A million, billion energon goodies go out to Bee and Khalthar for getting my butt into gear

Chapter 188 - The Study of Medics

(RPOV)

There were precisely eighteen things left on his to-do list before he could crawl into berth with his mate. The highest priority of which was the final check-ups of the advance force, the physical examination of Soundwave's Symphony to ensure her vaccinations were up to date, her physical well-being was at proper levels and to ensure that there were no diseases within her system to affect the populace of the NEST base.

From the moment he had begun the task of ensuring the well-being of the NEST forces, the soldiers had protested the lengths for which he enacted it.

"Ratchet, humans get colds, it happens," Will had told him in exasperation. "We have an immune system that gets exercised by getting those little colds. Surviving doesn't mean avoiding every germ in existence!"

That had turned out to be true, actually. So, instead of isolating every ill member of NEST, Ratchet now collected 'germs.' It was a hobby now, he made a vaccine for everything. Anything that a newcomer to the NEST base had not yet contracted, Ratchet added to their vaccine. Anything that that newcomer had contracted that wasn't part of his programme?

He studied.

It still annoyed the humans. But a great deal of the time the humans annoyed him, too.

Fair trade.

Regardless. Ratchet commed Soundwave, sending the mech the command to bring his spark-mate to the med-bay for her physical.

He'd done that three breem ago. It didn't take the mech that long to walk to the Med-bay.

"Turning left: arrival at Med-bay," Soundwave's voice murmured patiently.

"This place is huge," Symphony's voice commented cheerfully.

Ratchet turned around and snorted.

A holoform of a lanky human male calmly guided Symphony through the human sized doors.

"Gallant of you to show your femme around base," Ratchet stated neutrally.

"Symphony: requires knowledge of Auto-bot base. Reason: -"

"It's her new home," Ratchet grumbled, onlining his holoform and patiently taking the free hand of the willowy little human femme. "I realize that, however she has plenty of time to get acquainted with the NEST base, I only have so much time left to perform the duties which keep stacking up."

"Medic Ratchet: has always found time to attend the minutiae repairs and duties across several vorn of war and peacetimes." Soundwave stated placidly.

Ratchet grunted, carefully leading Symphony to the human sized med-berth and settling her there.

"Now then," he began gruffly.

"May I see you?" Symphony asked patiently, milky eyes watching the middle distance.

"You may," Ratchet nodded patiently, lightly catching the extended hand and guiding it to his face.

"You're a human too?"

"Human formed holoform," Ratchet grunted. "We are capable of assuming a holoform of our scaled down forms, however we typically use a human form when interacting with humans. Saves the processor ache of size differentials if nothing else."

"Fascinating," Symphony murmured, continuing to 'look' at him.

Ratchet chose to use those few moments to observe Soundwave's holoform; a tall, lanky human male. Not lanky, really, there was no ungracefulness in the motions of his limbs, rangy perhaps. His features were similar to the angular, hawklike countenances of the fliers' holoforms. Stronger though, where the fliers typically had some small amount of effeminate attributes about them, Soundwave had seemingly eschewed that. His hair was short-cropped, 'clean cut' the soldiers termed it. An idle zooming in of optics proved that the mech hadn't bothered to add even the traditional stubble of the human males' ever growing beards.

"You already know the cause of my blindness, I can only assume you scanned me," Symphony commented patiently. Ratchet turned his attention to the little femme again.

"Scanning only goes so far," he immediately, gruffly informed the femme. "Scanning you when you're ninety feet away doesn't let me get in close to see if I can repair the damage to your eyes, or if they should be replaced. Scanning also doesn't give me the answer to the question of whether you would want a new pair of optics or not. Definitely a new pair, by the way, your vitreous body is completely opaque."

He watched as the femme paused, obviously thinking.

"No pressure either way," he added calmly, lightly patting the femme's hand. "I am going to give you a shot however."

"For?" Symphony asked patiently. Ratchet looked at her in surprise, usually the prospect of a shot was enough to have most of his patients howling protest.

"The half dozen or so viruses that have gone around this base that you have not been exposed to, as well as the standard broad spectrum I give the rest of the NEST soldiers." Ratchet shrugged. "You know, Smallpox, Ebola, Anthrax, Bubonic Plague..."

"Bubonic Plague?" Symphony asked. She sounded rather amused.

"Simply because there has not been a massive resurgence of the plague for a vorn doesn't mean the bacteria doesn't sill exist!" Ratchet growled at the femme. "And judging by the history of your species you are long overdue another of those resurgences! I'm not taking any chances with the humans under my care, the more up to date your vaccine the less time I need to spend figuring out which disease you may have caught the next time you are ill, is that understood?"

