Chapter 2: Theory

If any of them had thought it would be easy, they soon found they were wrong. Very horribly wrong. Their mechanical background was, at times, useful and advantageous. At other times, it was not. Some of them thought the theory portion that Ratchet drug them through was the most fascinating thing they'd ever learned. Most of them, did not. A few of them had been to college long enough to have decent studying habits or had the mind for all the facts and information the Autobot CMO threw at them. Most of them… did not.

James Amos Murdock was of the latter category for that. He had been to college, but only for two years – he'd gotten his associates degree in general studies because he hadn't had a clue what he wanted to do with his life, and then ended up joining the military. How he'd managed to make it into the unit graced with the honor of working with the Autobots was beyond him. How he'd caught Ratchet's attention as a likely candidate for this project was slightly more understandable; he'd worked at his uncle's auto mechanic shop every summer since 8th grade before he went off to disappoint his mother by enlisting, and it had been the only real job he'd ever had. But community college had been over five years ago, and he hadn't really been the best student to begin with. He thought the theory was interesting, no two ways about it, but he just didn't have much luck with remembering even most of it.

It was frustrating, having so much studying work piled on top of his normal duties as a soldier, and some mornings he would wake up with the tablet Ratchet had given him dormant in his hands after nodding off while reading it the night before. His free time became study time, and if a few of them had the same shift off they would often form an impromptu study group wherever they could find a little bit of quiet on their desert base. He had a couple friends included in the hand-picked candidates, and a few acquaintances that became friends as they worked to figure out Cybertronian mechanics, but even that didn't help and Murdock found himself increasingly frustrated by his lack of understanding and inability to grasp what Ratchet seemed to consider basic knowledge. Of course, he kept reminding himself, Ratchet had been the CMO for the Autobots and a medic since… probably forever. Longer than he could wrap his mind around, anyway. So of course this stuff would be basic to him.

No matter how often he tried to calm himself with that logic, though, it didn't help much. He really wanted to be able to do this, but he knew that if he couldn't understand the theory then he had no hope of ever being allowed near any mech's systems. Certainly not with how picky the bright green mech was with his patients and students. And that was what had brought him to peek tentatively around the med-bay door one day when he had some free time and nobody else to study with. He wanted to understand, and, well, if his American Heritage class back in community college had taught him nothing else (which it almost hadn't) it was that asking the teacher was a good way to gain a better understanding in a topic you're struggling with. Usually.

A lot was riding on that 'usually' clause right now. Because Ratchet was usually a really good teacher; he had an ability to explain things in a way that just made sense. Murdock wasn't quite sure how much of that was Ratchet and how much of it was his natural tendency to learn better when something was explained and shown to him rather than him reading a textbook about it, but he knew for certain that the scale weighed in Ratchet's favor. Other times, though, Ratchet was… in a mood. And Murdock couldn't blame him. War sometimes put him in a 'mood' too, and Ratchet had to deal with a lot of crap. They'd only had about five lectures since this whole thing had started two weeks ago, and three of them had had to be postponed due to various mechs having various accidents on base that required Ratchet's attention. The Autobot had been somewhat waspish after each incident, though he'd put out a visible effort not to be during their lectures and the attitude had usually faded by the end of them.

Still, Murdock knew there had been an incident during training earlier that day. He'd been there, in fact, when Ratchet had come storming out onto the training field already ranting in his native language while Ironhide seemed to casually blow off the damage to his leg caused by a not-so-inert high-temp grenade. It made him a little cautious about approaching the medic now…

"Are you going to loiter about my med-bay door all day, Murdock, or are you going to come in and ask your questions?"

James blinked, but then shook his head at his own surprise. Curtis had been skipping around in their textbook looking for all the interesting bits, and had excitedly informed everyone who would listen when he found something. They'd all looked up the specs for normal scanner ranges, and Ratchet's were far from normal. Of course the medic knew he was there.

For that matter, any of the mechs would know when someone was in their vicinity, and he wondered briefly why all of them usually acted like they didn't. But then he set that thought aside and stepped into the med-bay with a sheepish grin on his face. "Sorry, sir. I don't want to bother you if this is a bad time…"

The blindingly green medic waved his concern away without looking up from what he was doing at his worktable. "It's not. Everything I need to do at the moment can wait."

