Notes and warnings in chapter one.
Thanks to
white_aster for beta-ing ^^
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First chapter < Chapter 05 0
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CHAPTER 06
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Soundwave felt himself fall. Oddly, his gyros detected he was moving at much more speed than anything his thrusters could achieve, but he didn’t think it was worth noting.
All around him, a thick fog obscured everything but amorphous bright things that zoomed by, just beyond his reach. He wanted to grab on to one of them, just to slow down, but when he tried, the blurring objects seemed to dodge his fingers just in time. A dull frustration was beginning to build in him as Soundwave swung his limbs trying to establish some kind of contact...when he realized something was wrong. He couldn’t quite figure what it was, though.
He looked around trying to find the source of disturbance, but there was nothing other than the fog and the things zooming by. He tried to rationalize his source of discomfort and realized he couldn’t do it. Not that he was unable to find a reason but that he just couldn’t quite focus on thinking, period. This failed to alarm him, but his HUD started scrolling some odd signs. They were all red and tagged critical, but they didn’t make sense. He could read the separate words, but the meaning eluded him.
After some time went by (kliks? breems? joors? those words reminded him of time, but he couldn’t remember how much time they meant) he felt a sharp itch in his helm, as if some small organic creature had gotten into it somehow and was running around his chips, scratching here and there. It made him uncomfortable, but it wasn’t that much of a problem, either.
Actually, nothing seemed to be important, really. He didn’t know where he was, and he couldn’t catch the damn things that moved, but what the frag! Why did he need to do that anyway? Soundwave relaxed and let himself fall, simply feeling the vertiginous sense of speed it brought. He felt like he could do it until time ended, and if that eventually happened, nothing really important was lost. His thoughts kept on wandering in a lazy circle of acceptance right until something snapped.
The itch returned, and as the blue mech idly scratched his helm, the creepy-crawly sensation turned into a sharp needle of pain that focused on one side of his head. Soundwave jerked and clutched at it, and as the pain subsided, the fog in his head cleared a tiny fraction.
Finally, a process made itself heard over the white noise and informed him that the environment surrounding him was an impossibility. There wasn’t any known location with endless free-falls and bright things zooming by, so, logically, this was no-place. Consequently, his logical hubs told him no-place equates to no-physical-laws so existence was not possible.
Logically, Soundwave panicked.
He reset all of his sensors, but the information remained unchanged. He additionally noticed his internal sensors were not forwarding logical information either: his fuel tanks were %137 full and his body heat should have been enough to melt half his cabling even though he felt slightly cold.
The stinging pain returned to his processor, now on the back. Then on the other side, too, and once more, closer to his frontal-hub. Each time this happened Soundwave felt more and more routines activating, and his thoughts becoming clearer and clearer.
Soon his attention was focused solely on two red words on his HUD: cascade failure. They were underlined and followed by several exclamatory marks. Soundwave hadn’t even known his HUD could display an urgency marker of higher priority than the usual red.
The now familiar crawling came once again, and this time he felt his consciousness fade away.
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“Boss, you hear me?” Each whispered word from Frenzy was punctuated by a light tap to Soundwave’s chest compartment.
Ratchet whirled around the console where he was typing and yanked the cassette away from the prone body of his carrier. “Stop doing that! I only stabilized him enough to regain the most basic systems, but he’s still completely fragged up. Stay away from him for at least one more damned cycle! And you, too, don’t think I didn’t see you!”
Both cassettes struggled against the strong hands clamped on their arms and cursed at the medic colorfully, but Ratchet paid no attention at all. He dragged them to the sickbay doors were Bumblebee was just skidding to a halt, having evidently been chasing the smaller mecha through the corridors.
“Here. Keep the scraplets away from the Primus-damned room for at least ten blasted kliks this time,” said the medic as he shoved the twins in the panting minibot’s direction.
Bumblebee seemed about to say something when a pained moan came from Soundwave’s berth. When both ‘bots turned, the twins seized the opportunity and run back to their carrier’s side.
