Ep1.5 – Dressing Down – Closed

[Deleted]

“You disobeyed direct orders.”

There was no one else in the room. It was actually more of a sub-basement, but if there was anywhere to have a talk with a Bot as big as Fort Max without feeling crammed, it was going to be the giant storage hangers below the base. The overheads buzzed loudly overhead, throwing halos of light onto the floor, illuminating the skyline of Max’s massive shoulders, the skyscraper towers of his treads. He looked good. A bit dented here and there, paint still thrashed, cosmetics unattended. He was medically cleared, both by Cleaver and Ratchet. Jazz was going to determine if he was up for field duty again.

Field duty.

He’s cleared for duty again. Optimus is half way to stasis lock.

“You accessed the groundbridge without clearance during active mission deployments. While our Autobots were deployed all over the world hunting down the Decepticons you took it upon yourself, in your off-duty hours, to launch an unsanctioned solo assault on an already known Vehicon patrol – one we had noted as irrelevant to current higher priority operations in South America – and got yourself caught out. The direct result of this was two teams being recalled to base from their current operations to save, not only you, but your commanding officer whom you put in the direct line of fire.”

Max didn’t say anything. He knew better and, Arcee suspected, he didn’t have anything in particular to say in his own defense. If he did, it was likely trumped by the knowledge that his friend and leader was in medical right now. That knowledge was certainly trumping any measure of leniency she may have otherwise been inclined toward.

“Optimus is going to live and you’re damn lucky that we had a Neutral medic as a resource or one of you would have died. As it stands, we now are down two of our best frontliners and that means the rest of the team is going to have to work that much harder while our window to find the Nemesis has likely closed.” Arcee’s optics put star-shine to shame for pure heat. “So, think very, very hard about how to answer me, Fort Max.”

She folded her arms, gaze level.

“Why did you attack those Vehicons?”

[Deleted]

Once there had been a time when Maximus had been the one standing behind the lights.

Interrogations had been few and far between at the prison - guilt had been established long before anyone was admitted, and frankly there was little he wanted to speak to his inmates about. But now and then a prisoner came along that protocol required a hearing for, or else his own interest prodded him into investigating more closely. Impactor had been one of them.

Solid. Unmoveable. Implacable. That was what he had been on the other side of the intake table. A force of authority.

And now...

The lights were too bright.

They were just halogen overhead lights. Nothing fancy. But they seemed to burn into his optics like a flash-bang, while the buzz they emitted rang hollowly in his audials. The entire basement hanger was a big and roaring space, full of cavernous echoes. Disorienting. With effort, Maximus kept himself from squinting.

Arcee's words beat into his mind.

Disobeyed. Unsanctioned. Direct line of fire.

They burned too. Deep in the ashes of his former life something stirred, some ember of pride that was little more than a remnant of his old strength, his old authority. It stung. Part of him wanted to look down at this officer less than half his size and say, I am Fortress Maximus, who fought at Simanzi and sacrificed in the vilest pit in Elba to protect Autobot secrets, and I have earned the right to act upon my own initiative to wage war where and how I see fit.

But the rest of him said, and look where that got you. Where it got Optimus.

Maximus had never felt guilt before. Not like this. It was dark, it was bitter, it was yawning. It swallowed his anger and left him with nothing. Just this bewildering agitation. He didn't know what it was. He didn't like it.

He stood military-stiff with his hands folded behind his back, and fought to keep his answer neutral.

"Because they were Vehicons," he said. He kept his gaze fixed upon the wall. "I saw a chance to eliminate Decepticon targets of opportunity, and so I took it."

[Deleted]

“And that call is not for you to make,” said Arcee. “Not when we are in the middle of the largest tactical assault against the Decepticons to date on this planet. This is not the Autobot Army Ground Division. This is not the Three-Hundred Seventy First Battalion. We cannot spare you, Fortress Maximus, which is the only reason I’m not brigging you immediately. We’re a crew of less than twenty against the Decepticon flagship and their entire primary command hierarchy and you are hunting ground patrols.”

There was a contained pressure in the tonal quality of her voice, sizzling in the glyphs of her speech, in the frequency of her EMF. She was not like Optimus, who could keep a lid on each and every thread of his emotions and affect the demeanor of whatever he found necessary in that moment, she did not have that kind of impossible control. She didn’t, however, think hiding her displeasure or anger was necessary.

“If we were anywhere else, any other time in the war, I would give you a pulse canon and tell you ‘good hunting’ but this is not that time and this is not that place and you do not endanger the lives of your fellow Autobots because your grudge with the Decepticons is just so fragging intense you can’t keep it holstered long enough to take your shot during a mission like the rest of us.” Her field spiked around her. “We all have history with the Decepticons. We don’t get to break rank to pursue that end.”

She unfolded her arms. Admitted the hypocrisy of her saying this to Fortress Maximus to herself, moved on.

“Am I understood?”