Overcharged (part 3 of 3)
Title: Overcharged
Author: zea_taylor
‘Verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Jazz/Prowl (established), Beachcomber
Warnings: None
See here for part one
See here for part two
Part Three
Cooking was the right word. The caves that ran under the Ark, and up through the volcano towering above it, were never really Jazz’s scene. Given the choice, the Ops mech preferred somewhere with a little more life and colour. He was used to thinking of the mountain and its caves as cold, dark and empty, on the rare occasions he thought about them at all. Nothing he’d seen since locating the entrance to this particular tunnel, just below the summit, dissuaded him from the last two of those. The first though… well, that might use some revision.
The heart of the volcano, the magma chamber itself, was well below the Ark and still all but empty after the enormous eruption that reawakened them. The conduit Wheeljack had found was a side spur high on the mountainside, feeding through a fault between rock strata. The original lava tube that led to it was half-collapsed, its ceiling propped up in places. It ran perhaps half a mile inwards from the surface, its twists, turns and occasional forks rapidly obscuring the sunlight Jazz had left behind. Without the map Teletraan had provided, he’d have turned back long ago. As it was, until the tunnel broadened into a larger space, he was less than confident about the directions he’d been given.
From what ‘Jack had said, the cave he’d chosen as a location his geothermal energy converter had been pleasantly warm; ‘kinda like bathing in a heated oil bath’. Maybe it had been like that, when the device was installed, checked and activated. Now it was something else again.
Jazz moved in a series of lithe jumps from rock to rock. Some were standing pillars, the union of stalactite and stalagmite. Others were fallen rubble, shattered by the force of the recent eruption. The thick limestone encrustations provided at least a little insulation. He needed it. Heat rose in hazy waves from the floor and through the air around him. The rock floor itself glowed a dull red instead of its usual dusty orange-grey. It was nowhere near smelting heat; that was some comfort. If he happened to fall, Jazz’s pedes would probably take a brief contact with no more than moderate pain, but he couldn’t say he felt much like testing the idea. It was uncomfortable enough operating with stifled vents, dumping heat from his processor into his own frame to help it dissipate. He couldn’t keep it up for long. He hoped he wouldn’t have to.
The machine swam out of the heat-haze, its silhouette lacking clarity in the shimmering air. Wheeljack had added his usual dash of showmanship: dials and switches a little larger than a mech really needed; colour scheme bordering on offensive to Jazz’s sensitive visor. Other than that, it looked a whole lot like the plans Jazz had seen. It squatted on the rock floor, a truncated pyramid with controls on the upper surface and a whole lot of weight underneath. A hum rose from it, adding to the vibrations in the air, and conveying a sense of urgency and activity beyond Jazz’s comprehension.
Pausing a few mechanometers away, the Ops mech studied it warily. Usually he’d think twice, if not three or four times, before approaching a Wheeljack creation making as much noise as this one. A hum like that usually meant high power transfer rate. Surging power in one of ‘Jack’s toys was rarely a good thing.
“Jazz!” The call saved him from having to decide whether or not to take the risk. The voice behind it was mellow, warm and pleased. It was one he hadn’t heard for a very long time… over four million years in fact.
He grinned. The Autobots’ geologist was an impossible mech to dislike.
“Good to see you, ‘Comber.”
Beachcomber appeared from behind a stalagmite, ambling along as if taking a stroll along a cool beach. Jazz eyed the other mech’s solid pedes, insulated to take all the vagaries of an organic planet, with just a hint of jealousy before raising his visor to take in the rest of him.
Beachcomber’s colour scheme hadn’t changed. He still wore the same vibrant blue that Jazz used for his own highlight. His visor was almost golden, reflecting the heat of the floor but making the dull glow vibrant with the warmth of his personality. A few things were different. Prominent tyres at his shoulders and knees made it clear that Teletraan-1 had chosen an Earth alt-mode as part of the revival process. On the whole though, his silhouette was still that of the mech Jazz had known on Cybertron - a pacifist at spark, as so many other Autobots had once been, but with the strength and courage to join the fight without compromising those views.
“Oh, Jazz. You’re back.” Beachcomber’s smile was as genuine as any Jazz had seen. The geologist looked around him, shrugging his shoulders to settle the still-new tyres and turning warm optics back on the saboteur. “Isn’t this wonderful? I’ve not seen a world like this one since before the Academy was destroyed. There are so many different formations. We must be above a very active subduction zone. Do you know if this planet has many micro-plates or just a few super-continents? The variety of mineral compounds I am scanning is really quite remarkable. It suggests a complex water and gas cycle.”
“Whoa!” Jazz held us his servos in surrender, laughter in his vocalisor despite the situation. “Way outside my zone, man. I just live here and want to know it won’t go bang again. You’d better ask ‘Jack, or Hound, or go talk to the humans about that stuff.”
“The indigenous sentients?” Beachcomber nodded, glancing upwards and clenching his servos as if eager to reach out through the rocks. “Yes, Prowl mentioned them. I can’t wait to meet them.”
Jazz tried not to be too obvious as he looked past Beachcomber, peering into the heat haze. He kept his voice carefully casual. “So, where is Prowler, anyway?”
The smile on ‘Comber’s faceplates faltered a little. A small frown appeared as Beachcomber shook his helm.
“I’m not sure. I completed the assessment he requested, but when I turned around to report, he’d gone. I was just looking for him.” Beachcomber had reached Jazz’s vantage point now, and passed the Ops mech, strolling towards the machine. “We really ought to do something about this, but I wanted to check with an officer before taking action.”
Leaning back against the rock pillar he was perched on, Jazz spread his servos in front of him.
“I’m all yours, mech.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” Beachcomber shook his helm again, switching mental tracks. If Prowl wasn’t available, then no one was placed much better than Jazz to review his data. No one else was here, in any case. “Wheeljack’s device appears to have acted as a trigger for a capillary process. It’s drawing heat, and magma, upwards and the rising magma appears to have forced a dyke into the surrounding rock strata, widening existing faults in the process.”
