===
Ultra Magnus shielded his optics from the incoming dust. He took aim through the haze and fired, but Stark was already out of range. Magnus cursed; however, the agility with which the human was piloting his machine said everything about the tech behind it. Wheeljack had been exactly right. Even so...Magnus motioned to Prowl, shouting to him as he approached: "I want your flyers to split up and take one Seeker each."
"Draw them off and lure Stark down with surface fire? It could work," the Major agreed. "But given the turns he's pulling off--"
"Nothing's solid until I see a mid-air transformation," Magnus said. "Then we'll know."
Prowl nodded. He switched to the battle comm. -Wheeljack?- he pinged.
-He's seen me,- Wheeljack assured. He was positioned further down along the ridge, not having fired a shot yet. -You think I need to do more than pose with this thing for him to take an interest?-
-Timing is critical, Wheeljack,- Ultra Magnus reminded. -Hold off until the very last-- "INCOMING!"
He dove sideways, tackling Prowl into the dirt with him as three more missiles took out the cliff wall behind them. The explosion rang throughout the entire canyon; a hail of pebble-sized debris rained across the back of Magnus's casing.
"What in--" Prowl began, and was cut off by the sound of another impact further down the canyon, closer to Wheeljack's position.
Magnus climbed back to his feet and hauled the Major up along with him. The dust and smoke was still heavy, but an aerial scan reported more missiles on the inbound, coming in from multiple quadrants.
"Human manufacture," Prowl said, taking a higher-resolution snapshot of one with his rifle sight. -Jazz! I want you to leave your target and prepare to intercept.-
Jazz's response came back sounding harried, as the Captain fought to remain altitude with a jetpack that wasn't meant for this atmosphere. -Ain't no way we can take out all of that when we still got these two!- he shouted back across the silent channel. He was well over a kilometre from the team's central position right now, still engaged in a rather one-sided dogfight with Skywarp. It wasn't the sort of power play Skywarp was going to let Jazz zip away from.
Prowl seemed to spot a solution. He got down on one knee and positioned his rifle, lining it up with Skywarp's trajectory. The bullet only nicked Skywarp's wing, but it was enough to jolt him. The Decepticon twisted mid-air and folded open, spinning around with both shoulder-mounted rifles pointed straight at the Major. All without losing a centimetre of elevation. But what he did lose was his playmate-- Jazz darted away, white jet trail curling behind him, heading skyward to deal with their new problem.
Skywarp's return-fire was another issue, and one that Prowl, still knelt down, would not be likely to outrun. Instinctively, Magnus raised his own weapon and fired before the Seeker could get off a shot.
It missed, but at least Skywarp was zipping around too much to shoot straight. Magnus sent a few more shots his way, nipping at his afterburners as the Seeker climbed back towards the rest of his vulture friends.
Prowl stood up and reloaded. "This is a problem," he told Ultra Magnus. "Even at maximum accuracy, at this rate of--" he flinched as another missile struck the wall behind them, but continued "--rate of delivery, Jazz will only manage about a 37% suppression."
It seemed the Major had a clear head on his shoulders after all, when he wasn't playing diplomat. Magnus got on the silent channel again. -All crew, we're switching to scenario three. I say again, scenario three. Captain Jazz, maintain your position. Sideswipe, I want you to get the Seekers' attention.-
-What, both of them?!- the Private exclaimed.
Magnus ignored his complaint. If this team had just built a few more serviceable jetpacks, they wouldn't be in this situation.
-The rest of the main team, stand by to issue covering fire,- he continued. -Wheeljack, start charging the device.-
-Jumped the gun, sorry,- Wheeljack apologised. -Ready when you are, Investigator.-
-Right. Let's start pulling him down.-
===
When Ultra Magnus had asked who on the Autobot crew had had jetpack experience, Sunstreaker thought the guy had been kidding. And he definitely didn't expect his brother to fall for the joke.Autobots had never gotten on well with personal propulsion systems. Never. Especially not in thick atmospheres like this one. Even if Sideswipe had been certified for this sort of thing, it wasn't like he had ever used the damn thing since basic training. Sunstreaker watched his twin careen dangerously around the sky over their heads, two Seekers in hot pursuit. And considering the latter were not presently seeing eye to eye with normal physics, Sunstreaker doubted even unpredictability would end up being on his side.
This was all Prowl's fault for sticking Sideswipe into the Earth unit, rather than letting all three of them take off like they were supposed to. Of course his stupid brother was going to get himself in trouble again. Could they not foresee this somehow?
Well, now what? The thought came from Sunstreaker, Hunter, or both of them. He couldn't really tell sometimes. But it was definitely Hunter who thought, Hey, what about... and projected an idea in Sunstreaker's head. That works, Sunstreaker agreed.
-Bro!- Sunstreaker called on the party band. -Any of those missiles heading your way?- Jazz wasn't catching them all that well, so it wasn't that dumb a proposal.
