The Sea's Breeze

"Now, that you’re here, there's little point to the pleasantries, Jazz of Staniz."

Megatron never particularly cared for those and, in this situation, with this particular mech, they were unnecessary. The formal city appellation had been appended specifically to underscore its lack of necessity.

"We both know why you're really in Kaon.”

Technically, Megatron ought to have referred to it as New Kaon, given that it was the full and proper name of the city they were rebuilding from the ashes of their old capital early in the war. With the city and most of the planet having been bombed to the point of uninhabitability, the armies had taken to the cosmos. Warships were poor homes and an aggressive, cannibalistic pilgrimage through space for ever scarcer resources did little for them.

One of the few balms to the destruction of Kaon’s prior incarnation was that Iacon had also been nearly as damaged. The only real difference was that Iacon had still had some buildings left standing when the ceasefire had been signed. Kaon had been left a nearly vaporized coastal plain, blasted out of the rocky hills over which it had previously sprawled.

No one bothered to call the rebuilt settlement New Kaon, except on official documents as required. Sentimentality, though ideologically discouraged, couldn’t always be avoided and Decepticons, no matter how devout, were just as susceptible to the occasional tender feeling as any other mech.

With the sole exception of Megatron himself, or so he liked to pretend.

He tapped his fingers against the worn surface of his desk, refurbished and reinforced from salvaged scrap.

Waste not, want not, no matter the source.

Even the glass of his office’s windows had come from the Nemesis’s bridge. No part of Trypticon’s sparkless husk had been squandered.

“Diplomatic liaising has nothing to do with it," he said, finally willing to concede the floor to his “guest.”

At least Jazz seemed to have the resolve to keep that faux carefree smile on his face, not visibly concerned with Megatron’s implied accusation.

He sat comfortably in the chair on the other side of Megatron’s desk, one foot propped up on the opposite knee like he were casually visiting a long-time friend at home. At a glance, no one would assume he was having an official meeting with the leader of a potentially hostile, foreign government.

"Well, you know,” Jazz started, a warm amicable tone underpinning each word, “the same could be said about your man, Soundwave, back in Iacon with Prime."

They both knew the smile was a bluff, a bluff they both also knew Megatron wouldn't buy, but the habit to preempt escalation with faux congeniality was likely too deeply rooted in Jazz's circuits to just put it aside now.

That was fine.

Jazz could smile that absolutely magnetic smile all he wanted.

It wouldn’t change the fact that his role as Autobot liaison to the New Kaonite government, per the peace treaty, was an obvious, yet socially acceptable cover as a spy.

Besides, his statement was spot on. Soundwave had been sent to Iacon for the exact same purpose. Soundwave could likely uncover information or technology that the Decepticons could utilize to better their chances of long-term survival and self-sufficiency.

At least Megatron and Jazz were on the same page. That would make matter that much simpler. Jazz would know he was being watched, just as much as he would be watching his hosts.

Though, ideally, Jazz’s presence among them would prove to be an asset somehow, a boon, rather than an inconvenience to be worked around. Megatron already had an idea of how to utilize Jazz’s talents, but he had to lay the path first.

At the minimum, he was at least pleasant to look at with his starkly contrasting paint splashed with Autobot red on the front, a visor to subtly obfuscate his optics, and a crowd-pleasing, million shanix grin.

The and the clever processing routines and silver-tongued conversational skills that the Autobot had so often utilized to pull invaluable information out of many lesser mechs sometimes made Megatron wish Jazz would have chosen the other side early in war. Perhaps the outcome of the campaign would have been different.

“Yes, I’m aware of how perceptive you think you are.”

Each faction had sent a mole, to keep optics on each other’s operations. Even in peace, they wouldn’t trust each other and Megatron preferred it that way. That mistrust would keep them from being too complacent, lax. The last thing they needed was to become weak, vulnerable. Even the perception thereof was intolerable.

Besides, that peace was fragile.

The proverbial ink was barely dry, and the two sides had only come to an accord while nearly falling over the brink of total starvation. They had been hanging on by fumes, hope, and gumption alone. The war of revolutionary and reactionary aggression, as Megatron would call it despite Autobot complaints, had turned over eons into little more than a pointless war of attrition, no ground left for either side to gain.

And they had all lost, Autobot and Decepticon alike.

They’d barely been functional enough to sign, let alone fight.

Control of Cybertron, or the wreckage of it anyway, had been split neatly in twain. A dividing line had been figuratively drawn halfway between polar Iacon and equatorial Kaon circled the globe at the resulting off-kilter angle.