Usually Jazz would let his visor glaze over around about now. That wasn’t an option. Beachcomber’s spiel had gone over his helm, but not quite out of arm’s reach. Jazz was an intelligent mech - one who lived on the side of a volcano and had sat through a dozen officer’s meetings where it was discussed at length. He’d got the gist.
“So ‘Jack and the others didn’t notice the mountain bursting open because…?”
“Bursing open?” Beachcomber laughed. “I can tell you’re an Ops mech, Jazz. Not so fast! You’ve got to ease up and slow down a bit. This was kind of fast by my standards but not Unicron-on-your-tailpipe fast. This was a gradual process. We’re talking orns here.”
Jazz groaned, one servo coming up and his helm dropping forwards to bury his faceplates in it. ‘Comber was right. His processor worked in leaps and bursts, tuned for the contingencies of Special Operations work. That meant he was good at taking the pieces and putting them together. Looking up, he shook his helm.
“Let’s see if I’ve got this. Day one, the thing works fine. No fireworks, and that’s a good start, but it’s going pretty smoothly all in all. Orn one, even. Still good. Took orns to heat up, right?”
Beachcomber cycled his optics, confused by the repetition. “Yes, Jazz.”
“And the whole time, the energon kicking out of this thing is…?”
“Oh!” ‘Comber took a step back, looking back at the converter as if seeing it for the first time. “Well, the converter was set to process a fixed percentage of the available heat transferred per unit time and it appears to be working perfectly. As it heated up, the energon would be… getting gradually stronger, I suppose.”
Guess confirmed. Jazz sighed, regretting it as his vents refilled with superheated air.
“They got overcharged so slowly they were already out of their processors before anyone noticed.” Jazz paused, glaring at the machine. He drummed his servos against the rock pillar he held, shifting in the vain hope of finding a cooler air current. Beachcomber shook his helm, as confused by the vagaries of his fellow Autobots as by this bewildering new world. He waited for the saboteur to go on, his expression becoming increasingly nervous as the pause stretched out.
“Ah, Jazz?”
“Wheeljack built the converter, right?” Jazz didn’t look away from the device. He spoke in a level, almost resigned, tone. “So, I’ve gotta wonder - when’s the boom coming?”
Beachcomber’s grimace was all the answer he needed. The geologist looked hesitant, almost apologetic. “In about another half orn?” he offered.
“Let me guess… that rising line on the curve Teletraan plotted?”
“The pressure’s building, and the energon converter is acting as a catalyst for the magma flow.”
“Guessing we don’t want to be standing next to this thing when it goes, right?”
Beachcomber gave him an embarrassed look. “Um… I was wondering… is the Ark still flightworthy?”
The long pause stretched out. Jazz shook his helm, his sense of the ridiculous kicking in, almost in self-defence.
“So, ‘Comber. Just you and me, and you’ve got my say so. So what do we do?”
“Oh!” Beachcomber cycled his optics at Jazz, visibly reminding himself that the approachable Ops mech was in fact his commanding officer. Nodding, he reached out, his heat-proofed servos indifferent to the red-hot glow of the converter. With a tentative air, he flicked a switch.
A light on the machine’s top surface flickered and went out. The hum faltered, stuttered and then faded.
Jazz’s vents hiccupped. He cycled his optics, rubbing his helm in disbelief. “That’s it?”
Beachcomber chuckled.
“Yes.” A sudden frown crossed his faceplates as he reconsidered. “Well… no. We should probably open a side vent pretty fast to channel the pressure away, and I’m rather hoping there are still other energon condensers elsewhere. Wheeljack had probably better come and see what he can do with this one when he’s able, too, but basically… yes.”
Another feature of being an Ops mech: rapid adjustments.
“Right.” Jazz nodded. He adjusted his visor, his processor already going through the resources available and just how much energon the old solar array would need to come up with to dilute the geothermal stuff to something even halfway drinkable. There would be a Pit-load of bad helms on the Ark for the next few orns, but he’d seen the aftermath of the twins’ parties… and his own. They’d cope. “Right,” he repeated. “Crisis averted. Look, ‘Comber - why don’t you head to the surface and back on down to the Ark? Get Teletraan to point you to Sunny and Sides’ cabin. Tell the Twins I sent you, and to get folks moving on what you need. See if you guys can sober Ratchet up - raid the emergency energon supply in medbay, if you have to. Make sure someone’s on monitors too, even if you have to get Sunstreaker to twist an arm or two.”
Beachcomber tilted his helm, open surprise on his face-plates. Jazz didn’t wait for the mech to acknowledge the rapid stream of orders. He was already making his way back along the narrowing tunnel, his processor running ahead of him. He glanced back to see the geologist starting to move and nodded in satisfaction.
“Jazz!” Beachcomber called after him. “You’re not coming?”
Jazz grimaced, shaking his helm. “I’ve got another problem to track down first.” He glanced back, determination brightening his visor. “Get going. I’ll be back when I can.”
It took two hours.
Two long hours of wandering through a network of lava tunnels so complex Jazz wondered that the entire volcano didn’t collapse in on itself. From time to time he found himself back on the surface, grey ash and orange dirt crunching under his pedes. Each time, he cycled his visor, blinking in the sunlight, and scanned his surroundings before searching onwards.
He was starting to wonder if he was looking in the right place, starting to despair of ever finding what he was searching for, when he saw the pede-print. It wasn’t his careful search that yielded results, but rather a frustrated glance out through the entrance of the hundredth passageway he’d stumbled across. He’d never have seen it if he was any closer to it. From a dozen metres away, with the sun sinking toward the horizon and his visor casting a low beam of illumination, the angle was just right. The contours in the patch of gritty dirt, compressed in some places and mounded in others by deep treads, couldn’t have been more than a few millimetres high. From this angle they cast long shadows, catching Jazz’s sensitive visor.
That was the first clue. There were others now he was on the trail, a scuff here, a mark there. Jazz noted them and pushed onwards, his pedes moving faster and faster as he approached his goal.
