On the half hour, Blaster sent out the all-too familiar transmission: Blaster to Ultra Magnus. Blaster to Ultra Magnus. Do you copy? Blaster to Moonbase one and two, Moonbase one and two, do you copy? Springer? Kup?

Sometime on the first day, he had made the joke that he would even be willing to hear from Grimlock. Two days into the wait, he had no heart for levity, and he muted the transmission from the rest of the Ark. Nobody else needed reminding of what they did not know.

Despite travelling from the East Coast, Carly Witwicky had got to the Ark within hours of Blaster's own arrival. He had sent her a message while he was still hiding in Autobot City waiting for the coast to clear; she had gone straight to the airport and taken her first commercial flight in nearly twenty years. Once at the Ark, he could not answer her questions, and she could not magic up contact from Ultra Magnus, so they tackled the only thing they could do: field repairs to the casualties from the first battle at Autobot City.

Nobody could face the cargo bay that had been turned into a makeshift morgue, but another was lined with Autobots in stasis that Perceptor had had neither the resources nor the time to repair. Then there were the disabled. Steeljaw had survived a shot to the face but had been blind ever since, though he insisted he was getting by just fine with his other senses. Near to Blaster, a morose Seaspray sat where he had done for three days, immobilised by ruined legs.

It was impossible for them to replace large or specialised parts; their own supplies had been destroyed in Autobot City, and until more was known about the situation, the humans' Earth Defence Command had a freeze on consignments to the Ark. In some ways, Blaster was relieved by that. He had few options if there were another Decepticon attack, and none of them would protect a delivery convoy.

Carly did not consider herself to be under the EDC's jurisdiction, and she had got right down to it, marshalling the untrained, wounded cassettes into serviceable nurses as she did the best she could with repairs. In between unanswered transmissions, Blaster tried to do whatever else was needed. On the first day, he had filled crates with scraps of metal and random hardware, stacked them around Seaspray and chivvied the injured minibot into 'inventory duty', sorting through their meagre supplies for anything useful in repairs.

After her first frantic questions, Carly never spoke of Spike and Daniel, but she had not slept for more than three hours at a time since she had arrived. She was up again now, patching one of Trailbreaker's minor wounds while the unconscious Autobot waited for a qualified medic's attention.

Qualified medics were in tragically short supply. Wheeljack and Ratchet had both died in the first battle at Autobot City. Perceptor was missing—not presumed dead. Not yet. For the past week, First Aid had been stranded in red tape on Mars with the other Autobot combiners. The recent disaster there had become a full-scale diplomatic nightmare as the EDC sought somebody to take culpability. Certain senior officers were less concerned about an Autobot medical emergency than they were about Ultra Magnus going AWOL before filing his deposition.

Blaster and Carly had rather made that situation worse before Carly came to her senses and reached out to one of her husband's colleagues. Strings were pulled, and First Aid had finally reached the Ark three hours ago. Now he was painstakingly bypassing the break in Warpath's fuel line with Rewind's hesitant assistance—Rewind had been down a hand since the battle, but First Aid assured him he only needed one extra.

Shortly before First Aid had arrived, Carly had succeeded in bringing Powerglide back online. While the Autobot plane was ready to go from a physical standpoint, the hardest part about waking somebody up was catching them up on the outcome of the battle and everything since. Blaster had taken that task on himself. He owed that much to them; almost every bot here was one of the Ark's original crew. Powerglide had not dealt well with the news, and Eject was currently distracting him with an endless stream of inane baseball chatter.

What worried Blaster was the lack of a Plan B. If they never heard from Ultra Magnus or the others, they had no ship. Omega Supreme was genuinely AWOL and had been for six months. Blaster was putting out a call for him every four hours with little hope of a reply. Cosmos' life still hung in the balance. If he survived, they could at least send him to Cybertron on reconnaissance, though considering the last they had heard from the Moonbases, Blaster was not keen on sending anybody alone.

