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The shift was almost over when disaster struck.
It had already been a long and difficult day, and D-16 was exhausted. He was grateful that Orion Pax had gone off on a tangent – another rant about the unfairness of keeping knowledge from the archives locked away. All D had to do was occasionally nod and give a noise of agreement, happy to let Orion do all the talking.
They were walking back towards the train station that would take them back to the barracks, jet packs locked away for the night and mining tools returned to the cart that Jazz was pushing. Behind them, the refinery team was still hard at work, processing the extra energon ore that had been mined during the shift.
D-16 didn't envy them. While he listened to Pax's aimless chatter, he fantasized about how good an energon cube and a full night's recharge was going to feel.
Although no cave-ins, collapses, or explosions had happened today, he still felt more worn-down than usual. His fuel tank was verging on critical, and his right shoulder was bothering him again. It was an old injury from before he'd come to Iacon, yet it plagued him constantly, always flaring up if he overdid it in the mines, or recharged in the wrong position, or even if the weather on the surface was bad.
At least tonight, he knew it was from work. The tunnel their team had been working in was unusually rich with ore, and by the time the tunnel started to close, they'd dug out twenty extra carts worth of the stuff, soaring beyond the shift quota.
D-16 was the strongest bot on their team – that wasn't a baseless brag either, they'd done a contest a few cycles ago – and time was of the essence, so he had been stuck on heavy drill duty while the rest of the team cycled between drilling, collection, and extraction. Between his mining skills and unbreakable endurance, half of those carts had been dug out by him. All it cost was most of his energy and the ability to move his right arm properly for the next few days.
To be fair, Orion had frequently offered to switch with him so he could have a break, but D had declined. As much as he loved him, Orion wasn't the fastest or most focused miner. His mind would wander, and he tended to get distracted helping the others if they were struggling, rather than focusing on his own task.
Even as he rambled now, his optics kept flicking to D's bad shoulder, trying to assess how much it hurt. Classic Pax, looking out for everyone, except himself. That was D's job.
D felt a little pang of sadness run through his spark – Orion was built to look at the stars, not toil under the ground. He wanted to give him the stars, but neither of them would get out of these mines without some frame-breaking hard work. Why couldn't he see that?
In the end, they'd finished the shift with twenty extra carts of energon ore, nobody had been injured, and best of all, D-16 had been promoted up a tier – one step closer to the stars. The new chip on his badge certainly distracted him from the ache and fatigue.
He and Pax were trailing slightly behind the group. Ahead, Elita was arguing with Prowl and Arcee, Wheeljack and Ironhide were making plans to buy some high-grade, and Jazz was happily humming to himself.
He jumped when Orion's hand suddenly landed on his left arm. Pax had finished his rant, and was now looking at D with badly-concealed concern.
“You alright?” he asked. “Is your shoulder bothering you again?”
D-16 chuckled; even when he was trying to mask his pain, Orion always saw right through him.
“I'm fine, it's just sore,” said D, giving his arm a stretch to try and work some of the tension out.
Pax frowned at him. “You worked too hard today.”
It was a simple statement, but it made D-16 sigh. He already knew where Orion was going with this.
Look at you, you've re-injured your bad arm and drained your tank, all for a few extra carts of energon. Why do you push yourself until your wires fray for a system that doesn't care about us?
Because it's the only thing we can do, Orion. It's the only way for us to reach the stars together.
“Pax, I'm not in the mood for a lecture,” D-16 warned. “That was probably the best haul we'll get this entire cycle, and we wouldn't have gotten that much if I hadn't taken the lead. I'm not going to apologize for working hard.”
Orion gave his arm a gentle squeeze, then let go. “Well, you could have let me help you. Sure, I'm not as fast as you, but so what? We would have gotten one or two fewer carts, and you wouldn't be hurting and exhausted.”
“I also wouldn't have gotten promoted,” D countered, tapping the badge on his chassis.
Pax smiled, a hint of sadness in his optics. “Look, I'm happy for you, I really am! But I care about you more than a quota.”
And that's why you'll never reach the stars without me.
“Pax...” D sighed. A dozen different responses ran through his processor, but before he could settle on one, the ground beneath them suddenly jolted.
Every bot in the mines dropped to their knees, thrown by the sudden violence of the quake. Some crawled for shelter, and the rest just covered their helms and hoped that none of the falling rocks hit them. D-16 held onto Orion, using his larger frame to protect him from the dirt and rocks raining down on them.
