Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Between my dad being hospitalized and drama everywhere, I haven't been in the mood much to write. The next chapter is one I've been excited to write, so I don't think it'll take as long. Thanks for your patience!
The last thing Ratchet wanted to do was step foot in Meister's barrack, but every moment he delayed was another moment the coordinates in his subspace outlived their usefulness. Help him. Was he injured? Trapped? There was no way of knowing, but if the destruction in Praxus was as bad as the rumors were saying, every moment Ratchet was stuck in base meant that his chances of helping anyone dwindled. If this didn't work, the mech was as good as dead.
Yet, a part of him knew that the mech in Praxus wasn't his reason for going. He wanted to believe he was doing nothing more than honoring a dying mech's wish, he wanted to believe he was only doing it simply to help someone in need, but he knew it wasn't the case. All shallow philanthropic ideas aside, he knew the real reason; he needed to see Praxus for himself. A part of his mind still believed Praxus to be the impenetrable safe house of Cybertronian culture and progress. There was no way the destruction could be that complete. Praxus couldn't be gone. His home for the past 10 vorns couldn't just have disappeared in a day.
No, the real reason he wanted to go to Praxus was to prove the dying mech wrong.
That's why now, despite the danger Meister had proven himself to be, Ratchet currently carried a syringe, hidden under the armor of his forearm. The plan was easy; catch Meister unawares, inject the quick acting sedative into him and drag his unconscious aft to the medbay himself. According to the scheduling, Meister was off for the foreseeable future—apparently whatever Autobot intel he'd provided had warranted a break. Either that or he was carrying on something special inside of the base that was off of the records. Ratchet didn't necessarily care either way, but the fact that he wasn't on a set rotation made it that much harder to find him. Heading to the mech's barrack and trying to catch him there seemed like the best bet at this point even though it might mean a late night of waiting for him.
As he walked into the foreign barracks, he was glad that he didn't have his medic stripes. Most of the medical staff bunked in the same area, but here, in a barrack full of regular enlisted, Ratchet would have stuck out like a loose screw. Fortunately, the shifts were changing and as the day mechs filed in to catch their recharge, the night mechs hurried to get to duty and no one noticed a lone mech that didn't belong there.
Ratchet carefully made his way through the narrow hall of the barrack, glancing at the numerous bunks before he finally found Meister. The mech appeared to be asleep, his visor dark as he lay on the top bunk in the corner. A datapad rested on his chassis and it appeared that the mech had fallen asleep reading. Perfect.
Pulling the syringe out from under his armor, Ratchet approached the berth. If he was careful, he could get the mech in the neck and duck before Meister shot him. Hopefully. That wasn't the most comforting thought, but the small part of his processor that screamed what a horrible idea this was was silenced as he took careful aim. He held his breath and brought the needle down fast.
Meister was awake instantly, rolling so the needle jabbed into the berth, millimeters away from where his neck had been a split second earlier. Ratchet didn't have time to react as the mech grabbed his wrist and twisted. Meister leapt from his bunk and used his momentum to slam Ratchet into the wall and something in Ratchet's wrist snapped with an audible crack. Ratchet howled in pain, disoriented for a moment before he registered a drop of blue sedative beading on the business end of his own needle—poised directly over his optic.
"Don't you know it's rude to barge into a mech's room?" Meister hissed, the playful lilt that usually rang in his voice completely absent.
"M-Meister—" He didn't have a chance to explain as Meister twisted his broken wrist further, making Ratchet's vents stall, his optics whitening in pain.
"And I had thought you'd stopped playing after Astrotrain tried to kill ya and all," Meister said. "I won't make that mistake again." The needle pressed right against Ratchet's optic, scraping the glass.
"Meister, please!" Ratchet choked out.
"Please what?" he said. "You came to me, Ratchet. Remember that." The needle pressed a little harder against the glass of his optic and Ratchet grit his dentals, afraid he was going to punch through and destroy the optical sensors underneath.
"Please," Ratchet said. "I-I didn't have another choice. I need those days and you're the only way I can get them."
Meister snorted. "Want're you gonna do with three days? Take a nice, relaxing vacation?" he asked, though he kept the needle right where it was.
"I need to go to Praxus," Ratchet said.
The light behind Meister's visor narrowed. "Praxus is gone," he said, voice hard. "They destroyed it and everyone in it ta send a message to the Autobots."
Ratchet swallowed. "I know," he whispered.
"Then why would you want to go back?" Meister sneered. "Gonna go searching through rubble for family—friends? They're all dead, Ratchet. They made sure of it."
"You're wrong," Ratchet said, his voice taking on a hard edge. Couldn't, wouldn't believe it. Not yet. "There's one left."
Meister continued to glare though the edge of the needle pulled away from his optic, just a little. "That's impossible. The Vosian seekers firebombed the entire city and sent ground sweeps to take care of the rest."