His optics were caught by the strain on Carly's face. At this rate, she would just keep on going until she had repaired the entire damned Ark and they could all fly back to Cybertron the same way they had left it.

He became aware that Ramhorn was watching him from his position propping up Trailbreaker's leg. Blaster threw his cassette a meaningless half-smile before getting his soldering iron back to work on Tracks' passenger door, guiltily aware of the amateur job he was doing. "Man, Tracks, if you just wake up again, I'll shout you a full detailin' service," he promised the dormant Autobot.

When the transmission finally came, the words were casual, almost absent-minded: Testin', testin' one more time!

Blaster recognised the voice so quickly, he dared not trust himself. Receiving.

Blaster?

Jazz? Incredulous, Blaster kept the line private, but his expression was enough to make Eject trail off, mid-play-by-play.

Oh, man, are you music to my receptors! First off, tell Carly that Spike and Daniel are safe on Cybertron.

Blaster flipped the transmission to his speakers, grinning. "Put that on repeat, Jazz."

Everybody's head went up in a moment, the entire room swinging round to him.

Tell Carly that Spike and Daniel are safe on Cybertron!

Carly's eyes went wide before she crumpled into tears. Nearest to her, Steeljaw gently pushed his head against hers, and she latched onto him, burying her face in his shoulder. Rarely demonstrative, the lion nevertheless leaned into her embrace, buffered her shock.

Shoulda told her in private, Blaster thought, but at least she was finally giving way. "She's got it, Jazz. Loud and clear. What about everybody else? What happened up there?"

Man, that's too long a story, and Blurr's busy. I'm just gonna spoil the end: We're all fine, I'm comin' to ya live from orbit, but we got Autobot HQ settin' up on Cybertron and… There was a noticeable pause, enough time for Blaster to wonder what Jazz had saved for the punchline: Hot Rod opened the Matrix; he's now leadin' us as Rodimus Prime.

Nobody had an audible reaction for that.

Wish I could see your faces! Chill your circuits, it's all good. Wisdom of the Ages is doin' its thing. Hey, Perceptor, is this signal gonna work once we get back planetside?

Affirmative! Their prodigal scientist's voice was fainter than Jazz', but still clear. The Junkions have fabricated an effective satellite relay which is sustaining its celestial trajectory. We have also assembled all materials necessary for the terrestrial receivers.

'Affirmative' is all I need, buddy. OK, Blaster, we're gonna head back down so we can get Spike on this call. He left very specific instructions on that.

"Jazz, you tell him I'm gonna kill him, all right?" Carly was rallying herself, laughing through her tears now, though she was still leaning on Steeljaw as she got to her feet. "And tell Daniel he'd better not get too comfortable up there."

You'll be tellin' 'em yourself, real soon, Carly, I promise! I'll stay on the line, but we might lose you on the descent. If so, just hang tight and after these messages, we'll be riiight back!

That last part was chorused by several voices, but Blaster could not figure out who had spoken. "Jazz, how did the Cons shake down? Anythin' we need to watch out for?"

Seems like most of 'em are missin' presumed dead. Rodimus defeated the new Boss-con, and Springer and Arcee are on recon down Shockwave-town. Until they get back, no news is good news. Keep your own eyes to the skies, just in case, but baseline? War is over.

Powerglide let out a whoop, startling everybody. "All right! Take us down, you'll go down harder!"

Powerglide, my man! Jazz whooped back. Sing it!

Giddy with good news, Carly ran to the minibot, hugging his knees. "You guys did it, Powerglide!"

The minibot was not quite ready to get to his feet, but he reached across to high-five a cheering Seaspray while Eject seized Carly and waltzed so crazily around the room with her that Ramhorn had to drop Trailbreaker's leg and block the pair from crashing into First Aid who was still intent on Warpath. Not that the medic was ignoring events: "Rewind, get a line to Mars through Teletraan One. I have to tell the others the news."

Yo, Blaster, any updates on the old crew, ol' Ark-buddy? Jazz' voice was lower but clearer, the telltale signs that he had switched to a private line. Blaster followed suit.

