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dracoqueen22Title: War Without End – Thundercracker
Universe: Bayverse, post-DotM, canon-compliant
Characters: Thundercracker, Skywarp, Ratchet, Drift, Wheeljack, Dreadwing, Tracks, Prowl
Rating: T
Warnings: mentions of character death, angst, some language, canon typical violence,
Desc: Thundercracker is tired of merely surviving. He wants to live.
Thundercracker - Part Two
-------------------
The first clue that something is not quite right hits Thundercracker as he bursts out of recharge. He’s woken by a tiny subroutine that runs on the edge of his awareness, keeping track of their perimeter sensors.
Something is approaching.
Before he's fully online, Thundercracker swings himself out of the berth and taps into their makeshift systems. He’s instantly skimming the report from the perimeter sensors and the sensory grid laid over their base. The arrival isn’t one of the human's insentient vehicles passing by on the little-traveled road at the edge of the farm. No, whatever’s approaching is coming from above.
Human transport aircraft don’t fly this low unless landing, and there aren’t any airports nearby. It could be another one of those annoying crop dusters or a personal craft, but it’s the wrong time of day for those.
Thundercracker pushes through the curtain concealing his berth and into the living space. There, Skywarp is stumbling from his own debatably private area.
“Want me to check it out?” Skywarp asks, already flexing his wings.
Thundercracker taps into the cameras. There are four of them, carefully concealed on the roofs and giving a broad view of the surrounding landscape. He sees nothing. No low-flying planes. No birds that occasionally trip the sensor grid. Not even so much as a lost weather balloon.
But the alarm is still flashing. Now, Thundercracker's comm is buzzing, too.
“What's going on?” he voices aloud.
--We don't know-- is Drift’s reply, succinct as always. --Can't see anything on the vids. Sensors are pinging back something large, but it's not registering on any of the scanners. It passed through the trip lasers, but it's not there.--
“Maybe they're malfunctioning?” Skywarp suggests as he listens in. He rubs his fists against his optics like some organic.
Thundercracker checks the satellite schedule, hacked from the military database, and deems it safe enough to go outside. He peers into the open fields, the faintest ripple in the sky giving credence to the alarm of their sensors.
“No, they aren't,” he counters, battle systems cycling on. “Whatever it is, it's cloaked.”
Further confirmation arrives in the form of a second alert that pings Thundercracker's processor. It’s the pressure sensors warning him that something has moved in the field.
Skywarp's wings jerk upright. “That's Decepticon technology,” he says in a low tone and Thundercracker hears the quiet whine of a blaster charging. “And we don't have any buddies who'd come looking.”
“The better question would be how they found us,” the other Seeker agrees, moving into position.
He sends out a light sweep with his own sensors, a probing glance that pings back the dimensions of a spacecraft. Not that Thundercracker couldn’t have guessed that on his own. He exchanges a silent look with Skywarp and his trinemate nods, blasters replacing his hands and spinning with building charge.
Thundercracker powers up his own cannons, and the two of them split. They move to flank the ship that has invited itself into their sanctuary.
“Unidentified Decepticon spacecraft,” Thundercracker says aloud, keeping his tone as commanding as possible. “State your designation and your purpose, or you will be fired upon.”
The air ripples in front of Thundercracker. The cloaking field shifts as the Decepticons disengage the protocols that would allow them to disembark without unveiling their craft. These bots are no fools.
“Mech, that is some kind of greeting,” a voice drawls from nowhere, though acoustics indicate it’s coming from directly in front of Thundercracker.
He tenses. Searching out with his energy field since his own sensors are seemingly useless. Something tugs at him. Something oddly not hostile.
“Identify yourselves!” Skywarp growls from nearby. His thrusters spit heat, betraying his anxiety.
Everything is at stake right now. Their lives. The hatchling’s lives. Everything.
This is, of course, the very click that Ratchet comes bursting out of his medbarn. His energy field is a whirl of surprise and relief and happiness that shocks Thundercracker more than anything else.
“Wheeljack, you aft, get your rusty frame out here!” Ratchet all but bellows, pedes stomping through the frost-covered grass.
Thundercracker cycles his audials.
Wheeljack!? Why is the designation so familiar?
“Wheeljack!” Skywarp gasps, boggling as laughter echoes all around them and the sky ripples again.
A mech appears out of nowhere, all lines and stocky frame, battlemask concealing half his face, but his vocal indicators flashing merrily. The mech bounds straight toward Ratchet before Thundercracker can even fathom what’s going on, and they collide with a screech of metal on metal. It’s an attacking embrace that sends Ratchet tumbling on his aft and probably causing no small amount of dents.
Thundercracker stares. So does Skywarp. But for different reasons.
“You glitch,” Ratchet snarls, managing to both cling to the new arrival and smack his palm over the bot’s helm at the same time. “You stupid, fragging...”
