081230 - Suckle
Dec. 30th, 2008 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish3/11/08 - 603 words on Lambitches
4/11/08 - 8/11/08 - Ill
9/11/08 - Blocked [social]
10/11/08 - 13/11/08 - Ill
14/11/08 - Art; Black Wizards: The Invitation
15/11/08 - 25/11/08 - Ill
26/11/08 - 1110 words on Stormhangar
27/11/08 - 6/12/08 - Ill
7/12/08 - 1425 words on Stormhangar
8/12/08 - Ill
9/12/08 - Ill
10/12/08 - 850 words on Stormhangar
11/12/08 - Day Off
12/12/08 - 19/12/08 - Ill
20/12/08 - 29/12/08 - Holiday
30/12/08 - Day Off
Suckle
Starscream jerked back to consciousness with the taste of rotting metal in his mouth. He tried to sit up on his recharge plinth but there was a weight pressing on his chest - a great weight, soft, that pushed down on him with a thousand indistinct hands. The first shot of panic, that a stealthy Autobot or Decepticon assassin was at his throat, was overwhelmed by a great surge of revulsion as he felt a subtle pricking at his chest. A thin, wet probe was pushing into the vents on his breast, sliding between the plates at the back of the vent and nuzzling at the fuel-lines there.
Starscream tried to kick but found his legs numb and useless. His hands hung limply on his feeble arms. Vision became clotted, blurred with deep blues and purples. On his chest crouched something shapeless, without visible outline, fading out from the dimness of his rest chamber.
A violent nip in his chest - Starscream bucked, but the weight held him down - and he felt the bright energon seeping from his body.
Over him, the dark shape laughed, quiet and sardonic, its soft chuckle mocking him and fuelling his disgust. He struggled again to move, to lift his hands against the thing sucking at his chest, but weight like uranium sheets lay on him, like twenty gravities that held without crushing. The thing on his chest laughed again, and mocked him with horrible slurping sounds as it suckled on his lifeblood.
Shuddering - trying to shudder and finding his body as still as if deactivated - Starscream was struck with sudden rage at his violation, and tried to cry out. The cry conceived in his core as a scream of hatred was born as a feeble whimper, shapeless and swiftly vanishing into the soft, heavy shape lying on top of him.
With every revolting shlurk, shlurk, shlurk at his fuel-line, he felt weaker. Icy cold penetrated his fingers, and he lost all sensation of his legs. His wings felt stiff, immobile as if encased in sheets of ice. His thoughts, bright with fear and panic, dulled with hazy confusion. His vision swam with a mosaic of dim colours.
His fuel-pump stuttered. He could feel the pressure in his fuel-lines dropping as the suckling thing drained him.
Disgusted by his own paralysis, Starscream switched on his emergency distress beacon.
The Decepticon base lit up like a fireworks factory in flames. Cries of 'Attack!' and 'Scramble!' went up, were ignored, and then shouted down. Megatron, startled out of deep thought by the sudden clamour of Starscream's beacon, radio-summoned Skywarp to him and, grabbing the Seeker by the throat, ordered him to transport him to Starscream immediately.
After the plunge through sudden thunders Megatron reencountered physical reality and found himself inside Starscream's private quarters. The lights were all off, leaving the room in near-total darkness, and he could hear the pounding of feet and the shouts of his troops as they scrambled to answer the distress signal.
"Light!" Megatron called, and the room was flooded with it.
Starscream lay on his recharge plinth, sprawled out, limbs twisted into a painful posture as if he'd been forced down. His optics were dark, his limbs stiff, his beacon wailing repetitively. Megatron looked around quickly; he saw no forced air-vents, no loose panels, nothing upset or out of the ordinary.
"Skywarp, go and open the doors. Let Scrapper and Ravage in, but nobody else," he ordered, and the dark Seeker left to his task.
