Author's Notes: Well, this is an idea I've had for a while now, but I wasn't sure if I should post it or not. Then again, I've never done a fanfic with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe before, so the opportunity is kind of hard to resist. I just hope you guys like this one as much as I do! Please review, favorite and/or follow if you want to read more :)

Also, I'll add in a small guide for readers unfamiliar with certain words in the Transformers lore:

Sparkling: Cybertronian baby or toddler.

Vorn: 84 earth years.

Joor: 6 earth hours.

Orn: 2 earth weeks.

Groon: 1 earth hour.

Seeker: Jet-forming Cybertronian.

Carrier: Cybertronian that fits smaller Cybertronians inside of their bodies.

Shutttle: Large space faring Cybertronian that others can ride inside of.

Chapter 1

The Discovery

This was a bittersweet mission. The Autobots rolled along the road without saying anything to one another. Nothing needed to be said. On the positive side, there were no Decepticons waiting to ambush them this time. On the negative side, they were going to collect a fallen comrade.

They didn't know the designation of this deceased Autobot, but it didn't matter. In the end it was still an Autobot. Skyfire had been especially upset about this discovery due to the details of their macabre find.

It all started when human archaeologists were digging around a sacred burial site of ancient warriors of Papua New Guinea. They had found several interesting things, but one man in particular found a giant metal construct and was immediately flabbergasted by such an odd occurrence. They thought it might be an alien space ship, and in a roundabout sort of way, it was.

It had turned out to be the dead grey shell of a Cybertronian. Further analysis by the scientists showed that the body had been there for possibly 4-7 million years! The insignia showed that it had been an Autobot. The bot was of a similar design as Skyfire; a Cybertronian shuttle. It was a femme, but obviously hadn't been attractive even in life. Pictures told the Autobots that much, but Perceptor and Ratchet wanted to examine the body before they gave it a proper send-off in the depths of space.

They finally arrived and were greeted by a team of humans digging up surrounding areas around the body. The Autobot corpse was surrounded by police tape to prevent anyone from messing with it before the Autobots got there to retrieve it.

"Welcome, Prime! Welcome!" An old pale man with a tiny mustache greeted the red and blue leader of the Autobots, "We have been expecting you. I am Dr. Fritz, and I was the one that discovered the alien. Well, alien to us. I'm sure you'll know exactly what it is! You may even know who it is!"

The little man was very excited to show the Autobots his discovery, as well as to tell them about the many things his team had uncovered. It felt wrong somehow for one to show so much enthusiasm when a femme was lying dead just a few mechano-meters away from them. Still, Optimus knew the human meant no harm. To him it was just another curiosity; like the dead human remains at this same dig sight.

Ratchet and Bluestreak were the first ones to arrive at the spot where the dead femme lay. The elements had taken their toll on the shell. It was covered in moss and beginning to rust. Still, her frame was holding up despite the eons it had been there. She was still in shuttle mode, but had been halfway through transformation when she died. Her helm was visible; her black dead optics staring at nothing and mouth open in a silent scream.

Bluestreak shuddered at the sight of the poor unfortunate femme. Ratchet didn't have time to think about the horror of the situation, however. He needed to take readings of the femme to see how long she had been dead and if they could determine who she was in life. For all he knew she could've worked with Elita One and her group.

Perceptor showed up in that moment and began to scan the body for working parts, interior composition, and anything else that might be necessary to know about. Ratchet was glad Perceptor was there. Bluestreak was too busy staring like a lost turbo rat to be of any use to him. Optimus arrived at their side soon after.

"Ratchet," Optimus addressed his medic when he got there, "Do you believe you will be able to determine cause of death?"

"I don't know," Ratchet replied, "I'll do my best."

For several minutes the four Autobots milled around and scanned the body of the fallen femme. Skyfire had been too upset to look at the corpse. He doubted he would know her, but the idea of seeing another shuttle in that condition sickened him. He wasn't like the other Autobots. He wasn't used to war. He had been frozen on this planet long before the war even started, and since there had been no casualties on earth for as long as they'd been there Skyfire never had to come to terms with that grim reality.

Finally, after a few minutes of scanning her measurements and areas of damage, Perceptor shouted "Ratchet! Come quick! I've found something!"

Ratchet raced over to where Perceptor was pointing and stopped in front of the door hatch on the femme's side. Ratchet didn't know what was so special about that, but he made no snide remarks and hoped Perceptor would get to the point before he lost his patience. Perceptor tended to be long-winded when he explained things.

"Ratchet...You're not going to believe this!" Perceptor breathed incredulously, "My scans are picking up four spark signatures!"

"Four?" Ratchet gasped, "But there is only one body, and it is just a body. There is no spark signal to be had."

"But my scans show four very faint signals, and they are coming from inside the dead femme!" Perceptor insisted.

"Great Cybertron!" Ratchet breathed incredulously.

Wasting no more time, Ratchet took a laser scalpel to the door of the deceased femme and carefully cut it away. Ratchet and Perceptor then pried the steel away so that they could walk inside the dark shell of the fallen Autobot. Bluestreak looked like he was going to be sick, but he still followed them anyway. He didn't want to be alone in such a foreboding atmosphere.

