Yellow Ribbon - Chapter 6 of 11
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5
Mirage - Familiar Strangers
The shot rang through the corridors of the Nemesis, the sharp whine of it echoing and re-echoing as it faded into silence.
Tense, wary, Mirage held his firing stance, arm outstretched and braced against the recoil, vents stilled. His optics and other, less obvious, senses scanned his surroundings constantly, sparing no more than a part of his attention for Starscream as the Seeker spasmed.
Tendrils of electricity played across the Air Commander’s frame, his limbs jerking in an uncoordinated dance of stray nerve impulses. Mirage watched without emotion, not moving until he was certain the glow had faded utterly from red optics. Only then did he subspace his electro-rifle, stepping forward to inspect the fallen flier. He grimaced, annoyed at his own lack of elegance.
Coming across Starscream framed in the doorway, arm cannon raised and an implacable determination in his voice, threatening whoever lay beyond with such vehemence, Mirage hadn’t had time to do more than snap-aim and fire. There hadn’t been time for precision, and even if Mirage had tried for a killing shot, his angle would have made it awkward. Instead, the fading tendrils of static spread from a broad, untidy scorch mark obscuring the Decepticon sigil on Starscream’s left wing. Still, the shot had accomplished his primary intent. It probably wouldn’t take the Seeker long to shake off, but for now he was well and truly stasis-locked, downed by both the electric shock and the feedback from his delicate wing sensors.
He’d fallen across the doorway, wedged by wing and shoulder thruster. Mirage took a moment to curse Starscream for being an awkward slagger even unconscious, before edging cautiously past. The silence from the room beyond, from whoever Starscream had been confronting, was troubling. But not, he realised at first sight of the victim, entirely surprising.
The mech was a mess. Somewhere under the dents and scrapes, under the layers of grime and energon - both fresh and long-since dried - his armour plating had once been black and white. Now it was an almost uniform grey, only the deep scarlet of an Autobot emblem, peaking out between scuffs and smears, provided any colour at all. Certainly there was no colour in the darkened optics. Given the state of the mech’s door-wings, hanging in ragged tatters, coated in fresh, pink energon, and scarcely recognisable as such, that was probably a mercy. At least Mirage hoped so.
Expression grim, Mirage squatted by the mech’s side, resting first a hand and then his helm against the damaged mech’s chassis trying to feel any kind of vibration. He wouldn’t put it past Starscream to rant at an empty frame, even to fire upon it, as he’d been threatening to do. Looking at the damage this mech had taken over the last orn, and the amount of energon he’d lost to the decking on which he lay, that possibility was very real.
It came as a relief to detect first the barest whisper of vents and then the deeper, although irregular, throb of a spark-pulse. Mirage sat back with a sigh of his own vents. The mech was alive, albeit barely. Now it was up to Mirage to ensure he stayed that way - at least until Ratchet could take over.
Working quickly, aware all the time of the unconscious Seeker blocking the doorway and the threat of others nearby, Mirage checked his rescuee over for critical damage, scanning the abused door-wings with a wince, checking for any break in their primary energon lines, and more than a little surprised when he didn’t find one. Huffing a little and frowning at the quantity of fresh energon in confusion, Mirage sat back on his heels before slowly, very carefully, easing the slender frame into his arms. He could only assume that the mech’s self-repair systems had already healed whatever rift had caused the worst of the leakage, although he’d honestly be surprised if they were working at all.
Getting back out past Starscream required nothing more than a sharp kick to dislodge the Air Commander, and a careful placement of his feet, stepping over the resulting heap as Starscream clattered to the ground. Finally out in the corridor, Starscream left sprawled inelegantly behind him, Mirage looked down at his rescuee’s slack faceplates, considering his options.
Mirage and Bumblebee had been sent to find two mechs, not one, and he’d be damned to the Pit if they left without them both, or at least without both frames. Whether or not he knew these mechs, and he was still reeling from Red Alert’s post-skirmish briefing on that account, he wouldn’t leave any Autobot in Decepticon hands. Bad enough he’d left them this long. Both he and Bee had been inclined to leave at once for the Nemesis on learning of their mission. Mirage’s guilt at not doing so had already been gnawing at him before he saw the abuse this mech had suffered. True, giving the virus the forty-eight hours both Ratchet and Red Alert insisted on had turned this mission from a near suicidal foray into the heart of enemy territory into something a little more survivable. That didn’t make it right.
What Mirage was about to have to do wasn’t right either.
The door-winged mech in his arms wasn’t particularly heavy, taken on a scale that included mechs like Prime or even Ironhide and Ratchet. On the other hand, Mirage didn’t have the lifting power of others on the Ark crew. Already servos in his arms were aching with the strain, and he was far from happy to have both his hands occupied and weaponless. If he had any hope of finding his second target, and dealing with whatever else he found when he did, he needed to be unencumbered.
It took Mirage several minutes to find what he was looking for - an unsecured closet with just enough room on the floor to lay out the injured mech. He did so as gently as possible, taking care to straighten the damaged door-wings insofar as he could, before reaching into his subspace for an energon shot. He didn’t bother trying to wake the mech, or even tap a line. He went straight for the mech’s emergency fuelling port, using a medical override that all Special Ops mechs knew, and tried to make sure Ratchet didn’t know they knew, to open it. Right now, and given the alarmingly feeble signs of life he was still detecting, there was no time for half measures.
He couldn’t afford to wait and see if the full cube’s worth of energon made a difference. If he was going to leave this mech alone in enemy territory, then best do it sooner rather than later and return as rapidly as possible. Mirage stood, backing out of the room with deep reluctance. Swearing inside, he took a chance, pinging Bumblebee with a location alert. Starscream would be waking any time now, and while they were now several corridors away from the interrogation chamber, they were still too close for Mirage’s liking. The less time this one spent alone, the better. Bumblebee should be done with his own task - mining the Nemesis’ launch tower - soon enough. They could rendezvous here as well as anywhere else. He’d already discarded the thought of rejoining his mini-bot partner at the sub as originally intended.
Whatever state the second mech was in, and Mirage wasn’t optimistic, he’d need Bee’s help to get both out.