When James made it within comfortable speaking distance to the mech he was surprised to see Ratchet leaning down to offer him a hand. For a moment he stared at it dumbly as it hovered just off the floor in front of him, palm up, wondering what it was for. None of the mechs had ever done something like that… except once, when Ironhide had been helping Lennox down from a rather high vantage point while they were scouting an area for Decepticons, and Murdock realized that Ratchet was offering him a lift up to the table so they could speak more easily.

"I don't really feel like sitting at the moment." The medic explained when the human stared for a bit too long, and Murdock started a bit before hastily, though gingerly, jumping onto the metal palm and crouching for stability as the Autobot straightened. "Old gears protest too much sometimes."

As James stepped onto the table, the thought that flashed through his mind was momentarily puzzled. Old gears? But can't they just replace those? He answered his own question before he'd even finished thinking it though; unless they don't have the supplies.

When the Private turned to face the CMO it was with a slight frown while he explored the possible ramifications of that observation, and he once again stared for a bit too long. Ratchet quirked an optic ridge while he cleared a bit more space on his worktable. "If you're only going to stand there like a dumb animal, I'm sure there are other places you could easily do so that did not require walking all the way here."

James ducked his head in embarrassment and immediately turned on his tablet. "Um, no, no, that's not why I'm here. I just… I'm having issues with chapter 6."

The medic eyed him appraisingly as he set one last thing aside. "You're supposed to be reading chapter 8."

"I know," the man shifted uncomfortably, slightly ashamed by his failings. "And I've made it through chapter 7, but I just don't get this chapter and I don't want to get too far ahead before I do."

Ratchet nodded approvingly, much to Murdock's surprise. "Good. Understanding now decreases confusion later. I'm glad you came to ask for help rather than skipping over it. Now," he gestured to his student encouragingly. "Ask your questions."

Smiling in relief at the accommodating reaction and at having caught the medic in a good mood, James nodded, quickly found the first section he'd been struggling with, and asked away.

~0~

"So…wait, wait. The uh… the asynch… something or other…"

"Asynchronous transfer adaptor."

"Right. That thing. Lower back region. Gets wacky if you don't move your arms the same amount. How do you set that straight, again?"

"Well, usually self-repair can take care of normal damage, but if it gets knocked out of alignment you just have to set the gears straight again…which is easier said than done, I think. The mechanism's pretty complicated to look at." Murdock speculated, frowning at his tablet. "And then fix and reset the circuit neural-feedback system that goes with it. And fix any tubing that got caught in the crossfire. And if you need to be really thorough…"

"How do you do that?" Kenneth Rodgers interrupted.

Murdock looked up at his friend. "Do what?"

"Reset the circuits."

"Oh." Murdock quickly consulted his tablet, searching the paragraph for the answer he knew was there. "Right, the handhelds do that."

Kenny nodded slowly. "Okay…and the tubing and wiring is just soldering or welding work, and according to procedure you need to clean up and do another scan once you're done… what else?"

"Testing the feedback circuits and checking surrounding systems for damage. It usually takes a bit to really damage the adaptor, so it's likely there would be collateral damage around it. It's good to check, though the scanners usually pick up on it."

One of the other men in their small study group, a man they called Tater (though his real name was Tyler Goodman) looked up from his tablet and notes to peer at him. "I don't remember reading anything about what the scanners can do in here. How do you know that?"

"Oh. Well, I asked Ratchet."

The other two members of the group looked up, obvious surprise on their faces. "You mean you actually went to the med-bay? Alone?" Aaron asked, incredulity edging into his voice.

James gave him a small grin, knowing the younger man's slight fear of the mech and his med-bay. "Twice, actually. I told you, Aaron, you've watched too many alien horror films. You've got nothing to fear from Ratchet. Unless you have delicate feelings, because he'll walk all over you verbally if you're not careful."

That quip earned him some chuckles around the group of five while Aaron muttered that he wasn't afraid…just cautious.

"So how did that go?" Tater wondered. Murdock shrugged.

"Actually he was in a pretty good mood, so it went really well. Got all the answers I needed, anyway, and a bit more on top of that."

"Hmm." Tater hummed thoughtfully. "I'll keep that in mind."

James nodded with a smile and then turned back to Kenny. "Did that answer your question?"

"Um… Can we go over the part about the feedback system again?"

"Sure."

~0~

"I don't think this is a good idea, James." Kenny hissed to his friend, clutching his tablet so hard his knuckles were starting to turn white.

"Yeah, me neither…" Aaron added nervously.

Murdock refused to yield, marching the two men in front of him like prisoners toward the infamous med-bay. "You guys have questions, right?"

