Notes/ And yet another long one. I must admit this chapter was frustrating as anything to write. It's far more of an action chapter, and I don't consider myself the best at writing actions and battle scenes, which as you may have guessed from the last one, are certainly in here. I tried. I really tried. I'm not completely happy with this one even after multiple edits. But I'm not sure I will be even with multiple more. What can you do…
As always thanks for reading and reviewing, which is useful to me as I love the feedback for future chapters.
When Jack jumped from the cab of Ratchet's vehicle mode, he almost expected it might be at least a little bit like old times, even given the seriousness of the whole situation. Still, though, his heart had been sinking steadily during the short bridge trip over, and even well before that. And it sunk further when he instantly caught sight of Arcee, sitting on the far side of the large and mostly empty room, staring down at a datapad in her hands with a faraway and despairing look on her face-plate.
"Jack," Ratchet said then, speaking in strangely hushed tones. The old bot transformed quickly back to bot mode, and immediately he lifted the human up, unexpected from the floor. Realizing at once the bot meant only to relay serious information and quietly, he sat down on the old bots hand, and with feet dangling casually over the edge, he looked up and paid attention. The medic shook his head very slightly and gave a strange and disbelieving look as he went on speaking with the human at optic level. "Knockout took off with the wreckers and Smokescreen. He didn't say a word about it to Arcee. Just rolled off and left. I can only imagine he's determined to help take down Starscream.."
For a fraction of a second, Jack thought little about it. In his mind, the bots battled all the time. It was simply what they did. And the Autobots, against all odds, outgunned and far outnumbered, still so often managed to come back the winners. So what if one more fought for them instead of against. Surely he had done so before. Jack reasoned instantly, the Knockout had certainly broken rank by going when told to stay behind. But again so what? He had never seen an army anywhere, more inclined to break rank than Autobots. An act that to most would have been a crime worthy of discipline and serious action, the 'bots seemed to have turned almost into a national sport.
But just as quickly, he remembered the bot in question, as he'd last seen him over the commlink. And he shook his head in bewilderment and shock. And he looked up at the huge Autobot, with dread spreading over his face.
"Knockout has got to be useless now on a battlefield," he whispered urgently. "Not to mention a danger to the others. What were the wreckers thinking, letting him go?"
"I… don't know, Jack," Ratchet replied, clearly just as baffled and filled with concern. "This is bad. This is very bad." He looked as though he was about to say so much more. But he didn't and instead just stood silent and shaking his head just slightly
"Let me go and talk to Arcee," the human said after another second. And nodding, the old bot gently put him down onto the floor.
Jack crossed the room in fast, running steps. He was, he had to admit to himself, hardly as good a climber as Miko, who'd always managed to scale anything inside an Autobot base like it was nothing at all. But he certainly could do it, when he tried. And carefully, using support slats and a couple of large bolts as hand and foot holds, he climbed up to the seat of the bench. Shuffling over quickly, she sat quietly next to his bot partner. Eager as he'd been to talk to her, to try his best to help however he could, Jack found himself now without any clue at all, of what exactly he was supposed to say.
"Hey, Arcee," he said, finally settling only on the simple greeting. He would let her talk to him about whatever it was she felt like talking about.
"Hey Jack," the bot answered quietly. She looked up slowly, clearly only noticing for the first time that he had even arrived at all.
"Where's Cybershock?" Jack asked, perhaps more concerned then he knew he should have been, at not seeing the child with her carrier. He struggled a brief second to remember the little's one name, and hoped he indeed had it right.
"She's outside with Speedbreaker," Arcee answered, distractedly. And a second later she shook her head slightly in response to Jack's slightly confused look. She went on to quickly add, "Sorry. Speedy is 'Bee's intended bondmate. You'll meet her later. Cybershock was so fussy, crying and crying, refusing to eat… Speedy wondered if a change of scenery might help, so I let her take her to the courtyard."
"Poor little bot," Jack muttered, partly because he certainly didn't like to think of any child upset; either Human or Cybertronain. But mostly because he really had no idea what else to say about anything.
"She never cries, Jack. A tiny cry when she's hungry, or she wants to be picked up. But nothing like this. She wants her creator. She was always his little girl… He worked out quickly, how to carry her on his lap while still driving the cart safely at the same time. He carries her with him a lot in the daytime because that's something he can do."
"Hey Arcee, Knockout will come back. The wreckers wouldn't let anything happen to him. Granted those two are a bit.. well, more Miko's kind of bots than mine. But they wouldn't even think about using him for the mission if they didn't have a plan."
"He's not like other bots," Arcee mumbled, clearly upset and with good and logical reason. "I told you once he's worked so hard to do so many things. But what about everything he can't do? His health is far from perfect. He tires so quickly because everything is so much more effort. He could go into processor reboot with seconds warning." Arcee looked up then with frustration in her optics. "To scrap with whatever the wreckers and Smokescreen might have been thinking. What the frag was Knockout thinking?"
"Well… you can ask him, as soon as he gets back with the other bots and Miko," Jack said, helpless and trying to say anything to make her believe in some form of hope in that moment.
But Arcee was obviously not in any mood to discuss the subject any further at the moment, and when she didn't any back, the two of them fell into silence for a while. Jack took a moment to look around the large room he was in inside the base. The place, he saw at once, was far bigger than the makeshift base the bots had used on Earth. Just the room he was currently in, a room filled with huge benches, and a big machine he remembered was used to dispense the bots' daily fuel, was probably larger than the entire Earth base had been. Huge shelves lined a far wall and those were filled with data pads and even things Jack was sure he could recognize as games meant simply for fun and recreation time. And hallways led away from the room, through several open doors on each wall. He looked a moment at the huge comms computer, that took up at least half on one far wall, and the ground bridge control, beside it. He recognized those at once and he also recognized the bot that presently manned the comm. Soundwave. And the strange and deadly, silent bot appeared to never have noticed him at all. Though Jack knew that hardly meant he truly hadn't.
