Chapter 11 - Setting up Camp
(MPOV)
"Mikaela? Kae?" Optimus' voice murmured gently.
"Morning?" I asked, not opening my eyes.
"Indeed."
"Morning Mikaela!" Epps called out, opening Optimus' door. "Don't stab me!"
"Morning Epps!" I grinned, swinging my legs over the side of the bunk and standing.
"Robert," he grinned, "If you want."
"Kae, if you like," I laughed back as he helped me out of the cab.
"How's the leg today?"
"Don't know yet, morning adrenaline rush. Won't feel anything until I fall over." I grinned. "Is the coffee any better when it's drunk in the actual morning?"
"Nope," Chance grinned walking across the hangar, he was holding a cane toward me.
"Yes! Sweet sweet mobility!" I crowed, walking forward to accept the cane, everyone froze. "Whaat?" I looked down, expecting to see at least a bit of yellow on the bandages.
"Wow, you weren't kidding about morning adrenaline," Epps looked at me with raised eyebrows.
"I honestly thought I was kidding," I frowned, cautiously unwrapping the bandages. Fully healed skin, looking bizarre with stitches still holding it closed greeted several eyes.
There wasn't even a scar, just a swath of paler skin, waiting for a tan.
"Whoa, you gotta show us how to do that," Chance murmured as he stared at my leg.
"I didn't," I frowned. "Ratchet!?" I began running barefoot toward our shared work area.
"For Primus sake Mikaela!" Ratchet shouted back at me. "You're going to tear your stitches out if you don't stop doing that!"
"Ratchet what the hell happened to my leg?" I stared at him, walking at a more sedate pace the last three steps.
"You got bitten by a Decepticon grappling... hook..." he trailed off and stared at the healed skin. "I'll be a glitch."
The Medi-bot stared at my leg for a long moment then shook his head, hiding the long glance at Optimus from casual view. He onlined his holoform and sat me down, beginning to delicately take out the stitching again.
"Well, I guess Optimus' nanites figured you needed repairing," he stated dryly. "I should have scrapping thought of that. Actually..." he frowned, "They're drawn to energon fluctuations, feeding off of it, that's what causes rapid healing... I didn't think they could be adapted to heal hydro-carbon based flesh..." He shook his head again and glanced at the confused Sargent and Lieutenant, "something for me to start up a couple of backup processors over."
I glanced at the still confused men behind me.
"It means he's going to essentially start up a couple of extra brains in the back of his mind to figure out how to controllably change the nanites that repair them to heal wounds like they did mine. Multi...tasking." I froze and thought for a moment, turning slowly to face Ratchet again.
"Ratchet," I said quietly. "Wouldn't placing the nanites I'm probably playing host to onto someone else and exposing the wound to a very low level of Energon, something like one eighth plasmic rell per square centimetre draw and feed the nanites to repair that area specifically?"
"A beneficial form of highly targeted radiation therapy," Ratchet murmured. "Energon doesn't generally affect humans, that's why your race never really discovered it. Brilliant." he stared into the middle distance for a moment before visibly jumping.
"How do you know what a rell is?" he demanded. It was my turn to jump, then frown.
"I have absolutely no idea," I murmured, crossing my arms and staring at the middle distance myself. "There's no way the nanites built me a secondary processor..."
"You don't have room for it," Ratchet agreed. "So unless..." he trailed off.
"I managed to write it down or integrate it somehow..." I continued, trailing off with a frown of my own.
"You probably picked it up from Optimus," Ratchet finished. "His nanites might have passed information to you, Primus knows I've seen stranger."
"We'll go with that explanation," I grinned, "what's on the menu for today?"
"Two full services and a dozen problem children," Ratchet grumbled. "That's on top of whatever damage this lot manages to do to each other."
"Well I'll get the services out of the way so that I can work on the problem children without them hanging over my head," I announced, immediately walking toward the paperwork stacked on a workbench.
"Food first," Ratchet rumbled at me with a frown.
"You gotta let me wake up before you expect me to digest things," I grinned, looking over my shoulder at him.
The bot rolled his optics and got back to work on the arm he was repairing.
We worked in comparative silence, I finished the services quickly and moved onto the first, turning on the ignition. Accessories, no tickover. I frowned and grabbed a hammer as a half dozen soldiers walked past with Lennox in the lead. Crawling under the hummer I tapped on the starter solenoid. Back out again and turning on the ignition it fired up immediately.
