A cowrite with HopeofDawn, set in the same universe as her very excellent Giants Of The Earth saga, found on archiveofourown(dot)org. Rated T+ for now, for violence and disturbing images.
Thanks to femme4jack and Merfilly for the use of the word 'cohort'.
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There was graffiti beside the niches this orn.
Kilometers above, the metal walls of Iacon's towers were burnished, polished, gleaming in the reflected light of a billion distant stars. Holograms played off those circumvolving spires, a never-ending dance of light and shadow. Here, the same walls were roughened with neglect, in an atmosphere thick with corroding gasses.
The heat folded upon itself, layer after layer, undisturbed by the tidal wash of lighter hydrogen and carbon monoxide that swept the extruded spines of the towers, far above. Light seemed filtered here, the right-of-way markers a fitful glow which cast every mech with a yellow-green tinge.
The Quandary wasn't the mines, and it wasn't the Pit - but sometimes it seemed kin to both.
Longtime residents would probably have argued. There were few of the roaming empties here, those miserable mechs stunted by many vorn of energy starvation. Autophages scurried in places, tiny clicking drones that pincered apart debris and carried pieces into the smelters. Most mechs in the sprawling district had a directive and a directive's accompanying rations, however meager. A few levels up, refineries supplied more fuel - for those with the black market credits to pay. Occasional patrol sweeps kept an uneasy kind of peace.
Which made the laser-carved scrawling seem downright out of place, if one thought about it. Already, the graffiti was beginning to vanish - a pair of drones worried at the cut edges, laying down fine petals of sealant and iron dust, working in their simple way to repair by increments the body of their sleeping god. As soon as an enforcer happened by, he would doubtless obliterate the message and drones - and a fair portion of the wall - with a few blasts. The open wound would attract more of the little bots, the gap would seal over, the scars would weather away; in a quarter vorn, not even a trace of gleaming metal would hint at this crime.
But until then, the message remained, silvered and brazen, wrought in glyphs as tall as a mech.
You live the deception.
Soundwave gave the inscription only a glance; there was nothing in either the glyphs or the way they were written that would give evidence to the author. To stop and stare would invite questions for which he had no answers. But a glance was all he needed to ensure the inscription was filed away, tagged and correlated with all the incidences he had seen, both here and elsewhere. The pattern was unfolding, he saw, spreading outward like fissure-cracks upon Iacon and beyond. And interestingly, was not confined solely to the lower levels, to those mechs like himself: the forgotten and the outcast, those deemed obsolete and scorned for their lack of function. No, these fissures had snaked their way through the highest levels of Cybertronian society. There might not be any graffiti marring the shining walls of the Towers, the buttressed halls of the War Academy in Vos, but the evidence was there, if one knew how to look. Patterns of association, of rivalries and resentments and discontent that spread outward, touching everything.
Soundwave had seen this pattern before. Once again, it seemed, Cybertron would not learn from history, but simply relive it.
Still, while the larger patterns could not be ignored, they were not what concerned him at the moment. Out of necessity, their own survival had to take precedence. He turned down a narrow lane, sidestepping a drone busily piling up its small collection of debris. His footsteps rang heavily over the pitted plating of the walkway as he descended into the multilevelled warren of their sector's living quarters. Here all the units were stacked one upon another, polygonal-chambered rooms squeezed into an exterior shell to maximize the amount of usable space, with little consideration for aesthetics or amenities. Soundwave paused before the entrance to their assigned unit, fingertips touching the battered plating. Acknowledging his own impotence, his failures; then setting them aside.
Transmitting the code, he stepped inside, ducking his helm to clear the lintel. The hatch irised shut behind him with the grind of metal on metal.
"Brooding again?" Buzzsaw said, greeting him with his usual lack of politesse. Perched on the back of the only full-sized seating in their tiny quarters, the flight-framed symbiont looked up from their shared datascreen.
"Evaluating," Soundwave replied, leaning down to inspect what his symbiont was reading. "Buzzsaw: discovered new data?" They no longer had the access they once did, nor any way to bargain or bribe their way into more, so only the public databanks were available for their perusal. Very little of it was of any worth. All the complexities and variances of any new discoveries were sieved out by the AIs and information comptrollers, in an effort to make the result more palatable for public consumption-and comprehension-by less-specialized mechs.
