===
"Jut."Ix.
"Upsilyon.
"Tset."
Ratchet was convinced that there was nothing stranger in the universe than a human pronouncing Cybertronix. Decently, even.
He pointed to the next character on the datacard. Sunstreaker barely had to look at it before Hunter, blindfolded, answered, "Ilf."
The medic lowered the datacard. No matter how many tests they did, the results never got any more believable.
"Do you talk to him?" Ratchet asked Sunstreaker, monitoring his neural waves carefully.
Sunstreaker grimaced at him. It had been an ordeal to finally get him cut apart and moved into the CR tank, but now repaired and recharged, he was mostly functional again, if not entirely his old self. Ratchet wasn't sure whether to attribute the emotional distance to post-traumatic stress or the other mind taking up residence in his head.
"No," Sunstreaker said. "I don't say anything."
Any mental link shared between Sunstreaker and one of the Headmaster units should have terminated as soon as they unplugged his cognition centres from their machines. But if anything, the overlap between Sunstreaker and Hunter was even stronger than it had been for the other pilots, and Ratchet had no idea how he might go about separating them. This clearly lay beyond the scope of simple surgery, but as to where the problem did lie, he was completely at a loss.
Ratchet told Hunter he could remove the blinders. The boy did so, pulling off the ad hoc blotting screen they'd constructed for over his eyes. Ratchet's bioscanners reported both Sunstreaker and Hunter's light perception shooting up.
"Standby," he told Sunstreaker, who obeyed without significant complaint. Ratchet turned back to Hunter, addressing him in full Cybertronix. "A smelter goes to the market for some wonderflonium. He comes to a stall and asks for Isotope 49. What does the merchant say?"
"'Sorry, not in this pocket universe'," Hunter recited distantly. He looked up at the medic. "I don't understand what's going on."
"You're not the only one," Ratchet sighed. "Are you in any pain?"
"No. Not really."
"What do you feel?"
"...Kinda claustrophobic," Hunter said quietly.
Ratchet stirred Sunstreaker out of standby mode. The human looked a little happier after that.
The medic stood back and surveyed the pair of them, arms crossed over his chestplate. Where did he even start with this?
Until recently, if a medical problem had eluded Ratchet, he would have brought in Wheeljack. Now he didn't even have that option. He could write to the medical collective, but not only would their reply be slow, it most likely wouldn't offer any insights. Like as not, the Ark-19 crew was the only team to have explored human beings in depth.
Ratchet's audio receptors picked up raised voices outside the medbay, accompanied by an urgent scuffle. A fist pounded on the lab door.
He'd gotten a heads-up about this over the bridge comm. The information had been critical to his decision to lock the door. But it seemed Sideswipe wasn't taking no for an answer-- Ratchet heard a gun go off and in the same instant saw the security panel next to the door erupt into sparks. The door slid open and Sideswipe stumbled in, pulling out of Ironhide's grip.
"--Sunstreaker!" he exclaimed, launching immediately into a tackle. He collided with his brother head-on. They fell clear off the examination table and onto the floor together, to a surprised yelp from Sunstreaker.
Hunter narrowly escaped getting crushed as well, but he responded far differently. He climbed up from his side of the examination table and went over to them, his mouth splitting into an ecstatic grin. He leapt off the edge of the table and landed on Sideswipe's shoulder for a hug.
Sideswipe, however, jerked and made the kind of shriek he should rightly be embarrassed by. "Something's on me! Something just grabbed me! Get it off! I think it's native!"
This prompted a sadistic laugh from Sunstreaker and Hunter both, the former of which took this opportunity to roll their little huddle into half a hug, half a wrestling match. Ratchet, for the moment disarmed by this out-of-nowhere display, couldn't help twitching out a smile.
Then the boys knocked over something expensive and Ratchet's smile vanished again.
"Out! Out! Out!" Ratchet barked a moment later, pulling the twins apart and pushing Sideswipe toward the door. "You can visit him later. Go report to Prowl!"
"Slag that! I just transwarped halfway across the galaxy to reach this stinking dirtball!" Sideswipe ground his treads into the floor plating, but Ratchet's superior mass still overwhelmed him. The nextgen's feet squeaked as he was pushed along. "To hell with protocol; I wanna see my brother!"
Ironhide, recovered from the previous struggle, took over for Ratchet once Sideswipe was finally clear of the threshold. "Sorry 'bout that, Ratchet," he said helplessly. "Kids-- Let 'em off their leash for one microcycle an' they tear up the place."
"It's not that," Ratchet said anxiously. "Sideswipe, your brother is malfunctioning. I know how you feel, but you have to let me do my job."
"Oh, you know how I 'feel'," Sideswipe shot back sarcastically. "Are you a split-spark? Do you know what it's like? Huh, Ratchet?"
"Yes," Ratchet answered without a hitch. "If you're talking about having an other half, then yes, I do. Go get briefed before I have to hurt you."
He met Ironhide's gaze at the doorway, but didn't trade words with him. Ratchet was probably going to come to regret his candidness in a millicycle or two, but how much more could the Ark-19 crew really uncover about his contract dispute?
Sideswipe prepared a retort, but stopped short when he discovered Hunter still crawling on his arm. He made another rather undignified sound and attempted to shake him off. Ratchet did his best to grab the Headmaster, but before he could, Hunter was flung off onto the floor. The panic of impending impact seemed to trigger something; Hunter transformed instinctively and hit the floor plating with a distinct thud, rolling helplessly until he came to a halt.
Sideswipe gaped at this, understandably mortified to find the exact likeness of his brother's severed head lying on the floor. The shock seemed to cut off fuel circulation for a moment too long, because he fainted.
"He's sure gonna have some fancy ideas about humans after this," Ironhide remarked dryly, crouching down to pick Sideswipe off the floor. Sideswipe, slowly coming off of emergency reset, lolled unresisting in the larger mech's arms as Ironhide began hauling him off.
Ratchet delicately scooped up Hunter, who unfolded a bit like a crysallis flower in his cupped hands. "Please don't try that again," he told him, as Ironhide departed with Sideswipe in tow. "It... Well, you should know it's kind of unpleasant."
"It slipped. I didn't mean to--"
"No, no. You don't need to apologise, Hunter. No-one really knows what's going on."
"It's just I haven't seen him in so long, and..."
This sent a fresh jolt down Ratchet's backstruts, unrelated to his earlier circuit damage. He looked quickly over to Sunstreaker, who was apparently unfazed. Actually, he sported an enormous grin-- more honestly happy than Ratchet had ever seen him.
