No

No.  The word seemed to stir, sludgily, in Barricade’s cortex. No.  A ‘no’ rose back in return.  You don’t say no to me. No one does.  But..he could say nothing. He knew better. As much as he hated, as much as he raged about it, he had to swallow the ‘no’, a bitter, glass-edged lump that tore ragged strips down his patience. 

“Yes, my lord,” he managed to choke out.  Yes. Not no.  He felt Megatron’s optics hard on him, weighing, measuring. A sign that he had not masked his reaction as well as he’d thought. He was bleeding emotion. He tried to shut himself down, clamp down on his emotions.  Emotions are the enemy.  You have enough enemies. 

Too late. Megatron questioned. “You find this…unpalatable?”

“It doesn’t matter how I find it,” he said. Truth. Simple.  Raw.  Ugly.  The humans had some stupid quote, ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’.  How little they fraggin’ knew. Truth is ugly and painful, a bird with no feathers, a gaping wound. 

Megatron gave a snort, half of derision, half of assent. He recognized the truth as well. But, being Megatron, got his hands around something that could cause pain and…wanted to twist.  He couldn’t help it. It was part of his programming.

“You do understand, don’t you? We simply cannot waste the resources on what is at best a salvage mission.”

Cannot waste.  The words fell like tablets of acid into his tank, burning, spreading like harsh poison.  He kept his face immobile, his hands still. No emotion, anywhere.  He knew the right answer, but he also knew the wise answer.  The one that would let him bleed off time and effort of his own to search for Frenzy, without suspicion. Without being monitored.  No he did not understand. “Yes,” he said.