Eye of the Storm - Part 3

They waited anxiously, the sound of dozens of scraplet legs on the door, when the lights suddenly brightened. Their spirits lifted.
    "Ratchet to base, do you copy?"
    "We copy," came Bulkhead's reply. "What is it?" Arcee and Ratchet each heaved a sigh of relief.
    "Optimus, we've contacted base. Sending groundbridge," Arcee relayed the information to him.
    "Copy that," replied Optimus. "Please hurry." Arcee opened the door.
    "Let's go!" She said as they both ran.
    "Send groundbridge to our current coordinates, now!" Ratchet called to base. "And ready a fire extinguisher!" He added as an afterthought. The groundbridge appeared just as they reached the center of the ship. They turned to see Optimus running toward them, and charged through the bridge. They were met on the other side by a blast from a fire extinguisher, handled by Bumblebee. Because of their size, the Cybertronian parasites only moved more slowly after the treatment, and required a second blast to be killed.

    "I've never seen scraplets like this," Ratchet mused as he treated Optimus, who was covered in deep grooves hollowed out by scraplet teeth, and strange, uncharacteristic puncture marks.
    "Ow." He flinched only slightly as Ratchet inspected one of the punctures. Bringing out his scanner, Ratchet proceeded to examine several in turn. He frowned at the results.
    "They lead directly to your bloodstream," Ratchet said when Optimus asked. "As if they were injecting something that needed to be administered directly. And they're filled in to prevent bleeding. I strongly suggest we take an energon sample for testing."
    "I understand," Optimus said.
    Once he had the necessary equipment ready, Ratchet studied the sample.
    "There are high levels of some chemicals, unfamiliar to me, in your bloodstream," he reported to Optimus.
    "Their origin?" Optimus asked. When dealing with medicine, he knew, it was good to ask even obvious questions.
    "I suspect the scraplets, no doubt engineered on the ship. I'd prefer to monitor you closely until I know what their effects are." Optimus nodded assent.
    Bumblebee chimed in.
    "The ship is scrap," Ratchet replied to his suggestion, "I'd be surprised if the lights were still on."
    "So, aren't you going to tell us what happened?" Miko asked impatiently. Bulkhead looked curious himself. Arcee began telling them about what had happened.
    "The synthoid looked like someone from Cybertron, but it was about your size," she said motioning toward the kids. Ratchet and Optimus exchanged glances, clearly thinking the same thing.
    "But what happened to Sonia?" Miko asked. "Did she get eaten by demon scraplets?" She said, jumping up and trying to act like she was telling a creepy story to Jack and Raf. She succeeded, making them lean away from her. Bulkhead laughed, then stopped abruptly. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, all wondering what did happen to their new recruit.
    "Sonia is the synthoid, and I doubt her name is Sonia," Ratchet said. They all turned toward him.
    "What do you mean? How can Sonia be the synthoid?" Jack asked.
    "Sonia isn't a real person, Jack. The synthoid was posing as a human girl named Sonia," Ratchet answered. They stared at him.
    "So you know what the synthoid is then?" Arcee asked.
    "Not, the synthoid, a synthoid," Ratchet began. "At the beginning of the war for Cybertron, Decepticon scientists began developing new technology specifically for the war. Things like the Cybonic plague, but that was developed later. Cloning took up too many resources to be implemented efficiently, but someone had the idea of growing a smaller Decepticon - much smaller - to cut down on energy needs."
    "Wait, by growing, you mean like, in a jar?" Ratchet looked at Jack, a little irritated at his interruption.
    "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Anyway, these people weren't much in the way of warriors, but they were excellent for reconnaissance. They were small enough to slip around unnoticed and spy on enemy projects or conversations relatively easily. Some newer ones were genetically modified to give them an edge. They became known as synthoids, because of their synthetic production. They were all but wiped out near the end of the war. I wasn't aware that any still existed." He cast a suspicious glance at the children.
    "The ship we investigated was most likely Sonia's home before it crashed." They all stood in silence for a while, deep in their own thoughts. Jack was the first to break the silence.
    "But, if she's Cybertronian, like you guys, how come she looked human?"
    "You know how when I'm in motorcycle form, it looks like I have a driver?" Arcee asked Jack, who nodded. "Hologram. I'm betting she used the same thing," she said, looking at Ratchet. He nodded, agreeing with her theory.
    Bumblebee voiced another question.
    "She's on the Nemesis now, which is who-knows-where, and even though she came from the same ship, she may not know anything about the scraplets," Ratchet replied to Bumblebee's question. "Besides, we can't go looking for her now. We've got a bigger issue on our hands at the moment." Optimus took over.
    "As you know, the ship is infested with scraplets, and if they escape from their temporary prison, their diet will no longer be limited to metal from Cybertron."
    "They could eat anything metal on the planet," Raf said. "Cars, buildings." Optimus nodded.
    "Anything, except for anything in the arctic," Miko said. "Couldn't we just send them to the North Pole like last time?"
    "This time, we're talking about an entire ship," Ratchet said. "A broken ship that won't fly and definitely won't fit through the groundbridge."
    "It doesn't have to fit through the groundbridge. Only the scraplets do," Miko countered.
    "But that still leaves the problem of getting them to the arctic. The groundbridge does allow us to travel to any point on Earth, but one end is always fixed - here," Ratchet explained. "I'm afraid the groundbridge isn't the solution this time around." He walked back to his station, where all his medical equipment and the chemical samples were. Raf had an idea.
    "What about a chemical solution?" He asked.
    Ratchet turned to him and asked, "how do you mean?"
    "Well, these scraplets' strength is their venom, but what if it's also their weakness? Could we use it against them?"
    "We could, I suppose, if we knew anything about the chemicals they use," Ratchet said. He liked Raf's idea, but they simply had no knowledge of these chemicals. Jack caught on, though.
    "Maybe we don't need to. We know scraplets don't do well in the cold, but what about the heat? Is that stuff flammable?" Jack asked, gesturing to the chemicals.