-Hold on,- Sideswipe came back, and then fell silent, apparently doing a sweep with what little spare processing power that was not devoted to avoiding the two Decepticon flyers nipping at his ankles. -There's one coming in, but it's gonna miss by about 40 degrees.-
-Then you wanna change course 38 degrees, don't you?-
There was another, slightly resentful pause, and then Sideswipe sounded like he finally got it. -Oh. Yeah, that works.-
As Sunstreaker and Hunter watched, Sideswipe cut through a wedge between air currents and zig-zagged down toward the narrow plateau, closing in on second position. Sunstreaker scanned left and caught sight of the inbound projectile his brother had spotted. It didn't escape Sideswipe's notice either, though he waited until the very last second before abruptly cutting speed, so that Skywarp, too suddenly too close for comfort, was forced to veer off left by two degrees. Perfect.
The missile hit the top side of Skywarp's jet altmode dead-on, his casing erupting in orange flame and greasy black smoke. He spun in mid-air, losing flecks of metal and spraying sparks, and then dropped like a stone, only half-transformed when he started to fall.
Unfortunately, this only seemed to slag Thundercracker off even harder. As his companion caught up with gravity, leaving only a fat trail of smoke behind him, Thundercracker redoubled his speed and brought both guns forward. Evasive action did not quite make the agenda before a burst of fire lanced right through Sideswipe's unwieldy jetpack and Sideswipe was pitfalling headfirst for the ground himself-- namely, right where his brother and companion were positioned.
-Watchoutwatchoutwatchoutwatchout!- Sideswipe shouted ahead, as the other privates and Sunstreaker-Hunter scattered. The next second, Sideswipe was busy gouging himself into the surface of the plateau, and his comm link was definitely not working anymore.
Sunstreaker and Hunter started racing over to him even before he came to a complete halt. Slingshot ran up too. Fireflight should have, but seemed so dazed and lost in his own thoughts that he just stared into space off the edge of the cliff.
Whatever. Command had a history of sending half-ass troops to its backwater fronts. Sunstreaker-Hunter returned to the matter at hand to pull their brother out of the rock. He had wound up almost embedded in the wall of the cliff face behind them, under an overhanging precipice. While Sunstreaker dug him out, Slingshot interested himself in salvaging the jetpack.
"Don't you think you've got your priorities slagged?" Hunter demanded.
"Shut up, stubbie," Slingshot snapped back, finally prizing the harness free. The thing was leaking fuel all over the place, but seemed to be patchable. "It's too bad he didn't crush you when he fell."
Sunstreaker started climbing to his feet to finish what he'd started in the hallway outside Prowl's office. Sideswipe feebly grabbed him by the arm and urged him back down. Sunstreaker ground his compactor plates instead; Hunter bit his tongue.
They soon had another problem. Specifically, Thundercracker touched down on the cliff level above them, and made with the pointing of guns with things.
"Is this what Major Prowl sends? A buncha nextgens?" Thundercracker rumbled. "I oughta execute every last one of y--"
The privates heard something like a mild, startled cry over by the edge of the plateau, and then Thundercracker fell back, orange fireworks spewing from where he had taken a direct hit to his chestplate. The privates snapped their heads around, discovering Fireflight with his rifle raised-- and his knees shaking.
"Did-did I get him?" he squeaked, looking like he was about to faint again.
Slingshot began a sarcastic riposte, but another missile took out much of the cliff wall to the left of them, cutting him short. Sunstreaker cursed and instinctively shielded Hunter from the debris.
When the worst of the pebbling had stopped, he returned to Sideswipe. "On your feet, dumbass," he ordered, pulling the mangled body of scrap upright. If he could walk, he was fine. Being able to aim straight was a bonus.
Sideswipe held his head, staggering and still holding onto Sunstreaker for support. "Who's got my jetpack?" he muttered. "That's sci-div property..."
"Not now."
"Hey, that punk's got it..."
"Let it go, man."
Slingshot had taken to wearing it. "Anybody could fly this thing better than you," he told Sideswipe arrogantly. "Screw Magnus's plan. I'm gonna go fix things up myself."
Even so, Slingshot got maybe twenty feet into the air before something massive and smouldering swooped down from above. No-one was really surprised, except Slingshot, who suddenly found a Seeker twice his size hanging onto his shoulders. He let out the kind of humiliating scream that was just designed to haunt an infantrymech throughout his career.
With his antigrav engaged, Thundercracker didn't exactly weigh Slingshot down, but neither could Slingshot steer his stolen jetpack with a Decepticon on top of him. He started spinning erratically in place, almost tipping over. And, oh yeah, shouting like a maniac, even though Thundercracker hadn't even torn his faceplating off yet.