"Yes, but that doesn't—"

"And I can't answer all of them. So we're gonna go ask the source of all Cybertronian medical knowledge

on the planet, and get our questions answered."

"Are you sure he's gonna be in a good mood and all? I mean, it's hard to tell…"

"Aaron." James interrupted. "I've been four times already, and he's been willing to talk to me every time. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he likes being a tutor."

"But…"

They came around the corner of the large hanger and almost ran over Curtis, heading away from the med-bay door with a strange expression of glum relief on his face.

"Woah, hey Curt." Kenny said as he stopped short to avoid a collision.

"Oh, hey guys." Curtis said, smiling a bit. "You headed to talk to Ratchet?"

"Yeah." Murdock answered, wondering why the other man didn't have his tablet with him.

"Is he, uh, okay to talk to right now?" Aaron asked, and it was hard to tell which answer he was hoping for.

"Yeah, yeah, he's good right now. Good luck." Curtis started edging around the road block they had formed, and Murdock nudged his hostages in the right direction.

"Good to know. We'll see you around, Curt."

The other soldier gave them a sort of lopsided grin. "Yeah, see you guys 'round."

Murdock glanced back as they finished their journey, a little confused by the encounter. But then he brushed it off as Aaron hesitated outside the rolled back med-bay doors. He had to get these two through this encounter, and that was going to take all his focus.

"Hey Ratch, you got a few minutes?" he called as he pushed Aaron and Kenny across the threshold.

"I do, for the moment, though that is subject to change." The medic replied from somewhere out of sight in the labyrinthine med-bay. He stepped into view the next moment with a smirk. "I see you've brought friends with you this time, Murdock."

"Yeah, friends, right?" James gave the two other men pats on their shoulders and Kenny threw a look back at him.

"Maybe." He muttered.

James just grinned. "We've got some questions, if you wouldn't mind answering?"

"Of course not. Come on up." Ratchet turned to clear a little more space on his cluttered work table, gesturing to the stairs that had been installed on one end of the table since Murdock's first visit. He blinked at them, wondering how long they'd been there, and felt another grin creeping across his face to realize that it had probably been a while, knowing Ratchet, and he'd never even used them until now.

The three of them trudged up the stairs onto the enormous table and Murdock settled on the edge, legs swinging over the fifteen foot drop as if it wasn't more than five feet. Kenny and Aaron decided to sit a bit further away from the precipice. There was awkward silence for a moment while James waited to see if maybe one of the other men would kick off the questions, and then he looked up at the waiting mech, gesturing to a section of text on his tablet.

"So, we're a little confused by this part about redundant energy processing systems. They seem kind of… ah, redundant, if you will. Are they really all that necessary?"

"Some of them are. Low energy levels can easily become spark threatening, if left untreated, much like malnutrition can become life threatening to a human."

"Yeah, a couple back-up systems are good, but there's like… how many, Ken?"

"Eight. There's eight redundant energy processing systems." Kenneth answered after a second, glancing between his friend and the giant alien robot.

"Yeah, and it seems like eight back-ups is a little bit excessive, isn't it?"

Ratchet smirked. "You'd think, and under normal circumstances, yes, that is quite a few. Before the war there were many discussions about removing some of the least effective, and many mecha did just that to make room for different mods that required extra space within their chassis. Not many of those mecha survived long, once the war started."

The medic reached over to casually pick up one of the devices on the table and set it down for them to see. "This is the example we'll be using in lecture tomorrow. It's one of Bumblebee's redundant systems that's been malfunctioning since the battle at Mission City. It's a low-priority repair, but it will be repaired and reinstalled because, very unlike peace times before the war, these redundant systems tend to come in useful. I can't even number all the times that youngling's come back from missions running on every functioning redundant system he has." Ratchet shook his helm in exasperation. "Especially now that our typical source of energy is so rare, it's not uncommon for us to be running four or five of those energy processing systems at a time, in or out of battle."

"Doesn't that put a lot of strain on the systems? Most of them weren't really meant to operate outside of short term emergencies…right?" Kenny suddenly put in, and Ratchet nodded.

"Yes, it does, and they require maintenance quite a bit more frequently than usual because of that."

Murdock nodded. "Ok, so they're important. But some of them, I dunno, they just seem like they wouldn't be worth the space, even. They're not efficient enough to make a difference—like the one that runs on hydrogen. It works when you have enough, but it's kind of dangerously reactive and where the heck are you going to get enough hydrogen to gain any sort of headway with it?"

