Tangled Destiny
Ch 14: Unexpected Problem
Ratchet didn't even look up when the door slid open. He was hunched over a desk on the far side of the room, muttering to himself as he worked on a disassembled communications array spread out in front of him.
"Sit," he grunted, absentmindedly waving a hand in the direction of the row of berths by the far wall.
Ironhide guided him towards the medical berths without arguing, but Skyfire caught a quiet grumble about medics who didn't know how to keep their own schedules. Skyfire lay down on the berth without protest. He even let Ironhide adjust the stasis cuffs until Skyfire was firmly secured to the berth, unable to attack Ratchet even if he wanted to. He did briefly test the bindings to see if he'd be able to escape them just in case, but the metal was thick and strongly enforced. He wouldn't be able to break them in case the Autobots tried anything. This time, though, he was starting to believe he wouldn't have to.
Ratchet continued tinkering with the device for another breem, cutting out melted lumps of metal and wielding new wiring in carefully. Eventually, he placed the microwielder down on the desk with a loud clank and stood out, stretching the joints of his hands with a muffled groan. Sweeping the ruined parts into a nearby bin with one hand, Ratchet turned and started ambling towards them. He tried to shoo Ironhide out of his way once he reached the berth, but the Commander just shifted over a few steps and continued looming over them both. Ratchet wasn't amused. He turned his glare over to the other Autobot, plating flaring out aggressively.
"Ironhide," he started, crossing his arms defensively and widening his stance. "You know how much I hate healthy mecha hovering around my med-bay while I work."
Ironhide matched Ratchet movement for movement, using his superior height to his advantage. "Ya know it's my job ta make sure the 'Con doesn't try ta—"
A small scrap of metal clanged off Ironhide's head, silencing him immediately. Ratchet held up another, larger piece threateningly. "Out," he ordered. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm perfectly capable of defending myself against an unarmed, restrained mech."
Ratchet accompanied the order with a sharp glare, which Ironhide met unflinchingly. For a moment, it seemed as if the Autobot was going to keep arguing. Skyfire admired his bravery—it was always risky to pick a fight with your base's head medic. The standoff didn't last for long though. Ironhide soon looked away with a loud curse.
"Fine, ya stubborn glitch. I'll be outside the door. Holler if he tries somethin'."
With another distrustful glare, Ironhide stomped towards the door, hitting the keypad with more force than was strictly necessary. As soon as the med-bay doors closed behind the large Autobot, Ratchet turned back to him and started removing the outer plating of his upper arm. Skyfire was somewhat convinced that Ratchet wasn't about to damage him on a whim, but removing parts of his armor still left him feeling distinctly vulnerable. He had to remind himself that the Autobots had been given far better opportunities to damage him and hadn't taken advantage of them (yet), but it barely helped. A small part of his processer kept whispering about how easily the Autobots could change their minds and reminding him of the many different ways a medic could make life very unpleasant.
If Ratchet noticed his discomfort, he didn't comment on it as he started testing the integrating repairs. Having Ratchet feeling around in his circuits felt just as strange the second time; Skyfire was far too used to performing his own repairs to be comfortable with even a trusted mech doing them, let alone a stranger.
Ratchet tisked lightly and moved a bundle of circuitry and sensory connections aside. "Hold still," he said, leaning forward for a better angle. "A few of the welds were knocked loose."
He took a microwielder out of his subspace again and reached deeper into Skyfire's frame. A spark of pain echoed up his arm as Ratchet began fixing the welds, but it was easily ignorable. He fixed the welds in a few short motions. Ratchet eventually worked his way further up his arm and onto a few sections of his shoulder and side, but the major damage had been concentrated on his upper arm. Once he finished the inspection, he replaced the thick armor plating and locked them back into place.
"I'm gonna have to check the code blocks for signs of tampering, but unless you've done something stupid it shouldn't take long." He looked up, meeting Skyfire's optics, and his expression was serious. "Don't try to fight me. You won't win."
Skyfire muttered a curse under his breath. So Ratchet was going to check the coding. Bad enough they'd hacked him and installed the restrictive coding while he was offline—the last thing Skyfire wanted was to repeat the process while he was still aware. This time, though, Ratchet would already have the access codes he'd stolen the first time, which meant Skyfire wouldn't be able to put up a fight even if he was willing to risk Ratchet's ire. Skyfire was pragmatic enough to ignore his instinctual disgust and convince himself not to resist, but just barely.
Ratchet was about to pop open his medical access port when he paused mid-movement, optics flickering in the familiar pattern that meant he was receiving a 'com transmission. His hand hung in the air, microwielder still clasped loosely in his fist, for almost a quarter breem until he abruptly jerked back into motion.
"Slag," he cursed, half to himself. He immediately turned away, absentmindedly setting the microwielder back down on the berth, and moved quickly towards the back end of the med-bay, where a haphazard array of tools was spread out across several surfaces. A few standard tools for battlefield injuries were immediately subspaced, and then the mech started rooting through the ones remaining.
Well, there went his hope of getting through the checkup without anything unpleasant happening. At least something interesting was happening for once, and Skyfire was grateful for any chance to delay the coding check.
"What is it?" Skyfire asked when it looked like the medic might have actually forgotten about him.
Ratchet only spared him a quick glance, and his words were clipped when he answered. "One of the patrols got into a skirmish. You're staying right there until I'm done dealing with them."
Ah. Which meant he'd soon be in the same room as mecha fresh off the battlefield against other Decepticons. That could end very badly. At least Ratchet was strong-willed enough he should be able to control his patients if they tried anything. Ratchet didn't seem the type to condone any kind of distraction while he worked, though there was always the possibility Skyfire had misjudged him.
