Ep0 - "Highly Unprofessional" - Open

Barricade would never get sick of Starscream’s frenetic twitchery. EMF all aglow with amusement, he gave a sort of ironic salute thing that could have been him dusting dirt off his shoulder mount for all the respect it seemed to indicate. He ignored the commander’s question for a moment, moving past him to the nearest control panel and keying in a few strokes, the holo interface leaping active in the air above the console and flickering to show the Phantom and a large map of both Jasper Nevada and the East Coast power grid, the latter of which was marked by seven red beacons.

“You’re busy waiting for my report, Commander.” Barricade shot his CO a lengthy sidelong look before bringing up the powergrid. “Shockwave just finished with the details.” He indicated the red beacons. “These seven powerstations are being simultaneously power leeched by Vehicon units while Soundwave hacks the control mainframe and keeps the humans from shutting anything down remotely. During this time, I will be engaging the Autobots and splitting their party, likely outside of Jasper Nevada and I will need airsupport, specifically yours.”

Barricade ignored the Seeker’s familiar brand of loathing, though he was mildly perturbed by the glee in his EMF. The thought of Starscream happy had come to mean one of about a handful of things in the infiltrator’s mind, none of them conducive to his own health or Megatron’s generally.

“When I give the signal, your job will be carpet bombing my pursuers before joining the regular troops defending the powerstations.” Then, to evade the argument of rank, he added, “These are Megatron’s orders.”

“Of course that would be easier for me,” drawled Barricade, returning Starscream’s eyeroll with one of his own. He swiped a servo across the console board, clearing the data on the holo screen. “Would you be willing to requisition your Vehicon jets to me to use as I see fit, command the assault? I’d certainly rather just handle splitting the Autobot team, timing the power drains, killing Autobots, and then piloting the ship that will ultimately annihilate Optimus Prime… You know, the one that I brought to Earth?”

He shot the Seeker a completely calculating look before adding, a bit thoughtfully, “Actually, you know, the idea of you being excluded from all those endeavors doesn’t sound like a bad thing at all. You’ve done nothing to forward the Decepticon cause since your glorified bout botsitting the Nemesis while Megatron was down. Why break a perfect record?” The Mustang shrugged, EMF rippling with sarcasm. “But sure. I’ll just take the Vehicons and you can… I guess, go with one of the other power-stations teams.”

Barricade shot the air commander a cool look, level as his EMF. “Not all of my partners have died,” said the infiltrator vaguely optics returning to the control panel. “Just the ones to weak to keep up and to answer your previous question, no, I am not sure it will work. It will fly, I can make the slagging thing do loop-de-loops if you like, but I can’t promise the weapon systems will come online after this little venture.” A pause before Barricade added, wryly, “Shockwave, however, has given it an eighty-eight point five six three percent chance of success barring ‘individual non-performance’.”

His expression for exactly one moment shared and open and common disdain with Starscream for the psycho scientist. Whereas Barricade had general reasons to hate Starscream he had far more specific and recent reasons to hate Shockwave. Also dressing up his passing the buck with fancy numbers didn’t escape the lieutenant’s notice: ‘individual non-performance’ meant him, Starscream, the officers on the ground, and the Vehicons. Not him fragging up calculations, naturally.

“Once I have the Autobots engaged I’ll comm. you to my position. Track my position through comm. frequency and I’ll give you the go to frag my pursuers. Then we’ll reconvene with the other Vehicons. Is that clear enough?”

“Then strike when you deem it most prudent,” said Barricade, unfazed. Starscream’s ‘more arrogant than usual’ was actually par for the course and Barricade had weathered the 2IC through far more extravagant bouts of self-importance. At least in this case they were talking about Starscream’s forte – airborne combat. Barricade glared.

“But I won’t be responsible if it was not the most opportune moment.” He glanced at the commander again, looking him briefly up and down, though what passed through his head as he did was unfathomable. “I don’t anticipate it mattering. Once the Bots split and we’re outside the notice of any human populace, feel free to destroy them. The quicker this is done, the sooner we can help the others.”

“Yeah, yeah, Seekers rule, dirt-kissers drool. I’ve been through your anti-automobile tirades before. Just make sure you and the Vehicons are there to get them off my back. The Bots have their weapon specialist and Blaster on base with them and either of them could be trouble, even for a Seeker.”

Barricade shot the Air Commander an exceptionally flat look, his EMF utterly disdainful. He was aware, by the nature of the other mech’s look and tone that he didn’t get Barricade. For all that Starscream was a schemer, a plotter, and long-time warrior and aerial tactician, he still didn’t get why Barricade did the slag that he did. He didn’t understand why Barricade, a racer bot and a built grounder, would choose to train in piloting and aeronautics. He didn’t get his loyalty to Megatron. He didn’t get Cade’s relationships with any of the other mechs he worked with.

“If we do this right, we win the war tomorrow,” said Barricade flatly. A smirk. “Let’s not frag it up.”