The medic smirked again. "Not on Earth, clearly. But Cybertronians are designed to function in a broad range of environments. If we were near or in Jupiter, or one of the other gas giants in your solar system, where the atmosphere is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, that system would be quite useful."

"But what about the plasma absorber? That one can't be healthy or safe, most Cybertronian armor and protoform isn't designed for those kinds of temperatures." Kenny argued.

"Our armor, no, but our weapons are quite capable of handling that sort of energy, and typically the absorber will draw from plasma weapons and the sort."

"But what if you—"

Murdock tried not to smile as Kenneth launched into a theoretical discussion with gusto. The man had always been like that, always questioning the tried and tested methods. He'd been called 'smart aleck' and worse for it, and some of his ideas were just ridiculous, but that usually didn't stop him from suggesting them or even trying them out on occasion. He'd been asking all the questions nobody had answers for in their study groups, the ones that everybody just looked at him funny for even asking and then shrugged and went back to what they were supposed to be studying.

James just really wanted to see if he could stump the medic. So far, Ratchet had had an answer for everything.

Aaron slowly thawed out as Kenny bounced idea after idea off the alien, and eventually even made a comment or two of his own. Murdock mostly stayed out of it, letting them get used to the more personal interaction with their teacher. And the discussion did take some really interesting turns—nothing to do with what they were learning, and some things that Ratchet told them they would never really need to know or could fully understand, but that he explained to them anyway because that was what they wanted to talk about.

It was almost an hour later before Murdock checked the time again. He was going to interrupt and say that they should be getting ready for their next shift soon when Ratchet held up a hand to pause Aaron's question. The medic turned to look at the open door of the med-bay, optics narrowing, before marching to the threshold and looking out. A squeal of angry Cybertronian exploded out of him and he lunged away from the entrance, out of the three men's line of sight. They exchanged questioning glances before waiting for the medic to reappear. When he finally did, all of them were shocked to see who he was dragging into the med-bay behind him.

Optimus Prime, for his part, just looked rather resigned. But amusedly so.

The leader of the Autobots nodded regally to the three humans as he was hauled by an arm toward the less cluttered, more clinic-like section of the med-bay.

"Now go sit on a berth and don't move until I get there!" Ratchet ordered the much larger and technically higher ranking mech, forcefully pushing him in the right direction.

"Yes, Ratchet." Optimus replied mildly, and obediently did as he was told.

The medic snorted before turning back to the three humans. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this meeting short, and I apologize."

Murdock waved him off. "Don't worry about it. We should get going anyway, Kenny and I at least have a shift coming up soon. Thanks, Ratchet."

Aaron and Kenneth both nodded their thanks as well, both of them quite a bit more at ease than when they'd first arrived.

"It was my pleasure."

The three of them showed themselves out as Ratchet went back to his patient, but they'd barely made it out the door before Kenny started snickering.

"What?" Murdock asked.

"Did you see his face?" Kenneth managed to get out around stifled laughs.

"Whose, Prime's?"

"Yeah, yeah, when Ratchet started coming, did you see it?" he asked, starting to lose his grip on the snickers and snorts of laughter. James just shook his head.

Kenneth pulled a face, one that spoke of over-exaggerated horror and impending doom; kind of the thing you'd see on a cheap horror flick.

Despite himself, Murdock started snickering as well. "I don't think he actually looked like that."

"He totally did, man, that was his exact expression, no joke!" Kenny gasped, bending over as he really started to laugh, bringing them to a stop at the corner of the hanger. "Oh, I wish I'd had a camera for that, that was priceless, dude, just priceless!"

Murdock chuckled a bit, glancing back at the med-bay door while Aaron nervously shuffled his feet. "You're crazy man. You know it's gotta be bad karma making fun of him like that."

"But his face!" the man cackled, leaning against the med-bay hanger as his laughter sucked the strength out of his legs.

James grinned. "You know they can still hear us, right?"

"Whoops."

Kenneth Rodgers was gone so fast it was like he'd never been there to begin with.

Murdock laughed at his friend, clapping Aaron on the shoulder. "Come on, Aaron, we'd better find him before next shift starts."

Inside the med-bay, Optimus was looking very thoughtful. "I believe I shall have to keep an optic on this Kenneth Rodgers in the future." He murmured.