Buzzsaw shook his helm, sharp-pointed faceplates pinched tightly together in frustration. "No. Rereading old archives. They've edited the historical data on dead-end research avenues into astrophysics and stellar cartography again. *My* data is much more complete."
The too-thin deckplating trembled with the footsteps of another large mech moving past this unit on the walkway outside, perhaps on the way to his own quarters. The vibrations roused Ratbat from his uneasy recharge, where he clung to the underside of an exposed length of corroded cabling. His optic shutters slitted open, optical calipers whirring faintly as they adjusted to the dim light of the monitor. "Mainframe's research?"
Buzzsaw craned his neck back. He didn't have far to look - the room was little taller than Soundwave. If the big mech spread his panels to their full splay, they would have brushed the ceiling - and probably both walls as well. Buzzsaw's thin plating clicked as the leaves slid across one another. "Flame's. Charge and parity symmetry in quantum chromodynamics."
"Oh." Ratbat spread his flight surfaces, the antigrav studs there glowing with a faint charge. He dropped from his perch into a short glide, small claws scrabbling as he landed on Soundwave's shoulder. /Early spacebridge theory,/ he sent, offering the relevant applications of Buzzsaw's find to his host, /and the third-era line of semi-stable Hadron disruptors./ The force of long habit led him to pull up the overview files, preparing and organizing them for Soundwave's easy access. He queued up data regarding Flame himself, too. Information was rarely useful unless ready to hand and efficiently presented, in Ratbat's estimation.
The short talons on the tip of each of his wings hooked neatly under the edges of his carrier's armoring plates, keeping the little symbiont upright, even when Soundwave moved. Still half in recharge, Ratbat nosed at his host's upswept helm fins, a silent plea. All of the symbionts had trouble completing an entire defrag cycle outside their carrier - even when they'd had adequate energon, maintenance, and quiet. For Ratbat, especially now, it was nigh impossible. Even minor disturbances roused him.
Case in point: the present clinking from the wall vent. The opening had no grille, was nothing but a simple cable-choked gap over the upright docking closet - itself a cheap replacement for a proper recharge berth. Laserbeak's intricate, smooth-toned curses could just be made out. "Impudent, clap-clawed spawns of an oxidizer spill," a few inaudible, panted glyphs, and the scrape of something comparatively heavy, "closed the access panel thrice this orn!" Another clank, and Laserbeak's lashing tail appeared, then his haunches.
Supple as an autophage drone, with wings tucked tight, the lithe flightframe could find hidden ways into or out of almost any structure, could slip between wall panels with ease. But not while dragging a covered canister nearly as big as himself. Buzzsaw's thoroughly-amused chirp of greeting made his class-brother freeze, twist around to turn his optics on the room. Oh. "It seems you've returned a breem early," Laserbeak pointed out loftily, attempting to subtly jam the canister back into the gap.
Soundwave gave his wayward symbiont a level look. "Laserbeak: will explain activities." Amusement warred with annoyance; it was obvious that Laserbeak had been up to some surreptitious foraging. Soundwave disliked the inherent risks of such activity; fast and silent Laserbeak might be, but bargaining with mechs more than ten times his size was a dangerous proposition. It also brought up the question of what Laserbeak had found to bargain with; if they were to deal with angry mechs looking to strip the plating from a certain symbiont's frame, Soundwave wanted to know sooner rather than later.
Still waiting for his answer, Soundwave obligingly unfolded the heavy armor on the front of his chassis. A simple carrier-code triggered the opening of the compartments cradled within his frame, shielded under several layers of armor and inextricably linked with his own systems. Lifting a hand, he stroked two fingers briefly against Ratbat's much-smaller helm. /Rest,/ he sent, surrounding the command with reassurance/welcome.
This, at least, he could still provide.
Wings and helm drooping, Laserbeak performed an about-face maneuver - while clinging to the lip of the vent - that ought not to have been possible for anything with backstruts. Gripping the canister in his talons, he flared steel wings and launched himself to his carrier, surrendering his prize to Soundwave's palm. "I found supplies; Ravage's plating rasps so much, a mech can get no recharge," Laserbeak said, settling his slight weight down on Soundwave's unoccupied shoulder. His claws were longer than Ratbat's, pricking a little where they curled under his carrier's armor.
