Yellow Ribbon - Chapter 7 of 11
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Bumblebee - Breaking Free
“Mirage, we have to move.” Bumblebee hated to spoil the moment, but there were other things he’d hate more. Losing these mechs through undue delay was high up on that list.
Mirage nodded, stepping back into the corridor to check their exit route. Rather more to Bumblebee’s surprise, Jazz reacted too. He looked at his mate with a last caress of his still faceplates and a low keen before backing off a few feet.
“Lift him real careful, Bee. Get a hand on his lower back…. No. A little higher. Support th’ door hinge.”
Bumblebee did his best to comply, aware of Jazz’s visored optics following his every move. He was stockier than Mirage, and no doubt Prowl looked a little ridiculous dangling limply from his arms, but he’d be better able than Mirage to take the weight. Judging by Jazz’s lack of protest, he knew that. It just went on the growing list of things this disconcerting stranger knew about them.
Mirage was back. Jazz scooped up his blades and flowed to his feet in a smooth motion without waiting for translation of the spy’s nod. It wasn’t until he got there that his visor flickered out and he swayed hard. Mirage caught him, steadying him as his optics rebooted. Jazz’s ready stance collapsed into a pained semi-slump on the noble’s shoulder.
“Primus,” he choked out, cycling his optics again. He cleared his vocalisor with a soft whir, trying to reassert himself. “So I guess we’re headed on down?”
It would be their usual infiltration route, coming straight in from the ocean through the second lowest of the Nemesis’ submerged airlocks. With two senior officers - one of them Special Ops - in Decepticon hands, Red Alert had flatly vetoed any plan that might constitute compromised ‘standard practice’. Looking down at the mech in his arms, Bumblebee couldn’t help but be grateful for the unconventional plan they’d adopted instead. Jazz, for all his ragged tears and missing plating, might just cope with the salt ocean, given a thick enough layer of spray-on temporary sealant. Prowl most certainly wouldn’t. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to.
“Mini-sub,” Mirage murmured, taking most of Jazz’s weight as they moved out into the corridor. He got a slightly wide-eyed look from their rescuee and Bee couldn’t help feeling a little smug that they’d finally surprised the infinitely surprising mech.
“Human-built,” he explained, trying for his usual cheerful demeanour as the Autobots’ ambassador for all things human, and getting the distinct impression Jazz wasn’t impressed. “Prime requisitioned one from some of our allies, and had Wheeljack and Ratchet outfit it.”
Jazz nodded, grunting and venting hard with effort as Mirage helped him along. Bumblebee didn’t miss the frequent glances Jazz threw back at the mech in his arms. He did his best to project a reassuring solidity, hiding his concern about the distinctly intermittent vents that whispered across his chest-plates.
Perhaps it was just the glances behind him, perhaps he was really just that good, but it was Jazz who noticed the problem first. His body, hunched over with pain, straightened through force of will alone, visor brightening.
“Camera,” he hissed. “Trackin’ us.”
Bumblebee swore under his breath, unable to do anything. Mirage, with one arm free, pulled his blaster and took the camera in question out with one shot. It would do little good. Whoever was manipulating the camera, most likely one of Starscream’s trine on the command deck, had seen more than enough.
Mirage picked up the pace, Jazz staggering more often and growing noticeably weaker as they moved along. Bumblebee followed them stolidly, still managing Prowl’s awkward weight but not exactly revelling in it. None of them were surprised to find a closed bulkhead blocking their route.
They circled around it, Mirage and Bumblebee consulting in low murmurs as they compared notes from their earlier exploration. The detour took its toll, Jazz venting hard and supporting more and more of his weight against Mirage.
The noble stopped at the second closed bulkhead, this one a mere handful of metres from their destination. Jazz detached himself without comment, giving Mirage use of both hands as he popped an access panel and worked to override the bulkhead settings. The damaged saboteur swayed, still far from balanced, before propping himself against the nearest dull purple wall. He rested both hands and his forehead against it, as if anchoring himself in its solidity against an unsteady world, but his optics moved constantly, dividing his attention between Mirage’s work and Prowl, lying still in Bumblebee’s arms.
The small, yellow Ops agent took advantage of the respite, however brief, himself. He leaned back against the wall beside Jazz, close enough for the damaged saboteur to trail a finger over Prowl’s helm and the empty chevron mount, murmuring a reassurance the Praxian couldn’t hear. The sight tugged on Bumblebee’s spark, all the more so because the sensitive mini-bot suspected that not just anyone would be permitted to see it.
Bumblebee was tired, both emotionally and physically. Mirage was intent on cracking the bulkhead. Even so, they should have been paying more attention. The first warning Bee had of the Seekers at the end of the corridor was Jazz snapping from exhausted to tense and alert beside him.
“Raj!” His arms full of Prowl, Bumblebee could only cry out a futile warning, knowing it was too late.
Time seemed to slow down, Bee’s processor over-clocking, as Jazz launched himself off the wall. Not towards Starscream, as Bumblebee more than half expected given the snarl on his face, but rather towards Mirage. He shoulder-rammed the spy without hesitation, twisting as he did so.
The world moved with the urgency of frozen treacle. Even so, it was almost too fast to see. Jazz’s thrown vibro-blade crossed Starscream’s null-ray blast in thin air. Both found a target.
“Jazz!”
Mirage stumbled back under the blow that knocked him out of the line of fire. Alarmed and warned by Bumblebee’s cry, he recovered just in time to catch Jazz. The saboteur’s optics were dark, his chest-plates scorched from the point-blank blast that splashed against them. It looked… bad. Mirage’s face went blank. Wordlessly, he swept one arm around Jazz’s waist while the other tapped a final few commands into the bulkhead control.
The blockage slid open. Hauling Jazz over his shoulder with a frustrated cry of effort, Mirage dived through, Bumblebee and Prowl right behind him.
