Overcharged (part 2 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
Part Two
The engines of the Ark loomed above Jazz as he approached the defunct ship. Out to his right, a few miles from the main entrance, the dinobots were romping in the dawn light. They seemed to be ignoring him, and frankly Jazz was okay with that. He tucked Bluestreak into the shadow of a somewhat nearer rock outcrop, safely recharging within sight of their home. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than leaving him out on the perimeter. Jazz didn’t have time to stand guard, or to go find a substitute minder. Chatting up random Autobots in the hope of learning something new would take more time than he was prepared to spare. He needed to get inside and figure this out properly before he got mired in any more unintelligible conversations.
“Jazz!”
“Wha…? Hey!”
Okay, so it was good to see the boss-bot intact and functioning. Jazz could have used a little warning, though, before the big mech stepped out of the gloom below the engines and hauled him into the biggest, tightest embrace he could remember.
For a few seconds, as his vents seized and spluttered for lack of fresh air, Jazz wondered if this was what it felt like to be a human. Okay, Optimus Prime wasn’t that much bigger than Jazz, but when all the strength in his powerful frame was manifest as sheer exuberance, he sure seemed to be.
Suppressing his strained vents, Jazz twisted and pulsed his magnets at the same time. He slipped from Prime’s bear hug and landed on his pedes, gasping a little to even out the interrupted cooling cycle. Usually he wouldn’t bother, but he was still hot from his full-speed drive home, and you never knew when being sensor-cool would come in handy. If you had to dodge your beaming commander, for instance.
“Hey, Prime. Thought it was about time to come on back to the barn.”
“It is good to see you.” A duck and a quick step backwards avoided a renewed hug. “Prowl will be happy.” Optimus rocked a little backwards and forwards, his bright optics slipping past Jazz to the morning sunshine beyond. “He has been rather cross of late.”
That wasn’t a good thought. Jazz pushed it aside out of sheer necessity, faced with the bigger problem right in front of him. Prime carried it off well, Jazz had to admit that. Over effusive greetings aside, he might be making idle conversation. His blast mask had to help with that, hiding the inane grin Jazz was pretty sure must lurk behind it. Without door-wings, his charge-driven fidgeting wasn’t as obvious as Blue’s, but Prime’s servos clenched and unclenched, his engine rumbling as he stood there.
“Wow, boss.” Jazz shook his helm, speaking softly. “Isn’t it a bit early in the orn to be that sloshed?”
Prime’s optics cycled at him, the focussing gesture depressingly familiar. “Jazz! I wouldn’t…” Static washed out Optimus’s voice, and he was forced to wait for a few klicks for it to clear before trying again. “I wouldn’t exceed my allocated ration. It would set an un… unacceptable example to the…”
Jazz almost laughed as the static returned. Optimus Prime was trying to protest his sobriety even as his frame indulged in hiccups.
“Did Prowler tell you that? Where is he, anyway?”
Prime shrugged. “Not seen him today.” A burst of static and Prime frowned, confusion showing in his optics. “Or yesterday, I think. I’m not sure. Things are kind of… weird.”
“You’re telling me.” Weird and worrying. Jazz stepped back, servos on his hips and helm cocked as he looked up at the big mech in front of him. Prime held his high-grade better than Bluestreak did, but some things were inevitable. And unlike the youngling, Jazz wasn’t about to tow his commander home - not without some pretty substantial help. Even if Prime didn’t drift into recharge on some back road, Jazz wasn’t over-enamoured of the idea of leaving him exposed. The Decepticons had distractions of their own, but you never knew when one of their patrols would get lucky. “Look, Prime, come with me a minute. Okay?”
Optimus’s faceplates were never more than half-visible. There was no mistaking the pout, nonetheless. Prime looked past Jazz at the bright morning Sun and the refreshing mist it was raising from the rocky landscape. Even Jazz had to admit a drive looked tempting. Not today though.
“Prime, it’s important.” Jazz spoke firmly, his arms crossing in front of him. “I’ve got to speak to you, right? Just come with me, boss.”
Vorns of learning to talk to his commander - and to the sadly overcharged - paid off. It took a bit of manoeuvring, with Jazz ducking under his commander’s arm and nudging to steer his meandering path, but eventually they were moving.
Jazz had only been a few metres from the Ark’s entrance hatch when Prime intercepted him. It was easy enough to get his friend back aboard. Navigating the vast rock pillars and uneven floor of the control room was trickier. Jazz swore inwardly, unsurprised but disappointed when he propped Optimus against a familiar door frame, only to find Prowl’s office beyond empty. He backed out, placating his confused Prime. After that, deciding to make the turn for the Rec Room rather than medbay was just a matter of following the caterwaul that passed for some mad-mech’s misconceived attempt at singing.
There were many things about a roaring drunk Ironhide and equally sozzled Ratchet that offended Jazz’s fine-honed senses. Their merciless torturing of an innocent melody was merely the most egregious.
The two were sprawled across the Rec Room sofa. Ironhide’s red armour and Ratchet’s white were shoulder to shoulder. Ironhide had draped his arm around Ratchet’s back with all the affection of high-grade lubricated brothers-at-arms. Ratch was raising a cube to his comrade in an incoherent toast when Jazz and Prime arrived. If the medic’s optics hadn’t already been startlingly bright, they’d have brightened. He grinned, the expression not exactly unknown on Ratchet’s faceplates, but certainly unusual.
“Op… Optimus! And Jazz! You’re home!”
