"We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent...Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" –Robert Oppenheimer
It was early in the morning and the sun had just began to peek over the horizon, just barely casting a faint glow onto the Ark that sat embedded into the mountain. The sun illuminated the hard metal of the ship, creating an aura of light around the silent Autobot Base.
It was the first time in weeks that the base was quiet; there were no Autobots running about in a frenzy or laser shots bouncing off the hull. It had been a busy month and a half for the Autobot army, with the Decepticons being much more active than usual. They were constantly and consistently attacking military bases and labs, searching for fuel and energy that they could convert into energon.
They were running the Autobots ragged, though Prowl hypothesized that the Cons themselves could not be faring much better.
The sheer frequency of the attacks meant that the Decepticons were becoming desperate, and every single one of the Autobots knew that was never a good thing.
It usually ended badly for one side or the other, and the Autobots were getting the short end of the stick more often than not. Desperate Decepticons were dangerous Decepticons.
With the increasing rate of the attacks, it seemed that every time that the Autobots managed to drag themselves home tired, bruised, and worn, there was another distress call waiting for them. They would always respond, for it was their duty, but they were always exhausted upon returning to their ship turned home base.
Every crew member was at their wits end, all the way from the top of the command structure down to the foot soldiers.
The medics were working triple overtime shifts to make sure that everyone was in top shape; the engineer crews were constantly repairing weapons and simultaneously trying to make them more effective. The tacticians and special operations were working tirelessly to come up with new strategies and tactics to make the fight more efficient, and to increase their chances of being victorious.
Optimus Prime himself was working wherever he was needed, flitting between the med-bay and labs and meeting with the other officers, doing whatever was needed of him on top of running the entire Autobot army.
With all of the constant running about and complete lack of rest, the entire crew was elated to finally have a few solid hours of rest and relaxation.
A lone figure walked the deserted halls of the Autobot base. Chief Medical Officer Ratchet was slowly making his way down the straight hallway to his bunk room, occasionally stretching his limbs out in a desperate attempt to stay awake.
He had just finished a two solar-cycle long duty shift in the med-bay and was looking forward to a few hours of recharge. He had worn himself out over the last month, constantly repairing and fixing any Autobot who came into the med-bay, and doing maintenance checks on anyone who felt that they needed it.
Sometimes he loathed being the only fully trained medic on base.
Ratchet was actually leaving his shift early; Optimus had come in for a check on one of his pedes and noticed him dozing off against a stretcher. The Autobot leader had gently sent him off to recharge stating that he needed rest and that the medic could return back to duty when he had at least a few hours of solid recharge.
Ratchet had tried his patented Medic Glare©, but in the end it was futile to resist.
Deep down, he knew that he wasn't functioning at full capacity, and there was the possibility he could make a dire mistake in his fatigued condition. It was this knowledge that led him to simply letting out a huff of his exhaust and heeding his commanding officers order.
Optimus had a tendency to truly care for and worry about his troops, and Ratchet had an unmeasurable amount of respect for him because of that.
He slowly passed Jazz's room, momentarily peeking in through the open doorway. Jazz had a tendency to accidently leave his door open, especially in times like this where he barely had the energy to make it to his room, let alone have the mental capacity to remember to close the door.
The sports car was draped over the berth, sprawled out like he had just come in and collapsed on it, which he probably did, Ratchet thought warily.
Jazz's left arm was swaddled in medical grade protective metal. The mech had lost his arm a few weeks before to a lucky shot from the Decepticons. Normally, Ratchet would be able to simply reattach the arm, but it had been a losing battle and the other Autobots had been unable to retrieve the appendage in their hurry to get Jazz off of the battlefield before he bled out.
The medic had to create a whole new arm; it was an intricate and lengthy process that was fortunately almost completed. A few more days of work from Ratchet and the arm would be good as the one that had been lost.
The medic knew that Jazz had been working for over three days straight without rest (And against medical advice, but after the third time of forcibly dragging the mech out of the communications room, well, Ratchet recognized a losing battle when he saw one) and was elated that the mech was finally getting some well-deserved time off. Ratchet gave the sleeping form a small smile and quietly shut the door, leaving the other Autobot to sleep in peace.
Ratchet staggered into his assigned room, almost tripping over a data pad that was haphazardly lying on the floor, among other things. He wasn't the neatest Autobot on the ship, but that wasn't a priority at the moment and he made a mental note to pick it up later.
