Soundwave's vacation

Autobots would hardly believe it and call it decepticon propaganda, but all decepticons were entitled to vacation. It was one of the rules Megatron made in the very beginning of building his army, and it did marvels on recruits. The tyranny seemed so much more appealing when you knew there would be fair rations, work and vacation for everyone.

And war or no war, those three were provided. It may have started out as a political statement, but Megatron discovered that more personal time on top of needed refill-and-recharge off shifts made his mechs invest more in their respective lines of work.

The vehicons were on a constant roster rotation, so that the same number of them was always on leave, making planning that much easier.

Officers could choose their off time.

Knockout preferred splitting his free cycles so he could hit as many racing events as possible and each trip down to the surface made him good-natured and speed-sated for a decacycle on. Twice that if he managed to hit the movies after.

Breakdown spread his off-cycles evenly and always returned overcharged, spotting either dents on his hull or paint transfers on his lower regions, or both. Knockout would frown, give him a snide remark, grudgingly buff the minor damage out and then fragg his partner silly, either celebrating his obvious victory or reclaiming him as his property or whatever their currecnt berth play was.

Makeshift usually disappeared. The only sign that the shifter had a vacation would be the leave head-count spotting 1 extra vehicon leaving the ship. First time there was one hell of a confusion and a whole interrogation, but now they just checked Makeshift's vacation schedule that he dutifully updated and didn't even bother to find out, which one of vehicons was fake.

Airachnid went a-hunting. The spiderbot asked for vacation whenever Nemesis entered solar systems with organic planets and always returned with a new trophy for her collection. She also would boast endlessly after the trip and show her trophies off to whoever was interested to take a look at them (or wasn't fast enough to make tracks from her before she could drag the mech away)

Dreadwing didn't care for any particular off time, being the easy guy who agreed to any time given and eased the planning tension. After Skyquake's demise, the bomber jet rarely left the ship in his free time, choosing to make more bombs, hone his weapons, lay out revenge plans and sulk. Not necessarily in that order.

Shockwave planned his vacation as carefully as he planned everything else. He chose time when his absence would be both noticed and of least negative effect to the Cause. Of course, he couldn't predict everything, so sometimes his vacation plans changed several times during one cycle. And his off-cycles always got re-scheduled for later 'if nothing out of ordinary happens again'. And there was always something to happen. And even if he did manage to get his vacation, he would spend it on his projects in his lab anyway.

Starscream enjoyed the idea of a vacation. But the Air Commander had to stay alert: his position was the most desired one among the decepticons and his absence would only benefit those trying to undermine him. But he enjoyed the idea. Current compromise between passion and caution was best expressed in a simple formula: 1 vacation cycle equals 1/2 cycle flying for his own pleasure (preferably in the vicinity of the ship so everyone could admire his perfect maneuvers) and 1/2 cycle hanging around on the ship (around Megatron until shooed away) not to miss anything important.

His off cycles were always single and entered into the roster very late (sometimes even in the morning of an actual off-cycle) so his rivals couldn't plan on his absence.

Soundwave had off cycles so rarely, many cons assumed he never did. Even when Megatron would move from hinting to reminding him that he had to take a cycle off, he would choose a random cycle and schedule it in only to stall and forfeit the leave when the time came.

Refill-and-recharge off shifts were quite enough in his opinion and even those he tended to postpone until absolutely necessary. It was a common belief he did so because of his irritatingly strong devotion to the Decepticon Cause, but his reasons were utterly more pragmatic: strange things happened on Nemesis when his wasn't on his post.

First few times he found it amusing, that the Decepticon Command could barely function without him on his watch, and that could only serve to his benefit, as everyone would be reminded of his superiority. The feeling had completely dissipated during his first hundred vorn as CCO. By now he was tired of picking up the pieces every time he went and intent to keep his vacations to absolute minimum.

Megatron had probably noticed this bizarre karmic rule, because despite him subtly hinting and occasionally reminding he didn't order.
That was, he didn't order until Soundwave had glitched over the spacebridge and mixed miner team dispatch with raiding team pickup coordinates. A minor mistake, but the one the spy normally did not make. Megatron erupted in a long tirade about personal efficiency and operational excellence he expected from his people and whatnot. Despite it being long and complicated and lacking any call to action for anyone, Soundwave knew instantly that he was just ordered to take the slagging off-cycle. He nodded, cleaned up his mess, changed the vacation roster and was off.

It had been a nice cycle. A quiet cycle. A cycle full of seascapes and rush of wind and even a storm - treacherous weather that the navy surveillance jet strangely enjoyed to conquer. He defragmented his databank, serviced Laserbeak, played 'seek-and-hide' and 'catch-me-if-you-can' with her in deserted canyons. And then she docked and plugged in and they just flew above the red Nevada desert, pretending it was the Sea of Rust. It was getting dark and Soundwave flew east, embracing the darkness. The spy ventured above brightest of human cities in this area - a pale resemblance of former cybertronian glory, of course! - and pretended that it was Cybertron under him, maybe some remote and underdeveloped part of it, but home still.

When human air-defence caught up with him - they had been calling him with demands to identify himself for a while already, - he turned upward and gained altitude impossible for their engines to hold. They fell back. He turned away from the city to calm them, sped up and gave himself another decabreem to lose his stalkers before calling a groundbridge back to the ship.

As he stepped into the ship bridge, he immediately demanded a report on strange occurencies during his absense from current bridge shift. 'Nothing to report' left him immensely surprised.
The spy logged in to his console and started syncing with surveillance logs even as he himself reported to Megatron: /Soundwave: back on duty./

/Good. I expect to see no more calculation mistakes, then/ - Megatron responded, and then added /anything to report?/

Yes, the warlord definitely was aware of the bizarre karmic rule. Soundwave wanted to report negative when his scan showed Starscream and Knockout running and by the looks of them screaming down the corridors.
/Starscream and Knockout run in through C6 corridor. In panic/ - he reported and plugged into the cams searching for who or what was chasing them.
/C6? I'll meet them/

Soundwave shifted in exasperation when cam after cam showed only empty corridors and vehicons. Something rather strange about those vehicons.. He pulled up the energy scanner and was astonished to see no signatures in obviously populated corridors.

/Would either of you like to tell me what exactly is going on?!... because dark energon within my spark has been pulsing!/ - the warlord let the commlink on and now Soundwave listened in to him interrogating the runners.

Well, of course there was trouble! The bizarre karmic rule never fails!

Soundwave received his orders, initiated high alert and led the eradication squad off to purge the ship of energon-sucking mindless terrorcons that had been his fellow decepticon only a cycle back. Energon-sucking mindless terrorcons. Really, universe?
He was so not leaving his post on the bridge ever again!