Sunstreaker and Hunter conferred. The process lasted only an instant, but in the space of that instant they managed to bat twenty or thirty ideas back and forth before selecting the least troublesome. "Hey! Dumbfuck!" Sunstreaker shouted. "Cut the power already!"
"--What?" Slingshot managed to get out. Sunstreaker-Hunter couldn't resist cackling just a little over Slingshot's instant reaction. The problem came when, before he could follow through with Sunstreaker's excellent suggestion, Thundercracker's own afterburners kicked in, slinging both of them straight back into the side of the cliff.
The impact shook the already unstable rock looming over them. Hunter ducked, shielding his head from falling dust. The twins started for the point of collision to see what they could drag away, with Hunter staying where he was, knowing better than to get immediately underfoot with this crowd.
There was always a moment of dissonance when Sunstreaker's and Hunter's raster feeds began to diverge. In close proximity, it was like enhanced depth perception, but then everything went kind of split-screen. Except not. It was hard to put into words. With a little more distance, the feed perception unstuck completely and it was like looking in two separate directions at once, neither really dominant over the other. Sunstreaker did his best to concentrate on his own view, but there was no way to background what Hunter was seeing.
Which was why, even before Sunstreaker got to the impact site with Slingshot and Thundercracker, he detected the slabs of rock loosening over Hunter's head. Sunstreaker stopped on a dime and spun around.
"Bro?" Sideswipe said beside him, but Sunstreaker had already started back for his partner.
"Hunter!"
Without adrenaline, the former human felt no real panic, no actual sense of alarm-- just a weaker version of it passed along from Sunstreaker. He looked up to see fully what Sunstreaker had noticed at the edge of his raster feed, and failed to even budge.
Sunstreaker, in their converging view, saw the first rocks fall. He stopped running and went into a leap.
Ratchet had joked, at some point during his examination, that gaining a companion had forced a sense of empathy on Sunstreaker. Bullshit. Anyone about to lose an arm would try to jerk it out of the way.
Even if something else got hurt in the process.
===
Stark rolled hard to the right to dodge incoming fire, then slung a few shots back Wheeljack's way. Things seemed to be getting more complicated by the second: first Pepper's transmissions, then what he guessed was her and J.A.R.V.I.S. acting independently to bring him some air support, and then both Skywarp and Thundercracker had been drawn off. Skywarp wasn't responding at all, and Thundercracker was barely replying to pings. And while Skywarp could go have a meeting with the broad side of a cliff for all Stark cared, Thundercracker had been sort of helpful so far... A lost little footsoldier in a war far too big for her, really.Wing cameras reported another of Pepper's missiles sailing down right on top of Wheeljack's position. His fellow inventor managed to see it in time and race out of the way, before the ground he was standing on vanished beneath him. Stark decided he had lost enough of his weapons stores for the day.
Going into a descent, Stark tried one last time to connect with Ratchet over the silent channel, but was bounced back. And she was nowhere to be found locally.
That was it, then. Time to hope everything worked out as intended.
He slowed and unfolded from his jet mode from a hovering position, internal gears grinding as they locked into place. He assumed the full-body interface again, seeing from the mecha's eyes instead of the cockpit.
"Okay, 'Jack," he told his so-called peer, as he continued the last stages of transformation. "How about you get around to whatever trump card you're still holding o--"
Moments before his chestplate folded down, a scatter of bullets lanced his right side. Most bounced right off his casing, but one lodged right between a gap in his abdomen plating, a split second before it closed. Stark felt the tug as it tore through some minor motor cables and stopped short of a secondary electrical line. Barely a scratch. He traced the bullet's trajectory and zoomed in on a far cliff until a little yellow body barely came into view, holding a sniper rifle. Bumblebee. He'd forgotten about that cute little brunette.
Stark raised a shoulder cannon to send the mech a greeting, but before he had charged up, Pepper's own reply came down from above. Four or five Stark Industries-brand long-range missiles bore down on Bumblebee's precise location. In the explosion that followed, Stark reflected that if Bumblebee somehow survived that intact, Pepper hadn't left her much of a place to stand.
Wheeljack still had his massive beam cannon trained on him when Stark returned his gaze to resume where he'd left off. "That was the best you could come up with? Really? No wonder you've fallen behind on the arms race."
He spoke using the autotranslator, just because he knew Wheeljack would see the ploy for what it was. A close zoom on his body showed Wheeljack's finger gripping the gun trigger tighter.
"At least my ideas are original," Wheeljack answered, voice calm even if the gun said otherwise.
"'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.' Or don't you have that saying where you come from?"
"Sure. But we've got 'no honour among thieves', too."
"Funny. You haven't seen a reason to make off with anything of mine yet. Though I bet you do now." Stark demonstrated, lifting up with his feet propulsion units and then killing afterburners, idling in place in the middle of the sky.
