Chapter Text
"Our odds of survival are 14%."
Beside him, Prowls alien traveling companion seemed to grasp the basis of his meaning as Jazz looked back from the window view of the small moon their convoy had stopped on.
The Tri-Towers were a standard pit stop for this route. The moon itself was nothing more than bare rock within an extremely minimal atmosphere. But it was easy to build on and conveniently located between populated systems.
It was also very isolated. And very unprotected.
A lifetime ago, Prowl had once attempted to bring it up to Sentinel Primes attention, as he calculated a 63% chance that the quintessons would attempt a raid against it. A 42% chance they'd take it over. And a 24% chance they'd simply destroy it completely. The prime had considered all of the above "unlikely” to occur and that such a loss would only be a "minor inconvenience" in the grand scheme of things.
Prowls anger over becoming a "minor inconvenience" was only slightly offset by the vindication of being correct.
Jazz waved a servo in front of his face, pulling Prowl from his murderous thoughts.
"How do we survive?" He asked, holding Prowl's pauldron. Jazz's common was still fractured but his tone of voice carried his intentions clearly. It was confident and expectant. Jazz wanted to know what they needed to do (79%) to achieve that outcome.
Tacnet switched from calculating his most likely form of demise (dismemberment 82%) and began turning over viable courses of action.
Bringing out a pad and stylish out from sub space, Prowl immediately set to sketching a basic map of the Tri-Towers. Except rather than focusing on the map, Jazz took intense interest in Prowls arms and hips, crouching down and lightly groping them in some kind of search.
"How???"
Prowl was a professional.
He was such a professional that he realized Jazz likely didn't know what a sub space pocket was, and removed the hand on his hip with a curt,
"Later."
And then he heard his own phrasing and suppressed that for later as well.
He was a professional. And was about to do his damn job.
Prowl laid out the map, pointing to a key in the corner. The triangle with horns was Jazz, the chevron was him, and the triangles with squiggly lines out the back were the quintessons.
"We are here." He said, tapping the Imports and Immigrations Tower. The building had sustained substantial damage and the freight elevator had been knocked offline.
"We need to cross over to here." Prowl traced his digit over the sky bridge connected to the Commerce building, which should still have a functional freight elevator. If not, the common elevators were about large enough to hold two average cybertronians. If one of them sat in the others lap.
Primus help him.
"And make it to ground level, where we can flee to a nearby cybertronian outpost." Even unstaffed, the outpost would be infinitely better defended and where Bluestreak was supposed to be meeting him.
"Got it." Jazz nodded, and waited for the rest.
Now for the part Prowl had been dreading. "We cannot travel through the bridge." It had been designed by much smaller organics. The halls were too low to run in and there was Primus forsaken stairs periodically along the way, making driving impossible, not to mention ritzy carpeting that would most definitely catch on fire and in gears.
Prowl pointed to an airlock down a maintenance hall from where they were scheming. "We have to cross over it."
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Prowl counted the quintessons through the air lock window. At least five were hovering close by. Three of which were actively tearing into the sky bridge. Occasionally one would breach into a pressurized pipe and get half its face blown off, only to reorient and go back to tearing.
Basic intelligence (88%), following orders to simply cause structural damage (67%), may prioritize current objective over intercepting himself and Jazz (15%).
Prowl brought the pad out again (ignoring Jazz's inspections 43%), and created a side profile map of the bridge. He marked out their current locations as well as the quintessons.
"We must cross quickly. The are more quintessons circling the tower and if we are spotted in the open they will overwhelm us through numbers.”
Prowl added more structures to the bridge diagram. Two cylindrical extensions would block the otherwise straight shot across. Their radiuses a few stories in height. "We will have to climb here. Cross the longest part of the bridge, and then climb again.”
Jazz hummed along, easily following the plan. He pointed to the first barrier.
"Can you climb that?" His visor looking over Prowls legs with their normal quantity of knees.
Prowl ex-vented. "There may be a ladder." (33%). "Or enough external kibble to enable me to climb over. I might be too slow." (80%)
Jazz scooted closer, arms lifting towards Prowl briefly before pausing.
"Can I grab you? Uh, grab you up? Grab you up time-positive?" He mimed picking something up.
"You want to pick me up and hold me?" Prowl supplied, eye ridge raising incredulously.
"Yes!" Jazz said quickly.
"..Yes." Prowl said slowly.
With any preamble, Jazz looped his arms around Prowls waist and lifted him easily off of the ground.
"Oh wow! You're really light! Yeah, I can climb with you." Jazz said casually, bouncing them a couple times in the moons lowered gravity.
Prowl squirmed, gritting his denta. Jazz's forearms we're digging into the undersides of his doorwings, accidentally forcing most of the praxians weight onto the delicate hinges.
After Jazz put him down again, Prowl made a point to direct Jazz to his door wings, "Break positive positive. Delicate. Do not grab these."
Jazz's visor brightened slightly, he nodded vigorously while stepping back. "Oh! I'm uh, how do you say?" Jazz took the pad, flicking through the Common vocabulary. “Action-positive, emotion-negative?”
Prowl rotated both doorwings a few times to reset them. "An accident. You didn't mean to cause harm. "Sorry" is the word I think you're looking for?"
Jazz handed the pad back. "Ah. I'm really sorry Prowler. You can hold me?"
The ridiculously pensive tone in which Jazz asked to be held legitimately forced Prowl to stop himself from laughing. He knew his wings didn't hide anything but at least Prowl could screw his face into a tightly locked grimace.
Jazz apparently understood him anyways and chuckled freely at his suffering.
The tower shook with another explosion. They both sobered up.
Professional. I need to be professional for not just my own sake.
Prowl led Jazz toward the airlock. "Any questions?"
Jazz rolled his shoulders and began shaking out his arms. "Hmmm, time-length? Movement-positive-positive-positive. Yeah?'
How fast did they need to go (88%). They had to cover the whole bridge in ideally under half a breem (57%). Though just over that time was more likely (86%).
"Have a breem. Time-length is 250 clicks." Prowl started tapping on the metal doorframe tck-tck-tck-tck. "One-two-three-four. Clicks."
Jazz lit up, literally, and nodded enthusiastically. "Oh! 4/4 time! About 4 {minutes}.” The mech looked at nothing for a moment, humming to himself. “Ooooh {baby} I got just the thing."
As Prowl curled his servo around the airlock release, Jazz started to play music.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Jazz tapped his ped against the floor, assuming a sprinters pose behind the door. Visor locked straight ahead, engine purring quietly, the extroverted yet exceedingly oblivious mech suddenly looked downright predatory.
Something refreshed in Prowls Tacnet at the sight of him.
"Ours odds of survival are 28%."