He sat a moment, watching the bot, working intently with an Autobot computer. And he reflected a second on the utter strangeness of that alone. He remembered then that it had been he and his friends, who had once sent this bot to the shadow zone. And with sudden and heart-dropping dread, he imaged that Soundwave, now that he was somehow once again free, was surely planning his revenge. How, by the way, had he gotten back again? Jack knew his silent question would so likely never have an answer.
"Soundwave here has quickly become our go-to bot for anything tech support and advanced tracking," Ratchet said from the center of the room, and Jack realized how intently he must have been staring with fear on his face because the old bot had obviously noticed it himself. Ratchet chuckled just slightly and said, almost too casually. "Perfectly fine with me, too. Since these outdated, glitchy systems are generally no match for him, he can deal with them. Primus knows I've nearly kicked the thing more than once. I've got so much more time freed up to work with the medical side of things, and with so many refugees on back on Cybertron again, that really is a more than full-time job."
"Acree told me once, this place is eventually going to become a hospital," Jack said, mostly to make conversation. He hoped Arcee would join in.
Ratchet opened his mouth to speak again, obviously about to answer. But the second he did, a metallic, Cybertronain bird flew from a place Jack had not even noticed until then, up near the high ceiling on the rim of a light fixture, and drove straight for the arm of the bench Jack sat on with Arcee. He recognized the creature at once, as the smallest member of the Decepticon forces, with a reputation of reputation to match that of the faction. And surprisingly feared and dreaded, for a bot of such small size. At present though, perched on the bench and looking around with curious little red optics, the tiny bot didn't look nearly so dangerous.
"Jack, be carefree if you are going to say hello," Ratchet said, when the human extended a slow and hesitant hand out to the bird-bot, unsure exactly how one was meant to go about interacting with such a creature in the first place. "Soundwave will always be particularly protective toward Laserbaek. She's basically like his own youngling."
"Nothing about this is a good idea," Bulkhead muttered to the others, keeping his voice low as the four bots approached the end of the ground bridge.
"It's far from being a good idea," Smokescreen replied at once, while he only stomped forward stubborn and determined. "But it may just be the best chance we've got."
"Shooting that fragger 'con dead in a pool of his own energon, blowing him into bits before he even sees us draw blasters, now that may just be a better idea than using our own teammate to bait him," Wheeljack said.
"Do you think Miko's really still alright?" Knockout asked while he rolled the cart forward at pretty close to its top speed. Even though he was driving it faster than he usually dared to push it, still the others walked at only a slower power walk, to let him keep up.
"'Course she is," Bulk' answered at once. "She's Miko. She's a little wrecker." He cringed momentarily at the slow speed he was keeping. It was, he figured hardly ideal or suitable for such a mission. And every one of his battle trained instincts told him he should have been racing from the bridge already in a speeding vehicle mode, ready to transform already running, and with blasters firing. And he knew full well that there were risks in keeping the bridge open for that long with enemies nearby.
Bulkhead ordered the bridge closed the very second all four were clear of it. And he looked around him taking in the scene his team had arrived at in seconds. Starscream stood close to the edge of a high cliff, below which the Boiling River – which served to carry super-heated, boiling oil which churned up constantly from toward the core of Cybertron, off across the planet, to dump it, by then partially cooled, into natural basins scattered, over the planet and reached by its many streams – flowed under the constant cover of its steam. His back was to the place the bridge had been, and he held Miko, struggling helplessly, dangling from her backpack straps held by his finger tips, with his right hand. Nearby were only two troopers and neither one held a weapon at the ready or appeared even remotely ready to shoot.
"I said, put me down you creaky metal tin can!" Miko hollered from her place, held high in the air, supported dangerously by mostly the straps of her backpack.
"Or what?" Starscream taunted dangerously. "The Autobots will come and get me? I know they're here already. I'm not stupid. I know they're behind me. Probably each holding blasters and ready to fire."
"Yes," said Miko, in a tone of exasperation far more than one of any fear at all. "And you'll need to put me down in order to properly shoot at them with either your arm cannons or integrated blasters… which you'll need to do quickly, or they'll blow your head off."
"Shut up, you ridiculous disgusting skin bag. I can shoot perfectly fine with one hand," Starscream shrieked in reply. "Even one-handed, I'm twenty times the warrior any Autobot will ever be!" And Bulkhead, despite the seriousness of the situation, could not help but take pride in 'his' human and her quick thinking, even if she had failed at a plan she must have quickly improvised.
"Anyway, none of the Autobots are going to shoot at me, even for the slim chance they could indeed blow my head off as you say," Starscream went on, in a tone now dripping with both superiority and his own clear insanity. Moving slowly, he turned around to face them, and snarled in their direction, across the jagged ground, "a Cybertronain firefight, with a tiny human caught right in the middle of it? Anyone of us would surely kill her in a second if we should fall to blaster fire. You won't risk it."