Megatron walked over to Starscream, carefully scanning the floor, the walls and the ceiling as he went. There was nothing underfoot, no odd scratch on the panels, no shadow unnecessarily dark, no obscured light. Nothing seemed wrong, except for his twisted, frozen lieutenant.
Megatron stood over Starscream and looked down at him. His hands were raised, most likely in the act of fighting off an attacker. His wings were raked back, the tips pulled high, so that they held him up like a trestle. His left leg hung off the side of the plinth, bent back so far he was gripping the side of the plinth with his knee. The right leg was bent up, knee upwards, foot drawn back. Either for leverage or for kicking, perhaps for both, Megatron thought.
Something was wrong. Megatron leant over to look a little closer.
Starscream's feet were grey, not even normal polished silver-grey but dead grey, raw grey.
Megatron scanned the rest of the Seeker's body. There were no wounds on him, no scratches - wait, no. The vent cover on his right chest was slightly askew.
"Scrapper?" Megatron shouted.
"Coming, Master Megatron!" the Constructicon said from a room or two away, and Megatron heard hurrying feet clanking towards him. He did not expect to hear Ravage.
The Constructicon foreman arrived. Scrapper glanced at Starscream, and the sight of the Air Commander frozen in a torque of fear and panic made him jolt, his hands twitched up towards his chest in alarm.
Megatron gestured to Starscream. "Examine him." He stepped back to let the Constructicon work, and radioed Soundwave. [Any sign of the intruder?]
[Negative,] was the reply.
[There was one. Keep searching. Starscream is disabled. Put the base on an alert-5 and send Ravage to me.]
[Orders received and understood,] Soundwave replied.
Megatron turned to Scrapper. "Well?"
"He's not dead," Scrapper replied, not looking around. "He's in fuel shock - "
"Which is why his body's in rigour," Megatron realised.
"Yes," Scrapper said, continuing. "There's a wound in the back of his right chest vent. I think his pump might have burst. Do you want me to repair him here?"
"No, take him to repair bay," Megatron said.
Scrapper nodded. He slid his arms under the twisted Seeker, lifted him easily, and carried him out of the room. A few seconds late, Megatron heard a cry of protest from Long Haul, and a few sounds of shock and disgust from whoever was on guard outside.
There was a loud and deliberate clink from above him. Megatron looked up. Ravage was looking down at him from an air vent.
"What took you so long?" Megatron asked.
Ravage slipped out of the air vent, pouring down the wall like liquid. [I was checking the air vents for signs of intruders.]
"And?"
[Nothing,] Ravage said, prowling over to the recharge plinth and sniffing at it, his long fangs glinting. [Whoever attacked him did not come in that way.]
"What do you sense here?"
Ravage said nothing. He continued to work his way around the plinth, mouth wide open as he tasted the air for micro-particles. The saboteur leapt onto the plinth and continued his search, muzzle down. [I sense Starscream, of course. I sense you, and Scrapper, and Skywarp.]
"And?"
[No more.] Ravage sat down on the plinth. [Starscream's panic has printed a very strong EM wave on the plinth. Anything else that might have been there is blotted out.]
"Well then," Megatron said, "we shall have to wait for him to wake up."
"Inducer."
"Inducer," Mixmaster said, passing the tool to Scrapper.
"Bother. No response. Re-pressurize his fuel-lines and we'll try again," the foreman said, leaning back from Starscream and handing the inducer back to Mixmaster.
The repair bay door opened. "Well?" Megatron said, striding in with Ravage in tow.
"His fuel-pump popped a couple of seals," Scrapper said. "His system's full of air. When Mixmaster's finished re-pressurizing his lines we'll induce him."
"You said this was fuel shock."
"It is fuel shock," Scrapper said as Mixmaster pumped energon into Starscream's fuel lines. "It's total fuel shock, and it's embolic. His main capacitors are drained, probably from struggling. His power cell is full and his emergency capacitors are fine, but they're all directed to emergency support. We can't induce him off this, he'll go straight into system shock and then it'll be days before we get him back."