Quakes weren't uncommon, living as they did on a shape-shifting planet, but they weren't usually this violent. The shaking continued on for so long that D was convinced Primus was trying to bury them.
Finally, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. D-16 let go of Orion and sat up, looking around.
The place was a mess, but most of the damage seemed to be near the center of the cavern, especially around the refinery. Their group was uninjured, although Jazz seemed to be stuck under the overturned tool cart he'd taken shelter in. Ironhide and Prowl were extracting him from the pile of tools, and Elita was barking orders, trying to get everyone organized and checked for injuries.
D-16 stood, looking back towards the refinery and scanning the ground for any injured bots. It looked like nobody had been crushed, and as he watched the refinery workers crawl out from under tanks and worktables, he was relieved to see that nobody had been seriously injured. They'd gotten lucky this time.
Just as he turned to say this to Orion, however, a red and blue blur shot past him, sprinting back towards the refinery. D only hesitated for a moment before running after him, ignoring Elita's yells of “get your aft back here!”
“Pax, what's wrong?!” D shouted as he chased after his friend.
“Up there!” Pax yelled back, pointing up towards the ceiling of the cavern.
D-16 looked up, then gasped when he realized what Orion had seen.
The elevated tracks that transported the full energon carts had been damaged by falling rocks. Three loaded carts were stalled up there; two of them were still safely secured to the rails, but the third, which had clearly been slammed by the other carts, had jumped the track. It now hung precariously over one of the large refinery tanks.
By itself, energon ore was relatively stable, but the whole cart falling could easily cause the energon to explode. And if it fell onto the full tank of raw, unstable extract directly below it, the explosion would be big enough to kill them all. It would collapse the entire mine, as well as whatever unfortunate buildings sat above.
This was a known hazard. In fact, the carts were built with mechanized arms that would spring out and right itself if a derailment happened. However, D-16 could see that the stabilizer on the back of the cart had been smashed in by the collision with the other carts, and the one on the front was wedged shut with a broken piece of rail.
And judging by the sparks, the cart was slowly slipping over the edge.
Ahead of him, Orion snatched a simple shovel from a slag heap without breaking stride, running at full speed for the rail's support pillar closest to the crash.
“Are you with me, D?” Pax called out, not looking back.
“On your six!” D replied, trying to catch up. His fuel was so low now, he was certain he was running on fumes. He cursed himself for letting his reserves drop this far, and he cursed Pax for being right.
Orion made it to the support. Holding the shovel between his teeth, he scurried up the pillar, and he was halfway up by the time D-16 reached the base.
For a bot that was scared of heights, Pax had always been a good climber. D followed after him, but the pain in his shoulder slowed him down.
The cart was still slipping and sparking when Orion made it up onto the rails, within arms reach of the derailment. Leaping over the broken section of track, he took the shovel in both hands and jammed it between the wedged stabilizers and rail fragment. Then he planted both pedes on the cart, leaned back, and pulled.
With the combined power of the leverage provided by the shovel, and Orion pulling with all his strength, the metal shard began to give.
D-16 had almost made it up. Just a few more seconds and he would be there.
The cart slipped further, teetered, then started to tip over.
SNAP
The rail fragment broke under the strain, and the stabilizer arms sprung free, catching the cart and holding it in place for a moment before pulling it back onto the tracks, where magnets activated to keep everything in place. Disaster averted. Thank Primus.
When the shard broke, however, Pax went flying backwards. He tumbled once, trying to get his balance. Then his heel caught the twisted metal of the broken track, he staggered, and he fell.
D-16 didn't think – if anything, his body reacted on instinct. His hands released the pillar, he kicked off into thin air, and his arms wrapped around Orion.
The fall lasted forever, and was over in an instant. D didn't have time to brace himself, but there was time for one errant thought to cross his processor: caught you!
WHAM
D-16 slammed into the unforgiving stone back-first, Pax landing on top of him. The impact knocked him offline, his vision going black in an instant.
He sluggishly came back online a moment later. His optics were unfocused, his auditory sensors had an odd echo, and he couldn't move. Slowly, he realized he was still lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the cavern. The tracks they had fallen from might as well have been on the surface, so far above him were they. Holy Primus, what a fall.
