Chapter 26
-0-On the Arizona desert
He drove as fast as he could, airborne half the time as he raced for Denver and the possibility that the Decepticons would be trying to give Cybertronian technology to criminal humans. By now, Smokescreen would be with Sam sitting outside his dorm with his sensors cast wide and optics sighted in.
Behind Bee driving fast enough to keep up, Barricade considered his orders. He wasn't to intervene in the Autobot's trip until he reached the border of Colorado. Then he was to maim Bee and leave him crumpled in the dust by the side of the road. Starscream didn't tell him why he wasn't to finish off the mini-con. He was just to follow orders.
It rankled.
Barricade was an intense bad ass killer who fervently believed if he could see you then you were already dead. He loathed Starscream and followed Megatron because he respected him more. Given that, his respect was situational. The only one he really trusted was himself.
Here on Earth at this time with Megatron missing, the sub-commander was in charge. He didn't like it but he liked Bumblebee even less. The last time they had clashed, the mini-con had trashed him. He had been made by his situation to recover without treatment and there were still kinks in his system that hampered his effectiveness. For that, the Autobot deserved to die very slowly and painfully.
"Injure him, break him. Make the AllSpark know it was us. But do not kill him, Barricade. Do as I say," the hulking Seeker had hissed at him, his venomous stupidity regarding his mission as insulting to a professional mayhem bringer like Barricade here as it was on Cybertron. He pushed to the limit of his top speed, the yellow flank of the mini-con finally hoving into view once more.
-0-On the ground in Denver
Prime transformed then peeled out blowing through the gates as the humans stepped aside to let him go. He turned the corner at 20th and Blake going against the traffic designation, plowing through the accumulating snow with ease. By the time he had reached the scene, Ratchet was already there with the twins, Arcee and First Aid. He transformed and moved forward gently grasping Hound's rear fender as they turned him over. Hound sat down on his tires with a muffled thud as Robert Epps flailed inside.
Ratchet pulled him out gently, then handed him to Prime. Prime set him down on the sidewalk, positioning him out of the wind under a battered awning. He turned to watch as Ratchet reached inside of Hound to manually activate his transformation cog. Slowly, grinding loudly, he did to sprawl face down in the show.
They turned him over as Ratchet scanned him, pulling gear from subspace to patch on the fly a number of deep wounds from shattered steel girders, flying bricks and mortar. As they stood in a half circle waiting for Ratchet to signal Hound's transfer as another series of blasts ripped the street. They stepped back for shelter. Ratchet flung himself over Hound then looked up to curse loudly after the Seeker flew upward.
"Prime to Prowl."
:Prowl here:
"Aerialbots?"
"On their way," Prowl said glancing at the radar. It'd been remarkable how quickly they'd assimilated formats, then taking off to fly at top speed toward the shores of North America. Teletraan had downloaded the shortest route between Diego and Colorado so they were off, flying in a tight formation, changing places periodically to allow half the team to draft behind the leaders and spare fatigue from their long journey. "I put their ETA, all things being equal in about eight and a half minutes."
"We have Seekers," Prime said. "Make sure they hurry. Silverbolt will rendezvous but not before they are here to add air support."
:Affirmative:
"Ratchet has Hound. We will load him on Cosmos and send him to Diego. Have rescue on the tarmac. Send Cosmos back and have him post in a high orbit."
:Affirmative, sir: Prowl said as Prime turned back to the problem at hand.
He stood in the storm with snow accumulating on his body when a pip on his sensors read Decepticon. He rapped Springer directing him to take Sunstreaker, retrace back to the Field and go up Wewatta Street, then right on Park Avenue West. They nodded, transforming to leave in a flurry of snow.
Turning to Sideswipe and Arcee, he directed them to give cover to Ratchet as he sent a signal to the triage center that there would be wounded coming in. He transformed, his trailer beckoning from subspace and after loading Hound, they began to leave together. Epps was safely and warmly inside Sideswipe as they drove to their field HQ. Sideswipe covered their retreat as Ratchet lead the way.