They began to rebuild and what couldn’t be salvaged was thrown into energon converters to stave off total starvation until proper refinement and production facilities could be brought online. A long, tedious process. Iacon, having still been somewhat standing, had already had a small headstart, whereas Kaon had nothing, nothing but crumbled structures, collapsed catacombs, and all the contaminated slurry of the Rust Sea they could ever want.

And Jazz was still just… smiling at him.

Megatron wasn’t sure if that aggravated or amused him. Maybe both.

The Decepticons had had to scrap the bulk of their fleet just to build shelter.

And Jazz continued smiling. It straddled the line between tiresome and intriguing.

“Need I remind you that your role here is to be our link to Iacon, to gain familiarity with our ways, and to facilitate in the building of diplomatic ties?” Of course, he didn’t need to remind Jazz. Jazz was not stupid, but one could never say precisely what one meant with dealing with known hostile agents. “You are not here on a pleasant seaside vacation.”

Not that Megatron really expected Jazz to be lax in his duties. No, far from it. The carefree attitude was a veneer, an obfuscation to prevent suspicion.

Though ever since Terminus’s disappearance millions of years ago, Megatron had been in a constant state of suspicion, anticipating the next moves of both enemies and allies alike. It’s what had kept him alive. It’s what had kept his, at the time, newborn revolution from being easily crushed under Sentinel Prime’s jackboot.

He narrowed his optics in judgment as Jazz replied.

“Why can’t it be both?” Jazz’s smile pulled sideways into a smirk. “It’s like you don’t think Soundwave is absolutely hitting the slopes with the boys in his free time.”

Of course, Soundwave was. Soundwave had always had an appreciation for the alleged importance of relaxation, but that wasn’t the point. His third-in-command could be trusted to do what was necessary and manage his time appropriately.

That and Megatron, personally, had never been a believer in relaxation. It tended to give him the irrepressible fear that he’d left something undone that would bite him in the aft later. The only solution, therefore, was to be constantly vigilant except when recharge became physiologically necessary.

“Irrelevant.”

“Great, it seems we‘ve come to an understanding.” Jazz paused to hum a thoughtful, upbeat little tune. “So, where’s my room? I’d like to get a quick nap in before I look around. Maybe hit up the boardwalk.”

Megatron would bet real money, if he had any, that Jazz would just love to look around, wandering off and poking his nose into all manner of business. No matter what was done to prevent it, he knew Jazz would snoop around eventually. That wouldn’t stop Megatron from attempting to delay it though, at least a little.

That tendency to snoop could be a useful tool if carefully directed.

He folded his hands together on his desk, leaning forward on his elbows.

“I’ve assigned Thundercracker to escort you. He’s already moved your belongings from the landing pad—“ And rifled through them, which Jazz was likely expecting. Anything of any real consequence was likely stashed in his personal subspace, safe for now from prying optics. “—And he’s waiting in the hall now for you. Your quarters, like almost everyone else’s are in the communal dormitory blocks down the street. Don’t agitate your new roommates.”

“Almost?” Jazz casually stretched his arms over his head with an exaggerated yawn. Megatron watched as the plating pulled and shifted to accommodate the motion, purely to get a better understanding of the enemy in his midst, of course. “I take it you hang out somewhere else, boss man?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” It wasn’t a question.

“Call it ‘curiosity.’” A laugh, barely identifiable as fake through millions of years of practice. “Go on. We've got time. I'm in no rush and I know you love talking about yourself.”

Of course, Jazz merely wanted to poke at him to see how he would react to provocation. This was not a fact-finding request.

Regardless, Jazz would undoubtedly locate Megatron's residence eventually. To get that information, there was no need to play on the Autobot assumption that Megatron was plagued with unrepentant narcissism.

He would hardly call it a “plague.” It took confidence to assert when one was correct in a world like the failed one that had created him in the first place. If confidence was the decisive symptom in Autobot optics—even ones partially hidden by a visor—then so be it.

He didn't care.

Megatron decided to not take the bait, not this time. He was forced to play more than enough of these stupid ego games with Starscream as it was. And they were nominally on the same side.

“No.”

It was tempting to tell Jazz to leave, to just get out. Something about being watched like a nanite under a microscope did not sit well with him. The easygoing grin did little to sooth that discomfort. Unfortunately, Megatron had one more piece of business with his new Autobot liaison.

With a sigh, he pulled a small datapad, the perfect size for a pocket, out of his desk before holding it out for Jazz to take.

“This is your diplomatic authorization which permits you to reside in Kaon. Decepticons have their internal identification documents to access rations, medics, and housing, but you will use this instead.”

Jazz took the authorization, wordlessly turning it over in front of his visor like he was inspecting some new trinket or bauble.