Something blue and red leaned over him. With some effort, his optics focused on Orion's terrified face, illuminated by the blue glow of the refinery tank they landed next to.
“Hey, buddy,” said Pax, trying to hide his concern behind a loving smile. “Thanks for the catch! Are... are you okay?”
It took a few attempts for D to speak, and even then all he could manage was a small groan. It was strange – he knew he should be hurting, yet he didn't feel any pain. An odd numbness blanketed his frame, like his processor was struggling to handle the sudden flood of information.
“D?” Orion couldn't hide the growing panic in his voice.
“I... I'm alright... I think,” he managed to get out. “Just... help me... sit up...”
His exhaustion had returned in full force, and he was worried he would slip into a recharge if he didn't sit upright. Maybe if he got up, his processor would finally tell him what was wrong.
Pax clearly thought that was a bad idea – it was written all over his beautiful, expressive face – but he moved to help regardless. They linked hands, then he slipped his free hand behind D's neck.
The instant Orion's hand touched his neck, an electric jolt of pain shot through his entire frame. D grimaced, letting out an involuntary swear. Or maybe it had been a scream – his audials were fading again, so he couldn't really tell.
Orion pulled his hand away from D's neck. It came back covered in bright blue energon.
He was definitely fading now – when Orion turned to scream Elita's name, he barely heard it.
Elita appeared at his side, and though he could see her mouth moving as she spoke into her communicator, he only caught a few words: “... medic... emergency... internal... NOW!”
At least, that's what he thought she said. It was hard to tell. Everything was muffled, and his optics kept flickering off.
The pain had spread down his neck, branching across his back and down his limbs. Something unsettling was happening in his chassis as well. What started as a dull ache intensified into painful tightness, and now it was turning into a crushing pressure. It felt like someone had reached into his spark chamber and started squeezing.
Orion was holding tightly to one of his hands, and he found himself desperately clawing at his chassis with the other. He coughed and felt energon pour out of his mouth.
For a brief moment, sound faded back in. He could hear other bots yelling, the sound of a scuffle, the CLANG of someone getting punched. Orion was still at his side, holding his hand and gently rocking back and forth, so at least he hadn't gotten hit.
“Frag, frag, frag,” Orion was muttering under his breath.
He wanted to tell Pax to watch his language, but his voice box had been drowned by the energon flooding his intake. His spark was racing as it struggled against what must have been the weight of Cybertron itself. Had he actually been crushed during that quake? It certainly felt like it.
“Just hang on, D,” Orion pleaded, his voice small and distant. “They're almost here... just...”
Suddenly, Orion vanished from his side. D-16 tried to turn his head to see where he'd gone, but the pain had him immobilized. The hand Orion had been holding stretched out into the void, cold and empty.
The stars were gone. The pressure was too much. He wasn't going to make it.
As suddenly as he'd gone, Orion reappeared. D was relieved he was back... until Orion stabbed him in the side.
Before he could even work up the indignation, he gasped in relief as the horrible pressure dissipated. It didn't go away fully, and it slowly started to build again, but it no longer felt like his spark was going to be crushed into oblivion.
“I'm so sorry,” Orion was stammering, gripping his hand again. “It was the only thing I could think to do.”
“P...Pax...” he managed to choke out.
Orion leaned back into his field of view. His arms, face, and chassis were splattered with glowing blue energon. Primus, how had that happened?
“D, just... just focus on me,” said Orion. “You'll be okay.”
More noises. More distant scuffling. Another CLANG that sounded like someone taking a metal tool to the helm.
The pressure was building again, and he felt liquid leaking from his neck and side. Already drained, he found it was too much to overcome. He couldn't focus. He couldn't keep his optics open anymore.
“Please, don't leave me,” Orion's voice whispered.
Someone else knelt down next to them. A hand that was too large to belong to a cogless miner gently touched his chassis. He heard the whirring of a scanner, then something inside him clicked, and D-16 knew no more.
In his dreams, D-16 looked at the stars.
It was midnight; every light in the sky looked down at him, and he stared back, entranced. It was his first time seeing the stars. They were beautiful.
One of the Transformers who had rescued him from Kaon was giving him a lift, letting him ride in the bed of his alt-mode as they rolled across the desolate surface. D-16's severed right arm lay in his lap – that medic promised to reattach it when they reached Iacon.
Iacon. His new home.