The sun was well past zenith, almost at the end of a long day. Here, in the shadow of the mountain itself, it might as well already be twilight. Jazz half fell into another tunnel opening, his lithe frame twisting to land him on his pedes. Shaking his help, he vented hard and set off along yet another tunnel. The dull gleam that told Jazz he was headed towards a surface opening was a welcome sight. He sped up, eager for a gasp of fresh air in his vents and a glimpse of the fading daylight before following the trail onwards.
Then he saw the huddled shape, curled in an alcove on the line between light and darkness, and he stopped as if struck by Wheeljack’s ill-fated immobiliser.
Jazz’s vents rushed out in a long gust of air.
Even after the frustrations of the day and the long orns of surveillance that went before, this couldn’t be rushed. Jazz took the time to calm his vents and ease his systems into a stealth mode he rarely used except on missions. He polarised his visor, and pulled his active sensors in, relying entirely on passive inputs. When he moved, he moved silently, drifting forward like a phantasm or wandering spark-ghost.
The mech in the alcove twitched, curling a little tighter, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his helm buried against them.
For all Jazz’s efforts, his presence was noticed and the stimulation couldn’t help but cause pain. A tactical processor and door-wings tuned to the peak of Praxian potential were not designed to interact with high-grade. At best, they’d be oversensitive, distracting and uncomfortable. At worst, the noise, vibration and sheer torrent of sensory data would be overwhelming.
Optimus Prime got playful when he was overcharged. Ironhide wound up jolly and affectionate, with an unfortunate tendency to ‘sing’. Ratchet could be expansive on a good day, sour and confrontational on a bad one. Jazz himself enjoyed the buzz of a good cube in his systems, the energy it gave him and the excuse to cast even his few social inhibitions to the winds.
Prowl, on the other hand, avoided high-grade entirely. On the rare occasions he could be persuaded to sip a small amount - for celebration or remembrance - he quickly grew maudlin, tired and angry. The memory filters that kept him functional and sane after all he’d seen in this Primus-forsaken war were woven as intricately through his tactical processor as his core systems. Anything that impeded them would bring depression within klicks, and high-grade couldn’t be anything with an impediment. That was just one of the risks the mech faced overcharging. The sensory overload that came from his hyper-tuned door-wings after even a half-tank of high-grade was about as much of a strain as Prowl’s systems could take.
There was more than one reason Jazz had been anxious to find the tactician since he first realised what was happening. Small wonder the mech hadn’t been able to stick it out with Beachcomber. Jazz was hardly surprised his companion had sought out the quietest, most empty place he could find to wait out the effects, or that he’d stalled here, unable to face the daylight beyond the tunnel entrance. It was a miracle Prowl had kept functioning as long as he had.
Crouching, Jazz hummed, just a quiet note from the back of his vocalisor. The mech in front of him flinched, not relaxing from that tight crouch.
Touching the black and white plating was a risk. A light touch would be worse than nothing, teasing Prowl’s over-sensitive plating rather than soothing it. Carefully, avoiding those twitching, sensor-rich door-wings as if they were booby traps in the ducts of the Nemesis, Jazz placed his servo flat on the small of his partner’s back, pressing firmly just below the door-hinge. The mech shuddered, but the touch grounded him, forcing him to face the world outside of his huddled frame.
Prowl’s helm shook and then rose, just a little, just enough for startlingly bright optics to illuminate the cave around them. Jazz had never seen optic sensors so brilliant or so unfocused. He’d never seen an expression on his companion’s face at once so desperate and full of hope.
“Jazz!” All the times his name had been cried out since he left the Nemesis, in so many ways, and in the voices of so many of his friends - none of them meant a fraction of that low, static-riddled whisper.
“It’s me.” Shaking his helm, relief warring with concern, Jazz vented a sigh. He spoke in his lowest tones, barely audible in normal circumstances. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
The jolt from his palm-magnets was carefully timed, carefully placed and as delicate as he could manage.
“Sleep well, Prowler,” he whispered, as the mech’s systems cycled down to stasis beside him.
Grimlock was tap-dancing on his helm.
That was the first conclusion Prowl reached on rousing from stasis. It was the only logical explanation for the thundering roar that filled every one of his senses.
He shifted, uncomfortable on the hard berth beneath him, and then froze. His door-wings were sluggish and unresponsive. He could still feel them - no medic would allow a Praxian to wake in any other condition - but he could also feel the medical codes attenuating their feedback and leaving them numbed.
Even without processing that distraction, it took Prowl a while to sort out his other rebooting senses. Sound came first, competing with the roar from his abused processor.
“Jazz, will you slagging well sit still! I’m tired of you getting in the way.”
Ratchet’s growl wasn’t the most welcoming of greetings. Still flat on the berth, Prowl’s audials strained, listening eagerly for the response.
“Sure thing, Ratch.” Jazz sounded tired, but cheerful. There was a thud - the saboteur dropping onto a berth with more than necessary force.
“Don’t you have things to do?” Ratchet again, still annoyed.
“Nothing more important than this,” Jazz said quietly. Those few words weren’t much, but Prowl felt himself relax nonetheless. He’d missed the infuriating mech more than most would believe. “Besides, I’d rather be under your pedes than Ironhide’s right now. Wow, is that mech a grouch when he’s hung-over!”
Ratchet’s engine grumbled, apparently sharing the sentiment. “Just tell me you got the solar arrays back online?”
“Yup.” The serious tone in Jazz’s voice would surprise most of the crew. This was the Ops mech in officer mode, dealing with necessity rather than his usual volatile whim. “Got Sides to check the grade too, just to be safe. We’re gonna be on short rations for a while, but we’re getting there.” The mech paused. “Sunny’s on top of the vent thing too. Looks like we’re not going to explode after all.” Jazz’s vocalisor took on a wry edge. “Yippee-ai-ee.”
Prowl’s audial systems reported their reboot complete. His optics lit, dimly at first, but gradually focussing on the medic standing beside his berth. Ratchet vented a sigh, still looking at Jazz.
