[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Impact Damage [Avalanche,Patch]

[Avalanche]

There was something terribly familiar about Patch's sad little smile; the acknowledgement that the galaxy was a big, hostile place, full of enemies and hazards that'd do their level best to kill you regardless of what you did or whether you deserved it, and that was just how it was.

Maybe it was best to leave any further questioning of this base's safety for later. She'd gotten enough to form a functional basis for now, and it didn't seem like Patch needed the reminder of just how precarious it all was.

Avalanche turned her helm to watch as Patch slid the cloth under her bent shoulder rod, and began pulling with both hands - clever idea. Simple materials, but it spread out the pressure, gave the medic something to grip solidly, maybe get some better leverage. The sure sign of a mecha that had learned to do a lot with a little, and never made things more complicated than they needed to be.

Patch's question was a lot of things. A distraction from what was happening to her frame, an implicit agreement to move on from the topic of garrison security, and perhaps even what it seemed to be on the surface - a gentle request to get to know her better. Avalanche smiled, laying her helm back against the rest and giving Patch the space to work without the pressure of her gaze.

"Right before here? Weird, unpleasant little rock called the Cythidian Hive. The Hive has a different name for itself, and there's more than one around, but they're spaced out real far. Better survivability that way. So in the Long Reach, where I've been for a good while - that's the name for the skinny filament of the spiral arm we were on - people just call it the Hive. Weird, weird low-gravity nightmare of towers and structures and gooey bridges and secretions in every direction at once, built on and around and through an asteroid. You get giddy just looking at it."

Avalanche released a soft vent. "Traders. No one likes them, but the Hive has a reputation for dealing fair. And they get things that you can't get anywhere else. Big space bridge, at the core of the hive structure. At the core of every hive. If you threaten them, you better be sure you can deal with the entire war output of every hive in the galaxy simultaneously. Heard stories that a surprise attack destroyed one hive's space bridge before reinforcements could come through, and years later, a hive fleet showed up and sterilised every planet in fifteen light years. No, you leave the Hive alone, you pay up at a fair price, and they can get you damn near anything as long as it's available somewhere."

The big femme gestured with her right hand, a sort of circular 'here we are' gesture. "That's how I got here. Fed the Hive the wideband broadcast that the Prime sent out ages back, asked it to figure out where the source was, then bridge me to that. It did not like that proposition. Doesn't care for letting outsiders use its bridge, it's too deep in the structure. Paid steep. But it got me here, even if it was in midair. That's not bad precision, considering the range, and it's a lot better than arriving underground. Guess it was playing it safe."

Her shoulder rod was tough and thick; the cloth held, but despite Patch's careful pressure, it had yet to show much in the way of progress.

"Before the Hive, I parted from my old unit at... well. It was a waystation outpost, orbiting a gas giant. Siphoning off gas to convert for fuel, with force beams. Had some string of alphanumerics no one cares about, but anyone thereabouts calls it Trashcan." Avalanche's black lips twisted; that encounter with Forgelight was still raw. "...and before that, the last place I guess I can say that I actually was, rather than just passing through... that was Canyon."

[Patch]

Patch’s helm retreated with a low “Ugh.” at the word ‘secretions’. Painted the whole damn picture right there. The sheer notion of how much moisture must have hung around that place got her thinking of all the awful things it could do to cybertronian with prolonged exposure. “I’ll bet.”

Her expression dropped at the notion of… sterilizing… An entire sector?

The young medic stopped mid tug, the effort simply faltering as her gaze dropped down to the commander’s. Her optics went wide. She couldn’t imagine how much carnage that would wreak. How many billions of innocent lives must have been lost, people who may not have even been aware of the perpetrator’s existence- maybe not even their species' existence! How many of the planets had been populated… How many with sentient life?

Patch felt a little ill...
Primus, and she thought she’d seen death...

It hit the young medic harder than it was likely meant to. She swallowed, and shook her helm a little as the commander continued, a slight adjustment of her grip on the rag. Do not mess with them indeed. She very much took it as a lesson and a warning.

The first tug had been more of a preliminary assessment. The metal looked fraggin’ strong, and the part was clearly flexible enough to bend, or it wouldn’t have in the first place. Even then, it would have been a rookie mistake to pull hard the first time and yank something completely out of place.

