#duskwalker entry

               Systems rumbling in anger, Renegade tucked himself against the brace once belonging to a suspended highway. The long bridges of road had spanned Cybertron; allowing for multiple layers of traffic to move to and from varying cities. As Cybertron declined, and the Caste System grew stronger, such areas beneath the thoroughfares had become notorious for illicit and illegal trafficking. The irony of his situation now was not lost on him. Smuggling a ‘refugee’ of sorts off the planet. It was not an appropriate moment to smile, but one tugged at the edge of his lips regardless.

               He’d felt no movement. The frame remained still and quiet, sheltered against the thick plating of his chest. When the urge to check once more on its status overrode his common sense and Renegade pulled his hand away from his chest, gold optics looked up at him from the dark. If there was pain there he was uncertain. There had been no communication attempts. Renegade himself remained silent. It would not do to attract attention, now with Naomi so close.

               His uplink to the ship came online. Systems syncing. He could monitor Naomi’s feeds now. She was only a few klicks out. The landing space he’d designated wasn’t perfect. Chunks of old thoroughfare made landing impossible, but Naomi did not need to land for Renegade to board.

               On her approach Naomi rotated in the air, opening the cargo bay doors. Her hull was unpainted, a dull gray that was nevertheless space worthy. Neither a battle cruiser, nor a freighter, but something in between. Thick armor, dedicated weaponry, and advanced engines. Naomi would see them safely up and through the atmosphere and away from the dying planet. Renegade would be able to finish his work on her once they’d reached a safe haven.

               Renegade stepped out from his precarious shelter. With Naomi incapable of landing, his boarding would necessitate a running start.

               With long efficient strides, Renegade ran towards a portion of roadway that protruded from the various debris. Each step crushed metal beneath him until he reached that point. With a thrust of powerful hydraulics Renegade jumped into the air. It was a little too much and Naomi had to tip to compensate for his unintended height.

               Catching the lip of the door, Renegade pulled himself from the brink where he balanced on only a portion of his feet. The hum of Naomi’s engines deepening with his arrival, like the ship was welcoming him to his – their – new home.

               The cargo hold was the only portion of the ship that consisted of two floors; larger containers could be stored below, accessed via an elevator to Renegade’s right. The primary floor served as a host to smaller containers consisting of parts, inventions he was bringing with him from Cybertron, and some refined materials. Below hosted the primary energon storage, and larger materials that had yet to be refined. A single door lead into a combination hab suite, medical bay, and workspace.

               It was here that Naomi’s currently ‘modest’ exterior gave way to extravagant. Every piece of machinery custom built. Multiple databases filled with as much information Renegade could squander away from the Grid over a prolonged period of time, an extensive medical suite, three berths, all capable of collapsing into the floor, with wings on all four sides to extend and make them larger. Every surface shined in sanitary glory. Renegade had not occupied the room before today, so it had seen no use.

               Gravity pulled at his frame only lightly as Naomi climbed through the upper atmosphere. One of the berths ascended smoothly from the floor up to waist height as he approached. Massive hands carefully setting the broken frame onto the glistening metal. It looked wrong for so much damage to exist on a spotless surface. In his minds eye Renegade could easily imagine the dismantled metal limbs, energon, oils, and lubricants coating the surface of the berth, but aside from the lessening trickle from a superficial scraplet bite, the frame lay as though separate from the reality around it.

               A subtle thrum ran through the ship, artificial gravity engaging as Naomi broke through and into greater space.

               “Naomi, alert me once we’re outside scanning range with Cybertron,” Renegade ordered, prepping life support systems. Sensory receptors would be simple to connect, but a supportive energon line? Renegade frowned. Under the glaring medical lights, the frame looked more patched together than it had initially. The safest, and only, location to hook the energon line up to would be in the neck cabling. Everything else was coated in corrosive acid and compacted with rusted scrap metal.

               It wasn’t easy, wiping and cleaning away the oil-laced acid from the cabling. If he thought it was safe Renegade would have carried the remains of the frame in with him to the decontamination shower. Unfortunately, the possibility existed that the solvents would loosen whatever was keeping its energon lines sealed. If they fell loose, the frame would bleed out quickly, and the spark would be extinguished.

               No sound of distress, flinch, or other note of recognition came from the frame as Renegade inserted the needle. Its optics continued to watch him in a manner he would almost consider ‘glazed’.  Whoever they were, they were not following his motions as closely as he would have liked. He wasn’t a medic to make such diagnosis, but he worried about processor damage.

               Renegade wiped his hands on a spare rag, carefully removing what he could and wiping down his chest plating. He would need to step into the decontamination shower as soon as he had done what he could for the meantime. There was little he could do if an infection onset in his system.

               “We have exited Cybertronian space.”

               “Thank you, Naomi.” Renegade said, looking down one more time at the frame and frowning. It was still watching him, but in a way that made him feel as though it was looking through him, or past him. It couldn’t seem capable of focusing on anything.

               He checked the readings on the life support equipment one more time before stepping away towards the computer terminal. Digits drifted across the keys, inputting several frequencies. Once keyed in Renegade looked up at his work, frowned, and keyed in another set of encryptions over top of those he’d already programmed. He wanted one specific person to answer his call. Renegade trusted no one else with the work that had to be done.

               Finished, he queued up the comm link and said:

               “’Amongst the foothills in withering sleep, arise the old soon to reap. On boundless change will estrange those who favor entropy.’”

               A strange phrase. Bad poetry perhaps? Or some bit of doggerel verse? It was purposefully designed to give nothing away that wasn’t already apparent to the receiving party. Renegade had given such phrases, and counter phrases, to the few friends he possessed as they left the planet. It ensured they could contact one another safely should they require each other’s assistance. With the phrases each were given a series of frequencies, transponders, and receivers. One of Renegade’s most recent designs built to operate despite the distance between planets and galaxies.

               Once, long ago, Cybertronians moved among the stars, visiting planets and creating colony worlds. Now, it seemed, they would return to such wanderings, though not under preferred circumstances.

               “The old hoarder finally realized the planet was falling apart.” Renegade had scarcely begun setting up the scanning equipment when an acerbic voice assaulted him. Looking up at the primary screen, his gaze landed on a green and gray Seeker.

               Aero was not so much as glancing at the screen that displayed Renegade, however. His focus was entirely on the piece of machinery in front of him. Par to the course, he was in his workshop. Much like Renegade, Aero was an individual who was happiest when he had his hands deep into some project. The frown on the seeker’s lips was an almost constant companion for Aero. As were his brusque mannerisms. Aero had little time for those who used their processors, and no time for those who didn’t. Renegade, however, had been a long-time friend.

               A scientist who contrarily worked in both weapons manufacturing and cyberbiology, and a brilliant mind, Aero was – in Renegade’s opinion – a little obsessed with the creation of artificial sparks.

               “I hope you haven’t called just to tell me you’ve finally come to your senses,” Aero accused him. It had been a matter of some debate between himself and Aero when Renegade chose to remain on Cybertron instead of accompanying Aero when he’d left. Renegade was certain his decision had been right. His goal had been to collect as much information from the Grid; specifically, from the science and medical institutions, though he did not hesitate to sequester any information he could download. Information, regardless of what it was, could be of some use in the future.

               Aero’s counter argument had been that Renegade’s collection was already massive. How much data could one mech need? Eventually they agreed to disagree and Aero had accepted the communications array Renegade had given him. Not without a jibe, of course, on how Renegade was a hoarder. The phrase had been inspired by Aero’s accusations.

               Instead of answering Aero’s obviously irritated tone, Renegade opened a secondary feed that displayed the medical berth and the frame laying upon it.

               “I found this frame shortly before leaving the planet,” Renegade explained. Aero’s gazed has sharpened instantaneously and his focus was absolute. Without waiting for his request, Renegade uploaded the initial scans he’d preformed and he could see Aero’s habitual frown turn into one that bespoke concern. Try as he might, Aero had a caring spark. It was only his absolute distaste for idiots that kept hit hidden. “As you can see, it’s in critical condition. I can rebuild what’s missing, but I do not have the expertise to keep the spark stable.”

               “Has the chamber casing been breached?” Aero asked, his annoyance at Renegade forgotten in the face of an emergency.

               “I don’t know,” was Renegade’s answer, and his own timbre deepened.

               “You need to check,” Aero lectured, “if the chamber is breached, you’re going to have to provide the necessary support.”

               Renegade nodded; lips drawn in a grim frown. Without closing the communication’s link, he initiated a deep scan and streamed the results as they appeared live to Aero. Much of the scan was distorted, warped, but some information came trickling through eventually.

               “There’s too much scrap metal surrounding the chest cavity,” Renegade explained as Aero’s systems growled with annoyance.

               “Perhaps,” Aero murmured, examining the readouts before him, “but it appears these small portions here – ” his own feed flickered, showing Renegade what he was looking at “ – are almost, but not exactly, fused to the exterior of the spark chamber. Would it be possible to get a better reading?”

               “Not currently,” Renegade paused and then added: “Not without removing the rusted debris from its form, but to do that I would need a second set of hands. I don’t know what’s kept it from bleeding out, but if I were to remove the wrong piece without a set of clamps handy it would deactivate before I can find a medic.”

               “I’m sending you my coordinates,” Aero’s reply was swift, “I’ve found a settlement, an organic village, on a planet the locals call Altera. I’ll be waiting for you with the necessary materials.”

               The coordinates came quickly, and were immediately uploaded into the navigation’s system. Renegade allowed some of the tension to release from his frame. Venting the air that had been cycling his system for far too long.

               “Thank you,” he said, meaning it, “once I engage the subluminal drives communications will be spotty,” Renegade felt it necessary to warn Aero, but to also indicate that if something happened he would be unable to inform the seeker until they arrived. “I will see you planet-side.”

