The base itself was a little ways north of Iacon, located on one of the old airfields, and the bays and cargo areas built into the earth beneath it. The medical wings had been built along the edges of landing bays topside, and as Ratchet stepped out into the open air, he could see the city spires just ten klicks down the road. Not for the first time, he considered taking a drive out to it, if only to spin up a bit. He had the time for it, and didn't even need to request permission – a privilege he rather suspected he'd been granted in the hopes that he might rethink his decision.
But he hadn't, and though he didn't truly think he was in danger of reneging on his choice, he had to admit that the grind was getting to him. Maybe if he hadn't had this glitch to deal with, he wouldn't feel as though he'd been somehow unhinged from himself, as if he didn't sit right in himself, and rattled about in his own frame. Everyone knew medics were not well-suited to war. But with the blasted glitch, he couldn't even do his own job properly without hand-helds – something that did not inspire confidence three weeks later. Even Ophiux, the brother to whom he was closest among all his native cohort, had despaired of him.
"How long is it going to take you to come to your senses?" he'd asked, when last they'd met near the end of a medical supply run to Iacon. Ophiux had looked him up and down, and Ratchet had flexed his fingers slightly in discomfort as the other's scan had fixed on his right arm with medical surety. "You weren't made to be a military Jerry, Ratch!"
"That's why they brand you with the decals," he'd replied, striving for such levity as he could manage, "so you remember what you're for." And when Ophiux hadn't responded, just stared at him, he'd sobered, and insisted: "I'm still a medic, Ophiux, no matter what spare parts they tack on."
"Then you're not a soldier. Ratchet, you can't be both!"
"I'm not," he'd assured him.
"Then stay here, in a bay, where you belong. Or is there something to make you stay out there...?" That scan had intensified, made his whole arm tingle, and he'd turned away, just started walking. "Ratchet?"
"I've got to go," he'd said over his shoulder. "I've got work to do."
He'd not been back since then, nor spoken with any of his Iacon brethren, not even Ophiux, who hadn't called. All the arguments, all the resistance to his leaving that had plagued him since he'd requested transfer – it seemed they'd finally been settled, but not because he'd won his cohort over to his view. He'd simply failed finally to win Ophiux, because Ophiux had seen... well, likely what his squad mates did every day, and he did wonder that, between a group of Jerries he'd not known more three weeks and his own cohort, it should be the former still holding out hope for him.
Or no, that wasn't true – they just knew when they were stuck with someone and had a healthy sense of their own self-interest.
"Slaggit, Ratchet, get it in gear," his squad mates would beg every time he had to reach for a hand-held. "You want to fix us, fragging fix yourself first!"
He wanted to – he wanted to, as he'd wanted very few things in the long life of his kind, but it wasn't in his hands – literally, in a sense. If he'd been even a marginally decent soldier, they might have tolerated the problem; but he wasn't, and if he couldn't even fulfill his own design, he was worse than useless. He was dangerous to them, and they knew it, and it showed. Very few in his squad were openly disdainful like Torqueline, and many, like Amtek, seemed embarrassed not to like him better, but seemingly all-encompassing incompetence won him no friends, unless it were among his medical brethren. But he could only tolerate their pity in controlled doses, and he'd had an overload of it in the past two weeks.
All of which together made life on base rather isolating, and he had two hours before shifts changed – dead time that weighed the heavier for his frustrations.
Come on, he chided himself then. You brought this on yourself. You could've stayed when Ophiux asked you to. Yet here he was, because if his unqualified medical commitments made him an anomaly, he couldn't see his way clear to doing what he'd been built for unless under an Autobot decal. And that meant he was going to have to take Flashflare's advice very pragmatically and try harder to learn to use the blasted gun just so that he could learn to control himself. At least then, he wouldn't be absolutely useless on the field. And so, with another cycle of vents, he headed off reluctantly to the airfield that had been converted to a range.
~0~
Given that they were at war, the practice range was rarely quiet. Ratchet had been instructed on its safety regs upon arrival, and so he went carefully along the back perimeter, skirting what looked like another squadron mock combat drill, and a handful of other 'bots who were clustered along the targeting ranges, potting drones that whizzed about on their hoverpods. From the number of hits being scored, they were regulars, maybe even sharpshooters, and Ratchet had no intention of joining them.
