Complicated Vows: This Is War

The Black, The Blue, and The End

            The emergency room was empty save for Danielle’s body and the head military surgeon. Most of the surgical instruments had been returned to their proper places and others were now being sterilized outside. Even though he did not know her, or how she had even ended up in the hands of the NEST team, the surgeon felt pity at the loss of such young blossoming life.

            He lightly pinched the edge of the thin sheet of cloth at the end of the bed and gently pulled it up over her body, covering all of her, from her toes to her face. Now, at the head of the bed, he picked up the clipboard hanging on the wall behind her, checking his watch before writing “Time of Death: 15:42”. After hanging up the clipboard, the surgeon turned to the heart monitor that still sang its single note. He pressed several buttons, beginning the shut down process, when, all of a sudden, the monotonous ringing pitch faltered.

            A single sharp rise in tone blipped over the speaker. Astonished, he looked back at the girl’s body, only to find it as still and cold and motionless as it had been for the past ten minutes. Another blimp emanated from the machine. He quickly backtracked to the computer’s main screen.

            He couldn’t believe his eyes. The flat green line ran from one edge of the screen to the other still, but now it had two small sharp spikes scrolling along it.

            He stared at the machine in disbelief. It beeped again, paused for two seconds, and then beeped once more.
            Acting quickly, the head surgeon ran to the door and commanded out into the hallway “We almost have her back, get back in here and get moving; Keep her here!”

            The room was thrown back into a frenzy as nurses rushed back in, instruments returned to their places once again, and everything was prepared for use.

            After three hectic minutes of scrambling to re-prep the room and stabilize her heart, the medical staff soon had the organ pumping at a slightly-slower-than-normal but miraculously steady rhythm. Procedures were began for surgeries to open her up and fix the multitude of severe injuries ranging from torn muscles to a shattered collarbone to a fractured vertebrate to a concussion.

            After five grueling hours in surgery, the head surgeon was confident in the success of the procedures. Under the belief that all went as planned and everything ended soundly, the medical staff was finally able to close her up and let her sleep.

            While Danielle was in surgery, the top mechanics with the most extensive knowledge in Cybertronian mechanical engineering set to work on the scorched and seemingly dead Camaro. Despite being the most knowledgeable about transformer technology, what they knew was scant and nearly useless for what was needed in order to repair Bumblebee.

            What was worse was that the few who were capable with the technology were divided between two projects: one team trying to bring Bee back online and the other operating on Ironhide’s hand that had been hit by a sulfur round.

            Luckily for the weapons specialist, the sulfur had only nicked his servo and not exposed any energon lines. The mechanics quickly set to work removing any metal that had even the slightest hint of damage to it. Due to the sulfur’s spread, however, this lead to the removal of all of the outer plating on Ironhide’s servo, most of the plating on his lower arm, and a few plates from his upper arm.

            The plates were submerged in tanks of a base acid that broke the metal down into basic particles of matter, forcing any sulfuric acid to rise to the surface of the liquid in the tank. Once the sulfur was removed, the metal particles were allowed to settle to the bottom of the tank. Eventually, the particles would be extracted and further processed before being melted and cast into the proper pieces needed to re-plate Ironhide’s arm.