[rd][fic][Transformers G1] Jumpstart 1/2
Jumpstart 1/2
by K. Stonham
prereleased 17th February 2008
The bang of an explosion, muted by the rush of atmosphere escaping from the pressurized cabin. The sight of Decepticons boarding the ship, with a small part of his CPU asking if this didn't seem awfully familiar? But then Megatron's gun mode was in Starscream's hand and Brawn was down. He fired, and then--nothing.
His optics onlined and he stumbled forward before catching himself and reclaiming balance. Then Prowl really did trip and fall, something yanking painfully at his laser core, as he stumbled over something lying on the floor.
"Easy there, Prowl," Ratchet said, a steadying hand on his back as he and Wheeljack both helped Prowl back up.
"Thank you." Prowl immediately turned to see what he'd tripped over and felt his optics widen as he immediately dropped back to the floor. "Jazz!" he said, reaching a hand out to touch the saboteur's gray figure. There was still warmth in his frame, but none of the color or vibration of life. Prowl looked up at their medical officer. "Ratchet," he asked, almost pleading, but Ratchet just shook his head sadly.
"There's nothing we can do," Wheeljack added less stoically than the CMO. He risked a glance at Ratchet, then added softly, "Jazz made his choice."
"Choice?" Windcharger asked, sounding confused, but as Prowl looked back at his friend's frame and noticed the open chest armor and the six cables coming out of it.... He picked up the one that had torn free of his own laser core, looking at the end.
"He jump-started us," he said softly, not needing a medical background to realize what Jazz's improvisational skills had led him to try. Earth's technology might have been inferior to their own, but there were many times the humans' ingenuity had saved the day or led Cybertronian minds down a lateral line of thinking. Jazz had always appreciated that more than most of them. Prowl looked up, at the five Autobots clustered around. Himself, Ratchet, Ironhide... where was Brawn? Wheeljack, Huffer, and Windcharger hadn't been on the shuttle, so why had they needed jump-starts? For that matter, where were they all?
Prowl looked around the corridor and felt his optics widen again. "This place," he breathed, standing.
"The Autobot Mausoleum," Huffer agreed.
"I'd hoped never to see it again," Ironhide said, and Prowl nodded in agreement.
"I'd say it looks like we died," Wheeljack guessed, a hand against the half-open panel that bore his name.
"The last thing I remember is that shuttle run to Earth," Ratchet said lowly. "And the Decepticons boarded us about halfway."
"Which seems just a mite familiar for their tactics," Ironhide agreed. He rubbed the back of his helm with one hand. "Kinda surprised to have a head," he muttered. "Last thing I remember is taking a point-blank shot from Megatron's cannon...."
"Shouldn't Brawn be here too, then?" Prowl asked, checking the crypts nearest the six of them. The names were all familiar--always too familiar--but didn't include their missing shuttlemate.
"That shot might have just sent him into stasis lock," Ratchet mused. He quirked a half-sparked smile. "Looks like Brawn survived again."
"But what about us?" asked Huffer.
"What do you remember?" Prowl asked levelly.
"The Decepticons attacked the city," Huffer said hesitantly. "I saw it start to transform, but I was too far away... I think Blitzwing nailed me," he added.
"I was in my lab," Wheeljack offered. "All I remember is something big exploding the wall in. Must've caused a chain reaction...."
"I told you those loose chemicals would be the death of you," Ratchet bitched.
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly expect you to be right," Wheeljack smarted back.
"I think I was in the hall outside your lab when that happened," Windcharger agreed. "Next time, can we put your lab in a more interior location? With more reinforcement in the walls?"
"'Next time' will be dependent on us getting out of here and back to Earth or Cybertron," Prowl pointed out dryly. He looked down at Jazz again and sighed. "Couldn't even leave us a message, could you?" he asked the saboteur softly.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Ratchet responded with a small smile. Prowl followed the point of the medic's hand and saw something taped to the crypt which bore his own name. A white sheet of paper fluttered slightly in the breeze the six of them made as they moved. Below it sat a bronze data cube.
Huffer stepped forward and gently pulled the note off the pale golden door, scooping up the cube with his other hand. "For Prowl, if this works," he read aloud. "For whoever else if it doesn't. Prowl, you should know the password. Anyone else, the one for you is the Universal Greeting. Yours, Jazz."