"You fixed that truck with a hammer!" Graham shouted, pointing at the now roughly running vehicle excitedly. I looked over at him and began laughing.
"Temporary fix," I smiled, "starter solenoid is oxidized, that's an easy swap out." I tilted my head toward the engine with a frown. "Though I think the timing's a bit off, what do you think Ratch?"
"Belt's probably stretched," the bot nodded, not looking up. "Solenoids are in the green cabinet, F5."
"No waiting for parts?" I grinned, "best shop ever." I wandered to the cabinets, pulled out the solenoid and took a minute to look at each of the drawers. Familiarizing myself with Ratchet's organization.
Parts on the table I swung into the truck and depressed the clutch. The gears ground. I swung neutral and pumped the clutch, still grinding.
"You bastard," I grumbled.
"Clutch gone?"
"Myep."
"Red case, C5."
"Thanks Ratch."
I cut the engine, made sure it was still in neutral and fired up the winch, attaching the free end to a hook in the floor and towing it to my workspace. In minutes I was on top of the engine, dismantling it.
"Don't you want coveralls?" Ratchet asked mildly.
"Got some my size?" I glanced over at him, he looked around for a second and grabbed a small bundle of cloth, tossing it at me. I caught it easily and shook it out.
"Thanks Ratch," I grinned, pulling on the lightweight suit and climbing back on the engine. We worked in silence again.
I was elbow deep in the gearbox when Ratchet straightened.
"It's noon, go eat," he rumbled.
"Clutch first, food after," I grunted. "I hate quitting halfway through fixing a clutch, you never know who might come by, press it and shoot everything out of place." I waved a spanner idly in punctuation before attacking another bolt.
That earned a snort of agreement.
It was dark outside when I finally stood up with a groan, closing the hood on the second hummer of the day with a quiet click and walking to the workbench I'd commandeered for the day, making short work of logging the repairs and serial numbers. I looked at the row of four completed vehicles and nodded with a small smile.
"If you go to bed without eating you're not going to hear the end of my nagging," Ratchet's holoform stated behind me.
"Okay but I can't promise I'm going to eat much," I replied, turning to face him with a half smile tugging at my lips.
He glared at me and made a shooing motion with his hands as I stepped out of the coveralls. "Go eat." he rumbled irritably.
"Okay Ratchet," I laughed, walking toward the mess hall and the noise emanating from within.
"Oh and Mikaela?" Ratchet added, watching me go.
"Yeah Ratch?" I looked over my shoulder.
"You're hired," he grinned. "Now quit trying to prove yourself, I'd've been happy if you were halfway through the first problem child by the evening."
I stared at him for a second and began laughing.
"Thanks Ratch," I grinned at him, trotting toward the smells of food.
"She has emerged!" Chance bellowed as I walked through the doors.
"I live!" I grinned, picking up a tray and spinning it in my hands, "it's a miracle."
Lennox jumped up and waved the server to sit back down, ducking behind the hot table and grabbing a spoon.
"Wow, gettin' served by a Major, I feel so special," I grinned at the man.
"Question of the day is: do you eat meat? 'Cause if you do that Lasagna is awesome," Lennox grinned, the spoon hovering.
"You. Are enabling an habitual carnivore," I grinned at him.
"Oh thank god," a man dressed in white laughed, emerging from the kitchens with a towel in his hands. "Lennox had me terrified that I'd have to figure out how to do tofu things."
"If you really want I can give you some tofu recipes, though I can't promise I'll take them over animal by-products." I laughed then looked at my tray. "Jeeze Major, that's a portion for an army."
"It's Will. You haven't eaten all day," Will stated firmly, loading my tray further.
"I'm a tiny person, I eat tiny portions," I protested as he steered me toward the table to sit between Chance and Robert.
"Right so for the next couple of nights you're in the bunkhouse with us until they can get your rooms cleared up," Lennox stated with an apologetic look on his face.
"Okay one question," I stated, taking a small bite of lasagna, "any of you snore?"
There were several pointing fingers and more protestations.
"Excellent," I grinned.
"Said what now?" Epps looked at me curiously.
"Where's a more comforting place to wake up than a room full of snoring soldiers? If soldiers feel safe enough to sleep deeply enough to snore? I figure I can go back to sleep." I grinned at them.
"Lemme guess," an enormous african snorted, grinning at me. "You listen to the crickets."
"If the crickets are singing, it's safe to sleep," I nodded. He offered me a fist, and I bumped my knuckles against his with a grin.