“Keep it with you at all times,” he warned. “You’re dismissed.”

“Cool.” The datapad was subspaced. “See you in the morning for the official tour.”

Jazz slipped out of the room and right into Thundercracker’s friendly greetings. At least someone was pleased to make a new “friend.” If only Jazz’s presence wasn’t so much of a threat, Megatron thought, perhaps they too would get along.

Voices shouting at each other from the busy street below carried through the open windows, concerned about impending lunch breaks rather than their leader’s meeting with an Autobot “guest.”

As it should be.

Megatron stood and turned to peer out at the road below.

“Revolution Boulevard,” the Conclave had decided to name it.

Uninspired, but out of his hands.

He had little interest in the petty tasks of appellation and had left it up to the few surviving members of the Conclave. Soon, relatively, perhaps Kaon would be settled and secure enough to call for fresh elections to fill the Conclave once more.

On the street, mechs milled hither and yon, shouting and laughing, across the rough pavement as they went about their midday tasks. The road itself had been cobbled together from shattered concrete and hastily mixed cement. Mixmaster had done the best he could, an admirable job under the circumstances.

A flash of blue followed by white darted out from below, Thundercracker practically skipping across the street with Jazz in tow, talking about something or another. Fast friends indeed. Thundercracker had always been sociable, and Jazz was a fast talker. None of the other Decepticons in the traffic seemed to take any notice of the “enemy” in their midst.

The peace of routine was returning to his mechs. While there was an… undeniable thrill in the mad chaos of battle, Megatron knew that it was no way to live out one’s entire functioning. It was not sustainable, as the war itself had shown.

Perhaps the lack of a ruckus from the rank-and-file over Jazz’s presence was a good sign. Or perhaps that complacency Megatron had once feared, during the war, was already settling in.

He slid the glass of the window closed before pulling heavy mesh blackout curtains across against the blazing heat and light of the Kaon sun.

“Now, Jazz, I want you welded to his aft,” Prowl had said before Jazz had left Iacon. An extreme order if taken literally, but there was no need. Optimus had said something to a similar effect but without the ridiculous visual. On the other hand, Jazz would have paid good money to see Prowl welded to Megatron’s aft.

“Don’t let him out of your sight, within reason, of course. We want to know what he’s doing, what he’s saying, everything. He can’t be trusted.”

Optimus’s orders were preferable, given the absurdity of the alternative, even metaphorically.

Now, in Kaon, the air was filled with indistinct conversation and the shifting of materials. Above all, though, what Jazz couldn’t drown out was the ever-present hum and slosh of the refinery at the edge of the Rust Sea, separating the slurry into usable resources: water, alcohols, and oxidized minerals.

The sea threw off a gentle breeze, just cool enough to promise relief but not actually deliver it. The acrid smell of salts and dissolved metallic ions bit at his senses.

Standing next to the refinery and looking out over the red and brown expanse of the sea, he listened—tried to anyway—as Megatron shouted over the din, just to be heard, explaining the purpose of the refinery. The restrictions on the use of what it produced, in the name of resource conservation, were… prohibitive.

It seemed like Decepticon optics were constantly on Jazz and his proudly red Autobot badge while he listened to Megatron’s lecture. It felt as though they had been ever since he’d arrived in New Kaon. Of course, they would watch him. He stood out like a sore thumb, didn’t he? After millions of years of war, they would understandably be apprehensive about his presence in their stronghold, especially when he was walking free.

Yet, every time he looked, he saw no one obviously staring, with one exception. Maybe he was just paranoid after so long of that being necessary. Thundercracker hadn’t paid him any mind yesterday, after all. The only one he consistently caught looking at him was Megatron, something which could be written off as habitual hypervigilance.

For now, Jazz decided to ignore it. Besides, some were probably more curious than wary. He had more important things to pay attention to now anyway.

All water was to be put aside for rationed use as either a solvent, lubricant, or for medical use. Alcohols received much the same treatment, preferred as a solvent due to less risk of oxidizing a mech’s plating, but subject to even stricter rationing for its quality. Even the remaining sludge was being pulled apart at the atomic level for further refinement.

He had expected Megatron to be a hard ass. That had matched all the intel and battlefield experience Jazz had gained over the course of the war.

The surprise was that, in addition to being a harsh taskmaster, the guy was also an uptight prick. He seemed to like regulations almost as much as Ultra Magnus. In another life, those two could have been great friends. The almost comical thought brought a smile to his face.

Megatron had brooked no dissent, shaping his band of malcontents into a well-oiled, allegedly disciplined army for political change.

