Days had passed, and Ratchet was getting increasingly worried. Optimus and Vesper had still not contacted the rest of Team Prime, and while everyone was trying to go about with their daily activities, they were finding it incredibly hard. Raf, normally a perfect student at school, almost failed a test due to his worrying, but he managed to scrape by. Miko was abnormally quiet, and Jack kept being late for shifts at work. Alice barely spoke to anyone, and even gave Ratchet the unintentional silent treatment. Not that the medic could have cared too much at that point; he just wanted some sort of contact with the two missing Autobots, to know that they were still alive. Many a time he'd considered opening a Ground Bridge to their last known coordinates, but he'd stopped himself when he recalled the multitude of Decepticon attacks that had been happening of late.
"Ratchet," Bulkhead sighed, and the doctor looked over at him to see that the olive green bot had a worried expression on his face that was almost identical to Ratchet's own. "We can't sit around and wait any longer. One of us has to go and look for them."
Ratchet looked away, knowing that Bulkhead was right. "I'm… sure they'll contact us soon," he said, not even believing himself as he spoke. This caused the former Wrecker to scowl as he strode over and grabbed Ratchet's shoulder, to which the medic looked back at him.
"You keep saying that, yet it's been five days!" he roared, and Ratchet flinched away.
"Ratch, Bulk's right," Alice murmured, and the medic looked down at his human charge. "They could be seriously injured and unable to move," she said, making Ratchet flinch again, "Or they could be trapped, desperately in need of our help."
She had no idea how right she was. As Ratchet finally relented and strode over to the Ground Bridge control system, Vesper and Optimus were sitting in the mine shaft that they'd been trapped in. Vesper's back was paining her even more now, and Optimus was barely conscious. His wounds from five days ago had been continually leaking energon, and now there was almost nothing left. The only thing keeping his spark from joining the Well of All Sparks was the knowledge that, if they were attacked again, he was the only thing standing in between his fallen sparkmate and the Decepticons.
"Optimus," Vesper croaked, and Optimus' tired eyes opened and focused on her as much as he could. "Do not… sleep…," she managed to choke out, her voice raspy and saturated with agony. "They… will come… soon…"
"You said that… five days… ago," Optimus groaned, his breath coming in small gasps. "But… we must… hold out… until they arrive…"
He wasn't aware that, on the surface above the very chamber that the two were in, a swirling green vortex had opened and the rest of Team Prime were stepping out. Alice had, in her backpack, the Ground Bridge remote control just in case there were Decepticons hanging around and the Autobots needed a quick escape route.
"It looks like there's been a cave-in," Wheeljack said as he pointed towards the blocked entrance of a nearby mine shaft. Immediately each bot and every human knew that, somewhere inside that blocked mine, Optimus and Vesper were awaiting rescue. One, if not both of them, was probably hurt, and Ratchet knew that it was absolutely imperative that Team Prime find their missing allies as soon as possible. They walked over to the blockage, and Wheeljack decided to take matters into his own hands; he pulled his grenade from his hip, looked at the others, and said, "This should clear it." Then he set the timer on the explosive, lodged it between some of the rocks, then turned tail and ran behind a nearby rock. The others followed suit, and soon enough an explosion wracked the ground.
When the smoke caused by the grenade going off cleared, everyone noticed that most of the rocks had been destroyed, and those that hadn't had been flung away from the cave's entrance. Wheeljack grinned at the others only to receive a condescending look from Ultra Magnus, who disapproved of the Wrecker style of doing things, but nothing was said… at least, not by the group who'd blown open the mouth of the mine shaft.
Optimus had been startled back into reality by the sound of the explosion, and immediately he was on his feet, his servos replaced by blasters, looking around for any sign of Decepticons. When he saw nothing, he frowned, then looked over at Vesper, whose eyes were wide with fear. "Do not fear. I will protect you with all of my spark," he declared, his eyes still glancing warily around.
Vesper weakly smiled up at the Prime. "Thank you," she breathed. "But I do not believe that we are in any danger."
Optimus sat down next to his sparkmate and frowned. "What… do you mean?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "Are you certain that we are under no threat?"
Vesper would have nodded, but she was unable to. Instead, her smile widened. "Yes, I am sure." Her eyes flickered up so that she was gazing at the roof. "I would know the sound of Wheeljack's grenades anywhere."
