[Fic] Chaos came with a bang, chapter 5
Rating: T
Universe: G1-AU
Pairings: Jazz/Prowl (secret), Ratchet/Wheeljack
Summary: Life in the Ark was often complicated, but things get out of control when Wheeljack and Ratchet are both seriously injured in an accident. Can First Aid save them? Will Sideswipe take on a new career? And in all the chaos will Bumblebee figure out Jazz's biggest secret?
~blah~ is comm-speak, blah is Cybertronian
Chapter 5: Fighting on all fronts
First Aid forced himself to focus on the work at hand, yet he was sure they could all see his nervousness. Every time one of them moved or looked at him or paused in their task he waited for them to accuse him of being out of order, of trying to wield authority he had not earned, of pretending to know what he was doing when he did not. When he realised Perceptor was falling into shock he ordered the other mech out, unable to bear the arguments: the more he talked, the more he was sure his vocaliser was going to give him away. He did not want to talk so Perceptor had to go and Sideswipe had to shut up. How did Ratchet keep talking under this kind of stress? All he wanted to do was turn off all his systems and hide in a corner.
The first step had been accomplished, and for that he thanked Primus fervently. Somehow, miraculously, he had gotten them back to the repair bay. But now that they were here, the damage seemed even worse than before. Here, under the bright lights and with proper sensors hooked up, he could see exactly how bad it was and he wished he was back with the comparatively simple task of extricating them again. At least then he did not have constant feeds coming up on his HUD reporting how low Wheeljack's energon pressure was, or how Ratchet's CPU impulses had dropped into the red.
Calm, he told himself, grabbing a fusion board and rerouting some wires through it. He had to stay calm. Ratchet was safe in stasis lock for now. His systems would be maintained at their minimum levels, his CPU safely offline. There was no pain in that state, even without blockers in place. Wheeljack, on the other hand, was a completely different case. The inventor had initially taken damage from the blast itself and then from the debris, but he had exacerbated it all by trying to get to Ratchet. Pinched wires had been ground together until they snapped and shorted; fuses had blown; joints had been crushed and fluid lines burst. On top of that, there was the nasty tear in his side where he had continued to tug forward in spite of what must have been terrible pain. Clotted coolant was caked around there; probably the only thing that had saved him since it had started clotting and had all but sealed the breach in his energon line. It would have done it far more efficiently if he had not kept moving.
Briefly he wondered why Wheeljack had done that. Sure he would have known Ratchet was under there, but even so he should have been focusing on getting the attention of others, not dragging himself over to the medic. Unable to understand it and unable to devote any processing time to it, he focused on what he knew. At some point he would have to access the databanks to find out about the finer points of Wheeljack's anatomy, but for now he just needed to stop the fluid and energy loss, and keep power flowing to the failing circuits. That was the same for any mech.
Silverbolt tilted one wing to veer around a small patch of turbulence, then twisted sharply the other way to avoid a stray missile. He had not been with the Autobots for long, but even he could feel the difference in this fight from the normal pattern and he knew it had their opponents baffled.
Smokescreen filled the air with black grit that affected the radar as well as the optics, and Hound cast disorienting holograms, both helping to conceal the long, straggling line of bots releasing wave after wave of laser bolts. Meanwhile his team and the other aerials were doing their part up above, trying to keep the airborne Decepticons distracted.
Seeing Dirge ascend rapidly to his right, he pulsed a text message to Air Raid and Slingshot, and saw them veer off accordingly. Powerglide was right behind them with Swoop, and he smiled. There was one Seeker he no longer had to worry about. Firing a couple of rounds at Rumble before the Cassetticon could sneak up on Cliffjumper, he dropped his altitude to glide alongside Blades.
~Any sign of him?~
~Not yet. You?~
~No. Someone should tell Prime.~
~Good luck with that.~ the Protectobot snorted cynically. ~I can't even see Blaster, and that lot are shooting at anything that comes near because they can't see us either.~
Silverbolt frowned.
~Keep looking. Megatron's here, the cassettes are here, so Soundwave must be too.~
Blades seemed unconvinced, but peeled away to circle the conflict zone again and Silverbolt headed off on the opposing angle.
The absences on the Decepticon side were disturbing. The Constructicons were missing, but that was not unusual; they didn't end up in the field all that often. But where was Soundwave? And where was Starscream and his trine?
The problem was there was no way to get that information back to Prime, since he was currently wrestling with Megatron, and since Prowl and Jazz were both absent there was no actual co-ordination for anyone else. True, he still had command of his own team, and Streetwise, Groove and Blades were working under his direction in Hot Spot's absence, but the others had split off into their own little factions. He considered trying to get to Ironhide, but the old soldier was in the thick of the smoke. Besides, he had only a low-powered comm system and would not be able to override the chatter that already filled the airwaves.
