Disclaimers in Part 1
Soundwave was...bored. In life, his frame had been designed for orns of immobility as part of a communications network. His bonds to his symbiotes, though, had kept the long stationary periods from wearing on him too much. But now those bonds were forever silent, and in their absence, he was bored. He felt guilty about that selfishness—which irritated him. Guilt was a useless emotion, foreign to the Decepticon philosophy. What was gone was gone. Aside from avenging a comrade's deactivation, there was no point in dwelling on what could not be changed. They were in the Well, a fate he had escaped. Regrets were for the weak.
But he missed them, an anomaly which brought him emotional pain, pain he could not pinpoint within his processor. He could not bring himself to purge that anomaly from his code either.
Ravage had been known to the Autobots (and to most of the Decepticons as well) as a silent, savage killer, but Soundwave had known his dry wit and wise counsel; counsel he wished he taken when it came to getting well clear of Megatron's madness upon the Fallen's appearance.
Frenzy and Rumble had been a constant aggravation, but their antics had always been amusing.
With Laserbeak and Buzzsaw in the air with him, flight became a joy rather than a means of transportation.
And Ratbat, greedy, opportunistic Ratbat, had been a voice of simple practicality throughout the war.
Now, they were gone, and he was stuck in his LAN. There was the human internet, but it was primitive and only slightly less limiting than the LAN.
He missed Dylan. He had never looked beyond the human as anything other than a useful pet, but in the end he had proven himself as dedicated to the cause as any Decepticon.
Megatron had been wrong to consider them mere insects. Their short lifespans limited their advancement, but with proper guidance, they had great potential.
Proper guidance, and a few useful upgrades. His current pets, now: he checked the location of Wilburn's cell phone, to find him on his way home from work: Soundwave zoomed in on his location to see that he was currently at a fried chicken place, undoubtedly procuring fuel for the two of them.
Smith was in the quarters the two of them shared. That was just as well, as currently he did not have a cell phone, having disposed of one which was GPS-enabled, and thus a way to track him.
The comms specialist turned his attention to a final run of simulations, then made the finishing touches on a packet of plans and schematics. Replacing Cybertronian components with human ones, and keeping the entire device to a reasonable size and mass for the tiny beings to use, had been an interesting challenge. He was pleased with the result, though: his pets should have no trouble building the devices.
A holoprojector would disguise them from the ubiquitous cameras and facial recognition software that had led to Smith's identification. He had also modified a graphics program that blended the features of two people to speculate on what their offspring would look like if they reproduced. It had now been adapted to start with four base images rather than just two, then age or deage the resulting image as desired, and render it in a three-dimensional format that the holoprojector could use. There were certain advantages to occupying a LAN—he had a respectable number of top-of-the-line multicore processors. Those allowed him to crunch out complicated graphics work like that in a short time.
His pets would be pleased with the surprise.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Smith and Wilburn tore into the chicken bucket, then got their headsets and logged in. Both of them examined the plans Soundwave showed them. It would take a few days to get the components, since they would have to use multiple sellers to avoid attracting notice, but Smith said, "This looks good! We'll have to build a prototype to be sure, but I don't see anything glaring, do you, Tom?"
"Looks good to me too," he replied. "What are we going to use for a power supply? This thing's gonna eat batteries."
Soundwave said, "Ideal solution: energon power cell."
"When we get settled somewhere maybe we can figure out a way to build one. What's the projected battery life given what we can do right now?"
"Best estimate: one Earth hour. Restriction: facial disguise only."
"That should be all we need. We'll just have to plan to be somewhere once an hour so we can change the batteries."
"Caution: There is an unavoidable limitation to holoforms. RFI: frequently results in image flickering."
Smith said, "There's a lot of that crap around. This's still the best chance we have to avoid getting caught by image recognition."
Wilburn asked, "Are the feds looking for us anywhere near here yet?"
Soundwave replied, "Negative. Soundwave: has restored connection to Echelon, and to the humans' satellite observation platforms. Authorities: searching for you in Denver."
"That's too close. We need to get out of here," Smith said.
"Soundwave: has considered that. Located: superior base of operations." He sent map coordinates to their computers. He had found a small private airport for sale near Omaha, Nebraska, and had their freight company purchase it. There was an unused farmhouse on the property, which would become the office of the freight company, and Wilburn and Smith would be its managers: living upstairs where the offices were downstairs.
The Decepticons would become company vehicles. The large airport buildings would give Flatline and Warp, the smaller two, a place to relax in root mode. Lugnut and Blitzwing were built to be comfortable in their alt-modes for long periods, so that wouldn't be as much of a problem for them—especially since they could fly out and find cover in the middle of nowhere when they wanted to transform. Soundwave would warn them when a surveillance satellite was about to pass over their position.
Smith said, "I got an idea how we can get you there. Last night someone hit a construction site and stole a truckload of copper pipe. We use their MO and steal you from the data center. We'll have to take other things too, or the cops'll be suspicious, but if we're lucky those bozos will get the blame for both robberies. Local robberies won't interest anyone outside town."