Neither Special Ops agent spared time to look at Thundercracker and Skywarp, crouching beside their fallen trine leader. Looking back would only steal vital seconds and almost certainly get them killed. Even so Bumblebee caught glimpses of Jazz’s knife, buried deep in Starscream’s throat, energon spilling around its carved hilt. He captured the images to memory as he carried Prowl past the open bulkhead and into another of the Nemesis’s storerooms. The Seeker’s choking coughs followed them through the room, and then through the hole scorched in the Nemesis’ hull and into the miniature submarine beyond.
It wasn’t until Bumblebee was hauling the hatch closed, Prowl dumped inelegantly on the deck of the small sub, that blaster fire started to streak past his face. The Seekers filling the doorway behind him were enraged to a point beyond reason. For the briefest of moments Bumblebee felt satisfaction to note Starscream wasn’t amongst them.
Then he slammed and dogged the hatch, dodging past Mirage and hurdling Jazz as he darted to the front of the small cabin. Wheeljack had refitted the sub’s hatch, rigging it to fool the Nemesis into believing its hull intact while it cut itself a new access port. Wheeljack being Wheeljack, he’d added a few extras.
Explosive bolts tore the mini-sub clear of the purple hull-plates and out into free water, leaving the Seekers a rather pressing problem to distract them in the form of a large hole in the side of their underwater base. Another switch, and Bumblebee vented the sub’s tanks, the vessel shuddering and rocking as it starting an ascent far more rapid than any human could survive.
“Frag it, Bee! Hold it still!”
Circuits running cold, Bee abandoned the controls. He grabbed one of the full medical packs Ratchet had insisted they carry, noticing that Mirage already had the other open and was working feverishly on Jazz. Bee was at Prowl’s side a klick later, trying to straighten the unconscious mech where he’d been tossed against the wall, door-wings crumpled beneath him, and trying to stop his attention straying across the floor to their companions.
Mirage already had Jazz’s chest-plates open. Looking across Prowl, Bumblebee saw the spy send one sharp shock after another through the saboteur’s darkened laser core, watching intently for some sign of response from the spark chamber beyond. Bumblebee felt sick. Swallowing hard, he turned back to his own patient, forcing himself not to think about what was happening mere feet away or the fact that Mirage, oh-so-proper Mirage, had just sworn like a trooper.
Bumblebee fell to his knees to look Prowl over, arranging him with trembling servos. Alarmed, he pressed his sensory horns - smaller and less well-developed than Jazz’s - to Prowl’s chest armour. With an oath of his own, he grabbed a regulator from the med-kit and planted it above Prowl’s flickering laser core.
“Don’t you die on me now. Don’t you dare! The Hatchet would never forgive me!”
Ratchet had wanted to come on this rescue attempt. Just about everyone had vetoed that, from Mirage and Bumblebee to Ironhide, Red Alert and Prime himself. The medic was simply too valuable for a high-risk field mission, even for the sake of two Autobots they apparently held in high esteem. Trapped in the claustrophobic submarine, dark water streaming past them and with two sparks guttering under their hands, both Bumblebee and Mirage wished with all their sparks that the medic was by their side.
Neither mech paid much attention when they broke surface, or when Skyfire scooped the sub up in his huge hands. The huge jet dodged Seeker-fire in root mode for just long enough to transform around them and fire his main engines, outpacing the Coneheads well before they even reached shore. Bumblebee and Mirage remained largely oblivious, hearing Skyfire’s transmissions but concentrating on their rescuees to the exclusion of anything but an immediate crisis. They didn’t stop working until steady hands reached around them, and only then did they realise their fellow Autobots had given up on any idea of returning the sub and simply peeled it apart to allow Ratchet and Wheeljack access to the confined space.
Bumblebee let himself be pushed aside, finding Mirage beside him, both sitting with their backs against Skyfire as they watched the rescued mechs get carried away. Despite everything, they shared a relieved smile, satisfied to hand over two mechs with weak and artificially supported, but nonetheless stable, spark pulses.
Getting Jazz back had been touch and go; Mirage had nearly been ready to give up before he got a response. Stopping Prowl from fading in turn was more difficult still, and just as exhausting. Bumblebee’s fingers ached from working on Prowl’s abused door-wings. His processor was starting up a low throb his diagnostics put down to lack of energon, and the rest of his body added its own complaints about the dead weight he’d hauled around the Nemesis. Despite that, he felt the grim satisfaction of a task accomplished, albeit tempered by the ongoing medical crisis and the sheer confusion he still felt over the mission itself.
Mirage’s smile faded as rapidly as Bumblebee’s, those same things churning through his own processor. The former noble gazed across the Ark’s hangar bay, towards the hatchway through which Jazz had been carried, with an expression of baffled dismay on his smooth, usually-reserved face-plates.
“He took that shot for me.”
“For all of us,” Bee corrected. “What do you think I could have done with you out for the count, as well as the two of them?”
Mirage tilted his head in acknowledgement, before shaking it, almost angrily. “He didn’t hesitate. Weak and damaged as he was, he just threw himself into the firing line.”
“Threw something else too.” Bee leaned back against Skyfire. The big shuttle was in a light recharge, exhausted by his own part in the rescue. “That blade… Mirage… he’s good. Very good.”
“I had noticed.”
“Good enough to be very dangerous.”
“Good enough to be our commanding officer,” Mirage reminded him bluntly. Bumblebee nodded, conceding the point rather than pressing it. Loyalty to rank was programmed deep into Mirage, but Bumblebee could see the tension in his frame. “He deserves our respect. Both of them do.”
“Respect, sure,” Bumblebee agreed, meaning it. He paused, glanced sidelong at his companion and then dragged himself slowly to his pedes.
“Trust…?” He put an emphasis on the word, knowing Mirage would take his meaning. Trust that there was truly no alternative when they were sent into danger. Trust that difficult decisions were walking the right side of the fine line Ops traced. Trust that when back-up was promised, it would be waiting, and that the other would be where he should, though it took a journey through the Pit to get there. Trust to have a lethal weapon - the mech himself - at their backs without their trained instincts screaming at them to neutralise it. Bumblebee shrugged. “That could take a little longer.”
