Chapter Text
"And here's your office," said Optimus Prime, opening the door to what looked like a glorified storage closet.
A weathered old desk. A rickety chair. A single monitor. A desk lamp held together by electrical tape. A few filing cabinets and an empty set of shelves.
Jazz smiled up at the Prime, even as his inner thoughts raced.
Damn. Windburn lived like this? What the frag?
"Thank you, sir."
"Of course. I'll give you some time to settle in, but please don't forget, there is a High Command meeting in two joors."
"I'll see you there, sir."
Optimus dipped his helm, then swept out of the room, ducking to keep his long finials from brushing the top of the doorway.
Jazz dumped the hefty box of datapads that the Prime had given him earlier on the desk and paced around the room. He poked around, rifling through drawers and filing cabinets, but all of Windburn's personal effects had been cleared out by his conjunx after his untimely demise. Any work-related items were carefully reviewed, scrubbed, and censored.
As the brand new Chief Tactician, of course, Jazz had the clearance to request anything he wanted, but he still had plenty to work through as part of the handover process.
Windburn was good. Of course he was. He was the CTO for a reason. But he was too rigid. Played things too safe. He was holding the Autobots back.
And despite all that meticulous, careful planning to minimize harm and save innocent lives, the only thing Windburn got in return was a fancy memorial service and a few shiny medals given to his grieving conjunx by the Prime himself.
He didn't even die a hero's death. In fact, he died a humiliating failure, one name among a list of thousands that were utterly massacred by an unending wave of Decepticon forces ripping through a neutral city and leaving only flaming rubble and twisted, greyed-out frames in their wake.
Jazz plopped into the chair, which let out an ominous creak as it sagged under his weight. It was both too soft to support his struts, yet hard enough that if he sat in it too long, his plating would probably start to buzz with nagging discomfort.
At least the back was constructed in such a way that he had enough room for his doorwings. Windburn had been a rotorformer, after all.
He flicked one doorwing, stretching out the joints as he leaned back and kicked his pedes up on the desk, rocking the chair back on two legs.
"Ugh," he groaned out loud to the empty silence of the room. He changed one of the playlists lurking in the corner of his processor to something a little more energetic, but it still didn't quite wash away the fatigue of sitting in a red-optic transport from Uraya to Iacon and no chance to rest or recharge after his arrival at the Autobot Headquarters.
Jazz shuffled in the chair. He could get a head start on looking through the most important strategies Windburn had been working on before his death. Yet, most of his predecessor's focus had been spent planning the defence of Ultrix, and that had resulted in a resounding failure.
Really, what they needed to do was stop looking back. He wasn't hired to dig through Windburn's old strategies and reports to glean something useful. He was hired to bring a bit of youthful, brilliant energy to these meeting rooms full of stuffy, overly formal old officers.
High Command meeting in two joors… He had met the other officers during his long series of demanding, invasive interviews and background checks, but his interactions with most of them had been brief, save for the Prime himself and his rather intimidating Second, Elita-1.
Well, if he had somewhere to be in two joors, he couldn't start a task that was too demanding. He didn't want to lose track of time. He needed to make a good first impression. Maybe he should show up early? But not too early. He didn't want to look like a try-hard.
Ugh. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to think so hard about appearances. That was politics, though. Even in a war room, bots' careers were made or broken on relationships and reputation! And he had a stellar reputation to uphold.
He flicked through his onboarding packet, doing a few of the minor tasks to fill the time, until his processor pinged that he should leave now, if he wanted to arrive fifteen breems early.
When he walked into the meeting room, it was empty save for Elita-1. The fearsome warrior was already seated, frowning at her datapad. She looked up when Jazz entered. Her frown did not disappear, but it did ease slightly as she inclined her helm.
"Greetings, Jazz," she said, gesturing to a chair about halfway down the table. "Windburn… Usually sat there. You're welcome to it. Ironhide will throw a fit, anyway, if you accidentally take his seat."
Jazz nodded and took his place. That was helpful. He didn't want to slag off the grizzled old bot. It had been a while since Jazz had rolled off the assembly line in Staniz with his cohort of other Enforcer models, but he still felt young in comparison to Ironhide.
"I'm pleased to see your transit arrived with no hitches or delays," Elita-1 said.
"Thank you. I'm glad to be here," Jazz said.
"Sorry you couldn't have more time to settle in," she sighed. "But we really need you up to speed as soon as possible."
"It's no problem at all. I'm ready to serve."
"I know you are. That's why you're here, after all."
She had an air of graceful ferocity about her, but despite the confident ease with which she held herself, a weariness tinged her voice. Tired optics and a grim frown. It was a familiar sight. They must be running themselves ragged, sweeping up the aftermath of the failure in Ultrix as well as taking on Windburn's duties.