Turning on his heel, resolute, Mirage raised a hand to his face, checking the function of his electro-disruptor. He was getting close to the Nemesis brig now, unless he’d somehow become turned around. He needed to be wary of guards, as well as the surveillance cameras that grew in number as he approached the restricted area.
The small, monitor-lined chamber outside the converted storeroom should have held at least one guard on duty, and more likely two, with high-ranking prisoners in thrall. In any other circumstances, Mirage, on finding it empty, would have assumed this was a trap, or a highly suspicious circumstance at the very least. Instead he was thanking Primus for Red Alert, Wheeljack and Ratchet, even as he eased cautiously inside.
It wasn’t infiltrating the Nemesis per se that was particularly dangerous. Both Mirage and Bumblebee had done so more than once before. For a fit, alert Autobot, able to work off reserve power, close their oxygen vents and make the difficult swim to one of the lower-deck airlocks, it was challenging but far from impossible. It was getting out again - particularly after a jailbreak with damaged and drained mechs in tow - that would make this mission so difficult without something to deplete and distract the enemy ranks. That was where the Decepticon-programmed and Autobot-modified virus came into its own. By all appearances, Starscream aside, the Nemesis crew had forgotten their prisoners entirely.
At least Mirage had to hope that was their reason for leaving the cells unmonitored. The other possibility was far more ominous - that they’d seen no need to post a guard over a greyed-out frame.
The monitors in the room were dark, but the cameras might be recording nonetheless and with the Seeker-trines still potentially active, Mirage couldn’t take the chance of them transmitting. He took a moment to hack the security console. Frowning in concentration, he wiped the last few hours of video records ship-wide and then fed a very careful feedback loop into the cell-block cameras.
It was as he straightened from leaning over the console that he noticed the box shoved carelessly beneath it. He drew it out, driven more by curiosity than need, gasping at the sight of an Autobot-branded acid-pellet rifle as well as the more standard blaster inside. He subspaced them quickly, reaching into the box again, more carefully this time, to bring out a set of seven knives, three of them with vibro-blades, the other four with the dull glow of dormant energon weapons. They spanned a full range of sizes, and each was exquisitely balanced, the faint traces of long-term damage on them carefully repaired and smoothed out. Mirage took a moment to admire the set, envy it even, before adding it to his subspace pocket, resolved to return it to its rightful owner if possible… if that owner still lived.
Long accustomed to the poor state of the Nemesis, Mirage produced a small vial and lubricated the hinges of the cell-block door before easing them open. He slipped inside as silently as he knew how, wary of any stray guards and still shielded by his electro-disrupter. Only when he was quite sure he was the only active mech in the block did he pause, just to the left of the doorway, to study the still form slumped in the furthermost cage-like cell.
This mech seemed at first glimpse to be in better shape than his peer, although that might just be because he lacked the far-too-vulnerable door-wings to show the damage. This mech’s paintwork was as badly abraded, and as energon streaked, as the other’s. The plating of his legs was torn, long claw marks suggesting he’d been mauled by Ravage, and in places the protective armour was missing entirely. A particularly deep gouge on his thigh reflected the light with the dull iridescence of coagulated energon, lit from within from time to time by arcing electrical sparks. The mess was streaked with black, the entire mech coated from head to foot in a patchy layer of the slime that infested these lower decks on the Nemesis and had worked its way into the inviting open wounds.
He lay awkwardly a few inches from the barred wall of his cage, his hands drawn in to his chest, and his head tucked into his body. As Mirage watched, the mech twitched. His helm lifted a little from the ground giving Mirage a clear view of the sensory horns to either side of it - one crushed, the other intact but showing the coarse surface texture of half-healed plating. His visor flickered, so dim that in any other light it would have gone unnoticed, and there was a faint whir from his vocalisor.
“Who… who’s there?” The mech - Jazz, the Special Ops mech with the visor was Jazz, Mirage remembered from his briefing; the door-winged Praxian was Prowl - didn’t even try to move from his inelegant sprawl on the floor. Either he was conserving his energon, or he had none left to spend, most likely the latter. “Raj? Raj, that you?”
Still invisible to every conventional Cybertronian sense, Mirage had been… startled that the other registered any presence at all. He was frankly shocked that the mech had not only identified him, but done so by a name he allowed precious few to use, all of them close friends.
He faded into view, already in a crouch beside the damaged mech. Reaching into subspace, he pulled out another emergency shot, this time taking the time to slip an arm around Jazz’s shoulders and raise his head just enough to sip at the glowing liquid. The Decepticons routinely kept their prisoners enervated enough to be sluggish. The last forty-eight hours of total neglect, on top of whatever abuse they’d taken before that, seemed to have pushed both Jazz and Prowl into near-critical starvation instead.
“Easy there, Jazz.” Reassurance didn’t come easy to Mirage and he knew he sounded stiff and awkward. He was about as comfortable talking to strangers as Wheeljack, and not nearly as skilled an actor as Bumblebee. It had been easier with the other one - unconscious mechs didn’t need names or pointless words. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Jazz spluttered and struggled weakly, his vents harsh and strained. He managed to sip half the small cube, most but not all of it going into the appropriate intakes, before pushing Mirage’s hand away.
“No, Raj, leave me. Ya… ya’ve gotta find Prowl. They… they took him, Raj. Days ago. They didn’ bring him b…back. Ya gotta find him. They t…took him and they left me here t’ st…starve.”
Mirage wasn’t the most empathetic of mechs. Even if he had been, a visor hid a lot of any mech’s emotion. It would take a blind mech though not to see the fury in Jazz’s expression and the desperate fear it couldn’t come close to masking. He tightened his grip, drawing Jazz in towards his chest-plates, bringing the energon shot back up to his lips and forcing him to choke down a little more.
“I already found him.”
Suddenly the hand resting loosely on Mirage’s wrist gripped him tight enough to hurt. Jazz’s worried, pain-filled expression had been replaced by one of total focus and the glow behind his visor brightened.
“Ya found him? Where…? How is…?”
As much as he wanted to reassure the mech, lying wouldn’t help. Jazz’s grip was already slackening, his strength fading, and Mirage extricated his arm, easing the mech a little more upright and pressing another energon shot into Jazz’s hand as he did so.
“Not good. He should be safe for now. I had to find you.”