The next couple of hours passed quickly, an evening spent shooting the shit.
"So you stole cars as a kid?" Epps asked me finally.
"Yeah," I blushed, looking down.
"S'okay, I did too," the Sargent grinned. "What's your fastest?"
"Ghost car or wire?" I asked quickly.
"Both,"
"Ghost cars with On-star were always two minutes, it took that long to convince the folks to turn it on. Hotwire I was thirty seconds out the space. If I wasn't panicked."
"Where were your stompin' grounds?"
"No man's land mostly, you had a death wish if you stole out of marked territory."
"You weren't affiliated?" Epps looked at me in shock.
"We got lucky," I said softly, "had a few try to stake claim, and a bad fight to stay out, but we did it," I stared into the middle distance before shaking myself into the present.
"Man, the only way an asset can stay unclaimed is if you had a gang of your own." Epps shook his head unbelievingly.
"Well we did, sort of," I said with a sad smile, "Brick, Paddy, Rig, Dad and Sho. We weren't a gang, we were a unit." a memory surfaced, I began laughing.
"What's the joke?" Will asked curiously.
"Oh, we were a true mixed bag," I laughed, "Uncle Sho was Buddhist, Rig was Lutheran, Dad and Brick were agnostic and Paddy was Irish Catholic."
"Whoa, what's that make you?" Chance laughed.
"Oh I went modified Buddhist," I grinned, leaning back in my chair. "Uncle Sho was walking around looking like the cat that got the cream when that happened."
"Alright boys and girl," Lennox finally announced, "Mikaela's going to be here a while, we can cross-examine her later."
He caught my eye and gestured for me to follow.
"Grand tour!" he grinned, catching my arm and leading me to one side of the hangar. An enormous set of mats were laid out with equipment set off to one side.
"Workout space," he grinned, then pointed to a catwalk covered in computers, "that's communication central, and the barracks are this way." He led me out of the hanger and toward a long apartment block, looking more like a motel than a barracks.
"You know you took all the fun out of saying you'd be sleeping on a bunk bed with a bunch of men." Lennox told me with a grin, opening one of the doors. "We don't even have bunks, this one is yours, Chance is beside you here and Jacobs is on the other side."
"Oh wow," I looked at the tiny room with a small smile, "This isn't half bad, there's a window. Excellent!"
"You're way too easygoing," Will laughed.
"Joys of Buddhism, spartan living is easy when you know you have what you truly need in life. It's hard to see anything when you're dragging an enormous suitcase behind you." I grinned back at him. "Those trunks with tiny wheels are useless off the beaten path."
"No, see you're supposed to say something flaky so I can tell you we'll make a soldier out of you yet, not prove you've already adjusted in forty-eight hours," Will snorted, halfway out the door he asked, "you want a wakeup call?"
"That'll be brilliant," I smiled at him. "Hey Will?"
"Yeah?" he stuck his head back through the door.
"Thanks for pulling me out of the frying pan," I said quietly.
"No problem," he grinned at me, a relaxed, real grin. The grin of a new, true friend. An ally. "Have a good sleep."
The door closed quietly behind him. I looked around my new room with a smile, there were far worse places to live.
(JaPOV)
Will shooed the unit to their beds, Jacobs glanced at the girl again and shrugged.
A girl who slept when the crickets were singing was okay in his books. However she was going to be his neighbour. Which meant they were going to be sharing a bathroom.
Not that he really minded. Girls were fairly clean, after all. And a civilian girl probably wasn't going to wake up until at least seven or eight in the morning. Jacobs got into his small room and promptly began his evening routine. Polish boots, lay out uniform, iron, square away his possessions, sweep the floor, push-ups, sit-ups. The sound of Will's voice wafted through the wall.
"You know you took all the fun out of saying you'd be sleeping on a bunk bed with a bunch of men." Lennox stated with a grin, opening the door. "We don't even have bunks, this one is yours, Chance is beside you here and Jacobs is on the other side."
"Oh wow," Mikaela's voice stated with a smile, "This isn't half bad, there's a window. Excellent!"
Jacobs couldn't help but smile. That was a good attitude.
"You're way too easygoing," Will laughed.
"Joys of Buddhism, spartan living is easy when you know you have what you truly need in life. It's hard to see anything when you're dragging an enormous suitcase behind you." Mikaela retorted in a laughing tone. "Those trunks with tiny wheels are useless off the beaten path."