“Primus, I missed ya, too,” the mech, whom Thundercracker assumes to be Wheeljack, puts in with another laugh. There's a groan of metal on metal as his arms tighten around Ratchet and refuse to let go.
Ratchet moves to grip him firmly, pulling Wheeljack forward him, pressing their helms together. His optics offline, a shudder of relief flickering across his frame.
Skywarp powers down his weapons and wanders over beside Thundercracker. He looks disappointed. Wistful even.
“Well, that was... unexpected.”
Overstatement of the eon, Warp.
Thundercracker disengages his own battle protocols. He isn’t sure how to react to the scene before him, but he settles for something like acceptance. It’s better than the alternative at any rate.
“Unexpected but lucky,” he decides.
Especially since any kind of battle would’ve threatened their makeshift base. The barns are little more than weather-beaten wood and provide bare protection to the hatchlings within.
Behind him, a door swings open. Drift emerges with a wary glance, sword gripped in one hand. Thundercracker gives him the sign for all clear, but Drift doesn't immediately relax. He nods once, sheathes the massive sword, and steps into the open, pulling the door firmly shut behind him. The hatchlings don't need constant supervision fortunately, and it's best that their new arrival does not see them yet.
Ratchet may trust the Autobot that tackled him to the ground, but Thundercracker is reserving judgment. For now.
“Not an attack?” Drift asks, his vocal tones soft. But his optics lock on Ratchet and Wheeljack, who better resemble a pair of reunited bondmates than fellow soldiers.
Skywarp smirks then. “Why? You jealous?”
Drift ignores him, focusing on Thundercracker instead. Though he doesn't miss the way Drift's optics keep floating back to Ratchet. Interesting.
“How did he find us?”
A very good question. One Thundercracker intends to have answered, sooner rather than later.
He approaches the cuddling Autobots, wings flared, rumbling his engine pointedly. The fact that they have discreetly cabled themselves together isn't missed either. Hmm. Perhaps Ratchet and Drift are truly platonic. Never mind what the latter obviously wishes.
“The satellites will pass overhead in less than ten minutes, so unless you intend to announce our presence to the humans, I suggest you make yourselves more presentable,” Thundercracker says, and he can't hide the annoyance in his tone. Partly because he hates being left out of the loop. Not to mention he's once again stepped into the role of leader.
Ratchet doesn't look up or even online his optics. However, the snarl that echoes in the medic's chassis proves he's paying attention.
“I know about the satellites, frag it.”
Wheeljack chuckles, pats Ratchet on the back. He then extricates himself from Ratchet's arms, despite the medic's protest.
“Cozy little family you've got here, Ratch,” he comments with a green flash of his indicators. “Not... uh, what I was expecting.”
“Where is Optimus Prime?”
Thundercracker whirls toward the cloaked ship at the unexpected voice, though he should have guessed the Autobot wasn't traveling alone. The field shimmers, and two more mechs step into view. His optics cycle wider at the sight of them. One, he doesn't recognize, although the Autobot sigil is plain enough. The other is a Decepticon.
Thundercracker sends off a ping, which confirms one identity and provides a designation for the other – Tracks. Not that it helps. Thundercracker doesn't know anything about this Autobot. And because politeness couldn't hurt, Thundercracker sends a quick burst of his own designation for their benefit.
“Dreadwing,” Thundercracker acknowledges and draws himself up straight. “What are you doing with these Autobots?”
The larger Seeker arches a brow. “Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing, Commander Thundercracker?” He gives a pointed look around. “Where is Lord Megatron?”
“Dead,” Skywarp chirps, bounding forward to examine the two of them, giving the Autobot a briefly interested look before focusing on Dreadwing again. “Is there anyone else aboard?”
“No,” Tracks answers, his voice laced with cultured tones and accents that denote his origins as a Towers mech.
Thundercracker's optics narrow. “How did you find us?”
“I can answer that,” Wheeljack says brightly, patting Ratchet on the shoulder before moving to stand with his companions. “It was me. I found Ratchet. I can always find Ratch. Though I did expect him to be with Prime.”
Ratchet palms his face. “That's a long story,” he responds, emotion leaking into his vocals. “But Thundercracker's right. We have to get back inside.”
“Why?” Dreadwing frowns and shifts closer to Tracks as Skywarp eases up to them.
“It's part of that loooong story,” Warp inserts, throwing an arm over Dreadwing's shoulder and poking the dark blue Seeker in his abdominal plating. “We don't want to be found by the humans just yet. That’d be bad.”
Dreadwing shrugs out from under the arm. He shuffles even closer to Tracks until his wing brushes the Autobot’s side.
“I see.” His gaze flickers to the barns, and Thundercracker can see the distaste in his expression. “This is your base?”
“For better or worse,” Ratchet grumps and turns on a pede, stomping toward the medbarn. It has the most space and carries the least explosive material.
Drift follows him without another word.