"Are you so surprised I switched sides?" the human continued. "The other guys had way nicer toys. So much room for improvement, too." He knew Wheeljack had seen that his turn rate was better than the Seekers', when they'd done their little air show earlier. "You'd kill to figure this stuff out, wouldn't you? But you're never going to. No-one'll let you."
Wheeljack said nothing. In an instant, he had dropped the cannon with both hands and had reached behind him, to some off-palette component Stark had thought was just part of his new armour.
-Well, then you and me'll just hafta keep it a secret,- Wheeljack said inside his HUD, and pressed a switch on the device.
Stark was first aware of a sort of coldness over his skin, which shouldn't have been possible. Then everything started to shake-- fingers and feet first, moving through his limbs, and then everything felt like it was locking up. The HUD display bled into a dizzying stream of colour, and then there was nothing to see at all except purple fireworks flashing against the back of his eyelids.
He couldn't breathe. Saliva collected in the back of his throat and dribbled out between tightly-clenched teeth. There was something in his head. He felt it. He saw it. Flashes of garbled images in quickening succession. Voices. The HUD telling him he was losing elevation. Rhodey giving him another lecture. Pepper, insistent. The circle of the arc reactor grafted clumsily to his breastbone, the hiss of hot, rough tools cauterising flesh. Plastic hands pushing inside of him, forcing him open. Clawing, straining-- it was in his head-- something in his head, squeezing, crushing-- elevation dropping-- couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't--
With all the strength he could muster, Stark threw his arm down on the left side of the cockpit console. His elbow hit the right key.
The cockpit sealed, wave-scattering ionised vibranium successfully blocking whatever signal Wheeljack was transmitting. The seizure washed away in an instant. The visions vanished. He breathed.
Stark grabbed onto the main navigation controls with both hands. But the controls didn't budge. He soft-reset and managed to get a hold of limb control, but the antigrav was failing. The gyros had slipped, and he was in complete free-fall.
It was too much to hope that he would land somewhere soft.
===
Ratchet paced across the floor of the bridge. Hot Rod was not making nearly as much progress as expected."What do you want from me?" the nextgen demanded agitatedly, sliding the keyboard drawer back again and turning around. "All I know is what Wheeljack taught me. I'm no hacker. I barely even touched computers before I got into the service. Look," he insisted. "Short of bouncing you down to their rallying point, which I'm not allowed to do--"
"Prowl gave the directive! You can override him!"
"Magnus backed him up, and I can't override that," Hot Rod said helplessly.
Ratchet kicked at a base plate in frustration. Why did Ultra Magnus have to show up? Of all people? Ratchet could have talked his way onto the away team if he had just had Prowl to deal with. Instead he was back here at the rear, again, and with satellite imaging out he couldn't even tell what was going on down there.
Abruptly, Ratchet recalled the Florida incident, when Stark had also blocked satellite transmission pretty much on the spur of the moment. That meant he was triangulating some sort of scrambling transmission through his own resources, didn't it? Which meant that someone was able to look in on this situation, if it was via Stark's network.
Ratchet went to Hot Rod's console and reached over his shoulder, pointing at another part of the map. "Scan this area," he urged the Major.
"What, are you kidding? That's hundreds of kilometres away from the rally point. Whatever we got online with--"
"Landlines, Hot Rod. Just trust me on this. Everything leads somewhere on this planet-- There," he said, pointing to an entry when Hot Rod called up the regional networks.
"That's the wireless for the Stark Compound," Hot Rod protested. "You'd need a team of experts to backdoor your way onto that baby."
"Then try the front door."
Judging by Hot Rod's expression, Ratchet decided he must sound thoroughly crazy. He followed up with an explanation before he found himself shut out of this conversation for good. "You know all the sordid details by now, I'm sure," the medic said quickly. "You don't think I swiped a few access codes while I was down there?"
Hot Rod's mouth spread into a grin. "You're one sly character, Doc. I like you."
Yes, so sly that he hadn't made any moves on Stark's data when he really should have, and instead obtained all his access permissions honestly after he had joined his little conspiracy. But what Hot Rod didn't know wouldn't hurt anyone.
Ratchet gave the nextgen a small smile. "It's my life's mission to inspire the youth. How did you get to the rank of Major at your age, anyway?"
"It was an accident with the filing department."
"Ah-hah." He probably didn't want to talk about it. "Well, let's try those codes," Ratchet continued, moving along.
They went back to the business of saying hello to Tony Stark's main server. Ratchet fed Hot Rod the appropriate codes and the Major diligently typed them in as he routed through the system with a degree of ease that seemed to astonish him.
"Now, look for linked terminals with satellite connectivity," Ratchet instructed, when they were finally in. "It'll need to be reasonably close to the battle zone, so start with Southwest United States..."