"At least it would be quiet ... " Megatron said, more to himself than Scrapper. "And that wound?"
Scrapper took the damaged pieces from the workbench and showed them to Megatron. "Small fuel syphon, went into the fuel line that feeds the shoulder."
"Something pinned Starscream down and drank his fuel," Megatron said, frowning. "What about his feet?"
"Not sure yet," Scrapper said. "He's got low-level system shock, it's probably that."
The last few air bubbles popped out of Starscream's fuel lines. "He's up to pressure," Mixmaster reported.
"Right," Scrapper said, turning back to the workbench. "He's probably going to come out of rigour spasmodically, Master Megatron. If you could help ... "
"Holding him down," Megatron finished, moving to pin the Air Commander's shoulders to the repair plinth. "Hit him." Scrapper connected the inducer to Starscream's internals and switched it on.
Red Alert heard the scream, faint and distant, and had it pinpointed and alerted to Teletran-1 before he consciously realised what he'd heard. [Inferno, meet me outside Skyfire's quarters,] he radioed, transforming and accelerating through the Ark's broken corridors. [That was a scream of distress if I ever heard one.]
Inferno was there before Red Alert, but barely. "He ain't answered the door."
"They usually don't," Red Alert said, radioing the command codes to the door lock and opening Skyfire's quarters.
The scientist lay on the floor, wings and thrusters sticking up at weird angles, whimpering quietly to himself. Red Alert scanned the room and came up with nothing. He stepped inside, Inferno following.
"You all right there, big fellow?" Inferno asked.
Skyfire looked up with a glazed, stupid expression. "I think I'm dead," he said, thick-voiced, his face sagging.
Red Alert radioed Ratchet and knelt down to check on the scientist. The moment his fingers touched Skyfire's hull he yanked them back - the scientist's body was heaving with null surges. Red Alert stood up and stepped back, communicating his suspicions to Ratchet.
"Serve him right if he is!" Ratchet replied, rushing through the door and dropping to his knees in front of Skyfire. "Come on, big guy, you're alive. Stay with us." He glanced over his shoulder. "Someone call Grapple and Hoist, tell them we need this wall taken out." He put his hands on Skyfire's shoulders and grimaced. "Okay, okay, stay with me. Skyfire, talk to me."
"I don't feel alive," Skyfire replied, words coming out with effort. His optics were dim and his expression one of drone-stupid damage. "I don' feel ... "
"Skyfire, listen to me, concentrate on my voice," Ratchet said, turning Skyfire's face towards him. "You're going into system shock. You need to concentrate on my voice and listen - come on, don't go blank - come on, Skyfire, stay with me." His voice rose in tension as the scientist's jaw slackened and his head drooped.
Grapple poked his head in the door. "What's - oh. Hoist, you get that end, I'll get this end, we're removing the whole wall."
Red Alert quickly ducked out of Skyfire's quarters, beckoning Inferno with him.
"Guess we know what's done for him," Inferno said, looking back.
"Possibly. The most obvious explanation is rarely the right one," Red Alert replied. "Stay here. They may need you to help move Skyfire. I'll return to security control and report to Prime."
"Aww, you tell him and they won't need me. Prime'll carry Skyfire one-handed," Inferno said.
"Inferno," Red Alert said tiredly, "Optimus Prime is in Washington at the moment. He'd have to break land-speed records to get here before dawn, let alone in time to help move Skyfire." He turned at the screech of tires. "Wheeljack!" he called as the inventor transformed, almost spilling the tool-pack in his arms.
"He's crashing hard," Wheeljack called as he dashed into Skyfire's quarters.
Red Alert looked blankly at the doorway for a moment. "I do hope we don't lose him," he said, distracted by thinking too many things at once. "Skyfire's always been such a pleasant fellow."
