Ep. 1.5 - SOMA - (Closed)

[Deleted]

Takes place at the very end of Week 2, Day 7! The time is roughly 2am.

--------


He was failing. And he hated it.

Ratchet lifted a hand and scrubbed his optics. It was late at night, a little after oh-two hundred hours. He had been awake for over a day – fixing, fretting. Working on minor repairs mostly, on debugging problems with the ground bridge controls, on tracking the source of a mysterious power surge in his own medical bay. Small things. Niggling issues.

Except for this.

His greatest failure since arriving on this miserable planet.

Reluctantly, the medic glanced back over his shoulder. His weary gaze fell upon the prone body resting in isolation behind him, as still and quiet as the dead. So close to going grey. So close to the frail thread that held them all back from whatever well of souls beckoned after the spark faded, and was extinguished.

Ratchet sighed and irritably pinched between his optics. Not that he believed in that sort of thing.

The medical bay was dark, its lights powered down to conserve precious energy for the monitors and diagnostic equipment, for the energon feeds and the life support systems. The gloom folded around him like a shroud. Only the glow of the monitor he was sitting in front of held it back, lighting his face and chassis with a dim fluorescent light.

Ratchet sat in a corner of the bay, with metal folding screens drawn about him. They were for privacy – not for himself, but for the patient on the isolation berth behind him. Air Raid lay unresponsive, his ruined white body fed by cables that supported and monitored his individual systems, his spark, his neural activity. Oil and hydraulic systems, electrical systems, sensor suites, spark case – all showed faintly pulsing indications of life. Weak, but within minimal operating parameters.

The neural activity feed was dead. And had been dead since the Autobots dragged the Aerialbot back from MECH's clutches.

It was at times like this that Ratchet felt all of his years crushing upon on him, weighing him down in defeat.

He could repair the crudely patched armour, the violated biomechanisms – remove what had felt like miles of invasive foreign optical fibres and hidden surveillance devices, like seething nests of worms. But he could not restore higher neural functions to the Aerialbot’s brain core. Though it bore fresh scars, inflicted by some sort of microlaser, mercifully it had been left intact. But it responded to nothing – no treatment, no stimuli. Nothing.

Brain death. That was the layman’s term for it. Ugly, but accurate.

Ratchet moodily tapped at the monitor. Algorithms scrolled across it, restructuring themselves upon his command. He wasn't beaten yet. He was the finest neurosurgeon that Cybertron had produced. There were still things he could do. A nanosynaptite flush of the entire neural net perhaps, or another axon scan. Perhaps scarring at a molecular level was preventing the receptors from receiving any form of electrical impulse...

Caught up in his own research, Ratchet barely acknowledge the first sounds of a body stirring behind him. Only when something fell over with a clatter did he finally smack his hands down on his work station and turn around in annoyance.

“Whoever is there, you can kindly turn around and march back out the way you came,” he growled. “I've told everyone once if not a thousand times: you stay away from the screens when they have been erected. This is a private surgical area, and I will ask you to respect...”

Ratchet trailed off. He stared in horror.

Tiny lights glittered on the monitoring equipment that surrounded the head of the medical berth. Air Raid sat upright, staring vacantly into space.

His head swivelled. He stared at the medic.

“Get Mirage,” he whispered.

And then he lunged, swinging off the berth in one motion that sent disconnected cables snapping into the air behind him. Energon drips splattered as the Aerialbot hit the floor in a feral crouch, his mauled wings flattened back. His blue optics flickered and lit up.

Ratchet barely had time to raise his arms before Air Raid slammed into him. The impact drove him backwards into the station he had been working at, scraping it across the floor. The monitor teetered wildly, sending blue light strobing wildly across both of their bodies.

Ratchet grappled to keep the Aerialbot’s clawed hands off his throat and opened his comm line.

“Mirage!” he choked. “I need you in the medical bay, now!”

[Deleted]

It wasn’t often that Mirage slept at night. Given the nature of his occupation, as well as the nature of the clandestine operations he was often called upon to perform, he found himself most often working when others were at rest, and resting while others were at work. He kept odd hours, spending most nights wide awake, out of habit more so than any conviction that he was about to be called out on some last-minute mission. It didn’t bother him much, truth be told. It used to, back when he was new to the trade and had yet to adjust to all the demands the life of a special operative made of him, but he was used to it now.