Wilburn said thoughtfully, "We need a truck. One that won't be recognized or reported stolen."
Smith said, "I have an idea about that. The next county over has an impound lot, I'm sure. Soundwave, if you can check their records, find out if they've had a suitable truck or van in impound long enough that no one is likely to turn up to claim it. Then you make it look on paper like someone paid the fine and got it out. If we can pick it up without getting caught, we'll have a stolen truck that will never be reported as stolen."
Soundwave said, "Earth vehicle: only necessary until we rendezvous with Decepticons."
"Yes, but we'll have to be careful where we abandon it, or that will attract attention too," Wilburn said.
Smith shrugged. "Have one of the seekers drop it off in the ocean somewhere."
-Sidhe Chronicles-
The data center was quiet at night, with only a skeleton crew on duty. A little after three a.m., the IS techs and most of the security crew were in the break room in the office building.
Soundwave, on this night of his liberation, created a water cooler buzz by emailing some salacious photographs that the boss kept in a hidden folder on his office computer to "All" about fifteen minutes before the lunch break. As he had suspected, the employees were gathered around a laptop gossiping about that, and a few had already started forwarding the email.
Smith and Wilburn pulled ski masks over their faces as they backed their stolen van up to the nearest exit to Soundwave's location. Soundwave himself started his shutdown routines, powering off his last CPU as the two men reached his area.
They wasted no time disconnecting the server rack's hardlines and wheeling it–him–out to the van. After that, they returned to take other things that would have attracted thieves out to make a buck—printers, monitors, things that could be sold at flea markets, so that the cops would not realize that Soundwave's server had been the focus of the raid.
There was unfortunately no cash in the building, but Wilburn thought it was likely real thieves would look for some. He used a fire ax to break down the office door and knocked open several cabinets which looked like they might contain a safe, and he and Smith began to riffle through them.
"Hey! What do you punks think you're doin'?"
Herbert, the security guard,was reaching for his walkie-talkie.
Smith smiled quite widely behind his mask, picked up a large hammer that he had used to break the brackets holding the server rack to the floor, and bashed Herbert's skull in with it. One blow was sufficient to put the fat man down without a sound, a pool of blood spreading rapidly from his nose and ears.
Wilburn said, "Shit! He's dead! We've got to get the hell out of here!"
They left the mess they'd made of the office, all thoughts of cash gone with the wind, raced to the van and drove away as fast as they dared.
Ten minutes later, one of the IS techs found Herbert and started screaming. Her co-workers came running, and ten minutes after that, the place was full of sheriff's deputies.
It was clear to them what had happened. Poor Herbert had surprised that gang of thieves who'd been hitting businesses in the area, and had now graduated from theft to murder.
Herbert, on the other hand, had graduated from "waste of skin" to "murder victim."
Smith and Wilburn rendezvoused with Lugnut and Blitzwing on a lonely stretch of road twenty miles from town. No one would have imagined two huge cargo planes might be able to land and take off there, but potential observers, unless they were also Autobots, couldn't have known that the two seekers had VTOL capability. Blitzwing took Soundwave and the two humans to their new base, while Lugnut went to give the van to the fishies.
In the search for the murderous gang, nobody gave the disappearance of a gay couple who had no ties to the community and no friends among their coworkers a second thought. They'd been gone a week before they were reported missing.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Smith and Wilburn looked around the airport, which remained in every particular the farm it once was before someone plowed out an airstrip. Smith asked Warp and Flatline, "Did the boss tell you where he wants us to set him up?"
Warp just shook his head, and Flatline said, "There is nothing suitable here."
The two humans privately agreed. These buildings were old, long out of code, and thus not suitable for long-term...use, habitation, whichever...by a computer array.
But they had what they had. "One of you can take Tom to a heating and air conditioning place tomorrow to buy an air conditioner. That way we can keep his room from getting too hot when the weather warms up, and keep the dust out. That'll take care of the worst of it."
Flatline loomed over him. "You do not give orders here, fleshling."
Smith stood his ground. "Then you can explain your better idea to Soundwave," he replied.
At that, the black-and-red medic backed down.
Warp looked uncertainly between the human and the 'Con. Smith figured the sooner they woke up Soundwave, the safer they'd be.
He and Wilburn chose a downstairs room on the cooler north side of the house and cleaned it as thoroughly as they could: taking up the floorboards and washing the accumulated crud of years out from between them, for instance. Neither of them trusted the power supply, not the main line with its fragile poles for airborne idiots to crash into, not the wiring in the century-old farmhouse.
They ran extension cords to the chosen room, as its wiring was very old and very fragile, and made sure the uninterruptable power sources and surge suppressors were in working order. Then Wilburn installed a camera on a swivel mount over one window, so that on it "saw" both inside the room and out onto the runway. Microphones were also placed inside and outside the window,other cameras and microphones placed throughout the property, and Flatline and Warp sent to wire them in.
That work complete, Smith and Wilburn powered up the LAN, very careful to adhere to the sequence that Soundwave had given them.