"They won't lose him," Inferno said, putting his hand on Red Alert's shoulder. "When'd Ratchet last lose someone to system shock?"
"I don't remember," Red Alert said, touching Inferno's hand for a moment. "But life is full of surprises."
Starscream came up in a violent start, screaming fit to shatter optic crystal. He jackknifed, whole body folding forwards and backwards. Megatron had to let go or be kneed in the face. He and the Constructicons backed off, waiting for Starscream to stop spasming.
"Do we need to stun him?" Scrapped asked.
"Negative!" Mixmaster replied over Starscream's noise. "He's purging core, not fitting."
Starscream flopped back on the repair plinth, fans whining in sudden exhaustion, and stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before throwing himself off the plinth and into his feet. He looked startled and confused.
"Starscream!" Megatron said loudly, stepping forward again.
The Air Commander's sensors blinked once, twice, and the look of stupid confusion faded off his face. He lowered his wings and his hands unclenched. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"A few breems," Megatron said. "What happened?"
"Intruder," Starscream replied, the word forced out through sensor-blinks. "Something jumped me whilst I was recharging. Drained my tanks. Couldn't move it. Uh ... " He raised a hand to his head, swaying a little. "I think I have air in my fuel lines."
"Shouldn't have," Mixmaster said as Scrapper looked pointedly at him. "I primed you myself."
"I - whou - " Starscream folded up the joints, collapsing against the repair plinth even as all three other Decepticons moved forwards to catch him. "Low fuel."
"You've got a full primary system!" Mixmaster protested, indignant.
"Back on the plinth," Scrapper said, helping the Air Commander lift his legs. The Seeker fell backwards in an exhausted heap, his fans cycling frantically and his optics dim. "Mixmaster, reconnect the diagnostics."
Megatron moved out of their way, keeping a watchful optic on Starscream's face. The Air Commander barely seemed to notice what was going on, mind pulled inwards by something malfunctioning inside him.
Mixmaster finished connecting the diagnostics to the inside of Starscream's cockpit. "And we have ... low fuel warnings, air in fuel system - is he leaking internally?" He glanced over the Air Commander, but there was no sign of fuel venting.
"Deep tank seal breach," Scrapper said. "Check his reserves."
"Three empty, one at quarter," Mixmaster replied. "That's low."
Starscream made a small moaning noise, optics flickering.
"His fuel levels just dropped twenty percent!" Mixmaster shouted in protest.
Scrapper plugged a heavy cable into Starscream's side. "How's that?"
"Liquid fuel levels still dropping, but power cell and capacitors are charging," Mixmaster reported. "I think he's holding."
"I am," Starscream said woozily. "Turn up the juice."
Scrapper turned the power feed up. "No good, it's just converting to energon and ... vanishing. I'm dialing you back to subsistence level."
Megatron waited as the two Constructicons arranged an electrical drip-feed for Starscream's systems, watching as the Air Commander phased in and out of coherence, then demanded, "Explain this!"
The Constructicons looked at one another.
"Well, the fuel's vanishing out of his systems at a high rate," Mixmaster said. "He's lost a full primary tank of energon. If he was leaking internally it'd be all over the floor by now."
"Then where is this fuel?" Megatron asked, standing over Starscream, angry.
"Could be a transphase tank parasite," Scrapper suggested, checking the diagnostic boards. "We'd have to put a probe through his systems, find the leech."
"Starscream?" Megatron prompted.
"Do it," Starscream said. "I can't feel anything wrong inside me, I can't feel energon leaking, I just feel air bubbles in my system."
"There's nothing but air in his system now," Scrapper reported. "If he comes off this drip he'll go into immediate fuel shock and collapse."
"Brilliant," Starscream said darkly. "How long will this probe take?"
"With your reserve tanks? Seven megacycles," Scrapper replied.
"Hook me up to my tower's systems," Starscream ordered. "Seven joors of this ceiling is more than I can stand!"