Ratchet swallowed and dared to shutter his optics for a moment, his vents working overtime. "One of the mechs who was forced there—a native Praxian—hid someone," he said. "I have the coordinates but if I can't get out of this Primus forsaken base, it doesn't do any good."
Meister let go of his wrist and Ratchet held the injured appendage to his chassis, hissing in pain. The Spec Ops mech was quiet for a long moment as he looked at Ratchet, as though trying to decide what to think. Finally, he said, "Give me the coordinates and I'll go find 'im—I'm not bound to base."
Ratchet was surprised at how angry the suggestion made him. "Slag you!" Ratchet snarled, optics blazing as he glared at the mech. "For all I know, you were right there gunning down innocents with the rest of them, you sick son of a glitch!"
Behind his visor, Meister's optics were tiny slits of light. "I'm resisting the urge ta break your wrist off right now, but instead, I'm gonna do ya a favor and make you a deal." He huffed a warm burst of air from his vents. "I'll come with you to the medbay and let ya tinker with whatever you want—but I'm coming with ya to Praxus."
His first, gut instinct was to refuse. And he almost did. Almost. But any and all thoughts of Meister stabbing him in the back became a second priority as he thought of the coordinates in his subspace. He had to know. There was no way he could go back now. He studied the visored mech's impassive face, trying to see any hint of deception, but found none. If anything, there was a hint of sadness on the mech's carefully schooled features.
"Deal. But answer me this," Ratchet said even as he dulled the sensors in his broken wrist until he had time to fix it. "What reason do you have to go to Praxus?"
The hint of emotion was gone and Meister's scowl returned. "None of your business," he snapped. "Now are we doing this or not?"
Ratchet snorted. It had been worth the try. "Fine. Let's go."
Spec was leaving his shift just as Ratchet walked up to the medbay doors, Meister in tow. The medic's red optics widened and Ratchet couldn't help but feel a little smug as he saw his mentor's jaw drop. Meister flashed his cheeky grin and followed Ratchet through the doors before he hopped willingly up onto Ratchet's work table, swinging his dangling feet like a sparkling.
Ratchet didn't bother to look around the medbay to see the rest of the staff's reaction. The sudden silence told him enough. He had to manually switch his dominance from his broken left hand to his right, and let the damaged appendage hang by his side while he hooked Meister up to a scan one-handed.
He heard quiet footsteps approaching and turned around to come face to face with the CMO of Kaon himself. Ratchet had never actually seen him before, at least not up close, and no one ever referred to him as anything other than CMO or sir. Overall, he was rather underwhelming. He was a short, ground alt with gleaming red armor and beady red optics that glared at the two of them in turn, though his gaze lingered on Meister a little longer, as though he were a bug he would very much like to squish. "What is this?" he asked in quiet, cultured tones.
"Just a routine checkup, sir," Ratchet said and turned his attention back to Meister's scan.
"Who are you again?" the mech asked before his optics travelled to Ratchet's collar. "Oh, that's right. You're the neutral." Just the way it rolled off the mech's glossa made it sound like an insult. Ratchet's optics narrowed just slightly, but he didn't respond. The CMO turned his attention to Meister with an expression that could only be described as pure, slag-you-in-the-face loathing. Meister didn't seem to notice as he whistled quietly, his pitch perfect.
"Well," the mech said quietly, though his crisp tones carried easily through the silent medbay. "Thank you for your… dedication to the maintenance updates. Your commitment has been duly noted."
Ratchet's head shot up as the mech retreated back towards his office, but it was Meister that spoke. "That's it?" he asked. "Rumor has it that you got three days of leave for any mech that brings me in for maintenance."
The CMO turned to face them, optic ridge raised. "Only a Decepticon medic can be eligible for that benefit," he said coolly. "And, unfortunately, neutral, you are neither."
The red mech turned to leave again and Ratchet's shoulders slumped. That was it then. His only chance was gone, just like that.
"Hey Knockout," Meister called, his voice carrying easily over the quiet medbay. "You realize that if ya don't give this kid the days ya promised, you'll have ta deal with me again, right?"
Knockout froze, his hand hovering over the keypad to his office before he turned and glared at Meister. The look of hatred was amplified ten-fold, even from across the room, but something in the mech seemed to crumble as he met Meister's visored optics. He checked his chronometer before saying, "If you're not back in this medbay by this time in three days, I will activate that collar and leave you a smoking shell, do you understand me?"
Ratchet swallowed. "Yessir," he said quickly.
Knockout was visibly seething, even as he pulled out his datapad and tapped in a few quick commands, changing the leave rotation. The notification of his down time popped up on his HUD. "Your collar has a tracker installed," Knockout said. "Don't let me catch you anywhere near Autobot territories. You won't like the consequences."
"Yessir," Ratchet said again. Knockout gave a curt nod before disappearing into his office stiffly, as though trying his damndest not to make it look like a retreat. Ratchet looked at Meister and offered a small smile. "Thanks," he said quietly.
