Chapter 39
-0-Med Bay
Ratchet stared at the mess wondering how a truck could fell a mech as stolid and powerful as Ironhide. He wasn't aware that the types of security vehicles that the humans built to be both bullet and bombproof were enormous, gigantically heavy and designed to drive through things that might be in the way of their passenger's escape. They were used in dangerous places by diplomats, leaders of state and others who might need to have a tank rather than a car to ensure their safety against nearly anything but a nuclear attack. Given enough speed, the vehicle that hit Ironhide was big, heavy and strong enough to do him good damage.
Ratchet at the moment didn't care. Wheeljack would tell him.
Bits and pieces had been bandied about and he considered none of it while he worked. Later, he would do what he could about understanding the senselessness of this event. The biggest focus was right here piecing Ironhide back together. Replacing some pieces of his shin plating and pounding out others would be his life for a few orns.
Good thing he was a metallurgist of renown given his family background and a metal mechanic without peer.
Well, perhaps peer only to his fathers.
Watching the monitors, he then began the tortuous process of taking off long segments of Ironhide's shin structure and rerouting temporarily his cydraulic lubricant feeds. He had washed off the energon, dirty oil splashes from the SUV, engine fluids and glass beads from the impact glass of the SUV windshield which had shattered against Ironhide's armor, about the only thing on Earth that could do that, the bits and pieces of the SUVs front end and underlying it was a number of very bad dents and a few broken plates. The plates had severed a lot of wiring and the long lines that fed energon throughout his body. That was the danger. The rest would be cosmetic or ensuring that the damage didn't stick around to impair movement.
It'd been a horrendous sight but as he worked he felt better. First Aid was taking the plating to place it under scopes for a thorough analysis for structural integrity and found reason for hope. It would almost all be repaired with minimal replacements, something that would make recovery a lot faster. Having to create new structures for old ones took time on a planet without the resources they needed. Fortunately, if you heated his metallic plates high enough, they would melt, be remolded and replaced as nearly brand new. They knew how to make that happen.
He worked at the lines and wires pulling things out and putting things in. It almost felt like weaving making the threads all appear as something else when the work was done. How many times he had done it for everyone let alone Ironhide, he couldn't count. He just did it one more time, his servos weaving magic and mobility for his big old mech. As he did, he didn't notice that Optimus Prime sat on a bench behind him with a look of weariness on his face.
Prowl silent and pensive stood with him, his arm around Prime's shoulders.
-0-At the entrance to the complex
They walked side-by-side toward the door and when they reached it they paused a moment to look upward at the five Autobots that looked down at them. Epps and Lennox, their grief obvious nodded to the mechs then walked forward. No one stopped them, no one said no. They disappeared inside.
"No one else," Sunstreaker said turning to look at Springer.
"Graham," Sideswipe said looking at his brother.
"Graham," Sunstreaker said, his expression feral. "No one else."
Sideswipe nodded.
-0-Inside
It was quiet, though a murmur of electronic speech flowed over the top of them like a static buzz. No one was disturbed by their appearance, some nodded, others sat together aggravated and confused. It was a long walk across the hangar, weaving around mechs but they made it to the road hugging the walls as they walked toward Med Bay. They nearly got there when Jazz spotted them then reached down to pick them up gently. He walked to a room nearby, closing the door behind them.
-0-Ironhide and Ratchet, later
"Hey."
Ratchet looked up, his startled focus practically piercing Ironhide. He walked over from a work station where he was fashioning a part to check Ironhide's feed lines and the screens overhead. "Hey."
"That hurt."
"I suspect it did," Ratchet said fussing with a spot on Ironhide's armor. "You're usually more agile."
"It sort of overtook me."
"I can see that," Ratchet said moving the blanket up a bit, fussing with it down the sides. He packed it around Ironhide giving him a warm cover to aid his pain and healing.
"I started a diary," Ironhide said. He was disturbed by Ratchet's fidgety upset.
Ratchet looked up at him with a grin. "You did."
"Yeah."
"I suppose I'm in it."
"You are."
"I suppose there's less than complimentary things about me," Ratchet said rubbing Ironhide's arm with his servo.
Ironhide smiled. "No."
They stared at each other quietly for a moment then Ratchet lowered his helm to lay it on Ironhide's broad chest. He slid his arm around Ironhide's body and felt the gentle touch of Ironhide's powerful servo on his back.
"Truce?" Ratchet said softly.
"Truce," Ironhide said. "No end?"
"No," Ratchet said rubbing his cheek against Ironhide's armor. "We aren't through negotiations yet."
