Crosses To Bear, Part 3
Title: Crosses To Bear
Status: IN PROGRESS
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: A bit of language, some scenes of peril
Main Characters: Swoop, Optimus Prime, Hound, Trailbreaker, Ratchet, Slag, Blaster, Tracks
Genre: Introspection, mostly. A bit of Action. As action-y as Nightwind gets, anyway.
Summary: Swoop and a few other crazy Autobots vs. A Really Big Chunk of Rock, with Tracks's life hanging in the balance.
Chapter Links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
For hours that seemed like years, Blaster had been fighting a losing battle to keep online the high-gain comm console that he'd cobbled together from parts that Silverbolt had brought to him from Autobot Headquarters. The console was a very fussy creature. It did not like the cold, and the makeshift shelter that the Autobots had thrown together from bits that Silverbolt had also brought from HQ was not in any way, shape, or form insulated. It didn't even keep out the snow that had started to fall in alarming quantities on the base camp not long after Hound's climbing party had gone off to tackle the mountain, Ratchet complaining all the way. Blaster fancied that he could still hear the medic complaining, six hours after they'd departed.
It occurred to Blaster, in a vague sort of way, buried as he was shoulder-deep in the console as he fiddled with its touchy innards, that they could've used Slag's flame-throwing talents down here to keep things a little toastier. But then he supposed that Slag was and would be far more useful where he was. Which was probably halfway up the mountain out of sheer hard-headed stubbornness by now, if Blaster knew the Dinobot. Stubbornness...and worry. Blaster hadn't missed that in the Dinobot, either. He likely didn't care one whit for Tracks and his peril, but Swoop...Well, Swoop was another story, indeed. Blaster smiled to himself as he worked.
And then he swore viciously to himself as the console bleeped in apparent distress. Blaster was certain that something was crashing somewhere, either because it didn't like the much-below-zero ambient evening temperatures or because it didn't like the wind that howled into the "shelter," or because it didn't like the bit of snow that, despite Blaster's best efforts, clung tenaciously to the console's base, no doubt slowly infiltrating and melting against its delicate, fussy circuitry.
Carefully, oh so carefully, Blaster pulled his head out of the console's guts and blinked blearily up at its tiny screen that was lacy with delicate crystals of frozen fog. Something was blinking on the screen, he blearily realized. Swearing again, Blaster rubbed furiously at the screen, frantically frictioning the ice crystals away, deeply scratching the screen in the process...and discovered a tiny, blinking green dot.
The dot blinked erratically at him as the moments passed while Blaster stared dumbly at it for a few long minutes, and then the blinking steadied. Blaster's processors were as foggy and frostbitten as the console's, so it took longer than it should have for him to realize that he was looking at a locator beacon. And as the signal strengthened enough to transmit its ident code and coordinates, he saw that it was Swoop's. Almost reflexively, he opened a channel to talk at the Dinobot but was met with only loud static. Either the signal wasn't getting through for some reason or Swoop's comm was damaged. He grimaced and closed the channel.
And then he kicked the leg that was lying on the ground next to him while uttering a sharp, "Yo."
The leg in question belonged to Optimus Prime, who was curled up on his side on the ground next to Blaster. He was attempting to conserve heat while also trying to take up the least amount of space possible, dozing fitfully. He'd been "a bit" damaged in the battle with the Decepticons that seemed to Blaster as if it had happened eons ago now, in some primeval and much warmer epoch. The "bit" of damage had finally compelled Optimus to rest, forcing him to stop pacing restlessly outside while glaring impotently up at K2's cloud-concealed summit as if the sheer force of his ire could solve all of their problems. Blaster had practically had to drag him inside and force-feed him some of the energon that Silverbolt had brought from HQ. Once Prime was sitting down and the energon was flowing through his damaged systems, his self-repair systems had further insisted that he sink down into his current state of deep and mostly-oblivious doze so that they could do their job.
Which was fine with Blaster because the manic vibes shooting in massive quantities from his leader had been driving his mellow self truly insane. And he really didn't need that, what with the touchy-but-crucial console already driving him insane.