With an additional twist of the cloth around her servos and a determined expression, the young medic started again- putting some real muscle behind the action this time. She placed a pedde up on the head of the slab, leaned her weight back, pushed against the slab with her pedde, and pulled the cloth up in her fists toward her chest at once; all, of course, while watching the bend, and again paying attention for any dangerous strain on the metal, or signs of breakage in the cloth.

If this didn’t work, Ava had offered to help… Backup plan, they could call Ratchet.
Worst case scenario, Thunder or Bulk…

Avalanche was certainly ingenuitive… Patch never would have thought to turn to another species for assistance getting off planet… Showed just how little the last sparked's world was compared to the scheme of the universe. It sounded like the commander had really been around- and she seemed the type willing to share. Patch couldn’t wait to find out more about her travels. She had a feeling the femme was going to fit in just fine around here.

Ahhh, so that’s how it happened…

The young femme chuckled a little at the mention of the drop. A series of low, quick, throaty hums, a sorry sort of expression on her face, as she knew damn well it was a recent wound, and it was funny anyway. Made the medic feel like a bit of a wimp for falling a matter of feet when she’d arrived and being angry about it though.

“Canyon?” She echoed softly. Curious gaze turning from the rather heavy-handed work to look quietly down at the femme. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of the place.”

[Avalanche]

Avalanche winced internally. She'd been fairly flippant about mentioning the more genocidal rumours that swirled around the Hive species, but clearly Patch had pictured it vividly, and the impact of lives lost had hit her hard. All things taken together, the big femme was quite glad when her description of falling out of the sky amused Patch enough to get her chuckling to herself, and she broke into a laugh, nodding.

Within her shoulder, the faint, soft creak of metal under stress sounded. The full force of Patch's heaving was having an effect, the kink in the thick rod slowly straightening out, little by little, with each fresh heave.

It was a weird sensation; even numb, Avalanche could feel something going on, and she braced her large frame against the medical rack to ensure she didn't move with the pulling.

"...Canyon, yeah. Weird little planet. Drillbit used to say-" her voice changed as she quoted, "-'a classic example of widespread chaotic terrain'. What that meant was the place was a nightmare of chasms, mesas, blade rock and random unexpected holes in the ground. I was a bridge layer, back before I hit ground here and needed a disguise in a hurry, and Solus's Hammer, was I needed."

Trying not to pay attention to the heaving tugs on her shoulder, she vented a sigh. "Decepticon mining operation. Big one. All sorts of raw metals. Something about a cluster of metallic asteroids having smacked into the place in ages gone. So my unit were there to do whatever exfiltrating of metal we could muster, and carry out spoiling raids on their operation. Bit of mining, bit of sabotage.

"We got dug in. A fair number of ex-miners and diggers in my unit; I tended to attract them, what with things being what they are. Made us good for the work. Found some stable rock and dug in deep. 'course, it didn't take long for the 'cons to notice their new neighbours. They tried shooting their way in a few times, but narrow tunnels and shooting boltholes, mix in a few experts in close-range combat? That's a grinder that'll chew up a far bigger force than they were willing to lose. So we stalemated. They'd bomb the entrance flat, we'd dig out another, they'd spot it and bomb that... it was a game we played.

"Every now and then, we'd muster up, bust out. They tried to keep an eye on us, but couldn't spare a big enough force to keep us contained full-time. Would've crippled their operation for lack of manpower. So then it's a race: can we get far enough before we get spotted that we can wreck some of their processing and mining plants, then get back before they hit the base? We pulled it off a good few times. Had to abort some raids when troops moved in on the Pit too soon, and there weren't enough defenders left to hold it without reinforcements. Sent out sabotage squads where I could. Mostly they came back. But nothing lasts forever."

She'd intended to keep going, to describe how the events on Canyon had ended, in the same casual, conversational tone. Instead, the words died in her vocoder, and a ghost of the bitter taste of rock dust lingered on her tongue. Nothing lasts forever. Which wasn't the same as saying it was no one's fault.

"...so how's that shoulder coming?" she asked more quietly.

[Patch]

Patch made an effort to imagine this ‘canyon’ place as she continued the tugging adjustments. It sounded hazardous, but interesting. Good terrain to use in combat, though likely very dangerous to traverse in the dark. The sorta place you needed a relationship with in order to trust. Someplace fickle, though, a landscape that would and could protect you if you knew it well enough.

And… It somewhat sounded like that’s exactly what they’d done.

The dark, dusted up underground spaces the young femme imagined clashed somewhat sharply with the well cleaned, well lit room in which they now resided. She couldn’t help but wonder how big they must have been- if they were cozy, and tight, or large and cavernous. Regardless, it sounded like the team had been close.