Well, Megatron had tried to anyway.

Oh, well, Jazz thought, watching as the Rust Sea slapped its brown, corroded “water” against the stone causeway built around the front of the refinery.

Megatron was talking, but not to him now.

A passing laborer-turned-soldier-turned-laborer-again was pulled aside for something, a quick message to a supervisor most likely. The mech, one Jazz only recognized as a low-level grunt who hadn’t even done enough to warrant an Autobot spec ops dossier, nodded and ran off to carry out their leader’s bidding.

The official tour, thus far, had been dull given that New Kaon was currently devoid of anything that wasn’t survival oriented. Megatron had decided to give the tour himself, rather than leaving it up to a lackey, but then again, a lot of those lackeys seemed to be actively engaged in rebuilding efforts. New Kaon, with its relatively few buildings and singular major street, was abuzz with construction and foot traffic.

The government building, dormitory blocks, warehouses, and the singular landing pad thathad been generously called a “port” had all been obviously cobbled together out of debris and torn apart warships.

Credit where credit was due.

Jazz had to admit that the Cons were industrious and resourceful, doing a lot with very little. Even the minute amounts of dissolved metals in the sea were being harvested for use.

The dry hills of red-brown rock around Kaon surely still had some valuable mineral veins that could be exploited, especially after millions of years of uninterrupted geological activity during the intervening years of space warfare.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to mine for resources? Surely more efficient than filtering the sea for every single atom of iron and copper.

Jazz wondered if, perhaps, purifying the sea was also a goal, but to what end?

Megatron suddenly stopped short. He abruptly turned, shouting up at a catwalk on the side of the refinery for someone—a notoriously heavy-gaited Motormaster, if Jazz’s optics were working properly—to watch their footing.

Apparently violating workplace safety protocol came with steep fines and stern talking to’s from the boss.

The answer to Jazz’s earlier question became immediately obvious. Mining was dangerous and required an extensive work force and equipment to be done well, something Megatron would have been… intimately familiar with. The automated mining systems that had come out not long before the beginning of the war wouldn’t have even been an option with the limited resources here.

Megatron also possibly found the idea of mining personally distasteful for… reasons that Jazz had to grant were fair.

Though, if Jazz were being honest, Iacon was hardly fairing any better.

The planet’s north pole was frigid and only kept clear of ice by the dry climate. Pockets of snow remained on some mountains that captured enough moisture from the air, but not much. The machinery and inhabitants didn’t generate quite enough heat to consistently maintain operating temperatures, necessitating around the clock heating technology. It was a massive resource drain, putting them on more equal footing with Kaon’s shortages. That was even including the occasional trading with off-world civilizations. Non-Cybertronians still treated them with a measure of suspicion, so few races were willing to provide them with any aid.

Of course, no one outside of Autobot High Command was on the “need to know” list about that little secret. Soundwave would probably figure it out before long and deliver that information back to the big boss, still lecturing his soldiers right in front of Jazz.

That meant Jazz had limited time to locate any useful technology to give them an edge, before the Decepticons realized that they weren’t the only ones suffering environmental attrition. The last thing the Autobots needed was to give the Decepticons a reason to pursue old nominally dead, but not forgotten grudges.

The most obvious bonus was that it was much harder to overheat in Iacon than in Kaon, but the risk of freezing was just a different path to the same outcome: permanent deactivation.

Jazz ruefully looked up at the bright sun in the sky as the oppressive light beat down. He would need to dip into his coolant rations before too long. Coolant was almost as precious as fuel here, he thought, finding himself missing Iacon’s chilly breeze.

The Autobots had also had more material resources left over from the conflict to utilize. Their willingness to forge alliances and friendships with alien races, organic and mechanical alike, had been an invaluable asset in securing aid and supplies.

Even now, in peacetime, they were still trading with—sometimes even accepting gifts from—other societies in the galaxy, whereas the Decepticons had only themselves to rely on. And the Rust Sea, of course, with whatever it held in its sludgy depths.

It was the Decepticons’ own fault, of course.

They’d brought this punishment and hardship upon themselves. Megatron, now indicating that they were to go into the refinery itself with a wave of his arm, was the guiltiest of all, both for the war itself and what came after the powder keg ignited.

After all, it had been his orders and doctrine that his mechs had followed, and now they suffered for their loyalty under the merciless sun, pinned between empty rock and an unforgiving sea.

That was the official party line anyway.

Jazz knew it was more… complicated.

A conflict of some kind had been inevitable. If it hadn’t been Megatron, it would have been someone else, someone just as fed up with their societal stratification and just as willing to blow it all up to make a point.