Ratchet collapsed on his bed, letting out a deep sigh at the feeling of being able to relax. He started to shut down his systems and slightly adjusted his position, moments away from falling asleep. The ambulance let air out of his intakes, closed his optics, and dropped into recharge.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Ratchet shuttered open his optics at the sound of the alarm. Teletraan One was blaring loudly, announcing that there were reports of another Decepticon attack. The ambulance rolled quickly out of bed and joined the rush of mechs in the hall. All of the other Autobots in the corridor were rushing towards the main command center and Ratchet contentedly noticed that the others looked better; everyone was noticeably in better spirits and more energetic.
He glanced at his internal chronometer and was astonished to see that a full 14 hours had passed. That was most definitely the longest break that they had all had, and also the longest continuous stretch of recharge he had gotten in a long time.
As they passed the med-bay, Ratchet noticed Mirage trying to hobble out of the doorway. The spy had been on a surveillance mission to track the Deceptions and had accidently gotten caught at the wrong end of the blaster. The wounds had been fairly minor all things considered, but the mech still needed time to rest and heal before he was going to be able to be out in the field again.
Ratchet stopped in front of Mirage and pointed his finger in a direction behind the other mechs head.
"Go back to your berth right fragging now," He growled "Or I'm welding you to it."
At Mirage's stubborn glare, the medic crossed his arms and smirked.
"And don't even think about sneaking out. Your invisibility is on lock down until I medically clear you."
Mirage's glare turned into a sheepish grin as he slowly backed up into the med-bay. Satisfied that his patient wasn't going to do anything stupid (this time), Ratchet continued down the hall to the command center.
Optimus was already towards the end of briefing the gathered Autobots when Ratchet arrived in the room. Their leader had already sorted out who was going on the mission, and was standing in front of the small assembly of mechs.
Among those in the crowd were Ironhide, Prowl, the twins Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, and Wheeljack. Jazz, who would normally be on a mission like this, was not in the unit due to his injury. The Porsche would be monitoring the battle communications from safely within the ARK.
The speech's end was met with a resounding "Yes Sir!" from the rallied troops, who then began to disperse and prepare to leave for the battle. From what Ratchet had heard, the Decepticons were attacking at a remote lab not far from the Autobots own base.
The mech snorted. How dumb did the Cons have to be to attack a base less than 20 miles from the Autobots home base?
Ratchet rolled his eyes. The Decepticons were stupider than he thought if they didn't think that the Autobots would come and try to stop whatever ridiculous plan Megatron had come up with this time.
He rubbed his shoulders to relieve an ache and made his way up to where the Prime was standing. Optimus was leaning over Teletraan-1 and rubbing a hand over his optics. The large mechs shoulders were slumped forward, and he was visibly exhausted.
The medic ran a quick medical scan over his leader, and was unsurprised to find his energon levels low. They were all running low and he just knew that Optimus was taking less than his share to make sure that his troops had enough.
Ratchet rolled his eyes at his leader's idiocy as he pulled a ration of medical energon out of his subspace.
He held out the small cube in front of Optimus. The leader turned towards him, noticed the small dose, and retracted his face mask. A slight smile adorned his face as he addressed his CMO.
"Save it for a patient in need Ratchet." He said, holding up a hand. "I am fine."
Ratchet levelled Optimus with a glare and held out the cube more insistently.
"Take the cube Optimus. Or as your CMO I will act upon my right to put you on medical leave, and we both know that you don't want that." He frowned.
Optimus visibly deflated and sighed, not even bothering to argue. They both knew it was hopeless. Taking the small cube into his hand, he raised it to his mouth and drained it in one go. He gave Ratchet a look that clearly said 'are you happy now?'
Ratchet gave a sigh of relief as he rescanned his leader and found markedly increased energon levels. He gave Optimus a glare, but didn't put any fire behind it.
The medic sighed. "You have to take better care of yourself, Optimus."
Optimus just smiled and placed a hand on the medic's shoulder.
"I know old friend. But we are in times of difficulty and my health is no more important than that of my soldiers."
Ratchet narrowed his eyes to refute Optimus's statement, but was interrupted as Teletraan beeped loudly, signifying that it was time to leave. Optimus gave him an apologetic look and headed out the door towards the Ark entrance. Ratchet let out a deep world-weary sigh and followed his leader out of the door.
Ratchet was not one of the fastest bots in the group; an ambulance was not exactly one of the most aerodynamic vehicles, so the battle was already in full swing by the time he got there. Luckily, the enormous lab was already evacuated, so they did not have to worry about the humans running around and getting underfoot.
There were both empty and full energon cubes laying around; Ratchet figured that the Cons were already in the middle of their operation when the Autobots interrupted them.
Ratchets transformed seconds before his alarms started blaring, and he threw himself to the ground moments before a missile rocketed over his head. He scrambled to his feet, glaring at the sky as a red, white, and blue F15 soared overhead.
Ratchet dashed to cover as the jet maneuvered midair, twisting around to make a second run at the medic. He dove behind a broken piece of metal wall just in time as another missile exploded behind his head and the jet roared past him.