Jazz’s lopsided grin was entirely false. Sure, it was good to see his friends having a good time, but this had gone beyond funny some time before. He shuffled forward, manoeuvring Prime until he could drop the mech into a comfortable arm chair. Optimus didn’t resist, his expression bemused and amused at the same time.
“Yup. Just delivering the big guy.”
Ratchet frowned at him. “You look kinda… kinda tired, Jazz. Come sit down. Have a cube.”
“Later, maybe, okay? Got stuff to do.”
“Jazz, stay.” Optimus Prime might be processing slow, but, Primus, the mech had a strong grip. Jazz should probably have anticipated the servo that snaked out to grab his wrist. He shook his helm, trying to extract his servo without breaking optic contact with his boss. “You’re my best friend,” Optimus confided softly.
That got a reaction from the pair on the sofa. Ratchet frowned. Ironhide’s open faceplates took on the desolate incomprehension of a kicked puppy.
“Awww, Prime!” Ironhide’s accent had thickened almost to the point where he was scarcely understandable. The hurt was obvious, even if the words were blurred. “Thought I was your best friend.”
Prime straightened, his expression betraying shock at the desolate tone.
“You are! You’re my best friend, ‘Hide. And, Ratchet, you are too! And Jazz. And… and… Prowl! Prowler’s my best friend too.”
Ironhide snorted and settled back down, apparently satisfied by this assertion. He looked around him, his optics bleary and unfocussed. “Where is Prowl anyway?”
“That’s what I’d kind of like to know.”
Jazz had taken a step back, free now of Prime’s grip and reluctant to risk affectionate recapture. He spoke quietly and his serious tone didn’t seem to register with his friends. Either way, they didn’t seem to have an answer for him. Shaking his helm, Jazz crossed the room. The Ark’s single functional energon dispenser was surrounded by a litter of empty cubes, their shells not recycled as regulations required.
A good whiff of the dregs confirmed Jazz’s suspicions. Shaking his helm, he grabbed a clean cube and splashed just fresh energon from the dispenser into the bottom. Isolating his fuel processing system, he took a careful sip.
The sting of high-grade hit his mouth sensors with its familiar wallop. Ops algorithms engaged and processed, analysing the fluid for threats, ready to shunt it aside into a holding tank if it were in any way suspect. He gave the command to do just that, humming thoughtfully.
The first thing he felt was sheer relief. His poison analysis reported clear without a moment’s hesitation. Yes, it was high grade, but it could have been so much worse. Whatever the frag had got his friends in this state, it eased the tension in his spark to know they’d recover with little more than a thundering processor ache.
His second thought was confusion. There was high grade and then there was high grade. This wasn’t strong, not even by Prowl’s standards. The base solvent was carrying just under two hundred percent of the usual energy concentration if his analysis systems were any judge. The base itself was the same carbon-rich liquid they’d all become accustomed to since landing on Earth, but there was an extra tang - a hint of iron, and… was that sulphur?
The new flavour was an anomaly Jazz noted for later consideration. What really puzzled him though was that concentration reading. Two hundred percent was not exactly what their human friends would call hard liquor. He’d seen Ironhide enjoy four, five hundreds, albeit in small portions. Two shouldn’t be giving the Ark’s crew much more than a pleasant buzz.
Stepping away from the device, Jazz shot the cubes around it a grim look and reconsidered. Knocking back the hard stuff with a few standard grades on hand to flush the excess was one thing. Drinking full-sized cubes of high grade, even at two hundred, when it was your only energon source was quite another. Given the state of the Ark, the crew had almost certainly been doing the latter for quite some time.
Even a mech accustomed to occasional indulgence would find an exclusive diet of high grade hard on the systems.
Ratchet had dozed off, his helm resting on Ironhide’s shoulder. Hide was singing again, if you had a loose grasp of the definition of the word. Jazz’s audials tried to shut down as Optimus Prime lifted his voice in a misguided attempt to lead the way. He gritted his teeth and forced his audial systems to stay online, not able to afford the loss of sensory input. He had a fair idea now what had happened. He had no fragging idea how his fellow officers had come to allow it.
No one noticed when Jazz slipped away. That was fine by him.
The Ark wasn’t exactly quiet.
Jazz could hear conversation, arguments and the occasional song coming from various private quarters. With his sensor suite on full alert, he could feel the rumble of other mechs moving around, somewhere out of sight. He moved cautiously, careful to keep them that way.
He wasn’t looking for more stray meetings and over-effusive greetings.
The quarters he shared with Prowl were dark and deserted. He hesitated in the doorway, his instincts screaming at him to hunt the mech down before anything else. Duty won his internal battle. Snarling an oath, Jazz spun on his heel, speeding up a little as he put distance between himself and the empty quarters. The sooner he got this mess sorted out the better.
The room he headed for was two corridors over and a few doors sternwards. There was nothing to distinguish it from those to either side, nothing except the glare Jazz directed it. By rights the metal should have melted and run out of his path. He paused, taking a few klicks to cool his vents. He didn’t have anything more than suspicion, and some part of his processor was telling him not to believe that. Still, according to Blue’s ramble, Prowl had shared his doubts and that was reason enough to pursue them.
His first thumps against the door got him no response. His second followed fast, an unaccustomed impatience driving him. He shook his helm, concentrating on his sensor input for long enough to be sure of himself, before snapping out with a narrow private comm signal.
“Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, I know you’re in there. If you don’t open this fragging door this instant, I will burn it down.”
Now that got a reaction. The two spark signatures inside burst into movement. Sideswipe deactivated the locking mechanism and yanked the door open so quickly he virtually fell through it.