“Some things never change,” Wheeljack offers with a shake of his helm. He turns to acknowledge his companions. “Come on then. We won't get any answers standing around here; that's for sure.”
Tracks’ mouthplates curl into a grin. “This is going to be... interesting.”
Dreadwing gives him a look but trails after him very closely even as he steps forward. All three new arrivals follow Ratchet and Drift into the barn, leaving Thundercracker and Skywarp alone to stare at each other.
“You ever feel like you've wandered into some alternate dimension by accident?” Warp asks suddenly. His gaze is locked on the still-cloaked ship, wings all but twitching to go explore. So much Cybertronian tech so close. He's all but oozing over it.
Thundercracker turns away. “Every tic of every cycle,” he grumbles. “Get your aft in here.”
“You probably don't remember Wheeljack, do you?” Warp poses after a moment.
“I never made it a habit of knowing my Autobot oppressors,” he replies automatically, not even thinking over the answer.
Skywarp makes a noise, half-amusement and half-disdain. “Don't spit that Decepticon propaganda at me,” he shoots back.
Thundercracker is just in front of the door, but he turns toward his trinemate.
“You’re telling me you don't believe it?”
“That's not what I said.” Skywarp folds his arms over his chassis. “The Council's offline, and for that, I say good riddance. But there were some decent mechs in the Autobots. You worked with Ratchet, remember?”
Thundercracker doesn’t even dignify that with a scathing look.
As if he could forget.
“Exception to the rule,” he retorts and tries not to remember things he’d much rather forget. “The majority of my other clients weren't worth the energon in their lines. Or mine.”
Which, as a consequence of his position within the Home Guard and his origin as a war-build, was barely adequate for his needs and completely tasteless.
And that’s beside the point.
“You do know Ratchet's an Autobot, right?” Skywarp presses with a raised orbital ridge. “And Drift, too.”
A low sound resonates in Thundercracker's internals, but he bites it back. Warp is too good at pressing other bot’s buttons, and he refuses to let this bother him. Skywarp will eventually let it go; Stars never would have. He’d simply press and cajole and threaten until Megatron stomped on him or he found something else that caught his interest more. Only to return to the original topic at the least convenient time possible.
Warp though… He was just testing the skies. Seeing what was hidden in the clouds and noting the topography of the land below.
“That's a different matter entirely,” Thundercracker dismisses, and his tone says that it’s time to cut this out. “Why are you suddenly Team Prime anyway?”
Skywarp's optics flash, and he bares his denta in an unexpected burst of aggression. One that takes Thundercracker aback.
“Frag Prime and everything that glitch stands for,” Warp spits out, and his wings flare. “He's just as bad as his brother; it just took him longer to show it.”
Thundercracker searches his face for a long moment. He isn’t quite sure what to think of the look he finds.
“Just what are you getting at?” he questions, but it’s softer now. Muted and delicate. Like what he’d used when dealing with Stars at his worst.
Starscream was the moody one of their trine. Prone to snits and fits and pouting like a spoiled Towers-born sparkling who hadn’t gotten the last energon treat. Warp was supposed to be the energetic one, bright and loud. Boisterous. Not sullen.
“I'm sick of it,” Skywarp says then, and his entire frame slumps, his face twisting with exhaustion. A rare display of vulnerability. “Autobots. Decepticons. Factions. The lines that divide us. Real and imagined.” He gushes out air. “You don't remember Wheeljack, but I do. I remember admiring him, wanting to meet him, thinking… This is what I could’ve been if my spark had been given a different frame.”
Some part of Thundercracker aches at that. His spark, he thinks. His memory core, too. He could’ve been a lot more as well. If he’d been given a real opportunity.
“And now's your chance,” he offers and moves closer to put a hand on Warp’s shoulder.
He doesn’t shake it off. Instead leaning into the touch in a way that Starscream never would. No matter how bad things got.
“Yeah.” A chirrup of hope brightens the core of Skywarp's energy field as it wraps around them both. “Weird how things turn out, isn't it?”
That's one way of looking at it, Thundercracker supposes. He makes a semi-verbal agreement and gives a squeeze before letting go. Turns and girds his loins, so to speak. New arrivals mean new dangers mean new processor-aches.
Until the moment he was designated their unofficial leader, Thundercracker never thought he'd have reason to miss Starscream, aside from the obvious. But with the knowledge that three Autobots and two pseudo-Decepticons await him in a human-made structure… well, that make Thundercracker's spark contract with anxiety.
Thundercracker steps into the barn, Skywarp on his heels, and is surprised by the arrangement that greets him. He expected to have found the Autobots migrating together, excluding Dreadwing. Thereby putting a clear line between the two factions. Drift would’ve probably kept himself a mech apart, looking longingly in Ratchet's direction.
What he finds, however, is that Dreadwing and the Towers mech are all but attached at the hip along the near wall. Wheeljack is away from them, now examining an energon purifier with close scrutiny. Meanwhile, Ratchet has one of the hatches open, listening to whatever directions Wheeljack gives.