“Come. You ought to see the inside. We had to scrap the entirety of the Peaceful Tyranny—“ Even the Decepticon Justice Division’s notorious warship had been scrapped for rebuilding. Damn. Then again, if Megatron’s own beloved flagship had bitten the dust, no vessel, no matter how prized or important, in their fleet was safe from pragmatism. “—to assemble this. The least you could do is admire its inner workings.”

Blame didn’t really matter right now though, not when their factions had been pushed nearly to the brink of starvation. Rebuilding and sitting in their own respective corners of the sandbox, doing their best to live to see tomorrow, was all they could really do anymore.

“Sure, sure, let’s go have a look at it,” he said, practiced enthusiasm in his voice.

Jazz followed Megatron into the refinery, figuring he might as well get started on being welded to the guy’s aft. It was a great excuse to get out of the direct sunlight beating down on him.

“It’s probably cooler in there than it is out here anyway.”

“So, how do you all beat the heat out here?” Jazz finally asked upon their return to the administrative building at the end of the brief “tour.”

Megatron had been wondering when Jazz would say something about the temperature. The Autobots had gotten used to their polar weather, hadn’t they? Jazz had put on a brave face for the few hours that they were out, not letting slip verbally that he had been visibly uncomfortable in the heat and sunshine. Megatron had known, of course, but he admired the valiant effort Jazz had undertaken to conceal it.

“Certainly not with a ‘pleasant ocean breeze,’” Megatron said.

It wasn’t like the Rust Sea was actually any good at cooling them down. The breeze that came off the sludge was a lower temperature, sure, but it tended to bring a heavy humidity with it. That always left the heat clinging uncomfortably to the armor.

“Heat pumps,” he started, leading Jazz back through the air conditioned building and up the main staircase. Elevators existed but they were generally reserved for freight to conserve power. Besides, they were only going to the second floor. It was hardly a hike. “Blackout curtains. A preference to night shifts. The only reason I’m even awake right now is because you Autobots prefer the day. Most of my mechs are active at night.”

That was hardly a secret. Kaon was busy during the day, but when the sun deigned to hide itself, the settlement bustled. It was the best time to move freight and supplies or do any arduous work.

“Once you’ve settled in, I’ll be returning to that routine,” he added, stopping in front of a nondescript door. “And I suggest you do the same. Now to conclude our ‘tour’—“

It was still generous to have called their excursion a “tour” given that there hadn’t really been much of Kaon to show right now. The refinery and the canteen were really the primary points of interest these days, all on the city’s one street—the only two-way street on Cybertron and that was by necessity. Thundercracker had already shown Jazz where he would be staying and Megatron’s office wasn’t exactly hidden away.

Perhaps that would have been enough breadcrumbs to pique Jazz’s curiosity.

“—This office is yours.” He threw a thumb at the door. “For the duration of your liaison position.”

“Thanks.” Jazz paused, a smile growing on his face before he spoke again. “So, no loud music during the day or I’ll wake half the city. Is that right?”

“Smart mechs sleep with their hearing turned off.” Megatron smirked, a compromise to the infectiousness of Jazz’s grin. “Unless you find the sounds of industrial refining and construction soothing.”

“Well, that takes all the fun out of it.”

Jazz laughed, an easy sound that didn’t match standing next to a long-time enemy and having marched around a foreign, hostile city in the blistering heat for a few hours.

Was this part of the act or did Jazz naturally gravitate towards levity?

“But, great, some upbeat tunes will do the attitude around here some good.”

“If you wish to contribute to faction morale, unless it’s disruptive or resource intensive, I see little reason to interfere.”

“First day here and I’ve already got the boss’s stamp of approval. Nice.”

“Don’t push your luck; there’s much to do.”

He opened the door to Jazz’s office and gestured for the mech to go inside. The light was dim, as the blackout curtains had been left closed by default, even if the room had previously been unoccupied. Otherwise, the office itself was nothing special. A desk, a chair, some shelves, the basic supplies any bureaucratic functionary could want.

“I assure you; it’s not booby-trapped. I’m not about to risk one of my few buildings for that.”

“Yeah, along with all of the other consequences I don’t need to mention.” Still smiling, Jazz sat down in the standard issue chair behind the desk. He casually stretched his arms over his head.

Megatron told himself that he only watched Jazz’s motions closely out of old wartime habit.

“Obviously.” He cleared his vocalizer with a cough before continuing. “Now, you take orders and direction from me; that should go without saying. However, if you need information to do your work, you contact Skywarp.”

Soundwave would have been the usual contact but given the former third-in-command’s new role, that was currently out of the question.

