Chapter 3 Ark
Optimus watched with mild interest as Jazz and Perceptor started working on the computer console he and his team had retrieved earlier that day.
The only other thing had had taken with them was currently in the medbay, under the watchful optic of his Chief Medical Officer, Ratchet.
"Whoa," said Jazz suddenly, who almost looked as he were about to burst into a fit of giggles.
"What is it, Jazz?" Asked the curious Optimus. "Have you made it past the firewall already?"
"Oh, not even close, Boss-bot," chuckled Jazz. "I've barely scratched the surface! Whatever is in here, the cons did not want anyone to get it! This'll be a fun one to crack!" Jazz was rubbing his hands together gleefully, anxious to show off his skills as a hacker. "It'll take us a while to get through. If you're gonna wait, I suggest you find something to keep yourself occupied, O-P."
"That won't be necessary, Jazz. I think I'll go see how Ratchet and First Aid are doing with our guest. Report when you find anything of interest."
"Will do, Boss-bot!"
If Ratchet had been a human instead of an Autobot, he most likely would have been suffering from a migraine, or at least a headache of epic proportions.
Luckily, Ratchet was an Autobot and thus did not suffer from the human ailment known as headaches. Instead, he felt his processors slowly heat up from working over-time on the conundrum posed by their guest, who was, at the moment, offline and resting on a medbay table that was ridiculously large for him, covered in as many wires and sensors as he dared to put on such a small frame.
As far as he was able to determine, with all the tools and scanners available to him in the medbay, their guest was vaguely of Cybertronian design, though it wasn't a style he was familiar with, he also had a Spark, albeit one smaller then was usual, and that the frame was made up of some super-advanced alloy that some rather... interesting properties.
He had no clue as to its origin, its age, or even if it was sentient or not!
He had originally been curious when Optimus had first called to tell the Autobots what his team had discovered, but now curiosity was giving way to frustration.
Even Wheeljack didn't have any theories, though that was probably due to the fact that there weren't many tests a bot could run with only one hand and one optic in working order. The other hand had been blown off from his earlier accident and a flying piece of shrapnel had taken out his optic.
Behind Ratchet, First Aid was busy looking at the readouts from the latest scans.
"We're getting nothing new from the scans, Ratchet. His frame appears to be partially built of cybertronium," informed the young Protectobot. "But as for all the other components, our scanners aren't powerful enough to penetrate the outer layers without running the risk of frying the internals."
"Fine. We'll send a sample to Perceptor, his lab is better equipped to perform the kind of scans we need." Said an exasperated CMO.
"Would you like me to bring it now?"
"The faster it gets there the faster we'll get our answers."
Nodding in agreement, the young Protectobot gathered the necessary materials and headed towards the exit of the room, nearly bumping into Optimus as the Autobot leader entered the medbay.
"Oh! Sorry, Optimus, I didn't see you there! Are you here to see the patient?"
"Yes, actually. Have you found anything about him?" Asked the curious Prime.
"Only more questions," responded First Aid. "Ratchet could probably tell you more. I'm taking a few samples to Perceptors' lab. Hopefully that'll help us to get at least a few answers."
"Very well," said Optimus. "Perceptor is busy with Jazz, but I don't think he'll mind to be given something to do."
"Jazz is hogging all the work on breaking the computers firewall?" Asked a grinning First Aid.
"Just about."
"Well, I'm sure this'll cheer him up, then!"
Optimus let the young Autobot leave the medbay without any other comments and turned his attention to the remaining medic and the engineer in the room.
"I'm assuming that you don't have anything to report, then?" Queried Optimus as the medbay doors shut behind him.
Ratchet snorted, it was a habit he had picked up from one of the human TV shows he had grown fond of.
"We have plenty to report; the only problem is that the report has a whole lot of questions and no answers!"
"You haven't discovered anything?"
At this point Wheeljack decided to add his two cents.
"Well, we did discover that he has some connection to Cybertronians." Wheeljack indicated to the view screen that was filled with the technical specs that they had been able to gather from their scans. "His frame has some parts that look to be of Autobot origin and some others that borrow Decepticon design. Scaled down drastically, of course."
