Curate, connect, and discover
Breakdown has been gone for no less than a week when Ratchet receives a heavily encrypted message.
At first he thinks it’s nothing and it’s only years of combat through his technology and being a medic that he even spots that something is different about it.
The one difference in the file is a punctuation at the end, a single full stop that is something humans do instead of the cybertronian symbol.
He opens the file, works his way through it for over two earth hours, and when he’s finally done everyone has gone to have their shutdown and the humans are at home safe and sound.
Part of him thinks it could be a trap sent my Soundwave but there’s something in his spark that’s telling him to trust it. He’s been a doctor for years, he’s learnt that trusting your instinct is the most important part of the job. It’s a combination of prior knowledge, subconscious awareness and thinking and the thing humans call a ‘gut feeling’.
Ratchet opens the last link and finds a message that reads,
“Hello Doctor.
I am aware that we are not friends and work for opposing forces, but I am desperate. I am not sending this because I have had a change of spark or something dramatic like that, though I can’t say I have never thought of that.
No, this is far more important than any sides of a war or Megatrons foolish little game.
I am with sparkling.”
Ratchet stalls for a moment at that sentence before stealing his nerves and continuing.
“I found out around two deca-cycles ago and was afraid to tell the Sire, and now he is gone.
If Megatron finds out about this, both that I am with sparkling and that I can conceive, I will never be safe. He hasn’t been too focused on it, but we all know he has put plans in place should he have the chance to have an heir.
I’m not stupid enough to think he won’t find out, and I’m not too prideful to put my ego and desire to been correct over the life of my sparkling.
So I am asking you as both a medical professional and a close friend of Optimus for help.
I don’t need you to let me join you or live among you, but please help me get out.
I am begging you to help me make sure my sparkling doesn’t end up like Shockwave or Megatron or, Primus forbid, Starscream. I want my to have the chance to choice who it wants to be, and I know that it’s Sire would have wanted for us all to be with you Autobots.
But I have accepted this too late.
Turn me away if you wish, but please help my sparkling.
I don’t have much time and I do not want to terminate it, it’s all I have left of Breakdown.
Yours truely,
Knock-Out.”
Ratchet actually had to sit down once he’s finished reading, serve pressed to his chaises in both shock and heavy understanding. He helped many with their sparklings during the war and knew well the grief of it, even if it was never something he went through.
He sits there for a long time, considering every thing he knows, before he stands again and sends a message back with identical encryption.
“Knock-Out.
I am sorry for what you are going through, both your loss and your situation.
Whether my team wants you here or not I will find a safe place for you, this I promise you on the All Spark. I am sure Optimus will understand but we must act quickly, so listen to my instructions and I will be able to keep your family safe.”
Ratchet lays out the plan quickly and with no room for miscommunication, even going so far as to send a ground bridge for the Mech at a certain point during the next cycle.
He can deal with the teams reactions once’s he’s got Knock-Out safely out of his enemies hands.