Instead, he made his way to the more remote, sectioned off area designated for new recruits and recovering troops. Another medic – this one a junior grade field tech, whose brilliant, reflective white armor bore dark blue emergency personnel decals along with the required Autobot decal dyed screamingly scarlet – glanced up at his arrival. Or rather, down – clearly he was an air lift class transport – and then scanned Ratchet, asking: "Designation?"
"Ratchet, surgical officer, grade three," he told the other, who entered that into a datafile, ran it against records, then nodded and waved him past, rotor-blades clicking softly.
"If you need assistance, use trainee channel three to comm me – the name's Skypax," the field tech said. "And you can get gunnery tech Backfire on channel two if you're looking for instruction, sir."
Ratchet muttered a quick thanks and hastily took himself off – not to shoot at anything, but just to find a quiet space where he could practice his transformation sequence in peace, and at least not have to worry about hitting anyone in case of an accidental misfire. There were PT areas past the target ranges that were set up as obstacle courses, with plenty of open space, and Ratchet settled himself in a corner of one of them, relieved to find that no one seemed to be using them currently.
He glanced down at his right arm, flexed his fingers, rotated his wrist a bit, and winced at the stiff pull that felt like hydraulics balking. Psychosomatic, he told himself firmly, vents battening down as he pulled air in. He probably shouldn't do that – he didn't need to just for transformation, and little habits like that getting synced up to and integrated with a trigger sequence could make matters difficult should he ever find himself in a vacuum – but he set the nagging perfectionist in him aside in favor of simply going through the transformation sequences that once had been so unthinkingly familiar.
Scanner. Diagnostic laser. Cutting laser. Magnetic screw driver. Digital probes. Clamp. With some effort and concentration, they gave him little trouble – they were designed to function with simple, minimal, and relatively isolated somatic triggers, with the probes being the most complex. Even so, their triggers were nothing like the ones that covered the more extensive tool-transformations. Speaking of which, Ratchet paused a moment, rerunning their sequence triggers mentally before clenching his fist and giving a quick, sharp shake, aiming for amp-meter.
"Slaggit!" he swore, and winced when the cartridge popped again, jamming the struts trying to reform into the meter and painfully crimping tensors. Vents flaring, he reformed back to standard robotic mode, waited a few seconds, then tried again... with as much success.
After several unsuccessful attempts, when he began to think he was going to strip insulation and perhaps even sever a tensor if he kept on with it, he switched to trying for arc-welder. That went more smoothly, at least, and when he managed that transformation on the third try, he attempted to switch from there to amp-meter... and jammed himself again. Growling, he went back to the starting sequence, determined to get through one complete set of tool transformations without incident before he left the range.
Unhappily, that was a goal easier set than accomplished. Intent on achieving it, he lost track of time, and consequently had no notion of how long he'd been struggling when he heard an engine rev, and then the tell-tale tone sequence of someone going through a full transformation. Startled EM sensors snapped to focus, struggling to get a fix on the newcomer before he'd even looked up.
But for some reason, they seemed to slide off of nothing, and so he only got to watch the last stages of the intruder's transformation, as the 'bot came to a sliding stop before him, skidding out on one knee and arm. Somehow, he managed to make it look fairly graceful too, and as soon as he'd come to a halt, a few meters from Ratchet's position, he fairly bounced to his feet, gave himself a shake, and blew some dust out his vents. He spun his treads briefly in their wells, ejecting dirt and dust, but otherwise did not seem terribly concerned with either. Then, apparently noticing Ratchet for the first time, he said breezily:
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," Ratchet replied, unsure what else to say, as he lowered his sore arm.
"Sorry if I startled you," the 'bot continued, managing somehow to seem both sincere and cheerfully unapologetic at the same time. "Couldn't resist tryin' out the sensor dampeners on a live target. Did they work?"
"The – I suppose," Ratchet replied, regarding the newcomer with some confusion. Now that the 'bot was actually standing before him, training sensors on him did yield something, but it was a weak, unstable sensor ghost at best. The medic frowned, interest suddenly piqued. "I didn't think you could rig a set of dampeners for a model your size."
For the newcomer was definitely on the small side, his helm radio array – if that's what the spikes actually were – just coming up to the set of chassis-mounted lights that Ratchet bore.
"That's what they say," the other replied, and this time there was no mistaking the predatory glee. He flexed his shoulders back gently – probably a trigger sequence – and of a sudden, his signature flared to life for Ratchet, as the dampeners disengaged. Retracting the camouflage visor as well, the 'bot chuckled, engine purring smugly. "Guess we just proved 'em wrong!"