"His internal repair systems are also advanced beyond anything I've ever seen." Said Ratchet, picking up a laser scalpel from a small tray filled with medical instruments.
"Oh?"
"He appears to have near-instantaneous repair capabilities. Watch."
With the delicate hand of a master surgeon, Ratchet slowly moved the scalpel and created a long, shallow cut, barely more than a scratch, along one of the smooth surfaces of their guests legs.
It took Optimus a few astroseconds to process what happened. Within the time it took Ratchet to finish his cut, the first part to be was already closing, as if it had never been cut in the first place.
"Amazing, I've never seen anything like this. Have you, Ratchet?" Asked and awed Optimus Prime.
"I've seen something similar, but it wasn't anything remotely close to this. It's hectovorns beyond what we have now," said Ratchet as he placed the scalpel were it belonged. "Would certainly prove useful around here sometimes."
Optimus nodded, having imagined how useful it would be with some of his more...adventurous Autobots.
"If he has such fast repair capabilities, then why is he still offline?"
"In my opinion? The slagger is just stubborn. What little I was able to access from his neural net indicates that everything fully operational. Sleeping Beauty seems to be content to keep sleeping. And before you ask, no I will not force a start up."
Before Optimus could respond, the medbay doors opened to allow a grinning Bumblebee and Spike, a snickering Jazz and silent Hound to enter before closing behind them.
The three mechs stared at the latter. After several astro-seconds, Ratchet voiced what he and his fellow officers were trying to process.
"Hound," he started slowly. "Why is your arm in a bandage?"
At that point, Spike erupted into full-blown laughter, nearly dropping off his perch on Bumblebees' shoulder.
Optimus and Ratchet shared a look.
"Hound?" Optimus prompted.
"Well, you see, Bee and I were on patrol with Spike. I was taking some readings on the edge of a ridge when it destabilized." Reported Hound.
"And what does that have to do with the bandage?" Asked an irritated Ratchet once it was clear that the scout wasn't going to continue with his story.
"It's because when ridge went down, he went down with it. Nearly landed on top of a troupe of girl scouts," said Bumblebee, filling in for his embarrassed friend. "No one has hurt, but somehow the scouts blackmailed hound into letting them practice emergency first aid on him."
"And he hasn't removed the bandage because...?"
"The girls did such a good job, we can't undo it."
"I see." Said Optimus, who wisely decided not to comment as Ratchet made quick work of the bandage, setting it on the table across from their guest, the same one that Bumblebee placed Spike on.
With so many large 'bots around underfoot was not a place to be.
Optimus then focused his attention on the bot had had given a job to only a few breems ago.
"I assume you've made some progress with the console, Jazz?"
"Yes and no, Big bot. I managed to crack the first layers of the firewall, Perceptor's having a go at it right now." Shrugged Jazz. "Thought it was time to take a break when I heard this trio walking by."
"What's that?" Asked Spike suddenly.
The leader of the Autobots looked down to see the young human pointing towards where their guest curled up in stasis lock.
"That, Spike, is one half of the puzzle we just picked up recently." Optimus watched as Spike got as close to the other table as he could, ready to catch the young human, who, as a species, were not often aware of the dangers around them, such as table edges.
His caution was proven accurate when Spike stepped to close to the edge and over balanced. He gently reached over, grabbed the back of the boys' shirt, and tugged him a bit from the edge.
"Careful, Spike," said Jazz, in a conspiratorial whisper. "I don't think Ratchet would appreciate the irony of you injuring yourself in a medbay."
"Indeed, I would not," growled Ratchet, turned his attention back to their guest, and frowned.
"What's wrong, Ratchet?" Asked Bumblebee, looking at the COM.
"Just thinking I need to get my optics checked out."
"Oh? Why do you think that?"
"It's because it looks like our guest moved."
Everyone turned to look at the figure on the table, who looked the same as before.
"Like I said -
BOOM
Everything in the medbay rattled and its occupants found themselves fighting for balance. The first shock was soon followed by a second, then a third before silence descended on the Ark.
"Optimus to Ops, what happened?" Demanded Optimus over the officer channel
"Ironhide here; it seems the cons aren't very happy about your latest outing."
"How many Decepticons are there?"
