Healers, Fighters, and Transformers

Ratchet and a disabled veteran attempt to save a life while still completing a mission

Vital Statistics
Writer: J. Steven York Pagecount: 23pp Major characters: Originally published: In the Transformers Legends anthology, November 2004
 * Ratchet
 * Stan "Stitch" Bennett
 * Sky Spy

Synopsis
Megatron's weather-controlling device creates a sudden hurricane along the Gulf Coast where disabled veteran Stan Bennett was hitchhiking. The driver who picked him up is forced off the road by a fallign tree, and trapped in the car amid rising water. Stan goes to find help, and encounters Ratchet, on an urgent mission to repair the crashed Sky Spy probe. Ratchet extracts the woman, but she requires emergency surgery Ratchet isn't qualified to do, and Stan (a former field medic) cannot because he only has one arm.

Ratchet uses the damaged Sky Spy to deep-scan Stan's memories of his medical training, and conducts the operation while Stan supervises. Stan learns the missign element needed to complete Sky Spy's repair is Titanium, and volunteers his prostetic hook for the job. Sky Spy is launched and stops the weather machine long enough for Optimus Prime destroy it.

Later, Ratchet checks up on Stan and their patient. Stan has regained his confidence and intends to attend medical school, despite lacking an arm. Ratchet presents him with a tolken of gratitude, a prostetic arm made with cybertronian technology to replace the one he disassembled to repair Sky-Spy.

''Ratchet and Stan were both feeling lost in this story. Ratchet had been spending more time on combat missions and less time as a medic, and Stan was haunted by helplessly watching his comrades die in the same accident that cost him his arm. Durign the Sky Spy download, Stan re-experiences the memories of all the people he helped as a media, and Ratchet is able to re-conenct with what it means to him to be a healer.

Continuity
Healers, Fighters, and Transformers takes place in no pre-existing continuity. Set around the 2004 of its publication, the Transformers are recent arrivals on Earth.

Items of note

 * Ratchet gains a working knowledge of human medical science.