Last and Alone – Secret
Title: Part 12
Rating: T
Characters: Prowl, Red Alert, Trailbreaker, Ratchet, First Aid, Beachcomber, Wheeljack, Jazz, Perceptor, Optimus Prime
Warnings: Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

Universe: G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith AU
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.
Summary: Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

Sorry the updates slowed, but fall is beginning to arrive here in the high country in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Real Life has been busy.

Thank you to kirin-saga, acer-sigma, Ksiezniczka, D. Mischief for the kind and helpful comments on Chapter 11.

Thank you to everyone who is reading and finding this interesting enough to place it on alert. Again, sorry the writing has slowed.

FYI - "Talking on/over a com channel"

Part 12

+-+-+-

Prowl was distracted. He was so distracted that he didn't even realize he was distracted. And had it not been for the fact that he was in the Tactical Teams planning office, with Trailbreaker and Red Alert for the purpose of reviewing modifications to the Arks Security, it was most likely that none would have realized the unusual state of the Second in Command. Prowl, though unaware of it himself had been distracted since Jazz had apparently unintentionally broadcast the barrage of negative feelings across their bond, then with little explanation had firmly shut him out.

Had Jazz been on a mission, Prowl would have thought little about how firmly Jazz had shut him out; nor would he have puzzled over the brief yet nearly overwhelming sensations from the bond. However, he knew the Saboteur was in base, and as the bond very rarely interfered with either of their jobs, especially when in base it had caught and held the tacticians attention as he reviewed the experience. On top of that, the steady failure of Jazz's extremely firm shielding along with the steady increase of feelings and quick brief flashes of images over the last 15.8 minutes and Prowl's interest and attention was well and truly caught.

Trailbreaker and Red Alert had picked up on Prowl's lack of attention to the security discussion rather quickly. It being rather easy to notice. And they had done it far quicker than the time it had taken Prowl to stop answering questions and give up all pretenses that he was interested in the topic of discussion.

"Prowl, are you ok?" Trailbreaker asked for the fourth time in as many minutes as he cast a worried frown at Red Alert. Still he received no answer.

"Prowl, this is Red Alert, please answer us or I will summon Ratchet."

This veiled threat by some miracle registered with Prowl, if somewhat vaguely as the tacticians response showed. "I am getting the strangest… feelings… and… images… over my bond with Jazz." Prowl answered distractedly. "They are confusing and unfamiliar, yet interesting at the same time. It is … unusual."

"Okay, Prowl, I'm thinking we might need to put this meeting off and you go figure out what Jazz is up to. Huh?"

But Prowl was already lost once again in the bond.

Red Alert sent an inquiry to Teletran seeking Jazz's location. "Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't do this to me. I just got released." He muttered to himself.

Trailbreaker looked at Red Alert in confusion. "What?"

"Huh? Oh, I just had Teletran locate Jazz. He's in Perceptor's lab. That's what sent me to Ratchet last night. And I just got released in time for this meeting. I really don't want to do this again."

"Oookaay, I still don't understand." Trailbreaker replied softly.

"Never mind, all it proves is that Jazz is really out to get us. Crashing my processor wasn't enough this time, now he's working on Prowl. And Perceptor is helping him. Perceptor has been assisting the Decepticons since the day we found him and he has finally recruited Jazz. Now, they must be setting us up for Megatron's next plan. It's a plot. If he takes out enough of us in the Senior Command the Decepticons can just…"

"Whoooaaa, slow down Red. There's no plot, and hurting Prowl," Trailbreaker nodded at the distracted Tactician before looking back to the Security Director "is the last thing Jazz would do."

Red Alert looked at Trailbreaker. His optics a little too bright.

"And me?"

"Red, Jazz is an Autobot Officer, just like you. Pit, he's Senior Command just like you. Jazz is not out to get you."

