Chapter 3 of 3 of the triple post. Happy New Year!
Warnings: mentions of past experimentation on a child. Non-sexual spark merging.
Chapter 8:
BurnE stepped smartly into the lab and nodded to Lazar. Having to stand watch for joors in General Shockwave's labs was by far the most boring detail in the history of ever, and the poor Decepticons who lost the scheduling lottery would likely have spent the time goofing off if it were not for the punishment for doing so. At this point however, BurnE had spent so many shifts guarding the stark white rooms that the punishment was almost preferable. A mech caught slacking was turned over to the Armory for live target practice. The mechs that survived were promoted a level for their aptitude and those who succumbed were displayed in the common rooms as a warning to the rest of the Decepticons. BurnE was one promotion from lieutenant, and lieutenants never did guard duty, so it was obvious why these thoughts appealed to him.
BurnE's distraction with his possible promotion ended up being his downfall though, as an energon knife flew out of nowhere and impaled him through the spark. He was deactivated before he even hit the floor. Not that he actually was given the opportunity to strike the ground. A servo reached out and snagged the dead frame's collarstrut to prevent any alarms from being raised due to the noise. Jazz grinned at his servo-work and silently lowered his victim to the floor. He already had the cameras on a feedback loop of BurnE standing faithfully at attention, so he was free to work his dastardly wiles upon the room's computer. It was a good thing too, as Shockwave's favorite console, not that the logical sociopath would admit to having favorites, had been upgraded Soundwave because hacker Shockwave was not.
Slipping through all the traps and alarms took Jazz the better part of a joor, but then he was in with free range of everything that Shockwave had ever worked on. The computer believed him to be the purple behemoth so there were none of the usual encryptions on the data. Getting this lucky was a one in a thousand chance and Jazz rubbed his servos together with a silent evil chuckle. The only thing keeping Jazz from downloading the entire database was a small ping from Mirage noting that Shockwave's recharge cycle was almost over. Jazz quickly began searching through the recent files for information on Megatron's latest campaign. The opsmecha had chosen this console over Megatron's personal terminal due to the slightly easier access and more remote location. Megatron's computer was in the spark of Darkmount, while Shockwave was relegated to the wall sector due to the number of experiment failures resulting in melted, shattered, or vaporized walls. The mech was no Wheeljack, but it still got his labs banished to a sector of the base that could be replaced easier. Then there was the lack of need Shockwave felt for having separate consoles for tactical information and experiment logs.
When Jazz finished collecting the requisite information he still had a quarter joor before Shockwave arose from his dreamless, because dreams were illogical, recharge. So, the saboteur puttered around looking for anything else that might be of interest to the Autobots. He flipped through a dozen or so plans for mega-dooms-orn weapons, but he did not download them because the likelihood of them being built while Cybertron was at its current resource level was nil. Besides, most of them were completely ridiculous, and was that a schematic for a battlecruiser in the shape of a purple griffin?
Jazz shook his helm and made a note to tell Prowl that Shockwave was possibly not quite as logical as previously believed. The kliks were ticking down quickly now and Jazz was about ready to return to the weapons plans when an odd tag caught his optic. He opened it to confirm his suspicions, and verifying his fear as reality, began to download as fast as mechly possible.
He was just finishing with the last file when two alerts popped up on his HUD. The first was a two-klik warning for Shockwave's awakening; the second was a mild emergency call from Bumblebee. The latter meant that help was needed post-haste, but the minibot's functioning was not yet in danger.
Jazz booked it from the room and back up to the ceiling highways. Below him, invisible to sight and scanner, Mirage followed.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
As soon as Jazz and Mirage found Bumblebee they knew they were in trouble. The minibot was huddled inside a small lead reinforced cell holding a hysterical seekerlet. The mechling was perhaps a few centuries old, maybe third or fourth frame, but already it could be seen that he had his transformation cog. An early developer possibly.