Skyfire could estimate how close the injured patrol was getting by how annoyed Ratchet appeared. He started by trudging around the med-bay, picking up new tools and occasionally muttering to himself. The muttering gradually grew louder as the breems dragged on until he was full on ranting, threats and insults included. His movements grew shorter and his face twisted into deeper and deeper annoyance as his temper built upon itself. By the time the med-bay doors slid open, Ratchet absolutely radiated anger.
"Oy, Ratchet!" the new mech called out, either ignoring or unaware of the foul mood the medic was in.
Skyfire recognized the new Autobots immediately. He'd heard enough grumbled descriptions and seen enough holovideos to recognize the bright red and yellow mecha shuffling into the med-bay.
It was the twins. Of course it was. With the way his luck had gone the past orn, why should he have expected anything different? Literally anyone would have been better than those two and their obsession with attacking Seekers. The red twin, Sideswipe, was being half-carried by his brother, but he didn't seem bothered at all by the indignity. Something was wrong with his leg and the Autobot carried himself gingerly, but nothing about the damage seemed immediately threatening,
"Sideswipe," Ratchet acknowledged sharply. "The slag did you do this time?"
Sideswipe immediately held up his one free hand in supplication and grinned sheepishly. "Hey, s'not our fault!" he said, waving his hand dramatically to emphasize his point. "They're the ones that jumped us this time!"
They reached the nearest medical berth, and Sunstreaker easily levered Sideswipe onto it. The red Autobot hissed as the movement jarred his damage before relaxing into the material. Once Sideswipe was settled, the yellow twin took up a post beside his brother's berth, leaning against a nearby wall with a dour expression on his face. Sunstreaker hadn't escaped the skirmish undamaged, but his injuries were less severe than his twin's. Thin trickles of energon stained his plating from shallow cuts and deep, irregular dents, but it was nothing self-repair couldn't eventually fix. Ratchet reached Sideswipe's medical berth within astroseconds of the frontliner lying down. He hovered over the mech's frame for a few moments as scans washed over him before taking a few basic tools out of his subspace and starting to close some of the larger gashes in his plating.
After Ratchet's reaction to Ironhide's presence in the med-bay, Skyfire was surprised that the medic allowed Sunstreaker to stand so close while he worked. Sunstreaker at least stayed well out of Ratchet's way. As he waited, Sunstreaker took out a worn polishing cloth and started buffing out some of the scratches and scuff marks covering his plating, though he kept glancing back at his brother every few kliks. Eventually, Sunstreaker's attention fell upon Skyfire. His optics darkened as they caught sight of the Decepticon sigil on his chest, but he thankfully didn't make a scene. Still, he did angle himself so he was standing between Skyfire and his injured twin.
"And who are 'they?'" Ratchet asked as he took out a few shredded wires and reached for a replacement.
Sideswipe shrugged, shifting to give Ratchet better access. "A handful of Seekers."
Ratchet froze for a moment before turning a fierce glare onto the frontliners. "Let me guess," Ratchet spat, optics flaring dangerously. "Jet judo?"
Sideswipe's guilty grin was his only answer.
Ratchet hissed a blare of furious static and looked like he was barely restraining himself from hitting the frontliner. "Not another word," he growled. "Don't move, don't talk, nothing. I don't want to hear a slagging thing from you until you've fixed whatever personality glitch makes you so slagging stupid."
Skyfire barely heard Ratchet's outburst. He'd stopped listening at the first mention of Seekers. Had he seen Skywarp and Thundercracker? Fought them? Slaggit, had he and his twin damaged them again? Some of the worst injuries they'd taken during the past vorns had come from the Twins, and the Command Trine was one of the frontliners' favorite targets. Skyfire had to bite his tongue to stop himself from asking Sideswipe to elaborate.
From the look of Sideswipe's injuries, the Seekers had put up a Pit of a fight. Now that the other mech was stretched out on a medical berth, Skyfire got a better look at the damage. The plating along Sideswipe's entire side had been warped out of shape as if he'd been thrown against something, likely the ground, and he was covered in dozens of smaller injuries. Scratches marred his armor, some deep enough to have drawn energon, and a particularly large dent in his calf was preventing the struts from moving smoothly. Ratchet was focusing on stopping the flow of energon as efficiently as possible.
To his credit, Sideswipe seemed to have realized he'd pushed Ratchet far enough and obeyed the order. Ratchet was able to work in silence for almost a full breem until Sideswipe decided enough time had passed and he was allowed to speak again.
"Something's got the Seekers in a tizzy," he started casually, shifting uncomfortably as Ratchet started popping out some dents more forcefully than necessary. "Haven't seen them this worked up in vorns."
He was interrupted by a wrench slamming against the side of his head with a loud thud. Sideswipe broke off with a curse, rubbing the small dent and staring up at Ratchet with sad optics. Ratchet was decidedly unaffected as he continued glaring at the frontliner.
"So you decided that was the perfect time to slagging jump on top of them?" Sideswipe grinned, and Ratchet smacked him again. "Glitch!"
After that, Ratchet kept up a continuous stream of insults, some of them remarkably creative, with the occasional light whap on the head or arm for emphasis. Yet… his touch stayed gentle. No matter how loud his voice grew or what new, painful threats he uttered, Ratchet never pressed down on the damage or yanked on the sensitive circuitry. Even the dents from Ratchet's wrench were disappearing as his self-repair worked. The blows must have been just hard enough to bend the plating—painful, but temporary and essentially harmless. Hook wasn't even that careful with his patients when he was annoyed.
As for Sideswipe… he didn't seem remotely bothered by the tirade the medic was aiming at him. He kept grinning and even interjecting small, cheerful comments about the threats, wincing occasionally as Ratchet moved across sensitive components but otherwise completely unfazed. He was…comfortable with the mech. Like he trusted the medic to repair him no matter what the frontliner said or did to annoy him.