"And Perceptor? The things he can do when …"

Trailbreaker sighed by cycling his cooling vents as he interrupted, "Red, Perceptor is also an Officer. Look, put a little of that above average intelligence of yours to work. All we have to do is page Jazz. And if he's in Perceptor's lab, I'm sure a page to Perceptor would work also." Trailbreaker looked again at the tactician and waved a hand in front of Prowl's dimmed down optics. Then with a frown at the lack of response added to Red Alert "And we might want to do that pretty quick."

Red Alert forced his processor to the task of paging the two officers and frowned when he received no response. Clamping down on his processor he tried again, this time on a general in base Autobot frequency rather than a private encrypted one.

"Trailbreaker, I'm not getting a response from either of them."

"I heard you on the Base 2, try an Officers channel or a private line if they're not answering the general."

"I tried a private line first and think about it, even if they chose to ignore me on a private encryption, they should have answered on the Base 2 frequency. It's required of everyone to answer all calls on that line."

"I'm well aware of…" and Trailbreaker paused as Prowl's door wings started to twitch and shivers ran through his entire frame. He looked at Red Alert. "Call Ratchet, quick!"

Then before a line could be opened to send the call, Prowl was screaming. Red Alert and Trailbreaker pushed to their feet, but neither moved. Surprised and unsure about what to do, they watched as Prowl continued to scream flinging himself away from the table and out of the chair only to go crashing to the floor.

"Red Alert to Medical, we have an emergency in the Tactical office. Something is seriously wrong with Prowl."

At the same time Red Alert began his call, Trailbreaker began shoving table and chairs out of the way of the now flailing tactician, but otherwise stayed clear. Then, quicker than it all began, Prowl ceased his struggles as he off lined into a stasis lock.

"Medical to Red Alert what's going on?"

"Ratchet, Prowl just fell into stasis lock."

"You're sure his processor didn't just freeze up." Was the unexcited reply response.

"With Prowl I know the difference. He's not just off line, he's in stasis. Besides he was screaming incoherently before he off lined."

Trailbreaker broke in on the medical line then. "Ratchet I haven't actually heard screaming like this since Cybertron's battlefields… early in the war." Trailbreaker by mere phrasing and voice inflection had left the implication of a bond problem un-vocalized, yet had clearly stated it for all listening in on the medical frequency. I don't think this is nearly as simple as a processor freeze."

"That is not exactly simple either when it comes to Prowl Trailbreaker, but we're already on our way."

The medical frequency was a common frequency open to all for monitoring and use at anytime; still it was a surprise to everyone currently on it when Beachcomber broke in. "Ratchet, medical emergency in the Science Lab. I have Perceptor and Jazz, and they both appear to be in stasis lock."

"Slag it all Primus above and below." Ratchet stopped his hurried path through the Ark, forcing First Aid to stop as well. "I have no idea what is going on, but I don't think this is coincidence. Aid, I want you to go on to the Tactical Office. Evaluate the situation, and if everything is clear have Red Alert or Trailbreaker help you get Prowl to the Med Bay. I'll head to the Science Lab and bring Jazz and Perceptor once I evaluate them. Now go." And Ratchet shoved First Aid off while he backtracked to another hallway.

"Red Alert, Trailbreaker, I'm sending First Aid to you, Beachcomber, I'm on my way to your location." Ratchet then switched to a private frequency, "Wheeljack, I may need you in Perceptor's Lab."

+-+-+-

"Prime, Prowl's out of stasis and his systems are rebooting right now. He should be online shortly."

"And what about Jazz and Perceptor?"

Ratchet frowned as he glanced over at Wheeljack where he stood over next to Perceptor before returning his attention to the com. "I've freed both of them from the stasis lock, but neither are showing signs of on-lining yet."

"Very well. I'll be there within the hour. Prowl is not to leave until I get there."

"Understood."

"Not like he's going to want to leave till he knows Jazz's situation anyway." Wheeljack offered.

Ratchet's optics dimmed momentarily. "You listened in?"

"Hmpf, you weren't encrypted. Laserbeak could have listened in from his favorite perch outside. So, any ideas why these two here," and Wheeljack pointed at Jazz and Perceptor "would attempt and uplink? That's pretty archaic stuff."

