Title: Big Guns
Characters: Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Optimus Prime
Prompt: Ironhide/Jazz/'Guns aren't always the answer, just most of the time.'
A/N: Part of my head canon is a very dark little story where a 'Con takes Bumblebee's vocalizer that Megatron ripped out and puts it back in, letting the self repair 'fix' the vocalizer. Which, of course, is why Ratchet has such a difficult time repairing Bee's voice. It's from Saesama's Glances Into A Spark.
"So, this is a class gamma planet," Jazz was saying, "and while the radiation isn't enough to match the Allspark, it has some crazy energy signature I want to check out."
Optimus Prime leaned over the screen. The size difference between them was almost comical, Ratchet thought to himself, since Optimus was twice as tall as Jazz. Ironhide moved from Ratchet's side to look at the screen. Bumblebee hummed static at them from the pilot's chair, then fell into a fit of sucking atmosphere in and out as his vocalizer spasmed from the use.
Ratchet scolded him for attempting to use his voice modulator and hurried over to check on the scout. The other three watched for a moment until it was obvious that Bumblebee was alright, then returned their attention to the display in front of them.
"Jazz, why would we spend time on this?" Optimus asked.
Jazz grinned at him. He loved it when Optimus would logic-check him. "First of all, it is Allspark energy, it's just really old and weak, which means the Allspark isn't here. I'm thinking that the Allspark brushed this planet's atmosphere at a bad angle and bounced off, but some of the energy was pulled from the Allspark. If we can figure out where the major source of this residual energy is, we can give ourselves a possible projection arc to investigate, 'stead of the whole universe."
Ironhide gave the short bark that was his laugh. "Yeah, it'd be nice to narrow it down to ten or eleven galaxies rather than every Pit-slagged one."
"What can't we do the analysis from the ship?" Optimus asked. "Or why isn't what we can get from up here enough?"
Ratchet answered that question. "It seems the radiation is scattered by the atmosphere, so to get an accurate reading, we need to go through the atmosphere and down to the ground. We can narrow it down to a hemisphere, but that's about it."
"Actually," Jazz added, "within that hemisphere, we can narrow it down to one of the landmasses, so it's not as if we have to search half of the planet, just an eighth of it."
"My question still stands, then." Optimus said. "Why expend the energy to go down when we've already got a bearing to follow?"
Jazz shrugged, "I dunno, Optimus. I've just got a feeling that we need to be down there."
Optimus fell silent. Jazz rarely had these feelings, but when he did, it was because there were variables he was calculating that were so subtle he couldn't define them at the time. Optimus had learned to trust Jazz.
"Alright," Optimus said. "what's your plan?"
"Ironhide and I are going down, find the highest concentration of the energy, do the analysis in conjunction with Ratchet up here, then head back up with a better vector to search."
"Or so we hope," Ironhide rumbled.
Optimus laughed into his hand as Jazz swatted at Ironhide playfully. "Alright, let's get this done. Ratchet, what are we doing up here?"
"We're using this star system's sun to recharge the batteries on the Ark, and while Jazz and Ironhide are down on the surface, I'm going to go out and patch that hole in ship's side," Ratchet said. "Bumblebee is going to take the time to run a defrag on Teletraan-1 and do general maintenance on the pilot's station. We've plenty to do here, where we'll be able to pull power from this sun."
Optimus nodded. "Alright. Let me know how I can help. Jazz, Ironhide, good luck."
They nodded at him and watched as he left the bridge.
"Off to commune with the Matrix?" Jazz guessed, looking over at Ratchet.
"I believe so. He's been uneasy since we entered this star system." Ratchet said.
"Yeah…I noticed. Let's go, 'Hide. I'd like this to be done."
Ironhide nodded and fell into step with Jazz. They were heading to one of the shuttle bays, where they would launch themselves from the ship. Their window was coming up, and rather than wait for the planet to do another rotation, they were going to head down now.
