A/N: Aw, this chapter had a picture in it. Oh well. Maybe I should translate it to binary. That would take awhile though. /10 years later.../ Wait! Would that be 10 years or 2 years... *squint* Nope, I'm done. You want Binary 101, ask Ratchet. He'll probably throw a wrench at you.
XXIV - Metal III
"Seven!" I yelled into a comm. "Slag it, answer me you worthless piece of–"
"Starscream, he perhaps is otherwise engaged." Optimus suggested.
I huffed, "Let's hope not. I'm sending in a bridge. He's been gone far longer than I like."
"Very well."
I punched in a couple commands on the remote, and a vortex materialized in front of us.
Seven came through the ground bridge in his alt mode, which none of us expected. Jack followed at a safe distance, watching the jet warily.
"Megatron showed up," Jack said urgently, "but the others are okay; we'll be in and out!" he assured us, turning around and ran back through the bridge. It closed without another word from the human.
My clone coughed as we all watched, stunned into silence. "I-I saved the h-humans… distracted M-Megatron–" he managed to choke out, smeared with energon and taking rapid, wheezing intakes.
Aside from a couple cuts and a large hole, his wings has been spared. Deep gouges crisscrossed his fuselage, one of them almost taking off his left tail fin, and all were leaking a sluggish trickle of energon.
Bumblebee chirped in alarm, rushing forwards to help. Optimus joined him, opening a comm. "Ratchet open a ground bridge, now." The Prime ordered, his tone grim. "And prepare sickbay."
A ground bridge spiraled into existence a moment later, without a word from the medic. I supposed he was trying to hurry, correctly assuming this was no time for questions. Seven's engine sputtered and his thruster coughed to life, and the jet taxied through the bridge before anyone could get their servos on him. Optimus went second, with Bumblebee following at his heels. But the scout seemingly remembered I was here and skidded to a stop, extending a black servo to me. I climbed into it, holding tightly as he raced through the bridge behind his leader.
"Seven, listen to me. I know it will be painful, however, you must transform. My medical bay is not equipped to treat vehicles so much as it is bots." Ratchet ordered stoutly.
Seven groaned loudly, but it sounded more from exasperation than pain. "It's not so bad, d-doctor… I only have a few scrapes…" his voice had taken on a staticky edge, yet he still refused to transform, resting heavily on his landing gear. After a whole minute of silence, Ratchet sighed, "You don't have a choice in the matter! Seven, you will either transform or I will override your systems and do it for you, which, if I have heard correctly, is even more painful!"
"I could break something…" Seven whimpered, his flaps raising like the hair of an animal.
Bulkhead scoffed at that, "Yeah, and tell me one thing of yours that isn't broken!"
The jet huffed in a tight way, "Fine, have it your way. Here goes…" he trailed off and transformed. It was a lot jerkier and slower than normal, but once the job was done, the bot looked even worse for wear. His chest and thigh plating made up most of his fuselage, and those were by far the most damaged places. Most of it was filmed with blue, and in some spots one could even see his protoform thanks to the sheer amount of missing metal. Worst of all, in the center of his chest plate, a sliver of his spark chamber was visible. In defiance of all of this, he was standing. "This had better pay off," he spat behind gritted denta, swaying gently. Bright blue energon dripped down his frame and collected on the floor at his pedes.
"What happened to you?" Ratchet exclaimed, coming closer as his caregiving programming began to kick in.
"M-Megatron tried t-to terminate me!" He let out a raspy, delirious laugh, "I escaped though, didn't I?" My double took an unsteady step towards Ratchet, clutching his arm and grinning like a fool. "Primus, I'm dizzy… I made it–" but all his systems seemed to offline at once and he nosedived. Ratchet—being the closest to him—jumped out and caught him under his arms just before my clone plowed headlong into the hard floor. All I could see from my vantage point were his limp wings hanging against his back, one at an angle that suggested it had been partially torn or blasted out of its socket, and his pedes dragging across the floor.
"Someone help me get him to the quarantine showers," the old bot growled. Optimus was there beside him a moment later, and together, they began to carry him away. "His locking chip activated, but why it took so long, I'm not sure–"
"Wait." I said, and hurried down the platform's stairs to follow them.
Ratchet paused and my clone's helm lolled as the medic looked at me. "And what might you think you're doing?"
"Something aside from standing here," I retorted.
"Leave him to the bots that are capable of helping him. You do want him to see tomorrow, don't you?" the white medic snapped, already turning away.
"I see no harm in allowing him to come, old friend." Optimus said. "I am capable of cleaning Seven up while you prepare your medical equipment."