“And ya left him alone?” Jazz had finally finished the first cube, letting it fall between his fingers. He managed to sit upright, swaying dangerously until Mirage braced him. The mech’s visor brightened, became too bright in fact, flaring before fading back to a dull glow. “Mirage, when we’ve got outta this and Ratch’s finished his rantin’, you and I are gonna have words.”
The mech was barely able to hold himself sitting upright. His ravaged legs hadn’t so much as twitched since Mirage arrived, and he was still dangerously under-energised. His vocalisor hissed with static, his flickering visor suggesting momentary lapses of consciousness. Mirage had rarely seen a mech this badly damaged awake, let alone coherent. And he still found himself backing away slightly, an unaccustomed shiver of fear rippling through him.
He’d seen some of the files Red Alert had recovered on Jazz - enough of them to guess that what the files weren’t saying would make for more interesting reading. Bluestreak had assured him that Jazz was a friend - everyone’s friend, in fact. That was something of a relief because right now, Mirage was far from sure he’d get out of that promised conversation fully functional.
There wasn’t time to wonder about that now though. Venting a sigh, refusing to show his anxiety, Mirage turned his attention to assessing Jazz’s condition.
“The sooner we get you mobile, the sooner we can return to him.”
“Right…”
The outburst seemed to have drained the damaged mech’s strength. He slumped, and would have fallen back to the damp deck-plates had Mirage not caught him and eased him into a lean against the bars. He waved a vague hand at his lower half, even as he raised the second shot to his lips.
“Ma legs,” he muttered, licking his lip plates to recover a stray drop of energon. “Left one’s broken, but ya can brace it. Right should be okay, jus’ torn up a bit.” He paused, not looking at Mirage. “Soundwave killed the data c’nection.”
With a nod, the spy redirected his attention to the Jazz’s hips, wincing a little when he saw that the hard-link interface ports on both hips had been forced, their covers hanging loose. He eased the nearest open, trying to ignore Jazz’s flinch. The mess of sensitive cables behind it was snarled and kinked, as if a strong hand had grabbed the bundle and given a hard yank. Towards the front though, stretched out to be clearly visible, a set of nerve connections hung loose, not cut or broken but simply disconnected so jack and plug hung side by side.
Mirage vented again, confused. Repairing this was as simple as re-securing a half-dozen plugs, something that would only take a few klicks. He glanced up at the mech. Jazz had to know that, and even weak as he was, he surely had the flexibility to reach his own…
Jazz’s visor met his optics, expression blank. Without looking away, the damaged mech brought up one of his hands, spreading it so Mirage could see what he’d missed before. Every single one of Jazz’s finger servos had been snapped, systematically disabling his capacity for fine manipulation. Holding the cube, holding Mirage, had to have been agony. Even now, Jazz’s fist kept trying to cycle closed, whining motors grating and grinding as they tried to manipulate broken struts and cables.
Mirage couldn’t stop his sharp vent and shocked optics from showing his dismay. He tried not to imagine what Jazz had gone through these last few days, separated from his companion, knowing that all he needed to move was the briefest of repairs but unable to muster the fine control to make them.
Wordlessly, Mirage bent over the black-plated hip, reconnecting the data stream with deft fingers and then holding Jazz upright as the mech trembled. The renewed contact with his damaged right leg couldn’t be comfortable, and Jazz’s already unsteady vents hitched into silence for several long seconds. He shuddered, his visor fading out, and Mirage had to shake his shoulders, calling his name before it rebooted, glowing dully.
“Right…” Jazz didn’t look at Mirage. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Now th’ other.”
The left leg was the more severely injured of the two, its main strut snapped clean through, plating missing to expose the damage to the damp atmosphere. Mirage took a moment to pull a splint from the emergency med-kit all Special Ops mechs carried, noting the total lack of surprise in Jazz’s expression as he straightened the leg and braced it. Even with the limb supported, Mirage hesitated for a long moment before restoring the data connection.
Jazz took another mouthful of the enriched energon shot, dropping the now-empty cube and scowling. “Do it, Raj! We’ve gotta get t’ Prowl!”
Mirage nodded, taking a deep vent himself before securing all six jacks in a quick flurry of movement. He’d turned and caught Jazz before the other mech could hit the floor, not surprised to find him stasis-locked from the pain. Shaking his head, Mirage ruthlessly upended a third energon ration into Jazz’s emergency port, worrying now at having only given Prowl a single shot before leaving him. Only when the mech’s energy levels read somewhere above ‘emergency shutdown imminent’ did Mirage reach for another medical protocol that Ratchet would have fits at him even knowing about.
Jazz came out of stasis with surprisingly little fuss. He didn’t move, his quiet vents only giving away his change of status if you were listening hard for them. Jazz lay still for a moment before rebooting his optics, visor scanning Mirage and then his surroundings cautiously.
What little doubt Mirage had been harbouring, even at a subconscious level, about the identity of this mech evaporated. If he wasn’t Special Ops, he had all the relevant training and instincts he needed to be.
“Jazz, we’ve got to move. Can you get up?”
Jazz blinked his optics once, before the visor flared. “Prowl!”
He stood, bracing against the cage bats and against Mirage’s hand on his back-plates, and still swaying. From the way he tilted his helm, trying to steady himself, Mirage had to guess the damaged sensory horn was affecting his balance. Either way, he managed a wobbly step, static leaking from his vocalisor as his left leg took the weight, and didn’t fall.
“Give me a weapon, Mirage.”
It was an order. One, Mirage had been told, that Jazz was technically entitled to give. Despite that, Jazz was shaky, wobbling where he stood, and as sure as Mirage was of his new companion’s training, he didn’t have the experience on which to build trust. He almost refused, prepared to look the mech optics to visor as he did so, and then he stopped. There was a fierce need in Jazz’s body language that only another highly trained mech would pick up upon, and he knew exactly what it was.
Mirage had never loitered in Decepticon custody. His electro-disrupter field, and the swift action of his friends and commanders, had always limited his brief stays in enemy hands to battlefield interludes, brushed aside at the end of the day. He had, however, spoken to other mechs, even been along to rescue a few of them, and he knew the damage spark-destroying helplessness could do even to the strongest warriors. Perhaps most of all to the strongest. Mechs who’d been the subject of confinement, torture, even to the shame of rescue, needed to stop being subjects. They needed to take control.