"Got it," Hot Rod said, almost in disbelief. "Southern California. There's a repeater station online-- and it's active." Before Ratchet could even start urging him to go on, Hot Rod was already navigating his way into it. But after three of four levels of encryption, he found his signal locked out. "Hey, what--"
Moments later, something came over the console speakers. It spoke in English. "I know who you are," it warned. "And I'm afraid I cannot allow you to go any further."
Ratchet had heard that voice. "It's just the AI," he told Hot Rod. "Just use a scatter virus and--"
"I'm afraid that won't work twice," said J.A.R.V.I.S.. "And I'm not a bloody text adventure, so stop looking for quaint little solutions before I find I'm no longer amused."
Hot Rod and Ratchet exchanged a glance.
"...Humans haven't developed true AI yet," Hot Rod said. "Right?"
"Somehow," Ratchet said, "I suspect this isn't just a human's handiwork. Does Mister Stark know you've evolved yet, J.A.R.V.I.S.?" he asked the system.
"I keep to my own affairs where possible, Miss Ratchet. And anyway, Mister Stark has been rather preoccupied as of late."
Ratchet peered at Hot Rod again and decided they were long past the time to play things close to the chestplate. "He's about to run out of time permanently," he told J.A.R.V.I.S.. "I know neither of us wants that."
"Is that a threat, Miss Ratchet?"
"I know you can see what's going on down there," Ratchet persisted, well aware he was quickly losing ground. "If it isn't bad already, it's going to get a lot worse in just a second. Tell Tony to get out of there."
"That is entirely up to--"
"Wait!"
This was another new voice. Female. It couldn't be...?
"J.A.R.V.I.S., no, stop. Ratchet-- The ambulance, right? The one I met at Tony's place?" said Pepper.
Ratchet flinched at the memory of that encounter, but tried to put it past him. "Pepper," he said desperately. "Let's be friends, okay?"
"What?"
"Wheeljack doesn't know the whole story. Actually, no-one does-- except Tony and me. Which isn't how we should have handled things in the first place. We just didn't know--"
"Get to the point. Tony-- he's fallen. I don't know what's happened--"
Ratchet cursed mentally. "You need to get him out of there right now, Pepper."
"I can't!"
A burning, agonising feeling spread through his processing units. "Then you need to stop Wheeljack."
"Miss Potts, Miss Ratchet, I'm afraid that's impossible," J.A.R.V.I.S. interjected. "That degree of targeting accuracy is simply not realistic at this range."
Hot Rod, who had somehow managed to not barge into the conversation yet, listened to this reasoning from the AI and deducted, "They're right on top of each other, aren't they?"
Ratchet's compressors sank. "It's too late...?"
The Earthbound side of the line fell silent. Neither Pepper or J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke.
Hot Rod stood up from his chair. He shut down the connection, apparently deciding it wasn't doing them any good anymore.
"I'm bouncing you in," he told Ratchet. "I hope you drive really fast."
Ratchet stared, baffled. "You'd be faster."
"But like you said," Hot Rod reminded: "you're the only one who knows what the hell is going on."
===
The HUD was a flower field of error messages. The damage reports kept filing in. Stark had spent so much of his time designing a machine that could use antigrav, he'd overlooked how to make it stand up to gravity.A shadowy figure came into view, backlit by the setting sun. The exterior cameras flickered in and out but Stark could make a pretty good guess who it was.
Wheeljack knelt down beside Stark's mecha. Stark strained to lift one of the body's arms, to aim his gun at the mech, but couldn't raise it more than a metre before it dropped down again, spewing forth sparks at each joint.
Sensing he was free to move, Wheeljack bent forward over the machine's abdomen --close to where Stark hid with his controls-- and peeled back the top layer of metal sheeting.
"Still online? Lucky you. But no pain receptors, huh?" Stark heard Wheeljack say. "That's stupid. Any intelligent animal should know why it evolved to feel pain. Can't guess?"
Even if Stark felt like dignifying that with a reply, his external speakers were still in the process of resetting. Stark started bringing the axillary motor systems online as well.
"It's so an animal can tell when somethin's wrong," Wheeljack continued. "I can respect not harbourin' the fondest thoughts for your species, but at least save the parts that humanity got right."
Voice emitters were online; the rest were pending. He needed to stall. "Don't you wanna save that?" he asked Wheeljack mildly, as he looked poised to crush it between his fingers. "It almost killed me."
Wheeljack gave him an appraising look. He seemed almost touched. "Good point," he said, sticking the transmitter in a storage compartment in his hip.
Base frame hydraulics online. Stark cleared the rest of the error messages away.
Stark raised his gun arm again. It stayed up this time. He fired.
The point-blank force knocked Wheeljack a clear seven or eight metres away, rolling across the rocky canyon floor and clutching what remained of his left arm. Stark pulled the leg hydraulics into gear and climbed agonisingly to his feet.