Bulkhead stood, with his blaster in front of him, aiming well and certain of hitting the 'con square in the front of his head with one well placed shot, he knew he could make. But the way Starscream held Miko, the angle was all very wrong. The chance was far too great that he would fall forward, off-lined in an instant and crushing the tiny human to death instantly, under his fallen weight. Then there was the slightly smaller chance he might just drop her instead, flinging her from his fingertips, with no control over his body at the second he fell, but should that happen, the chance was good that she might just be flung through the air and right into the Boiling River, not far away. There was some chance of course that he might just fall backward, or into some other awkward position from which Miko, perhaps banged up from the fall she would take, would escape otherwise fine. But the chance was too small, and the risk far too great. Bulk, pulled his finger slowly back from the trigger of his blaster. And beside him, on either side, he saw Wheeljack and Smokescreen do the very same, after having so obviously made the same grime calculations.
Bulk', though he fully understood and agreed with Ratchet's reasons for ordering her not to, wished Arcee had been along on the mission. He had to admit if only to himself, that he had no real idea what to do. Perhaps the best course of action left was to promise Starscream his freedom, and agree to honor any demands he may just make besides. But without a commanding officer, he was in no place to make that call. And he was far from completely sure he could successfully reach her now on a private comm frequency without it being somehow intercepted.
"How wonderful to see you again, Herr Kommandant," Knockout said, speaking up unexpectedly while he rolled the cart forward across the field of metal shards.
And Bulkhead, suddenly horrified at the bold action, took one small and helpless step forward after him. There was no way, he reasoned fast, that he and his team could hope to save him now, not with Starscream holding Miko as he was, and with the risk a flurry of blaster fire now posed. He thought seconds too late that he ought to have told his teammate that, told him discreetly as he could have, that he plan had just changed. But he knew that Knockout, though he'd never been close to being a front liner, had done his own calculation of risk and he already knew that himself. And yet, Bulk' understood with dismay, he was clearly determined to do it anyway.
"Knockout!" Starscream exclaimed with a terrible snarl spreading over his face-plate, "well this was certainly unexpected." As he finished up quickly with the obvious sarcasm, his face-plate sifted suddenly into a look of complete disbelief and distaste, while he stared his former teammate up and down across the field. "I was informed you'd been damaged, but your condition is just… unimaginable."
"My word, Knockout," Starscream went on ranting, while he took two slow steps toward him, with Miko still swinging from his fingertips by her pack. He shook his head dramatically, and shuddered, so clearly on purpose. "If I had to live even a short time in a state even half as bad as yours, I would have already thrown myself into a smelting pit. Primus knows it would save anyone else the trouble… and me the humiliation..."
"Perhaps you should," Knockout said. He advanced forward himself a fair ways before he stopped the cart and just stared up at the bot that had once been both the bot he called a friend and the one who had a great hand in destroying him.
Starscream tipping his head just slightly to the left and looked confused. "Perhaps I should, what?"
"Perhaps you should throw yourself into a smelting pit," Knockout answered. His eyes burning with a fury no Autobot had seen from him since they'd once battled him as a 'con himself. "You'd do less damage that way, to both yourself and society."
"Knockout..." Miko said quietly, looking down and right at him now from her place still hanging dangerously in the air. It was not exactly clear what she meant to say in that one simple acknowledgment. And the straps of her pack were badly slipping.
Watching, and unsure exactly what to do, while time around him seemed to slow to a crawl, Bulkhead wondered if perhaps he ought to hope the straps would indeed slip or simply break. Miko might well be injured in the fall, but it was doubtful such a drop would kill her. Knowing what he knew of humans, he doubted it was quite high enough for that. He imagined in a second, a scenario where she managed to run for it, make for the road, as he knew she would, while the Autobots finally unleashed the power of their blasters, now without the risk to her. But then again, she was practically upside down…
"Knockout," Starscream proclaimed, his tone of voice sounding every bit sickeningly superior, as he stomped a few more steps across the field, further closing the distance. And to the Autobots' dread and horror, he raised his arm-mounted weapon up in front of him, clearly reading himself to fire right at the unarmed and helpless defector's spark chamber. "For the crime of defection, I sentence you to immediate death. We'll make a fair example of you. Show any others that think of daring to walk away from under my rule, what happens if they try it!"
"Uh uh, Screamer," Bulkhead said. He flung his blaster back securely over his shoulder by its strap and took a few heavy steps forward with both of his hands in fists of anger. "You don't make the rules, and you don't get to decide who lives and who dies. I suggest you knock this off and give yourself up here and now, or when we do bring you down, which we will, your end will be a hundred times worse." He was about to say more. To tell the sparkless 'con that Knockout had a bondmate and a tiny daughter. But he was unsure if Starscream had any knowledge at off of either of those facts. And if he indeed had not a clue, then why not keep Arcee's status as bonded unrevealed. Why not keep tiny Cybershock's existence a secret altogether?
"Such hard and menacing words for a soft sparked, Autobot," Starscream taunted, evilly. "Back away Bulkhead. Knockout is dead metal. But I might just let you have your little Miko back alive and well."
"Starscream, you've gone and lost your fraggin' mind," Knockout snapped. He held himself as straight as he possibly could on his cart, and gesturing with his functional hand, he looked far stronger than he ever had, perhaps even before his tragic malfunction. "The war is over. Please, stop with the endless need for battle. Everyone else already has. We are rebuilding. Help us."
"I don't want to rebuild Cybertron alongside your pathetic Autobots. I was meant to rule! Our side was supposed to win. Megatron always told me our victory was assured. And… he won't rule now. He walked away. So, it's mine. I… I was next in line..." Starscream was rambling on, talking too fast and barely making any coherent sense. And never once did he lower his blaster
"We were friends once," Knockout said. He spoke quickly, sadness and desperation clear in the tone of his voice. "Or at least we tried to be, for a while. I might have been one of the few you thought you could actually trust on board that ship. Perhaps you still could..."