Jazz couldn’t hold a blaster, and certainly wouldn’t be able to aim one, even assuming Mirage was prepared to allow an armed mech he didn’t know at his back. Feeling a little ill, Mirage drew a mid-sized blade from Jazz’s set out of his subspace and handed it over, watching as his broken hands struggled to close around it. The mech would have to be very, very good to do much damage with a six-inch vibro-blade, and in Jazz’s weakened state he’d be lucky to get close enough to scratch an opponent, but the gesture seemed to help.
Jazz dimmed and rebooted his optics, before looking up with a determination that almost hid his pain.
“Get me t’ Prowl,” he ordered shortly.
The presence of a vibrant, active energy signature beside Prowl’s barely detectable one wasn’t a good thing. Mirage, bowed under Jazz’s weight, letting the other mech limp along leaning heavily on him, stopped in the corridor outside and tried to keep his sudden anxiety from showing.
“Wha…?” Jazz’s voice slurred, the short walk taking its toll on his depleted systems.
“Hush.” With an effort and a grimace for the power drain, Mirage extended his electro-disrupter field around the pair of them before reaching out very carefully with an active scan.
“Mirage?” Bumblebee’s soft voice floated from the room, the two Ops agents recognising one another’s energy signatures at the same moment.
“Here,” Mirage murmured, dropping the field. Jazz had tensed beside him when they stopped, now he made a low sound of frustration and staggered forward a step, dragging Mirage with him lest he unbalance them both. Not delaying any further, Mirage wrestled Jazz through the door and into the closet.
With Prowl flat out on the floor and Bumblebee crouched beside him, it was a tight squeeze for the four of them. Mirage found himself left mostly out in the corridor as Jazz fell to his knees with a gasp. A soft keen broke from the mech’s throat, his vents harsh as his broken hands hovered helplessly over the shredded door-wings.
Bumblebee was in the process of giving Prowl another energon shot, a deep frown on the yellow mini-bot’s face-plates. Mirage matched it, eying the pool of energon below Prowl’s door-wings.
“I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” Bumblebee muttered. “The primary lines look…”
Jazz had squirmed forward, leaning down over the other mech long enough to press his helm to the almost-still chest-plates and feel the faint spark-pulse against his sensory horns. He nuzzled Prowl’s helm with his own as he rose, the gesture deeply affectionate and very worried indeed. His vents were unsteady, but at least they were audible, which was more than could be said for his partner. Again, his hands fluttered over Prowl’s wings, and when he looked up at Bumblebee his expression was angry.
“His door-wings lose more from their second’ry and tersh’ry lines than mos’ mechs do from th’ primaries.” He scowled, pulling Bumblebee’s hands down towards the tattered plating. “Ya know that, both’a ya! Fix it!”
Bumblebee swallowed hard, clearly daunted by the delicate work Jazz was proposing. He threw a startled and panicked look at Mirage, both of them wondering how they were meant to know. Door-wings were not exactly a common appendage, and, to the best of Mirage’s knowledge, not even the Ark mechs with smaller winglets had ever damaged one anywhere near this badly. Either way, Bumblebee had no choice, and not only because Jazz’s fierce expression compelled him to do his best. The small yellow hands played across the torn panels as gently as possible, working on the complex process of crimping off the hundreds of minor energon conduits - directed from time to time by Jazz as he hovered over them, pointing out a more important line elsewhere when Bumblebee lingered too long over any one section.
Bumblebee’s fingers fell into a rhythm under Jazz’s intense gaze. And the Pit of it was, as both Bumblebee and Mirage realised, that Jazz was right. This was familiar, in some way Mirage couldn’t quite define. Mirage’s fingers twitched, and Bumblebee’s moved, switching from one door-wing to the other just as Jazz opened his mouth to voice the instruction.
Unsettled, Mirage reached into his subspace for his last energon shot and uncapped it, intending it to distract Jazz while Bumblebee finished his work. Instead, Jazz snatched it without looking. He glanced down at his fellow captive, a frown of concentration on his face, and Prowl’s fuel port opened for him.
“Jazz…”
The mech didn’t look up, already refuelling his companion. “He needs it more than I do.”
“He’s not going to have to hobble out of here,” Bumblebee noted, pausing in his work just long enough to snatch a ration out of his subspace and toss it to Mirage. Mirage caught it, presenting it to Jazz with an expression that would tolerate no argument.
Jazz took it awkwardly, still using his second hand to steady the cube at Prowl’s port. Finally empty, he let that one fall and downed his own in a continuous series of gulps, his fuel processor coping better for the gradual top-up it had already received. It was as if this new boost flicked a switch, somewhere deep inside the damaged mech. Jazz’s stance changed, from an awkward slouch to something far more alert. Mirage’s instincts screamed, and he backed up a step before even realising it, staring wide-eyed at the poised… dangerous mech in front of him.
“Who did this?” Jazz demanded, the promise of death in his voice as he looked down at Prowl.
Mirage didn’t hesitate, wasn’t sure he could have done if he wanted to.
“I found Starscream…”
“Starscream,” Jazz hissed, fists clenching, or at least attempting to clench, by his side. The mech didn’t react to the whine of damaged servos and the grating of strut-ends in his fingers. “Raj, gimme another knife. One o’ th’ small ones.”
Mirage and Bumblebee, fingers still working busily, shared wide-eyed looks as Jazz fumbled the small energon blade to full life. Taking a deep breath and concentrating hard to steady his hands, Jazz carved a crude but recognisable name glyph into the handle of the larger blade, his eyes flicking constantly from his work to Prowl’s still face, and to Bumblebee’s ongoing efforts to stem the energon flow.
He dropped the blades without a qualm, diving to his partner’s side, when Prowl stirred, wingtip twitching under Bumblebee’s startled hand. Shreds of metal clattered against one another, the high-pitched sound contrasting painfully against the weak, low moan that underlay them.
“Shh, Prowl.” Jazz reached out, stroking Prowl’s faceplates with the back of his hand. “It’s gonna be okay, love. Just stay still. Bee and Raj are here. They’ve come for us. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Mirage - Familiar Strangers
The shot rang through the corridors of the Nemesis, the sharp whine of it echoing and re-echoing as it faded into silence.