(MnPOV)

There was a fine trail of energon following him. That was bad.

::. Cease Motion!.:: Scalpel commanded. There was a trail of energon following him, so he obeyed that command.

Not that Megatron was particularly good at following the commands of his inferiors, but Scalpel was the only bot capable of aiding him now.

It took effort, but he managed it, a brief, hesitant burst of thrusters in the correct direction brought him to a dead standstill.

Floating motionless in space as a tiny crab bot skittered across his frame, addressing the leak in one of his lines.

The only bonus of laying motionless in space? He was large enough that the little drops of energon chose to return to him.

They were invisible, in a way, floating in space, there was so much emptiness out here, such a vast degree of endlessness, that even his impressive size was dwarfed.

Rather like the crab bot skittering around on his frame, catching the tiny drops of energon, directing it to the gashes in his frame.

Feeding the nanites.

::. Attend recharge!.:: Scalpel commanded him.

Megatron growled, nothing irritated him more than the prospect of having to obey his inferior's commands.

But Scalpel was the only bot capable of aiding him now.

So Megatron stepped his processors down into the half-stasis of dangerous surroundings.

In the darkness, one optic remained online, a red light of defiant life burning with the rest of the stars.

(MPOV)

I smiled at the loopy grin plastered on my mate's faceplates. Optimus was down for the count, I wasn't far behind him, but there were a few systems due to begin wearing out in earnest in the next half-vorn.

In truth I could leave them, but I didn't want to.

In the midst of battle, in times of duress, stress, the clocking on each and every part of my mate's frame would be tested to the breaking point, the ageing cycle fast-forwarded.

Simply because in the present: after a thorough bout of interfacing, and rells of energon surging through our frames the most worn areas scanned as remaining sufficient for another forty years didn't mean jack.

Those forty years could easily be reduced to twenty. Ten.

I had energon to spare, a number of cells solidifying nicely in my torso.

"Worry wort," my Optimus mumbled, reaching out and lightly stroking my cheek.

"I'll not have my decrepit mate failing to keep up with me," I murmured teasingly, lightly feathering a kiss along his collar struts. In an instant, my Optimus was fully online, looking worriedly up at me.

"No you didn't leave me unsatisfied," I murmured in amusement, lightly stroking a couple of fingers across his lip plating. "I'm going to collapse and stay twined against you in my recharge in a few minutes."

"You simply can't resist fixing what will break eventually, can you, my Kae?" my Optimus murmured with a small smile, resuming his gentle caress across my cheek, neck struts and body.

"One of the things my mother imparted on me, before she left for the Well," I murmured with a small smile.

"And that is?"

"Leave it in better condition than you found it," I murmured fondly, gently closing the hatch in my mate's abdominal plating, protecting the circuitry once more. The magnetic seals engaged again, closing out any outside interference.

I crawled over my mate somewhat, our motions synchronized as our bodies intertwined into the place that was mutually, the most comfortable place in the universe.

"I love you, my Kae," my Optimus murmured softly.

"Good," I smiled. "Because you're going to be stuck with me for a long, long time, Ωmy OptimusΩ."

(ShWPOV)

"It is unfortunate, you were promising." Shockwave mused, stroking his finger down the subject's body. "Many of you were."

Shockwave stood back from the unseeing optics of the femme. The carbon units were fascinating to study, their squishy frames repulsive, but their bio-energies extraordinary.

A web of scavenged neural fibres wove through and around the dozen or so he'd captured. They'd screamed, of course.

They all screamed.

It was the nature of test subjects, no matter the height of their intelligence.

On occasion he'd grown fond of one or two of them, tried to explain that he was going to make them better than they were.

But most of the time he'd ignored them.

"Your planet will not be here for much longer," Shockwave informed his subjects, not that he expected them to understand. "Don't worry though, you won't see it crumble. As pathetically tiny as you are, there is something to be said about strength in numbers, insects. Your warriors have learned it well. Good bye, my darlings, it's unfortunate that your race will not exist for much longer, there is such potential for your sparks!"

Shockwave looked around again, scanning his subjects as they powered down, each giving out a final screech as a surge of electricity erased them.

He didn't bother to look back as driller swept him into the crumbly regolith, he had all of the pertinent data on the subjects logged already.

As tended to happen when driller was in the area repeatedly: the warehouse long abandoned by the humans collapsed into the sinkhole of his departure.