The only one who meets Thundercracker's expectations is Drift. He’s sitting on a crate, closest to the entrance the hatchling area. He’d seem terribly nonchalant were it not for his painfully pathetic expression as he looks in Ratchet's direction. It’d be hilarious if it weren't so pitiful.
Pfft. Autobots.
At least, all of them are clustered in the first part of the barn, away from where the hatchlings are kept. Thundercracker doesn’t want to have to explain that one just yet.
“Cutting it close, weren't you?” Ratchet immediately snarks in his direction without looking up. “Frag it, Jack, if you do that you'll short out the regulator!”
Wheeljack has the gall to look offended. “I think I know what I'm doing, medic. Trust me. This'll work.”
Skywarp all but runs over, field a whirling mix of excitement and trepidation.
“What are you doing?” he demands like an eager sparkling. “That's delicate equipment. It barely works as it is.”
There's a distinct clunk. A flash of something. The smell of smoke. Thundercracker winces, but Wheeljack's indicators light up with self-satisfaction.
“And now, it'll barely work better,” Wheeljack says with an affectionate pat to the machine's outer casing. “It's good work for what you got. Build it yourself, kid?”
Thundercracker watches as Warp puffs himself up with indignation. Only to deflate and fluster at the unexpected praise.
“Ratchet helped.”
“Since when have you been modest?” the medic retorts with a roll of his optics as he snaps the panel closed. “I gave you the materials. That's the extent of my contribution.”
Wheeljack elbows Ratchet in the side, though affectionately. “Smart move, Ratch. Remember the last time I let you build something without supervision?”
“Irrelevant!” Ratchet declares loudly, and with a huff, he turns his back. “Have your little talk. I'm busy!”
“I, for one, would be interested in some answers,” Tracks interprets, lifting an arm and waving it in the air. “For instance, what's going on? Where's Prime? What is Ratchet doing with you two? Why are we hiding out in this... building?” Revulsion is evident in the mech's sour look and the way he inches from everything, as though afraid of the inescapable dust.
“We're hiding here because we don't have much of a choice otherwise,” Drift inserts as he leans against the wall and folds his arms over his chassis. Disappointment practically wafts from him. “The Autobots would kill us, and the humans would happily toss whatever's left into their oceans.”
“Humans?” Wheeljack repeats, the curiosity in his tone evident.
“The dominant sapient species on this planet,” Thundercracker answers with a wing flip. He pulls up a crate; this is going to be a long conversation. “Optimus Prime is currently allied with the humans along with the rest of the surviving Autobots, and he isn’t the same mech. He is... different.”
Wheeljack's optics dim, giving away the frown hiding behind his battle mask. He turns to their medic.
“Ratch?”
“Don't ask me to explain it, Jack,” the other mech replies with a tired burr of static in his vocalizer. His back is currently to them as he tinkers around, trying and failing to look busy. Equally trying not to look to where the hatchlings and their containers are hidden just out of view. “Just… don't.”
Tracks' orbital ridges lift nearly to the edge of his helm. “Very well,” he allows slowly. “Prime is different. So you defected?”
“Something like that,” Drift answers as Ratchet visibly stiffens but says nothing. “He's still Autobot. They're still Decepticons. Together we're... what?”
“Trying to get off this fragging planet,” Skywarp throws in, dropping himself down into a lazy sprawl. “Though there's nowhere to go. Cybertron's gone. Destroyed. By Prime himself.”
Shock ripples through the barn in a tidal wave of spiking fields. Dreadwing steps forward, but Tracks’ grip keeps him back.
Drift shakes his head and puts a hand to his optics. “An action caused, in part, by Megatron and Sentinel Prime’s incomprehensible plot. It forced our hands.”
“It’d be easier,” Ratchet interjects rather loudly, “if you gave them the data packet.”
Trust Ratchet to bellow the most convenient suggestion.
There’s a moment of pause then as they look at each other. With an almost sheepish air, Thundercracker directs Skywarp to cable up to Wheeljack, Drift to Tracks, and then takes Dreadwing's offered data connection himself.
Compiled by Ratchet and Drift, edited from the one the Autobots currently use to induct new arrivals, this particular packet leaves out nothing. No details, no truths. Just the hard, bitter facts. Once the file is transferred, Thundercracker watches the new bots, able to tell just when they've unpacked certain details.
Five years is hardly a speck in the cosmic timeline to Cybertronians, but it’s so very rare that so much change hits their race in such a short period. Megatron's death and resurrection. Optimus Prime's death and resurrection. The battles, the mechs lost on both sides, painful revelations, the destruction of their world, the Autobots’ tentative alliance with the humans, and the disdainful way they are treated by the organics. The Fallen, Sentinel's betrayal, the hatchlings...