He learned, he practiced, he adapted. Such was the nature of experience.

Though there were few mecha available to converse with at such a late hour, Mirage had little trouble finding something with which to occupy his time. Namely, the pursuit of Zoom Zoom, who had been avoiding him like the plague for the past month or so. He really hadn’t thought this little spat of theirs would last as long as it had - granted, he had given Zoom Zoom no indication that he wasn’t actually going to seek revenge upon him for his duplicity during their sparring match, but at the same time, he had never explicitly said he was going to either. He had simply made a few vague comments here and there, flashed a not entirely friendly smile in the mech’s direction on the rare occasions they crossed paths.

He had thought Zoom Zoom would have realized he was simply having him on by now, but apparently the mech was convinced he was actually plotting something terrible against him. Amusing though this thought may have been, it didn’t sit particularly well with Mirage’s conscience, which insisted he ought to give the poor Minibot a break before he had a nervous breakdown or tried to retaliate in kind.

It was with a small amount of reluctance that he decided to put an end to his little game and seek Zoom Zoom out, to let him know, in earnest, that he wasn’t planning any sort of terrible misdeed against him. The task proved far easier said than done, as finding any special operative when they did not wish to be found was a daunting enough challenge, without the added difficulty of Zoom Zoom’s chameleon-like armor making him all the harder to spot.

He had been in the middle of scouting the rec-room for the little hellion when Ratchet’s urgent message reached him, and not a second later he was taking flight down the hall, his lightweight frame not weighing him down in the slightest as he bolted towards the medbay with great haste. He hadn’t the slightest idea what Ratchet could have possibly needed him for, but there was no mistaking the urgency in the mech’s tone - whatever it was he was needed for, it was dire enough to cause Ratchet of all mecha to lose his calm. That was reason enough for him to sprint down the hall as if a swarm of scraplets were on his heels, until he finally reached the medbay and threw himself threw its doors.

His optics flashed brightly as they scanned the room, cutting quickly from object to object before finally landing upon Ratchet who, to his alarm, appeared to be under attack by...Air Raid?

“---Oh good God.” He muttered to himself, tone hushed, quietly disbelieving.

It did not take him long to break himself from his muted shock and continue forward once more, kicking hard off the ground as he ran towards the two mecha and reached out, hands at the ready to take hold of Air Raid and wrench the mech of their medic before he could do him any more harm.

[Deleted]

The medical bay was dark, lit only by a few gently twinkling dials above the isolation berth, and by the monitor on Ratchet's work station. Against that blue cocytus light the scene acted out like a shadow play as the two silhouettes brawled, locked together in violence.

Air Raid loomed over the medic, his wings bristling upwards. He had caught Ratchet about the throat and bent him backwards over the station. Ratchet fought back fiercely, one hand thrust into the Aerialbot's maimed face hard enough to bent Air Raid's head back. The medic spat in anger but Air Raid was eerily silent, his optics staring vacantly at the ceiling.

Mirage would cross the isolation ward in two quick strides. The instant his hands touched the Aerialbot's frame -

It hit in a surge, like he had grasped a red-hot brand.

Air Raid's field was burning.

Pain flamed through it, igniting his neural net in a wildfire of heat and agony. From feet to fingertips pain raged through his field, eating him up from the inside, until the thin layer of laminate air around his body shimmered with the electric charge. His field smouldered under the assault - it twisted, it blazed, it blackened, intense enough to singe what part of Mirage's own neural net came into contact with it.

And in the middle of that inferno, as calm as a lotus, was a simple encoded message, seared directly into the Aerialbot's electromagnetic field:

HELLO MIRAGE
57°00'00.0"N 160°00'00.0"E
KIND REGARDS

Mirage would be able to drag Air Raid backwards off of Ratchet. The instant he did the medic sagged against his work station, coughing, one hand clasped to his throat. Instantly Air Raid rounded on Mirage instead, his hands flying up to grasp the spy around the collar of his armour, his optics white with stress.

"Get it out!" he screamed. "Get it out!"