The smile faded when he noticed Ratchet looking at him. "It's nothing," he insisted. "What, is there something wrong with it? After Mom and Dad died, he's all we've got--"
Ratchet's mouth fell open.
Sunstreaker realised what he was saying. He gaped at his hands. "I mean--"
He slumped back down onto the exam table, holding his head. Ratchet hastily put Hunter down on a shelf and went to Sunstreaker's side, to get him properly laid down. It had been idiotic to put him and Hunter through these cognition tests so soon after getting them back-- even if they were physically up to spec, their mental states more than obviously weren't. And seeing Sideswipe had probably stirred Sunstreaker up a lot more than he really needed.
"Try to go back into standby for a while," Ratchet urged, reconnecting the sensor wires that had been pulled off before. "I'll run some more tests and we can make a fresh start in the early cycle."
"But Sideswipe..."
"Isn't going anywhere without you," he reassured him. "He's been granted leave to transport you to Aceso for sabbatical. Lucky you, you're going to miss the war."
The former Sunstreaker would have had some sarcastic comment about not exactly being in this for the glory, more the racial identity and not-actually-having-a-choice part. The present Sunstreaker said nothing at all, just turned his head away to shut off his raster feed and prepare for standby.
"...What about me?" Hunter asked, after a few moments.
Ratchet looked back at him. "You're human. You have to stay here on Earth."
"We're not human. Anyway, not human enough to count."
"Too human to count as anything else," Ratchet insisted. "We'll unstick you somehow. It'll be fine. You'll forget you were ever like this."
"He's really smart, you know," Sunstreaker volunteered, halting the stand-down commands on his awareness processors. "You should ask him about this Ray Kurzweil guy."
"Go to sleep, Sunstreaker," Ratchet ordered, using the human term deliberately. Sunstreaker obeyed.
When his vitals levelled out, Ratchet queued up the tests for the lab to perform and moved to get Hunter situated. He didn't have the best offerings for human sedatives, and he couldn't be sure they would even have an effect on Hunter's present physiology, but he didn't know how else to approach the issue.
Ratchet switched out the tip of a finger for a microneedle and loaded a sedative cartridge. Hunter took one look at the thing and shook his head.
"The drugs don't do anything except fuck me up," he explained. "They just kind of tumble around until the current burns them."
Ratchet relented, retracting the needle. "I still need to x-ray you to see what you're really like inside," he admitted. "I don't imagine there's a lot of you left."
Hunter nodded. He looked at his hands, then over at Sunstreaker on the exam table.
"When he's asleep, it feels dark," he said to Ratchet. "I can't feel what the room is like. I don't know if it's hot or cold. I keep getting a feeling to look around to make sure the walls are in the same place. But when he's awake, everything lights up. Sensors... There are logs for everything... I can connect to satellites... He's got these huge databanks to cross-reference things. It's like Alien Wikipedia."
The Ark-19 crew had had to download Wikipedia as part of their preliminary information gathering when they landed on this planet. Ratchet had found it woefully myopic, which probably accurately described Sunstreaker's databanks as well. He kept this opinion to himself, however. The fact remained that Hunter probably now knew at least as much about Autobot physiology as Stark did, and most likely knew far more of their language and what passed for their culture these days. Exactly what was Autobot command's mute order trying to stop, again?
Ratchet checked his internal clock. He was due in for another meeting with Jazz soon, to brief the Captain on where things stood now. "We'll talk more," he said to Hunter. "I have to run you through some diagnostics as well. Can you sleep at all?"
"I think I saw a sleep mode in my system settings..." Hunter's gazed unfocused, as though he was checking something internally. "Huh, it even comes with a timer," he said reflectively.
Ratchet couldn't help a tiny smile, macabre though it was. It seemed Hunter really was more machine than human now. If you gave him a spark, he'd be good to go. A pity that the only spark scaled to human use was not available for transplant.
"Sunstreaker's probably going to have more visitors over the next few cycles," he told Hunter. "Do you want me to bring up Jimmy and Verity sometime?"
The boy's eyes lit up. There was his answer. Ratchet nodded; he scooped the human up again to go get him plugged in like his partner.
He only just made it over to the examination table when something garbled came over his silent channel. At first, Ratchet thought it might be Wheeljack-- it seemed like his signature, possibly even his standard encryption. But Wheeljack had been stripped of his networking capabilities when Prowl had sentenced him to the brig. And it seemed doubtful that, if Wheeljack did find some way to hack onto the party band, it would be Ratchet that he would choose to contact. Which left one possibility.
-You're very efficient, aren't you?- he replied to the garbled signal, as Hunter dropped into standby. -I thought it would be a few more days at least.-
===
Funny how the rumour mill worked. The less information the tabloids had, the more they seemed to have to write about.Following Stark's disappearance, the tabloids had almost immediately started stage-whispering about foul play. The Iron Man did not vanish without good reason. The Avengers gave their typical press release about giving their members a long leash, but the press didn't buy it. They wanted to know about the actress he had been seen with twice in Hollywood. They wanted to know about the fight he had gotten into with her co-star in a public restaurant. In three days, the police had made an arrest. Defamer declared Stark missing. The Sun declared him dead.
When it got to that point, Stark had to step in. He coordinated with his people on the ground to wire the actor's agent an alibi, an apology, and bail. To Defamer he anonymously emailed old vacation photographs with a new supermodel doctored in. To The Sun he sent nothing at all, confident that unless his body washed up on a beach they would soon transition to some other conspiracy theory, probably having to do with crop circles and Photoshop.
Pepper would be proud of how well he had handled it, he was sure. Even so, this was the simple stuff-- a tiny compliment of flutes while he was busy conducting the brass section. There was so much to organise, so much to move, so much to nudge into position. Enlisting people like She-Hulk could only help him so much. For this to work, everyone needed to be in the dark, except for him.
But then along had come Ratchet, who had threatened to toss everything out the window. But wouldn't you know it, honesty had been a saving grace after all. And now Stark saw a way to accomplish all he had set out to do with far fewer headaches.
After Stark had finished with Jennifer, he placed a call to his new-found accomplice. Then he went remote again to check the status at the main lab. The sun had just set in California but it was sunny in Tokyo, and his lead engineer had some new blueprints for him to approve.