Dreadwing slumps onto a crate, a mournful keen rising in his vocalizer. Tracks passes an arm over his companion's back, as though he knows the reason behind this sorrow. Thundercracker immediately suspects it’s specific and not a generalized grief for the loss of their kind and their home.
Wheeljack too lets out a painful sound of loss and drops to his knees. A surprised Skywarp nearly topples down with him as he reaches out to catch the Autobot on automatic.
Thundercracker's own spark gives a tremble of sympathy. It's easier for him, he supposes, since he's had so much time to absorb all of their losses little by little. He's been here, on Earth. Too busy trying to keep hidden, to stay alive, to figure out what the frag they’re going to do. He hasn't really had time to dwell, to mourn.
It must be worse for them, to learn of how very fragged they are as a species. No planet. No leadership. No future. Friends and kin extinguished by this pointless war, trapped on a planet where the resident population would sooner see them offlined and dumped somewhere to rust.
“Ratch,” Wheeljack croaks, vocalizer stuttering with static and indicators now grey. “Did he...?”
“Suffer?” Ratchet's voice, for once, is soft and gentle. There is none of his earlier ire. “No, Que offlined quickly.”
Lies. Autobot sentimentality. Thundercracker knows what happened in the Chicago battle. He remembers picking up the celebration over the airwaves, hearing Barricade and a pack of drones gloating. He remembers being disgusted, spark churning at the gleeful murders and honorless dregs the once-great Decepticons had become.
Que's death was violent and then mocked. Unable to hold onto his dignity even after fighting for a planet that didn't want the Autobots' protection.
Ratchet moves away after that, heading through the door to the medbay proper. Thundercracker though grits his denta and glances at Dreadwing, whose helm has bowed, his hands clasped together. Tracks is all but welded to him, murmuring into the Seeker's audial. So close that their fields have blurred and synced. Thundercracker can’t even tell them apart now.
Are they… together? Involved? Autobot and Decepticon? A Towers mech and a Seeker? A war-build?
Before the war, Dreadwing could’ve been imprisoned for even touching someone from the Towers. For speaking out of turn. And now, he has one all but attached to his spark. Willingly!
Yet another mystery to unravel.
Rubbing his faceplate, Thundercracker turns away from the sheer misery and joins Ratchet in the back room. Not that the medic is doing anything important. He's standing in front of the single berth, braced on the edge, shoulders hunched.
“They could probably use some energon,” Ratchet says quietly as Thundercracker approaches from behind. Sneaking up is practically impossible; his proximity sensors are always on high alert. A carryover from the last several years around Prime and the humans.
And what does that tell, Thundercracker muses from time to time. What does it say that Ratchet was so uncomfortable around his own allies that it warranted being on constant alert.
“Do we have it to spare?”
Thundercracker thinks of the hatchlings first. He glances over the screens that someone – Drift, perhaps – had moved to block them from both easy view and sensor sweeps.
Ratchet huffs. “With Wheeljack here, we can recoup our losses in less than a half-orn. If he and Skywarp work together, probably within an Earth day or two.”
For some reason, that makes him feel strangely buoyant. He doesn’t dare think on why.
“Autobots and Decepticons cooperating?” Thundercracker says instead, lipplates curling in a wry grin. “Perish the thought.”
A rattle echoes across Ratchet's plating. His energy field betrays the mixture of relief and sadness that seems to be ever-present as of late.
“It's strange,” he murmurs, shoulders sinking further as he stares straight ahead. “This, right here, is the future Optimus claimed to always want. It's the reason Ironhide pledged his life to the Autobots. It's the reason so many followed Optimus, despite loathing the Senate and High Council.” Ratchet's helm dips, ventilations a long, slow rhythm. “We're in this barn, Decepticons and Autobots sharing grief instead of ordnance. And the Prime who should be here, proud and accomplished, is out there somewhere. Trying to kill us all.”
Words crowd Thundercracker's vocalizer, but they’re all trite and useless. Ratchet is right, of course. He remembers the way he felt when he realized Megatron's original ideals were now buried by a lust for power. He remembers the betrayal that stabbed his processor, though he'd remained a Decepticon because the alternative was much worse. Go Neutral, desert his few friends, and subsequently starve on his own. Join the Autobots and forever suffer disdain as both a traitor and for his frame-type. Or remain a Decepticon, stay with Warp… and Stars, and suck it up.
Such wonderful options those were.
“Frag the Prime,” Thundercracker states in sudden clarity. “Frag him. Frag the Lord High Protector. The Senators. The Councilors. Frag the government. When has it done anything but make us miserable?”
A bitter chuckle spills like static from Ratchet's core. “Anarchy to the end, is that it?” His laughter is edged like a weapon. “We were never more than their pawns. Their playthings.” He glances over his shoulder, optics dim and betraying his exhaustion. “And because they didn’t know better, they called it civilization, when it was part of their slavery.”
It’s a human quote, but one that Thundercracker surprisingly recognizes.