"Password?" Windcharger asked as Prowl accepted the cube and the slip of paper.
Prowl thought about it for a moment. What would Jazz use as a password? Further... the mausoleum had no communication consoles....
Death must have made him stupid, Prowl thought suddenly, bringing his logic functions back online. "Jazz didn't just get here by himself," he spoke his thought train aloud, ignoring Windcharger's question for the time being. "He'd have taken a shuttle to get here, which is probably in the main bay. If he thought far enough ahead to bring jumper cables for six, it'll be a shuttle big enough to hold all of us." He quirked the hint of a smile, holding down the ghost of pain that threatened to flood him. "Whatever else he was, Jazz was never stupid or inconsiderate. I'll wager it's stocked with energon both regular and high-grade, and that this," he said, hefting the cube, "has a message for us with all the answers he thought we'd need."
"Well," Huffer said, looking around their small group, "let's get a move on, then! This place always creeped me out."
"Hold your engines there, Huffer," Ironhide refuted. "It ain't right to just leave Jazz lying here in the hall after all he's done for us."
"Yeah," Wheeljack agreed, kneeling next to the fallen saboteur. His fingers were gentle as he touched the ash-gray face. "Even if we don't yet know why he did it."
"We'll place him in my crypt," Prowl decided. "No offense," he said, looking around the party, "but I think he'd like that best. And I'm not exactly using it anymore, am I?"
"Primus," Ratchet breathed, eyes widening as if he'd suddenly remembered something. He stared at Prowl. "He must have...."
It hurt, but Prowl shook his head. "If you're referring to that rumor," he informed the medic, "it was never true."
*
Jazz leaned forward, optics skimming the datapad from his position over Prowl's shoulder. "You read the oddest things," he murmured, practically in his roommate's audio sensor.
"So say you," Prowl replied implacably. He tilted his head to look his fellow officer in his optical visor. "I suppose you have better recommended reading material than Conan Doyle?"
Jazz shrugged and shook his head, flopping back onto his berth. "Nah, reading isn't so much my thing."
"I'll say." Prowl returned his attention to the file, and there was silence for a while until Jazz spoke up again.
"Did you know we're the worst-kept secret in this entire army?"
Prowl blinked and lowered the datapad. "We are?"
Jazz was stretched out on his berth, arms pillowed under his head as he looked at the ceiling, a content smile on his face. "Mm-hmm."
Prowl took a moment to run that statement through his logic circuits, and came up with only one reply: "...Jazz, we're not even together."
Jazz laughed a little, the light musical chuckle he was known for. "Heh. You know it, I know it, but apparently no one else believes it."
*
"You weren't together?" Wheeljack demanded. All five of them were staring wide-opticed at Prowl as he subspaced the cube and note and knelt, sliding one arm behind Jazz's shoulders preparatory to lifting him, the other going under the saboteur's knee joints.
"Never," Prowl confirmed. "It amused him that everyone thought we were."
"But... you roomed together. You asked to room together," Windcharger protested as Prowl stood, Jazz's weight light in his arms.
"We covered one another's weaknesses," Prowl replied, then stopped and chuckled slightly. "So that's the password you meant," he told Jazz's inert body softly. "I should have figured."
"Prowl?" Ratchet inquired hesitantly.
Prowl shook his head, carefully setting Jazz into the crypt. It leaned back slightly, reminiscent of recharge, but ultimately left a mech--or a femme, there was more than a fair share of them interred here too--standing upright, strong and noble. Waiting for the awakening by Primus into the next life.
There had been times when Prowl had almost argued against the repairs and interment the Autobots did for their dead, feeling that the time and materials should be better spent on the living. Suddenly he was glad that he'd understood the need for gentility and civility and morale, and never actually voiced those thoughts. Because it was good to lay his friend to rest and know that he would be ready when Primus called.
He smoothed his hands down Jazz's face, disconnected the six trailing black cables from his inert laser core and coiled them, placing them at Jazz's feet like a weapon or an offering. He gently closed the chest plates, leaving Jazz looking almost like he was just recharging. "Rest well, my friend," Prowl said softly, and closed the crypt's door. "Until all are one...." His hand smoothed over his own name. He frowned, wishing he could change it.
