War and Wings Chapter 17: Spiral

Io frowned and reclaimed her normal posture.

At her trods, a Decepticon drone lay dying.  

Killing had never come easy, and even after vorns of distancing herself from her actions—for the Decepticons or the Autobots—she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of compassion for the wounded Eradicon, especially as he reached toward her with a weakened, begging claw.

She was a scientist, a doctor in training, and barring any platitudes about medical ethics or the functional nature of her creation, from a psychological context, this truly went against her programming.

Not that that belief made her any less proficient at it.

Her team’s approach to the tower had gone undetected, and though she hadn’t yet heard back from the others, she was certain that they had taken out their targets without incident.

Otherwise, the compound would be ringing with alarm klaxons and they’d be neck deep in scrap.

Still, all had not gone according to plan.  She should have killed the drone in one hit--her cannons were strong enough to pierce the flimsy sheet metal that passed for mantle plating among the servant caste--but this was the first time that she had been in the field since Gorn Station, and her sharpshooting skills had become rusty in the stellar cycles since. Not to mention skills at acrobatic warfare.

Instead of putting a shell right through his spark-chamber, she’d grazed it.  And through the gaping hole in his chassis, she could see what remained of the organ…and his spark.
Silvery strands of energy seeped from gaps in the metal, dissipating on contact with the dusty air.  And even if he weren’t leaking to death, his spark was visibly evaporating, incapacitating him from making any sort of distress call let alone a simple proximity vocalization.

Withdrawing her right hex cannon, she did the only thing she could do to help him: put a round directly through the remnants of his spark-chamber.

Instantly the drone’s optics darkened and his hand dropped heavily to the floor.

*Io?*

*Go ahead, Powerglide,* Io said, forcing down a burgeoning wave of regret.  Stowing her cannon, she tilted her head and followed the smooth, ebony skin of the tower to its apex. Powerglide himself wasn’t visible, but it gave her something to focus on.

*My drone’s out for the count, but I don’t think you’ll be able to salvage his voice-box; he moved at the last astrosecond and my missile sort of hit him in the face.*

Io smiled.  He too had “gotten the job done” as it were, but it seemed they were all a bit rusty. The “this isn’t what I crawled out of the Well of AllSparks to do,” good kind of rusty.

Powerglide, primarily due to his expertise in high-speed maneuvers, had been given the task of taking out the Decepticon scout at the top of the tower.  His was a challenging approach and she was surprised that he had actually hit his target given the G-forces he would have been fighting at the top of the climb.  

But then again, he was an entertainer experienced in doing the difficult.

*I can use parts from my target, but it may take some time.  Do you have anything else to report?*

*Yeah, there’s an unlocked console, but, so far as I can tell, it’s been used exclusively as a shipping database.*

*Ok, keep an optic on it; let me know if anything changes.”  She paused, feeling slightly silly.  Normally it was Ratchet or someone else handing out orders. Not a tiny little, former ‘Con among a pack of alphas. *Would you mind being our lookout?*

*Not at all,* he replied, enthusiastically.  

Io nodded, and with a heavy sigh, opened up a communication channel to the third member of her strike team. *Crossarm?*

There was a brief pause, then.  *I do, so, love to hear your voice over my com,* he purred.

Io ground her dental plates.  Why am I surprised? She couldn’t help but think.  Aloud, however, she said.  *Did you succeed in your mission?*

*Of course,* the jet replied, sounding wounded.  *It was a simple matter, really.*
 
Io’s brow-ridges elevated.  Crossarm had been given the most challenging maneuver of the three:  Taking out the drone on the far-side of the tower—two, high-velocity turns followed by a sharp, steep climb—yet the confidence that she sensed in his tone seemed to exude sincerity.  *Very well,* She replied, catching herself to mask her embarrassment, lest she inadvertently stoke his ego. *Is there any tech over on that side?*

*Yes.  I’m standing before a large computer with four screens and an elaborate interface pad.  It’s definitely a command console, though I can’t decipher the writing.*

*That’ll be Farixex…’Con language,* She added in case he wasn’t familiar with the term.  *Is your guard’s voice box salvageable? Shrapnel damaged mine and it will take some time to repair.*

*Perfectly intact and ready for misdirection,* He boasted.

She clenched her dental plates a second time.  Did we really still need the three of us?  Catching herself a second time and forcing some semblance of civility to her voice, she replied.  *I’ll be there in a moment.  Let me know if the glyphs near the upper right corner of the fourth screen change, or if you receive a verbal communication.*

*Consider it done, my dear.*  

Io sighed, heavily.   *Copy that.* She managed, before killing the channel.

What a group they made:  A Decepticon turn-coat, an egoist, and an even greater egoist who’s self-aggrandizing put Starscream to shame.

When Crossarm had been assigned to her team back at the clinic, she could hardly believe her audio-receptors.  In fact, she was certain that the entire arrangement had been orchestrated by Prowl to get back at her for making him look bad during their first briefing.  Even Ratchet had cried “foul”—more for personal reasons, admittedly—and yet it was Optimus, Ratchet’s oldest friend, who had actually recommended Crossarm for the strike team.  

