and Elita One; business before pleasure" at fembot_prompts on Tumblr.
"Pst! Chromia!"
Despite the whispers that she'd announced herself with, Firestar came up to Chromia with nothing short of a swagger, radiating a self-importance that made her usual confidence seem downright shy. Her optics were shining almost too intensely and her grin was a promise of good things to come. She seemed a picture of a time before the war, when she might've been coming to steal Chromia from her responsibilities and pull her, feet dragging, into a good time she hadn't believed she needed until she had it.
The nostalgia gripped Chromia so completely that it was a moment before she realized that a stray memory flux had not glitched her optical input-- Firestar really was holding up a bottle of something both unlabeled and unmistakable. It looked right at home in Firestar’s hands but so out of place in the dingy hall of their ramshackle base that Chromia’s logistics subroutines nearly crashed.
"You did not," Chromia said. Back then, she wouldn't have been able to hide her anticipation in spite of herself. In the here and now, disapproval made her plating shudder and she gave Firestar the kind of look she normally reserved for Moonracer’s most insubordinate stunts. "Tell me you didn't distill any of our very limited energon stores."
"Of course not," said Firestar with such conviction that Chromia nearly relaxed. But her grin was already twisting into something mischievous. "I distilled some of the excess energon that I nicked off Nova Storm a while back."
"Firestar--"
"We've got plenty right now," Firestar said, waving her free hand like Chromia's concerns could be swatted out of the air. “Enough to go around, at any rate.” She was still buzzing with excitement, still overly pleased with herself, but she let some of that easy authority of hers into her subharmonics. "So, sure, I held a little bit back from the community stores." She leaned in, bumping Chromia's shoulder with her own, and rocked the bottle so that the shimmering liquid inside sloshed gently against the sides. "What's the harm, when I'm still going to share?"
"You know as well as I do that our supply is unreliable," said Chromia, attention rapt on the ebb and flow of the high grade. "And we can't be compromising equipment to build stills like we're back in the academies."
"I know how to build and un-build a still without breaking anything, you know that," said Firestar. She eased back, some of the enthusiasm going out of her at last. She shrugged and said, "If you don't want any, just say so."
Chromia had grabbed the bottle before she fully registered that Firestar had been about to tuck it away. She said, "If I didn't want any, I would've said so." She sniffed imperiously as Firestar's grin came back full force. "It's the principle of the thing."
Firestar laughed at her, then scoffed, optics flashing, when she held out a hand for her bottle and Chromia pulled it out of her reach instead. Gladly leaving her to fret, Chromia turned aside and held it up to the light, admiring the color through the glass. Such a small amount of fuel would've seemed laughable if she didn't recognize that particular hue. And--
"Are those additives?" she asked, recalibrating her optical sensors for a better look. There were definitely particles dancing within the liquid but she wasn't outfitted to identify them through the glass. Ironhide probably could’ve-- "Where did you even get additives?"
"Greenlight and Lancer," Firestar said. "Those mineral samples they were able to collect from that asteroid strike a few weeks back. Most of them turned out to not be good for anything but snacking on, remember?"
"I remember that I wanted to snack on a few of them but the storage was all cleared out by the time I made it to the commons."
"Well," said Firestar, smile wide and unrepentant, "here's your chance!"
Chromia wanted to say more. She should say more. This was irresponsible, inappropriate. Firestar had been greedy when she knew better.
But.
When was the last time they'd had the chance, taken the time, to really have fun? To do something frivolous? To relax? Not since they’d made base and hardly then. And now here was this little bottle, which must have taken weeks to fill, and the base clearly hadn't blown up. What was done couldn’t be undone. And if they didn’t enjoy the spoils now, while it was quiet, who knew when they’d have the chance again?
Just as Chromia was letting her lips twitch up at the corner-- only the one corner, mind, she had a reputation to consider-- she heard a familiar set of footsteps. A moment later, Elita One's eye-catching pinks appeared at the end of the hall. Chromia's struts seized and her plating slicked down so suddenly that it creaked. Even from the distance, Chromia could see the weary set of her leader’s jaw, the tension she was trying to hide in her shoulders. Elita One had always seemed to Chromia too old for her age but even she might've lit up to see this bottle in that nostalgic before-time Chromia had just been aching for.
That before-time wasn't now.