-0-Ironhide
He drove slowly along 20th Avenue moving toward the next left turn, a road named Market Street that paralleled Blake. Turning into the flow of normal traffic, traffic that wasn't there due to the storm, he heard and saw the blast that took out Hound. Turning around to floor it as best he could, he drove to the corner where 22nd Street crossed Market.
-0-Prime and Sideswipe
They barreled out of Coors Field heading down 20th Street and back up Blake to assist the others again. As they did the signature of a Decepticon was beginning to appear through the interference of the storm. They parked in the middle of the street, transformed, then pinged Ironhide. He pinged back.
On a heavily encrypted line Prime laid out the plan with Sideswipe poised beside him, his battle face and swords his armor. The signature was ahead and given the attack so far they couldn't assume that the Cons didn't know they were being hunted or that the Decepticon registering was no more than another trick.
The two moved out and were roughly half a block behind Ironhide so the big Autobot waited, letting his soldier out as he transformed with his canons coming online. Ironhide knelt down on one knee giving directions to the soldier who went to a building to use it for cover. Ironhide swept the street and buildings around with his night vision goggles, his weapon pointing in each direction as he turned slowly in a circle. Ironhide counted off the kliks in his mind then moved forward sensing that he and the other two nearby were in sync. His soldier walked along the buildings, blending in out of sight of danger.
-0-Nearby
The irritated form of Scorponok stood in the snow of an alleyway off Market, his sensors recording forms nearby of Cybertronian origin. His radar was still suspect after the debacle in Egypt, the level of mechanical medical treatment he'd received being minimal, if that much. Starscream had not been terribly interested in his personal problems. He just wanted him to do what he did almost better than anyone else, deliver weapons and other technology to aliens in violation of the Tyrest Treaties and other laws of Cybertron and space.
He wasn't the smartest bot in the galaxy but he was cunning, wily, tenacious and unafraid. He'd secreted in his body a fusion weapon, one that was slated to be dropped off at a particular place in this Primus forsaken warren of insect houses and streets. A human insect would be there to get it but they were late.
The storm, he considered, the storm had made a routine drop off problematic. He knew that Starscream, their nominal leader while their real and only leader was elsewhere, wherever that was would be seriously fragged. He didn't care. The cold was harming his systems, he was alone in a city that he didn't know and there were Autobots around.
He considered how he'd eluded Ultra Magnus for eons and he felt the same confidence now. That would be his first big mistake. His second would be what he did with that confidence.
-0-Ironhide
He stalked forward listening through the howling wind, peered through the howling snowfall. It was streaming into his face, the wind carrying it full on straight. Reaching the corner of 22nd Street, he paused in the shadows to wait until Prime and Sideswipe's signatures reached the same place on their street a block away.
They pinged their presence so Ironhide ran to the middle of the intersection to hunker down. Covering Prime and Sideswipe, they hurried across on Blake and waited on the other side of the intersection while Ironhide arose to cross the open space himself.
That's when the sound of a screaming engine came through the haze and muffled silence, the sound of a Seeker on a strafing run. Prime and Sideswipe turned as one and drawing on sensors for targeting fired at the same time. The Seeker lay down fire and flew upward again, the three turning with it to shoot. As they did another one flying perpendicularly to the other lay down fire through 22nd Street, through the Blake Street intersection scattering Prime and Sideswipe and along the street through the Market Street intersection where Ironhide stood.
Ironhide turned quickly and jumped but the weapons fire hit him spinning him in the air and all four point nine metric tons of the big mech hit the ground hard. He rolled and rolled slamming into a building to take out a light pole, the electricity popping and sparking before the block east of him went dark.
Just one block from them leaning against a building blinded by the snowfall, Scorponok having guided the Seeker strafing runs felt only deep disgust at their failure so he cut his losses and began to dig. He dug down through the asphalt street, through the pipes and lines below and by the time they would find his departure point later, he was thirty miles away moving underground tunneling his way south.
-0-Near the Colorado border
He stood on the gully side staring down into the shallow ravine. It was a basin carved from flooding and though it wasn't deep, barreling through the air at over two hundred miles an hour and falling into it was a bad thing to occur to one's confidence and chassis.
Barricade stood on the lip of the hill, the road nearby showing the shredded tires of the spectacular accident that had taken the Autobot out of the game. It took all he had to transform to go, leaving the little yellow pile of scrap behind.