But before he'd crashed, Optimus had made Blaster swear that he would rouse him if he heard anything, so much as a peep, from either Swoop or Tracks, or if the climbing party reported any catastrophe. So, much as Blaster didn't want to deal with The Vibe again, he also knew that if he didn't wake Prime up there'd be hell to pay. Hence, the none-too-gentle kick. In response, Prime blearily raised his head from its awkward position on the ground, raised a hand to rub at the crick in the side of his neck that had resulted from his head's position against the ground, and then he blinked muzzily at Blaster, not really fully awake yet. Under other circumstances, Blaster might have termed "cute" the deeply befuddled expression on the Autobot leader's face. As it was, he merely pointed a frigid finger at the steadily blinking dot and uttered the word, "Swoop." His voice stuttered slightly with cold.
Instantly, Optimus was fully awake, wincing only slightly as he shifted his body up onto his knees, fighting off a wave of dizziness as he did so. He huddled behind and leaned over Blaster's shoulder like a particularly inquisitive vulture. Blaster tried not to let it bother him. In fact, he found that he rather appreciated the warm closeness of another body.
"Telemetry?" Optimus asked, his voice rough from his fitful slumber. "Is he all right?"
"Nah, it's just the locator," Blaster answered. "Signal's not strong enough for anything else. I tried talking to him, but...no go."
"Can you raise Hound?" Optimus asked.
Blaster manipulated the console with half-frozen hands, opening up the tracker's channel with a, "Yo, Hound?"...and was greeted with piercing screams. And it wasn't the wind. And it wasn't Hound, either.
"Blaster," Hound's strained voice uttered, "can you...talk to 'Breaker instead? Got...Ugh!...an acrophobic medic...NGAH!...having a freak-out...ARGH!...on my hands here. Slag, just sit on him, for Primus's sake!"
Suppressing a snicker, Blaster closed that channel and opened Trailbreaker's. He could still hear the screaming, but it wasn't nearly so immediate.
"Hey, 'Breaker, how's it hangin'?" Blaster said cheerily.
"'Hanging' is the word, m'man," Trailbreaker replied with a grunt. "This ledge is teeny and the drop-off is...whoa. Almost enough to make me acrophobic. Ratchet is a seriously unhappy camper."
"No kidding," Blaster answered, guffawing. "Tell him we've got Swoop's locator. Maybe that'll shut him up before he sets off an avalanche."
"Yeah," Trailbreaker answered ominously, "'cuz we just don't have enough of those up here..." Then he relayed Blaster's news to Ratchet...and silence suddenly descended. And then Ratchet's channel clicked on.
"Where is he?" he asked demandingly and without preamble, his voice frayed with panic and the accompanying obvious effort to put it aside. "Is he all right? Slag, will you get the hell off me?"
"Dunno, Ratch," Blaster reported succinctly, smiling at the medic's obvious annoyance with the Dinobot. "We've only got his locator. Can't get through on the comm. But he's moving, so I think that's a good sign."
"Where is he?" Hound again asked, cutting in, speaking over Ratchet's comm.
"Not too far from you, actually," Blaster answered. "Maybe a kilometer or so higher. But he's over on the China-side face."
"Oh, hell," Hound swore. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the wind, but the tone of his voice was ominous. Trailbreaker's loud utterance of "Shit!" in the background was equally ominous.
"What?" Optimus cut in, hearing the worried despair in Hound's voice. The cursing alone was enough to set off warning bells in his head; neither Trailbreaker nor Hound was the type to do that without reason. "What's wrong?"
"The China-side face up there," Hound answered after a long, quiet, and probably thoughtful moment, "is vertical. Pretty much not climbable at all. At least, no one's ever done it. And...uh...there are signs of a huge avalanche that slid that way. Bet you dollars to doughnuts Swoop was caught in it."
"Oh, hell," Optimus said, echoing Hound's sentiment.
"But at least he got out!" Trailbreaker announced optimistically.
"Stubborn brat," Ratchet grunted, but it was an affectionate grunt.
"Yeah," Hound's voice said. "But...he'll have a tough time over there."
There was quiet for a moment, but for the howling of the wind over the comm. The signal crackled faintly with static here and there. Then:
"Which way is Swoop moving?" Ratchet suddenly wanted to know.
Blaster frowned, glanced at the screen showing Swoop's location, and answered, "He's vectoring away from you, actually. Heading up and toward the Pakistan side, but...basically heading in the opposite direction from the direction you guys are headed."
"He knows where Tracks is," the medic announced then, with utter, rock-solid certainty. "And we're going the wrong way."
"How do you know that?" Hound's voice asked.
"Because he's a medic," Ratchet hissed insistently and impatiently. "He would have noted his patient's location. So let's get off this damned ledge and follow him. Because he knows where he's going. Unlike you," he added accusingly at, presumably, Hound. Then he continued to growl under his breath about ledges, crevasses, drop-offs, and not-so-subtle attempts to kill him.