"So it would seem."
The little silver 'bot stretched a bit, bouncing on his treads, then flashed Ratchet a greeting with his lights, as he said, by way of belated introduction, "I'm Jazz, by the way. And you're one of the new medical Jerries."
"Ratchet," Ratchet supplied, returning the flash. And when Jazz simply nodded, as if knowingly, asked: "Is there a reason you've run my file?"
"There a reason you'd think I have?"
Ratchet blinked. "You seem to know who I am..."
"Oh, that. Don't need records for that. Autobot, Decepticon, Neutral – " a casually dismissive engine whine accompanied this " – don't matter, all you medics favor colors that could blind a body before he ever recognized the decals. And you're here on the newbie grounds, practicin', so either you just got potted and patched or you got upgraded. But there ain't been any medicorps casualties lately, and I know there're three new medics, one built-to-military specs, and two of 'em jerried recruits who'd need to relearn their tool-suite. 'Sides, there ain't so many of you an' I know Flicksaw's usual crew, so process of deduction," he said and shrugged. "Don't tell anyone, though. I got a reputation to maintain."
A reputation for what? Ratchet wondered, but didn't get as far as asking, for Jazz pressed on: "How's it going, anyhow? Upgrades and the new life and all that?" Ratchet did not answer immediately – even had he been prepared to answer, a personal inquiry from an unknown and unexpected quarter was hardly one he would answer easily. Jazz, however, once more moved ahead to fill the silence with his own conclusion. "Rough, is it?"
Ratchet blinked at him. "Do you always talk this much?" he found himself asking, genuinely curious, and got another chuckle.
"Occupational hazard," the other mech answered, though he did not, Ratchet noted, volunteer his occupation. Then, unerringly returning to sensitive topics: "I'm right though, aren't I? Huh. Lemme see?" And he held out his hands.
Tetramerously symmetric, a part of Ratchet, the detached clinical diagnostician in him, noted; the other part, for reasons he couldn't quite fathom, was obeying the implicit command. Those symmetrical hands closed on his, and claw-sharp fingertips gently played over Ratchet's hands and back over his wrists, needling between forearm struts, sending an odd tingle up his arms. That tingle edged into discomfort when one claw slid along that one peculiarly sensitive tensor cable, and when one of Jazz's needle-tipped fingers caught in and began running along the barely visible seam of an embedded sensor, Ratchet hissed through his vents, armor contracting defensively, as a transformation sequence partially engaged.
"Sorry 'bout that," Jazz apologized quickly, sliding his hands back as Ratchet swiftly reformed. "New trigger, I guess?"
"In a manner of speaking," Ratchet answered, just a little sourly, and Jazz cocked his head as if in response to some elusive note.
"Mm. Yeah, you medics and your hands – always a tough re-con, what with everything you got packed in there, and all the sensors. Probably got your triggers rearranged and your kinesthetics all screwed up tryin' to be efficient with 'em," the other 'bot said sagely, and released him then. And he gave Ratchet a close look, as if suddenly recalling something. "You're the pacifist, aren't you?"
For a split second, Ratchet hesitated, caught off-guard by the frankness of the question. Jazz hummed softly, sounding self-satisfied. Uncomfortable and a bit irked, Ratchet asked, just a little archly, "I suppose you've been talkingwith my squad?"
"Gotta have somethin' to deduce from. Might as well be scuttlebutt," the other replied, then shrugged. "Plus, I've been through a couple hard re-cons, too," he said enigmatically. "It's always rough when you've got to fit something in that doesn't work with the parts you've already got, and rougher when you got reservations. You end up with all manner of crossed wires and the like."
"Who are you?" Ratchet demanded, rather abruptly and with no little bafflement. For the 'bot's somewhat irritating, round-about manner of speaking aside, he seemed otherwise remarkably... untroubled. There was just absolutely nothing in his manner of the discomfort most others displayed around him. Perhaps the unhappy, friendless weeks of facing suspicion and incomprehension had warped his expectations, but the other's sublime confidence set Ratchet on edge, and the response did nothing to reassure him:
"Told you that, too: name's Jazz," the silver 'bot said easily. Ratchet canted an optical ridge, optics narrowing, and Jazz held his hands up, though his mood seemed not at all affected by the glare the medic was leveling at him. "All right, and I'm a reconnaissance 'bot, since you're askin'."
