AN: Not much happens as of yet but it´s a necessary precursor for the closer for this first part of the story.
When a signal that should have been silenced forever appeared on one of the console´s screens Ratchet was ready to throw a fit. It was bad enough they´d lost one of their own but for the primitive technology they were working with to remind them made him want to pull a Bulkhead and break something.
"Blasted earth tech. Cliffjumper´s signal popped back online." He complained to the other bots.
"Who´s Cliffjumper?" Asked Mayhem while leaning over to peer at the screen. Solarflare gently elbowed her to remain still, but that didn´t mean she couldn´t attempt to get a peek at the action.
Optimus unconsciously took a few steps forward in curiosity. He´d been positive they´d never see their fallen teammate again. "How is that possible?"
"It isn´t. Another bug. The system´s chock-full of them." The medbot gestured with a sour face to the crude version of a bridge they´d been forced to use since arriving on Earth.
Radical darted between the legs of team Prime and stopped right on front of the controls, craning his neck upwards to try and get a better view. "Let me take a look, we barely had problems with ours."
"Step away from our equipment, youngling. You´re much too you to use it properly." Ratchet stepped in front of the small bot. The equipment was already crude at best, no need for tiny little digits messing around with it.
"If there´s any chance Cliff´s alive…" Arcee wasted to believe. If there was even the smallest chance her friend was alive she wanted to do everything to get him back home to them.
"Ratchet, prepare the sickbay. We may need it." The Autobot leader instructed their medic. They were about to go on a, very likely, dangerous rescue mission.
"Hey!" Mayhem position herself right in front of Optimus and looked expectantly into his optics while flashing her sweetest smile. Could this be her first mission? Rescue a fellow bot from the claws of the Decepticons? She could prove her fighting skills right there on the field against hordes of Vehicons! "What can we do?"
"Remain with Ratchet." Was the underwhelming response the seeker got before Optimus headed towards the groundbridge.
"Aww."
Ratchet gave a loud sigh at the prospect of babysitting duty. There he was, a capable medic trained by the best and a war veteran stuck looking after a bunch of unpredictable Makers with a triple-changer that could return at any given moment and a too-curious-for-his-own-good seekerlet. He onlined the groundbridge with the thought that the sooner the others left the sooner they´d return.
"Autobots, roll out." Called Optimus while making a short run to the bright green portal and transforming into his alt-mode along with his warriors, leaving to the prospective rescue of Cliffjumper.
Once again Mayhem ´awwed´ but this time it was directed at the white and green seeker. "Mom, how come you don´t have a cool catchphrase like that?"
"She does! It was-" Airachnid started before Doomsday came up from behind her and clamped a servo around her faceplates, cutting her off before she could even get halfway through her sentence.
"You´ve done your part for the day. And stop trying to bite me." The Forger help up her servos and backed away shortly after from the struggling purple femme before she got either bitten or stabbed by one of the spider arms.
With a huff Airachnid shot Doomsday a dirty look. "I ought to gouge your optics out for this."
Solarflare resisted the urge to hide behind her servos and decided it was time for a change on the conversation subject. "Could we use the bridge to visit Cybertron? There´s some things the Makers stashed away before leaving Cybertron that could be useful."
"Negative." Answered Ratchet before turning to work on the control panel. "Since we don´t currently possess the means or the energon required for intergalactic travel…"
"You´re stuck here… like us." Finished Mayhem.
"With the likes of you, yes."
Seemingly unaffected by the unspoken insult the purple and white femme pressed on. Approaching some human-sized equipment she knelt down and examined it with curious optics before pointing at the mess of cables. "What is this anyway?"
"Broken, don´t touch." Grumbled the medic before an error message appeared on one of the screens and he had to hold himself from using some rather colorful language. "Keep your servos off our equipment. All of it."
Radical took another change to approach the bigger mech at the console and get a better look at what was happening. "How come you´re using human computers?"
"It certainly isn´t by choice, it was handed down from the previous tenants when we inherited this former missile silo." The Autobot proclaimed a little smugly at displaying his resourcefulness. "I make modifications as I see fit." A dozen more error textboxes took up all the screens a soon as he finished his sentence. A surprised look took over his faceplates before going back to his usual scowl. He needed to fix whatever was happening before the others commed for a groundbridge back to base.
"I think I can fix that." Radical approached the command station, pulled a cable from his wrist and connected it to a port.