“You do realise the Twins are going to be insufferable for orns?”
“They kind of earned it this time.” Jazz shrugged, the movement drawing Prowl’s optics towards him. For a few seconds, still in reboot haze, the tactician just let his optics rest on the lithe mech and the broad blue racing stripe that ran down to his bumper. It had been too long, far too long, since he’d seen his companion.
Covert study of Jazz was rarely possible. Prowl would swear the mech had extra sensors, able to feel the touch of another mech’s optics. The saboteur straightened, his visor shifting from Ratchet to the berth beside him. A slow smile spread across the mech’s pale faceplates, morphing into a familiar lop-sided smirk. The serious tone dropped from his vocalisor, replaced by a warmth he reserved for a precious few mechs, Prowl first amongst them.
“Look who’s finally awake.”
Prowl’s systems were almost up to speed, his door-wings still numbed but the rest of his inputs processing normally. He warmed his vocalisor, ready to speak and realised he wasn’t at all certain what to say. His memory files of the last few orns were… hazy. Prowl wasn’t at all sure he believed them. He couldn’t possibly have seen half the things he’d thought he’d seen.
The memory of an over-exuberant embrace from Prime brought an involuntary flinch. Then his processor supplied a file of Ironhide generating the most awful caterwaul, and his senses threatened to shut right back down in protest.
Jazz’s engine revved and Prowl started. His unintended silence had gone on long enough to concern the mechs around him.
“Prowl, are you fully functional?” Ratchet scowled. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
A worried silence stretched out. Prowl cycled his optics through a slow recalibration, thinking over the question and wondering about it. “None,” he answered, finally deciding there was no alternative to the truth.
The worried expression on Jazz’s face turned to alarm. He looked at Ratchet with a frown and a question. The medic himself let his servos drop and tightened his grip on the wrench he held, his optics flicking up to the readouts above Prowl’s helm
The tactician cleared his vents, attracting the attention of both mechs before continuing. “You do not possess fingers. You had, however, raised three servo-digits, two on your left, and one on your right.” He tilted his helm, frowning between the two of them. “Is this information relevant?”
Air rushed from Jazz’s vents in a relieved gust. He shook his helm, chuckling. Ratchet cycled his optics, the scowl back in place as he glanced at Jazz.
“He’ll do.”
“There was a problem with the energon supply.” The realisation burst from Prowl’s vocalisor as the memory file dropped into place.
Jazz chuckled. The mech slipped off the berth he’d been perched on, moving forwards so Prowl didn’t have to strain to see him.
“Hey, I like a good time as much as the next mech, but it’d be kind of polite to wait ‘till I got back before getting started.”
“The Autobots…?”
“All fine,” Ratchet assured him. “Or they will be when their processors get over the after-effects.” He nodded towards the saboteur, giving credit where it was due. “Jazz figured it out pretty quick.”
Jazz waved a hand in dismissal. “Prowl was more than halfway there.” He looked down at the tactician, his visor cycling through a wink. “Waking ‘Comber was kind of genius there, Prowler.”
A memory file swam into Prowl’s processor, vague and almost entirely corrupted at point of recording. He shook it off. Jazz would fill in the gaps, he was sure. From the sound of it, it would be hard to stop him. First though, Prowl had another concern.
“The Decepticons…?”
Ratchet snorted. “Otherwise occupied.” He waved a servo in Jazz’s direction. “Blame this one.”
A request for information was unnecessary. Prowl simply raised a brow-ridge and waited. He didn’t believe Jazz’s self-deprecating shrug for a moment. The lop-sided grin that followed hot in its tyre-tracks was closer to the truth.
“I went back with a present or two,” Jazz smirked. Hopping up onto the berth next to Prowl’s the saboteur kicked against its sides with his heel tyres. “Decided to do them a good turn. They’re always complaining about lack of energy right?”
Curious, unable to resist Jazz’s teasing, Prowl gave in and asked the question: “Jazz…what did you do?”
“Swapped out a few dozen of their cubes with ours.” Jazz shrugged, a look of pious virtue on his faceplates. It was all Prowl could do not to laugh at the incongruity of it. “Figured they could use a good time about as much as we could use the standard grade right now.”
“So this planet is now burdened with not one but two ships full of Cybertronians, each suffering from significant charge hangovers?”
Jazz shrugged. “Figured it would either give everyone a break or persuade the human diplomats to get off their afts and sign those treaties you drafted.”
There was no avoiding it. Prowl laughed, both at the ridiculousness of the situation and at Jazz’s matter-of-fact response to it.
Jazz grinned back at him, his relief and affection on open display. Ratchet cycled his optics at them both, one servo coming up to rub his own aching helm.
“Right.” He pinned Prowl with a stern look and stepped forward, helping Prowl up to a seated position. “You: minimal duty, in your office or quarters. The blocks on your sensor wings will wear off in a few days - you will let me know if they give you any problems, or I’ll set Jazz and Optimus Prime on you. If I see you in the Rec Room, you’re back here. You don’t need the over-stimulation right now.”
Prowl wobbled where he sat and grimaced. “Agreed.”
Jazz groaned theatrically. “The work I’ve put into luring him to the Rec Room and now you’re banning it?”
Ratchet ignored the question. They all knew it was rhetorical at best.
Prowl rocked slightly, unbalanced by his numb door-wings and pounding processor-ache. Jazz stepped forward, a servo pressing firmly against Prowl’s door-hinge and giving him the strong support he needed.
He glanced to one side, looking into a visor as warm and glad to see him as he was to see it in return.
“C’mon, Prowler,” Jazz said, voice soft. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Thank you.” Prowl eased his legs over the side of the berth, and stood, his companion close at his side. He looked over at the mech, shaking his helm, and said the words he’d been longing to say for orns. “And, Jazz? Welcome home.”
Jazz laughed. He slipped an arm around Prowl’s waist, steadying him and hugging him with the same economical gesture. The mech looked around him, tapping his visor in farewell to Ratchet and leading Prowl out into the corridor beyond.
“Wouldn’t change it for the world,” he agreed.