Slowly, the other officers began filtering in.
Red Alert rushed in, flitting from one side of the room to the other, sweeping for bugs as he muttered to himself.
Jazz watched him as he practically tore through the room. He was probably the reason all those background checks had been so extensive, Jazz mused.
Ironhide ambled in a few moments later and sank into his chair with a groan. He gave a small nod to Jazz, which Jazz dutifully returned.
By the time Optimus sat down, the table had filled. Ultra Magnus, Ratchet, Wheeljack. He was surprised at the turnout. Getting every officer in one place, with missions and outpost assignments and other work to be done was rare. When Jazz was the head of TacOps in Uraya, he could count on one servo the number of times the base commander was able to get all of their senior officers together without running into some kind of scheduling hitch.
But then Jazz’s optics strayed to one empty chair. No Special Operations Commander.
A shame. Of all the bots in this meeting, Jazz was likely to work with Ironhide, Elita-1, and the SpecOps Commander the most. He had seen the name once on a piece of correspondence, signed by the entirety of High Command. Skyline.
Now that he thought about it, Skyline was the only one he hadn't met at least once during his interview process. Maybe the mech was just busy, cleaning up Windburn's mess?
He was snapped out of his musings by Optimus clearing his vocalizer, and quickly devoted most of his attention to the Prime. The rest of his processor went to observing the other officers around him. Their reactions. Mannerisms. Who agreed readily with the Prime. Who disagreed, and exactly how much backtalk they were willing to give their leader in the process. In theory, all of them shared the same rank, save for Elita-1 standing a step above the rest, but there were always unofficial hierarchies. Jazz had never once met a leader who didn't play favorites, even if they didn't realize they were doing it.
He settled in, plotting to find where he could slot himself into that hierarchy.
As Jazz collected his datapads and stood to file out of the room behind the other officers, he was stopped when he heard Optimus Prime clear his vocalizer.
He turned to see the Prime incline his helm to the seat next to him, the one that had previously been occupied by Elita-1, before she had jumped up and rushed off to her next task.
Jazz obediently went to sit and waited for the Prime to speak.
"I understand you haven't had much of a chance to settle in, but please, let me know if there's anything you need. We… haven't had to make such a drastic handover in quite a while."
Jazz had done his homework, of course. He knew that after the Prime acquired the Matrix, he had carefully built up his inner circle. Most of his senior officers consisted of bots he knew personally, and this roster had not undergone many drastic changes since his ascension. Jazz was a newcomer. An interloper. An intruder.
He had to tread cautiously. If he came in guns blazing, he risked alienating himself and looking like a cocky upstart. If he were too timid and stuck to the precedent outlined by Windburn, though, he would never gain respect for his own ideas, and he wasn't keen on repeating the same mistakes as his predecessor. After all, Windburn's mistakes were what got him killed. And Jazz wasn't here to just survive this war. He was here to win.
"Thank you, sir. I'll let you know if I need anythin'. For now, I plan to work my way through the contingency plans and handover documents, but I wanna move fast, so we don't lose more ground than we've already given up in the shuffle. Power vacuums are always a lil' dicey," Jazz said.
"Understood. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"
"Well… I did have a question," Jazz began.
"Go on?" Optimus nodded.
"I noticed the Special Operations Commander wasn't in this meeting. When will I be meetin' them?"
Optimus let out a rumbling sigh, a mixture of his engine idling and warm air being pushed out from deep within his frame. "You won't be."
"What… do you mean?" Jazz blinked. The expression of surprise was hidden behind his visor, but a hint of confusion crept into his voice. "If I'll be workin' with them, won't I have to meet 'em eventually?"
"Skyline performs all of their collaborative work remotely."
"Oh, okay." Jazz nodded. They must be stationed elsewhere, then, and will join the next meeting on a video call or something. "Will they be dialing in at the next meeting then?"
"No. My apologies, I realize I'm doing a poor job of explaining this. Due to the sensitive nature of their work, their identity is classified. All contact with them is through digital covert communication. Skyline is simply a code name."
Classified? Jazz thought he was past the point of classification levels. He was High Command now, for Pit's sake!
"I… see," Jazz said slowly. His processor churned unhappily. That sounded like an inefficient way to communicate with such an important, high-ranking officer. But he did not yet have the standing or repute to openly question the Prime, so he merely nodded. "And if I need to contact them?"
"It's a complex process. I'll add a guide to your onboarding packet, but many of these things are subject to change," Optimus explained.
Yeah, that made sense. If this bot was paranoid enough to hide their face from the top brass of the army they worked for, then they would most certainly have a constantly updating, shifting series of security measures surrounding them.