Unlike Jazz, Soundwave had not yet mastered the ability to leave his anchor point and move about as a ghost. He had not paid as much attention to the folk tales of the humans he lived among, and the humans he had known—the Goulds, first Senior then Junior, and now Smith and Wilburn—devoted little time to ghost stories. It had not occurred to any of them that Jazz' way was even possible.
Therefore, Soundwave had remained in deep recharge throughout the journey to Nebraska, and awakened only when his components powered on.
Soundwave spent a moment exploring his new sensors, then telepathically contacted the Cybertronian members of his gang, who were all relaxing in the sun in their alt modes. It did them less good, now that the days were shorter and the sun farther away, but it was better than inside the chilly buildings.
He asked for a report. Blitzwing replied, ::We've been letting the squishies fly us all over the Pit-be-damned country carrying crates of Primus knows what, getting crumbs of their fuel all over us, listening to their idiot conversations—how long do we have to put up with this, anyway?::
Lugnut said, ::And now you've got two of the little insects living here FULL TIME! Do we have to have them stinkin' up the place around the clock?::
Flatline sent a glyph of agreement. Warp kept his processes to himself; the youngling simply did as he was told and kept his helm down, which had kept him alive longer than most amped younglings.
Soundwave replied, ::Fleshlings: useful. Priority: avenging Mighty Megatron. Conclusion: Tolerate fleshlings." He left the "or else" unsaid, and none of his listeners invited it; he knew Lugnut would have heard that capital M in "Mighty," as well.
Flatline said, ::I need a place to work that they can't get into. We all need repairs.::
::Equipment barn: suitable, with modifications.::
The medic agreed; that barn, one of several on the property, was already equipped to work on tractors and harvesters. It would be less work to turn into a makeshift medbay than any of the other buildings. Now he needed to build or collect the instruments and other equipment he would require.
::Soundwave, how much control do you have over the humans' satellites? If we could send Lug and Blitz to the moon to salvage the Ark, it would go a long way towards supplying us for a long time to come—as well as keep those supplies out of the Autobots' hands.::
Soundwave replied, ::Control: insufficient. Reason: too many observation stations working independently of one another. Alternative: numerous fliers taken to Area 51 for study. Security: lax compared to Mission City base.::
Blitzwing's logical persona said, ::There are too many energon detectors; it's too close to the Autobots' base. Until we can mask our signatures, we won't be able to get anywhere near Area 51.::
::Then what can we do?:: Lugnut asked.
::Alternative: Materiel and energon caches. Barricade: may not have revealed their locations yet. Flatline and Warp: will investigate as soon as necessary supplies have been procured from local sources.::
Flatline wasn't happy about getting stuck with all the scouting work, but he knew better than gripe about it.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Smith and Wilburn took a walk. They were careful always that one of them carried a surveyor's theodolite neither knew how to use. Otherwise two single men who were always together…they'd had no trouble in Colorado, because the server farm had attracted a more liberal group of employees than the people who might otherwise have been found in an isolated small town. But here, they were truly out in the boonies. Gay men had been killed out here for nothing other than being gay. Since they weren't gay, they wished to avoid this.
Soundwave might be aware that they were conducting clandestine conversations out here where the wind blew wild across the plains. Very wild, and often filled with snow. It didn't matter; the two used the time not to talk but to plan how to talk. To construct and memorize a series of code phrases which could be exchanged like days'-end chitchat.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Money solves many problems. When sufficient of it was proposed, the human said, "All right. I'll do it. I'll have my phone on, so you can see it when I do."
Smith slid the sizable pile of bills across a bar table that wasn't too clean. If you ordered a sandwich in this place, he thought, you'd better say "Hold the roaches" out loud. "Take us to your house for the other half."
Introductions had been made because the fellow worked at the Autobots' base, and that was sufficient to pass money from hand to hand. And having Blitzwing zap the guy's house from overhead (though to his displeasure using a much different (and vastly smaller) caliber than that he favored, right after Wilburn gave the third human the cash, made very clear that his employers were not to be trifled with.
Oh, it wasn't terminal damage. It was inconvenient, and expensive; every home-insurance policy has a deductible.
Blitzwing left an impressive hole in the roof, though, which local meteorologists were quick to state must have been a meteor the size of a grain of sand, vaporized after touching the material of the house. But in that instant of contact, they said, all the speed-energy (the word they used) transferred into the house.
It had not occurred to any of the Decepticons that the house might have other inhabitants, so it was just as well no one was home. No non-officer among the 'Cons got quarters to himself, and every officer did. That simple. No exceptions.
They were naive. They thought, hot toddy (or approximate thereto). We've got our "in" to the Autobots' base.
In reality, they had just bribed with five million dollars a man of honor who was the janitorial services supervisor.
He cleaned the offices that the public saw. Prime's office, or Sideswipe's, or for that matter Ironhide's? Not even close. Those were cleaned by a rota of officers. About once every five weeks, Optimus Prime could count on having to clean his very own office.
Still: better that than Sideswipe's. Which he'd also have to clean about every five weeks.