Ratchet shot him a glare as he worked on the shoulder the Prime had managed to pull out of alignment again. "No. I don't care how broad of an opening Murdock just gave you, Rodgers is my student and he's trying to process very advanced Cybertronian physiology. You are not allowed to distract him from that, even temporarily. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Ratchet." Optimus murmured, subduing a smile at the medic's familiar possessiveness of his students. He waited for his old friend to cool off for a moment before commenting again. "I take it that your project is going well?"

As expected, Ratchet's armor settled over his frame as the irritation left him. "Yes, quite well. Most of them are progressing as well or better than I had hoped."

"And how are you progressing?"

"Fairly well, I should say. I've learned quite a bit from Dr. Johnson in the last few weeks, and I believe the other doctors and medical staff are almost used to my presence by now."

Optimus nodded. "I am glad to hear it." He murmured. His medic was done with the minor repair a moment later and shooed him off the berth and out of the bay.

"Speaking of which, I have an appointment with him now, so get out and don't slag up that arm again, do you hear me, Prime?"

Optimus smiled again as he vacated the med-bay at a pace fast enough to avoid a wrench to the helm, but slow enough that it wouldn't be obvious that he was retreating. "Yes, Ratchet." He replied calmly, and left with the medic's vague muttering in his audios.

~0~

The weirdest thing about them for Murdock was not how quickly the aliens could process information. It was not how easily they could reformat themselves into various shapes or how easily they could do the complex math that transformation process required. It wasn't that their scanners could detect a human bio-signature through a wall or directly behind them with enough accuracy to call them by name without ever looking. It wasn't their unnerving ability to stand there completely still and stare a figurative hole in your head like an unfeeling machine. It wasn't even the fact that they could hear a whisper across a football field if they were listening for it.

For Murdock, it was how casually they—or at least Ratchet—could discuss severed limbs, decapitation, ripped out internals, severe energon loss, crushed servos, and various other forms of seemingly catastrophic damage as less than life threatening.

At this point in the lecture, he couldn't even count how many times Kenny had raised his hand and asked, "But wouldn't that kill you?"

The answer had, almost invariably, been "Not if you can fix it quickly enough."

After that, though, things started to get very circumstantial. Frame type, personal medical knowledge and training, experience with the type of damage, prep time and processor speed all factored into how well off a particular bot would be in any sort of massive trauma situation. Murdock could feel a headache coming on.

Five weeks into the theory and they had finally started talking about various damages that a Cybertronian could sustain. Last week had been all about chronic damages—the kind of stuff that wouldn't go away, like the damage to Bumblebee's vocal processor. This week was all about so-called acute damages, aka massive trauma cases. As backwards as it was, Ratchet had seemed more somber about the chronic stuff than about the gruesome injuries he was describing now.

James was almost zoning out of the lecture, too transfixed by the scientifically detached medical files the good doctor was displaying for them—images and scans included—to be paying much attention to what the medic was actually saying, when someone raised his hand and was called on.

The man, Chet if Murdock recalled (though most people called him Chitty, for whatever reason), hesitated, fiddling with his tablet as if suddenly stalling to find his question again. Ratchet's gaze seemed to sharpen on the man.

"Yes, Corporal Ramos?" he prompted.

The reason for the hesitation became instantly clear as Chet looked up to meet the alien's gaze. "What about… in Mission City? What about that mech who died there? I can't… quite remember his name, but I saw what happened to him…"

The section of med-bay that they used as their classroom had gone deathly still by the time Ramos trailed off, and it stayed that way for a moment as everybody held their breath, waiting for Ratchet to respond. For that long moment, the mech fell into that 'stare like a soulless machine' persona that they had come to equate with very deep thought for the Cybertronians, before coming out of it as quickly and quietly as he had entered it. His hologram projector shut off and there was an almost palpable air of disappointment in the group.

Until it flickered back to life, this time not on a report of a nameless casualty of war, but a hologram of a relatively small mech with a visor and obvious signs of an Earthen alt-mode. They all knew enough by now to recognize a medical scan of a healthy subject when they saw it. They also had seen enough of them to recognize a damage simulation when it ran.

James almost winced as the mech was slowly torn in half at the waist, the hologram zooming in on the affected area to give them frame-by-frame details of the injury as it occurred, just like every other damage simulation the medic had shown them. Stats of the most critical and urgent damage popped up to either side, just like normal, but these were in Cybertronian rather than English. Usually, the simulations were fascinating, almost mesmerizing to watch. This time, it just seemed kind of… morbid.