The End
Author: zea_taylor
‘Verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Jazz/Prowl (established), Beachcomber
Warnings: None
See here for part one
See here for part two
Part Three
Cooking was the right word. The caves that ran under the Ark, and up through the volcano towering above it, were never really Jazz’s scene. Given the choice, the Ops mech preferred somewhere with a little more life and colour. He was used to thinking of the mountain and its caves as cold, dark and empty, on the rare occasions he thought about them at all. Nothing he’d seen since locating the entrance to this particular tunnel, just below the summit, dissuaded him from the last two of those. The first though… well, that might use some revision.
The heart of the volcano, the magma chamber itself, was well below the Ark and still all but empty after the enormous eruption that reawakened them. The conduit Wheeljack had found was a side spur high on the mountainside, feeding through a fault between rock strata. The original lava tube that led to it was half-collapsed, its ceiling propped up in places. It ran perhaps half a mile inwards from the surface, its twists, turns and occasional forks rapidly obscuring the sunlight Jazz had left behind. Without the map Teletraan had provided, he’d have turned back long ago. As it was, until the tunnel broadened into a larger space, he was less than confident about the directions he’d been given.
From what ‘Jack had said, the cave he’d chosen as a location his geothermal energy converter had been pleasantly warm; ‘kinda like bathing in a heated oil bath’. Maybe it had been like that, when the device was installed, checked and activated. Now it was something else again.
Jazz moved in a series of lithe jumps from rock to rock. Some were standing pillars, the union of stalactite and stalagmite. Others were fallen rubble, shattered by the force of the recent eruption. The thick limestone encrustations provided at least a little insulation. He needed it. Heat rose in hazy waves from the floor and through the air around him. The rock floor itself glowed a dull red instead of its usual dusty orange-grey. It was nowhere near smelting heat; that was some comfort. If he happened to fall, Jazz’s pedes would probably take a brief contact with no more than moderate pain, but he couldn’t say he felt much like testing the idea. It was uncomfortable enough operating with stifled vents, dumping heat from his processor into his own frame to help it dissipate. He couldn’t keep it up for long. He hoped he wouldn’t have to.
The machine swam out of the heat-haze, its silhouette lacking clarity in the shimmering air. Wheeljack had added his usual dash of showmanship: dials and switches a little larger than a mech really needed; colour scheme bordering on offensive to Jazz’s sensitive visor. Other than that, it looked a whole lot like the plans Jazz had seen. It squatted on the rock floor, a truncated pyramid with controls on the upper surface and a whole lot of weight underneath. A hum rose from it, adding to the vibrations in the air, and conveying a sense of urgency and activity beyond Jazz’s comprehension.
Pausing a few mechanometers away, the Ops mech studied it warily. Usually he’d think twice, if not three or four times, before approaching a Wheeljack creation making as much noise as this one. A hum like that usually meant high power transfer rate. Surging power in one of ‘Jack’s toys was rarely a good thing.
“Jazz!” The call saved him from having to decide whether or not to take the risk. The voice behind it was mellow, warm and pleased. It was one he hadn’t heard for a very long time… over four million years in fact.
He grinned. The Autobots’ geologist was an impossible mech to dislike.
“Good to see you, ‘Comber.”
Beachcomber appeared from behind a stalagmite, ambling along as if taking a stroll along a cool beach. Jazz eyed the other mech’s solid pedes, insulated to take all the vagaries of an organic planet, with just a hint of jealousy before raising his visor to take in the rest of him.
Beachcomber’s colour scheme hadn’t changed. He still wore the same vibrant blue that Jazz used for his own highlight. His visor was almost golden, reflecting the heat of the floor but making the dull glow vibrant with the warmth of his personality. A few things were different. Prominent tyres at his shoulders and knees made it clear that Teletraan-1 had chosen an Earth alt-mode as part of the revival process. On the whole though, his silhouette was still that of the mech Jazz had known on Cybertron - a pacifist at spark, as so many other Autobots had once been, but with the strength and courage to join the fight without compromising those views.
“Oh, Jazz. You’re back.” Beachcomber’s smile was as genuine as any Jazz had seen. The geologist looked around him, shrugging his shoulders to settle the still-new tyres and turning warm optics back on the saboteur. “Isn’t this wonderful? I’ve not seen a world like this one since before the Academy was destroyed. There are so many different formations. We must be above a very active subduction zone. Do you know if this planet has many micro-plates or just a few super-continents? The variety of mineral compounds I am scanning is really quite remarkable. It suggests a complex water and gas cycle.”
“Whoa!” Jazz held us his servos in surrender, laughter in his vocalisor despite the situation. “Way outside my zone, man. I just live here and want to know it won’t go bang again. You’d better ask ‘Jack, or Hound, or go talk to the humans about that stuff.”
“The indigenous sentients?” Beachcomber nodded, glancing upwards and clenching his servos as if eager to reach out through the rocks. “Yes, Prowl mentioned them. I can’t wait to meet them.”
Jazz tried not to be too obvious as he looked past Beachcomber, peering into the heat haze. He kept his voice carefully casual. “So, where is Prowler, anyway?”
The smile on ‘Comber’s faceplates faltered a little. A small frown appeared as Beachcomber shook his helm.
“I’m not sure. I completed the assessment he requested, but when I turned around to report, he’d gone. I was just looking for him.” Beachcomber had reached Jazz’s vantage point now, and passed the Ops mech, strolling towards the machine. “We really ought to do something about this, but I wanted to check with an officer before taking action.”
Leaning back against the rock pillar he was perched on, Jazz spread his servos in front of him.
“I’m all yours, mech.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” Beachcomber shook his helm again, switching mental tracks. If Prowl wasn’t available, then no one was placed much better than Jazz to review his data. No one else was here, in any case. “Wheeljack’s device appears to have acted as a trigger for a capillary process. It’s drawing heat, and magma, upwards and the rising magma appears to have forced a dyke into the surrounding rock strata, widening existing faults in the process.”