Jazz crouched down in the open doorway and tried to look non-threatening. "Bee, ya wanna 'splain this?"
Bumblebee looked up sorrowfully. "He's the weapon."
Jazz sat stunned for a moment before finding his thoughts. "Come again."
"This was the lab listed as the weapon's storage room. When I entered I found him. He was recharging at the time so I checked that terminal over there to make sure I was in the right place. I wish I had not. Shockwave cloned him and a hundred others from a stolen piece of Starscream's spark, then experimented on them to induce a radiation-based Sigma Gift. All the seekerlings perished except him. His experiment was called 'Sunstorm' and he seems to respond to that designation. Jazz, Shockwave has accelerated his growth; he's only about three vorns old!"
Jazz was not sure how this situation could possibly get worse, but one thing was crystal clear. Sunstorm was coming with them. The saboteur scooted closer and stroked a digit s down the seekerlet's wing. "Hello winglet. Mah friend here wan's ta take ya wit' us cuz he thinks ya not safe here. Whacha think? Ya wanna come wit' us?"
The mechling peeked one optic out from where he had buried himself in Bumblebee's plating and studied the saboteur. Then he launched himself at Jazz and wrapped himself around the black and white. "Oh yes, yes, yes! Please take me with you!"
Jazz chuckled and hugged the ecstatic youngling back. "Good, then let's get'cha out 'o here."
The seekerling popped back up and ran over to his berth. He knelt down and pressed his forehelm to the ground. "Thank you for keeping your promise." He whispered.
"Uh, winglet? Whacha doin'?" Jazz questioned worriedly.
Sunstorm sat up with a beatific smile. "I'm thanking Primus for sending you."
"Primus?"
The seekerling nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Brother Starscream snuck in to visit me once and he told me to remember that Primus loves seekers best, that's why he gave us wings. So, I asked Primus to prove it; that if he loved me best, to send someone to save me. Then you showed up!"
Jazz just nodded. He certainly was not going to shatter what seemed to be a mostly healthy coping mechanism for a rather traumatized sparkling. It could have been much worse, he might have become a raving lunatic from all the experimentation. The seekerling's young mental age likely helped with that, and likely also meant a better chance at recovering.
The saboteur stood from his crouch and held out a servo. "Well younglin', if'n ya got'ya pray'rs done we should pro'lly get ah'selves out o' here."
Sunstorm reached up and almost took the proffered help, however, he changed his meta at the last klik. "Can I walk with Bumblebee instead?"
Jazz smiled gently and looked at his chagrinned spy out of the corner of his visor. "Well, if Bee don' mind?"
Bumblebee rolled his optics and motioned the winglet over. Sunstorm squee-ed at the consent and attached himself to the minibot's side. Mirage had to cover his lipplates to keep from laughing at the adorable sight of Bumblebee being glomped by a youngling only barely shorter than the minibot, and Jazz's huge grin told the noble that his commander was having the same problem.
Leaving the area however, was not nearly as easy as they needed it to be. Jazz knew that the youngling was not strong enough to manage a ceiling crawl through the whole base so they were going to have to walk, which meant the surveillance system would need dealt with. The Polyhexian moved over to the nearby terminal and hacked into the security system. He quickly put into place one of the emergency ops programs and set it to go off as soon as he logged out. The program would offline the cameras and begin to recycle old footage of the empty corridors and any tampering by the Decepticons to restore proper feeds would set off a cascade failure taking down the entire surveillance system for the whole base. Megatron would be so busy blaming the 'Cons working in the Security Center that the ops team would be well away before Soundwave would be able to calm him down enough to truly investigate. The program was rather an extreme measure to take and not one that Ops really wanted the Decepticons to know they could wield, however, getting the seekerlet out of the base was far more important.
Jazz looked over at his team as he logged out. "Fifteen kliks on tha chr'nometer mechs."