There was quiet again and then Hound's voice said, "All right. We're gonna see if we can intercept Swoop. It'll be tough with the slide between us, and we're quickly losing the light up here...but my gut says that Ratchet's right. Blaster, can you transmit Swoop's location and bearing?"
"Done," Blaster reported a second later.
"Got it," Hound confirmed.
"We'll keep in contact," Optimus said then. "And we'll let you know if he changes course. And for Primus's sake be careful up there."
"Gotcha," Hound's voice answered. "And we will. 'Breaker, let's back out of here. Carefully. Slag, you wanna belay?"
And then the channel closed as the rescue party set about mobilizing themselves. Blaster sat back with a long sigh, inadvertently leaned against Optimus...and then, appreciating the much larger Autobot's radiant warmth, decided that he wasn't going to jerk away. Neither, noticeably, did Optimus. In fact, he shifted closer to Blaster and then cast a glance over at Silverbolt and Air Raid in the corner of the makeshift shelter. The former was awake and shivering violently every now and then. He had adamantly refused to leave the area, knowing he'd be needed to transport casualties to Autobot HQ, assuming that they'd be rescued at all. And since he had stayed, Air Raid, currently unable to fly but recovering nicely, had stayed, too. He slept cuddled into Silverbolt's side. And since Silverbolt and Air Raid were staying, Skydive, Slingshot, and Fireflight were still hanging around, too. They were outside somewhere, keeping watch. Probably huddled, too.
Silverbolt met Optimus Prime's gaze and then, with a jerk of his head, Prime beckoned the two Aerialbots over to join the warmth-sharing snuggling. Silverbolt, not having to be told twice, gladly gathered his brother up into his arms and then moved to plop him down next to Blaster. Air Raid, not caring from whom he got his warmth, whined a bit but then snuggled happily enough into the comm officer, and Silverbolt snuggled into Optimus with a long, relieved sigh.
"Rest," the Autobot leader commanded his three snuggled-in subordinates. "I'll take the first watch."
No one protested; they merely settled against each other with sighs that conveyed varying levels of appreciation. And Optimus Prime settled in to watch the steadily- and hypnotically-blinking green dot
Status: IN PROGRESS
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: A bit of language, some scenes of peril
Main Characters: Swoop, Optimus Prime, Hound, Trailbreaker, Ratchet, Slag, Blaster, Tracks
Genre: Introspection, mostly. A bit of Action. As action-y as Nightwind gets, anyway.
Summary: Swoop and a few other crazy Autobots vs. A Really Big Chunk of Rock, with Tracks's life hanging in the balance.
Chapter Links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
For hours that seemed like years, Blaster had been fighting a losing battle to keep online the high-gain comm console that he'd cobbled together from parts that Silverbolt had brought to him from Autobot Headquarters. The console was a very fussy creature. It did not like the cold, and the makeshift shelter that the Autobots had thrown together from bits that Silverbolt had also brought from HQ was not in any way, shape, or form insulated. It didn't even keep out the snow that had started to fall in alarming quantities on the base camp not long after Hound's climbing party had gone off to tackle the mountain, Ratchet complaining all the way. Blaster fancied that he could still hear the medic complaining, six hours after they'd departed.
It occurred to Blaster, in a vague sort of way, buried as he was shoulder-deep in the console as he fiddled with its touchy innards, that they could've used Slag's flame-throwing talents down here to keep things a little toastier. But then he supposed that Slag was and would be far more useful where he was. Which was probably halfway up the mountain out of sheer hard-headed stubbornness by now, if Blaster knew the Dinobot. Stubbornness...and worry. Blaster hadn't missed that in the Dinobot, either. He likely didn't care one whit for Tracks and his peril, but Swoop...Well, Swoop was another story, indeed. Blaster smiled to himself as he worked.
And then he swore viciously to himself as the console bleeped in apparent distress. Blaster was certain that something was crashing somewhere, either because it didn't like the much-below-zero ambient evening temperatures or because it didn't like the wind that howled into the "shelter," or because it didn't like the bit of snow that, despite Blaster's best efforts, clung tenaciously to the console's base, no doubt slowly infiltrating and melting against its delicate, fussy circuitry.