“Jazz! You’re back!”
“About slagging time!” The first of those comments came from Sideswipe. The second was delivered in Sunstreaker’s unique style but betrayed equal relief.
Jazz strode into their room, the twins giving ground in front of him. He wasn’t exactly the most frequent visitor to their quarters, but he’d been in the room often enough to spot the all too obvious new addition. The twins might be friends, but he was still their officer. The hissing, bubbling device in the corner had never been on quite such blatant display. As Jazz watched, a single drop formed on the output pipe, trembling there for several long clicks before joining the shallow pool in the flask below. He looked at it, visor polarised, expression grim.
“You have a still,” he noted, his voice abnormally calm.
Sideswipe cycled his optics, snorting air out through his vents. “Like you didn’t know that. Pit, even Prowl knows that. Not like you can accuse us of anything now anyway. Do you have any slagging idea how wrong it feels taking the kick out of energon?”
Jazz raised a brow-ridge, holding his peace for a few moments more as Sunstreaker folded his arms. The yellow twin was polished almost to mirror-brightness. That, as much as Sideswipe’s openness, told Jazz how worried the two mechs were.
“You’re taking the kick out? You’re sure that’s all?”
Scanning them confirmed the Ops mech’s guess - both were overcharged, but to nowhere near the same extent as the others he’d encountered. If it was the still in the corner letting them manage that, it was kind of hard to fault them for it. If that’s all it was doing…
Sunstreaker growled. “Has hanging out with the ‘Cons melted your processor, Jazz? You think that thing’s big enough to get the whole Ark ‘charged?”
Sideswipe mirrored his twin’s stance, arms folded, but with a flicker of amusement for the scenario. “Slag that. We had that kind of tech, we’d have gone commercial vorns ago!”
Jazz’s nebulous doubt coalesced. This was the point that had bothered him since the twins first swam to the top of his list of prime suspects. It wasn’t so much the irresponsibility of it - the twins’ pranks had been known to misfire with spectacular consequences before - but the simple practicality. The officer corps had known about, and quietly tolerated, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker’s brewing experiments for most of the length of the war. The twins had never come anywhere close to producing the volumes needed for this debacle.
Venting a sigh, Jazz let himself drop onto the edge of Sideswipe’s berth. He was tired enough that his struts were aching. He was worried and more than a little fed up. Maybe a sober conversation was out of reach for the moment, but he’d take the nearest he could find.
“What the frag happened?”
Sunstreaker shrugged and dropped onto his own berth. “Slagged if we know.”
Sideswipe was only marginally more communicative. The red front-liner paced his quarters, glaring at nothing.
“Started a few orns back. At first it was kind of funny, you know? Well, except for the being cruelly and unjustly accused.”
Jazz raised a cynical brow-ridge, letting his visor drift towards the bubbling distillery in the corner.
“Of running an illegal still?”
Sideswipe shot him a grin, indignation forgotten.
“Of wasting the product on lightweight minibots.” Sideswipe’s grin faded. “Then it started getting serious. It wasn’t just the minibots getting overcharged. Not all at once, but quick enough no one much knew what to do. Most of us were too far gone by that point to care.” Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exchanged a look, evidently including themselves in that group. “Took us half an orn just to work out how out of it we were,” Sideswipe went on. “Prowl not showing up for duty was pretty much the last clue. I mean, Prowl going AWOL?“ He nodded over at the still. “That’s when we decided to take steps, but we’re not really set up to go this way round. It’s kinda slow going. It’s been all we can do to get halfway sober ourselves.”
Sunstreaker put down the polishing cloth he’d been twisting, his sharp blue optics pinning Jazz where he sat. “We were talking about trying to sober Bee and Blue up when you got here. That or coming after you instead.”
Jazz shot them a grin. The twins were just about the only mechs on the Ark who’d seriously consider making an open run against the Nemesis itself - even if they weren’t half-drunk at the time. It was something of a relief that his return had beaten them to the attempt.
“So…” he said, keeping his tone light, even as he watched both from behind his visor. “Now you’ve got the fragging insane one out of the way, got any smarter ideas about all this?”
“Not a pit-slagged clue.”
Well, so much for that hope. Jazz pushed nonetheless. They’d been here. They had to have seen something. “No accidents? Nothing out of the normal?”
Sideswipe dropped onto the berth beside him and tucked his servos under his helm, frustration written across his sprawled frame.
“About the most interesting thing going on was Wheeljack getting stick for the lousy flavour of his new stuff. But that was orns ago. People were just about getting used to it when all this blew up. And not in a Wheeljack-y way, either.”
“Some people,” Sunstreaker corrected, a scowl twisting his elegant faceplates. “Haven’t had a mouthful of decent fuel since that geo-thingamy came online.”
“’Jack’s geothermal energy converter?” His second suspect, after the twins, and about as unlikely. He’d wondered about it when he picked up the sulphur tang earlier.
Jazz had a reputation for not listening in staff meetings. As those who mattered knew well, he never let his attention lapse until he was sure a matter was in hand. In the case of Wheeljack’s energon system upgrade, he’d seen the plans, watched Prowl and Ratchet scowl over them, and kicked back his heels, never doubting the system would be vetted to within an inch of its life. He shook his helm, letting a hint of a frown show. “It was due online five orns ago, right? No way Prowler and Ratch let the thing anywhere near a dispenser without tests.”
Sideswipe shrugged, helm tilted so he could see Jazz. “Days of them. Ratch said it was safe, and Prowl agreed. Doesn’t mean it had to taste good.”