4/11/08 - 8/11/08 - Ill
9/11/08 - Blocked [social]
10/11/08 - 13/11/08 - Ill
14/11/08 - Art; Black Wizards: The Invitation
15/11/08 - 25/11/08 - Ill
26/11/08 - 1110 words on Stormhangar
27/11/08 - 6/12/08 - Ill
7/12/08 - 1425 words on Stormhangar
8/12/08 - Ill
9/12/08 - Ill
10/12/08 - 850 words on Stormhangar
11/12/08 - Day Off
12/12/08 - 19/12/08 - Ill
20/12/08 - 29/12/08 - Holiday
30/12/08 - Day Off
Suckle
Starscream jerked back to consciousness with the taste of rotting metal in his mouth. He tried to sit up on his recharge plinth but there was a weight pressing on his chest - a great weight, soft, that pushed down on him with a thousand indistinct hands. The first shot of panic, that a stealthy Autobot or Decepticon assassin was at his throat, was overwhelmed by a great surge of revulsion as he felt a subtle pricking at his chest. A thin, wet probe was pushing into the vents on his breast, sliding between the plates at the back of the vent and nuzzling at the fuel-lines there.
Starscream tried to kick but found his legs numb and useless. His hands hung limply on his feeble arms. Vision became clotted, blurred with deep blues and purples. On his chest crouched something shapeless, without visible outline, fading out from the dimness of his rest chamber.
A violent nip in his chest - Starscream bucked, but the weight held him down - and he felt the bright energon seeping from his body.
Over him, the dark shape laughed, quiet and sardonic, its soft chuckle mocking him and fuelling his disgust. He struggled again to move, to lift his hands against the thing sucking at his chest, but weight like uranium sheets lay on him, like twenty gravities that held without crushing. The thing on his chest laughed again, and mocked him with horrible slurping sounds as it suckled on his lifeblood.
Shuddering - trying to shudder and finding his body as still as if deactivated - Starscream was struck with sudden rage at his violation, and tried to cry out. The cry conceived in his core as a scream of hatred was born as a feeble whimper, shapeless and swiftly vanishing into the soft, heavy shape lying on top of him.
With every revolting shlurk, shlurk, shlurk at his fuel-line, he felt weaker. Icy cold penetrated his fingers, and he lost all sensation of his legs. His wings felt stiff, immobile as if encased in sheets of ice. His thoughts, bright with fear and panic, dulled with hazy confusion. His vision swam with a mosaic of dim colours.
His fuel-pump stuttered. He could feel the pressure in his fuel-lines dropping as the suckling thing drained him.
Disgusted by his own paralysis, Starscream switched on his emergency distress beacon.
The Decepticon base lit up like a fireworks factory in flames. Cries of 'Attack!' and 'Scramble!' went up, were ignored, and then shouted down. Megatron, startled out of deep thought by the sudden clamour of Starscream's beacon, radio-summoned Skywarp to him and, grabbing the Seeker by the throat, ordered him to transport him to Starscream immediately.
After the plunge through sudden thunders Megatron reencountered physical reality and found himself inside Starscream's private quarters. The lights were all off, leaving the room in near-total darkness, and he could hear the pounding of feet and the shouts of his troops as they scrambled to answer the distress signal.
"Light!" Megatron called, and the room was flooded with it.
Starscream lay on his recharge plinth, sprawled out, limbs twisted into a painful posture as if he'd been forced down. His optics were dark, his limbs stiff, his beacon wailing repetitively. Megatron looked around quickly; he saw no forced air-vents, no loose panels, nothing upset or out of the ordinary.
"Skywarp, go and open the doors. Let Scrapper and Ravage in, but nobody else," he ordered, and the dark Seeker left to his task.
Megatron walked over to Starscream, carefully scanning the floor, the walls and the ceiling as he went. There was nothing underfoot, no odd scratch on the panels, no shadow unnecessarily dark, no obscured light. Nothing seemed wrong, except for his twisted, frozen lieutenant.