Frustrated, he circled back behind the Autobot lines. A couple of mechs were back there with mild injuries. Nothing serious that he could see, but still it was a concern given their current situation. How did the Decepticons manage without a proper medic? It was something he had wondered many times, but now the question gnawed at him with fresh urgency. The older Autobots always maintained that none of the Decepticons were trained medics, even though it seemed that they were always repaired by the next battle. Did they have a medic hidden away somewhere that the Autobots did not know about? Or some other way of repairing serious damage?
~Bolt!~ Fireflight called. ~Laserbeak is leaving the battle and heading towards the Ark.~
~Stop him.~
~I can't - Ramjet's on my tail.~
~Fine, I'll do it.~ Opening his comm up to all his gestalt-mates, he added. ~I'm heading back to the Ark. Join me as soon as you can. Skydive - find Blades and tell him I want the Protectobots to follow us. If this is a diversion for an attack back at the Ark we're going to need them. Air Raid, tell Powerglide to get the message back to the Autobots, whatever it takes.~
Sunstreaker glanced at the mech to his right, then settled the large-barrelled weapon a bit more squarely on his shoulder.
"You think he ever gets tired of being right about this kind of thing?" he asked, lining up his shot.
Jazz, predictably, laughed.
"Aw come on, where's your sense of adventure? I thought you liked taking on impossible odds? This'll be fun!"
The mech was completely and utterly mad, Sunstreaker decided, fully aware that many others thought precisely the same of him.
"Fun?" he echoed caustically. "The three of us against Devastator? Yeah, some fun alright. Where the frag did Hot Spot go? Couldn't we at least get Sides out here to help? We'll need him..."
"No." Prowl cut him off, returning and taking up a position beyond Jazz. "Devastator is too large to get inside without breaking apart, and if we all fall then he will be the best chance they have."
The best chance they have to... what, he thought in frustration. Escape? To where? Not that they were likely to try: no medic he had ever met would abandon his patients and Ratchet and Wheeljack were in no condition to be moved or it would already be done. He had suggested it, but Prowl had said he had already considered that and it was not practical.
"As for Hot Spot," Prowl continued with a dark look at Jazz, "since he left prior to the alert we must assume that he did not realise he would be needed here. I shall be speaking to him later about that assumption."
That made Sunstreaker smirk, imagining that 'talk', but the humour did not last. They were in trouble.
"This isn't going to work." he muttered.
"Have some faith." Jazz shrugged, fiddling with the explosives he had produced on Prowl's request.
Just where did Jazz hide all this stuff, Sunstreaker wondered irritably. It sometimes seemed like he had a whole demolitions lab hidden in his subspace pocket. Wheeljack could make things blow up spectacularly entirely without any such intention, but Jazz did it quite deliberately and always seemed prepared for the next one.
"He's a slagging gestalt." Sunstreaker complained.
"Never stopped you before. Prowl - you remember that thing I asked for?"
If it had been anyone else, the question would probably have been valid. Prowl, though, was Prowl, and the very idea that he might forget to do something he set out to do was even more ridiculous than the idea that Prime might get drunk and join Sideswipe on one of his pranks. At least that had happened once in all the vorns they had been in the unit.
"Should I ask why it was in Bumblebee's quarters?" the tactician asked, handing over a small box that looked like a handheld diagnostic scanner.
Jazz grinned, taking it and adjusting some of the settings.
"The mechlet's curious. He's gotta pick a specialty sometime, right?"
"He has a specialty." Prowl responded, annoyed. "He's a scout."
"Yup." Jazz agreed, setting the device carefully on the ground and activating it. "Good one, too."
It gave off a quiet humming, but seemed to do nothing more than that which was a profound disappointment. Maybe he had not activated it yet? Sunstreaker half expected the verbal sniping to continue - everyone knew Jazz and Prowl had little patience for each other's methods - but instead Prowl's head snapped around.
"Here they come. Be ready. Remember, Sunstreaker - aim for the right shoulder joint."
"I got it already."
"Alright." Jazz nodded, positioning himself ready to throw one of his grenades. "Ready in three, two, one, go."
The tremor that ran through the Ark was nearly enough to knock them all off their feet, and Sideswipe grabbed for Ratchet before he could fall off the repair bed. This was insane. He should be out there, not in here. He needed to be with his twin; who would watch his back if Sunny got hurt? And just who were they fighting?