[Deleted]

In Mirage’s line of work, it suited one well to develop a tolerance to a variety of unpleasant things, given the nature of the occupational hazards his particular profession produced. Failing that, if developing a tolerance for certain things was simply beyond one’s reach, then it was paramount that one at the very least develop the skills and garner the experience necessary to know how to properly cope with...highly stressful situations.

That being said, Mirage was no stranger to feeling as if he had just been violently electrocuted. This by no means meant the experience was any less unpleasant; rather, he was simply better equipped to handle it than he might have otherwise been, had he not spent a rigorous amount of time training himself to develop a tolerance for such things.

Being able to keep both his composure and his head while under extreme duress was something he had gone through great pains (in both senses of the word) to accomplish, and he prided himself on remaining undaunted and in full possession of himself even under terribly arduous circumstances.

However, for all his training, for all his hard-won experience, Mirage had never been subjected to second-hand torment quite as harrowing and all-consuming as Air Raid’s.

It was one thing to experience something for oneself. It was quite another to experience the aftershocks of someone else’s suffering.

The feeling had struck him like a bolt of lightning the moment he made contact with Air Raid, the mutilated mech’s suffering burning through his field as if the simple act of touching the other mech had turned him into a conduit for his agony. Mirage’s optics flared bright, instinct prompting him to jerk back and withdraw his field before he could be further subjected to the blistering heat that burned through Air Raid and ignited the air around him.

Before he could retreat to a safe distance, however, he found himself immobilized by, of all things, a message hidden behind the flames of agony threatening to burn Air Raid to ash.

Suddenly the heat scorching through his own field turned cold, along with the energon running through his lines. He stared at Air Raid in shock, mutley horrified both by the state of the other mech, and by the unnerving message which had been, somehow, personally addressed to him.

He paid immediately for his faltering, and he cursed himself for allowing himself to be so startled as to let his guard drop and allow Air Raid the opportunity to abruptly seize him by the collar. His own hands instinctively flew up to take hold of Air Raid’s, in an attempt to halt them before they decided to do to him as they had to Ratchet and go for his throat.

“Air Raid--” The words tumbled out, far less calmly than he would have liked. “--I am terribly sorry.”

That was all the warning he would give before darting a hand towards the other mech’s throat, seizing the least-damaged cable he could find in a vice-grip. He gave the cable a sharp tug, not in an attempt to pull it out, but rather, distract the mech while his free hand retrieved a set of stasis-cuffs from his subspace.

He doubted the mech was in any sort of state to be observant, but still, he didn’t want the mech to notice the cuffs and make slapping them on him all the more difficult.

[Deleted]

Air Raid stiffened.

Cut off in mid-shriek he froze, rooted by the firm grip in his throat. The cable was warm and pulsed weakly, still struggling to feed energon into the scarred brain core. Air Raid's mouth opened and shut; his voice box gave an audible whir but nothing came out. On his shoulders his wings stood rigid, quivering, while the hands twisted into the collar of Mirage's chassis abruptly slackened their hold.

The clap of the stasis-cuffs hitting his wrists echoed gently around the medbay.

Air Raid looked down at them. He raised his hands, staggered back a step. The instant Mirage's fingertips lifted off the Aerialbot's body the blistering pain stopped, leaving his field to settle back into a calm state. But the Aerialbot shuddered with it as he lifted his gaze to Mirage's face, his optics filled with a silent plea -

And Ratchet struck.

The medic moved fast while the Aerialbot was distracted, stepping in with his fist gripped around a small vial. It struck Air Raid in the back of the arm and Ratchet immediately depressed a switch, activating the injector. The vial hissed as its glowing contents were smoothly dispensed straight into a fuel line and Ratchet leapt back warily again, leaving the little glass tube dangling like a flag.

The null hit swiftly, and dramatically.

Air Raid wavered on his feet once before his knees gave out. He crumpled, hitting the floor with a clatter. The white body went limp, its cuffed arms loosely bent. Even the wings flopped over as the Aerialbot lay on his side, chemically eased into stasis. The blue optics flickered once before they dimmed, leaving his face dark.

In the silence that followed the clink of the empty vial bouncing across the floor was shockingly loud. It rolled up next to Mirage's foot and fell still.

