Tales of the Intermezzo - Scars A Transformers Universe Story copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro =========================================================================== "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary "But PRIME," Ironhide protested. "Even if this thing really is a Decepticon, running all over the system looking for it is a waste of resources. Not to mention, splitting us up plays right into the enemy's hands. The smart thing to do is wait here for it to come into the atmosphere, then all attack at once!" Optimus Prime laid a hand on Ironhide's shoulder. "I know, old friend. The smart thing to do, the tactially correct thing to do...is what you propose. But it's not the *right* thing to do. The longer we wait here, the more likely our quarry will harm more of these Naglundi. Even if it means playing into Decepticon hands, we have to protect the lives of others, or we might as well just surrender and join the Decepticons." Ironhide fumed silently. He knew that once Prime got on his "protect the innocent" line of thinking, there was no swaying him, but at least he'd voiced his objections. Being a bodyguard was frustrating when the body you were trying to guard insisted on putting itself in danger...or sending the guard away on a fool's errand. "Order acknowledged," Ironhide finally replied, sullenly. * * * * That had been several daycycles ago, as the local lifeforms measured time. For a pleasant change, the people of Naglund were mechanoids, rather than organics, and the Autobots had been able to take advantage of the local resources for some repair and refit. Ironhide had even found some missiles that fit his launcher, a pleasant surprise. The Naglunders hadn't worked out the secret of wormhole-based interstellar transit, but they did have an active in-system space program that mined asteroids and harvested gas giants. Unfortunately, the system also had native space-dwelling ecology. Including a particularly nasty predator.... "The Whiteblade's around here somewhere, I can feel it in my superstructure," Captain Kwynn asserted. The aged Naglundi owned the ship Ironhide rode in, and apparently made a career of hunting Whiteblades, mostly in the pay of mining concerns. "It's a big'un, that's for sure." "And a strange one," Mhoop nodded. If two male Naglundi could be more different in temperment and build, Ironhide had yet to see the case. Young, enthusiastic, somewhat scrawny, Mhoop was a scientist. All theory, but precious little experience, as far as Ironhide could tell. By contrast, Kwynn had no truck with scientific ponderings, basing everything on hunches, instinct and experience. Far more Ironhide's kind of mech. "Aye," Kwynn agreed, something he had done on very few topics during the voyage. "I've seen Whiteblades develop a taste for mining ships, even the occasional pleasurecraft, but this one's been prowling far closer to Naglund than is strictly normal." Mhoop shook his head, the secondary optics he wore slipping down slightly. Naglundi physiology wasn't as self-correceting as Cybertronian, requiring the occasional clumsy repair. "No, that's not really true. Whiteblades actually enter our atmosphere frequently, in search of reaction mass and trace elements. But their usual prey doesn't like high gravity, so it's not until recently that the Whiteblades have learned that there's food in low orbit in addition to gases. Most aren't intelligent enough to make the connection between mining ships out in the belts and the ships we use planetside, though. This one's smarter than most, it's been attacking close in on a regular basis." "That's why we think it's actually one of our enemies, disguised as a Whiteblade," Ironhide interjected. "A Decepticon wouldn't need to learn that you make good prey, it'd know from the start." Mhoop nodded, his optics flashing eagerly. Apparently, he'd been telling people that there was a strange Whiteblade out there since before the Autobots arrived, but no one had believed his radical theories. Most had sided with men like Kwynn, who just figured that this sort of thing was bound to happen eventually with perfectly normal Whiteblades, just the price of moving out into space. Mhoop had felt quite vindicated when the visitors from another star had, at least in some way, agreed with him. "How dangerous can these 'Decepticons' be, eh?" Kwynn asked. "See this scar?" Ironhide indicated a jagged cut along the armor of his left thigh. "Fella named Wreckage hacked my leg right off with an energon blade back in the canyons of the Istoral Trench. Not clean, either, it took him three chops. I was lucky one a' my buddies picked up the leg and brought it back for me, so I could put it back on. And Wreckage ain't even one a' the big boys." Kwynn nodded, a look of respect in his optics. "This here's where a Whiteblade took a chunk outta my flank when I was floatin' among the wreckage of the Dianops," he indicated a slightly rusted patch of armor plating that, now Ironhide examined it closely, was not the naturally grown armor of a Naglundi. "You were on the Dianops?" Mhoop gasped. "What was the Dianops?" Ironhide asked. "Last big war we had on Naglund, before the lad's days," Kwynn nodded in Mhoop's direction. "The Dianops was one of the warships fighting out in the asteroids. Nothing special, just one of dozens of ships like it. Out alone on patrol, we had the bad luck ta run inta a squad of enemy fighters. They saw us first, and in space warfare, first sight usually means first shots... and last shots. We were in a dead zone for comm, and no one was expecting us ta report in fer a while. About half the crew died in the initial attack, and the slaggers just left us ta drift. Wasn't long before the Whiteblades found us. Dodging through the asteroids, you'd just catch an occasional glimpse of a stabilizer, or an ion trail. On short range radio, you would sometimes hear someone scream out and go silent as a Whiteblade got 'em. With so many targets, the Whiteblades could even get picky...taking a taste before decidin' whether ta eat the whole fella. I'm just lucky the one Whiteblade who found me was bein' particularly fussy. Maybe th' fact I hadn't cleaned my bushin's in weeks helped." "Decepticons aren't so...fussy. If they can't use it now, they'll just blow it up so no one else can use it," Ironhide frowned. "Obviously you got picked up eventually?" "Aye," Kwynn nodded. "Maybe one in ten of the crew got recovered once people