Halfway through correcting their computations (it wasn't their fault; from a human perspective, these were physical laws that hadn't been discovered yet), Stark received a follow-up from Ratchet, and the signal was coming from a lot closer. Actually, it seemed to be right on top of him. Stark gave the holomatter an excuse to use the restroom and then dropped the signal; he pulled out of the navigation GUI and answered the call.
"Ho, you managed to uplink with the satellite!" he said approvingly.
"I should hope so. We commandeer these things regularly enough," she said from the terminal. With the transmitter pointed away from the console, she couldn't project an avatar. "I take it you're doing well."
It had been a near thing for a while there. Cage and Logan had managed to pick a suit with an O2 supply, but the tank had been low. He had only barely reached the satellite before the air ran out, and was close to suffocation when he finally got inside the airlock.
After that, things were considerably more comfortable. Telecom satellites, of course, were not typically designed to house human life, but this was one of his. Long before either holomatter or giant robots had been a twinkle in Stark's eye, he had foreseen the benefit of controlling global operations from space. His one regret was forgetting to include a shower in this design.
Whatever; it wasn't a cave in the middle of Afghanistan. He was in control of everything here, and everything --finally-- was actually coming together.
"I can't stay connected very long," Ratchet added. "But I had some new information. And I take it you had something you wanted to ask. Let's start with that."
"All right. The boy."
"Even a hostile kidnapping wouldn't put you at a safe distance, it seems."
She explained. By the sound of it, the wireless uplink that the prototype Headmaster had shared with Sunstreaker had not been severed with the loss of the Tampa facility proxy. Either someone had tweaked his settings, or this was an unexpected development-- maybe it'd be better to say a cybernetic mutation.
"So that's a dead end for now," Stark decided.
"I'd like you to examine him just as much as you do, believe me."
The tech wizardry aspect to this boy was intriguing, there was no doubt, but that wasn't what Stark was after. He wanted to know how the kid was doing. He wanted to see if there was anything he could do. Stark knew he was responsible for the boy's condition, even if She-Hulk insisted otherwise.
"Just tell me more about his condition. Mental state."
"It's hard to say. He seems like he's coping. He reminds me of you-- maybe just because what you wished for, he got."
Stark didn't acknowledge this theory. He switched from speaker and console mic to his headset and unbuckled himself from the command chair, taking a float over to the other panel of monitors to see how the Munich and Lyon factories were doing. "The Tampa facility censored most of its identifying records before they got to us," he said. "What's his name?"
"Hunter."
"Sounds Transformer-like."
"I'd say it's a little short," Ratchet said lightly.
"He could change it up a little. Maybe 'Headhunter' or something... Er."
Ratchet apparently found it beneath him to dignify the poor joke with a comment. "I'm running short on time," he said. "So really quickly-- command has been sending us new troops. Three so far, and we expect more to arrive soon. The CIC is threatening to intervene if we break out into conflict. Everyone feels the Decepticons wouldn't normally adopt such a façade of political self-defence unless they were trying to elicit CIC sympathy. Usually Decepticon response is just to try to kill us."
"I guess the avatar rattled them."
"Megatron doesn't rattle, Tony. Everyone knows you're behind this decision of his, because you're both playing something close to the chestplate. Prowl only hasn't requested you be named a dire enemy of the Autobot race because he's got so much else to deal with he doesn't even recall his ship's underwater most times."
Stark grinned to himself. "Sounds like I should send him a reminder."
"That you should be shot on sight?"
"No, that he's underwater."
Even as static coming over his headphones, Ratchet's confused silence managed to sound annoyed. The medic brushed past it in the interest of time. "If you are declared a dire enemy combatant, command is prepared to welcome CIC enforcers for the express purpose of shutting you down. There's a rumour they're bringing in Ultra Magnus for that very reason."
"Sounds bad. What's that?"
"He's an Autobot by schematic, but he works for the Code. An interplanetary policeman. You might consider him an exaggerated version of Prowl, but with a lot more authority. No-one is untouchable to him. He would arrest his own brother if he found cause to."
"And his brother is?"
"Optimus Prime."
"Jesus. Wait, brothers?"
"I'll explain another time," Ratchet said quickly, sounding distracted. "Listen, you installed the encryption incorrectly on that silent transmission. I'm uploading you the tier-two signature Wheeljack and I used. It uses foldspace for conveyance, so it's much more stable. Good luck."
"'Used'? Past tense?" Stark asked, but the signal cut out before he finished. Ratchet's departure left a small data packet in her wake, the transfer for which Stark hastily approved and then put out of his mind.
He floated back over to his terminal to see how the guys in Tokyo were getting along, though he was distinctly bothered now.
Stark told himself Wheeljack deserved whatever the hell he got, including losing Ratchet, if that's what it came to. The mech needed some advanced lessons in humility. Stealing the holomatter technology hadn't even been part of Stark's plan until he'd learned what Wheeljack had done to his assistant. So Wheeljack was gonna take Pepper away from him, use her and discard her? Then Stark would just take thousands of years worth of technology and master it in five days. Then Wheeljack would have a good sense of what feeling robbed felt like.
Well, you did kind of steal his woman first, reminded the more rational part of his mind. And Pepper isn't really yours. And whose fault is that, again?
Jennifer had been so emphatic about going to see Pepper at the hospital. But in his current position, how could he? She'd already been with a hologram Stark. And apparently that was enough for her.
"Mister Staak?" wailed his engineer, knocking on the bathroom stall in the remote view. "Is it having problems?"
Clearly, Stark needed to add insult to injury for Wheeljack. Maybe he could crack the Autobot autotranslation software over his freeze-dried dinner. See how the mech liked that.
Resuming remote mode, Stark had his avatar perform a perfunctory flush and nonchalantly step out of the stall. The chief engineer followed him to the sink.
"We have made your corrections," the engineer blustered. He showed the Stark-doll the fudged and re-drawn blueprints. "We await eagerly your approval."
Stark peered at them as he dried his hands. "No, you're not getting it," he said, throwing the paper towel away. He gestured with his arms. "Bigger. A lot bigger."
===
"But we have skirmishes all the time. It's a fact," Prowl said helplessly. The impassive stare of the Code arbiter made him feel like he was talking to a titanium wall. "That is-- Well, not all the time, but there have indeed been incidents, and our sides have always mutually withdrawn, peacefully."That was a lie. The last major offensive they had conducted had resulted in Optimus Prime almost losing his life, and that said nothing for the other damage their team had incurred. And it hadn't been the most graceful of withdrawals either.