"True," Ironhide said smiling with amusement at the hilarity to come. "We have to do all the dots and I's or something. Humans and their jargon."
Ratchet chuckled. "Yeah. They're something aren't they."
"Right now, I can't say a good word about most of 'em," Ironhide said glancing at Ratchet.
"I don't suppose you can."
It was silent a moment. Then they heard someone clearing their voice. Ratchet stood then looked down at the floor, his arms still around Ironhide.
Ironhide turned his helm to stare downward.
Lennox and Epps stood side-by-side on the floor, their nervousness and upset evident.
"Ratchet? Ironhide? Are you all right?" Lennox asked, his voice slightly unsteady.
"Yes," Ironhide said glancing at Ratchet. "I'm sleeping with the doctor." He smiled. "Am I?"
Ratchet looked at him with a slight smile on his face. "Negotiations, Ironhide."
He looked down at the two soldiers. "I'll get back to ya on that one."
For the first time since looking up to watch the confounding episode happen, Epps and Lennox smiled.
-0-Outside in the chaos
The medics worked feverishly cutting the doors and panels from the dashboard of the wrecked SUV with the jaws of life. Pinned tightly into the cab, the engine pushed back until it could go no where else, the two remaining passengers waited for rescue, falling in and out of consciousness, already bearing the transfusion lines that would either save them or not.
One of the three was already dead, his body lying on the pavement nearby covered in a sheet. The two men inside, neither of them Todd Baseman, the miscreant former resident of the Autobot brig, were in grievous condition. They were a man from France and the Foreign Legion and a man from Cincinnati who had made a career of security for hire. The Frenchman would die and the American would live albeit in reduced circumstances.
Colonel Fulton, Commandant for the base stood quietly nearby watching as his personnel did what they were trained to do. He looked at the pavement and saw there were no skid marks, no attempt to brake and from the degree of impact it was obvious they were deliberately aiming for the Autobot they hit.
Fulton who was no friend of mercenaries pondered the situation, then began to walk to the HQ to make his report to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Glenn Morshower, a former commandant of his from back in the day.
Morshower commanded N.E.S.T Global and was his direct supervising officer. He would have his forensics done by the book, the Judge Advocate General's office would handle the inquiry and witnesses would be placed on the record as fast as he could. The jag off mercs had made a diplomatic incident by attempting to batter or perhaps kill an Autobot. With an aggravated stride he walked to his office to begin.
Jase Daniels who was standing nearby with two of his mercenaries watched him go. He'd told his mercs that they were to disrupt where possible and make things harder for the unity that N.E.S.T and the aliens had between them. He had only passing awareness of what they did, preferring and stating the need for plausible deniability for himself as the leader of their faction.
This didn't surprise him but it was sloppy and obviously their fault. He would have to stonewall the assignment of responsibility as hard as he could. This could make them all look bad. The drunkenness that fueled this decision could cut two ways. Either his judgment of having them with him resulting in this would be a bad thing or he would be just as much a victim as the Autobot. He would make sure he ended up on the right side of this issue. No matter how it went, he had just declared open war on the aliens.
-0-Washington, D.C., at a function
He stood in the gathering resplendent in his dress uniform and wine glass in hand as he talked to a group of congressmen and women. They were at a meet and greet for a new diplomatic venture in the Middle East and he was doing his bit. When an aide came to him and whispered in his ear, he made his regrets and left to take the phone call in his special highly encrypted phone.
The congressmen and women watched him go, speculating together what emergency would be calling their top soldier away.
He took the phone call in an office room on his encrypted line. When he was finished he was as livid as he could possibly be. Issuing orders to his aide, Glenn Morshower walked back into the party, put on his game face and made nice.
-0-At the tarmac in Diego Garcia
Niall Graham stepped off Silverbolt with tech specialists following to walk to the hangar to make a check-in call. Before he reached the door, he'd found out a number of things...
1.) A security SUV driven by the mercs had crashed into Ironhide in a demented alcohol-infused game of chicken,
2.) two of them had lost and one was barely hanging on,
3.) Ironhide had injuries, again, to his legs,
4.) the Autobots were in lock down and no one was allowed inside their territory and buildings,
5.) General Morshower was going to have a conference call in the morning about the whole thing,
6.) Jase Daniels was holed up in the Transient Officer's Quarters with his mercs making phone calls to his family back in Washington, D.C.,
7.) Lennox and Epps had gone into the Autobot hangar and hadn't come out,
8.) everyone was deeply on edge.
He commandeered a jeep and drove like a maniac to the Autobot Complex as fast as he could.