Tense, wary, Mirage held his firing stance, arm outstretched and braced against the recoil, vents stilled. His optics and other, less obvious, senses scanned his surroundings constantly, sparing no more than a part of his attention for Starscream as the Seeker spasmed.
Tendrils of electricity played across the Air Commander’s frame, his limbs jerking in an uncoordinated dance of stray nerve impulses. Mirage watched without emotion, not moving until he was certain the glow had faded utterly from red optics. Only then did he subspace his electro-rifle, stepping forward to inspect the fallen flier. He grimaced, annoyed at his own lack of elegance.
Coming across Starscream framed in the doorway, arm cannon raised and an implacable determination in his voice, threatening whoever lay beyond with such vehemence, Mirage hadn’t had time to do more than snap-aim and fire. There hadn’t been time for precision, and even if Mirage had tried for a killing shot, his angle would have made it awkward. Instead, the fading tendrils of static spread from a broad, untidy scorch mark obscuring the Decepticon sigil on Starscream’s left wing. Still, the shot had accomplished his primary intent. It probably wouldn’t take the Seeker long to shake off, but for now he was well and truly stasis-locked, downed by both the electric shock and the feedback from his delicate wing sensors.
He’d fallen across the doorway, wedged by wing and shoulder thruster. Mirage took a moment to curse Starscream for being an awkward slagger even unconscious, before edging cautiously past. The silence from the room beyond, from whoever Starscream had been confronting, was troubling. But not, he realised at first sight of the victim, entirely surprising.
The mech was a mess. Somewhere under the dents and scrapes, under the layers of grime and energon - both fresh and long-since dried - his armour plating had once been black and white. Now it was an almost uniform grey, only the deep scarlet of an Autobot emblem, peaking out between scuffs and smears, provided any colour at all. Certainly there was no colour in the darkened optics. Given the state of the mech’s door-wings, hanging in ragged tatters, coated in fresh, pink energon, and scarcely recognisable as such, that was probably a mercy. At least Mirage hoped so.
Expression grim, Mirage squatted by the mech’s side, resting first a hand and then his helm against the damaged mech’s chassis trying to feel any kind of vibration. He wouldn’t put it past Starscream to rant at an empty frame, even to fire upon it, as he’d been threatening to do. Looking at the damage this mech had taken over the last orn, and the amount of energon he’d lost to the decking on which he lay, that possibility was very real.
It came as a relief to detect first the barest whisper of vents and then the deeper, although irregular, throb of a spark-pulse. Mirage sat back with a sigh of his own vents. The mech was alive, albeit barely. Now it was up to Mirage to ensure he stayed that way - at least until Ratchet could take over.
Working quickly, aware all the time of the unconscious Seeker blocking the doorway and the threat of others nearby, Mirage checked his rescuee over for critical damage, scanning the abused door-wings with a wince, checking for any break in their primary energon lines, and more than a little surprised when he didn’t find one. Huffing a little and frowning at the quantity of fresh energon in confusion, Mirage sat back on his heels before slowly, very carefully, easing the slender frame into his arms. He could only assume that the mech’s self-repair systems had already healed whatever rift had caused the worst of the leakage, although he’d honestly be surprised if they were working at all.
Getting back out past Starscream required nothing more than a sharp kick to dislodge the Air Commander, and a careful placement of his feet, stepping over the resulting heap as Starscream clattered to the ground. Finally out in the corridor, Starscream left sprawled inelegantly behind him, Mirage looked down at his rescuee’s slack faceplates, considering his options.
Mirage and Bumblebee had been sent to find two mechs, not one, and he’d be damned to the Pit if they left without them both, or at least without both frames. Whether or not he knew these mechs, and he was still reeling from Red Alert’s post-skirmish briefing on that account, he wouldn’t leave any Autobot in Decepticon hands. Bad enough he’d left them this long. Both he and Bee had been inclined to leave at once for the Nemesis on learning of their mission. Mirage’s guilt at not doing so had already been gnawing at him before he saw the abuse this mech had suffered. True, giving the virus the forty-eight hours both Ratchet and Red Alert insisted on had turned this mission from a near suicidal foray into the heart of enemy territory into something a little more survivable. That didn’t make it right.
What Mirage was about to have to do wasn’t right either.
The door-winged mech in his arms wasn’t particularly heavy, taken on a scale that included mechs like Prime or even Ironhide and Ratchet. On the other hand, Mirage didn’t have the lifting power of others on the Ark crew. Already servos in his arms were aching with the strain, and he was far from happy to have both his hands occupied and weaponless. If he had any hope of finding his second target, and dealing with whatever else he found when he did, he needed to be unencumbered.
It took Mirage several minutes to find what he was looking for - an unsecured closet with just enough room on the floor to lay out the injured mech. He did so as gently as possible, taking care to straighten the damaged door-wings insofar as he could, before reaching into his subspace for an energon shot. He didn’t bother trying to wake the mech, or even tap a line. He went straight for the mech’s emergency fuelling port, using a medical override that all Special Ops mechs knew, and tried to make sure Ratchet didn’t know they knew, to open it. Right now, and given the alarmingly feeble signs of life he was still detecting, there was no time for half measures.
He couldn’t afford to wait and see if the full cube’s worth of energon made a difference. If he was going to leave this mech alone in enemy territory, then best do it sooner rather than later and return as rapidly as possible. Mirage stood, backing out of the room with deep reluctance. Swearing inside, he took a chance, pinging Bumblebee with a location alert. Starscream would be waking any time now, and while they were now several corridors away from the interrogation chamber, they were still too close for Mirage’s liking. The less time this one spent alone, the better. Bumblebee should be done with his own task - mining the Nemesis’ launch tower - soon enough. They could rendezvous here as well as anywhere else. He’d already discarded the thought of rejoining his mini-bot partner at the sub as originally intended.
Whatever state the second mech was in, and Mirage wasn’t optimistic, he’d need Bee’s help to get both out.