Medbay was still a flurry of activity when Bumblebee got there. Ratchet and Wheeljack worked quickly on both Jazz and Prowl, swapping patients at Ratchet’s occasional barked order. Perceptor perched on the opposite side of Prowl’s med-berth, working in microscope form as he did a far better job than Bumblebee could rerouting the damaged nerves and energon lines in Prowl’s door-wings.
Bluestreak was acting as a gopher, blinking back lubricant as it pooled around his optics. Bumblebee couldn’t help wondering whether Ratchet was too busy to kick the young mech out, whether Blue had thrown one of his occasional meltdowns, digging in his heels, or whether the medical team simply needed an extra pair of hands.
Either way, their chief medical officer might overlook Bluestreak’s presence but he took note of Bumblebee’s.
“Bonded?” Ratchet demanded, jerking his head towards the two prone mechs.
It was the one question Bluestreak hadn’t been able to answer. Red Alert had leapt on that one apparent inconsistency in the whole scarcely-credible story, interrogating the young mech on how he could possibly not know his mentors’ relationship. Blue’s stammered explanation that it was kind of a running joke, Jazz wanting to keep everyone guessing, hadn’t made much sense. Seeing the Special Ops mech in action, and the danger this pair faced from the Decepticons up close, it was starting to make a lot more.
Even so, Bumblebee could only shrug. Prowl hadn’t ever climbed as far as consciousness, but there had been a painful love in Jazz’s every action. Certainly they’d both tried to fade out on their rescuers, but both were pretty badly hurt.
“If they’re not, they’ve got a good reason for holding back,” he told the medic simply.
Ratchet fixed him with a hard look, before nodding and turning back to his work. Spark-bonding changed the rules of triage, altering it from a linear series of treatments, to something more along parallel lines. For Ratchet though, it boiled down to one thing: he’d hitch a ride to the Pit before he gave either one of these patients up to the Matrix. “Great! Door-wings and a maybe-bond, Primus hates me.”
Bumblebee offered an amused smile in return, sharing it with Bluestreak since the others were busy. Bluestreak tried to smile, but his expression didn’t get past a kind of sickly grin. His too-bright optics and unusual quiet were worrisome. Moving wearily, Bumblebee helped himself to a couple of energon rations from the sickbay dispenser and hopped up onto the berth recently vacated by one of the twins, pulling his friend up beside him.
“C’mon Blue, let’s keep out of the way, shall we?”
“They’ll be okay, right, Bee?” Bluestreak whispered the words, his eyes glued to the medics in case they should need anything. His hands accepted the cube from Bumblebee, playing with it aimlessly. “I mean, I guess I knew they’d be a bit battered, being with the Decepticons and all, but they’ve always come back before, from just about everything, and Prowl’s always been so strong, and he’s always been there and… and… his poor door-wings!”
Bluestreak’s own wings fluttered, vibrating with tension and sympathetic pain. Bumblebee winced, remembering the feel of shredded metal hanging loose against his arms. A nagging guilt grew in his processor as Bluestreak spoke. He’d been confused enough trying to think of Jazz and Prowl as his superior officers. With every word falling from the grey mech’s lip-plates, Bumblebee was forced to face the fact that these had once been more than that. Bluestreak’s obvious anxiety, his wringing hands… they were what any Ark mech deserved from another. Bumblebee looked across the room at the stasis-locked mechs, trying to feel that same personal connection. It wouldn’t come, and he couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed at his lack of feeling for what must have once been his friends.
“I’m sure Ratchet’ll do his best,” the yellow mini-bot murmured, resting a hand on the shoulder of the mech beside him.
“And that’s pretty damn good.” Ratchet stepped back from Jazz, rubbing a hand his brow. “This one’s stable enough for now. His hands and legs can wait. Bluestreak, if you’re determined to help, you can get over here and clean him up while I get to work on those damn door-wings.”
A glance at Bumblebee carried other instructions. The young Ops mech might match Bluestreak in age, close enough, but there were worlds between them in other ways. He nodded an acknowledgement of Ratchet’s silent request and settled in to wait, watching as Ratchet and Perceptor moved Prowl into the surgical suite. Wheeljack followed them, pausing only long enough to give Bluestreak the solvents, disinfectants and cloths he’d need to cleanse Jazz’s armour.
Bumblebee leaned back against the berth, throwing out occasional comments as Bluestreak gently wiped the dirt away, distracting the young mech from thinking too hard about who he was working on, and keeping a close optic on them both until the medics could return.
“You should get back to your berth, Bumblebee.”
Bee jolted awake, instantly alert, and reaching into his subspace for a weapon. Ratchet folded his arms across his chest, and raised a very unimpressed brow-ridge.
“Oh, ah, sorry, Ratch.” The young spy felt his plating heat in embarassment. He straightened, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he realised he’d dosed off on a med berth. A little to his left, Wheeljack was shooing an exhausted-looking Bluestreak towards the door. Beyond, lying still in the night-dimmed Medbay, Prowl had been wheeled back into place beside his equally silent partner. His door-wings were only partially visible, hidden by sheets and the bulk of his body, but Bumblebee caught the glint of shining fresh panels, welded into place around the tattered remains.
“How are they?”
Ratchet snorted. His expression was unchanged from earlier, but his body language was calmer. The tension Bumblebee’s Ops training had made so obvious was easing.
“They’re patients in my Medbay, and I’ll be damned to the Pit if they’re not walking out of here within the Orn.”
Bee grinned, more naturally than he had for a long time.
“Ratch, you’re a miracle worker.”
The medic scowled at him, not exactly delighted by the praise. “Hardly. But if I gave up every time you lot brought a pair of thoroughly slagged mechs in here, I’d have lost the twins to the Matrix long ago. That’s not going to happen. And I wasn’t going to let these two go either.” He frowned down at the smaller bot. “Now, did you take any damage? Did Mirage?”
