Never Give Up - Part 7 of 12
Title: Never Give Up
'verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Length: 50k, 12 chapters
Characters: Jazz, Prowl, ensemble
Warnings: angst, cybertronian profanity, mild Prowl/Jazz, violence
Chapter 7
Having to call Skyfire down for rapid med-evac from the field of battle was one of Ratchet's least favourite things
Struggling to stabilise a jet's delicate and touchy systems was another.
Being confronted with both because Prowl had - in Sideswipe's words - "gone fragging nuts", put Thundercracker in danger of his spark and absconded Primus-knew-where, did not put the medic in the gentlest of moods. Even so, he tilted the Seeker's helm, checking that his pain inhibitor programming and stasis-blocks were holding, before he turned back to the mech's chest and let the grey temporary plating drop closed.
Thundercracker's original chest-plate lay on the ground at Ratchet's feet, the hole melted into its centre still smoking slightly as the acid continued to eat into it. Only a few drops had made it through the Seeker's armour before Ratchet had gotten to him. Bluestreak's babbled insistence that Prowl knew it would take breems did nothing to ease Ratchet's worry-fuelled anger. Those few drops had been enough to compromise vital lines. Mercifully, it was a straightforward fix… in a well-stocked repair bay, and under the hands of a fully-trained medic. Left to Hook's tender 'care' the Seeker might have had one chance in ten of survival. The chest-plate itself - that Ratchet was prepared to leave to the ham-fisted Constructicon mechanic, and if what Ratchet had seen of Shockwave's acid-streaked plating was any indication, Hook already had one of those to deal with. A spark-systems rupture? No.
And that was only the worst of it. Muttering imprecations under his breath at the absent tactician, Ratchet started work on stripping down Thundercracker's thrusters, damaged both by weapons fire and by his rough landing. He should have time. It would be breems yet before the other Autobots made it back to base, and Wheeljack was only reporting the usual scuffs, scrapes and minor dismemberments. Ratchet wasn't going to waste time smoothing and finishing, polishing the Seeker's armour or doing the painstaking realignment his flight surfaces would need. He wouldn't leave his temporary patient with serious and painful damage either.
At least, not until he found out just why their second-in-command seemed to have taken such sudden and violent offence to the Seeker. Ratchet's fist tightened around the wrench he held, all too painfully aware of the cold frame occupying the small room behind him. Once he heard Prowl's reasoning, then all bets were off.
That was assuming he ever got to hear it. Ratchet raised worried optics to the corner of the repair bay, watching the red-clad warrior there pace. Bluestreak had insisted he bring someone to 'watch' Thundercracker, as if Ratchet were some green apprentice who'd forget the stasis blocks on a Decepticon captive or let them slip. He'd brought Sideswipe along simply because the lone twin was spending more time looking out of his brother's optics than his own. On a battlefield, that would get them both killed.
Ratchet frowned. Sideswipe had frozen mid-step. The warrior trembled and hugged himself, dropping to his knees. The shivers became full-scale shakes. His engine stuttered, violent shudders rippled through his frame and the shocked medic realised that lubricant was pooling in Sideswipe's optics. Ratchet laid down his tools with careful precision, crossing the room to kneel in front of the horrified young warrior.
"Sideswipe?" He reached out gently and very slowly to touch the mech's shoulder. Sideswipe was the less volatile twin, but still plenty capable of doing damage when startled. "Sides, talk to me. What's wrong?"
"Jazz…" Sideswipe's vents hiccupped, cutting off his vocaliser. "You never told us… Jazz…"
Ratchet felt his circuits run cold. Did that mean…? Pit, it could mean anything, and Ratchet didn't dare ask. Sideswipe couldn't risk a breakdown, not with his spark-bound brother being dragged through a slagging Decepticon base. Even so, Ratchet needed information, and Sideswipe was their only source.
"Sideswipe, what about Prowl? Is Prowl all right?"
"Yes… No… Pit, we don't know!"
The uncertainty was better than at least one alternative. Ratchet rocked back on his heels, torn between returning to work on Thundercracker, and staying to quiz the barely-responsive twin.
The decision was taken from him. Sideswipe burst into life. The warrior scrambled to his feet, grabbing his blaster from subspace with one hand while the other tugged Ratchet up beside him. He barely had time.
