Shattered: Chapter 10

XXXXXXXXXX

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.

-Harry Crews

XXXXXXXXXX

Author's Note: First of all, many, many thanks to those who took the time to read Chapter 9 and add this story to alerts/faves. I'm glad you're all enjoying. I'd like to give a super, big thank you to vampygirl999, Tanisa Bumblebrasil, galita, purrpix and Khalthar for leaving a review. The big confrontation scene between father and daughter isn't in this chapter but I've already started writing it and I'm pretty excited about it. Hopefully, you will approve.

Disclaimer: My OC belongs to me as well as this sad, little plot. The rest, well, you know the deal.

XXXXXXXXXX

Near Black Mountain , the Diablo Range, Fresno County , CA : 0430 Hours

The ball of fire streaked through the gradually lightening sky. With the force of what could have easily been described as the impact of a small missile, it plowed into the ground throwing large chunks of rock, dirt and other debris up into the chilly early morning air. Complete silence followed. The large, smoking crater was the only evidence that anything unusual had even transpired.

It took Sway a moment to regain her faculties. In her haste to make planet fall she had over shot her landing. Coming in too fast and too steep, she had ended up slamming into the hard-packed earth with enough force to cause her circuitry to rattle. She waited briefly for the ringing in her audios to dissipate and the static to clear from in front of her optics before attempting to hoist her body from the hole.

Slender servos dug into the dirt as they scrambled for purchase on the alien terrain. With a little effort, Sway found herself sprawled out on the ground next to the pit her landing had carved in the picturesque landscape. Heaving herself up onto her peds, she surveyed her surroundings with a disgusted sneer on her otherwise lovely facial plates. Her first impression being that Earth was, for lack of a better term, filthy.

Grainy particulate and ruined vegetation she had plowed from the ground upon landing clung to her gunmetal gray protoform. Brushing herself off quickly the best she could, she hastily calibrated her internal global positioning system. She was pleased to learn that she wasn't too far from her intended destination. The human Sam Witwicky's last known whereabouts, a settlement named Tranquility, was directly to her northeast.

Time was of the essence. Sway was well aware that orbital satellites had been tracking her movements ever since she had come within the planet's range. No doubt, the human military and their new Autobot allies would be watching the skies carefully after the battle at Mission City for anything out of the ordinary. She needed to get a move on. She knew they were most certainly already aware that she had made planet fall and probably enroute to her current location.

Her first step forward sent her stumbling as pain shot through her left leg. The feeling, as if some had injected liquid fire into her energon lines, had her shuttering her optics in pain until the feeling eased. With slightly shaking servos, she gently prodded the fine welds that ringed the upper part of her left lower extremity. The surgical scars were a grim reminder of the state her Creators had left her in when they had fled without her, leaving her buried alive under tons of twisted metal to die alone a slow and agonizing death.

Each of the raised marks spoke of countless joors spent beneath Hook's scalpel and welder as he made excruciatingly painful adjustments to her damaged protoform at Megatron's direction so that her grievous injuries wouldn't impede the proper growth of her appendage as she matured. Megatron had made it quite clear that no niece of his would be left a lame defect due to the negligence and disregard of uncaring Creators. The torturous sessions in the medbay that had followed his declaration were painful but necessary to her wellbeing, he had assured her, and would only make her stronger. She had her creators to thank for her suffering he would always remind her as he stood by watching the medic do his work.

The last adjustment she had undergone to correct the damage to her protoform had been completed just prior to her reaching full height and maturity. The unfortunate scattering of Decepticon forces to various theaters of battle as the war expanded and the reassignment of the most competent medics to trauma units tasked with repairing wounded warriors and getting them back out into the fray as soon as possible to engage the Autobot resistance had left Sway without the medical services of the Decepticon's cruel but capable Chief Surgical Engineer. The result was a left lower limb that was slightly shorter, and weaker, than her right.