Until… Ah.

“Ehhh-it’s coming. Slowly.” She answered, as she eased the pressure off, and leaned forward to run her servo over the now slightly-lessened kink. Her own tone lower now. Gentle, though casual. “I can definitely tell this was a long time injury. Supports this sturdy don’t just crumple all at once.” Again, she spoke lowly. Optics on the damage.

Adjustments like these were uncomfortable. They just were. There wasn’t really more ya could do about it cept’ numb up the physical pain, and hope to Primus the soldier in question was either professional or had a decent sense of humor. Over the eons medics tended to grow number to it; Patch wasn’t really the type to have much trouble to begin with. She’d worked with fairly straightforward bots most of her life, and she’d never been particularly shy.

Even still, she wasn’t blind.

It seemed the other femme had dropped the previous topic, and at this point… Patch knew better than to pick it up, dust it off and try to hand it back. It sounded like there was real pain loaded in behind whatever had happened next, and the young soldier did not need to be a genius to put together what had probably occurred.

It was time to talk about something else now. People usually found ways to bring things back around if they needed the words out, but for the time being, the little medic was willing to bet the offer of a shiny new distraction would likely be appreciated.

“Soo, uhh…” A light dance of optics around the room for a moment, thinking through other potential methods of adjustment. “What do you make of us so far? This place like anything you’ve seen before?” A question on the people as well as the environment. Patch was well aware, the lot of em were a uhh… Quirky bunch. The child had noticed a right bout of culture shock in herself when she’d first arrived, though it seemed Avalanche was a bit more seasoned. Maybe things were always this chaotic off-world?

[Avalanche]

A little flicker of hope kindled somewhere deep in Avalanche's spark, something she hadn't dared fully entertain up to that moment. The carefully precise traction Patch was applying was actually working. They had all the time in the world - or so she'd been told - and for once, she wasn't neglecting a dozen urgent tasks just by standing still.

"...yeah, that's been going bad for a long time," she agreed slowly. "Not sure when it first went out of whack. When you're in the field, if all your limbs are still attached at the end of the day, you're doing alright. A good while before Canyon, I can say that much."

Her fighting style had - by necessity - shifted over time, as the injury grew worse. Partly, the adjustments were to make sure she never needed to lift her left arm too high to block an overhead strike. Partly, the shift was to make her body language lie, to stop her movements from betraying that she simply couldn't get her arm into certain positions. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Good fighters, with sharp optics, saw through that sort of thing immediately.

...yeah, there were a fair few nasty fights that would have gone differently if she'd been in full running condition. Avalanche's hand strayed slightly towards the plated-over dent in her chest, then settled at her side again. Just how much of her old damage could this medic fix?

Her optics had dimmed slightly as she lost herself in thought, but the orange glow brightened again as Patch addressed her directly. One brow ridge raised at the question: from other mecha she'd known, it would have been a casually laid pit trap. Express dissatisfaction, and she'd be labelled a troublemaker before she had time to build up trust in her judgement, while meekly saying everything was fine would be a bludgeon to beat her with any time she suggested changes later. Thinking in those terms didn't come naturally to her, but after the rough ride she'd had of her career, she'd learned to be wary.

But this was Patch, and if her own judgement was worth a damn, the medic was to be trusted to the hilt.

"From what I've seen, it's a Primus-damned mess," she said bluntly. "No comms discipline. No armed backup when I was brought into the base. Carbine specifically is a slag-bucket that needs to be brought into line hard. I've only been here a few hours, and I've heard 'family' more than I ever wanted to; pack-bonding organic instincts don't have any currency with me, and they're a lousy replacement for discipline and a proper command chain. When you have to tell a mecha to run into blaster fire in the certain knowledge they'll get slagged to protect ten others, you don't have time to discuss whether they feel like it."

Avalanche vented a dissatisfied sound, then glanced up at Patch, a slight wariness to her field. The medic probably wouldn't appreciate her flatly-expressed opinions. Nevertheless, she wasn't one to coat her words with lubricating oil. "A solid unit that works together well, you can ease off some on the discipline. Everyone involved knows they'll get professional in a hurry when things get rough. Maybe that's what I'm seeing here, but it doesn't feel like it."