“Can’t say I’m getting a good vibe, but if Prowl and Ratch ticked this thing’s boxes, it’s kinda tough to argue.”
Jazz pushed up from the berth, heading for the door. A basic sustenance device tested and certified weeks before the problems started wasn’t the kind of lead he’d hoped for. If he wasn’t so short of other ideas, he might dismiss it entirely. As it was, he added it to his list of things to check out. There was another, more urgent, task on that list, and Jazz’s concern was rapidly overriding his sense of duty.
“Right. I’m sending the two of you the coordinates where I left Bluestreak.” He waited for both to nod, acknowledging the transmission. “Do me a favour and haul him in. Bumblebee too if you can find the kid.” Jazz winced in anticipation. The Ark’s two youngest crew could have no idea what kind of charge hangover lurked in their future. They’d soon learn. He tapped his visor in farewell, heading out through the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Autobot Jazz - greetings.”
His first time through the control room, with Optimus Prime weighing down one of his shoulders, there’d not been time to stop for a chat. Now he dropped into the chair in front of Teletraan-I’s console and would swear he heard a note of relief in the AI’s voice.
“Man, you weren’t kidding about needing me, were you?”
“Ark activities unacceptably impaired. Command presence required.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that.” Jazz leaned back in the seat, propping his pedes on the console as he stretched out. “What’s SkySpy got on the Decepticons?”
“Activity from Nemesis currently within normal parameters. Decepticon patrols following established patterns.”
“Well, that’s one bright spark in this smelting pit.” Jazz shook his helm, letting a rare scowl show. “Let me know if anything changes, right?”
“Alert request acknowledged. Will comply.”
“Right.” Jazz pushed himself up, his visor focussing on the screen in front of him. “Now: where’s Prowl?”
“Autobot Prowl is not aboard the Ark.”
The mech hadn’t been in his office or in their quarters. Even so, Jazz wasn’t expecting Teletraan’s flat reply. “What? Then where…?”
“Location… unknown.”
“Frag.” Jazz’s servo came up, massaging his temples where visor met helm.
“Hypothesis available.”
Jazz’s optics cycled behind their protective visor. He squinted up at the screen.
“Hit me.”
“Prowl may be accompanied by Autobot Beachcomber.”
“’Comber?” For the second time in as many minutes, Jazz’s optics blinked. He was sitting straight in the chair now, rather than in the slouch he employed primarily to tease Prowl. “But Beachcomber’s been in stasis since the crash!”
“Information obsolete.” Well, that was kind of overstating it, but Jazz got the point. Teletraan went on with his painfully slow delivery. “Accumulated energy reserves as of oh-point-eight-one orns ago sufficient to revive one additional mech.”
“And Prowl decided the mech we really needed, stranded on a primitive planet with the Decepticon high command, was a friendly, pacifist geologist.”
“Affirmative.”
Jazz managed a wan grin. “Thanks, man, but that wasn’t a question.” His servos drummed a tattoo on the interface’s counter. Prowl might have been the worse for energon, but it was hard to see a train of thought that would lead the tactician to such an eclectic choice. “What was the last information Prowl requested before reviving ‘Comber?”
“Request: remaining time before scheduled mission completion. Subject: Autobot Jazz.”
This time, the flicker of a smile on Jazz’s face was a good deal more genuine.
“And before that?”
“Request: energon reserve projection - potential for stasis revival.”
Jazz waved a hand, cranking an invisible handle. Sometimes getting information out of Teletraan felt like mining the last speck of cybertronium from an exhausted vein: a whole lot of hard work with very little to show for it. “Keep going, buddy.”
“Request: records of volcanic and seismic activity sensor readings in an elapsed fifty orn period.”
“Show me.”
He saw it at once, as Prowl must have done. The axes on the graph could have been labelled in Old Kaonite for all the sense they made to Jazz, but the line told its own story. Whatever it was Teletraan was measuring, its long-term trend was pretty stable. In the shorter term the variation was far more severe. The first portion of the graph was empty, predating their awakening on Earth. The data itself started with a sharp down-kick, interrupted by occasional blips, and given what Prowl had asked for, Jazz was willing to guess that was the eruption that woke them and its aftershocks. After that it levelled out, only occasionally taking a detour, either above or below the trendline. Most of the last six months looked pretty flat, no deviations more than a few percent of whatever was being measured. The last four orns though…
Jazz stood, tracing the rising line with his servos. The track got steeper as it went along. That was about as much as he could tell. Whatever it was, he was willing to bet it wasn’t good.
“Okay, Teletraan old buddy, listen up - this one is kind of complicated. Prowl showed Beachcomber this graph, right? So when he did, and after ‘Comber had asked what it was and where we were and all that stuff, what info did he ask for?”
It took Teletraan-I a klick or two to parse the question, the lighted patterns on his displays flickering with his processing algorithms. Then the screen lit up, the artificial intelligence opting to jump straight to the inevitable request for the data itself rather than merely reporting the query.
Jazz studied the map of Mount St Hillary, watching as Teletraan zoomed in, first to the Ark, then to cinder cone that towered above the craft, highlighting the natural tunnels and cave openings that riddled it, and finally to a particular cavern, sited a bare few mechanometers above a magma conduit. A blueprint popped up - one Jazz had seen before.
“All right.” The saboteur pushed up from the seat. His visor was bright, his frame tensed in anticipation. “Now we’re cooking on gas.”
