Continuity: G1 Ratchet & First Aid: Five Firsts

"Is it always like this?" I asked as Ratchet paced around the medbay, wincing whenever he put too much weight onto his bad leg, courtesy of a Decepticon sharpshooter in the last skirmish that had cracked his femoral strut. Despite being mostly healed it left him off the frontlines and stuck in his own medbay, slowly attempting to wear a hole in the floor as he paced. But misery loves company or so the human saying goes; I was also restricted to the base due to having just had some more medical upgrades installed.

Thus it was just Hoist out in the line of fire and Ratchet was worrying and fretting as he listened in on the medical commline. So far nothing had been bad enough to call in, just small patches that he could deal with in the field.

"It's too quiet." Ratchet finally said as he stopped pacing to come stand behind me, watching as I reordered our tools for the third time.

"Isn't quiet a good thing?" I'd never been in here during a battle, only afterwards to help with patching up. Defensor was apparently much more useful on the battlefield than I was in the medbay until my apprenticeship was complete, thus I only got back when the worst of the injuries had been seen to. Not that I was complaining, I've barely finished my basic medical training, let alone started on the advanced field medicine and surgical techniques that Ratchet insisted I needed to know.

"Quiet means something bad is going to happen." His words were almost prophetic as several commlines came to life at once, yells to 'watch out' and 'take cover' coming in from several different sources.

The only good news seemed to be that whatever had happened had been indiscriminate as the 'cons were pulling back.

:Ratch, Aid, prep for incoming.: The comm. fell silent, no doubt as he assessed the injuries. :Eleven driving wounded, three critical but stable, one critical, spark fluctuating. ETA one breem:

"That's not good." I said as Ratchet cursed, pulling machines over to the berth furthest from the door. We didn't need to be bowled over by mechs entering and leaving if we were busy.

I set up a spark containment unit just in case it was needed, finishing as Prime hurtled around the corner, an energon coated frame in his arms, Hoist close on his heels.

"Here Prime." Ratchet said, scanning before the frame had touched the berth. "Aid, I'll need your help, Hoist see to the other three, anyone else is to remain outside unless it's something that Wheeljack can deal with. Prime, with respect, get out."

I took a quick look at the mech on the table, energon already pooling beneath the frame and dripping onto the floor and had to clamp down on my fuel tanks instinctive reaction to heave.

"Easy Aid." Ratchet brushed his hand over my arm before continuing to set up an energon feed directly into an energon line running into the spark to stop it from extinguishing from energy depletion. "Focus. Just like I've taught you."

Except this time failure would be a lot more permanent than a hologram shutting down and there was no room for errors, I wouldn't be able to go back and try again.

"I..."

"Get the armour off and start patching energon lines; he's loosing energon quicker than we're replacing it." His voice was calm, settling my pulsing spark, giving me somewhere to start. I cycled a quick vent of air, looking objectively at the crumpled armour. It seemed to be some form of projectile weapon or shrapnel damage that had punched through the armour and torn into the wiring beneath.

Finding the biggest of the holes I started to lift the surrounding armour, parts of it having to be cut free, the whine of my buzzsaw making me cringe.

Reaching for the first line I began to relax. I could do this. Find a damaged line, splice the two ends if it had been cut and bind the split. I could ignore the smaller lines that were already sealing as self repair functions struggled to keep up with demand.

I was almost done and ready to move onto the next area when the alarms on the monitors started to wail.

"Slag. Aid, get the rest of the armour off." Ratchet said before I had worked out what the display was telling me. "Chassis temperature is rising, the coolant system has been compromised somewhere." He already had his saw powered up, stripping armour with a quick efficiency.

"I've got it." A small bit of the shrapnel had lodged in one of the secondary coolant pumps. I had almost missed it, even when looking and from the way Ratchet's face was twisting as he leant over to see for himself it wasn't good.

"Cut the coolant tubes before and after the pump and splice in a bypass line." He said, moving back to extracting debris from around the spark chamber.

All the texts I had been given to read said that rerouting things like that shouldn't be done. "Sir? That..."

"If you can find a new pump, feel free to replace it." He snapped as I shakily grabbed a length of tubing.

Even he was stripped down to his component systems, the redundant parts he usually carried being used quicker than they could be replaced, and of course I was still undergoing my upgrades to allow my systems to handle the excess of parts.

"Done." I said as the monitors stopped shrieking at me, the coolant once again flowing, allowing heat to be conducted from the internal components to the surface rather than letting things slowly melt and fuse together into one large metallic mess of internals.

"Spark chamber is clear of any shrapnel." He glanced over at the monitor. "Energon levels are rising."

Finally. I'd almost lost count of how many different lines I'd put back together. It was about time the energon started staying inside rather than draining right back out.

"Stay here and monitor him, if anything changes, yell. I'm going to go give Hoist a hand."

He moves around to my side of the berth as I grab a stool and sit down, only realising now how much my hands are shaking as he clasps them in his. "You did fine Aid. You did fine." He gives my hands a last squeeze before he strides away, leaving me with our patient.

Grabbing a rag from my subspace I start to clean him up, if he's going to survive then I doubt he'll want to wake up caked in dried energon.