Excellent attitude for a girl.
"No, see you're supposed to say something flaky so I can tell you we'll make a soldier out of you yet, not prove you've already adjusted in forty-eight hours," Will snorted, he sounded like he was walking, "you want a wakeup call?"
"That'll be brilliant," Mikaela stated, she still sounded like she was smiling. "Hey Will?"
'don't wake me up before eight...' Jacobs thought.
"Yeah?" the Major's voice asked.
"Thanks for pulling me out of the frying pan," Mikaela stated quietly, Jacobs admittedly did a double take, that was way too mature for an eighteen year old.
"No problem," Will replied with a grin in his voice. "Have a good sleep."
Jacobs rose automatically as a light knock sounded on his door.
"Major," Jacobs rumbled calmly, opening the door.
"Too loud?" Will asked curiously.
"Nah," Jacobs grinned, he raised his voice slightly so the girl could hear him. "She sounds way older than eighteen."
"Hey Jacobs?" Mikaela's voice asked shyly through the wall.
"Yeah Mikaela?" Jacobs asked curiously.
"If we're sharing a bathroom, you wanna pound on my door when you're done?" she asked curiously. "Serve as a double wakeup call and me not stealing all the hot water?"
"I like her," Jacobs rumbled with a grin. "But you know I wake up at five right?"
"Perfect," Mikaela laughed.
"Seriously?" Jacobs demanded through the wall.
"Rule twenty-eight," Mikaela laughed softly. "In unfamiliar territory, follow the example of the locals."
"I like her," Jacobs grinned at the Major. Will laughed and waved goodnight. Jacobs settled down on his bed and lightly tapped the wall.
"Night Mikaela," he called out quietly.
"Kae," Mikaela stated just as quietly. "If you're my friendly voice in the wall, call me Kae."
"Friendly voice in the wall, you've been to prison Kae?" Jacobs asked curiously.
"Once..." Mikaela stated quietly. "Juvie. An experience I'd just as soon forget as talk about."
Jacobs nodded to himself.
"Night Kae," he called out gently.
"Night Jacobs," Mikaela called back, she sounded like she was smiling.
Jacobs listened to the quiet rustle of sheets in the next room for a moment before the barracks fell silent.
A solid hour of perfect silence.
Too quiet.
"Kae," Jacobs whispered. He wondered if she could hear him.
"Jacobs," Kae's voice murmured. "Is it always this quiet?"
"Unfortunately," he murmured. The sky chose that moment to unleash a crack of thunder, rain began pounding the roof.
"That's better," Mikaela murmured with a snort.
Jacobs chuckled and rolled onto his side, asleep the next minute.
He woke up and hit his alarm before it went off.
Two minutes to five.
Jacobs was on his feet and stretching, he wandered into the bathroom and had a good, hot shower. Out ten minutes later he whacked on Kae's door.
"Morning Jacobs," Mikaela stated cheerfully through the door. "What's the dress code? Is the coast clear for me to scramble to the bathroom in a towel?"
Jacobs looked down at the towel wrapped around his waist.
"Yeah, you're good," he called back with a snort.
Kae opened the door, clad in a towel and carrying her clothes on her hip.
The two of them surveyed each other for a moment.
The both of them promptly snorted in amusement and traded spots.
"Later Jacobs," Mikaela laughed softly.
"Later Kae," he grinned.
Yeah, he liked the girl, easy to get along with. He got into his room and shrugged into his clothes, stretching and taking a minute to get into the right frame of mind to face the day.
He opened the door to see Mikaela spotlessly clean, dressed and carrying her towel.
"No way you're that fast," Jacobs snorted.
"I'm going to go work in the shop," Mikaela snorted. "What's the point in getting all the dirt off when I'm gonna be covered in grease in twenty?"
Jacobs reached over and caught her hair lightly.
Wet.
"Washed your hair in the sink?" he asked curiously.
"No, had a shower," Mikaela shrugged, throwing her towel into her room and walking toward the hangar beside him.
"And you're sure you're a girl?" Jacobs snorted. Mikaela promptly tugged the collar of her shirt forward and looked down at her chest before looking up at him.
"Pretty sure, yep," she nodded seriously.
Jacobs was howling with laughter by the time they'd made it to the hangar.
"Morning Ratch!" she called out.
"Go eat food!" the Medi-bot called back irritably.
Mikaela rolled her eyes and grabbed a cup of coffee.