As impossible as it was to believe, Crossarm was an in’neth, a ‘Bot to which flying came so naturally that he could fly circles around people like Powerglide, no training needed.  He literally emerged from the Well of AllSparks with all the skills of a professional acrobat.  It was a rare gift, without question. And yet, rather than using it for the good of all, it was seemingly wasted on someone who’s only life aspirations were wenching, shirking his duties…and making an aft of himself.
   
There’s no time to be thinking about this now. She chided herself, turning her head and refocusing on the dead drone at her trods.  I have a job to do…everything else is irrelevant.

Leaving the drone’s corpse behind, she made her way up a series of short platforms arranged in a spiral around the tower’s southwest support pillar.  To her left she noticed a drop-shaft—no doubt used by the drones to ferry supplies to the soldiers in the cache—but instinct told her to stay away from it.  Sure, it might have saved her a few cycles of climbing, but it wasn’t uncommon for lift use, especially in remote installations, to be closely monitored and perhaps tied directly into the tower’s security system.  It made a brutal sort of sense—especially since drones were not allowed to leave their posts unless attacked or ordered to do so—and she quickly put it out of her mind as she focused on trying to locate Crossarm through the morass of mesh plating and structural supports.

When she finally found her CO, he was standing with his back to the central shaft and his arms crossed as he surveyed the western basin.  From time to time, his right wing would twitch.  Whether this was from boredom or agitation was yet to be seen, but it was an interesting sight, the first time she had ever seen such a display from him.

Being an arrogant prig, he was normally the epitome of composure.

A pool of energon marred the featureless floor of the platform near the console, but she was hard pressed to find a body.  “Crossarm?”

“It’s behind the crate if you’re wondering.” He said, turning to meet her and gesturing flippantly to his right.  Optics, bright and cheery as if he wasn’t standing above a congealed puddle of life fluids, he smiled--that attempt at a disarming smile she had so come to despise--and made as if to continue relaxing. “I’d rather not have my view of the surrounding countryside marred by a dead body, especially one of the servant caste.”  

Io sighed and moved past him.  Leave it to Crossarm to be discomfited about class during one of the most daring missions of the recent war.

She found the still form of the dead Eradicon stuffed messily between a crate and two of the tower structural supports. It was evident in an astrosecond that Crossarm had shot the drone directly through the spark-chamber, a sizeable hole distorting the back plates.  It was a good shot considering his difficult approach, but Io was quick to notice another blaster wound that nearly severed the drone at the midsection, the pattern of damage suggesting it had been hit while partially bent over.

Her optics widened. Not only did her CO hit the drone once, but he felt confident enough to fire two shots…all without damaging the precious voice-box. Maddeningly, she couldn’t help but be impressed. It wasn’t a maneuver she would have considered let alone attempted.

Shaking her head—not only was time of the essence, she didn’t even want to give off well-deserved feelings of admiration, lest he sense them and come running to distract her--she turned to the task at hand. Kneeling beside the dead Eradicon, she dragged him in to a supine position, withdrew her welder and began to selectively cut away portions of his neck-plating to expose his voice-box.  The organ was undamaged and she was able to remove it after severing the dorsal neural-net connections and energon lines with a scalpel stored in her left index finger.  Despite being coated with energon and mech-fluid, it looked in remarkably good condition.  No doubt the internal circuitry had already started to decay, but it would remain viable long enough to serve their purposes.  

“So…what are you going to do with that?” Crossarm asked with a twinge of disgust, even as he looked on over her shoulder.  

“Attach it to your voice box.” She said without missing a beat.  

Crossarm’s expression steadily evolved from one of surprise to outright revulsion, and for a moment his optics flared brightly.  “What?  Can’t you just…?” He squeaked, wings twitching.  Then, catching himself, he fixed her with a confident stare.  “Er…What I meant was: Wouldn’t a B.D.C. suffice?”  

Rising to her trods, Io turned so that she could face him.  She may not have been Crossarm’s partner, but she could almost feel waves of discomfort radiating off of him.  

“No,” she said with a hint of disbelief.  Though he was more politician than medic, Crossarm’s time in the academy should have instilled him with at least a basic understanding of Cybertronian physiology.  “B.D.C.’s are fine for downloading data from non-living computer systems, but the voice-box is a biomechansim.  It’s orders of magnitude more complex, and to use it this way requires a direct interface with another biomechanism.”  

A few moments of silence followed as he digested this information, and, again, Io couldn’t help but puzzle over his startling change in demeanor.  Anyone involved with the war effort quickly became desensitized to violence, to gore…it simply couldn’t be helped given how rapidly Megatron’s forces were advancing north.  

As a sergeant, Crossarm should have distanced himself from this squeamishness—or perhaps innocence, was a better word--long ago.

But now he looked quite nearly scared.

Perhaps…?

Io shook her head to banish that line of thought.  Crossarm—as flawed as he was—was still an Autobot officer, hand-picked by Optimus for his talents.  She trusted Optimus—Ratchet trusted Optimus—so who was she to call either of them fools?  

“I…fine.” He huffed, snapping the former ‘Con from her thoughts. Suddenly, Crossarm laughed and waved his hand dismissively.  “I don’t know what came over me; you’re one of the best medics we have...this should be easy for you, like using a thermal to boost the speed of a Skystalker Pitch, right?”