Usually Jazz would let his visor glaze over around about now. That wasn’t an option. Beachcomber’s spiel had gone over his helm, but not quite out of arm’s reach. Jazz was an intelligent mech - one who lived on the side of a volcano and had sat through a dozen officer’s meetings where it was discussed at length. He’d got the gist.
“So ‘Jack and the others didn’t notice the mountain bursting open because…?”
“Bursing open?” Beachcomber laughed. “I can tell you’re an Ops mech, Jazz. Not so fast! You’ve got to ease up and slow down a bit. This was kind of fast by my standards but not Unicron-on-your-tailpipe fast. This was a gradual process. We’re talking orns here.”
Jazz groaned, one servo coming up and his helm dropping forwards to bury his faceplates in it. ‘Comber was right. His processor worked in leaps and bursts, tuned for the contingencies of Special Operations work. That meant he was good at taking the pieces and putting them together. Looking up, he shook his helm.
“Let’s see if I’ve got this. Day one, the thing works fine. No fireworks, and that’s a good start, but it’s going pretty smoothly all in all. Orn one, even. Still good. Took orns to heat up, right?”
Beachcomber cycled his optics, confused by the repetition. “Yes, Jazz.”
“And the whole time, the energon kicking out of this thing is…?”
“Oh!” ‘Comber took a step back, looking back at the converter as if seeing it for the first time. “Well, the converter was set to process a fixed percentage of the available heat transferred per unit time and it appears to be working perfectly. As it heated up, the energon would be… getting gradually stronger, I suppose.”
Guess confirmed. Jazz sighed, regretting it as his vents refilled with superheated air.
“They got overcharged so slowly they were already out of their processors before anyone noticed.” Jazz paused, glaring at the machine. He drummed his servos against the rock pillar he held, shifting in the vain hope of finding a cooler air current. Beachcomber shook his helm, as confused by the vagaries of his fellow Autobots as by this bewildering new world. He waited for the saboteur to go on, his expression becoming increasingly nervous as the pause stretched out.
“Ah, Jazz?”
“Wheeljack built the converter, right?” Jazz didn’t look away from the device. He spoke in a level, almost resigned, tone. “So, I’ve gotta wonder - when’s the boom coming?”
Beachcomber’s grimace was all the answer he needed. The geologist looked hesitant, almost apologetic. “In about another half orn?” he offered.
“Let me guess… that rising line on the curve Teletraan plotted?”
“The pressure’s building, and the energon converter is acting as a catalyst for the magma flow.”
“Guessing we don’t want to be standing next to this thing when it goes, right?”
Beachcomber gave him an embarrassed look. “Um… I was wondering… is the Ark still flightworthy?”
The long pause stretched out. Jazz shook his helm, his sense of the ridiculous kicking in, almost in self-defence.
“So, ‘Comber. Just you and me, and you’ve got my say so. So what do we do?”
“Oh!” Beachcomber cycled his optics at Jazz, visibly reminding himself that the approachable Ops mech was in fact his commanding officer. Nodding, he reached out, his heat-proofed servos indifferent to the red-hot glow of the converter. With a tentative air, he flicked a switch.
A light on the machine’s top surface flickered and went out. The hum faltered, stuttered and then faded.
Jazz’s vents hiccupped. He cycled his optics, rubbing his helm in disbelief. “That’s it?”
Beachcomber chuckled.
“Yes.” A sudden frown crossed his faceplates as he reconsidered. “Well… no. We should probably open a side vent pretty fast to channel the pressure away, and I’m rather hoping there are still other energon condensers elsewhere. Wheeljack had probably better come and see what he can do with this one when he’s able, too, but basically… yes.”
Another feature of being an Ops mech: rapid adjustments.
“Right.” Jazz nodded. He adjusted his visor, his processor already going through the resources available and just how much energon the old solar array would need to come up with to dilute the geothermal stuff to something even halfway drinkable. There would be a Pit-load of bad helms on the Ark for the next few orns, but he’d seen the aftermath of the twins’ parties… and his own. They’d cope. “Right,” he repeated. “Crisis averted. Look, ‘Comber - why don’t you head to the surface and back on down to the Ark? Get Teletraan to point you to Sunny and Sides’ cabin. Tell the Twins I sent you, and to get folks moving on what you need. See if you guys can sober Ratchet up - raid the emergency energon supply in medbay, if you have to. Make sure someone’s on monitors too, even if you have to get Sunstreaker to twist an arm or two.”
Beachcomber tilted his helm, open surprise on his face-plates. Jazz didn’t wait for the mech to acknowledge the rapid stream of orders. He was already making his way back along the narrowing tunnel, his processor running ahead of him. He glanced back to see the geologist starting to move and nodded in satisfaction.
“Jazz!” Beachcomber called after him. “You’re not coming?”
Jazz grimaced, shaking his helm. “I’ve got another problem to track down first.” He glanced back, determination brightening his visor. “Get going. I’ll be back when I can.”
It took two hours.
Two long hours of wandering through a network of lava tunnels so complex Jazz wondered that the entire volcano didn’t collapse in on itself. From time to time he found himself back on the surface, grey ash and orange dirt crunching under his pedes. Each time, he cycled his visor, blinking in the sunlight, and scanned his surroundings before searching onwards.
He was starting to wonder if he was looking in the right place, starting to despair of ever finding what he was searching for, when he saw the pede-print. It wasn’t his careful search that yielded results, but rather a frustrated glance out through the entrance of the hundredth passageway he’d stumbled across. He’d never have seen it if he was any closer to it. From a dozen metres away, with the sun sinking toward the horizon and his visor casting a low beam of illumination, the angle was just right. The contours in the patch of gritty dirt, compressed in some places and mounded in others by deep treads, couldn’t have been more than a few millimetres high. From this angle they cast long shadows, catching Jazz’s sensitive visor.
That was the first clue. There were others now he was on the trail, a scuff here, a mark there. Jazz noted them and pushed onwards, his pedes moving faster and faster as he approached his goal.
