Soundwave's Greatest Hits, Volume Six.
Summary: When dissident Decepticons attack Sam, Soundwave and Soundwave's Cassettes, a sequence of events leads to a surprising result.
Continuity: Movieverse, with a lot of G1 elements.
A/N: From an idea given to me by Lady_Frost on AO3. This takes place post Code Of Cybertron events, but does not invoke the Code. This is set just over a year after the end of "Living With Autobots." It was going to be a one shot, but now looks like being more. Although this is Movieverse, G1 Soundwave fits the story better, so that's the Soundwave I'm using in this fic. For simplicity, in this fic, Soundwave only has five Cassettes. Thanks to Rian Moeru for help with developing this idea.
1joor is about 6.5 human hours.
Soundwave's Greatest Hits, Volume Six.
Chapter One.
Sam was at the Decepticon Base when the attack happened.
The peace process was moving along, albeit slowly, due to stubborn humans, recalcitrant new arrivals on both sides, and bureaucracy, but progress was being made. All three sides were still at a ceasefire stage, with new ones being made and agreed, sometimes with modifications, as the time limit on earlier ceasefire agreements began to expire.
Negotiations had reached a point where Sam was needed to put forwards the Decepticon's point of view to other humans, but using human manners and methods. That meant Sam was spending several days a week at the Decepticon Base, and was, on this day, unkinking the wires of all five of Soundwave's Cassetticons.
As Sam was the Assistant Tactical Officer, most of Sam's time was spent with Soundwave, and although Sam knew Frenzy and Ravage at least on a nodding basis, he wasn't so well acquainted with the other three Cassettes, Ratbat, Rumble, and Laserbeak, something Soundwave had set out to rectify at the earliest opportunity.
He knew Rumble had the piledriver arms, and had been the one to bring the Decepticon's last Base down around their collective audios after getting overenergised, and he had heard of Laserbeak, but Sam didn't actually know either of them. He only found out about Ratbat when Soundwave called the Casseticon in question out, but after a few sessions of wire-unkinking, he and the five had all become quite well acquainted, and he'd sometimes entertain them during a break or a small stall in the talks when he wasn't needed, to tell them some random and strange (to them) facts about humans.
Laserbeak had at first been a problem; Sam had received a few nasty gashes in his arms when the more agile of the two flighted Cassettes had found him unwilling to strike back with more than his hands, until Soundwave had told Sam, in Laserbeak's hearing, that Sam could attack back with his laser cutter, as long as he stuck to the edges of the wings. Sam had only needed to actually use it on him once, and Laserbeak had managed to avoid the strike. However, after that, there were no more attempts to slash open Sam's flesh by the flying Cassette.
On this occasion they were in a room just off the corridor, not far from the medical bay, and Sam was finishing up on unkinking Ratbat, who seemed to Sam to be the least able of the five Cassettes. Sam had earlier unkinked the rest of the quintet's wires, so all were in various stages of relaxation, from Frenzy, who was back to his usual active self, down to Ravage, who was getting up from being stretched on the floor, the purr of his engine still resonating through his frame.
"There, does that feel better?" Sam asked, carefully pulling the flier's wings to full extension as he used a cloth to brush grit from the creases and joints, and Ratbat squeaked and wriggled his agreement. Sam helped him up from the floor, and Soundwave recalled him into his chest, and they all moved out of the room. The plan was for Soundwave and his Cassettes to walk down the corridor to the Medbay with Sam, and for all of them to get some refreshments there, for the medic kept human victuals available for Sam. They had gone barely two steps when they heard running steps, and then a cry of "There he is! Get him!"
At first, Sam thought it was an attack practice drill; he'd been doing them at both Bases, a simulated attack drill, as there were dissidents and opponents to the peace on both sides. Nobody thought they would be necessary, but it was thought that they had better be safe than be sorry, better overprepared than not prepared enough.
Both sides held surprise drills to make sure everyone was ready, so Sam had been trained in what to do, which was, if he couldn't run, to hold his own until help arrived. With four Cassettes inadvertently blocking his way, running wasn't happening. Sam turned, grabbing the laser scalpel he still took with him and kept on him every visit, activated it, and turned to face the source of the shout.
Immediately he knew something was wrong, as two mechs came barrelling towards them. One he didn't recognise, a mech whose alt was a helicopter, who stopped and began firing at Soundwave. As Sam heard Soundwave cry out, and turned to see laser burns and holes in Soundwave's hide, Sam realised this was no drill, for the lasers used in drills burned Cybertronian paint, but did not pierce the hide beneath. Soundwave had holes leaking energon, so Soundwave was obviously injured.
He recognised the second mech, the mono-opticked mech who was reaching for him; it was Swindle, and Sam guessed his year of immunity was over. He swept the laser scalpel forward, making Swindle draw his hand back, before he himself backed off, coming to a halt as he found Rumble behind him, who was himself backed up against Soundwave's legs.
"Vortex,-Swindle,-stop!" Soundwave ordered.
