Part 3 – Hope Remains

"For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas... This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life."
-Dune (Frank Herbert)

Ratchet's first moment on Earth was every bit as wretched as he'd imagined.

The pilot had proven on the landing that he was a Warrior first and a pilot second, demonstrating in a glorious shower of sparks and tearing of the landing gear exactly why nearly all Autobots were confined to the ground, while Decepticons often took to the air. It wasn't so much a matter of technology as it was biology. Almost without exception, Autobots were awful at flying, plain and simple. Ratchet had no explanation for this, nor did any other medic who had any credibility. The cargo vessel was to be dismantled and its parts used for building materials anyway, so it didn't matter much. That was why it had carried so little fuel, there was precious little of that, and the Autobots could not afford extra for a ship that wasn't supposed to come back. It left little margin for error, but that was a restrictive fact of existence for all Autobots these days.

The two Warriors, Diff and Rim, gawked at the landscape. Of course they'd been told about Earth, as much as anyone, but it was clear that they had either not understood or not believed what they'd been told. They'd crashed smoking into a forest, and were surrounded by trees taller than they were, not counting the ones they'd flattened with the ship on the way in.

"What kinda whacked out radio towers are those?" Rim asked, staring at the trees.

"Really bad ones," Diff replied, having tried repeatedly on the way in to try and contact anyone on the ground, only to receive static as the single, consistent reply.

"They're not towers," Ratchet grunted, "They're trees."

"Those?" Rim's optics shifted and widened, "Those are trees?"

"I thought stuff on Earth was supposed to be small," Diff remarked.

"Most of it is," Ratchet replied gruffly, "So watch where you step."

Practicing what he preached, Ratchet stepped away from the wreckage, and marched off in the direction their readings had indicated the camp would be in. He didn't know if anyone would be there, but of course they had to check. Two Warriors and a Medic wouldn't last long on a planet the Decepticons were conquering, especially with nothing but a hold full of energon and some rather experimental medical supplies. They could use more hands, but what they really needed was additional materials. Energon was powerful and necessary stuff, but it took the right equipment to convert it into whatever form was needed for a given purpose. Equipment the cargo vessel did not have.

There would be time for gawking later. Right now, priority one was survival.

Responsive to the authority granted him by seniority, the two Warriors followed Ratchet's lead meekly, though they frequently slowed or stopped to stare at something that caught them by surprise. In truth, almost everything on Earth surprised them. Ratchet was less surprised, because he'd understood the information he'd been given. He'd been better prepared. But, more importantly, he was very old. He'd seen much in his time, so there was very little that could startle him enough to distract him from the all-important business of surviving.

He was good at surviving. It was how he'd lived so long, despite the violence of Cybertron, which had been war-torn since before Megatron came to power. In fact, some pessimists (such as himself) would argue that there had been war since before Megatron even existed. Even Ratchet would agree however, that there was a depth of corruption in the spark that had turned from light to darkness that made for a greater evil than the spark that had been dark to begin with. So many Decepticons had chosen their path at the start, yet it was Megatron, who had become Decepticon by slow degrees of his own, knowing volition who led them ever deeper into darkness now. Many Decepticons had sunk into the dark before they really knew what they'd done. Megatron had calculated every step down into the Pit, believing all the while that he was ultimately in control, that there was no power greater than he. Likely he would realize only too late that the door back to the light had closed behind him forever.

If he ever realized it. Making that realization would require his acknowledgment of some higher power than himself, that he'd made mistakes, that he had made choices which had not only had outward consequences, but that had left their eternal mark upon his spark. Ratchet did not believe he would ever do that.

Diff had landed the ship badly, but his aim had been true. They'd crashed down right where they were supposed to. It made for about an hour's walk to the base, but when you were dealing with ships making their landing on fumes, that was about as close as you wanted them to be, especially if they were carrying a load of energon, which could be provoked into exploding fairly easily, especially in its unrefined state. It was actually a lot closer than Ratchet would have recommended, but nobody had asked him.

As they approached the camp, the Warriors finally got their act together. They spread out, and scouted the area for either Decepticons or any traps left behind by them. The radio silence even on their arrival said this camp probably wasn't in Autobot hands any longer. But the quiet told Ratchet without his needing to wait for Diff or Rim to finish that there was no one here. While the young Warriors kept checking the perimeter, Ratchet continued on into the canyon and the base.

There were no bodies here, nor any evidence that there had been. But the destruction was extensive, and told a story of its own. The Decepticons had ransacked the place, destroying whatever they did not take for themselves. Such had been the Decepticon way for eons. It was not enough to take, they had to also obliterate. It was militarily sound, but Ratchet knew that was not the reason they did it. They did it simply because they enjoyed it, not just the feel of metal crumbling under their onslaught, but also the knowledge of the way the Autobots would feel when they returned to a ruined base. It wasn't enough to know that their enemy would be demoralized by it, the Decepticons had to actively revel in that knowledge. The suffering of their enemies was their reward for a job well done.

"They took whatever wasn't nailed down," Diff reported as he and Rim rejoined Ratchet, "Burned the rest," he swore, clearly as upset and angry about this as the Decepticons would have wanted.

"These were just things," Ratchet replied calmly, "Things can be replaced or rebuilt, if you know how."