               “Understood. And Renegade? Do not move the frame more than strictly necessary. It’s a miracle its spark didn’t extinguish when you disturbed it on Cybertron. Any further stress and it likely will not make the journey.”

               With a simple nod of his helm, Renegade stepped forward, cut the transmission, and turned to look at the broken thing that lay on the berth.

               “Naomi, engage the subluminal drives,” Renegade ordered and ignored the empty acknowledgement he received.

               He was now left alone. Alone with his thoughts, a partially formed A.I., and a spark teetering on the edge of the void.

“No, I’d think not,” DT commented, turning his head to look up at the ceiling. “How long do you think the repair will take?”

“Until I get in there and see what’s needed I’m afraid I won’t know,” Duskwalker said which was partially true. Until she had a better idea how to purge his system of the Termination Protocol she wouldn’t be able to bring him back online. “The system flush and cleaning takes a couple of hours, but repair on the processor can’t be rushed. The slower the better so your system will recover faster.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” DT mentioned, “working slower so the outcome can be faster?”

“Medicine often works that way,” Duskwalker said, laughing a little, “there’s very little logic when it comes to recovery, but generally the less ‘collateral’ damage the faster the healing process. If I can pinpoint the area causing the issue I can work on that alone rather then a larger area that includes the effected circuit, chip, or wire. The problem is pinpointing it, which is why it could take longer.”

“Survey twice and dig once,” he said, “we’d often do two surveys to make sure we were digging down to the right vein, rather then dig down, find out we’d missed, and start over.”

“Exactly,” Duskwalker agreed, “now this is going to all be happening at the same time, so it’ll be a bit sudden, but everything will be just fine. Naomi is going to engage your shut-down the moment I plug you into the droid.”

“Understood,” he told her, settling back and shutting his optics.

“Naomi, initiate program countdown,” Duskwalker said, plugging in the end of the cable into the port on the back of the medical table; she’d altered it so it would not activate it until it was tightened. That way she’d have less of a chance messing up the timing.

“Program primed and ready,” Naomi reported, “beginning countdown… in ten, nine, eight...” Naomi’s voice buzzed in Duskwalker’s ears as she focused on nothing else. She and Naomi had to be nearly perfectly timed in order for this to work. The program would come from the droid which Naomi was partially in control of in order to monitor their patient while Duskwalker went on her fact finding mission. Naomi would only be able to send out a single drone while she was monitoring DT, making it a little more dangerous if since she couldn’t have all of them out on the search.

Sharing an uplink with Naomi allowed Duskwalker to twist her wrist at just the right moment as Naomi brought up the program, and shut DT down, to trick the Termination Protocol to unravel the wrong codes. For a moment, as Duskwalker had been working on the cable, she had wondered if there was a way to completely dump the Termination protocol into a fake processor, but she’d momentarily discarded the idea. They had to figure out what original programming it had been inserted into first and to do that they needed the whole, original, code along with the method used to install it, but Duskwalker wouldn’t be overly picky.

DT’s systems powered down, his frame relaxing with his remaining hand over his chest plating. Duskwalker watched through Naomi as their program ‘inquired’ the Termination Protocol for assistance. It was designed to sight the temporary shut down and ‘suspension’ of systems as a medical necessity for repair in the processor and all maintenance protocols needed to assist in the transference.

Lines of code moved back and forth as the pair of programs communicated, Duskwalker’s spark felt like it was cramping in fear as she watched, until the Termination Protocol sent an acknowledgement and took up its ‘work’ on the same line it had been on, but inside of the false processor, using the cable as a bridge, but much to Duskwalker’s disappointment the Protocol remained embedded inside of DT’s processor despite the ‘suspension’ of the function it was currently dismantling.

“Slag it all to…” she cut herself off with a heavy vent, “I was hoping, by some chance, it would just completely migrate, but obviously there must be some form of subroutine designed to keep it anchored, maybe in the same programming, or files, that it would end with to cause final spark failure.”

“And there are untold ways to manage that,” she groused, “from alternating energy frequencies, poisoning his energon, cutting the power to the spark chamber in a few key places, to changing the spark’s wavelength to create a feed-back loop and collapse the core.” Duskwalker leaned back against another berth. There were two in this small medical bay on board Naomi, there wasn’t enough room for more, though Duskwalker had once managed to fit a third patient in here when fleeing a planet was necessary. Thankfully they’d been a minibot not that much smaller than she was.

“What about a transference procedure?” Naomi asked.

“You mean transplanting his spark in a new frame?” Duskwalker returned her question, completely surprised. “I’m not trained enough to preform such a complex, delicate, surgery, also we can’t be sure that this protocol wouldn’t terminate the moment the spark chamber was open…” Duskwalker vented again, rubbing her face. “At least with it working away in this fake processor I can properly do a systems flush without it noticing the poisoning its started adding to his energon has been cleaned out.”

Duskwalker looked down at DT's face plate and felt a pang creep through her spark; she knew there was a chance she wouldn't be able to do what was needed to save his life. There was a chance, a good chance, that he could still deactivate due to whatever the Quintessons had done to him. Duskwalker couldn't stand when she lost a patient, but it was something she had accepted quite some time ago. She wasn't always in-time when reaching a battle field. Sometimes she could only sit there with a mech as their spark guttered out.

There was no getting around it, and there were things needing to be taken care of, so with a slight shake of her head to get her mind back to where it was needed Duskwalker began hooking up two lines to DT's frame. One was for suction, to pull the contaminated energon out of DT's frame and purify it once again so that there was no rust flakes or debris left inside of it. It would also balance out the energon so it was no longer poisoning DT's spark. The other line was designed to cycle the clean energon back into his system.

It would take several hours for the entire cycle to completely clean his energon, and even then Duskwalker might have to remove certain lines to replace them completely, but for now this would be enough to keep DT online while she went to find the information necessary to keep the Termination Protocol from deactivating him the moment she started working more in-depth with his repairs.

“You have it handled from here, Naomi?” Duskwalker asked, starting the machine and listening as it ran. It hummed along, working perfectly despite how rarely Duskwalker used it; she took pride in maintaining all of her machinery.

“Yes,” Naomi said, “but I must admit I'm still concerned, Duskwalker. I know we agreed that we should keep this situation quiet, but for you to travel, alone, to Hive City? It is a dangerous venture and it is plausible that you will not find what you need to in order to help this mech.”

“I know that,” Duskwalker answered, “but I can't sit here and do nothing.”

“I do not think it is possible for you to even contemplate the idea of 'doing nothing',” Naomi told her, her voice slightly sarcastic, “but you can still consider the option of contacting the Autobots. Perhaps their medic is capable of a transference...”

“He might be, but what little I know about it requires that information be taken from the mech's processor as well as his spark, along with inner most energon to properly 'bed' the spark, and there's no telling what all this protocol is primed for. It's the most paranoid conglomerate of 'what ifs' I've ever seen in coding. It doesn't make any sense. It's like they expected a revolt and...”

Her ears flicked, maybe?

“Anyway,” she dismissed the thought, answers could be found in Hive City, she was certain of it. “I have to try and do this without causing trauma to his spark and transference doesn't always work out like it needs to. I don't exactly have a frame, or protoform, sitting around for us to use.”

This time Naomi remained quiet and Duskwalker suspected she was running through various simulations. Leaving the AI to do so, knowing that Naomi was simply concerned for her, Duskwalker prepared two of the containers of energon to bring with her, along with a specially designed sledge that she could pull with her alt mode. It had a harness made out of a pliable material that she could step into so she might be able to pull large mechs along with her off the battlefield; it worked just as well for salvaging materials.

“Please keep me informed of his condition, Naomi,” Duskwalker said, transforming into her feline frame and stepping into the harness on the front of the sledge. “If something happens, or he goes critical...” her tail lashed. It was dangerous to leave DT here alone without supervision, or rather medical supervision, but how else could Duskwalker help him?

“I will, of course.”

“Then I had better get going, hopefully I can find something... It's not like Cybertronians have been slouches, our tech has definitely improved in the time since the Quintessons, right?”

Duskwalker trotted over towards the lift that would take her to the surface of the planet, her tail swishing back and forth behind her. It was going to be a long treck and if it weren't for needing Naomi to act as a nurse she would have taken the ship, but too much of her processing power was being utilized to keep DT from deteriorating more.

As the lift moved, carrying Duskwalker up towards the surface, Naomi reflected on her core programming and found that she could not ignore this situation. Renegade had altered her programming so that her first priority was to keep Duskwalker safe and leaving the safety of the workshop for the dangers of Hive City was not something she could handle.

           “DT said the Quintessons were transporting them in Stasis Pods to prevent any sort of revolt, right?” Duskwalker asked; Naomi had heard everything DT had said through Duskwalker’s comm. line and her drones.

           “Yes,” Naomi answered, then continued following Duskwalker’s line of thought, “it is possible the Quintesses utilized a code, or key pass, to open the Stasis Pods. Perhaps when his opened the lack of that code initiated the Termination Protocol?”

           “That or it was always there, but since it worked so slowly no one noticed it and placing the mechs in Stasis slowed it further, but what purpose would that serve? It fits better to imagine that the Stasis Pods required some kind of code in order to open and properly activate the mech inside. I still can’t fathom why, though. The Quintessons played ‘nice’ like they were helping Cybertronians, right? So why put this kind of programming into their systems.”

           “There are many possibilities, from experimentation to see if they could, to simply having better control over their ‘wares’,” Naomi offered. “We may not ever find out, and it is possible we will not be capable of neutralizing this program.”

