by cybercat » Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:21 pm
I'll be getting into the Big and Ugly stuff next week (and believe me, it gets UGLY, the next one--I outdid myself) which is going through final edits and de-suckifying. Till then, have this tasty bit of darkness to tide you over. Now that you know Ironhide was once a 'con....
It always feels so wrong to say this but...enjoy! (?)
Azimuth
Ironhide realized, once again, he had outstripped the rest of the Autobot assault forces that were supposed to be with him. He sighed, slowing to a halt, ducking behind some cover. Again and again he had drilled into them the pace they should run, the importance of covering flanks, interval, everything that a lifetime of military service had settled hardware-deep into his cortex. And still, when it mattered, even when they were trying to retake their own former base, when they not only knew the terrain but knew there were injured waiting for rescue, they failed him. Failed the objective. Frag.
He heard a soft moan from across the corridor. A door hung off its tracks, its surface pitted with impacts that had chipped the paint, the space beyond it flickering in intermittent light. Someone was there. A trap, possibly. Luring him in. Playing on his Autobot sympathies.
Huh. Best way to fox a Decepticon trap was to go in knowing it was a trap. Benefit of having been one. Ironhide combat rolled across the hallway, pressing himself inadequately flat against the wall, risking a peek at the room to get an idea where, if it was a trap, his enemy might hide.
The room was cluttered with desks—a classroom or briefing room, that left way too many places for an enemy to hide. The moan again. It sounded genuine. Eh. He was an Autobot now, and Autobots went to the rescue.
Even if his own Autobot team had fallen behind.
He dropped low, duck-walking into the room, cannons primed at easily movable angles. He waited for a klik, the perfect target. Nothing. Slowly, he stood up, hearing the moan more clearly, coming from his right.
The mech was in bad shape. One arm and one leg more or less blasted away, the other arm crushed under what had once been a display case. The face had been torn up, almost as if by claws: Ironhide recognized the telltale signs of flechette rounds. A puddle of fluids darkened the plascrete under the mech.
Ironhide knelt by the wreckage of the mech, doing the combat evac assessments that had also been drilled into him from a lifetime of service. The calculations were precise—they had to be. They had had entire blocks of instruction for evaluating casualties, a dirty kind of battlefield triage made necessary by the perennial shortage of resources. Even before the war, even before the professional military had redesignated itself Decepticons, this formula existed. And had been, at the time, approved by the High Council. Mech injuries ended up in three categories: 1) worth retrieving, even at the cost of other casualties, 2) worth basic field repairs that would keep the mech ambulatory and fighting for the duration of the battle, and 3) non-evac, non-aid salvage.
This mech was squarely in the third category. So why did he hesitate? Some mechs were lost causes. Even with a medic right behind him (and who knew how far away the rest of his ‘team’ was, anyway?) this mech was a lost cause. And in their resource-starved condition, the Decepticon army could not afford the waste.
And neither should the Autobots.
This one had a cycle, perhaps two, before his spark finally guttered out entirely. His optics, only one fully online, flickered in counterpoint to the flickering ceiling lights. A shame, Ironhide supposed. The mech was young, one of the New Army Autobots, one not at all suited for war, not even possessing integrated weapons systems. Ironhide looked at his own forearms, where ‘con mods had installed two large pulse cannons. He was never disarmed. He was always a warrior.
A shame these Autobots were so slow to self-arm, relying on external armaments (that could so easily be dropped): guns, swords, mortars, bazookas, and the like. As if they could separate themselves from the acts of violence done with them if they could lay the weapon down at the end of the battle. As if keeping the weapons separate meant that they weren’t, really, killers. Still trying to hold onto the old class system. The old denigration of the warrior class. The old prejudices.
It would kill them someday, he thought, if they didn’t smarten up. It had already—just about—killed this mech.
But, they had saved his life. Rescued him, mute and injured, from the disaster that had been Saejon Three. Had repaired him, asked him his story, made no objection when he begged to join their cause. He was sick of the ‘cons. Meta had ruined the cause for him. Killing his own mechs, with his own weapons. Weapons he couldn’t lay down. No. The Autobots would never sanction something as vile as combat control.
Regret, the Decepticons said, was a peacetime luxury. He snapped open one of his storage compartments, tugging out his salvage kit. Sorting out with practiced hands the fluid capture pouches, the quick-use cables. A data flimsy with instructions fluttered to the ground, getting stuck in the puddle of fluids oozing from the dying mech. He didn’t need the flimsy. He’d done this before. Countless times. He knew what to do.
Lubricant and hydraulics first—nonessential survival fluids, then coolant. Then energon. Then the jumper cables. He jabbed the pouches’ catheters into the right lines, snap-stretching the hoses to get the vacuum to begin drawing fluid.