"Recon," the medic murmured, as something that'd been subtly nagging at him suddenly crystallized. "That's why you've got those dampeners: you're with intelligence."
"Your business ismy business," the other quipped, brightly, before qualifying: "At least when I'm on shift. Off duty, I'm just curious."
Which did explain quite a bit, Ratchet supposed; it also prompted him to ask, suspiciously, "So what am I, then? A project?"
"Nah. You're just handy."
"I see." Though in point of fact, Ratchet didn't, quite. But he wasn't about to say so, and asked instead, "Then what are you out here for? Not for the dampeners."
"What makes you say that?"
Ratchet vented hard, and a little sarcastically. "Deduction," he said dryly tossing Jazz's watch-word back at him. "You were out here, skulking, by yourself, and you don't strike me as the sort to test something like those without the audience they're supposed to fool."
This got him a grin, as optics brightened.
"Like the way you think," Jazz declared, then half turned, sweeping a hand toward his left leg. Ratchet narrowed his optics, then shut them down deliberately a moment. Surgical vision interface came up on reactivation and an armor panel swelled to fill his visual frame, then reformed a second time at finer resolution as he focused more narrowly. Topographical scanning kicked in, tracking Ratchet's visual sweep, overlaying Jazz's silver-grey with red where surface abnormalities bounced the scan back, so that he could see, then, the nearly invisible welding seams that zig-zagged up that leg in an uneven welter of tracks, from wheel-well to hip. Tensor cabling, too, showed signs of relatively recent tearing and heat-warp, and some of it had clearly been replaced...
"Courtesy of my last assignment," Jazz's voice sounded from out of frame.
Ratchet blinked twice, suffering the brief disorientation as regular vision was restored, and possibilities flitted through his mind. He wasn't a munitions expert, but the military trauma database was extensive and heavily cross-linked to the arms databases, and he had plenty of time to read. And so he did. Voraciously. Because even if it made him want to kill somebody for inventing that many ways to terminate a 'bot, outrage didn't save patients. Diagnostic skill, however, often did, and on a battlefield, skill needed the information those files contained. Skill of a different sort went into repairing that damage, and whoever had worked on Jazz had done a good job getting things back together, which made diagnosis after the fact difficult, but...
"Either you got hit with a set of frangible shells, or that was one slagging muck of an explosion you got in the way of," he judged, and felt compelled to add, sharply: "Either way, you got lucky: easier to fabricate a new leg than repair it half the time."
"It was a pretty fantastic blast – one of my best, if I do say so myself," the other replied, sounding pleased. "And yeah, I got lucky. Slagged a bunch of cabling, leaked a lot of energon and coolant, and consequently nearly burned out a few systems getting back. Worth it, though. And at least I didn't lose any transformation nodes, so I could wheel it home. On a flat tire, granted, but hey, it'll do in a pinch!"
"Let me understand this," the medic said, not bothering to disguise his incredulity. "You were the one who set the explosive?"
"Yep."
"And you still ended up getting caught in the blast?"
"Yep."
"And then you nearly flat-lined yourself driving home?"
"Uh-huh."
Ratchet shook his head, appalled and also (though he didn't want to admit it) just a little in awe, if only of the skewboard logic that had gone into that sequence of decisions: Why under the double moons would anyone set a charge and not make certain to give himself time to get out of range? Almost without thinking, as if in sympathetic reaction, he rubbed along that sore tensor line. "You're insane!"
"Occupational requirement," Jazz agreed, apparently not dismayed in the least. "But I ain't the pacifist aiming to get flung to the front lines on a combat squad, either. Gotta hand it to you, doc. I think that beats most of what I do in the crazy department. And that takes some doin'!" the silver 'bot said, still radiating cheer, but there was something hard as steel and sharper than his claws beneath that up-beat voice and demeanor.
Ratchet suppressed the urge to flare his vents, though perversely, he was almost relieved to have the main matter of contention out in the open at least. "I'm not aiming for front-lines for the paradox of it," he explained flatly. "I'm just trying to do my job."
"Hope so, 'cause word of warning – whatever it was got you here, it's gonna be lookin' a little singed and grimy after a couple nights on the line, lying around in the dirt and scrabbling for parts and bullets. Some 'bots go lookin' for the quick ride out after that, but – " Jazz shrugged eloquently " – let's just say, there ain't no real reverse in the middle of things."