/... later, you little fragger. Later when it doesn't matter ... you and me.../
-0-Coors Field
They were loading Hound when Ratchet bent over, his cry piercing the muffled silence of the Field. He clawed at his chassis and hung for a moment bent over with an incredible pain. Then he straightened.
Sunstreaker held him erect, his servo gripping Ratchet's arm.
Ratchet looked at Sunny, then the others with growing panic. "Ironhide," he whispered. Then he cried out and moved forward shaking free of Sunstreaker's grip. Running toward the exit nearby, transforming on the fly, he tore across the grounds, through the gate and into the storm.
Behind him rolling equally as fast, Springer, Sunstreaker and a human squad car followed.
-0-On the street
They turned Ironhide over and saw that the damage to his chest was significant. There was burned armor that was still smoking in spots and a hole was in his chest.
Prime knelt to hold Ironhide's helm as he searched the big mech for any sign of life. As they stood around him shielding Ironhide from the falling snow, the curses and cries for medics echoed over the comm link from the street where they huddled onward to the corridors, rooms and hangars of Diego Garcia.
The human HQ had a text and visual feed but audio involving Autobots was not permitted. Their soldiers could speak and they heard them but the Autobot video comm lines were for the Autobot HQ only. Confusion and cross purposes were eliminated that way along with control of images but the orderly chaos of the human N.E.S.T. HQ was in stark contrast to the tension and quiet attentiveness of the Autobots.
They stood in knots, alone and at stations listening to the explosions, screaming of tires, curses, shots and felt dread.
Ironhide was down.
Hound was down.
They all itched to be there.
A screeching sound could be heard but they didn't know for a moment that it was Ratchet transforming to slide on his side for a distance in the ice and snow. He clawed his way to his peds and hurried to the side of the silent form of the big Autobot. Ironhide was still, off line and for all intents and purposes seemingly dead in initial appearance.
Prime was kneeling holding Ironhide's head off the ground in his servos, the expression on his face terrible to see. The others, the soldiers and the Autobots gathered around forming a perimeter around them. Some looked up, their firearms pointed to the sky and others knelt in the circle, their weapons pointed outward to cover the streets.
Ratchet began by pulling Ironhide further over onto his back. Then in the darkness of the dimmed street under a falling snow he could see the blue flickering light of Ironhide's spark faintly through the hole in his chest.
-0-Aerialbots
They reached Colorado blasting into the airspace of the Mile High City to find a faint trace of the Seekers who had cut their loses and ran. They radioed Silverbolt whose joy at their appearance at last on Earth was cut short by the terrifying traffic over his audials. While he waited to transport the wounded and the team, they gave cover overhead.
-0-Ratchet and Ironhide
Ratchet saw the hole and he saw his servos but nothing else. He saw the hole and he feverishly worked to protect it, the notched corner of Ironhide's spark chamber damage making his spark vulnerable. Ratchet subbed a tool kit tearing it open with his servos, scattering tools as he searched for what he needed.
Prime holding Ironhide still even though the mech hadn't moved watched Ratchet as he muttered unintelligibly to himself, turning to work as swiftly as he dared to stabilize Ironhide.
His servos, all Ratchet saw was the hole and his servos.
He straddled Ironhide peering closely into the wound. He reached for a tool and removed with as much care as he could a partially melted chunk of Ironhide's impossibly strong durable epidermal armor. He cast it aside and reached for a patch, gently placing it on the site, then pulling it off. He reached for cutters clipping the armor, folding it slightly. It molded to fit around the corner of Ironhide's chassis to cover the flickering spark as it lit the night through the burned charred spot on the edge of his spark chamber.
His servos, his trembling servos worked feverishly as the hole grew smaller, then it fit. He transformed a digit, welding the patch into place, the medical metallic plate melting like butter under the torch. He reached into the kit pulling a monitoring device and began to program it, his eyes flickering between the device and the silent face of the only mech he ever loved with all his spark, with all his processor and all his days and nights through the eons of their youth, young adulthood and maturity. He held Ironhide's life in his trembling servos as he worked feverishly.
