Fading Starlight

Altrock walked behind Tarmac, with a few burn marks. Helixon was fine, he had a few close calls with blaster fire though.

Reverse was perfectly fine, having for most of the time been in Path's compartment.

They walked back to their bay in silence. Path ejected Reverse and then took his medical tools over to Blueshade. None of his wounds were so bad that Path couldn't fix him. All minor injuries. Painful and annoying, but nothing terrible.

Tarmac was silent. He walked in and made sure all of the squad was inside before shutting the door.

Reverse stuck close to Path and Blueshade, but also gave them a wide berth so Path could do what he needed.

Helixon leaned on a wall, while Altrock stood on the ceiling with his arms crossed.

Finally, after a long silence, Tarmac spoke.

"Did anyone else recognize that con Altrock, Blueshade and I fought?" Tarmac hoped he was going crazy and that the decepticon was not who he feared.

"Couldn't get a good look." Path said, pulling a quill from Blueshade's leg as he sat on one of the tables. Blueshade winced. "Never seen anything like this before."

"Nope." Helixon looked at the empty spots where he used to have missiles.

Tarmac frowned. Maybe he was going mad. Maybe this wasn't the con he thought he'd killed.

"If he's...somehow who I think he is, we've got trouble."

"It's trouble enough with those spikes of his, especially if he's going to be out in the field more. How much worse?" Altrock asked.

"Who was he, Tarmac?" Path said.

Tarmac give him a bewildered glance. "I thought I killed him a long time ago."

"That's not answering..." Altrock muttered, pacing.

Reverse thought back to when he was listening into the 'cons comms. Of course he didn't compromise their own comms, but he remembered a whole bunch reacting to one bot getting hit hard, presumably big and ugly. He spoke quietly, remaining in bot mode. "Who's Nitro?"

Tarmac froze. Path looked down at Reverse, his optics narrowed. Blueshade seemed to shrink himself into his own armor plating.

"How do you know that name..." Tarmac said, his voice darkening.

Helixon turned his head to look at Reverse with interest, and Altrock looked with surprise.

Reverse shrunk under their looks. "I listened in on the decepticon communications."

Tarmac's face was grim. "He's alive then."

"But I thought you killed him after he-" Blueshade stopped talking when both Tarmac and Path glared at him.

Reverse remained quiet and anxious.

Helixon and Altrock shared looks.

"Do any of you actually understand what this means?" Tarmac glared at them all. Path left Blueshade's side and stepped closer to his friend.

"Tarmac..."

"We've got some real issues if Nitro's back. No idea how he survived what I did to him." Tarmac snarled and looked down at his hands. He remembered it vividly. Nitro had been dragging him to a confinement cell. He'd gotten one hand free and attacked him, tearing the decepticon to pieces. He'd broken every circuit in his body. How he managed to survive that...

"You think he got pieced back together by Shockwave?" Helixon asked. That was the only scientist he knew on the decepticon forces who would be able to do such a thing.