Sunstreaker, his spark-split twin, was barely even paying attention to his injured brother. He was still leaning against the wall and polishing himself, occasionally shooting Skyfire a suspicious glare but completely ignoring the medic loudly threatening his twin. Skyfire knew about bonds—the Twins would be spark-bound just as closely as the Seeker's trinebond or the partner bond he'd shared with Starscream. No matter what kind of mech Sunstreaker was, he was bound to protect his twin. Yet, he seemed to have completely dismissed Ratchet as a threat.
And didn't that just shatter the idea of Ratchet as the Autobot's sadistic glitch of a medic.
It was possible that Sideswipe's relationship with Ratchet was unique—that something about his strength or reputation kept Ratchet from being harsh with him—but Skyfire doubted it. He knew what a mech relying on his position for protection acted like from experience, and Sideswipe didn't fit. He was too relaxed about bantering with the mech, too honest in his trust. He wasn't watching the medic for any sabotage, the subtle kind of revenge any medic knows that could take orns to manifest and never be traced back. Their interaction was rather fascinating, if Skyfire was honest with himself.
Strange as it was to acknowledge, Ratchet was acting like nearly any other medic he'd worked beside during the war. Better, even, than some of them. He was firm, even borderline violent with his patient, but, if Skyfire didn't know better, he'd say the medic actually seemed to care about his patient. Honestly, Skyfire could name several Decepticon medics where that wasn't the case.
In less time than Skyfire would have expected, Ratchet finished patching up Sideswipe, and he immediately tossed the twins out of his med-bay with a warning that he'd reformat them into go-karts if he saw them again in the next orn. Then Ratchet turned back to Skyfire grumbling quietly about ungrateful, suicidal mecha. He took a moment to collect himself before reaching out to open Skyfire's medical access port again.
The most Skyfire could say for the processer scan was that it was quick and Ratchet kept it strictly professional. Skyfire could still feel Ratchet rummaging around in his processer, testing the restrictive coding for weaknesses or any sign of tampering. Even so, his presence stayed reassuringly far away from everything else—his memory banks, the elaborate firewalls surrounding any sensitive information, even his emotions. He could still sense the foreign presence inside his processer, but it was better than it could have been.
For the first time, it occurred to Skyfire that Ratchet was probably a skilled enough hacker that, had the Autobot kept Skyfire in stasis longer, he could have eventually broken through the firewalls protecting his medical files and other useful data. Yet, they hadn't. So the Autobots were just pragmatic enough to hack a mech and install foreign coding for their safety, but they'd drawn the line at deepening the hack for information. Reassuring, he supposed, though now he knew that the Autobots had the ability to hack into the information should they change their mind.
It only took a few kliks before Ratchet was unplugging himself and packing away his tools, looking nearly as uncomfortable as Skyfire felt. Skyfire was left alone in his processer again, though faint traces of the medic's presence lingered among the coding. Ratchet moved away from him almost immediately and began studiously ignoring him from half the room away. He must have commed Ironhide as well since the Commander came stomping through the doors soon after he finished. Grumbling, Ironhide started undoing the restraints, and Skyfire waited for Ironhide's command to stand again. Then it was back to the long, uncomfortable walk to the cell again. This time, there was no interruption to delay their return.
...
It was dark when Skyfire felt the first faint stirrings of true pain from his spark.
For a moment, his chest flared with spark-pain, knocking him out of recharge and into a full blown panic. He would have shouted his pain and surprise to the world, but his vocalizer fritzed and his yell collapsed into a static-ridden groan. His processer jerked online, and Skyfire found himself caught in a tangle of pain and confusion and panic. As soon as he realized what was happening, Skyfire did his best to lock down his vocalizer and motor cortex. His guard was still stationed outside the cell—bored, inattentive, but still present
It only lasted a brief handful of kliks, but the intimate pain seemed to drag on forever. Finally, the pain relented, fading slowly back into a tender ache, and Skyfire was left shaking and half curled around his chest. As soon as he was back in control of himself, he unlocked his motor controls and carefully straightened himself back out, ignoring the way his spark continued to ache and freeze in his chest.
Even with the interrupted recharge cycle, pain had cleared his processer of any lingering lethargy. Instead, panic slowly curled inside his chest. It all boiled down to one undeniable thought—his glitch was acting up again, and he was still imprisoned in the Autobot brig.
The ache in his spark had been a constant companion ever since their arrival on Earth, and he'd known another attack was inevitable. He'd started making preparations to deal with it back in the ship, but none of that mattered here. With everything that had happened, he hadn't even thought about the glitch in orns, let alone prepared for the possibility.
Warmth slowly crept back into his spark, but his chest remained heavy with dread. His guards as a whole were unobservant, but they weren't stupid. He might be able to keep the first flares of pain secret, but he had a minuscule chance of being able to hide the final glitch, particularly if Ratchet got involved. With his training, it wouldn't take the medic long to realize what was happening. There were only so many causes of spark-pain, and a bond, even a long-broken one, changed a spark fundamentally.
The thought of the Autobots—of anyone—discovering the glitches made him cringe with revulsion. Even if they didn't try to do anything with the knowledge, it didn't matter. This was his. The spark-pain, the broken bond,Starscream—the Autobots didn't have the right to something so intensely personal. Nobody did.
He couldn't wait passively anymore for the Autobots to make their decision or Thundercracker to convince Megatron to negotiate. Determination curled in his spark, mingling with the lingering cold, and the next cycles were filled with half-formed ideas and plans.