/An old strategist, Emissary class, at Maccadam's. Lost Redwhisper's entire Primon saga, when he was upgraded to monitor the road cameras. We struck a bargain./ Laserbeak's glyphs over the link were colorless, carefully neutral. Security monitoring required the ability to split attention to ten thousand links; a task for which a tactician's singular, goal-oriented logic was not usually suitable. The processors were different, some of the drive modules were different. A mech's memories didn't always survive the partial refitting. Some mechs retained just enough to know what they had lost.
Laserbeak dipped his head in approximation of apology, finding Soundwave's neck cables and nipping along one, grooming the thick support like he would his own flight surfaces. The place where the cable disappeared under the armor of Soundwave's collarplate was scuffed almost free of color nanites, abraded by too little maintenance and the corrosive atmosphere. "Besides, Ratbat positively squeaks."
Already climbing with relief into the haven of his host, Ratbat growled. "I do not!"
"Peace," Soundwave commanded. Accepting the apology, he let them all feel his approval and pride at Laserbeak's bargain. "Soundwave: grateful for additional supplies, approves of performance of function. Our services, now required by few-but at least not yet forgotten." Waiting until Ratbat had finished settling himself in, his frame folding down impossibly small to fit into his recharging dock, Soundwave resealed the armor over his chassis and levered himself down onto the empty seating platform. Ratbat would likely fall swiftly back into recharge, but for the moment he was still awake; Soundwave could still feel his thoughts over the link they all shared, listening, evaluating their discussion in his own particularly precise and ruthlessly efficient way.
"What is it?" Buzzsaw inquired, craning his helm to peer up at the canister in Soundwave's hand.
Soundwave inspected the canister, which was well-marked with glyphs. "Graphite?" he said, glancing at Laserbeak for confirmation that the contents matched the engraved label. Laserbeak nodded, his apologetic droop turning into a more upright stance as he basked in the glow of Soundwave's approval.
"Oooh. That will feel nice," Buzzsaw said happily, stretching his wings out to full extension and fanning the overlapping plates. Laserbeak shot him a narrow look, and Soundwave could feel the hum of a tightly-banded discussion between the two flighted symbionts. A more paranoid mech might have wondered what they were plotting; but Soundwave had been a carrier for too long not to know when to give his symbionts some privacy. Living beak-by-helm as they did, it was often the only kind of solitude any of them could get.
Which brought up another question-the location of his last symbiont. Turning his attention to Ravage, he pinged for a location-ID, sending a query over their link. /Ravage, status?/ He wasn't overly worried; of all his symbionts, Ravage's frame was the sturdiest, built armored and adaptable so that he could spend long orns in the field, chasing down remote encampments of researchers.
The return reply took a moment to issue. It came on a very narrow band, and was stripped of locating data. /Online and within functional parameters, Soundwave. En route now. One joor./ The link bled a little, impressions of shadow and pressure and heat filtering through, as if Ravage were otherwise distracted. Or concealing something. Perhaps aware of his misstep, the symbiont added, /Request report upon arrival./ In nearly everything, the carrier's will was ruling law; Ravage had no particular right to determine the time or place of his debriefing, or to conceal anything for that matter. But he could ask.
Enfolded in the utter safety of his carrier, Ratbat was afforded - permitted - deeper access to link-level communication than the external symbionts. Fighting the spark-deep, soporific sense of tranquility that always resulted from docking, the solidwing cassette stirred a little at Ravage's request, uneasy.
The two other flyers exchanged obliviously conspiratorial looks, optics spiraled wide. As fast and whipcord-slender as a turbofox, Buzzsaw struck with just as little warning, darting from his perch to snatch the canister of graphite from Soundwave's grip. Laserbeak launched himself just as quick. The pair of symbionts landed on the decking in a hissing tangle of flight plates and talons, directly and inconveniently behind their seated carrier. Claws scrabbled over the canister. It took both little mechs working in unison to open it, as their talons lacked fully opposable thumbs, and the container had not been crafted with small mechs in mind. Chirruping sly delight, Buzzsaw dipped his beak carefully into the compressed cake of ultrafine powder, crumbling off a piece.
Soundwave pinged them with a cautionary glyph-if the canister spilled, it was unlikely they would be able to obtain more-but otherwise ignored their antics. Instead, he focused on Ravage, his attention sharpening in belated concern.
/Ravage: state reason for delay./ His connection was attenuated at this distance, with only the most basic of vital data available to him. Still, he did not sense any injuries or impairment, only an ambiguous sense of distraction edging Ravage's end of the link. /Situation, dangerous?/ Carrier protocols stirred, bumping protective-imperatives higher in processing queues, ready to activate.