There was a cracking sound, a rush of displaced air, and the almost-deserted repair bay was suddenly a good deal too full.
The sense of presence that filled the room was powerful, and hurting, and almost too much for Ratchet's medic-grade buffers to shield him from. He forced a hard reset of his firewall systems, his optics cycling to reveal Prowl standing rigid with shock and trembling in the centre of the room, something clutched to his chest.
Ratchet was across the room in a sparkbeat. He reached out on instinct, looking only to clear the obstruction and get his new patient onto a berth.
"Don't touch it!" The cry came from Sideswipe and the black-and-purple Seeker sprawled across the floor in ragged unison. Ratchet hesitated, sweeping his sensors over Prowl, searching for the threat.
That's when he realised what was in the box.
"You left my brother behind!"
Ratchet was only peripherally aware of Sideswipe pulling Skywarp to his feet, ramming him against the wall.
"That's what you're taking from this? That?" The damaged Seeker gasped air through his vents, not even trying to fight. "What are you worried about? He could probably chew his way out of there with his denta alone. Besides, he's got the slagging spy with him." The Seeker let out a low cry, his attention suddenly diverted. "Thundercracker!"
Ratchet tuned them out, all his medic's instincts focussed instead on the Primus-forsaken mess in front of him.
Prowl cycled his optics, a hazy awareness settling on the medic.
"Ratchet?" he whispered. He took a step back, wobbling as a polished steel med-berth hit the back of his legs. The dim-opticed Praxian sank onto it, curling around the box still clutched to his part-open chest-plates. "He hurts."
Ratchet moved the moment the tactician, and the box he held, was stable on the berth. Spare sheeting, left to one side when he was done making Thundercracker a temporary plate, was snatched up and cast over Jazz and Prowl both, not coming between them or even doing anything to help the struggling sparks, but going some way towards shielding the other mechs in the room. A few klicks later he had Prowl hooked up to a spark monitor, its screen showing a strange double peak as a second, unshielded spark pulsed not-quite-in-harmony with his own. A breem after that, Ratchet had the tactician on spark support, feeding his frame energy to replace what his spark was feeding to Jazz or just spilling into the air around them.
Only then did Ratchet turn with deep trepidation to the box itself.
The first time he tried to touch it, the echoed spark pulse dropped catastrophically, taking Prowl's with it. Stabilising the tactician, hoping desperately that doing so would even out Jazz's erratic spark-pulse, took the better part of two breems. Relief gusted hard from the medic's vents when the rhythm finally settled. He stepped back, studying without touching. Prowl was phasing in and out of awareness, struggling weakly against the medic and lying passive in turns. Wincing at the necessity, not sure himself whether it was a good idea, but needing the time to think, Ratchet leaned forward and placed a wedge in the inch-wide gap between Prowl's chest-plates. The tactician relaxed, just a fraction, some of the strain easing from his frame as the wedge creaked under the pressure and held.
The chief medical officer knew for a fact that this wasn't the first time the mech had cracked his chest-plates. Keeping them open this long, and under such strain, though... that would be difficult for anyone, let alone a mech with Prowl's sense of restraint.
The pit-cursed box beeped, a whir announcing some automatic process that had both Prowl and Ratchet tensing. The glowing diode beside Jazz's scarred spark-chamber stayed steady though, the flow of current sustaining it uninterrupted. Ratchet stared at it, a deep fear growing in him. He didn't have the first slagging clue how the thing worked or what it was doing. The way Jazz was reacting to intrusions in his energy field, Ratchet daren't even open the front panel and take a look.
The weary medic took a step back and cursed in a vehement whisper. His finger-servos rubbed the broad, grey chevron at his brow. As things stood, Ratchet could keep Prowl stable, barely. He didn't have any slagging idea what to do about Jazz.
A sigh gusted from the medic's vents, and he looked up properly for the first time since Prowl's unexpected arrival.
He became aware of the silence and the noise at once. Beyond the repair bay's bulkheads he could make out scuffs and rumbles - the sounds of a fully occupied Ark. Inside, he suddenly realised, he and Prowl were totally, alarmingly alone.
"Wheeljack!"
"Here, Ratch."
The engineer's response to his com signal was quick and calm. Either it meant Ratchet's emergency back-up had things under control, or he didn't have a clue just how slagged they were.