For the rest of the night cycle, Skyfire didn't recharge. Instead, he began systematically removing every identifying tag and line of code that marked his virtual presence as Decepticon. Every mech had the identifiers programmed in along with their faction sigil when they enlisted. The code was deep enough that most mecha weren't able to remove them by themselves, but Skyfire was a trained medic—he knew how to insert them, and he knew how to remove them. It just took patients, knowledge, and caution; some of the strands of code had been intentionally buried dangerously close to his personality matrix. He slowly coaxed the markers out and shredded the code until nothing remained.
When he was sure his virtual presence would register as effectively neutral, Skyfire stood up and, ignoring the sudden attention the movement garnered from his guard, walked over to a nondescript panel on the far wall. He then proceeded to do nothing interesting whatsoever for the next several breems until the Autobot once again lost interest in him and returned to his 'com conversation. Only then did Skyfire access the obscurest transmission channel he knew of and send the first querying ping into the metal behind him.
Among most mecha, it was little known that the energy cell technology predated the Great War. The technique had been essentially perfected during the Golden Age, and it would have been a waste of time and energon to engineer any major changes. The Decepticons certainly hadn't engineered anything new and, as far as he knew, had just changed security clearance and such since then. During his time in the Decepticon cellblocks, Skyfire had grown familiar with the construction of the cells and the mechanics behind them.
If he was right, then part of the circuitry controlling the cell was now located directly behind his frame.
His soft ping met with the impressive firewalls of a large, well-guarded system, and Skyfire carefully began weaving the thin tendrils of the connection into a true transmission channel. He worked slowly, keeping the link as small and unobtrusive as he possibly could. He could feel the channel take root and strengthen, and then the firewalls lay spread out before him in a woven, structured mass of code. Skyfire followed the tangled coding into a natural crack in the firewall, where he reached in and felt his presence catch on the loose edges he could use.
He branched out and started weaving himself into the code, testing the limits of the firewalls and feeling for any weaknesses. As soon as he got his first handhold deeper, Skyfire hesitated. He half-expected for the security system to react to his presence, for an identity tag he'd missed to trigger the alarms, or the guard to suddenly realize just where he was sitting. Something. There were a thousand and one ways this could go wrong, yet, the system stayed as quiet as ever. No alarms blared, no security systems engaged. Outside of his processer, the physical world continued on as if nothing had changed.
He waited for almost a full breem before using his locus to reach deeper. It was a relatively simple AI, almost completely isolated from the main processer of the Ark. Simple commands and queries floated past him as Skyfire cautiously made his way through the weaknesses in the firewalls. Much of the cracks in the firewalls were the same as the ones he'd found with the Decepticons, though the openings were small enough he had to push and guide them until he could access them. Undoubtedly, he'd have missed them completely if he hadn't known where to look.
He spent cycles just making his way past the firewalls and into the system itself. Ignoring the physical world was unexpectedly comforting, and for precious moments he was able to forget the ache in his spark and the uncertainty of his future. There was only the coding and the challenge of sneaking into the Autobot system. Once he broke through and felt the programming spread freely before him, he set about trying to coax the AI into believing he was just another unimportant subroute authorized to control the brig.
…
Time lost all meaning as he worked on the system, studying the flow of information and carefully nudging it into a better formation. It was a long process, made worse by the occasional, unwelcome interruption from the Autobots. He integrated himself into the system as quickly as he dared without risking discovery, but even then he spent cycles pressed against the wall. The subroutes were complex and interconnected, with each new discovery and access port leading to new strands. He was almost surprised when he reached the end and realized he'd managed to untangle the entire jumble of connections. For a moment, his conscience wandered freely, getting a feel for the flowing system.
He could get out of the cell. Skyfire could feel the certainty of it with every transmission that brushed past him and each pulse of energy hidden inside the cell walls. He knew which command would trigger the energy bars to dissipate and the door to the rest of the ship to unlock. The lockdown commands for the room shone in the virtual web of programming, but Skyfire had already identified the threads that, when blocked, would prevent the system from activating. The only problem he couldn't fix was the security system. The security cameras still stood, and the programs protecting them from tampering were far stronger than Skyfire could break in the few cycles he had. Any attempt to block or deactivate it would be immediately caught, which would defeat the purpose of tampering with it. Either way, the Autobots would know something was wrong almost immediately.
It got worse. He knew he could get out of the room, but the rest of the Ark was another story. He didn't know where the room was located in the huge ship or anything about the laout, aside from the route to Ratchet's med-bay. He'd looked for data, but the firewalls blocking off the main databanks were far stronger than those controlling a single room. Even when he'd searched for a signal from nearby sections of the Ark, the firewalls surrounding the systems of the halls and rooms were different enough that his experience couldn't help him. He didn't have the time to search through each strand of code for the cracks, and even if he could he doubted he could navigate through an unknown firewall without tripping some sort of alert.
The odds were stacked against him to an almost ridiculous degree. He'd already accomplished far more than he'd expected—he'd successfully completed the first steps of a plan, even if the rest of it was still little more than a vague outline of ideas. What he should do was wait for an opportunity to finish the rest of a plan, something with a passable probability of success. Unfortunately, that would take time he couldn't spare.
A small chance was still better than no chance at all, and his odds weren't going to get any better in the time he had left.
Even after he was ready, Skyfire didn't act immediately. His current guard was one of the larger mecha with a grudge, and he never went without a blaster by his side. Skyfire would have the surprise of the bars deactivating, but it was still a tossup whether he could get past the mech before another Autobot arrived. Better to wait for another opportunity, one without the added risk. Skyfire let the rest of the shift pass normally, and he waited.
His chance came with the shift change. A small red minibot, one of the more volatile ones Skyfire had encountered, relieved the other mech's shift. He was also a careless mech, prone to distraction and random fits of temper during his shifts. More than once he'd left his spare blaster leaning out of reach and, though Skyfire could see where inbuilt weaponry was concealed under his armor, the Autobot never kept them charged. It was as good a chance as Skyfire was going to find.