[Patch]

As the other femme began to speak again, Patch placed her pedde back up on the slab and drew back in yet another bout of pressure. Her optic ridges rose a little at the first sentence, attention snapping down to try and catch the other’s gaze. She didn’t intend it in a challenging way. Most of the reaction was surprise at how honest Avalanche was being right off the bat. It caught her off guard and the young soldier did a poor job at hiding that.

Her first instinct was -of course- to defend the place and people she’d come to call her own. That first notion was quickly cut into, however, by a stiff reminder of just who she was talking to. Her young blue optics swiftly cut back at this notion, and lowered to what she was doing. With how casual the conversation had been so far, Patch had nearly let herself forget she was talking to an officer- and a quite high ranking one at that.

As bitter as Avalanche’s words may have been for her to swallow… Somewhere deep down, Patch knew they were true. At times it was a breath of fresh air, a retreat not to have so much emphasis on formality. At others, well… It wasn’t something the last-sparked had gotten much of in her life. She was often confused by it at the best of times. At the worst, it had thrown her completely. Made her feel unsafe, and vulnerable. Unsure of how to proceed.

She was so used to following her people, and expecting them, trusting them to do the right thing… When they didn’t do the right thing, it was suddenly her decision whether to follow them or not. Weather to go down with the ship, or completely ignore everything she’d ever known.

It was… Kind of exhausting sometimes...

“I think that’s what it was.” The young femme said lowly, as the backward pressure eased off once more. Yet again she leaned down to touch the joint and inspect. “Before. Before I got here at least. Used to be a small unit of four or five.”

The young medic turned around, and continued to speak as she picked up a scanner and fiddled with the buttons, looking down. “Then people started falling from the sky, and nothing changed I guess.” Softer, sort of muddled words. The slight mumble perhaps attributed to ‘gentleness’, seriousness, concentration; though the slightest dash of ‘moody teenager’ may have very well have been interpreted as an inkling of a wisp in the overall flavor of the phrase. Just the slightest touch of potential defensiveness, so easily missed by anyone not paying close attention.

Patch felt a strong obligation not to divulge too much of their current evil. Had Ava stayed just a bit more casual, for just a little longer, the young soldier very well may have blabed a few more complaints, or ‘projects’ or whatever one wanted to call their current flaws- but NOW...

Now the little femme felt like a snitch…

And though she legitimately liked this new commander, found her interesting, and trustworthy. Though of course she didn’t hold the honest opinion against her- it was TRUE after all…. An old gut feeling- ancient threats from mechs long dead began to creep back out her fuel tank like a scraplet up her spine… A thought that pushed her mind back over what she’s SAID these past few minutes, in search of some incriminating reveal...

Break the trust, ya get broken.
Still, couldn’t get herself over small spaces since her first little blanket party for that...

So no. The young soldier didn’t have much more else to say. Least’ not till she got her bearings back, got comfortable again with this stranger; got over the fond old times she spent back home with a tarp against her vents- For now, she had a job to do and that would hopefully be enough to keep the commander from prodding it farther.

[Avalanche]

Reading other mecha was something every leader had to learn to do, whether they led a squad, a platoon, a battalion or an army. Sometimes - most times - no matter how open a subordinate was prepared to be, there'd be something held back, something to be read in their field, their expression, the way they moved.

Patch didn't like what she'd said. Didn't like it one bit. But she wasn't going to argue. There was a sudden distance in the air again, a closing down of shutters that had been open. Avalanche was sentimental enough to feel a tinge of regret at that, even though she'd have said the exact same thing if given the chance to redo the moment.

Silly thought. There were no do-overs. Everyone knew that.

Her gaze lifted as Patch spoke. Quiet words, words spoken while she was doing other things, looking elsewhere; a distancing from them, as though she wanted to disown them before they even formed. But all the same, useful, relevant. It made sense. A small outpost, mecha that knew each other well, then as more trickled in one by one, there was never a sharp enough change to justify a sudden shift in the status quo.

So that was the problem. What was the solution?

...a problem for later. She wasn't in any position to redo the base's command structure, especially the day she fell out of the sky. Right at that moment, she had a more pressing issue.

"Hey. Patch. Leave off the repair for a minute, if it's safe to."

Avalanche eased her body upwards slightly, supporting herself on her right elbow, lifting her helm to look at the medic square-on. "I know you didn't want to hear that. This is your outpost, these are the mecha you work with and live with. If you didn't feel loyalty to them, there'd be something damn strange going on. And I'm not one of you yet."