Io smiled, hesitantly.  A Skystalker Pitch was hardly a simple maneuver…at least she had never been able to perfect it.  “Somewhat so, yes.”

“Alright, just…” His smirk faltered, briefly, but this trepidation was quickly shunted aside in favor of his typical bravado.  “Let’s do this!”  

Suppressing a sigh, Io gestured towards one of the supply crates, and without any additional dialogue, Crossarm nodded and pulled the nearest one closer to the computer console, claiming it with an expectant smirk and almost flirtatious wing flutter.

Ignoring this, Io removed a vial of medical energon from her bracer, lifted Crossarm’s chin, and made three small injections into the white protoform mesh of his neck.  As she waited for the goranon take effect, she sanitized the cables and lines that she would patch into Crossarm’s voice-box.  It was messy business, and even after a thorough mech-fluid wash, a few drops of foreign energon remained.  In an operating room, it wouldn’t have passed—energon borne diseases had increased ten-fold since the start of the war--but here in the field, with only the most rudimentary medical supplies at hand, she would have to hope that the brevity of the connection, combined with Crossarm’s immune response, would protect him from any viruses that the drone may have contracted during his service.

After a cycle, she prodded the injection site.  “Did you feel anything?”

“N-no.” Crossarm replied; voice glitching uncharacteristically.  

Io nodded and used her scalpel to make an X shaped incision about a hand’s breadth below his chin-plate.  The soft mesh yielded without incident—and without leaking, thankfully…she wasn’t sure she could stand to touch any of his bodily fluids—and with his voice box now exposed, she quickly set to mating the two organs, disconnecting the main neural pathway that normally allowed Crossarm his full range of speech and splicing it with the drone’s more primitive version of the same.  Just as she clamped off one of the smaller energon lines in preparation for diverting it to the dead box, a harsh, grating voice called out from the computer console.

“F-forty-five?  What’s your status?”

“Slag!” Io exclaimed, and again a second time as Crossarm—seemingly on the verge of panic—jerked his head the side, dislodging the clamp.  “Calm down.” She said as nicely as she could manage, given that her own processor wanted to leap out of her brain-case in terror.  Despite her reassuring words, the jet’s laterals began to heave, a cooling reflex that generally manifested itself when nervous or frightened.  “We’ve still got time.”  She insisted, forcing her lips into a smile.  “And the more relaxed you are the faster I can work.”  

Crossarm studied her face for a moment.  He opened his mouth to speak shortly thereafter, but paused as he remembered that his voice-box was temporarily out of commission.  *I’m sorry.* He tried over her private frequency.  *It’s been a while since…I…erm,* he lowered his head and vented a sigh.  *I should have prepared myself better.*

“Prepared…?” Io began to question, but studying his expression and realizing they were short on time, she settled for a pat on the shoulder and a commiserating: “I guess they don’t let you out much, do they?”

*Uh…. no.* He replied and then with an embarrassed tone. *No, not really.*

Io smiled, thought It’s probably for the best, but said:  “I’m sorry to hear that, but we’re going to have to table this spark-to-spark so that I can finish my work.”

Crossarm nodded, and lifted his head.  His plating returned to rest while she worked, though his wings still trembled.

It only took half a cycle to clamp off the energon line, cut it, and create a return loop through the drone’s voice-box.  “Alright,” She said, even as another request was made from the computer, this one far less polite than the first.  “Try saying something.”  

“Like what?” He wondered aloud, recoiling at the way his normally handsome voice had been reduced to a harsh dead-pan.  “Is that really my voice? Ugh! How unsophisticated.”

Io sighed.  Even terrified, Crossarm still put appearance above everything else.  “Now that we know it works,” She said, gruffly.  “You’re going to respond to the message as if you were drone F-forty-five of the Decepticon army.  Also, I need you to hold this,” She held up the drone’s voice-box so that he could see it.  “I can coach you more effectively if I’m not dangling from your neck.”

The normally cocky jet stared down at her with wide optics and a slightly parted mouth.  She halfway expected him to say something like “you can’t be serious” or “you would look so wonderful dangling from my neck” but to her continued surprise, he held his glossa, nodded, and meekly took the organ from Io’s claws.  The color faded slightly from his face-plate, but he kept his composure and moved to stand next to Io who had since claimed a spot beside the console.  

“You press this to communicate,” She pointed to a small symbol in the middle of the interface pad. “And remember, you’re a drone:  No back-talk and no humor.”  She shook her head.  “Both are killing offenses if you catch someone on a bad day.”

Crossarm’s optics widened. “…Ok,“ He said, finally.  “Ok…” he said again, closing his optics as if collecting his thoughts.  “This is F-forty-five,” He began, his voice both confident and submissive…a perfect imitation of drone speech mannerisms, if she’d ever heard one.  From him, this attitude was strangely eerie. “Everything is clear across the board.”

“Took you long enough to reply,” The voice from the computer hissed.  

“My apologies, Sir.  I was…engrossed in a project—inventory crunching for the most part—and I missed your first hail.  It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” the voice snapped with a bit more bite than one might expect for a minor breach in conduct.  “And what sort of ‘inventory crunching’ do you mean?  Twenty-five already logged this orn’s supply shipment.  Is such redundancy needed?”