           The idea was not one Duskwalker liked. Her concern deepened and she started back at the top of the code, creating two new files to copy sections over to in order to better analyze them. Portions of code made no sense to her and would need to be taken apart line by line, while others looked as though they were trying to act like a masking agent; hiding the protocol for what it was. Still other sections reacted more like a virus, making it possibly contagious to anyone who might interlink with DT’s systems. In all it was a highly complex piece of work and that it was not yet finished made the idea of a complete product daunting at best, terrifying at worst.

           Curling her legs up onto the massive chair Duskwalker considered her options; she could repair DT as best she could, hoping not to bother the program and activate its kill switch, she could place the mech into shut-down mode, slowing all his major programs and functions to try and prolong the time it takes for the protocol to work through him and kill him, or she could come up with something ridiculous, dangerous, that may or may not possibly work to stop the forward momentum of the protocol long enough for her to find a way to safely place DT offline and trick the protocol into stopping until she found the necessary information to clean it from his systems.

           “I recognize that look, Duskwalker,” Naomi mentioned, “what are you working on in that processor of yours?”

           “Something I’m not sure would work,” Duskwalker admitted, “but I sit and do nothing. Putting him into shut-down mode would maybe slow it down, it’s already moving slowly enough it might take years to work through his system, but there’s always the risk some random scan from any number of points on the planet could register as a threat and it could immediately terminate him. The protocol is both amazingly written and also paranoid. If I’m reading it right it treats any non-necessary scan as a threat and will immediately cut all energy flow to DT’s spark and processor, killing him pretty quickly, but it’s also designed to hide itself if necessary, well if that portion was finished anyway. It’s so frustrating how organized it is, but how it’s such a convoluted mess of ‘what ifs’ that it makes my head hurt.”

           “The Quintessons were, by and large, an overly cautious and even cowardly race,” Naomi explained, “they only went to war with Cybertron because they were able to hide behind their forces. They themselves never saw proper combat unless the battle spilled over onto their positions and even then they would try to flee first and fight secondary if the need was great enough. As such it is understandable that such a program would be filled with their own instinct to destroy the item they do not wish to fall into their enemy’s possession, and flee.”

           “But Cybertronians are sentient, they aren’t, we are not, things to be kept and destroyed on a whim,” Duskwalker pointed out, disgusted at the idea.

           “Not to the Quintessons,” Naomi told her. “Renegade does not speak about the Quintessons as much as other forces because he had little to do with them. Even at that point Renegade preferred to be left to his own devices and began working on engineering and armor design. He had little use for an alt mode, so never went to have his transformation ability ‘activated’.”

           “If he didn’t have much to do with the Quintessons, and has been a recluse for so long, how is it he has so much information on… everything?”

           “To be blunt,” Naomi said, “Renegade is a hoarder.” That prompted a tiny smile out of Duskwalker, but Naomi continued. “Truthfully, though, as the war began to consume most of Cybertron he did what he could to save what knowledge he managed to find and store it on data banks he later installed into my frame. He could not, of course, save everything, but he’d also already lived a very long life and accumulated his own knowledge on the happenings of the planet. He may not have involved himself, but that does not mean he did not pay attention.”

           “So he’s a hoarder and a complete snoop,” Duskwalker said, and already knew that about Renegade. He watched and paid attention to everything, even when he seemed to be otherwise occupied. It wasn’t that he was nosey, just that he was excellent at observing everything around him. It’s what made him such an excellent engineer and teacher. Duskwalker wished she could be even half as observant as he was.

           “Now what is this idea that has you looking so focused?” Naomi asked her.

           “I’m not so sure it’s an idea as much as simple insanity,” Duskwalker said, “but you know how Renegade’s security works at the colony to prevent the systems from being hacked into?”

           “Yes, the cloned networks. Identical clones of the actual mother computer for the colony, only none of them are directly attached to the commands, machinery, or security systems for the colony. There’s no way to tell them apart unless you are keying in a code and can witness that it is not working because on the screen it will show it as having been successful.”

           “Right,” Duskwalker nodded her head, keying up a new program and adding her scans of DT onto it, “So what if we did that with DT? Use one of the training droids, clone all his programming and implant it into the processor of the droid, then shut down all his major systems to keep them safe from degrading after hooking him into the droid? The protocol might attack the fake system instead as long as it’s an identical version of what has already happened to him.”

           “The timing would have to be precise. Shutting down his main systems and bringing the false ones up, it is possible to write a fake maintenance code that would ‘register’ and deem the protocol as necessary for some kind of routine system check that required such a ‘restart’, but how do you intend to link their systems?”

           “With something that didn’t exist when the Quintessons were here: an altered cortical psychic patch. We can write the maintenance program to make it seem as though the systems are being suspended, or moved to an outside source to continue to keep him running while physical work is being done on his processor to repair some kind of breach. As long as we make sure that our programs recognize the protocol as a repair program or maintenance program itself it won’t react. Instead it should alter its behavior and follow the ‘suspended’ functions to continue as it is in order to hold its cover.”

           “Why not use a life support system?” Naomi asked, “the Cortical Psychic Patch was outlawed.”

           “A life support system supports the frame, and functions, but I can’t use it to imitate his processor and functions specifically,” Duskwalker explained, “the protocol might think we’re attempting to remove it. I admit I’m not thrilled at the idea of using a Patch, there’s no guaranteeing it’d work, and putting him into stasis might slow it down, but we don’t know the right sequence to use in order to halt the Termination Protocol and we have no idea how long this will take…”

           “And after you hook him up to the droid, how do you intend to remove the protocol?” Naomi asked, and then in a different, more concerned tone, she said: “Duskwalker, you may not be able to save this one. You should notify the Autobots and have them handle this. Their medic will be better outfitted to deal with a situation of this magnitude. What if there are others out there, like DT? Only their Termination Protocols are primed and capable of spreading to other Cybertronians like a virus is meant to?”

           “Do you think something coded to also act like a maintenance program could do that?”

           “At the very least we need to consider it a possibility. Without a way to purge it from a Cybertronian system if there are more out there, like DT lost in Stasis Pods, we could face a pandemic.”

           This was not a thought process Duskwalker had wanted to face, she knew she had to, but that didn’t means he hadn’t tried to leave it as the least likely possibility. Drawing her knees up so she could rest her chin on them Duskwalker curled her tail over her paws and wrapped her arms around her legs. She started running simulations, trying to calculate the chances of that happen by contrasting it with the information in Naomi’s databanks and what she was beginning to understand about the Quintessons. They seemed a selfish people, cowardly, so the probability that they would figure out a way to make this protocol ‘contagious’ was high. It would have been a way to annihilate anyone who stood up to their ‘world order’, but then why not use it?

           The thing that stuck out to her most was how meticulous the Quintessons were. The chances they would ‘misplace’ another Cybertronian was low. DT may well be the only one and if there was another out there they may have already fallen victim to the Termination Protocol. So Duskwalker felt they were quite safe from another ‘survivor’ from the Quintesson age appearing, but the one point Naomi brought up was one that Duskwalker couldn’t wiggle her way around and Duskwalker couldn’t figure out why the thought made her so nervous.

           Naomi was right that the Autobots would be better situated to handle DT’s situation. Duskwalker did not have the most experience in dealing with things such as viruses, dangerous coding, or anything similar to the protocol slowly destroying DT’s system. It wasn’t something Downdraft, or Aero, had taught her about. Mostly because, outside of the Cybonic Plague, Cosmic Rust, and Hate Plague, there weren’t too many ‘diseases’ or ‘viruses’ that effected Cybertronian systems. None that were known of, at least, but here was an example of an unknown threat that could have decimated their population.

           Perhaps the reason it was such shaky ground was this Termination Protocol was not so much a virus, but a weapon for genocide. Duskwalker had no background, at all, when it came to weapons outside of her bow staff, claws, and tail mace. She wouldn’t begin to fathom how to handle what was, in many senses, a ‘kill switch’ for Cybertronian kind.

           No, not even the Autobots would really have experience in that area and that was why Duskwalker felt uneasy about seeking out their help. To her knowledge they had done what they could to fight the war ‘clean’, or at least Team Prime had, so the idea of creating something like this wouldn’t have occurred to them and it was very possible they had as little knowledge in the area as Duskwalker did.

           The Decepticons, however, had scientists that had put together weapons like this. Megatron himself had created the Cybonic Plague, and no one knew how much Shockwave had done before he vanished at the end of Cybertron’s life; when the planet went dark. However the thought of seeking out the Decepticons, any Decepticons, for aid was one that left an uneasy feeling in Duskwalker’s spark. The war might be ‘over’, but that didn’t mean there weren’t groups who would be more than willing to ‘go out with a bang’ if it meant no one won the war.

           “For now I think it’d be best to keep this to ourselves, Naomi,” Duskwalker said. “I’ll get DT situated and then I’ll make for Hive City, see if I can’t find any information pertaining to the Termination Protocol… if I can’t…” Duskwalker sighed, looking up at the streaming data and her own notes.

           “If I can’t, then we’ll go to the Autobots.”

           “And what of DT? Do you intend to tell him?”

           “I don’t think I can. I don’t want to lie to him, but whether he intends to do it or not telling him he has a program, a protocol acting like a virus and maintenance, he’ll subconsciously try and purge it from his system, and it would immediately kill him. I’ll have to come up with something that’s the truth, but not such a specific truth that he’ll try to scan his own systems for it.”

           “Agreed,” Naomi said, easing some of the tension in Duskwalker’s spark. “I’ll begin creating a fake version of DT’s processor within one of the training droids while you ready him for a full systems shut down.”