She nodded towards the closed door, and the bridge machinery beyond. "What I've said to you comes from first impressions of those I've interacted with so far. Nothing you've done or said makes me think badly of this place. You're a Primus-damned credit to it. I'm fully aware I've only been on this planet less than a planetary cycle, and first impressions can be wrong. So here's what I need from you."

Her orange gaze locked onto Patch's optics. "When you think I'm wrong, say so. I trust you to know when and how to do it, but when it's just the two of us, you say what you need to, and make it clear. I want to rely on your judgement. Keep back something when I'm wrong just because of my rank, I'll kick your aft."

Avalanche smiled, easing the barb from the lightly-spoken playful threat, then let herself settle down onto the med-rack again, helm sinking back to lie flat once more. "You're doing a good job with me, too. Feels better. Keep going."

[Patch]

Uh oh.

“O- Okay.” A mild word, laced with a hint of question. A low, young, wisp of a breath that fell through a half crooked smile.

There was a flash of fear behind her optics, as they shifted from the scanner to the surface behind her. An innocuous ‘swallow’ a near silent pip of static as she reset her voice box. Her shoulders and waist rotated slightly to set it down with a tap, then returned to meet the other femme’s optics.

Patch didn’t know what was about to happen. She wanted to believe Avalanche was above bearing down, and grilling for details or something. She wanted to believe, as well, what little touch of sass she may have carried only a moment ago wasn’t about to be torn down, if noticed at all...

But the truth was she still worried. She didn’t want to get in trouble, so of course that was the first thing on the last-sparked’s mind… She met Avalanche’s gaze with her own azure glow. A slight caution still there as her servos sat desperately idle at her sides.

As the larger femme began to speak, however, the young femme's optics lowered. An embarrassed sort of whuff as the very true words were said out loud, and acknowledged. She was flattered to be complemented, and even more-so to be offered the honor of advisement. It wasn't a position she took lightly.

There was a light shift of air out part-closed vents at the mention of her current work. A mild laugh. “Yes ma’am.” Deeply meant, though not entirely serious. A light cock of the helm, and a raise of one brow as a smile slipped through the warm, low tone. All due respect given, though the phrase still spoken in partial jest to the concise order on how to proceed.

Patch picked up the scanner once more. She was about halfway through straightening the bend now. Wanted to get a decent internal scan to make sure it wasn’t inadvertently putting strain on anything inside. If they needed to do this over the course of a few days, or even weeks to give everything a chance to adjust, so be it. She didn’t, however, wish to loosen things up to the point they would start to malfunction.

As the beam of light cast down, and over the components of the officer’s shoulder, the young femme started mildly. “And it’s not… So much that I think you’re ‘wrong’ it’s just...” The scanner snapped off with a quiet pip. Still churning away at the new information.

“I’m not really used to this... The whole-” She gave the other femme a sort of wide, smirking side-eye. “‘Family’ thing…” She looked back down as she skimmed the readouts. “It’s nice. For better or for worse, I know I’d be scared to loose it. In all our faults, I like to think the closeness around here is one thing that makes us strong.”

“After all, I mean...” She cocked her helm, slightly. Trying to hint at the fact this was a spitball idea as she shifted to place the scanner back on the table. “Running into fire to frag yourself for the sake of a cause is one thing... but doing it for ten people you love makes it a hell of a lot more appealing, far as I’m concerned.”

[Avalanche]

The way Patch tensed up in fearful anticipation made Avalanche wince inwardly. It couldn't be helped, and it wasn't an unreasonable reaction; the small femme didn't know her, not yet, and Avalanche herself knew how swiftly a seemingly friendly superior could turn on you if they felt you'd crossed a line.

Hopefully, and Avalanche truly did hope, it'd be the last time Patch had to feel that level of uncertainty about her intentions. The femme was an excellent med tech, and by the brief impression she'd offered so far, an able soldier. She deserved better than to find herself waiting and listening to her own fuel pump in anticipation of punishment that she hadn't earned.

The other femme's laugh eased the tightness around Avalanche's fuel pump a fraction, and she closed her optics as the scanner's beam pried into her exposed shoulder assembly.

The mechanisms there were hard and heavy duty, originally built to take a lot of punishment without needing much maintenance, and subsequent war-rebuilds had taken that design philosophy and run with it. The straightening work was redistributing the load back squarely upon the bulky support structures and pivots, where the twisted axle had been pressing on them at an angle; the assembly appeared to be taking to the corrective force well.