Deeply unsettled, Ratchet fall back against his work station.

"There was no activity in his brain core or neural net," he muttered. "None at all! I don't understand how this could happen. It makes no sense."

He stared down at Air Raid, then glanced up at Mirage, his gaze intent.

"Did you -" he said, before shaking his head with a scowl. "No, there will be time for questions later. First things first. Will you help me get him back onto the berth? Full restraints this time, I'm afraid. I'll take his shoulders, if you'll take his legs."

[Deleted]

Air Raid had gone stiff beneath his hands, his god-awful screaming stuttering to a halt as he took the mech by the throat and gave one of his energon lines a warning squeeze. Mirage was somewhat surprised by this, as he hadn’t expected the raving, delirious mech to be in any state to recognize the danger the action presented to his wellbeing. He had assumed the motion would simply call the mech’s attention away from his other hand, briefly, long enough for him to cuff him.

Instead, he froze, his vocoder struggling for words, his wings trembling softly behind him. It was with a small pang of guilt that Mirage hurriedly clasped the cuffs over the mangled mech’s wrists, his hand leaving his throat the moment they had been safely secured. He took a step back then, wanting to put enough distance between himself and the other mech to maneuver about in, in the event he became violent once more.

As it turned, he wouldn’t even get the chance to; soon after he stepped away from the other mech, Ratchet lunged forward and swiftly injected the distracted aerial with a sedative. It worked quickly, and soon enough Air Raid swayed, unsteady on his feet, before collapsing onto the floor. His optics flickered, then went dark, signaling that he was unconscious once more.

Mirage let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, then absently began to dry-wash his hands, as if he had somehow befouled them. Looking back to Ratchet, he nodded, consenting to the mech’s request without protest.

“Yes, of course.” He replied quietly, before carefully kneeling to a crouch beside the fallen mech at his feet.

He examined Air Raid a moment or so, pity in his field and in his gaze. Wordlessly, he reached forward to smooth his hand over the battered mech’s throat, brushing back the cable he had pulled as if to apologize for abusing it. Then, he gingerly took hold of the white mech’s shoulders and propped him semi-upright, holding him up for Ratchet so that the medic could take hold of his upper half without needing to pick him up off the floor himself.

Once the medic had a solid grip upon Air Raid’s shoulders, he would turn to lift the mech’s lower half so that together they could maneuver the poor mech back onto the med-berth.

As he did so, Mirage tried not to look at Air Raid’s pitted face, and tried even harder to not recall the pleading look he had given him just before he fell into blissful unawareness once more.

[Deleted]

Mirage's act of kindness in restoring the pinched cable did not go unnoticed. As Ratchet crouched next to him to gather up the Aerialbot's shoulders he passed the spy a grateful look.

"Thank you," he murmured.

Between the two of them they would manage to awkwardly lift and carry the unconscious mech to the medical berth. Air Raid did not stir once. His torn arms rested on his scarred abdomen, the fingers curled. So deeply was he under the effect of the sedative that his body had become a dull weight, his plating scraping painfully with every step.

As soon as he lay on the berth Ratchet reached over to release the stasis cuffs. He tucked the limp arms at the Aerialbot's sides before clasping his head and turning it, so that the darkened optics could stare upwards instead of vacantly at the wall. With one thumb he wiped away a streak of char.

Only then did Ratchet grimly activate the restraints.

"I'll need to reconnect all of the monitor and life support systems," he said as the cuffs slid over Air Raid's wrists and ankles and fastened with a snap. "He yanked them all out when he sprang off the table. I hope he did not do himself any further harm by doing so. I can only hope that this... unexpected revival will at least prove that neural activity has been restore to his net. Only an in-depth brain scan will show me one way or another."

Already the medic worked on restoring the connections that had been torn free, his fingers working deftly to snap and twist them back into place within the Aerialbot's sunken body. He spoke partly to himself as he did so, his mind turned inward. Only when the monitors above the berth lit up with activity again did he glance up sharply and tap a screen.

"There." Ratchet sighed and stepped back. "The scan is running now. It will take a few minutes to complete. In the meantime..."

He ran a weary hand over his face. Then he rounded on the spy.