Ratchet watched Bumblebee shake his head and vented a sigh. He threw a pointed glance towards the door through which Bluestreak had already gone. “Then what makes you think I’ll put up with loiterers in my Medbay? Out, Bumblebee, before I give you a reason for being here!”
“Ratchet… wait.”
Perhaps the unease in Bumblebee’s voice caught Ratchet’s attention, perhaps he was simply too weary to project his usual brusque demeanour. He hummed under his breath, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips.
“What is it, Bumblebee?” he asked impatiently.
“Jazz… he’s Special Ops.”
Ratchet raised an optic ridge, inspecting the young spy with a sweeping look. “I’ll try not to hold that against him.”
“Doc, he’s a Special Ops agent - a good Special Ops agent. He’s been through a Pit of a time, and last he remembers we were fighting for our lives.”
It was the real reason he’d stayed with Bluestreak, despite his own weariness. His resolve had only strengthened as he watched Blue work. Swinging his legs off the berth, Bumblebee moved to Jazz’s side, lifting a white forearm gently and turning it for Ratchet to see. The lines of small marks there had confused Bluestreak as he cleaned Jazz’s armour. Bumblebee had avoided an explanation. Now he and Ratchet both shuddered, finding it far too easy to picture the electric shocks that had left each of the many burns.
“He’s going to wake up… jittery.”
Ratchet opened his mouth to protest and Bumblebee shrugged, cutting him off.
“I know you could take him, Ratchet,” he only half-lied. “Just thought you could do with a bit of back-up, that’s all.”
As if to prove his point, Jazz’s arm twisted in Bumblebee’s grasp, fist starting to clench before the yet-to-be-repaired damage stopped him. Jazz snapped awake with a cry of pain, reaching through it to grasp Bumblebee’s arm in a hold tight enough to hurt and using it for leverage to twist Bumblebee into an arm lock as he sat upright. Ratchet didn’t even have time to react before Bumblebee twisted free. The smaller Ops agent eased back, stepping between Ratchet and the disoriented mech. Jazz’s visor flickered into life several klicks after his reflexes. He blinked at Bumblebee, and then moved his attention off to the smaller bot’s left. The fixed gaze confused Bee and he stole a quick glance himself, puzzled to find Jazz staring at a bare orange wall panel, before the damaged mech finally cycled down his optics.
“The Ark,” he breathed on a thin vent. Tension eased momentarily from his body, and then returned. Jazz’s head snapped around as if drawn on a string, his balance failing under the sudden motion. He would have fallen off the berth entirely if Ratchet hadn’t dodged around Bumblebee to catch him.
“Prowl?” Jazz demanded, his visor not moving from his unconscious lover’s face.
“Will be all right.” Ratchet didn’t hesitate. “And so will you, if you’ll just lie back and wait for your repairs.”
Jazz let himself be eased back down, one hand coming up to hover above his sensory horn. Ratchet’s initial repairs had touched on that critical system, but the damage was obvious even so.
“Lie still, Jazz,” Ratchet repeated a little more quietly. “I had to replace some of the components in your right horn and repair others in both. It’ll take a few days to integrate the repairs and recalibrate your sensor grid.” He ventured a scowl, as if Jazz were any other patient. “Looking on the bright side, at least it’ll keep you in that berth long enough for me to deal with the rest, but don’t worry. I’ll be kicking you out of here in no time.”
“Not without Prowler.” Jazz’s soft statement was non-negotiable, and he reached out with one hand, as if he could close the gap to the neighbouring berth. He pushed himself up on one elbow, only to collapse back to the berth. “Don’t go tellin’ me you’ll have him outta here in a day or two, Ratch. I saw…”
“He’ll be fine,” Ratchet repeated, gently but firmly. “Now recharge, Jazz, you’re still a little disoriented.”
“Yeah.” The agreement burst from Bumblebee before he could help it. Despite the mech’s enervated state, Bee was still watchful, still ready to intervene if Ratchet seemed in the slightest of dangers. He offered Jazz a wry smile when the saboteur looked up, still rubbing his twisted arm.
“Bumblebee.” Jazz shook his head. “Man, Bee, I’m sorry.”
Bee waved off the apology, aware of Jazz’s systems already cycling back down and his visor flickering. The mech’s head turned against the berth, bringing Prowl back into sight.
“Primus, but it’s good t’ be home!” Jazz’s voice slurred. Ratchet watched carefully, doing something to help ease his patient back into stasis. “I never thought I’d see this place - see any of ya - again. That lyin’ slagger Soundwave told us… man, the things he told us… but ya came.” Jazz’s visor turned to look from Ratchet to Bee, the gratitude and joy in it painful to see. “He said ya weren’t comin’, but we knew ya’d come for us. Man, I missed ya guys.”
The last words faded into silence. It stretched out, both Ratchet and Bumblebee listening to the quiet whir of two sets of recharging systems.
Finally Ratchet shifted, venting deeply and not quite meeting Bee’s optics. “All right, youngster. Time for you recharge too. He won’t do that again, and I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
“When… when are you going to tell them?”
Ratchet looked down at the strangers on the berths in front of him. “He was right about one thing. If recalibrating his sensor net takes a few days, retraining Prowl’s is going to take a solid week, even after I repair the rest of their damage. I can keep them in here most of an orn if need be. They don’t need the stress of this,” his arm waved, taking in the whole Ark situation, “on top of everything else they’ve been through.” His dimmed optics played over the burns on Jazz’s arm, the corners of Prowl’s wings where they peeked out from protective covers, and the rest of the damage, some of it far less obvious. “They’re strong. Pit, they wouldn’t have got this far if they weren’t! But they’re going to need support, whether they realise it or not. Not more hurt and pain. I’ll have a word with Bluestreak, make sure he understands that. He and I can handle it for now.”
Bee ran a hand back over his helm, rubbing his neck. “And if we don’t get our memories back before they leave Medbay? If we don’t get them back at all?”
Ratchet vented a sigh. “Then I guess we all deal with this as best we can. I just hope to Primus we’re all still sane when we come out the other end of it!”
