TFP: Shrouded... (Chapter III: Accidents...)

"YEEK!" Lauren ducked, holding onto the package for Rachet, when she heard the clang of the lob slamming into Wheeljack's hands, Lauren looked up, and eyed them, "Guys, can't y'all do that outside?"
"We could, but Wheeljack kept loosing the lob!" Bulkhead chuckled.
Wheeljack chipped in,  "Come on, Plummet, we aren't hurting anyone."
"Yet," Lauren sighed, walking to Rachet at the end of the bridge, and pulled out a knife to open the package, "The final circuit came it, you ready to get this thing running?"
"I am, it will be a relief to have the groundbridge running again," Rachet confirmed, "I hate to admit it, but this would have taken much longer without your calculations."
Lauren gently pulled out a circuit the size of a platter, "Thanks to Optimus's memories I was able to understand what you were asking me to do."
The autobot medic eyed her, "Speaking of Optimus, what has been with you two the past couple of days?" Rachet asked.
Lauren shrugged, "We-aren't exactly seeing eye-to-eye at the moment. I'm praying that it will pass, and I want to talk to him about it, but I don't know how to broach the subject."
Rachet bent down, and allowed Lauren into his hand, before lifting her to the control panel, so she could begin installing it. "Talk to him about what?"
"Admiring the wrong people," answered Lauren.
"Ah..." Rachet muttered, "He mentioned his concerns."
"Great, he spreads secrets now."
"Lauren, Optimus keeps few secrets from me, I doubt he told anyone else," Rachet assured.
Lauren shrugged, "What can I say?"
"Tell him how you feel, Lauren," Rachet said, "You can't go wrong with that."
Lauren stepped back, checking her work, "I suppose. Alright, I just need to finish the micro connections in the bottom right panel, and we'll be set for a test activation."
Rachet nodded, setting her back on the ground, "Good, I will go see if I can identify the touchdown for that UFO, call me when you are finished."
"Will do," Lauren confirmed, getting on her knees, and beginning to finish up on the connections.
At the main terminal, Rachet had finished the pre-activation sequence, and set the computer in lockdown, before turning away, and walking over to the astronomical tracking system.
Lauren grinned, finishing the connections faster than she had anticipated, she then checked once more and was about to place the panel back in place.
Bulkhead tossed the lob to Wheeljack, who fumbled it, and in an attempt to keep it from hitting Agent Fowler, who was walking in with Marx, Wheeljack swatted the lob away, and it slammed straight into the ground bridge control station. "Uh-oh..."
Lauren gasped, as the ground bridge activated with her in it, "What the slag?! Rachet what just--?"
Wheeljack ran over, and yanked the lob out of the control panel, and turned, as the bridge shut back down.
Bulkhead sighed in relief, "That was close..."
Rachet rushed over, "What have you done?!" He gaped at the damage.
Agent Fowler was as angry as Rachet, "You're lucky that Wheeljack had the chance to stop that thing, Bigfoot! What are you two thinking-playing with a giant rock in the middle of a human crossing?!"
Wheeljack tapped the lob, "Maybe Plummet was right about that, Bulkhead."
"It'd be a first," shrugged Bulkhead. "At least you were able to shut it down."
"You mean the bridge activated?!" Rachet gasped.
"Yeh-didn't you hear it, doc?" Wheeljack asked.
Rachet's optics widened, "Lauren..." He turned from them, and ran to the bridge entrance, "Lauren?!" He walked further in, and saw the panel removed, but no Lauren...
Agent Fowler and Marx rushed over, "Are you saying Lauren was in here when the bridge opened?" Fowler asked.
"According to your reports she would have been sent to the designated coordinates, where would that be?" asked Marx.
Rachet looked at them both, dropping to one knee, before he looked closer at the place he had left Lauren, "That's just it, there were no coordinates set... the bridge didn't have anywhere to send her... meaning either she was vaporized by the immediate shut down... or she was sent to a completely random place on Earth."
"Rachet!" Miko ran in, "Rachet we have an emergency!"
Rachet turned, "Miko, I have bigger problems!"
"No you don't!" Miko shouted, pointing back, "Optimus was doing something in the power supply room, and he just-he just collapsed!"
Rachet sighed, "Hopefully that means Lauren is alive and merely unconscious. I am on my way, Miko."