The flight back to the workshop had been a quick one, but one that left Duskwalker with more questions than answers. Naomi had begun an in-depth scan on DT's framework and systems, being careful not to alert the Termination Protocol with her presence. That Duskwalker had done any work on him, disconnecting his pain receptors for his arm and leg, and preforming her own cursory scan, had been dangerous enough. She dare not even flush his systems of the rust she suspected was in his lines until she knew for certain it was safe. For now all she had been willing to risk was hooking him up to an energon feed and allowing him to recharge while Naomi worked. That she could do nothing but wait now was infuriating especially when she knew he was in the process of dying from, what would become, artificial spark failure.

With nothing more to do then fret, worry, and question if she had done the right thing, Duskwalker had decided to train her body since her mind would not remain still. It would give her something to focus on and a way to expend the energy in her system. She hadn't started out this way of course, she'd first started trying to work on replacements for his missing arm and leg, but when she cut a section of framing wrong, not once but, twice she decided it would do no good to try and work until she knew the outcome of Naomi's scan.

More then that was the fear of where she may have to look for her answers.

Pain lanced up her arm as the training droid smashed his hand into her shoulder, sending Duskwalker to the floor where she barely caught herself with a hand and rolled out of the way of his foot slamming down to pin her. Even now she was distracted, distracted by the thoughts of her patient and where her answers may lie: the capital city of the Quintessons on Cybertron.

Hive City.

It was a dangerous place, filled with warped and twisted creatures that were part of some kind of long lost experimentation; at least that was what the files said on it when she read about the Quintesson invasion of Cybertron in Naomi's data banks. Whether those creatures still existed after the war, or if Hive City even had the information she'd need, were two questions that plagued her mind now. Would it be safe for her to go in search of the original programming for the Termination Protocol, perhaps find a way to safely remove it from DT's systems, when the city itself might be crawling with creatures too dangerous for a medic to face alone?

The training droid came at her again, swinging the blade in a powerful slash that was directed at her fragile abdominal armor. Duskwalker leaped up and flipped over the droid, lashing out with her bow staff, but the droid countered, blocking her blows with the thick armor on it's free arm. Duskwalker had to twist and slide into the 'safe zone' a second time, an area of space an opponent couldn't reach her without some difficulty. She curled her body in and around his own, moving to be back-to-back with him and then dropping when he turned around, spinning on her paws to keep her back to his until he stepped over her, bringing his training sword down towards her.

Duskwalker guided the sword away from herself with her bow staff while at the same time using it to push herself up into the air. Her paws connected with the droid's head, making it stagger to the side and giving her room to maneuver her bow staff. The length of the staff was both its greatest advantage and disadvantage. It meant that Duskwalker could reach her opponents without getting too dangerously close, but it also meant she was forced to step back within striking range in order to use it offensively. If she were being honest with herself Duskwalker would have already lost the moment the droid hit her shoulder had she been facing someone with the intent to really harm her.

She could practically hear Renegade's coaching in her ears now, telling her once more how she had to focus on keeping the fight short. Neutralize her opponent long enough that she could run, disappear into whatever cover she could find. Her's was not a battle frame.

Duskwalker quietly ran through the words he'd use to explain how she had to fight while she circled the droid. It followed her movements, adapting to her approach as well as it could. It was not sentient, not like Naomi, though Naomi could take control of it to give Duskwalker more of a challenge, but for now the simple process of exercising was all Duskwalker wanted.

The droid lunged at her and Duskwalker ducked underneath and to the side of the blow. She spun her bow staff, smashing first one butt-end of it into the droid's head, then twisting back around under the blade to smash it against his head a second time. The droid staggered back and Duskwalker advanced, surging up and jumping into the air to kick out with both legs. Once, and twice, she connected her paws under it's 'jaw', but with a twist of her spine she planted the butt end of her staff on the floor and pushed herself back up into the air. Four times she had hit the droid, and it was staggering now. Her frame twisted, and the last four external links of Duskwalkers tail closed together, forming a mace.

Pushing herself off of her staff and into the air once more Duskwalker flipped in order to add more momentum to her tail and brought the 'mace' end down on top of the droid's head to finish the combination move designed to either knock a mech out or at least jumble it's sensory array and jar its equilibrium circuits.

Duskwalker landed on three's, right arm back for balance with her staff, and the fingers of her left hand spread to catch her weight. It was a move she had drilled for long hours until she'd gotten it right. It depended entirely on being able to land at least three of the five blows, with the final one being the most important as she had to target the back of the mech's head. This was achieved by at least two of the earlier blows making the mech bend his neck, allowing him to rub his face plate in order to ease his discomfort. If she could not draw him into doing so, the last blow would do little more then cause more pain and Duskwalker would not be able to use it again.

As it was the droid shut down and Duskwalker expelled heated air out of her vents in a huff of satisfaction. Yes she had made a mistake allowing the blow to land on her shoulder, which was still aching from the force of it, but she'd managed to finish the drill successfully. If she had actually achieved knocking the mech senseless this was when she would disconnect her bow into batons, store them away, transform, and run.

Sometimes Duskwalker would continue the program, where she would do so and make it to a 'safe zone' where the droid would shut down, but for now the hanger bay was too cramped to do so. Instead she focused on simply training and moving.

“Naomi,” Duskwalker asked, disconnecting her bow and stowing each individual baton into her forearm armor, “how's the scan coming along?”

“Eighty-five point nine-eight-seven percent finished,” Naomi replied crisply, “so far from what I have observed the protocol will not behaving adversely for general maintenance, or for major repairs. The scan is not yet complete, however, I believe I can hypothesis safely that this protocol is in a 'testing phase'. There are the beginnings of a, what the Quintessons were calling, a sleeper protocol that would allow for the programming to disguise itself during a systems scan, but it has not yet been put into effect.

“It sounds like they were trying to find a way to add a 'kill switch' of some kind,” Duskwalker commented, feeling her spark twist in unease.

“Yes, it would appear so.”

“Continue the scan Naomi, I'm going to go and see if I can concentrate on situating a better 'medical bay' in one of Renegade's workshops.”

“Of course,” Naomi agreed, “and Duskwalker?”

“Yes?”

“'Do not allow yourself to become distracted,'” she was quoting Renegade, “'yours is not a war-frame, or a heavy-labor frame, if you fight an opponent who truly means to cause you damage it may only take one blow for them to win a fight. You must be faster, more agile, and think quicker then your opponent. Only by not being there when the blow comes can you hope to survive a real fight.'”

It made Duskwalker smile to hear Renegade's words repeated to her, it comforted her, which had been Naomi's intention all along.

“Thanks Naomi.”

           “Could it break if my arm were pulled out of joint?”

           “It could,” Duskwalker agreed, “I’ve had a few cases where a mech has, essentially, dislocated his joint and the link gave way to preserve the energon lines, but they’re simple enough to replace.”

           “You can’t repair them?”            “No, they’re designed to break and then be recycled,” Duskwalker said.

           “Seems wasteful,” DT1007-85M commented, settling back to watch Duskwalker work. The lines were whole and she began clamping off the smaller lines. They would have to be temporarily sealed until Duskwalker reconnected them to a new limb. “Why can’t you just reuse it?”

           “I suppose you could a time, or two, but after the third or fourth time it’d start ‘popping out’ with simple jolts or transformations,” Duskwalker answered, “and once that starts happening there’s no guarantee that it’ll work properly and if a medic doesn’t get to it in time, if it starts leaking, you could drain yourself dry of energon.”

           “Some parts are just meant to be used once,” she continued, using a tool to disconnect the energon line at the breakage link. A small trickle of energon followed, but when Duskwalker wiped it with one of her rags no more leaked out. “And I always reuse any metal I have on hand. It is work to melt it back down and purify it into something useable, but then I can take what would have otherwise been junk and make new parts from it.”

           “Does it not weaken the metal, to reduce it to molten slag again like that?”

           “Not necessarily if you do it right. It’s a long process to get it into a workable form again, but thankfully a lot of that can be automated,” though Duskwalker didn’t know if she had the equipment to do so anymore. She had yet to take stock of what was available in the workshop, “even then I can always hire-out, or sell it to someone who can work it and sell the finished product for a profit.” The second line came away cleaner and with the pair of energon lines out of the way, along with various other coolant and lubricant lines, she could access the frame itself. She was going to cut the main strut in his leg, the ‘bone’ in a sense, and continue to dismantle the whole joint once they were on Naomi. The process was too time consuming, and delicate, to do here in the wreck of the ship.

           “Alright,” she said, wiping her hands dry and getting out her laser scalpel, “now, I’ve disengaged all your pain receptors, so you won’t feel this, but watching it can still distress you and your processor might decide it hurts anyway. I’d prefer to have you in stasis for this, but getting you out of here is going to require that you stay online, so I’m going to require you to turn your head away, or close your optics. I could also blindfold you if you’d prefer. I don’t want your systems to go on the fritz because they’re assuming you’re experiencing pain when you’re not.”

           “I understand,” DT1007-85M said, leaning his head back and closing his optics. Duskwalker ex-vented a sigh of relief; sometimes patients who had to have amputations would argue they could ‘handle it’ and find out they actually couldn’t. She’d had to induce stasis on a few of them when they couldn’t come to the realization there was no pain.

           “By the way,” Duskwalker said as she began, cutting through the pistons of his leg, and down into the strut itself in a careful, smooth, motion, “you should think of a name for yourself, there’s no need for you to use an alpha-numeric designation.”

           “I know, but… how do you name yourself?” DT1007-85M asked, sounding lost for the fist time, “do you just throw a pair of words together that sounds good?”

           “That’s one way to go about it I suppose,” she adjusted the grip on her laser scalpel and started working through the remaining half. That was a problem with how small Duskwalker was, she normally had to take a few extra steps to finish something another, larger, medic could handle in one. “But names are normally more about who you are, there are other ways to figure it out like reading the spark code and such, but I don’t have the equipment here to do that.”