Megatron stood over Starscream and looked down at him. His hands were raised, most likely in the act of fighting off an attacker. His wings were raked back, the tips pulled high, so that they held him up like a trestle. His left leg hung off the side of the plinth, bent back so far he was gripping the side of the plinth with his knee. The right leg was bent up, knee upwards, foot drawn back. Either for leverage or for kicking, perhaps for both, Megatron thought.
Something was wrong. Megatron leant over to look a little closer.
Starscream's feet were grey, not even normal polished silver-grey but dead grey, raw grey.
Megatron scanned the rest of the Seeker's body. There were no wounds on him, no scratches - wait, no. The vent cover on his right chest was slightly askew.
"Scrapper?" Megatron shouted.
"Coming, Master Megatron!" the Constructicon said from a room or two away, and Megatron heard hurrying feet clanking towards him. He did not expect to hear Ravage.
The Constructicon foreman arrived. Scrapper glanced at Starscream, and the sight of the Air Commander frozen in a torque of fear and panic made him jolt, his hands twitched up towards his chest in alarm.
Megatron gestured to Starscream. "Examine him." He stepped back to let the Constructicon work, and radioed Soundwave. [Any sign of the intruder?]
[Negative,] was the reply.
[There was one. Keep searching. Starscream is disabled. Put the base on an alert-5 and send Ravage to me.]
[Orders received and understood,] Soundwave replied.
Megatron turned to Scrapper. "Well?"
"He's not dead," Scrapper replied, not looking around. "He's in fuel shock - "
"Which is why his body's in rigour," Megatron realised.
"Yes," Scrapper said, continuing. "There's a wound in the back of his right chest vent. I think his pump might have burst. Do you want me to repair him here?"
"No, take him to repair bay," Megatron said.
Scrapper nodded. He slid his arms under the twisted Seeker, lifted him easily, and carried him out of the room. A few seconds late, Megatron heard a cry of protest from Long Haul, and a few sounds of shock and disgust from whoever was on guard outside.
There was a loud and deliberate clink from above him. Megatron looked up. Ravage was looking down at him from an air vent.
"What took you so long?" Megatron asked.
Ravage slipped out of the air vent, pouring down the wall like liquid. [I was checking the air vents for signs of intruders.]
"And?"
[Nothing,] Ravage said, prowling over to the recharge plinth and sniffing at it, his long fangs glinting. [Whoever attacked him did not come in that way.]
"What do you sense here?"
Ravage said nothing. He continued to work his way around the plinth, mouth wide open as he tasted the air for micro-particles. The saboteur leapt onto the plinth and continued his search, muzzle down. [I sense Starscream, of course. I sense you, and Scrapper, and Skywarp.]
"And?"
[No more.] Ravage sat down on the plinth. [Starscream's panic has printed a very strong EM wave on the plinth. Anything else that might have been there is blotted out.]
"Well then," Megatron said, "we shall have to wait for him to wake up."
"Inducer."
"Inducer," Mixmaster said, passing the tool to Scrapper.
"Bother. No response. Re-pressurize his fuel-lines and we'll try again," the foreman said, leaning back from Starscream and handing the inducer back to Mixmaster.
The repair bay door opened. "Well?" Megatron said, striding in with Ravage in tow.
"His fuel-pump popped a couple of seals," Scrapper said. "His system's full of air. When Mixmaster's finished re-pressurizing his lines we'll induce him."
"You said this was fuel shock."
"It is fuel shock," Scrapper said as Mixmaster pumped energon into Starscream's fuel lines. "It's total fuel shock, and it's embolic. His main capacitors are drained, probably from struggling. His power cell is full and his emergency capacitors are fine, but they're all directed to emergency support. We can't induce him off this, he'll go straight into system shock and then it'll be days before we get him back."