Carefully, oh so carefully, Blaster pulled his head out of the console's guts and blinked blearily up at its tiny screen that was lacy with delicate crystals of frozen fog. Something was blinking on the screen, he blearily realized. Swearing again, Blaster rubbed furiously at the screen, frantically frictioning the ice crystals away, deeply scratching the screen in the process...and discovered a tiny, blinking green dot.
The dot blinked erratically at him as the moments passed while Blaster stared dumbly at it for a few long minutes, and then the blinking steadied. Blaster's processors were as foggy and frostbitten as the console's, so it took longer than it should have for him to realize that he was looking at a locator beacon. And as the signal strengthened enough to transmit its ident code and coordinates, he saw that it was Swoop's. Almost reflexively, he opened a channel to talk at the Dinobot but was met with only loud static. Either the signal wasn't getting through for some reason or Swoop's comm was damaged. He grimaced and closed the channel.
And then he kicked the leg that was lying on the ground next to him while uttering a sharp, "Yo."
The leg in question belonged to Optimus Prime, who was curled up on his side on the ground next to Blaster. He was attempting to conserve heat while also trying to take up the least amount of space possible, dozing fitfully. He'd been "a bit" damaged in the battle with the Decepticons that seemed to Blaster as if it had happened eons ago now, in some primeval and much warmer epoch. The "bit" of damage had finally compelled Optimus to rest, forcing him to stop pacing restlessly outside while glaring impotently up at K2's cloud-concealed summit as if the sheer force of his ire could solve all of their problems. Blaster had practically had to drag him inside and force-feed him some of the energon that Silverbolt had brought from HQ. Once Prime was sitting down and the energon was flowing through his damaged systems, his self-repair systems had further insisted that he sink down into his current state of deep and mostly-oblivious doze so that they could do their job.
Which was fine with Blaster because the manic vibes shooting in massive quantities from his leader had been driving his mellow self truly insane. And he really didn't need that, what with the touchy-but-crucial console already driving him insane.
But before he'd crashed, Optimus had made Blaster swear that he would rouse him if he heard anything, so much as a peep, from either Swoop or Tracks, or if the climbing party reported any catastrophe. So, much as Blaster didn't want to deal with The Vibe again, he also knew that if he didn't wake Prime up there'd be hell to pay. Hence, the none-too-gentle kick. In response, Prime blearily raised his head from its awkward position on the ground, raised a hand to rub at the crick in the side of his neck that had resulted from his head's position against the ground, and then he blinked muzzily at Blaster, not really fully awake yet. Under other circumstances, Blaster might have termed "cute" the deeply befuddled expression on the Autobot leader's face. As it was, he merely pointed a frigid finger at the steadily blinking dot and uttered the word, "Swoop." His voice stuttered slightly with cold.
Instantly, Optimus was fully awake, wincing only slightly as he shifted his body up onto his knees, fighting off a wave of dizziness as he did so. He huddled behind and leaned over Blaster's shoulder like a particularly inquisitive vulture. Blaster tried not to let it bother him. In fact, he found that he rather appreciated the warm closeness of another body.
"Telemetry?" Optimus asked, his voice rough from his fitful slumber. "Is he all right?"
"Nah, it's just the locator," Blaster answered. "Signal's not strong enough for anything else. I tried talking to him, but...no go."
"Can you raise Hound?" Optimus asked.
Blaster manipulated the console with half-frozen hands, opening up the tracker's channel with a, "Yo, Hound?"...and was greeted with piercing screams. And it wasn't the wind. And it wasn't Hound, either.
"Blaster," Hound's strained voice uttered, "can you...talk to 'Breaker instead? Got...Ugh!...an acrophobic medic...NGAH!...having a freak-out...ARGH!...on my hands here. Slag, just sit on him, for Primus's sake!"
Suppressing a snicker, Blaster closed that channel and opened Trailbreaker's. He could still hear the screaming, but it wasn't nearly so immediate.
"Hey, 'Breaker, how's it hangin'?" Blaster said cheerily.
"'Hanging' is the word, m'man," Trailbreaker replied with a grunt. "This ledge is teeny and the drop-off is...whoa. Almost enough to make me acrophobic. Ratchet is a seriously unhappy camper."
"No kidding," Blaster answered, guffawing. "Tell him we've got Swoop's locator. Maybe that'll shut him up before he sets off an avalanche."
"Yeah," Trailbreaker answered ominously, "'cuz we just don't have enough of those up here..." Then he relayed Blaster's news to Ratchet...and silence suddenly descended. And then Ratchet's channel clicked on.