He'd heard about the golden capital city. Most of the cogless bots who lived there worked as miners, but that didn't seem so bad, especially compared to the Pits.
What would it be like, he wondered, to come online each morning surrounded by friends, rather than enemies?
The Transformer hit a bump as he drove, jostling D-16, causing his ripped shoulder socket to send out a few sparks. As painful as it was, the drifting sparks drew his optics back to the sky. Those stars had him mesmerized.
Even if he started as a miner, he didn't have to do it forever. He'd heard about Iacon's promotion system, where even the cogless could rise to greatness.
Maybe one day, if he worked hard enough, he'd be able to reach those stars.
When D-16 finally came online again, he still saw the stars.
Then he blinked, and his optics slowly focused. Those weren't stars. Those were Orion's optics, twinkling with starlight and relief.
“Orion...” His voice sounded rough, but at least he could hear again.
“Hello, handsome,” said Pax, beaming. “Come here often?”
“That... is your worst line yet.” D-16 couldn't help but smile.
Orion laughed, leaning back and allowing D to take in his surroundings.
They were in a small, private room in the med bay. He was laying in a recharging berth, his upper body propped upright – the berth was clearly meant for a full-sized bot, because D only took up half of it.
He was still hooked up to a sensor that was monitoring his spark. An empty energon infuser sat nearby, and he spotted a few medical-grade energon patches on his left arm.
He tried to sit fully upright, but stopped as a wave of soreness ran through his frame. There were a few hot spots among the embers: his shoulder ached, of course, as did his spark chamber, and one spot on his right side.
“Pax...” muttered D-16, slowly remembering the accident, “did you stab me?”
Orion tried not to look guilty. “Maybe a little bit.”
D couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. Laughing turned out to be a bad idea, however, as it turned into a very painful cough. Orion held onto him, supporting him as he brought up a few globs of half-congealed energon.
“Sorry,” said Pax, gently pushing him back against the berth. “I should let you recover first.”
D-16 waved his concerns away. “It's fine. Talk. Remind me what happened.”
He needed a distraction from his discomfort, but he didn't want to say that and risk Pax running off to find a doctor. He didn't want Pax to leave his side.
“Okay,” said Orion, sitting on the berth next to him. “How much do you remember?”
“Well, I remember jumping to catch your sorry aft,” said D. “Everything gets blurry after I hit the ground.”
“Understandable.”
“What about you? Were you hurt?”
Orion shook his head. “No, just dazed. You really did save me. Ratchet said that fall would have killed me, for sure. I mean, it almost killed you-”
His voice box seemed to short out, and he turned away for a moment. When he looked back again, D pretended not to notice the coolant that had gathered at the edges of his optics.
“Um... you were in pretty bad shape,” Orion shakily continued. “Elita called in the medics, and they were on their way when Darkwing showed up. Well, you know how he is. I don't really know what he was doing there, because the others kept him away from us. He did punch Jazz, though.”
“I think I heard that,” muttered D. “I remember being glad you weren't the one getting hit.”
“You remember that?” Orion asked, surprised. “Because by that point, you looked... you... you'd gone downhill pretty quickly by then.”
“And you decided to... stab me?”
“You're never going to let that one go, are you?” Pax muttered. “Okay... this may sound strange, but... do you remember Bumper?”
D frowned. B-134, or Bumper, as he liked to be called, was the first bot they'd watched die in the mines.
There had been an explosion, and a tunnel that closed too fast. When the tunnel opened again, D and Pax had run back in. They emerged again a short time later with Bumper's tiny, crushed frame cradled in D's arms.
He died shortly after that, right there in the darkness, waiting for the medics, D-16 at his side and Orion holding his hand. His optics extinguished frighteningly fast, his bright yellow paint faded to gray, and the flow of energon pouring from his mouth stopped.
“I... doubt I'll ever forget him,” muttered D-16.
Pax nodded. “The way he looked when he died, how he was choking and clawing at himself... that's how you started looking.”
“Oh...”
“Yeah... Well, he was on my mind the next time I broke into the archives, so when I found a data pad about crush injuries, I stopped to read it. I don't remember much of what it said, other than how important it is to get pressure off the spark chamber,” Pax explained.
“Elita knew the moment she looked at you that your injuries were all internal,” he continued, “and when she said that, I started thinking, and... I don't know, I guess I just went with my instincts.”