Meister snorted and laid back against the work table, folding his hands behind his head. "That mech's an aft," he said and waved it off. "It does his cocky self good to be put in his place every so often."
The question was burning on Ratchet's processor. "What did you do to him?"
The Spec Ops mech got that dangerous look on his face even as he flashed his dentals in a grin. "That's our little secret," he said smugly. "And he'll do just about anything to keep it that way."
A quiet noise of derision escaped Ratchet's vocals and he shook his head. "You are a sadistic glitch," he muttered. The scanned beeped its completion and Ratchet's scorn morphed into a frown as he looked at the results. Everything was in perfect order, all updates had been completed perfectly and on time, according to his records. Normally, he would have stopped there, but something caught his optic as he looked over the update history.
The notarized bar-codes attached to each update usually served as nothing more than a safety precaution incase a mech's programming became corrupted or damaged and updates needed to be reinstalled. The last six digits were the update number, while the first three showed the city-state that the update came from. Some older models and city specific models needed upgrades from their original creation place due to system limitations, but over the years, upgrades had been made universal. The city of origin was still traced, in case there was a flaw with the initial coding, but it wasn't necessary for compatibility purposes anymore.
It was such an insignificant detail that if he hadn't been doing nothing but maintenance checks and updates for the past few deca-cycles, he wouldn't have noticed. As it was, after seeing the numbers day after day, he had many of the nine digit bar-codes memorized, and every one that came from coders in Kaon started with a 613. Meister's, however, started with a 126. If Ratchet hadn't been born there, he wouldn't have recognized it as Iacon's city code. He frowned. Why would a mech from Iacon, the Autobot capitol, have joined the Decepticons? Unless…
Ratchet quickly unplugged the scan, smoothing his features into neutrality. It was only a suspicion, nothing more and he was in no place to pry. "Your system is… spotless. You're up-to-date, no glitches, no viruses, nothing," he said and glared at the Spec Ops mech.
Meister grinned brightly. "Told ya I can take care of myself," he said and sat up, unhooking the medical uplink from his neck. "You only got three days m' mech. We need ta go."
Ratchet's unease started to creep back up his spinal struts even as he followed Meister out of the medbay. If the collar didn't kill him, how much of a chance did he have if Meister decided to? The mech had easily broken his wrist, and that was when he'd been half asleep. What sort of chance did he have if Meister turned on him in earnest?
A hand grabbed his arm, pulling him around the corner as soon as he'd stepped out of the medbay doors and Ratchet suddenly found himself face to face with a very angry Spec. "What the pit do you think you're doing?" he asked in a hushed whisper and glanced over to see if Meister had followed them. Deeming it safe, he turned his red-opticked glare back onto Ratchet.
"I got my three days off," Ratchet said as innocently as he could.
Spec's glower grew darker. "You're up to something you little droid humper. Tell me," he snapped and gave Ratchet a little shake.
As Ratchet looked at the angry face of his mentor, he could detect a very real concern buried behind the frustrated creases. "I'm going to Praxus," Ratchet said bluntly.
Spec looked like he'd been punched, his anger replaced by slack-jawed horror. "The hell you are!" he managed to sputter and tried to steer Ratchet back into the medbay. Ratchet pulled his arm out of his mentor's grip, careful of his broken wrist.
"Yes, I am," he said, even as a hint of pleading crept into his voice. "Spec, I need to do this."
Spec glared, his wings twitching in agitation on either side of him. "You're going with Meister," he said, not a question. "That's how you got him into the medbay. You bribed him."
Ratchet gave a lopsided grin. "I told you I'd get him in there," he said.
"Are you even thinking?" Spec hissed, in no mood to joke, apparently. "Mech's a fragging sociopath! What the pit makes you think he won't kill you as soon as you're out of Kaon?"
Ratchet swallowed nervously, but held Spec's optics. He thought of the bar codes and chewed the inside of his cheek. "Call it a hunch," he said.
Spec held him there for a long time and Ratchet could practically see the battle going on behind his optics. Finally, he let go of his arm and stepped back. "If you make me come out there to drag back your corpse, I'm using you for spare parts," he warned seriously.
Ratchet shuddered, knowing that he would too. "You won't have to," he promised, giving the older mech a lopsided grin that said he dearly hoped that wouldn't happen.
Anxiously, Spec looked over his shoulder before pulling Ratchet into a tight embrace. Ratchet swallowed and his optics widened as he felt cold metal press into his hand. His hands shook a little as he discreetly slid the gun into his own subspace. "It's on loan," Spec muttered and let go of him. "I like that pistol."
Ratchet smiled uncertainly. "Thanks," he said quietly.
"Learn how to use that thing," Spec said before giving him a shove in Meister's direction. "Get out of here. You only have three days and it's a long drive, ground-pounder."
Ratchet stumbled a little and looked back at his mentor. "I'll be okay," he promised. He gave him one last nervous smile before hurrying to catch up with Meister, the weight of the gun a strange comfort in his subspace.