"Attempt? I think it's pretty obvious they succeeded." Ratchet replied dryly. Then with a cycling of air continued. "At least to some extent. Perceptor's firewalls and processor are a mess, and Jazz's systems, while not breached got a good jolt. Jazz's condition at least explains Prowl's somewhat. But no, I have no idea why Jazz would want to do this or why Perceptor would agree to it."

Wheeljack didn't answer right away and Ratchet could tell he was thinking something over by the slight flickering of his optics. "Well you know, maybe Perceptor has uplink software. I mean, he is initially from a time well before the establishment of the hubs, both ground and orbital. Prime and Ironhide both have uplink software and refuse to get rid of it. And they're not medical. If Perceptor has it as well it could explain why Perceptor would feel safe allowing it."

"Truth is Jack, we still don't know he allowed it. The mess his firewalls and systems are right not, I find it hard to believe it was voluntary. He's going to be a mess for quite some time, and the resulting processor ache is going to be monstrous."

"Okay Ratch, and what reason would Jazz have for jacking a fellow Autobot. Especially Percy here?"

"I already sai…" and Ratchet trailed off. Now that his immediate attention was not on releasing the bots from a stasis lock, the events of the last week presented themselves front and center. "Ah Slag." he finished with a sigh.

"Ratchet? What is it."

Ratchet didn't respond for the moment as he worked things through in his head, Then he exploded. "The fragger! Crashing Red Alert wasn't enough! Oh no. He just wouldn't be satisfied! The little pit spawn! Slagging Special Op's agent is as bad as Red Alert seeing a conspiracy where there isn't one." Ratchet spun and sent a laser scalpel he'd subspaced flying across the med bay where it stuck perfectly in the target board hung on the wall specifically for that purpose. First Aid and Swoop working near the board didn't even flinch at the impact.

"Whoa Ratch!"

Ratchet spun back to face Wheeljack. "Archaic! What do we know about Perceptor's life before we found him?"

"Uh… He was a scientist on a Deep Space Explore Team." Wheeljack replied slightly confused as to where Ratchet was headed. "He claimed a specialty in Organic Studies plus partial knowledge in various additional sciences concomitant to Cybertronian physiology as well as being a partially-trained medical technician. When he chose to stay we worked him right in to the med bay rotation."

"Right, we were to grateful to have another medical trained bot. We never questioned in depth how or where he trained or learned his skills. He has scientific specialties in metallurgy, molecular chemistry, electrical engineering plus knowledge of just about every other common area of science you want to name. We didn't even learn he was a scientist until that incident with Quickmix and Beachcomber. Pit, how did we miss his being a scientist? Yet we did. It took him verbally beating Quickmix to slag in Mix's own area of expertise."

Wheeljack chuckled at his memory of the event. "I will never forget Perceptor doing that. It was so spark warming to see that know-it-all forced to shut up and retreat by… What did he use to call Perceptor? Oh yes, a second rate medical drone. Yes and I think Beachcomber, though as surprised as the rest of us was certainly grateful for the save."

Ratchet smiled at the memory. "Hmm. Yes, however, what I'm trying to get to, in a round-about-way is that even after all this time we don't know much about Perceptor's past. We don't even know why he was in indefinite supportive stasis."

According to him, he doesn't even know why. So if he doesn't know, how can we?"

"Jack, somebody obviously felt he had value."

"Ratchet! We think he has value. His capacity for data storage is second only to Primes. Come on, he's one of the most brilliant minds Cybertron has to offer."

"Yes, yes. But think back on that machine. The time period it was supposedly from. That technology had to be top line sophisticated for its time. I mean were talking what?" And here Ratchet paused as he headed over for a computer terminal and called up Perceptor's record. "If the date he gave us is correct, forty eight hundred vorns give or take prior to the start of the war plus another twenty four, twenty five thousand vorns into the war before he was found?"

"Okay, so he was locked in supportive stasis for twenty eight thousand vorns. I cannot see, hear, feel or by any other means figure out where you are going with this Ratch." And Wheeljack offered a shake of his head.