"At least it would be quiet ... " Megatron said, more to himself than Scrapper. "And that wound?"
Scrapper took the damaged pieces from the workbench and showed them to Megatron. "Small fuel syphon, went into the fuel line that feeds the shoulder."
"Something pinned Starscream down and drank his fuel," Megatron said, frowning. "What about his feet?"
"Not sure yet," Scrapper said. "He's got low-level system shock, it's probably that."
The last few air bubbles popped out of Starscream's fuel lines. "He's up to pressure," Mixmaster reported.
"Right," Scrapper said, turning back to the workbench. "He's probably going to come out of rigour spasmodically, Master Megatron. If you could help ... "
"Holding him down," Megatron finished, moving to pin the Air Commander's shoulders to the repair plinth. "Hit him." Scrapper connected the inducer to Starscream's internals and switched it on.
Red Alert heard the scream, faint and distant, and had it pinpointed and alerted to Teletran-1 before he consciously realised what he'd heard. [Inferno, meet me outside Skyfire's quarters,] he radioed, transforming and accelerating through the Ark's broken corridors. [That was a scream of distress if I ever heard one.]
Inferno was there before Red Alert, but barely. "He ain't answered the door."
"They usually don't," Red Alert said, radioing the command codes to the door lock and opening Skyfire's quarters.
The scientist lay on the floor, wings and thrusters sticking up at weird angles, whimpering quietly to himself. Red Alert scanned the room and came up with nothing. He stepped inside, Inferno following.
"You all right there, big fellow?" Inferno asked.
Skyfire looked up with a glazed, stupid expression. "I think I'm dead," he said, thick-voiced, his face sagging.
Red Alert radioed Ratchet and knelt down to check on the scientist. The moment his fingers touched Skyfire's hull he yanked them back - the scientist's body was heaving with null surges. Red Alert stood up and stepped back, communicating his suspicions to Ratchet.
"Serve him right if he is!" Ratchet replied, rushing through the door and dropping to his knees in front of Skyfire. "Come on, big guy, you're alive. Stay with us." He glanced over his shoulder. "Someone call Grapple and Hoist, tell them we need this wall taken out." He put his hands on Skyfire's shoulders and grimaced. "Okay, okay, stay with me. Skyfire, talk to me."
"I don't feel alive," Skyfire replied, words coming out with effort. His optics were dim and his expression one of drone-stupid damage. "I don' feel ... "
"Skyfire, listen to me, concentrate on my voice," Ratchet said, turning Skyfire's face towards him. "You're going into system shock. You need to concentrate on my voice and listen - come on, don't go blank - come on, Skyfire, stay with me." His voice rose in tension as the scientist's jaw slackened and his head drooped.
Grapple poked his head in the door. "What's - oh. Hoist, you get that end, I'll get this end, we're removing the whole wall."
Red Alert quickly ducked out of Skyfire's quarters, beckoning Inferno with him.
"Guess we know what's done for him," Inferno said, looking back.
"Possibly. The most obvious explanation is rarely the right one," Red Alert replied. "Stay here. They may need you to help move Skyfire. I'll return to security control and report to Prime."
"Aww, you tell him and they won't need me. Prime'll carry Skyfire one-handed," Inferno said.
"Inferno," Red Alert said tiredly, "Optimus Prime is in Washington at the moment. He'd have to break land-speed records to get here before dawn, let alone in time to help move Skyfire." He turned at the screech of tires. "Wheeljack!" he called as the inventor transformed, almost spilling the tool-pack in his arms.
"He's crashing hard," Wheeljack called as he dashed into Skyfire's quarters.
Red Alert looked blankly at the doorway for a moment. "I do hope we don't lose him," he said, distracted by thinking too many things at once. "Skyfire's always been such a pleasant fellow."
"They won't lose him," Inferno said, putting his hand on Red Alert's shoulder. "When'd Ratchet last lose someone to system shock?"
