Bumblebee was still venting. Jazz felt his hood rise and fall with the intermittent choke of dust in his filters. And Jazz was alive. The world was strangely silent and he wasn't sure if he was hearing the wind or if his audios had ruptured, but he was alive. Locked in place, but alive.
Was he trapped in his spark case, retreating inward at his imminent death? No, he felt Bumblebee beneath him, venting. And there was too much dust and sand in his gears, in his joints, in his mouth, for Jazz to be dying.
He pushed against the darkness crushing down on him, but nothing gave.
Something creaked overhead. Dripped down. The smell hit him—burned oil and spent energon. He coughed again, and he tasted the electric tang of sparks and lubricant. Slag. He knew that taste—he tried speaking just in case.
Nothing.
Sure enough, there was a stabbing pain in his throat cables. Something had sliced his vocalizers. He managed a raspy hiss and coughed again.
Anyone out there? he called out. Anyone? I got 'Bee...need some help here. Anyone?
Nothing.
He wouldn't keen. He wouldn't. Buried alive in the dark, alone...but Bumblebee was still there, even if he in reboot. They were still on the battlefield. They had to be. This wasn't a nightmare. At least, not yet.
Dammit, someone answer me! Something slashed my voice cables. Slag, tell me someone's still out there.
—zz—
Jazz almost whooped for joy. He hadn't imagined that scratch, he couldn't have imagined it, and he called out again.
—J-zz—
—k—p—tk-ing—keep—alking—
Over here, mech, Jazz said, now struggling in earnest. Even if he couldn't move, he could scuff and push against whatever was holding him and make plenty of noise. I got 'Bee—he's still venting, but I can't see to see how bad he is. Oh, I better not be blind, I swear—
Something shifted on top of him. He groaned as tons of steel tilted and pushed in on his right side, and he pushed back against the weight. His hand sank down in the sand until he hit the hard rock below. Now the weight really started to lift, and with a great heave, he put his shoulders against it and turned.
Metal crashed behind him as the fading sunlight filtered through the smoke. He lay on his back for a moment, venting hard, gathering his strength. Beside him, FirstAid knelt beside Bumblebee, and then a dark shape blocked them from view, bending over Jazz to inspect him.
"Jazz," Ratchet said, hands on Jazz's throat. "Thank Primus. Thought you were gone."
Not yet, Jazz said. 'Bee?
"He's got a cracked fuel tank," FirstAid said. "His pelvic structure's gouged. I can patch it up, but—"
"Patch it and wake him up," Ratchet said mercilessly. "Run the pain killer code, limits removed."
Jazz frowned. He'd been patched up enough to know some of the medical jargon, and limits were a Spec Ops bot's worst enemy. Limits meant that the code would turn itself off at some point, and then a good bot had better have followed the doctor's orders about rest and meds. To have no limits…
Is he dying? Jazz asked, coming up on his elbows.
Ratchet, on one knee next to him, looked at him with a deep weariness, as if his frame was made of lead and he'd run out of power. It took every ounce of strength to simply patch Jazz's leaking cables and put his vocalizer into shutdown.
"Not yet," Ratchet said, climbing back to his pedes. He held out his hand, helping Jazz up.
"Just…" Ratchet stared out at the thick dust as if there was something to see. "Getting everyone I can find up and fighting. I can...I can try to triage..."
Lost. Jazz had never heard Ratchet sound like that before, blindly reaching out for some direction. Jazz stood, wobbling on his pedes, discovering that something had crushed in his right pelvic servo. As he favored that pede, leaning against the steel wreckage behind him, he followed Ratchet's look.
His spark seemed to drop in its casing.
The Ark, the colossal ship that had once brought them here from Cybertron and served as their base, had lain upside down against the side of a volcano for ages. He'd seen it every day for decades, knew every inch of its facade and exterior, knew the edges of its landing thrusters, knew the lines marking off the various levels from the outside. He could have driven across the desert and found it blind.