"Not until we destroy the human insect who lost us the AllSpark and murdered Megatron!" shouted Swindle. He reached for Sam again, who didn't hold back, swinging the scalpel down and taking off the end of one of Swindle's claws.
Swindle pulled back and said 'That's enough of that, insect!" and threw a small, egg-shaped device down in front of Sam. Sam didn't like the look of it, it looked too much like a grenade to Sam, and the human booted it back towards the small red mech. He turned to see where the Cassetticons were, and as he did, he heard the bang.
"DOWN!" he yelled, throwing himself over Ravage's hind legs and almost falling on top of Rumble and Frenzy as they did as he told them. Laserbeak was beyond them, almost flat on the floor, so was the only one not to get hit by the multiple tiny fragments of sharpened metal that blasted into them.
Sam screamed as he caught the most of it, but there was so much that Rumble, Ravage, Frenzy, and Soundwave all got hit by a greater or lesser amount. As Rumble and Frenzy stood, whining and whirring in pain,Soundwave decided this had to end, and fast. He saw Laserbeak, and commanded him "Laserbeak, reconnaissance and distract." Laserbeak moved, took flight, and began swooping at the heads and optics of the attackers. The helicopter mech tried to shoot him down, but the little Cassette was too agile.
"Ravage-attack," Soundwave commanded. "Distract-and-divide." Ravage leaped between Swindle and Vortex, swiping at one, feinting at the other, and not allowing the two to regroup.
Soundwave looked down to see that the human boy was still conscious, but had multiple small fragments embedded in his back. He moaned, in obvious pain, as blood flowed down his body and limbs from the painful injuries caused by the fragments, running down him and dripping onto the floor. Energon was also dripping, and Soundwave saw that Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy were all sporting superficial but painful injuries from the grenade. The human boy was lucky; the fragments could have gone deeper, but kicking the Cybertronian frag grenade away had been a good idea, the increased distance from the blast ensured the fragments were not embedded deep enough to endanger his soft internal structures. From this, Soundwave deduced that Swindle had wanted to take Sam alive, to torture him to death. The human could still be helpful for the peace process, not least to explain that this attack was not officially sanctioned.
"Laserbeak,-retrieve-Swiftstrike," he instructed, and when he saw Laserbeak scoop the human up by the arms and fly upwards, he decided he had to finish this now, but did not want the human or his Cassettes to be in the crossfire.
"Rumble-return. Frenzy-return," he said, opening his chest to recall the two ground Cassettes. "Laserbeak,-take-Swiftstrike-to-place-of-safety."
With hindsight, Soundwave realised he should perhaps have been more specific. He had meant the Medbay, behind him, where Laserbeak could fly the human to be treated and guarded by Dr Syn, and Soundwave could guard and not let the two dissident mechs get to them.
However, because he had not been specific, Laserbeak applied her own definition of a place of safety.
As Frenzy and Rumble leaped into Soundwave's open chest compartment, Laserbeak turned and abruptly stooped, still holding the barely conscious human teen in her feet. She was careful not to allow Swiftstrike's body to impact against the door or the chest as she carried Swiftstrike with him into Soundwave's chest compartment after the two ground Cassettes.
Soundwave thought for a millisecond of instructing Laserbeak to fly back out and take the teen to the Medbay, but that meant the boy would again be vulnerable, and Vortex could catch them both in his laser beams as he began to widen the focus. No, Swiftstrike was as safe as he could be, and Soundwave closed his chest as he faced down his opponents.
One blast of his sonic shoulder cannon had them both reeling, and Soundwave saw a pair of Seekers appear behind Vortex, and knew they would deal with the crazed helo mech. He grabbed Swindle by the neck and said "Desist-attack."
"No, there will be no peace, I'd rather be deactivated first!" Swindle replied defiantly.
"As-Swindle-demands," Soundwave replied, and pushed Swindle to the floor with one hand. As Swindle struggled, Soundwave applied pressure to the neck in his other hand, and ripped the bottom end of the neck free of the body, ripping out the wires until they hung loose. Throwing the head aside, he gripped the sides of the neck either side of the body and pulled, until the body split with an awful screech. Coolant and energon splattered onto the floor and up Soundwave as sputtering wires and broken connections flared, and then a bright light rose from the body, which flickered, and then flashed, and then dissipated.
By now, the two Seekers had beaten and blasted the crazed Vortex into unconsciousness. As they drew closer, and the smoke of the battle began to dissipate, the two Seekers were revealed to be Starscream and Thundercracker. They walked over to where Soundwave stood over Swindle's broken shell, and Starscream toed it a couple of times, checking for reactions, before looking at Soundwave.
"Was that necessary?" Starscream asked.
"Swindle-against-peace. Swindle-endangered-Soundwave's-Cassettes-and-Swiftstrike. Swindle-given-chance-to-cease. Swindle-refused."
"What a shame, it was a waste, but I guess the medic can use him for spares," Starscream said.
"Soundwave-must-find-medic," Soundwave said, turning and heading for the Medbay. As Ravage fell into step beside Soundwave, Starscream saw the damage from the grenade on the quadrupedal Cassette.
