Ch. 11
The send off for Jack had been a simple one; Optimus and the Autobots gave Jack their best wishes and a few ending jokes about him and Arcee while Miko, Rafael, and Jack's mother gave him a simple hug before saying their goodbyes. Jack was now sitting beside Agent Fowler In the co-pilot seat of an SR-71 that had been leant to them by NASA and allowed them to get to Georgia more quickly.
Jack sat back enjoying the feelings of flying in the great spy plane; the rush of flying at mock 4 at 35,000 feet in the air, being able to see the mountains and dusty plains that changed into deep green forests which passed underneath as they reached the half way point of the trip. They still had about an hour and a half before they reached Georgia so Jack decided to get some rest before they arrived.
The next two hours were uneventful and as they landed on one of the airstrips at the base, Jack saw a group of desert humvees driving towards them. Jack and Fowler exited the plane and awaited the welcoming committee. "The Drill Sergeant you'll be under worked with me and your' dad so don't be too nervous Jack." Jack was silently glad that he would be learning under one of his dad's old Ranger friends.
As the group of vehicles pulled to a stop in front of them, the doors started to open and a group of men in digicam ACU's walked up to them. At the front of the group was an aged man; probably in his early 50's, with black hair that was cut into a 'high and tight' fashion. He had a black beret on his head and wore a patch with two stars on it. "Jack, this is Major General Austin Miller, he's responsible for helping me get you here."
Jack looked to the General and gave a simple nod before speaking up. "Thank you for the chance to be here General." General Miller looked Jack over for a moment before smiling and speaking in a tone much like the one Optimus used when addressing the team. "Your' father was a great soldier and a better friend to me when he was here. Agent Fowler's told me of what you accomplished recently up in Oregon, you'll do fine son."
With that said, another man walked up and Jack suddenly felt a surge of surprise run through him. Standing before him was Sergeant Major Jason Donaldson, a large man that could easily put a Marine Corps instructor on the ground. "Uncle Jase; I didn't expect to see you here." The old instructor gave a smirk before replying. "Yep, the general told me you would be coming here for boot camp and he placed you in my platoon." Jack suddenly gave a smirk over to the general who suddenly spoke up. "Now that you know who you'll be working with, it's time to get you in uniform."
Three years later in Jasper:
Arcee was walking through the Autobot base thinking about Jack, it had been almost three years since he had left for the military and Arcee had to focus on other issues to keep her mind off of her human lover. She had just soon found herself in the control center and saw that Optimus was looking at one of the many monitors in the large room while Ratchet was working with Rafael on getting the 'bugs' out of the base's internal systems.
Arcee was about to walk to the training room to work on her aim with her blasters when she suddenly heard Ratchet speak up in an aggravated tone. "Ah, faulty Earth tech! Cliffjumper's life signal just jumped back on!" At that, Arcee's eyes went wide and she ran over to the large monitor. "Where did it appear?" Ratchet could hear the urgency in Arcee's voice. "It's in an old mine about 40 miles from here."
Optimus had a look on his face as though he hoped that the issue was not faulty machinery; it had been three years since Cliffjumper seemed to go offline and even to this day, the memory still haunted the team. But he was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by Arcee. "Optimus, if there's even a chance that Cliff is alive…"
Optimus could hear the hopefulness in Arcee's voice, and Optimus himself was praying to the Allspark that Cliffjumper was still alive. "Ratchet, prep the Med Bay. We might have need for it." With that, Optimus looked to his troops and spoke up in a commanding voice as the Ground Bridge activated. "Autobots, roll out!" With that; Optimus, Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee ran through the swirling vortex in search of their comrade.
As they passed through the ground bridge, the team looked around and saw large crystals that glowed with a soft blue light sticking out of the walls and ground. "Looks like an energon deposit, and a big one from the looks of it." Bulkhead spoke up when he saw the large number of Energon crystals. Optimus looked around and activated a blaster which resembled a large silver revolver in his left arm and a long war sword that glowed red along the edge in his right arm before speaking up in a slightly hushed tone.
"Autobots, recon the area, search for Cliffjumper." With that, they began the search for their fallen brother in arms. As they were walking, Arcee began thinking about Jack and how she wished that he could have met Cliffjumper when the ground began to rumble, suddenly a large drill broke out of the wall of the cave and a patrol of Decepticons walked out behind the drill.
The Decepticons saw the team and opened fire, Arcee was suddenly filled with rage and ran at the squad of drones with her blasters firing; Optimus and the others began firing their blasters as well and as Arcee reached the group of Cons, she extended her wrist blades and began hacking the enemy troops without mercy. The Cons numbers quickly fell under the rage of the blue femme and when she reached the last one she flipped over the Decepticon and freed his head from its shoulders in a single swipe.