The janitorial supervisor, whose name was Arturo Melendez, accepted the bribe, and returned to work. He used the base intranet to send a message to Sideswipe.
He went to Sideswipe because a careful reading of the situation told him that it was much, much better to haul Sideswipe out of recharge for a cause later proven to be trivial than it was to waken Ironhide for any reason whatsoever.
Seventeen minutes later, the janitorial supervisor was in front of Optimus' desk. He had the impression, just the impression, that Optimus had been awakened in the middle of the night. He said in concern, "Sir, are you all right?"
The others all froze. Optimus looked surprised. Then he smiled, moved, and said, "Thank you, I am. People seldom ask, and I was taken aback, you see."
"Yes sir."
"So … do you think you can tell me what happened?"
Melendez did, several times, maintaining the continuity they would expect of a person whose account was truthful, but not the rote repetition of memorization.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
As a result of his meeting with Melendez, Optimus said to Jazz a day or later, "So, have you a plan?"
"In progress, boss bot, in progress," the spy replied. "In the meantime, I'm followin' Arturo around."
"Oh. Does he know this?"
"He will if he has to," Jazz said flatly, and Optimus left it at that.
Optimus Prime again met with Arturo Melendez a few nights later, Will Lennox by his side.
"Arturo," Optimus said, smiling widely. "How are you?"
Arturo, who was five million tax-free dollars better, returned the smile. "What can I do for you, sir?" he said.
"You can earn that lump of money, Sergeant," Will answered for him. "You can pass on some information to the 'Cons for us."
"Yes sir!" Arturo's grin might have been just a little too eager; you could take the man out of the Rangers, but you couldn't take the Rangers out of the man.
So, on a Saturday, Jazz haunted Arturo's cell phone. Not the one Soundwave was monitoring, the other cell phone.
"… anythin' they have to say about the Moon base," Wilburn said.
The holographic projector wasn't very good yet, and the two pet humans were going to have to go back to Soundwave and report that they flickered. Still, their guest was not commenting on that, and their booth was nice and dark.
They were in a local restaurant, having a beer before dinner: Smith, Wilburn, and Melendez. Melendez had his information to give them, and between steak and dessert, it got passed. The Autobots were planning expeditions to scour large areas of the country, looking for those caches of recoverable materiel Soundwave was lusting after.
The Autobots had the location of eight. Arturo passed on four. They monitored these closely and waited, while Jazz paid much attention to the energon detectors along the interstate system.
And then, somehow, Barricade got wind of it.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
"You heard what?" Optimus said.
"I heard a human talking on a phone, saying things about raiding a cache of energon. I don't know who he was talking to."
"When was this?"
"Last night. Late in the human's cycle. The night cleaners were here."
"Did you see the human?"
"Yes."
"If I showed you a photograph, you could identify him?"
"Yes, I think so."
Optimus projected what the humans cops would call a "six-pack": six mug shots, two rows of three each. Barricade picked out one man.
There were some candid shots as well, taken by the security cameras on the base. Barricade picked out the same man.
Optimus rose, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Barricade, I thank you. You know how this works; you won't hear very much about it until we get it wrapped up."
Barricade flushed his facial fins with coolant: he "blushed." "Yes, sir."
Optimus showed the 'con out of his office, and then turned to Ironhide, Will Lennox, and Sideswipe. "Well, that's both a welcome and an unwelcome surprise," he said.
"Unwelcome?"
"We know they're sniffing around those caches. We need to scoop them up before they get there. The welcome surprise," he added, smiling, "is that Barricade is far more loyal to us than I had dared to hope." He dialed Charlotte Mearing, and said, "Director," warmly. "I have a new member of our intelligence team for you to vet. His name's Arturo Melendez."
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Charlotte Mearing very carefully banged her head against the desk. "He's a janitor, dammit! He's a Medal-of-Honor winning janitor! He's going to get himself killed!"
"We'll keep his end of it very simple until he learns the ropes, Director."
Will felt like tearing his own hair out. Arturo was willing, and Arturo wasn't dumb. Problem was, Arturo was honest, and thus had no talent for lying.
Therefore they had to spoon-feed him information, a teaspoon at a time. Problem being, they needed to get about a gallon of the stuff to the 'Cons.
It wasn't until Chip Chase, of all people, happened to say to Jazz that every time they tried to trace the call back to the 'Cons hideout, they got closer. They knew it was somewhere in the continental US, west of the Mississippi. Multiple contacts meant eventually, Soundwave would make a mistake with his countermeasures, and they'd get a fix on the origin of the calls.
So everybody calmed down, and Arturo continued to learn the ropes of being a double agent, and had a heaping helping of spycraft on the side.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Of all the people on base, Diarwen mused, it was Chromia whom she would have least expected to be bloodthirsty.
Chromia sat beside Ironhide (of course), servos entwined except when she needed hers back to put one on either side of her mouth and scream, "Geddim geddim geddim geddim!"