In the split second before Elita One’s gaze settled on them, to Firestar's audible dismay, Chromia shoved the bottle into a compartment low on her side, so quickly the glass squeaked against her metal. She covered it up with a cough that blew dust out of her abdominal vents and a light smack against the panel, like it was just some internal component acting up. Firestar looked at her like she’d lost her mind but what had Chromia hiding a wince was the concern that pulled Elita One’s mouth down at the corners as she set her optics upon them.
Striding towards her like she was a problem to solve, Elita One flashed a look over her that she could feel and called, “Is everything alright, Chromia?”
Firestar stepped smoothly back and stood up at attention, greeting Elita One with a nod and a respectful, “Ma’am,” that Chromia couldn’t help sending her just a quick side-eye over, no matter that she reminded herself at the same time that she really, probably would not care for her old friend to treat her as their respective ranks implied.
On the other hand, if Firestar did have more regard for rank, she wouldn’t have put Chromia in the position she was in now, trying not to cringe under Elita One’s rapt attention. As if their leader didn’t have enough to worry about without worrying about her. Over nothing, no less. Chromia gave another little cough and assured her, “All’s good.” She patted her side again, closer to the vents this time than to the compartment panel. “I just haven’t taken a moment to really clean up since I got in from patrol.”
Relief softened Elita One’s expression and Chromia's spark jumped like a live wire.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Chromia,” Elita One chided, her hand heavy on Chromia’s shoulder. She squeezed and the bright light of her optics belied the lightness of her tone when she added, “We can’t lose you just yet.”
“To some dust in my vents?” Chromia asked on a scoff. Warmth tickled her frame from the inside out but in its wake, she was even more aware of the itch of her guilt. “Don’t count on it.”
“We were just headed to the washracks now,” Firestar jumped in to say, her hand sudden and tight around Chromia’s upper arm on the other side. She would’ve seemed collected even to Chromia if not for that point of contact, the nervous flex of her fingers. “She’ll be good as new soon.”
Elita One shook her head and indicated a datapad that Chromia hadn’t noticed tucked under her arm. Her optics dimmed again and her armor sagged on her frame. “I hate to keep you from it,” she said, “but I have intel to discuss with the two of you.”
“Something from the other squad leaders?” Chromia asked; even Firestar straightened up beside her.
“Nothing new,” Elita One said, obviously sharing their disappointment. “I’ve discussed our current situation with Alpha Trion.”
Firestar and Chromia shared a glance, the former’s optical ridges arched and the latter’s bowed. Elita One gave Chromia’s shoulder a parting squeeze before tucking her datapad against her chest and striding past them towards the big storage closet they’d repurposed as a meeting room. With a shrug, Firestar led the way. She made a false step to fall in line with Chromia after just a couple of paces, brushing her knuckles up against the panel hiding her illicit bottle in a move that was almost entirely natural. Chromia shot her a glare and Firestar returned it with a significant look and a gesture of her head towards Elita One’s back. They had just enough time before they reached the meeting room to make the swap without being noticed.
Chromia glared harder and elbowed Firestar’s hand away. Then, for good measure, she quickened, making Firestar jog a couple of steps to keep up. Firestar might have hissed, “Chromia,” just before Elita One reached the door of the room, keyed it open and stepped back so that her subordinates could precede her inside but Chromia was rather pointedly ignoring her and couldn't say for certain. Chromia marched smartly past and only through sheer force of her considerable will did she keep from shrinking or shuddering under Elita One’s eye. Firestar hurried at her heels and then pivoted so that Chromia was in between them, her optics steadfastly avoiding their leader’s. They each took a spot at the near side of the table that took up most of the room.
Elita One walked around so that she could face them across the table and settled her datapad into an access nook. A hard light screen blinked to life between her and them, displaying the information she was so keen to go over.
Firestar frowned at it, optics flickering as she took it in, then she focused past it on Elita One and said, “All due respect, boss, this looks like it could’ve been a remote communications packet.”
Jaw clenched, Chromia kicked her in the ankle and ignored the way Elita One’s optical ridges jumped at the clang. She’d thought the same thing once the screen had lit up, of course, but you didn’t hear her saying it. And she knew full well Firestar wouldn’t have said it either, if she hadn’t been so impatient to get that bottle back in her hands. Elita One might be young but she wouldn’t have dragged them in here just to brief them on what they already knew.
“It’s not just the information I want to go over,” said Elita One after at last, “it’s the implications.” She poked at her datapad, shifting the layout of the information presented so that a map of Iacon was centered. Then she looked at them both gravely and said, “We need to talk about leaving.”