"Sideswipe? The Seekers?"
"Sides went out to meet Sunstreaker. Kid was fretting, but not really bond-freak-out frantic, so I let him go. Seekers're here with me, an' 'Hide an' Trailbreaker in my lab. Got Skywarp fixed up, all 'cepting his screwed-up navigation processor. Still working on Thundercracker. You did the tough stuff, but Prowl an' the twins did a real number on 'im." Wheeljack's cheerful tone faded, his voice becoming cautious. "Looked like you were busy, so I pulled 'em out of there."
Ratchet's optics dimmed in relief. Sideswipe was a twin, and the Seekers trined, all of them better able to cope with spark-energy spillage than most, but lingering here wouldn't have been good for any of them. Wheeljack's medical mods made him one of the few other mechs on the Ark who could have entered the repair bay without losing his head while Jazz and Prowl flooded the room. He was also one of the few Ratchet could speak to honestly.
"I don't know what to do."
Wheeljack was silent in the face of his sudden admission.
"I mean it, 'Jack. I don't know if I can pull Jazz through this. Or whether Prowl will let me save him if I don't."
There was a long pause before Wheeljack spoke.
"Ratch, you've got ta get a grip. A day ago Jazz was dead and we were more'n half way to losin' Prowl too." The engineer sighed. "I know you're not going to let them slip between your servos now. Not when we have a second chance."
The trust was reassuring and devastating all at the same time. Ratchet felt his back-struts straighten, his spark aching with determination not to fail. He cycled air deep and slow through his vents.
"All right. 'Jack, I need to know what you have by way of passive sensor systems with spark energy filtration capability. We've got to figure out what's going on in there."
There was no hint of his momentary wobble in his voice, and, for all his tone showed, Wheeljack might have forgotten it entirely. His cheerful reply held nothing but confidence.
"I'll be right there."
The door slammed open, clattering back against purple wall plates. Megatron loomed in the opening like a gathering storm cloud. Pausing, framed in the doorway, he glared around the Constructicons' maintenance bay. His scarlet optics burned in the dim light like the fires of the Pit, threatening torment and damnation to any who crossed his path.
There was total silence from the Decepticons present as their warlord stalked across the bay, Soundwave following like a dark shadow in his wake. The mechs cowered, even their vents stifled in the effort not to attract their lord's attention. The quiet just made things worse. There was nothing to distract from the damp sounds that accompanied each step. More than one of the watching mechs found themselves wondering that the residual moisture didn't vaporise on contact, such was the heat rolling through Megatron's energy field.
Hook's visor tracked the approaching officers, his expression impassive. A purple chest-plate lay at his feet, its translucent panels blackened and bubbled by corrosives. On the bench beside him, a large mech lay in repair-mode stasis, his single optic dark. Megatron's optics scanned the form with distaste and more than a little disdain. The gunformer's robust frame looked largely intact, his thick plating protecting him against the Dinobot onslaught. The replacement chest-plate - a temporary grey while the Constructicons shaped more permanent armour to Hook's exacting standards - suggested it had done less well against the Autobot tactician's shot.
Megatron's pede sank ankle-deep. He stopped, glaring at the point where the slope of the deck and the confluence of obstructions had allowed a deeper puddle to collect. Taking a step backwards, the warlord snarled and brought his ion cannon to bear. Light and heat filled the room and then the hiss of steam. It swelled in a thick cloud around him, lit from within by the blaze of his optics, and then dissipated. Scorched deck-plates were the only sign that remained of the flooding.
It was bad enough that the Nemesis had been infiltrated during their absence. Bad enough that Autobots had violated Decepticon territory, even while their furious comrades handed Megatron's army their hardest defeat for some years. Bad enough that their first task on their return had been emergency repairs on the damage the raiders had done whilst fighting their way out. Megatron would not tolerate reminders of that indignity, or of the floods that half his warriors were trying to mop up even now.
Hook's aristocratic jaw-line was fixed, his expression of disapproval fixed on the scorch marks rather than his lord and master. He glanced up at his gestalt-mates, and Scavenger hurried forward, drawing a cleaning cloth from his subspace and scrambling into Megatron's immediate presence in a half-kneeling grovel.