Diff flinched at this, and stared at the ground, feeling chastised. As well he might. Young as he and Rim were, it was time the both of them started learning the psychology of warfare, not just the physical nature of it. The two of them were inexperienced, trained as Warriors but having previously served only as guards for compounds far from the front-lines. They hadn't been in the thick of it. Or at least, they had not been there enough times to have really learned what it meant. Unfortunately, it was the nature of war that they would not be given much time to learn all they needed to know. Few soldiers ever got second chances to learn lessons. You got it right the first time, or the war destroyed you.

And, sometimes, even if you got it right, you still paid the dearest cost for it. That was war.

"The other ship," Ratchet said, moving on, "Where did it land?"

Diff consulted the readings he'd taken using the sensory equipment of the cargo vessel on the way in, and pointed in a direction, "A few miles that way."

"Very well," Ratchet said after a moment's thought, "You and Rim get back to the cargo ship. Unload that energon, and secure it. I'll check out the crash site."

"But, Doc," Diff protested, "The 'Cons might still be there."

"I highly doubt that, Differential," Ratchet replied, "The Decepticons would never choose to use an Autobot vessel as their base of operations. Their egos would not tolerate it. Besides..." he cut himself off, but Diff noticed and called him on it.

"'Besides' what?"

"Decepticons are not above living in and desecrating an Autobot graveyard," Ratchet said, "But pride and superstition would not allow them to do the same with their own kind. Megatron or one of his generals might be that depraved, perhaps, but no other Decepticons."

"Oh," was all Diff said.

Of course he knew. Ratchet had said there would be a massacre. The silence of the radio confirmed there had been just that. But it hadn't fully dawned on Diff what that meant. At that landing site, there would be a lot of bodies, both Autobot and Decepticon. After any large-scale battle, there was always a place of death that marred the land where it had occurred. Ratchet had to visit that place of death for himself. It was his duty as a medic to find out if there were any injured who might yet be saved, or whose passing might be eased. And it was his duty as an Autobot to know if there were any survivors, either Decepticon or Autobot. But he knew he had no need of protection. Not there. Any who could had already walked away, and they would avoid that place for ages after. Win or lose, such places felt haunted to those who had fought there. Right now, there was no safer place on the planet.

Understanding entered Diff's blue optics, showing he realized all that Ratchet did not say.

"Come on, Rim," Diff said, turning back the way they'd come.

"But-" Rim had missed the lesson, but Diff interrupted.

"Come," he repeated, and this time Rim did as he was told.

Ratchet had seen the aftermath of many battles. He had treated the wounded, ministered to the dying, and walked through the zone of death after the fighting was through, looking for any signs of life. He'd seen firsthand the will to survive that had kept some going for days or even weeks before they were found when by all rights they should have died instantly. Some lived just long enough to die in the arms of whoever found them. Others lived, maimed beyond the abilities of even the most skilled medic to repair, their ability to fight taken from them even as they continued to live. A precious few lived, and recovered enough to fight another day. Ratchet had long ago decided that to live and fight again was not the cruelest hand that fate could deal them. The cruelest fate was when physically they recovered, but psychologically they'd come unhinged, leaving them living without really being alive, their spark forever lost in a haze of grief and hatred, turning on itself until they either shutdown or went Rogue.

But there were no survivors here. The Autobots had fought hard, and they had taken down many Decepticons. The soldiers of both sides had ensured that any enemy they took down would never rise again. Each killing stroke had been swift and sure, though many had followed up with a second death blow, just in case the first had not been enough, leaving corpses mangled and scorched, some of them ripped apart, the pieces scattered. This was a battle that had been fought in seconds, maybe minutes. The bloodiest battles were always short. They could not be otherwise. Each body possessed only a finite amount of energon, a certain number of drops spilled would kill. The faster and in greater quantity that energon was spilled, the shorter the fight. That was fact.

There had been bloodier battles fought, Ratchet had seen, but that was solely because there had been greater numbers involved. Reading the remains, Ratchet knew that this was a battle fought in desperation. The Autobots had known their backs were against a wall. Ratchet guessed they had understood what this planet meant to the Autobots. It was here they would one day make their final stand. That day was long in the future, but Ratchet knew it was coming. So too had the Autobots who fought here. Accordingly, they had given everything they had, knowing they would not survive, but also understanding that they did it not for themselves, but for those who would come after them.

It was a sacrifice so many had knowingly made, and Ratchet had long ago stopped wondering how many more would have to pay that ultimate price in the name of nothing more than hope. Hope for a future, for a better tomorrow, for a day when the Autobots would at last be victorious. They had no guarantee that was even possible, yet they found the possibility alone to be worth the cost.

Ratchet always felt respect for any who were willing to do this, but it was somehow different here. These were the first to die in numbers knowing that Cybertron, their home, was already dead. That future they hoped for was less likely than ever, and they knew it. Yet still they had not tried to flee, but had gone forth to meet their doom with courage and dignity.

Even faced with this horror, they had still believed in tomorrow.

Though his spark quailed at the thought, Ratchet knew that he must carry on with that belief. He must look upon these mass graves yet one more time, and honor the dead by continuing their fight. Each time that burden became a little heavier, but to put it down and give in to despair would be to dishonor those who had died for that hope. If Ratchet stopped believing, stopped fighting, lay down to die, then the hope these bots had died for would die with them. So long as he could stand, he could not allow that.

No true Autobot could.

As he turned away from the place of death, heading back the way he'd come, Ratchet's radio squawked.

When he answered, he found that it was Diff.

"They've found us!" he shouted above the din of blaster fire, "The Decepticons are here!"