"Mirage." Beneath the green glow of the monitors Ratchet's face was drawn, his optics intent. "When he touched you - when you touched him - did you detect it? Could you read it? If you could, then you know exactly what I'm talking about."

[Deleted]

Mirage’s kind gesture may not have gone unnoticed by Ratchet, but he certainly pretended it had. The medic’s thank you was met with only a brief nod of acknowledgement, before Mirage turned to take hold of Air Raid’s lower half, as if Ratchet had never thanked him, and he had never done anything to warrant thanks in the first place.

Together, they managed (a bit gracelessly) to transfer Air Raid to an empty berth, where he was carefully arranged into a more comfortable position. Or as comfortable as he could reasonably be, while his ankles and wrists were pinned to the berth. His task completed, Mirage watched quietly as Ratchet began reconnecting Air Raid to the various monitors and life support systems he had disentangled himself from after launching violently off the berth. He would have offered to help, had he known anything about medicine, but as it was he held his tongue and refrained from offering aid he wasn’t sure he was properly equipped to give.

When Ratchet finished his work and turned to face him once more, Mirage straightened a bit, his hand pulling away from Air Raid’s berth and dropping back against his side. He wasn’t quite sure when he had set it down next to the mech’s shackled wrist.

“Yes,” He admitted, somewhat grimly. “I did, and I could, and I do.”

He couldn’t help but glance to Air Raid again, his mouth tightening a bit before he cut his optics back to Ratchet.

“It seems MECH has taken interest in me.”

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

[Deleted]

Ratchet nodded. Judging by the look in his optics it was the answer he had been dreading.

"Yes," he said. "And it gets worse. This way, please."

After one last touch to Air Raid's throat with the flat pad of two fingers - to ensure that energon was still being pumped by his weakened fuel system - Ratchet turned from the berth and away from the glowing medical screens. He limped to his work station, where his monitor sat knocked askew by the violence of the previous struggle.

"First, let me explain something," he said as he righted the monitor. Its blue glow wobbled about the room before steadying. "As it currently stands, no one has ever discovered a way to embed a message into a Cybertronian's electromagnetic field before. Ever. Such a feat would be like... the humans learning how to text one another through a smile, through a gleam of the eye, through heartbreak. It just isn't done! I cannot fathom how it has been accomplished here and now, or how such a vile thing ended up in Air Raid's own field, or how it was remotely activated. I can only assure you that this is a staggering prospect to dwell upon. If MECH has discovered how to do such a thing to us, how to turn such a vital and personal essence into little more than a carrier wave..."

The medic trailed off as he grasped his chair and pulled it back up to the monitor. He moved a little stiffly, as if sore. His expression reflected nothing but disgust however as he sat down and tapped the holographic screen with his fingertips, quickly bringing up a fresh new data window and query line.

"Now, let me show you something else," he said. "I ran a quick internal check on those coordinates addressed to you, and came up with something equally disturbing. Are you familiar with this region of Earth, by any chance? Or what it has come to signify to us specifically?"

The data window expanded, filling the screen. On it was a wireframe model of a landmass. Ratchet turned in his seat and looked up at Mirage gravely, waiting.

The landmass was a long peninsula. On one side it was bordered by the cold Pacific Ocean; on the other was the Sea of Okhotsk. A label flag next to it spelt out the name of the coordinates that Ratchet had plugged into the global positioning scan:

The Kamchatka Peninsula.

[Deleted]

Mirage obediently followed after Ratchet, noting with a bit of concern that the medic walked with a slight limp. Caused by his scuffle with Air Raid, most likely, or perhaps it was caused by a previous injury the medic hadn’t made anyone else privy too. He put his money on the former, but did not completely rule the latter out as a possibility. After all, medics seemed to have the tendency to care for their own ailments without caring to inform others that they had them, and Mirage would not put Ratchet past such behavior. Knowing the mech to be gruff but selfless to a fault, it was not beyond the realm of possibility, in Mirage’s mind, that he would do such a thing.

He stood in place at the side of the mech in question, pausing before the skewed monitor as Ratchet righted it and returned it to its proper position. He listened intently as the medic spoke, taking care to keep his expression neutral and impassive. His field, likewise, was eerily cool and silent, like a pool of water undisturbed by even the slightest ripple across its surface.