"Pah!" Megatron allowed the Constructicon to approach and then stepped onto the power-shovel's broad back, stepping down again to halt beside Shockwave's bench.
The warlord folded his arms, glaring at the green and purple engineer in front of him.
"Will he live?"
Hook's impassive expression didn't falter in the face of Megatron's snarl. He reached out, finger-servos resting on the control panel of one of the many machines surrounding the berth. There was nothing but cool interest on his face-plates as he raised a brow-ridge.
"Does my Lord desire it?"
For too long a moment, Megatron was tempted, oh so tempted. He'd half-expected Shockwave's perverted experiment to end in failure from the start, but the chaos and destruction the scientist had brought down upon them rivalled Starscream's worse excesses.
If Megatron listened only to his anger, Shockwave would be a sparking ruin. If Megatron were so short-sighted, he would not be the warlord leading his people to glory and domination. Shockwave was a fool, but he was a useful fool and a loyal one. For all his faults, the mech was still the best of his officers to hold Cybertron in Megatron's absence and, corrupt as his genius was, he still had an intellect Megatron couldn't afford to lose from his diminished forces.
Megatron's servos clenched at his sides, his gun barrel whining with power despite his reluctant conclusions. He threw his hands up in disgust and growled his anger to the distant skies.
"Minimal repairs only."
At his feet, Scavenger flinched, anticipating his gestalt-mate's protest. Hook's lips twisted in distaste, but not even the perfectionist engineer challenged the order. He bowed his helm, his finger-servos dropping away from the controls.
"My Lord."
Megatron didn't so much as acknowledge him. He shook his helm, his scowl deepening as frustration compounded his anger.
"Soundwave, ready the space bridge. I want this pathetic excuse for a mech off the planet before dawn."
"My Lord." Soundwave echoed Hook, his bow perhaps a fraction less deep, his monotonic voice perhaps a fraction more satisfied. Megatron glowered at him, and Soundwave took the hint, his bow deepening.
"Recall Starscream." The tyrant scowled around the bay, and glanced up at the dim emergency lights overhead. "I want this base at full efficiency before the orn is out."
Shockwave nodded, straightening. He reached up to press a shoulder button, and Ravage sprang from his chest compartment. The bestial cassette landed and paced in a tight circle, pedes raised high and backplates shuddering in distaste at the dampness underfoot. The cassette paused, glanced up at his silent host, and then bowed his helm in a nod, racing off to do his master's bidding.
Megatron raised a brow ridge. A little surprised that his communications officer would delegate his orders, he waited for an explanation. His frown warned that it had better be good.
"Lord Megatron." Soundwave wasn't taking chances; there was no hint of disrespect or criticism in his drone. He bowed, hand over his chest-plate. "Thundercracker, Skywarp: Autobot captives?"
Hook's snort attracted glares from both his superiors. The engineer shrugged.
"Might be a moot point." He gestured at Shockwave's damaged and disgarded chest-plate. "Seeker flight armour won't have lasted as long. And Prowl was rather closer." He sniffed. "That slap-dash mechanic Ratchet might have saved them, if he chose, but judging by the Autobots' general attitude today, I rather doubt it."
The grumble in Megatron's generator was anger rather than dismay. The emotion that tightened his jaw was irritation rather than guilt. Losing Starscream's trine-mates now would be an inconvenience, and it was anticipation of his second's audial-damaging shriek that explained his flaring energy field. Megatron nodded in silent agreement with his rationalisations, utterly failing to acknowledge them as such. He waved a dismissive servo.
"I will not lower myself to clear up my subordinate's messes." He glowered around the room, his cold tone making it clear that his decision was final. "The Seekers are Starscream's problem. Let him deal with them."
"Shut the door and don't distract me!"
Optimus Prime cycled his optics, but didn't hesitate. He took a step forward, already broadcasting the codes that would close and lock the repair bay door behind him. Ratchet hadn't told him to stay out. Even if he had, Prime might have forced the matter.
Medbay had been sealed since Wheeljack and the rest of the crew returned from the battle more than a joor before. Ratchet had been unresponsive on the com for longer still. After any battle that would be a matter of concern to the Prime. After what he'd heard from Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Mirage and even Skywarp, it was even more so.