Go to Part Three
Author: zea_taylor
‘Verse: G1
Rating: T/PG-13
Characters: Jazz/Prowl (established), Beachcomber
Warnings: None
See here for part one
Part Two
The engines of the Ark loomed above Jazz as he approached the defunct ship. Out to his right, a few miles from the main entrance, the dinobots were romping in the dawn light. They seemed to be ignoring him, and frankly Jazz was okay with that. He tucked Bluestreak into the shadow of a somewhat nearer rock outcrop, safely recharging within sight of their home. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than leaving him out on the perimeter. Jazz didn’t have time to stand guard, or to go find a substitute minder. Chatting up random Autobots in the hope of learning something new would take more time than he was prepared to spare. He needed to get inside and figure this out properly before he got mired in any more unintelligible conversations.
“Jazz!”
“Wha…? Hey!”
Okay, so it was good to see the boss-bot intact and functioning. Jazz could have used a little warning, though, before the big mech stepped out of the gloom below the engines and hauled him into the biggest, tightest embrace he could remember.
For a few seconds, as his vents seized and spluttered for lack of fresh air, Jazz wondered if this was what it felt like to be a human. Okay, Optimus Prime wasn’t that much bigger than Jazz, but when all the strength in his powerful frame was manifest as sheer exuberance, he sure seemed to be.
Suppressing his strained vents, Jazz twisted and pulsed his magnets at the same time. He slipped from Prime’s bear hug and landed on his pedes, gasping a little to even out the interrupted cooling cycle. Usually he wouldn’t bother, but he was still hot from his full-speed drive home, and you never knew when being sensor-cool would come in handy. If you had to dodge your beaming commander, for instance.
“Hey, Prime. Thought it was about time to come on back to the barn.”
“It is good to see you.” A duck and a quick step backwards avoided a renewed hug. “Prowl will be happy.” Optimus rocked a little backwards and forwards, his bright optics slipping past Jazz to the morning sunshine beyond. “He has been rather cross of late.”
That wasn’t a good thought. Jazz pushed it aside out of sheer necessity, faced with the bigger problem right in front of him. Prime carried it off well, Jazz had to admit that. Over effusive greetings aside, he might be making idle conversation. His blast mask had to help with that, hiding the inane grin Jazz was pretty sure must lurk behind it. Without door-wings, his charge-driven fidgeting wasn’t as obvious as Blue’s, but Prime’s servos clenched and unclenched, his engine rumbling as he stood there.
“Wow, boss.” Jazz shook his helm, speaking softly. “Isn’t it a bit early in the orn to be that sloshed?”
Prime’s optics cycled at him, the focussing gesture depressingly familiar. “Jazz! I wouldn’t…” Static washed out Optimus’s voice, and he was forced to wait for a few klicks for it to clear before trying again. “I wouldn’t exceed my allocated ration. It would set an un… unacceptable example to the…”
Jazz almost laughed as the static returned. Optimus Prime was trying to protest his sobriety even as his frame indulged in hiccups.
“Did Prowler tell you that? Where is he, anyway?”
Prime shrugged. “Not seen him today.” A burst of static and Prime frowned, confusion showing in his optics. “Or yesterday, I think. I’m not sure. Things are kind of… weird.”
“You’re telling me.” Weird and worrying. Jazz stepped back, servos on his hips and helm cocked as he looked up at the big mech in front of him. Prime held his high-grade better than Bluestreak did, but some things were inevitable. And unlike the youngling, Jazz wasn’t about to tow his commander home - not without some pretty substantial help. Even if Prime didn’t drift into recharge on some back road, Jazz wasn’t over-enamoured of the idea of leaving him exposed. The Decepticons had distractions of their own, but you never knew when one of their patrols would get lucky. “Look, Prime, come with me a minute. Okay?”
Optimus’s faceplates were never more than half-visible. There was no mistaking the pout, nonetheless. Prime looked past Jazz at the bright morning Sun and the refreshing mist it was raising from the rocky landscape. Even Jazz had to admit a drive looked tempting. Not today though.
“Prime, it’s important.” Jazz spoke firmly, his arms crossing in front of him. “I’ve got to speak to you, right? Just come with me, boss.”
Vorns of learning to talk to his commander - and to the sadly overcharged - paid off. It took a bit of manoeuvring, with Jazz ducking under his commander’s arm and nudging to steer his meandering path, but eventually they were moving.
Jazz had only been a few metres from the Ark’s entrance hatch when Prime intercepted him. It was easy enough to get his friend back aboard. Navigating the vast rock pillars and uneven floor of the control room was trickier. Jazz swore inwardly, unsurprised but disappointed when he propped Optimus against a familiar door frame, only to find Prowl’s office beyond empty. He backed out, placating his confused Prime. After that, deciding to make the turn for the Rec Room rather than medbay was just a matter of following the caterwaul that passed for some mad-mech’s misconceived attempt at singing.
There were many things about a roaring drunk Ironhide and equally sozzled Ratchet that offended Jazz’s fine-honed senses. Their merciless torturing of an innocent melody was merely the most egregious.
The two were sprawled across the Rec Room sofa. Ironhide’s red armour and Ratchet’s white were shoulder to shoulder. Ironhide had draped his arm around Ratchet’s back with all the affection of high-grade lubricated brothers-at-arms. Ratch was raising a cube to his comrade in an incoherent toast when Jazz and Prime arrived. If the medic’s optics hadn’t already been startlingly bright, they’d have brightened. He grinned, the expression not exactly unknown on Ratchet’s faceplates, but certainly unusual.
“Op… Optimus! And Jazz! You’re home!”