Nevertheless, the damned delegate Megatron had sent over the wireless to kick up dust was insisting vehemently that a band of admitted thieves and murderers was just innocently sitting around, making clones of humans and starting wars in poor European countries, when all of a sudden these Autobots had come out of nowhere and bullied them. The delegate shrieked that 'the tyranny has to stop!' and it was all the Major could do not to respond with something sarcastic. He knew in his fuel compressors that this was not going to end any way but badly.
"It has been eight standard cycles and the Code has still not offered us a resolution!" the delegate shouted in his vidscreen. "The Earth front has been cold for decacycles. Why else would the Autobots choose now to intimidate us, if they were not planning a larger-scale assault?"
Prowl liked to think he ran a formidable crew, but the Autobot Earth detachment couldn't intimidate humans for very long, much less any other species. They'd managed to cling to this dirt ball so long mostly by being clever and trying their best not to get trod underfoot when setting a few tripwires. They were less an oppositional force as they were a political gesture, in accordance with Autobot command's resolute conviction that tiny fronts everywhere would retard the Decepticon advance better than a few major fronts in the right, key places. But oh no, don't listen to Prowl, he only won the Battle of Calamity Valley, what would he know?
"Major?" prompted the Code arbiter. "Would you like to comment on the situation?"
Prowl pinched the bridge of his olfactory sensors, hoping the static would wake him up a little. He was low on fuel and he'd been at this for almost a straight decacycle. He had never been particularly well-spoken, and what verbal grace he might have had at the start had long since run out.
"We have no such intentions," he said steadily. "I have explained repeatedly that the intrusion upon the Decepticon base was an accidental gaff, and the persons responsible have been removed of their positions." Well, he supposed Stark officially turning traitor and running to hide behind Megatron's ankles counted as a change in position. "We offer an official apology and ask the Decepticon detachment to please stand down that our troops might feel at ease doing the same."
His logic circuits caught up to him and he cringed, realising his own blunder.
"The Autobots wish us to stand down first?!" the lawyer blustered. "You have heard it for yourself, councilman! The Autobot wishes to mount an assault while we have our casings off!"
"The Major's words are poorly chosen, but they do lead us a possible compromise," the arbiter said evenly. "If both sides promised to stand down simultaneously, would this satisfy the Decepticons?"
Prowl could see the delegate poised to argue further. Finally, some relief: if Lawyertron did push despite a mutual stand down order, the Code arbiter might just start to perceive the Decepticons' intentions as actually more warmongering than their opposition. And wouldn't that be a nice reversal of fortune?
Sadly, Lawyertron held off. "We will accept the Autobots' apology," he said grudgingly, "if they release to us the specifics of who was responsible for their little 'gaff'."
Oh, you're so cute, Prowl thought. He said, "In that case, the Autobots request full disclosure of the Decepticons' relationship with the rogue human Anthony Stark."
This was the talking point Prowl had been beating to death for ages, but no-one from command had told him to stop, so it was as good a thing as any to latch onto.
"We refuse!" the Decepticon declared.
"Then withdraw your request as well!"
The Decepticon began to retort, but before he got a word in, Prowl's attention drawn off by a loud banging out in the corridor, followed by raised voices. These were apparently picked up by the conference mic, because when Prowl looked back at the screens, both the Code councilman and the Decepticon delegate were regarding him coolly.
"Perhaps you should get your house in order, and then we will decide this matter, Major Prowl," said the arbiter. "Let us reconvene in .5 decicycles. I thank the Decepticon delegate for his patience."
"It grows thin, councilman."
"As well it should," the arbiter replied, with a meaningful glance to Prowl. Both screens went black.
Prowl ground his compactor plates. Was the Code going to include obstruction of peacekeeping in their report now, just because these damned children that had been sent to his crew couldn't last a centicycle without his supervision?
He went into the corridor and found Jazz physically restraining Sunstreaker, who, it seemed, had successfully landed a few solid hits on Slingshot, the latest of the imbecilic cadets the Ark-19 had been shouldered with. Prowl hauled Slingshot off his floor and barked at him to go do something useful.
"And what was so important you couldn't have your little outburst in someone else's hallway?" he asked Sunstreaker, when the Private had vanished.
Sunstreaker, still vibrating with anger, burst out, "That slaghead called Hunter a--"
"A what? A parasite? A contaminant? They don't even know what humans are, Private; what do you expect? We aren't having the finest time with him ourselves." Prowl looked to Jazz. "You can release him now, Captain. I'll take it from here."
Jazz shrugged and released the kid, or rather, he slightly relaxed his hold and Sunstreaker thrashed the rest of the way out. Jazz tsked and delivered Prowl his latest reports before going into retreat.
"Recharge tonight," the Captain warned, looking over his shoulder. "Or I'm comin' after your skidplate."
"Noted," Prowl said, and promptly forgot about it. He returned his gaze to Sunstreaker, who at least knew well enough not to run away. "You. My office. Now."
===
Over the past two cycles, Stark and Ratchet had worked out a system of requesting and transmitting data packets over their tier-two silent channel. Mostly out of concern for Stark's schedule, these communications were kept to a minimum. Ratchet kept him apprised of troop movements and Stark wired him the schematics of Hunter's body copied from Machination documents.The inventor had taken an uncommon interest in Hunter. It lacked his usual eccentricity, though as Ratchet's examinations went on he grew progressively intrigued by the boy's internals. He did figure out something which had eluded the medic: Hunter's fuel reserves were diminishing quickly-- much faster than an Autobot six times his size. Stark put it down to the fundamentally poor fuel economy of human engineering, especially the faulty engine in Hunter's chest which, though one of Stark's own patents, had not been adjusted to optimal settings.
-And what would optimal settings look like?- Ratchet asked, squinting through a magnifying lens at Hunter's backstruts.
-Not all that much cooler, really,- answered Stark. -Even maximised, the kid's gonna be tied to an outlet every five or six days.-
"This is no way to live," Ratchet murmured, carefully touching a wire presumed to connect with Hunter's transformation matrices. Hunter jerked on the table; his arms involuntarily folded up. "Sorry," he added to the boy.
"H-hey, whatever you've gotta do," Hunter grunted, easing the arms down again. He shifted uncomfortably, face-down on the examination table. "Ratchet? I... feel kind of hot..."
"That's probably just some stray static looking for an exit. Your body should level out in a few seconds."
-I don't know what we're going to do with him,- Ratchet added to Stark. -Cybertronians would never accept him. But he has no support here.-
-I'm here,- said Stark.
-Yes, but neither of us know for how much longer,- Ratchet told him grimly. This didn't meet with a response.
