Chapter 1 - The Professionals

Ratchet kept one audio tuned to the various battle traffic while he prepared his med bay for the inevitable arrival of injured

Ratchet kept one audio tuned to the various battle traffic while he prepared his med bay for the inevitable arrival of injured mechs. Bumblebee had run into Barricade again which lead to the call for autobot backup, which lead to Barricade requesting assistance from his decepticon faction, and so on and so forth until Ratchet was the only one left at the base. He wondered if the decepticons had emptied their base of all available personnel as well. Once he was sure he had prepared for just about any kind of scenario his processor could come up with Ratchet sat down and began the waiting game. He listened to the various reports as they were transmitted and hoped it wouldn't be too bad this time around.

Since the events surrounding Mission City both the autobots and the decepticons had been welcoming in new additions to their numbers. A small scout ship with 4 mechs here, a lone transport with 2 mechs there, a medium sized battle frigate with 2 full fire teams…a nasty surprise that had been on learning the decepticons received that advantage! At last count the decepticons outnumbered the autobots but were still unable to take the win. Ratchet accredited that to the fact that the decepticons lacked a leader with half a brain while the autobots had their beloved Prime to lead them.

Ratchet glanced around his med bay and managed a small smile. The grateful humans had no problem in supplying the heroes of Mission City with some land on which to build a base. The med bay had been one of the first things built in their new home. It wasn't like his old bay back on Iacon but Ratchet was pleased with it none the less. Ratchet's thoughts were suddenly jolted back to the present when his name came across the autobot's frequency.

"Ratchet we have a situation, are you able to tend to a critically injured human?" intoned Prowl, Optimus Prime's second in command.

Ratchet frowned at the strange request. "A human? Is there anyway you can get it to one of their medical facilities? I can rebuild a mech damn near from scratch but I wouldn't know the first thing about fixing a human with trauma type injuries."

"No choice. The fighting has made all possible routes to human medical facilities inaccessible."

"What about having a human rescue crew brought to the scene then?"

"I believe that the injured human is the rescue crew."

Frag. Ratchet couldn't help but feel for the human in question. His current form was based off a rescue vehicle after all. "Very well, bring them here. I will see what I can download off the internet that may assist me in treating them."

"Acknowledged. Expect an ETA of 10 minutes."

Ratchet set to work flipping through various medical, fire/rescue, and anatomy websites. It seemed that he had barely scratched the surface of the requested information when the med bay doors slammed open to reveal Sideswipe carrying what looked like the cab of a rescue vehicle similar to his own design. Ratchet blinked in confusion.

"The human is still pinned inside. Prowl thought it would be safer to use our tools here to get them out."

"Makes sense I guess. Are you sure it is even still alive in there?"

Sideswipe shrugged and gently set the mangled metal on the floor. "Starscream fired a missile at it. I think he must of thought it was you or at the very least another autobot. Hey look, I gotta get back to the fight. Sunsteaker is still out there and I think we owe some payback to Starscream for this one. Good luck with the human!" He managed to call out as he transformed and peeled out of the med bay.

Ratchet frowned down at the mess laid before him. He grabbed a variety of tools and set to work in extricating the injured human hoping that it was still alive. "This would be a lot easier if I could use a welding torch, though I doubt you would appreciate me cooking you in the process." he offered the pile of metal. It didn't take long to peel back the inferior metal frame the humans had used on this particular vehicle. There were actually two humans laying in the twisted cab, one of which was female. There was shattered glass sparkling across their bodies and more then a little blood. Ratchet performed a quick scan for life signs but knew it was probably pointless for the heavily injured male. His suspicions were confirmed as the scan revealed the male was beyond his help. The female however was not too bad off. One of her arms appeared broken and she had several cuts though none serious. Flipping through the internet and checking the various medical sites he decided that the female was likely suffering from a concussion which explained the unconsciousness.

Ratchet gently removed the female from the wreckage and placed her on one of the metal berths. He had to adjust the magnification of his optics to be able to bandage her wounds and splint her arm. He managed to find a blanket (probably belonging to Sam) and laid it across the wounded female to help her retain some heat. Now that she was cleaned up a bit Ratchet was able to get a decent look at her. He supposed she was attractive as far as human females went. She was well toned and had dark red wavy hair tied at the nape of her neck. Ratchet glanced back at the wrecked rescue vehicle and sighed. He was a seasoned autobot and the CMO to boot, but despite his experience he found himself dreading telling the female human that her male counterpart did not survive. He imagined that she would not take it well when she found out that they were probably attacked due to mistaken identity. Ratchet noted that the all clear had been sounded across his radio which meant that the autobot wounded would start to wander in. He pushed the berth containing the human to just inside his office and carefully moved the wrecked cab against a far wall. He draped a tarp across it and the dead human it still contained. Autobots protected life, they would learn about the dead human soon enough, but not until after all the wounded were seen to. No need to add disheartened feelings to an already injured mech.