At that, Ratchet bristled a bit. "I'm not planning to run," he growled.
"Mm." Jazz's engine gave a low whine. "Well, I'll give it to the field medics – you're crazy fraggers, going out there with color schemes that draw fire like oil when the 'Cons think we're winnin', but I ain't seen one of you back down yet. And given what you do, I don't imagine you'll be too much bothered just from steppin' in somebody's gears and fluids, either," Jazz conceded. "But I'm not talkin' about you running, doc."
Ratchet cocked his head, frowning. "Then what are you talking about?" he demanded.
"I'm talkin' about the quick ride out." And when this clearly conveyed nothing to Ratchet, the smaller 'bot clarified: "I mean having – or getting – a death wish."
Ratchet felt cold spread through him at that, as armor pulled in a little tighter. "Why do you imagine I'd have – or get – one?"
"Ain't imagination – just I've been in this from the start," came the prompt reply. "Look, doc, we're not made to fight originally, a lot of us Autobots – that's truer every year, an' you know it. Means a lot of us didn't have the benefit, before the war, of havin' a few loose screws, meaning we're all looking to prove somethin', you might say. You put a medical code like yours on top of that, an' you're asking for a world of hurt – and I don't just mean for you. You know what the unit stats are for fragging?"
"For – what?"
"Not the metaphoric kind," Jazz clarified quickly, grinning, though that steel rang still in the undertones. "Well?" he pressed. "Do you?"
"No." Ratchet's tone was clipped, and he favored the other with a frosty glare, not that it appeared to have any effect.
"Look it up some time. Point bein', I'd hate to see you go that route, and so would everybot else, 'cause medics go straight for the kill-spots every time an' you don't go by yourselves. You lot don't mess around when you get into the mercy-metin' mood. But snappin' like that's a guaranteed quick ride to the smelting pit – 'bout as sure as goin' up against jets on a plain with what you're packin', and at least you don't have to wait for 'em," Jazz informed him.
Ratchet digested this in silence for a little while; caught between disgust and outrage (and anxiety – that, too), he couldn't immediately respond. Finally: "I don't have a death wish," he repeated emphatically, offense vibrating in his bass harmonics. And he couldn't quite forbear from adding: "If you've got doubts, you might check that medical code of mine on that matter."
Jazz regarded him a moment, then spread his hands, and Ratchet felt the air 'blur' around them as powerful grappler electromagnets flared briefly to life, as if to wipe the tension away... or else to 'smear' it further.
"There's that, true enough," he replied simply, then, after a brief pause, flashed a farewell. "Be seein' you, doc!" With that, he turned and strode off, heading back towards the main part of the camp. Ratchet scowled. That didn't fit, as an ending – he might not be one of Flicksaw's neuropsychs, but he knew when he was being pushed, and hard. Yet the bewildering itinerary of Jazz's conversation, passing through a thicket of associations, was such that the whole of it, and crucially, the motivating why of that interrogation, escaped him, though clearly it had something to do with the same commitments that put everyone off.
Whatever it was that had moved him to ask, though, Jazz seemed to think he'd gotten an answer. And Ratchet would have to be an idiot not to recognize that said answer hardly satisfied him.
Which made two of them, because Ratchet was getting damned tired of being on the doubtful end of everyone's skepticism – his own included. Analysis spun out trails of thought, therefore, seeking a line to trace back to a motive for this odd and frustrating encounter, one that he could argue to a more finished (and favorable) end, at least. Jazz, of course, just kept walking...
Intent upon that retreating figure, something caught his eye – a slight hesitation in Jazz's step. Most 'bots not built to medical specs or trained to look for it wouldn't have noticed, but he knew the signs of hydraulics overcompensating still, after being rebuilt. It was a slagging wonder he'd gotten out of that explosion intact, Ratchet thought, and found himself wondering how many of those difficult re-cons Jazz had mentioned had come about because of calls even closer than this one, which at least he'd walked away from.
I've been in this from the start, Jazz had said, which put him at what? Up to forty years in some combat zone or other? Maybe longer? His wasn't a model that was popular in Cybertron's northern hemisphere, according to the medical demographics Ratchet most relied on for his work. If he was from somewhere in the south, then he might well have been involved in this madness long before the war had officially begun. Perhaps even before anyone had really noticed there was a problem. So maybe he was hitting combat fatigue. Maybe he had 'a few loose screws'...