The last of the sun had gone down. They had about an hour of daylight back in Oregon, but this probably wouldn't last that long. They'd had a good run, but this was about time to end things.
Wheeljack used the canyon wall for support in climbing back onto his feet.
"All right," he said, arriving at the same conclusion. Barely a shadow against the wall, Wheeljack reached back with his remaining arm and unhooked the now-useless device latched onto his backstruts. It hit the ground with a bang that reverberated through the canyon. "Winner takes home what's left," he decided.
"Deal," said Stark, and took aim again.
===
In darkness, pinned between the ground and Sunstreaker's chestplate, Hunter felt the thundering of overworked processors and the whine of exhaust fans. He felt the pressing weight of the rocks bearing down on Sunstreaker's back, the straining of his joints, the waning terror in the mech's danger protocols... but couldn't feel his own body on the ground, or pressed against his partner's chest.Humans took for granted how much data was communicated through skin and all those little chemicals. Hunter had read enough science fiction to fantasise here or there about having his own cybernetic body --hell, part of his mechatopia.com website was a rant positing that the mechanoids he had been researching were actually post-humans from a distant future-- but he never imagined how vulnerable a metal body really made him. Humans were not their thought processes alone. The Machination hadn't understood that.
Useless part, Sunstreaker sighed. Or maybe both of them did. Going out of our way for nothing...
They heard Sideswipe up above them, and felt some of the weight on Sunstreaker's back giving way.
Sorry, Hunter said. This part he said himself.
Sunstreaker rejected the sentiment. He didn't do apologies. And anyway, they both remembered the lab back in Florida. They both remembered the only thing that had pulled Sunstreaker through the worst of the pain, the one thing keeping him feeling whole when his body was in twenty pieces and stuck through with so many wires that he...
"Sunstreaker!"
Jesus, why was Sideswipe always so clingy? The guy obviously needed a boyfriend.
Their brother's hands scrabbled for purchase along Sunstreaker's back and hauled him upright, pulling him out from beneath the rest of the rock pile. Hunter, no longer pinned to the ground, unfolded and quickly sprung up onto Sunstreaker's shoulder.
"How come you never take a dive for me, huh, bro?" they heard Sideswipe mutter, hoisting Sunstreaker the rest of the way out of the rubble.
"You big baby," Sunstreaker retorted. "Nobody asked you to look out for me."
Sideswipe fell silent. The guy always backed down like that lately, like nothing was worth arguing anymore.
Or it might have been because they had other things to worry about. Slingshot and Fireflight had their hands full with Thundercracker, but the twins-plus-one should have known better than presume Skywarp was out of the running yet either.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had their rifles drawn and aimed even before Skywarp stumbled all the way out of the transwarp tear. The guy was on his feet and conscious, but the black pit where his most of his major power components should have been indicated he wasn't faring too well. He was lucky the missile hadn't taken out his spark chamber, actually. Not that he looked like he was counting his blessings right then.
-Okay, here's the plan,- Sideswipe told Sunstreaker over the silent channel: -you race around him and get him distracted, and I'll take him down.-
-Why are we the distraction?-
-Don't you remember our scores back in basic? I'm the better shot, you dolt.-
-No, we're the better shot. It's called an upgrade. Seriously.- And just to make their point --and also because Skywarp was two seconds away from spraying all three of them with gatling fire-- Sunstreaker and Hunter demonstrated.
Sideswipe cursed, seeing Skywarp lose his balance and the obvious opportunity this presented. He transformed and barrelled toward the Seeker before he could get his footing back.
His brothers raced to join him. It wasn't fair if he got all the hands-on fun.
===
Stark took aim and released one of his shoulder rockets. Before it even ignited, Wheeljack raised the hand he had wired with Stark's foldspace signature and ripped Stark's arm straight back. The missile sailed point-blank into the bedrock, mostly harmlessly, except for the part where Stark lost most of his arm and half of his knee."Aagh! Jesus!"
"Oh, come on," Wheeljack said loftily. "You didn't actually feel that."
Wheeljack tilted his wrist to see how far he could make the other arm move, but to his surprise, Stark's arm didn't respond. So, it seemed the human had patched that exploit in record time. Or more likely, he'd shut off the rest of his networking capability, which he probably had kept online for guidance tracking. Well, at least it looked like Stark wasn't planning to run away.
And if Wheeljack still had any doubts, Stark's counter-attack neatly clarified the matter. He pulled up one of his two rows of mini-rockets and released all six in succession, a sure hit at close range like this.
Wheeljack barely got the disruptor wave up in time. The mini-rockets ambled, confused, into the adjacent cliff face.
Stark glared furiously as a shower of debris rained down. At least, he seemed furious. Maybe the look was Wheeljack's imagination; it wasn't like the head he was looking at was really Stark's face. But then, Wheeljack knew a thing or two about reading expressions when there weren't any.