Ravage huffed a harsh vent. /Not anymore,/ he sent, then paused, a shadow of quiet dismay, a dull kind of confusion, crossing the link. /It is complicated./
/I'll hold him down -/ Buzzsaw sent over a wide band, his beak full, /- you get that rotor./ Both flightframes launched themselves back at their carrier. Prickling talons scrabbled at the joints of Soundwave's helm, and a cruelly-barbed tail wrapped - carefully - around his throat. The lightweight mech was at most a negligible fraction of Soundwave's mass. "Now you are at our mercy, Archivist," Buzzsaw crowed, transferring the chunk of powdery graphite from beak to one limber set of claws, his right wing flailing over Soundwave's shoulder as he fought for balance. "Do not think to move. Laserbeak, he is pinned!"
The other agile flightframe had already insinuated himself close, clinging vertically to a heavy segment of the ornate armor that banded Soundwave's flank. Finding a juncture, Laserbeak snaked his head fearlessly between the plates, to the big hip joint beneath. Chirring in mirth, the symbiont found the stiffest of the massively powerful rotors there and began scrubbing the soft graphite into the working seam. The razored edge of his beak proved useful in pressing the powder into couplings that had gone far too long without proper maintenance.
/Understood. Ravage: return within one joor. Report any-/ Soundwave broke off in surprise at the two flighted symbionts' sudden 'attack'. "Buzzsaw: expl-!" His vocalizer stuttered with a surprised squawk as Laserbeak aimed unerringly for the sensitive joints beneath his plating. Embarrassment warred with pleasure as the slick powder began to do its work, easing aches he'd had so long that he'd accepted them as part of his normal functioning. "Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: cease activities," he said, after a moment to regain his composure. "Supplies, limited, required for symbiont maintenance." One canister of graphite could conceivably be stretched to cover the smaller symbionts; but not if the majority was wasted on his frame. It was only logical that four should benefit from their supplies instead of just one.
Buzzsaw made a rude squawk of dissent. "This is not part of our usual supplies," he retorted, tightening his tail-grip. He dipped his head, using beak and talons to slather his chunk of graphite into the gap between shoulder armor and cervical cabling, working it into the roughened surfaces of the flexible struts. The powder that drifted down was a balm over the delicate, finely tuned moving parts. "It is a windfall, and windfalls should be enjoyed. By everyone-even stubborn carriers." He stroked the underside of Soundwave's masked jaw with his tailtip in teasing reassurance.
Laserbeak vocalised a hum of agreement, reaching deeper for the secondary motility rotor. The bladed back of his neck bumped against a rank of processor relays, and he froze, moved carefully lower. His carrier's discomfort registered mainly as a muted twinge through the filter of the symbiont bond, but Laserbeak could risk no damage. Medical allotments were beyond the reach of an obsolete class.
In truth, mechs as angular and plated as Laserbeak or his class-brother ought not to be servicing internal components at all, even to this limited extent. During the war and for a time after, medical drones, sometimes even tower-trained medics, had done this for Soundwave thrice a quarter. A carrier could be enormously valuable. Soundwave certainly had been - even moreso after the two flightframes had selected him.
That had changed with the securing of the research libraries. The access restrictions.
Laserbeak withdrew carefully, with a quietly sent apology, and went back for another two pieces of compacted graphite. Midair, he traded a large chunk over to Buzzsaw, and then returned to his work. The grit-free, non-conductive powder was so fine, it filtered into even the smallest gaps like a cloud of molecular ball bearings, easing the wear of metal upon metal and encouraging natural repair processes. After attending to the biggest weight-bearing gears, Laserbeak moved on to his carrier's legs - the places where cables bunched under lighter armor, the articulated sockets, the heavy capacitors, the scarred places where plate scraped over plate.
Buzzsaw finished dabbing one last drift of graphite into Soundwave's shoulder, and cast his carrier a narrow glance. The big mech did not seem much inclined to escape. Excellent. A moment's hesitation, and Buzzsaw unwound his tail. Graphite in beak, he began climbing with prickling talons down to Soundwave's left elbow - the one that had begun to click whenever the carrier moved.