"I don't remember," Red Alert said, touching Inferno's hand for a moment. "But life is full of surprises."
Starscream came up in a violent start, screaming fit to shatter optic crystal. He jackknifed, whole body folding forwards and backwards. Megatron had to let go or be kneed in the face. He and the Constructicons backed off, waiting for Starscream to stop spasming.
"Do we need to stun him?" Scrapped asked.
"Negative!" Mixmaster replied over Starscream's noise. "He's purging core, not fitting."
Starscream flopped back on the repair plinth, fans whining in sudden exhaustion, and stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before throwing himself off the plinth and into his feet. He looked startled and confused.
"Starscream!" Megatron said loudly, stepping forward again.
The Air Commander's sensors blinked once, twice, and the look of stupid confusion faded off his face. He lowered his wings and his hands unclenched. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"A few breems," Megatron said. "What happened?"
"Intruder," Starscream replied, the word forced out through sensor-blinks. "Something jumped me whilst I was recharging. Drained my tanks. Couldn't move it. Uh ... " He raised a hand to his head, swaying a little. "I think I have air in my fuel lines."
"Shouldn't have," Mixmaster said as Scrapper looked pointedly at him. "I primed you myself."
"I - whou - " Starscream folded up the joints, collapsing against the repair plinth even as all three other Decepticons moved forwards to catch him. "Low fuel."
"You've got a full primary system!" Mixmaster protested, indignant.
"Back on the plinth," Scrapper said, helping the Air Commander lift his legs. The Seeker fell backwards in an exhausted heap, his fans cycling frantically and his optics dim. "Mixmaster, reconnect the diagnostics."
Megatron moved out of their way, keeping a watchful optic on Starscream's face. The Air Commander barely seemed to notice what was going on, mind pulled inwards by something malfunctioning inside him.
Mixmaster finished connecting the diagnostics to the inside of Starscream's cockpit. "And we have ... low fuel warnings, air in fuel system - is he leaking internally?" He glanced over the Air Commander, but there was no sign of fuel venting.
"Deep tank seal breach," Scrapper said. "Check his reserves."
"Three empty, one at quarter," Mixmaster replied. "That's low."
Starscream made a small moaning noise, optics flickering.
"His fuel levels just dropped twenty percent!" Mixmaster shouted in protest.
Scrapper plugged a heavy cable into Starscream's side. "How's that?"
"Liquid fuel levels still dropping, but power cell and capacitors are charging," Mixmaster reported. "I think he's holding."
"I am," Starscream said woozily. "Turn up the juice."
Scrapper turned the power feed up. "No good, it's just converting to energon and ... vanishing. I'm dialing you back to subsistence level."
Megatron waited as the two Constructicons arranged an electrical drip-feed for Starscream's systems, watching as the Air Commander phased in and out of coherence, then demanded, "Explain this!"
The Constructicons looked at one another.
"Well, the fuel's vanishing out of his systems at a high rate," Mixmaster said. "He's lost a full primary tank of energon. If he was leaking internally it'd be all over the floor by now."
"Then where is this fuel?" Megatron asked, standing over Starscream, angry.
"Could be a transphase tank parasite," Scrapper suggested, checking the diagnostic boards. "We'd have to put a probe through his systems, find the leech."
"Starscream?" Megatron prompted.
"Do it," Starscream said. "I can't feel anything wrong inside me, I can't feel energon leaking, I just feel air bubbles in my system."
"There's nothing but air in his system now," Scrapper reported. "If he comes off this drip he'll go into immediate fuel shock and collapse."
"Brilliant," Starscream said darkly. "How long will this probe take?"
"With your reserve tanks? Seven megacycles," Scrapper replied.
"Hook me up to my tower's systems," Starscream ordered. "Seven joors of this ceiling is more than I can stand!"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 11:20 am (UTC)No comment.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 03:59 pm (UTC)