Starscream didn't make another pass, and Ratchet figured that he was busy being a nuisance somewhere else. Feeling safe for the moment, the medic peeked his head over the metal and scanned the battlefield, looking for anyone down or injured.
He noticed Optimus and Megatron grappling near one of the deserted buildings, watching as the red and blue mech nimbly ducked under a roundhouse punch and spun to aim a powerful high kick at the Decepticon leaders face. The warlord blocked it and the two quickly resumed their battle.
Leaving the two to their fight, Ratchet continued scanning the ruined base. Ironhide was trading shots with Soundwave to the left of one of the abandoned buildings. Both had taken cover and were popping up occasionally to aim a shot at their rival.
The twins were proving annoying to Thundercracker and Skywarp with their self-proclaimed Jet-Judo. Sideswipe was using his balance and magnetic plating to essentially surf on Thundercracker's back while Sunstreaker was latched onto Skywarp with a grip so tight that Ratchet wasn't sure that even the Jaws of Life could separate them.
The red and white medic almost rolled his optics out of his helm because he just knew that he was going to have to do repairs on one or both of them by the end of the fight.
Prowl was busy with keeping Starscream occupied and away from his trinemates. Every time the jet tried to fly over to assist his teammates, Prowl would fire a well-aimed rocket to keep him at bay.
The medic noticed a distinct lack of minicons around Soundwave, until he remembered that they were out of service, having been pretty heavily injured in the last fight thanks to Blaster. Said mech was now also laid up in Med-Bay after an enraged Soundwave had beaten him down in revenge for the damage to his minicons.
The last person that Ratchet noticed was Wheeljack, who was kneeling in front of a large contraption that was sitting innocently within the walls of one of the largest ruined buildings. The medic quickly made his way over to the engineer, who was frantically waving his hands in an erratic fashion in front of the machine.
Said machine was obviously in bad shape, smoking and making a distinctly odd low pitched whirring sound. Ratchet stifled a groan as Wheeljack's frantic muttering got more rapid and more explicit.
That was never a good sign.
Ratchet waved a red hand in front of the engineer's face to get his attention. Wheeljack swung his head around and jumped as if he hadn't noticed the medic's presence. Ratchet rolled his optics so hard he thought that they were going to roll right out of his helm.
"Calm down, it's just me." He yelled over the uproar of the battle going on around them. "Can you tell me what this damned contraption does, 'Jack?"
Wheeljack shrugged as he went back to fiddling with the mystery machine.
"No idea!" he hummed. "I'd say that it looks like a DNA scanner, but these components aren't right. Either way, I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to do this, and I would rather it not blow up in our faces."
Ratchet nodded. That was a good idea. Injuries meant more work for him, and that was something he tried to avoid at all costs.
He started to examine the machine, trying to find the right wire or switch that could be used to shut it down. His trained eyes narrowed as they passed over a barely noticeable panel and he slowly pried it off.
Inside were two large wires, one red, and one green.
Ratchets eyes narrowed even further. They looked like power cords, but he wasn't sure which one would turn off the machine. He patted Wheeljack's arm in an attempt to get his attention.
Wheeljack spun around and noticed the panel that Ratchet removed. He pointedly ignored the medic's yelp of protest as he quickly wiggled between the ambulance and the machine in an attempt to get a better look.
The engineer quickly pointed to the red wire. "We cut that one. It should sever the power to the rest of the machine."
Ratchet shook his head. "No, I don't think so." He pointed to the green one. "That one looks like it goes to the power converter. Cutting it should shut the machine down."
Wheeljack crossed his arms and glared stubbornly at his friend.
"No, severing that one would cause the power to reverse and flood the machine. It would explode!" He waved his arms around for emphasis.
Ratchet glared right back.
"Well, you would know. You definitely have experience in that."
Wow. He could feel the sarcasm as it rolled out his mouth.
Wheeljack had just opened his mouth to rant at the medic when a stray shot struck the open panel, blowing both engineer and medic backwards away from the machine. Ratchet didn't even have time to think "Oh frag!" before his back hit the ground.
He vaguely noticed Wheeljack land next to him, as he was already staring in mute horror as the machine started to emit deep black smoke and began to shudder. The steady low hum that it had been releasing had turned into a loud high-pitched shriek that was only getting louder by the minute.
Ratchet and Wheeljack shared an alarmed look and scrambled to their feet just as the machine exploded, emitting a white light and knocking both Ratchet and Wheeljack back onto the ground and into unconsciousness.
The white light expanded, quickly engulfing the entire battlefield. Neither Autobot nor Decepticon had any time to react before the blast wave washed over them.