While under normal circumstances her defect was nothing more than a minor annoyance that lent a slight limp to her gait, her rough impact had aggravated the injury causing it to ache and throb in time with the energon pumping through her lines. Had she the luxury of time, she would have liked to have rested the painful limb until the deep, pounding feeling passed. However, knowing that her time was short, she ground her dental plates together through the pain and hurried off toward her destination as fast as her injured leg would allow. There would be plenty of time to rest once she had accomplished what she had come here for, she told herself. There would be more than enough time.

XXXXXXXXXX

0500 Hours

"I'm afraid we're too late." Optimus Prime surveyed the landing site with a strange mix of disappointment and urgency weighing on his processor. He had felt oddly anxious ever since they had confirmed the satellite presence of a possible fellow Cybertronian. It wasn't something he could readily identify but something told him that it was of the utmost importance for him to intercept the new arrival. He turned his attention to his CMO. "Ratchet, see if you can make a positive ID. I'd like to know who we're dealing with if at all possible."

"Right away, Prime." Ratchet looked his Commander over with a sharp optic as the larger mech wandered off to check on the status of the search operations. Once Prime had disappeared from sight he lowered himself into the crater and retrieved his equipment. Ratchet would be lying if he said he wasn't concerned about the other mech. The Autobot leader had been acting strangely ever since they had discovered the signal in space. At Ratchet's insistence, Prime had agreed to allow him to do a quick diagnostic scan. Other than a slight fluctuation in spark activity, which could have easily been attributed to the stress of dealing with the human authorities, the medic's scans had come back clean. Ratchet, although still worried about his leader, had let the matter drop for the time being.

"Hey, doc? What is that thing?" Major William Lennox, who had been directing a group of men via radio as they searched the perimeter, had his attention drawn by the green Hummer/robot that was now kneeling and waving some sort of handheld device over the surface of the impact crater.

"A spark scanner," the medic replied shortly.

"Ok…" Lennox waited for the medic to continue with an explanation. When the bot didn't seem inclined to explain further, the Major took it upon himself to prod the grumpy mech for information. "Care to elaborate?"

The CMO grunted in aggravation. "This device can assist us in identifying the new arrival."

"So, what? You wave that thing over a hole in the ground and it'll tell you who just dropped in from the sky?" Lennox walked to the edge of the large indention to get a closer look at what the Medical Officer was doing.

"It's a little more complicated than that, Major." Ratchet shook his head and sighed. Giving an irritated growl, he smacked the contraption he held in one hand and gave it a rough shake. "It is designed to read a bot's spark signature. Spark signatures were a very basic form of medical identification back on Cybertron. Similar to the practice of blood typing or DNA profiling on this planet, I suppose. Each spark signature is unique to the individual. The energy expenditure required to enter into Earth's atmosphere is quite large. Some of that expended energy leaks into and is absorbed by the surrounding environment, like if you were to cut yourself and leave some blood behind. This machine can take a sampling of the residual energy left behind and run it through a known database of recorded spark signatures. It has the ability to provide us with an ID and other pertinent information about the individual if they have a record on file."

"Huh," Lennox nodded in understanding. "That's a pretty handy gadget to have."

"Yes," the medic agreed with the soldier. "It would be if it actually worked worth a damn." The CMO threw his hands up in exasperation and plopped down to sit on the rim of the hole. "It's obviously malfunctioning." The sound of large footsteps nearing pulled the medic away from his troubled thoughts.

"The western ridge is clear. Have you gotten anything, Ratchet?" Optimus Prime had made his way back around the perimeter to the area where a small group of returning soldiers had gathered back around the impact site.

The medic shook his head and climbed to his feet as his leader approached. "Nothing of much use, really. The signature is fresh, I can tell you that much. We couldn't have missed them by more than 20 or 30 minutes. I can't give you a positive ID, though. The readings are...off." Ratchet stepped toward his leader and passed the handheld device over Prime's chest where his spark was safely nestled, looked at the readout and vented in confusion. "I think perhaps the calibration is a bit off. Has Ironhide reported back?"

"Not yet. He is with a group of Lennox 's men at the northeastern ridge to see if they could spot any sign of the arrival." Optimus' head tilted in question as he watched his CMO scan the impact crater again. "You look perplexed, Ratchet. What is it?"