Firestar and Chromia shared a glance, hardly more than a flicker of their optics, then both looked at their leader, who regarded them coolly through the display. Her optics seemed paler than usual but it might’ve been a trick of the screen’s light-- or maybe she hadn't been refueling properly again.
There was a beat of silence, then Firestar said slowly, “Is this a decision we should be making now, do you think? The last time we tried to leave wasn’t so long ago-- and it didn’t work out so well.” The intensity of her optics belied the calm of her tone.
A part of Chromia could appreciate that Firestar wasn’t being as blunt as she clearly wanted to be. That part was hard to hear under the rest of her, all but howling indignation that Firestar was being as blunt as she was.
“Elita One wouldn’t make a decision like this on a whim,” she snapped, cutting a glare at Firestar and flaring her plating.
“Not like last time, you mean,” Firestar said, not sparing her a glance.
Chromia’s engine revved and her hip knocked against the table as she moved instinctively to try to put herself between the two of them, forgetting the table. Firestar cut her that same hard look then, jaw set, and Chromia was just ratcheting up her vocalizer when Elita One synthesized a cough. Chromia’s plating rippled, ill at ease, but she did take back the step she hadn’t even realized she’d made towards Firestar.
Elita One’s steady gaze stayed on Chromia until she lowered her head under its weight, then slid over to Firestar.
“I’ve talked this over extensively with Alpha Trion,” she said. “The Decepticons are closing in on this location. They’ve been systematically wiping out our bases-- ours and our allies’. There’s still been no word from Outback’s team.”
She pressed her lips together and they all remained silent for a moment out of respect. They didn't acknowledge what this consideration, automatic and unspoken, implied.
“There’s nowhere safe left on Cybertron,” said Firestar, “but at least we’re established here. We know all the roads, all the hideaways-- scrap, we built most of the hideaways. What good will come of making ourselves more vulnerable trying to find somewhere new?”
“We don’t have to find anywhere,” said Elita One. She tapped at her screen and the projection shifted, one dot flashing with dissonant cheer to show their location, long familiar, and another, smaller dot lighting up. “Alpha Trion has managed to establish that one of Beta’s old bunkers is still intact-- and that it hasn’t been compromised. That’s where we’re going.”
Chromia reset her optics, zoomed out to take in the whole of the projection, then reset her optics again.
“Elita One,” she said slowly. Not slowly enough that she had time to decide how to word her question in a way that wouldn’t make at least one of them sound like a fool.
Firestar beat her to it, in the end, after a rapid flickering of her optics indicated a quick double-reset of her own.
“You want to move us closer to Shockwave’s tower?” she asked. She sounded just a little too eager for Chromia’s liking but her expression was still skeptical.
“We’ll slip through their defenses and camp out right under their olfactory sensors,” Elita One declared. Her optics flashed and her lips twisted into a grim smile. “As far as they know, that area is clear-- and they’ll be expecting us to be headed the other direction. The location of the base also means we’ll have better access to their supply routes and energon, which we sorely need.”
Firestar shifted where she stood, hiding an uncomfortable squeak of gears under a hum of contemplation as her gaze dropped to her own datapad. If Chromia didn’t know any better, she’d have thought that the bottle in her side compartment had just caught fire. She could almost see the smoke pouring through her seams, giving them both away to Elita One’s stern disappointment.
“As for this base,” Elita One continued, a wistful note in her subvocals making both Firestar and Chromia straighten up in surprise even before she said, “we’ll be blowing it up behind us.”
“Shouldn’t we keep it intact, in case we need it again?” Chromia asked. One hand danced across the console like a caress, not that she’d admit it.
“We’ve already lost so many bases to the Decepticons,” Firestar added. “Taking one out ourselves…”
“I understand your concerns,” Elita One said, “but I’ve run this plan by Alpha Trion and Strika, too, and they both agree with me. This entire sector is under heavy Decepticon watch-- they’re closing in on us. It’ll be an adventure just getting out of here and we have to assume that this place will fall into Decepticon hands once we're gone. This way, we can waste their time surveying the remains. And if we play this just right, we'll leave them thinking that they caused the explosion themselves, chased us out-- all the more reason for them to think we're quitting this city for good.”
Firestar and Chromia shared another look, heavy with nostalgia and understanding alike. That bottle seemed to burn for a whole different reason now. Chromia desperately needed a drink.
“How will we blow the place?” Firestar asked, a little quieter than usual. “What’s our timeline? We don’t have much in the way of ordinance and we shouldn’t waste it on that…”
“My sentiments exactly,” Elita One said. She tapped her screen again and the map was replaced with schematics of their base, a list of supplies displayed in the corner. It was a short list. “Since we’ll be moving in part to secure better access to energon, my plan is to ignite a portion of what we have on hand now, one cube per room, in lieu of traditional explosives.”