He placed the device in the center of Ironhide's chassis punching in the code that would maintain a force field around that part of his body. It was a critical care device and he'd used it before saving some and not others. Each loss was terrible but this one if it were a loss would claim him, too, taking him away from the numbing terrifying idea of life alone. His servos trembled as he punched the last configuration into the small device. It sputtered as snow fell upon it. He cried out, cursing as he wiped the snow away, blowing on the scree to warm it up. Then it hummed, the sparkle of the field igniting, then disappearing as it kicked into life.
He sat and counted, the data on the device working through the routine that allowed it to formulate the size of the mech's spark chamber, the quality of the spark under assault and the intensity of protection it should generate to secure the structural integrity of the spark chamber itself. When it reached 80%, the minimum for transport, they could leave.
42%.
48%.
Coolant pooled in Ratchet's optics, the snow blinding him as he held his servos over the device. Ironhide was disappearing under a thin blanket of white as the snow began to fall harder. So did the others, his comrades-in-arms, his fellow Cybertronians, the Autobots that he'd thrown in with as a much younger mech, those that he loved even now as the wretchedness of his situation ate at his processor.
"Please, Primus. Come on, come on," Ratchet whispered watching his servos, watching the device slowly click upward, the energy field taking care and time as it slowly, carefully generated protection for Ironhide's endangered spark.
67%.
73%.
His servos trembled and the snow piled up, whiting them out as he protected the box.
77%.
78%.
80%.
He let looked up at Prime, himself stricken and silent, covered head to foot with a blanket of snow. "We can take him now. We have to get him to base. We can't wait, Optimus! Help me! Help me!" Ratchet cried, reaching out a servo to Prime in his agony. "Help me! We have to hurry!"
Prime gently lay Ironhide's helm down and rose to bark orders. A field stretcher was pulled from subspace, the bots lifted Ironhide onto it with an agonized Ratchet watching and directing. Then they picked him up to carry the distance, not daring to put him in a vehicle. They began to make the three block trek to the field where Silverbolt waited for them, the word going ahead to Diego that a critical spark injury was incoming.
They made their strange appearing journey to the great jet and loaded Ironhide carefully, his silent figure lying along the same side of the plane as Hound's. Cosmos took the soldiers, then pulled up and away.
Will Lennox reassured Prime that he'd stay and take care of the scene. The rest boarded then Silverbolt lifted off led to Diego by the enraged Aerialbots who covered them all the way.
It was silent but for Ratchet whispering to Ironhide, telling him in their own language that he was going to make it. First Aid sitting beside Hound watched with a stricken expression as they wend their way back to base.
When they arrived the entire Autobot contingent not on duty was there to greet them, a silent mass of comrades gathering to see if they could help.
Silverbolt lowered his jump door and the stretchers were moved out, Ironhide first. Ratchet had hold of one corner, the twins and Springer the others. He stumbled on the ramp so they halted to wait for him.
Prowl took his arm and pulled him away as Red Alert took hold of the stretcher. Moving carefully, they walked to the hangar complex as mechs parted to let them pass, then followed behind.
First Aid made it to Med Bay first halting at the door. "I need volunteers!"
The sound of heavy footfalls could be heard as mechs came from all over and formed a line to donate energon. As they stood in a grim silent line, the stretcher bearing Ironhide carried by equally grim-faced friends and comrades, their Prime included, passed by to enter the Med Bay followed by a silent Prowl holding Ratchet's arm. They passed to disappear inside leaving the silent line behind.
-0-At the Colorado border some time later
A truck drove up halting beside the wash. For a moment there was no sound, then a transformation occurred. Shining his headlights downward, Springer saw the broken slowly reviving chassis of a yellow mini-con. He walked down and knelt beside Bumblebee. Patting the youngster's shoulder, he spoke gently. "Bee, Prime sent me. Cosmos will be here soon. We'll get you out of here shortly. Hang on."
Bumblebee lay back subspacing his weapons and relaxed, glad to see a friendly. He'd lain in the ditch, his repair systems working slowly as he scanned with one broken optic and a shattered leg and arm for the menacing figure of Barricade. He closed his good optic and fell into a light painful recharge.