           “How did you figure out your name? If that’s not too personal a question,” he asked. Duskwalker glanced up at him to be sure he wasn’t watching her work, but he still had his head tipped back with his optics closed. Thank Primus, someone who listened to what the medic said.

           “I don’t know if it’s too personal, I don’t mind you asking, but others might,” Duskwalker began, “but as for my name… I don’t know it just fit. I’ve always walked kind-of on the edge of things, or in-between spaces. I emerged here on Cybertron, but never lived on the planet. I’m neither Autobot nor Decepticon, but I’m not really a Neutral either because I did involve myself in the war to a certain degree. I walk among our people and organics. I bring life, but I also help soften death. Besides the names ‘Dawnwalker’ or ‘Twilightstrider’ didn’t really fit because I feel a close connection with the ending of the day and the long, soft, shadows of dusk.”

           “Poetic and complicated,” DT1007-85M observed.

           “Doesn’t have to be,” Duskwalker said with a shrug, cutting through the rest of the leg strut and moving the remains away from DT1007-85M . “A name can be whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to have a deep meaning, or it could be something that marks out your personality, or you can interpenetrate your spark code. There are all sorts of ways to figure one out and you don’t have to figure it out right this second, until then are you alright with me calling you DT?”

           “Of course,” he nodded his head, but kept his optics shut.

           “Alright, DT, I’m going to start on your arm. Might as well leave your optics shut, though, this one is going to take a bit longer; one of your primary lines is pinched and it may be broken,” Duskwalker informed him, standing up and moving to kneel next to his side.

           His arm was a harder puzzle to work out. Part of the shoulder armor was pinched under the collapsed fuselage and it had crunched down onto the frame, pinning the energon line. Duskwalker carefully cut away as much as she could, closing off smaller lines and clamping those that were damaged. Duskwalker wiped away oil and energon to look at his primary line and ground her denta slightly. It was badly cracked and only the pressure from the armor and fuselage was keeping him from bleeding out. She’d need to force a clamp in there tight enough to hold it shut until she could use some sealant, but to do that Duskwalker needed access to the line.

           With a number six and four clamp Duskwalker wedged the smaller clamp in until it was, mostly, pinching the line shut. He would loose a little energon, but until she had more space to work with it wasn’t possible to get the number six under the mangled piece of armor, and she wouldn’t have more space to work with until she’d removed his arm and was able to pull him away from the fuselage. Of which she hoped wouldn’t fall right on top of them both.

               Wiping away more energon Duskwalker studied the crack in the line and noticed rust flakes on the edges of it; rust had gotten into his energon lines. Great, he’d need a full systems flush and cleaning with medical grade in order to make sure the rust was completely out of his lines. Duskwalker hoped none of it had gotten too far into his internal systems; the last thing she wanted to deal with was a blockage. Particularly in one of the primary lines that fed the spark chamber as several of them were quite small. It would take very little rust to block them.

           “How long has it been since your last full system maintenance check?” Duskwalkeer asked, noticing now some worn areas of his joints. A medic would have increased the concentration of alloys in his energon, but from what she could see here his system had done what it could to minimize the damage.

           “The Quints used to plug us into some kinda machine and ran over our systems that way. No one ever got opened up and checked over, unless they were too badly damaged. Then the Quints took ‘em off somewhere else. Never saw any of ‘em again.”

           “How did they assess the wear on your joints? A computer isn’t going to pick that up, you need a visual inspection. It’s probably one of the things people hate coming in for most, actually, a full maintenance check and joint inspection.”

           “They did not,” DT told her as Duskwalker applied the edge of her laser scalpel to his arm strut, “if a mech became worn he was taken away for ‘repair’, but as before we never saw them again. They were never returned to the work group. Instead we would receive new workers to replace the old.”

           “Like using a tool until it’s so badly broken you have to replace it,” Duskwalker said in disgust. She had met people like that, who would use their tools and not properly take care of them. They argued it was easier to just buy new tools once the old ones were worn down, but Duskwalker didn’t agree. She tended to her tools, and instruments, as carefully as she would a patient’s frame. A medic who couldn’t keep their tools going, instruments clean, and scalpels sharp was a medic who wasn’t worthy of the name. That’s how Duskwalker felt at least, and it was how Renegade acted with his equipment as well. How good an engineer was he if he couldn’t keep everything in top condition? He’d ask her that any time he was repairing something and Duskwalker, not yet training, would ask why he didn’t replace it.

           “Yes,” DT agreed, “most of my workforce was empty, they lacked identity, so they did not object when they were taken. Those like me were not taken until we were depleted and even then it was not until we were placed within our stasis pods that they took us. The Quintessons would not risk our objections reaching Cybertron.”

           The scalpel finished cutting through his arm strut and Duskwalker turned her attention to the energon line. There was no way to release it from where it was pinned, so she started cutting through the metal of his armor until that too was free. Now she had to change tools; a laser scalpel risked setting the energon off, so she would have to use a regular one. Duskwalker twisted and wiped down the scalpel in her hand before replacing it in her kit. After picking out a small can of sealant, and a number 12 energon line cap, she selected a smaller, metal, scalpel and checked the blade’s height. It would just barely fit, she estimated, and returned to his arm.

           “I’m going to cut your energon line free,” she explained, wanting him to be informed of what was happening, “you will loose a little energon, but I have a sealant ready. This means the line itself is going to have to be replaced, but it won’t be an overly involved task,” not when he needed a full system flush. She may well end up replacing the majority of his energon lines by the end of it. “Once it’s cut loose I’m going to gently pull your shoulder forward so I can apply the sealant. I don’t want you to move any further forward than I direct you to, though, because if you lose your balance and fall onto your side the clamp may pop loose.”

           “I understand,” DT acknowledged, his optics still closed and his head leaning back. Duskwalker was rather grateful for the mech’s developing good-natured and relaxed personality. He wasn’t prone to panic it seemed, but then again working in a mine meant you couldn’t panic if something went wrong; it’d just kill more people.

           Bringing the scalpel to bear on the energon line Duskwalker sliced through the tubing with ease, the sharp instrument sliding through the material, and like she suspected energon began to trickle out of the line. Unconcerned, it was only a small amount; Duskwalker flipped the scalpel around and with both hands gently pulled on DT’s shoulder. He leaned forward willingly and stopped when she held his shoulder still. Setting her scalpel on the edge of her medical kit Duskwalker turned the energon line so it was facing towards her and applied the number six clamp further down the line. It bit down on the line, closing it shut, allowing Duskwalker to remove the number four and open the end of the energon line completely. Wiping away the energon that leaked out of it Duskwalker cleaned the opening and applied the sealant and cap to the end of the energon line. Setting the sealant down Duskwalker reached for another tool, a kind of ultra-violet light, which she pressed to the edges of the energon line cap. The sealant reacted to the light and quickly fused to the cap, closing the line off.

           Slowly releasing the clamp the energon flowed out to the cap and stopped. Duskwalker huffed in satisfaction and returned her tools to her kit. He was now free of the fuselage which had pinned his arm, but now for the fun part. They still needed to get out of here and onto Naomi. To do that Duskwalker intended to act as his other leg and arm. He’d have to crawl out of here with her supporting half his weight. It wasn’t ideal, but there was no other way to go about it. It would take a long time to cut a way through that was large enough for the sledge.

           Speaking of which…

           “Naomi I’m an idiot and forgot to bring a sledge out, would you direct one to just outside the opening for me please?”

           “Of course,” Naomi replied.

           Duskwalker turned to DT and watched him carefully for a moment. He didn’t seem any worse than when she had started, but the difficulty was even looking at recently severed limbs could have a side effect. It was possible for her to guide him out, but there were certain aspects to his frame, his shoulder for instance, that would be easier to maneuver if he could see. If Duskwalker had more time she could have opened the entry way larger, cleared out more debris, but the protocol working its way through his system worried her deeply. How long had it been active? How much further did it have to go? And worse still had it been aware enough to note her scan of his systems? Would it self-terminate along with its host?

           There would be no answers until Duskwalker could get DT onto Naomi and have Naomi do a deep probe of his systems. Naomi, being an AI, would be better able to ‘feel’ around the protocol, gathering all the information Duskwalker would need and could not risk finding herself. The program, if it also was acting like a Cybertronian virus, would not recognize Naomi as a Cybertronain, but it would Duskwalker. The possibility of this protocol spreading in the manner of a virus was rather terrifying. It would need to be treated swiftly and with care; thus her predicament.

           “Time to get you out of here, DT,” Duskwalker told him, closing up her kit and transforming. Setting the kit off to the side with her jaws, she would come back for it once he was on Naomi, Duskwalker moved so that her back would be placed roughly at an even distance between his leg and arm joint. “Here’s the plan. If you feel you can handle it, you can open your optics, but if you can’t leave them close. You’re going to lean forward and rest the left side of your weight, the side missing the limbs, on my back. Together we’re going to crawl through the opening I made with my frame acting as your missing arm and leg.”

           “We’re going to go at a pace you are comfortable with. If you need to stop we stop, if you want to go slower we go slower, does that sound okay?”

           “Yes,” DT said, opening his optics and, amazingly, not looking to his missing limbs. Instead he shifted his weight and adjusted his position so that he could come down on her back. His weight pushed down on Duskwalker’s legs and for a moment she was worried this wasn’t going to work, that she couldn’t hold him up, but then he planted his knee down on the ground and took a portion of the weight off of her frame. It was still a considerable amount and Duskwalker had to lock her legs for a moment until she got used to it, but this was doable.

           “Okay,” Duskwalker grunted, unable to hide the strain, “on your mark let’s start moving. Remember: go at a pace you’re comfortable with.” DT simply nodded his head and moved his hand forward, followed by his leg and Duskwalker felt the armor sliding over her back. She struggled to step forward, his side sliding and nearly falling off of her frame. They stopped after that first push forward, Duskwalker trying to move forward so as to keep him balanced and DT trying to pull more weight onto his remaining arm and leg.