But that was all the province of Flicksaw's neuropsychs and somebody who knew Jazz's case history. Ratchet was not one such, and he had no such access. He was a surgeon, and so he said, "You're not new."
Jazz paused, turned back towards him, his lights flashing questioningly.
"I said, you're not new," Ratchet repeated.
The silver 'bot gave a low hum of his engine, then said, "You wanna elaborate on that, doc?"
"Well, if you're not new, you're also not here on the 'newbie grounds' because your leg's bothering you that much – another few days, on the outside, I'd say, and your body will have sorted itself out. Meantime, you won't even notice anything's off-kilter unless you work yourself pretty hard, if then," he replied, with the confidence of one who'd rebuilt enough 'bots and body parts to know precisely what he was talking about. "You don't need to be here to practice."
Jazz tilted his head slightly, and Scintillax's light reflected orangely in the visor that had slid back over his optics. "Suppose you've been lookin' at my file," he said, sounding amused.
"Profile Jazz, special ops senior field tech grade two. Repairs effected at Nova Cronum three weeks ago, and no flags for upgrades – not for the past six months, when the dampeners went in at Saanakaar orbital," Ratchet replied, by way of confirmation. "You have absolutely no reason to be out here."
"Curiosity's a reason."
Ratchet let his engine rev at that. "I'm not a project or a puzzle."
"Don't suppose you are, but you gotta admit, you're expectin' to catch the funny looks – otherwise, you ain't nearly as smart as you give off," Jazz answered back, breezily.
Damn Special Ops, anyways, Ratchet thought, struggling against a sharp retort. His opponent, who no doubt had interrogated more slippery subjects than an irritated new member of the medical corps, just watched him, smiling slightly. If he really was in this for curiosity's sake, no doubt he was enjoying himself...
"What do you want?" he asked, therefore, in as calm a voice as he could manage.
"Just trying to figure you," was the easy response, and Ratchet decided that that was probably the truth. Or at least, it was probably true, though he did not trust the 'why' of it. Still, Jazz wasn't the only one who believed in the power of reasoning...
"I'm a medic. You know what Neutral means to a medic?"
Jazz gave a brief flare of tones and shrugged.
"It means knowing where the front is by tracing supply diversions to the latest killing field," Ratchet informed him. "It means measuring developments in armaments by the influxes of reports on how to treat new kinds of war wounds. And it means that when Praxus falls next door, a huge overflow of injured 'bots ends up in your ERB because the Autobots can't seem to get the personnel or the facilities to handle the volume of cases, to say nothing of the severity of them. Care to guess the reason for that medical shortfall?"
Jazz waved a hand. "Something about medics and soldiering not goin' together so well. Some sort of primary directive conflict – it's a funny thing," he said, as the smile sharpened.
"Isn't it just?" Ratchet replied deadpan, and paused significantly. "I'm here on medical grounds. That means I'm here because I'm needed here – because of my directives, not despite them. And I'm not planning on opting out of them. That ought to be enough for you."
Jazz seemed seriously to consider this a moment, then vented air as he opened a comm link. "Jazz to duty medic, respond please," he said to the air.
Almost instantly, Skypax's voice came back: "This is Field Tech Skypax. What's your situation?"
"I need some assistance – PT course four, situation alcix two," Jazz replied, and killed the link. Ratchet stiffened. Alcix two was psychological distress... Jazz, noting his reaction, relaxed himself, letting the gaps in his own armature open to their widest in a calming gesture. "Relax, doc, I ain't turnin' you in. Just got a question for you, since you're bein' so accommodatin'."
"Which is?"
"How many tool-transformations on your right arm?" Jazz asked, gesturing to the appendage in question.
"My wha – Why?"
"'Cause I was watching – tryin' to keep count, but it's hard to know when you're balking every couple tries. How many?"
"Eight," Ratchet answered after a minute.
"Nine," Jazz flatly contradicted him, and shook his head when Ratchet started to argue. "You got nine, doc – seven you did, eight you tried, and then there's interferin' number nine. Machine gun, 'less I'm mistaken."
"That's not a tool," Ratchet began heatedly to object. But he hadn't quite finished out 'tool' when suddenly, without warning, sunlight flashed in his eyes, reflecting off a shield, and when he'd polarized his optics, Ratchet found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.