Though removing either of the symbionts forcibly would cause damage, Soundwave could still command their obedience, order them to stop. But the two flightframes' pleasure in surprising their carrier was infectious, and he found himself reluctant to rebuke them for their efforts on his behalf. And truthfully-he had perhaps been more in need of maintenance than he had realized. Soundwave made a mental note to do what he could with additional cleaning and self-repairs, once he had time and privacy. Better to head off what smaller problems he could, before they worsened into damage that required specialized attention they could no longer afford.
His symbionts, at least, were reasonably well-maintained. Carrier protocols included full specifications for the maintenance and repair of symbionts' specialized systems. Only the most severe damage would be beyond Soundwave's capacity to repair; though their limited supplies of energon, lubricants and other parts-especially ones small enough that they could be adapted for symbiont frames-were a constant, low-grade worry.
"Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: ensure that enough remains for use by all," Soundwave ordered, but allowed himself to relax into their ministrations, shifting tensed limbs to allow better access. "Your efforts, appreciated," he added, moderating his tone. Unlimbering a few secondary manipulator cables, he used them to lift the canister, bringing it forward to allow for easier access.
"Of course. Wouldn't want to listen to the whining if we didn't share, after all," Buzzsaw replied cheekily, taking advantage of Soundwave's change in position to wind himself more securely around the larger mech's arm, using his tail and wings for balance as he delicately poked more graphite into the intricate crannies of the offending joint.
/...don't whine, either.../ Ratbat's sending was just a whisper over the comm link, a faint stirring of awareness in a thoroughly somnolent frame.
Buzzsaw's murmur of amusement vibrated through Soundwave's elbow as the symbiont nibbled at the joint.
At the big carrier's pede, Laserbeak finished powdering his nub of graphite into Soundwave's ankle assembly. Clicking in quiet contentment, he step-hopped to the sinuous manipulator cables. Jumping lightly up with casual familiarity, talons careful on the thinly-armored sensory appendages, he perched just long enough to peck another piece of graphite out of the canister. Then he headed for the other ankle.
Buzzsaw worked his way down to Soundwave's right hand and all the tiny, interlocking servos there. It took him some little while to finish properly. His class-brother soon jumped up and began attending to the remaining limb. Satisfied that almost every part they could reach of their carrier had been afforded at least a cursory coat of the mechanical lubricant, Buzzsaw arranged himself in the big mech's lap, delicate flight and armor plates flared so that he seemed twice his proper size. "My turn," he declared, thoroughly pleased with himself and helm craned back, looking up.
"Buzzsaw: claiming precedence over Laserbeak?" Soundwave said, amused. Laserbeak was the source of this unexpected bounty, after all, and was more than due some manner of reward.
Forestalling any potential squabbles, several of his smallest fiberoptic tendrils extended, plucking shards of compacted graphite from the canister and insinuating themselves expertly under Buzzsaw's flared armor and wings, dusting and caressing the tiny, intricate systems sheltered beneath. And since he was not limited to merely two hands-Soundwave turned his attention to Laserbeak, lifting one arm to allow the flighted symbiont to perch more comfortably. "Extend wings?" he requested, delicately lifting another small pinch of graphite between the fingertips of his unoccupied hand.
Chirring in pleasure at the attention, Laserbeak quickly obliged, spreading out the delicate overlapping plates of the flight surfaces and bending his neck to allow easier access to the complex jointed assemblies at their base. Using his fingertips for the broader gaps, and another set of fine tendrils for the more sensitive areas on both flight-frames, Soundwave found himself enjoying their pleasure almost more than his own. In public, their dignity and his own both demanded a certain distance. Only in the privacy of their quarters could he afford to pay them such attentions, to take the time to stroke vulnerable joins, to inspect small limbs and finely-articulated armor for damage. He found some minor areas of wear here and there, along with some scuffs on the polished ebony surfaces of Laserbeak's plating. But no obvious damage, he noted with satisfaction.
"Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, experiencing discomfort?" he asked, checking over the fine points of beak and talons, the flexible articulations of their necks.
Laserbeak stepped up onto his carrier's wrist unperturbed, attending the the back of Soundwave's jointed, gauntlet-like armor for a few moments, until the slow bliss of having his own articulations serviced overcame the will to move. /He does ask us that every time, does he not?/ Laserbeak sent his class-brother over a broad beam, confident he'd be overheard. He surrendered his last fragment of graphite to a cable and stretched his beak wide, luxuriating in the feel of the smallest manipulator cilia stroking over the external hinges of his jaw. The tips of each fiberoptic were small enough to work into his finest wing-rotors, spreading cool graphite dust to the deepest of his tiny internal components.