Ratchet discovered, to his surprise, that Hunter was still twisting about on the table, squirming and arching as though he were progressively losing control of his frame. The medic moved the magnification lens away in a panic. "Hunter? Are you experiencing pain?"
Hunter didn't reply, merely moaned. He turned onto his side with his back facing Ratchet and started to curl into himself, grappling the surface of the table. Suddenly, he shivered, as though a strong current was running through him, even though he wasn't plugged into anything.
-That's... Wow,- Stark said, apparently shocked. -I never got it that bad as a teen.-
Ratchet had not yet broached --or even thought to broach-- the idea of Hunter's breeding impulses, now that he was deprived of an outlet for them. But despite Stark's observation, he had a hunch something else was at work right then. He set down his tools and secured Hunter on his back against the table.
"Just a moment," he said, and echoed the statement over the silent channel to Stark. He severed the connection as he began a nice, swift walk to visit someone at the other end of the ship.
===
Prowl had barely recognised himself locking the door behind them until he had already done it.He looked over at Sunstreaker, moodily stalking across his cabin. The nextgen got to the far wall and spun around to face him, pretty mouth twisted up in anger just how Prowl remembered it. "You've got my brother doing patrols in Minnesota," he said furiously "Why? You wanna cancel my leave, fine, but he's not even part of your crew."
"He is now," Prowl answered. "And you might notice he's not the only one, unless you think I've got Slingshot and Fireflight around for my health."
Sunstreaker snorted through his olfactory sensors. "Maybe. That's the sort of thing you're into, isn't it?"
Prowl's optics flared. Sunstreaker saw it; he jerked, but didn't try to make a break for it when Prowl crossed the space between them and came to stand very, very close.
In all their time stationed on Earth, Prowl had studiously avoided being even close to this overt with one of his subordinates. But Sunstreaker was the infamous loose cannon of Ark-19, untamed even by the standards that governed the rest of the crew. His time as a test subject had apparently done little for that spirit; he'd started causing trouble again the very instant Ratchet permitted him outside the medbay.
This, coupled with the fact that Prowl was at his wit's end trying to play the politician with the CIC, left him feeling a little more impulsive than usual. A typical handling in the past might have consisted of getting in range of his topical sensors, zapping some small part with a little static, and then throwing the kid into detention for a while.
Not so this time. This time he was going to get something off his chestplate. And Sunstreaker, if he was smart, was going to stop pretending they hadn't actually been playing this game for going on megacycles.
Prowl planted a hand on the wall next to Sunstreaker's head, and with the other hand pried open a small panel along his chestplate. Sunstreaker exhaled sharply; was he straining his heatsinks already?
"Scared, Private?"
"Pfft. Of you?"
So he said, but he shuddered when Prowl gripped a wire between his fingers and tugged lightly. A little more teasing and his knees started to buckle.
Prowl smirked. So Jazz wanted him to recharge? It seemed a waste to spend the lattercycle with fuel injectors hooked up to his chassis when he could just borrow some of Sunstreaker's. The nextgen was nearly fully charged. Plenty of energy to spare.
And Sunstreaker seemed eager to prove it, too. As Prowl opened more of the kid's chestplate, Sunstreaker abruptly moved closer and grabbed Prowl by the back of the neck. He pressed their lips together, forcing his mouth on top of Prowl's. The Major flinched and tried to pull away, but Sunstreaker refused to let him go.
Hot static crackled at the join of their lips; it wasn't pain, exactly, but so different from any normal sensation that Prowl felt his central processors starting to spin out of control. He pulled away, finally, when his face plating got too hot.
"Primus, the things you nextgens are into," Prowl teased, grinning. "Who taught you that one? Your brother?"
"Shut up." Sunstreaker kept his optics trained on the floor; his cheek plating had actually heated up so much it had turned a dull red.
This only made Prowl's grin widen. He pulled Sunstreaker's hands off him and took a step back, saying, "Wait right there." He moved to go retrieve the adapter cable from his desk. This was the theory, at least. In practise, he got only a few steps before Sunstreaker grabbed him again and they fell as a tangled heap on the floor.
Prowl winced, propping himself up on his elbows. One of his wings felt like it had been popped out of place. Sunstreaker, heedless to complaint, merely scooted further down and nudged Prowl's knees further apart.
The Major looked down in surprise. "A little extreme, don't you think?"
Sunstreaker glanced up, nonplussed. "What?"
Prowl grimaced at him. Nothing killed a potential overclock like a really stupid interface partner. He kicked out until he could get free of the nextgen and slid over the rest of the way to the desk, to grab that cable.
"Ducting is a sure way to ruin your paint job, Private," he reminded, returning with the adapter. He knelt up, the better to force Sunstreaker down onto his back. No matter how kinky the kid felt like being, Prowl would be damned if he wasn't the one in control here.
He plugged in and sent a test signal over the line. Without any system permissions or hacking ability to acquire them, Prowl elected to weave the current through a patch of Sunstreaker's topical sensor network, close enough to his fuel compressors that they could ensure a good flow. And it was definitely a healthy current-- Sunstreaker squirmed even from the first pulse, clutching at his open frame or, failing that, the floor as the wave built.
Sunstreaker lifted his leg and wrapped it around Prowl's waist; his hand drifted down and fumbled at his pelvis casing, where he seemed to be... leaking?
"The good doctor not fix you so well?" Prowl demanded, swatting the kid's hand away and opening the slippery panelling himself. It looked like flooded coolant, and the pressure in his cabling seemed to mount the closer he was to overload.
Experimentally, Prowl built up some static in his palm and ran his hand over the area. The response was immediate-- and vocal.
Well. This was different. And fun. Fun things happened so rarely to Prowl.
He tried a little bit more of the static trick and urged the current faster back and forth along the cable. Sunstreaker swore and grabbed his shoulder.
"I've never--"
"I don't buy that," Prowl told him gruffly. "You stupid yellow proxy server... Bet those Headmasters had nothing left to steal, didn't they?"
"F-fuck you."
"Hnh. Say that again," Prowl dared, sending a stronger pulse across the line between their chests. "Say it. What's the matter? Don't you want to know what I think about human language being spoken on my ship?" He squeezed Sunstreaker's main coolant cable at the same time.
The next string of curses were all native.
"That's better."
Sunstreaker glared up at him, hateful. A particularly strong shudder ran across Prowl's sensor networks, not related to the loopback. He looked just so perfect.
