DISCLAIMER: Still don't own as I have yet to find a way to become one with Hasbro.


Contact


It had been the sense of an odd blip on one of his long range scanners. A barely there energy signature that was too faint and far away for his programs to determine just what it was he had 'caught' outside of it not being normal for this planet. Only for it to fade away as quickly as it had shown up making it seem like maybe a hiccup in his equipment. Doubtful, but a possibility when he had to rely on his own self repair and what a human could do when given step by step instructions to help maintain his frame when self repair couldn't cut it. This had gotten him odd looks for the request, until he reminded Sam and Mikaela that his teammates did not have the right hand configurations to do such delicate work.

Until again that same faint energy signature was acquired and just as quickly faded away several months later, and in an entirely different area then last time.

Suspicious he delved into the back log of readings to see if perhaps there had been other times he had caught the reading, but had not reacted to due to something more pressing happening. His feeling was correct as he saw that his scanner had picked such up several times before, during times when he couldn't spare the processing power to note such as he had during one of the few down times they had acquired since landing on this planet. After a bit of analyzing and patiently waiting for the next hit on the radar, he began to see a pattern.

Or more he saw a pattern trying not to be a pattern as he noted times of occurrence, where they had occurred, and how long there was a lull before the next blip had happened. Though what was causing it eluded him, even as he knew deep in his spark that he was not picking up anything native at all. Which was the mindset that brought about the second discovery as he once more found himself studying the graph of the reading, and found enough tiny variances to figure out it was not one signal, but rather two happening within four one hundredth of a second from each other. Confirming it even more that whatever these two signals were they were not earth made at all to have that much precise control, but Cybertronian equipment and more specifically Autobots and Decepticons themselves had such control which had allowed them to perform such complicated battle plans in the past.

It took the humans questioning the finding for him to finally realize what it was he was picking up.

He had dismissed the idea at first, as scanning an alternate mode that often and with such quick precision was energy consuming. Even if both mechs (Ironhide still was of the opinion it couldn't be Decepticons because that faction wasn't known for being this secretive.) had Energon convertors built into their frames like medics and many others who saw early on that such was a good idea before resources started becoming scarce and the Allspark had not been launched. Until someone asked if they could stock pile energy like the humans did with many things as a just in case scenario, it was the only feasible option Ratchet had to admit if odd as it was not really a trait Cybertronians had ever adapted before. Their race as a whole preferring more economical means of energy consumption if rationing of such was needed, instead of collecting it like these two were obviously doing. This spoke of something else to Ratchet and his medical training that he did not voice out loud at the time.

His medical and scientific background conferring and agreeing that this could be a sign of deep assimilation if the mechs in question were unaware of how much they had adapted from the dominant species of the planet. This meant prolong exposure to such culture without any contact with another Cybertronian but themselves, for at least twenty five solar revolutions or years alone on this planet. If that was the case then there were more pressing concerns in regards to these unknown mechs.

If they had been here before them; why had they not made contact, on purpose or on accident, with either faction? And what would they do when Ratchet found them?

Oh when it had first been suggested Ironhide had nearly had a processor lock up in his sputtering at the decision. Even Prime had looked worried at the suggestion as he also voiced concern on the possibility of it being Decepticons. In the end though, Ratchet found himself roaming the highways of America, playing catch up to the mysterious signals and the mechs he was certain were behind it. Already on the seventy fifth possible scenario in regards to the health of the two considering how long he believed the two had been here on the planet. It was several days later and his processors braced from the worse scenario of this hiding being the last desperate act of dying mechs, to finding the two in almost perfectly good health that he caught up to them.

Though he had almost overshot them and would have kept on going if an old encrypted channel he hadn't even realize was scanning latched onto and pinged a standard greeting over it. Causing him to slam on his breaks and make a very wild U-turn when he took note of it being a channel only used for close communication range…and one only Officers had access to.

Officers that he had not been in contact with for millions of years, as he had to take a dive into archived and compressed memory files to fit the signal that had only been returned after he had sent the same opening ping every five seconds for ten straight minutes. The amazement of this particular mech being alive considering how overly fragile support mechs were and thus why they were so rare now, almost had him untense coils in happiness of such. Until he noticed that he was getting no response from the other mech that he knew from his scanners was also there. The fact none of his now open and scanning channels were picking up anything had him casting about for some answer. When that particular convoy had supposedly been completely lost when an experimental space bridge had gone up the war had not reached the point of taking away all of the neutrals either through forcing them to pick or side or through dying in the crossfire of a city raze.

It was a possibility, and could also explain why even with one of them being an Autobot the two had remained away. The protocol back then when there were neutrals having an Autobot remain to help and protect a neutral until they were out of a hot zone. The logic already had his programs finding and opening those long neglected channels that had once been the main way of communication for all of them, back before the war began.

The medic felt his spark give a good impression of being dropped from a cliff when a signal from the second presence finally popped up on the open communication line. Tagged with a faction and designation he knew.

How in all the power of the Allspark did a support unit like Red Alert end up in the company of Vortex?