Not much—First Aid ain't been here more than three hours. You heard Powerglide's back up and runnin', and young Doc's workin' on Warpath now. Rewind's been loggin' his notes; I'll have him send you guys the latest copy on the regular.

Thanks, dude.

Hey, Jazz? How's Cybertron lookin'?

Aw, man… Jazz suddenly sounded tired, and Blaster wondered how long he had been playing the role of mood DJ. Iacon's sweet, peacetime's gonna suit her. But… it just ain't how we saw it, y'know?

Yeah, ol' Ark-buddy. I know.

-

Author's Note:

Following on from my story, Dawn, here's another Day After the Movie fic, this one focusing on the pre-Movie Autobots. Here, we touch base with what's happening back on Earth. Transformers: the Movie forgets about Blaster halfway through although various script drafts attempted to make the second battle at Autobot City clearer. Considering the Autobots end up taking Daniel off to fight a moon-eating threat, I have assumed that evacuation did not go to any sort of plan.

There's also no explanation for what happens to the Miscellaneous Autobots who did not appear in the film. There's plenty of room to assume they were killed off-screen, but some of them survived to Season Three, so where were they? As the Ark is shown to be still occupied (briefly) in Season Three, I decided that after Autobot City was trashed the first time, the dead and injured were moved to the Ark as a more secure location. (This doesn't really explain why Perceptor was in Autobot City at the time of evacuation. I'm sure I can handwave an excuse that he happened to have come in for something.)

As it happens, I did have some ready-made explanations for some of the absences—I have a fifteen-year-old fanfic, Soldiers in Waiting, that follows the Movie Autobots in the days immediately prior to the Movie. The Mars incident referenced here was a plot point in that fic, mostly designed to make Ultra Magnus completely lose his temper, but as a bonus, I left the Autobot combiners stuck in red tape on Mars without a ship home. So this follows on from that, although I gloss over the details, because who wants the details of red tape?

(I have no such explanation for Omega Supreme… I put in the AWOL line because it gives me a potential plot thread for a later story, and I don't think it's inconsistent with his cartoon portrayal.)

Carly being on the East Coast is from the same story—she's actually there working on her doctorate. I figured that the first Battle would not have been enough to make her return, since it was exclusively Autobot casualties, with no change in Spike and Daniel's status. After the second battle, Spike's potentially dead and Daniel's lost, so she would absolutely want to get back to the remaining Autobots. (For the record, Sparkplug died a few years earlier in my timeline).

I may have overdone the injured Autobots. Going off the cartoon, Carly showed a flair for programming rather than mechanical work, and I don't think it's inaccurate to say that most serious injuries would be beyond her ability to repair, but we have a lot of seriously injured Autobots. On the other hand, if we had more with lighter damage, Perceptor & Co should have been able to fix those up pretty quickly, therefore filling out the ranks for rebuilding and defence. So I decided that pretty much the entire season 2 cast is unconscious or dead right now—though I avoided committing myself to which is which. (We know Cosmos survives because he's in season 3, but we don't know if Tracks does or doesn't wake up again. As he's not confirmed dead, there's always the possibility I can use him for a future story.) Both Powerglide and Seaspray do show up in Season 3, but the other unconscious bodies are largely namedropped at random.

What is clear in Season three is that Blaster takes over from Ultra Magnus as City Commander (admittedly, he seems to spend an awful lot of time haring round the galaxy to join in with other episodes), and I really wanted to show the why of that here. He's a pain to do dialogue for (I end up doing pretty much the same stuff for him as for Jazz, which isn't quite accurate to the cartoon, but the Jazz version is easier—Blaster's dialogue tends to be very overdone), but he's got a very logical personality shift between seasons: a young, undisciplined type in season 2 vs mature and responsible in Season 3. He's informal and fun-loving in both incarnations, but he does grow up a fair bit and this was a good moment to mark a milestone in that.

Much as I love the cassettes, they were at risk of cluttering up an already busy scene, so they only have the most token of references each.