The sun was well past zenith, almost at the end of a long day. Here, in the shadow of the mountain itself, it might as well already be twilight. Jazz half fell into another tunnel opening, his lithe frame twisting to land him on his pedes. Shaking his help, he vented hard and set off along yet another tunnel. The dull gleam that told Jazz he was headed towards a surface opening was a welcome sight. He sped up, eager for a gasp of fresh air in his vents and a glimpse of the fading daylight before following the trail onwards.
Then he saw the huddled shape, curled in an alcove on the line between light and darkness, and he stopped as if struck by Wheeljack’s ill-fated immobiliser.
Jazz’s vents rushed out in a long gust of air.
Even after the frustrations of the day and the long orns of surveillance that went before, this couldn’t be rushed. Jazz took the time to calm his vents and ease his systems into a stealth mode he rarely used except on missions. He polarised his visor, and pulled his active sensors in, relying entirely on passive inputs. When he moved, he moved silently, drifting forward like a phantasm or wandering spark-ghost.
The mech in the alcove twitched, curling a little tighter, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his helm buried against them.
For all Jazz’s efforts, his presence was noticed and the stimulation couldn’t help but cause pain. A tactical processor and door-wings tuned to the peak of Praxian potential were not designed to interact with high-grade. At best, they’d be oversensitive, distracting and uncomfortable. At worst, the noise, vibration and sheer torrent of sensory data would be overwhelming.
Optimus Prime got playful when he was overcharged. Ironhide wound up jolly and affectionate, with an unfortunate tendency to ‘sing’. Ratchet could be expansive on a good day, sour and confrontational on a bad one. Jazz himself enjoyed the buzz of a good cube in his systems, the energy it gave him and the excuse to cast even his few social inhibitions to the winds.
Prowl, on the other hand, avoided high-grade entirely. On the rare occasions he could be persuaded to sip a small amount - for celebration or remembrance - he quickly grew maudlin, tired and angry. The memory filters that kept him functional and sane after all he’d seen in this Primus-forsaken war were woven as intricately through his tactical processor as his core systems. Anything that impeded them would bring depression within klicks, and high-grade couldn’t be anything with an impediment. That was just one of the risks the mech faced overcharging. The sensory overload that came from his hyper-tuned door-wings after even a half-tank of high-grade was about as much of a strain as Prowl’s systems could take.
There was more than one reason Jazz had been anxious to find the tactician since he first realised what was happening. Small wonder the mech hadn’t been able to stick it out with Beachcomber. Jazz was hardly surprised his companion had sought out the quietest, most empty place he could find to wait out the effects, or that he’d stalled here, unable to face the daylight beyond the tunnel entrance. It was a miracle Prowl had kept functioning as long as he had.
Crouching, Jazz hummed, just a quiet note from the back of his vocalisor. The mech in front of him flinched, not relaxing from that tight crouch.
Touching the black and white plating was a risk. A light touch would be worse than nothing, teasing Prowl’s over-sensitive plating rather than soothing it. Carefully, avoiding those twitching, sensor-rich door-wings as if they were booby traps in the ducts of the Nemesis, Jazz placed his servo flat on the small of his partner’s back, pressing firmly just below the door-hinge. The mech shuddered, but the touch grounded him, forcing him to face the world outside of his huddled frame.
Prowl’s helm shook and then rose, just a little, just enough for startlingly bright optics to illuminate the cave around them. Jazz had never seen optic sensors so brilliant or so unfocused. He’d never seen an expression on his companion’s face at once so desperate and full of hope.
“Jazz!” All the times his name had been cried out since he left the Nemesis, in so many ways, and in the voices of so many of his friends - none of them meant a fraction of that low, static-riddled whisper.
“It’s me.” Shaking his helm, relief warring with concern, Jazz vented a sigh. He spoke in his lowest tones, barely audible in normal circumstances. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
The jolt from his palm-magnets was carefully timed, carefully placed and as delicate as he could manage.
“Sleep well, Prowler,” he whispered, as the mech’s systems cycled down to stasis beside him.
Grimlock was tap-dancing on his helm.
That was the first conclusion Prowl reached on rousing from stasis. It was the only logical explanation for the thundering roar that filled every one of his senses.
He shifted, uncomfortable on the hard berth beneath him, and then froze. His door-wings were sluggish and unresponsive. He could still feel them - no medic would allow a Praxian to wake in any other condition - but he could also feel the medical codes attenuating their feedback and leaving them numbed.
Even without processing that distraction, it took Prowl a while to sort out his other rebooting senses. Sound came first, competing with the roar from his abused processor.
“Jazz, will you slagging well sit still! I’m tired of you getting in the way.”
Ratchet’s growl wasn’t the most welcoming of greetings. Still flat on the berth, Prowl’s audials strained, listening eagerly for the response.
“Sure thing, Ratch.” Jazz sounded tired, but cheerful. There was a thud - the saboteur dropping onto a berth with more than necessary force.
“Don’t you have things to do?” Ratchet again, still annoyed.
“Nothing more important than this,” Jazz said quietly. Those few words weren’t much, but Prowl felt himself relax nonetheless. He’d missed the infuriating mech more than most would believe. “Besides, I’d rather be under your pedes than Ironhide’s right now. Wow, is that mech a grouch when he’s hung-over!”
Ratchet’s engine grumbled, apparently sharing the sentiment. “Just tell me you got the solar arrays back online?”
“Yup.” The serious tone in Jazz’s voice would surprise most of the crew. This was the Ops mech in officer mode, dealing with necessity rather than his usual volatile whim. “Got Sides to check the grade too, just to be safe. We’re gonna be on short rations for a while, but we’re getting there.” The mech paused. “Sunny’s on top of the vent thing too. Looks like we’re not going to explode after all.” Jazz’s vocalisor took on a wry edge. “Yippee-ai-ee.”
Prowl’s audial systems reported their reboot complete. His optics lit, dimly at first, but gradually focussing on the medic standing beside his berth. Ratchet vented a sigh, still looking at Jazz.
“You do realise the Twins are going to be insufferable for orns?”