“Maybe.” He pulls out some energon, though he feels like a poor host for offering the new arrivals this pathetic, gritty mixture. Even if it is the best of the batch so far. “Help me carry these?”
“Yes, sir.” Ratchet's tone is wry, but at least the overbearing sadness has lightened. He takes two in hand, leaving Thundercracker to carry the others.
Thundercracker, however, hesitates. His curiosity won't leave him alone.
“Coincidentally, you and Wheeljack...?”
Blue optics narrow. “Do you want to finish that question?”
An image of Drift's pathetic expression flashes across Thundercracker's databanks.
“I wasn't intending an insult,” he counters. “But he did say he could find you anywhere. Brothers?”
“Primus forbid.” Ratchet snorts in a distinctly human manner. “I've known that glitch more than half my functioning. Long enough that he's imprinted on my field and vice versa.”
Imprinting...?
It's not unlike the links that Seeker trines use, but this is not something that can be forced. It’s born only from constant proximity, and once solidified, imprints don’t fade. Similar to bonding in that regard but not quite the same. Caretakers often rely on it for siblings if they choose to take on more than one sparkling. Assuming, of course, that the siblings don’t spontaneously form a true bond of their own. And further assuming that there is a sibling in the first place. After all, such a thing is reserved for the middle or upper classes.
Lower class citizens simply couldn't afford more than one sparkling. If at all.
Thundercracker lowers his gaze. He’s unable to help the smirk in his tone.
“Does Drift know that?”
Not unexpectedly, Ratchet bristles. His plating flares out as though to make himself larger and more intimidating. Not that he isn’t intimidating enough as is.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he barks and pushes past Thundercracker, energy field a whip-crack of irritation.
At least he's been distracted from the melancholy, though by the time they join the others, it washes over Thundercracker again and tries to drag him down. Drift remains a silent statue, alone as he sits on the floor. His sword is perched between his legs, hands wrapped around the hilt. His helm is bowed as though either in recharge or meditation. Thundercracker suspects the latter.
Tracks has shifted from half-embracing Dreadwing to draping himself across the large Seeker's back and wings. His fingertips trace calming patterns over the etched glyphs on the broad, dark blue expanse. A subsonic hum resonates in the Autobot’s chassis, a soft cant of sympathy and consolation.
Skywarp's not even present. Where his trinemate has gone, Thundercracker isn't immediately certain, but a location ping indicates he's sneaked away to his lab. Thundercracker will have to venture over there and figure out what's caused him to go into hiding.
Wheeljack is the only one who looks up when they return. His optics brighten by much smaller margins than his earlier good humor.
“I'm not sure I want to know what that is,” he says with a pointed glance at the cubes in their hands.
“You'll take it and be grateful,” Ratchet grumbles, shoving the sludgy mixture at him. “And then, you can make sure we don't have to drink this slag again.”
Wheeljack tips the cube left and right, watching it glop around. “I wouldn't even put this slop in the Jackhammer.”
Which, Thundercracker assumes, must be the name of their spacecraft.
Still, Wheeljack slides his battlemask back, revealing a faceplate riddled with weld scars. Some of them look recent.
Ratchet rolls his optics and stomps by his fellow Autobot, snatching one of Thundercracker's cubes to take both to Tracks and Dreadwing. That leaves Thundercracker with a final cube that he has no intention of consuming for himself. So he caps the energon and stows it away in his subspace for later.
“So,” Wheeljack says, planting his hands on his hips and staring at Thundercracker. “What exactly are your plans?”
The Seeker just looks at him.
“Why are you asking me?”
A rumble of amusement echoes in the engineer's chassis. “Because Ratch doesn't lead, and I'll bet the grenade in my subspace our former Decepticon doesn't either.” He glances Drift’s direction before a second. “Something tells me Skywarp isn't one for giving orders. By default, that leaves you.”
Thundercracker tilts his helm in Dreadwing and Tracks' direction. “And them?”
“Who? The dream team?” Another rumble of laughter, this time emerging from his vocalizer with a staticky after-effect. “Tracks rescued me, but we both follow Dreadwing's lead. We Autobots are notorious for that.”
The last statement is edged with bitterness. Not toward Dreadwing but to Autobot culture in general.
More and more intriguing.
It’s obvious in just the handful of breems he’s known Tracks that the Towers mech would side with Dreadwing come Pit or the Unmaker himself, but for both Autobots to follow a Decepticon? For two former civilians – one of them a Towers mech – to follow a war-build? It fritzes his processor.
Thundercracker makes a noncommittal noise. Just about the only unpained sound he can offer.
“So you have what?” He gestures ambiguously. “A truce? An understanding?”