/Yup. Think we must've picked a good one,/ Buzzsaw sighed, melting into the careful touches. Wholly trusting, he splayed out across the big mech's lap in surrender. The bladed collocations at the end of each manipulator-sheath never so much as brushed him. Aloud, he vocalised, "Absolutely, Soundwave. Terrible discomfort, really. Agony. There's this one spot..." his vocalizer stuttered. "Ooh. Nevermind."
Laserbeak vented softly, slumping, completely unresisting as he was handled, inspected in every detail. /Best one,/ he corrected lazily. If he moved too much, the edges of his armor could easily pinch and damage the fiberoptic tendrils that clustered at the end of the thicker, plated cables - they were terribly fragile. But it was, fortunately, not difficult to stay still under such ministrations. It was considerably more challenging not to simply drop into recharge.
Amused and pleased by the symbionts' response to his ministrations, Soundwave took his time, indulging himself with careful strokes along their sensitive, thin-armored frames. Eventually, a manipulator snaked around the seating, its agile cilia retrieving and replacing the canister lid. After a little longer, when it became evident that both small symbionts were steadfast in their determination to impersonate mechs completely lacking in hydraulics, the cables began nudging them into transformation. Buzzsaw gave in first, rousing just enough to angle himself into the warmth of his docking slot. Laserbeak clung to a shadow of awareness for a little while more, his EM field undisturbed. Soundwave stroked the little flyer until every leaf of armor, every flightplate, lay flat and smooth against the symbiont's frame.
At last Laserbeak too eased himself through his transformation, and slid into his place. The sensation of each symbiont linking their small systems - energon, coolant and lubrication, and more - with Soundwave's own was sharp, but brief. The carrier's ranks of filters and galvanic cells warmed as they handled the extra load.
It was quiet for a few breem, save for the whirr of distant activity, the vibrations as mechs moved nearby. The symbionts' small fields glowed gently, contained within Soundwave's own. The half-broken strip of overhead lighting sensed little motion and faded, conserving energy.
A short time later, the hatch of the living unit irised open.
Linked as they were, it was impossible for Soundwave not to feel Ravage's approach; but any other mech would have been hard-pressed to spot the shadow that slipped through the open hatch. Ravage padded noiselessly into the small room, nothing more than a flicker of movement and a sinuous line of silver and black in the darkness, tinged with the scent of ozone and burning metal.
Soundwave inclined his head, subtly relieved by his last symbiont's safe return. "Ravage, welcome." He turned one hand, opening taloned fingers in greeting, but allowed the symbiont to approach in his own time. Ravage had his own way of doing things, and Soundwave found that certain courtesies, while never demanded, were nonetheless … appreciated.
Glowing red optics regarded him silently. Then Ravage moved forward. Seating himself near Soundwave, curling a bladed and sensor-laden tailtip neatly about his forefeet, he inclined his head into that waiting hand.
After a few moments, Ravage's optics nearly shuttered, casting a knife-edged gleam of crimson across the pitted, acid-scarred decking. The bladeframe was warm under hand, hot, like a spark spun too hard and for too long. Metal ashes flaked from Ravage's long, disturbingly-jointed legs; his chassis clicked as it cooled. Finally, the bladeframe bent his plated head so that his optic ridge pressed just lightly against Soundwave's fingers, the leaves of armor lifting to expose the broad hardline port at the back of his neck. /This is not for the others,/ he said quietly, on a narrow band.
Soundwave's attention sharpened. It was rare for Ravage to conceal information from the rest of their cohort, and never something he did without good reason. /Very well,/ he replied, uncoiling a secondary cable and stretching it outwards, towards Ravage's vulnerable nape. Reconfiguring the cable for secure data transfer was as easy as thought, blue-white fiberoptic cilia stretching outwards to touch briefly, exploring, verifying the familiar port parameters-and then slipped inside, twining with Ravage's waiting connections as the cable socketed into place.
There was no disorientation in this act, not anymore. There had been at first, long ago - back when the high-ranking symbiont had, inexplicably, chosen a carrier so newly sparked he sometimes fumbled the adjustments to his own docking slots. The bladeframe was simply so much lower to the ground than Soundwave, moved many times faster, was far bolder in his explorations. It had taken... some getting used to.