"An anomaly, I'm sure." Ratchet again shook his head as he studied the readout the device produced. "The readings being produced are very similar to your own."

Optimus took a curious step forward, feeling something inside of him clench in expectation. "Explain."

"It appears that you have contributed to the composition of this particular spark signature."

Optimus felt a peculiar churning in his chest at the other mech's words. He could feel the energon begin to pound through his lines. An almost surreal feeling settled over him. He asked his next question with a bit of hesitancy. "Were you able to get an ID match?"

"Yes," the CMO cycled air through his vents and chose his next words carefully. "There is only one matching signature in the database, Optimus."

"Sway." Optimus said the name with all certainty. He could feel the familiar frantic need to find his daughter that he had experienced all that time ago surge to the forefront of his consciousness. Long forgotten subroutines fired off within his processor, demanding that he find and protect his offspring.

"Optimus," Ratchet saw the other mech tense. He recognized the desperate hope he saw written on Prime's face. It was the same look he had when he had come to him in the middle of the night all that time ago. "In all probability…"

"I don't want to hear your theory on probability!" Optimus shouted at the other mech. "It is Sway. Do not try to convince me otherwise."

Ratchet's arms fell limply to his sides. He stood there, slightly stunned, by his leader's outburst. "Optimus, I didn't mean…"

"She's here." Prime stepped forward and grabbed the spark scanner out of the startled CMO's hand. The Cybertronian symbols that lit the display only confirmed what Optimus already knew deep within his spark. He turned on the medic. "She survived and she's found her way here."

The medic shifted slightly under the other mech's intense gaze. "Yes, it would appear so."

: Optimus, we've got some tracks heading down a ravine toward the main road over here:

Ironhide's voice crackled over Prime's comm link, breaking the tension between the Autobot Commander and the CMO. The spark scanner, now all but forgotten, dropped from the mech's hand and clattered to the ground.

: What is your location:

: We're on the northern slope just inside the tree line. I'm sending you the coordinates now:

Optimus had already turned and taken off at a full run in the direction Ironhide had indicated. His spark churned. Hope he had long thought dead flared back to life within him. If there was a chance, any chance at all no matter how slight, that Sway was alive and on Earth he would find her.

: Stand down, Ironhide. Do not pursue. Keep the NEST team out of the woods. Do you understand?:

: Yes, Prime, but…:

: I'm on my way. Prime, out:

"Optimus, wait!"

Optimus was only vaguely aware of the sound of his CMO pursuing him and shouting his name as he ran. With his longer stride, he easily outpaced the other mech. He only slowed when the large, bulky form of the weapons specialist came into view.

"Where?" Prime spoke the question to the black mech, not as a question but as a demand.

"What's happened? Did Ratchet make an ID?" Ironhide eyed his Commander. His slightly hysterical appearance, something he had not seen in ages, told him something was amiss.

"Where, Ironhide?"

Ironhide gestured with one large, cannon-clad arm. "Over there. The ravine is just passed those trees…"

"Move."

Ironhide found himself brushed roughly to the side by the taller mech. Prime moved like a mech on a mission. The weapons specialist could only stare after him as he disappeared into the trees.

"Where is he?"

Ironhide spun back around to see Ratchet approaching quickly. "Prime headed down the ravine in pursuit. What in the Pit is going on?"

"Sway."

"Primus," Ironhide's optics widened with surprise. Of all the things he expected to come out of Ratchet's mouth, the femme's name had not been one of them. "Are you sure?"

"It's Sway, 'Hide. She survived the cave in somehow. She's found her way here. Optimus is going after her." The medic wasted no time in following the trail Optimus had left in his haste himself. Guilt gnawed at his insides as he hurried to catch up to his leader. If indeed the femme they thought dead so long ago had survived, he was responsible for discouraging Optimus from pursuing the possibility. Regardless of whether or not his old friend could forgive him for such a thing, he didn't believe he would be able to forgive himself.

End of Chapter 10