She seemed to be quite comfortable applying this vocal encouragement to both Sides and Barricade more or less indiscriminately. Day and night, the silver mech and the black one circled one another in the sparring ring, half the base sitting in hastily-constructed stands, or in the case of the mechs, on ground sheets, circling the ring in ever-widening ripples.
Skysong said anxiously, "He's not really gonna get Cadecade is he? Not Sides?"
"No," Diarwen said patiently, for perhaps the fifth and perhaps the fifty-third time. "No, they are just practicing how to fight bad guys."
"So who is the bad guy?" asked Stormwing, cuddled up on Diarwen's other side. "Cadecade's not a bad guy, but I don' wanna have it be Sides, either. He reads good stories."
Starskimmer said emphatically, "It's both of 'em! Whenever you want it to be!"
"Right you are," Diarwen said, entirely bypassing logic once the cleaning fluid began to pool in Skysong's optics. "They are both having fun, you see."
This was not merely true, but observable. Both mechs' lip plates had stretched back into very wide grins.
Barricade landed a good one to the side of Sides' helm, and Sides responded with a swift takedown of the black ex-Decepticon. Killstrike's group made encouraging, scrubbing motions with their entire arms, and sometimes their entire bodies, while some of the Autobots moved out of the way … but not Ironhide. He was so focused on the combat that he took a good one to the side of his own helm, and turned to glower at Killstrike.
Who raised his hands, and said, "Sorry, mech. I got a little enthused there."
Ironhide growled, "When they finish, haul your enthusiasm down to the ring."
Killstrike's faceplates lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really? Sure!"
"Hide," said Chromia, taking a moment away from screaming "Geddim."
"No, it's all right," Ironhide said to his mate. "Be fun."
Killstrike gave him a grin, and returned his attention to the match.
In the arena, Graham shouted encouragement as Barricade grabbed a leg and trapped it, then applied a bit of torsion, and Sides fell with a noise like a century ending. The two mechs were belly-to-belly, straining and groaning, but suddenly Flareup – who had appointed herself referee somewhere in all this – slapped the ground, and yelled, "Sides, one shoulder on the ground outside the ring! Match to Barricade!"
No organic can truly speak Cybertronian, of course, but Diarwen understood enough of the language at this point to translate the burst of comradely profanity exchanged between the two as they got to their peds and congratulated one another on a good match, you slagger, too bad I didn't kill your fraggin' aft on the battlefield when I had the chance. Ratchet plucked each one up by an audial fin and dragged them both off to medbay.
Ironhide rose and made optic contact with Killstrike, then jerked his head toward the ring, and Diarwen felt a large shadow drift over herself and the hatchlings.
Optimus said, "May I sit down?"
"Of course. Were you watching in the monitors?"
"Yes, but that lacked the grit-in-every-seam realism," he said, smiling down at Skysong, who forgot to be shy and climbed into his lap. Skimmer liked his Prime, who was the best climbing frame ever invented, in his optics, and promptly put the tall mech to that use. Stormy took to the air and settled comfortably onto Prime's shoulder, saying, "Now Ironhide and Killstrike are going to fight, and you can root for whichever one you want!"
"Well," said the Prime carefully, "since Ironhide is to me what Barricade is to you, and I have only recently gotten to know Killstrike, I think I'll root for Ironhide."
"Ironhide's your parent?" said three wee voices, stunned.
"Foster-parent, yes. He helped me to grow up," said the Prime.
They took that into their tiny helms and chewed thoughtfully on it. Object-impermanence was not one of their strong suits at this point in their development; that an adult had once been a sparkling was almost more than they were able to process.
The match began.
Ironhide was larger than almost everyone else on base; only the Prime had reach and height on him. But Killstrike had many vorn of combat behind him, wasn't all that much smaller, and was quite strong for his size … and only a little more stubborn than Ironhide. The two mechs locked arms and pushed against each other. Flareup occasionally dancing out of their way, they grunted their way back and forth across the ring, sometimes exchanging blows which would have felled lesser mortals or several dozen oxen at once.
And then Ironhide's ankle turned and he fell into the sand with a cry of anguish.
Optimus attempted to hand Skysong over to Diarwen, but she magnalocked to him, as did the other two. He smiled, said to Diarwen, "Want to come along?" and went to the ring.
Ironhide lay in the sand, cursing. Optimus said, "Now look what you two have done!" to both him and Killstrike, whose gestalt drew close to him. But Killstrike knew when the mick was being taken, and grinned at his Prime.
"Sorry I hurt your ankle," he said to Ironhide.
"Wasn't you, kid, this thing's been going out on me for vorn." Chromia arrived at Ironhide's side, and took his servo into her own, stroking his browplates.
Ironhide glowered at his foster-son. "You gonna put it back in again?"
"Sure," the Prime said amiably. He picked up the joint. "On one," he said, and whacked it a good one.
Ironhide looked at three curious sets of young eyes peering at him from positions on Prime's armor, and said, "That … hurts, you …"
Chromia muffled a snort of laughter; Flareup exchanged optics with her and joined in.
But Optimus hadn't set down the ankle. Instead, he smiled at Diarwen, and maintained his hold on it: Ironhide's expression changed. "What're you doing?"