He couldn't recognize anything of it now.
The front exterior was simply gone. A deep gouge exposed multiple floors, dangling cords, torn steel struts and supports, and ripped wires sparking beneath waves of thick, black smoke. Inside, some of the rooms and corridors were dark. Others were red with emergency lights. Heat blew out of its innards as a fire raged out of sight.
The Ark looked like she was bleeding out, eviscerated to the core.
Jazz opened his mouth to talk but nothing came out. He took a step toward the Ark—
Ratchet grabbed Jazz's shoulder and wheeled him back around, pushing him back against what Jazz now realized was the back and side of Brawl. It was all that was left of him, sheared in half and slagged at the edges. Everything else had melted.
Prowl, Jazz said, staring to move, Soundwave—
"I can't find Prime!" Ratchet said, pushing Jazz back hard. "I can't get a signal out, Blaster's not boosting...Prow...Prowl and Red Alert aren't answering..."
Jazz dug his fingers into what was left of Brawl. His claw tips easily pierced the charred wreckage, and his gaze slipped past Ratchet. It was impossible to see more than a few meters. Blowing ash and dust made visibility almost impossible, but even in this small circle, the devastation was obvious. Mechs lay flattened around them, some of them smoking and shorting out, others missing pieces of armor. An arm lay by itself in the sand, the fingers still twitching, blasted of paint. A distant group of dots circled along the edge of the sky, not daring to fly in close. There was hot wind, half-vented cries...
A piece of flooring broke free and crashed down from the Ark. The ship gave a loud groan as something big shifted inside.
And Ratchet was looking at him as if he expected Jazz to fix everything. Why on earth did Ratchet, the mech who put his aft back together after every mission, think Jazz could—
Oh.
Right.
The weight of the entire Autobot faction came down heavy on Jazz's shoulders, and he lowered his helm. Squeezed his optics shut. Wished like hell Ironhide had chosen someone else, anyone else, to run this show. Even Cliffjumper, for Primus sake!
But Cliffjumper would have just ordered a charge. Stupid idea, really. They needed to regroup, repair—they needed a place to rally...someone to rally to...
Get on the other side of the mountain, Jazz said. Find anything for cover. You and FirstAid stay put—triage, snag any frontliners you find for escorts. Don't make yourself a soft target.
Ratchet nodded once, life coming back into his optics. He was already waving FirstAid along with Sunstreaker, who loaded two mechs Jazz didn't recognize into the ambulance.
You see any 'cons, Jazz said, do 'em a mercy, run a painkiller, but don't take 'em with you. Ain't enough to keep you safe if they get stupid. Kill 'em if they try.
Ratchet winced, but he didn't argue.
"Where do I send the wounded who can fight?"
Tell 'em to follow the light show. Won't be hard to see.
Standing straight, Jazz took a deep vent, turning his back on the Ark.
I'ma need my vocalizer, Jazz said.
Ratchet frowned. "It'll short out in an orn—"
In an orn, it won't matter, Jazz said. One way or another. Now.
With a grimace, Ratchet punched his vocalizer back into operation, then spliced two revealed wires back into each other. His voice warmed up, began whirring, and then scratched as the servos inside ground against each other. Jazz coughed, revved it harder, flicked it with his fingers to realign the hardware.
"You got your orders," Jazz said. "Go on."
"What are you going to do?" Ratchet asked.
Jazz's soundsystem came online. To his relief, the array opened smooth. The first electronic strings of heavy metal began to play.
"Ol' Sun Tzu'd say we're on death ground," Jazz said. "So we fight."
He set his speakers on the highest volume possible—within seconds, mechs came rolling in out of the dust. Mirage, leaning on Hound, Sideswipe holding his rifle in his offhand as the dangled limply. Brawn and Powerglide, with optics so wide Jazz could see himself in them. Gunrunner. Groove.
"Wind's gonna take all this cover in a minute," Jazz said. "Round two's 'bout to start. We find anyone else, pick 'em up and bring 'em with."
