AN: Thank you for all the lovely reviews on the first chapter! Since I got so many, I decided it was worth giving you guys something a little early (and I already have the fifth chapter finished so that's one less to do).
Poem for today is another Siegfried Sassoon. This one is even more depressing. It fits with the title and some of the content though.
Warnings: None for this chapter, unless you get disturbed by the transformer equivalent of open heart surgery
Died of Wounds
His wet white face and miserable eyes
Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:
But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell
His troubled voice: he did the business well.
The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining
And calling out for 'Dickie'. 'Curse the Wood!
'It's time to go. O Christ, and what's the good?
'We'll never take it, and it's always raining.'
I wondered where he'd been; then heard him shout,
'They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out...
I fell asleep ... Next morning he was dead;
And some Slight Wound lay smiling on the bed
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any poems by Siegfried Sassoon.
The medbay was frantic with post-battle activity, three of the patients having been given serious injury and many more having been hastily patched up so the worst patients could have priority. At the moment Ratchet was being furiously overworked between Sideswipe and Bluestreak whose systems had been failing in tandem since their rescue from the Combaticons via a psychotically enraged Sunstreaker. Hoist was operating on their third critically endangered patient, Slingshot, who had got in the way of the equally psychotic Vortex; the Combaticon not having taken the beat-down of his two teammates well.
"Welder and a size three laser-scalpel!" First Aid, who was assisting in operating on Bluestreak, handed him the required tools. "Here!" As Ratchet tried to get underneath one of Bluestreak's components to get at the damaged one a patch on line broke from the pressure it was being put under. "Clamp down on that fuel line!" First Aid hurried to do so. "Done."
"Ratchet! Sides is getting bad again!"
"Fraggit; I'm servo-deep in Bluestreak Wheeljack! What do you expect me to do?"
"Blue is stable for the moment Ratch, just get Hoist to patch the fuel-lines for now so that he doesn't leak out! Sideswipe is fading again, and fast! I think one of the cables to his spark-chamber has been damaged!"
Ratchet almost tore his hands out of Bluestreak's chest when he heard that; those cables were appalling to fix when they got damaged, and depending on how the damage had occurred it could result in permanent damage that would put Sideswipe out of anything strenuous for the rest of his life. Carefully detangling himself from Bluestreak's wires he hurried over to Sideswipe, whose armour was gaining tiny patches of grey. His chestplates were still open from the earlier operation to fix some of the damaged components within. This matter, however was much more serious than those had been and he readily cut through the latches separating Sideswipe's spark-chamber from the rest of the world. At first glance he didn't see the damage, but Ratchet was not the CMO of the Ark for nothing and managed to find a hideously twisted and damaged cable near the bottom of the spark-casing. What made his spark freeze for a moment though was the status of the connectors, in this case the worst one being the one directly attached to the spark chamber.
It had clearly been damaged from a burn at some point, making it rather brittle. It was not damage that could be easily repaired. The cable itself? Yes. The connector? Very few medics had ever managed it successfully and Ratchet was not one of them. Most of the danger came from operating on the spark-chamber itself which could adversely affect the spark. That, in turn, could attempt to defend itself by sending off surges of energy, thus damaging the connector even more, if not damaging the medic and destroying the connector outright.
If it had been any other situation, Ratchet would not have risked even replacing the cable, let alone the connector, but this was triage and his patient would die if he didn't do something.
"Fetch me a replacement cable, length S, colour blue! ASAP!"
He heard someone run off at full tilt (those vents were really working too hard) to storage, which thank Primus wasn't far, to fetch the requested cable. Meanwhile Ratchet focussed all his attention on the sparking cable, using a pair of rubber tongs to partially seal off the cable and stop the energy leakage. On the monitors Sideswipe's spark did seem to stabilise a bit, but Ratchet could not stop at this point. Ever so carefully, keeping one hand on the prongs, he held out a hand. Without prompting Wheeljack gave him two stoppers, so that Ratchet could remove the damaged cable with no further loss of energy.
This was the other problem represented by any fixes around spark-chambers. Their sparks depended on the energy provided to exist; if deprived of it they would extinguish. As it was, clamping off one cable to the spark was dangerous, having energy leak from a frayed or broken one brought near or certain death, depending on the amount of energy leaked (It had something to do with the balance of energy in a spark, but Ratchet was a bit too busy to think about anything other than fixing his patient).
Wheeljack took over the prongs for a moment, holding them steady as only a scientist who regularly dealt with strange weapons could, while Ratchet transferred one stopper to his other hand. Through a bit of fiddling and much use of his dexterous medic's servos he managed to swap out the cable for the two stoppers. Sideswipe's readings dropped again as his spark destabilised slightly from the lack of energy to one side of the chamber. At least the readings were stable now, and not being influenced by the fluxes of a damaged cable.
Now to check on some of his other patients while they waited for that cable.
Twelve hours later, long after he'd sent the others on to recharge, Ratchet himself went to the berth in his office to rest for a while. First Aid had been put on duty to watch all those still in the medbay, but Ratchet wanted to be close in case there was an emergency.
It wasn't unlikely, as even after so much surgery Sideswipe was only just out of the danger zone. Bluestreak would not be ready to leave the medbay for some time due to some necessary recalibrations to his processor as a result of the damage inflicted by the Combaticons and Slingshot had only awoken once since they'd finished working on him, as opposed to the usual half-a-dozen times he'd wake up after less serious procedures, demanding to see his team. Getting your wings ripped off and a good lot of your armour to boot would do that to you. At least his internals hadn't been quite so bad off as the other twos'.
Most of the other bots were not a badly off as those three though and had been dismissed, for their dents to be properly pounded out when they reached priority status on Ratchet's list (which would be a long time coming).
At least the medbay was quiet now. The only remaining patient who was not on the priority list was Sunstreaker, refusing to leave his brother when the former was stuck with only minor injuries. Ratchet hadn't had the spark or the energy to try and kick Sunstreaker out of there, not when Sideswipe had come so close to dying and could still tip back over should anything untoward happen.
The worst thing about the red twin's situation was that he'd probably never fight again. Ratchet, despite his long years as a medic had not specialised in the medical field that Sideswipe needed and would not be able to fix the problem without a considerable risk to the twins' lives. If they hadn't been at war, Ratchet might have been able to afford the risk and the other officers would have supported him. As it stood, they needed every warrior they had, and risking both of them for the chance to make one of them capable of fighting again was too great a risk. Never mind their own feelings or the feelings of their medic, the war was still priority number one and that was not likely to change anytime soon.
Ratchet did not look forward to telling them this.
AN: So I know some of you were expecting a continuation of the battle scene. Reading and writing battle scenes is not my forte and I'll gladly admit it, so I skipped straight to the aftermath, which is more important to the story anyway.
Closing question: What kind of plot do you think I'm gunning for?
Reply in reviews (and even if you haven't got any expectations, review please).
Eli