The foursome moved out with cautious all-haste.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Jazz was beginning to see a pattern in the way Shockwave operated. The mono-opticked mech seemed to prefer to lull his enemies into a false sense of safety, then ambush them. This was made most apparent as the ops-team-plus-one made it closer to the surface levels.
The team had made a point of avoiding the easy traps that were lifts and instead chose the arduous climbs through the service tubes that ran alongside the lifts. They were just preparing to exit the last tube on that side of the base when a series of unfocused laser blasts grazed Jazz's horns. He quickly hunkered back down and motioned for the others to stop moving. After a moment of silent waiting a guttural vocalizer spoke forth. "We got ya trapped ya mangy 'Bots, now come out nice like and mebbe we's won't hurt ya, too bad."
Jazz rolled his optics under his visor, Decepticons got so melodramatic sometimes, and signaled for Mirage to come forward. A few hand signals passed between them and then Mirage shifted into the invisible spectrum. His peds and servos made no noise as he ascended, which left his three companions waiting tensely. The noble moved as quickly as he could, but silence took precedence. He completed his movements between their aggressively waiting enemies and retreated back to his team. He reappeared before them and nodded to Jazz. The saboteur removed a tiny flashbang from his subspace and gently tossed it out into the corridor. Laser fire reflected off the tube's walls as the Decepticons instinctively fired at the small silver orb, but none of their would-be captors were marksmechs. Thus the faint tink-tink of the flashbang could clearly be heard against the floor. The opsmecha, plus one, had all muted their audials though, and therefore did not hear it. Nor did they hear the wee bomb go off and trigger the small magnetic pulse grenades that Mirage had delicately sprinkled in the Decepticons' transformation seams. The reflected flash on the wall however, was more than enough to let them know of their success.
Jazz peeped the corner of his visor above the exit hatch. Six dead 'Cons greeted his sight and he leaned back down to look at Bumblebee and Sunstorm. "Sunny, buddy, Ah need ya ta climb on Bee's back n' shut ya optics off 'til Ah tell ya ta turn'm back on."
The youngling nodded quickly and scrambled to hoist himself onto the minibot's back. Once everyone was ready, and Jazz had checked the winglet's optics twice, they moved up. The service tubes that would take them to the surface, and eventually the extraction point, were at the opposite end of this level of the base. If there was any point of their exit strategy that would be deemed inadvisable, it was this part. In fact, Prowl had forbid the ops team from even trying this trek on any other path except the ceiling. He would definitely throw a fit and lock up if Jazz and company survived.
Jazz took a moment to hack the comm of one of the deactivated frames and listened to see if the ambush was focused or dumb luck. It seemed that luck was still with them as all the lifts were being guarded in general and their detection inside the tube had been random chance. The group that attacked them had also not radioed in the Autobots' presence and therefore their position was still unknown. Not wanting to lose this advantage Jazz magnetized the six deceased soldiers to the inside of the service tube where detection would be minimal.
Another skirmish a corridor over changed Jazz's meta about the wisdom of ignoring Prowl's warnings. Having to fight off almost a dozen mecha whilst a mech down, because there was no way Jazz was leaving the youngling in the open, was almost too difficult. Also, he was pretty sure at least one of their attackers had been able to radio in their location. Fortunately, Bumblebee had hidden in a vent with Sunstorm before Jazz and Mirage engaged the ambush so no report of the seekerling's escape would be turned in yet. Unfortunately, they were going to have the entire Command Cadre on their taillights soon, which meant it was time for Plan Omega.
The team backtracked to the nearest lab and hacked in. Sunstorm had his optics closed and was being carried again. It was a precaution Jazz was thankful for when he finally opened the door. It was an experimentation chamber that they had stumbled into and the mech flayed out on the berth was only alive because external machines made it so. Jazz knew there was no way to save this victim, but as he motioned his team to protected positions he decided that neither would he leave he nameless mech to endless torture.