The mech groaned, rolling his head to face Ironhide. His eyes flickered dimly, one hand reaching up, helplessly, for Ironhide’s hand. Ironhide pulled away, resisting contact, as though death were contagious.
“’M gonna be okay?” the mech croaked. Fraggin’ thing thought he was here to help. The flickering eyes focussed on Ironhide’s too-new Autobot insignia with a starved kind of hope.
No illusions, no delusions. Another ‘con mantra. Ironhide was disturbed by how deeply their slogans had eaten into his worldview. How deep did they go? Could he see nothing but through a lens of their grinding? “No,” he said, flatly. “You’re dying.” Illusions caused false hope.
“Oh!?” The mech’s pulse raced: the hydraulic fluid filling up a little bit faster. The sound was a cry of injury, as if Ironhide’s flat assessment had somehow proved fatal. Ironhide shrugged. Didn’t matter, he told himself. Dying anyway. He set up the coolant bag for next. “Give me something…hurt less?” Almost pleading.
“No.” Your pain does not matter, he added, in his own processor. The cause matters. Autobot or Decepticon, pain did not matter. Suffering did not matter. Until victory.
The mech’s eyes were unreadable, overflowing with lens lubricant, that caused microsparking in the damaged optic. “What?” he breathed, his voice thick with confusion and fear, “What are you doing?”
“Taking your fluids.” That was about as much hydraulic as he was likely to get, he assessed. He snapped the pouch’s cath out of the line, and surveyed for a good spot to plant the coolant pouch. “Energon next.” No illusions. No sense, also, in only partial truths. He plunged the coolant bag’s hard catheter into a solid looking line, right off the core.
The mech winced. “You—you’re killing me.”
“No,” he said, impatiently. The damn Autobot wasn’t getting it. Clinging to his stupid hope instead of reality. “You,” he said firmly, “are dying. I am merely salvaging.” He tucked the half-full hydraulic pouch away, pausing to check the filling of the lubricant.
The mech’s eyes were still on him, like a wet weight. Waiting. Expecting. Making it feel like he was doing something wrong. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. This was straight, settled protocol, settled before the war, High Council approved. Not even by their standards was this wrong. Why, then, did he feel so bad? He’d expect the same to be done to him, if the situation were reversed.
They had a slogan for that, too: that in his death, salvage would allow him still to serve the Decepticon cause. His effort spread through the cables and hoses and sparks of others, his true brothers, his true kin. It was the Decepticon way. Even combat control—we are all one. One mind, one effort, one fluid. One spark.
His hand drifted to the cables. Almost time. No illusions, he told himself, this time. It was the Decepticon way.
Except he wasn’t a Decepticon anymore.
The mech’s optics fought to clear, glittering with sudden recognition. “You’re the ‘con we saved.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He grunted. He’d always be ‘the ‘con,’ wouldn’t he?
“We saved you,” the mech breathed. As if that made Ironhide owe him something. His vitals were starting to fail. Ironhide thumbed the alligator clips on the cables, eyeballing for a good clamp around the damaged spark chamber.
“And why did you save me?” Ironhide was sick of this: hearing over and over that they ‘saved’ him. Like they owned him. Like that meant he wasn’t one of them. Not really. He was something less, because he’d been ‘saved.’ “You saved me,” he said, his voice bitter, “why?” He attached the clips: one to the spark chamber, one grounded on an arm strut, hooking the other two quickly up under his chassis. “You saved me to kill for you.”
He hit the connector switch on the cables, grunting as the remaining charge of the mech’s spark flowed into his own, its energy swirling in a familiar, if uncomfortable, fight. The light faded from the mech’s eyes with a certain familiarity, his ruined face gaping in something like horror and judgment. Even in death, judging Ironhide.
He pushed himself back, grabbing the pouches, jerking them roughly out of their connections. Frag the energon. Frag the Autobots’ purity. Frag their system of obligations. They wanted him to kill for them? He would.
But for the first time, he felt alone. A thread of yearning for the comfort of true teammates, true war brothers, who would understand, who would tell him he was right. A longing even for a combat controller, like a conscience, guiding him, ultimately responsible, ultimately responsive. Comforting, even while invasive.
He looked around the room, hearing for the first time running feet. His own team, finally finding him.
Finding him.
He stepped out into the hallway, bracing himself to lead the ragtag bunch of amateurs. They joined him in a clotted bunch, clumped together despite how many lectures about interval and distance? They couldn’t help it. They were afraid. They took comfort in each other, even if it made them easy and obvious targets. Their togetherness only showed him materially how alone he truly was.