Jazz’s lopsided grin was entirely false. Sure, it was good to see his friends having a good time, but this had gone beyond funny some time before. He shuffled forward, manoeuvring Prime until he could drop the mech into a comfortable arm chair. Optimus didn’t resist, his expression bemused and amused at the same time.
“Yup. Just delivering the big guy.”
Ratchet frowned at him. “You look kinda… kinda tired, Jazz. Come sit down. Have a cube.”
“Later, maybe, okay? Got stuff to do.”
“Jazz, stay.” Optimus Prime might be processing slow, but, Primus, the mech had a strong grip. Jazz should probably have anticipated the servo that snaked out to grab his wrist. He shook his helm, trying to extract his servo without breaking optic contact with his boss. “You’re my best friend,” Optimus confided softly.
That got a reaction from the pair on the sofa. Ratchet frowned. Ironhide’s open faceplates took on the desolate incomprehension of a kicked puppy.
“Awww, Prime!” Ironhide’s accent had thickened almost to the point where he was scarcely understandable. The hurt was obvious, even if the words were blurred. “Thought I was your best friend.”
Prime straightened, his expression betraying shock at the desolate tone.
“You are! You’re my best friend, ‘Hide. And, Ratchet, you are too! And Jazz. And… and… Prowl! Prowler’s my best friend too.”
Ironhide snorted and settled back down, apparently satisfied by this assertion. He looked around him, his optics bleary and unfocussed. “Where is Prowl anyway?”
“That’s what I’d kind of like to know.”
Jazz had taken a step back, free now of Prime’s grip and reluctant to risk affectionate recapture. He spoke quietly and his serious tone didn’t seem to register with his friends. Either way, they didn’t seem to have an answer for him. Shaking his helm, Jazz crossed the room. The Ark’s single functional energon dispenser was surrounded by a litter of empty cubes, their shells not recycled as regulations required.
A good whiff of the dregs confirmed Jazz’s suspicions. Shaking his helm, he grabbed a clean cube and splashed just fresh energon from the dispenser into the bottom. Isolating his fuel processing system, he took a careful sip.
The sting of high-grade hit his mouth sensors with its familiar wallop. Ops algorithms engaged and processed, analysing the fluid for threats, ready to shunt it aside into a holding tank if it were in any way suspect. He gave the command to do just that, humming thoughtfully.
The first thing he felt was sheer relief. His poison analysis reported clear without a moment’s hesitation. Yes, it was high grade, but it could have been so much worse. Whatever the frag had got his friends in this state, it eased the tension in his spark to know they’d recover with little more than a thundering processor ache.
His second thought was confusion. There was high grade and then there was high grade. This wasn’t strong, not even by Prowl’s standards. The base solvent was carrying just under two hundred percent of the usual energy concentration if his analysis systems were any judge. The base itself was the same carbon-rich liquid they’d all become accustomed to since landing on Earth, but there was an extra tang - a hint of iron, and… was that sulphur?
The new flavour was an anomaly Jazz noted for later consideration. What really puzzled him though was that concentration reading. Two hundred percent was not exactly what their human friends would call hard liquor. He’d seen Ironhide enjoy four, five hundreds, albeit in small portions. Two shouldn’t be giving the Ark’s crew much more than a pleasant buzz.
Stepping away from the device, Jazz shot the cubes around it a grim look and reconsidered. Knocking back the hard stuff with a few standard grades on hand to flush the excess was one thing. Drinking full-sized cubes of high grade, even at two hundred, when it was your only energon source was quite another. Given the state of the Ark, the crew had almost certainly been doing the latter for quite some time.
Even a mech accustomed to occasional indulgence would find an exclusive diet of high grade hard on the systems.
Ratchet had dozed off, his helm resting on Ironhide’s shoulder. Hide was singing again, if you had a loose grasp of the definition of the word. Jazz’s audials tried to shut down as Optimus Prime lifted his voice in a misguided attempt to lead the way. He gritted his teeth and forced his audial systems to stay online, not able to afford the loss of sensory input. He had a fair idea now what had happened. He had no fragging idea how his fellow officers had come to allow it.
No one noticed when Jazz slipped away. That was fine by him.
The Ark wasn’t exactly quiet.
Jazz could hear conversation, arguments and the occasional song coming from various private quarters. With his sensor suite on full alert, he could feel the rumble of other mechs moving around, somewhere out of sight. He moved cautiously, careful to keep them that way.
He wasn’t looking for more stray meetings and over-effusive greetings.
The quarters he shared with Prowl were dark and deserted. He hesitated in the doorway, his instincts screaming at him to hunt the mech down before anything else. Duty won his internal battle. Snarling an oath, Jazz spun on his heel, speeding up a little as he put distance between himself and the empty quarters. The sooner he got this mess sorted out the better.
The room he headed for was two corridors over and a few doors sternwards. There was nothing to distinguish it from those to either side, nothing except the glare Jazz directed it. By rights the metal should have melted and run out of his path. He paused, taking a few klicks to cool his vents. He didn’t have anything more than suspicion, and some part of his processor was telling him not to believe that. Still, according to Blue’s ramble, Prowl had shared his doubts and that was reason enough to pursue them.
His first thumps against the door got him no response. His second followed fast, an unaccustomed impatience driving him. He shook his helm, concentrating on his sensor input for long enough to be sure of himself, before snapping out with a narrow private comm signal.
“Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, I know you’re in there. If you don’t open this fragging door this instant, I will burn it down.”