His second in command lay on his side on a med-berth, optics dark, door-wings limp behind him. Prowl's frame was slightly curled, protective and possessive, around a dark metal box that Prime had already heard far too much about.
Ratchet stood a few metres from the berth, Wheeljack hovering at his shoulder. Behind them, Jazz's empty frame had been moved from the side room to a second berth. Its chestplate had been repaired, the systems below rebuilt with meticulous care. Despite that, the visor was still dark, the frame still grey.
The energy field throbbing through the air was palpable. So was the tension. Optimus Prime stood stock-still, brow-ridges furrowed as he tried to interpret the situation. At first, he'd thought Ratchet was motionless, waiting for something. It was only after several long seconds that he realised the medic was manipulating a long probe - an instrument somewhere between human tongs and tweezers - to reach into the thick energy field surrounding Jazz and retrieve an all-too-familiar set of crystal nodes, one by one.
"Slowly, Ratch." Wheeljack's whisper came over the com, including Prime as much for the sake of warning as for information, he felt. "Slowly. He's feeling it."
"Readings?" Ratchet demanded, com voice tightly controlled.
"Definite upkick, but still below threshold."
Ratchet's ex-vent was soft but it echoed through the silent room. "Whatever that means in his case."
"Settling a bit now."
"Almost there… almost there."
The crystal in Ratchet's grip moved slowly. Prime's optics followed it, inch by inch until he cycled his optics in startled shock to see it nestled safely amongst the others in Wheeljack's outstretched servos.
Tension left Optimus Prime's frame in a gust of air from his vents. It returned a moment later as he froze, optics searching the tableau in front of him for any hint that his exhalation had caused a disturbance.
"If you wake Prowl your next maintenance exam will be an ordeal that would make the denizens of the Pit recoil in horror and disgust."
It wasn't so much the words that terrified Prime. It was Ratchet's utterly casual and matter of fact tone as he delivered them over the com.
The medic looked up at him with optics dimmer than usual and a frame that sagged with weariness. Wheeljack lowered Jazz's personality components carefully into a lined box in his friend's servos and only then did the two share Prime's relaxation. Wheeljack grinned, patting Ratchet on his shoulder in congratulation. Ratchet just shook his helm tiredly.
"Prime: my office. Jack…"
"I'll keep an eye on things out here."
"No. I won't be far. Go check on the Seekers instead, they're…" Ratchet raised a brow-ridge in Prime's direction, asking a question with his optics. Optimus nodded.
"In the brig." He held up his hand to still the protest he saw on both faces. "Hoist is monitoring them. He felt it best to leave Thundercracker in stasis lock until Ratchet checked his work. I believe Skywarp will remain cooperative as long as his trine-mate requires care."
Ratchet gave him an intent look and then glanced at Prowl. Scowling, he turned back to Wheeljack.
"Leave Thundercracker in stasis. He shouldn't be straining those spark-system repairs anytime soon. He doesn't need the stress of being in the brig, and I wouldn't want to guess what either of those jets will be in for when they get back to the Nemesis."
Wheeljack ran a hand over his blast mask, his vocal indicators flickering pale green in response to some unspoken thought. The engineer nodded, skirting the prone figure on the berth by a wide-margin on his way to the door. Prime mirrored him, his energy field drawn carefully tight and his movements cautious as he stuck to the boundaries of the room.
It was a relief when Ratchet closed the door to his office behind them. The air lost its thick and heavy taint. Prime felt his tension cables easing, his jaw joint and back-struts relaxing as the steel door held the spark energy back. Ratchet seemed to feel it too. The medic released air from his vents in a gust. He dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk, waving Prime to the other. Somewhat to Optimus's surprise, the cubes his friend pulled from the desk draw lacked the sheen of high-grade, instead casting the steady glow of mid-grade.
Ratchet didn't give him long to inspect them. The medic uncapped his cube with the flick of one finger, downing its contents in a single draft. He gazed into nowhere for a long moment, shaking his helm, before sighing and looking down at the box he'd placed on the desktop between them. Prime felt the tingle of powerful sensors nearby and Ratchet reached into the box, holding one of the larger crystals up to the light and inspecting it minutely.