Now, slipping into Ravage's cortex was as familiar as coming home. The cassette's higher functions were a thin shell over a chasm of memory, a well of files accumulated over eons, so deep it was possible it had no end at all.
Soundwave waited, a blue-silver blade locked into that darkness, anamnesis spiralling around him like flitting silver dendrites, each one a shard of memory, a crystalline chain of time and space.
The file unfolded up out of that unspeakable depth, twining around where their minds had merged, and the world expanded - to darting paws and tunnels that bled mercury. The thunder of ongoing mining operations rumbled through every surface. Warped hollows flashed by, some of them containing artifacts last seen by mecha when Cybertron still circumscribed a sun. An impossible chasm gaped ahead. Ravage's strides lengthened, cables bunching with power - and they were airborne for a singular instant, the canyon so deeply carved below them that entire rivers of molten metal poured away into an unfathomable nothing.
Then claws struck steel again, and they trotted around a corner. And stopped.
The chamber ahead should have been carefully sealed against the elements. Beyond that force barrier should have stretched the Solnus archaeological site - a pocket of structures preserved by a chance combination of factors, dating from a time before the Quintessons. Even during the war, teams of academics had worked here, had managed to prioritise enough resources to continue their research.
The scholars were gone, now. An unsparked mining drone had broken through a wall. The remains of the driller still lay half-slagged where molten metal from a disturbed underground stream trickled in. The lava had been flowing for a while; it filled most of the chamber. There was nothing left.
Ravage hadn't really expected there to be.
Something blundered into Ravage's leg, and the symbiont flinched back with a vicious growl. But it was only an autophage, trundling along with a clipped bit of metal clutched in its crablike claws. More little drones issued forth from an irregular crack in the hallway. Simple creatures, they knew only to carry worthless things to the nearest slagging pool and then return for more, though they did that with great dedication.
But these ones... did not carry mere debris. One bore a small optic, oddly curved, crafted for the harsh bromine burn of the Rust Sea. Another dragged most of a fin, brilliantly mottled in silver and green. Leaves of plate armor, like chips of green energon, so recently disassembled the color had not yet faded. A swimmer's fuel pump, surgically severed from its spark chamber. All small parts, too tiny and too specialized for even a minibot.
But not too small for a cassette.
Immersed in the memory, Soundwave had to pause at that realization. Clamping down on the first stirrings of carrier-instinct, he focused instead on analysis, forcing logic to take precedence over emotion as he sorted through the minutae of visual detail that Ravage had carried back to him.
The scraps of armor, the dismembered parts, when taken apart from their context-left behind, carried away by scavenger claws like unwanted trash-and pieced back together indicated a single symbiont, aquatic frametype. The unfaded chromatophores suggested that offlining had been recent; Soundwave pulled related data from his forensic archives, cross-referencing it to the minute gradations of color in tiny remains, the subtle graying of the edges of the silvery fin. It confirmed his initial hypothesis; a very recent death, likely only a few joors before. Ravage had been lucky to come upon the area when he had. Autophages were nothing if not diligent in their duties. In less than an orn, there would have been little left to find.
Soundwave reviewed the rest of the memory, searching back to Ravage's initial entrance for other cues that might have been missed, other signs of mechanoid life. But there was nothing there to find; only the spreading molten streams of metal and the drones, disappearing into the dark of a crevice too small for Ravage to enter. The quadrupedal symbiont had done his best, pressing faceplates and tail-tip in turn to the small gap in an attempt to sense what lay beyond, any scrap of sound or scent, the barest flutter of an EM pulse. But the iron had been too thick, the crevice too deep.
/Evaluation: symbiont death, mischance or murder?/ he finally asked. There had been tiny ragged edges to the small dismembered parts, but those could very well have been caused by autophage claws. There was no point in speculating why the cassette-mech had been down in those caves in the first place; symbionts went everywhere, often following trails led by nothing more than their own curiosity. Ravage's find was proof enough of that.
Another memory rose up to entwine Soundwave's presence, running in parallel with the first and just as detailed and crisp, though the datestamp marked it megavorn in age. Any mech not built for this would have staggered under the complex weave of input - for Soundwave, navigating the data torrent was simply second nature.
This time, the scene was a stretch of the Rust Sea, the ocean and the air stained red with bromine, the bitter tang of unstable planetary flux on every corroding breath of wind. A set of tracks in the silty metal filings had captured Ravage's attention, until a flash of green from the heaving sea made him scramble back in a lightning flow of blades and teeth.