           “Sorry,” she told him, she’d noticed a wince in his face plate. “This is the first time I’ve done something like this,” she thought for a moment. “Maybe if we treat this more like a cruch. Lean your weight on me as you move your arm forward and I’ll move my front leg forward, and do the same thing with your leg. When you move your leg forward I’ll complete my own steps.”

           DT nodded, not saying anything, and started forward again. He did exactly as she told him, balancing his weight on her back as he moved his arm forward, waited for her to take the first step, and then balanced again as he moved his leg. Duskwalker completed her step and lamented for a moment that they had barely moved. It would take quite a while to get outside. Still she had no other recourse, not unless she wanted to spend the same amount of time dismantling the opening to the ship and hoping it wasn’t going to collapse in on them if she cut the wrong thing.

           It would have made for a bizarre sight; Duskwalker walking under the maimed torso of a mech in order for him to crawl forward through the wreck of a former ship. Pooled energon from inside of his frame was now dribbling out and sliding over her armor. It smelled, badly, but Duskwalker resisted the urge to shiver or shake and simply continued to move forward. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t wash off later and any scrapes that were being gouged into her armor would hardly show. They could be buffed out later; and Duskwalker’s matte paint wasn’t designed to be fancy or flashy, so it really didn’t matter. She could leave the scratches in there for a while and they’d barely show up.

           Feeling as though she’d just ran a marathon Duskwalker and DT managed to make it to the entrance, only getting hung up once because of an attachment to DT’s back Duskwalker hadn’t seen. They were both exhausted and Duskwalker could tell DT was in pain. Her own frame was now coated in various liquids and scratches, along with the acid from the storm. She would need to decontaminate both their frames before she started working on him.

           “Easy,” Duskwalker cautioned as DT pulled himself up onto the sledged. He allowed himself to lay down on his front, curling one arm around to rest his brow on. A deep sigh left his vents and Duskwalker echoed him once before transforming. She grabbed hold of the handles and directed the hovering sledge towards the loading bay. Once he was safely inside Duskwalker returned for her medical kit, glad to be getting out of here.

           Trotting out into the open air she vented again, heat leaving her frame in a great wave (great for her that is). Now that the easy part was over with she’d need to start working on how to safely remove the protocol from DT’s systems. If she didn’t Duskwalker wasn’t certain how long he’d last.

        “Were you a pet?”

        The question startled Duskwalker out of her examination of the protocol’s coding and she looked up at DT1007-85M with utter confusion written all over her face plate. A pet? What was he talking about.

        “For the Quints,” he clarified, correctly reading her confusion. “I don’t think they had any of us take on animal forms to be companions, but most of my time was spent off-planet, mining, and building mining outposts.”

        “No,” Duskwalker answered, understanding now, “I emerged from the Well only a few batches before it went dark during the Great War,” she flicked her tail and returned her datapad to her subspace.

        “Did you emerge like this, then? Was that something new that started happening after the Quintessons left?”

        “No, I didn’t, I was reformatted later,” Duskwalker told him, “but it’s a long story and Naomi is getting ready to land. I need to leave you here just for a moment and clear the way out; right now it’s too narrow to get you through, and I’ll have to get my kit, but then we’ll get you out of here. Just stay calm, don’t pull on your arm, and—”

        “Don’t you worry ‘bout me none,” he told her, smiling, “I’m used to tight, dark, spaces. Ain’t gonna bother me to sit in here while you work on how to get me outta this scrapheap.”

        “If you’re sure,” Duskwalker didn’t want to leave him in here alone, leaving a patient on their own could be one of the worst things a medic could do, but there was no way she could pull him out through such a small opening. All things considered she had two choices: she could sit here, treat him, and wait to see if someone else came to the distress signal or she could take a little time to open the way and bring him back to the safety of the workshop. Even now she knew she should disconnect the distress signal; it could lure in some who’d take advantage of a situation like this.

        Of course it might also call in someone who could be of more help than Duskwalker under the circumstances. She’d never encountered a protocol like this one, though she now wondered why it was DT1007-85M was still alive.

        “I am, but I dunno how you intend to get me out of here. Can’t walk without two legs and you ain’t near big enough to carry me,” it sounded like he was some-what decided on a speech pattern now at least and Duskwalker smiled.

        “Don’t worry about that,” Duskwalker said, a little laughter in her voice now, “you aren’t the first heavy-frame I’ve had to drag out of a bad area on my back.” Duskwalker flicked her ear and then pulled her energon container off her shoulders, having almost completely forgotten about it, and offered it to the mech. “Here, don’t down it all at once or you’ll probably purge it, Naomi just landed so I’m going to go fetch my tools and be right back.”

        “I won’t be going anywhere,” he told her, a little humor sparking his optics. Duskwalker smiled, a little more reassured, and transformed into her feline mode. This time on her way out she stopped to bite through cables that were tangling the way, push aside plates, and rip free torn sheets of metal. It wouldn’t be enough to get DT1007-85M through, but as a start it wasn’t bad.

        “Naomi, I need you to start analyzing the information on my datapad,” Duskwalker said the moment she was outside of DT1007-85M’s listening range. Naomi was landing, turning so that the loading bay was directed towards the opening Duskwalker had just exited. Truthfull if it weren’t for the fact Duskwalker could not treat the mech here she would have rather not had Naomi come. She was not a small ship, was in fact quite large, and would be very easy to see next to this, still smoldering, smaller vessel. “Also, can you block the distress signal?” It was too risky, she had decided, to allow it to continue. If there were others out there, pirates, rogues, Decepticons, the ship and Naomi would make for very tempting targets.

        “I began blocking it once I was in range,” Naomi answered, the door to the loading bay lowering. Duskwalker jumped up the short distance it still had to the ground and transformed as she jogged to the medical bay.

        Naomi’s medical bay was the only area of the ship that was in scale to Duskwalker’s needs, but it was also capable of being used by larger Cybertronians. Duskwalker had several medical kits ranging from simple cases to field surgeries. She took one of the former as she was going to be preforming surgery in order to remove the mech’s limbs. It wouldn’t be complicated as the joints could be easily disconnected, but rather she knew she had some of her best tools for cutting through metal inside of that particular kit and such tools would be useful for cutting her way out of the ship’s hull.

        “We’ll take him back to the workshop, it’ll be easier to work there where I can make the necessary pieces to replace what he’s losing,” Duskwalker was thinking out loud, but Naomi answered her anyway.

        “You’ll need to catalogue the raw materials you have left once you’re finished,” a pause, “would it not be wiser to bring him to the Autobots?”

        Duskwalker thought about that. It was an option as the mech was… well, he didn’t belong to any faction. Not Decepticons, Autobots, or Neutrals, so he would be safe with them. It was only Duskwalker’s habit to assume she would have to care for him on her own, but now she had options and that meant she had to make a decision.

        “I need to think on it,” she admitted, “the Autobots are busy with restoring Iacon for newcomers, I think, and probably there will be refugees that they’re tending to, and those returning home,” there was more to it then that, but Duskwalker didn’t have time right that moment to explain what she thought they might need to do; her theory was only starting to percolate in her processor.

        “So long as you remember that you have a choice,” Naomi said, “you don’t have to be the only one who tends to the wounded here. Not that you ever where,” Naomi was a little firm on the last of her sentence. Even on the edge of battle fields Duskwalker had never actually been alone. There had been other, more experienced, medics, but Duskwalker had always worked harder than was strictly necessary. She behaved as though she was the only medic there and Duskwalker had to tend to all the wounded. It was a deep, instinctive, desperation inside of Duskwalker’s spark, it wasn’t necessarily anything she could ignore.

        “I know,” she agreed.

        “I might suggest, too, that you take your Cytec cutter, it will work better than your surgical tools at removing the largest of plates,” Duskwalker blinked at Naomi’s suggestion, which was a good one, and felt a little foolish she hadn’t thought of it in the first place.

        “Thank you,” Duskwalker said, setting her datapad down on its port so Naomi could begin analyzing the information Duskwalker had gathered. “Take a look at that for me, will you? And start cross-referencing it in your database please. It’ll take me a little to work on him and get the entrance cleared out.”

        “Of course,” Naomi said, “what do you wish for me to do should others arrive?”

        “I… don’t know,” Duskwalker admitted, “you mentioned you started blocking the distress signal once you were in range?”

        “Yes, but there is no telling who may have received it prior to my arrival,” Naomi pointed out, “granted it would take them time to find the area, and the distress signal was weak. I had to have one of my drones quite close before I intercepted it.”

Lashing her tail back and forth Duskwalker picked up her Cytec cutter and hooked it onto her side, putting together several rags in order to keep as clean a work space as she could as she disconnected the mech’s shoulder and hip joints. She didn’t have much time to sit here thinking about the possibilities of someone coming along, if they didn’t get him on the ship and start working on that protocol right away there may be no reason to worry about another interested party.

“If they don’t hail you treat them as hostiles,” Duskwalker said, coming to a decision, “if they do… don’t fire unless they do, but if they do don’t hold back. I’ll work as fast as I can and hopefully we’ll be gone before any scavengers show up for the scrap.”

“Again,” Naomi said, “you could hail the Autobots yourself for help.”

“I could, but there’s the chance someone could intercept the message, and if you encrypt it the probability of the Autobots decrypting it before we’re back at the workshop is pretty small.”

“One time I have to send an encrypted message to an ally and am a little overzealous,” Naomi said as Duskwalker picked up her medical kit and made for the exit.

“Naomi… they thought you were sending them some kind of Arcanian recipe using V’darten flanks and jakra roots.”