Private First Class James Murdock hadn't been there at the Battle of Mission City. He had been part of one of the few contingents called in for clean-up duty, and then automatically absorbed into NEST because of the amount of contact they'd had with ground zero. But Jazz's memory, if not his name, had spread as legend through the special force. They all knew who he had been, even if they didn't know what he had called himself. It was the first time Murdock had heard anybody ask one of the fallen mech's comrades about him.

The simulation ran to completion in attentive silence, with a telling lack of commentary from their professor.

"You may have caught on by now," the Autobot murmured once the holographic chassis had separated completely, "that there are not very many ways to leave a mech for dead and expect him to die when there is a medic close at hand, and I was a mere five blocks away."

Nobody so much as shifted their weight as they waited for Ratchet to continue. The hologram zoomed back out to a full-chassis view again, highlighting areas of less critical damage all over Jazz, particularly around his chest and back.

"Megatron knew that just as well as I do."

To their surprise, the simulation wasn't finished, and rapidly zoomed in on Jazz's torso to pinpoint several more areas of burgeoning injury, the pattern reminiscent of precision blades biting into the small mech's armor seams. The top layer of chassis abruptly disappeared to let them see the internals that were taking damage, and James wasn't the only one who sucked in a breath at the brutal efficiency of those blades.

The hologram zoomed out again to highlight a wider section of damage, this one more in line with blunt force trauma, and then finally the simulation was done as it switched to a medical scan, throwing up every point of damage in the familiar hierarchy of most to least critical. None of them had seen that much damage in a simulation or a medical report before. It was incredibly overwhelming.

"Perhaps, if Starscream had not delayed me, I would have been able to do more, but that is a very slim possibility. Megatron was very thorough, when he had the time and the motivation to be."

The scan shifted, and even though the time stamp was still in Cybertronian it was easy to tell that it was only a few minutes—maybe even only a few seconds—later. Energy readings were dropping fast, priority damage messages were bolder, more urgent, and in one corner, the corner that Ratchet had drilled in to their heads that contained the most important piece of data they would ever need to check, the corner that all of them eventually turned their attention to out of habit, they could all read that Jazz's spark signature was failing.

The scan shifted again, and again, slowly going through the series that must have covered only a very short time frame. A highest priority alert disappeared, only for the queue to move up and direct attention to a different set of damages, and then that one disappeared to be replaced by three equally urgent threats. Once those three were dealt with, the queue shifted again, no end in sight, and all the while Jazz's spark reading continued to fall. It was erratic, and seemed to jump or level out a few times, but in the end, as the critical damage list became more and more pressing and the mech's energy levels fell faster and faster, his systems went into cascade failure. It was so fast that between one scan and the next an absurd number of emergency alerts popped up around Jazz's chassis, making the previous priority queue pale in comparison to their hyper-critical urgency, and by the scan after that Jazz was dead.

Ratchet's hologram projector flickered, and then shut off, sparing them from the next twenty scans, all of them filled with hopelessness as the medic tried and failed to bring his friend and superior officer back from the Well. Ten times he had attempted to reignite that damn saboteur's spark, the reaction getting weaker every time, until eventually Ironhide had intervened, pulling him away and holding him still until he had calmed down enough to be rational again.

He didn't particularly want to revisit the memory of those futile endeavors right now, anyway.

There was grim silence for a moment, and then Chet looked up again. "Sir, if I may ask, why didn't he retreat with you? I heard him give the order. If he had stayed with you and Ironhide…"

"Because he was an idiot." A gruff, deep, and unexpected voice replied from their left as Ironhide stepped around a piece of machinery and into their classroom area. He gave all of them a hard stare, daring the humans to protest or interrupt. "He was an idiot who had promised his Prime that he would not harm humans and would do his best to prevent the Decepticons from harming humans. And he was the idiot in charge. With Optimus still en route, he was the highest ranking mech on the battle field, and it fell to him to ensure Megatron wasn't causing untold collateral damage while Prime wasn't available to stop him. He took that fall for us. He took it for every life form in that city. And he did it without hesitation." The black mech peered at them harder, just shy of glaring, and crossed his arms over his chest, displaying his impressive cannons. "That is why Jazz didn't retreat with us. He off-lined a hero. Even if he was an idiot for it."

There was half-stunned silence this time as the two aliens stared each other down, and then Ratchet's engine revved. "I thought I told you to wait outside until I was finished."

The thicker mech shifted. "Got bored. Thought I'd listen in."

The medic rolled his optics—a human gesture—and flared his armor briefly in irritation—a Cybertronian gesture of similar meaning. "Fine. Class dismissed."