Turning on his heel, resolute, Mirage raised a hand to his face, checking the function of his electro-disruptor. He was getting close to the Nemesis brig now, unless he’d somehow become turned around. He needed to be wary of guards, as well as the surveillance cameras that grew in number as he approached the restricted area.
The small, monitor-lined chamber outside the converted storeroom should have held at least one guard on duty, and more likely two, with high-ranking prisoners in thrall. In any other circumstances, Mirage, on finding it empty, would have assumed this was a trap, or a highly suspicious circumstance at the very least. Instead he was thanking Primus for Red Alert, Wheeljack and Ratchet, even as he eased cautiously inside.
It wasn’t infiltrating the Nemesis per se that was particularly dangerous. Both Mirage and Bumblebee had done so more than once before. For a fit, alert Autobot, able to work off reserve power, close their oxygen vents and make the difficult swim to one of the lower-deck airlocks, it was challenging but far from impossible. It was getting out again - particularly after a jailbreak with damaged and drained mechs in tow - that would make this mission so difficult without something to deplete and distract the enemy ranks. That was where the Decepticon-programmed and Autobot-modified virus came into its own. By all appearances, Starscream aside, the Nemesis crew had forgotten their prisoners entirely.
At least Mirage had to hope that was their reason for leaving the cells unmonitored. The other possibility was far more ominous - that they’d seen no need to post a guard over a greyed-out frame.
The monitors in the room were dark, but the cameras might be recording nonetheless and with the Seeker-trines still potentially active, Mirage couldn’t take the chance of them transmitting. He took a moment to hack the security console. Frowning in concentration, he wiped the last few hours of video records ship-wide and then fed a very careful feedback loop into the cell-block cameras.
It was as he straightened from leaning over the console that he noticed the box shoved carelessly beneath it. He drew it out, driven more by curiosity than need, gasping at the sight of an Autobot-branded acid-pellet rifle as well as the more standard blaster inside. He subspaced them quickly, reaching into the box again, more carefully this time, to bring out a set of seven knives, three of them with vibro-blades, the other four with the dull glow of dormant energon weapons. They spanned a full range of sizes, and each was exquisitely balanced, the faint traces of long-term damage on them carefully repaired and smoothed out. Mirage took a moment to admire the set, envy it even, before adding it to his subspace pocket, resolved to return it to its rightful owner if possible… if that owner still lived.
Long accustomed to the poor state of the Nemesis, Mirage produced a small vial and lubricated the hinges of the cell-block door before easing them open. He slipped inside as silently as he knew how, wary of any stray guards and still shielded by his electro-disrupter. Only when he was quite sure he was the only active mech in the block did he pause, just to the left of the doorway, to study the still form slumped in the furthermost cage-like cell.
This mech seemed at first glimpse to be in better shape than his peer, although that might just be because he lacked the far-too-vulnerable door-wings to show the damage. This mech’s paintwork was as badly abraded, and as energon streaked, as the other’s. The plating of his legs was torn, long claw marks suggesting he’d been mauled by Ravage, and in places the protective armour was missing entirely. A particularly deep gouge on his thigh reflected the light with the dull iridescence of coagulated energon, lit from within from time to time by arcing electrical sparks. The mess was streaked with black, the entire mech coated from head to foot in a patchy layer of the slime that infested these lower decks on the Nemesis and had worked its way into the inviting open wounds.
He lay awkwardly a few inches from the barred wall of his cage, his hands drawn in to his chest, and his head tucked into his body. As Mirage watched, the mech twitched. His helm lifted a little from the ground giving Mirage a clear view of the sensory horns to either side of it - one crushed, the other intact but showing the coarse surface texture of half-healed plating. His visor flickered, so dim that in any other light it would have gone unnoticed, and there was a faint whir from his vocalisor.
“Who… who’s there?” The mech - Jazz, the Special Ops mech with the visor was Jazz, Mirage remembered from his briefing; the door-winged Praxian was Prowl - didn’t even try to move from his inelegant sprawl on the floor. Either he was conserving his energon, or he had none left to spend, most likely the latter. “Raj? Raj, that you?”
Still invisible to every conventional Cybertronian sense, Mirage had been… startled that the other registered any presence at all. He was frankly shocked that the mech had not only identified him, but done so by a name he allowed precious few to use, all of them close friends.
He faded into view, already in a crouch beside the damaged mech. Reaching into subspace, he pulled out another emergency shot, this time taking the time to slip an arm around Jazz’s shoulders and raise his head just enough to sip at the glowing liquid. The Decepticons routinely kept their prisoners enervated enough to be sluggish. The last forty-eight hours of total neglect, on top of whatever abuse they’d taken before that, seemed to have pushed both Jazz and Prowl into near-critical starvation instead.
“Easy there, Jazz.” Reassurance didn’t come easy to Mirage and he knew he sounded stiff and awkward. He was about as comfortable talking to strangers as Wheeljack, and not nearly as skilled an actor as Bumblebee. It had been easier with the other one - unconscious mechs didn’t need names or pointless words. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Jazz spluttered and struggled weakly, his vents harsh and strained. He managed to sip half the small cube, most but not all of it going into the appropriate intakes, before pushing Mirage’s hand away.
“No, Raj, leave me. Ya… ya’ve gotta find Prowl. They… they took him, Raj. Days ago. They didn’ bring him b…back. Ya gotta find him. They t…took him and they left me here t’ st…starve.”
Mirage wasn’t the most empathetic of mechs. Even if he had been, a visor hid a lot of any mech’s emotion. It would take a blind mech though not to see the fury in Jazz’s expression and the desperate fear it couldn’t come close to masking. He tightened his grip, drawing Jazz in towards his chest-plates, bringing the energon shot back up to his lips and forcing him to choke down a little more.
“I already found him.”
Suddenly the hand resting loosely on Mirage’s wrist gripped him tight enough to hurt. Jazz’s worried, pain-filled expression had been replaced by one of total focus and the glow behind his visor brightened.
“Ya found him? Where…? How is…?”
As much as he wanted to reassure the mech, lying wouldn’t help. Jazz’s grip was already slackening, his strength fading, and Mirage extricated his arm, easing the mech a little more upright and pressing another energon shot into Jazz’s hand as he did so.
“Not good. He should be safe for now. I had to find you.”