"In that case, I don't have any more questions," Jazz said, just as a low fuel warning pinged in the corner of his HUD and his task manager reminded him of the utterly abysmal efficiency of his CPU at the moment.
"Very well. The rest of the orn is free to do with as you will. I'm sure you're tired after your transit from Uraya."
"Thank you, sir." Jazz nodded and stood, bowing his helm in a brief display of deference, then left the meeting room.
He was tired, all right, but he still had a few things to check off his to-do list.
As Jazz stood by the energon dispensers, his optics, hidden behind his gleaming blue visor, swept over the room. He picked out groups, rapidly analyzing the subtle social intricacies, weaving together a thread of understanding. Chatter washed over his audials, multiple conversations streaming in and picked apart by his highly-tuned filters.
Heavily armored, loud, good social cohesion with a hierarchy of bravado and boasting to earn a better standing. Relatively friendly and high-trust amidst insiders, but quick to anger and distrustful or downright disdainful of outsiders. Front-liners. Rough and tumble infantry.
Civilian frames, lack of weapon attachment mods. Freshly waxed armor, clean paint. Polite, yet surface-level, almost vapid small-talk. Datawork or logistics.
No visible weapon attachments, but relatively sturdy plating. Sleek kibble, small to mid-sized frames. Quiet, yet clearly comfortable around one another. A tight-knit squad, then, perhaps scouting or recon.
In the corner of his periphery, he watched a bot approach. Clean, but not flashy red and grey paintjob. Similar size as Jazz, shoulders a little wider and bulkier, large bumper. Large, broad doorwings. Red chevron. Praxian. One of the few left of their kind after the city fell in one of the most brutal massacres in their planet's history.
The bot smiled widely, dipping his helm as he reached for an empty cube.
"Hey! Haven't seen you around before. Are you new to HQ? If you're not new, so sorry about that. HQ is huge. Biggest base I've ever been stationed at. But I guess that would make sense, since what's the point of an HQ being small? And then Iacon… Wow! Huge! So much to do and see when I'm able to get off base. Well, then again, that also makes sense, 'cause it's the capital. But yeah, I mean, I don't know every bot around, but I feel like I'm pretty good at recognizing faces at the very least. You kinda look like my friend Ricochet. Don't tell him I said that we're friends, though. He'll get mad. But he's not so bad! Anyways, wow, the resemblance is crazy—"
Jazz was considered by many to be a hyperactive loudmouth, but the way this mech didn't even stop to blink as he rambled on while energon poured out of the dispenser into his cube was honestly impressive.
He cleared his vocalizer, trying to get a word in.
"—he's honestly really cool when you get to know him. When I was new to HQ, I kept getting lost all the time, but he showed me around until I got the hang of things. Are you also from Staniz, then? Because Ricochet is from Staniz, and he said it's nice there, but it's mostly just like, boats and stuff. I dunno, I mean, boats are cool, but for your whole city to just be boats? So if you're new to HQ and need somebody to show you around, I can help! It'd be nice to pass on the favor, y'know—"
He quickly realized unless he interrupted or simply walked away, he would be stuck here. With a broad, warm grin, he raised his voice slightly.
"Yeah, I'm new. I just transferred in from Uraya earlier this orn," said Jazz.
The mech paused, mouth still open as he processed the words.
"Oh! Wow! In that case, welcome to HQ! I'm Bluestreak. Hey, why don't you come refuel with my friends and me, then? What's your designation? What department are you in? How come you transferred from Uraya? I've heard that base is really nice. I have a few old buddies stationed there. Hey, maybe you know them? Do you know—"
"I'm Jazz. Nice to meet ya, Bluestreak," Jazz cut in with a nod. "I'm in Tactics."
"Tactics? That's cool. Lotta numbers in Tactics. I guess that means you're probably really good at math. I usually sit over here…" Bluestreak kept talking as he led Jazz over to a table where several other bots were sitting.
Two large, brightly colored warframes bristling with weaponry—quite uncommon for the Autobot army, but not unheard of—two more Praxians, and… Wow. Bluestreak was not kidding. Jazz stared at his spitting image, save for the difference in paintjobs and the currently empty attachment for a large cannon on one shoulder.
"Hey, Bluestreak. Who's this?" said one of the Praxians. Blue paintjob. Yellow chevron. Kind of weird that the Praxian without a hint of blue on his frame was named Bluestreak, but who was Jazz to judge?
"This is Jazz from Tactics. It's his first orn in HQ. Everyone, please be nice to him! I'm sure you all remember how confusing your first orns here were," Bluestreak said, gesturing for Jazz to take a seat. "Jazz, this is Smokescreen! He works with me in SpecOps."