Perceptor turned on a light so that they could see inside. The femme was almost as spacious as Skyfire, but the air was decidedly stale due to rust and poor ventilation. Bluestreak wanted to purge his fuel tanks when he smelled the stench of metallic death all around her! The trio scanned the surrounding area for any signs of life. Perceptor turned to the terminal that controlled her navigation and found a recording device that acted as the black box for the shuttle femme.

Meanwhile Ratchet had turned on his own light and was scanning the floor of the shuttle. Everything was in disarray! It was obvious that she had suffered a horrible crash landing. It was too soon to tell, but Ratchet theorized that the crash was likely what killed the femme in the first place. Bluestreak followed closely behind Ratchet; leaving Perceptor to his work decoding the record box.

Bluestreak was too busy looking ahead at Ratchet and all around the room to see where he was going. He suddenly tripped! When Bluestreak looked down to see what had caused him to fall on his aft, he screamed an ear piercing scream!

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Bluestreak, what the slag is your problem?!" Ratchet snapped irritably.

Ratchet looked down at what Bluestreak was looking at, and realized this was what they were looking for!

There were four bodies intertwined in a pile of connected parts and malfunctioning circuits! Discovering four bodies was bad enough, but when Ratchet saw what they were, his spark broke.

They were sparklings! Four innocent sparkling femmes were lying on the ground in a heap of mangled torture! They had likely tried to hold onto each other during the crash and instead were knocked offline as their systems were damaged one by one. He could make out one seeker femme, and one with gold paint, but the rest of the pile was too close together to make out anything more.

"Is this where the spark signatures came from?" Bluestreak asked; bringing Ratchet back to reality.

Ratchet's optics went wide as he realized he needed to scan the pile of bodies in front of him! He took out his scanner and deftly ran it over every chassis to find their spark chambers. Sure enough, they were all still alive, but barely.

"Perceptor!" Ratchet yelled at his microscope colleague, "Subspace anything you want to examine! I need you to help us carry these sparklings out of here!"

"Sparklings? My word!" Perceptor exclaimed as he quickly got out of the chair and went to help his friends.

Ratchet had trouble getting their limbs apart. He needed the sparklings to separate from each other so they could be carried away, but it was proving difficult. They were tangled together very tightly, and prying them apart was like trying to unravel a knot made of iron! Bluestreak put aside his apprehension to help Ratchet with the task, and soon they had the four little femmes freed!

Once they were out of the knot, the three Autobots grabbed the little sparklings and quickly ran outside with them! Perceptor carried the seekerlet, Ratchet carried two more, and Bluestreak brought up the rear carrying the little gold one.

When they made it outside Optimus Prime was speaking with Skyfire and Prowl about their mission. They were to retrieve the femme's body for a proper send-off, but Ratchet knew that would have to wait. He needed to inform Prime of their new passengers…

The ride in Skyfire had been tense. Ratchet worked feverishly to stabilize the little patients, but their systems had been degrading for millions of years and would likely require extensive surgeries to correct the damages. Perceptor assisted him, but there wasn't a lot either of them could do until they made it back to the Ark.

This had been a simple salvage mission. They were supposed to retrieve a body and nothing more! Now everything was so complicated! Ratchet knew it would break his spark to lose even one of these little patients, but the threat of losing all of them was a very real possibility. Sparklings weren't made for long-term stasis.

Seeing them in the full light of day showed him another complication...Their frame types.

The seeker would be difficult to treat because the Autobots didn't have many seekers. Most seekers were Decepticons, and Ratchet didn't have a lot of information on how to treat a seeker's injuries; let alone how to treat a seeker sparkling! Her wings were bent, and if she woke up that would be very painful. Her head also had curious blades that almost looked like a cross between a pair of boomerangs and humans pigtails. Her dark blue, black, and white body looked surprisingly fragile considering she would someday grow up to be a war make. There were hairline cracks all over her body! It looked like if one even touched her she would break!

Ratchet made his way to the next patient. This one was white with black thighs and black upper arms. She had a black screen in the middle of her chest and two separate compartments on either hip. He scanned her and found three more half-sparks inside her left hip door! This little one was a carrier frame type, and somehow despite her young age already had cassettes in her possession! This just kept getting more and more complicated for the medic!

The next one he examined was the gold femme. Her frame type seemed fairly standard for a femme discounting her long fingernails and gold paint. She looked like a femme version of the Academy Award! Her spark seemed to be the closest to offlining. If she pulled through it would be a miracle!

The last one was another standard femme except for one obvious difference...She had no mouth! This one was blue-grey with a black helmet lining her face and a black chassis, and she had a mostly normal faceplate except for the fact her mouth was missing. Ratchet assumed she took in energon from a port in the front or back of the chassis (ex: Shockwave Or Wheeljack), but he couldn't find the opening to the fuel tank! If he couldn't feed her she would starve to death!

In total Ratchet would have seven patients to work on when they made it back to the Ark; 4 standard sparklings and 3 cassettes. He couldn't even hope to examine the cassettes until he had the proper equipment to extract them without harming the little white carrier.

Ratchet groaned when he looked at them. He hadn't seen sparklings in ages, and he certainly didn't want to lose these! Still, he didn't know if their sparks had degraded beyond salvaging or not. He didn't know if he could save them, but he knew he would try with every fiber of his being!