CHAPTER-8: DISCOVERY
Ratchet scurried around the med-bay, looking for any of his tools he thought he might need. He had no idea how serious the injuries where so he was preparing for any eventuality. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Bulkhead and Arcee patiently waiting by the ground bridge, with the children. The blue bike and her companion had only returned to base moments before Optimus called in. Bulkhead had called for their bridge after the pair had found that the energon signal had been nothing more than a Decepticon trick to lour them out.
Suddenly the ground bridge began to whirl and a dark silhouette came into few. As the figure came closer, all colour and detail returned and the team gasped at the sight before them.
Optimus walked forward, his red and blue armour filthy with energon and desert dust. His face plate was stern but his optics held a deep sadness to them as he stepped forward, and in his arms, lay Bumblebee's limp body. The yellow mech was just as filthy as Optimus, but most of the energon splattered on his armour was coming from a gaping hole in the left of his chassis.
"What happened?" Ratchet exclaimed as he rushed towards his leader to take a better look at the scouts wound.
"Megatron" Was all Optimus said, as he carried the Camero into the med-bay and lay him down on the berth Ratchet had prepared.
The medic wired Bee up to one of the medical scanners to keep an eye on his vitals, before grabbed a sterilized rag, to wipe away some of the energon so he could inspect the wound better. For several minutes Ratchet cleaned the wound and began to patch up Bee's main circuitry. The rest of the team could only look on with a mixture of worry and hope.
"Is he going to be ok?" Raf questioned, looking close to tears.
"The wounds quite serious and Bumblebee has lost a lot of energon. I've began patching up the main energon feeds, so hopefully that should ease the flow-." Ratchet began to explain, but before he could finish, the monitor Bee was hooked up to, began to beep and flash a warning.
"Ratchet, what's happening?" Arcee asked worriedly at the sheer look of panic in the medics optics.
"He-, he's bleeding out!" Ratchet stuttered in his panicked realization. "But- but how? The wound has only been open for several minutes. Bumblebee's body should still have his reserves in storage!" The medic exclaimed in confusion.
Racing around the med-bay, Ratchet quickly found an IV line and fed the cord into one of the energon lines in Bee's wrist struts. Placing a concentrated energon line onto the other end of the IV line, Ratchet was able to start pumping energon back into Bee's body. Before wiring the scout up to a life support machine, and keep him stable.
When the monitor stopped beeping and the flashing stopped, all the Autobots gave a sigh of relief and Ratchet went back over to continue patching the wound Megatron had left on Bee's side.
"He's stable, for now." Ratchet said before anybody had time to ask. "But it doesn't make sense. I stopped the wound from leaking, and there's no way Bumblebee could have lost so much energon in such a short time." The medic pondered out loud as he continued patching up the circuitry, before moving on to sealing it.
The children winced slightly as they watched Ratchet take come thin, metallic cord and a sterilized needle, then threading the cord through and using the needle to pierce into one side of Bee's wound and pulling it across to the other side, before pulling it tight, and forcing the two sides of thee Camero's metal form back together, and staring again from the other side.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Miko questioned while pulling a pained face at watching the Medic work.
"Don't worry Miko. Bee's in a deep stasis, most likely from energon-loss. He wont feel a thing." Ratchet answered without looking away from his job.
Several more minutes passed as Ratchet finished his stitching. When he was done the medic looked up with a pleased smirk covering his faceplate, for a few seconds as he admired his own handiwork, before dropping as walking over to one of his storage containers and carrying back a few rolls of metal gaze, back over to Bee's side.
"Optimus. Would you help me hold him up, while I wrap the wound?" The medic inquired and his leader just nodded before walking over and joining Ratchet at Bee's berth side.
Optimus carefully placed one of his strong servos on Bee's left shoulder and the other on the upper, right side of his chassis and pulling him into more of a sitting position, so that Ratchet could get wrap the gaze around more easily. But as soon as the servo made contact with the hidden wound, Bee let out a pained gasp, even in his sleep.
Ratchet and Optimus locked optics with one another and shared a confused glance, before Optimus lay Bee back and Ratchet leaned over to remove Bumblebee's armour plating, so that he could see what was behind it.
The medic let out a sharp gasp and his optics widened as he pulled the armour away. Underneath lay an angry looking gash, it wasn't two deep, but it was quite large and was steadily leaking energon. The edges of the injury where covered in a orangey coloured, rust, like substance that was steadily eating its self into the wound. And the smell was foul.
