Too Useful To Waste.
Summary: Both the Autobots and the Decepticons know how resourceful and inventive Sam Witwicky was. When Soundwave finds him dying after a battle, he wonders if he has a way to save Sam so his skills are not lost.
Warnings: Character death, minor blood and gore.
Rating: T for safety.
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro and DreamWorks/Paramount. I make no claim to the contrary.
Chapter 9; First Aid
First Aid practically quivered with excitement when his leader, Hot Spot, announced that they had officially entered the solar system of what was to be their new home.
He was anxious to get off the Protectobot ship and explore their new home; he had practically devoured the files that had been sent to them from the Ark. None of the files contained any sensitive material; nothing disastrous would occur if any Decepticon got a hold of it. It was mostly information about what had happened in a place called Mission City, a rough map of the planet with the division of the countries, and general locations of where to and where not to land in case of emergencies.
There was also a data file containing a download of the native language from the area they were based in. He was amazed to learn that the planet actually had over one hundred spoken languages and about just as many writing systems.
It was mind-boggling.
Streetwise and Blades were already in the Twins' betting pool for guessing how many times Prowl crashed his systems trying to learn them all.
He shuddered to think of what would happen if Red Alert tried to do the same.
Prowl was a smart mech, with an excellent processor in his cranial unit, but he just wasn't programmed to learn the nuances of hundreds of languages in such a short amount of time. That was more along the lines of a scout, like Bumblebee, or communications officer, like Soundwave and their very own Blaster.
He himself had bet that Prowl had crashed seven times already. He was pretty sure that he had it right, since he knew Prowls' processor almost better than the mech himself, mainly because he was the one that repaired it when their groups had met up several vorns ago.
First Aid decided that it would probably be a good idea to have a few Prowl- and Red Alert-compatible processors ready for when he arrived on the planet. At least Ratchet would have a few back-ups and could maybe take a break from fixing everyone. Especially Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.
Better make a few for Ratchets use as well.
It would take several hours to reach their rendezvous point with the Ark, more than enough time to make at least two for each mech. After all the vorns of practise, he could build a processor without optics and using only one hand.
Blades still owed him money for that bet.
However, Primus had different plans for the medic. Just as he was about to start on the backups, using both hands this time around, the com in his room beeped. One of his teammates wanted to speak with him.
"Hot Spot to First Aid, are you there?"
"First Aid here, is there a problem?"
"Nothing serious. I just got a communiqué from the Ark."
"What does that have to do with me? You're the leader."
"There's a message from Ratchet for you."
"And you're not sending it to me because…?"
"There was also a message from Optimus, which I need to discuss with everyone. You should come to the bridge; I'll give it to you then. Hot Spot out."
"First Aid out."
Then com line went dead…and First Aid couldn't shake the feeling of dread that entered his Spark.
First Aid was the last mech to reach the bridge, coming in just after Groove.
He sent his older teammate a look, silently asking if he knew anything about why they had been called.
Groove just shrugged. He didn't know anything either.
As soon as the door closed behind the medic, Hot Spot turned on the auto-pilot of their small transport vessel and turned to face his team. The normally energetic leader was very calm, which meant that this was serious business. The dread in First Aids Spark increased, tenfold.
"About three breems ago I received an encrypted message from Optimus Prime. A while ago they received Intel that several Decepticons had arrived on Earth. For their safety, Optimus Prime had the humans that were directly involved in the battle where Megatron was killed moved to a safer location.
"As we all know, Decepticons aren't above going after our defenceless allies in order to get petty revenge. With the help of Red Alert on the Ark, the Earth-based Autobots combed the planet, along with the armies of several ally nations. They turned up nothing.
"Optimus decided then that it was safe to send their newfound allies back to their daily lives. That's when one of the teams was ambushed." Hot Spot was silent, letting his team absorb what he was telling them.
First Aid clenched his fist tightly. It was far from the first time that they had received messages about fellow Autobots being ambushed, but he had hoped that with the defeat of their leader that the Decepticons would retreat to 'lick their wounds', as the humans so eloquently put it, at least for a few vorns.
"Which team?"
Hot Spot looked at him.
"Bumblebee and Hound. They were escorting Samuel James Witwicky, his family unit and Mikaela Banes."
Groove spoke up. "You mean the boy that destroyed Megatron?"
"Yes."
"Were…were there any casualties?"
"Only one. The boy, Sam. From what I read so far, Starscream grabbed him before they noticed the glitch and, well, you all know what he's like."
First Aid looked away, trying to purge horrible memories from his core processor. As a medic he was very much aware of what Starscream could do when he got a hold of defenceless organics. The results…were never pretty.
Blades spoke up next. First Aid was surprised that he had kept quiet this long.
"What's Optimus going to do, then? Is he just going to sit by while the Decepticreeps destroy this planet like they did Cybertron?"
"No, he's already working up a plan to deal with them," said Hot Spot, turning to face the passionate mech. "You, Streetwise and I are to go to the planet to help Optimus and his team."
He turned towards the two more pacifistic members of their unit.
"Groove, you are to go to the Ark and help Red Alert and Inferno set up a stronger defence grid. Soundwave was able to make it past without leaving a trace. You've worked with Blaster before, so you'll know a bit of what to expect."
Groove nodded.
First Aid stepped forward.
"What about me? Shouldn't I head down to the planet to help Ratchet? I'm the only other medic in the sector, and the next closest one is Swoop, who won't reach the planet for quite a while."
Hot Spot shook his head.
"No, Ratchet has something for you to work on the Ark. He needs you to examine some scans he took. He doesn't have the necessary equipment on the planet."
First Aid paused for a while and then nodded in acceptance. As much as he wanted to see his mentor and explore his new home, if Ratchet wanted him to examine some scans, he knew that it must be important.
"Good," Hot Spot looked at his team. "We're nearing the rendezvous coordinates; commence preparations for the docking procedure. We'll leave our ship on the Ark and head towards the planet in our transition forms. We must remember that the natives, for the most part, are unaware of our existence. Let's try not to be the ones to blow our cover, alright?"
"Who us," cracked Streetwise. "We never blow our cover!"
"Oh really?" said Hot Spot. "Then what about that incident on Nebulos?"
"That was an accident!"
"Sure it was."
AN: And yet another chapter done! I hope you guys like this chapter, I worked really hard on it. I wrote this ENTIRE chapter in just about 3 hours. And I know that this chapter follows the same chapter as the other ones, but don't worry, I'm finally done introducing most of the characters that will be appearing in the fic.
There are a few more that I'll bring in, but it won't be for quite a while and by then I shall have a different formula for introducing them.
NEXT WEEK; THE PLOT ACTUALLY ADVANCES AND MORE SPARLING CUTENESS!
Review if you want to see Discord do some cute-Sparkling things. Ideas are welcome and you will receive credit for it if I put it in!