“They kind of earned it this time.” Jazz shrugged, the movement drawing Prowl’s optics towards him. For a few seconds, still in reboot haze, the tactician just let his optics rest on the lithe mech and the broad blue racing stripe that ran down to his bumper. It had been too long, far too long, since he’d seen his companion.
Covert study of Jazz was rarely possible. Prowl would swear the mech had extra sensors, able to feel the touch of another mech’s optics. The saboteur straightened, his visor shifting from Ratchet to the berth beside him. A slow smile spread across the mech’s pale faceplates, morphing into a familiar lop-sided smirk. The serious tone dropped from his vocalisor, replaced by a warmth he reserved for a precious few mechs, Prowl first amongst them.
“Look who’s finally awake.”
Prowl’s systems were almost up to speed, his door-wings still numbed but the rest of his inputs processing normally. He warmed his vocalisor, ready to speak and realised he wasn’t at all certain what to say. His memory files of the last few orns were… hazy. Prowl wasn’t at all sure he believed them. He couldn’t possibly have seen half the things he’d thought he’d seen.
The memory of an over-exuberant embrace from Prime brought an involuntary flinch. Then his processor supplied a file of Ironhide generating the most awful caterwaul, and his senses threatened to shut right back down in protest.
Jazz’s engine revved and Prowl started. His unintended silence had gone on long enough to concern the mechs around him.
“Prowl, are you fully functional?” Ratchet scowled. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
A worried silence stretched out. Prowl cycled his optics through a slow recalibration, thinking over the question and wondering about it. “None,” he answered, finally deciding there was no alternative to the truth.
The worried expression on Jazz’s face turned to alarm. He looked at Ratchet with a frown and a question. The medic himself let his servos drop and tightened his grip on the wrench he held, his optics flicking up to the readouts above Prowl’s helm
The tactician cleared his vents, attracting the attention of both mechs before continuing. “You do not possess fingers. You had, however, raised three servo-digits, two on your left, and one on your right.” He tilted his helm, frowning between the two of them. “Is this information relevant?”
Air rushed from Jazz’s vents in a relieved gust. He shook his helm, chuckling. Ratchet cycled his optics, the scowl back in place as he glanced at Jazz.
“He’ll do.”
“There was a problem with the energon supply.” The realisation burst from Prowl’s vocalisor as the memory file dropped into place.
Jazz chuckled. The mech slipped off the berth he’d been perched on, moving forwards so Prowl didn’t have to strain to see him.
“Hey, I like a good time as much as the next mech, but it’d be kind of polite to wait ‘till I got back before getting started.”
“The Autobots…?”
“All fine,” Ratchet assured him. “Or they will be when their processors get over the after-effects.” He nodded towards the saboteur, giving credit where it was due. “Jazz figured it out pretty quick.”
Jazz waved a hand in dismissal. “Prowl was more than halfway there.” He looked down at the tactician, his visor cycling through a wink. “Waking ‘Comber was kind of genius there, Prowler.”
A memory file swam into Prowl’s processor, vague and almost entirely corrupted at point of recording. He shook it off. Jazz would fill in the gaps, he was sure. From the sound of it, it would be hard to stop him. First though, Prowl had another concern.
“The Decepticons…?”
Ratchet snorted. “Otherwise occupied.” He waved a servo in Jazz’s direction. “Blame this one.”
A request for information was unnecessary. Prowl simply raised a brow-ridge and waited. He didn’t believe Jazz’s self-deprecating shrug for a moment. The lop-sided grin that followed hot in its tyre-tracks was closer to the truth.
“I went back with a present or two,” Jazz smirked. Hopping up onto the berth next to Prowl’s the saboteur kicked against its sides with his heel tyres. “Decided to do them a good turn. They’re always complaining about lack of energy right?”
Curious, unable to resist Jazz’s teasing, Prowl gave in and asked the question: “Jazz…what did you do?”
“Swapped out a few dozen of their cubes with ours.” Jazz shrugged, a look of pious virtue on his faceplates. It was all Prowl could do not to laugh at the incongruity of it. “Figured they could use a good time about as much as we could use the standard grade right now.”
“So this planet is now burdened with not one but two ships full of Cybertronians, each suffering from significant charge hangovers?”
Jazz shrugged. “Figured it would either give everyone a break or persuade the human diplomats to get off their afts and sign those treaties you drafted.”
There was no avoiding it. Prowl laughed, both at the ridiculousness of the situation and at Jazz’s matter-of-fact response to it.
Jazz grinned back at him, his relief and affection on open display. Ratchet cycled his optics at them both, one servo coming up to rub his own aching helm.
“Right.” He pinned Prowl with a stern look and stepped forward, helping Prowl up to a seated position. “You: minimal duty, in your office or quarters. The blocks on your sensor wings will wear off in a few days - you will let me know if they give you any problems, or I’ll set Jazz and Optimus Prime on you. If I see you in the Rec Room, you’re back here. You don’t need the over-stimulation right now.”
Prowl wobbled where he sat and grimaced. “Agreed.”
Jazz groaned theatrically. “The work I’ve put into luring him to the Rec Room and now you’re banning it?”
Ratchet ignored the question. They all knew it was rhetorical at best.
Prowl rocked slightly, unbalanced by his numb door-wings and pounding processor-ache. Jazz stepped forward, a servo pressing firmly against Prowl’s door-hinge and giving him the strong support he needed.
He glanced to one side, looking into a visor as warm and glad to see him as he was to see it in return.
“C’mon, Prowler,” Jazz said, voice soft. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Thank you.” Prowl eased his legs over the side of the berth, and stood, his companion close at his side. He looked over at the mech, shaking his helm, and said the words he’d been longing to say for orns. “And, Jazz? Welcome home.”
Jazz laughed. He slipped an arm around Prowl’s waist, steadying him and hugging him with the same economical gesture. The mech looked around him, tapping his visor in farewell to Ratchet and leading Prowl out into the corridor beyond.
“Wouldn’t change it for the world,” he agreed.
The End