"Shut up you… you broken scrap pile. You have no right to talk to me, without a remaining obvious function. And you… you turned against me and ran..."
"I had to do what I knew was right. You would never have come with me. And you were about to kill the Autobots, and let our home face its certain end, running like a screaming coward."
"When you ran off to join the Autobots, you left me at the mercy of our leader, who would have seen me dead at his feet in a pool of my energon the second I ceased to be useful. You wouldn't have known then that Megatron would never come back!" Starscream dropped then to the ground, transforming low in the air, and flipping in his bot form so that he could land on his feet. Immediately he advanced slowly toward Knockout again, with his blaster at the ready. His optics burned with anger, but far more with a kind of madness rarely seen on a bot.
"You're dead!" He screamed. "Dead for being broken. Dead for defecting. Dead for having a spark!"
"Don't you dare kill him," Miko screamed as Starscream aimed his blaster. "Knockout is a good bot. A million times more useful to Cybertron than you'll ever be. Someone should have ripped the spark out of your chest the first chance they had." She struggled again, and this time harder than before, finally tuning herself enough in the air so that she could bend her body at her waist, kicking her feet forward with enough force to somehow snap the book bag straps from her excessive motion. With a tiny sequel at the suddenness of the long drop, she crashed hard to the ground.
From his place at the computer, Soundwave opened a space-bridge portal, and immediately though roared Bumblebee in his vehicle mode, with Raf riding in the front passenger seat. 'Bee stopped fast, with a little squeal of his brakes, and strangely enough, he popped open his trunk. Raf hopped out quickly and ran around to the back, where he began to quickly unload a decent number of plastic bags into the middle of the common room floor.
"Sorry we're late," he explained, talking quickly, as he unloaded. "Agent Fowler called while just before 'Bee arrived to grab me. He'd gotten us a purchasing order to get what we needed. So I had 'Bee stop at target so I could buy groceries and supplies."
"Good thinking Raf and 'Bee," Arcee said, surprised and taken aback by the near grown up efficiency of this now not so small human boy.
"Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, shampoo, soap, towels, toilet paper..." Raf muttered, unloading and inventorying the items as he sorted them into piles in the middle of the floor. "Basic groceries, Five loaves of bread, soup, meat, fruit, veggies, all of it canned… I did get fresh fruit too but it needs to be eaten pretty quickly. I didn't pick up water because 'Bee said we've got the ability to filter yours for our safe drinking water, and of course we can wash with it too. But no real refrigeration apparently… oh yes, and blankets too. Three different colors so we'll know whose is whose. Miko would probably smack me if I'd grabbed her a pink one, so hers is green instead…"
He stopped talking suddenly and looked up again, eyed right in front of him, staring in shock at Soundwave, clearly registering in his mind only then, who it was he was actually looking at. He was currently holding a rolled up blanket – a red one- in his hands, and he threw the thing forward a few feet in shock before stumbling backward in his seated position and falling over backward, nearly smacking his head on the floor before he caught himself.
"The Autobots say you.. you've defected from the 'cons," he said slowly and obviously uneasy. Quickly he sat back up straight, on the floor again "N… nice to hear another bot made it out of there..."
Arcee, still sitting on the bench close to the back wall paid close attention, observing the situation with unblinking optics, and ready to act in under a second if something should happen to go wrong. But all the same, she knew that Soundwave needed to be trusted, assumed capable of more the safe and civil behavior he had shown already since the humans had arrived. And quick glanced exchanged with both Ratchet and 'Bee told her that they both felt the very same.
Soundwave only appeared to completely ignore Raf entirely at first, continuing to study the monitor in front of him. Once his fingertip tapped against the keyboard flipping from the commlink to a map, which he continued to look at. Finally, though he slowly turned his head, turning away from the console so he could instead look down at the boy. With obvious uncertainty, he slowly gave the tiny human a single nod of his head in acknowledgment. Not a second later he turned quickly back to his work.
A sliding door across the room, on the other side, slid open and Speedbreaker walked back in calmly. She held Cybershock, still wide awake but at least slightly happier, in her arms. The baby still pouted and murmured, clearly unhappy and despairing. But at least the loud and steady cries of earlier in the day had stopped, and she mostly just looked around the room with wide optics, unable to settle herself to recharge. Arcee stood up quickly and immediately she reached out to take her child from her friend. The two young humans, busy now with unloading the groceries and supplies into the bottom shelf of a shelving until that made them look just as small as any bot did, both jumped to their feet quickly and with clear excitement. And then proceeded to slowly creep across the room toward them, trying to get a hesitant and curious look at the little bot, as Arcee sat back down again.
"Come over here and meet the little youngling," Arcee called over to the boys, chuckling a little at their suddenly nervous and creeping footsteps.
"Can we?" Raf questioned, eyes lighting up with excitement as he crept slowly closer, with Jack just slightly ahead of him.
"Of course," Arcee said, chuckling a little again. And Ratchet hurriedly lifted both of the humans, one of them in each hand, up onto the bench, where they each promptly sat themselves down, one on either side, and looked closely at the tiny youngling.
"I've never seen a baby transformer before," Jack said slowly, after 'Bee had lifted him up onto the bench, and he'd wiggled his way across it, in order to get closer. "Ratchet says there are so few of them anywhere now… "
"She's the first child born on Cybertron itself in centuries. And so far there it looks like there may be only a small handful of others anywhere," Arcee explained, nodding her head a little.