"Conducting an experiment," the Prime said. He contacted Gaia, and the resultant surge of energy through him and into his foster-father's ankle nearly knocked him off his feet.
It set the two male hatchlings flapping into the air from their maglocked positions, and Skysong squawked and did what flapping she could. "Owie! Ow, ow ow!" she cried.
Even Diarwen knew that this was not an "I'm hurt" shriek, but rather the cry of "I don't understand this and it makes me uncomfortable!" Barricade loomed on the horizon, and figured that out, thereafter letting Jolt think the small medic had forced him to return to med bay.
Ironhide, of course, bellowed like a bee-stung bull.
Chromia smacked him one upside the helm. "What are you screaming about, you? That doesn't hurt! It's just a tingle!"
Diarwen asked curiously, "You could feel it too?"
"Oh yes," Chromia said. "Through my bond to my favorite lunk, here."
But at that moment Ratchet rolled up, and the boys returned to Prime's shoulder-plates. Skysong waited until the medic was close enough, then leapt like a small metal grasshopper from Optimus' chest and latched with a "clank" onto Ratchet's which rocked the enormous medic on his peds.
"Hurts!" she complained. "Hurts, hurts, hurts!"
Ratchet said nothing to his Prime, simply performed the Brow Plate Rise from the Pit Itself in his direction, cradled Skysong in his hands gently, and said, "We'll get it to stop." He glowered at Ironhide, who was working his way to his peds, and at Killstrike, helping him (as he felt more than a little responsible, despite Ironhide's disclaimer). "You two, report to med bay. Sweetie, come on, let's go take care of the other sparklings."
Once they were in med bay, Ratchet returned Skysong to Diarwen – she was still fighting shy of Optimus – and saw to Killstrike first, with Jolt assisting in doing not very much; the mech had little more than a few scratches. The medic finished up with, "Idiot!" and swung a wrench.
Ironhide's fist materialized between the tool and Killstrike's helm, engulfing the wrench in midair. "Time to lay that habit to rest, Ratchet," the weapons specialist said firmly. "We ain't at war no more."
Ratchet gaped at him, Killstrike did the same, and Jolt braced for explosion. But to the junior medic's surprise his craftmaster stood down, slumping his shoulders as he accepted the wrench, and placed it with the others to be cleaned. "All right," he said quietly. "You've made your point." He looked up again, and the old Ratchet was back momentarily as he said, "How long could you have done that?"
"First time I saw you lay into Sides, I wanted to."
Ratchet swallowed. "But that was back at the beginning! Just after Kaon fell …"
"Yep."
Ratchet blinked at the ancient weapons specialist, and realized that he had a lot to think about. Later. In his quarters. Probably with the help of a super-sized cube of high-grade.
Nonetheless, he said to Killstrike, "Okay, you're outta here. You can go back on full duty right now."
"Thanks, Ratchet." Killstrike slid down off the table, and went to Ironhide, clasping forearms with him. "Thanks for a good match," he said. "Thanks for everything."
Ironhide grinned at him. "We'll see what you think next time, when I bounce your aft from one side'a the ring to the other."
Killstrike grinned back, replied, "Lookin' forward to seein' you try, mech," saluted him, and left.
Ratchet had pulled Jolt aside to say, "Okay, what I wanted to show you with 'Hide is the way a joint deals with repeated damage. We'll probably find some joint spurs, places where the nanites have gone overboard in replacing damaged material. They'll have to be removed when we restructure the joint."
Jolt now pulled down the Giant Alien Robot X-ray Machine, Mark IIa, Coveted by Professional Spies Everywhere, and rolled it to the table on which Ironhide lay.
Ratchet told Ironhide what he was going to do, and helped the old mech pull his ped out straight under the unwinking gaze of the Mark IIa. When Jolt lit it up, though, it showed them a perfect ankle – perfect for Ironhide's frame type. Ratchet's own ankles were in better shape, as he was a later model by six or seven design iterations.
Ratchet swore. Then he pinged the Prime. ::Get in here, Optimus.::
He arrived with Diarwen on his collar fairing, Skysong in the Sidhe's lap. Ratchet's expression lightened a bit as it always did at the sight of his favorite patient, and his nod to the Sidhe was in consequence almost civil.
His tone to his Prime was anything but. "What did you do to Hide's ankle? This is twice you've stepped into my area of expertise, Optimus, without extending the courtesy of letting me know you were going to."
"And for that I apologize, Ratchet. I am sorry. No trespass upon your territory was intended, but this time, at least, I am at fault for deliberately attempting to heal. Though I did choose an injury that would be difficult for you to deal with, did I not?"
Ratchet had found long ago that a glower was the best response to uncomfortable questions, and he employed it now.
Ironhide had some questions of his own, though. "You…healed that bum ankle of mine?"
"Yes. Maybe."
Ironhide scrunched up his faceplates. "I love yer version of a straight answer, Prime."
Diarwen smirked.