Chapter 6
Bumblebee - Breaking Free
“Mirage, we have to move.” Bumblebee hated to spoil the moment, but there were other things he’d hate more. Losing these mechs through undue delay was high up on that list.
Mirage nodded, stepping back into the corridor to check their exit route. Rather more to Bumblebee’s surprise, Jazz reacted too. He looked at his mate with a last caress of his still faceplates and a low keen before backing off a few feet.
“Lift him real careful, Bee. Get a hand on his lower back…. No. A little higher. Support th’ door hinge.”
Bumblebee did his best to comply, aware of Jazz’s visored optics following his every move. He was stockier than Mirage, and no doubt Prowl looked a little ridiculous dangling limply from his arms, but he’d be better able than Mirage to take the weight. Judging by Jazz’s lack of protest, he knew that. It just went on the growing list of things this disconcerting stranger knew about them.
Mirage was back. Jazz scooped up his blades and flowed to his feet in a smooth motion without waiting for translation of the spy’s nod. It wasn’t until he got there that his visor flickered out and he swayed hard. Mirage caught him, steadying him as his optics rebooted. Jazz’s ready stance collapsed into a pained semi-slump on the noble’s shoulder.
“Primus,” he choked out, cycling his optics again. He cleared his vocalisor with a soft whir, trying to reassert himself. “So I guess we’re headed on down?”
It would be their usual infiltration route, coming straight in from the ocean through the second lowest of the Nemesis’ submerged airlocks. With two senior officers - one of them Special Ops - in Decepticon hands, Red Alert had flatly vetoed any plan that might constitute compromised ‘standard practice’. Looking down at the mech in his arms, Bumblebee couldn’t help but be grateful for the unconventional plan they’d adopted instead. Jazz, for all his ragged tears and missing plating, might just cope with the salt ocean, given a thick enough layer of spray-on temporary sealant. Prowl most certainly wouldn’t. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to.
“Mini-sub,” Mirage murmured, taking most of Jazz’s weight as they moved out into the corridor. He got a slightly wide-eyed look from their rescuee and Bee couldn’t help feeling a little smug that they’d finally surprised the infinitely surprising mech.
“Human-built,” he explained, trying for his usual cheerful demeanour as the Autobots’ ambassador for all things human, and getting the distinct impression Jazz wasn’t impressed. “Prime requisitioned one from some of our allies, and had Wheeljack and Ratchet outfit it.”
Jazz nodded, grunting and venting hard with effort as Mirage helped him along. Bumblebee didn’t miss the frequent glances Jazz threw back at the mech in his arms. He did his best to project a reassuring solidity, hiding his concern about the distinctly intermittent vents that whispered across his chest-plates.
Perhaps it was just the glances behind him, perhaps he was really just that good, but it was Jazz who noticed the problem first. His body, hunched over with pain, straightened through force of will alone, visor brightening.
“Camera,” he hissed. “Trackin’ us.”
Bumblebee swore under his breath, unable to do anything. Mirage, with one arm free, pulled his blaster and took the camera in question out with one shot. It would do little good. Whoever was manipulating the camera, most likely one of Starscream’s trine on the command deck, had seen more than enough.
Mirage picked up the pace, Jazz staggering more often and growing noticeably weaker as they moved along. Bumblebee followed them stolidly, still managing Prowl’s awkward weight but not exactly revelling in it. None of them were surprised to find a closed bulkhead blocking their route.
They circled around it, Mirage and Bumblebee consulting in low murmurs as they compared notes from their earlier exploration. The detour took its toll, Jazz venting hard and supporting more and more of his weight against Mirage.
The noble stopped at the second closed bulkhead, this one a mere handful of metres from their destination. Jazz detached himself without comment, giving Mirage use of both hands as he popped an access panel and worked to override the bulkhead settings. The damaged saboteur swayed, still far from balanced, before propping himself against the nearest dull purple wall. He rested both hands and his forehead against it, as if anchoring himself in its solidity against an unsteady world, but his optics moved constantly, dividing his attention between Mirage’s work and Prowl, lying still in Bumblebee’s arms.
The small, yellow Ops agent took advantage of the respite, however brief, himself. He leaned back against the wall beside Jazz, close enough for the damaged saboteur to trail a finger over Prowl’s helm and the empty chevron mount, murmuring a reassurance the Praxian couldn’t hear. The sight tugged on Bumblebee’s spark, all the more so because the sensitive mini-bot suspected that not just anyone would be permitted to see it.
Bumblebee was tired, both emotionally and physically. Mirage was intent on cracking the bulkhead. Even so, they should have been paying more attention. The first warning Bee had of the Seekers at the end of the corridor was Jazz snapping from exhausted to tense and alert beside him.
“Raj!” His arms full of Prowl, Bumblebee could only cry out a futile warning, knowing it was too late.
Time seemed to slow down, Bee’s processor over-clocking, as Jazz launched himself off the wall. Not towards Starscream, as Bumblebee more than half expected given the snarl on his face, but rather towards Mirage. He shoulder-rammed the spy without hesitation, twisting as he did so.
The world moved with the urgency of frozen treacle. Even so, it was almost too fast to see. Jazz’s thrown vibro-blade crossed Starscream’s null-ray blast in thin air. Both found a target.
“Jazz!”
Mirage stumbled back under the blow that knocked him out of the line of fire. Alarmed and warned by Bumblebee’s cry, he recovered just in time to catch Jazz. The saboteur’s optics were dark, his chest-plates scorched from the point-blank blast that splashed against them. It looked… bad. Mirage’s face went blank. Wordlessly, he swept one arm around Jazz’s waist while the other tapped a final few commands into the bulkhead control.
The blockage slid open. Hauling Jazz over his shoulder with a frustrated cry of effort, Mirage dived through, Bumblebee and Prowl right behind him.