He looked entirely too composed, almost ill-fittingly calm in light of what had just occurred, and what he was being told. At least, he did until Ratchet spoke of how MECH had trivialized and violated one of the most intimate, characteristic aspects of their species, turning something bordering on sacred into the travesty they had made of Air Raid’s em-field. Something flashed in his optics then, something cold, and dangerous, and unnervingly unkind.

Then, in a flash, it was gone, and Mirage’s outward facade resumed full control once more.

Unconsciously, his arms folded behind him, his hands clasping neatly together at the small of his back in a formal parade rest. He leaned forward slightly, bending at the waist as he peered at the monitor, optics watching the screen intently as Ratchet brought up something for him to see. Before him was, as he expected, the location that had been imbedded in Air Raid’s field.

He frowned upon realizing where--and what--it was.

Wordlessly, he straightened, removing his gaze from the monitor. Instead of turning his attention to Ratchet right away, he simply stared straight forward at the wall for a moment, as if he were focusing on something a far distance away.

He did not take well to being threatened.

“...I was rather fond of hunting, before the war.” He began quietly, after a long pause. His tone was even, oddly conversational.

“It was a hobby of mine, a leisure activity I indulged in whenever I had the opportunity.”

He looked away from the wall at last, his optics cutting to Ratchet. He did not turn his head, simply watching the other mech in the corner of his vision.

“I feel I can say, with some authority, that the surest way to lose your quarry is to let them know they are being hunted.”

He smiled faintly, the corner of his mouth taking a slight upward turn.

“I would not worry overmuch for my well being.” He finished, his tone confident and sure.

MECH had made the mistake of letting their intentions be known to him. Emboldened by their recent successes, they had grown confident enough in their abilities to warn their targets that they were being hunted. Mirage would not have faulted them their confidence had they set their sights on a target they could actually capture; as it was, they had simply made a boast which he sincerely doubted they could live up to.

They may have had few difficulties entrapping the mecha before him, but evading capture was his forte. He had been avoiding detection and apprehension for centuries longer than they had even existed . He saw no reason to fear for himself when MECH’s ability to hunt down Cybertronains paled in comparison to his own ability to avoid capture.

MECH, he was certain, had no idea who they were actually dealing with; if they did, he doubted they would have been so overconfident as to give him a head-start before they started their hunt.

[Deleted]

Ratchet had listened solemnly as he spoke, one arm over the back of his seat. He said nothing, allowing the spy to speak without interruption, his words calm and unruffled. They echoed quietly through the darkened medical bay, while in the background the monitoring equipment beeped a soft counterpoint.

When Mirage finished he rubbed his jaw and glanced once at the map displayed on the monitor.

“I can honestly say, Mirage, that of all the Autobots living on this base, your well–being is far down on the list of those I feel the need to worry over,” he said. “Unlike some other irresponsible troublemakers I could name.”

His mouth flattened into a grim smile. Then he placed his hands against the station and stood up. His chair scraped back, abrupt and loud in the silence of the medbay.

In the blue glow of the monitor Ratchet’s face had set in a look of steely determination.

“In fact, this time I think it is my own welfare I am the most concerned about,“ he said. ”Because I am going to investigate the site those coordinates are undoubtable meant to lead you to. Right now. You are welcome to join me or to remain behind and monitor my life signal. I will ask nothing of you, and hold no expectations. You have been targeted - it would be folly to ask you to risk yourself unduly. But I will not sit idly by in the face of this violation and gross cruelty, particular when it is flaunted in our faces with such deliberation."

[Deleted]

Mirage raised a brow as Ratchet stood, then the other as he announced his plan to travel to the The Kamchatka Peninsula and investigate the area. Alone. By himself. Despite knowing MECH had once inhabited the area, and had just sent them a message which was likely deliberately intended to lure them back to the peninsula.

He blinked slowly, his lips parting briefly as if he were about to speak, before he thought better of his words and decided against voicing them. He took a moment or so more to gather his thoughts, to reconstruct his sentences and edit them into a more... polite phrasing of the same basic idea. As he thought, he focused his gaze upon the ceiling, rather than Ratchet, as staring directly at someone else was terribly rude. Especially if one was staring at them in dumbfounded silence.

