AN: Here's another, more light-hearted piece. It's been languishing on my comp for the last two weeks cause I found out that I'm really, really bad at writing explosions.
Prompt table is over at Jalaperilo(dot)livejournal on my profile page. I'm also on twitter if you wanna get in touch: Jalaperilo
Prompt – Panic
Characters – Wheeljack, Prowl, Perceptor, Jazz, Brawn
Warnings – PG
A loose transistor
"Wheeljack."
"I honestly don't know what to say," the inventor said in response to the thousands of questions that Prowl had managed to convey in the simple utterance of his designation. He looked back to the datapad in his right hand, then to the detonator in his left, then back to Prowl and shrugged.
"We did not factor this into our calculations nor our experiment, because, well, it has never happened before," Perceptor offered, transforming out of his microscope mode and turned from the test range.
"Yeah, it was kinda a given." The two scientists looked at each other. Wheeljack, looking a little worried, shrugged again and Perceptor took on a look of contemplation, tapping a digit against his lip component.
"The one time we wanted an explosion, and old 'Jack can't make with the boom," Jazz said, chuckling to himself as he approached the others. They were all still behind the mound of dirt, metal and transparent aluminium that composed the makeshift blast shelter at the supposed safe limit of the test range. Prowl's glare at Jazz silenced the bot, who took on an entirely fake look of solemn contemplation.
"I can make with the boom. Just not always on schedule," Wheeljack shot back crossly before scratching his helm. "This has never happened to me before. I am at a loss for words. Brawn?" Wheeljack asked, turning to the minibot, who was himself reading through a datapad.
"Not much I can add. All I do it set the damn things and wire them up. And I know I've wired them correctly, before you ask. The connections are flawless," Brawn supplied in a surly manner, crossing his arms in an invite to just dare say otherwise.
"The chemical composition and overall quality of the explosives were completely fine when I examined them on the last inspection. I do not believe that anything would have truly effected the explosives themselves, let alone all at once," Perceptor contributed, taking Wheeljack's datapad and examining the content himself.
"Might be the blast caps? Or the lead lines? The wiring?" Wheeljack said, wringing his hands and trailing off into a mumble.
"I told you, my wiring is perfect. I've been blowing stuff up since before you were blowing up academy projects," Brawn said indignantly.
"There is more wiring than the blast caps! Might be a simple break in the circuit. Primus knows where that would be," Wheeljack was starting to sound a little edgy now.
"So this leaves us with an active range and the inability to examine the compound due to live explosives. What now?" Prowl asked, his left pede tapping ever so slightly. The tension in the air was continuing to condense around them and even he was feeling a little highly strung.
"Worst come to worst, we could always try to detonate the material with a high velocity, incendiary projectile," Perceptor offered.
"What, shoot the charges?" Prowl asked, incredulity dripping from his words.
"That would hopefully ignite some of the charges, if not all. Theoretically it would leave us with a less dangerous but much more volatile situation." Prowl was uncertain, but he thought that he heard a hint of desperation within Perceptor's voice.
"Fine. Last resort. I need other idea's before I entertain that solution though!" Prowl snapped.
"Word from Prime. The humans are asking where the boom is," Jazz cut it, signalling to the side of his helm to reiterate the communiqué.
"Tell him we're experiencing technical difficulties," Prowl shot back peevishly. Jazz just grinned and continued his internal call. The SIC turned back to the team, who were still bickering over variables that could have gone wrong. "I need answers and I need them now."
"Well, ruling out the wiring," Perceptor gave Brawn a measured look, "the caps or fuses or lead lines, the material itself, the only thing left is the detonator."
Wheeljack looked down at the control box in his hand. Both the orange charge light and the red fire light were still on, indicating that the little light and sound show should have gone off. He frowned down at the device.
"I don't see how. Unless one of the components came loose," he mumbled as he shook the box.
There was a sudden flash of light. Meer astroseconds later, the shelter suddenly rocked with the impact of the shockwave from the detonation of the explosives. The structure rattled and creaked as the ground shook with the force of the explosion, causing all within the shelter to flinch, instinctively raising their arms to protect them. Wheeljack himself felt the violent vibrations rattle his plating and jolt his spark. The blast lasted seconds, but the noise carried on past them and carried on over the rocky terrain, towards Prime and the humans at the second observation post.
Wheeljack lifted his helm to look out on the range. Prowl had barely flinched, and was looking out towards the destruction. A massive plume of dust and debris spreading out slowly, expanding and creeping towards them. Jazz whistled, a trick he'd picked up from Sparkplug as he watched the dust cloud. Perceptor was totally absorbed in the feedback data that was streaming though his consol.
Prowl held a digit to the side of his helm. "Target has been confirmed as destroyed. Finally," he added the last part slyly, shooting a side long glance at the team. Wheeljack gave him a small smirk.
"That 'boom' enough for you?"