"But the Ark…" Powerglide said. It wasn't an argument, just hopelessness put to words.
"Yeah, the Ark," Jazz said, crushing down his own feelings. "Anyone inside gotta fend for themselves right now. Megatron's out here."
They were hurt, they were crushed, they were alone...and he was looking for Megatron? In their condition? No one argued, but their looks were clear. It was hopeless. It had to be.
I have to play leader, Jazz thought to himself. And I gotta ace it first time on hard mode.
Optimus would have moved through the smoke like a shepherd, searching for his lost followers and calling them close with the sheer force of his presence. Optimus found the lost. It's what he did.
Prowl would have run odds and estimated everyone's position, gathering mechs in groups where they'd clustered. He would have found the most mechs in the least amount of time. Efficient. Logical.
Jazz wasn't either of them. But he thought he had something as good. Broadcasting as if he was a poor man's Blaster, he opened one of the files Soundwave had given him so long ago in the brig.
"Everyone still alive," he cried out, and he transmitted his call on the Autobot general channel as far as the signal would reach, "acting commander Jazz calling you in!"
Jazz set his array to dazzle instead of debilitate, with lights blazing bright enough to show through the smoke. And Steel Lunaire's Sum of Our Parts, an anti-functionist rallying cry safeguarded by a Decepticon for millenia, played once more for a Cybertronian audiece.
The times, we've been brought to darkness
No light as we float through the stars
our sparks are fading faster
and the way home is so far
but the beat of our song
is the pulse of my spark
and the light of our faith
guides us through the dark
more than the sum of our parts
part of me is part of you too
interchangeable and eternal
we'll see ourselves through
With Jazz at the center, the bots around him began to spread out, physically pushing the signal as far as they could. It was at least one thing they could do, reaching out for their friends and comrades, and as more signals pinged back, there was more energy to their steps, more confidence that they weren't merely survivors, that they weren't the last ones left.
It was hard to hear over the music, but as the song played over and over and then once again, the sound of engines grew. Headlights cut through the dust. Mechs began to appear, limping, holding each other, arms around someone's shoulders as they dragged a pede, rolling to carry someone too wounded to walk.
Jazz gave them a tired smile, relieved to see so many. For such a devastating explosion, the blast must have poured deep into the Ark and radiated out over the fight like a rolling wave. He was always amazed how much bombardment mechs could take and simply stand up again.
The sun lay halfway sunk on the horizon. The cool night winds were sweeping in, thinning the haze, and even though the Ark still billowed smoke, at least its terrible red glow spilled enough light to see without nightscopes.
He called out quick squads, put mechs in command, and sent out waves of Autobots in three directions. There were only two commands.
Find Megatron and radio back.
Stay alive.
He had thought that he'd need to give a speech, but it wasn't needed. All he had to give was a prayer and an apology.
Prowler. Soundwave. Stay alive. I'll reach you when I can...even if it's on the other side.
"Autobots...roll out!"
And, turning his back on the Ark, he joined up with his own bots. Wounded as Spec Ops was, they were his team that he knew best, and they had work to do in the dark.
Soundwave woke up to red shadows, console stations turned upside down. An alarm blared somewhere close by, with a flashing red light spinning around up near the ceiling. Smoke filled his intake—he coughed to clear it, only to vent in more. Soot clogged his filter, and he spit it out and brought his secondary filter online. He would overheat faster, but—
No, he was already overheated. All the surfaces were hot enough to sear any steel coming into contact.
Quick diagnostic—his right optic had a crack in the center, and his coolant tanks were under pressure. He checked his gyros. Ah. He was upside down on his back, fallen amongst…
He had to scrabble along the shredder slabs of steel to find anything lodged deep enough to give him leverage. When he finally pulled himself upright, he discovered a deep tear across multiple levels of the Ark. He couldn't see how far it stretched with wreckage collapsed between him and the outside, and when he looked up, he could just make out a glint of white paint thre levels up.