Jolt put his two cents' worth in. "It seems that the cable fragility around the joint which was a contributing factor has also been resolved. Can you make a circle with that ped?" the junior healer asked Ironhide.
"I ain't been able to do that for years." Ironhide tried it again, tried circling in the opposite direction, then pointed his ped down. Then up, then as far pigeon-toed as possible, and after that splay-ped as far as possible.
"Gene Kelly," Optimus said, "has nothing on you."
There was a silence as all of the Cybertronians looked up the reference on Wikipedia and You Tube
"He healed me too," Skysong chirped, from Diarwen's lap.
"Did he now," Ratchet said, his eyes on Optimus'.
"Did I? When you were with me, and I healed Ironhide?"
"Yes. How come you ate a little femme?"
It really was too bad Optimus didn't have a mouthful of energon at that point, because it's not often a roomful of mecha and one Sidhe get to watch the leader of the Autobots snort his drink out his nose. But that opportunity was lost forever when Optimus recovered from his surprise enough to smile at her. "I did not eat her, Skysong. She chooses to live inside me. I didn't know you had talked to Gaia."
"'S not talking," said Skysong. "'S something else." She moved from Diarwen's lap to his chest armor, and latched on with a clang.
"Sky," said Ratchet, "will you let me take a look to see how Optimus has healed you? With the big look-inside machine?" He meant the Mark IIa.
"Tomorrow," Skysong said, fading into recharge.
Ratchet knew when to fold 'em. "All right. All of you clear out of my med bay, then, since there's nothing medical here to be done."
-Sidhe Chronicles-
The day after that "tomorrow," Ratchet knocked on Optimus' door very early in the morning.
"Come in, my friend," the deep, pleasant voice said in reply to his knock.
Optimus stacked a data pad, and rose, going to the high-grade cabinet. But Ratchet said, "None for me, thanks," before he opened the door.
Optimus turned to him. "This is unusual for you."
Ratchet sighed. "The war is over, Optimus. I don't need the crutch any more."
"Wise of you to see it so, Ratchet." He returned to his desk. "Does this have to be a sit-down conference? I'm trying to take the advice of my CMO, and break my working day up with exercise."
"I need to be back in my surgery in point-three joor."
Where three deserts meet, there are no handy oases. They went out along the road around the base at a careful pace, finally finding a sweep of landscape still grayed by long shadows cast by the morning sun.
"So what's on your mind, Ratchet?"
"Skysong. You did such a good job healing her that I have scheduled her for surgery in about point-three joor, to remove the internal fixators. She isn't quite ready to fly yet, for two reasons: she needs to strengthen the cables and struts in her wings through use; they didn't develop normally while she was in the fixators and now she needs to catch up. The second reason is that I've kept her upgrades coming as she matured, but she's had no chance to integrate them into her physical responses at the programming level, as she has not been able to actually fly. By the end of the day, I expect to have a flight-capable hatchling on my hands, who can't physically fly. That's where you come in."
"I?"
"Jetfire bequeathed his flight rig to you. I know you've learned to use it. Will you take Song up with you, and teach her to use the flight protocols? Her brothers can't; they aren't really mature enough, yet."
Optimus' mouth twitched. "I am relieved that you think I am."
Ratchet considered several replies, and finally said, "If I'm giving up wrenches, and giving up the high-grade, I might as well give up snark, too."
Optimus blinked. "Great Primus. I will not know you."
"Don't know myself, lately." Ratchet wiped a servo down his faceplates. "Anyway. That's what she needs. Can you spare some time today?"
"For Skysong, I will find it," Optimus said.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
"Optimus, I thank you, and thank you, Skysong, for thinking of me. Nonetheless I must decline."
Optimus blinked, and Skysong pouted. Optimus said carefully, "We could go for a short flight very close to the ground, to get you more comfortable with the idea, Diarwen."
"Optimus, I would trust you with my life. But no. I do not fly unless I must, and then, as you have seen, I do not enjoy it."
The stubborn Sidhe stood in front of them both, arms crossed against her chest, with Skysong looking over Optimus' shoulder at the Sidhe, as she was maglocked to his back. Optimus looked down at the woman as Skysong's brothers circled overhead.
The hatchling craned her neck around to her carrier, and said, "Can we still go? You an' Star an' me an' Skimmer?"
"Of course," Optimus said, and stroked her helm. To Diarwen, he said, "Perhaps we could talk about this later?"
"If you wish. Sky, I am sorry, but I would not enjoy flying. I hope you will."
The little femme smiled at her. "'Course I will." She did not understand why anyone would bypass the opportunity to fly. But then, grounders were funny.
Optimus got airborne, and the shimmer that was Jazz came into existence beside Chip Chase's wheelchair."Ain't seen too many people out-stubborn Optimus," he said.
Chip snickered.
"Oh, shut up, the two of you," Diarwen said. "Now, are we going to spar, or are we going to tease the Sidhe?"
Chip grinned at her. "No law against doin' both," he said. "I think it's called 'multitasking.'"