Jazz softly hacked into the mech's processor and pinged his ident code to the barely functional meta. It pinged back with a familiar designation. Windtalker. Jazz knew the mech, he was an operative stationed in Helex. The mech had been listed KIA a few metacycles back, but clearly the information had been false. The saboteur sent the mech a status update on his condition and asked what Windtalker would like Jazz to do about it.
The barely coherent mech transmitted several intel files for Jazz to take back to Ops, then asked for a painless deactivation. Jazz nodded both physically and mentally, it was an opsmech's duty to do this for his brethren. He was in the process of disconnecting when Windtalker sent over one more message. Make sure the Decepticons could not access his deactivated frame's processor. Windtalker's information was not to be compromised. Jazz sent back an affirmative and a wave of well-wishes for the coming journey to Primus.
The saboteur divided his chest plates and exposed his spark chamber. He leaned over his opsbrother's ruined chest and touched their chambers together. Jazz pulsed out slowly, softly, covering the injured spark in comforting waves of energy. When Windtalker's spark accepted the presence Jazz reached up and pinched off the primary emerging lines to the dying mech's sparkchamber. Without energon Windtalker's spark faded quickly, but unlike the normal starvation fade, there was no agony. The spark felt only a soothing sensation akin to being rocked into recharge.
When it was done Jazz pulled and his we'd to his fallen brother. Then he cut out the empty spark chamber as completely as he could and subspaced it. The rest of the frame was too big to take with them, but this one piece would be given the full burial honors due a fallen soldier of Cybertron. Lastly, he searched around until he found a large beaker of strong acid which he then used to destroy the primary processors surrounding the spark chamber's former location and the secondary ones in the mech's helm. There would be no way for Shockwave to hack the deactivated opsmech now.
Fulfilling his opsbrother's last wish was going to haunt Jazz's recharge for a while, but there was no time to deal with it now so the saboteur firewalled it away for later. He moved to the outer wall and took out his largest blast charges. He shaped the explosion carefully so the majority of the explosive force would be directed into the wall, not into the closed room his team was huddled in. He set it for a one look timer and scurried back to a shelter of his own.
The explosion was loud, but the room was soundproof so Jazz did not worry too much about it. He looked back to see if the charges had been successful and his spark leapt at seeing the smog filled atmosphere of lower Kokular. Then a blast plate slid down to seal the opening. The finality of it clicking into place echoed the despair welling up in Jazz's spark; they had no charges strong enough to break through that plate and there was not enough time left to find another exit.
A small servo touched his armguard and Jazz looked down. Sunstorm looked back solemnly. "I can fix it."
Jazz was going to ask the seeker lung what he meant, but he moved away before the saboteur could form the words. What happened next left them all speechless and slightly horrified. The little seeker touched the blast plate and closed his optics. Then he began to glow. Jazz's scanner picked up a sharp spike in solar radiation levels and almost reached out to stop the seekerling. Solar was the only type of radiation to which Cybertronians were susceptible and it would surely begin to melt Sunstorm any nanoklik. However, when the seekerling continued to register as unharmed on the focused scans Jazz swept over the bitlet, he allowed him to continue. Whatever Shockwave had done to make the sparkling a living weapon had obviously included making him impervious to self harm. The thought did not make Jazz want to kill the behemoth any less, but perhaps he would make it slightly less lengthy. It was least he could do.
The orange glow Sunstorm projected at the plate did not seem to do anything, then melted through it all at once. The little seeker wavered from his focused effort and wished that he had permitted more energon earlier. When he had been taken outside the first time to test his powers he had been allowed full tanks, but all other times he was barely fed. He had asked once if he could have more and the Purple Maker had informed him that he could have full, not-hungry tanks when he learned to completely control his powers. His thoughts of hunger faded into black as he collapsed from his efforts.
Bumblebee caught the no longer glowing chassis of his rescuee. He hugged the youngling to help s chestplates and followed Jazz out into the dark of Kaon's underworld.
It was past time to get home.