Given to Fly

The base was filled with the sound of Bumblebee's excited beeps. The young scout held one of Raf's RC cars in his hand and was flying it around as he told the story of how he snagged an artifact from Megatron.

"Loop-de-loop, huh?" Arcee chuckled as Bee finished his story.

The yellow Bot buzzed his response and gave his ward the toy back.

"You have some brass bearings, Bumblebee." Bulkhead gave the younger Bot a pat on the back.

On the other side of the base, Optimus and Ratchet were examining the artifact they had taken from the Cons. Marty stood on the catwalk by them, looking and the disk shaped metal.

The Spark Extractor is what they had called it, and if it was anything like it sounded, it was dangerous.

"Optimus," Ratchet addressed as he pointed to the screen. "Here. The source of the ancient frequency we detected."

"An Iacon homing beacon," the Prime noted.

"What's an Autobot locator doing on that" Arcee asked as they walked over.

"The Class-A Decepticon weapons confiscated during the war were sealed within the vaults below Iacon," Optimus answered.

"Where you once worked as an archivist?" Marty added.

Optimus nodded. "Iacon was both a cultural center and a stronghold which Megatron raided when autobot troops were at their nadir. It stands to reason that in anticipation of Iacon being overrun by enemy forces, these weapons were jettisoned off-world to keep them far from Decepticon reach."

"Clearly, the beacon was added as a safety measure should the weapons ever be found by the undesired party," Ratchet added.

Bulkhead laughed. "Well, thanks to our hotshot stunt driver, this one's going in our vault"

Arcee frowned with concern. "Do you think this is the only intel you supplied to Megatron?"

Optimus' expression turned somber. "Arcee, you are right to ask, and I am afraid I do not remember."

"Optimus," Marty spoke up. "Megatron clearly took advantage of your amnesia, but for all we know, this Spark Extractor is all there was."

Ratchet nodded, "Have you stopped to consider that he might have suggested otherwise merely to plague your thoughts?"

The Prime didn't seem convinced, however. "Even if Megatron is deceiving me, there is still a risk of there being more relics on Earth. We need to run patrols more often."

)()()()()(

Bee lay down on the medical berth as Ratchet scanned him. He and Bulkhead had returned from a scouting mission, and the younger of the two was complaining that he wasn't able to transform.

"You can fix Bee, can't you?" Raf asked worriedly.

"Bumblebee was hit pretty hard," the medic answered. "The stun blasts may have fried his T-Cog."

"Is that like a T-bone?" Miko asked.

"Not exactly. It's the organ that allows us to scan vehicles and transform," Arcee told her.

"By the Allspark," Ratchet gasped as he finished his scan. "Bumblebee's T-Cog isn't damaged. It's missing."

Every Autobot in the base looked horrified and confused.

"But the Decepticons transform, too," Jack mentioned. "Why would they steal that?"

"Megatron may be known to raise zombies, but he's no ghoul," Ratchet pointed out.