“It’s not my responsibility to update Neutral decryption programs,” Naomi said and had she a body she probably would have turned her ‘nose’ up at the very idea. Duskwalker grinned, but she had work to do.

Work, and a decision to make. As a medic she prided herself with being honest to her patients, but in a situation like this where she didn’t entirely understand the problem at hand she was at a crossroads. Some things get better when you bring attention to them, but there were some things that worsened once you had your optic on it. If she told DT1007-85M about the protocol it was possible his self-repair system would try to turn and work on the coding that was slowly killing him, trying to dismantle it, and if there were some kind of failsafe in the protocol it could kill him faster and there would be nothing Duskwalker could do.

So… did she tell him, risk his death being swifter, or lie to him and work on the problem as she worked on his new limbs?

Duskwalker’s run ate up the distance between where she had been and the distress signal at a steady rate. The storm was still roiling overhead, but it had stopped raining for a moment. Lightning burst across the sky, lighting up the distance in front of her in start contrast. It almost didn’t seem real how jagged edges and crumbling sides could look even sharper in the harsh lighting. The remaining puddles of rain only helped to reflect it back at the metal walls and seemed to light up the ground with pools of white plasma. It made her paws itch to run through them, knowing she’d have to clean the joints out later to prevent any further discomfort. She wouldn’t suffer any ill effects as long as she didn’t let the acid sit on her armor longer than necessary. Rather it was the lining in-between her armor plates, the stretchy material allowing her such extreme flexibility, which worried her. Duskwalker didn’t know how well it held up to the rain.

“I’ll need to come back after this, or have you pick me up,” she said, some-what sullen. “It’d be best for me to take a full decontamination bath and clean out my joints. Do any of your files list whether or not my inner-linkage is able to hold up against Cybertron’s acid rain?”

“Inconclusive,” Naomi said, “he makes no reference directly to Cybertron’s weather, but it’s highly doubtful he would build your armor to be of a lesser standard than another Cybertronian’s, however caution dictates we not take a chance. A decontamination bath and examination of your linkages will be in order.”

“Then you might as well prep for take-off and come pick me up, if there’s anyone injured I’ll need my medical kit,” Duskwalker acknowledged, swerving around a chunk of metal much too large for her to simply jump over, using her tail as a rudder to keep up her speed without losing her balance, “unless you think the storms will be a problem?” It could be, though Duskwalker didn’t think so. Everything was starting to clear up and now only the occasional bout of lightning crackled in the sky. Mostly it was all distant rumbles of thunder.

“No,” Naomi responded, Duskwalker puffed hot air out of her vents, pulling in new cooler air to keep her actuators in her legs from over heating, “the storm is only a category one now. Low wind velocities, the lightning itself even at a direct hit would do little to disturb my circuits, and in any event low altitude flight is recommended to keep my frame off the radar.”

“Why’s that?” Duskwalker asked, approaching one of the many energon lines that crossed the ground. She increased her speed as much as she could and once she was at the edge she drove her front paws down, swiftly followed by her back paws, and put as much force into her legs as she calculated was required, but just in case she added a flick of her tail in an upwards motion to put to use all her forward momentum.

Duskwalker leaped over the glowing crack in the ground, elongating her body by stretching her legs out in front of her. Plates shifted on her frame, stretching out to reveal the linkage-material in-between them. Others first overlapped and then separated to allow her maximum length. Her tail remained curled up over her back and as she came to land she angled her front paws down, drawing her back legs up, and took the majority of the force into her shoulders. The force rolled up into her shoulders and she allowed her elbows to bend, rolling her back legs forward and planting her paws down. Duskwalker felt a bit of a jolt in her frame, but otherwise she continued to run forward without missing a beat.

“While it is most likely the Autobots have an array set up for any large craft, they will also be scanning for mid and small craft. The Decepticons, should there be any on the surface, will be doing the same. Cybertron may be restored, but the possibilities of the war being completely over without any ‘after shocks’ is unlikely.”

“In other words you don’t want to be spotted,” Duskwalker said, smiling a little, “you could have just said you don’t want to be noticed and I would have gotten it, but you don’t need to fly low-altitude to do that, or otherwise Renegade’s losing his touch.”

“Perhaps I merely wish to practice my low altitude flight capabilities,” Naomi said, sounding a little peevish. “You’re coming up on the signal now, I suggest you slow and scout the situation at hand first.”

“Agreed,” Duskwalker said, slowing down until she was able to crouch, slinking along the ground towards the wreck she now had in her visual range.

In all it looked rather old; there was no smoke coming from the wreckage, no fire, but of course it had just rained. Still it smelled as though it had been here for a few days. So why had the distress signal come online now? It was possible, she theorized, that whoever had crashed had been knocked offline for a while only regaining consciousness now. Or perhaps the acid rain had caused a short circuit in the wiring. There were any number of reasons the distress signal could inexplicably come online, but regardless Duskwalker intended to investigate.

Moving in a counter-clockwise direction Duskwalker creeped closer and closer to the wreck, pulling air in through her vents and testing the samples she collected in her olfactory array. So far the acid rain had wiped away a lot of the information scent could tell her, but she could pick out a tang of old energon. Whether it was blood energon, or energon from the ship’s engine, was difficult to tell at this point.

“I am currently enroute to your position, Duskwalker,” Naomi sent a short comm. Duskwalker acknowledged with a ping on the frequency and started her forward stalk towards an opening she noticed in the small, one man, ship. Her back paw replaced the front paw, her body remained low with her belly almost touching the ground, and for once her tail remained quite still trailing along behind her as she moved forward to sniff the opening.

A faint whiff of blood energon slithered its way out to her and Duskwalker wrinkled her nose in disgust. It smelled foul, tainted, but not necessarily by sickness. Rather it smelled like an old injury, encrusted with rust. She’d need to be cautions, then, because it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between cosmic rust and the normal rust one formed around a wound if it was allowed to oxidize. The danger was that there existed only two ways to know for certain you were dealing with cosmic rust: If you safely collected a sample and analyzed the microbes involved within the rust, or the person who made first contact begins to rust at an accelerated rate. Of course this was in cases where the rust was relatively new, and Duskwalker was fairly certain this rust smelled old.

“Attention,” she said, her voice level and calm, “my designation is Duskwalker, field medic, I am entering your ship. Please refrain from firing your weapons. My only intention is to help,” she could not say she was unarmed, in her feline form alone she could cause a good bit of damage with fang and claw, then there was the club-like mechanism at the end of her tail, not to mention her batons and bow-staff in robotic mode.

“Slagging pit-spawn, about time someone showed up,” the mech inside growled. Duskwalker flicked her ears back and forth, listening intently for a second voice. This could still be a trap, but she detected no other sounds. No spark beats, no thrumming of engines outside of the one mech, and no impatient shuffling or gears whirring. “Are you going to help or am I going to rust to death before you get in here?”

“A moment,” Duskwalker commented, “is your rust covering a percentage larger than your wound?”

“What? Slagging think I have cosmic rust? Ha-” the mech’s laughter quickly broke down into rough coughing; he wasn’t trying to ‘clear’ his throat rather it was possible energon, lubricant, or coolant, could be flooding his vocoder. “Would have blasted myself days ago, it’s taken me this fragging long to get the distress signal going with only one good arm that ain’t pinned under the fuselage.”

Duskwalker creeped further into the ship, dipping her head under a tangle of cables that were still sparking a little despite the damp air and made her way to where she heard the mech speaking. He lay on, what used to be, the wall. His arm pinned under a chunk of the ship which had caved in on top of him. His other arm rested across his broad chest plate, energon dribbling out of several wounds and his mouth, proving Duskwalker’s theory about his vocoder being flooded, and rust coated a severe looking wound in his leg. Easing closer, finding it rather daunting to be close to the big bruiser, Duskwalker finally came out where she could be seen by the mech and he let out a cry of remorse.

“Ya’ain’t no where big enough to get my arm out of this scrapheap,” he growled, coughing and sputtering up more energon. Duskwalker ignored his outburst for a moment and eased closer, carefully sniffing the air around him and taking any number of measurements, scans, and cataloging what she was seeing. His arm was badly crushed, she wouldn’t be able to save it even if she had someone else here to help her move the metal pinning it. His leg, too, she thought he might lose, but more troubling was how bad the rust had gotten. Had it gotten into his lines? He’d need a full systems clean if that was the case.

“I have my ship coming to pick us up,” Duskwalker said calmly, transforming and pulling her scanner out; that at least she kept on her regardless of where she was, “and together we’ll get you out of here,” then she looked at him steadily, measuring him for  a moment and sighing.

“Ain’t going to keep th’ arm am I?” he asked, “slag-it, I ain’t got the creds to replace it,” he looked down at his mangled leg, and seemed to deflate. “Or that.”

“Don’t worry about that right now, I have some spare limbs that should be about your size we can install until we can figure out proper replacements,” Duskwalker told him, easing closer to take a better scan of his arm. She needed to know which connections; energon lines, etc. were simply pinned shut or had actually fused shut due to a leak and his self-repair system tending to the wounds.

“Right, and how much’ll that cost me?” “Probably about nothing,” Duskwalker said, distracted now as she probed deeper with her scanner, the primary energon line was pinned shut, it had been protected by a number of other lines; coolant and lubricant as examples. She’d need to see to that first, the mech didn’t need to ‘bleed’ out. Her ears flicked and she pulled air in through the vents on either side of her helm, a more dedicated system to her olfactory array, and sampled a few of the particles that were coming off the wound. Analysis began immediately, but she turned to take a look at his leg.

Here his self-repair had done a fair job of fusing shut the damaged lines, but again the primary energon line would need to be seen to manually. Duskwalker noticed that the frame of his leg was unsalvageable. Something had taken his leg and twisted it harshly, though it was difficult to tell. The lower leg, too, was badly crushed and the rust had already started flaking the edge of the wound.