"You're a medic, so I can see how you'd think that," Jazz conceded, casually, just as if he were discussing the weather. There was a brief, stunned silence, then:
"You're kidding." In the midst of incredulity, it was the first thing that came to Ratchet's mind, in response to which, Jazz simply twisted his wrist just slightly, so that the medic could hear the whine of micro-generators spinning up. In the center of the shield, the gun barrel's rim-heating elements began to glow a worrisome hot blue. The smaller 'bot didn't waver a bit, and Ratchet fought the nearly automatic urge to cringe as target-scanning pinged against his armor, centering on that vulnerable point just under his chin, where a 'bot's protection tended to be weakest. It didn't help that, given the height discrepancy, Jazz had a perfect shot.
Just stay calm, urged the surgeon in him, the one who had dealt with the fall out from Praxus in the form of horrifically injured, disoriented, and memory-shot Autobots who came online sometimes ready to shoot or otherwise maim the medics tending them...
"Noticed you didn't form that gun up earlier," Jazz continued conversationally. "That because you won't or because you can't?" A pause, then: "You even tried that transformation yet, doc?"
"No," Ratchet replied, even as thoughts narrowed to a frantic assessment of his options. Should he even attempt a remote hack to lock Jazz down, or would he be better off trying to get in close to go for the other's interface ports? Ports were a lot easier for someone like him, but there was the small problem of getting to them. He didn't know the other 'bot's make, and now was not the time to try and access the specs database of southern hemisphere models. Moreover, Jazz was armed, and from his size and how he moved, was undoubtedly quick. Ratchet wasn't necessarily slow, but he wasn't confident that he'd be fast enough... "Not yet."
"Try it," Jazz ordered.
Vents fluttered unevenly – confused, unpleasant surprise. "What do you imagine that would prove?" he demanded, uncomprehending, but the other gave a negative flare of undertones.
"The game don't work that way, doc," Jazz said.
"I'm not your play thing." The words, and the sharp tone, were out of his mouth before he could censor either of them, and Ratchet felt his armor contract protectively, minimizing its gaps, anticipating painful retaliation. Jazz, however, just cocked his head, and for the life of him, the medic couldn't read him. Not so much as a twitch or a spike in his energy signature.
"Good thing I ain't playing," the special ops tech replied coolly, then repeated: "Try it."
Where is that fragging field tech?! Ratchet wondered furiously. But he couldn't think about Skypax right now. You've got to turn him, his surgeon-voice was insisting. You've got to get him answering you.
"Looking for that quick ride out yourself, is that it?" he asked, grasping at the one logical point he had that might serve him. "I thought you were opposed to going down that route."
"Last chance, doc," came the response, apparently utterly indifferent to reason or protest, and it was then that the fear really began to sink in with the dreadful realization that if Jazz decided to shoot him, there was absolutely nothing that Ratchet was going to be able to do or say to prevent it. Unless he was serious about wanting to see Ratchet form up that gun, but—
Something white and blue glinted on the edges of Ratchet's vision. Jazz must've seen it too, for he shifted suddenly to train his weapon on it. Slag! Ratchet found time to think before everything went to hell...
Later on, Ratchet would be able to reconstruct the order of events by working backwards, but he never could recall them beyond an impressionistic blur of movement that ended in an explosive-sounding glow and numbingly electrifying impact that made his vision go white. Another jarring impact, this time with the ground, and then he and Skypax were face to face, each of them holding a silver arm pinned to the earth as Jazz spasmed, current visibly arcing in the gaps between armor plates. Skypax looked as dazed as Ratchet felt, but medical need admitted no delays, and Ratchet was no junior field tech.
He took a quick, orienting scan of his patient, seeking access points. Then, without even waiting for the probe transformation to complete itself, he rammed the fingers of his hastily reformed left hand into the nearest interface ports, struggling to lock Jazz down into stasis before the smaller 'bot could recover from the shock. Even riding the downside of a power surge, it wasn't easy – Ratchet cursed and winced as he collided with a set of persistent firewall defenses that seemed specially designed to counter a medic's commands.
But he wasn't going for Jazz's memories or core programming – he was aiming for stasis protocols, and once a medic got port access, there was precious little a 'bot could do to cover those protocols. Which didn't mean Jazz wasn't doing every little available to him – whether out of perversity or because special ops hardwiring had kicked in, Ratchet wouldn't have cared to guess as he bludgeoned his way past those defenses to that vulnerable stasis switch...