“Once the Allspark was gone, nearly everyone left Cybertron,” Wheeljack says and leans against the energon refiner he tinkered with earlier. “Autobots and Decepticons, we took off in all directions. There were skirmishes. I was part of a ten mech crew. I'm all that's left. Probably would’ve died if Tracks hadn't pulled me from the wreckage.” He ventilates and looks at the ground. “He was already with Dreadwing then, both of them the only survivors of their respective groups. By that point, eons and eons into a war that left both factions so scattered, insignias didn't seem to matter that much.”
“Are they...?”
Thundercracker leaves it vague on purpose. Easier if Wheeljack fills in the blanks.
Another bark of laughter is his answer. Wheeljack’s indicators light up, but the Seeker isn’t sure how to read them fully just yet.
“You'd think that, wouldn't you?” Wheeljack poses but waves off the question. “Nah. I don't know what to call them, but they’re as platonic as they come. I’d swear they were brothers if not for frame-type.” He casts a look their direction, where they’re still all but merged together. “I don't even pretend to understand it either. Some weird type of imprinting. A bond of a sort.” He shrugs then. “Not even Ratch and I are like that, and we’ve known each other since before I went to the Academy.”
Thundercracker arches an orbital ridge, unable to keep the incredulity from his energy field. Tracks' hands look possessive, not platonic, and the way their energy fields entwine with evident familiarity doesn't feel that way either. Maybe they only claimed such for Wheeljack to feel less isolated.
Thundercracker considers that possibility before casting about for another topic.
“What has Dreadwing so stricken?”
Wheeljack simply shrugs. “You'd have to ask him that. He wasn't particularly loyal to Megatron as far as I know. Cybertron's loss perhaps.”
Thundercracker frowns. The fate of their planet, their home, is grief-worthy to be sure, but this seems beyond that. Perhaps the data packet had brought news of Dreadwing's own trine or kin. He doesn't know enough of the Seeker to even hazard a guess.
“We should leave.” Dreadwing's vocals, laced with static, rumble through the entirety of the barn. “There is nothing on this planet for us but death.”
“We have nowhere to go.” Tracks makes another humming noise, his fingers dragging across the edge of a dark blue wing.
“We aren’t organic,” Ratchet corrects, having finally convinced both of them to take the disgusting energon and consume it. “There are other planets that might better suit. The problem is how.”
“The Jackhammer's spaceworthy,” Wheeljack says with a casual flash of his indicators. “But it's scout class, not transport. We won't all fit. And she needs repairs.”
Ratchet drops heavily onto a crate, the weak wood crackling beneath his weight but holding strong. “Repairs aren't the problem. I'm not leaving a mech behind, Autobot or Decepticon.”
“You’re certain Prime is beyond reason?” Tracks inquires. He leans over Dreadwing to snatch his companion's energon and drink from the barely consumed cube, only for his faceplates to twist with sheer disgust.
“He’s as mad as his brother,” Thundercracker answers when Ratchet falls into silence. “If not worse.”
“Then what's the plan?” Dreadwing questions, vocalizer glitching a few times before he audibly resets it. He leans further into Tracks and cycles down his optics. “You must already have something in mind.”
Thundercracker lowers himself to one of the crates that serve as furniture. “We’re pooling our resources and building equipment in an attempt to make our eventual exodus possible.”
“But until we find a vessel large enough for all of us and our precious cargo, we're stuck,” Drift unexpectedly adds. His head tilts up and over in the direction of the twelve hatchlings.
Dreadwing's optics dim completely. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a sparkling.”
Megatron's numerous drones don’t count in Thundercracker's opinions. Hatchlings incepted as quickly as possible, their processors loaded with battle subroutines, weapons stapled to their frames, and then sent to the slaughter. Without the Allspark, they were drones, but they could’ve been more. So much more.
“Yes… well, without the Allspark, you still aren't going to see one,” Drift comments, words aggressive but his tone tiredly disappointed.
“What's on the moon?” Wheeljack asks then.
Thundercracker flickers his optics at the odd non sequitur.
“The moon?” Ratchet repeats.
“Something pinged us as we passed,” Tracks clarifies. His helm rests on Dreadwing's shoulder from behind, a feat of placement considering the breadth of the Seeker's wings. “Some kind of automated signal.”
“You didn't stop to investigate it?” Thundercracker demands, scanning his processor for any clue as to what could’ve been left there.
Part of Sentinel's plot included a large force of Decepticon warriors being kept in stasis and hidden on the moon. Some of them could’ve been left behind during the battle, having either never onlined at Sentinel's signal or missing the opportunity to take the spacebridge to Earth. But any who did emerge from stasis would be long offline by now from lack of energon alone.
Thundercracker had seen the state of many of the Decepticon forces. Minor maintenance needs was a matter of course. Some reflexes were stunted, battle computers hazy after so much time spent in stasis. It made them easy pickings for the humans, not to mention the Autobots.
Wheeljack shoots a glance toward their medic. “I knew Ratchet wasn't on the moon. That was all that mattered to me. I figured I could always go back later.”
“Nothing attacked us either,” Dreadwing points out, but now, his energy field tightens with contemplation. “The signal read more like a locator beacon.”