Skyfire steadied himself, checked the codes one last time, and stood up. The movement immediately caught the Autobot's attention. He straightened out of a bored slouch, frowning suspiciously as he took to his feet.
"Whadda you want?" he asked loudly, scanning the cell with a curt jerk of his helm.
Skyfire didn't answer, still trying to formulate a response that would bring the guard closer. When Skyfire didn't immediately respond, the minibot's face darkened, and he puffed out his armor threateningly. Then he took two steps forward without even glancing at his blaster, still lying forgotten on the table, and squared his shoulders as if preparing for a fight.
His second statement was even louder. "Oy, I'm talking to you!" he shouted, face tight in growing anger.
Skyfire kept his face blank and slightly condescending, hiding his surprise. This would be… far easier than Skyfire had expected. He didn't have to say a single word, and the minibot was already flustered and making mistakes. The minibot growled, taking another few steps closer to Skyfire and farther from his weapon.
"If you think you can ignore me just 'cause you're ridiculously fragging huge…" he blustered. Skyfire tuned out the rest of his words as he started into a full-blown rant, gesturing wildly. His processer was clear and razor-sharp from anticipation, and his frame buzzed with excess energy. He just needed a bit more, a bit closer… The Autobot was gradually shifting forward from the force of his temper.
The minibot was just a step away, almost close enough to touch.
Skyfire deactivated the bars.
The energy fizzled out immediately, and Skyfire felt his other programs activating simultaneously. The Autobot made a strangled sound of surprise and jerked back, hand flying towards his 'com unit, but Skyfire was faster. With one hand, he grabbed the minibot's shoulder, holding him in place. He used his other hand to reach towards his neck and, activating a small blade in his fingertip, smoothly cutting the mech's motor controls. He'd done the motion a thousand times on his patient, but the results still sent a small jolt of unease through his systems. The smooth metal under his hands abruptly stilled as motor control vanished. Every minute twitch and hum of energy stopped, as if life had drained from the living metal as well. The Autobot collapsed into a heap on the ground, but Skyfire was already turning away, towards the exit. He was out the door within astroseconds of the bars deactivating.
Outside, the hallway stretched on before him, both directions identical to his optic. To the right lay the path to Ratchet's med-bay, but the left was a mystery. He chose the left. He had no way to hide from the security cameras, so he didn't try. Instead, he ran down the halls, taking turns almost at random and relying on his navigational programs to keep him from getting turned around.
He found himself in a part of the ship that felt nearly abandoned. The passages were poorly lit and scattered with bits of rock and dirt. It looked as if few had passed through the area since before the crash, which suited Skyfire well. Even so, the glimmer of working security cameras still shone at every turn. Some of the halls were blocked off by doors that lacked the energy to open, forcing him to change direction. . He hadn't heard any sound of pursuit yet, but many of the Autobots were trained in stealth. He could feel his chances of escape slipping away with every passing moment.
Eventually, he couldn't ignore the unease weighing down his chest. Something felt off. He could have sworn someone was following him, but the hall was empty around him. He shuddered and forced his frame to move faster.
He bit off a curse and skidded to a halt as he turned a sharp corner and was met with a wall of earth instead of empty space. The hall was completely blocked off by boulders and thick clods of dirt. It looked like the mountain had broken through the ship's hull, and he didn't know how deep the breach extended. He turned around, already regretting the lost time, but only made it a couple steps before the air in front of him began to shimmer.
Skyfire froze as the outline of a mech appeared and solidified. The Autobot sigil was etched proudly on his chest, and he had the slim, elegant build of a Noble which, combined with the electro-disrupter, meant he could only be one mech. Mirage. A senior member of SpecOps, expert in infiltration and ranged weaponry. And he was pointing a heavy-duty blaster at Skyfire's chest.
"Hands up," he ordered. "No sudden movements or I will shoot." His hands were steady on the weapon, and his combat stance never wavered.
Skyfire stayed still, optics locked on the weapon, but his processer was frantically churning in thought. His armor was thick enough to take a shot, maybe two, without sustaining serious damage, and his chest held some of his thickest plating. If he sprinted, he could be past Mirage in only a few steps, and another hall branched off almost directly behind the Autobot. If luck was with him, that might buy him another couple breems to search for an exit.
The decision only took him a few astroseconds to make. Skyfire dove to the side and charged forward, aiming for the opening between Mirage and the wall. The pain was sudden and crippling in its intensity. Skyfire's leg buckled beneath him, sending shocks of agony through his sensor net. His momentum carried him forward another step, and hot energon spattered across his leg. He lay there, stunned, for a moment before his processer caught up with what had happened. Mirage had shot through the thinner plating of his knee, tearing past the weaknesses in the flexible armor and into the complex machinery beneath. It was an impressive shot; Skyfire might have admired it if his processer hadn't been occupied with debilitating pain at the time.
He tried to work past the pain, but the blast had destroyed too much of the joint; he couldn't barely even move the limb. Still, Skyfire refused to remain sprawled helplessly on the ground. He painfully levered himself off the floor, dragging his leg into position when he couldn't force it to move on its own. He managed to rise to his knees before the damaged joint wouldn't take him any further, and even that made his frame tremble from pain and effort.
Slow, measured steps reverberated through the hall as Mirage walked closer. Leaning heavily against the wall, Skyfire looked up to see Mirage, almost within arm's reach, still pointing his blaster at him unflinchingly. From where he was kneeling, Skyfire's helm was almost in line with the barrel of the weapon.
"Next time's your shoulders," he warned. "Let's save Ratchet the trouble of patching you up more, alright? That will be easier for everyone."