Neither Autobots' stance changed much as the soldiers gathered their stuff and headed for the front of the med-bay, giving Ironhide a wide berth as he watched them all closely, optics narrowed in…suspicion, maybe? Or perhaps irritation. It was difficult to tell.

Once the last human was out of earshot, Ratchet unsubspaced one of his favorite throwing wrenches, tapping his palm with an expectant look. Ironhide almost winced.

"In the future, I fully expect you to refrain from interrupting my lectures." The CMO informed him frostily in their native language.

"You were supposed to be done in five minutes anyway." Ironhide grumbled back, but that didn't seem to appease the testy medic and he almost winced again before suddenly glaring at his friend. "I still don't understand why you think you can teach them. They are organics. They're too delicate to be working on any of us, anyway."

Ratchet sighed, shaking his helm and tossing his wrench back into subspace. "Still too narrow-minded to see their potential." He murmured as he strode past the trigger happy weapons specialist.

Ironhide snorted as he followed the mech to his office. "I see their fighting potential just fine. A team of them are almost as bad as a mob of scraplets. What I don't see is why you think they could ever comprehend enough to be of any use in the medical field."

Ratchet smirked at him as he powered up his terminal. "I seem to recall you saying something similar about First Aid. And Jolt."

Ironhide huffed, leaning back, cannons rolling as he tried to come up with a retort. As Ratchet folded his arms smugly, he settled for irritated muttering and then fell silent, glaring at the older mech in a clear indication that he was done with this conversation.

"That's what I thought." Ratchet said before turning to the monitor, opening a few files and gesturing to a diagram in one. "Now, about this proposal of yours…"

~0~

By the time they made it through three quarters of the theory section they'd lost about half of their original group. They'd have lost Murdock, too, if the man wasn't so absolutely certain that he'd regret it for the rest of his life if he didn't take this opportunity. That certainty seemed like the bane of his existence sometimes. What little bit of down time he'd still clung to evaporated as the lessons moved into territory that was incredibly difficult for him, for reasons he still couldn't identify. All of that time was spent either studying—alone or with the study group (which had expanded dramatically at some point when all of their schedules suddenly started lining up)—or in the med-bay talking to Ratchet.

Murdock always seemed to leave those tutoring sessions feeling better about the whole thing. Even if he still didn't quite understand, he felt better.

Right now he wasn't sure if that trend would hold true. He rubbed at his forehead as he stared at the words on his tablet, not really reading them because he'd read them already about fifty times, and even though Ratchet had explained what they meant, they still seemed to be written in Latin; bits and pieces made sense, but the whole of it was going over his head. He sighed, very conscious of the alien medic working on something so close to him that he could have reached out and touched the back of the mech's hand. That wasn't what he was conscious of, though. He was used to that. He was conscious of the fact that the alien knew he didn't get it, and even though he knew that this was complicated stuff and that Ratchet wouldn't judge him harshly for not understanding, he couldn't help but feel that he was disappointing his teacher by not having a better handle on this subject. It was the third time he'd been to talk with the medic about it, after all.

Giving up for the night, he deactivated the tablet, but didn't get up to leave. Instead he stared blankly off through the open door to the flood-lit runways beyond the med-bay.

"How come you didn't pick more engineers for this?" he suddenly asked the CMO. It was kind of abrupt, but at this point their relationship was friendly enough that Murdock knew Ratchet didn't mind abrupt questions. He'd rather you get to the point than waste his time running circles around it.

"I was concerned that the disparity between what they were taught and what we know would cause problems for them, and I was correct. Talmage and Godfrey both struggled quite a bit with several key concepts." Ratchet answered simply.

James thought about that for a bit. "Yeah. I can understand that. Cierra's still here, though."

"Indeed, though she had to overcome the same hurdles as her colleagues. She's done well. Many of you have."

"Yeah." Murdock repeated glumly, tapping his tablet against the edge of the table. Another moment of thoughtful silence passed, broken only by Ratchet's work. "How come we're learning some of this higher level stuff? It's not that I don't want to, it just doesn't seem like we're going to need it. I mean, I sure don't ever want to be working on someone's spark. That's your job. And I think, if we ever do run up against something like an energy processing system corruption that we're not going to be able to do much about it without your kind of experience and expertise. Why do we need to know it?"

The soldier looked up at his alien comrade expectantly, and Ratchet didn't answer for a moment.

"Why did the nuclear plant at Chernobyl melt down the way it did, James?" the alien eventually said.