realized we were overdue. But I decided then and there, if I could earn my keep in a way that killed off some Whiteblades, I'd jump at the chance." Mhoop shook his head sadly. "Our current problem notwithstanding, Whiteblades aren't evil. They're a necessary part of the ecosystem...if they didn't eat the Starwings and Rockhounds and other metallovores of the belt, there'd be nothing left there for us to mine." "And what d'ye know about anything outside a reader program?" Kwynn smirked. Mhoop pointed to a discolored patch on his arm. "Starwing thought I was food," he said. Then he turned around and showed a dent on his backplating. "Immature Whiteblade rammed me. Hard. I was just barely able to get a stunner on it before it decided to see how *I'd* taste. Cosmobiology isn't an armchair science, Captain Kwynn. I may not have your time out in the black, but it's not for lack of effort. Just lack of age." "I suppose ye might be havin' a point," Kwynn grudgingly admitted. "Mister Ironhide, has anything tried eatin' you? Or are all those scars all over yer armor just battle mementos?" Ironhide ran his fingertips across a series of scratches in his chestplate, making a claketyclack sound. "This might count. It's a battle scar, but it did come from a nasty customer named Scorponok trying to chew his way right through me. That was a real nightmare a' teeth and claws and cutting arcs." Mhoop leaned in and whistled. Then he stopped abruptly. "Wait. You said you were able to reattach your leg...how good are your self-repair routines?" Ironhide paused, reluctant to give out any sensitive information about Cybertronian physiology. Not that he had any reason to be cautious, but that was the problem with being professionally paranoid...you didn't NEED a reason to worry. Finally, he shrugged. "Pretty good. As long as our Spark is intact, just about anything can heal given time and some energy." "Then why do you have scars? A little surface pitting should be nothing compared to reattaching an entire limb," Mhoop pointed out. "Because sometimes the Spark isn't intact. Not all the way," Ironhide admitted. "I asked Ratchet about it once, after a brave little fellow got his vocalizer ripped out at the battle of Tyger Pax, just before we all abandoned our homeworld. He just wasn't healing, and we couldn't repair the damage externally either. Ratchet said that Megatron, that's the leader of the Decepticons, had done more than crush the guy's body, he'd damaged the Spark as well. Megatron feeds on Sparks, that's the great sin of his that led to the Decepticons splitting away from the Autobots. And to a lesser extent, all a' his forces can do bad things to an opponent's Spark. Wounds go deeper than physical sometimes, and leave a mark on our very essence. Things like these," he claketyclacked his fingers across the scoremarks on his chest again, "never really heal as long as we can remember them happening. It's the inevitable corrosion a' war without end. We can disguise it in our alternate forms, extrude panels over the worst a' the damage, but whenever we show our true selves the marks are there to see. And when the damage goes deep enough, as with my little yellow friend, the results are more than cosmetic." "Aye, we all wear our inner scars on the outside in some way, I suppose," Kwynn nodded. "Naglundi or Cybertronian, all the same like that. And all the same once on the inside of a Whiteblade, too, I'd wager. So we'd best get back to findin' this beastie before it finds us. Remember, first sight is first shot." "And first shot is last shot," Ironhide agreed. * * * * "Any word from the search teams?" Optimus Prime asked Jazz. "Negatory. You think this is going to do any good? Ironhide's argument was pretty persuasive...." "I have to hope it will," Prime shook his head. "Besides, it's not just the Whiteblade hunt I'm worried about. One of these days, Ironhide's going to have to learn that other sapient species have a right to life themselves, and are more than just tools to be used or impediments to be overcome. Even if we don't find anything but an exceptional example of a native lifeform behind this, I'm hoping that having Ironhide spend some time with the Naglundi will help him see beyond his mission parameters." "I dunno about that," Jazz shrugged. "The guy's *old*. Creaking. Set in his ways. Seen too much on the battlefield to soften up any at this point. The mission parameters may be all he's got left. Those, and his scars." "I know, I know," Prime sighed. "And it's not like this is the first time I've tried to help Ironhide let go of some of those battle scars. Unfortunately, it probably won't be the last. But if I can help his Spark heal even a little bit, then there's hope for all of us to get better once this war is finally over. After all, what good will it do us to defeat the Decepticons and recover the AllSpark if we all end up as scarred on the inside and out as Ironhide is now, and can't go back? We're all headed there in the end, even I see my Spark hardening with the passage of time. I guess...I guess I'm just looking for Ironhide to find a little hope, because that means we all have some." Jazz considered his own scars, mostly hidden behind a veneer of polished armor, and nodded silent agreement. ============================================================================= Author's Notes: In case anyone didn't figure it out, this is an homage to Jaws, the scene where they compare scars. :) Long-time fanfic readers may also have noticed a reference to "The Corrosion Of War Without End" by Robert Powers. The story was inspired by Ironhide's one real scene with characterization in the movie novelization, played a for comic relief, but indicating a pretty serious issue with the character. After noodling around with some possibilities, I settled on the Jaws homage as a good framework for what I wanted to say. I also decided to address things like Bumblebee's permanent injuries and Ironhide's bio note description as scarred and pitted in light of the remarkable self-repair abilities shown by the characters in the two novels (Ghosts of Yesterday and the movie adaptation). So now you have my theory. Another AllSpark Challenge entry, this one for June 2007 involves collaboration between story and art. I'm going to see if I can find an artist to draw something based on this story first, otherwise I've got an idea or two of my own. I'll add the URL for whatever art results to the end of these notes once I have it.