“Or a general statement of existence,” Tracks offers with a dismissing flick of one hand. “It wasn't a threat.”
Ratchet straightens suddenly and with a whine of servos that aren't use to such rapid movement. “It's the Ark,” he says and palms his face, shoulders sinking as a fair dose of exasperation floods his field. “Primus, how could I forget?”
“The Ark?” Tracks draws himself up straight as well. “I thought it was scrap. Starscream blew it to pieces.”
Ratchet frowns, hand dragging down, fingers rapping thoughtfully over his thigh plating. “It is, and it isn't.” He pauses, optics flickering as he accesses his memory banks. “It’d stand to reason that there are all kinds of tech left on the moon. Megatron had a lot of troops stashed up there, not to mention other things.”
Hope tries to rise within Thundercracker. He can’t quite keep it from lifting off.
“You're thinking we can use it?”
Ratchet lifts his gaze, meeting Thundercracker's own. “I'm thinking we can fix it.”
Drift stares at the both of them as though they've gone completely mad. “It crashed hundreds of vorn ago. And you said it was half-buried!”
The medic bursts to his pedes, full of nervous energy that takes him into the medbay. “It's the best chance we have,” he calls back but then pauses. “Maybe. I wasn't really checking for structural integrity the last time I was there.”
“It's worth a look.” Dreadwing pulls out of his melancholy slump, prompting Tracks to straighten as well. “I'm guessing the Ark was a transport ship?”
Ratchet's vocals fade as he starts to dig through the crates of disorganized spare parts in his medbay. “It was Sentinel's flagship, carrying the hope of the Autobots.” He tosses something, which clatters to the floor. “More than that, it had a sparked AI, Teletraan. It can house a hundred mechs comfortably, along with the supplies to support them, and it's built for interstellar travel.”
No wonder it was Sentinel's flagship. Hope dares rear itself again. Thundercracker lets it.
“We could leave with such a vessel,” he decides, processor already racing with possibilities.
Ratchet moves into view and stares at him. “And take the hatchlings with us.”
“If it can be fixed,” Drift points out, ever the pessimistic one. “It's practically scrap, isn't it?”
Wheeljack all but vibrates with excitement, vocal indicators flashing a stream of pale colors. “We can take the Jackhammer up. She's got enough go in her for a few trips. Between the two of us – three actually with Skywarp – I'm sure we can fix it.”
It's a plan, Thundercracker realizes with a soft whirl of satisfaction in his energy field. A workable, plausible plan that gives them something to work toward. Something to do other than linger in this half-existence, waiting for a miracle.
But...
Thundercracker looks at a pensive Dreadwing and Tracks, who’s still hovering ridiculously close. Wheeljack has already said that they follow Dreadwing's lead, and it would be wiser, safer even, if they chose to up and leave Earth now. Before getting tangled with Thundercracker's cohort of half-Neutrals and the crazed Autobots under Prime’s command. Not to mention the humans.
“You could leave,” Thundercracker says, directing his vocals at Dreadwing, though his words are for all three of them. “The Jackhammer could easily take you away from Earth. Away from this mess.”
‘You don't have to get involved,’ he thinks.
The war is over. What do they owe either faction?
Wheeljack's indicators flash a flat, stale ocher. “Frag that,” he spouts, indignity buzzing in his field with a discordant hum. “I'm not leavin' Ratch behind. Not again.”
Brief amusement curls Dreadwing's lipplate. “Besides that, we wouldn't survive long in a Scout-class ship. We've been lucky to make it this far.” His wings lift against his back, only to settle again. “After all, where would we go, just the three of us?”
Where indeed?
Drift drags his fingers down the flat of his blade, the soft rasp of metal on metal loud in the ensuing silence. “The universe is beyond scale. There has to be somewhere we can start over. We just have to look for it.”
“First, let's focus on getting off this planet,” Ratchet adds in his two credits, once again in the medbay. “Preferably before Optimus finds and slags us.”
Thundercracker nods. They'll worry about where they're going later. Right now, their focus should be escape.
“Very well. Wheeljack, if you would take Ratchet and I up to the Ark next solar cycle.” He taps the edge of his face thoughtfully. “We can at least see the damage.”
Saving the trip for then will also allow everyone to get settled. Their team has only just arrived. Thundercracker suspects they'll want a full tour, so to speak, and Dreadwing would probably like to hold a hatchling or two, judging by this earlier interest.
“Acceptable,” the larger Seeker answers for all of them.
Light laughter drifts out of the medbay. “And here, you thought you'd be a terrible leader,” Ratchet comments, amusement accusing in his energy field.
Thundercracker tosses a glare at the medic, not that Ratchet can see. Even Drift cracks a smile.
Annoying slaggers. The whole lot of them.
a/n: What Ratchet quotes belongs to Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. Much thanks to azardarkstar for finding this suitable quote for me.