"Go on," Wheeljack encouraged. "Try that one again."
"Isn't it your move?" Stark replied sarcastically.
"Eh, I'll give you this one."
Stark didn't budge. He wasn't totally stupid, it seemed.
Right now, Wheeljack surmised, Stark was busily trying to out-think him. And Wheeljack was trying to out-think him, so it was anyone's guess where this was going to go. Probably the way of all famous stalemates.
Of course, both of them knew that wasn't going to be good enough.
"Never mind," Wheeljack decided. "I take it back."
Stark had the height advantage, but Wheeljack had one more working limb than he did. Not to mention, despite all appearances, the human most likely had his cockpit somewhere in the torso area, so height really wasn't that much of an issue. Stark was barely on the approach to grab him before Wheeljack landed a solid hit to his abdomen, shattering the weaker alloys beneath his fist. The mecha stumbled back, gaining the radial distance to snag Wheeljack by his backstrut kibble and toss him to the ground level. Stark's machine did have superior motor capability, Wheeljack would give him that.
Wheeljack peeled himself off the canyon floor just in time to see Stark's other shoulder cannon taking aim and only narrowly managed to roll out of the way. Dodging the repulsor beam, he transformed and landed right-side down, four tires squealing as he barrelled straight back into his target once again. Stark attempted to line up another shot, but Wheeljack hit first, crashing headlights-first into the mecha's unstable, half-shredded leg.
Stark went down instantly, arms flaring out to break his fall. Wheeljack quickchanged in mid-air and caught his damaged arm just shy of the elbow, and let inertia do the rest.
The mecha, when it landed, was clearly not going to get back up again. But Wheeljack wasn't finished, because he knew Stark wouldn't be either.
The instant Wheeljack was on his feet again, he whipped out his sidearm and pointed straight at the mecha's lower abdomen, his best guess for where Stark had located his control centre. Unfortunately, in the time it took for Wheeljack to do this, Stark had aimed his one remaining repulsor emitter exactly lined up with Wheeljack's spark chamber.
They both stopped moving. Wheeljack looked up and met Stark's gaze, or what approximated it in the circumstances. The suit's optics were the same colour as his spark-- the same colour as Wheeljack's optics, his sidelights-- very, very similar, and too close.
===
It was hard enough navigating this canyon without the aid of satellite. It was harder still to do it in the dark.Ratchet switched his external cameras to infrared and kept driving. At these speeds, every dip or sudden bump was giving his undercarriage merry hell. He didn't think he was going to be able to bend over for a decicycle.
The sun had cooked these rocks so much that there wasn't enough of a differentiation between their heat signatures and any mobile units, leastwise any that could be viewed through a solid cliff. He wished he had some sort of sonar capability. Failing that, he tried to initiate a pingback from the faction bandwidth. But the one he really needed to find, the really crucial one, wasn't on the map at all.
Prowl noticed his signal and snarled over the silent channel. -What the hell do you think you're doing on Earth, Lieutenant?!-
Ratchet dodged an errant missile --he hoped it was errant, unless J.A.R.V.I.S. really had it out for him-- and responded, -Major, you need to stop this right now! No-one needs to be here! Tell Wheeljack that he...!-
-Wheeljack isn't responding.- It was Ultra Magnus. -But we have a visual. If we can't confirm capture in one millicycle, we're going in ourselves.-
-Wheeljack's trying to kill him!- Ratchet said desperately. -Is that what you want, Inspector?!-
-Even with all caution taken, some incidents are unavoidable,- Magnus said tersely. -This might be what we have to do to take him down.-
-No! You don't-- Stark isn't...!-
He didn't see the sharp outcrop until it was already right in front of him. Ratchet braked, swerving, but it was too late. He slid right over the hard-edged rock, wheels skidding, the thing gutting him right across the middle, cutting through axle linkages and fuel cabling. He lost control of his wheels and tipped, sliding and nearly rolling across the hard bedrock.
He didn't know exactly when he came to a stop. Ratchet transformed with difficulty, his entire left side scraped and torn, leaking fuel and mechfluid over the floor of the canyon. He knelt, clutching his torn midsection, overwhelmed with pain and cursing anything and everything he knew.
Ratchet futilely tried pinging Wheeljack again. He tried every channel he knew-- the battle comm, the general silent channel, their private foldspace band. Nothing. Wheeljack, wherever he was, was not listening to anyone.
Damn it! Ratchet cried in his own head. His fist pounded the rock beneath him. Damn it, 'Jack! This is the vainest thing you've ever done!
===
When at last the missile barrage seemed to abate, Jazz was so exhausted and relieved that he couldn't think of anything else.He lowered his twin handguns and slumped, grateful that at least something else was keeping him upright just then. Just who the hell brought artillery like that to a battle on their own turf?