Io’s optics widened, and for the first time during their mission, a bit of apprehension began to tug at her spark.  Of all the rotten luck in the world:  They managed to encounter one of the few competent soldiers in an otherwise doltish army.

But, in a surprising turn of events, Crossarm patted her bracer and smirked down at her.  *I’ve got this.* He said confidently.  “I noticed a discrepancy in Twenty-five’s log, and felt compelled to investigate.”  He paused and his grin broadened.  “It was the type of clerical error one might expect from someone trying to smuggle contraband into or out of the compound.”

“Crossarm?” Io squeaked, wings drooping in shock.  “What are you…?”

“Um…erm…” The guard sputtered.  “That…erm…that can’t be right.  W-why would...anyone do something that could potentially draw Megatron’s ire?  It’s silly; suicidal, even,” A chuckle of nervous laughter filtered through the speakers.  “In fact, I’m willing to, um, bet three extra rations of energon that this supposed ‘discrepancy’ is a simple logging error.  Nothing more.”

Io’s brow-ridges drew down in puzzlement.  “He’s bribing you,” She marveled.  “How did you…?”

Crossarm winked at her but placed his index finger to his lips in a call for silence. “Hmmm…I just double-checked my findings and…it appears to have been a logging error after all.  I’m sorry for bothering you with information that turned out to be…irrelevant.”

“That’s…um…ok.  Good work, F-forty-Five.”  A pause.  “Carry on, then.”

“Thank you, Sir.  F-forty-five out.”

Crossarm pressed the communication glyph a second time and fixed Io with a proud stare.

“That...” Io began, staring up at mech with wide optics.  “How on Cybertron did you know he was smuggling contraband?”  

Crossarm’s smile broadened into a smirk.  “You’d be amazed what people try to sneak past me out of the clinic…or in to it, for that matter.”  He shook his head.  “They all have the same tone to their voice when you confront them with raw inventory data.”

Io stared at him for a few moments, brow-ridges raised in disbelief.  She didn’t want to admit it, but Crossarm’s quick thinking may well have saved their mission.  Not only that, but the entire conversation proved that the warriors stationed below ground were ignorant to their presence.  

And that Crossarm may be much smarter—or at least shrewder--than she gave him credit for.

Eventually her features softened into smile, and despite a slight twinge in her spark that urged her not to, Io gave him a congratulatory clap on his bracer.

The mech seemed surprised by this, and a cute smile turned his lips as she moved past him so to access the console’s interface panel.  “Now, let’s see if we can find a way to get our ‘Bots into the cache.”  Working quickly, Io navigated the basic data system managed by the drones.  The tech had changed very little since her defection, and she quickly deactivated the firewalls put in place to keep any overly-inquisitive drones from reaching beyond their station.    

Crossarm moved closer and peered over her shoulder, seemingly fascinated by the lines of code scrolling across the monitors.  

His proximity was irritating, but tolerable, and she ignored him in favor of concentrating on her work.  

But then he moved a bit closer, even going so far as to rest his unencumbered right hand on the console nearest her claws.  It would have been comical—almost the epitome of corny wooing attempts—had they not been in the middle of a mission that could very well see them all captured and killed if they failed, had Crossarm not had a foreign voice-box dangling from his neck…and if he wasn’t already interested in her for more than her intelligence.  

As if to underscore this, his voice crept into the back of her mind, dripping with insinuation.  *I must say that it’s a real treat to watch you work.* He chuckled lightly and leaned in closer.  *We make quite the team.*

Io frowned and focused even harder on locating the data that Optimus and the others would need to bridge into the cache.  All Decepticon installments, large or small, carried digital design specs for maintenance.  It was simply too much of a liability to allow service drones to carry around such important information…

*Well?* Crossarm purred, causing her thoughts to crash a second time.

“’Well,’ what?” She replied, stifling a sigh.    

*Do we make a good team?* He pressed, inching his hand closer to hers.

“If by ‘we’ you mean all of us,” she huffed, nodding her head in the direction of Powerglide’s observation post.  “Then yes.”  

*I meant us, as in you and I.*

A sigh fluttered across Io’s lips.  *We are so not having this conversation now, Crossarm.”  

*Mmmmm…why not?* He lifted his hand as if to caress her bracer, but Io pulled away and fixed him with a stern, cobalt stare.  

“I need to concentrate on this,” She indicated the computer with a wave of her hand.  “Fulfilling our end of the mission is more important than any personal matters.”  Her frown deepened.  “As an Autobot officer, you should know that better than anyone else.”

Crossarm absorbed her statement with a look that tottered between surprise and irritation, but the expression was gone in a flash, and he smirked down at her, wings fluttering.  *We’ll talk later, then?*  

“Yes…yes…” Io replied, distracted.

Crossarm accepted her response with a smirk of self-satisfaction, and took a step backwards, allowing Io to resume her search in relative comfort.

For the next few cycles the former ‘Con sifted through duty rosters, general visitation schedules, energon ration logs…typical administration junk, and after a time, it seemed like all their hard work in taking the tower was in vain.  Without specs, they had no way of knowing where to bridge their troops...a mission critical checkpoint that could spell the failure of their mission.  