"From what I can get on sensors, quite a few. Mostly seekers, but there are a lot of ground troops as well."
"Very well, send Prowl and Bluestreak to rendezvous with me at the south entrance, send all other personnel to the main entrance." Optimus turned to all the mechs in the room. "Everyone, come with me."
As one, they turned towards the exist.
"Ummm," came a little voice, "what about me?"
As one, the Autobots froze in place, turned on their heel and faced to young human, abandoned on the medical table.
"Spike, for your own safety, I recommend you stay here in the Med-Bay," said Optimus, as Ratchet took out something from the same place he kept his non-medical tools. "Wheeljack created this communicator several orns ago for yourself and your father. It will connect you with the nearest Autobot, but I recommend you use it only in emergencies. It only has a small battery and limited range. Use it wisely."
Spike nodded as the medic handed him the communicator.
In Ratchets hand, the device had appeared minuscule, but in once in hand, the device looked to be just slightly larger than a laptop, only lacking the convenient handle. It was rather non-descript, with the exception of the Face of Primus emblazoned on a corner.
"To activate it, all you need to do is press the symbol."
Spike nodded, hefting the communicator as the Autobots left him alone with their offlined guest.
As another blast shook the medbay, which nearly caused the young human to topple off the table, Spike decided that underneath the table was probably a safer place to be than on top.
System status; rebooted. Hardware status; fully functional. Energon levels; within satisfactory levels. Location; undetermined. Energy signatures detected; small, bipedal organic, no weapons detected.
Scanning...Scanning...
Cybertronian energy signatures approaching.
Recommended course of action; continue with observation.
As stealthy as the organic he had based his alt-mode on, Ravage prowled through the air filtration system of the grounded Autobot ship and disabled all security systems he came across.
He stopped as he arrived at a cross section and scrutinized the map his master, Soundwave, had downloaded into his processor before he sent him on the mission.
To retrieve everything that the Autobots had removed from their fallen ship or destroy it if it could not be salvaged. He stretched the spark-bond he held with his creator and siblings, to see if they had had any more luck than him.
Little more than a nanoklik later found computer Rumbled sent over the bond, only one thing left sent Frenzy.
On it, replied Ravage, as he once again examined his map, though this time with a particular destination in mind.
Where else would the soft-hearted bring something possibly alive than the med-bay.
Route planned out, he took off at a silent lope.
Warning: energy signature of Decepticon origin approaching. Recommend initiating full system start-up.
Spike felt his heart skip as the metal plate that covered the air vent clattered to the floor, closely follow by something considerably larger and undoubtedly meaner. A quick glance around the corner of the box he had been resting against was all that it took to confirm that gut feeling.
Great, thought Spike as he quietly inched his way from where he could faintly hear the Decepticon prowl around, just what we needed. He chanced one last look around the corner, confirming that the panther-like Con wasn't interested in anything in his general direction and then slowly, quietly, let his hand slid over to the communicator.
His hand was just brushing the button when he felt a puff of warm air across the back of his neck.
He froze.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, squishy," came the whispery voice of the Con in his ear. "Now, be a good little organic and back away from your toy."
Without a word, the human did as he was told and backed up until his head connected with a metal snout.
"Good squishy," said the whispery voice in his ear, " but I think it's time for your nap."
"Huh?" Spike barely had time to turn around before a large clawed paw hit him on the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.
AN: Well, I did promise I'd get this chapter out the year after the other one was posted, right? Sorry for the huge delay, though, I had...errr.. technical issues with my computer. Technical as in my computer decided to become a Decepticon on me and corrupt almost all of my written work that I had saved on a USB drive.
The same USB drive that contained most of this chapter, almost all of my notes, as well as a paper I was writing for the science course that I needed to pass if I wanted to go to University before I hit twenty-five.
Needless to say, I was pissed. Not the kind of pissed that allows me to write, mind you, the kind of pissed that caused me to throw my key out the window and run over it a few times with my car and then throw the pieces into a bon fire. Don't ask what happened to the computer, I'm not talking.
Also, I know I promised that this would only be three chapters long, but as I was writing this, I knew that if I tried to fit everything I wanted on this last chapter, I'd never get it done. So here is part one, part two is coming out sometime. Wish me luck.