Avalanche's expression shifted as she listened to Patch talk, becoming more meditative. "Not sure I know what they're trying to say when they say 'family' around here. Most good, tight units I know, once you get out on the field you're fighting for a lot of reasons. Sure, there's the cause, but you can't think of abstract stuff in the middle of a firefight. You're fighting because they're the enemy and you're both trying to kill each other. But even when it gets to be that stripped down, you still fight for the people around you. Took me a long time to understand that, and it made me a better soldier when I did."

She began to shrug, then stopped herself, arresting the motion almost before it had started. "You take a shot for the mecha beside you, and you don't stop to think about it. You just do it. Don't need all this hot air about organic pack-bonding for that. If they're trying to promote a good, tight knit unit with that talk, then sure, I'm there for that. It just can't come at the cost of discipline under fire."

[Patch]

Patch quirked a brow at Ava’s first few words, considering them with a quiet nod at nowhere in particular as her arms crossed, and the back of her hips touched the terminal. Sounded like the commander had come full circle around to understanding the value of camaraderie. It may have been like breathing to Patch, but she’d learned the hard way making friends wasn’t always easy for everyone. Sometimes it took work, but putting in the effort mattered.

As she began the second chunk of words, Patch easily turned back to the green glowing, octagonal screen and began looking over the previous list of issues- still listening idly, as she reviewed. She couldn’t say she entirely agreed with the sentiment. Sure; you absolutely did take whatever the enemy threw at the guy beside you, when you could. Though the smaller medic really did believe that bonds- that care could not only hold a unit together, but make life Livable in the process.

In honesty, the two likely had similar outlooks- similar sentiments even if the details there-in were ever so slightly separate. And even if they didn’t end up seeing eye to eye, that wasn’t a bad thing. They were, after all, different femmes, with different jobs. Both of which involved maintaining people- just in different ways. Patch could respect that.

By the end, the smaller medic pulled away from the screen, and took up the rag just one more time for the last little bit of adjustment, and a potential few tweaks to get it right as it could be. As she did, the conversation did start turning back towards her own opinions a bit closer.

“Now that I do understand.”

Shifting the step and a half back to Avalanche’s open shoulder, the small femme carefully folded the towel down around and behind the kinked joint one more time.

“And honestly? I’m not blind. We could use a little more of that in places.” She nodded her helm lightly towards the commander. “Sounds like you’re gonna be a force to keep us moving in that direction.”

The small medic braced her knee down upon the top of the slab and leaned back into the pressure once more.

“Just a little more of this I think. Then we’ll putcha' back together, maybe see about your hands too- you said they were stiff?”

[Avalanche]

“Sounds like you’re gonna be a force to keep us moving in that direction.”

Avalanche nodded in acknowledgement, though in truth, she wasn't certain of that. She'd try, of course, but she was nowhere near the top of the stack in a garrison run personally by the Prime, and presumably this was how he wanted things. All she could do was make her personal judgement clear, then follow orders.

She became a little quieter as Patch returned to heaving on her damaged shoulder, her denta pressing together behind closed lips. It wasn't that it hurt - the med tech had done an efficient job of numbing that part of her chassis. It wasn't even that it felt strange, even though it did; the sensation of something pulling and tugging within her frame was unsettling and not particularly pleasant. No, her stillness came from a tangled ball of nervous anticipation that damage she'd neglected and hidden for so long might be fixed at the smaller femme's hand.

"...yeah, that's right," the big femme confirmed after a moment. "Nothing sudden. Nothing that interferes with my operational work. They just don't move as easily as they used to."

Her hands were huge, dwarfing Patch's, built with heavy, ridged armour plating along the backs of her fingers and a blunt set of spiked knuckle dusters that could pivot out of the way or lock into place for a blow. The joints were exposed, over-engineered for durability, thick plates at her wrist meant for absorbing the relentless hammering of the jackhammer piledrivers in her forearms. They looked basically intact, but worn with time and use, her paint chipped and scratched.

While a scan might delve deeper into their inner configuration - and the issues there - they could wait. More pressing was the matter of her shoulder joint. The massive rod was slowly straightening as Patch put her full strength into yanking at it, braced and locked by Avalanche's own internal mechanisms to prevent it from simply slipping or rotating under the pressure.