Mirage sounded almost bored and completely certain in the outcome-one way or another, Skyfire would be back in the cell. Unwillingly, Skyfire had to agree. Skyfire couldn't stand, let alone run, and too much time had passed. The rest of the Autobots couldn't be far behind by now. Even if he, by some miracle, got past Mirage, he'd still have the rest of the Ark to face. In truth, his faint chance of getting out had evaporated the moment he was cornered by the armed Saboteur.
Skyfire gritted his teeth and lowered his head in surrender, though he couldn't force his vocalizer to say the words. Mirage took the signal as the acquiescence it was, and some of the tension drained out of him, though he didn't lower his blaster. Skyfire felt the Autobot's optics on him, eyeing his frame and debating the best way to get him safely back behind bars. He clenched his fists and endured the inspection.
Mirage shimmered out of sight again. Skyfire glanced around warily, but he couldn't figure out where the Autobot had disappeared to. No stray sound or footprint gave the mech away, but Skyfire didn't have long to search. Something brushed against the back of his neck, and he flinched away automatically. Then a stronger motion reached under his neck armor and nimbly tugged something free—a vital motor line, he realized with a jolt, but by then it was too late. He topple forward onto the floor again as his frame stopped responding to him. His vision swam and audios glitched before cutting out entirely, and even his sensor net was slowly growing numb. He floated, unfeeling and alone, for only a moment before unconsciousness claimed him.
...
When he onlined again, his frame throbbed, and his leg ached with integrating parts. The joint had been repaired and recently at that. His processer also itched uncomfortably, and it didn't take long for Skyfire to find the new firewalls that had been installed while he was unaware. Ratchet had managed to block off all his internal and external communications as well—there would be no accessing the AI again. He doubted he would be able to connect to anything even with a cable physically connecting them together. The Autobot had effectively crippled his hacking ability, one of the only advantages he'd had.
He didn't expect to find himself alone, and he was right. Even without onlining his optics, he could hear the quiet humming and clattering of a living system echoing in the near-silent room. It took a moment, but he convinced himself to face the waiting mech. He expected someone high ranked, and he wasn't disappointed. On the other side of the reactivated energy bars sat Jazz. The saboteur had drawn up a chair to the edge of the cell and sat watching him from his perch. He at least had the decency to wait until Skyfire sat up and reoriented himself before starting to speak.
"That was a stupid thin' ta try," he said blandly
Skyfire grimaced. "I know." He'd known it was unwise from the beginning, but he'd been desperate.
Jazz eyed him evenly, and Skyfire couldn't tell if he'd been surprised by his answer. Jazz continued speaking regardless. "Red sent out the alert soon as his cameras caught ya shuttin' down the bars. Interestin' trick ya had there, but not enough. There's a reason we've never lost a prisoner without outside interference before." He sighed. "An' ya'd been such a calm mech ta deal with 'fore that. What happened?"
Jazz let the silence stretch on for a moment before sighing and casually leaning back in his chair. "Well, ya got one thin' goin' for ya at least. That was probably the least destructive break-out attempt we've ever had. No real injuries, barely any destruction, an' ya gave the security team a nice workout. All in all, that's better'n what the Twins do half the time." He huffed a quiet laugh. "Yer a strange one, know that? Still not sure if that's a good or a bad thin'."
With that less than reassuring statement, Jazz turned around and left the room. A second Autobot—the talkative, yellow minibot—entered the room before the door could even closed and took his post at the guard's table without saying a word. The silence continued.
…
The pulses of spark-pain were coming more frequently.
The first intense pulse had started a cascade, and Skyfire could feel the spark-pain building as the cycles passed, following the old pattern from megavorns ago. It was stronger than it had been on Cybertron as well—stronger, even, than it had been on the Nemesis. Instead of dull, freezing aches that burst into brief, intense episodes, his spark flared with icy pain that never truly faded away and the episodes nearly crippled him with pain. Then it started getting worse. The flares began coming closer together and the intensity grew, and Skyfire could only wait helplessly and endure.
So long as Skyfire kept his vocalizer and frame locked, the guards didn't pay close enough attention to notice anything amiss. If they did, then they undoubtedly attributed the change to his botched escape attempt. Still, he knew it was only a matter of time before something—a stray sound, an unusually observant Autobot—gave him away. Of course, luck hadn't been on his side since their crash-landing on the organic planet.
For the first time since he'd met the mech, Skyfire wasn't happy to hear Bluestreak voice as he came in to take his shift. Out of all the mecha that could have been assigned guard duty, it had to be the only Autobot he routinely spoke with. If Bluestreak had come in even a solar cycle earlier, Skyfire could have probably faked it well enough to get by—Bluestreak only really needed the occasional question or comment and he'd be able to carry the conversation by himself. This time, however, Skyfire doubted he could do even that. The pain was starting to flare again, and it took far more effort than seemed possible to even return the mech's greeting.
Skyfire was lucky he'd thought to prop his frame against a corner of his cell while the pain was still manageable. He'd done it to have a vantage point that would allow him to keep an eye on the guards, but it also allowed him to give the illusion of listening to Bluestreak while he started to rambled. Within breems, Bluestreak was starting to fidget, sending Skyfire slightly confused, searching glances. Normally, Skyfire would have said something by then—a question, comment, something to add some direction to the aimless conversation. He needed to say something, but Skyfire still couldn't muster the energy to join the conversation. He could barely even keep track of the conversation, and soon enough he lost that as well.
The sound of Bluestreak's voice buzzed in his audios, and the words faded into an indecipherable drone. Only the pain was left. His spark felt like it was being slowly crushed in its chamber. He could feel each icy tendril as it stretched from his spark into the rest of his frame, every pulse of his spark spreading the pain deeper until nothing was left untouched. Next to that, thoughts of Bluestreak mattered little.
