When We Seared The Sky

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen
Fields of Despair

Mikaela stood back and wiped her brow. “Phew,” she sighed, inspecting her work critically.

Ratchet, who had been sliding in and out of recharge whilst she had been working, looked down at his rotary saw, which had been damaged during the fall of the roof. When he attempted to move it he found that it worked perfectly, moving smoothly and swiftly – ready for battle again. With a relieved smile he retracted it back into his arm and smiled gratefully at his assistant. “Thank you, Mikaela. You have done very well indeed for your first time, I must say,” he congratulated her.

Jade raised an eyebrow. She had never thought that the skinny, blue-eyed brunette would be anything like a mechanic – model, maybe, but not mechanic. At school she had never really noticed her much except with Trent, so she assumed that she would be just another ditzy jock-lover. “Wow,” she agreed with Ratchet, nodding. “Great stuff, Mikaela.”

She was beginning to really worry that something terrible had happened to him. What if Starscream had turned on his old comrade and shot him down? She knew that despite Skyfire’s size, Starscream was much more agile and could move between robot and jet very easily in mid-air where Skyfire could not. Sure, they had made radio contact – but what if he had snuck on him from behind after the connection had been broken? What if Skyfire was broken on the ground somewhere, right now?

She swallowed her impending tears and tried to concentrate on something else, but she could not stop thinking about where Skyfire had gone. If he did not come back, she had no idea what she would do with herself.

Her life had changed completely in a matter of days. One minute, she had been an ordinary kid doing her schoolwork and hanging out with her friends like a good girl. Next thing she knew she had been thrown into some sort of alien war, joined up with the good guys, and gained herself a forty-or-fifty-foot high guardian. Life was volatile, that was for sure.

Mikaela blushed a little and grinned at them both after her compliment. “Thanks. Was there anything else you needed fixing?” she added eagerly. She found that she was not tired and enjoyed her work with him more than she had expected to. “You’ve got my grease monkey genes going.”

Ratchet chuckled. “I am completely repaired now, according to my scans. My deepest gratitude to you, my young mechanic.”

“Hardly,” she laughed. “But that’s fine. It was a pleasure.”

There was a sudden groaning sound and all of them turned with equal expressions of fear. Mikaela looked up at her guardian and nervously wiped her oily hands on the cloth she had been using to polish the saw, and Ratchet’s optics burnt with anticipation. “Alexis is online,” he stated dully.

“Mm,” Mikaela nodded, suddenly becoming terribly interested in cleaning up the tools she had been using. Jade was quick to help her.

Alexis did not appear for several minutes, but when she did, she did not look well. Her arm was bound in a plaster cast from where she had suffered a hairline fracture, and there was a tear-shaped bruise running the length of one of her milky cheeks, which stood out starkly against the pale background. Her hair seemed limp and dull, and even her emerald eyes did not seem to sparkle as brightly as they usually did. Mikaela’s sharp eyes also spotted the two thin cuts at the sides of her neck where the necklace had broken her skin.

Ratchet, determinedly not looking at her, quickly picked up one of his own wrenches and began inspecting it. “Good morning, Alexis,” he said warily, keeping his eyes on the tool rather than the thin, sickly youngster in front of him.

Her lip trembled. “What happened, Ratchet?” she asked plaintively.

“The roof collapsed on top of you,” he recounted, attempting to distance himself from what had happened by falling into his old habit of launching into medical jargon when he felt threatened. “You suffered some minor internal bruising and numerous injuries to your head and body, so I would like you to be careful when you move around today, if you please – and inform me if you feel dizzy or nauseous.”