“And ya left him alone?” Jazz had finally finished the first cube, letting it fall between his fingers. He managed to sit upright, swaying dangerously until Mirage braced him. The mech’s visor brightened, became too bright in fact, flaring before fading back to a dull glow. “Mirage, when we’ve got outta this and Ratch’s finished his rantin’, you and I are gonna have words.”
The mech was barely able to hold himself sitting upright. His ravaged legs hadn’t so much as twitched since Mirage arrived, and he was still dangerously under-energised. His vocalisor hissed with static, his flickering visor suggesting momentary lapses of consciousness. Mirage had rarely seen a mech this badly damaged awake, let alone coherent. And he still found himself backing away slightly, an unaccustomed shiver of fear rippling through him.
He’d seen some of the files Red Alert had recovered on Jazz - enough of them to guess that what the files weren’t saying would make for more interesting reading. Bluestreak had assured him that Jazz was a friend - everyone’s friend, in fact. That was something of a relief because right now, Mirage was far from sure he’d get out of that promised conversation fully functional.
There wasn’t time to wonder about that now though. Venting a sigh, refusing to show his anxiety, Mirage turned his attention to assessing Jazz’s condition.
“The sooner we get you mobile, the sooner we can return to him.”
“Right…”
The outburst seemed to have drained the damaged mech’s strength. He slumped, and would have fallen back to the damp deck-plates had Mirage not caught him and eased him into a lean against the bars. He waved a vague hand at his lower half, even as he raised the second shot to his lips.
“Ma legs,” he muttered, licking his lip plates to recover a stray drop of energon. “Left one’s broken, but ya can brace it. Right should be okay, jus’ torn up a bit.” He paused, not looking at Mirage. “Soundwave killed the data c’nection.”
With a nod, the spy redirected his attention to the Jazz’s hips, wincing a little when he saw that the hard-link interface ports on both hips had been forced, their covers hanging loose. He eased the nearest open, trying to ignore Jazz’s flinch. The mess of sensitive cables behind it was snarled and kinked, as if a strong hand had grabbed the bundle and given a hard yank. Towards the front though, stretched out to be clearly visible, a set of nerve connections hung loose, not cut or broken but simply disconnected so jack and plug hung side by side.
Mirage vented again, confused. Repairing this was as simple as re-securing a half-dozen plugs, something that would only take a few klicks. He glanced up at the mech. Jazz had to know that, and even weak as he was, he surely had the flexibility to reach his own…
Jazz’s visor met his optics, expression blank. Without looking away, the damaged mech brought up one of his hands, spreading it so Mirage could see what he’d missed before. Every single one of Jazz’s finger servos had been snapped, systematically disabling his capacity for fine manipulation. Holding the cube, holding Mirage, had to have been agony. Even now, Jazz’s fist kept trying to cycle closed, whining motors grating and grinding as they tried to manipulate broken struts and cables.
Mirage couldn’t stop his sharp vent and shocked optics from showing his dismay. He tried not to imagine what Jazz had gone through these last few days, separated from his companion, knowing that all he needed to move was the briefest of repairs but unable to muster the fine control to make them.
Wordlessly, Mirage bent over the black-plated hip, reconnecting the data stream with deft fingers and then holding Jazz upright as the mech trembled. The renewed contact with his damaged right leg couldn’t be comfortable, and Jazz’s already unsteady vents hitched into silence for several long seconds. He shuddered, his visor fading out, and Mirage had to shake his shoulders, calling his name before it rebooted, glowing dully.
“Right…” Jazz didn’t look at Mirage. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Now th’ other.”
The left leg was the more severely injured of the two, its main strut snapped clean through, plating missing to expose the damage to the damp atmosphere. Mirage took a moment to pull a splint from the emergency med-kit all Special Ops mechs carried, noting the total lack of surprise in Jazz’s expression as he straightened the leg and braced it. Even with the limb supported, Mirage hesitated for a long moment before restoring the data connection.
Jazz took another mouthful of the enriched energon shot, dropping the now-empty cube and scowling. “Do it, Raj! We’ve gotta get t’ Prowl!”
Mirage nodded, taking a deep vent himself before securing all six jacks in a quick flurry of movement. He’d turned and caught Jazz before the other mech could hit the floor, not surprised to find him stasis-locked from the pain. Shaking his head, Mirage ruthlessly upended a third energon ration into Jazz’s emergency port, worrying now at having only given Prowl a single shot before leaving him. Only when the mech’s energy levels read somewhere above ‘emergency shutdown imminent’ did Mirage reach for another medical protocol that Ratchet would have fits at him even knowing about.
Jazz came out of stasis with surprisingly little fuss. He didn’t move, his quiet vents only giving away his change of status if you were listening hard for them. Jazz lay still for a moment before rebooting his optics, visor scanning Mirage and then his surroundings cautiously.
What little doubt Mirage had been harbouring, even at a subconscious level, about the identity of this mech evaporated. If he wasn’t Special Ops, he had all the relevant training and instincts he needed to be.
“Jazz, we’ve got to move. Can you get up?”
Jazz blinked his optics once, before the visor flared. “Prowl!”
He stood, bracing against the cage bats and against Mirage’s hand on his back-plates, and still swaying. From the way he tilted his helm, trying to steady himself, Mirage had to guess the damaged sensory horn was affecting his balance. Either way, he managed a wobbly step, static leaking from his vocalisor as his left leg took the weight, and didn’t fall.
“Give me a weapon, Mirage.”
It was an order. One, Mirage had been told, that Jazz was technically entitled to give. Despite that, Jazz was shaky, wobbling where he stood, and as sure as Mirage was of his new companion’s training, he didn’t have the experience on which to build trust. He almost refused, prepared to look the mech optics to visor as he did so, and then he stopped. There was a fierce need in Jazz’s body language that only another highly trained mech would pick up upon, and he knew exactly what it was.
Mirage had never loitered in Decepticon custody. His electro-disrupter field, and the swift action of his friends and commanders, had always limited his brief stays in enemy hands to battlefield interludes, brushed aside at the end of the day. He had, however, spoken to other mechs, even been along to rescue a few of them, and he knew the damage spark-destroying helplessness could do even to the strongest warriors. Perhaps most of all to the strongest. Mechs who’d been the subject of confinement, torture, even to the shame of rescue, needed to stop being subjects. They needed to take control.