He only noticed the Praxian again when the constant stream of sound unexpectedly trickled away. Movement out of the corner of his optic revealed Bluestreak walking closer to the energy bars for a better look.
"Skyfire? Is something wrong?" he asked, eyeing Skyfire's plating rather obviously for evidence of some kind of injury as he spoke. "'Cause you're acting really differently and you don't look quite right."
Skyfire shook his head and managed to grunt out some sort of reassurance. At least, he thought he did—his systems were struggling enough that it was entirely possible the words never left his vocalizer. Either way, Bluestreak looked thoroughly unconvinced, but Skyfire couldn't muster the strength to try a second time. At this point, anything he tried was more likely to make him worry more anyway. Skyfire half-heard Bluestreak call his name again, but it sounded as if the Praxian was yelling from across the ship, not an arm's length away. His audios were starting to glitch. He filed the knowledge away as another problem he'd have to fix later, when he could think again.
His optics, at least, were still functioning, though the Autobot was the only interesting thing to see. He almost felt sorry for the youngling. He was so obviously distressed, taking aborted little half-steps forward and back as his worry for a fellow Cybertronian warred with well-deserved caution about dealing with a prisoner.
Skyfire contemplated trying to tell him not to worry, that the glitch would resolve itself soon enough, but if he onlined his vocalizer again, he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep from voicing the pained sounds that kept trying to escape. Better to stay silent, then. Soon enough, he stopped worrying about Bluestreak or anything else outside of the pain. His entire world narrowed down to each harsh spark-pulse and the frozen agony centered in the broken bond. Time lost all meaning.
When the familiar electrical prickle of a medical scan washed over his frame, Skyfire didn't have the energy to shield himself from the energy pulse. It took his scattered processer several kliks to recognize the new mecha—Ratchet had arrived. The medic started cursing before the scan had even finished, and Skyfire felt familiar hands pulling him into a different position. His medical access port was opened, and Skyfire didn't have the strength to protest. Ratchet's consciousness barely had time to brush briefly against his own before medical overrides sent him offline.
…
Skyfire onlined with the same sluggish, clumsy response he always had after the glitch flared up. His processer felt disconnected from his frame, responding excruciatingly slow to his uncoordinated thoughts. It was an all too familiar feeling. He left his audios and optics off, unwilling to face the dizzying input from the weakened sensors, as he started running basic diagnostic on his chassis. His systems were almost always slightly damaged or compromised afterwards from the stress to his spark and frame.
To his surprise, everything he could access came back in perfect condition, save for the lingering abnormalities in his spark itself. Almost every system was recalibrating and stressed from the ordeal, but there was none of the actual damage he'd expected. Finally paying conscious attention to his other tactile sensors, he found that he was lying on a berth, likely a medical one again, with his hands restrained but otherwise unbound. The familiar, sterile scent of a med-bay surrounded him, confirming his suspicions. With an inward sigh—undoubtedly Ratchet would be waiting for him to online and looking for information—Skyfire reluctantly onlined his audios, and the furious sound of Ratchet's muttered rant reached him.
"-of all the idiotic, pit slagging things the glitch of a 'Con could possibly do…" the mech was saying, the steady stream of curses and insults punctuated by muffled clanks as the medic moved some type of equipment more forcefully than was normal.
It was the first time Ratchet's anger had been directed at him, but Skyfire was unexpectedly unconcerned about being the subject of his infamous temper. He was just… tired. Numb. Facing Ratchet's temper seemed almost superficial in the face of the spark pain. Besides, Ratchet had seen fit to repair whatever damage the glitch had caused, so it was unlikely he'd undo that effort. From what Skyfire had seen, the Autobot had better self-control than that.
Ratchet's wandering brought him closer, and Skyfire caught a brief snatch of his monologue as he moved past. "-didn't even know Decepticons did bond, and now look at what that-"
Ratchet continued ranting quietly to himself, but Skyfire didn't hear anything after he mentioned a bond. His chest felt hollow at the confirmation, though small pricks of trepidation stung his sensor net.
Ratchet knew. Pit.
Bad enough the Autobots had found out he had the glitch. He'd still held onto the fragile hope that, maybe, the Autobot wouldn't care enough about their prisoner to look too deeply into what had caused it. The Decepticons certainly wouldn't have. Now he had to deal with the aftermath, and he didn't have a slagging clue how he was supposed to do that.
"You're online."
Ratchet's irate voice knocked him out of his frantic thoughts, snapping him jarringly back to reality. His optics blurred for a moment before focusing on Ratchet, chassis bristling and optics flaring in anger, standing almost directly next to his helm. He barely managed to hold back the instinctual flinch at the proximity and forced his systems to function normally despite the lingering stress on his spark.
"Do you have any idea what just happened to your systems?" the medic hissed. "Your spark nearly sputtered from the strain!"
Any other situation and Skyfire would have pretended to accept the criticism to prevent a conflict with the Autobot, but this was his bond Ratchet was berating him about. Skyfire couldn't let that slide.
"I am a fully functional medic," Skyfire said tightly. "I know full well how this has affected my systems."
Ratchet threw up his arms in exasperation. "Then where in the Pit is your Bonded!" he cried. "Slaggit, even the 'Cons haveto know what'll happen if you mess with bondmates."
Skyfire's entire frame tensed at the rebuke, and in that moment he was almost glad for the restraints. If he'd been free, he might have done something… unwise before he regained control of his temper. Ratchet was treating him as if he'd had a choice about the broken bond, as if Skyfire hadn't been living with the pain since before the Great War began. He wanted that self-righteous attitude gone.
"Deactivated," he spat, delighting in the way the medic reared back as if struck. The incessant tirade abruptly gave way to silence as Ratchet froze. Shock quickly gave way to an almost confused pensiveness, and Ratchet just stared at him for a moment as if trying to figure out if he was telling the truth.