Neither Special Ops agent spared time to look at Thundercracker and Skywarp, crouching beside their fallen trine leader. Looking back would only steal vital seconds and almost certainly get them killed. Even so Bumblebee caught glimpses of Jazz’s knife, buried deep in Starscream’s throat, energon spilling around its carved hilt. He captured the images to memory as he carried Prowl past the open bulkhead and into another of the Nemesis’s storerooms. The Seeker’s choking coughs followed them through the room, and then through the hole scorched in the Nemesis’ hull and into the miniature submarine beyond.
It wasn’t until Bumblebee was hauling the hatch closed, Prowl dumped inelegantly on the deck of the small sub, that blaster fire started to streak past his face. The Seekers filling the doorway behind him were enraged to a point beyond reason. For the briefest of moments Bumblebee felt satisfaction to note Starscream wasn’t amongst them.
Then he slammed and dogged the hatch, dodging past Mirage and hurdling Jazz as he darted to the front of the small cabin. Wheeljack had refitted the sub’s hatch, rigging it to fool the Nemesis into believing its hull intact while it cut itself a new access port. Wheeljack being Wheeljack, he’d added a few extras.
Explosive bolts tore the mini-sub clear of the purple hull-plates and out into free water, leaving the Seekers a rather pressing problem to distract them in the form of a large hole in the side of their underwater base. Another switch, and Bumblebee vented the sub’s tanks, the vessel shuddering and rocking as it starting an ascent far more rapid than any human could survive.
“Frag it, Bee! Hold it still!”
Circuits running cold, Bee abandoned the controls. He grabbed one of the full medical packs Ratchet had insisted they carry, noticing that Mirage already had the other open and was working feverishly on Jazz. Bee was at Prowl’s side a klick later, trying to straighten the unconscious mech where he’d been tossed against the wall, door-wings crumpled beneath him, and trying to stop his attention straying across the floor to their companions.
Mirage already had Jazz’s chest-plates open. Looking across Prowl, Bumblebee saw the spy send one sharp shock after another through the saboteur’s darkened laser core, watching intently for some sign of response from the spark chamber beyond. Bumblebee felt sick. Swallowing hard, he turned back to his own patient, forcing himself not to think about what was happening mere feet away or the fact that Mirage, oh-so-proper Mirage, had just sworn like a trooper.
Bumblebee fell to his knees to look Prowl over, arranging him with trembling servos. Alarmed, he pressed his sensory horns - smaller and less well-developed than Jazz’s - to Prowl’s chest armour. With an oath of his own, he grabbed a regulator from the med-kit and planted it above Prowl’s flickering laser core.
“Don’t you die on me now. Don’t you dare! The Hatchet would never forgive me!”
Ratchet had wanted to come on this rescue attempt. Just about everyone had vetoed that, from Mirage and Bumblebee to Ironhide, Red Alert and Prime himself. The medic was simply too valuable for a high-risk field mission, even for the sake of two Autobots they apparently held in high esteem. Trapped in the claustrophobic submarine, dark water streaming past them and with two sparks guttering under their hands, both Bumblebee and Mirage wished with all their sparks that the medic was by their side.
Neither mech paid much attention when they broke surface, or when Skyfire scooped the sub up in his huge hands. The huge jet dodged Seeker-fire in root mode for just long enough to transform around them and fire his main engines, outpacing the Coneheads well before they even reached shore. Bumblebee and Mirage remained largely oblivious, hearing Skyfire’s transmissions but concentrating on their rescuees to the exclusion of anything but an immediate crisis. They didn’t stop working until steady hands reached around them, and only then did they realise their fellow Autobots had given up on any idea of returning the sub and simply peeled it apart to allow Ratchet and Wheeljack access to the confined space.
Bumblebee let himself be pushed aside, finding Mirage beside him, both sitting with their backs against Skyfire as they watched the rescued mechs get carried away. Despite everything, they shared a relieved smile, satisfied to hand over two mechs with weak and artificially supported, but nonetheless stable, spark pulses.
Getting Jazz back had been touch and go; Mirage had nearly been ready to give up before he got a response. Stopping Prowl from fading in turn was more difficult still, and just as exhausting. Bumblebee’s fingers ached from working on Prowl’s abused door-wings. His processor was starting up a low throb his diagnostics put down to lack of energon, and the rest of his body added its own complaints about the dead weight he’d hauled around the Nemesis. Despite that, he felt the grim satisfaction of a task accomplished, albeit tempered by the ongoing medical crisis and the sheer confusion he still felt over the mission itself.
Mirage’s smile faded as rapidly as Bumblebee’s, those same things churning through his own processor. The former noble gazed across the Ark’s hangar bay, towards the hatchway through which Jazz had been carried, with an expression of baffled dismay on his smooth, usually-reserved face-plates.
“He took that shot for me.”
“For all of us,” Bee corrected. “What do you think I could have done with you out for the count, as well as the two of them?”
Mirage tilted his head in acknowledgement, before shaking it, almost angrily. “He didn’t hesitate. Weak and damaged as he was, he just threw himself into the firing line.”
“Threw something else too.” Bee leaned back against Skyfire. The big shuttle was in a light recharge, exhausted by his own part in the rescue. “That blade… Mirage… he’s good. Very good.”
“I had noticed.”
“Good enough to be very dangerous.”
“Good enough to be our commanding officer,” Mirage reminded him bluntly. Bumblebee nodded, conceding the point rather than pressing it. Loyalty to rank was programmed deep into Mirage, but Bumblebee could see the tension in his frame. “He deserves our respect. Both of them do.”
“Respect, sure,” Bumblebee agreed, meaning it. He paused, glanced sidelong at his companion and then dragged himself slowly to his pedes.
“Trust…?” He put an emphasis on the word, knowing Mirage would take his meaning. Trust that there was truly no alternative when they were sent into danger. Trust that difficult decisions were walking the right side of the fine line Ops traced. Trust that when back-up was promised, it would be waiting, and that the other would be where he should, though it took a journey through the Pit to get there. Trust to have a lethal weapon - the mech himself - at their backs without their trained instincts screaming at them to neutralise it. Bumblebee shrugged. “That could take a little longer.”