When at last he turned his attention back to the medic, his expression had taken on a mildly apologetic edge, as if he still felt his words were going to be somewhat insulting.

“With all due respect, Ratchet, I’m afraid I must advise against this.” He gestured towards the monitor, his hand loosely waving towards the map left on the screen.

“Though I do not doubt your good intentions, and I do not mean to call your reasoning into question, I cannot help but wonder if you are fully aware of how...ill-advised this plan of yours seems. You would be walking into what is almost undoubtedly a trap, and I cannot, in good conscience, allow our Chief Medical Officer to undertake such a dangerous expedition on his own.”

“Or at all.” he thought but did not say.

“For all we are aware, you could be playing right into MECH’s bloodstained hands.” He added, his tone softening somewhat as he finally allowed his expression to show a few faint traces of concern.

“I would hope that you needn’t be reminded of this, Ratchet, but you are an invaluable asset to our cause. We cannot afford to risk your life so carelessly.”

[Deleted]

"I understand your concern," said Ratchet. He touched the monitor; the screen vanished. "And I appreciate the reminder. I know all too well that I am needed here rather than out in the field. Recent events have proven my value in the medical bay, though I deeply wish they had not."

He glanced back at the berth. Air Raid lay unmoving, his scarred face slack. The monitors hovered above him, a glimmering scaffold of life support that cradled his frail body as it rested in stasis.

Ratchet set his jaw.

"But I want answers, and I will not hide in my medical bay out of fear for a trap, not when the knowledge gained through venturing into it could potentially save one of my patients." The old medic regarded Mirage sternly, his blue optics sharp. "Air Raid may never regain neural function again. I could not live with myself if, in cowering here, I missed an opportunity to restore him. And then there is the fact that too much of this does not add up. How does MECH know you by name? Why address you directly, when they have shown nothing but disdain for our kind before? If they respect your intelligence enough to send you a personal message, then they must also realise you are shrewd enough to assume that this plot is a trap, given our history with that dreadful place."

Ratchet jabbed a finger at the blank monitor, where the map had glowed a moment before "But most importantly: how could they have gained the technological savvy to utilize our electromagnetic fields in such a despicable fashion, when not even our own best scientists have touched upon the idea before, much less possessed the skill to carry it out? No, something odd is happening here. And if in uncovering it I might also gain a clearer understanding of what was done to Air Raid, then whatever danger I must face to get to that point will be worth it. It is my life to risk. If I must do so, I would rather it be done in pursuit of answers that could help Air Raid now, or else the next of you to fall upon my operating table in the future."

In a two brisk strides Ratchet crossed to the berth. He peered up into one of the monitors, upon which a list of tersely coded diagnostics had stopped scrolling.

"It is as I feared. Neural activity has returned to a flatline. Bodily systems are at minimal operating perimeters, but no higher cognitive functions are registering on either my scan or his own externally forced self-dio. Virtual brain death."

Ratchet rounded on the spy and stood tall, his expression mulish.

"I will be leaving. Call Optimus or stand aside, it's all the same to me."

[Deleted]

If there was one thing Mirage knew to be futile, it was challenging the convictions of a stubborn mech. Intelligent and immeasurably skilled though he was, Ratchet was also in possession of an unyielding iron-will which could make dissuading him from certain actions or notions next to impossible once he set his mind to them. As much as he respected Ratchet for all his merits and accomplishments, he could not deny that the mech’s sense of duty and his all-consuming dedication to his patients could, at times, cloud his better judgement.

This most certainly qualified as one such occasion.

Though Ratchet had argued some rather persuasive points in favor of investigating the peninsula, Mirage still stood firm by his opinion that, if they were to search the site at all, Ratchet was one of the very last mecha who ought to be doing the searching alone. He would be risking himself unduly, and though there was the possibility of discovering information which might save dear Air Raid, and whomsoever might next find themselves victims of MECH’s cruel machinations, there was likewise the possibility that they would gain nothing , and instead lose their chief medical officer. It was a gamble, one Mirage did not particularly care to partake in. The odds did not appear to be in their favor in the slightest.