“Nothing? You’re not one of those slagging pirates out to make a piece on a wounded mech, are you?” He asked her suspiciously, pulling his good hand forward to transform it into his blaster. Duskwalker brought her head up sharply and looked him in the optics.

“You shoot that thing off and you’re draining away what little life you have left,” she stated matter-of-fact, “you’ve got barely enough energon in you to stay online. Are you trying to drain yourself dry until your spark shrivels up?”

“Hmph,” the mech grunted, “trust a medic to know how much energon a mech’s got left,” he disengaged his weapon, laying his arm over his chest plate. “What’s yer name?”

“Duskwalker,” she repeated for him, there wasn’t much she could do just yet except keep him occupied and online. If he went into stasis lock, most likely for the second time, he probably wouldn’t come out of it. “How about you?”

“DT1007-85M,” he replied, “working class foreman of work-group 11C-901J. Got left fer dead on a mining expedition, then news come ‘round that the Quints have been hauled offa the planet, but ain’t got no way to get back home. Finally got this hunk of junk runnin some few million years later and came back only t’find the place is in ruins.”

Quints? Quintessons? Duskwalker’s ears flicked back and then forward, curling her tail a bit closer to her frame. Renegade had told her there was a time before the first Golden Age when the Quintessons had reigned over their people, but other then that she knew very little of them. Renegade didn’t speak much about things before the first Age. She wasn’t sure other then he claimed it ‘made him feel old’.

“You realize how long the Quintessons have been gone, correct?” she asked, her tail flipping back and forth nervously.

“Aye, I do, though I couldn’t really believe it. Of course one of the reasons I got left for dead was ‘cause they were using stasis pods to transport us, only my pod fell off the back of the transport and down into the old mine shaft, was in stasis for quite a period of time before I came to. Lucky the pod wasn’t damaged. It kept a log of all Cybertronian transmissions all this time.”

“Stasis pods?” Duskwalker asked, her ears flicking, “why Stasis pods?”

“'Bout that time folks were starting to get suspicious about why the Quints were 'helping' us,” he told her, “course my unit was mostly made up of non-personality units. Not many of us identified ourselves as more than our unit numbers, but the Quints weren't taking no chances so when they brought a large group of us worker units out to a mine they wanted to cultivate they put us in stasis pods, so we couldn't revolt and steal the ship we used as transport.”

Talking was obviously helping the mech stay awake and Naomi, according to the latest ping, was almost there. Duskwalker watched him as he continued on to explain various things about his last mission and wondered at how much he was willing to tell her.

Here was a mech who had not experienced the horrors their own kind had inflicted on the planet.

It made Duskwalker smile and it made her sad. He'd left the planet when it was healthy and returned to a world that was still recovering from its own death. She'd help him get better and bring him to one of the new settlements the Autobots had set up. Maybe they had as much to learn from him as he did from them.

Naomi was still several clicks out and without her medical kit Duskwalker could do very little except disconnect the pain receptors in the mech's arm and leg. She moved forward and gently traced her finger tips over the armor of his upper arm until she found the necessary seam and opened it, but the stink of rust wafted up to her even inside of the wound. She'd have to move up to the shoulder joint and disconnect everything there, including the arm; would the leg be just as bad?

“So, how did you learn to talk in this manner?” Duskwalker asked, looking up at him, honestly curious, but also wanting to keep him talking. He made it sound as though he and the others didn't have much for personalities upon emergence from the Well.

“Picked it up when I was close enough to Cybertron,” he told her, “still trying to figure out which style of speech is 'me'.”

That would explain the altering accents and mannerisms, Duskwalker thought.

“I'm glad you have a chance to remake yourself,” she told him truthfully.

“So am I,” he agreed, quite polite now. Maybe he was trying to figure out whether he was the kind to be grouchy at everything, or accepting of situations outside of his control.

“Of course this pit spawned ship wasn't properly armored for reentry and fragging fell to scrap the moment it hit the atmosphere,” and it was back to swearing, Duskwalker tried to keep herself from laughing, but it was actually quite charming how he was trying out so many different speech patterns.

“What's so slagging funny?” he demanded as Duskwalker moved to check the connecting mechanisms between his leg and hip, glancing up at him and smiling.

“I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh,” she apologized and then her features returned to a more serious expression. Even without opening up the necessary ports to disconnect pain receptors she could smell the rust. The entire leg, and arm, would have to go and he'd need a system flush. His energon lines would have to be cleaned and several of them replaced. This on top of the replacement of his limbs and refitting with ones that properly suited his needs... it was going to be a long procedure. Thankfully Renegade had the necessary equipment back at his workshop for constructing limbs. Not necessarily the right equipment, but Duskwalker could work around that with a few modifications.

“My ship is just a click out now, so once I disconnect these pain receptors I'm going to go out and make sure there's a clear enough landing space. I'll give you a link to my comm channel so we can keep in contact,” she slid her small fingers into the necessary port and did as she had described. His leg went completely limp and for a moment the mech's optics flickered. Duskwalker immediately pulled out her small light, forcing the optical lid open, and checked for a response. The illumination returned to his optics a moment later, but Duskwalker was worried. The pain of his arm and leg could be covering other symptoms yet she couldn't move him without first eliminating the pain and removing his arm and leg.

“Tha' felt weird,” he muttered, his words slurring a little bit, uncertain if he was trying out a new vocal pattern or not Duskwalker preformed another scan, this time she connected her scanner directly to a port at the back of his helm in order to start a full systems diagnostic. She had wanted to wait until she had access to the more powerful, and therefore faster, computer system on board Naomi, but obviously that wasn't an option now.

The acid falling outside wasn’t anything Duskwalker’s frame couldn’t handle, it would be rather terrifying if Cybertron’s own natural weather was dangerous for its people, but she had experience with storms before, witnessing the destruction they could work, and decided it was best to find shelter. Thankfully so many of the spires around the area were open which also provided Duskwalker somewhere dry to sit as the floor swiftly became a large puddle. She situated a small light she carried in her subspace close to the entrance, just in case anyone else was caught out in the storm, and

Perched up on a piece of what, she suspected used to be, the next floor Duskwalker was laying on her front, propped on her elbows, with her datapad in front of her. Except for the occasional flash of lightning Duskwalker sat in the dark, the datapad’s glow on her faceplate, because her small light was not strong enough to illuminate the entire space. She preferred it that way, allowing her to sink into the background and properly immerse herself in her surroundings. Duskwalker could never become one with the area around her, specifically not this one, but she couldn’t help but to imagine what it would be like if she could at least hear the walls whispering.

Shutting down her datapad, already tired of re-reading old lessons, Duskwalker subspaced it and rolled onto her back, staring up at the open spaces above her. Maybe it wasn’t just the next floor, but several after it, that had collapsed inward. Really it was amazing the building still stood, but Cybertron, and all that came from it, was built to last after all. That Duskwalker did not know how these buildings were constructed probably made it seem even more amazing. After all the ceilings of these spires might be exceptionally tall, it would make sense that Seekers would not enjoy close ceilings. Renegade certainly hadn’t, but that was more due to his own size then any fear of tight spaces. He often mined the minerals and ore he used in all his engineering projects. His philosophy was you couldn’t construct anything unless you understood where all the base elements came from and how they impacted the instrument, armor, or component you intended to create.

It was a very involved way to go about one’s profession, but Renegade was adamant about it. So much so that he’d sat Duskwalker down for a few lessons on mineral composites, ores, and how you made varying different metals. It was the one time Duskwalker had not been completely interested in her lesson, but she had dutifully memorized how to identify different metals based on their density, strength, and molecular structure. In all Duskwalker was only interested in the ability to match metals of components to her patients; that way she wouldn’t give a lower durability part to a mech who required high durability pieces and she wouldn’t give a high density piece to a mech who required lower densities for speed.

Really, Duskwalker thought to herself, staring up at the darkness, when I wasn’t studying I had lessons, written and practical, and when I didn’t have lessons I had training. I don’t think there was a moment after I regained consciousness that I wasn’t learning, doing, something. Not that she had minded. Duskwalker understood why Renegade had insisted on her being educated and taught how to defend herself. Really if she wasn’t in recharge or refueling she was always active. Maybe that was why Duskwalker hated to just lay around unless she was observing something. Then stillness was a necessity, not something she actually enjoyed doing.

Wait did reading count as sitting still? Duskwalker huffed at herself, so maybe she was alright with sitting still as long as her mind had something to do. Otherwise she’d rather be up and doing something, anything, even right now she felt a certain amount of edginess to her limbs. She hadn’t expected, planned on, being cooped up during a storm or she would have brought some of her newer study materials with.

Exploring was out of the question, too. If the building was structurally unsound the probability of her jumping around and climbing to higher floors could shift the weight just enough to cause another collapse. The last thing Duskwalker needed was to comm. Naomi and have her come dig her out of the rubble. Not only embarrassing, but Duskwalker didn’t want to be responsible for destroying any part of the history here.

No. She’d just have to content herself with tracing her optics along the curves and fine lines of the walls and ceiling, wondering how long it took for these designs to be so flawlessly, and seamlessly, melded to the metal walls. Had they been cast that way, maybe? That had to be it… or maybe they’d welded it together and then sanded the weld lines until they were one; there were numerous ways it could have been done, but before long Duskwalker was bored with it. Renegade would be more interested in the metal work, and while Duskwalker found it beautiful it was not an area of interest for her really.

So now what? She wasn’t going to go out and about only to get struck by lightning or have something fall on top of her. The only thing she could do was stay here until the storm let up. If that were the case she may as well rest, she supposed, but definitely not recharge.