Excess Baggage

Tornado idly spun around in his captain's chair. Trapped in dead space, he thought. He tapped his foot to the ground again and spun faster. Trapped may have seemed to strong a word, stranded may have been better. Tornado dragged his foot against the bridge floor, bringing the chair to a stop. He sighed, thought about the situation again, and started spinning the other direction. No, he thought, we're trapped.

Three weeks ago, the ship experienced a massive overload. All systems failed except the short-range scanners. And those, according to the engineer, only had enough power for one more use, if they were lucky. No communications, no power, and, Primus, this crew. Firebrand the engineer was, well, an engineer. He was always working, leaning over a computer, or something equally dull. This trait was even more annoying now since he leaned over a powerless computer doing nothing. Sandtrap, the communications, officer was just plain weird. He never talked, nodded, or anything. Some communication expert, Tornado thought wryly. From time to time, Sandtrap would wander around the ship, stare out the windows, or rest. But mostly he would sit at his station and stare at his left thumb. Never the right thumb and never a finger. The funny thing was that this wasn't even the most annoying habit on the ship, Tornado thought as he watched Sandtrap thumb gazing. Dagger, the science officer, was a welcome addition. He talked, conversed, hypothesized. In other words, he did stuff, stuff that was mildly interesting. In fact, if it were not for Dagger, Tornado most likely would have gone nuts after about an hour alone with--

"Tornado's in a tizzy. He's making me dizzy."

Tornado ground his chair to a halt, visibly cringing. Those rhymes, his mind screamed. Those hideous, despicable, horrendous rhymes. He took a moment to pull himself together. He'd dealt with Wheelie for three weeks; he could handle one more conversation.

"I thought you were counting the spare combustion tubes," Tornado asked trying to buy some time to figure something for Wheelie to do, preferably far away from Tornado.

"Job was no fun, but it's all done." Wheelie's idiotic smile grew across his face.

Tornado sighed. "Okay, how many?"

Wheelie reached behind him and pulled out a log and handed it to Tornado. Tornado paused for second, slightly confused, and took the log. On it was written "58677." Tornado stared at a second longer and looked back to Wheelie.

"Why did you just how many?"

Wheelie's smile widened again. "The only thing that rhymes with 'seven' is the word 'heaven'. That wouldn't make any sense, not even to a bird on a fence." Wheelie giggled. Tornado wanted to smack him one.

"What about the rivets in the cargo bay floor? Have you checked those?"

"I checked last week, when I heard a squeak."

Tornado rolled his head back and to the right. Dagger was standing in the doorway trying to get his attention. He was motioning for Tornado to make Wheelie disappear. Finally, a reprieve was in sight. "The medical bay was a mess last week. Could you clean it up a little?"

"The med bay's all clean. A reflection can be seen."

Tornado stared at that annoying, grinning face. One swing and he'd be out like a light. No more damn rhymes, at least for a while. No, he thought, I have to gut this one out. How many thousands of battles had he been a part of? How much courage had he shown throughout his life? Was he going to allow this fool to drive him to the brink of insanity? Tornado rolled his eyes. It sure looks that way, he thought.

"Oh yeah, Firebrand had some task for you. Go talk to him."

"Wheelie will be glad, more fun to be had." Wheelie turned and walked into the lift and disappeared.

Dagger watched Wheelie leave with an amused look on his face and walked over to Tornado. "Listening to him talk, over a cliff I might walk."

"Shut up," Tornado scowled. "Did you find out anything?"

Dagger smiled. "I talked Firebrand into trying the short-range scanners. They only worked for a second, just like he thought. But we did find something."

Tornado's eyes lit up. "Oh please Primus, tell me it's a ship."

"It's a ship. It's not going anywhere real fast either." Dagger looked over to Sandtrap. He grabbed Tornado's shoulder and started guiding him to the other side of the bridge. He began talking again, quieter. "The nose of our ship is pointed in their direction. Since we're in space, if we tossed something out the back bay with an appropriate mass, we could get to it in two days."

Tornado was ecstatic. "Great. What to we have that is massive enough?"

Before Dagger could answer, Tornado's personal communicator turned on, Firebrand on the other end. "Tornado, if that was your idea of a joke, I'm not laughing. Wheelie's coming back up."

"Slag," Tornado cursed, "he's coming back. That kid is driving me up a wall. Sorry, what did you say?"

Dagger hushed. "Nothing yet. There is something, but, uh..."

"What?!"

Dagger looked over his shoulder at the lift door. "Not what. Who."

Tornado looked at Dagger thoughtfully. "Are you suggesting what I think you are?"

"Look there was a planet back there. That weird looking one. Oh, what was it called...Quintessa. He'd get there in about two weeks. We could even, um, pick him up. If we wanted to."

Tornado shook his head. "I don't know, Dagger." Just then the lift door slid open and Wheelie pranced out.

"Firebrand wasn't in need, so I'm back with due speed."

Tornado shot his gaze back to Dagger. "Okay, sounds good." He spun back to Wheelie and placed a hand on the small Autobot's shoulder. "Wheelie, why don't you come with us to the rear cargo hold?" Tornado silently thanked Primus it was a small ship.

"Wheelie, have you ever thought of what you may give for your fellow Autobots?"

"Wheelie'd be a hero, not be a zero."

"Uh-huh. Well, Dagger and I have thought about it some too." The lift door opened into the cargo hold. Dagger idly stood next to the outer door control while Tornado walked Wheelie deeper into the cargo hold.

Tornado nodded to Dagger and continued. "Not every Autobot can go out in a blaze of glory. Some give every bit of themselves to save the others without ever facing a tangible enemy. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Wheelie frowned. "Like energon transfusing, your statement's confusing."

Tornado rolled his eyes and looked at Dagger. Dagger leaned a bit further down the wall and activated the outer door. Tornado looked back at Wheelie. "There's a planet back there. It's called Quintessa. We want you to go there and get help." Tornado looked back at Dagger, who shrugged. "Understand, Wheelie?"

"But how do I get there? There is no ship to spare."

Tornado grabbed Wheelie and walked closer to the door. "I'll help."

"Put me down you piece of slag. I'm not going to carry your flag."

Without another word, Tornado heaved Wheelie out of the hold and Dagger started closing the outer door. Tornado smiled at Dagger and said, "Well, at least--" He was cut off by his personal communicator activating. This time it was Wheelie.

"A time we'll meet will come to pass, and at that time I'll kick your a--" was all that was transmitted before the outer door cut off the communication.

Tornado sighed, visibly relaxed. "Well, let's go tell the others we have good news and bad news. The ship's moving and Wheelie's gone."

Dagger nodded. "Yeah, but which is the bad news?"


The End.


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