"Got him! Primus," he swore, disoriented, as he disconnected, still feeling the hot prickle of electrical excess crawling spastically between armor and wiring. Skypax didn't respond: his rotor-blades half-lifted in an agitated fashion, he was speaking rapidly over an emergency line. At length, he cut the call, stared down at Jazz a moment, and then sat back cautiously. His engine gave a low whir when the smaller 'bot simply lay there, unmoving, and Skypax looked over at Ratchet in disbelief.
"You shothim!" he said, sounding almost scandalized.
"He would have shot you," Ratchet countered shortly. His senses were still tingling unpleasantly, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand, namely scanning Jazz for damage. So far, so good – no sign of internal burn-outs. No spark fluctuation that would've indicated a dangerous failure in surge barriers, not that he'd had any reason to suspect any such occurrence, but still...
"Slagging glitch-make!" the field tech muttered incredulously, and Ratchet vented hard, revving his engine in exasperation.
"It was a taser! He'll be fine inside of an hour," he snapped, aggravated.
This garnered him a look of sheer surprise. "Not you," Skypax growled, just as a 'bot whose field decal made him a gunnery technician sergeant arrived, one arm transformed into gun mode.
"What happened?" he demanded, as he hurriedly joined them.
"Something for the neuropsychs, I'm guessing. You can stand down, doctor, I'm on it," Skypax said, a little more deferentially, before proceeding to fill the newcomer in. More 'bots were beginning to arrive, among them Flashflare – easily identifiable thanks to his colors – and another medic, Quickstart. Ratchet, after a short time, gave up the battle to keep his position as monitor and simply backed away. It wasn't as if there were a dearth of 'bots to tend to the safely unconscious special ops tech. And indeed, it wasn't long before Quickstart and a 'bot with a heavy infantry decal were lifting Jazz to take him off to the infirmary, presumably. The bulk of the others followed, save for Flashflare and the gunnery tech. Backfire, most likely, Ratchet thought, remembering Skypax's instructions.
Whether or not he was, he gave Ratchet a long look up and down before he said, "You'll need to file an incident report with the base commander's first lieutenant by tomorrow afternoon, doctor."
Wearily, Ratchet nodded. "Thank you, sergeant. I'll do that."
The tech flared his vents out, but then straightened up and said, "It's Ratchet, isn't it?" And when Ratchet nodded, he grunted, holding the rather dispirited medic under an unfathomable gaze before he shook his head. "With a taser, at that!" he muttered, and headed off to his interrupted duties, chuckling to himself as he went. Ratchet stared after him, incredulous.
"Well," Flashflare allowed after a moment, "it looks like you won't have any more problems with the non-coms, at least."
It took him a moment to process that – a moment he probably shouldn't have needed, but Jazz had left him feeling rather scrambled on a number of levels – but when he did, Ratchet protested: "I didn't shoot anyone!"
"Not with a machine gun, no..."
"What the slag was he thinking anyway?" Ratchet demanded, changing the subject, armor flexing outward on a surge of baffled outrage. "What kind of idiot pulls a gun on someone in the middle of an armed camp? He slagging faked a medical report to get Skypax to come witness it!"
"That's right, you've never dealt with Jazz before," Flashflare said, vents flaring as he turned to face him. "Don't blow a board trying to figure him out – that 'bot's got more turns than you've got wiring. Don't know how his unit commander manages, but just let him handle Jazz. Meantime, be glad he's gotten decked harder on the practice grounds before. He won't hold your tasering him against you." And when Ratchet spluttered at that, the other medic nudged him along with a shoulder guard. "Come on – I was on my way to refuel when I caught Skypax's broadcast. You might as well join me, since the excitement's over."
Ratchet shook himself, unsettled and still twitchy from electrical transfer, vents flaring again. "No thanks, if I've got a report to write – "
"Come with me, and I'll give you the word on Jazz," wheedled Flashflare. "I'll even give you the highlights on his file, so you don't have to go looking for them."
Ratchet cocked his head at him. "I thought you said I shouldn't bother trying to analyze him...?" He let undertones fade out into a questioning vibrato.
"I said, 'don't blow a board' in the attempt. But," Flashflare said, eyes brightening a bit, "since you've apparently caught his attention, you may as well know what you're dealing with..."