"Um…" that was not the reply he had expected. "I don't know. Fate? An accident?"

Ratchet nodded. "An accident. Caused by an experiment gone awry; an accident that should not have led to the meltdown, except for one thing."

"What was that?"

"The operators who were running the experiment panicked, and did not understand the idiosyncrasies of the system they were in control of. For that reason, they shut off the safety feature that would cool off and save the reactor from meltdown in favor of a far less effective method, and thus lost the entire plant and rendered the surrounding area uninhabitable." The medic set aside what he was working on and turned a piercing gaze on the human. "I've done some research into the greatest human catastrophes of more recent times, most in the 'machine era' as some refer to it, and one of the greatest factors in those events were the operator's lack of understanding of the system he or she was controlling. I don't expect any of you to ever need to work on anything as complex as an energy processing system, James. That is, as you said, what I'm for. What I need you and the others to be able to do is recognize when that system needs attention; to recognize how these systems interact and are connected to each other; and to realize that what you do to one system will affect the others, and the problem you identify in one may very well originate in any of the others. The scanners will greatly assist you in this, but they are not perfect, any more than you or I are. I need more pairs of intelligent, higher thinking hands working on my patients, not more simple monitors that can only tell me what is wrong and not why."

Murdock sat and thought about that for a long moment, and Ratchet let him, reaching for another device that had been waiting for repair on his worktable. It was a lot of pressure, the man thought to himself. As if it hadn't been already, repairing giant alien robot inner workings.

"It is a lot of responsibility, I understand that." Ratchet murmured, as if reading his mind. "Many Cybertronian technicians are terrified of the idea at first. But with time you will come to recognize symptoms that need attention, and you will never have to diagnose such things alone, or have to treat them. Your fellows will be there to assist you, as will I. I have every confidence that you will do well, James. You've proven your willingness to learn and to work hard to understand rather than give up as so many of your comrades have. Thank you."

James Amos Murdock blinked, leaning back to look up at the alien he dared to call friend. "Thank you?" he repeated. "For what?"

The medic smirked, flicking a tool into subspace and pulling out a rag to wipe his hands off. "For proving me right. Some of my comrades doubted you and yours could ever succeed in such an endeavor, you know."

"Oh." Well, that made sense, even if he hadn't thought about it before. "Is that what Ironhide's problem is with us?"

Ratchet snorted, holding a hand up for the human to jump on. "Ironhide has many 'problems', and yes that is one of them. Now. You need to get some rest. You have a test to take in a few days and sleep is a very important component of organic brain functioning."

Murdock rode down to the floor without having to even hold a finger for stability and hopped off as if it was a daily occurrence. At this point, it pretty much was.

"Ok. Thanks Ratchet." The soldier said around a yawn, trudging for the door.

"As always, you are very welcome James."

Murdock smiled a bit as he left the med-bay. And he had doubted that he would leave feeling better about everything. "Oh ye of little faith," He muttered to himself as he headed for the barracks. "Oh ye of little faith."

~0~

Their final test came far too soon in Murdock's opinion. Ratchet had somehow swung the whole day off for all of them so they could have some last minute studying and resting time. James didn't know how, but he was not going to complain. Ratchet had allowed them one page of notes and he had needed the extra time to finish writing his. Now here he was, nervously tapping his stylus against his tablet as he tried to work out the sequence of events the question was asking for. He could swear he was missing one… it was right there on the edge of his mind, taunting him. He stopped tapping. It was probably annoying his fellow test takers.

He was on the second to last question of the test. He'd been here for almost three hours. He'd never taken this long of a test in his life, and he really wasn't sure how well he was doing. He'd known how to answer most of the questions, stumbled through a couple of others and made wild guesses on one or two, but he just really couldn't tell how correct he was on some of them. It was making him more nervous than he already was, so he shook his head, reminding himself to concentrate. Just two more questions…

Half an hour later, there were five of them left in the room. Murdock had checked and rechecked his answers and decided that they were as good as he could get them, so he deactivated his tablet and walked up to the head of the table they used as their classroom area to hand it to his teacher. Ratchet smiled at him and nodded as he took it. James gave something that was a cross between a self-deprecating smile and a grimace back before turning to jog down the stairs and out of the med-bay. They would have their results back by tomorrow. All that was left now was to try to enjoy the rest of his day off…and wait.

For those of you wondering, the asynchronous transfer adaptor is an actual piece of canon Cybertronian physiology. TFwiki said so. ; )