"She's so cute." Raf smiled at the youngling, and grinned when she smiled right back. And as he grinned at her, he studied carefully, before finally he remarked in a tone of curiosity, "hey shouldn't she have visible wheels?"
"Cybershock won't have wheels for a while yet, Raf,"Ratchet chuckled, joining in the conversation. "Not until she chooses her first vehicle mode. And that won't be for a long time yet."
"I'm sorry,' Arcee mumbled after a moment, busy now paying attention to her youngling, while of course worrying the same worry for her mate, and thinking of a hundred terrible things she imagined could easily have happened while saying not a word about it. She shook her head a little, to shake off distracted, racing thoughts, and gestured toward Speedy, who stood nearby. The young refugee was obviously just as curious about the first two humans she had ever seen, as they were about the youngling. "This is Speedbreaker. Speedy, these are mine and 'Bee's human partners."
Jack stayed where he was, sitting beside Arcee, smiling at Cybershock, and even managing to make her giggle and then laugh with a bright grin on her face-plate, as he made ridiculous faces at her. But Raf jumped up immediately, to stand on the bench.
"Nice to meet ya," he said quickly.
Speedbreaker may indeed have been very small for an Adult Cybertronain. Noticeably smaller and a fair bit lighter even than Arcee. But still she a bot, and much larger than the little human, who even standing on the bench, stood below the high of her chest panel. And therefore, Arcee, despite her worry and distracted mood, had to laugh out loud, when Raf extended a hand, clearly intended to shake hers.
"Likewise, young human," said Speedy, after she's stood for one long moment and only looked baffled by the gesture entirely. Finally, and grinning now, she slowly extended the index finger of her right hand out of the human, and let him shake that in a modified try and 'handshaking.'
"'Bee's told me all about you," Raf chattered excitedly. "He said you were pretty, and friendly, and smarter than him. And that you work making energon candy to sell in your family store's for a living, but you really wanna be an engineer instead. He said you love Cybertron and history, and you like to know things, but mostly you make him happy." Raf grinned then, and went on, slower this time, "'Bee's my friend. I'm glad he found someone to be happy with forever."
"Speedy," said Bumblebee, laughing a little now, at Raf's fast and excited try at congratulating the pair, "I should stay with the team. We're still waiting for Soundwave to receiving updates on the status of the other. But why don't you give these two humans the ground tour of the base?"
"I could do that," Speedbreaker grinned, turning to grin as well at both of the humans on the bench.
Raf stepped forward at once, turning then so that he could climb down to the floor. Speedbreaker however, gently snatched him up before he could do so. The quick nod she gave the others, an expression of relief on her face-plate, at not having him on the floor, told Arcee that she was clearly more comfortable with simply carrying a human leaning against her bent arm and holding onto her shoulder panel, then she was with trying now to step on one that ran beside her on the ground. She extended the other arm, turning slightly, and obviously confident in her ability to carry two. But Jack only stayed where he was, sitting with his own bot partner and her baby, and shaking his head a little.
"I'll see the place later," he said slowly, but clearly decided. "Right now, I'm staying with Arcee."
But Arcee shook her head immediately and stood up, with the baby bot, who she walked into the center of the room carrying.
"'Bee take her for me please," she said. And as the black and yellow Autobot stood, looking baffled at the tiny colorful youngling that had just been plopped gently into his arms, she explained, decisively. "I can't just sit around and let my own bondmate, who has no business out there in the first place, risk his metal on a mission I should have taken in the first place. I'm going to help. I'll be back for her soon."
Bulkhead stood watching, frozen on the spot, as Miko fell backward onto the hard ground beneath her. And he watched as she rolled herself quickly over, jumping to her feet in under a second, without even appearing to notice the blood that had begun to soak the left sleeve of the button down she wore. Starscream, growling with rage, spun on his heel, turning at once, in an attempt to grab her immediately. He bent forward, as she ran, with the typical boldness that only she could possibly dare to display, underneath his long legs and around the left one, trying so obviously to make him trip himself up while keeping track of her. And he growled again, a barely civilized animal-like noise, as indeed he nearly did trip over his left foot with his right, before the human, limping considerably and again barely appearing to notice, hurried away toward the cliff's edge that had been behind her. Bulk' snapped himself quickly out of his state of frozen disbelief and quickly, while the 'con was still only growing and huffing wordlessly with his frustration and rage, he raised his blaster.
One fast calculation, made in his processor in under a second, told him that Miko, who he'd watched dive fast for cover behind a decently sized jagged metal chuck a fair run from there, was more than clear of danger. And in that second, as such things always had in battle, everything turned to chaos at once, while time itself appeared to nearly stop.
Starscream, turned a fraction of a turn on his heel once again, as though at first he was determined to pursue his dropped human hostage. But instead, he turned right back again with yet another psychotic raging growl and aimed his weapon right back at Knockout, who had managed to back himself up a fair bit, though still not nearly enough, as his top speed. His intention was more than clearly to make it to the cover of the overhangs made by some cliffs that rose up from the farthest edge of the field.