Medbay was still a flurry of activity when Bumblebee got there. Ratchet and Wheeljack worked quickly on both Jazz and Prowl, swapping patients at Ratchet’s occasional barked order. Perceptor perched on the opposite side of Prowl’s med-berth, working in microscope form as he did a far better job than Bumblebee could rerouting the damaged nerves and energon lines in Prowl’s door-wings.
Bluestreak was acting as a gopher, blinking back lubricant as it pooled around his optics. Bumblebee couldn’t help wondering whether Ratchet was too busy to kick the young mech out, whether Blue had thrown one of his occasional meltdowns, digging in his heels, or whether the medical team simply needed an extra pair of hands.
Either way, their chief medical officer might overlook Bluestreak’s presence but he took note of Bumblebee’s.
“Bonded?” Ratchet demanded, jerking his head towards the two prone mechs.
It was the one question Bluestreak hadn’t been able to answer. Red Alert had leapt on that one apparent inconsistency in the whole scarcely-credible story, interrogating the young mech on how he could possibly not know his mentors’ relationship. Blue’s stammered explanation that it was kind of a running joke, Jazz wanting to keep everyone guessing, hadn’t made much sense. Seeing the Special Ops mech in action, and the danger this pair faced from the Decepticons up close, it was starting to make a lot more.
Even so, Bumblebee could only shrug. Prowl hadn’t ever climbed as far as consciousness, but there had been a painful love in Jazz’s every action. Certainly they’d both tried to fade out on their rescuers, but both were pretty badly hurt.
“If they’re not, they’ve got a good reason for holding back,” he told the medic simply.
Ratchet fixed him with a hard look, before nodding and turning back to his work. Spark-bonding changed the rules of triage, altering it from a linear series of treatments, to something more along parallel lines. For Ratchet though, it boiled down to one thing: he’d hitch a ride to the Pit before he gave either one of these patients up to the Matrix. “Great! Door-wings and a maybe-bond, Primus hates me.”
Bumblebee offered an amused smile in return, sharing it with Bluestreak since the others were busy. Bluestreak tried to smile, but his expression didn’t get past a kind of sickly grin. His too-bright optics and unusual quiet were worrisome. Moving wearily, Bumblebee helped himself to a couple of energon rations from the sickbay dispenser and hopped up onto the berth recently vacated by one of the twins, pulling his friend up beside him.
“C’mon Blue, let’s keep out of the way, shall we?”
“They’ll be okay, right, Bee?” Bluestreak whispered the words, his eyes glued to the medics in case they should need anything. His hands accepted the cube from Bumblebee, playing with it aimlessly. “I mean, I guess I knew they’d be a bit battered, being with the Decepticons and all, but they’ve always come back before, from just about everything, and Prowl’s always been so strong, and he’s always been there and… and… his poor door-wings!”
Bluestreak’s own wings fluttered, vibrating with tension and sympathetic pain. Bumblebee winced, remembering the feel of shredded metal hanging loose against his arms. A nagging guilt grew in his processor as Bluestreak spoke. He’d been confused enough trying to think of Jazz and Prowl as his superior officers. With every word falling from the grey mech’s lip-plates, Bumblebee was forced to face the fact that these had once been more than that. Bluestreak’s obvious anxiety, his wringing hands… they were what any Ark mech deserved from another. Bumblebee looked across the room at the stasis-locked mechs, trying to feel that same personal connection. It wouldn’t come, and he couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed at his lack of feeling for what must have once been his friends.
“I’m sure Ratchet’ll do his best,” the yellow mini-bot murmured, resting a hand on the shoulder of the mech beside him.
“And that’s pretty damn good.” Ratchet stepped back from Jazz, rubbing a hand his brow. “This one’s stable enough for now. His hands and legs can wait. Bluestreak, if you’re determined to help, you can get over here and clean him up while I get to work on those damn door-wings.”
A glance at Bumblebee carried other instructions. The young Ops mech might match Bluestreak in age, close enough, but there were worlds between them in other ways. He nodded an acknowledgement of Ratchet’s silent request and settled in to wait, watching as Ratchet and Perceptor moved Prowl into the surgical suite. Wheeljack followed them, pausing only long enough to give Bluestreak the solvents, disinfectants and cloths he’d need to cleanse Jazz’s armour.
Bumblebee leaned back against the berth, throwing out occasional comments as Bluestreak gently wiped the dirt away, distracting the young mech from thinking too hard about who he was working on, and keeping a close optic on them both until the medics could return.
“You should get back to your berth, Bumblebee.”
Bee jolted awake, instantly alert, and reaching into his subspace for a weapon. Ratchet folded his arms across his chest, and raised a very unimpressed brow-ridge.
“Oh, ah, sorry, Ratch.” The young spy felt his plating heat in embarassment. He straightened, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he realised he’d dosed off on a med berth. A little to his left, Wheeljack was shooing an exhausted-looking Bluestreak towards the door. Beyond, lying still in the night-dimmed Medbay, Prowl had been wheeled back into place beside his equally silent partner. His door-wings were only partially visible, hidden by sheets and the bulk of his body, but Bumblebee caught the glint of shining fresh panels, welded into place around the tattered remains.
“How are they?”
Ratchet snorted. His expression was unchanged from earlier, but his body language was calmer. The tension Bumblebee’s Ops training had made so obvious was easing.
“They’re patients in my Medbay, and I’ll be damned to the Pit if they’re not walking out of here within the Orn.”
Bee grinned, more naturally than he had for a long time.
“Ratch, you’re a miracle worker.”
The medic scowled at him, not exactly delighted by the praise. “Hardly. But if I gave up every time you lot brought a pair of thoroughly slagged mechs in here, I’d have lost the twins to the Matrix long ago. That’s not going to happen. And I wasn’t going to let these two go either.” He frowned down at the smaller bot. “Now, did you take any damage? Did Mirage?”