"Did Megatron do that to him too?" Bulkhead questioned looking a little more green than usual at the sight of the injury.
"I don't think so. This wound is old. By my estimates I'd say it was between one and two earth weeks old. But that doesn't make sense. Where did it come from?" Ratchet proclaimed.
"Hey Ratchet. What's all that brown stuff? Bee's other wound didn't have it." Raf asked sheepishly. He was really worried about his guardian and he felt the more he knew about Bumblebee's condition, the more he would be able to help.
"It's an infection. The wounds old and hasn't been well contained and that left it open to bacteria, both Human and Cybetronian. At some point Bumblebee must haw caught an infection. And with the gash still steadily leaking energon and the infection adding to that it must have taken down Bumblebee's immune system." Ratchet explained as he checked the new found wound over.
"Which would explain why Bee was overheating earlier." Arcee confirmed.
"And still is." Ratchet continued. " The infection has left him open to contamination, and he now has a virus. Explaining the overheating. I now know that it must have been Bumblebee who wasn't consuming his energon, explaining why our stock levels where too high." The medic informed.
"So what do we do know?" Bulkhead asked.
"Well first I want to check him over for anymore injuries. Then I need to clean out the wound and stitch it up like I did the other one." Ratchet answered.
"So Bee's going to be ok?" Raf asked with hope glistening in his eyes.
"The gash is not too serious. But the infection is. The Virus has taken down his immune system and Bumblebee will need that to fight off the infection, so only time will tell." Ratchet stated sadly and Raf's shoulders dropped at the news.
"Come on guys. I'll drive you home." Bulkhead told the kids, who reluctantly said their goodbyes and climbed inside the green mech and left the base, heading for town.
Ratchet continued checking Bee for more injuries, and found that most of the circuitry and wiring in the Camero's right shoulder where torn and snapped, and all the under platting was heavily dented and crushed. Which left the limb extremely weakened, almost like a human would be if they had it dislocated and the bones shattered. Painful, but not too serious.
Looking over the cassis wound once more, Ratchet knew Bee must have been in a lot of pain, but he could not comprehend why the Camero had not come to him for help. Sighing, the medic turned back to the ghastly wound. First Ratchet cleaned away the energon with a sterile rag, like he had done to the other one earlier. Before he mixed up a concoction of sterilising solution and rubbing oil, which worked much in the same way as rubbing alcohol worked.
Ratchet poured some of the oil into the wound and it fizzed slightly upon contact. The medic used the oil to try and wash out the rust like substance, from deep inside the gash, before placing several pieces of sterilized rags over the top and pressing them down to soak up the oil and clean out the rush.
The medic did this several times, to try and insure that the wound was clean. Before he switched tactics and alternated between the oil an the serializing fluid. Ratchet felt a pang of guilt at his spark as he glanced at Bee's fever covered faceplates. The young scout would let out a pained gasp or groan, every time the rubbing oil made contact with his form. Ratchet was just glad that Bee was still out cold, otherwise it would have hurt him a lot more.
Ratchet only just finished cleaning out the rust like substance from Bee's gash, when Bulkhead drove back into base.
"I got all the kids back home safe." The green mech told the rest of his team as he walked into the med-bay. "How's he doing?" Bulkhead continued as he gestured to his prone team-mate, laying on the berth.
"I can't make any promises. Only time will tell. Once I've close the wound, it will be up to Bumblebee. All we can do is pray to Primus that our brave scout still has the strength to keep fighting." The Medic sighed sadly before he looked up at the rest of his team. "You should all get some recharge. Its gonna be a long night. I'll call you if anything changes." Ratchet continued.
Reluctantly and after much persuasion from the medic, Arcee, Bulkhead and Optimus all headed to their own berths and fell into an uneasy recharge. Leaving Ratchet and Bumblebee alone in the med-bay alone.
Ratchet stitched up the gash Bumblebee had hidden and wrapped it in gaze. Then placed a cooling pack on the top of Bee's faceplate to try and beat the fever which was raging threw the little yellow mech form. Once he had made the Camero as comfortable as possible, Ratchet pulled up a chair and sat beside Bee's berth. "Why Bumblebee? Why didn't you tell anybody? Why didn't you come to us for help?" Ratchet thought as he drifted into a light recharge, still by Bee's side incase he was needed.
Hi, sorry it took me so long to post this, but I think making you all wait will make you all the more keen to keep reading. XD.
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