A shot from Smokescreen's blaster, fired a second before it was too late, struck the furious 'con in the chest panel, missing his spark chamber, but still sending him stumbling back a little. The blaster beam he had fired himself the second he had been hit, missed Knockout by a mile, cutting through empty air and sending chunks of the cliff behind them crumbling away. Bulkhead, sure now that both Knockout and Miko, were at least for that second safe and determined to keep them that way, aimed his own weapon. For a fraction of a second he stood, heavy blaster, aimed right at Starscream's spark panel, and the energon heating inside his body, rising with his own anger. For that second he wanted to shoot the 'con commander right through his spark, and he knew well that he could do it. He wanted revenge for Miko, for the terrible 'con's daring to kidnap her of any human. He wanted to issue him a quick and instant execution, as Starscream would have done to Knockout, had Smokescreen only been half a second slower. Bulk' lowered the blaster just a little and quickly, managing a nonfatal shot in the other side of his panel, dented badly from the shot he had already taken.
"Don't just stand there you pair of useless scarp eaters," Starscream bellowed at the troopers, who stood still awaiting orders by the cliff's edge. "Shoot the Autobots down; Knockout with them. And grab that little human!"
Wheeljack, running across the field toward the cliff's edge and obviously thinking he might grab Miko fast himself, dodged a deadly blaster beam, and aimed a fast drawn blaster into the air, shooting down one of the flying troopers just as soon as he had transformed and dared to take flight, and before that one could shoot at any of them again. Every one of the team, except for Bulkhead, moved to take cover then, either behind huge metallic rocks that littered the field here and there or under and against the high cliffs behind them on two sides.
"You coward Autobot," Starscream snarled, as he leaped from the ground, transforming instantly in order to take to the air. "You should have shot me right through the spark when you had your chance just a second ago. The war would be over and you'd be the hero who brought down Lord Starscream! But then, you never did have much spark for killing. Did you? You'll never be remembered as anything greater than a simple construction bot, who fell to my blaster when you could instead have saved your worthless friends!"
"Give it up, Starscream," Bulkhead warned seriously, while he took careful aim toward the sky. He was furious now, but through his anger, he focused hard on aiming. And all the while he was aware on some level, that he had probably just sounded far more like so many other Autobots and less like himself, in that simple spoken line.
"Never!" The 'con screamed, over his own engine noise. He flew fast wide circles over the field and the bots in it, firing his weapons once in a while almost idly, and managing to hit the cliffs and the boiling river more than he even bounced a shot off a bot's armor. "I'll destroy every one of you. I'll never surrender. Never! I'll destroy every Autobot on Cybertron. And then I will rule! I'll succeed where Megatron failed because I'm smarter than he ever was. I'm better than him. And I'm far better than anyone of you!"
'Old Screamer's finally gone and lost it,' Wheeljack's voice said suddenly over a private commlink. And Bulkhead, acknowledging only with a nod in his direction so small it would never have been noticed had it not be expected, quickly added Smokescreen and Knockout to the comm link.
'I'll say he's lost it,' Bulk' answered quickly. He dodged the one blaster beam that so far come even close to hitting him, and quickly worked out a plan. 'Smokescreen, you call for a bridge and get Knockout to it. Wheeljack, grab Miko and take her to Knockout, who will bridge out with her. Then you two stay on this side, we take down Screamer, and call for a second bridge back with him well secured.'
'I'd ask for some decent cover fire, bulk. But Starscream clearly couldn't hit the broad side of a barn today, as they say on Earth.' Wheeljack chuckled over the commlink as soon as he had dashed out from the cover of the cliffs and set off in a dead run across the field.
'Don't mean he can't still hit you.' Smokescreen warned, perhaps stating a little too much of the obvious. 'Seriously, what the frag is Starscream doing? If he hasn't completely lost his processor as well as his targeting, then this is some trick and it makes no sense.'
"I'll build my empire on the site of your first new city," Screaming shrieked as he flew, and after a couple whole minutes of nothing but horrible laughter from his jet form he went right on ranting. "Every neutral on this world and any yet to return will face a choice. Pledge their allegiance to me, or die. But never fear, Autobots. For those that live, it will be more than worthwhile. Cybertron will succeed and the people along with it. Finally a planet worthy of it's name. Something it should have been centuries ago. Something it could have been before Megatron lost his way. I can do it. I can do anything! I can. I can!"
'Something's very wrong,' Smokescreen said, again over the private commlink. He dove then from his own cover, and started his dead run toward Knockout, as the red bot stayed under the cliff overhand he'd managed to remain safe under. Once, he held up a hand to make a simple single to Knockout to stay where he was, to wait for him. And his damaged teammate only nodded once quickly, his understanding obvious.
And Bulkhead, watching the exchange from the safety of his own cover and ready to jump out and run himself, leaned out to fire his blaster again into the air, as his enemy's jet form zoomed directly overhead. Before he could even pull the trigger though, his optics opened wide with shock, as he watched Starscream bank hard to the right, within under a meter of a near nose first dive right into a cliff face.
"Scrap," Bulkhead mumbled out loud, stunned at seeing a near devastating crash, from a flier who all of Cybertron knew should never in a million years have come nearly so close to crashing.
"Fly much?" Miko yelled, daring again to taunt the 'con from her place, behind the same rocks she had first taken cover behind. And though he thought her brazenly bold even for Miko, in that situation, Bulk sighed slightly with relief at hearing her shout like that, if only because it meant she was still alive and at least mostly okay.
'What in the fragging name of Primus is wrong with that bot?' Wheeljack questioned, baffled, over the commlink, while he made a dead run across the battlefield toward the tiny human's place of cover.
"Shut up you…. You… Every one of you, shut up..." Starscream began to rant and scream, as soon as he had corrected himself and turned in the air to fly, still far too low, at great speed in the other direction. But he was only repeating himself almost nonsensically, as he fired his weapons before nearly smashing his jet form against the cliffs opposite the one he had always nearly stuck before.