    They had put a small vial of the venom in the chamber Ratchet used for his patients. Ratchet was inside with a protective screen covering his face and a small torch, as of yet unlit. Everyone stood outside, waiting in anticipation for the experiment to begin. Ratchet turned on the small torch and held the flame close to the chemical in question. It didn't light so he held it closer, until finally submerging the flame entirely, extinguishing it. Everyone's faces fell. Ratchet came out of the chamber, irritated, as he was when something didn't go the way it was supposed to.
    "Of course it didn't work," he said angrily. "They survived the crash. There were scorch marks everywhere on the ship!" In his frustration, he put the vial on his desk rather forcefully, shattering it. He muttered crossly, looking for something to mop up the liquid with, and knocked another vial from its place. It inevitably smashed also, running toward the first spill. The two had barely touched when they exploded violently in Ratchet's face, making him jump back, his emotions rapidly changing from anger, to shock, then finally elation. He laughed out loud. The rest of them slowly smiled.
    "Nice job, doc," Arcee said, an amused but relieved grin spreading across her face. "I think you just solved our problem."
    "Not yet," Ratchet said, though he was very happy. "Now we have to figure out how to get it to the scraplets."

    They opened the groundbridge to the lab-ship and prepared to depart. Only the kids would be going, as it was too dangerous for the Autobots while the ship was swarming like an angry beehive. It had been Miko's idea to throw in water balloon-like packages to hinder scraplets at close quarters. Raf drove in on a machine Ratchet had once used for testing synthetic energon, while Jack and Miko fended off scraplets. They had filled the machine with energon and the chemical that would blast the scraplets to smithereens from the inside out.
    "You know, when you think about it there are tons of little time bombs crawling all around us, waiting to go off at any moment," Miko said unhelpfully.
    "Thanks for that, Miko," Jack said dryly. Raf gulped, realizing the danger they were in. They halted at the center of the ship. They waited until the scraplets noticed the machine before contacting base.
    "They took the bait. We're ready to come back," Jack said.
    "Sending groundbridge," Ratchet replied. They watched as the scraplets engulfed the machine, their swarming instinct activated. The kids then realized just how large of an explosion was about to take place.
    "Run!" Jack shouted over the noise of scraplet teeth on metal. They got to the groundbridge in time, but the force of the blast was enough to knock them through the bridge and to the floor.