"Prowl knocked this out of the mechanism." Ratchet offered the information without prompting. He lowered the crystal back into the box and subjected another to the same intense study, before allowing his shudder to emerge. Optimus waited, aware of the growing tremor in his friend's servos. "Primus, I thought we'd lose Jazz there and then. His readings plummeted." The red and white mech dropped his face into his servos for a moment before looking up with a grimace. "Then half the box's systems shutdown. It wasn't until they did that I realised how much the slagging thing was pushing at him, trying to sync up his personality components and memory algorithms for access. I think Jazz has been fighting it this whole time."
Optimus watched Ratchet's servos tremble and pushed the second cube across the desktop without a word. It was patently apparent that his chief medical officer needed it more than he did. Ratchet glanced at it, grasped it and then downed it seemingly without thought.
Prime gave him a moment before starting with the easier question of the two troubling his processor.
"Prowl…?"
"Is physically fine… give or take some minor damage. Just tired. He drifted into recharge after Jazz stabilised a little." The medic managed a wry and humourless smile. "Second time in three breems I thought Jazz was going to fade. He wobbled long and hard before deciding to follow Prowl's example and settle down."
The Prime hummed a low note, his vocaliser vibrating in his throat assembly. He couldn't put off the harder question any longer.
"Jazz?"
"I don't know. Honest, Prime, I don't." Ratchet stood abruptly, pacing the small room, his optics flicking over the monitors that relayed readings from the med-berth outside. Prime had no doubt that alerts would sound both aloud and in Ratchet's helm the moment there was anything to concern him, but the medic never looked away for more than a few klicks regardless. "He's in a dangerous state. Weak and in a critical condition still, but stable for now. The contact with Prowl seems to be giving him something to anchor him. It might give us time to figure out how the frag we're going to transfer him back to his frame. Optimus… might is the operative word there. Even if it was safe to leave him and Prowl like this, Jazz is reacting to any disturbance in his energy field like an attack. I don't have a fragging clue how that box is keeping his spark supported. And I can't even be sure it's possible to reframe him. We have frames for a reason, you know. I don't know of an adult spark that's survived a full frame transplant - with or without an intact chamber. Cosmetic modifications are one thing, but this... I'm not convinced the fact that the frame was his to begin with will make a difference."
Ratchet dropped back into his seat, throwing his hands up in a helpless gesture.
"We'll do everything we can, Prime. Everything. But I can't make promises."
It was a lot to take it in. Prime absorbed his friend's words with a furrowed brow. Not for the first time, he thanked his creator for the battle-mask that hid so much of his emotion. His self-control algorithms - regulating his vents and optic luminosity - managed most of the rest of it. His crew, looking at their Prime, would see a mech calm and steady, in control despite the ordeal of two of his closest friends. Ratchet wasn't fooled for a nanoklick.
The medic picked up the second - now empty - cube, inspecting the residue. He pulled out a third, this one with the brighter iridescence of high-grade, and pushed it across the desk towards Prime. Optimus accepted it and sipped, guilt gnawing at him when he noticed that Ratchet himself was abstaining - his friend still tense and unable to keep his optics from the monitors. Swirling the high-grade shot, he mulled over Ratchet's words.
"Even if it was safe," he repeated slowly, making the words a question with a tilt of one browridge. "Jazz is that critical?"
"He could fade out any nano-klick, and he'd likely take Prowl with him." Ratchet pulled no punches, his words blunt. "But that's not the biggest danger…" The medic shook his helm, meeting Prime's worried optics with his own. "Prime, the way they're sharing spark energy, there's a better than even chance that, if they do make it through, they won't be quite the mechs we knew. Unless we're more fragging lucky than we've been in the length of this war, your officers are going to end up sharing more than they ever bargained for. And that won't be easy for anyone."
It took Prime a few klicks to process his medical officer's meaning. Then they did, and not even Prime's already-strained subroutines could keep his optics steady at that. They flared in shock and dismay, the mere concept difficult to process. A long, silent breem passed as Prime sipped at his high-grade, trying to work through the ramifications.
"Better that than deactivated."
Ratchet's vocaliser hummed an uncertain note at his Prime's verdict. The medic looked as worn and weary as Prime felt.
"I only hope Jazz and Prowl agree."
Author's Note: Just a warning that I may be posting a little late tomorrow, depending on internet connections during a business trip. I'll try to get the story up as close to the usual time (early evening in the UK) as normal.