“Fffffrnzzzzzzzzzzz, Rrrrmmmmlllllllll...”Soundwave said, and both cassettes froze by the bed. They looked at the prone mech and at each other alternatively. Soundwave’s visor flickered on to a dull red, and he turned his head a fraction in their direction. At that, both twins started nodding and calling to him excitedly, but an instant later the visor was off again, and Soundwave started cycling air slowly in deep recharge. The cassettes sagged visibly where they stood and then silently returned to the door, where both larger mecha had been watching the whole scene.
“I told you so,” Ratchet said. His berthside manners had that sand-paper quality, regardless of what faction the patient belonged to. “There’s at least one more joor to go until his defrag routines finish processing the repair-software properly. Only then will his processes be stable enough to be coherent. Now, get lost. You are not helping him, and you are most definitely not helping me, either.”
They didn’t say a thing as Bemblebee escorted them back to the cell that had been assigned to them, not even to any of the ‘bots they crossed paths with on the way there. They waited quietly while the bars where deactivated remotely, and then slid into the room just as noiselessly.
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For the most part, Ratchet had to admit, Rumble and Frenzy had behaved.
After the fuss Red Alert had made regarding their new “guests” and all the security measures he had insisted on, Ratchet had expected to be annoyed out of his mind by the rampaging symbionts, but that had been far from the case.
The Ark had been prepared for Ratchet’s arrival as well as his patient’s. Red Alert had enclosed part of the sickbay with force fields, and First Aid had already prepared a table with a scanning array for Soundwave and a secondary table for Ravage, per the CMO’s instructions via internal comm. Since even after scanning Soundwave it would take quite a while to compile a diagnosis, Ratchet had wanted to work on Ravage as soon as he entered the sickbay.
Ravage had regained consciousness in the middle of the trip to the Autobot base. He had intended to return with Laserbeak to the Victory and take care of his wounds there, but given that some of this back struts had been severely bent and one of his hind-leg’s hydraulics were completely torn he had had little success in escaping the medic’s clutches.
Even so, roughly five kliks after the repairs had been done, Ravage had been nowhere to be seen. No one had caught sight of the cassette, but the twins had assured the Autobots that the cybercat had probably been halfway to the Decepticon HQ before First Aid had noticed the distinct lack of patient on Ravage’s surgical table.
Meanwhile, Jazz led the twins to a small room where Bumblebee was waiting for them. Frenzy and Rumble had looked apprehensive at being left alone with the scout and had showed it by playing the ‘impertinent scraplets’ part, as Prowl had called it through the comm. Soon enough, though, they realized Bumblebee was just there to set a few ground rules. He had introduced himself as the ‘bot they ought to call in case they had any kind of problem.
Bumblebee's duties also involved watching and reporting the cassettes behaviour, as well as keeping them in line.
The Prime had assigned Bumblebee the task for a number of reasons. Being easy-going and less threatening looking (dubbed “more tape sized” in the scout’s mind) than other Autobots, it was more likely the cassettes would cooperate with him. Optimus didn’t have much hopes that the twins would behave themselves, but minimizing the friction as much as possible was important.
The truth was that, as voluntarily as the symbionts had come, they were considered prisoners. The security hazard was simply too great to allow them to roam the halls freely, even accompanied. This meant that they only had access to the cell that had been assigned to them or the sickbay, and as soon as their carrier was out of the sickbay, he would be transferred to the brig too.
To the Ark’s absolute bafflement, neither cassette had complained about this.
One of the Aerialbots had taunted them regarding this fact, but the cassettes had simply laughed and invited the mech to come to the Decepticon brig to see what his perspective on hospitality was after that. Slingshot was noticeably more quiet when he entered the rec room afterwards.
The only thing that had Bumblebee completely on edge was that the cassettes just didn’t care at all about visiting schedules. They clearly didn’t trust Ratchet and wanted to remain in the sickbay at all times and, consequently, did everything they could to make it so. That went from lock-picking their way into the medic’s domain to actually injuring each other enough to be sent there. To Bumblebee's increasing distress, it kept on happening, no matter what he did.
Last time had consisted of the cassettes simply running away from him when he was accompanying them through the corridors. It wasn’t technically escaping the brig, but it was still embarrassing as the Pit.
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.:Still nothing?:. asked Laserbeak.