"A hidescourer? Swindle used that? Against you and your Cassettes?"
Affirmative-and-negative," Soundwave replied.
"What do you mean, yes and no?" Starscream asked.
"Affirmative:-Swindle-deployed-the-explosive-device, Cassettes-caught-in-blast. However-device's-intended-target,-was-Swiftstrike."
"Was he hurt? Badly?" Starscream asked as they walked into the med bay.
"Affirmative," Soundwave said.
"Okay, where is he?" Dr Syn asked, walking over to them. "He'll need assessment and treatment."
Soundwave pressed his eject button.
"Laserbeak,-Swiftstrike,-eject," he said. As his chest opened, Laserbeak flew out, holding in her claws a human who was now unconscious, and had smears of pink energon on him. Soundwave beckoned the Cassette down, and pointed to the medic.
"Not energon burns again, Laserbeak should never have put Swiftstrike in with injured mechs!" the medic groaned. "Give him here!"
Laserbeak, following Soundwave's unspoken commands, put the human gently in the medic's hands. The medic looked at the human's back and hissed.
'Whatever hit him has almost made scrap of the human's back! I'll rinse off the energon, sedate the human, and then start removing the slivers of metal. Send Barricade out for twelve bags of saline and eight pints of A-positive blood. The human will need fluid replacements, and to be kept sedated for some time while he heals. What happened?"
Soundwave sent Starscream a quick recording of what he'd seen and worked out, and Starscream quickly reviewed it before speaking.
"Soundwave says Swindle used a small-grade hidescourer grenade against Swiftstrike. We think he wanted to capture him alive and torture him," Starscream said.
"That Pitspawned glitch flea!" Dr Syn said as he soaked and then wrung out a clean polishing cloth, prompting a shocked look from Thundercracker. "Doesn't he ever learn?"
"It seems not, but Soundwave has made sure he not only won't repeat any of his mistakes, but neither will he learn from them," Starscream replied, not looking at all fazed by Dr Syn's colourful language.
"How badly?" the medic asked as he carefully wiped the energon from Sam's exposed skin, and then held him under a light flow of water to rinse the remainder, - plus a few fragments of the grenade - from Sam's skin.
"It was terminal," Starscream replied, as Thundercracker put the unconscious Vortex he'd been half-dragging on to a table.
"I'd like to say it's a shame, and that he'll be missed, but I'm not feeling it right now," the medic confessed, as he brought out a fine needle and two tiny phials.
"Swiftstrike, if you can hear me, I'm going to sedate you, and give you something to help with the pain." The medic gave Sam the contents of one phial, and half the contents of the second. "Thank Primus we got some human medicines early on in the peace talks," Dr Syn said. Then, after ensuring Sam did not respond to any stimuli, he brought out a dish and activated his microtweezers. Carefully, he began removing fragments of the grenade from the human's back. Soundwave activated his own set, usually not used for medical tasks, and began to help.
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It took a joor for the medic and Soundwave to pick the pieces of grenade out of the human, the Cassettes, and Soundwave himself, and the medic scanned the human every hour or so, giving him a little more sedative or pain killer as needed depending on what his scans showed. Soundwave grabbed some blue roll and wiped out his Cassette compartment, wiping away the mixture of blood and energon that had got on every surface, as Dr Syn got Frenzy to help connect Sam up to the blood and saline Barricade had managed to get for Sam. Dr Syn wrapped bandages around sterile pads he put on Sam's back and round the torso, carefully stuck dressings over the injuries on his limbs, and finished up by wrapping him, minus arms, in a piece of fabric, toga-style.
During this time the other medic, Headfixer, had strapped Vortex down to a table and taken him offline ready for repairs, retrieved Swindle's remains, covered them with a tarp, and cleaned up the damage, debris, and spilled fluids at the site of the attack.
Soundwave recalled all of his Cassettes, and then looked at the human.
"Swiftstrike-defended-Cassettes-at-cost-to-himself. Also, energon-has-been-combined."
"I believe the latter was accidental, Soundwave," the medic said.
"That-not-relevant,-and-Swiftstrike-defended-Cassettes-intentionally."
"He certainly seems to have shielded them from the worst, but I would recommend he not try and be a shield again, his back is going to bear some extensive but very interesting-looking scars," Dr Syn remarked.
"Is Swiftstrike-safe-to-be-moved?" Soundwave asked.
"Well, he's got enough sedative to be insensate for the next six hours, and enough painkillers to keep him pain free for a bit longer," the medic said. "He's been fortunate to have not broken any bones, but he's going to come out in some impressive bruises by tomorrow. But he's not going to be harmed if he's moved, no. Why do you ask?"
"Until-other-dissidents-identified,-Swiftstrike-needs-to-recover-in-safety," Soundwave explained. "Swiftstrike-now-family; Soundwave-will-keep-Swiftstrike-safe." Soundwave picked up the human teen, and opened his Cassette compartment. He carefully lowered Sam into it, making sure his blood and saline bags did not snag, and then closed it again.
"Swiftstrike-now-Soundwave's-responsibility."