Luckily, Skywarp, with his proclivity to pop in and out of places he had no business being, was a natural gossip and information source. It had been easy enough to turn that curse into a blessing when Soundwave vacated his long-time role for peace.

“I suspect you already know how to reach him,” Megatron added. He was sure that Jazz, in his expertise, likely already had the frequency information for every Decepticon, current or former, living or dead… with perhaps one notable exception.

Jazz nodded, confirming the suspicion.

“And if you need supplies or to have something requisitioned, you speak with Thundercracker. I’m sure he provided you with his frequency yesterday if you didn’t already have it.” Thundercracker had always been one of the friendlier seekers, a marked departure from the natures of the bulk of his fellows.

“Seems pretty easy—One more thing though, Boss.”

“Yes?” Jazz seemed to be taking everything in without much complaint, so the least Megatron could do was entertain a question or two, even if being called “boss” by an Autobot would take some getting used to.

“Screamer still running around here?”

“Yes.” Luckily, Starscream was preoccupied with keeping their aerial forces under control. Being grounded tended to make fliers rowdy and flying missions, given how fuel-intensive such missions were, had been rare since the end of the war. “I advise you avoid him where possible.”

“Why?”

“I feel like that requires no explanation.”

Starscream being a highly skilled operative but also a thoroughly unpleasant person was hardly private knowledge.

Jazz just nodded and grinned.

“Fair enough.”

“Good.” Megatron turned towards the door, ready to begin the awkward, uncomfortable switch back to his preferred nocturnal schedule.

“One more ‘one more thing.’” Jazz’s smooth voice gave him pause.

Megatron sighed, looking back over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“If you’re going to be on the opposite sleep schedule from me, for a little while, how do I get a hold of you if I need to?”

A valid question.

“My personal frequency, of course.”

The last one to complete Jazz’s collection.

It had been a rough couple of days to adjust to switching from being up with the sun to actively shunning it, but it had behooved Jazz to make that “lifestyle change” sooner rather than later, especially if he wanted to keep tabs on High Command’s activities.

Megatron had been right about one thing, Jazz thought, night shift was vastly more comfortable than trudging about during the heat of the day. The equatorial sun was brutal.

It was even a little chilly, he thought, standing on the quay, next to the refinery, to look out at the Rust Sea as a lazy, salt-laden breeze wafted over him.

The slight chill was better than baking under the sun.

Jazz had even gotten accustomed to the constant salt abrasion from the sea and had taken to using a particular protective topcoat that resisted the salt’s caustic properties on plating. He still needed to thank Thundercracker for the tip. Despite some ideological differences, Thundercracker was a pretty alright mech.

The refinery was still making a ruckus even at this hour, but it did operate around the clock, twenty-eight hours a day and ten days a week, save for a scant hour around each shift change. With four six-hour shifts, that left only four one-hour blocks when no one was supposed to be in the building.

Which meant Jazz had just one hour tonight to scope out any guards and security.

Luckily, he didn’t have any appointments to keep. Interestingly, Megatron had so far proved to be a fairly “hands off” supervisor, at least where Jazz was concerned. This granted Jazz a significant amount of latitude in how he spent his “on the clock” time. He had yet to need the personal frequency that had completed his collection of Con contact information, though it had been one of the few freely given rather than taken in reconnaissance.

While he had seen some of the security features during his “official tour” with Megatron, they had breezed by much of what wasn’t actively separating the Rust Sea’s slurry into useful resources.

That meant sneaking in somewhat blind, but that was fine. He could handle it.

If he didn’t get caught, no one would be any the wiser.

As soon as the current shift had left, Jazz slipped inside, the windowless center chamber of the refinery darker even than the night outside with the lack of starlight.

No one had even bothered to lock the door, which seemed… odd. If the refinery was so important to Decepticon survival, why not at least bolt the door?

Surely, it couldn’t be that the Decepticons expected no one to muck around with it. Every faction had its mischief makers who would act against their own self-interest.

Some of Soundwave’s cassettes, notably Rumble and Frenzy, sprang immediately to mind, but they had gone with Soundwave to Iacon, probably pranking some unsuspecting Autobot right now. The darkness of the polar winter would have been a great opportunity for tricks, innocent and otherwise.

Meanwhile, Jazz had to wait for his own optics’ brightness settings to adjust to the near total blackness of the temporarily abandoned refinery. When shapes came into view again, he crept down the stairs. The steel steps hugged the wall and spiraled the height of the building, all the way to the roof.

However, he doubted that Soundwave’s unruly cassettes had been the only nuisances that had been patrolling Kaon’s coastline. A few more names came to mind, but Jazz was a little more interested in other things now than running an Ultra Magnus-esque database search on troublemakers.