"Well…" Ratchet trailed off, looking between us. "Fine."
I looked up at the Prime to express my gratitude, not knowing quite how to do it. But he had already turned away, gently holding Seven in his arms. I sighed quietly and followed.
We entered the room where the quarantine showers were located, and Optimus laid Seven down on the floor for while he turned the water on. He picked up a coarse, stained towel from a rack and began to scrub my clone's chassis clean with it, carefully skirting around his injuries. The Prime paused, stood, and grabbed the smallest towel he could find and offered it to me. Hesitating for a second, I took it, and set to work on my clone as well. I didn't make much progress, as the Prime and I both were well aware of, but it was the thought that counted. Or something like that. With all the extra energon running off his frame, he almost looked worse. All the gouges were deep, and left me at a loss as to how he had managed to stand at all, much less hold a conversation.
Optimus shut off the water once the unconscious Seeker was clean, but he was still leaking energon. At least that meant his pumps were still functioning. The water that pooled on the floor, slowly getting sucked into the drains had taken on an unnatural hue of blue, shining like oil. The Prime turned him over so he laid on his front and tugged his arm out from beneath him, the started cleaning out the cuts on his back.
He ran the towel down the length of my clone's left wing with a meticulous optic, swishing his energon off and revealing more damage. "Seeker wings are extremely sensitive, correct?" he asked quietly, raising his gaze from Seven to me.
I nodded and fingered where my own used to reside, not feeling talkative for once.
"Megatron knows this?"
I nodded again.
"It is unnecessarily cruel to inflict this much damage on a mech, any mech, in an attempt to terminate him." The Prime stated firmly. "Especially on a Seeker's wings. It is torture."
I didn't trust myself to speak. Optimus and the Autobots did not know of how Megatron mistreated me aboard the Nemesis while I was his second-in-command. I never tried to think of it, and this brought back the worst of memories.
Ratchet spared me from them, bursting into the room. "I'm ready. He's clean enough, let's get him onto the berth. I don't want to waste any more time fussing over how clean his wounds are, he needs medical attention now." the medic pointed to it behind him. I could tell from the look in his blue optics that his medical programming was in full swing. Optimus picked Seven up after I had skittered out of the way, tossing our rags aside. Ratchet helped him by making sure Seven's wings weren't dragging across the floor.
They lifted him onto the med berth, gingerly turning him over so he laid on his wings. Ratchet moved a large, advanced-looking scanner down and around the length of my clone's broken chassis. The medic read off what he saw on the screens, "He has extensive internal trauma thanks to all those gashes, I just hope there isn't much hemorrhaging or blockage inside. He needs surgery, certainly. Primus, I can't believe I'm doing this for Starscream or his clone…"
"You'll do fine, doc." Bulkhead placated. "How long's he got?"
Ratchet set down the scanner, "If I leave him like this? A few hours, at most. But I am not going to, so pass me that scalpel." he pointed to said tool on a messy table next to him.
"Hey, uh, Starscream?" Raf asked tentatively, adjusting his glasses and diverting my attention from my clone as I walked back up to the platform. "What happened to him?"
My optics narrowed and I frowned in thought. "I'm not quite sure… perhaps there was an ambush." I leaned against the platform's railing and crossed my arms, sighing. A fist seemed to clench around my spark. Primus, don't let him offline, I thought. Though he doesn't look like it, he's hardly a week old!
"D-do you think Jack, Miko, and Oliver are all right?" Raf asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. I blinked, not realizing I had offlined my optics.
"Jack said they are fine, or at least were." I assured him. "I am more worried about Seven than the humans; as long as they keep a low profile they should easily avoid any prying optics."
I silently watched the energon line turn blue as it filled with the fuel, flowing into my clone's arm. Ratchet picked up a spindly tool and began to attend to his most serious wounds.
"Let me get this straight," Knock Out chortled in disbelief, "Starscream is about six feet tall," he held his servos close together, "and doesn't have his T-Cog or wings? I-it's preposterous! Absurd! How can you expect me to believe that?" He doubled over in laughter.
In answer, Miko flipped out her phone, showing him the picture of Seven's flustered faceplates.
"What is this?" he asked. "I-I don't understand."
Miko looked at her phone's screen, "Whoopsie." It was a picture of a scene from a monster truck rally, with a truck mid-explosion. "Here we go." She showed him the right photo. "That's Sev in our base. When we caught him." She added when the red mech raised an eyebrow and stifled a laugh.
"Long story." Jack rubbed the back of his neck.
"The point is," I steered the conversation back on course, "We need Megatron's CNA. Preferably something I could easily carry. You do have a spare part or something, right?"