D-16 gave a small nod. It was slowly coming back to him – the terrible pressure, as if Primus himself had his knee on his spark, then the relief right after Orion stabbed him. Was that where that splatter of energon had come from?
“Well, I hope your instincts know not to stab me next time I pull a wire,” D joked, giving Pax a nudge.
Orion laughed, his demeanor slowly relaxing. “I'll keep that in mind.”
“What else happened? I swear I remember two bots getting hit.”
Pax smiled widely, the starlight returning to his optics. “Oh yeah, you're gonna love this. Ratchet got there a minute or two after I stabbed you, and Darkwing tried to tell him not to bother, that you were a lost cause, and Ratchet pulled out a wrench and just... WHACK!”
He mimicked a swing. “Hit Darkwing right in the helm, then told him to jet off. It was beautiful.”
D laughed, then started coughing again. “Quit making me laugh, slag-head. It still hurts.”
“Sorry,” said Orion, quieting down. “Um... when he got to you, Ratchet put you in stasis lock, then he brought you back here. It took three days for him to let me see you.”
“You're lucky I let you stay,” said a voice from the door.
They both looked up as Ratchet walked into the room, holding a data pad and looking vaguely overworked.
“You know what this crazy bot did?” Ratchet asked D-16, pointing at Orion. “He slammed his hand in a door and broke two digits, just so he'd have an excuse to come see you.”
“Pax...” D sighed.
Orion shrugged. “What?! They wouldn't let me come check on you. What was I supposed to do, D?”
“How has Darkwing not dragged your aft back to the mines yet?” D-16 asked, flinching as Ratchet prodded his bad shoulder.
“Oh, I'll take credit for that one,” said the medic, talking as he worked. “I told Darkwing that you both contracted rust from the accident, and you're in quarantine. That brute is terrified of diseases.”
“You're the best, doc,” said Orion.
“Anything for my favorite patient,” said Ratchet, giving Orion a fond pat on the helm. Then he turned to D-16. “Now, for you...”
He showed D the data pad and started explaining the damage. D had never had a mind for medicine, so he mostly nodded along while the old medic spoke in detail about what had been injured and how he'd repaired it. From what he gathered, the fall had ruptured... well... everything. Especially his fuel lines.
Ratchet showed him a scan. “See this space around your spark chamber? This was flooded with energon from your ruptured lines. If Pax here hadn't stabbed you and given it another place to go, the pressure would have built up until energon flooded your spark chamber, extinguishing your spark. You would have been gone before I could do anything about it.”
“Guess that makes us even,” said Pax, giving D a light nudge.
Ratchet shot him a glare. “You would have been scrap the moment you hit the ground, Pax. You're lucky your friend here is built like a tank. And even then, it was close. That was the longest surgery I've had to do in five cycles!”
“Right...” muttered Orion. He stared guiltily at his hands, though he loosened up when D reached over and silently took hold of his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Ratchet was being too hard on him – D was the only one who seemed to care that Orion had saved hundreds of lives, stopping that energon cart from going over the edge. The fall wasn't Pax's fault, and neither were D's injuries. For once.
The medic finished his exam a moment later. Another sweep with a scanner confirmed that the surgery was successful, and nothing was leaking. Ratchet gave D a quick shot of oil in the shoulder and neck, slapped two more medical-grade patches on his arm, then advised him to recharge as much as he could.
“And for the love of Primus,” Ratchet added, “try not to get injured again.”
He then switched the room lights to low power mode, and he left.
D-16 laid back in the berth – being propped somewhat upright kept the pressure off his back, which he was grateful for. Orion, however, was still sitting up, looking down at him with concern.
“Are you sure you feel okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I'm fine,” sighed D. “Get some rest. I'm not going anywhere.”
Pax's voice was quiet – darkness always made him more honest. “I don't know what I would do without you.”
“You would die more often,” said D. There was silence for a moment, then he sighed and reached up, grabbing Orion and pulling him tight against his uninjured left side.
“Thanks for saving me,” D-16 finally whispered.
He felt Orion relax, resting his helm on D's left shoulder and carefully wrapping an arm around him. Those crystal blue optics twinkled like the stars.
“That's what we do,” said Pax. “We save each other. I'm glad you were there to catch me.”
D-16 leaned over slightly, resting his helm on Orion's. “I've always got your back.”
“No matter what...”
When he slipped into a recharge a moment later, the last thing he saw was the stars.