As she landed she ran down the tunnel followed by the rest of the team when they reached a large shaft with a large energon deposit in the center, the Autobots took cover and opened fire on the Decepticons as they searched the area for Cliffjumper. Arcee was looking around with a wild look in her optics when she saw a limp body with a red paint scheme and one horn on the helm. 'Cliff!'
Arcee suddenly felt as though there was still hope for her partner and she spoke up to Optimus and the team. "I've got visual on Cliff!" Optimus followed Arcee's sight and soon saw the Autobot partner they had feared lost for so long. "Arcee, get Cliffjumper out of there, we will lay down covering fire!" Arcee didn't have to be told twice, she ran up the platforms of the shaft, blasting away at Decepticons as she made her way to Cliffjumper's prone body.
It was painfully obvious that Cliffjumper was badly injured and as she approached him. Arcee saw that Cliffjumper was covered in some sort of purple liquid and suddenly the platform he was on began to collapse. She jumped in the nick of time and grabbed Cliffjumper's hand before trying to pull him up. "Let's get you home Cliff." Arcee felt a glimmer of hope as she saw him begin to move his head, but that hope turned into terror when he looked her in the face.
His eyes glowed with an unnatural bright purple glow and his face was like a mindless animal. She lost her grip as Cliffjumper let out a savage growl and he went plummeting to the ground below. Optimus looked up to see Cliffjumper falling and when Optimus heard the loud crash of Cliff hitting the ground, he looked up to see Arcee staring down at what was likely her partners body as she had energon tears running down her face.
She suddenly ran down to Optimus and the team and Optimus knew she was deeply pained as she let out a savage war cry and started hacking at Decepticons with her blades. She carved a path of destruction straight to Optimus and the other Autobots. She reached the team and at that point, a jet could be heard and just a moment later, Starscream landed at the top of one of the platforms with something in his hands.
"Prime, I should've known you would try to interfere here; of course I can't just let you have all of this energon now can I?" With that Optimus looked to the object in the hand of the Decepticon SIC and recognized what it was with a look of urgency in his eyes. He was about to speak up when Starscream spoke up once more. "Well then, I'll be leaving; I'd stick around but I'm feeling…squeamish."
With that Starscream dropped the device in his hand and transformed into his jet form as he flew up the shaft and out of the mine. "Autobots, transform and roll out, back to the arrival coordinates now!" With that, the Autobots transformed and hit maximum overdrive and Arcee adjusted her mirrors to see behind her, suddenly there was a flash of light as what was clearly a detonation charge blew up the large deposit of energon in the large shaft.
'Scrap!' Arcee was sure every member of the team was thinking the exact same thing when she suddenly heard Optimus over the roar of the incoming explosion. "Ratchet, activate the ground bridge at the arrival coordinates now!" With that, Arcee and the team saw a green vortex open up about a mile ahead of them and they poured on all the speed they could and within five seconds they reached the ground bridge and drove into the base just in time for Ratchet to close the bridge right behind them.
"Well, any news of Cliffjumper?" Ratchet spoke up when he turned around from the ground bridge controls and suddenly, all optics were on Arcee. She turned away and spoke up in a weak tone. "It wasn't Cliffjumper, not anymore…" With that she suddenly fell to the ground and Ratchet ran up to her side and brought her over to a large stack of crates. She sat down as Ratchet did a scan of her systems to search for anything out of place.
"Everything seems to be working." Ratchet seemed a bit perplexed but suddenly became curious when the sensor detected a strange substance on Arcee's body. He traced the signature and found a purple liquid on her left arm and raised it up to get a better look at it. "Arcee, do you know anything about this?"
As Arcee looked to her left arm to see the purple substance, she remembered the puddle of purple liquid that was surrounding Cliffjumper's body as she spoke up. "I'm not sure what it is Ratchet, Cliffjumper was covered in the stuff; leaking it even." With that, Ratchet walked over to a large medical tray and picked up a large robot sized scalpel and scraped a sample of the substance off of Arcee before raising it up to look at it.
"Arcee, go take a decontamination bath." With that, Arcee walked out of the control center to the purification chamber as Ratchet walked up to his microscope and placed the substance on a slide for examination. As Arcee sat in the purification chamber's energon bath, her thoughts wandered to Cliffjumper and the look on his face before she lost her grip. 'He didn't even recognize me; he was just a shell…' Arcee suddenly realized that she had energon tears going down her face. Arcee suddenly thought of one person, 'Jack…Primus I need you back.'
Okay, I decided to change the order of things from the actual series to give the story a bit more emotion. Figured it would be better if I tried it out. Anywho, read and review; i'll get the next chapter up soon. :)