Jazz smiled at Bluestreak and did so, settling into the free space next to the third Praxian. Sleek, almost matte black and white paintjob. Optics hidden behind a yellow visor that was a bit narrower than Jazz’s own. The only other flash of color on his frame was the bright red chevron, a shade lighter than Smokescreen's.
The bright yellow warframe, whose paint was gleaming and impeccably polished—odd for a front-liner, usually they wore their battle scars proudly—scowled.
"Jazz from Tactics. As in… Jazz, the new CTO. High Command officer. Outlined in the Organizational Update that everyone received."
Bluestreak shook his helm. "Huh? Nah. Officers don't refuel with the rest of us! They have their own break rooms."
Smokescreen and the third Praxian exchanged a look. Smokescreen hid a smirk behind his cube as he took a long sip of his energon.
"You are so fraggin' stupid—" The yellow warframe began before his red counterpart elbowed him.
"Sunstreaker. In front of a commanding officer?"
Jazz finally cut in with a laugh.
"All good, all good. Yeah. I'm the new Chief Tactician, but it's chill. I mean, probably don't do anything, like, blatantly illegal in front of me… But I ain't a stuffy old rust-bucket."
Bluestreak sputtered, choking on the energon he had just taken a swig of.
The third Praxian silently and stoically patted his back with a surprising amount of force from a fairly unassuming frame.
"Oh. Oh Primus. I-I'm so sorry, sir! I…"
Jazz held up a servo, interrupting Bluestreak before he could spiral, the poor bot's optics wide with horror.
"It's fine. I don't like pullin' rank, anyway. We're all Autobots, y'know? We're all here to kick 'Con tailpipe, I just happen to do so from the High Command war room. But it's only my first orn. I'm still settlin' in, so I appreciate the offer to help out. HQ is definitely bigger than Uraya."
"Damn right we're here to kick 'Con tailpipe," Sunstreaker said with a toothy grin, flashing a set of wicked fang mods.
Bluestreak finally started to relax, doorwings drooping from their rigid, tense position as he unclamped his plating with a small whoosh of air.
"T-thank you, sir."
"Aw, you ain't gotta call me sir. I'm just here for a cube and some company, same as everyone else," Jazz said, raising his cube.
As the tension bled away and a round of pleasantries and introductions went around the table, they settled into a more relaxed, friendly chatter, even as Bluestreak occasionally stole guilty glances at Jazz.
Jazz stayed quieter than usual as he observed the group dynamic. It was a rather rag-tag collection of bots, but he was starting to parse together the relationships.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were twin-spark warframes. Alongside being warframes, Sunstreaker's rude attitude made it to where he was not tolerated by most other bots save for his twin, but he seemed to have a strange fondness for Bluestreak.
Ricochet was similarly prickly, but quieter than Sunstreaker. He and Bluestreak were both exceptional marksmen, and a bitter rivalry had turned into reluctant camaraderie, then genuine friendship after a while.
The three Praxians, of course, found solace in one another after the utter annihilation of their city, people, and culture.
A group of outcasts, brought together by the strange whims of fate.
As Jazz watched Smokescreen tease Bluestreak, he noticed the third Praxian quietly staring. He sat stiffly and silently, doorwings completely still. Not a single flick or twitch to betray his emotions, and he did not respond to the complex flutters and twists of Bluestreak and Smokescreen's wingspeak.
He didn't seem uncomfortable, though. In fact, a hint of a smile lingered at the edge of his mouth as he watched the other bots bicker and laugh.
Jazz realized with a flash of embarrassment that he had not caught the mech's designation. He was sure he'd been paying close attention during introductions. And he'd always been great at remembering names and faces. How could he have missed that?
"Prowl, you gonna finish that?" Bluestreak asked, eyeing the black and white bot's half-empty cube.
Prowl! That must be his name. Well, that made sense. It was a relatively common designation in Praxus before the Fall.
Prowl wordlessly handed it over, then stood.
"I've got to get going. Have a good evening, everyone." He turned his helm. "Jazz. It was nice to meet you."
Those were the first words Prowl had uttered the entire time, Jazz realized. Maybe he was just shy? They were sitting in a rambunctious and loud group in an already crowded, noisy mess hall. Easy for someone to be drowned out.
Prowl's voice was smooth and soft. A relatively average pitch. Not particularly pleasant, but not unpleasant either. The kind of generic voice that would be difficult to pick out in a crowd. But despite how quietly he spoke, he did not seem meek or timid either.
Jazz smiled. "Nice to meet you, too, Prowl."
With that, Prowl left. Jazz watched him go, but soon lost sight of him as he practically melted into the crowd. Even staring directly at him, Jazz couldn't quite tell just what direction he had walked off in.