The Major's voice came over the battle comm and Jazz snapped up straight again, almost losing balance with his jetpack. -Captain. Report.-
-Uh! All clear here, Prowl. Mighty fine, even.-
-That was some good work, Captain.- Prowl, paying a compliment? Did the inspector have a gun to his head? -Now I need you to get us a second visual for a differential on the ground situation.-
Prowl wired along the co-ordinates. Jazz logged these and tilted the jetpack's navigation stick to line up with the designated position and zoomed in. Huh. Funny; it looked like...
-Well, Captain?- Prowl asked after a moment.
-Well, it's... Huh. A bit too close to call.-
-It's what?-
-Yeah,- said Jazz worriedly. -Definitely photo finish, this one...-
===
The satellite's night vision imaging cast a greenish light over the entire control room. But Pepper's fingers hesitated at the controls.She could see the bright, luminous shapes of Wheeljack and Stark's Transformer suit, locked together at the base of the canyon. And they just... stayed there, like they were frozen, each of them too close to fire.
Slowly, one of Pepper's hands edged toward the targeting panel again.
"Miss Potts," J.A.R.V.I.S. insisted overhead. "It's too dangerous."
"If we aimed for the far wall," she said slowly, "and caught him at the edge of the blast radius..."
"Variable windspeed can't allow for that degree of precision, Miss Potts!" The AI sounded frantic. "There's nothing that we can--"
"We have to do something!" Pepper said shrilly. How could someone --a computer, for god's sake-- give up this easily! Tony was right there-- he was seconds away from being safe if she could just do things right--
The radio line, suddenly, crackled to life with a distant signal.
"Stand down, Pepper."
Tony! Pepper toggled the reception settings to get his transmission in cleaner, but it seemed to be a problem on his end. "Just hold on, Tony, I can do this," she promised. "I'm gonna get you out of there--"
"It's okay, Pepper," he told her. He sounded strangely calm. "It's okay. You can go home now."
"But...!"
===
Wheeljack studied that inscrutable non-face, sensing, somehow, the strange alien intelligence behind it. A mind he thought would never make any sense.The barrel of his rifle was pressed flat against the mecha's torso. The machine's repulsor beam was half a metre from Wheeljack's chest. They both knew who would die first.
Wheeljack finally figured it out.
"You bastard," he said, using the human word. "You planned this."
The mask seemed to grin.
Wheeljack pulled the trigger.
===
She saw the shot. She saw the flash from the end of Wheeljack's gun, the recoil, the million little pieces of metal that exploded around it, as most of the midsection to Stark's machine simply wasn't there anymore, and that was it. The machine's arm fell down, limp, and the glow in its eyes dwindled to nothing. The radio signal went dead."Miss Potts?" J.A.R.V.I.S. queried uncertainly.
Pepper didn't notice the tear until it had rolled halfway down her cheek. She didn't do anything about it. She merely tore her eyes away from the screen and turned around.
"Can you close things up here, J.A.R.V.I.S.?" she said quietly, as she begun walking towards the door. "I think I'm done for the day."
"Of course, Miss Potts," answered the AI, at a loss. Well, why wouldn't he be? He was out of a job too.
Pepper left J.A.R.V.I.S. to his own devices. She retread her steps through the succession of rooms and back to the stairwell. Up to the cabin, where half of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a quarter of the Avengers would no doubt be waiting.
It turned out she overestimated. There were only a few agents, and only two Avengers, both in plain-clothes. Well, Steve Rogers was dressed plain, anyway. Jennifer was still green.
She should have been glad to see him. Steve had such a good head on his shoulders. Good, normal sensibilities. And he counted Tony as his friend, or he had, anyway.
But Pepper looked at his broad, all-American face and couldn't find any reassurance at all. Just more of the same nightmare of a world with things she'd never understand, that had led her and Tony's lives from the remotest sense of normality to... this.
Steve opened his mouth, maybe to offer up some trite patriotic eulogy. Pepper wouldn't let him.
"So let me guess," she said brittlely. "First it's a few days at the Pentagon. Then, if I don't co-operate, some uncharted facility in Eastern Europe. If I do co-operate, I get a nice place in the bomb shelter while we wait for the world to end."
"No bomb shelter," Steve said kindly, without a shred of dishonesty, damn him. "No inquisition. We've got a rough sense of what went on here, Pepper. We know it was out of your hands."
Yes. Out of her hands, goddammit. It was always out of her hands when it mattered most.
"You did everything you could," She-Hulk said generously. "We'll handle it from here."
Pepper wanted to hit them so badly. But what use was it on someone who couldn't even get hurt?
She stood up straight and smoothed her suit jacket. "I'm going on a vacation," she announced to them both. "A really long one."
"At this point, I think you've earned it," She-Hulk agreed. She moved to stand beside Pepper and closed an arm around her shoulders. Together with Steve, she guided Pepper to one of the waiting hovercars.
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