"Ahhhh! I am… I … I don't have a clue where I am going with this either. " And Ratchet glared at Wheeljack in frustration.

To which Wheeljack's response was merely a cock of his head to the side before he chuckled quietly.

Ratchet watched as the engineers vocal indicators flashed, belying the otherwise silent response.

Ratchet subspaced another scalpel, pointing it at the still off lined saboteur. "What this is, is me getting sucked into that blasted fragger's conspiracy theory." Ratchet launched the scalpel at the target board, then continued. "The battle in Wyoming a week ago, Perceptor took on Dirge and won. Well, he was winning right up until he took a concussion blast aimed at myself and Hound. Anyway, his systems were rebooting, so I left him with Jazz while I hauled Hound to the triage point. Apparently when he on-lined, he made a few unusual statements."

"Battlefield reboot quirk?" Wheeljack interrupted, the knowing smile evident in his tone.

"Since I wasn't there I can't say for sure, but it's what I suggested to Jazz when he questioned me. Those comments however apparently got under Jazz's armor. And you know Perceptor's been in one of his 'moods.'So he of course decided to play with Jazz… by pulling a vanishing act on him." Ratchet glared at the off-line scientist. Before looking back at Wheeljack. "Give you two guesses where this is going now, but I'm pretty sure you're only going to need one."

"Hmmm. One special operations agent, correction, one most likely bored special operations agent, a few strange battle reboot comments, and Perceptor in a mood. Just what were the comments anyway?"

"When Perceptor on-lined he acknowledged Jazz by another's designation."

"Okay, don't see a problem with that."

Ratchet smirked. "It gets better. When Jazz questioned who this bot was, Perceptor responded by saying "he's my gestalt mate."

Three things happened at once then. The first was the crash of tools from First Aid and Swoop's direction where the two had been working, proving unsurprisingly that at least one if not both of the students had been listening in on the Officers unhidden conversation. The second was Wheeljack's "Hoooo! Oh wow!" and laughing as he put everything together. The third was Prowl revealing he had come online at some point during the conversation by letting loose with a surprising though quite, litany of cussing directed at his own bond mate proving the usually stoic tactician had also put the whole scenario together and felt his mate was to blame for his situation.

+-+-+-

It was just after 8pm local time and in most locations on the Ark, mechs assigned to the eight hour night shift had just taken over from those on the eight hour day shift at various stations. In the Med Bay, 

Ratchet had summoned his two apprentices back for the night shift and dismissed Hoist who had been the scheduled mech for that late hour shift. Prowl was just returning from his forced exit after having refueled as ordered by Ratchet. Jazz had finally on-lined thirty-three minutes ago, eight hours after Prowl and eleven hours after the three of them had stasis locked and Perceptor was showing signs of not being far behind Jazz in returning to the online world. Then Perceptor flew off of the med bay berth, and Prowl suddenly found himself facing the business end of a blaster. Everyone else instantly froze in place as they realized anything they did was likely to be at a cost to Prowl.

Ratchet reacted calmly, showing no outward sign of aggression or fear. Keeping his surprise to himself as he recognized the signs of a mech on-lining in a form of battle mode. Many of Perceptor's systems were up and running, but his processor was lagging, struggling to catch up. He was functioning on some basic core programming. And that made Ratchet briefly rethink his conversation with Wheeljack, the events of the past week and what he specifically knew about Perceptor as he debated how to get out of this situation intact; again.

For while Ratchet had had many a weapon directed at him in his med bay over the vorns and been knocked out more times than he could count by on lining warriors, never would he have expected this from the scientist. This trait, skill or threat depending on how one looked at it typically activated when the on-lining mech had been off-lined in a battle situation. And was usually found in frontline warrior's like the twins or the Dinobots who had some pretty heavy survival protocols in their basic core programming or in neurotic, high-strung, finely tuned mechs like Prowl and Red Alert; and it usually occurred when the med bay was a noisy hive of post battle activity - not quite like now. In Ratchet's processor, confusion momentarily reigned as all variables were wrong.