"Prowl, functional?" he called out, transmitting the question as well.
Affirmative. Prowl responded with an icy lack of emotion. Compensating for loss of signal strength. Set vector to mark nine and continue.
Soundwave looked around for a way to climb. They had been lucky that the Ark had been emptied and that they were so deep inside. Any closer and the blast would have ruptured them completely.
And they might still die. The Ark groaned as levels shifted, wrenched from their sockets and moorings, beginning to melt under extreme heat. Electrical fires raged into new blazes over spilled energon and oil and fuel.
Prowl, must escape, Soundwave said.
Negative, Prowl answered. Teletraan still processing, if at diminished capability. Best use of myself is here. Soundwave, no longer in range to aid scanning. Best use is now to retrieve cassettes and aid Blaster.
Prowl, cannot be left behind, Soundwave started even as Prowl transmitted the base schematic through their connection and highlighted the whereabouts of Blaster's station.
That is an order, Prowl said. You cannot reach our position nor clear the wreckage for an evacuation. Not in any time for it to matter.
Cassettes— Soundwave tried instead.
Are not here. Reach Blaster. Aid in signal strength. Evacuate any survivors you can reach. That is an order.
Prowl's connection cut off.
Soundwave almost stumbled at the loss. He stared in muted fury—if he tried to reach Prowl, shifting the wreckage could bring the whole structure down on them. He would need tools, supports, struts…
"Prowl, aft."
And he turned his back on Prowl, squeezing through a security door blown off its hinges, running through the dark corridors. Deeper down, the damage was lighter with only singed marks and melted circles showing the electrical system burning behind the walls. The Ark was slowly consuming itself—he simply couldn't tell how far the devastation had spread.
"Prowl, idiot."
He ignored the route Prowl had given him. Blaster would have to take care of himself for another few minutes. It did not take long to reach his destination—Prowl had probably realized where he would go first. The entire Ark was mapped out for him.
"Prowl, glitched."
As he turned the last corner, the lights went out. The Ark audibly lost power. His own lights running along his optics and internal systems gave a faint glow to his work as he lifted his pede and gave a hard front kick to the first door. It didn't open, but it bent inward enough that he could grab an edge and tear it back.
A sleek black shape leaped out, landed silently and padded around his pedes on silent steel paws.
Laserbeak flew out after Ravage, perching on Soundwave's shoulder and calling impatiently as Rumble and Frenzy clambered out through the rough opening.
"'bout time!" Rumble complained. "What the hell just happened?"
"Decepticon attack," Soundwave said, uploading information to them as he led them back down the corridor. "Must establish immediate contact with the Autobot Blaster."
"Blaster?" Frenzy said. "You hate that bot! Why we gonna meet up with—with—holy Primus…"
The tear appeared before them as the corridor simply ended, opening out over three floors of empty space. Soundwave's spark clenched, but he turned and took them down an alternate route, running at top speed. Rumble and Frenzy both latched onto his back, hanging on so that he didn't leave them behind.
"Blaster has something I require," Soundwave said.
The route to Blaster's broadcast array took them through two more detours with delicate maneuvering over a collapsed wall. For all the damage, they found no corpses. The entire Ark had emptied out well before the attack. That was perhaps the only mercy—that only a handful of bots had remained inside. Just RedAlert and Prowl and—
In the middle of a tilted corridor, Soundwave paused. Reset his optics.
"Prowl. Broken. Calculator."
"Huh?" Rumble said.
"Concussive reboot, left memory sectors slow to come online. Remembering information that Prowl did not remember."
Soundwave frowned and kept moving, updating plans.
"Prowl, aft."
Frenzy and Rumble looked at each other, each of them shrugging and shaking their helms.
"Uh, boss," Frenzy said. "So like, what gives? What happened? Visiting hours weren't really enough to fill in all the details."