.:No.:. both twins chorused. They were leaking worry through the bond and they didn’t even bother hiding it. .:The slagging medic says it will be at least a joor before he’s even conscious.:.
.:Pit...:.
.:Yeah, and that’s only the motherrusting glitch he had at the compound... Doc says the scans show there’s something worse going on. That the glitch was, like, the tip of the iceberg...:.
.:Does he have an estimate on how long will it take to recover?:.
.:How long!? He doesn’t fragging know yet what it is! He’s hoping that Soundwave will help him with it or something, because apparently, boss’ routine trees are so fragged UP he- :. At this point Frenzy’s vocalizer fritzed with static.
.:I see:. Laserbeak sent a deep feeling of patience through the bond, and the twins answered with gratitude at the prospect of not being needled with more questioning. They knew the other symbiotes were eager to know more about Soundwave’s status, but waiting there with nothing to do was draining and even more so being grilled for answers all the time.
They jumped onto one of the berths in the cell and sat close together.
One of the few things Red Alert had allowed Frenzy and Rumble was the use of their internal comm to contact the other cassettes. Of course, the security director had let them know that he would be monitoring said comms, and, just as promised, their exchanges with their fellow symbionts had a faintly annoying openness to them that signaled an external decryption of the channel.
On the other side, the twins were the personal ninja army (as Rumble insisted they should be called every orn) of Soundwave, and they were used to working around such problems. Red Alert was not used to having both twins in the brg at the same time, so he didn’t know just how well they could synch.
Whenever they had needed to broadcast something hidden from the paranoid Autobot, they contacted Laserbeak with a particular ping that signaled such moments, and stood extremely close to each other. The flying cassette then would go to another one of the symbionts in the Decepticon HQ, and remain very close to him as well. Then they opened two simultaneous channels, with almost the same frequency, only one of them was lightly encrypted and the other one was so messed up that it sounded like rambling static. Teletran 1 detected one open channel coming from the coordinates of the twins directed to some place in the Victory, laced with a lot of rasping static on the background. On these occasions, Rumble always communicated through the secure channel, while Frenzy took on the distraction.
This had, as a side-effect, left Red Alert extremely torqued, since he had hoped Frenzy would request more relevant information than updates on human soap operas from the other cassettes.
.:So, birdbrain... what about your end? Things going smooth?:.
.:Yes, if by smooth you mean Ratbat finally managed to arrange the damn extraction time and place with the Autobot SiC.:.
.:Good. Wait, do they know Vortex will have already been chewing his chips by the time they get there?:.
.:They asked about it, yes.:.
.:And?:.
.:They were less than thrilled, but a window in security happens at a given time for a reason:.
.:Hehehe, morons.:.
.:Indeed. Either way, ETA for the Autobot recovery team is on schedule and everything’s set... not that it will be much of a challenge without Soundwave here.:.
.:Pff, damn right! Now that boss is out of commission, and without our rad spying skills, it will be like taking energon treats from the Stunticons!:.
.:Your rad spying skills... right. You glitches be prepared, Ratbat might be one hundred and twenty percent sure the Autobots are still going to help Soundwave once they have their chatter-box back, but he’s been wrong before.... Just keep an eye out for yourselves and keep an eye on the boss.:.
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Bluestreak’s prolonged stay in the brig had made his recharge cycles more frequent and deep. He had become sluggish due to the low pressure of his internal fluids, and his self repair system struggled to keep up.
When the cell transfer order came through, he was deep in recharge.
The appointed mech for the task had been Motormaster. He had tried to wake the sniper up but no matter how much he shook him, Bluestreak had been in the middle of a deep core defragmentation, too groggy to walk properly. The Stunticon had been only too happy to simply drag the protesting mech by his remaining doorwing.
Vortex was humming happily and arranging his toolbox when he heard the door ping. He looked up as they entered, his visor following the recharging ‘bot. Motormaster dragged the sharpshooter through the room and left him sprawled in a section of the workstation that could be separated from the rest by energy bars. The red visor stayed on Bluestreak as the grogginess became recharge once again.
The cheerful humming had never stopped.
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Chapter 07 > Cheers 0w0