Optimus looked up as well, then he smiled and nodded. "Very well. We shall wait here for one of them to find us." He took her servo in his own and squeezed gently.
A chamber above them, the other members of Team Prime were dividing into groups. Miko, Jack, Raf and Alice were to remain in the first chamber of the mine shaft, which displeased the two girls, but when Ratchet mentioned the possibility of a cave-in that would quite possibly seal all oxygen out and eventually cause the four to suffocate, all arguments that they'd thought of left their minds. Then Ultra Magnus asked everyone to head off in different directions, leaving Arcee with the children.
Ratchet headed down further into the mine, and soon enough he found himself near pools of dried energon. Immediately he knelt down, trying to determine how old the energon was, and he soon discovered that the substance had been spilled less than a week ago. Five days… He stood then and continued his search, his hope of finding them renewed over and over again as he found more energon… but his fears also grew along with his hopes. What if this energon… belongs to Vesper or to Optimus? he thought to himself, biting his lip worriedly. What if I'm too late?
He soon stumbled upon the chamber that Vesper and Optimus were in, but initially he didn't see the two of them. He was too horrified by the amount of energon that had been spilled in this room, and he didn't see Optimus stand as he wondered exactly how much of it was the energon of his comrades.
"Ratchet?" Optimus said, his voice weak, and Ratchet almost jumped out of his plating as he whipped around to face the swaying Prime. Then his eyes widened as he saw the gashes that covered Optimus, and the dull look in the Prime's eyes. However, there was a smile on the weak bot's face as well, one that comforted the medic. "You… found us," he said, stumbling and falling to his knees. Ratchet was over at Optimus' side in an instant and stopped the Prime from falling onto his face.
"Easy, easy," Ratchet said, then looked over and spotted the unmoving scarlet femme. His eyes widened as he spotted the horrific damages to her back, and saw the sparks flying every so often. He looked down at Optimus, who was taking short, sharp breathes, and the field medic gently laid the Prime on the ground. "You rest now; I will attend to Vesper."
"Her… backstrut… is damaged… She… cannot move," Optimus gasped, his dull eyes flickering as he lost consciousness. Ratchet realised that Vesper was not the only one in need of urgent medical assistance, and he pressed his lips together in a despairing grimace before nodding.
"Thank you for telling me this, Optimus," he said, then looked up just as he heard footsteps. He saw Ultra Magnus appear at the door of the chamber, and the medic immediately summoned him over and got him to take Optimus back to the children so that they could bridge him back to base and put him on life support, which he quite obviously needed. Ultra Magnus said nothing, instead nodding to the medic – whose orders surpassed even Optimus' in medical matters – and gathering the Prime before heading off towards the chamber where the children were.
This allowed Ratchet to run over to Vesper. Immediately the femme locked eyes with him and gave the medic a pained smile, then winced as another stabbing pain ran through her back. "Hello, Doctor," she said.
"Epp epp epp epp!" Ratchet growled, waggling a finger at her. "You save your strength and let me check your back." Vesper was about to say something more, but she wisely listened to the medic and instead shut up. She bit her lip as she felt him poking around at her damaged backstrut, and a few times she had to resist the urge to cry out as he picked at a few parts of the strut. When he finally finished his examination, Vesper heard the medic groan in frustration and despair, and then he said, "Vesper, I… I'm sorry."
The femme's eyes widened. "For what?" she asked, her voice quivering in terror.
Ratchet slowly shook his head, although the femme couldn't see the gesture. "Taking into consideration the damages to your back… you may never regain full use of your limbs ever again."
Vesper began to panic. "You mean to say… I could become a quadriplegic?"
"Semi-quadriplegic," he corrected, but his tone indicated that he didn't feel any better saying that than if he'd told her she'd become a complete quadriplegic. "If this had occurred on Cybertron… well, I could find a hospital and patch you up, but…" He looked away, his throat feeling like it had something blocking it. "Here, I can't help you. Not on Earth."
Vesper felt like crying as her mouth set into a thin, hard line. "I see," she said, her voice strained and upset. "Thank you for being honest with me, Doctor. It makes my… diagnosis a little easier to bear." She was being completely truthful as she spoke, and Ratchet felt a little better about himself.
Suddenly he heard a noise, and he turned to see Bulkhead, Wheeljack and Bumblebee walking into the chamber. They were looking right at him, and their eyes were wide as they regarded the crippled Vesper and the despondent-looking doctor. "Whoa, what… what happened?" Wheeljack gasped, momentarily stunned into silence seeing his former charge in such a bad way.