Now that got a reaction. The two spark signatures inside burst into movement. Sideswipe deactivated the locking mechanism and yanked the door open so quickly he virtually fell through it.
“Jazz! You’re back!”
“About slagging time!” The first of those comments came from Sideswipe. The second was delivered in Sunstreaker’s unique style but betrayed equal relief.
Jazz strode into their room, the twins giving ground in front of him. He wasn’t exactly the most frequent visitor to their quarters, but he’d been in the room often enough to spot the all too obvious new addition. The twins might be friends, but he was still their officer. The hissing, bubbling device in the corner had never been on quite such blatant display. As Jazz watched, a single drop formed on the output pipe, trembling there for several long clicks before joining the shallow pool in the flask below. He looked at it, visor polarised, expression grim.
“You have a still,” he noted, his voice abnormally calm.
Sideswipe cycled his optics, snorting air out through his vents. “Like you didn’t know that. Pit, even Prowl knows that. Not like you can accuse us of anything now anyway. Do you have any slagging idea how wrong it feels taking the kick out of energon?”
Jazz raised a brow-ridge, holding his peace for a few moments more as Sunstreaker folded his arms. The yellow twin was polished almost to mirror-brightness. That, as much as Sideswipe’s openness, told Jazz how worried the two mechs were.
“You’re taking the kick out? You’re sure that’s all?”
Scanning them confirmed the Ops mech’s guess - both were overcharged, but to nowhere near the same extent as the others he’d encountered. If it was the still in the corner letting them manage that, it was kind of hard to fault them for it. If that’s all it was doing…
Sunstreaker growled. “Has hanging out with the ‘Cons melted your processor, Jazz? You think that thing’s big enough to get the whole Ark ‘charged?”
Sideswipe mirrored his twin’s stance, arms folded, but with a flicker of amusement for the scenario. “Slag that. We had that kind of tech, we’d have gone commercial vorns ago!”
Jazz’s nebulous doubt coalesced. This was the point that had bothered him since the twins first swam to the top of his list of prime suspects. It wasn’t so much the irresponsibility of it - the twins’ pranks had been known to misfire with spectacular consequences before - but the simple practicality. The officer corps had known about, and quietly tolerated, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker’s brewing experiments for most of the length of the war. The twins had never come anywhere close to producing the volumes needed for this debacle.
Venting a sigh, Jazz let himself drop onto the edge of Sideswipe’s berth. He was tired enough that his struts were aching. He was worried and more than a little fed up. Maybe a sober conversation was out of reach for the moment, but he’d take the nearest he could find.
“What the frag happened?”
Sunstreaker shrugged and dropped onto his own berth. “Slagged if we know.”
Sideswipe was only marginally more communicative. The red front-liner paced his quarters, glaring at nothing.
“Started a few orns back. At first it was kind of funny, you know? Well, except for the being cruelly and unjustly accused.”
Jazz raised a cynical brow-ridge, letting his visor drift towards the bubbling distillery in the corner.
“Of running an illegal still?”
Sideswipe shot him a grin, indignation forgotten.
“Of wasting the product on lightweight minibots.” Sideswipe’s grin faded. “Then it started getting serious. It wasn’t just the minibots getting overcharged. Not all at once, but quick enough no one much knew what to do. Most of us were too far gone by that point to care.” Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exchanged a look, evidently including themselves in that group. “Took us half an orn just to work out how out of it we were,” Sideswipe went on. “Prowl not showing up for duty was pretty much the last clue. I mean, Prowl going AWOL?“ He nodded over at the still. “That’s when we decided to take steps, but we’re not really set up to go this way round. It’s kinda slow going. It’s been all we can do to get halfway sober ourselves.”
Sunstreaker put down the polishing cloth he’d been twisting, his sharp blue optics pinning Jazz where he sat. “We were talking about trying to sober Bee and Blue up when you got here. That or coming after you instead.”
Jazz shot them a grin. The twins were just about the only mechs on the Ark who’d seriously consider making an open run against the Nemesis itself - even if they weren’t half-drunk at the time. It was something of a relief that his return had beaten them to the attempt.
“So…” he said, keeping his tone light, even as he watched both from behind his visor. “Now you’ve got the fragging insane one out of the way, got any smarter ideas about all this?”
“Not a pit-slagged clue.”
Well, so much for that hope. Jazz pushed nonetheless. They’d been here. They had to have seen something. “No accidents? Nothing out of the normal?”
Sideswipe dropped onto the berth beside him and tucked his servos under his helm, frustration written across his sprawled frame.
“About the most interesting thing going on was Wheeljack getting stick for the lousy flavour of his new stuff. But that was orns ago. People were just about getting used to it when all this blew up. And not in a Wheeljack-y way, either.”
“Some people,” Sunstreaker corrected, a scowl twisting his elegant faceplates. “Haven’t had a mouthful of decent fuel since that geo-thingamy came online.”
“’Jack’s geothermal energy converter?” His second suspect, after the twins, and about as unlikely. He’d wondered about it when he picked up the sulphur tang earlier.
Jazz had a reputation for not listening in staff meetings. As those who mattered knew well, he never let his attention lapse until he was sure a matter was in hand. In the case of Wheeljack’s energon system upgrade, he’d seen the plans, watched Prowl and Ratchet scowl over them, and kicked back his heels, never doubting the system would be vetted to within an inch of its life. He shook his helm, letting a hint of a frown show. “It was due online five orns ago, right? No way Prowler and Ratch let the thing anywhere near a dispenser without tests.”