Chromia winced again, nearly slapping herself in the face with her datapad as she brought it up to hide behind. What Firestar had taken had been such a small amount, really, in the grande scheme of things, but every drop would count if they were planning to blow half of it up.
"It'll necessitate a raid almost before we're fully settled in," Elita One went on, "in order to restock our supplies. But we're fortunate that we've managed to stockpile enough to go around, at least for the purposes of this mission."
“Yeah,” said Firestar, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. She flashed a look at Chromia, first looking at her side compartment before looking her in the eye. Chromia glared back, trying to say without words what she thought of the position Firestar had put them into. Firestar, as was her wont, failed to look suitably impressed. If anything, she seemed more eager than before to get Chromia alone. “Okay, well. Good talk, boss. Good plan. Me and Chromia will go take a final inventory and--”
“Hold on,” said Elita One, looking disgruntled for the first time since the meeting had begun. “We have a lot more to discuss. We need to narrow down the best routes, make plans for formations, allocate responsibilities over carrying equipment…”
“I’m all in on whatever you think is best,” Firestar insisted, smiling a little too brightly. “You’re better off conferring with Alpha Trion. That way Chromia and I can get a jump on getting everything together and we’ll be ready to move on your mark.”
Chromia did not kick Firestar again but only because she wanted to so badly that she knew there would be no hiding it. Her anger burned in the core of her spark, so hot that she wondered if it might not truly ignite that bottle. She could imagine the disapproval, the disappointment, if they were caught out. If she were caught out. Even if it hadn’t been her own idea, hadn’t she been about to go along with it? Wasn’t she planning to go along with it still, if only to dispose of the evidence without having wasted precious resources for nothing?
“Maybe Firestar is right,” Chromia said, optics on her datapad so that she wouldn’t have to see the look of betrayal that surely was marring Elita One’s fine features. It was deserved, she knew, but she couldn’t stand to spend another astrominute under Elita One’s eye with the high grade tucked away beneath her armor. “We may not have much but there’s plenty that we should be taking with us. And we need to consider what can be sacrificed, on the other hand. We should get started now--”
“Chromia,” said Elita One in a voice like the crack of a whip. "Firestar." They stood at attention on instinct and shared a guilty look, then looked as one to their leader. The hologram disappeared, leaving the view unobstructed. Her optics didn't look so pale anymore. Elita One was standing tall with her hands on her hips, staring them down as she might stare down Megatron himself. "If I didn't know any better, ladies," she said, tone as chill as the void, "I'd think you were planning to drink that high grade without me."
There was a moment where neither of them spoke. Chromia just stared in mortification while Firestar's jaw dropped and she reared back as though from an explosion. All the while, Elita One regarded them with a quirked optic ridge and something like a smirk playing about her mouth.
"How did you--" Firestar sputtered, cutting herself off with a burst of static when Elita One laughed-- short but so sweet, so rare.
"Well then?" she said instead of explaining herself. "How about it? Weren’t you planning to share with your commander?"
"I-- that is, we--" Firestar shot a panicked sort of look at Chromia.
"Don't drag me into this," Chromia hissed, fully aware that she was deep in it already. Then, barely able to look into Elita One's expectant face, she reset her vocalizer and, not without bracing herself, popped open her compartment to pull out the high grade, holding it up as if to be inspected.
And inspect it Elita did, taking it smoothly and holding it up to the light as Chromia had. Her optics dimmed in appreciation and a low whistle sounded from between her lips. "Additives and everything," she murmured. She sounded just a little eager, almost young. "And it's an even better color than I thought I saw from down the hall."
Firestar swatted Chromia's elbow, so quickly it had to have been instinctive, and Chromia snapped back, "Don't you start with me." Elita laughed again, hardly more than a huff. This time, the sound seemed to shake Firestar back to her usual self and she perked up, smiling without caution.
"Well!" she said, leaning forward to reach for the high grade. "Since all of us here can appreciate a good drink, what say we share one?" She deflated a little when Elita One just kept looking at her, bottle held steadily aloft, both optic ridges quirked now. With reluctance, Firestar finished, "Once we're done with our meeting, of course."
"Once we're done with our meeting," Elita One agreed. She set the bottle on the table-- her side of the table. Her smile was warm but wan. "I think we'll all be up for a drink after that."