Soundwave came to the lift—the elevator inside lay crashed at the bottom, the hydraulics along the side broken and leaking. He leaned back and spotted the stairs. Molten steel poured out beneath the broken door.
"Ravage, Laserbeak, return."
Soundwave opened up his cassette case, accepting the two of them inside. Despite the smoke and heat, he gave a vent of satisfaction. He had missed that sensation, and the case closed with a satifying click.
"Frenzy, Rumble, will hang on tightly."
"Wha—?"
Rumble squawked as Soundwave stepped into the open space and grabbed the broken pipes, climbing up, occasionally punching his own handholds into the wall.
"Whoa, boss, wait, wait—" Rumble said. "Why can't we just go inside, too?"
Soundwave didn't pause, although the question hurt. He went up two levels, pulling himself over the side onto the next floor. The damage here was worse—the wind blew through the steel halls, bringing with it the scent of gunpowder and desert heat. He had seen Bruticus raise Motormaster up like a living bomb, and then everything had gone dark. Prowl's schematics were not updated. Impossible to tell what had happened to the forward levels.
"...boss?"
"Soundwave...structurally compromised." He spotted the office Prowl had marked and started moving, but the floor began to tilt. He froze—then calculated for his weight of several hundred pounds. Pressing against the wall, he checked his balance and continued.
"Assassination attempt, left permanent damage."
"'Assassination attempt'?" Frenzy echoed. "What the slag? I thought it'd be safe in their base."
"Boss, since when do you let someone get close?" Rumble shook his helm again. "You never let your guard down."
"Argument with Prowl, distracting. Also…" Soundwave pressed his mouth flat, loathe to admit it. "Soundwave, shielded Prowl. Took full brunt of blast."
"...what?" Frenzy said. "Wait, what? You did...what?"
"Why in the pit would you protect one of them?" Rumble demanded. "From a bomb?"
"Navigating this corridor, very challenging. Cassettes will cease questions—"
"Were you trying to get in good with 'em?" Frenzy said. "I mean, slag, that could've killed you. So deep it smashed up your casing?"
"Boss, that's like right next to your spark case!" Rumble said. "Why the slag would you do that?"
Soundwave vented out. Almost to the door now.
"Prowl...shiny."
For a moment, silence.
"I thought you were sweet on Jazz," Frenzy said.
"...yes."
Rumble gave a low whistle. "So how long—"
"Destination reached," Soundwave said, cutting him off.
The door wouldn't open. The lock wasn't engaged—the frame had simply been crushed inward by the weight of the walls, jammig it shut. Soundwave smacked the door and leaned close, calling inside.
"Blaster, functional? Respond."
On the other side, a knocking came from near the floor, along with a voice barely audible amid the wind and flames.
"Soundwave!" Rewind yelled. "We can't get the door open! Please, get it open!"
"Understood. Clear the area."
He waited a moment, then leaned back and gave the door a fierce kick that caved it in. The floor groaned with his shifted weight, and he grabbed at the wall as the floor tilted several degrees. The floor slammed to a halt as it hit a support, and he chanced stepping in.
Blaster sat slumped at his satellite console, optics dark, locked in shut down. A long strut had bent sideways and collapsed with the rest of the ceiling, impaling him through the waist and pinning him to his seat and the floor. The console had likewise been crushed, trapping his pedes.
It was a mercy that he'd crashed. His cassettes fluttered around him, disassembling the wreckage, but it was slow work for small hands.
"Blaster, alive?"
Soundwave was already bending over the other mech, examining the damage.
"It didn't hit his spark case," Steeljaw said, padding on all fours and looking over his hands. "Hit a few systems, though—I think the pain knocked him out before he could overheat."
Satisfied, Soundwave grasped the strut running through Blaster. It ran diagonally the length of the chamber, and as Soundwave put pressure on it, the whole right side of the chamber shuddered.
"This beam, likely supporting full weight of the upper floor. If removed, the ceiling will collapsed."