Far overhead, Optimus sent to Skysong, ::Fly me.::
::Fly you?::
::Yes. Just like your ultralight. The aileron controls are here, and see this? This does that.:: He demonstrated, and felt her delicate touch on his flight systems.
::First show me what everything does,:: she sent, her excitement rising.
He demonstrated every control, and every combination of controls, and through Gaia, he felt Skysong learn, felt her ease and competence in the air grow by leaps and bounds.
They flew loops and twirls and wingtip loops with her brothers; formation flying, dips, dives, and a stall-out at three thousand feet Optimus thought would probably show up in his defrags for many nights to come.
When Optimus felt Skysong begin to tire, he sent, ::It's time to come down now,:: and not one but three wee voices wailed, ::Nooooo!:: across his comms.
They compromised. Optimus showed Skysong how to land, and how to take off again; once to demo, once to try it, once to try it again because he'd had to take the controls on the first try, and two more times to set the sequences in her processor. (With more loops and twirls and brother-tag while in the air, of course.) She got them down safely on the last one, and by the time Ratchet showed up (with Parker in tow) to reclaim her, was already soundly in recharge.
"That went well, I take it," he said, easing the sleeping hatchling off the Prime's shoulder struts.
"Extremely well. I hope I have not overdone it." Diarwen, occupying a position safely distant from Ratchet, divided a radiant smile between him and the hatchling.
"I'll know in about a joor," the medic said. "Fly with her again tomorrow?"
"Of course. I've marked out time for her every day."
Parker looked up at the sparkling. "I'll really miss flying with her," she said.
"Please, Dr. Parker, come join us. Skysong loves flying with you; she was extremely disappointed that Diarwen cannot come with us."
"She can't? Why not?"
"She is frightened of flying."
"Is she now. I'll speak with her about that," Parker said, looking even more stubborn than Diarwen (Optimus wished he could be a winged organic invertebrate on the wall for that discussion). "I may need a day or two to set it up, but if you can set a specific time, I'll be there, every day."
Skysong was back in the air where she belonged. Optimus regularly scheduled half an hour, two PM human time, with them. Dr. Parker handed things over to her assistants for that half hour, and all five of them, one human, three seekers, and a Prime, circled the blue skies above their home, free.
But on the tarmac that day, Diarwen, when approached by the human medic, gave Optimus a look that promised sweet revenge for ratting her out, then said to Parker, "We had as well put this aside now as later. Would you like to have dinner at Hanratty's this evening?"
"Sure, if Sarah can take Johnny."
The two women left together. Ratchet, Skysong still on his shoulder, smirked at Optimus. "You're in hot water now."
The Prime was strategist enough to realize his CMO was absolutely right. But he did not know the best way to deal with phobias among humans and Sidhe; nor did he know what to say to Ratchet, and so he let the medic have the last word.
Peace was certainly changing them all, he mused.
Diarwen quickly showered and changed into mufti, and met Alicia Parker at her car. They chatted about the flight and about Johnny's day in kindergarten on the drive down to the gate, but then after they turned north toward Las Vegas, Parker asked, "Is there anything you'd like to discuss without a bar full of people around?"
Diarwen replied, "There is very little to discuss. I was in a plane crash many years ago which left me with a phobia about flying. I can control it—you know this, I will fly when I must. I choose to subject myself to that only when I must. I have been flying whenever necessary. since the crash. In Afghanistan, my unit commonly fast roped from a helo into mountain passes that could barely accommodate a goat. No one has ever complained about my performance, or questioned my courage, in the face of this fear. What more would you have me say?"
"Not a thing, Diarwen. I don't think Prime was questioning your courage, I think he was concerned about you."
"I know that."
"You could have said this on the tarmac."
"Indeed I could have. But I do not wish to squabble with Optimus before one of his officers, and I do not mind giving him time to think about the consequences of making my decisions for me without first speaking to me in private," she smiled. "Also, I happen to know that Seamus, the owner of Hanratty's, is making shepherd's pie tonight, and I much prefer that to cafeteria food."
"What's shepherd's pie?"
"What is shepherd's pie, now? Ach, you have no idea what you have been missing."
"This isn't the one whose recipe starts, 'First, catch a shepherd,' is it?"
"You would have to ask Seamus about that, but it did not taste of long pig when I ate it last."
Parker grimaced, and Diarwen grinned. She went on to praise the glories of authentic shepherd's pie in full bardic voice as they drove toward the city for an evening of good food, music, and laughter that had absolutely nothing to do with Diarwen's phobia. They were both healers enough to know that some wounds left a scar. Often, tincture of time was the best cure, and Parker knew that in Sidhe terms, not so very much time at all had passed since Diarwen's crash.
On the other hand, the fact that it was relatively new by Sidhe standards meant it probably wasn't ingrained, and could be treated if they could figure out how. Desensitization was an option, but Diarwen had been facing her fear and flying for years. Fast-roping—sliding down a rope out of a helicopter—if that hadn't desensitized her, Parker wasn't sure she knew what would. Though she would certainly try to think of something. Under control or not, nobody deserved to have to live with a phobia.
End Part 14