Escape! 10

The trip to the pick up point was conducted in silence. There hasn't been much fooling around since the autobots left. Jack, Miko and Raf would still visit the base nearly every day, sometimes they were taken there by agent Fowler or Jack's mom, but mostly there would be one of the troopers to pick them up after school.
Ratchet would barely leave the hanger these days, scouting for the remaining decepticons and energon signatures. Sometimes he would detect them. Humans took care of it now.
Disorganised and disoriented, the cons put up little fight as they were offered to surrender and get sent to Cybertron.
They were mine workers mostly, and didn't want to stay on Earth anyway.
It was so boring since the bots left. For Miko, at least. Raf got to learn cybertronian under Ratchets tutelage, Jack was eager to start his own training with Fowler or whoever else would be assigned as his supervisor . What was there for Miko? Nothing. She would return to Japan in few months and never see her favorite bot again.
Human kids stepped through the bridge. Ratchet was humped over a console, continuing his relentless scanning. A cellphone went off in a cacophony of loud and very heavy metal and Ratchet spun around, blades ready before he realized this wasn't a threat.

"What's that NOISE?! I'm working here!" he demanded. Miko fished out her phone "Dude, it's Master of Puppets! Classic!" she retorted before flipping her phone open. "Hello?"

"Ughm... hello, this is Melinda Paterson from Global mail express delivery. We have received an international package for you and I'm calling to clarify the delivery details and schedule the drop off. Would you spare me a minute?" -

"errm.. sure" - Miko said, turning away from Ratchet. "it's not like I have anything better to do anyway"

"Miko.." - the bot started, but she just waved her hand at him and walked aside.

"Okay... first off, may I have your address?"

"You have a package for me and you don't know my address?! "

"Yeah... I'm sorry for the confusion, we don't generally call the customers and ask for details, but there's been a malfunction on the sender side and we only got your phone number now and we would really like to get this package delivered."

"Really? That is one of the lamest things I ever heard! I'm not expecting any international delivery btw. Where does it come from?"

"Let me check..." there was a short silence and then "Russia"

"For real?! I sure as hell expect nothing from Russia! How can you know it's for me?"

"Erm... I only have a phone number. 775-520-5446"

"Yo, miss! This is totally not my number!"

"Are you sure?"

"'Course I'm sure!"

"Well, my apologies then for disturbing you"

The girl on the other side hung up. Miko looked at the phone for a few seconds before shrugging her shoulders and joining Raf.

---

Beth hung up and exhaled slowly before looking at the call details. "One minute seven seconds. Happy?" she asked. The phone in her hand vibrated and a new message appeared "Well done".

Soundwave was inside the autobots base now. As he shared this with Laserbeak, her responding ping was filled with thrilled anticipation. He gained control over the device. Unfortunately, there was no visual feed - the girl put her phone into her pocket, so he listened in and waited for a suitable moment to act.

He only had energy for one attempt before he would fall into recharge and lose this race against time.

New emails with instructions were sent and this time Soundwave felt generous enough to add a few words of encouragement. Jimmy climbed up to the console as this was now clearly a two-person job to press the buttons - some of them had to pressed simultaneously and the console was at least twelve feet long

Soon the comm channel was activated and Chad read the last part of instructions: "press "go" and play the audio". Soundwave's slightly distorted, but still recognizable voice filled the room

"Soundwave to all decepticons: Protocol "berth control". We've got an imposter. Cut all contacts until further notice. Do not engage. Repeat: do not engage. Confirm protocol. First triade - come in"

Thirty second of silence, and Jimmy smirked "they don't want to talk to you it seems" - he muttered.

"Second triade - come in"

Silence again. Jim's phone received a message "keep silence"

"First tier mines - come in"

Another long pause.

"Second tier mines - come in"

This time there had been a response: "Commander? CT3V3 reporting: Operations continued according to plan. Two batch of energon ready to pick up. No autobot activity detected. Protocol "berth control" engaged "

"Stop the playback" - the new message read. Chad shrugged and pushed the button. Immediately a new file was received:

"CT3V3 - pass up your coordinates and prepare for energon pick up upon further notice. Assume "shell" protocol. "

"Understood"

---

Alarm went off inside Soundwave's processor. Energy levels were down to 20 percent and plummeting. It was now or never, it seemed.

/Laserbeak.../ His fingers touched her chassis. Despite the desperate need for energy he was reluctant to do it. /Plug into my circuits and go to stasis/

The responding transmission was full with panic. /I will bring you online when we're out/. Panic continued pouring out into their link. Energon levels reached 18% and were going down. /Do. it. now./

It was an order and the drone couldn't disobey it. Her conscience left their link, fading away.

Soundwave stood very still, torn between blissful relief at energon flowing into his circuits and sorrow at having to offline his symbiont, however temporary.

Back at autobots base the day went on as usual. Miko was bored beyond boredom. She toyed with her phone, but it didn't really amuse her. "I'm going to the mess - you want anything?" - Miko asked Raf. "yup. fetch me some coke, please" - the boy didn't even look up. Miko sighed and went out. A few minutes after she was gone, she called Raf.

Soundwave seized his chance.

"They don't have coke. Choose between lemonade, orange and cherry"

"Ughmmm... cherry"

"You got it"

Raf got back to his studies. Soundwave was in. Syncing the phone to the laptop was easy. He even managed to pull this in the background. He checked Raf's laptop. There the were: Nemesis coordinates last used for calling a bridge around time the humans trapped him.

Soundwave transformed and surged up, opening the bridge and blocking the laptop controls. The ground bridge controls gave out a beep and Ratchet turned to the console, frowning: "What was that?"

Raf checked on his laptop: "it's... me. But I didn't... Hold on" And the young hacker assaulted the keyboard. Ratchet quickly walked up to the console "It's opening a portal to coordinates we already used."

"I got hacked!"

Ratchet switched the bridge off, but it didn't obey, displaying a dancing mouse flash instead. The medic went to the power switch. It took them half a click to discover the breach and deactivate the bridge, but it had been enough for Soundwave.

The spy flew through the portal and immediately understood that he succeeded - there was sound and the air was filled with transmissions. And also, he got instantly disoriented, his changed calculus making navigation impossible. He was falling.

The spy called up Harbinger coordinates from his databank and activated the bridge. It took all the power he had to spare and as he fell through the vortex, his energy levels went below 10%, the middleware trying to induce stasis.

He fell through to Harbinger's bridge and overrode the middleware long enough to stagger to the main power cord of the ship, yank it loose and plug into his own circuits.

He initiated backup restore that would bring back his normal calculus and fell to stasis.