The current was reaching its peak. Prowl started timing the waves more precisely, picking up as much additional electricity as he could gather in Sunstreaker's overwrought system. They both trembled. Sunstreaker reached up and got his arms around the Major again, urging their mouths together like before. Their open chestplates pressed together and tingled with exchanged static and heat. It was dirty and wrong and everything Prowl needed right then.
"You," he rasped, parting their lips when it started to burn, "belong to me. You've got no place in this war if it isn't at my whim. You understand?"
"Dross," Sunstreaker grunted. "You're the one with an owner. You're the one who needs a slaggin' function--" His head fell back as the overload gripped him. "Shi--"
Suddenly, a familiar hand landed on Prowl's shoulder. He snapped his head around in time to see Jazz's fist heading straight toward him, and then he didn't see much of anything.
===
Jazz crouched to brace his CO by the shoulders before he hit the ground. He left to Ratchet the job of pulling out the adapter cable and getting Sunstreaker closed up.-Some good intuition,- Stark noted, having just a moment ago re-established the line. -But if it were me, I'd've just kept monitoring Hunter.-
Ratchet muted him. He could stay plugged into his raster feed if he really wanted, but the medic wasn't feeling like chatter just then. He got Sunstreaker laid out flat and opened some extra circuit pathways for the current to disperse safely.
Prowl was still online, of course, and livid. Jazz did his best to restrain him. "I don't remember interrupting you and that incompetent partner of yours, all those hundreds of times!" he shouted indignantly, struggling to get his legs coordinated to stand up. Jazz's solution was to kneel on one of his legs.
"Wheeljack wasn't mentally linked with an organic with no reference to our anatomy!" Ratchet shot back. "Sunstreaker is sick, Major! Do you have no sense of decency at all?!"
He returned his attention to Sunstreaker. His electrical output was returning to normal, but his coolant pressure was still off the metre. In the absence of the loopback to neutralise damage sensors, Sunstreaker was going to feel more pain by the refresh.
Grimly, Ratchet unmuted Stark's communication line and said, -Suggestions?-
-I'd think back to you and me in the back of your vehicle mode,- Stark said.
Ratchet had been hoping --vainly, it seemed-- that he wouldn't bring that up. But this wasn't just Cybertronian anatomy anymore. It was part human too, or at least, it behaved that way.
"Sunstreaker? Hunter?" Ratchet said, looking him, or rather them, directly in the optics. "I'll let you do your business, but then I need to fix you."
"You can't fix this," Sunstreaker said through a clenched jaw, shifting uncomfortably on the floor. "No-one can."
Ratchet had no good reply for that. He was probably right. If the man who had unlocked neutrino technology in five cycles couldn't guess how to unstick them, they probably couldn't be.
He rose to allow Sunstreaker to do what he needed to do and went to help Jazz drag Prowl from the room. They scanned for somewhere else they might talk uninterrupted and settled on the nearest supply room.
Prowl wrestled out of Jazz's hold before the door was even shut. He rounded on both of them. "What I do in the privacy of my own office--"
"With a torture victim?" Ratchet demanded. "Didn't you notice anything wrong? Possibly that he was getting two sets of instincts crossed?"
"This's unbelievable outta you, man," Jazz told his CO. "I'm sorry, but I can't abide by this."
"He consented," Prowl insisted. "And neither of you had any right to interfere. I'm filing reports against both of you. Especially you," he added to Jazz. The blow Jazz had landed on his cheek plating had left a crack. "You overstep your authority again and you can keep Wheeljack company in the brig till he goes in for his court martial. I will not tolerate this from my own Captain."
"I ain't yours," Jazz answered evenly. "I'm the military's. And if you try to get rid of me, I will testify 'bout what I saw. He's a kid and he ain't right in the head; I don't care how much 'consent' you think he gave you. I mean, hell! Anyone would see the problem with this situation. You ain't thinkin' clearly, Prowl. I've been telling you that you need to get some rest."
It could not escape either officer that Prowl was barely managing to stay on his feet. Whatever kind of fuel reserve he had been operating on before, he'd clearly spent it toying with the nextgen.
"I can take my energy standing up, thank you," Prowl retorted angrily. "Primus knows I can't afford to take time off, with these incompetents I have to deal with. This little pow-wow is adjourned."
He moved to push past the two of them-- to fight his way out, if need be. Jazz stood in his way and Prowl drew back a fist. He swung. Jazz caught it easily, then slammed a foot down on top of Prowl's to keep him planted. Ratchet moved quickly, diving a hand between the open panels of the Major's chest plate and pulled a tiny, nested wire from its socket. Prowl was out instantly.
Ratchet got his hands under the Major's shoulders before he slumped all the way to the floor. Jazz sidled around and picked him up by the knees.
-Wait,- said Stark, marvelling. -Did you plan this?-
-Primus, no!- Ratchet answered, aghast at the idea of subjecting Sunstreaker and Hunter to anything like this, no matter what the agenda. -But... it is convenient.-
-Use it,- Stark advised.
Ratchet nodded to himself. "Jazz," he said uncertainly. "You know command isn't very happy with the Earth situation. Including how Prowl has been handling it."
Jazz nodded grimly.
"This is probably for the best," the medic continued. He looked up and met Jazz's gaze. "He needs to recharge and recuperate. We'll just keep him in stasis-lock a little longer than necessary."
"You better be open to a reversal," Jazz advised. "Cuz if this situation blows up, I'd sooner take his scorn and hellfire than be caught without a strategist. You dig?"
"I wouldn't want it any other way."
They started moving Prowl to the medbay, where they might better ensure a lack of interference. They only got as far as the door of the Major's office when Sunstreaker intercepted them, appearing sickly and yet glowing at the same time. He had covered up, anyway.
"Cripes, what did you guys do to him?"
"Something we'll probably regret," Ratchet answered.
Sunstreaker accepted this. "Well, Prowl's getting hailed by the Code again," he said, thumbing in the direction of the communication console. "Someone'd better pick up."
Jazz took his first role as acting-CO in stride. He ducked into Prowl's office to answer the vidscreen. Ratchet enlisted Sunstreaker to help him move Prowl.
"And then we can see how your third half is doing," he added, as they carried the Major along. He closed down the line with Stark, when it was clear the human was off to make another of his appointments.
"Oh yeah," Sunstreaker muttered. "Hunter wanted to know if this makes him gay."
Ratchet found he had no idea how to answer that.