Prowl had stopped in half a breem ago to say that some of the Decepticons were on their way and that he and Jazz and Sunstreaker would hold them off. Sideswipe had tried to go with him, but Prowl had insisted that he remain in the repair bay as a final line of defence in case it went badly. He had sounded calm enough about the situation, but that was just Prowl. It could be anything from Laserbeak to the entire Decepticon army and he would sound precisely the same and probably give exactly the same orders.
Turning to tell First Aid that perhaps he should go and investigate, his optics passed over the monitor he had been set to watch. Up until now there had been almost no movement. A little minor fluctuation in one of the readouts, but nothing outside of the parameters First Aid had set. Now, though, two of the sensors were registering major changes.
"Hey Aid..."
"Not now!" the medic snapped. "Hoist, I need a power pack spliced in here."
"This is important!" Sideswipe insisted, grabbing the medic's arm and pulling him back to the monitor.
First Aid stared at it for a moment, going horribly still, then looked back at Hoist and Huffer.
"Keep him stable. Sideswipe, come stand right here."
"What...?"
It was First Aid's turn to drag him into place, moving him up to the end of the bed by Ratchet's head, right beside where the metal rod was sticking out.
"We've got to get that out of there." First Aid was saying. "I need you to hold his head still."
"But...!"
"I don't have time to argue with you! We have to do this right now."
Biting back the protests he wanted to make, he gingerly put his hands on either side of Ratchet's helmet. First Aid grabbed at a couple of tools and put them down in the space by Ratchet's shoulder, then picked up a laser scalpel.
"I'm going to have to cut away some of his plating to get at it." he warned. "This is going to get gory so look away if you have to but don't move."
Sideswipe did not need to be told twice. Closing the shutters firmly over his optics, he just prayed to Primus that there would not be another tremor.
Megatron seemed strangely distracted today, Prime noted as he got in yet another punch that his opponent would normally have blocked. Equally odd was that he had not tried to disengage. The Decepticon leader frequently ended their skirmishes after less than a breem - either through gaining the upper hand or by retreating - yet it had been four already and there was no sign of any change. It seemed like he was waiting for something specific to happen. But what?
Perhaps it had been wrong to leave Prowl back at the Ark. If he had thought to bring him there would be better communications and greater cohesion. Instead, he was isolated in the middle of the chaos with no idea how the battle was going other than the knowledge that he himself was in something of a stalemate.
It was possible that he had the strength and skill to beat Megatron, though they were very evenly matched. Usually there was little chance to find out, since Megatron regularly managed to avoid one-on-one attacks entirely, or quickly dragged in one of his soldiers to take his place. Today, though, the problem was different. While he probably could do some significant damage to his opponent, it would only be by opening himself up to similar damage. And with Ratchet out of commission, and First Aid already well out of his depth, this was not the best time to need urgent repairs. The last thing the Autobots needed was to lose their leader and their CMO in the same orn.
There was something very wrong here, though, and he was having trouble pinpointing it. Slag it, he had gotten too reliant on Prowl to do this for him. His tactician was very skilled, but he had only been in place for a megavorn or so and before that Optimus had had to think for himself so he should not have gotten so badly out of practice so quickly. Of course, though no-one ever seemed to acknowledge it, it was only since Prowl had been in that role that they had stopped losing so many lives and started gaining a bit of a foothold in this war.
No transformations! he realised finally. That was what was so odd. Megatron would usually have transformed into his gun mode by now, to be wielded expertly by either Soundwave or Starscream, and... Wait. Where were Soundwave and Starscream? Megatron sometimes only brought one of them to a battle, but he was never bereft of both. Which meant this was a diversion! And he had played into Megatron's hands more completely than the Decepticon could ever have hoped - he had brought everyone with him.
Desperate now, he tried to pull away, and Megatron laughed, taunting him.
"Finally worked it out, have you Prime?" he sneered. "But too late. Oh yes, too late."
No.
"Autobots!" he bellowed. "Return to defend the Ark!"
Megatron laughed again.
"Leave, Prime, and we'll take what we need from here."
"Hardly, Megatron." he responded drily, bluffing a little but hoping he was right. "Your troops here will barely manage to carry themselves back to base - they won't be carrying cargo."
The annoyed look on Megatron's face told him he was close enough to the mark. And so he should be, given all the support he had here. Yanking himself free, Optimus turned and retreated to where several of his soldiers were maintaining a steady stream of fire. With him out of the way, they now focused on Megatron who spat some very nasty curses in Cybertronian then called the usual Decepticon retreat. There was no time to celebrate, though. His comm was not connecting with anyone he knew to be at the Ark which meant someone was doing some signal jamming.
"Autobots! Transform and roll out!"
He only hoped they were in time.