Lauren tapped her foot, leaning her back against one of her book cases, she was waiting, until Optimus appeared, and shook his head, disoriented. "So... lovely day."
Optimus looked at her, "Was that you?"
"Actually, that was Wheeljack or Bulkhead-whoever threw the last lob ball." Lauren sighed, crossing her arms, "One of them must have smashed the bridge controls-I had just finished the connections, when it activated. The next thing I knew, I was here-waiting for you to show up."
"I see," Optimus whispered.
Then came the awkward silence...
Lauren bit on her bottom lip, then looked up at Optimus.
Optimus seemed just as silent as she was.
"Okay, that's it! That is it!" Lauren growled, "I know-I know, the whole weirdness between the two of us is mostly my fault, but I can't help what I think, Optimus! So what if I admire Megatron's power?! It's not like I have a lick of respect for the lord of the decepticons! It's not like I'd join them even if he offered!" Lauren began, "Optimus, don't you understand how much it hurts to know that I said the words 'all hail Megatron'?! I hate myself for letting that happen! I admire Megatron's power in the same way I admire Dreadwing's loyalty!"
Optimus blinked, "Lauren, I am sorry, I have not handled this well."
"Neither have I," Lauren admitted.
Optimus knelt down, "I know you would never join the decepticons... but I also know that admiration can be a... a slippery slope. I would never want something bad to happen to you because... because admiration became desire."
Lauren lowered her head, "I'm aware of the slippery slope I'm on, I just don't know what to do about it."
"Simple... understand the line between the two." Optimus went on, "You are an intelligent individual, Lauren. I have faith in you."
Lauren smiled up at him, "You have no idea what that means to me, Optimus." Lauren touched his hand, and smiled up at him, "So are we good again?"
"We are."

Lauren opened her optics to the sight of a jungle, and the sound of jungle life. It was humid, and the smell of vegetation mixed with rot made her sick to her stomach. "Yay-I'm still alive... oh-my stomach."
Thunder rolled over head, or what sounded like thunder, until Lauren saw a meteorite shoot over head.
"A meteorite? No way-that was a ship! The UFO!" Lauren charge in the direction it had been going towards, until the shaking of the impact knocked her off her feet, then the shock wave blew Lauren back. "Ow!" When she recovered he jumped back up, and continued her pursuit. when she had made it to the crash site, she realized how correct she was-it was a ship! It looked like and autobot vessel. Which encourage her to approach it. Lauren made it to the closest entrance, and saw that the ramp had automatically lowered, allowing Lauren to walk aboard.
It was way too quiet for her liking, she saw that five of the crew stasis chambers have been activated, most likely for the safety of the crew. When Lauren had made it to the bridge, she climbed onto the pilot's station, and reactivated the systems she could... the memory chips were partially intact, and from what she could tell... the ship was headed to Earth because of the intel extracted from a decepticon prisoner. The ship crashed because the landing gear had been out of commission since they hit the asteroid belt. Lauren grinned, "Ha-ha! We've got more bots here! Let's see if I can get these systems running, and bring those bots out of stasis. Heh!" Due to her size, giving the computer instructions proved rather difficult, but she finally managed to disable all stasis locks, and initiate a system diagnostic to see how quickly she could try to get the communication systems up and running to contact base. Until it finished, she made her way back to the deck, and sprinted all the way back to the stasis pods. Lauren was a bit disappointed to see that they were already empty, so with a sigh of exhaustion, Lauren began walking back to the brig. Sooner or later they would turn up at the bridge, and she could explain herself there. She began wondering what autobots could have been in the pods, she hoped that they would all be willing to join up with team prime.
Lauren walked back into the bridge, and froze, seeing that it clearly had not just been autobots in stasis pods... an all too familiar decepticon was at the communications terminal, "Oh-scrap..."
And even her whisper must have been enough to alert him of her presence, because he whipped around, and immediately aimed his left limb, a rather scary looking heavy weapon at her. He stared at her with his single optic, he then asked, "Native of this planet, according to these readings, you were the one to end all stasis locks, how did you know to do that, and what do you know of Cybertron?"