Eject climbed up on Blaster's shoulder and moved to block Soundwave's hand.
"Flag on the play—there's no way that one strut is holding up everything. There's like five more levels up there."
Soundwave shook his helm. "Attack of several tons of energon. 99.5% likelihood no levels above this one remain."
Their optics went wide. Rewind put his hand on Soundwave's.
"We can't just leave him here."
"Affirmative. Blaster will be relocated."
He stood, scanning the assembled group. He knew each of Blaster's cassettes from long study of their strengths and weaknesses on the battlefield, and he knew Rewind more closely from their work on the forum stories. But it was one thing to look down the barrels of their blasters, countering his own cassettes with aggravating competence, and another to see them protectively guarding a mech he still disliked.
"Cassettes, will evacuate to command center."
At the immediate arguing, shouting and threats of violence, Frenzy and Rumble shared a look and snickered. And then vented in sharply when Soundwave started again.
"All cassettes, save Ravage and Laserbeak. RedAlert, Prowl—vital to Autobot defenses. Trapped beyond my own reach. Cassettes, will free RedAlert and Prowl, escort to safety."
Rewind stood up on top of Soundwave's hand. "We might not be able to save them. And...and leaving Blaster…"
"Cassettes...can provide more aid than I can," he said. "In recompense, Soundwave will save Blaster."
There was a token more argument, old fights thrown in his face as they were loathe to leave, but the ominous groans of the Ark's structure made his argument for him. They soon left in a large group, Frenzy and Rumble accompanying them with one last glance back at Soundwave.
The support beam did not move easily. He hadn't lied when he said it probably supported the remaining ceiling. Without the cassettes in the way, however, he could begin to cut through the steel.
As soon as the beam began to slide away from itself, Soundwave put his arm under Blaster and lifted him up and off the rest of the strut. He had to drag Blaster's pedes out of the wreckage, leaving gouges in the silver armor, but his cables were merely crumpled, not pierced.
"Blaster, massive debt to Soundwave," he muttered, throwing the mech over his shoulder.
Then he was walking, bent under Blaster's weight, sliding as the top level finally began to give way. He saw glimpses of the battlefield through the smoke and melting steel, and as the walls slipped free, he slid down the corridor as it twisted, turned, the wall becoming the floor—and leaped as the last rivets tore free. His hand caught the edge of the lift, and he grunted as he pulled himself and Blaster up and over the lip.
Plummeting, falling, then sliding again as the lift began to fall. He slowed their descent with his pedes braced against the sides. His armor cracked as he came down too hard beneath their combined tonnage, but he could still clamber out from on top of the crumpled elevator car and pull Blaster with him.
The Ark was shifting above him. There was very little time left, and he didn't know if he could even rescue himself at this point. With no data incoming, he only had the fluctuating heat and ambient sounds to estimate by.
The floor here had tilted almost thirty degrees. He began to slip and instead went with it, coming to a sliding halt, catching himself on the doorframe. At least down this far, there was no smoke.
He stepped into the brig and found it relatively intact, if darkened with emergency lights, with the individual spotlights of every defecting 'Con, including a wounded Snare slowly coming up out of recharge on the central medical berth. All of them focused on him in expectation.
"Megatron," he said as if it explained everything. To them, it did.
The console to free them had no more power, so he spared precious seconds helping them tear the cell bars apart. As they came out, the walls began to warp. The Ark was collapsing in on itself level by level, slowly, raining molting steel, and pulled Spasma free last just as the final cell turned red hot.
"Groove?" Spasma asked.
Whisper nodded once. "Silverbolt?"
"Status unknown. Autobots, require aid."
There was nothing else to say. There was no way to return to Prowl and no way to confirm the well-being of Prowl or any of his cassettes. So he would fulfill his promise, bring Blaster out...and then find Jazz.
Jazz was a fine warrior, but he was still too civilian. He wouldn't let him face Megatron alone.
Tbc...