"Prowl?" Huffer hesitantly asked. Prowl turned to look at the minibot, who held a golden plaque up to him. It was inscribed with Jazz's name. "It was under his arm," Huffer explained.
Prowl took the plaque. "Thank you, Huffer," he said softly, tracing the letters. Not classical Iaconian like all the others. No, Jazz's was written in what could only be described as Polyhexan lower city graffiti style letters. Prowl breathed a laugh. "Even in death, he had to be unique," he commented.
"That's Jazz for you," Ironhide agreed.
Windcharger stretched out a hand toward the crypt's door, optics narrowing in concentration. All of them tensed as the flaring magnetic fields of Windcharger's erratic and powerful gift began to play across their sensors. This time the only effect was for the plaque bearing Prowl's name to come away from the door and float into the minibot's hand. He looked up at Prowl. "May I?" he asked, other hand outstretched.
Prowl nodded and gave him the plaque. "Please," he said, and took a step back.
Windcharger nodded, then pressed the new plaque against the door in the place Prowl's name had previously been. His dermal plating wrinkled as he concentrated, coaxing the magnetic fields to his will, but when he stepped away a few minutes later, Jazz's name was properly attached to the crypt. It was magnetically bonded to the door so firmly that they might as well have been one piece forged together.
*
The unmarked orange shuttle was exactly where they would have expected to find it, and, as Prowl had predicted, well-stocked with varying grades of energon. Prowl ran through the ship's logs as the others sorted through the bar's contents. He found that Jazz had most recently come from... Iacon? He frowned and immediately checked the date of the ship's departure.
"Prowl, what is it?" Ratchet asked, coming up behind him, a small cube of mild mid-grade in either hand.
Prowl turned to look up at the medic. He shouldn't feel so surprised by the time lapse, he supposed--it was certainly nowhere near the four million years they'd all spent in stasis before--but the mere fact that he'd been dead for that long felt strange. "It's 2010, Earth-time," he managed quietly, accepting the cube Ratchet passed him.
Ratchet nodded solemnly. "Nothing we shouldn't have expected," he replied.
"I suppose."
"So what message did Jazz leave on that cube?" Huffer demanded, coming to the cockpit as well.
"Let's see." Prowl set the cube of energon down on the console, briefly remembering how enchanted Jazz had been by the humans' idea of drink holders in their vehicles, asking enthusiastically if the Autobots couldn't work the design into their ships, and pulled the dully gleaming data cube out of his subspace. He set it into its appropriate slot on the console, and typed in the password Jazz had left him.
*
Prowl had never met a mech who so easily got under his dermal plating and irritated the living slag out of him. He and Jazz got on like oil and water and someone--he rather suspected it to be Kup--kept assigning the two of them to work together.
It wasn't until the two of them trudged back into the barracks, covered with soot and minor acid burns and too Primus-slagged tired to even stop for energon or a visit to the wash racks, that he began to appreciate his erstwhile partner's insight. They'd barely gotten back from this mission and all Prowl wanted was to recharge so that he could think more clearly over what they'd clearly done wrong. They'd lost too many mechs today....
"Prowl," Jazz said quietly from the berth next to his. Prowl glanced over; the other Autobot was lying on his back, one arm draped over his visor. His usually musical laughing voice was rough from smoke damage. "Had a thought."
Ordinarily Prowl would have doubted Jazz capable of that, but he was too tired to feel disdain at the moment. "What?" he asked wearily instead.
"You and I... we can either hold one another together, or tear each another apart." Jazz coughed a little. "Think that's why we keep getting put together... I'm not so good at the planning ahead, and you're not so good at being spontaneous. Someone wants us to learn from each other."
Prowl was silent, stunned by the insight.
After a moment, Jazz spoke again. "Or maybe I'm wrong, I know. But... well, goodnight, Prowl. Recharge well."
He should say something, Prowl knew. He just didn't know what. Like Jazz had said, he wasn't good with spontaneity. He wasn't good at social things, or talking with people. "Jazz," he said, a little desperate to... to try to reach out and meet the other mech halfway. Jazz turned his head, deep blue visor flashing into view as the arm covering it fell away. Prowl didn't know what to say. "Recharge well," he dumbly managed.