Ratchet watched Bumblebee shake his head and vented a sigh. He threw a pointed glance towards the door through which Bluestreak had already gone. “Then what makes you think I’ll put up with loiterers in my Medbay? Out, Bumblebee, before I give you a reason for being here!”
“Ratchet… wait.”
Perhaps the unease in Bumblebee’s voice caught Ratchet’s attention, perhaps he was simply too weary to project his usual brusque demeanour. He hummed under his breath, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips.
“What is it, Bumblebee?” he asked impatiently.
“Jazz… he’s Special Ops.”
Ratchet raised an optic ridge, inspecting the young spy with a sweeping look. “I’ll try not to hold that against him.”
“Doc, he’s a Special Ops agent - a good Special Ops agent. He’s been through a Pit of a time, and last he remembers we were fighting for our lives.”
It was the real reason he’d stayed with Bluestreak, despite his own weariness. His resolve had only strengthened as he watched Blue work. Swinging his legs off the berth, Bumblebee moved to Jazz’s side, lifting a white forearm gently and turning it for Ratchet to see. The lines of small marks there had confused Bluestreak as he cleaned Jazz’s armour. Bumblebee had avoided an explanation. Now he and Ratchet both shuddered, finding it far too easy to picture the electric shocks that had left each of the many burns.
“He’s going to wake up… jittery.”
Ratchet opened his mouth to protest and Bumblebee shrugged, cutting him off.
“I know you could take him, Ratchet,” he only half-lied. “Just thought you could do with a bit of back-up, that’s all.”
As if to prove his point, Jazz’s arm twisted in Bumblebee’s grasp, fist starting to clench before the yet-to-be-repaired damage stopped him. Jazz snapped awake with a cry of pain, reaching through it to grasp Bumblebee’s arm in a hold tight enough to hurt and using it for leverage to twist Bumblebee into an arm lock as he sat upright. Ratchet didn’t even have time to react before Bumblebee twisted free. The smaller Ops agent eased back, stepping between Ratchet and the disoriented mech. Jazz’s visor flickered into life several klicks after his reflexes. He blinked at Bumblebee, and then moved his attention off to the smaller bot’s left. The fixed gaze confused Bee and he stole a quick glance himself, puzzled to find Jazz staring at a bare orange wall panel, before the damaged mech finally cycled down his optics.
“The Ark,” he breathed on a thin vent. Tension eased momentarily from his body, and then returned. Jazz’s head snapped around as if drawn on a string, his balance failing under the sudden motion. He would have fallen off the berth entirely if Ratchet hadn’t dodged around Bumblebee to catch him.
“Prowl?” Jazz demanded, his visor not moving from his unconscious lover’s face.
“Will be all right.” Ratchet didn’t hesitate. “And so will you, if you’ll just lie back and wait for your repairs.”
Jazz let himself be eased back down, one hand coming up to hover above his sensory horn. Ratchet’s initial repairs had touched on that critical system, but the damage was obvious even so.
“Lie still, Jazz,” Ratchet repeated a little more quietly. “I had to replace some of the components in your right horn and repair others in both. It’ll take a few days to integrate the repairs and recalibrate your sensor grid.” He ventured a scowl, as if Jazz were any other patient. “Looking on the bright side, at least it’ll keep you in that berth long enough for me to deal with the rest, but don’t worry. I’ll be kicking you out of here in no time.”
“Not without Prowler.” Jazz’s soft statement was non-negotiable, and he reached out with one hand, as if he could close the gap to the neighbouring berth. He pushed himself up on one elbow, only to collapse back to the berth. “Don’t go tellin’ me you’ll have him outta here in a day or two, Ratch. I saw…”
“He’ll be fine,” Ratchet repeated, gently but firmly. “Now recharge, Jazz, you’re still a little disoriented.”
“Yeah.” The agreement burst from Bumblebee before he could help it. Despite the mech’s enervated state, Bee was still watchful, still ready to intervene if Ratchet seemed in the slightest of dangers. He offered Jazz a wry smile when the saboteur looked up, still rubbing his twisted arm.
“Bumblebee.” Jazz shook his head. “Man, Bee, I’m sorry.”
Bee waved off the apology, aware of Jazz’s systems already cycling back down and his visor flickering. The mech’s head turned against the berth, bringing Prowl back into sight.
“Primus, but it’s good t’ be home!” Jazz’s voice slurred. Ratchet watched carefully, doing something to help ease his patient back into stasis. “I never thought I’d see this place - see any of ya - again. That lyin’ slagger Soundwave told us… man, the things he told us… but ya came.” Jazz’s visor turned to look from Ratchet to Bee, the gratitude and joy in it painful to see. “He said ya weren’t comin’, but we knew ya’d come for us. Man, I missed ya guys.”
The last words faded into silence. It stretched out, both Ratchet and Bumblebee listening to the quiet whir of two sets of recharging systems.
Finally Ratchet shifted, venting deeply and not quite meeting Bee’s optics. “All right, youngster. Time for you recharge too. He won’t do that again, and I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
“When… when are you going to tell them?”
Ratchet looked down at the strangers on the berths in front of him. “He was right about one thing. If recalibrating his sensor net takes a few days, retraining Prowl’s is going to take a solid week, even after I repair the rest of their damage. I can keep them in here most of an orn if need be. They don’t need the stress of this,” his arm waved, taking in the whole Ark situation, “on top of everything else they’ve been through.” His dimmed optics played over the burns on Jazz’s arm, the corners of Prowl’s wings where they peeked out from protective covers, and the rest of the damage, some of it far less obvious. “They’re strong. Pit, they wouldn’t have got this far if they weren’t! But they’re going to need support, whether they realise it or not. Not more hurt and pain. I’ll have a word with Bluestreak, make sure he understands that. He and I can handle it for now.”
Bee ran a hand back over his helm, rubbing his neck. “And if we don’t get our memories back before they leave Medbay? If we don’t get them back at all?”
Ratchet vented a sigh. “Then I guess we all deal with this as best we can. I just hope to Primus we’re all still sane when we come out the other end of it!”