===
Jazz was used to the timer delays on the bridge's vidscreens, so he jumped when he punched the accept key on Prowl's terminal and was immediately hit with a faceful of Decepticon lawyer. There was no feed from the Code arbiter at all.Jazz felt like a robodeer in the headlights. He saluted awkwardly. "Ca-Captain Jazz of the Ark-19 speaking, sir. How y'all doin'?"
The Decepticon chuckled lightly. "And what is this? Another trick? Or has the Major suddenly lost his bearings?"
"I guess you'd call it a temporary leave of absence?"
"Is that so? And where has he left to?"
"He... just stepped out for a bit."
"'Stepped out'?" the lawyer repeated, smirking. "But Captain, you're underwater."
"Yeah, so wh--"
===
Wheeljack had always been a compulsive thinker. The best way to have good ideas, after all, was to have lots of ideas.The downside was that Wheeljack, as a result, had a less critical eye than most in accurately determining what a good or bad idea looked like. If he really took stock of his situation, he would probably say, in retrospect, that using his long-time partner to get close to a fellow mad tinkerer and then creating a digital clone of him and ending up in bed with his secretary, all for the vaguely-stated purpose of exposing said rival's crimes... was, well, on the whole, a pretty stupid idea.
But Wheeljack was nothing if not optimistic. Getting hacked by Stark was humiliating, yes, and being stuffed in this oversized crate for a few cycles didn't do anything positive for his ego either, but what these turns of fortune did do was give him plenty of time to think.
It took Wheeljack about .84 cycles and two walls to figure out Stark's entire game. He started by stripping his database profile on Stark down to quantifiable values. Once Wheeljack started plugging in the tech specs, the computations started to break down a lot easier. Just looking at the facts and the human's record of past action, even Chaos Theory would tell you what he was going to do.
Wheeljack had to admit, it was impressive. Or rather, repulsively audacious. But after the show of force on Ark-32, Wheeljack was forced to acknowledge that Stark might just be capable of what no Autobot scientist had ever managed.
Now the only question was how to eliminate Stark as a threat and at the same time reap the greatest possible benefit. To do that, he needed out of this box. He used the other two walls --the ones not clearly visible from the security camera-- to work this part out.
Wheeljack remembered Cybertron back when they still had private enterprise. He remembered making a fortune off his patents-- they had called him an artist, perhaps the most brilliant inventor ever built. He had been untouchable: working on whatever he fancied, partying harder than he should have, taking home a different sports model each night... And then the war happened, and there were no such things as patents anymore. There was working for the military or being dead. Wheeljack didn't enjoy the prospect of a death he couldn't come back from.
So he enlisted with the Autobots and never looked back. And that was great, when the arms race was so neck-and-neck it was insane. Then the Decepticons developed antigrav and Wheeljack had failed to match it, or rather, failed so spectacularly that it resulted in the deaths of five of his assistants and the loss of Ark-11. Honestly, he was surprised he'd been allowed to remain a commissioned officer after that. But he was definitely not going to get above Lieutenant again. Maybe Prowl deserved him.
Anyway, his legacy remained. R&D would never admit it, but half of all existing Autobot ship technology came from his designs or some derivation thereof. This was just something that had happened over time, the result of the natural attractiveness of good ideas in a sea of terrible. It also meant that even if you stuck Wheeljack in a room without his networking systems, weapons, or tools, so long as he could scribble notes on the walls with the static on the edge of his finger, he could math his way out of it.
Finishing the last of his calculations in just shy of .67 cycles, Wheeljack stood back, absorbed some of the synthetic energon Ratchet had left him. He looked over his work, changed a few numbers, and then went to locate the appropriate seam.
He found one loose enough, slipped the tips of his fingers beneath it and pulled until the lip of it peeled back ever so slightly. He creased this part as best he could and applied pressure five evenly-spaced locations. As predicted, the little fold of metal came off with a clean break. It was a small piece of about a metre long, but he could make it work. Lacking Ratchet's surgical tools, he needed a different way to cut himself open.
Fact: A Transformer only needs about 40% of his factory-default frame in order to maintain normal function. He can scrape by with 25% if he isn't planning to run.
Wheeljack fortunately only needed to remove about 10% of his core components to get out of the brig, but some of these parts were hard to get at. He broke the separated bit of wall plating in half and scraped its edge against the wall until he had a sharp tapered end to work with, then began dismantling his outer frame. A good thing there was no-one around to be shy in front of... well, almost. Wheeljack glanced up at the security camera. Maybe if he waited a few moments...
Almost as soon as he thought this to himself, the floor beneath him shook violently, and then the red high-alert lights switched on. Then came the emergency sirens. He caught, distantly, the sound of running and cries of confusion.
Ah, it was good to be right.
===
Megatron rumbled his approval."It seems a gnat can indeed accomplish what a giant can't," he said, grudgingly acknowledging the human perched on his shoulder. "But how did you manage to embed bugs small enough they would escape Autobot detection?"
"Trade secret," said Stark. "But it gets results."
Megatron dismissed his delegate, whose services were apparently no longer required. The Decepticon Commander had apparently not yet learned that having a few more lawyers around and far fewer thugs like that Skywarp character would have made this whole conquest thing of his a lot easier.
Stark stepped half outside of remote view to check his status log. The news from Tokyo looked good. Munich and Lyon had shipped in their payloads that morning; installation should be finished within two hours. Then it was just a matter of going to pick it up.
Megatron surveyed the monitors. His advance troops had just reached the target. He laughed; the vibration called Stark back into remote mode. "Wonderful. We'll claim aggravated pre-emptive strike and shake the CIC off without even an inquiry. You're sure the Ark-19 crew have received no support from their superiors?"
"A few new privates barely out of programming," Stark supplied. "And a few millicycles ago we had a mutiny."
Megatron's laugh this time was much fiercer. "Excellent," he proclaimed. "So we have a mere Captain leading this show. It's as if Autobot command had consigned these mechs to their deaths!"
"Yep, sure looks like it."
"The Code has given me tacit permission to colonise Earth. The Autobots will be forced back to scuffle pettily at the rest of their tiny little fronts. Meanwhile..." He trailed off, looking over at the holomatter perched on his shoulder. Not that he knew it was a holomatter.
Megatron's optic was several times the size of Stark's head, so it was hard to gauge proper emotion off the guy's face. But Stark had a hunch Megatron still did not entirely trust him. He didn't entirely trust anyone.
Stark chose to deflect it. "You can work on backstabbing me after we show these guys what they should be afraid of."