Megatron had previously shown him what was up above, where the final resources were diverted to either silos or storage tanks. On the other hand, he had not deigned to show what waited down below, underground, presumably where unprocessed seawater was brought into the facility. The unknowns of the basement were of far more interest.

The refinery still clanked and clanged, even though it was devoid of staff monitoring and maintaining it. Tubing from down below ran up the center of the chamber, sucking the raw resource up to be separated by the ad hoc machinery. The tour had made it seem to be mostly automated, needing only a little babysitting, so that wasn’t a surprise.

The lack of surprise, unfortunately, didn’t make it not surreal as he sneaked around in the dark, cautiously feeling his way along the railing whenever his optics couldn’t quite make out the steps. Relying solely on optic-emitted light meant the visual feed could be… fuzzy, distorted, and limited in color definition. Everything was a blurry blue haze.

Fuel was limited, a well-known supply problem for the Decepticons since their inception, and rationing was a long-held policy. However, Jazz had not seen any fuel refinement, either from unprocessed energon veins in the hills or directly from sources of energy.

This led to obvious questions about where the fuel or the power to continuously operate the refinery—let alone the entirety of the growing settlement—was coming from. Surely the Decepticons didn’t have a source that could provide the daily ration of a half-cube of fuel.

Megatron certainly hadn’t mentioned one.

Then again, why would he? That would be a valuable secret. Either that or Megatron had simply—and accurately—assumed that Jazz would locate the answer on his own, without any prompting.

And Jazz had a sneaking suspicion about where the answer was hiding, not that “New” Kaon really had many places in which to hide anything. A handful of buildings, most of which were dormitories or storage with some workshop areas. The refinery was the obvious place to check, almost too obvious, but he would be remiss in his duties if he overlooked it on those grounds alone.

As he descended, a muffled sloshing sound rose. He must have been getting closer to whatever was down there. Maybe whatever it was wasn’t a secret; maybe it was something completely mundane, boring even, but it remained a tickbox on his list to check off one way or the other.

As he eased his way to the bottom of the stairs, however, instead of an intake pipe and tank for the seawater being siphoned upstairs, he found the tubing running into a solid wall next to the landing and a sealed door. The sloshing was coming from behind it.

Jazz pressed the side of his head against the door, trying to hear any sign of someone behind it. The last thing he needed was to pick this open, only to be met with a blaster in the face like a complete novice.

Nothing, nothing but the rush of seawater and a mechanical whirring noise from machinery. The door seemed thick, blocking the worst of the noise. The subtle sounds of either speech or non-industrial work would have been occluded.

It would be risky then to get this open, but that didn’t mean he ought to simply turn back. He’d gotten this far, after all. A quick risk assessment told him the odds of someone being back here were low. All the Cons that were known to still be alive were accounted for in their shifts and no one was scheduled to be in the refinery during shift change.

The risk was acceptable.

Picking the lock was a simple matter, as Kaon didn’t have the resources to generally use electronic locks outside of the administrative building. Everything else was on a mechanical key system, old-fashioned and low-tech but generally reliable for most purposes. A turning tool for tension and a pick in a skilled hand had the lock turning in no time.

He pushed the heavy door open. The acrid stench of concentrated seawater rushed forward through the widening gap as Jazz froze, finding an unexpected and all-too-familiar refutation of his risk calculations in the room.

Shockwave, who had not been reported as still active and functional and had not been seen since the official end of hostilities, stared blankly at him from a console attached to a conveyor belt, his singular optic unblinking.

“What are you doing here?”

Jazz threw his hands up defensively, palms out to show he meant no harm.

A lie, of course. He was still armed, a blaster lying in wait in his subspace, a blaster that very technically violated his terms of employment. It was a last resort. He had not been subject to any actual aggression yet from his new colleagues, but Shockwave was always… a somewhat unpredictable variable. It was difficult to truly anticipate where his apathetic logic would take him, especially when presented with a surprise like Jazz.

A door slammed above him, back at the ground level of the quay.

Loud steps began to descend the staircase outside, taking a calm, steady pace.

Of course, the door up top had been left unlocked.

He had been expected, though apparently… not by Shockwave, given that gun prosthetic pointed squarely at the center of his hood, aim locked right between the headlights. Despite his efforts, he certainly felt like a complete novice walking into a trap.

“Hey, easy, buddy,” he said, a practiced “easy” smile on his face. “I was just looking around. Seeing as I live here now, I wanted to get to know my new home better is all.”

It was time to try out Megatron’s personal frequency, he thought, silently dialing it from the in-line comm UI on his HUD.