Starscream's shooting was so oddly bad, that it well may have been only luck on his part, that one good shot finally hit home. But sure enough, it had. And Wheeljack, still in mid-run across the openness of the field of metal shards, fell suddenly, dropping to his knees before quickly landing face first flat on the ground awkwardly with a pool of blue glowing energon spreading fast from somewhere beneath his chest panel.
"Frag you!" Bulkhead screamed toward the sky, furious now.
He stared into the sky, blaster at the ready and energon flowing fast and heating rapidly, through his frame. Time in that second felt as though it as slowed down to a crawl. And he watched in slow motion, as a blaster beam cut through the air before it struck the 'con commander's left wing tip. For a mere fraction of a second, Bulk felt the satisfaction of the near perfect hot. But just as quickly, it occurred to him that he what not even managed to fire yet. He turned around fast then, glancing quickly across the battlefield, where he expected, quite logically that he would find Smokescreen standing and ready to fire a follow-up shot to match his first. But the blue and yellow bot was beside Knockout already, ground bridge open behind him and shoving had against the arms rests of the red bot's cart, while knockout shook his head yelling something not quite coherent, clearly now refusing to bridge away. Bulk knew then that Smokescreen had obviously not fired that shot. Wheeljack was unmoving on the ground…
The baffled Autobot, stunned and shaken, angry and shocked, had barely a second to dive out of the way as a vehicon trooper still in his own jet form and flying, but just as clearly damaged and falling, in urgent need of a place to land, dropped hard onto the ground, and rolled across it, transforming as he did so, almost in front of his big green feet. The vehicon, bleeding from a couple of blaster wounds of his own, but still functional, pulled himself up to an awkward kind of kneeling position, took aim over his head with his integrated weapon, landed a perfect shot against the tip of Starscream's other wing tip.
"What the frag are you doin'?" Bulk' exclaimed, questioning stupidly, although the answer was obvious and on most levels, he knew it. He realized in the fraction of a second he had to think about it, that he'd quite foolishly managed to forget all about the second of the troopers after Wheeljack had shot down the first one.
"Declaring my intention to defect," the trooper said, speaking quickly. He struggled with obvious difficulty to get to his feet, in a clearly bad state due to the extent of damage he's sustained. "I've never been offered a chance to take that option yet."
"Welcome to our side of the battle," Bulkhead said because he didn't exactly know what else to say by that point. He held out a hand to pull the injured and more than obviously stunned trooper to his feet because he didn't know what else to do. Quickly, and with a blink of his optics, trying to gather himself fast, Bulkhead aimed his blaster at the jet form above him and spinning badly in midair. "Your first order. Run!"
"Knockout," Smokescreen shouted, over the noise Starscream's engines, and steady blasts of weapons fire from every direction. "Get to the ground bridge!"
Smokescreen shoved the cart backward a fair ways and toward the bridge, with both of his hands against the arms rests clearly trying to make his point. But Knockout only shook his head at him. He shoved his left hand against the hand control, with his usual level of awkward efficiency, and jammed his right foot hard against the power pedal, working to force himself forward while he was shoved back.
Knockout hated to be pushed on the cart. It was, in fact quite possibly he one thing he thought he might just have hated most of anything in life. His insistence on driving it by himself was so well known to anyone that knew him, that in general bots just didn't push him, or even try to. In in the present moment, despite the seriousness of the situation, the weapons firing close to them, and the more than obvious danger, Knockout worked hard to fight back a growing urge to snap in frustration at his teammate, who tried to force him into a turn in a direction he did not wish to move in.
"I'm not going anywhere," he protested firmly, still forcing the cart forward against the strong push of his teammate. "We still need Miko, and now Wheeljack is on the ground. Primus knows if he's dead or alive..."
"You've done your part," Smokescreen yelled back. He took one hard away from the cart just long enough to wave it toward the open portal very close by. He gestured then across the field toward Starscream, who sat on the ground, struggling, trying to get to his feet but entirely unable to do so; growling and snarling his wordless rage as Bulkhead forced his hands behind his back and held him firmly. A vehicon trooper, the one that Knockout assumed at first must have run for it when the other one was shot down and offlined, stood next to Bulk for a moment, before strangely he ran to Wheeljack, still unmoving on the ground The trooper opened his small storage compartment quickly. And, quite bizarrely, by the time he had dropped again to the ground beside the fallen Autobot, he'd pulled out his field first aid kit.
Knockout watched Bulkhead across the field, still struggling with a furious and enraged Starscream, who, it was all too clear, would easily tear an Autobot's head clean off if he only could have if it meant a last chance it his freedom. And since he could not come close to doing that, he would undoubtedly die before he'd willing be captured alive.
Smokescreen let go of the cart, and quickly he stood up straight again. For what must only have been seconds but felt like many minutes, Knockout watched as the you bot, looked the center of the field, where Bulk' struggled furiously to contain Starscream, to place far to the left where Miko had taken cover, and finally to Wheeljack, still seemingly lifeless near the clearly side-switching trooper who showed at least some skill with the repair kit.
"You assist Bulkhead," Knockout said, still speaking loud over the noise of Starscream's horrible raging. "A handful of the vehicons are trained in field repair and that's obviously one of them. I can look for Miko."
The tiny human had not come out from her cover yet, though he imagined in a second that she should have by then. And that fact alone made the red bot's spark drop. He watched as Smokescreen shook his head just a little, still so clearly unsure of which direction he should run in, who needed him more.