She continued typing.  

After a few more uneventful cycles, she finally stumbled upon the primary key that she was looking for.  “Ah-ha!” She exulted.  

Crossarm stepped closer and peered over her shoulder, all thoughts of romance seemingly forgotten.  *Are those…?* He asked, excitedly.

Io nodded, and her lips turned in a triumphant smirk.  Accessing all of the associated files, all four screens were soon overflowing with blueprints, technical figures, structural stability data, plus a whole load of additional information that she couldn’t make sense of.  

*Seems like a bunch of gibberish to me,* Crossarm said, frowning.

“Same here,” She agreed.  “Let’s hope that Ratchet and the others can make something of it.”

At the mention of her partner’s name, Crossarm’s brow-ridges narrowed and a few lines of disapproving static hissed from the drone’s voice box.    

Suppressing a smile, Io noted the console’s identification code and contacted the clinic.  “Ratchet?”  

As acting HMO due to Crossarm’s absence, she had to relay communications through him. Crossarm had rankled when it had been announced at the mission briefing, but as it was impossible for him to be in two places at once, the jet had been forced to agree.  

It made Io smile to know how much it had annoyed him.

And it was certainly more agreeable than other alternatives, i.e., Prowl.

“I’m here.” He replied after a moment, and her spark fluttered happily in her chest.  His tone suggested relief, and she could easily imagine a huge smile on his face-plate.  

“Remember the door-prize raffle we discussed earlier?  I’ve got the serial numbers for the drawing.”  

“Great, that will help move things along.” he replied, his usual demeanor shining through to complete the facade.  “What are they?”

“0000-212-AX3-3298777.345669000 and 3839-900-DN1-3320010.434700054.”  

“Got it.”

“Let me know when you’re ready to start.” Then, smirking, she added.  “I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

“Nor can I,” He replied with what sounded like a forced chuckle.  “I’ll…see you soon.”

He was still worried about her, and she desperately wished that she could quell his concerns with more than just a simple response. “Indeed you will, sweet-spark,” She said softly, lips turning in a smile that she hoped he’d be able to hear in her tone.  Granted, this reassurance meant she had vocalized her feelings in front of Crossarm, but though she didn’t want him to take this as an intentional dig, she figured the older medibot needed some sort of consolation.

She glanced at her compatriot as her com-link clicked off, but he seemed an odd mix of distraction and annoyance, not the straight-up disagreement he should have exhibited based on the interchange.

Io lowered her head in contemplation.  What was up with Crossarm? Why the sudden mood changes? Was it somehow related to the mission?

She couldn’t conceive of how, and any possibilities that arose aside from the obvious closeness in which the two of them currently found themselves seemed too malign to be seriously entertained.

She sighed. Why now? None of them needed this.

Besides, it wouldn’t take Ratchet long to figure out the console identification number from the bogus serial numbers that she sent him.  In the past, they had used something similar—basically high-level Torranian Mathematics—to send messages to one another, almost a private language that the two of them could use to crack jokes or discuss clinic politics over open com-link frequencies.  But here, they had to play things a bit smarter:  Codes within codes and private jokes robbed of context.  It was the most they could do to keep Soundwave and his minions in the dark.

In fact, before she could even convince herself that the “old” Crossarm would be better in this moment than whatever strange funk was affecting him, Ratchet called out “We’re ready to start,” over her com.

Io forced herself to smile.  

It was good hearing his voice, but the damnable specter of her comrade-in-arms made the medic's normally calming voice less than effective, especially because it was up to her to give the final go-ahead that would commit Optimus and his warriors.  In her optics, this meant checking with her compatriots and seeing if they thought anything was amiss, or to make sure nothing was amiss with them.

First, she turned to face Crossarm…who was staring wearily out over the eastern basin, wings lowered.    

The femme watched him for several moments, concerned.  His behavior today was completely unlike anything she’d ever seen:  Paranoia, fear, and now melancholy… Was his typical bravado a farce?  Was all of this more of an accurate snapshot of his personality made manifest when no one else was looking?

Io drew back for a moment, nonplussed.  For someone who fathomed herself a good judge of character, this revelation was startling to say the least.  

Or was he finally admitting to himself that Ratchet and Io were partners, here, now, on the eve of one of the Autobot’s greatest gambles?  It would be just her luck. She reached out with a concerned claw, but paused.  Was this really the right time to psychoanalyze her CO’s behavior?  No, she thought with a frown.  Not now.  There’s too much riding on this mission.
 
Hoping—no, believing—it was the latter and that he just had impeccably bad timing, she asked him as gently as she could manage: *How’s the view on that side?*

*Uneventful…* He replied, not meeting her gaze.

At least he’s able to focus on the mission, she reassured herself.

Quickly she contacted Powerglide.  *How do things look from up there?*

*It’s as quiet as a scrap yard,* He replied with his usual enthusiasm.  *Haven’t heard or seen anything since we got here.*

*Copy that.* She paused, reconsidered the events of the past few breems.  Other than Crossarm’s unusual behavior, everything else about the mission suggested that they had successfully evaded detection, and that everything was in order for the final leg of the mission.  