Sideswipe shrugged, helm tilted so he could see Jazz. “Days of them. Ratch said it was safe, and Prowl agreed. Doesn’t mean it had to taste good.”
“Can’t say I’m getting a good vibe, but if Prowl and Ratch ticked this thing’s boxes, it’s kinda tough to argue.”
Jazz pushed up from the berth, heading for the door. A basic sustenance device tested and certified weeks before the problems started wasn’t the kind of lead he’d hoped for. If he wasn’t so short of other ideas, he might dismiss it entirely. As it was, he added it to his list of things to check out. There was another, more urgent, task on that list, and Jazz’s concern was rapidly overriding his sense of duty.
“Right. I’m sending the two of you the coordinates where I left Bluestreak.” He waited for both to nod, acknowledging the transmission. “Do me a favour and haul him in. Bumblebee too if you can find the kid.” Jazz winced in anticipation. The Ark’s two youngest crew could have no idea what kind of charge hangover lurked in their future. They’d soon learn. He tapped his visor in farewell, heading out through the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Autobot Jazz - greetings.”
His first time through the control room, with Optimus Prime weighing down one of his shoulders, there’d not been time to stop for a chat. Now he dropped into the chair in front of Teletraan-I’s console and would swear he heard a note of relief in the AI’s voice.
“Man, you weren’t kidding about needing me, were you?”
“Ark activities unacceptably impaired. Command presence required.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that.” Jazz leaned back in the seat, propping his pedes on the console as he stretched out. “What’s SkySpy got on the Decepticons?”
“Activity from Nemesis currently within normal parameters. Decepticon patrols following established patterns.”
“Well, that’s one bright spark in this smelting pit.” Jazz shook his helm, letting a rare scowl show. “Let me know if anything changes, right?”
“Alert request acknowledged. Will comply.”
“Right.” Jazz pushed himself up, his visor focussing on the screen in front of him. “Now: where’s Prowl?”
“Autobot Prowl is not aboard the Ark.”
The mech hadn’t been in his office or in their quarters. Even so, Jazz wasn’t expecting Teletraan’s flat reply. “What? Then where…?”
“Location… unknown.”
“Frag.” Jazz’s servo came up, massaging his temples where visor met helm.
“Hypothesis available.”
Jazz’s optics cycled behind their protective visor. He squinted up at the screen.
“Hit me.”
“Prowl may be accompanied by Autobot Beachcomber.”
“’Comber?” For the second time in as many minutes, Jazz’s optics blinked. He was sitting straight in the chair now, rather than in the slouch he employed primarily to tease Prowl. “But Beachcomber’s been in stasis since the crash!”
“Information obsolete.” Well, that was kind of overstating it, but Jazz got the point. Teletraan went on with his painfully slow delivery. “Accumulated energy reserves as of oh-point-eight-one orns ago sufficient to revive one additional mech.”
“And Prowl decided the mech we really needed, stranded on a primitive planet with the Decepticon high command, was a friendly, pacifist geologist.”
“Affirmative.”
Jazz managed a wan grin. “Thanks, man, but that wasn’t a question.” His servos drummed a tattoo on the interface’s counter. Prowl might have been the worse for energon, but it was hard to see a train of thought that would lead the tactician to such an eclectic choice. “What was the last information Prowl requested before reviving ‘Comber?”
“Request: remaining time before scheduled mission completion. Subject: Autobot Jazz.”
This time, the flicker of a smile on Jazz’s face was a good deal more genuine.
“And before that?”
“Request: energon reserve projection - potential for stasis revival.”
Jazz waved a hand, cranking an invisible handle. Sometimes getting information out of Teletraan felt like mining the last speck of cybertronium from an exhausted vein: a whole lot of hard work with very little to show for it. “Keep going, buddy.”
“Request: records of volcanic and seismic activity sensor readings in an elapsed fifty orn period.”
“Show me.”
He saw it at once, as Prowl must have done. The axes on the graph could have been labelled in Old Kaonite for all the sense they made to Jazz, but the line told its own story. Whatever it was Teletraan was measuring, its long-term trend was pretty stable. In the shorter term the variation was far more severe. The first portion of the graph was empty, predating their awakening on Earth. The data itself started with a sharp down-kick, interrupted by occasional blips, and given what Prowl had asked for, Jazz was willing to guess that was the eruption that woke them and its aftershocks. After that it levelled out, only occasionally taking a detour, either above or below the trendline. Most of the last six months looked pretty flat, no deviations more than a few percent of whatever was being measured. The last four orns though…
Jazz stood, tracing the rising line with his servos. The track got steeper as it went along. That was about as much as he could tell. Whatever it was, he was willing to bet it wasn’t good.
“Okay, Teletraan old buddy, listen up - this one is kind of complicated. Prowl showed Beachcomber this graph, right? So when he did, and after ‘Comber had asked what it was and where we were and all that stuff, what info did he ask for?”
It took Teletraan-I a klick or two to parse the question, the lighted patterns on his displays flickering with his processing algorithms. Then the screen lit up, the artificial intelligence opting to jump straight to the inevitable request for the data itself rather than merely reporting the query.
Jazz studied the map of Mount St Hillary, watching as Teletraan zoomed in, first to the Ark, then to cinder cone that towered above the craft, highlighting the natural tunnels and cave openings that riddled it, and finally to a particular cavern, sited a bare few mechanometers above a magma conduit. A blueprint popped up - one Jazz had seen before.
“All right.” The saboteur pushed up from the seat. His visor was bright, his frame tensed in anticipation. “Now we’re cooking on gas.”
Go to Part Three