Pain. That was the first thing that registered to Joe. She opened her eyes and had a hard time focusing on her surroundings. Everything seemed very blurry but she did notice the bright lights and the place smelled very clean. A hospital maybe? "I wonder how long I've been out? Ok Joe" she told herself, "let's go over the symptoms." Neck pain, headache, blurry vision, and loss of consciousness…a concussion perhaps? She noticed the splint on her arm and after closer examination decided it was a very minor break. Stings and pains around the rest of her body were a given after a car wreck. She muttered to herself when she realized it would probably take at least 2 weeks to get all the glass worked out of her skin. She could hear voices in another room but couldn't make out what was being said. Joe sat up bringing her good hand up to her head. Wincing slightly she put the pain aside and decided that she would grab some Tylenol from the hospital stock room before trying to help with the patients. After the destruction she witnessed before her own incident there was going to be a lot more patients then medical staff. I'll be damned if they think I am not going to do my job. Speaking of job… "Kevin?" Joe called carefully in an attempt to find her fellow paramedic. The jerk was probably already out there helping out.

Joe swung her legs over the side of the bed and went to stand only to discover that the floor was a lot further away the she thought. She hit the floor with a strangled shout. "What the hell?" Luckily it didn't feel like she had injured herself further so Joe stood up leaning heavily against the insanely tall bed she had just fallen from. She heard a door open.

"Ratchet! Its awake and its loose!" came a shout.

"It's loose?" Joe said with her best frozen ice queen voice. She closed her eyes for a moment and re-opened them in attempt to clear up her vision. Everything was still very blurry. She thought she heard something enter the room and decided that it was time to say her thank-yous to whoever her Doc was and make it clear that she had no intention of remaining in patient status. "Alright, thanks for the catnap Doc, I'll just be needing some headache meds and I'll be out of your way. I'm also going to need to know where my partner is so we can start helping you all out with the patients. His name is Kevin Baker and he was the other paramedic in the ambulance wreck with me."

A voice from way above where a normal person should be responding from replied in careful tones "I am afraid that your friend did not survive. You have my sympathies. As for getting out of the way, you are in no condition. So if you will please lie back down and try to relax…"

Kevin. Oh God. Joe took a deep breath. She had given death notifications herself. She could handle this. There would be time for mourning later. "I see. I appreciate your concern but I still have a job to do. So if you could please tell me how I get to the casualty collection point so I can check in?" Hard as she tried she couldn't keep the single tear from falling down her cheek.

Ratchet noticed the tear and his spark felt for her. He was about to try offering some words of comfort when he heard some whispering behind his back.

"Dear Primus, minus the fact that she hasn't thrown anything at anyone or cursed anyone out, she sounds like the Hatchet!"

"Unless you are injured get out of my med bay now! You are not helping!"

Joe squinted against the lights as she glanced up looking for the owner of the voice. Joe felt her mouth open in surprise. Vague red blurs mixed in with mostly yellow blurs but it was the 2 blue blurs that looked at her that made her gasp.

"I am assuming that you noticed that a few things are off by now?" the tall blurry thing with blue eyes replied. "Hold on a moment, let me try something with your eyes."

Joe was frozen where she was. A bright light flashed before her eyes. More pain registered and she fell to her knees clutching both hands to her eyes. The pain receded and she opened her eyes peeking between her fingers. A pair of very large blue eyes regarded her from very close up. Joe's vision was still not perfect but she could most definitely see the large robot crouched down holding some device before her.

"Green then. I was not sure what color they were earlier when you were unconscious but I assumed as much. Red hair and green eyes seem to go hand and hand. The name is Ratchet by the way; I am the Chief Medical Officer here, welcome to the autobot base med bay.

Autobot. Those robots from Mission City! Joe stared wide eyed at the CMO autobot before her. "My name is Josephine, Joe for short. I was a paramedic…we were responding to reports of…just what the hell is going on here?!" She finally ended with a slightly panicked shout.

Ratchet raised an optic ridge and regarded the female human for a moment. "I will be more then happy to explain, once we have you back on the berth where you belong."

Ratchet made to pick Joe up but Joe was having none of that. She tried to make a run for it only to realize that her body was still very sore. She managed to make it a grand 5 paces before she stumbled landing on her injured arm. She yelled at the sharp pain and instinctively curled around the arm cradling it protectively.

"Hey! Now stop being stubborn. I didn't go through the trouble of taking care of you only to have you injure yourself further in my med bay or all places! Now will you please relax and return to your berth?" Ratchet snapped. He tried being nice with this human and now he found himself resorting to the kind of bullying required on fragging stubborn mechs like the Lamborghini twins.

Joe glared up at him. "I'll have you know that I am an experienced paramedic, a Lieutenant with my county's fire and rescue service, and am fully capable of taking care of myself thank you very much! You are not my chief and so you have no right to give me orders of any kind!"

Somewhere during this confrontation Joe had ended up standing in Ratchet's open palm glaring eyes meeting angry optics.

"Slagging stubborn aft femme!"

"Fucking burnt out toaster!"

"Half pint, half trained…"

"Loud mouthed, jackass…"

The exchanges continued much to the amusement of the crowd that had gathered to peak into Ratchet's office from the med bay, to include a very shocked Optimus Prime.

"I told you…it's a female human version of the Hatchet" whispered an awed Sideswipe.

"Give her a wrench and see if she throws it at Ratchet, then we'll know for sure" replied Sunstreaker.

Both Ratchet and Joe turned to the Lamborghini twins and shouted at the same time "shut up!!"

- Ok this is my first time trying to write something like this...be gentle!!