After one last moment of deliberation, Io closed her optics gave the signal that would start the avalanche rolling.  “Let’s party.”

Ratchet said nothing in response; he didn’t have to.  

Operation Orsis had begun.

She should have felt relieved.  Her team had successfully taken the tower and now a contingent of Autobot troops and clinic personnel were bridging into the cache to begin the second part of the operation.  

But that was the rub.

Decepticon gladiators were close combat specialists, and even with the element of surprise on their side, Jazz and the others were in for a difficult, nay brutal, battle. Some of them may even go offline permanently.

And Io had given the go-ahead. True, this had been planned and orchestrated by Optimus and his staff, and true also, they needed these supplies if they wanted to ease the war effort, but Io had been the voice of action.

It was a heavy burden.

A scraping sound caught Io’s audio receptors and she turned to consider Crossarm who had reclaimed his original seat on the crate.  His back was toward her, wings so low that his horizontal stabilizers were visible as small projections beside his cockpit. He looked miserable.

And on top of the onus of command, she had a suddenly despondent, spark-spurned ‘Bot that she had to puzzle out.

Cautiously, the former Decepticon approached her CO.   “How about we get your voice back?” She asked, forcing her lips into a cheery smile.

For a time, Crossarm didn’t respond.  Then, with a subtle roll of his shoulder-caps, he turned to face her and lifted his chin.  A silent, yet strangely resigned sigh fluttered across his lips.

Io hesitated, a worried frown creasing her face-pate.  Well, this is disconcerting, she thought as she set to work removing the drone’s voice box.  Part of her wished for Powerglide to be there with her, if for nothing else that some of Crossarm’s usual bravado would reassert itself, afraid to be uncovered in front of a crowd. It was the only reason to which she could appeal to explain this sudden transition in character.

“You wanted to talk earlier?” Io asked after a time, anxious to get him to say anything if it would break the pall that had settled over the two of them.

His optics blinked rapidly, and he sighed a second time, but still he said nothing.

“You do realize that we medics are good at making conversation,” She said with a smirk, even as she began to sew his severed energon line back together.  “In fact, it seems like you’d be fascinated by a lecture on the Perceptor-Logos Law of Vanishing Molecular Returns.”

A slight smile began to tug at the corner of Crossarm’s mouth and he turned to face her.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” The femme asked, coyly.

Like a blooming ferrous rose, his smile broadened, and eventually a chuckle danced through her processor.  *You know as well as I that such a topic would go over my head.* He flashed her with a bemused optic.  *I’m not exactly known for my medical aptitude.*

Io smiled.  “No, you’re not.”

*I don’t know whether to laugh or feel insulted,* He quipped back, smirking.  

The former Decepticon had to force herself not to reply with a sarcastic remark, settling instead for a grin that very nearly matched the one already on Crossarm’s face-plate.
It was a welcome change from his earlier behavior, but considering the sheer range of his emotions, she certainly couldn’t pretend his personality was back to normal, or that she had thought it so single-minded in the first place.

Finishing with the energon line, she began severing Crossarm’s neural connection with the dead box.  This was the most dangerous part of the operation, and she distanced herself from any sort of reply so that she could focus all of her attention on her work.  It wasn’t difficult so much as it was tedious, and a lapse in judgment here could rob her CO of his voice, permanently.  As much as she might dislike Crossarm and his lewd nuances, she would never wish that sort of disability on anyone, much less go out of her way to make it a possibility.

“Ah-ha.” She cooed as the last neural fiber was disconnected.  It was a simple matter afterwards to marry the severed ends of Crossarm’s neural cable back together.  She brushed the delicate piece of anatomy with a very low-powered burst of heat from her frame welder to encourage the material to reestablish the signal pathways needed to transmit data from Crossarm’s processor to the command module of his voice box.  

*How’s it looking?* He asked after a cycle, more confident than before.

“Good,” Io replied, even as she made a quick pass with her scanner.  Despite the overwhelming flood of sensory data, she kept her composure and crunched the numbers.  “Try a simple voice command,” She said after a moment of consideration.  

*Ok, here goes nothing.* At first, Crossarm’s voice box just hissed, pitifully.  But after a few moments, the random sounds reassembled themselves into something approaching normal speech.  The tone was off a bit, but as more and more pathways reestablished themselves, Crossarm’s own voice began to reemerge, and Io could tell from the rapidly growing smile on her CO’s faceplate that he couldn’t have been more relieved.

“You did it!” He exclaimed, happily.  He made to rise to his trods, but Io grabbed his bracer and pushed him back into a sitting position.  “A-pt-pt-pt,” Io scolded in a very Ratchet-like manner.  “You’re not done yet; I still have to close the incision.” Flaring her nacelles to emphasize her point, she withdrew her welder and carefully repaired the lacerated mesh over his voice-box.

Though her patient said nothing during the last stage of the operation, Io could see him watching her with a mildly indignant--yet playful--smile as she checked and double checked the weld to make sure it would heal properly.

“Alright.” She said finally.  “I think that should do…” Her voice cut off abruptly as Crossarm reached forward and gently captured her hands between his much larger fingers.  
“Crossarm…” She said in a low, warning tone.  Complimenting this, her mantle plating flared and her wings lowered into a threat position.  