Jazz seemed to understand what he meant, though, relaxing a little bit, flashing Prowl the ghost of a weak smile. "You too, Prowl."
*
Prowl typed in the password he was fairly sure Jazz meant him to use.
"'We can either hold one another together, or tear each other apart'?" Windcharger read aloud curiously.
"It's something Jazz told me once," Prowl murmured in reply. "It's what made us friends." He hit the Enter key, and the shuttle's main screen went black, then bright again, showing a familiar black and white figure in front of the shuttle's interior.
"Hey, all y'all," Jazz said cheerfully. "Since this is keyed to Prowl's password, if you're seeing this then I guess my little plan worked. Which I suppose means you're all a little upset with me right now," he added, sobering a little. "Don't be. I know this won't make sense to you, and I'm guessing Ratchet'll be right torqued off at me anyway, but I had my reasons." He paused and took a breath. "None of which will make sense without some recent history, I guess, so that first. Where to start? That Primus-slagged shuttle run, I guess. Been over it a thousand times in my head and don't know how it would've, could've gone differently from there."
"First off, yeah, Prowl, Ratchet, Ironhide, you bit it in that shuttle run. Brawn survived, but was stasis-locked for months afterward while the wounded on Earth got dealt with. Poor dude's still coping with some survivor's guilt... hopefully you showing up again'll help with that. Megatron, from what I heard and saw later, did a number on Autobot City--damaged Metroplex's transformation cog so that he was outta the fight from the start. But Magnus and everyone managed to hold the line until reinforcements got there from Cybertron." Jazz's face went dead serious. "Megs got thrashed in the battle, but finally did what he'd spent the last nine million years trying to. Optimus died."
"What?!" Ironhide demanded, his half-empty cube dropping to the floor.
"Slag it, that wasn't easy to deal with--still ain't," Jazz went on, unaware of all of their reactions. "Long story short, he passed the Matrix to Magnus, and then we discovered we had bigger problems to deal with." Jazz's expression became, if possible, even more grim. "Unicron."
"Unicron?" Windcharger barely breathed. "The Unmaker...?"
"Yup, that Unicron," Jazz said, the recording almost seeming to agree with Windcharger. "Not slagging you here, guys. Showed up on the outskirts of Cybertron, ate the first moon--Cliffjumper and I escaped, pretty much everyone else had gone back to Earth with Prime... with Optimus," Jazz corrected himself, "--and then it went on to Moonbase Two for an after-dinner mint. Bumblebee and Spike escaped too," he assured them. "Well, sorta--we all ended up in line to its stomach, but got saved outta that none too soon. That's not important, though. Important thing is, Magnus and crew headed back to Cybertron to try and deal with the sucker, only to get waylaid by a new 'Con leader what calls himself Galvatron." Jazz suddenly smirked. "Grapevine has it that Screamer actually did end up as head of the hydra. 'Least until this new cat showed up at his coronation and blasted him to ash the way old Megs used to threaten to."
"Disintegration couldn't have happened to a nicer mech," Ratchet muttered not quite under his breath. The doctor had seen far too many patients on his table over the years thanks to the brilliant, if psychotic, second in command of the Decepticons.
"Far as we can figure, Galvie is old Megs," Jazz continued. "Dude just got a serious upgrade to his chassis and a serious dent in his stability. Sucker's as bona fide crazy as they come. Also, Hot Rod and Kup ended up doing some nasty business with some dudes called the Quintessons, and when you get back to civilization you'll want to ask about them because it turns out we've all got history with them, and man how I wish we didn't. But they also met up with some folks called the Junkions. Now, I get a kick out of them and so does Blaster, but Prowl, I'll swear here and now you'd probably do best keeping away from them. They'll fry your logic circuits. Anyhow, Roddy made some kind of treaty with them, and we're all cozy now, so they flew back to Cybertron to try and help us out with Unicron, half of everybody ended up inside the Unmaker, and--here's where you're not gonna believe me--Rod ended up with the Matrix, which, I forgot to say, Galvatron stole from Magnus on Junk."
Jazz paused. "Turns out Hot Rod's the Chosen One."