They walked through the shuttle bay, stepping into the airlock and cycling the doors closed, then cycling open the outer doors once the minimal atmosphere had been cycled out of the room. Jazz walked off the lip and oriented himself on the planet, then fired the thrusters in his feet to use the ship as a jump-off and when he had momentum, folded himself into a cometary protoform. Ironhide followed him and they fell toward the planet.
Jazz landed well, in soft dirt that cushioned his protoform and allowed him to unfold quickly. Ironhide had landed after him, and Jazz trotted toward his fellow soldier, scanning all the while for a native form to adopt so he could blend in. This planet was primitive and had nothing but vegetation and some flying animal forms. Choosing to wait, Jazz topped a small ridge and made a whistling noise in his vocalizer.
Ironhide had hit rocks instead of dirt, and he was still in cometary form. Jazz hurried toward him, worried about his comrade. Bending over Ironhide, Jazz sent a pulse of his magnetics over Ironhide's form, pulling dents out that had Ironhide locked into this form.
With a groan, Ironhide unfolded himself. Jazz stood and scanned the area they were in while Ironhide's self-repair worked on his form. After a short while, Ironhide stood and shrugged his shoulders, settling his weapons.
"Anything worth scanning here?" Ironhide asked Jazz.
"Not so far," Jazz answered, "and I haven't seen any natives except some flyers heading away from here as fast as they could."
"Hm." Ironhide grunted. "Which way do we go?"
Jazz turned where he stood, using his incredible sensor net to triangulate the readings from here with the ones he'd taken at his landing site.
"That way," he waved toward the pole of the planet, "is the strongest readings."
"Then let's head that way." Ironhide said, suiting action to words and trotting in that direction. Jazz also fell into a trot, and the two gradually widened the distance between them. Jazz moved back toward Ironhide when he tried to comm him and got only static. Able to see each other with maximum magnification on their optics, they could use hand signals to communicate with each other. The vegetation thinned until they were on a grassland, flat and clear, with easy running and visibility. They made rapid progress across the plain toward a towering mound of rock.
Jazz shifted closer to Ironhide when the bigger warrior motioned him over. They had been getting higher in elevation gradually, and now were faced with a series of cliffs climbing toward the sky like a giant staircase. Jazz chose his route while still on the ground, mapping it while he had a clear view. Ironhide was doing the same thing, and they both began to climb their chosen routes up the cliffs.
It took them the rest of the planetary rotation to climb the cliffs, but they finally stood, a thousand klicks above the plain, on a plateau of land that stretched to the horizon. Before them was a dark monolith, and without discussing it, Jazz and Ironhide headed toward the enormous black rock.
The natives finally appeared, rising from the grass in a solid line, clearly intent on stopping them. They were long limbed, with grey skin and prehensile tails. They had four arms and two legs and were covered in a fine fur that rippled as the grass did, making them seem as if they were part of the landscape. They held rudimentary weapons that resembled guns, with a long barrel and a stock to rest against their shoulders. They also had bladed weapons made from the native rock of the planets and were almost as tall as Jazz, the tops of their heads coming to Jazz's shoulders. Ironhide still towered above them, but did his best to look non-threatening.
One of them, acting as a leader, stepped forward and said something. Jazz slid forward, hands held up in a gesture of peace.
"I don't understand what you're saying. Gimme some more words, Chief, so I can get the language protocols up and running."
"Yeah, Jazz, that's really going to help." Ironhide said, his own arms relaxed by his sides.
"Shush, you. Let them talk." Jazz reprimanded him.
The leader spat out more words, and Jazz grinned, attempting a sentence. The leader reacted wildly, adding gestures to his glottal words and clicks. He and Jazz fell into a conversation, Jazz's ability to communicate getting better with every exchange.
Finally, Jazz looked over at Ironhide. "They say that the black mountain hides their god, and we can't go closer. We'll have to make do with the readings we have."