"We were attacked… by Decepticons," Vesper managed to say as another shooting pain went up her back. "Optimus and I tried to fight them off, but…" If she had been capable of shaking her head, she would have. "I turned my back to them – something that I should never have done, I realise that now – and soon got shot dead in the middle of the back. A Decepticon, somehow, had managed to sneak up on me, and shoot me at point-blank."
Wheeljack growled and clenched one of his servos, but did nothing more. Instead, he looked at Ratchet and asked, "Hey, Doc, how're you going to move her?"
The medic growled, despising the nickname that Wheeljack referred to him by. "With your help, I can carry her up to the chamber where we left the kids." He shook his head, then noticed that Wheeljack was leaving. "Hey, where are you going?" the medic asked, confused, but the Wrecker just shook his head.
"I… can't watch this. I don't want to see her in this condition," he explained before leaving. Ratchet sighed, but said nothing more; he knew there was naught he could do to convince the Wrecker to come back.
Bulkhead frowned and looked over at Vesper, who was smiling weakly at all of them. "Can we move her at all?" he asked, looking back at the doctor. "I mean, if we damage her back anymore—"
"I am aware of the consequences," Ratchet scowled, and Bulkhead stiffened as Bumblebee beeped something. Ratchet looked over at him and nodded. "Yes, Bumblebee. We have to get her out of here." He looked down at Vesper. "I'm sorry, but—"
"I understand the possible consequences," Vesper declared, her eyes determined as she met with the medic's own optics. "And I am willing to accept them, should they become reality."
Ratchet flinched, not liking how she had already accepted any sort of consequence should something go wrong, but he said nothing as he nodded. He turned to Bulkhead then and asked, "Can you get the stretcher out of my backpack?" as he motioned to the large pack that was attached to his upper back.
"There's a stretcher in there?" Bulkhead asked, shocked. When Ratchet nodded, the olive green bot asked, "How does it even fit in there?"
"Personal subspace?" Ratchet said, turning to look at the bot and raising an eyebrow, sounding annoyed and stupefied at Bulkhead's question. The former Wrecker, after scratching his head and averting his eyes nervously, did as the medic asked and pulled the stretcher out before handing it to Ratchet. Then the medic instructed Bulkhead and Bee to hold one end of the stretcher each before kneeling down next to Vesper. "This may hurt," he said, but the femme only looked at the doctor with understanding in her eyes.
Lifting the femme into the stretcher was difficult for Ratchet. He didn't want to cause Vesper any more pain that she was already in, but he didn't know how to do that. He eventually asked Bulkhead and Bee to set the stretcher down and give him a hand, which they did. The three of them slowly picked the femme up, and while horrible jolts of agony shot up her damaged backstrut, she didn't complain, only wincing every so often as they carried her over slowly. Then the three, on Ratchet's orders, laid the femme down on her stomach on the stretcher.
"Now, we have to be careful when we carry this," Bulkhead said to Bee, who nodded and chirped about something. Bulkhead nodded in agreement as he and his yellow companion picked up the stretcher, Ratchet watching nervously. "That's right; we can't afford to drop the stretcher," he said as they began to carry Vesper back to the children so that she could be bridged back to base, and so that Ratchet could begin reparations.
When they finally got to the chamber the children were in, the three bots with Vesper noticed that each of the humans was sitting in the centre of the room. Arcee was standing near an open Ground Bridge, her blasters active, and her eyes widened as she saw Vesper's condition. However, she said nothing as Bulkhead and Bee carefully carried the injured femme into the bridge.
"Is… she ever…" Arcee trailed off as Ratchet looked away, squeezing his optics shut. Hearing Arcee speak, the children stood and walked over, with Alice's face growing worried as she saw the expression on Ratchet's.
"I doubt that I'll be able to fix her with the limited supplies I have," Ratchet said, his voice low and pained as Alice walked over and placed her singular hand on his leg. He looked down at her, and their eyes met before he glanced away and sighed. "We best be off; I need to do what I can." He stepped into the Ground Bridge then, leaving everyone else staring after him for a few minutes before they followed. Alice could tell that something was wrong with Ratchet as she entered the swirling green vortex, and she had a feeling she knew exactly what was bothering him…
He believed that, no matter how much he tried to help, Vesper would never recover.