Seeing her reaction and missing its intent—from the look on his face he must have assumed she was playing hard to get—the mech flashed her with a cocksure smile.  “You truly are a wonder, my dear; such a lovely fusion of raw talent and beauty.”  He pulled lightly on her hands in an attempt to draw her closer, but Io politely refused his affections, shifting her weight and shaking her head.  “Crossarm, I’m not…” She started, but the young jet cut her off with a light chuckle.

“Oh, I get it; you’re still angry about the other night.”  He shrugged.  “Look, I had to punish Ratchet for what he did.  I mean, you saw the mess he made of Maccadam’s, to say nothing of his appalling behavior in my office.” He added quickly, with a snort of disapproval.  “He sullied the clinic’s image…and he got what he deserved.”

It took every ounce of will power at Io’s disposal to hold her glossa—the urge to tear him down to his protoform with a verbal assault was almost overpowering.  Even so, she still felt a bit of Ratchet’s temperance in her processor, almost a voice urging her not to do anything that she’d regret.  Though it wasn’t a direct link to his spark, this residual echo gave her the fortitude necessary to keep her features passive, to calmly listen when she wanted to punch him for speaking so flippantly about Ratchet’s misfortune.

“Anyway, what’s past is past,” He continued, not sensing any of this.  “The present is of more pressing concern.”  His lips drew into a sly smile. “We’re here, we’re alone.”  He tossed his helm and his smile broadened.  “We can talk.”

Io sighed aloud; she couldn’t help it.  Despite having caught her and Ratchet sharing a moment together in his lab, or the thousands of other signs that EVERYONE ELSE in Iacon had picked up on, Crossarm remained ignorant of their partnership, perhaps intentionally so.  She’d seen it before; mechs who were so full of themselves, confident in their positions of power, that they couldn’t take “no” for an answer.  Everything was “yes;” everything had always been “yes.”  Whether from sycophants, subordinates—or in Crossarm’s case, thosts…lots, and lots of thosts--it was always “yes, Sir; of course, Sir,” never “no.”

Or “hell, no.”

Or the “how about I hand your T-cog to you in a mesh sack?” kind of no.

She suppressed an evil smile; if only she could lay it out like that.  But as amusing as it would have been to see him squirm, Crossarm’s recent behavior hinted at deeper emotional issues that could very easily turn sour if mishandled.

And regardless of the poor timing of the entire conversation, they certainly didn’t need that now.

“What…did you have in mind?” Io asked, feigning ignorance.

Crossarm pulled on her hands a second time, and despite a growing feeling of nausea in her spark, she allowed the mech to draw her closer, if just to ease the blow that she knew she would be delivering at the end of his speech.  “Ever since you transferred to the clinic, I could tell there was something special about you; something that I wanted to be a part of…to share in.”

Io frowned.  So it begins…  “I doubt that.”

“I’m serious,” the jet insisted, almost pleading.  “Why is it that you don’t believe me?”
Io cocked a skeptical brow-ridge at him.  “I believe you.  What I don’t believe are your motives.”  

The jet rocked back on his trods as if Io had slapped him, an action that forced him to drop her hands. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you here, Crossarm?”

“What?”

Io’s hands moved to perch on her hip-plates.  “Don’t play dumb; you know exactly what I mean.”

“You mean, be here, on this mission?” He waved his hand, dismissively.  “Isn’t it obvious? This mission is important, and as an Autobot officer, I wanted to do my part for the cause.”

“And not because you wanted to show off for me?” Io’s expression darkened.  “I hardly believe that.”

“Do you honestly believe that I would sacrifice my existence for something so petty?” Crossarm huffed, disapprovingly.  

“Actually, I do,” She rebutted, fixing him with a stern optic.  “From moment I was transferred to the clinic, you have been grandstanding around me every chance you get.”  She jabbed her index claw into his medial plate.  “Funny how you never volunteered for any of the other missions—even the less dangerous ones--but suddenly, after I dress you down for only thinking about yourself, you have a streak of magnanimity?”  Leaning back, her hands resumed their original post on her hip-plating. “I don’t buy it at all.”

The mech’s optics widened.  “But…Optimus chose me for my flying skills,” He said, sounding wounded.  “If I was truly as ‘boastful’ as you claim, wouldn’t I have been flouting those for last two-and-a-half stellar cycles?”

“Well, frankly, I can’t think of a time when they would have come up in conversation, and…” She paused and allowed a dark smirk to claim her lips.  “By having Optimus tell me, you orchestrated me learning about your ‘skills’ from someone else.  You were able to puff yourself up secondhand.”

“N-now…you’re just reaching,” the jet squeaked.  “I mean, listen to yourself:  You’re paranoid.”  Looking suddenly smug, he crossed his arms.   “Actually, I think you imagined all of this as a way to not think about us.”  

*Hey, um, something’s happening in sector 17,* Powerglide’s voice called out.

“There is no us!”  Io roared, oblivious.  

For a half-cycle, Crossarm stared at the tiny femme with wide, disbelieving optics.  Then, almost angrily, he lowered his wings and growled.  “Right…there’s just you and Ratchet.”

“Exactly.”