Ironhide shook his head, sending a directional databurst to Jazz. "Not good enough. We need to see it, since it's obscuring our other readings. What emis/em it?"
Jazz shrugged and went back to talking to the native leader. Finally, when Ironhide was shifting impatiently and ready to do something crazy, Jazz again turned his attention to Ironhide.
"So, 'Hide, here's the deal. The leader will take me to the monolith, but not you. You're to stay here with some of the tribe as a hostage to my good behavior. Chief here says it will take us a planetary rotation to get there and back."
"Sit, stay, good mech?" Ironhide asked.
Jazz grinned, "Something like that. Don't do anything foolish, and try to get as many readings as you can."
"Language patch?" Ironhide asked.
Jazz databurst him the language of the native peoples, as far as he'd been able to map it out, then turned and left with the leader, both falling into an easy trot that would eat the distance quickly.
Ironhide slowly pulled a data recorder out of a pocket under his armour, crouching down to explain what he was doing to his guards.
"This is a record keeper. I need to walk and let it shine its light over," he slowly moved his other arm over the cliffs and plains, "your land. Will you walk with me?"
"This we will do." The chief guard told him.
They trotted, stopping occasionally so Ironhide could take his readings. Ironhide was careful to move slowly when he was taking the readings, pointing the datacorder away from the monolith at all times. He would sweep the datacorder slowly from side to side, letting it take recordings of the energy in the atmosphere, then storing it in the memory of the recorder and sending it up to the Ark as every third sweep finalized. In this manner, Ironhide covered a third of the giant plateau before the planet's rotation caused darkness to fall. Out of politeness, he asked,
"Do you need a recharge period?"
The guards huddled in groups of two or three, never standing all in one cluster. The security mech in him approved. If he had bad intentions, he wouldn't be able to take out the entire group with one shot, since they were scattered about.
"No, we are fine. Do you need rest?"
Ironhide shook his head as he answered, "No, I'm good. Let's keep going."
One of the guards peeled off and headed back the direction they'd come from, running quickly and soon vanishing from sight. Ironhide dismissed him and returned his attention to the task he'd taken on.
Throughout the planet's night, he trotted around the plateau and took readings. His guards changed, new ones replacing the old ones and allowing them to get recharge while still keeping an eye on Ironhide and his data recording. By the time the system's sun peeped over the horizon, Ironhide had covered two thirds of the plateau and was rapidly moving toward the spot where he and Jazz had split up. He noticed no lights out on the plains or in the forests beyond the grasslands and had carefully filed all the observations he'd gathered about the planet and its people in a series of files to transmit to Jazz when the opportunity arose.
By mid-cycle, Ironhide was back at the spot, waiting for Jazz, who he could see walking with the natives' leader, and thrumming with impatience to be back on the Ark and away from this planet. He'd ignored the feeling of being watched until it had reached the stage where he felt as if Megatron's ion accelerator was pointed straight at the back of his head. He was tense and beyond ready to leave this planet.
Jazz came up, a grin on his face, and greeted Ironhide with a forearm clasp. Ironhide sent him the data burst of observations, and Jazz nodded.
"It's a tiny piece of the Allspark. According to their oral traditions, it's in the same place it landed. They worship it."
"Did you get readings?" Ironhide asked.
"No." ::Yes:: Jazz told him.
::They figured out our language already?:: Ironhide sent.
::Yup.:: Jazz said aloud, "I think we're done here, Ironhide. Let's call Ratchet and get back to what we need to be doing."
"You can't leave." The leader said, pointing at Jazz with his gun. Ironhide tensed and sent a data pulse to Ratchet, telling him to get his aft down with the shuttle right now.
"Why not?" Jazz asked.
"You have seen the God's spear and you can not leave this world." The leader seemed confident of his position. A group of natives came out and began to prod Jazz away from Ironhide.
The leader pointed at Ironhide. "You may go, but do not try to come back for your friend. He will stay here."