Unfamiliar though he was with seeing this response in this mech, Ratchet pushed through his confusion and began running calculations in his head for the time span most likely needed before Perceptor's entire processor caught up with the survival programming and found he did not like the results. A glance at Wheeljack showed Ratchet that the Engineer was well aware of the situation in regards to Perceptor's status. An almost unperceivable shake of his head and a brief flicker of uncertainty felt in his spark and he knew Wheeljack did not like the calculation results any better than Ratchet. Wheeljack carefully moved in front of First Aid and Swoop in an attempt to keep the two students out of harm's way.

Ratchet returned his gaze to Perceptor and Prowl. As deadly as this situation had the potential of being, a small part of Ratchet was actually near glee that Prowl was on the receiving end, seeing as how the tactician was responsible for shoving his own weapon in Ratchet face a couple of times himself. And no matter what a bot said, or how apologetic they were, you could never fully appreciate this type of situation unless you were the one facing the gun.

Then to complicate the tense situation, Prime chose that moment to arrive in the Med Bay. As Prime entered, Perceptor lunged, shoving Ratchet off balance, ducking under Prowls wing, coming up behind the tactician, wrapping his right arm around Prowls neck then yanking Prowl back out of the way. By the time Perceptor had finished, he had his back secured to a wall, Prowl held as a body shield by a knife blade now pressed to vital lines and cables in the tacticians neck, and his left arm with gun in hand now pointed at the room in general, yet angled in such a way that Prowl could not use his door wings offensively against him. All things considered it was an impressively secure stance.

Ratchet recognized relief from both himself and Wheeljack that Perceptor had acted defensively, and not offensively. That was always a positive sign. In all his time as a war medic, he'd seen only two medical personnel loose their lives to on-lining warriors. And he was more than grateful that neither case had been in his med bay or he the chief officer on site. And he really did not want to see the dubious personal record be broken by a scientist. One he considered a friend no less and with any potential victim a friend also. Still, he was at a loss. The best he could do in this situation with Perceptor so secure in his position was talk calmly and carefully and hope the processor quickly caught up so that recognition files could be accessed. Given the state of Perceptor's processor, based on the scans run prior to his on-lining, Ratchet could unfortunately see this stalemate lasting a long time. Or ending very quickly and unhappily.

"Perceptor, it's okay. Your safe here. Come on, you know who we are." Ratchet could feel Perceptor casting sensor sweeps as the survival programming attempted to identify friend from foe and the situation in general.

It was Jazz, who surprised everybody by moving more into view. "Cep, ease up buddy. Command is gonna take a pretty dim view of you killing one of their prized tacticians. And killing a labbie, no matter how you feel about them is not gonna earn us any points either. Not to mention I'm sure Cav won't appreciate the repercussions.

Surprised looks were tossed in Jazz's direction. He had modulated his vocalizer to a different tone and pitch. Without a program in place that was something very painful to do and no one could understand why he would have done it. On top of that, with the exception of the not killing part, what he was saying made little sense. But Perceptor responded, his own voice full of hesitation and confusion he swung his gun to point at Jazz. "Slider?"

"Come on Cep, ease out of this." Jazz had taken a couple of careful steps closer. He tossed back the answer when the high security encryption code he'd picked out of Perceptor's memories was cast at him. So far so good. Then Perceptor's optics flashed. And Jazz knew his gamble had failed.

"No." He shook his head "Wrong colors. Bond?" Panic, pain and confusion were in his voice. "No!" his optics flashed again. "Dead, all dead!" he screamed in agony. Perceptor shoved Prowl forward away from him making room to bring his gun up for the spark chamber in his chest.

Jazz already moving forward before Perceptor was done screaming sidestepped Prowl, subspaced his own gun, thumbed the discharge level to non lethal, all while launching himself at Perceptor. He shoved Perceptor's own gun back from its intended mark before it could fire and fired his own gun in its place. His shot, right on target off-lined the Scientist and they both crashed to the floor.

+-+-+-