And yet still Ratchet insisted upon traveling to the peninsula regardless.

With a short, restrained sigh of vexation, Mirage took a moment to weigh the pros and cons of calling Optimus, as Ratchet had suggested, and as he had originally intended. He would have hoped that the Prime would have been able to talk some sense into his old friend, perhaps say something which could sway him from this---quite frankly foolish--idea, or failing that, use his authority to prevent him from acting upon his desires. He realized, with no small amount of irritation, that even if he did call the Prime, Ratchet could still get his way by vetoing Optimus’ ruling on the matter. As Chief Medical Officer, he had complete authority over matters involving his patient’s health, and considering the information that might be gained from inspecting that dreadful place could very well save Air Raid’s life…

There was really no way to prevent Ratchet from going, short of locking him up somewhere or destroying the groundbridge, and even then Mirage suspected the mech would somehow find a way to materialize himself upon the peninsula through sheer determination and force of will.

The mech’s resolute expression and defiant stance only solidified these suspicions.

Mirage stared hard at the mech, silently imploring him to see reason, before shaking his head with frustrated resignation. He knew he couldn’t persuade the mech. He had at least made an effort, but the end result was the same.

Almost of their own volition, his optics glanced over to Air Raid once more, the mech’s brutalized, violated frame looking so unnervingly fragile and lifeless that one could easily mistake him for dead. Mirage couldn’t help but wonder if that would have been a kinder fate. He couldn’t forget the anguish in the mech’s field, the memory still fresh in his mind, his own field still bristling unpleasantly in protest from having been exposed to it. Even worse was the god-awful look Air Raid had given him, that spark-rending pleading expression. The mech had begged for help, begged him to help.

Mirage wasn’t quite sure if he could live with himself if he turned down the request.

Straightening from his somewhat loose, resigned posture, Mirage turned to look back to Ratchet, his expression one of quiet determination. Ratchet was not the only mech who could be difficult to deal with once he had set his mind upon something, and he was about to prove it.

“I will be leaving.” He corrected firmly, stating this as fact, rather than a point which could be contested.

“Between the two of us, only I can scout the site without risking detection. Should I scan the area and find it safe to investigate more thoroughly, then you may come through the ground bridge and search to your spark’s content.”

He raised an eyebrow, as if to silently dare the other mech to protest, before continuing.

“Reconnaissance is my job, Ratchet.” He added, a bit less firmly. “I will not deny you your duty if you allow me mine.”

[Deleted]

Taken aback, Ratchet was silent for a moment. He opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it.

Opened it again.

Shut it with a look of flinty satisfaction in his optics. The old medic stood back and sized up Mirage with something akin to grudging approval. Then he crooked a finger at him.

"This way," he said. "I think I know of one more measure we can take to improve our odds a little."

The control room was as dark as the medical bay, lit predominantly by the abyssal green glow of the active ground bridge monitors. The silhouette of an Autobot stood in front of it, his doors resting back behind his shoulders in a relaxed position. His hands lightly touched the screens, paging through personnel files and recent duty reports. He was whistling faintly, his attention absorbed in the duty of the monitor night watch.

"Wash!" barked Ratchet as he strode from the medical bay. "Look sharp. Mirage and I will be heading out. Mirage will do reconnaissance first," he added, with a nod of acknowledgement to the spy. "Then I will follow him once he has deemed the area to be secure."

Wash spooked and turned around. He looked at the medic first and then Mirage, startled.

"I - er, yes, sir," he said. "Want both transports logged into the system?"

"Yes," said Ratchet firmly. "I will ping you the coordinates now. I additionally want you to provide mission watch for the both of us. Mirage will radio you with a check-in report every twenty minutes, as will I if I am called to the field. If one of us does not make a report, assume we are in trouble and alert an emergency response team without delay. Can you do this?"

"Yessir. Mission control reads you loud and clear."

Ratchet snorted. With his fists on his hips he turned to face Mirage, the whip aerial on his shoulder swaying.

"I will additionally monitor your life signal from here," he said. His onerous expression softened a little. "It's the least I can do. Thank you. Will these arrangements meet your requirements as a scout for safety control and caution..?"