*Hello?  Io?  Crossarm?  Do you read me?*

“What could you possibly see in him?”  Crossarm demanded.  “He’s a dreg!  A nobody!”  The jet gestured wildly with his hands.  “Have you ever read his personnel file?  No?  Well I have.  He has no ambition, no drive to actually better himself!”  He paused and placed his finger to his lips in mock thought.  “Oh, wait, he does have criminal aspirations, what with that groundbridge fetish of his.  I guess that would count towards something.”    

Io’s optics narrowed, dangerously.  “There you go again,” she replied in a low growl.  “Always with the jibes, the denigrations, the total disregard for my feelings.”  

“You say that I don’t care about your feelings, but what about Ratchet?”  Crossarm snapped.  “Have you ever considered that he might be intentionally holding you back?  That he only cares about you because he can use you as a distraction, so that he doesn’t spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity.”

“Now somebody’s reaching,” Io hissed, clenching her fists so tightly that a bead of fresh energon seeped from her mesh.  Then, still struggling to keep her temper in check, she said.  “Have you ever lost anyone close to you, Crossarm?”

“Well, no, but that's hardly the point.”

Stepping closer, she fixed him with a pinched stare.  “Then you have absolutely no idea the sort of hell that Ratchet put himself through after losing Gamma.”  

“Ratchet’s a medic,” Crossarm waved his hand, dismissively.  “He sees ‘Bots die all the time.  How is it my fault that he glitches-out over one in particular?  If you want my opinion, anyone who lets themselves be weighed down by such emotional baggage is utterly pathetic, a waste of life that would be better off convalescing in some scrapyard.”  No sooner than the last word left his mouth, Crossarm’s optics widened and he turned to stare down at Io, who glared silently back at him, optics burning with cold fury.
“Io…I-I,” he stammered.  “I'm sorry.  I didn’t mean…”

“You meant every word,” She said, slowly, voice quavering with barely restrained rage.

Crossarm’s wings lowered, and he retreated a half-step, face-plate contorted with despair.  “No, that’s not…”  he would have said more, but their conversation was interrupted as a large, red object fell from the sky like a meteor, denting the floor beneath their trods as it landed gracefully on two, powerful legs.  

Powerglide reclaimed his full posture—he was nearly as tall as Triage—swept his broad wings up and back into their natural position framing his shoulders, and glared down at the two of them, featureless blue, optics glowing fiercely.  “I have been trying to contact you both for the last cycle, now.”  He all but yelled, pointing angrily over the edge of the platform.  “Something’s up in sector 17, and it doesn’t look good.”

“What?” Io gasped.  In a flash, she leapt toward the edge of the platform and stared down at the dusty floor of the basin, optics widening in disbelief.

Autobot and Decepticon soldiers poured from the entrance at the base of the tower, running at panic speed in all directions, seemingly too terrified by whatever was inside the tower—or, perhaps the cache, itself—to care about fighting each other.  

Crossarm was by her side in an instant.  “No…”  He gasped. “It’s…it’s impossible…”  

Fear gripped Io’s spark, and before she could think better of it, she contacted the clinic on her open com-link frequency.  “Ratchet?  Ratchet, it’s Io?  Do you copy?”  Her com hissed nothing but static back at her, and her spark sunk.  “I-I can’t get through to the clinic,” She managed, trying to beat back a growing wave of panic.  "Oh, Primus…scramblers.  T-that means…”

As if rocked by a huge earthquake, the tower lurched violently to the south.  Io was thrown back against the central support structure and impacted the hard metal with enough force to knock her vision off-line for a few moments.  Powerglide dropped to his knees, and had to grab the computer console to keep from being thrown clear of the platform, while Crossarm—still seemingly in a state of shock—pitched forward and found himself sprawled atop the crate that he’d been previously using as a bench.    

The tremors faded into an eerie silence, and for several terrifying moments, time seemed to stop.

No sound.

No life.

So sudden and quiet was the transition that Io couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps her sense of hearing had been affected.  She shook her head and opened her mouth as if to call out to her teammates, anything to break the stillness.  But she had no need. Within moments, she heard a soft sound, an unmistakable sound, notes of the tinniest music juxtaposed against the steadily increasing tempo of rasping metal. The look of confusion mixed with horror in Powerglide’s optics confirmed her conclusion as the metal supports around her buckled and bent like hastily manufactured aluminum sheeting.  

Powerglide, who had managed to bring himself to a proper standing position, was forced to jump clear of the platform when one of the main structural supports detached and fell, pitching the unstable surface upside down.  Io and Crossarm weren’t so lucky and were launched into the air, tumbling wildly amid the collapsing frame of the doomed tower.  

Instinctively, Io abandoned her bi-pedal form in favor of her alt-mode, anything with wings now that she was falling.  Just as she began to fire up her engines, a support cable struck her across her fuselage, stunning her.

Helpless to do anything but fall, the femme plummeted downward along with the remains of the tower, vast expanses of twisted ebony metal that seemed to close in around her like the talons of some giant, carnivorous beast.  

On the other side, further down—or up—she really couldn’t tell, an energoncurdling scream reached her.  

It sounded like Crossarm

But she had little time to consider as something large and black collided with her cockpit knocking her unconscious before she could even register the pain.