"Yes, I have to imagine I have something lying around in a jar somewhere." He mused. "It might take some digging, but I could find it." He walked inside the med bay and we followed, not wanting to be trapped in the hall waiting for drones to stumble upon us. Literally. "Why didn't Seven come instead? Too busy?"
"He did. Not inside, but he flew us here. And last I checked, he was bleeding out on the top of this ship." I replied bluntly. "Jack said Ratchet and Optimus got him to their base… I bet they're fixing him up now."
That took him off guard. "A-and Starscream?"
"He's okay, last I checked." Jack answered.
The medic nodded, "Then I'll help you."
"That was easy." Miko grinned.
"And NOT because you three humans came begging at my flawless pedes." We rolled our eyes. "Life on Lord Megatron's big bad warship has been getting rather dull without Breakdown's banter or Starscream's whining." He said while rummaging through a few cluttered drawers.
Miko snickered.
"Oh, you have no idea," the red medic moaned, "Primus, every time he limps in here–" He slammed a drawer shut and wrenched another full of glass cylinders open, "–I feel like I have to get anestesias ready." He groused, sifting through the cylinders. "Not for him, mind you." We all let out sharp hoots of laughter at that. He slammed a few down on the tabletop to get them out of the way, muttering their labels. "A sample of various carboxylic hydrocarbons, nope… synthetic energon variants, wrong… uranium dioxide, ugh… what is all this slag doing in here?" The third glass cylinder he slammed down was filled over halfway with a shiny black powder.
"Hold up," Miko said, "you're keeping radioactive stuff in a DRAWER?!" I slowly inched away from the jar of black powder.
"A safe drawer." He pointed to the small lock on the front of it, as if that did anything at all.
"Oh, of course, my bad." she replied with a level of sarcasm that could rival Starscream's.
"I think I've got something." The red mech announced a second later, carefully extracting another jar full of what looked like silver scraps of metal.
"Yegh, are those Megatron's toenail clippings?" Miko made a face.
"These are shards from Megatron's chest plate after Starscream grabbed from ground zero after the space bridge big bang." The medic explained, smirking as he held them up to the light and gently shook the jar.
"I remember, Megatron had a huge hole blown out of his chest plate." Jack nodded.
Knock Out hummed, "I never really got around to properly disposing of these… good thing I didn't though, didn't I?"
"Yeah," I chuckled, "no kidding."
"We'd have to talk with Megs himself!" Miko gasped.
"Which is why we're here instead." Jack reminded her.
Knock Out slid one of the smaller slivers across the table towards us. "Take it and book it. If Megatron finds out that I helped you–"
"We get it." I nodded, scooping it up.
"No strings attached?" Jack asked suspiciously.
"What would I do?" He asked innocently. "I have no use for those scraps anyhow, and if Megatron never hears of this little encounter, it never happened." To illustrate his point, he tossed the jar over his shoulder where it landed with a clunk in what I guessed was a high-tech alien trash bin.
"Knock Out?" I asked nervously.
"Mhm?"
"When Starscream's full-sized again, do you think you could replace his wings?"
"And his cog-thingy, if we get it back?" Miko added hopefully.
"I'll send a comm tomorrow, that should give you all plenty of time to restore him." The medic promised. "But I'm not sure what I can do if I don't have an extra set of wings…"
"Then make some." Jack suggested.
The three of us walked out of the med bay a minute later and I put the helmet of my costume back on. I was elated, finally, something was going right! Without further ado, we sprinted down the corridor towards the nearest comm unit, a new spring in my step.
"I had to heavily sedate him," Ratchet announced, looking worn. "but he is stable, for the moment. That much damage is far from being something one can simply walk off. He's lucky." He injected a syringe of fluids into the Seeker's elbow as he spoke.
Optimus placed a large servo on the medic's shoulder, "You did admirably, old friend."
"Now all we have to do is wait until he wakes up…" I trailed off.
"Hey, Starscream?" Raf asked again.
"What is it this time?" I turned around, facing him.
"D-do you want to play a video game? It might take you mind off some of this."
"No… but I appreciate the gesture." I sighed, looking back at Seven. He seemed more peaceful in stasis, despite his mangled frame. I wondered for a moment if this was exactly what I looked like after receiving a severe round Megatron's "discipline." I shook off the disturbing thought.
"Hey, you okay?" Raf asked me, pulling me from my thoughts. The other Autobots looked like they had the same question.
"Wh–I was just thinking, that's all. But no, I am not 'okay.'" I hissed, "If I were 'okay,' I would not be standing here, speaking with you." The kid didn't seem to know how to respond to that.