"I can help," Knockout shouted, insisting and frustrated. "I'm not bridging back like some busted scrap pile. Let me help!"
With one more fast and still confused shake of his head, Smokescreen ran toward Bulkhead, blaster at the ready. And with that Knockout slammed his hand against the hand control with as much force he could possibly manage. His foot pressed hard against the pedal and he pushed his cart to its top speed quickly, making his way across the now almost still field with no one left to notice him.
"Help!" a voice called from somewhere hidden behind the rocks he was driving himself toward. "Someone please help."
Recognizing the pleading voice at once, as that of Miko, and hearing the strange and uncharacteristic helplessness of it, he pushed harder against the pedal under his right foot, trying instinctive to move faster though he could not do so as he had already reached his top possible speed. In growing frustration, as his spark dropped further, he rolled on forward, closing the distance to the rock and the cliff edge close behind them in the endless minutes it seemed to take him.
Miko, much to his horrified shock, had slipped somehow from the edge of the jagged drop behind the place she had hidden. And she hung mostly helpless and struggling, over the cliff's edge, with the boiling river far below her and ground beginning to crumble away from her scrambling for a handhold. Stopping the cart as close to the edge as he dared, and feeling like even that was far too close for comfort, Knockout leaned forward the very furthest he possibly could, pushing his sense of balance as far as he ever had. And from here he could just barely see the tiny human's tiny feet, in her near grip-less slip-on shoes, fumbling against the too smooth surface of the cliff, searching for a foot hold.
"Miko," Knockout said desperately and forgetting about about possible danger in that second. He inched the cart forward slightly further, bumping his hand and foot against the controls as lightly as he could to get only tiny movements from the machine. The front left tire was halfway to rolling over the edge when he locked his brake. "Quickly, can you reach my front wheel?"
The little human hang a moment in her dangerous and terrible position wide eyed and trembling with fright, and not moving an inch. But her right hand was only a good arms reach from the closest front tire, and finally, after another second she dared move her hand just enough to reach for it fast. The wheels, that Knockout had always thought so ridiculously and small, were suddenly huge to the human, and a grip on one with a single hand was impossible. But she managed somehow to shift again, so that she could hook her arm through the center and further drag herself up that way, until the other hand could grab for the same wheel.
And she sat, for the moment, legs still hanging awkwardly over the cliff's edge, body under one front wheel and gasping for breath with shock clear on her face. Finally she moved again quickly scrabbling up and to safety, resting again Knockout's foot rest, before moving again to use the front of his foot itself as her next handhold. She stopped then, hesitant before she grabbed the front of his foot and held on. He wasted no time in moving the cart, reversing it slowly away from the cliff's edge while she held on. But even when he stopped again, meters back from the edge, Miko moved only to turn herself a little beside his left foot, so that she could look up at him again.
"Are you able to climb up?" He asked, remembering her skill with climbing bots like they were her personal ladders, and concerned when she didn't try it at once.
"No way you'll do any damage by climbing," Knockout said with a laugh, as he thought he finally understood her hesitation in climbing up. "My youngling is far bigger than you are, and likely weighs at least twice as much."
Miko, moving quickly as she possibly could now, given the fact that she was somewhat injured herself, scrambled up onto Knockout's left foot. From there she made her way easily enough to his right hand, which he rested palm up in his lap, ready for her to climb into. He watched her as he rolled on again, rushed fast as he could toward the ground bridge, still open at the far side of the field. She opened her mouth as if she was about, but no sound came out, and with it still wordlessly wide open, she looked around the field, clearly trying hard to take in everything she was seeing all at once. Finally her mouth closed and opened again in a wordless mumble of overwhelmed confusion. Miko burst into tears before she could even try to speak again. He opened his own mouth then to speak, but before he could do so the tiny human's terrible and sudden crying stopped just as abruptly as it had started. And she fell unexpectedly unconscious, nearly tumbling from his hand before he quickly tuned it and bent his fingers a little in order to stop her falling off.
"You're a bit late to the party I'm afraid," Smokescreen was saying to someone a good distance away. And Knockout took a minute to fully register that someone was speaking at all. But when he finally did clue in, blinking to clear his processor and to gather himself, he looked to see his bondmate roaring away from the bridge in her vehicle mode. She transformed quickly and ran a short distance before she stopped to look around her, surveying the scene.
"Friendly?" she questioned, clearly almost baffled when her optics fell first on the 'con trooper, who had just nodded to Bulkhead, indicating that he'd done the little he thought he could do.
"Declared his defection on the battle field," Smokescreen answered quickly. "He helped us take down Starscream… and Knockout's got Miko."
"I… I don't know If I'd prefer to hug you or kill you," Arcee said next. And Knockout couldn't help but grow at least slightly nervous when he realized she was talking to him, while running in his direction.
"Kill me later," he said, moving forward while she turned to walk beside him. He gestured with his optics toward the human, still unconsciously on top of his right hand and lower arm. "I believe she's collapsed from shock. She was within likely seconds of falling from the cliffs and right into the river."
"I'm hauling this one straight into the brig," Bulkhead said, gesturing toward the 'con commander, who he'd finally forced onto his knees on the ground. "Ratchet can look him over when he's finally got time later. Wheeljack is a medical priority. I've comm'd Ratchet already. He's ready the second we bring him back in."
"Jobs well-done everybody," Arcee said, but judging by the tone of her voice she was clearly distracted, and likely hardly knew exactly what to say. Her optics left those of her bondmate, only long enough to glare at Starscream with enough rage to make any bot cringe. "This day's not over yet. Let's roll."