"Where is he?" he asked demandingly and without preamble, his voice frayed with panic and the accompanying obvious effort to put it aside. "Is he all right? Slag, will you get the hell off me?"
"Dunno, Ratch," Blaster reported succinctly, smiling at the medic's obvious annoyance with the Dinobot. "We've only got his locator. Can't get through on the comm. But he's moving, so I think that's a good sign."
"Where is he?" Hound again asked, cutting in, speaking over Ratchet's comm.
"Not too far from you, actually," Blaster answered. "Maybe a kilometer or so higher. But he's over on the China-side face."
"Oh, hell," Hound swore. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the wind, but the tone of his voice was ominous. Trailbreaker's loud utterance of "Shit!" in the background was equally ominous.
"What?" Optimus cut in, hearing the worried despair in Hound's voice. The cursing alone was enough to set off warning bells in his head; neither Trailbreaker nor Hound was the type to do that without reason. "What's wrong?"
"The China-side face up there," Hound answered after a long, quiet, and probably thoughtful moment, "is vertical. Pretty much not climbable at all. At least, no one's ever done it. And...uh...there are signs of a huge avalanche that slid that way. Bet you dollars to doughnuts Swoop was caught in it."
"Oh, hell," Optimus said, echoing Hound's sentiment.
"But at least he got out!" Trailbreaker announced optimistically.
"Stubborn brat," Ratchet grunted, but it was an affectionate grunt.
"Yeah," Hound's voice said. "But...he'll have a tough time over there."
There was quiet for a moment, but for the howling of the wind over the comm. The signal crackled faintly with static here and there. Then:
"Which way is Swoop moving?" Ratchet suddenly wanted to know.
Blaster frowned, glanced at the screen showing Swoop's location, and answered, "He's vectoring away from you, actually. Heading up and toward the Pakistan side, but...basically heading in the opposite direction from the direction you guys are headed."
"He knows where Tracks is," the medic announced then, with utter, rock-solid certainty. "And we're going the wrong way."
"How do you know that?" Hound's voice asked.
"Because he's a medic," Ratchet hissed insistently and impatiently. "He would have noted his patient's location. So let's get off this damned ledge and follow him. Because he knows where he's going. Unlike you," he added accusingly at, presumably, Hound. Then he continued to growl under his breath about ledges, crevasses, drop-offs, and not-so-subtle attempts to kill him.
There was quiet again and then Hound's voice said, "All right. We're gonna see if we can intercept Swoop. It'll be tough with the slide between us, and we're quickly losing the light up here...but my gut says that Ratchet's right. Blaster, can you transmit Swoop's location and bearing?"
"Done," Blaster reported a second later.
"Got it," Hound confirmed.
"We'll keep in contact," Optimus said then. "And we'll let you know if he changes course. And for Primus's sake be careful up there."
"Gotcha," Hound's voice answered. "And we will. 'Breaker, let's back out of here. Carefully. Slag, you wanna belay?"
And then the channel closed as the rescue party set about mobilizing themselves. Blaster sat back with a long sigh, inadvertently leaned against Optimus...and then, appreciating the much larger Autobot's radiant warmth, decided that he wasn't going to jerk away. Neither, noticeably, did Optimus. In fact, he shifted closer to Blaster and then cast a glance over at Silverbolt and Air Raid in the corner of the makeshift shelter. The former was awake and shivering violently every now and then. He had adamantly refused to leave the area, knowing he'd be needed to transport casualties to Autobot HQ, assuming that they'd be rescued at all. And since he had stayed, Air Raid, currently unable to fly but recovering nicely, had stayed, too. He slept cuddled into Silverbolt's side. And since Silverbolt and Air Raid were staying, Skydive, Slingshot, and Fireflight were still hanging around, too. They were outside somewhere, keeping watch. Probably huddled, too.
Silverbolt met Optimus Prime's gaze and then, with a jerk of his head, Prime beckoned the two Aerialbots over to join the warmth-sharing snuggling. Silverbolt, not having to be told twice, gladly gathered his brother up into his arms and then moved to plop him down next to Blaster. Air Raid, not caring from whom he got his warmth, whined a bit but then snuggled happily enough into the comm officer, and Silverbolt snuggled into Optimus with a long, relieved sigh.
"Rest," the Autobot leader commanded his three snuggled-in subordinates. "I'll take the first watch."
No one protested; they merely settled against each other with sighs that conveyed varying levels of appreciation. And Optimus Prime settled in to watch the steadily- and hypnotically-blinking green dot