“I find that highly unlikely.”

The comm just went straight to voicemail. Megatron was possibly in an unscheduled meeting or, more likely, trying to corral a restless Starscream who desperately wanted to take to the skies. Jazz said nothing, only letting the message record Shockwave’s disbelief before he disconnected the line.

He kept his smile firmly in place, a counter to Shockwave’s hollow judgment.

“Come on now. There’s no need for the hostility.” Jazz laughed, shrugging his shoulders. “War’s over, you know? Didn’t you hear?”

Those steps were closer now, on the landing behind him.

Shockwave’s blaster began to charge, humming with power as the muzzle glowed bright. The urgency of potentially being shot was all that prevented Jazz from turning to see who had come to box him in.

The steps stopped immediately behind him.

“Shockwave,” came a familiarly deep voice in reproach. “Stand down.”

So that was why Megatron hadn’t taken his call. He had already been on his way.

“Good to see you, boss man.” Well, “see” in a manner of speaking given that Megatron was still in Jazz’s blind spot. Not that it mattered. “I was just going for a little walk and accidentally startled my old pal Shockwave here. I think he’s just a little trigger happy—”

Shockwave cut him off, maintaining the blaster’s threatening charge.

“This Autobot infiltrator has seen classified—“

“This Autobot infiltrator is our colleague,” Megatron corrected. “I know you’ve been sequestered down here for some time, but I expected that you would look up from your work long enough to catch a whiff of gossip once in a while, especially with all of the loudmouths working upstairs. Surely news of our new Autobot liaison had drifted down to you.”

Shockwave hesitantly lowered his arm.

If Shockwave had a face to emote with, Jazz was sure that he would have been scowling in annoyance at the reprimand. Though, given the heavy shielding on that door, casual speech from upstairs probably wouldn’t have made it down here.

Megatron was probably just manufacturing shame, an excuse to reprimand his subordinate for Jazz’s viewing pleasure.

For some reason.

Regardless, Megatron stepped away from Jazz and waving him for a closer look at the turbines spinning in their troughs of water. Jazz followed cautiously, still highly aware of Shockwave’s scrutinizing, one-eyed gaze on his back.

Now that he was no longer staring down the barrel of a gun, Jazz took the opportunity to actually see what was in this room.

Channels in the floor forcibly funneled water from a collection tank at the far wall through turbines nestled in the troughs towards another tank feeding the pipes in the refinery’s central chamber. The turbines fed cubes, filling with glowing energon.

The conveyor belt behind Shockwave’s console was laden with filled cubes being shuttled away, probably to a storage area of New Kaon’s canteen for safekeeping.

This certainly explained where the fuel and power were coming from, a creative way of making the Rust Sea do double-duty.

No wonder this was hidden. A fuel source like this would have been an obvious sabotage target, more so than a simple mineral refinery. Whatever was pulled from the sea’s sludge was just a bonus compared to what they could use its harnessed motion to generate. Carefully regulating and coveting the other resources merely artificially inflated the importance of the aboveground portion of the facility, keeping attention away from the “boring” substructure.

It was ingenious.

Iacon could have probably adapted something like this to make better use of glacial meltwater….

“Furthermore,” Megatron continued, paying no mind to Jazz’s wandering optics, “I believe Jazz, with his unique position and experience, will have valuable insight into our little… project.”

“So, Boss, you didn’t think to tell him in advance that I’d be coming.”

“Oh no.” Jazz could hear the smirk. “Far be it from me to ruin all of the surprise for you. Spies love to look for mysteries, after all.”

Megatron gestured at the turbines with a wave of his hand.

“Now, as will you probably be unsurprised to hear, Soundwave informs me that Iacon faces a similar problem to New Kaon. This is a stop-gap measure to get us through our early rebuilding, but it will not sustain for much beyond what we have now and, despite Shockwave’s best efforts, we are low on ideas for novel sources of energy and fuel that aren’t stealing the petty dregs from the Rust Sea. We need an outside perspective and—”

“And since you’ve shown me yours, I suppose you expect me to show you mine.”

Iacon had been working on some technology to better use geothermal energy, that could probably be adapted for use near Kaon, given the geologically active faults in the area.

Hm.

“Precisely.” Megatron’s voice was quieter than before, prompting Jazz to look up. To his surprise, he saw Megatron eying him out of the corner of his optic, rather than focusing his gaze on the machinery. “I had some… reservations about you joining us, but I think we’ll work well together after all.”

Perhaps… sharing a classified secret or two could benefit both sides.

“You know,” Jazz said, the smile on his face softening with sincerity, “I think we will.”