"You really-" he started, but then he stopped, looking at him with that indecipherable look on his face. "Slag." He abruptly spun around and stalked off to the other side of the room, muttering heatedly to himself as he returned to the small desk of tools he'd been at when Skyfire first onlined.
Skyfire's anger slowly fizzled away with the distance, and he watched the medic fumbling with his tools across the room. That… hadn't been the reaction he'd expected. He'd never seen Ratchet walk away from a patient before. Even when Sideswipe had been needling the medic into retaliation or questioning his attitude, Ratchet had stayed beside him and matched him insult for insult. Compared to that exchange, Skyfire's reaction was barely even notable. Yet, it had managed to physically drive Ratchet away. Against his will, Skyfire felt a pang of trepidation shoot through him. What in the Pit was going on, and what did it have to do with the bond?
It barely took a quarter breem before Ratchet turned back around and looked at him again, but it felt like far longer. Ratchet was uncharacteristically solemn as he walked slowly back to Skyfire's berth. After that reaction, Skyfire was surprised he didn't just cut the restraints and order him back to the cell to save him the trouble of further interaction. Ratchet seemed determined to stick it out though—whatever 'it' was.
"Ah, pit," he muttered, rubbing his face irritably. He paused for a moment, steeling himself, before continuing. "The spark bond's still intact."
Slag. He'd hoped the medic would have abandoned that line of thought after the way the last conversation about it had ended. Why couldn't the medic just leave it alone? "So?"
"So it's impossible for your bondmate to be dead."
Silence. Skyfire felt his processer go completely blank for a moment as the statement sunk in.
"You-" he started, but cold fury cut off his vocals. He started again, voice dangerously soft. "I felt him die, felt his spark go out, and you dareto tell me I'm wrong? That it didn't happen?"
He took back every charitable thought, every allowance he'd ever given to the Autobot. Any mech sadistic enough to use a broken sparkbond for his own slagging amusement barely even deserved to be called Cybertronian. Using it for some kind of manipulation would be almost worse. You didn't mess with sparkbonds. Not even the Great War had managed to crush that sacred ideal; you didn't separate sparkbound bots or abuse a bond. It was like intentionally harming a youngling—repugnant in every sense of the word. Ratchet was apparently one of the few that had managed to override that particular moral code.
Ratchet's frame hardened at the accusation, armor clamped tightly against his chassis, but the unnamed emotion stayed infuriatingly on his face. "I'm telling you what I saw when I found the signs of a sparkbond, and it's impossible for the damage to have been caused by your bondmate's death," he said carefully. "Broken bonds are obvious—and they don't cause whatever that was." He breathed in heavily, meeting Skyfire's optics with a heavy intensity that was far too close to true sincerity. "I'm telling you as a medic—I swear it on my spark and vows. Your systems were reacting to a bond forced far past its breaking point by isolation and who knows what else—but not a fully broken one. I don't know what you felt or why you think he deactivated, but, whether you believe me or not, that's what I found."
His tone was enough to freeze the sudden flare of fury in its tracks. Ratchet was every inch the Iacon-trained medic he'd been since before the war—coolly professional in every sense of the word and serious in a way he'd only experienced once before, from the medics that had treated him after Starscream's deactivation. Skyfire searched Ratchet's frame almost desperately for some sign of the deception and found none. For a moment, fear trickled in and settled heavily against his core.
"You're lying," Skyfire whispered unevenly.
He had to be. Because if he was telling the truth… If Ratchet was right about the bond and the glitches, and Skyfire truly had misjudged what he'd felt... It would mean Starscream had been alive for hundreds of thousands of vorns, and Skyfire had left him there. Had ignored every sign the sparkbond had shown him and left his bondmate to rust, frozen in the arctic wasteland where he'd crashed.
And Skyfire couldn't accept that.
"YOU PIT-SLAGGING GLITCH!" he roared. He tried to push himself away from the berth, intent on punching the lying slagger, but the restraints on his wrist jerked him back down before he got a foot off the surface. Ratchet lurched backwards with a startled oath at the unexpected movement, but Skyfire didn't stop. He yanked on the metal bindings, using his full strength for one of the few times in his entire existence.
How dare he. How dare he try to use the bond against him like that. Taunt him with Starscream, with the very idea that he might somehow still be online after all these vorns. He didn't know what the slag the medic was hoping to accomplish by trying to manipulate his emotions, and he didn't care. The only thing he could think about was making him pay for what he'd tried to do. Make him feel even a fraction of the pain of the empty bond.
How dare Ratchet taunt him with even the smallest sliver of hope that he could ever see Starscream again.
Metal shrieked as it started to give way under his strength, and Ratchet let out a new round of curses beside him. New voices entered the room in blurs of frantic movement and solid hands that forced him back down, but Skyfire didn't even glance at them. He had optics only for the medic. Even as someone behind him stuck a needle between the armor on his neck and the world started to darken, Skyfire refused to relinquish the locked gaze between them. As the tranquilizer forced his systems to shut down one by one, the last thing he saw was Ratchet's conflicted blue optics staring back at him.
~.*.~
AN: Yay, plot :). Quick plot point to explain the timeline: the only real change I'm making is that Fire in the Sky never happened. Starscream crashed in a different area than Skyfire would have, thus the 'Cons never randomly stumbled upon him. So, Skyfire's actually been on Earth for a while now—long enough for the Aerialbots to be created, anyway.
Also kudos to peanut_gallery, who noticed a mistake last chapter—the Aerialbots are not, actually, the only Autobot flyers on Earth. I'd completely forgotten about the existence of Powerglide and Cosmos. Oops. Let's just say Cosmos is in space enough Skyfire doesn't know about him, but I honestly know nothing about Powerglide.