Jazz couldn’t hold a blaster, and certainly wouldn’t be able to aim one, even assuming Mirage was prepared to allow an armed mech he didn’t know at his back. Feeling a little ill, Mirage drew a mid-sized blade from Jazz’s set out of his subspace and handed it over, watching as his broken hands struggled to close around it. The mech would have to be very, very good to do much damage with a six-inch vibro-blade, and in Jazz’s weakened state he’d be lucky to get close enough to scratch an opponent, but the gesture seemed to help.
Jazz dimmed and rebooted his optics, before looking up with a determination that almost hid his pain.
“Get me t’ Prowl,” he ordered shortly.
The presence of a vibrant, active energy signature beside Prowl’s barely detectable one wasn’t a good thing. Mirage, bowed under Jazz’s weight, letting the other mech limp along leaning heavily on him, stopped in the corridor outside and tried to keep his sudden anxiety from showing.
“Wha…?” Jazz’s voice slurred, the short walk taking its toll on his depleted systems.
“Hush.” With an effort and a grimace for the power drain, Mirage extended his electro-disrupter field around the pair of them before reaching out very carefully with an active scan.
“Mirage?” Bumblebee’s soft voice floated from the room, the two Ops agents recognising one another’s energy signatures at the same moment.
“Here,” Mirage murmured, dropping the field. Jazz had tensed beside him when they stopped, now he made a low sound of frustration and staggered forward a step, dragging Mirage with him lest he unbalance them both. Not delaying any further, Mirage wrestled Jazz through the door and into the closet.
With Prowl flat out on the floor and Bumblebee crouched beside him, it was a tight squeeze for the four of them. Mirage found himself left mostly out in the corridor as Jazz fell to his knees with a gasp. A soft keen broke from the mech’s throat, his vents harsh as his broken hands hovered helplessly over the shredded door-wings.
Bumblebee was in the process of giving Prowl another energon shot, a deep frown on the yellow mini-bot’s face-plates. Mirage matched it, eying the pool of energon below Prowl’s door-wings.
“I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” Bumblebee muttered. “The primary lines look…”
Jazz had squirmed forward, leaning down over the other mech long enough to press his helm to the almost-still chest-plates and feel the faint spark-pulse against his sensory horns. He nuzzled Prowl’s helm with his own as he rose, the gesture deeply affectionate and very worried indeed. His vents were unsteady, but at least they were audible, which was more than could be said for his partner. Again, his hands fluttered over Prowl’s wings, and when he looked up at Bumblebee his expression was angry.
“His door-wings lose more from their second’ry and tersh’ry lines than mos’ mechs do from th’ primaries.” He scowled, pulling Bumblebee’s hands down towards the tattered plating. “Ya know that, both’a ya! Fix it!”
Bumblebee swallowed hard, clearly daunted by the delicate work Jazz was proposing. He threw a startled and panicked look at Mirage, both of them wondering how they were meant to know. Door-wings were not exactly a common appendage, and, to the best of Mirage’s knowledge, not even the Ark mechs with smaller winglets had ever damaged one anywhere near this badly. Either way, Bumblebee had no choice, and not only because Jazz’s fierce expression compelled him to do his best. The small yellow hands played across the torn panels as gently as possible, working on the complex process of crimping off the hundreds of minor energon conduits - directed from time to time by Jazz as he hovered over them, pointing out a more important line elsewhere when Bumblebee lingered too long over any one section.
Bumblebee’s fingers fell into a rhythm under Jazz’s intense gaze. And the Pit of it was, as both Bumblebee and Mirage realised, that Jazz was right. This was familiar, in some way Mirage couldn’t quite define. Mirage’s fingers twitched, and Bumblebee’s moved, switching from one door-wing to the other just as Jazz opened his mouth to voice the instruction.
Unsettled, Mirage reached into his subspace for his last energon shot and uncapped it, intending it to distract Jazz while Bumblebee finished his work. Instead, Jazz snatched it without looking. He glanced down at his fellow captive, a frown of concentration on his face, and Prowl’s fuel port opened for him.
“Jazz…”
The mech didn’t look up, already refuelling his companion. “He needs it more than I do.”
“He’s not going to have to hobble out of here,” Bumblebee noted, pausing in his work just long enough to snatch a ration out of his subspace and toss it to Mirage. Mirage caught it, presenting it to Jazz with an expression that would tolerate no argument.
Jazz took it awkwardly, still using his second hand to steady the cube at Prowl’s port. Finally empty, he let that one fall and downed his own in a continuous series of gulps, his fuel processor coping better for the gradual top-up it had already received. It was as if this new boost flicked a switch, somewhere deep inside the damaged mech. Jazz’s stance changed, from an awkward slouch to something far more alert. Mirage’s instincts screamed, and he backed up a step before even realising it, staring wide-eyed at the poised… dangerous mech in front of him.
“Who did this?” Jazz demanded, the promise of death in his voice as he looked down at Prowl.
Mirage didn’t hesitate, wasn’t sure he could have done if he wanted to.
“I found Starscream…”
“Starscream,” Jazz hissed, fists clenching, or at least attempting to clench, by his side. The mech didn’t react to the whine of damaged servos and the grating of strut-ends in his fingers. “Raj, gimme another knife. One o’ th’ small ones.”
Mirage and Bumblebee, fingers still working busily, shared wide-eyed looks as Jazz fumbled the small energon blade to full life. Taking a deep breath and concentrating hard to steady his hands, Jazz carved a crude but recognisable name glyph into the handle of the larger blade, his eyes flicking constantly from his work to Prowl’s still face, and to Bumblebee’s ongoing efforts to stem the energon flow.
He dropped the blades without a qualm, diving to his partner’s side, when Prowl stirred, wingtip twitching under Bumblebee’s startled hand. Shreds of metal clattered against one another, the high-pitched sound contrasting painfully against the weak, low moan that underlay them.
“Shh, Prowl.” Jazz reached out, stroking Prowl’s faceplates with the back of his hand. “It’s gonna be okay, love. Just stay still. Bee and Raj are here. They’ve come for us. Everything’s going to be okay.”