"Not likely," Ironhide said. "We came down here together, and we're leaving together."
"No, you are not." The reply was firm.
Jazz held out his hands in a calming gesture. "Whoa, now, let's not get hasty. We can talk about this."
"You have seen our most sacred object. We can't let you leave." The leader repeated his position.
"You're saying the same thing over and over. It's not helping. Jazz isn't staying here." Ironhide said, firmly.
"You repeat yourself also, black giant, and he is staying."
Ironhide stepped away from Jazz and spun out his cannons, the low whine of powering up vibrating through the air.
Instantly, every gun the natives had was leveled at Ironhide. He fired, spinning around for another shot, and screamed when nothing came out of his gun.
::Jazz! Get out!::
::I'm not leaving you, 'Hide!::
Ironhide roared, "Get out, now!" in high Cybertronian rather than the demotic form they'd been using as he fired his other cannon.
Nothing happened. Bewildered, Ironhide began running diagnostics on his cannons as he turned and ran toward the cliffs.
Jazz, meanwhile, was also running. The natives were fast, though, and rapidly caught up to him, pulling themselves up until Jazz was covered in writhing grey fur.
Ironhide was having troubles of his own. His main weapons had been nullified somehow, and while he was big and strong, he didn't really want to hurt the people of this planet. He just wanted to leave with the data and with Jazz.
::The guns they use absorb energy!:: Jazz's transmission startled him, but he quickly whirled and fired his fission cannon into the ground.
This time it worked, since he wasn't firing at the natives. The concussion knocked many of them off their feet. Jazz changed direction and came toward him, and Ironhide fired again. Jazz allowed himself to be knocked off his feet and thus lost many of the people clinging to him. He rolled gracefully, popping up and again heading toward Ironhide sans grey furry natives.
The whine of the shuttle's engines caught their attention. Jazz sent a comm to Ratchet, and the sound moved closer.
Ironhide tried to fire on the natives, and once again, nothing happened. Growling in frustration, he sent to Jazz,
::Any ideas on getting us out of here?::
::A couple. Wait 'til Ratchet's closer. I've got one chance at this.::
They were on a cliff edge, using it as a way to keep their backs safe, when Ratchet arrived with the shuttle. Taking in the scene, he swung around and opened the door. Ironhide almost waved him off when he saw the natives raising their guns and pointing them at the shuttle, but Jazz had the fight well in hand.
His shield came out and he fired a stream of liquid nitrogen at the natives, aiming for their weapons. Then he flipped the setting to heat and watched in satisfaction as the guns shattered, the combination of extreme cold and then extreme heat fatal to their molecular stability.
Ironhide had leapt for the shuttle door when Jazz had popped his shield and was waiting for the silver mech. Jazz threw himself into the air, trusting Ironhide to catch him as Ratchet veered the shuttle away.
Ironhide hauled Jazz into the shuttle and triggered the door, closing it as Ratchet made a hasty exit from the planet. Ironhide and Jazz collapsed on the floor, low on energy after they'd expended so much to get away from the natives.
Safely back on the Ark, they made their report to Optimus and entered the data into Teletraan-1, calculating a likely trajectory for the main portion of the Allspark.
Settling into a chair on the bridge, Jazz laughed up at Ironhide as he grumbled once again to Ratchet about his guns not working.
"Sometimes, 'Hide, a big gun isn't always the answer!" Jazz and Bumblebee fell into a fit of giggles at the look Ironhide sent their way, but the weapons specialist had to concede the point.
"Yeah, Jazz, but it's the right answer a lot of the time."
"You did well, both of you. You got us the data we needed and no one was lost, even among the natives. Next time, we shall be more cautious about visiting a planet with a native population." Optimus said as he came into the bridge. "So, where are we going?"
"Well," Jazz said, his claw tracing a map of the galaxies, "this is the most likely sector, and our long range scans are showing us faint traces of Allspark energy along the way. I vote for heading over here…"
The End!