Ratchet watched the sparkling plug himself directly into their systems with surprise, but if the Forget was in fact his Carrier it than explained the more than direct approach. "Really? I know this is complex technology, don´t you? I mean it isn´t a sparkling´s toy."
A part of Radical´s forearm slid open to reveal a keypad and he hummed while pressing a few keys. The error number told him it was one of the simpler types of bugs and easily fixed. A few short moments later he closed the panel back up and disconnected the cable. "Now try."
Still doubtful, Ratchet turned back to the screens and was greeted with all the error text boxes disappearing to leave the machine to resume its normal function. "How did you…?" In his surprised state the medbot couldn´t help but let slip verbal proof of his surprise. The sparking had actually managed to fix the bugs in record time.
Radical swung back and forth on his pedes, servos clasped behind his wings, with a knowing smile. "You´re not the only one with groundbridge building experience."
Doomsday knelt down and affectionately rubbed her faceplates against her son´s, her actions being received with an equal mix of embarrassment and pride. He may not have been battlefield material but he could always help with the more technical aspects back at the base. "That´s my pride and joy." She proclaimed.
Ratchet watched in fascination at the affection display between Carrier and sparkling. It had been so long since he´d even seen such a pair, let alone both sharing such a tender moment. The war had taken so much from everyone and with sparklings possessing weaker armor and protoforms out of all Cybertronians any caught in the crossfire had their spark snuffed faster than a field medic could get to them. He had his fair share of teammates offline on both is operating table and arms but when those fragile flames of life went out they hit him harder than any weapon ever could.
"Ratchet, bridge us back!" Optimus´ comm call brought the medic out of his thoughts and he quickly turned back to the controls. "Use the arrival coordinates… NOW!"
The groundbridge came to life and the Autobots all came out at an accelerated speed, the familiar blue glow of an energon explosion on their tail justifying why they were in such a rush. Ratchet killed the power to the portal as soon as everyone was back before the flames could go through, a second too late and someone´s afplate could´ve ended up a little melted.
"Whoa." Awed Mayhem and Radical.
"Cutting it a bit close. How about Cliffjumper?" Asked Ratchet, not having seen their teammate come though the portal along everyone else. The signal must´ve turned out to be a bug after all. They´d ended up almost offlined in an energon explosion because of primitive Earth technology.
Optimus, Bumblebee and Bulkhead looked down dejectedly. They´d all seen their former teammate fall down into a pile of energon crystals right before Starscream dropped the bomb that set of the explosion and flew away. None wanted to admit they´d lost Cliffjumper for a second time in such a short timeframe.
Not taking the time to even read the room Mayhem jumped in, the fraction of the action she´d seen having ignited her adventurous spark. "Man, you guys sure love blowing up stuff! Next time can I come with?"
Arcee appeared from behind Optimus snarled. Even with a smaller frame type the blue femme knew how to command respect by means of intimidation, causing the seeker´s wings to immediately drop in surprise.
"Mayhem, a little restraint if you please. I´d remember if I hadn´t taught you that." Solarflare chided her daughter. Her younger offspring had always lacked some capability to filter both her actions and words and now that they were in the company of non-Makers it would be important to exercise even more restraint.
"Arcee, what did you see?" Optimus wanted to know why Arcee had looked so surprised just before letting go of Cliffjumper. She would have never done that on purpose so why had it happened?
Hugging herself close the two-wheeler though back to the demon wearing her best friend´s face. "Not Cliff. At least not anymore. He was mutated… butchered. Like something from those Con experiments during the war." The femme emitted a noise distressingly similar to a computer powering down and fell to her knees, barely managing to remain upright by propping herself up on a nearby crate.
Bumblebee beeped gently and offered to assist his teammate.
"I´m fine. Just dizzy."
Paying no mind to her rejection the scout still helped Arcee to sit down on the crate instead of remaining leaning against it.
Mayhem, now ashamed of her outburst, picked up radical and held him close in her arms close enough to whisper into his audio receptors. "Rad, didn´t you say the Bot you saw was red?"
"Yeah." The smaller seeker was confused at the question until realization dawned upon him. The mech who´d interrupted his specimen hunt had been Cliffjumper, of course. How could he have forgotten the one who´d caused the explosion that could´ve taken his wings?
"We didn´t see anyone matching that description here, did we?"