The Decepticon leader laughed as though Stark were the most honest and well-meaning subordinate he had ever had. That might actually have been the case. No wonder Megatron still suspected him.
"Well, then," Megatron announced, shutting off the monitors. "Shall we make our own grand entrance?"
Stark pantomimed checking his watch. "I have some matters to attend to first at our East Asia facility. A few memories to erase."
This one, Megatron seemed to grant him. The one thing neither breed of Cybertronian had yet figured out was human memory. The Decepticons needed to call in an expert for that, like they would a plumber.
How awful this entire project would have turned out if even one of these aliens could read his mind.
===
After the first hull breach, Jazz seemed to be able to get things under control. But then the next volley started and there just weren't enough people to keep the ship dry. He ordered the shields raised, but the rear projection engines had taken a hit. Finally, he ordered everyone to their bridge stations to prepare for lift-off.This was about when most of the bridge caved in.
Ratchet heard the sound of water rushing in and barked at Sunstreaker to hurry up. Sunstreaker snapped right back about one of his major ducts being shredded and that he was losing a lot of coolant. Ratchet replied that there was plenty of nice, cold water outside to cool off his power components if he waited around long enough.
Another blast rocked the rear of the ship and hurled the two, and their stasis-locked commanding officer, to the floor. A new torrent of water came spilling in from one of the aft corridors.
"This isn't working," Ratchet decided finally. "Go get Hunter. Meet us in the airlock."
Sunstreaker splashed up the incline toward the medbay as Ratchet readjusted Prowl in his arms and began sloshing in the general direction of the escape route. As heavy as the Major was, he was at least less annoying in this state than he would if he were awake.
Ratchet only got as far as the recharge bay before it occurred to him whom he had forgotten in all this. He straightened and scanned around desperately until he caught sight of one of the new arrivals.
"You!" he shouted at Fireflight, who skidded, terrified, to a halt. "Drop what you're doing and take the Major to the bridge!"
"The bridge is gone, sir! We're using the escape hatch!"
"Then take him there!"
Fireflight half-walked, half-swam over to Ratchet and unhappily took Prowl off his hands. He buckled under the weight, but finally slung the Major's arm over one of his shoulders.
"A-and you, Doc?" the Private asked, knees shaking.
"There's something I have to do. Keep the hatch open for me."
He didn't wait for Fireflight's response. He spun around and headed in the opposite direction, toward storage and the brig. The nextgen called after him, but Ratchet couldn't make it out. Another blast took out most of the hull over their heads at the same moment.
May his fellow Autobots never know that he had helped Stark plant the charges that were exacerbating the Decepticon assault.
As a doctor, Ratchet had been trained to understand that destruction was necessary to bring about change. He accepted this. But he also believed that no-one should get hurt unless they really needed to be. Wheeljack was as much a victim as anyone else.
Ratchet arrived at the entrance of the brig and climbed through the doorway against the current. The storage lights were on emergency power only and flickered on and off. He switched to infrared view.
No heat readings. At least, nothing hotter than offlined circuitry. He hugged a wall and climbed further toward the passageway of Wheeljack's cell, and froze when he discovered it was ajar. Its occupant's energy signature was nowhere to be found.
"...'Jack?" Ratchet said in the dark.
His topical sensors relayed the rear warning message half a nanocycle too late.
===
They were waist-deep in water by the time Jazz got all but the last of the crew out. They used the comm lines to keep a clear signal.-Head for the near shore and regroup in the trees,- Jazz instructed Ironhide, helping him up to the escape hatch. -See if you can get a whip-around for some fuel and bring Prowl back online.-
-With all this goin' on?- Ironhide said, looking down. -His spark'll collapse jus' seein' this mess!-
-And you tell him that's real neat, but he can save it till after he pulls his own weight some!- Jazz turned and motioned to Bumblebee to climb onto his back. -Up you get, bite-sized. Time we weren't here!-
-But what about Doc?- Bumblebee cried.
-I'll head after 'im. Just get yourselves high and dry for me.-
The minibot hopped up onto Jazz's back and from there caught Ironhide's outstretched hand, only barely holding on against the force of the gushing incoming current. When both were clear of the escape latch, Bumblebee turned back and saluted. Jazz returned it, and turned around to start heading back into the dark remains of the ship.
Vector Sigma, the Captain thought drearily to himself, scanning the shadows for some trace. How did everything get into a sorry state like this? Why hadn't they had any warning? It was like the first mortars had struck even before they'd gotten anything on radar...
Jazz switched on his chestplate lights to see more of his surroundings, and almost immediately fell over.
"Ratchet!" he exclaimed, having landed on his skidplate in water up to his elbows. The medic was leaning motionless against one rail of the catwalk, clutching at a nasty gash in his neck cabling. He leaked mechfluid profusely, and barely acknowledged Jazz's headlights on him.
The Captain struggled onto his feet. "Primus, I'm glad to see you, Doc. We're in some deep slag this time. I mean, hell. One moment we got Headhunter on the line sayin'--"
"...What?"
"The lawyer, man, the slaggin' lawyer! C'mon, we gotta get moving; everyone else is already out..."
"Not everyone," Ratchet murmured, not lifting his optics. "Or did you forget?"
Jazz began to reply, when he noticed the strange shadow behind Ratchet. Wheeljack came into view, stripped of most of his outer frame, and holding one of Ratchet's pistols. Although he was shorter than usual, he was tall enough to keep the gun pointed at Ratchet's head.
Jazz took a startled step back, sending up spray. "You maniac--!"
"And this's the part where you let us pass, Captain," Wheeljack said levelly. "You know you're gonna do it, so why not just go ahead and get out of our way?"
"If you weren't facin' court-martial before, 'Jack, now you've really--"
Wheeljack's sidelights flashed angrily. "The war," he shouted, "is gonna be over in a few cycles, and you give a damn about procedure? Go out and fight your little publicity stunt. Go out and play right into Stark's hands. I got better things to do."
Keeping the pistol trained on Ratchet, Wheeljack pushed the medic forward. Jazz assumed a battle stance and popped one of his own guns out of its forearm compartment.
Wheeljack kept walking, holding Ratchet in front of him. The inventor regarded Jazz calmly as he manoeuvred around him and began backing up in the direction of the escape hatch, water swirling up around his waist.
Jazz raised the gun. "Don't make me do it, man."
"Y'know, if there's one thing I've come to appreciate, kid," said Wheeljack, "it's to know when you're in control and when you're not."
And then a mortar took out most of the wall behind them.
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