A faint metallic groan came from within her shoulder as the kink was forced straight, the bulky rod pushing a little more firmly into its housings as it regained the length it had effectively lost to the bend. Now there was a choice to be made: the actuator rack bolted to the shaft could be left alone, and with time, might be tugged back into a squarer position. Or, on the other hand, the massive bolts that had sheared under the load could be drilled out and replaced, and the rack forced back to its original mounting location.

While leaving it didn't seem as though it would restrain her arm movement anymore, it did have the potential to eventually fail catastrophically under load, the rack slipping off the frame entirely to leave her shoulder loose and unmoving. Still, it had survived for a long time that way under heavy use...

"With the ground bridge," get the name right, "it seems like you don't need to spend much time immediately outside the garrison here. Are there manual exits? What's the local area like?"

She wasn't going to ask how it was going. As if that alone could stop her thinking about what Patch was doing, and whether it would work.

[Patch]

There it was…

Once the bar was straightened out Patch did so herself once more, placed her servos on her hips, and admired her work scrupulously. The woven metallic rag hung down beside her leg, in her fist as she looked over the joint.

The young medic recognised that the mount could fail with the pressure of the limb now awkwardly placed, considering how things had migrated. It was a risk. Though she deemed adjusting it manually too advanced a procedure to take on alone. Yet again- she would insure Ratchet got the information on what was wrong, and what she’d done about it, and if he deemed it necessary? Perhaps he could see to moving that as well once he set to work on that indent over her pump.

Hopefully they wouldn’t have to leave such issues for long…
In the meantime, however, the young medic opted to begin closing up.

Shuffling around in her tools for a moment with her free hand, Patch plucked up a little white tube lookin’ thing- oil. Very nice oil. Medicated, if only in a superficial sort of way. Once an over the counter, brand name item; likely only seen in hospitals which could produce it themselves, at this point. Stimulate repair, tone down inflammation, prevent rust- all goals, though on the back burner compared to the primary objective; reducing friction on a part while it healed.

Popping the cap off with a fluid twist as she bent to the spot she’d been messing with, Patch began to lowly respond to the question.

“Mostly desert landscape. Dry organic brush, lots of flat land, occasional ditches and mesas- this base is disguised as one actually, on the outside.”

Her tone was mild, aware of how close she currently was to her patient’s helm. As she spoke she let the thin fluid run between what spots she’d found metal shavings in, especially. She held the cloth beneath to catch any excess, and rub it back onto the surface of the internals.

“As for exits, there are a few. We got the main door out there in the control room.” The young femme quirked her helm towards the door. “Plus an elevator a little ways down the hall that leads to the roof- though that one’s only really good for fliers, it’s a pretty steep slope. We got a landing pad up there too.”

Satisfied, she drew the tube back out, wiped the nozzle with her cloth, then twisted the little cap back on. She tossed it back, then deftly maneuvered to prod the same few pressure points she’d engaged to get the thing to open in the first place, expecting the mechanisms to shut once more.

“There’s a populated town a couple klicks away, though we have a bit of a radius to be conspicuous if need be. Far enough they wouldn’t see us; though we still try not to be too noisy. No testing explosives on location or the like. No target practice if it can be helped.”

[Avalanche]

Avalanche nodded along thoughtfully as Patch spoke, though keeping the motion slight. Desert landscape, light cover, sharp divides between different levels of elevation above a relatively flat plain - she'd dealt with territory like that before. It had a tendency to hang onto tracks until the wind blew more strongly, which had been an issue in the past. Air blowers could be used to mask things at a rudimentary level, running convoys in strict nose to tail configuration to minimise the trampled pathway...

None of that seemed to be useful to their security concerns here. A world was a large place, and with the bridge, narrowing down the approximate area of Autobot activity would be hard. Still, if the enemy did narrow it down, picking out the actual shelter could be easier than it had to be. Worth considering.

Rather more worrying was the information about base accesses; a little flicker of unease touched Avalanche's field as she listened. "So the only way in or out for grounders is in one room," she murmured, mostly to herself. Worse than she'd feared; if an enemy gained access to the installation, they only needed to hold one point to turn the rest of the garrison into a trap to be cleared out at leisure. The only alternative being sending grounders up to be stranded atop a mesa with no cover and no way down; might as well offer them on a platter to the Decepticon air force.

Was there a reel of descent cable pitoned into the rock up there? Did the lift have a redundant battery system? More questions to ask, more things to tackle. But an emergency second exit as far away from the control room as possible had to be her first recommendation.