"Now we know who Cliffjumper was."
Ratchet had went to pick up one of his tools while Bumblebee helped Arcee steady herself and started scanning the femme for any injuries soon after. He reached for her left servo when the scans accused an unknown substance, a sickly purple hued stain marring the top of her left servo.
The medic stared at the unidentifiable dark substance. "What is this?" He couldn´t recognize it no matter how much he racked his processor for anything even close to what he was seeing.
"Don´t know. Cliff was covered in it. Leaking it."
Ratchet took a sample for further examination and decided the best course of action was to eliminate any residue off Arcee´s frame. "Go take a decontamination bath. Now." If it was organic there was a high change she´d not be affected but if it was of Cybertronian origin… The Cybonic Plague came to mind and he shuddered at the dark thought.
Bumblebee put a servo on Arcee´s back and helped her to do as the medbot instructed. If she was dizzy the fall could put the dents in her the Vehicons didn´t get the chance to.
"I hate to barge in this delicate time but I hope you haven´t forgotten about us." Airachnid called from her perch atop of a pile of crates. It was in her programming to seek more enclosed spaces, more open ones made her feel exposed, vulnerable. While she didn´t still have her quarters assigned at the new base she figured to go for higher ground as a compromise.
The Autobot leader nodded towards the multi-legged femme. "Almost, but not quite. I will be assigning members of my team to pair with some you during a trial period of time. Just until you all can get settled in, of course. Bulkhead, Mayhem will de under your watch."
"Awesome!" Mayhem fist pumped into the air. She couldn´t wait to have a sparring match against the wrecker.
"No funny business." Solarflare warned both her daughter and her temporary guardian of sorts. More her daughter than him.
"Aww." That got Mayhem an authoritative look. "I mean, yeah, of course. Naturally. Sure thing."
"Just like Flare." Airachnid whispered into the air and got a hushed giggle as a response from the Forger while Solarflare clenched her servos in annoyance.
"Bumblebee, you´ll watch over Radical and Doomsday." The scout got a friendly wave from the seekerlet still in the arms of the heavy-duty seeker and a smile from the Carrier. "Ratchet."
"Busy." The medic had chosen to turn to look at a monitor moments before, wanting to avoid any responsibility in the mess he predicted would occur with any Maker he´d be assigned to.
"Airachnid, if you don´t mind." Responded Optimus, unfazed at the response of his friend.
"I do mind. I have work to do. Like figuring out what Arcee brought with her."
"Oh do cheer up, I´ll only bite if you ask. Not that you could afford it but still." Airachnid couldn´t resist pushing the medic´s buttons and got the expected grumbled response. Oh, she might have had to share the same base as that wrenched bot but she could make it tolerable somehow.
Glancing at the two-wheeler coming out of her decontamination Optimus handed out the last available charge. "Arcee, I know he´s not here but you´ll be in charge of Silverbot."
"Whoa, still dizzy." The femme gave a distinctively fake swoon at the task handed to her.
"You´re fine, say´s your physician." Ratchet gave a thumbs up with his back turned to her, not wanting to have a triple-changer as a charge. He´d take the spider-femme over that mech any day.
"Well, I can´t do that if he´s not here, can I?"
"Oh, Silver´s on the roof." Mayhem pointed upwards. "He never goes far when he has an argument. He´d always end up moping on the roof back on our base and I bet if you pull up the surveillance from up top you´ll see I´m right."
Ratchet stopped what he was doing to follow Mayhem´s suggestion and lo and behold there was Silverbot sitting on the edge of the cliff that hid their base. He had his back turned to the camera but the previously held tension could barely be seen, although still noticeable in his stiffly upright wings.
"You can go talk to my brother if you wanna, he´s probably cooled off enough by now."
"And say what?" What could one say to an angry triple-changer without the promise of a few dents?
"How about ´Hi, I´m Arcee. We´ll be seeing each other a lot more often so I´d like to get along.´?"
"I´m babysitting him, not trying to pick him up."
"Arcee, if you´d please and go have a talk with him." Optimus encouraged the femme but he knew she´d perceive his request as an order.
With a grumble to rival Ratchet´s she headed up to have the most uncomfortable talk she never wanted to have. "Fine. But if he throws a punch I won´t hold back."
"My warning also stands for you." Called out Solarflare before Arcee disappeared from view.