Sharply-curved violet opics, a razor-line of teeth set into a sinuous frame, virulent green plating, strong stout fins for oceanic endurance and limited movement across land - the mech that drew himself onto the beach was the perfect miniature replica of an oxide shark. He was roughly the same size as Ravage. Interested, curious, the aquatic cassette chirped a symbiont's greeting.
/...Minebreak did not reach that place on his own,/ Ravage added, momentarily flashing on the image of green scales sinking into cherry-red molten metal. He paused, pressed his optical ridge a little harder against Soundwave's hand, which even still cupped his head. / I did not know his present Master. But the waveframe was always... sociable./
Soundwave leaned forward, resting his other hand upon Ravage's bowed neck, expanding his field to accept Ravage's discontent, the flickering pangs of grief for an old acquaintance lost. It was more than likely that his symbiont still held data-memories-from Minebreak; most symbionts exchanged information whenever they happened to cross paths. Currency and courtesy both, it was an ingrained instinct for a symbiont to share what they knew as widely as they could, to prevent any chance of it being lost forever.
/Minebreak's cohort, unlikely to leave him behind,/ he said, feeling his way around the edges of the puzzle that Ravage had brought to him. Even if the waveframe had somehow gotten separated, and died alone and in the dark-there was no way his carrier couldn't know. No way his carrier wouldn't have attempted a rescue. There was a possibility-very small, and with a very wide margin for error, given the number of suppositions he was being forced to make-that the rest of the dead symbiont's cohort could still be trapped underground. If they were dead, there was nothing Soundwave could do. But if there was any chance they still lived-
His carrier protocols were pinging insistently, rerouting past datawalls as they rose through priority-command queues. Symbionts had to be preserved, guarded. It was unlikely any of the Iacon enforcers would lift so much as a servo to help, much less organize any kind of rescue. Not for mechs that-as far as they were concerned-belonged to an obsolete, outcast frameclass that should have been reformatted vorns ago.
/Ravage, assessment required. Searching area for rest of the cohort possible?/ he asked, already checking his own archives for all known chronicler-carriers and symbionts in Iacon. The information was embarrassingly outdated; as their class had fallen out of favor, so had any official attempt at tracking carrier mechs and their cohorts, many of which had been forced to roam far afield, searching for ways to retain their usefulness.
The pressure of his carrier's field felt cool over Ravage's heated chassis. The bladeframe's optics shuttered entirely as he relaxed a little more weight against Soundwave's unyielding frame; the symbiont turned his head to lay his jawplates across Soundwave's knee assembly. The small shift in position disturbed the connection not at all - the multitools clustered at the tip of the sheath kept the manipulator cable locked neatly, firmly, in place. The bladeframe summoned up the appropriate series of files - tunnel images and sensory scans - relying on his carrier for the complex height and hazard calculations.
/ I can trace a safe path, though whatever hazard befell them may still remain. A search would go still faster with the flyers. If.../ and here Ravage paused. A symbiont, he knew, was not well-equipped to even process the many variables of a decision like this, and linked to his carrier, he could not keep his worry from seeping over the bond. / If there is fuel enough./ Not just for the search - what if they found the carrier? Or other cassettes?
Soundwave considered the problem, running all the permutations and possible outcomes, weighing them against the known hazards of Cybertron's subterranean levels. None of their cohort were adapted for tunnelling, and Soundwave's own bulk would be a hindrance in the smaller spaces. But Ravage's vast knowledge of Cybertron's layered strata, its tunnels and mines and deep, secret places, combined with the flexibility and speed of his cohort, was enough to tip the results marginally in favor of their survival. The line between success and failure in his calculations, however, was razor-thin. It made him uneasy.
/We shall go,/ he decided. /Tomorrow, after refueling and recharge./ Ravage was correct in his assessment; even if they found the rest of Minebreak's cohort, it was unlikely his symbionts would have the strength or the energon to attempt a rescue. A carrier, however, could easily bring multiple symbionts to the surface. So Soundwave would go as well, to guard their safety and provide support, and together they would see what there was to find.
Ravage's affirmation - and his concurrence - filtered over the bond. His carrier had made a decision; the bladeframe's fears were dispelled. Trusting in his cohort, Ravage would find the way.
