The Jackhammer was spiralling out of control. Wheeljack couldn't get the starship back in control, so he just leaned back and put his servos behind his helm while his former mate screamed for him to do something. "Can't, doc. The ship says no."

"Well, make it say yes! I don't want to die!"

Wheeljack shrugged and he closed his optics. It wasn't that he wasn't scared. The truth was, he was leaking transmission fluid as he sat there, but he had accepted that one way or another, Primus would call him back.

He only hoped he would go out with a bang. And since the Jackhammer was full of Energon, that seemed extremely likely.

Too bad Ratchet was ruining the moment by screaming and crying in fear as he tried to unbuckle his seatbelt. Wheeljack wanted to tell him to not bother. The thing about starships, is once you got them buckled, and a crash seemed unavoidable, they had an annoying habit of locking in. Extra motavation to try to get the ship working again, perhaps?

The mountain came into view and Wheeljack looked over at Ratchet. He was silent now, and he slowly offered his servo to the mech. Wheeljack looked at it for a long moment, and then he took it.

That's when the Jackhammer hit the mountain.

OoO

Wheeljack opened his optics. He cut himself out of the chair he was in, growling in frustration at the loud and annoying whines of alarms. Where was he, anyway? He looked around, not recognizing his surroundings. He looked over, and he paused. In his passenger seat was his mate.

His carrying mate.

Why were they in this deathtrap? He cut his mate down, who was limp in his arms, and he carried him out of the ship-thing as fast as he could. He laid him down so he could rest, then he looked back at the starship. He frowned. He didn't know the plans for them had been complete. Ultra Magnus had just told them to start building something small. Apparently it was a good call, because it must have been flying good before it crashed into that pile of rock...wait...

Where on Cybertron were they?

He found a cave in the side of the mountain and he laid his mate in it so they could wait for Seaspray to come and fetch their sorry afts. He commed in, but no surprise. Seaspray was probably getting a nice wax from a medic or something and would comm back in with some good news, hopefully that didn't include oh, and by the way, Tailgate is going to get you.

He didn't know if he could take Tailgate's happy chatter for one more second.

Ratchet had begun to stir. He blinked his optics open and he looked around, then he found Wheeljack. "Wheeljack? Where are we?"

"Primus knows. All I know is that we crashed a starship."

"Another starship? Those are pretty unreliable, especially with you behind the wheel." The medic was teasing him, but something that Ratchet said made Wheeljack scowl. Another starship? He had crashed others? But he didn't remember. Maybe all those explosives finally went to his helm and made a mess of his processor.

"All well," he said. "Third time's the charm."

Rathcet scoffed. "More like sixteenth time's the charm. Ultra Magnus is going to whip your aft."

"Him or Tailgate."

"Wheeljack...Tailgate is dead." Ratchet touched his back. "Don't you remember?"

Wheeljack stared at him. Tailgate was dead!? How was that possible!? "Then Prowl..."

"Dead," he whispered.

"Ironhide?"

"Dead,"

"Metalburn?"

"Dead,"

"Solarflare, Starstreak, Flareup, Heatstroke, Zipline?"

"Dead, dead, dead, dead, and dead..." The medic stood up. "Don't you remember?"

Wheeljack fell to his knees. What was wrong with his helm!?