Occupied with her thoughts, Avalanche tried not to pay too much attention to what Patch was doing. She wasn't squeamish, but there was something a little unsettling about the rooting around she could feel within her frame, and it was easier to focus on something else. But as Patch straightened, there was something about her chassis language that said 'I'm finished', even before she began the re-locking procedure.

The lowest levels of Avalanche's plating closed up smoothly, hiding the exposed mechanisms and pressing additional braces into place, creating a solid, reinforced joint that was fluid-tight against contamination. A couple more layers of armour plate were bolted into place on top, locking around each lower layer in an archaeology of the changes made to her frame, until finally the heavy white shoulder guard was slotted over the top of her thick, treaded tyre and bolted down with the last of the bulky hex-headed fasteners resting in the little tray under the medical table.

Avalanche's fuel pump hummed faster in her chest cavity, a prickling nervousness running through her frame. With a certain awkwardness, afraid to try to move her arm if she wasn't meant to, afraid to hope too much for fear of being disappointed, she asked diffidently, "Can I check my range of movement now?"

[Patch]

The young femme grinned, eager to see for herself how the femme’s shoulder was fairing.

“Go for it.”

As the commander no doubt sat up, and began to move her arm, Patch gave her a bit of space, and leaned against the console again. Stance casual, legs hip-width apart as she payed close attention, and searched for signs something was off. Her own arms were very loosely crossed at her midsection, her right hand softly gesticulating ever so often as she spoke.

“It’ll get sore before it feels better, but you should have full range of motion now. I’ma give you a snivel program to run in the morning for the first few days, take it or don’t- but if it starts feeling sharp at the mount? Not just achy, but tearing or stress? come back as Soon as you can. Especially if the metal starts makin’ noises.”

She turned and swiftly padded a few more notes into the open file; listing the anti-inflammatory no doubt as a countermeasure against discomfort.

“As for the calf, I don’t wanna mess up your arm and your leg all in one, so. Couple weeks to recover and adjust, then if ya get bored- know you have a lull coming up for a few days, come on back we’ll sort ya out.”

Patch turned back around once more, and regarded Avalanche with a soft, inquisitive glance up and down. Searching for tightness or discomfort in any spot, as well as the mount in question.

“How’s it feel?”

[Avalanche]

Avalanche considered herself to have a healthy relationship with fear.

She'd known mecha that touched on both extremes of it; extending a hand to those frozen by the clamour of the alarms in their minds, and pulling fearless idiots up short before they got someone killed. She'd been both extremes. Fear, in its most productive form, reminded you to pay attention.

The fear she felt, at that moment, was not the productive kind. It was the kind that tensed every strut and cable, stiffened every actuator, in the horrible anticipation of confronting reality and finding it to have fallen short of her treacherously optimistic dreams. Even so. She wasn't a femme to hold back from any confrontation, even with herself.

Slowly, using her right hand for leverage, Avalanche sat up.

Even without trying to move her shoulder, even with the numbing mechanism plugged into her wrist port, the difference was immediately tangible. The unpleasant heaviness of her shoulder was gone, the excess fluid fully drained to leave the bulky compartment lighter than it had been in a long, long time. The weight had crept up on her, little by little, and it was only in its absence that she could feel the burden it had been.

"...that's better," she murmured, beginning to rock her left elbow back and forth, then carefully lifting it a little. The joint moved smoothly and painlessly, without the almost subliminal scratchy feeling she'd long gotten used to from the shavings and fragments of metal in her mechanisms.

Another pang of tension, a deep, hollow ache in the pit of her chest. Another twinge of paranoia that she was getting too far ahead of herself, too soon.

Slowly and carefully, Avalanche reached upwards. The movement of her arm slowed as her outstretched hand reached shoulder height, anticipating the grinding of actuators locking together. It didn't come. Little by little, she eased her arm upwards until it was fully vertical, reaching up towards the ceiling. She clenched her hand a couple of times, then raised and lowered her arm, stretching her hand out to the side, then up towards the sickbay lights above once more.

She laughed.

It was a husky, feminine laugh, one that resonated behind her chestplate and filled the sickbay. Breaking into a grin, her field flooded with surprised delight, Avalanche pushed herself off the bed and lifted both arms into a fighting stance, raising her left forearm in a hard overhead block that flowed into an easy punch. Her body moved fluidly, each movement coming solidly from braced feet and solidly aligned hips.

Avalanche turned towards Patch, the grin still on her lips, and shook her helm. "It feels good. Thanks, Patch." The words were simple, but oh, they carried a weight with them.